Etale – Life in the Digital World

interdisciplinary musings on life and education in the digital world

Archive for category sites and sources

Teens and Social Media Report from Pew Internet and American Life Project

Dec 20

Posted by etale in ethics, sites and sources, Videos | Comments off

A report entitled “Teens and Social Media” was published today as part of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. This 40+ page report is packed with data about youth and cyberculture. Here are some of the direct quotes that caught my attention:

“93% of teenagers are online, and their use of the internet is intensifying.”
“One in seven online teens has posted video files on the internet. Boys lead the video-posting pack.”
“Posting photos and videos starts a conversation. Most teens receive some feedback on the content they post online.”
“Most teens restrict access to their posted photos – at least some of the time. Girls are more restrictive photo posters.”
“Teens who are most active online, including bloggers, are also highly active offline.”
“Girls have fueled the growth of the teen blogosphere.”
“Nearly two-thirds of online teens are content creators.” (blogging, videos, pictures, web pages, etc.)

And as I read about the proliferation of youth content creation online, I was reminded of a couple of videos that I sometimes use to introduce people to ethical and social challenges that emerge in the digital world.

RSS and the Living Syllabus

Dec 14

Posted by etale in blog, education, great ideas, reviews, sites and sources | Comments off

I have a wide variety of interests. With these varied interests, it is not easy to stay abreast of emerging trends. That, of course, is one of the wonders of the blogosphere- a worldwide network of diverse people from diverse places with diverse interests, posting commentary, news, even creative works for the world to see. That is one step in the transformation. Now we need to add to the mix the magic of RSS feeds. Not long ago I had 20+ blogs that I would visit, one by one; checking to see what was new. That was quickly replaced with my use of Blogines and then Google Reader (integrated into my iGoogle home page). As you probably already know, these feed “aggregators” allow you to subscribe to multiple blogs and make it easy for you to track and read the most recent posts to each blog, all in one centralized location. The following picture is a screen capture of some of the most recent posts in my aggregator.

Google Reader

If I did not lose your attention already, please know that I have getting close to a point.

On what seems like a completely different topic, consider how the Internet has changed research over the past decade. When I was working on my dissertation, I could search dozens of databases, skim thousands of articles, and identify hundreds of pertinent sources, all from that uncomfortable $20 office chair in my makeshift home office. In many cases I could read and download full text articles from these online databases. I could also search dissertations on related topics from around the world, viewing most of them online for free (through my University subscription). When they were not freely available I could purchase a copy to be delivered digitally or by mail. I suspect that writing a dissertation twenty years ago would have been an entirely different experience, and this is without considering what it would be like to write a dissertation on a typewriter.

Now to the point…

What do RSS aggregators, databases, and dissertations have in common? I just had lunch with a friend and she filled me in on the connection. Did you know that you could subscribe to RSS feeds of recent journal articles and dissertations through ProQuest? This is amazing! Consider the possibilities for staying up-to-date and for teaching. I can now subscribe to an RSS feed through ProQuest on a topic of interest; perhaps “distance learning” or “educational technology.” Then any new dissertation or journal article related to that topic gets fed right into my Google Reader! Consider this, something that ProQuest demos on their site. I can create a living syllabus or resources section for a course. For each unit topic, I can pull in a list of the most recent articles or research on that topic, with direct access for my students. If you are interested, you can read more about this at the ProQuest web site.

Open Source Universities

Dec 12

Posted by etale in blog, editorials, news, sites and sources | Comments off

The concept of open source has been around for a long time. The basic idea is that programmers leave the source code open for all to use and edit. For a great overview of open source in general, read Steven Weber’s The Success of Open Source. But in recent years we see the idea of open source being applied to courses in higher education. The most notable example is MIT Open Courseware, where syllabi, notes, and sometimes audio/video lectures are made freely available for others to use. This particular site has influenced my course design work. When I am working with an instructor, it is hard for me not to take a few minutes to browse MIT Open Courseware to see what the folks at MIT are doing with the same topic. What resources are they using? It isn’t limited to MIT. In fact, MIT is a member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, an international collaborative of similar initiatives. We can add to this trend ITunes University where you can view or listen to lectures from Princeton or go through lectures from an intensive Biblical Greek course at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.

I learned from the AIR liistserv today that Yale is active in the open university movement also. According to the Open Yale Course FAQ page, courses at Open Yale Courses “include[s] a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video accompanied by such other course materials as syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets. The lectures are available as downloadable videos, and an audio-only version is also offered. In addition, searchable transcripts of each lecture are provided.” For more information, read the December 12 news release from Yale.
Open CourseWare Sites
Unless I am mistaken, none of these open source university initiatives offers what I consider to be most important in the learning experience: community, collaboration, frequent feedback, assessment on student work, mentoring, and guidance. Most universities will not out lecture or out syllabize places like Yale and MIT. Now that the content and tools are free, I am hopeful that more will recognize that content and tools are not what make a University distinct. This is a wakeup call to all the online programs that simply constitute recorded lectures, readings, and a few papers. Most of that is free already! If you are serious about e-learning, then redesign your courses as learning communities.

File conversion wonder site!

Dec 8

Posted by etale in great ideas, sites and sources | Comments off

A friend recently shared the following link with me: http://www.zamzar.com/ .  I would have to put this in my top ten most useful sites on the web.  It will automatically convert files from one format to another: Word to text, wmv to flv, avi to m4v.  It converts text files, images, video, and audio files.  When I think of positive digital citizenship, contributing something useful to the digital world, this is the sort of site that comes to mind.  Thanks Zamzar.

Tags:

Web-based Digital Storytelling

Dec 8

Posted by etale in digital storytelling, sites and sources | Comments off

If you are looking for an easy web-based digital storytelling tool, check out Voicethread.

Tags:

Interesting Option

Jul 23

Posted by etale in blog, sites and sources | Comments off

I just came across an interesting web site.  This is another video sharing site, but with an extra.  You can actually live stream your videos.  Viewers can listen and reply using chat.  And, as you are streaming, you can also record your video for playback later.  This might be a good option if you are interested in in live storytelling via the web :-) .

UStream.tv 

Another Video Sharing Option

Jul 16

Posted by etale in blog, reviews, sites and sources | Comments off

In addition to the video sharing options from my last post, I recently learned about Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com). It has features similar to the others, but with added control over who can and can’t see your videos. So, if you are looking for a free place to post your videos but only want a select group to view them, this may be one of your best options. I am considering it as I think about designing for a distance learning speech class, where the instructor wants students to easily post and review speeches of classmates. However, they don’t want the rest of the world to see the videos.