learning, teaching and research (archive)

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Open education content disclaimer

July 30th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

I’m thinking about prefacing any open education materials I make available with some sort of a statement concerning the context and values that have influenced the development of the content. We are encouraged to see authoritatively endorsed ‘expert’ knowledge as something we can build upon and use confidently without doubting or examining its providence, for […]

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Academic blogging

July 29th, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

I am planning an informal one day conference on blogging for academics and postgraduates with some money I have been awarded as a C-SAP Associate. Depending on what is affordable I am hoping to attract some active academic bloggers to come along to tell us how they got into blogging and why and share their […]

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Open Education – people, content, process

July 28th, 2010 · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

A flurry of messages on Twitter has prompted me to revisit some of my ideas on open education. It is amazing how 140 characters can capture and condense thought provoking ideas, questions and possibilities and occasionally bring you  up short! This reflection has been prompted by Joss Winn’s thoughts on the problematic nature of ‘content’ […]

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Gramsci and the ‘organic’ philospher

April 3rd, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

While reading Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, I was pleased to see his references to Gramsci. The passage on all ‘men’ being spontaneous philosophers seems to me to be modestly adapted to all men and women being spontaneous learners. In the following gloss on Gramsci’s idea I will simply substitute ‘learner’ for philosopher. “It […]

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Pinging and private messages in Google Wave

October 26th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

When Google first introduced Google Waves to the world it was claimed that the design had been to start from scratch and imagine what it would be like to reinvent email. This strategy is no doubt the reason that the gwave screen looks rather like an early prototype of Google Mail with its areas for contacts, and […]

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Google Waves – first impressions

October 20th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Like most early comments on Twitter re: Google Waves (henceforth gwave), I have not been finding gwaves particularly intuitive and was not at all clear quite what it might be used for. However, as I am using it more I am getting to like it. My two first waves developed into a mixture introductions and trying things out. I […]

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ALT-C 2009 "In dreams begins responsibility"

August 28th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

Having missed ALT-C 2008 despite it being held at my own University in Leeds, I am particularly looking forward to this year’s conference in Manchester, 8th to 10th September. Following the #altc2009 and #falt09 tags in Twitter, the Friendfeed groups (http://friendfeed.com/altc2009 and http://friendfeed.com/f-alt) and the conference Crowdvine has only sharpened my anticipation. Looking through the abstracts […]

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LUDOS, metadata and other things

June 7th, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

I went to 2 meetings today and learnt something from both. The LUDOS project (Leeds University Digital Objects) was very interesting. I am particularly interested in repositories of this kind as a trend is emerging for writing modules around publically available learning objects and resources of various kinds. Module design will provide a rationale for […]

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First blog winner in the Orwell Prize for political writing

April 23rd, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized

My last post was about the claim that blogging is in decline or at least morphing into something else. There has also been speculation that political and media blogs feed off mainstream media and if this declines becasue of the bloggers, the bloggers will decline too as the symbiotic relationship falls apart. However, many blogs […]

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Knowledge in an information society

June 29th, 2008 · No Comments · Uncategorized

I have been wrestling lately to understand the difference between knowledge and information. I am finding this very difficult. What adds to the difficulty is that, of course, both terms are social constructs. There is nothing in the world that is either knowledge or information outside of what individuals or groups so label.This doesn’t make […]

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