Vegard Engstrøm

We're at a MOSEM partner meeting in Antwerp and I'm stopping by to show the others that this is still online. This is very good. I also apologise for the delay in getting our new server online. We hope to get it done in the next few months, at least during the fall. It is not much I can do about this delay, unfortunately, as it is depending on other people.

Carmen Holotescu

Book Meme: 123.5

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

Via Catherine Howell - educause.edu

The nearest book is:

Learning Design - Rob Koper, Colin Tattersall, Springer: "MOT+, described above, provides a powerful graphical language which aims to provide learning designers with the tools which they require to define any structure which they may need."

Technorati Tag: Book Meme 123.5

Carmen Holotescu

Northern Voice 2006
Blogging Conference takes place now in Canada - via
CogDogBlog.

Nancy White had a wonderful
presentation
about competencies of online evaluation.

The seven competencies would be - yes, Nancy put the most important on the
last position:

• 2. Online Communications


• 3. Learning with Others


• 4. Facilitation for relationship, identity/reputation, presence, flow


• 5. Intercultural Antennae


• 6. Tolerance for Ambiguity


• 7. Ability to switch contexts


• 1. Finally, most important… Self-Awareness

Please see the echoes
of
Nancy's presentation - with
BlogsBattle.

Update - and look, the competencies presented by Nancy are shown by
herself in such a simple, concrete, but also surprising way for me: she already
wrote

two comments at my note telling that:

• the presentation at Northern Voice
  2006 is online at
  
  fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm - please note the inventiveness of using photos and
  
  flickr facilities for storing


• mixing the audio file from
  CogDogBlog +
  the presentation
  
  fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm = the result is
  makeashorterlink.com/?Z5B5262AC.

Thanks again, Nancy!

Gabriela announces us at

Coniecto that she participates now in the
Facilitating Online
Workshop, organised by Full Circle;
success, Gabriela, we are waiting for your stories.

Carmen Holotescu

Five years ago, when I was trained to become Online Instructor for UMUC, one
of the papers I have to study and to debate with my colleagues was the wonderful
article Seven
Principles of Good Teaching Practice written by Dr. James W. King
from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The principles are listed below:

1. Encourage Student- Faculty Contact


2. Encourage Cooperation Among Students


3. Encourage Active Learning


4. Give Prompt Feedback


5. Emphasize Time on Task


6. Communicate High Expectations


7. Respect Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning.

See
new
adaptations of these principles and a
table
with these principles for traditional and online instruction.

Since then I have read and have written a lot of articles on this topic.

Two days ago I found a very clear article at
Xplanzine:

Parables on Learning - The Basic Principles by Rob Reynols:

1. Ask questions


2. Collect wisdom


3. Don’t compartmentalize


4. Be free


5. Promote good character


6. Be open and clear


7. Have fun


8. See abundance


9. Embrace community


10. Be spiritual

--I will extend this note, explaining how I apply all these principles in my online courses;
just to find a little time for this--

Carmen Holotescu

Working on his book "Blogs, Wikis,
Podcasts, and other powerful Web Tools for classrooms", Will Richardson
comes with an example
of using annotated flickr photos.

Some visitors
comment on their experiences.

I also use this tool in my online courses:
here is an example
for a Unix course, having an extended HTML description - which the examples
above don't have, and also comments on the image and in the forum.

Sometime ago I invited the Romanian teachers to join the

flickr in Education group in order to learn/produce/share Educational
Resources.

And a few days ago I presented the

possibility of using BubbleShare:
to an image/set of images you can add a voice presentation and the students can
comment in a forum - so a new possibility of creating Educational Resources.

Subscribing to the RSS provided for each image - Learning Resource in our case - by both flickr and BubbleShare, the teacher/facilitator and the students can monitor the posted comments.

Carmen Holotescu

Useful resources on Web2.0:

• Web 2.0 at Wikipedia


• 
  BBC NEWS | Technology | Berners-Lee on the read/write web


• 
  
  Talking with Stephen Downes about online learning and Web 2.0


• What E-Learning 2.0 means To You


• E-learning 2.0, by Stephen Downes - eLearnMag


• eLearning 2.0 resources


• Weblogg-ed
  - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom


• Technological Reinvention


• Web 2.0 for Designers


• Web 2.0 API Reference - ProgrammableWeb


• 
  Why Web2.0 Matters: Preparing for Glocalization


• Web 2.0: The Power Behind the HypeM


• Web 2.0 Meme Map - Tim O'Reilly - comments


• Visualising Web 2.0


• Web 2.0 Mememap Overview


• WSFinder Wiki |
  WSFinder Blog |
  Map of the Web 2.0
  World | Web
  2.0 Discussion


• Web 2.0 Workgroup


• Web 2.0 Conference 2005


• The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005


• Web2.0 Companies on Google Maps


• The Next Net 25


• Web2.0 - extended mindcloudmap


• Educause - Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning?


• Web 2.0 Awards


• All Things web2.0


• Web2.0Slides


• Vladimir Oane - Ce este web2.0

There are talks about Web2.0, applications Web2.0, companies Web2.0, eLearning 2.0.

Technorati Tag:Web2.0

Carmen Holotescu

An useful service is available at a href="http://www.timsoft.ro">Timsoft:

BlogsBattle

The visibility of two weblogs can be compared:

URL

PageRank

Bloglines Citations


Bloglines Subscribers


Technorati Links

Feedster Links - RSS

Blogdigger Links - RSS

IceRocket Links - RSS

BlogPulse Links - RSS

Google Backlinks

MSN Backlinks - RSS

Yahoo Backlinks

PubSub LinkStats - RSS

delicious Backlinks - RSS


BlogPulse Conversation Seed

BlogPulse Profile

Grafolicious

BlogShares Value

Fagan Finder’s URLinfo

Alexa Info

Silktide SiteScore

KartOO Conexions

TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

The PageRank, the
number of links found by search engines, together
with seach feeds, but also
links to different systems which offer other valuable information are
listed for each weblog .

You can type the URL of a weblog, or a note in a weblog; also
the URL of a site or a specific page in site.

Do you find the service useful? Comments are welcome.

Listed on Blogging tools - e-Learning Centre UK

Carmen Holotescu

There are situations when you need a group RSS starting from a few RSS feeds:

• If your site provides more RSS feeds, you can offer the possibility of
  subscribing to a single one, to the group RSS; as example, the four RSS feeds
  produced by Timsoft have as equivalentTimsoftRSSs,
  a Blogdigger feed, and are listed on
  this page.



• Students participanting in my online courses implement sites providing RSS.
  To monitor their projects I create a group RSS; all the students subscribe to
  this one too, thus having the image of all projects.



• Sometimes you would like to have a single RSS which to contain the items of
  your favourite newspapers RSS feeds.

Which systems can "mix" RSS feeds?

Please find a list below:

::1::Blogdigger Groups:

• create a group RSS, starting from a few RSSs or an OPML file;


• a HTML page of the group is built, which displays the new items;


• search operation is possible, also
  
  search feeds can be created;


• I consider this is the best solution;

::2::FeedPaper -
a Feedster service:

• you can obtain a HTML page which lists the items of the RSSs in group;
  


• options to import OPML and to create the group RSS are not implemented;

::3::FeedShake:

• creates a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;


• option to import OPML is not implemented;

::4, 5, 6::RSSMix, FeedJumbler, FeedCombine:

• create a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;


• a HTML page of the group is built, which displays the new items;


• option to import OPML is not implemented;

::7::BlogSieve:

• create a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;


• different search filters can be applied;


• option to import OPML is not implemented..

Do you know other similar services?

Which group RSSs have you created?

Note:

• TagCloud starts from a few RSSs or
  OPML and creates tags; this service is used "to disclose" which are the
  top subjects of the
  Romanian Blogosphere
  - please take a look at ROTags.

Carmen Holotescu

image from/ answer for
Welcome, Bloglines
- Ask Jeeves Blog

Bloglines is a wonderful service, which I use daily, in order to monitor over
850 feeds -
http://www.bloglines/public/camih, but also to search and to find new
information ( search, related feeds, users public collections, credibility of an RSS given by number of subscribers and citations ).

My feeds include weblogs, sites announcing their news using RSS, search feeds, podcasts; but also
the weblogs of my students working for their diploma or participating in online
courses.

Bloglines deals wonderful with the private RSSs produces by the online courses
using the virtual environment of
Timsoft.
Colections of RSS are displayed in my online courses using the
Bloglines export service.

My wish list for Bloglines future development:

• for each account create an RSS with the new added feeds; why? we learn
  from the resources collected by others ( a solution is given by Superfan - http://www.unpossible.com/superfan/userBloglines ); this RSS would be a measure on how
  her/his OPML is changing; of course each user might choose to share this RSS
  or not; such an RSS would be similar with that one created by
  del.icio.us for each user:

http://del.icio.us/rss/user

• the possibility of creating search feeds for the citations option; it's
  useful to keep up with the citations of sites or specific postings


• the possibility of searching specifying the OPML in which a search to be
  realised; now each user have the possibility to search in her/his feeds
  collection; the option could be extended: to specify whose collection to be
  used; or an external OPML to be specified;


• because very often a user feeds collection counts hundreds of RSS: when
  you try to add a RSS you already have in collection, the message "You are
  already subscribed to that blog." to specify also the Folder which contains
  that feed;


• to be able to find the collections saved by users under specific Folder/ categories - similar with
  Technorati, delicious, flick,MetaFilter; as an example: a search for the feeds saved under Java folder to
  display all the users who have a folder named Java in their collections:
  

  http://www.bloglines.com/tag/java
  # proposal

  
  

  would display users and folders similar with:

  
  http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?id=carmenH&folder=java
  
  

  See below similar applications:

  
  
  
  
  
  • 
    http://www.technorati.com/tag/java - a corresponding watchlist can be
    created
  
  
  • http://del.icio.us/tag/java - an
    RSS is created too
  
  
  • 
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/java - an
    
    RSS is created too
  
  
  • 
    http://www.metafilter.com/tags/java
  
  
  
  

Do you have your own wish list related to Bloglines?

Carmen Holotescu

I'm sure you already met the above images on various sites or weblogs.

The images can be created using RSS Graphic Tool;
see also RSS Button Collection.
There are talks now about accepting a standard image
- Feed Icons.

RSS is an
open protocol for publishing/syndicating the information on Web. An RSS ( or RSS
Feed ) -
Rich Site Summary feed - is a XML file, which describes the updated content
of a site. Initially this protocol was used by Netcape in order to create My Netscape
pages; then RSS was adopted by the news syndication services and weblogs.

Recently RSS has turned 6 - see
RSS history and versions.

RSS is also considered the abbreviation of RDF - Resource Description
Framework Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication.



A RSS file includes a logo, link and title of the site, and also the news items;
each item consists of the URL of the news, a title and a description.



Systems called aggregators ( online systems - the best knows is
Bloglines; read why

I love Bloglines ) or desktop RSS Readers read RSS feeds and inform
the subscribers on the news on the corresponding site; thus the information is
syndicated. The contents of
RSS feeds is stored in databases, which can be searched using different search
keys.

By subscribing to RSSs you are able to monitor different sites without having
to visit them periodically; also you reduce the possibility of receiving viruses
and spams by newsletters.

The search engines specific to RSS index the information in a few
seconds/minutes after the RSS feeds were updated, while the classic search
engines make the new information visible in a few days.

This is why the RSS feeds and weblogs - which produce RSS - are called the World Live Web.

More at
RSS and Weblog-uri (
in Ro ) -
eLearning eJournal.

RSS: the next big
thing is useful
in many
domains.
See also RSS Quick Start Guide for Educators, RSS Workshop,
Tools for RSS

A technology similar with RSS is Atom – se AtomEnabled.org, RSS and Atom compared.

The weblog systems automatically create RSS feeds. But how can you create a
RSS for your site?

Here there are some solutions - see also RSS Compendium - RSS Editors:

• a text editor ( such as Notepad ), and build the RSS structure - see the
  article
  RSS and Weblogs (
  in Ro )


• a program such as
  ListGarden RSS
  Feed Generator; se also this article
  for other programs


• use an online editor such as RSS-xpress, RapidFeeds, RSSxl


• generate automatically a RS for sites which don't offer it with RSSApplet, FeedTier, MySyndicaat, FeedFire, FeedYes, Feed43


• a Perl script ( this is how
  eLearn _TS
  creates the RSS feeds for its online courses ) or a PHP script in the site
  content system - such as
  FeedCreator.class.php, Netious Web-based RSS;
  see also this tutorial


• a simple solution, which is my proposal: a RSS file can be defined as a del.icio.us
  tag, to which you submit the pages which constitute the items.

Which is the variant you use to
create the RSS for your site?



Check with BlogsBattle
the notoriety / visibility of your site, which is assured by your RSS; and learn
how
to create a better RSS.

Carmen Holotescu

Let's learn from the others:

1.
Blog Tips - Central Register: "There are no hard and fast RULES
of how to blog - basically:

it's about being true to yourself,

getting what's inside you into cyber space,

connecting with others and

growing in your ideas as you interact with them."

2. Rebecca Blood -
The Weblog Handbook -

Weblog ethics:

Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.

If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.

Publicly correct any misinformation.

Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not
rewrite or delete, any entry.

Disclose any conflict of interest.

Note questionable and biased sources.

Weblogs: a history and perspective

There is a blog in your future

3.
3 Steves and a Blog:

be short and brief,

find your voice,

draw connections,

be human,

participate.

4.
Downes's How to be heard:

plan

design

implement

blog

market

audio and video blogging

revise.

Aileen Earle

Finally have found a space in my diary for testing.

Bongwoo Lee

Today is a begining day of October.
Cheer up! Fighting!

good luck to you!

Bongwoo Lee

Welcome to my weblog.

Have a nice day in Physible.

Vegard Engstrøm

I am very happy to see the Online Community up and running, and I look forward to see it being used by an increasing number of teachers and educators across Europe as the project moves forward :-)

ContVizitare

Welcome to Physible.