March 2006

Excellent Round Up of Web 2.0

Thanks to Ben for this list of amazing Web 2.0 applications.  He and I have been trying out meebo.com this morning.  Too awesome for words!  Still in alpha (no history, etc), but it allows you to sign on with multiple IM accounts (AIM, Yahoo!, Google, ICQ, MSN) and chat directly in your browser (no need …

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ThinkFree Office

I haven't seen much hype (yet?) over ThinkFreeOffice Online, the web based suite of Office like applications.  Reminds me a whole lot of Writely.com.  I set up a "free" account with 30 MB of storage at the site that is still in "beta".  The first glance looks pretty slick.  I tried out ThinkFree Office Write …

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Evaluation of “Learning Communities” in an Online Master’s Degree Program

The linked article, Discovering the Meaning of Community in an Online Master's Degree Program, examines an online learning community from the perspective of adult learners in an online master's degree program in instructional design and technology (sound familiar?) at California State University – Fullerton.  The paper was prepared by several instructors in the program and …

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Online Collaboration and Knowledge Construction

The linked paper is authored by members of the Florida State University Instructional Systems Program and published in Educational Technology & Society.  It is an excellent evaluation of the effectiveness of computers in an online learning environment to "function as cognitive tools . . . that extend student's capacity to learn and create knowledge."  Their …

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Teaching and Learning: Media Accumulation and Review

The linked article (Web 2.0:  A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning) by Bryan Alexander, Director of Research at the National Institute for Technology, was published in the March / April 2006 Educause Review.  It is a comprehensive media accumulation and review of "Web 2.0" technologies for use in teaching and learning settings …

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Adult Learning Strategies

Jackie Dobrovolny presents a model for adult learning in Learning Strategies, an October 2003 article in Learning Circuits.  Dobrovolny highlights how adult learners use 5 key learning strategies (outlined below) and how instructional design can support these key adult learning strategies.  Learning Strategies: Metacognition (defined as self-assessment and self-correction):  Though self-assessment and reflection, learners evaluate …

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Communities of Practice

Choi, M. Communities of practice: an alternative learning model for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology v. 37 no. 1 (January 2006) p. 143-6 The highlighted article (available via this link with an IU network ID and password) discusses the use of "communities of practice" (CoP) as a learning model for corporate training.  The …

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Update: Google buys Writely.com

As I wrote about on a prior post, Writely.com is a great browser based collaboration tool.  Late last week, it was gobbled up by Google.