Assessing Reading
Posted 12:32 PM by Bob Hoffman
">Assessing Reading

"Hot and Trendy": Social Software: Blog, Wiki, RRS, Moodle...
Posted 12:20 PM by Minjuan
This topic has really got me hooked. A blog Many-to-Many is dedicated to social software.
“Well, nobody's sure exactly what social software is, exactly, but it sure is a hot topic these days.”-- http://topicexchange.com/t/social_software/about

A group of scholars in China just held a symposium about social software, what it is, its impact, and how can it be used in teaching and learning. This will make a great dissertation topic!

Here is an article to start with:
Kaplan-Leiserson, E. (December 2003). We-Learning: Social Software and E-Learning. Retrieved, from the World Wide Web: http://www.learningcircuits.org/2003/dec2003/kaplan.htm

The encyclopedia constructed by volunteers
Posted 9:12 PM by Minjuan
This is striking. Hope you find it interesting, arguable too.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians
--An introduction to wikipedia
Wikipedia:Wikipedians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Wikipedians are the people who write and edit articles for Wikipedia. There are currently more than 800 confessed contributors (although there are over 34,000 user accounts and an unknown number of anonymous contributors). This arguably makes a community - see m:The Wikipedia Community. To understand how we cooperate (and fail to or refuse to), please read meta.wikipedia.org. To read testimonies or theories about what motivates different people to participate in the project, see Wikipedia:Who, Why?
Here are different listings of all the contributors who have chosen to put their names. There are no particular requirements for Wikipedians' personal pages; some people write up a biography, some don't; some Wikipedians maintain a private catalogue of their work, some don't. Different listing methods have been created due to demand. If you put your name on a geographical listing such as Wikipedians/Australians, please don't neglect also to include your name on the alphabetical list.

Weblog in China
Posted 8:42 PM by Minjuan
Amazing! A group of Chinese scholars (who knows how many) are compiling a WeblogPedia at: http://www.cnblog.org/wiki/
It's quite bilingual but in an unusual way--Chinese interweaving with English, the Chin-English. Languages are getting married in this age. Hope you find this site exciting too.

Response: Adkins blast (for Bill Brandon)
Posted 8:48 AM by Minjuan
>Hi, Allison -
>
>I wanted to leave a response on EdTech Beach, but couldn't see where to
>do that. So my response is on my weblog, at
>http://radio.weblogs.com/0110222/categories/elearning/2003/12/19.html#a
>900.
>
>I don't buy Sam's argument, and I am amazed at the number of people who
>just jumped in and agreed with him (evidently not understanding that he
>has an agenda).
>
>Have a good holiday, and I hope to see you at a conference again one of
>these days.
>
>Bill

Discovered a New World!
Posted 12:50 PM by Minjuan
http://blog.online-edu.org/weblog/
A group of E-learning Bloggers in China. I'll translate some of the good pieces from time to time. It's fascinating to be able to see what's going on in that big and restless country.

Board Game Designs from EDTEC 670
Posted 2:19 PM by One Trick Pony
My 670 class is a particularly creative bunch this year. As their first foray into game design, they developed Board Games, a task that at first seems simple. As they burrow more deeply into the design process they come to see that the tradeoffs between fidelity and simplicity and between educational impact and fun are interestingly complex. I was particularly impressed by:

• Paleotopia, a game based around a dinosaur dig site;
  
• Formula Trap, which brings area and perimeter to life;
  
• Culture Savvy, which makes learning Hofstede's Five Cultural Dimensions fun;
  
• Parse Game, which covers sentence parsing for linguistics students;
  
• Feed Your Face, a nutrition game; and
  
• Give & Take, a game of math facts.
  

I frequently get email from people who stumble on these designs and want to buy a copy of the actual games. I think many of them are better designed than a lot of commercial games labeled "educational".

Birth of a Blogger
Posted 1:59 PM by One Trick Pony
Multiple births, actually. It's not often you get to watch 28 people start their own blogs all at once. I'm teaching a section of EDTEC 470 just for pre-service English and Foreign Language teachers and this year I decided that blogging was a perfect technology to introduce them to. By dealing with the terror of self-disclosure and the joy and trepidation of a world-wide audience, they will experience some interesting issues that should be useful down the road. If things work out, they'll set up similar environments for their own kids a year from now.

Visit the 470 Faces page and watch the world through their eyes. Tamara Cogan, Ryan Haas and Michael Heu are particularly fun to read. Marcia Reisch, a special ed teacher, is writing her blog from the point of view of the pet turtle in her classroom. Although the class has only met twice and they've only been blogging for 6 days, I feel as though I know many of them better than I knew last year's class at semester's end. This is a humanizing technology!

DEPARTMENTS THAT WORK
Posted 8:22 AM by Minjuan
Today's posting from TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) LISTSERV is quite interesting. It introduces a review of Wergin's book, Departments That Work: Building and Sustaining Cultures of Excellence in Academic Programs. The book particularly addresses characteristics and qualities of useful departmental self-assessments. More at: http://www.AAHEBulletin.com.