BLOGs - is interaction everything?

Some of us were talking about what e-learning potential do BLOG pages have and one response was:
"I go to your BLOG, see your entries and see what makes you tick -- which can be quite similar to what makes me enthuse -- I learn from your entries because I have the motivation / curiosity to read it ... but if I don't tell you what do you learn? (Are we back to square one? ... talking is not listening ... you may talk/write, I can read but we need interaction ... I need to talk back to you, you need me to talk back to you ... "

According to the theory there does need to be some form of conversational framework, some form of feedback loop, some form of active reflection, for 'learning' to take place … if I BLOG something and no-one reads it or responds to it does anyone learn? (A bit like the 'If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?" … see: http://personal.clt.bellsouth.net/t/a/tarabyl/ifa.htm or http://www.getodd.com/stuf/treefall.html … it's amazing what sort of answers there are to such clever/simple question!). And my response would be 'yes' I learn from the process of BLOGging a link to something - even if it's a personal, private diary BLOG there is still potential for learning. Mind you - it could be a bit solitary! A 'conversation' between one person and a resource within a framework … the 'disciplined nature' of the reflection will be important.

If this process of learning encompasses interaction with others then some collaborative learning might be possible - and more than one person might benefit. But a simple comment feedback is unlikely to engender much - there needs to be more.

Simon

e-Government & public sector IT news from PublicTechnology.net ... I MUST be interested in this, I really MUST! Having said that, it looks like some useful information re: e-learning and education.

The last seven posts on Dunstan’s blog - which is, I think, a good looking BLOG by Dunstan Orchard that seems to do some very clever things and also seems to have involved some clever thoughts about commenting and the like ... it includes a nice view of Dorset as well, weather and all!

Into the Blogosphere - an e-journal about Blogs ... what better to link to from a Blog?

Welcome to Academic Impressions -
Looks like it could be interesting ... there's to be a web conference in October 2004 looking at the use of Weblogs in HE.

Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD comics) check out the "read the latest comic strips ... !" link. Warning ... this humour might not be universal, not everyone has suffered in this way!

The Projected Picture Trust -
Excellent! ... and so close to home. One trouble with progress is that we tend to forget whatever really good stuff went before. This group seems to be about saving the technology of projected cinema - a slightly different take on the history of the cinema, and one that will be lost on the current generation of DVD (no sound of the gate) transmission.

http://www.AIResources.info - a 'Subject Tracer Information Blog' devoted to Artificial Intelligence resources. Judging by the events and people at Bletchley that I referred to earlier, a lot of the efforts of AI labs in the UK is now being channeled into e-learning. It used to be figuring out how people thought and trying to replicate that in software ... now more a case of figuring out how people learn and trying to support that in software.

Thanks to the ResearchBuzz (copyright 2004 Tara Calishain. All rights reserved) for this AI link, I get an e-copy of this newsletter most weeks ... check it out at: http://www.researchbuzz.com/about.shtml.

The Scientist - News Journal for the Life Scientist
quite a lot of UK-centric articles in this journal. Helps one to keep up with things!

BBC Motion Gallery - Home Page -
Should be a veritable goldmine - although I suspect that the sequences that I would want have long been cut and binned!

Long post about "e-learning" ...

I was at the Future for e-learning Research day at Bletchley Park last week (http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/index.cfm?wpid=2843) where lots of folk from conventional universities plus a few from the UKOU spent the day debating future prospects, funding and programmes for e-learning research. It struck me that for many of them the prospect of delivering e-learning to their students was raising new concerns that we in the OU have been dealing with since we first sent boxes of course material to our distant students way back in 1971 - i.e. they have lost the control that comes with proximity and presence - the control now has to be embedded in the e-learning material. 'Control' is perhaps not the right word to use … motivation / stimulation / incentive / rationale / interaction might be better? What, if any, lessons are there for e-learning in OUr experiences (e.g. from SAQs - self assessment questions buried in the text)?

At the CALRG 25th Anniversary last Friday (http://iet.open.ac.uk/research/calrg/index.cfm) the phrase "you become what you measure" was used … meaning, I guess, that if learners know that they are to be assessed on some criteria they will endeavour to better their performance with respect to those criteria. Given that e-learning enables us to deliver material in new ways and for learners to engage with those materials in new ways … should there also be the new criteria and new ways of assessing their performance?

Exchange is a collaborative publication born out of various UK partners' collective objective to enhance learning and teaching. The partners are:

The National Co-ordination Team based at the Centre for Higher Education Practice in the UKOU
The Learning and Teaching Support Network
The Institute for Learning and Teaching

Issue 6 of Exchange focuses on 'e-Learning', it is available at: http://www.exchange.ac.uk/ - it includes contributions from Martin Oliver (What is a Learning Technologist?), Grainne Conole (The role of research in informing practice) and Allison Littlejohn (From learning objects to learning design).

The Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-learning and Why report is published by the University of Pennsylvania. This study sought to answer the question "Why did the boom in e-learning go bust?" Over an eighteen-month period authors Robert Zemsky, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and William F. Massy, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University, tracked faculty and staff attitudes towards e-learning at six colleges and universities. The complete report is available online in PDF format at: http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/Docs/Jun2004/ThwartedInnovation.pdf. It raises Administration and Management concerns about e-learning that will need to be countered.

University of Toronto -- News@UofT -- Pause/Break Information Technology News from the perspective of a Canadian University ... interesting, not UK and not US.