CA9.1 - desktop research

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In this activity your task is to research the use of blogs in education. You should locate a variety of sources that might include some or all of the following: - journal articles - news articles - blog entries - podcasts - case studies and examples - conference papers.


Having started this activity later than everyone else (on the forums), and having read the information they have posted, it seems rather futile to spend a great deal of time on this activity.

So I've googled "education blog"; "education blog UK"; and "what are blogs used for". There is tonnes of information out there and many many people have already provided their answers to the questions posed. It simply seems illogical to try to make my own categories of blogs for education when other people have made perfectly good categories already. I can't believe that we are being required to work "hard" instead of "smart".

Wikipedia (2009) defines a "blog" as:
A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Then goes on to say:
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[1] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.

Wikipedia lists types of blogs as:

Personal Blogs
The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog.
Corporate Blogs
For business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.
Question Blogging
A type of blog that answers questions
By Media Type
A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog.[4] Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs.
By Device
Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.
By Genre
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs,[6] [7] fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.

Further down the same page wikipedia talks of an "edublog" and defines it as (wikipedia 2009b):

a blog written by someone with a stake in education. Examples might include blogs written by or for teachers, blogs maintained for the purpose of classroom instruction, or blogs written about educational policy. The collection of these blogs is called the edublogosphere by some, in keeping with the larger blogosphere, although that label is not necessarily universally agreed upon. Others refer to the community or collection of blogs and bloggers as the edusphere.

It goes on to list:

Notable Edubloggers
Stephen Downes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Downes]
Michael Feldstein [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Feldstein]
Will Richardson [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Richardson]
James N. Farmer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_N._Farmer]


Multiuser edublogging platforms
Free Edublogs - Widely used edublog by teachers. [http://edublogs.org/]
Classblogmeister - Widely used free edublog for students and teachers. [http://www.classblogmeister.com/]
EduSpaces - Social networking site for educators which includes blogs. Uses the Elgg platform. [http://eduspaces.net/]
TeachFor.Us - Teach for America teacher blogs, running Lyceum [http://TeachFor.Us/]
Teacher Lingo - Community of teacher blogs. Uses Community Server platform from Telligent Systems. [http://teacherlingo.com/]


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Jim in (http://discuss1.open.ac.uk/Login/FAVC-002C5775/FAVC-002C577B/FAVC-002C577C/I09C6F084?Templates=Printable) wrote:

"Educause ‘Additional Examples of Blogs’, Educause Learning Initiative, [online] Available from: http://www.educause.edu/ELI/ELIDiscoveryToolGuidetoBloggin/AdditionalExamplesofBlogs/13561 (Accessed 5 January 2009).

categories mentioned
* slices of life
(stream of consciousness writing by a blogger)
* topic blogs
(politics, library issues, learning technology)
* marketing blogs
(usually by a small business, providing extra information on a service or product - i.e. a new book)
* event blogs
(chronology of things happening at a conference, meeting, broader event from the perspective of the blogger)
* learning journals
(to gather reflections)
* scholarly blogs
(to share ideas related to a specific field)
* how to or best practices blogs
(how to create effective blogs)

I thought all of these categories could be linked to education in the broadest sense. At least five of them could be linked to "formal" educational use - topic blogs, event blogs, learning journals, scholarly blogs.. and how to / best practices. They could be further reviewed from the perspective of a teacher, student, administrator - each of these would have a different reason or point of view in how the blog might be used. "

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Nigel S, has used:
Personal) Reflective blogs
Collaborative blogs
Advisory/ informative blogs
Archive blogs

Source: forum message
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Keely has used:
Sharing general educational news
Blogs to learn from (informative blogs)
Sharing experiences
Advisory blogs
Reflective blogs (students engaged in courses)
Sharing resources and links
Learning & technology information news

Source: http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=5498
------------------------

Colleen has used:
Advisory blog written by educational organisation
Blog maintained by an individual with expertise in learning technologies
Reflective blog written by a student on a course
Blog maintained by teaching practitioner to share good practice
Publicly available blogging opportunities for teachers and students

Source: forum message

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for CA9.1 @ 09-01-09

I tried to access the links given in the unit resources in order, but http://technorati.com/blogs/tag/education , http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp?bhcp=1 and http://edublogs.org/ would not open but http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs did. I read the first paragraph on the oedb site page that opened (oedb, 2009) and it supported my understanding that my research can only be peek at what the internet has to offer because there are far too many blogs on the internet for me to carry out detailed research. The first pragraph states that "There are over 30,000 blogs hosted at edublogs.org alone" (oedb, 2009). Jim and Nigel S also commented in the forums on how necessarily incomplete our research must be due to time constraints.

The oedb page went on to list its "Top 100 Educational Blogs", and separated the list into 10 categories. I used the listed categories as a starting point for my own search.



References
oedb (2009) http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs (accessed 09/01/09)

wikipedia (2009a) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog (accessed 7 January 2009)
(wikipedia 2009b) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edublog

Reflections on TMA02 - and towards the ECA

28 Dec 2008, 04:10

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Part 1

Once I was able to write about an actual elearning professional in my "professional" context the exercise became easier to relate to and focus on. It became doable.

Part 2

A major pain was identifying all the evidence/forum messages. I had a pdf with 189 pages of largely repeated messages - i.e., new messages that included the rest of the thread. And I was to blame for a lot of that content! I hadn't systematically filed away the messages as they were produced or soon after. Lack of time and the benefit/need of hindsight in categorising the evidence were probably factors.

I think I would have found it easier (and would have used fewer words) if I had written in the 1st person. Emma asked about this and Robin replied positively but saying she should confirm with her group tutor. I thought it too late to go asking for and waiting for confirmation and simply needed to get on with it.

Overall, I need to stay on track and start preparing for the ECA from now. I definitely shouldn't leave writing till the last week.

CA4.1 - notes for my initial group input

17 Oct 2008, 10:40

Edited by Jose Martel Penate, 17 Oct 2008, 10:52

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Point 1 of the CA4.1 instructions/brief states, "Form small groups of about four to six students. Use the course forum or the course wiki to compare multimedia skills amongst the group members, and to find out who is in a position to offer help."

- In two forum messages (see highlighted text in messages below) I pointed out that I have a limited amount of experience creating and manipulating audio and video. I have mainly used Apple/Mac computers and free (Mac) compatible software. This means that my experiences may not be of direct use to others who are pc/Windows users. I did try (and will continue to endeavor) to give general advice and suggestions in any areas I can help. And by the way, I think all - or nearly all - of the free software I mention has Windows versions.

Point 3 of the CA4.1 instructions/brief states, "Read the Penn State material on what constitutes evidence of learning and contribute to a discussion in your tutor group about this, both your own learning and that of your students (if you have them)."

- I read the Penn State material. It gives basic, though (still) useful, advice on what type of files to use in a (Penn state) eportfolio:

.pdf files
- Portable Document File (PDF - not to be confused with Personal Development File, also shortened to PDF in some papers). Using a pdf helps ensure that the viewer of a document will see it as the creator of the document intended; e.g. formatting issues will not arise. The Penn State material seems to suggest that in order to create, read/view, print or store pdfs one needs Adobe software. Though Adobe continues to be a (the?) leading pdf developer, there are many software developers that offer pdf tools. Adobe and others offer free basic versions of pdf software. However the ideal pdf tool for each individual can only be found after trailing various options. I normally use Mac's own pdf solution, Preview, to read most pdfs, although I do have the latest Adobe reader installed. I also have the free pdf annotator, Skim, installed and use it as a very flexible solution for adding notes to/highlight/underline/etc pdfs.

Publishing images to the web
- The Penn State paper notes that web browsers handle GIF and JPEG images well (this information may be outdated - are there other equally good/better file formats?) and details the main differences between GIF and JPEG image files. I've never published images to the web but I have edited images, again, mainly on my Mac (using iPhoto). Usually I have never done more than crop images or perform some basic enhancement (straighten, adjust brightness or contrast, etc.). Also, I've always worked with jpg files (on my Mac "JPEG" is called "jpg"), or converted files to jpg for ease of use/compatiblity with Windows users, e.g. my screen grab/screen dump/screenshot application/software produces TIFF files. I've never really worked with image metadata (e.g. the date a photo was taken; the camera used; the settings used) - largely because importing images (e.g. my digital photos) directly into iPhoto causes iPhoto to handle metadata in the background and display more-user-friendly "tags" - and as long as I can view a photo I'm not that fussed about the image quality.
- I've used iPhoto to create digital photo-books of still images that can be presented as a slide-show with the optional incorporation of the optical sensation of movement (i.e. a video compilation of still images that uses the Ken Burns Effect to give the sensation of movement/video - "give life to still photographs by slowly zooming in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another", Wikipedia).

Sound as evidence
- The Penn State paper gives ideas for using sound as evidence, from simply recording an event, to linking to an audio file, to embedding sound into a webpage. Using Mac's GarageBand software - according to the blurb, Mac's "personal recording studio" application - I could record/compose/compile music, podcasts or sound effects. I've never really used it for more than an hour or two when getting my hands on a new mac (I have 3 now), and then I hide the application away never to be seen again. I could dig it out but I seem to remember that it looked quite complicated (though it's probably not if I understood a little about making music) and I think I'd prefer to use my video application, iMovie, to replace the sound track to videos or superimpose sounds or add a voiceover.
- Linking the H808 podcast was the first audio linking I've ever done, and I've never embedded anything into a webpage.
- There's free audio conversion software called Switch that I've used in the past to convert music videos (mp4 and WMV (Windows Media Video file)) to mp3. It can convert loads of other file types as well.

Video as evidence
- The paper gives basic information on making video clips. It actually mentions iMovie as an application to use. I have used iMovie to edit video and extract still images from video. Some months ago I imported AVI video taken by my father's JVC cam into iMovie, but for some reason the sound was lost. Later I learnt to strip the audio from a copy of the original video clip using Switch and added the sound track to the video using iMovie. Currently I use iMovie to edit short video clips of my baby daughter, captured using a Canon digital camera with SD card storage. The camera produces .MOD files which I used to convert to .AVI files by simply replacing the file extension (i.e. delete "MOD" in the file name and write "AVI" in its place), then I could view the files using VLC, but with no sound. I later learned to upload the MOD files directly into iMovie which converts the video into a QuickTime Movie (.MOV file). The problem with the MOV file is that it's quite large, and I can't view MOV files on my mp4 player. So I learnt to use DivX Converter to make smaller files that are viewable on my mp4 player. By "learning to use DivX Converter" I mean that I "dropped" a MOV file in the DivX Converter window and sometime later out popped the converted file.



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From: Jose Martel Penate 16 October 2008 15:22:26
Subject: My podcast
To: H808 08I Tech and Skills

Hi all,

I've shared 24 seconds of video (a podcast) of my little baby daughter. The video should be viewable on Windows iTunes. If you don't have iTunes then you could try downloading a great free media player called VLC. It will play most formats you're likely to come across (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/).

By the way, it took me 10 minutes to put together the video. That includes selecting the material, editing it and uploading it.

My podcast url: http://media.switchpod.com//users/jm4298/forH808podcast.m4v
Or the "feed" : http://www.switchpod.com/users/jm4298/feed.xml

Jose



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From: Jose Martel Penate 17 October 2008 02:59:51
Subject: Reply to Keely & Nigel S re my podcast
To: H808 08I Tech and Skills

Hi Keely and Nigel,

Thanks, my little baby daughter is lovely!

Yes, there is sound Nigel, you may have to turn the volume up on your player/computer - though you don't hear my daughter laugh (and she squeals or shrieks more than laughs at the moment), you'll only her mother making silly sounds for our daughter's amusement.

I would love to be able to offer you (all) some advice with this but I'm little more than a semi-experienced user myself. The great benefit that I have is that I'm using a Mac computer. Part of the basic software package that come with a Mac are sound and video editing programs. These programs are very intuitive for basic functions, and with the more advanced functions users can put together a music album or a full-length feature film.

All I can say is that Weller's instructions ("Create a podcast" at http://learn.open.ac.uk/mod/resourcepage/view.php?id=90977&direct=1) for making an audio-podcast seem overly complex - of course this in order to try to help the very inexperienced student. But in essence - and while still holding out for confirmation from Helen - (I think) all you need to do is make an mp3 sound file.

This would mean that you make a recording and if it's not an mp3 file you convert it to mp3 using one of the many popular and free audio conversion programs. I often use Softpedia to find free software (http://www.softpedia.com/). Softpedia have different areas for Mac, Windows and Linux. I tend to go for software that has been downloaded by many people over a number of months - I also might do a google search to see what user reviews I might find - these steps are intended to try to filter out buggy software and select something that works and is useful. Once you have the mp3 file you upload it to Switchpod.

For the video-podcast, I used my Mac's iMovie application/software. I clicked to start a New Project and selected the 4:3 aspect ratio for the finished video (other viewing ratios are mobile phone (3:2) and widescreen (16:9)). I selected 1 clip from video I already had and put it into the New Project area. I selected another clip and placed it next to the 1st clip. I named my project and exported it (made it into a file I could email) as a medium sized video (viewing area of 640x480 pixel resolution) suitable for viewing on computers and that still has a smaller file size (4.8MB). I then I uploaded the file to Switchpod.

On the Mac it's all very easy, but you're using pcs with Windows.

If you do try to experiment with video, I'd suggest:

- never use an original valuable source/file, always use copies to play around on

- don't worry about content, just try to learn how to do it

- keep file sizes small! ("Small means quick": quicker response from your computer - less time waiting for processes to get done; shorter upload/download times; etc) Especially for experimenting, make short videos that have a small viewing area (see above), and opt for lower quality resolution if you know how (the lower the resolution, the smaller the file size)

- if you don't have a video camera (remember that digital (still photo) cameras can often take short videos) but do have editing software you could try experimenting with the demo video that the software may have. Or you could try downloading video from the web to mess around with (remember to scan with up to date anti-virus protection) - that video may be copy/edit protected though so perhaps search for/google non-comercial, everyday people's home videos (but remember copyright issues when linking to the OU). Your mobile phone might also have a video camera, but unless you already know how to download the movie files to your pc (and can convert the files if necessary) this option may not be worth the bother.

- I've used DivX in the past. It's a set of popular editing/conversion/player tools (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/). Basic functionality is free: you can convert various video formats to DivX - a good quality but (relatively very) small file size. The DivX developers agree that software should be easy to use, so check it out if you have no editing solution that you're happy with at the moment.

Jose

Belt and braces

26 Sep 2008, 04:12

Edited by Jose Martel Penate, 26 Sep 2008, 04:17

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A couple of days ago I learnt how to make notes on pdfs
Over the years I've come to gradually accept technology more and more in my learning

From outright hostility
To a willingness to at least try
Moving through trust and
Ultimately
Reliance on technology

When IT works it's great
When it doesn't work it's essential to have a backup
Of your both your info and
Of your study methods

I keep pen and paper handy