Sha on PLE (Personal Learning Environment)

Collaboration of all kinds of learning - formal learning, informal learning, personal interest learning - something that we've been doing whether we realise it or not; because in our daily lives, we learn something new along the way. Especially in teaching, we learn how to deal with students who are from different batches and generations each semester. And as academicians, we can't run away from reading and updating ourselves with the news related to our studies, new theories and new ideas, innovations, etc., and that is also another set of 'personal learning' on our side.

Different styles of Learning... I learn new software/application by trying out. If Can't figure out how to use it on my own, I would refer to the tutorial or help file that comes along with the software/application. If I know what I want to do but not knowing how to do it and the help doesn't give much help, then I would search online, view the online tutorial, especially videos, because I learn best by observing how others do, and I get ideas on how to innovate from the method I observe once I've tried on my own.

As for learning 'theories' or dry subjects, reading is inevitable. But if I could listen (to audio) or view (videos) of presentations, lectures, etc., I learn better. Once I get the rough idea what the whole topic is about, my preference would be to discuss on the topic/subject and share ideas. Personally for me, only when I debate out I learn more, understand better and remember better. I prefer others clarify my understanding if the subject is still a blur to me.

Attwell (2006) "Learners are no longer necessarily locked in to a particular course in order to gain a qualification but are able to present their learning to prove they possess such competencies or are able to achieve those outcomes." I was so afraid of trying new things, or even inserting new skills/knowledge in my portfolio, without having certificates of the qualification after going through personal learning. Now, I know that all I need to do is "perform" or "present" (depending on the type of skill/knowledge) in order to be recognised, and to hear somebody greeted me saying, "Hi! Would you like to join our team as..." and I get the projects here and there. At least now, I'm more confident in what I know and what I've learnt, and more braver to commit and try out. Of course, I would learn more when I'm in the field, and that's the most valuable thing that I wouldn't miss.

One of the reason why I encourage students to have personal website is to prove a few things:

1. It proves that they are computer literate and know a bit of technicality in publishing a website.
2. Personal website should display their work and make it an online resume plus online portfolio, to show their future employer their worth and effort. Their work (e.g. for Computing) could be any application or animation they did for course assignments, they can tidy up the work according to comments made by lecturers and publish it online - preferably created in demo video on how the application works and how it looks like.
3. Only with visual (even if it's only a blog on some research done) that people can understand and relate to, in order to be assured that this person has some 'value-added' criteria to consider.
   ... and I do that too - have my own website and e-portfolio.
   

Talking about "Ubiquitous computing", I recently attended a seminar conducted by TM (Telekom Malaysia) on High Speed BroadBand services in Malaysia, and specifically (the track I attended) on RFID. A speaker mentioned how Malaysia is looking into having the whole nation 'ubiquitous' as how it is implemented in a city in Japan, and in a new library in Hong Kong. It's like... you can get any kind of information at any corner of your location within the vicinity. For example, if you're standing at a crossroad in Japan, you can get information via your mobile on how to get to a destination, you get to know the history of the town or road, you even get to know the tourist hot spot or popular 'worth-a-visit' nearby the place you're standing.

Imagine if our campus is 'ubiquitous' as such, probably upon entering the lecture hall, the students would be able to get the course brief details plus recommended readings/videos/audios for case studies to be discussed available to be downloaded on the spot... to name a few. One thing for sure, students won't have any excuse not able to find the classroom because the whole campus will be 'ubiquitous' including the location map and how to get to classrooms.

At the end of the day, it's about "availability" and "infrastructure" - back to square one. Without this 'environment' to support 'personal learning', it would be a long way to achieve our vision in lifelong learning.

As I was going through the article by Attwell (2006), I had an idea regarding research on "examining the use of different social software applications for learning". Lately, I've been using 'Notes' in Facebook to broadcast my thoughts and information I get (via email, etc). I think we can make use of that as one of the tools for learning (provided all our students are in our Friends list, of course). Other features in Facebook inclusive Application (using PHP to add on for learning capability, etc.), and Group (which already include discussion board, latest news updates, links to recommended readings, etc.).

Oh, I have to list my PLE, is it? Quite a long list, though. But I'll minus the common ones like MS Office, email and all, ok?

1. SNC - Facebook (more on PLE), Friendster (less on PLE)
2. Blogger - multiple blogs with different topics
3. Google 'suite' (i.e. mail, alert, calendar, iGoogle, etc.)
4. Solidcasts/Podcast - audio files hosting
5. Audacity - audio recording
6. Meebo - all IM in one site
7. Delicious - tagging
8. Camtasia - screen capture video to create demos
9. Webservers - upload HTML pages and websites
10. Search engines - most of the time Google
11. Online tutor guide on books - Pearson, Wiley (one of my students even did the online quiz on this site and I received the email of his marks!)
12. Moyea - FLV downloader, to download Flash video files
13. Adobe suite - photo editing and other design works
14. Flash - preparing sample works for assignments on Multimedia course (I have to try out the tutorials/exercises before I teach/assign the students , right?)
15. Moodle - I just installed on my personal website http://www.classroom.shahrinaz.com/moodle/, haven't properly set it up or test it yet

I probably have more, can't think anymore...

Reference:
Attwell (2006) Personal Learning Environments. The Wales-Wide Web website. Retrieved on 26 November 2008 from http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell/entries/6521819364

Probably more.., and more..,
- Sha on Teaching and Learning
27 Nov 2008

Aggregating: Google Alert and iGoogle

Before I missed myself from office yesterday, I could manage to squeeze some time to set up Google Alert, and I got myself enjoying setting up iGoogle as well.

iGoogle
I logged in to Google, and it straight away showed me my iGoogle home page. I totally forgot that I'd set it up last Saturday! The interface is similar to Pageflakes, but the speed is much more better, of course. It could be because of the cache, cookies or whatever you call it.

By default, it showed the Home tab with news extracted from and for local (Malaysia), including weather, Google news, and even my gmail inbox. That's cool! I adjusted the settings further to include news from local online newspapers.

In addition to that, I added a new tab called "Technology", and included news on Technology, Crossword puzzle, Things to Ponder (I love daily quotes!), and things I thought I would need for future use such as Code Search (for programming) and Free Downloads.

Lastly, on iGoogle, I beautify the interface with a theme header background picture of an autumn tree...

Google Alert
I went to Google Alert page and set up according to 3 search keywords/tags: CENL2008, education tool, and knowledge management. So from yesterday onwards, I received emails to my gmail inbox with the list of news links from these three tags.

Now my readings are aggregated in one place, and I don't have to 'run around' much and waste my time waiting for the downloads anymore. Just log in to Google! Voila!

Enjoying aggregation...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
19 Nov 2008

Aggregating my feeds

Aggregation... The minute I read the material and view the CommonCraft video, I thought, "Wow! This is marvellous! At last, I get to gather all my readings in one place! And it will definitely save my time opening and downloading all the sites at one shot every morning!"

The LTC Wikipedia suggested a few aggregator sites, which I tried to view to see the differences. But I started off with Google Reader, since I already have the account there.

Not quite sure what to 'feed' my 'reader', so I started off with my collection of blogs. I have 7 blogs, but not all are "feedable". I could manage to aggregate 5 of them into my reader, one is not updated at all (I think I better delete that one off), and one more is set to private (RSS off) if I'm not mistaken because it's quite personal. I categorised them under a folder called "Sha905's Blogs".

Then I remembered I used to have favourite sites on IT, which mostly I've forgotten the links and the bookmarks were in previous PCs. Hhmm... But I remember 2 of them quite well because I used to view those sites every morning, back when I was still in IT department.

So I went to cnet.com and zdnet.com... CNet doesn't allow site feed, only article feed (sorry if my jargon is still in a "confusionist" language) - so I can't really 'feed' the site content, plus it has too many articles and I'm not going to waste my time reading and picking them up right now (for 'article feed').

Next, ZDNet. Marvellous! It's a news site, so it allows me to 'feed' the contents into my aggregator. Good! I categorised ZDNet under a folder called "Technology".

I also tried to 'feed' other sites I used to visit under the realm of Knowledge Management, but to no avail as well. This is because the contents are all in static HTML pages.

Even though I've read the materials before trying out the aggregation assignment, only when I did the hands-on that I realised... we can only 'aggregate feeds' from news sites or blog sites. The logic is there, because the content is organised in such a way that it's flexible to be 'fed' to sites (whattaheck am I talking about... food? :-S), not in the 'static HTML' way. Hhmm.. how to put it... Ah, never mind, forget it. I understand for myself, but I don't have time to explain it hehehe...!

So now, I have a Google Reader site. I will try out Blogline and Pageflakes somewhen later within the week, if time permits. I think Pageflakes site has potential in 'aggregating' my contents for subjects, so I'm thinking of creating Pageflakes sites for different subjects/topics.

Will keep updating...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
15 Nov 2008

Social networking, right before my eyes...

Yesterday, I posted a small 'blog' on my Facebook "Notes". It's a personal story of what has happened in the morning. I just wonder who (among my friends) would be reading it, be attentive about it and respond to it.

By afternoon, I received quite a number of comments from my friends, including James and Karen. Here's the "wonder of Facebook" that I could see right before my eyes...

James is my ex-colleague under Project Management in DLS from approximately year 2003 to 2005. Whereas Karen is my ex-colleague under IT in DLS from approximately year 2002 to 2003. In other words, Karen and James never met each other and never knew each other's existence within the same company.

As James and Karen were consoling me through comments over my "Notes", they could read each other's comments and they even commented/responded on/to each other's comment. The next thing I knew, James said "Hey Karen! We could be friends!"

Today, I noticed that both James and Karen are planning to meet for an appointment. Knowing that Karen is into some part-time business of networking, and James is the kind of person who likes to listen, learn and 'advice' (and even have interest to join a new venture), I know that this 'connection' is possible.

I guess by now, James and Karen have each other their friends list...

Facebook - the book of faces,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
13 Nov 2008

Twittering my 'news'

After a long wait (which was merely 1 day), our CENL2008 moderators uploaded the new tasks for this week. This week is about micro-blogging.

I glanced through the assignment and saw the word "twitter". Oh no! I'm not quite sure why, but I was a bit sceptical about 'twitter'. Probably because I didn't understand what it's all about. "OK... since I'm not sure at all what this is about, let me just read through the materials..."

I had no idea of what was micro-blogging. Once I read through the material, I realised that it sounds more like a "status update" that you post up in your social network profile or "wall"! This is great!

Lately, I'm 'addicted' to status updates in my Facebook! Every morning, or afternoon, or evening, I HAVE TO update my status and answer "What are you doing?" on my social network site. Now, I can do that using Twitter!

I did multi-tasking - reading the material, watching the CommonCraft video, signing up for a Twitter account, inviting my friends into my Twitter account, updating the profile and customising my Twitter account, trying out all the features in Twitter... and now I'm blogging my experience.

This is the list of things I found out about micro-blogging using Twitter:

1. We can use this to promote and advertise goods/services/ourselves, getting business, networking, and voice out opinions. [Refer to more points in http://www.901am.com/2007/the-top-5-ways-smart-people-use-twitter.html]
2. We can embed the Twitter Updates onto our website, blogs, or even social network sites! (Yes! :-D) But you can only do on ONE site, not all (Alaaa... :-( ) - So I did that here, in this blog. [Refer to the first widget "Sha's Twitter Updates" that appeared on the left side of this blog.]
3. Twitter can be 'followed' by our audience, and we can trace them... and vice versa. (I just added my friends less than an hour ago, and one of them is already in my list! And he's automatically listed as a twitterer I "follow".)
4. I think some day I would use this Twitter to promote myself and provide links to updates of my blogs or portfolio (at times I'm looking for new small jobs/info).

Mission accomplished!

Still following me?
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
04 Nov 2008

Hopping through the online educational videos

I felt that I've done too little for the past 2 weeks' assignments (on podcast and webcast/video). So I went back to the CENL2008 moodle site to check out the list of URLs recommended by the moderators.

All this time I had difficulties in going through the URLs due to network connection inconsistency. Today I hoped it should be better since I chose to be outside the campus LAN firewall.

Here I am, hopping from one site to another, from Ted Talks and MIT OpenCourseware, to Connexions and Open Yale. I opened every site at a same time under different tabs in a web browser. So the following reviews are according to the sequence of which 'came out' first.

Open Yale has a certain type of video file that I could not view after I downloaded it. The file type is *.rm. Real media file? I don't know. No time to hassle through just to check on the player and download it and try it out and... all whole bunch of cycle in getting the things run is not really what I want to waste my time for right now.

Go on to the next...

Connexions... Hhmm... It seems to be in a 'hanging' mode since the past 30 minutes? I just picked a topic from the homepage to view the video. The topic is something regarding "Understanding the Basic in Music", and the hang... urgh! It didn't even show the next page after the button was clicked! Never mind, I think I'll close it now.

Done it. Next...

Ted Talks provides a wide range of videos on interviews regarding certain issues. Not quite what I would find very much related to any of my courses. I tried to search a video under Architecture, thinking "Ground Zero" is something of a "horizontal development" (something I learnt from an Architecture lecturer), but it was actually telling out how an architect came up with a project of a platform construction to ease visitors to view the scene of 9-11 in New York. (Thus, "Ground Zero" is actually the name of that historical place.)

OK, this is not what I wanted. Next...

Last but not least, the one that provides more options for audience - you can have transcript (HTML), audio/podcast (MP3) or videos (2 options: Flash or Quicktime). I tried downloading Quicktime file, it required me to download the application etc, and I was not patient enough for all that. I knew I can view Flash file (I'm a Flash lecturer/tutor, thus I should be having the player updated?) so I chose the Flash version next, ignoring all the prompts the site poked me with, and voila! I got to view the video!

But... (There's always a but, isn't it? ;-) )

The video itself warned me that the materials will not be shown in the video due to copyrights issues. OK... I can live with that. But...

The buffer! Urgh! I hate buffers!! I've been 'listening' to the presentation since the past 30 minutes, and it only covered about 5 minutes plus of the video now... So slow!! And imagine how much staggering information I've been listening to.

Oh, by the way, the video I'm listening to is under the topic of "Introduction to Psychology", a session called "What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought". I chose this topic because of my current student's final year project that relates to this (something to do with educating toddlers using multimedia, so he has to understand how toddlers/babies 'learn').

The recording was very clear and crisp, and the voice and language were easily understood and followed through (only the staggering part is pissing off...). I'm quite amazed with how the video could capture the movement of the speaker, by following his position within the lecture hall. Do they use a cameraman? Hhmm...

Check this out: http://oyc.yale.edu/yale/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/sessions/lecture05.html

The tips and tricks in searching for the right video? Hhmmm...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
01 Nov 2008