• Achilles and the tortoise
• The grandfather paradox
• The Chinese room
• Hilbert’s infinite hotel
• The twin paradox
• Schrödingers Cat

There is more similar content on the Free learning website from The Open University.

Today I received word that I’m invited to speak at the conference; an invitation that I happily accept. Steve Wheeler describes the CONCEDE (CONtent Creation Excellence through Dialogue in Education) as a project that

is investigating the uses of user generated content in higher education, and seeks to discover who creates and uses this content. [They] are also interested in how we can benchmark the quality of such content.

I’m really looking forward to the conference and the exchange with like-minded people. Thanks to the jury and for the invitation ;)

Ein offenes Blog könnte die Barriere zum Informationsaustausch und zur Kooperation senken, denn man muss nun ja nur einen Blogpost über die eigene Arbeit und den Fortschritt machen und vielleicht ein paar Kommentare schreiben. Ich bin gespannt, ob das Experiment Studentenblogs DDI@UPB aufgeht und die Abschlussarbeiten und die jeweiligen Studenten stärker miteinander vernetzt werden. Ich würde mich darüber freuen. Zudem erzeugt das öffentlich zugängliche Blog vielleicht auch etwas Interesse an unseren Arbeiten außerhalb der Uni Paderborn.

Generell ist meine Aussage jedoch, dass jeder Student bei einer 1.0 beginnt und sich diese Note durch das Ausbleiben von Erläuterungen, nicht hergestellten Bezügen, unsauberer Arbeitsweise, fehlenden Implementierungen etc. nach unten verschlechtern kann. Fragt Euch also nicht, wie ihr die Arbeit bestehen könnt, sondern wie ihr die 1.0 behaltet.

Prinzipiell setzt sich bei mir die Note zur Abschlussarbeit aus den folgenden Komponenten zusammen:

1. Arbeitsweise
2. Schriftliche Ausarbeitung
3. Vortrag
4. Implementierung (optional)

The workshop aims to build an interdisciplinary understanding of issues regarding awareness and reflection in networked learning. It will attract participants from social science, computer science, design, psychology, and learning sciences to challenge the understanding of the fields of awareness and reflection in Technology Enhanced Learning. The participants will present and discuss their papers and work together on an integrated roadmap for future research in this field.

Background

In today’s economy, knowledge is one of the most important resources for both individuals and organizations. People invest significant efforts in the design and development of learning resources and software that strives to enhance the learning successes of individuals and groups. Networking, exchanging ideas and using tools for research on the Web are essential parts of their learning practice. While learners are, to a certain degree, aware about their relations in these networks and the partners of their communication, technology can make explicit related activities beyond the individual focus of attention. Additionally, technology can help learners bring knowledge and knowledge needs from their individual learning space into networked environments. It is important to note that not all activities relevant for learning already happen in online networks. Rather, motivated individuals engage in these networks, but there are lots more learners who could profit from such an engagement, but just never take the necessary steps. Here, technology can help e.g. by raising awareness about learner’s activities or those of others, related communities, information needs, etc.

Computer-mediated communication has the advantage that it can create mirroring artefacts, which capture learning analytic data to help learners to become aware and to reflect. These can be (1) via mirroring information, which would normally be visible in face-to-face situations, but which can be viewed as a highlight or learning-focused selection, and (2) mirroring information, which is normally invisible in face-to-face situations, but that has the potential to improve the working or learning process. This information could help learners to become aware of their constantly changing connections and interactions beyond their individual context and help them to reflect upon.

Please visit the workshop website to find more information on the workshop’s background and motivation: http://teleurope.eu/arnets11

Topics of interest

The ARNets workshop focuses on current research trends and challenges in the field of awareness and reflection in the domain of learning networks / networked learning. The topics include, but are not limited to:

• Awareness and reflection in learning networks
• Awareness and reflection for lifelong learning.
• Different views on awareness and reflection, depending on discipline, and goal
• Awareness of and reflection about social context, knowledge, artefacts and processes
• Awareness and reflection in organizational learning
• Semantic Web and awareness
• Orchestration of awareness and reflection
• Awareness and reflection in online learning / research environments
• Activation of reflection processes
• Awareness of pivotal events and their reflection support
• Awareness and reflection tools
• Pedagogical/didactic arrangements
• Awareness and reflection analytics
• Challenges in researching awareness and reflection
• Awareness and group formation, peer-support
• Future scenarios

Authors are invited to submit original unpublished work. Demonstrations are encouraged:

• Full papers: (12-16 pages) that describe problems, needs, novel approaches and frameworks within the scope of the workshop. Empirical evaluation papers and industrial experience reports are welcome for submission.
• Short papers (6-10 pages) that state the position of the authors within the scope of the workshop and describe solution concepts and work in progress.
• Posters and demo papers (1-2 pages) that summarize preliminary work results

Please submit your proposal via the ginkgo event management system at http://gkgo.me/arnets11

All submitted contributions will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the program committee for originality, significance and quality. The papers will be published in the CEUR-WS.org workshops proceedings (a publication series with ISSN). Furthermore selected papers will be part of a Special Issue in a well-known international Journal (currently in negotiations). Submissions should use the Springer LCNS template. We encourage you to produce your submission using LaTeX as typesetting tool and the respective LaTeX template.

Important dates

Deadline for papers: 11 July 2011
Notification of acceptance: 10 August 2011
Deadline camera-ready: 01 September 2011
Dates of the workshop: 20 or 21 September 2011
Dates of the conference: 20-23 September 2011

Organizers

Wolfgang Reinhardt, University of Paderborn (Germany), @wollepb
Thomas D. Ullmann, The Open University (UK), @thomasullmann
Peter Scott, The Open University (UK), @peter_scott
Viktoria Pammer, Know Center (Austria), @contextgroupkc
Owen Conlan, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), @oconlan
Adriana Berlanga, Open University of the Netherlands (Netherlands) @adrianaberlanga

Informatik macchiato macht es einfach, über Informatik, die fast alle Bereiche unseres täglichen Lebens durchdringt, Bescheid zu wissen. Es werden mit Analogien aus dem Alltag und mit Cartoons Grundkonzepte veranschaulicht. Der Humor überwindet so manche abstrakte Hürde. Auf diese Weise werden wichtige Inhalte und Fachmethoden der Informatik vermittelt, die in Schule, Studium und Berufswelt zunehmend gefragt werden.

Zusammen mit dem Pearson Verlag starten wir nun eine Verlosungsaktion zum Buch. Dazu haben wir ein Probekapitel zu Algorithmen (oder auch “Das Informatik Kochstudio“) online gestellt, für welches wir von Euch Feedback erwarten. Jede Rezension muss auf diesen Blog-Eintrag verlinken und unter allen “Einsendern” verlosen wir 3 Exemplare des Buches. Die Gewinner werden per E-Mail kontaktiert und die Versandadresse wird dann ausgetauscht. Nach ein paar Tagen erreicht die Gewinner dann kostenfrei ein druckfrisches Exemplar von Informatik Macchiato nach Hause. Die Verlosungsaktion läuft bis zum 30.04.2011. Die Gewinner werden bis spätestens 06.05.2011 benachrichtigt.

Die offizielle Bekanntmachung der Universität liest sich wie folgt:

Die Universität Paderborn hat ein neues Institut: Am Mittwoch, 23. Februar 2011, fand unter Leitung von Reinhard Keil, Professor in der Fachgruppe Informatik und Gesellschaft, die konstituierende Sitzung des Projektrats des E-Learning-Labors (e-lab) statt.

Ziel des e-lab ist es, neue, innovative Lehr- und Lernszenarien im Bereich E-Learning zu entwickeln und möglichst alltagsnah zu erproben. Die im Rahmen des e-lab zur Verfügung stehende Plattform ist mit der in der Lehre an der Universität Paderborn eingesetzten Plattform koaLA weitestgehend identisch. Daher erlaubt sie, Konzepte, Techniken und Methoden unter alltagsnahen Bedingungen zu erproben und zu evaluieren. Auf diese Weise sollen der Transfer von der Forschung in den Universitätsalltag und die Weiterentwicklung der Infrastruktur möglichst eng aufeinander abgestimmt sein.

Das e-lab und seine Technik wird von Marcel Jakoblew als Koordinator betreut. Derzeit gibt es 12 Projekte, die von der Video-Annotation bis zum webbasierten Training reichen. Sie werden größtenteils in Kooperation mit anderen Forschergruppen der Universität oder externen Partnern durchgeführt. Um die Integration des e-lab in die Universität zu  unterstützen, bilden die Projektpartner einen  Projektrat. Mitglieder sind Dr. Bettina Blanck, Andreas Brennecke, Dr. Ferdinand Ferber, Prof. Dr. Johannes Magenheim, Prof. Dr. Dorothee Meister, Prof. Dr. Niclas Schaper und aus Detmold Detlef Schubert.

Das e-lab bietet sich allen Interessierten, die im Bereich E-Learning forschen oder die universitäre Infrastruktur auf ihre Bedürfnisse anpassen wollen, als Partner an, um gemeinsam Projektmittel zu akquirieren oder Umsetzungsstrategien zu entwickeln.

 

I think the purpose of education is to engage our students to be critical thinker and to look outside the box #purposed

02.02.2011 10:46 am via KiwiReplyRetweetFavorite

@wollepb

Wolfgang Reinhardt

Steve Jobs once said in a speech at Stanford University “you’ve got to find work you love”. You should not settle for someone’s idea of what you should do in life.

Okay you say, but where is the connection to (higher) education? For me it means that we should challenge our students to not only execute tasks we assign to them. Students, the upcoming working force and hopefully research elite should be able to think outside the box. We should engage them to say “No. I don’t think this the best way to do it.” The purpose of education should be making our students responsible beings that try their own way. We should be there and guide their way without disrupting their creativeness. We should give them possibilities to try new things. They will fail sometimes but they will learn and succeed. This way we will give them time and opportunity to find something that they truly love to do, what challenges them and that keeps them motivated.

After formal education, work is going to fill a large portion of their time. They will most probably face problems that we didn’t prepare them for. They will use technologies we have no access to in the educational system. The pace of the real world will be much faster than in any educational setting. What we educators can do to prepare them? We have to equip them with the skills and know-how to solve novel problems and to stay focused. Our courses have to be embedded in real-world scenarios so they keep being motivated. We have to bring the variety of tools, techniques and opinions into the classroom. THEY have to make decisions and they have to deal with the results.

In my courses and with all the theses I supervise I am led by Steve Jobs’ words: You gotta find something that you love, that inspires and challenges you. So tell me what you are interested in, what problems you want to solve, what technologies you find hip. After having a picture of my students’ goals, I adapt my research goals and do you know what? Most of the times they produce awesome results. I am convinced they would never produce the same high quality if they would need to do something that they didn’t like. Never ever.

So what is the purpose of education? Engage them. To try. To fail. To fail often. To succeed and learn. Give them opportunities to find something they truly love.

For the analyses shown in this article we used Artefact-Actor-Networks (Reinhardt, Moi & Varlemann, 2009, AANs) for obtaining and storing data from Twitter and Gephi for calculating metrics and visualizing the resulting networks. Gephi is an Open Source Software tailored for graph and network analysis. In AANs we distinguish between actor networks that represent each user in a learning service as node. In artifact networks each digital object (e.g. a tweet) is represented as a node. For every learning service that is used we analyze the interactions. If we are interested in a more holistic view about the ongoing interactions, consolidated artifact and actor networks can be analyzed. Moreover, with the AAN approach artifact and actor networks can be combined for even more sophisticated analyses.

Artifact-level analysis

To track interaction and communication in the seminar we asked the participants to use the tag #fsln10 for all course-related issues on Social Media channels. In total we analyzed 431 tweets, 384 Delicious bookmarks, 14 SlideShare documents and 61 documents on Mendeley. In this article we focus solely on the analysis of the social network that arose from the usage of Twitter during the seminar. From the 431 tweets we extracted over 80 keywords using semantic analysis services. Moreover, we extracted all other hashtags that were used. For analyzing the semantic relations of artifacts and actors we are able to apply different measures: the connectedness via shared keywords and hashtags as well as the semantic similarity of the artifacts. Figure 1 shows the artifact network of tweets that are connected via shared keywords or hashtags.

Figure 1: Artifact network of tweets connected via shared keywords and hashtags

The color and size of the node reflect the degree of the respective artifact: the darker and larger the node, the more connections it has to other tweets. The light and small nodes at the bottom left corner have no keyword connection to the other artifacts. Digging deeper in the artifact network, we can identify several clusters of artifacts that deal with special seminar topics. Using the semantic connections between the respective artifacts it is easy to find out how those clusters are formed: clusters between Twitter artifacts arise when they share common keywords or hashtags or are replies or retweets to each other. Figure 2 shows an example visual analysis of tweets connected via the keywords ‘mendeley’, ‘dropbox’, ‘mixxt’, and ‘skype’ which represent learning services used in the seminar. Figure 2 also depicts vertices with the labels ‘stellarnet’ and ‘aan’ referring to projects that were associated to the seminar. Finally, the Figure also shows that artifacts are connected with vertices labeled ‘hasReply’ and ‘isReply’ that indicate the existence of a reply connection.

Figure 2: Detailed inspection of connections between tweets

In its current version Gephi is not able to visualize multiple vertices between two nodes, leading to the impression that tweets are always only connected with one relation. Figure 3 tackles this problem and visualizes the artifact network based on the semantic similarity between tweets. An edge between two tweets thus represents their similarity – the thicker and more colored an edge, the higher the semantic similarity between the tweets. Compared to Figure 2 we do not consider replies and retweets for the calculation of semantic similarity as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Artifact network of tweets connected via semantic similarity

What becomes obvious from the artifact visualizations is the fact that most of the tweets have no structural or semantic connection to other tweets (79% of the tweets are isolated). While this can partly be explained with the process of topic extraction that we applied in this study (it is difficult to extract keywords and meaningful content from only 140 characters), the missing structural connections point to an improvable interaction structure within the educational setting. Analyzing the social relations in actor networks allows us to apply metrics of classical social network analysis (SNA) to the seminar and to investigate the interaction patterns more directly.

Actor-level analysis

We will now investigate the actor network that was formed by the Twitter users that used the #fsln10 hashtag. In this analysis there is a connection between two actors if they have written similar tweets. The more similar the tweets are that they have written, the higher the weight of the edge between them. Regarding this setup we found 21 actors that could be connected in the actor network (9 seminar participants, 2 supervisors, 10 external discussion participants). One seminar participant does not show up in the actor network as he did not write tweets that were similar to others. If we had applied other measures for building up the network (e.g. the following relations, replies or retweets) he would have been included. The network has a density of 0,276, which is above average compared to other Twitter networks.

Figure 4: Actor network of Twitter users connected via semantic similarity

Considering the degree centrality in the actor network, the actor wollepb (a supervisor) is most central. wollepb is called a local hero, as the degree centrality calculates centrality only based on local network properties. A local hero attracts many direct connections on himself; in the context of the seminar he published many semantically similar tweets. The closeness centrality measure (Figure 5a) additionally incorporates indirect connections on shortest paths into the calculation. wollepb still is the most central actor but looses centrality with this measure. Finally, when considering the betweenness centrality (Figure 5b) the centrality of those actors that are on only few shortest paths in the network is declining. Users who act as mediators in the network are becoming more central with this measure. Two participants of the seminar (rolwi and AlexanderPLN) are thus also connecting the other seminar participants.

Figure 5a: Applying different centrality measures on the actor network (closeness centrality)

Figure 5b: Applying different centrality measures on the actor network (betweenness centrality)

Discussion

The impact of our evaluations is that for one we believe we have found a best practice example of how students can be confronted with state-of-the-art technologies and projects while still at university in a way that fosters skills and competencies they will need in the workplace. This type of interconnectedness between institutional, informal and workplace learning is focus of this endeavor. Further we see the possibility to integrate students with their fresh, creative and sometimes unconventional ideas in real-world research and industry projects, which can provide added value for both the students as well as the involved projects.

On the other hand our analyses show that we need to further engage students to use Social Media tools as a means for interacting within a seminar. Realizing that a supervisor is the most central person in a seminar is not surprising; the gap between the Twitter adoption of supervisors and students should give us food for thought on how to better motivate students to use the tools. Noticeably, the students used other tools that seem to be less public and without the need for direct interactions far more frequently. The students were heavily bookmarking web pages in Delicious and uploaded references to Mendeley. Also they used Skype for one-to-one interactions on a regular basis.

Also we see that the artifact networks are not very dense (meaning that the published tweets are rather broad in their contents). While this is partly because of the applied analysis method, it also points to the fact that it might be a good approach to narrow down the seminar topics to espouse a more lively topical exchange. Moreover, the analyses presented in this article were done subsequently to the seminar. In order to react in a timelier manner about the discussed phenomena we would need tools for instant social media monitoring in educational settings. Those tools should then obtain, analyze and visually present the results. Exploring the interactions and topical connectedness of students’ work will help us to better supervise learning designs that make extensive use of Social Media.

The course design has caught much attention during its first round of implementation (see the number of external persons that were involved in communication) and allowed to broaden the scope of the seminar. The seminar is being carried out again in the fall semester of 2010. In the summer term 2011 we will integrate a third partner from another German university into the seminar and focus on the design and development of a Social Media Monitoring tool for educational contexts as described above.

References

Jonassen, D.H. (1991). Objectivism versus constructivism: do we need a new philosophical paradigm? Educational Technology Research and Development, 39(3):5–14.

Jonassen, D.H. (1999). Designing constructivist learning environments. Instructional design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory, 2:371–396.

W. Reinhardt, M. Moi, and T. Varlemann. Artefact-Actor-Networks as tie between social networks and artefact networks. In Proceedings of the 5th International ICST Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing (CollaborateCom 2009), November 2009.

Acknowledgment

Thanks go to my graduate student Matthias Moi for visualizing the networks and applying SNA metrics to them.

Social media are increasingly popular platforms for collaboration and quick information sharing. This volume is a collection of reports on how these technologies are being used to educate educators with social media in creative and effective ways. Social networking technologies enable the integration of students and alumni in co-curricular activities in exciting and still evolving ways. The use of wikis, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, Flickr, Delicious, YouTube, Yahoo Pipes, Diigo, Second Life, Moodle, and other Web 2.0 technologies are shown in vivid examples and insightful critiques. The processes, design, delivery and evaluation of instruction using social media are examined in detail and include such topics as: the use of social media in developing countries for new approaches to teaching as support for individual and peer-based learning; new teaching orientations premised on social media such as focused distraction; enhancing in-class participation; how instructors are increasing the technical expertise that is needed by educators to develop their own 21st century curricula projects; and, creating an ecosystem for life-long learning through social media.

A father and son from Brooklyn, New York sent an iPhone and a HD camera into space in order to record a video from the earth’s curvature. You may now think, what the hell… (basically that’s what I thought first). Then I watched the video and was really stunned. Not only because they spent months of planning and sent electronic equipment to space that was worth several hundreds of Dollar risking they’d never see the stuff again and not only about the fact that both camera and iPhone continued to work in space and until safe landing, but also because of such a stunning example of real technology-enhanced learning. I mean this kid has had the opportunity of seeing physics work, he saw a video that his camera captured that proves the earth is round. He was able to GPS-track his e-package on they down to earth (thx Google) and … I wish we had the possibilities of doing such cool things when I was that age (maybe I’d do some other stuff now, being at NASA for example…)

Boy, TEL is great. I’m really looking forward to more of these examples (I’m wondering what my boy will ask me to do some day – so stay tuned).

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

We think the time has now come to introduce a set of guidelines for Twitter – ‘Twettiquette’ if you like [...] Here it is below, in all it’s unexpurgated glory. It is, we think, a humourous, lighthearted take on using Twitter. We hope it makes you smile, think and tweet some more.

Here are the (German) slides from the talk

You can also read the whole article (also in German of course…)
Anwendungsszenarien für ein Werkzeug zur Video-Annotation in der universitären Lehre

Ähnliche Zelte werden auch ganzjährig für Ausstellungen und Messen verwendet.

Ich schätze dieser Hinweis soll den letzten Zweiflern an der Ernstheit der Angelegeheit zeigen, dass man hier von wohlerprobten Raumkonzepten spricht. Besonders interessant fand ich dann jedoch den Ausblick auf die nähere Zukunft der universitären Raumplanung:

Er [der Kanzler] gehe aber davon aus, dass spätestens ab dem Sommersemester 2011 der benachbarte Baumarkt für die Seminarveranstaltungen umgebaut und betriebsbereit sei und somit neue Raumkapazitäten zur Verfügung stünden.

Wie jetzt? Es werden Unmengen an Gebäuden gebaut und ab dem kommenden Sommersemester sollen Seminare im Baumarkt stattfinden. You must be kidding guys…

Heute ist es soweit, der finale Seminarband zum FSLN10 Seminar ist online gegangen. Unsere Studenten haben das gesamte Sommersemester hart gearbeitet und sich mit Themen rund um Technologie-gestütztes Lehren und Lernen beschäftigt und herausgekommen sind — wie wir finden — sehr gute Vorträge, Präsentationen und nutzbare Prototypen. Der Seminarband fasst nun die obligatorischen Seminarausarbeitungen in einem PDF zusammen.

Wie es sich für ein gutes Seminar gehört sind nicht nur die Folien online, sondern wir machen auch die schriftlichen Teile öffentlich zugänglich und hoffen auf reges Feedback dazu.

Im Detail werden die folgenden Themen im Seminarband behandelt:

• Real-Time Collaborative Learning (Rolf Wilhelm, Universität Paderborn)
• Medienbrüche im Web 2.0 (Dennis Horstkemper, Universität Paderborn und Marie-Luise Zankl, Universität Augsburg)
• Awareness in Learning Networks (Christian Mletzko, Universität Paderborn)
• Interaktive Lernressourcen (Felix Meyer, Universität Augsburg und Alexander Schäfer, Universität Paderborn)
• Soziale Netzwerkanalyse in Artefact-Actor-Networks (Matthias Moi, Universität Paderborn)
• Game-based Learning (Eva Andreeva, Universität Augsburg und Sebastian Lauck, Universität Paderborn)
• Universität 2.0 (Julia Schuhwerk, Universität Augsburg und Manuel Schmidt, Universität Paderborn)

The seminar was designed to let students experience the power of Social Media in real-life situations, so we decided to have them cooperating with a fellow student from another university in another city, far away from home. So they HAD to use tools for keeping in sync with their partner, to communicate, coordinate and cooperate (you remember the classification of groupware from Teufel et al.?). So we introduced social media tools in higher education to them (thanks again to Cristina Costa for doing the lovely voicethread) and the students started to test Twitter, Delicious, Mendeley, SlideShare, FlashMeeting and Co for their work. We told them that we’d expect a collaborative presentation, a final report and an computer science artifact that represents what they did. After the first week we scheduled team meeting with the student groups where they presented their first ideas on the focus of their work and how the could design or implement the required artifact. The same thing took place 3 weeks later where we focused the topic even further and decided what artifact should be created. Nina and me were surprised by both the creativity, engagement and quality of the results in such an early phase of the seminar – because we knew different from former seminars. During the following weeks, we had two FlashMeetings with the whole group and some individual talks on Skype and gave little advice where help was needed. We could follow the students’ work from their bookmarks on Delicious and the shared articles in Mendeley (thank you guys for the extended shared collection, you really rock), could follow Tweets and had short ad-hoc face-to-face meetings at the coffee machine. All in all a pretty satisfying work load during the semester with pretty motivated students.

Today we had the final presentations; the students in Paderborn were sitting in a room in Paderborn, the students in Augsburg were in Augsburg. We used uStream.tv to stream the presentations from one city to another and Skype desktop sharing to transfer sound and the slides to both places simultaneously. Furthermore we had a Twitter backchannel and my boss was attending from another location via Skype as well. I thought: what a mess, technology will never do this. BUT IT DID. And it did perfectly. Yeehaw. You can see a picture of the Paderbornian setting here:

But then the students started to present their work. All in all we had the following topics:

1. Real-time collaborative learning
2. Media disruptions in Web 2.0 environments
3. Awareness in Learning Networks
4. Interactive Learning Ressources
5. Social Network Analysis in Artefact-Actor-Networks
6. Game-based Learning
7. University 2.0

Our students not only invested a lot of time in their presentations and the writing of well-formulated and substantiated articles, they also presented stunning prototypical implementations and architectural design for IT systems that would really make a difference (see the pictures on Flickr). One team was developing a MashUp real-time collaborative learning environment that combined a whiteboard with video chat, twitter integration and the ability to load any RSS feed. The widget-based environment was running on Django in Python (a language we do not teach in Paderborn) and allows for the creation and storage of differing MashUps that can be used, shared, stored and re-accessed later. Another team analyzed the daily routines of students in Paderborn and Augsburg and modeled the study-related part in EPK models (something we never thought of). The team identified a range of media disruptions during the exam application for example (12 disruption in Paderborn, with 4 different tools involved). Finally, the did paper prototyping for an improved system that could be used at various universities and developed an infrastructure design. Another team was developing an interactive PDF where Flash content from nearly all social media platforms can be integrated. They showed a PDF that incorporated fully functioning SlideShare presentations and YouTube videos, the above-mentioned VoiceThread and even FlashMeeting replays from our meetings. Moreover, they developed an application CommentInAPDF that allows to send tweets from within a PDF (there even was an extended version where they automatically added an a priori defined hashtag to the tweet). The presentation of the PDF was so impressing and opened up so many visions of what to do with such technical options, I’m still stunned. Here is a video of their presentation (in German).

Finally the University 2.0 group did an online survey among 470 German-speaking students regarding their vision of the University in the year 2030 and combined those findings with qualitative interviews with scientific staff. Furthermore they likened their findings with future predictions (e.g. The Horizon Reports) and produced this awesome Prezi presentation.

I have to say that I never had so motivated students, which invested their valuable time and lifeblood into a seminar and produced so cool artifacts. During the feedback session they told us, that the collaboration with others that they couldn’t talk to other than mediated to social software was very motivating for them and that they learned to love the tools we introduced to them. Also they mentioned that the permanent availability of the supervisors via social media tools gave them the feeling safety and encouraged them to ask for help and council.

Students, that was rocket science, thank you so much. I hope to work with you again soon!

We created a spreadsheet on Google that is open for editing – so if you are interested in this topic and would like to contribute tools to our list, just go ahead and enter your suggestion here.

Thanks for your support.

Cristina blogs:

The presentation aims to be informal and interactive. I welcome your thoughts, questions and reflections about the small chunks of information I have provided in the voicethreads. I also hope we continue this conversation else where. I have some ideas how we could do this, but I prefer to let you to decide where we could ‘meet again’. I’ll be waiting for your suggestions!
And yes, this presentation only barely scratches the surface of Social Media, its advantages and implications. But we do have to start somewhere. I hope this will just be a start of something bigger. Thank you all for taking part in this. I also want to thank those who have helped me with this presentation. You will find them in the voicethread.

I am very thankful for this contribution as it shows not only the power of one’s network but also broadens the scope of our students. They collaborate with students from another University, a different course of studies and in addition they have the chance to listen to the thoughts of Cristina. What else could they ask for?

Even if there are heavy transformations in technology, science and society taking place in the recent years, university courses often still emphasize heads-on teaching methods with classic learning methods and learning resources. At the end of a course students had often acquired second hand knowledge, which is often detached from experience-based, constructive learning. The use of new media, the process of working in teams with application of these services as well as problem-solving scenarios remain out of students’ grasp. In this paper we introduce a participative and cooperative seminar setting at two German Universities that tries to overcome those limitations. We report about the pedagogic design and the practical implementation of the course, list objectives and intentions and describe the organizational structure of the seminar.

So if you notice a lot of buzz on Twitter, Facebook and Delicious tagged with #fsln10 – it because of our cool students that rock the social web. A tweetwall for the seminar can be found here

Here are the introductory slides from the seminar (in German):

Also check out the website of the DOLLI project.

Microblogging has become a very popular social networking activity in the recent years. The limitation of 140 characters constrains the user to send concise messages. Twitter and other popular microblogging tools have acted as catalysts for a flurry of new and fast exchange of thoughts and artefacts, and from these activities a new area of research has emerged. There are case studies for the application of microblogging in scientific conferences, educational courses, distributed software engineering teams and corporate project groups.

A number of questions are emerging from the early use of micro-blogs as social networking tools that connect communities of practice and interest. These include: How can microblogs support the development of professional communities of practice? How can microblogs be effectively incorporated into formalised professional learning? How can we measure the optimum levels of engagement necessary for microblogs to be successful social networking tools within professional communities of practice? How are communities of practice enhanced or enriched as a result of the application of microblogs? What about issues of security, privacy and intellectual property – how can these be protected? Do the filtering features on microblogs constitute semantic tools?

The workshop focuses on current research trends in the application of microblogging in various domains. The workshop seeks to attract quality research papers that propose solutions to the issues identified above. The workshop also seeks papers that comment how the application of micro-blogging can impact on real life experiences in diverse communities. It aims to bring together scientists and engineers who work on designing and/or developing the above mentioned solutions, as well as practitioners who use and evaluate them in diverse authentic environments.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Design and development of microblogging tools
• Application of micro-blogging in teaching scenarios
• Application of micro-blogging in software engineering scenarios
• Communication and interaction issues using microblogging
• Understanding the dynamics of microblogging communities
• Harnessing the semantic filtering capabilities of microblogging
• Visualization issues of microblogging
• Evaluation issues and case studies
• Smart devices for microblogging in education
• Using microblogging for enhancing creativity in education
• Digital identities and microblogging
• Ethical and safety issue
• Harshtagging and tweckling
• Developing pedagogies around the use of microblogging
• Live microblogging and micro-narratives
• Language Learning with microblogging
• Engagement analysis and microblogging

Papers up to 12 but no less than 8 pages are solicited. All submissions should be original and not published or under consideration elsewhere. Papers must correspond to the WCC 2010 conference format requirements, as they are described at the conference web site (http://www.wcc2010.com/call-for-papers/submission-instructions). All accepted papers must be presented at the conference by at least one of the authors. One of the authors of accepted paper needs to register for the workshop.

Today we had 3 (more or less interactive) talks by Dai Griffiths, Jon Dron, and Marie Joubert that had the overall topic of Orchestrating Learning and Services Used. Gai did an good overview to SOA, WS-* and the applications in industry and learning (have a look at the eFramework) and Jon asked us to think about the possible education use cases of a wooden stick. That was really great fun. The last lecture by Marie covered the tasks of the STELLARnetwork of excellence and what orchestration of learning really means. She asked four questions that you always should keep in mind during your Ph.D. research:

1. What are you researching?
2. How are you researching?
3. For what reason are you researching? and
4. What is going to provide evidence for your research?

The attendees are very active in the social semantic web and thus the Twitter channel for the #jtelws2010 hashtag is very active.

I created a Twitter list for the attendees of the WinterSchool at http://twitter.com/wollepb/jtelws2010 which will be extended as soon as I spot new Tweeple here.

Here are some early statistics: 160 tweets tagged with #jtelws2010 from 27 different users. Here is a wordle of the first (Twitter) day:

Critical Commons is a non-profit advocacy coalition that supports the use of media for teaching, learning and creativity, providing resources, information and tools for scholars, students, educators and creators. Critical Commons provides information about current copyright law and its alternatives in order to facilitate the writing and dissemination of best practices and fair use guidelines for scholarly and creative communities. Critical Commons also functions as a showcase for innovative forms of electronic scholarship and creative production that are transformative, culturally enriching and both legally and ethically defensible. At the heart of Critical Commons is an online tool for viewing, tagging, sharing, annotating and curating media within the guidelines established by a given community. Our goal is to build open, informed communities around media-based teaching, learning and creativity, both inside and outside of formal educational environments.

The video discusses informal learning through blogs and creative thinking in the context of online/offline learning networks in a rather … extraordinary way. On of the best parts is

Don’t worry Anna. We will always have our informal learning networks.

But see yourself:

Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

In his presentation Steve shows how the latest technology of smart devices can be used in educational settings. Especially interesting are the Venn diagrams showing the overlaps of virtual and augmented reality and the use of gestures with really smart devices (MIT style).