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Why do synchronous web tools suck?

2011-10-20T20:26:21Z

Shared by Anto
Sistemi di Web Conference
Note dal campo.. Elluminate (realizzato in Java) è effettivamente di livello superiore, ma a quali costi?

We are several weeks into the Change open online course. We have an outstanding speaker list. But, unfortunately, we’ve had issues every week with our live online sessions. We’ve looked at WizIQ, Vyew, and Big Blue Button. All have been terrible failures. So we tried FuzeMeeting today. Another horrible crash and burn. It’s getting embarrassing and frustrating as a MOOC organizer. Course participants and facilitators have been very patient, but even that goodwill is wearing thin after our FuzeMeeting experience today.

In the past, I was involved with Elluminate as a community partner. Which meant that I used their platform for about 150 attendees. With Blackboard’s purchase of Elluminate, that arrangement was cancelled. We’ve tried Adobe Connect, but audio quality has been poor in the past. Elluminate was/is what an online platform needs to be: simple, easy to use, with good quality audio. The platforms we’ve tried attempt to do to much or do it in a confusing fashion. With BBB, for example, you have to login, then actually click an extra button to hear audio. It’s a small step, but it has produced a fair bit of confusion. People enter these virtual spaces wit a sense of disorientation. Each small step can be a challenge. FuzeMeeting has a similar additional step – select various audio inputs before you can hear anything. Do these organizations do user testing? Do they know where newcomers become confused? Elluminate was simple, clunky, intuitive, and remains the best synchronous tool I’ve used.

Here is a rule of thumb for determining audio quality with a synchronous class:

1. Is it written in Flash?
2. If the answer to #1 is “yes”, it will suck

Which is why I was almost excited when we started playing with FuzeMeeting – it uses Java for audio (at least, I’m assuming that’s what the java plugin is used for). We’re going to attempt another session later this week in FuzeMeeting, but given our experiences so far, I’m not too optimistic. Which is why it’s good to see that Stephen has initiated a G+ thread on synchronous classroom options. Any suggestions?

Review: The Edupunks' Guide, by Anya Kamenetz

2011-08-10T10:47:19Z

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Urca, che stroncatura! Non mi era dispiaciuto il libretto della Kamenetz, è comunque ricco di risorse, anche se poco utili per il pubblico non-USA, almeno per quanto riguarda diplomi e certificazioni.
Certo Downes approfondisce il tema in modo più "filosofico" e allora.. effettivamente non si può dargli torto..

Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, August 9, 2011.

Author Anya Kamenetz is the guest on this month's Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) list discussion. After a few comments back and forth I was moved to read her new booklet, The Edupunks Guide and offer this review. Although Kamenetz defends 'her usage' of the term (against Jim Groom, whom she says "helped" define 'edupunk'), my review makes it very clear, I think, that she offers an inferior and unhelpful view of do-it-yourself education. [Link] [Comment]

Stanford University does a MOOC

2011-08-05T01:53:06Z

I love this! Stanford University Artificial Intelligence is being offered as an open online course. I’ve been involved in numerous massive open online courses (MOOCs) – they’ve been wonderful personal learning experiences. MOOCs are great opportunities to connect with colleagues from around the world and develop a broad understanding of topics from diverse perspectives. Our goal, since CCK08, has been to do for teaching and learning what MIT did for content.

(We are offering a fall open course on change in education).

Why is the Stanford course an important development? Well, first, it reflects the logical next stage of education and openness: as the course authors state in their intro video, “we want to teach the world”. Second, education is ripe for change and transformation and alternative models, that take advantage of global connectedness, are important to explore. Third, when traditional universities such as U of Illinois (eduMOOC) and now Stanford start opening up courses, it’s reasonable to expect that we’ll be seeing more of these in the next several years. Finally, learning in a global cohort is an outstanding experience – networking on steroids!

Popolarità delle pagine Facebook delle Università italiane

2011-07-05T12:23:59Z

Shared by Anto
Praticamente insignificante l'interesse istituzionale delle università italiane verso i social network. Non mi pare sorprendente...

In poco più di un anno la pagina Facebook dell’Università di Urbino Carlo Bo ha raggiunto poco meno di 6000 “Mi Piace”.

Per festeggiare questo evento ho deciso di raccogliere i dati di popolarità su Facebook di tutti gli atenei italiani. Sono dunque partito dall’elenco completo degli atenei fornito dal Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca e sono andato a cercare su Facebook le pagine corrispondenti. Non tutte gli atenei italiani (68%) hanno stabilito una presenza su Facebook (non ho tenuto conto delle community page create automaticamente da Facebook stessa perchè prive di una bacheca e dunque di ogni forma di interattività).

Gli atenei più popolari sono l’Università degli Studi di Torino e l’Università degli Studi di Padova con, rispettivamente, 15305 e 14786 “Mi Piace”.

Di seguito il grafico con i quindici atenei più popolari.

Non occorre sottolineare che la competizione di popolarità fra atenei su Facebook è in qualche modo una battaglia che non si combatte ad armi pari poiché il numero di studenti iscritti varia sensibilmente. Ho dunque provato ad utilizzare i dati degli iscritti disponibili sul sito dell’anagrafe studenti MIUR per rendere la competizione meno squilibrata.

Ponderando il numero di “Mi Piace” sul numero degli iscritti emergono i casi dell’Università per Stranieri di Perugia (167% di “Mi Piace” in rapporto ai 1404 iscritti) e dell’Università Telematica “Universitas MERCATORUM” (77% ma su soli 196 iscritti). Limitando l’analisi agli atenei con almeno 5000 iscritti spicca l’Università IUAV di Venezia (68% e 5636 iscritti), l’Università di Foggia (60% e 10047 iscritti) e l’Università di Urbino Carlo Bo (48% e 12494 iscritti). Fra gli atenei con oltre 15.000 iscritti spicca il caso dell’Università “Ca’ Foscari” di Venezia (43% su 17389 iscritti).

Andando a guardare i trend di crescita a partire dalla prima rilevazione effettuata il 20 settembre 2010 e limitando l’analisi agli atenei che avevano almeno 1000 “Mi Piace” alla prima rilevazione spicca la crescita a tre cifre (+151%) della pagina dell’Università degli Studi di Udine. In forte crescita anche le pagine dell’Università Kore di Enna (+75%), dell’Università Bicocca di Milano (+75%) e dell’Università per Stranieri di Perugia (+70%). Abbastanza inspiegabile, infine, il crollo della pagina della Seconda Università di Napoli (-71%).

In generale solo una piccola parte di atenei ha registrato il suo indirizzo breve su Facebook e, da quanto ho potuto vedere, non ci sono landing page o strategie di marketing particolari. Credo sia un errore del quale si avvantaggeranno i primi atenei che investiranno con serietà su questa forma di promozione e di creazione/gestione della community.

Per farsi un’idea di come le università americane si stanno muovendo nel settore dei social media consiglio la lettura di questo articolo.

Come al solito il foglio di calcolo di Google Spreadsheet usato per le analisi è disponibile per la libera consultazione di chi volesse fare le sue analisi. Se conoscete una pagina Facebook di una Università o comunità di studenti che mi è sfuggita non esitate a segnarmela qui nei commenti.

Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For?

2011-07-04T15:00:04Z

Shared by Anto
e si parla già di usi nella scuola, con la dovuta, forse inevitabile, superficialità :-)

There seem to be three forces at play when it comes to education and social media. The first is a lack of force, quite frankly - the inertia that makes many educators unwilling and uninterested in integrating the technology into their classrooms. The second is the force of fear - the pressures on the part of administrators, district officials, and politicians to curtail and ban teacher and students' interactions online. (See Rhode Island's recently passed legislation that outlaws all social media on school grounds as a case in point.) And finally, the third force is that of more and more educators who are embracing social media and advocating its use on- and off-campus - for student learning and for teacher professional development alike.

I spent this past week with many of those teachers at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia, and when Google unveiled Google+ on Tuesday, most of us were otherwise preoccupied. But now that many of the early tech adopter teachers are getting their Google+ invites, the question on their minds is "How will this work for education?"

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Plus Potentials for Schools

The first reaction among many educators is that Google+ could work well. As a post on the Apps User Group points out, there is a lot of potential with Google+: better student collaboration through Circles, opportunities for blended learning (a combination of offline and online instruction) with Hangouts, project research with Sparks, and easier school public relations with targeted photo-sharing, updates, and messaging.

Privacy: As Google's own description of the new social feature highlights, it may well be the granular level of privacy afforded by Google+ that is the key to making this a successful tool for schools. Although some educators do use Facebook or Twitter in the classroom, neither of these are ideal in a school setting. Privacy concerns continue to plague Facebook and Facebook users, and although the addition of Facebook Groups late last year did make it easier for educators to have "private" conversations with smaller groups, many schools and teachers have still been reluctant to "friend" students or use the social networking site for educational purposes. And while Twitter has been embraced by many educators - for both professional development and for back-channeling in the classroom - there's still that "always public" element of Twitter that makes many nervous.

True, Circles gives teachers and students better control over sharing and by extension could be the key to making many more comfortable with social networking. But sharing online isn't simply about weighing privacy concerns; it's also about sharing with the right people. Circles will allow what educational consultant Tom Barnett calls "targeted sharing," something that will be great for specific classes and topics.

Educational Hangouts: Sharing isn't just about pushing information out, of course. It's also about finding and hearing the right information and right people. And like most of the new users to Google+, it may be Hangouts that have educators most intrigued. Skype has become an incredibly popular tool to bring in guests to a classroom via video chat - so much so that Skype has launched a service to help match interested teachers and classrooms. But as those weighing a move to a Google Chromebook are quick to discover: Skype isn't a Web app. Hangouts, on the other hand, is, and many teachers are already talking about the possibility of not just face-to-face video conversation but the potential for integration of whiteboards, screen-sharing, Google Docs, and other collaborative tools.

Plus Minuses for Schools

These early reactions from educators echo what seems to be the general consensus about Google+: it's very cool. But there's a big gap between this initial excitement and more widespread adoption - particularly when it comes to schools.

Limited Field Trial: The most obvious obstacle right now to that adoption of Google+ for education is the limited nature of the field trial. The number of people using the service remains small, and as many of the educators there are early adopters - already active on Twitter, for example, already challenging their schools to be more proactive with technology integration - it's hard to gauge whether or not Google+ really will see wider usage.

Google Apps Integration: The second problem, of course, is that Google+ is not yet integrated with Google Apps accounts. To use Google+, you need a Google Profile, a feature not yet available with Google Apps for Education. However, a Google spokesperson assures me that that's coming soon and that "we're working to bring features in the Google+ project to Google Apps users in the future." Indeed, Google Enterprise's Dave Girouard posted enthusiastically on Google+ that "Can't wait to get Google+ out to some of our Apps for EDU schools!"

For its part, Google says that it wants to make sure to "get it right" in terms of the technology and in terms of the privacy controls before bringing Google+ to its Apps for Edu customers. Google could offer no timeline for that roll-out.

Web Filtering: Of course, Google's efforts are just part of the puzzle, and while Google+ may be a no-brainer for its Apps for Edu customers, there are still many schools which have been slow to adopt technology and have been quick to block all social networking sites on campus. Even Google's own YouTube is blocked at a lot of schools. While students name this one of the biggest obstacles in their use of technology at school, the schools claim they must do so to "protect the children."

Will schools block Google+? Or will the finely-tuned privacy controls it offers trump schools', parents', and politicians' concerns?

The early ed-tech adopters I've talked to seem excited about the possibilities for having a place where students and teachers alike can embrace "the social" and collaborate in the classroom, at home, across the school, and with others around the world. As it stands, those activities are now scattered across Twitter, Nings, and wikis. To have them under one Google roof is a big educational play. Will it be the one to help more schools realize the potential for social media and collaboration tools?

Discuss

Google+ e Facebook: layout a confronto

2011-07-01T20:40:03Z

Shared by Anto
si somigliano. E anche tanto! Quindi? Continuiamo a dire che "sono cose diverse"? Mah..

Quanto assomiglia all’antagonista il design del nuovo servizio di Google?

La risposta è “parecchio” secondo il progettista di interfacce che usa lo pseudonimo uxboy e che ha accostato due schermate tipo dei due siti di social networking, quelle della bacheca e dello stream, i rispettivi flussi di notizie e commenti.

Ecco il confronto, che potete vedere in versione più grande su twitpic, con una citazione d’autore.

MOOCs as ecologies - or - why i work on MOOCs

2011-06-30T18:40:31Z

Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog, June 30, 2011.

Dave Cormier adds to the discussion around MOOCs that has flared up in recent days, responding especially to David Wiley's challenges to MOOCs here and here and George Siemens’ response. He says what I would say, were I inclined to write on the topic:"If the MOOC challenges anything, it challenges the idea that a teacher can decide what people need to know, how much they currently know and what they should get out of the learning process. You can’t. You just can’t do it, not consistently, not over time, not for the majority of your students, not for millions of teachers. The solution presented by the MOOC is that the learner should begin to take control of how and what they are to learn." [Link] [Comment]

Do open online courses have a role in educational reform?

2011-06-27T09:31:54Z

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Ci si interroga sul senso degli Open Course, addirittura sulla sigla MOOC.
Lieto di vedere citato il mio articolo relativo al corso CCK08, nel quale proponevo l'elemento "diversità" (di intenti, di tecnologie, di obiettivi raggiunti, di linguaggi, ecc.) come elemento fondamentale degli open course.

A few days ago, I posted a link to an upcoming open online course on my elearnspace site being run by the University of Illinois Springfield: eduMOOC. The Chronicle picked up on the U of I course and highlighted a point made by David Wiley that “MOOCs and their like are not the answer to higher education’s problems”. This prompted David to post clarifications on his view of MOOCs . I’d like to engage with a few of David’s points.

I agree with David’s assertions that MOOCs are effective for learning, that there is a productive place for them in education, and that the name sucks. I disagree with his assertion that the “massive” aspect is irrelevant, that MOOCs are not potentially significant in driving change (that’s a bit of a misstatement of David’s point, but I believe it is in keeping with the spirit of his post).

First – let’s tackle the name. Bryan Alexander and Dave Cormier coined the term at roughly the same time. It stuck because it reflected what was happening with CCK08 – it was open, online, and we had far more learners sign up than we had anticipated. But it seems that everyone hates the term “MOOC”. I have a colleague in Spain who told me that it means “mucus” in Spanish. On the Chronicle site, someone stated that sounds like the word “pig” in Gaelic. David says it’s goofy. Well, we’re agreed then – it’s not a great word. When I first heard the term “blog” I reacted with equal indignation – what a crappy term! But once a term gains a bit of usage and traction, it’s rather hard to change. Beyond agreeing, I don’t have a solution.

David states “Inasmuch as MOOCs seem to be allergic to structure, and go out of their way to avoid structures that would place any kind of requirement (or even moderately strong suggestion) on anyone, they appear to be an extremely poor fit for individuals who are not well prepared academically”. I personally don’t avoid structure and I don’t avoid assessment or grading. I’ve graded students in all three of the CCK offerings. For our upcoming MOOC, several universities are considering offering credit for the course (Georgia Tech and Athabasca U). Both will be building assignment criteria around the course to ensure credibility. Of the complaints David offers, this one surprised me a bit. From what I’ve seen of his presentations, he has been advocating for some level of disaggretation in education. MOOCs follow that trajectory: teaching is open, marking/grading/accreditation happens at an individual institutional levels. Teaching and assessment do not necessarily need to be connected. Learn globally, accredit locally.

However, this isn’t David’s main point here. He suggests that MOOCs are a poor fit for people who aren’t academically prepared. It’s an important consideration. If, in our attempt to open education, we throw barriers in front of learners, we are defeating our goals. I’m not sure how David defines a “prepared learner”. Going back to an Learning Management System example – in 2000 an LMS was a bit foreign, quite clunky, highly technical, and likely only worked well for prepared people with basic tech skills. Today, LMS’ have buried most of that complexity and they are easier to use. People are generally more technically literate as well – most of us have used social networks, social media, and the participative web. It’s easier to use an LMS and learn online when you’re comfortable with the medium. I have a hard time seeing David’s point here – the fact that people don’t have the skills to participate in distributed networks for learning and sensemaking is exactly why we need MOOCs.

The problem David sees is the solution I envision. This has been a sore spot for participants in each of our CCK courses. When the course begins, we inform learners that the process of clarifying confusion and disorientation – sensemaking and wayfinding in complex settings – is the learning. Grappling with pieces that don’t connect and finding a way to connect them is what the course is all about. In the process, learners may move toward a target where knowledge is defined and educators know what learners need to know or they may move more informally in directions that interest them without a goal of accreditation. Many (no idea if it’s most or not) learners that continue in the MOOC seem to settle into the flow of the course and begin to connect pieces. They don’t do this in isolation, however. We have high levels of support in terms of weekly live sessions, Twitter/blogs/The Daily, peer support, and in the learning analytics course we did in January, Dave Cormier started offering a “learner concierge” forum where irritated and confused learners could go with the expectation of getting help.

If the issue that David highlights is one of academic skills – such as when learners don’t have the skills to use a computer or to traverse distributed information, then, yes, he is right – we have a concern that needs to be addressed because people need unique skills to learn in open online courses. But, as with the LMS example, people are learning these skills. It’s not an insurmountable problem. Many schools and colleges teach study skills, critical thinking, and writing skills courses. However, if David states, which I believe he does with his examples of remedial courses, that people can’t learn basic content in this environment, then he is addressing learner capacity, not skills. The only way of addressing this concern is, as he suggests, to run and evaluate courses that target those learners. Even then, if learners don’t do well, we come up against the question of whether the shortcomings are due to learners not having needed skills (which should then be our real focus) or difficulty with subject matter in the distributed network environment.

For me, MOOCs have been wonderful global learning experiences. This article from 2009 details the diversity of open courses – almost half of the participants don’t have English as a first language. That’s significant. I’ve been surprised at the number of learners from developing countries. A MOOC – even when it’s a messy, chaotic, imperfect, frustrating learning experience is still more accessible to many people than a wonderfully designed and well-delivered course. We’ve had over 10 000 participants in courses that we’ve done. Only a fraction of those were active participants. However, I continue to see a growing body of literature on MOOCs, I receive fairly consistent email feedback from people who have found them to be valuable, and I get a fair amount of positive feedback when I attend conferences. As imperfect as MOOCs are, and as much learning as we’re doing trying to figure out how to run them, they are having an impact.

David states, “MOOCs are not a solution to the problem of large and growing demand for higher education for people who are less well prepared”. What would count as a suitable solution to a complex problem such as this? No doubt, it won’t be a single solution. Growing demand for higher education, coupled with calls for increased accountability of the system, presents a complex challenge. What other solutions are being explored that reflect the realities of budget constraints, open content, decreasing faith in higher education as a good investment (at least in the US), and the rapidly growing higher education needs of developing countries such as India? With my involvement with MOOCs, I’m not stating “I have found the answer, follow me!”. Instead, I’m stating “I’m experimenting, join in”.

The concepts we’re exploring with MOOCs – distributed teaching, sub-networks, peer teaching, learner content creation, social networks, new methods of aggregating information, local institution accreditation – are important in reframing the higher education system of the future. MOOCs may or may not have a future. But the ideas we’re playing with and trying to understand will be foundational in any education system in a technology-infused world.

In terms of “massive”, David states: “There are 100s of 1000s of people in these games. “Massively multi-learner” might have made sense if the goal of MOOCs was to serve 100s of 1000s of people”. If I read his comments correctly, he is asking whether MOOCs are about “massive openness” or “massive in terms of numbers of learners”. I’ve always thought it referred to the latter. Massive openness makes no sense. We’ve had anywhere from 500 to 2000+ learners in open courses that I’ve offered with Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier. In those instances, massive means everything. Just as a city can develop advanced services for citizens (such as public transportation) when population density increases, open online course with large numbers of learners have more options than courses with small numbers of learners. We’ve seen courses with different language translations (CCK08’s syllabus was translated into five different languages), different sub-networks (SecondLife, face-to-face get togethers, learner-created live meetings), peer content and technical support, and universities offering credit for students who have participated in courses that we’ve offered. Sub-networks and learner-defined spaces of interaction are a function of the number of participants. If we only had 25 participants, activities and sub-networks wouldn’t make much sense. We need a level of “learner density” in order for the innovation to develop that we’ve witnessed in previous courses.

How do some students overcome their socio-economic background?

2011-06-27T08:40:24Z

Shared by Anto
Le motivazioni intrinseche sono più potenti di quelle estrinseche.. Bella scoperta! E' scritto in qualsiasi manuale di psicologia...

PISA in Focus, OECD, June 26, 2011.

As I have often commented, the greatest predictor of educational outcomes is socio-economic background. If you're rich, you do better in school. But many people from disadvantaged backgrounds still achieve great things. These students are what we would call resilient. I am one, I think. So why do resilient students succeed where the others fail? This analysis of PISA results identifies two factors. One is more regular lessons at school. The resilient student is less likely to skip class. But even more important, in my view, is self-confidence. "Some 75% of resilient students believed they can give good answers to test questions on science topics, while only about 50% of disadvantaged low achievers shared this belief." And in many cases, resilience is tied to motivation, "particularly motivation that arises from a personal, internal drive, rather than motivation that is prompted by an external stimulus such as the prospect of a certain job or salary." [Link] [Comment]

Windows XP Still Powers 60% of Corporate Desktops, Apple Makes Small Gains

2011-06-18T14:44:20Z

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XP resiste!

According to a new report from Forrester, Windows 7 is now in use on 20% of corporate desktops as of March 2011. Windows XP still holds on to 59.9% of the enterprise desktop world (down from 67.5% a year go). Apple now has an 11% share of the corporate desktop (up from 9.1%). Linux has only 1.4% (it was 1.3% a year before this study).

Meanwhile, Internet Explorer use is declining slightly while Chrome and Safari are on the rise.

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The pace of Windows 7 adoption is accelerating, according to the report. Windows 7 dominates new deployments, with XP and Vista finally starting to disappear. Forrester says Vista adoption peaked in November of 2009 at 14% and has declined ever since.

Internet Explorer declined slightly to a 58.7% share of corporate browser use from 61.9%. Firefox clocked in at 17.8%, down from 21.9% as it cedes share to Chrome (14.1%) and Safari (8.8%).

Forrester recommends that companies use virtualization to run legacy applications such as Internet Explorer 6 in isolated containers instead of clinging to outdated operating systems that slow down the adoption of other technologies.

Discuss

June 15, 2011

2011-06-16T21:39:42Z

“Another way in which computers can be either integrated into or isolated from the learning process has to do less with the computer as an instrument than with computing as a set of ideas. The issue appears very clearly when one contrasts what has come to be called “computer literacy” with the sense of the word literacy used to refer to someone as a literate person. Computer literacy has come to be defined, especially in the context of School, as a very minimal practical knowledge about computers.

Someone who had so minimal a level of knowledge of reading, writing and literature would be called illiterate.

Moreover, the difference is not merely one of degree buy of one of kinds of knowledge. When we say, “X is a very literate person,” we do not mean that X is highly skilled at deciphering phonics. At the least, we imply that X knows literature, but beyond this we mean that X has certain ways of understanding the world that derive from an acquaintance with literary culture.In the same way, the term computer literacy should refer to the kinds of knowing that derive from a computer culture.”

Papert, S. (1993) The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. NY: Basic Books. Page 52.

Spam clogging Amazon’s Kindle self-publishing

2011-06-18T14:24:26Z

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Autopubblicazione su Amazon. Qualcuno si è inventato un modo per produrre automaticamente e-book. Sì, si pubblicano (e si vendono...) libri SENZA scriverli, recuperando materiale sul web in modo automatico. Fino a 20 libri al giorno!
The dark side of self-publishing?

Alistair Barr, Globe and Mail, June 17, 2011.

Amazon opened a publish-it-yourself functionality on Kindle and it was flooded with spam. Of course it was flooded with spam. Any place you open to public input is soon flooded with spam. "Aspiring spammers can even buy a DVD box set called Autopilot Kindle Cash that claims to teach people how to publish 10 to 20 new Kindle books a day without writing a word." On the open internet, we have ways of dealing with this. But in a closed marketplace, it's a lot more difficult. "Forrester’s McQuivey said Amazon will have to craft a social-network solution to the problem. If the company can let readers see book recommendations from people they know, or people whose reviews they liked in the past, that would help them track down the content they want and avoid misleading recommendations, he explained." [Link] [Comment]

Chi usa Facebook ha più fiducia negli altri

2011-06-17T15:55:13Z

Shared by Anto
Riassunto in italiano dell'importante studio del Pew Internet sui riflessi dei social network nella vita reale. Ha ragione Fabio, bisognerebbe farlo anche in Italia. Diciamo che servirebbe fare ricerca..

Questa è una delle conclusioni a cui sono giunti i ricercatori del Pew Internet nel loro ultimo studio intitolato Social networking sites and our lives.

Il report è particolarmente interessante perché affronta temi che spesso affiorano quando si parla di Internet e Siti di Social Network: Saremo tutti più isolati e individualisti? Ci rinchiuderemo nella cerchia delle persone che condividono le nostre stesse opinioni ed interessi?

Queste ipotesi appaiono largamente smentite dai dati e dall’analisi che ne fanno i ricercatori americani.

Alla domanda che chiedeva di indicare il grado di accordo sull’affermazione “sento che la maggior parte delle persone sono degne di fiducia” gli utenti di Internet hanno risposto affermativamente nel doppio dei casi rispetto ai non utenti di Internet. Inoltre un utente di Facebook che usa la piattaforma diverse volte al giorno ha il 43% di possibilità in più rispetto agli utenti di Internet di esprimere accordo con questa affermazione. I dati sono stati depurati dal fattore demografico (ovvero i ricercatori hanno tenuto conto del fatto che il grado di accordo ad una domanda simile può essere correlato con l’età della persona ed essendo gli utenti di siti di social network più giovani del resto della popolazione…);
Gli utenti di Facebook hanno un numero maggiore di legami sociali forti. La media US è di 2.16 amici con cui ci si confida (in crescita rispetto al 1.93 della rilevazione 2008). Gli utenti Facebook che usano la piattaforma più volte al giorno hanno in media il 9% in più di legami forti rispetto agli altri utenti Internet;
Calcolando il supporto sociale (emotivo, compagnia e strumentale) che si riceve dai propri legami sociali su una scala dove il massimo è 100, gli americani in media fanno registrare i seguenti dati: 75/100 supporto, 75/100 supporto emotivo, 76/100 compagnia, 75/100 strumentale. Gli utenti internet superano di 3 punti la media sul supporto totale e di 6 punti la media sulla compagnia. Gli utenti Facebook che usano la piattaforma più volte al giorno ottengono altri 5 punti (rispetto agli Internet users) sul supporto totale, 5 punti sul supporto emotivo e 5 punti sulla compagnia. Per dare un’idea di cosa significhi la differenza in questa scala i ricercatori fanno notare che l’incremento di punteggio fatto registrare dagli utenti Facebook è paragonabile per entità a sposarsi o andare a vivere con un partner;
Dati relativi alle elezioni di MidTerm 2010. Su una media di 10 Americani su 100 che dichiarano di aver partecipato ad una dimostrazione politica, 23% che ha provato a convincere altri a supportare uno specifico candidato e 66% che hanno dichiarato di essere intenzionati a votare, l’utente Internet ha il doppio di possibilità di aver partecipato ad un evento politico, il 78% di possibilità in più di aver cercato di convincere altri a supportare un certo candidato ed il 53% in più di dichiarare di aver intenzione di votare. Rispetto agli utenti Internet, gli utenti Facebook che usano la piattaforma più volte al giorno hanno due volte e mezzo la possibilità che ha un utente Internet di aver partecipato ad una manifestazione politica, il 57% in più di aver cercato di persuadere qualcuno a votare in un certo modo e un 43% di possibilità in più di aver dichiarato l’intenzione di partecipare al voto.

Altri dati interessanti:

il 79& degli Americani adulti ha usato Internet ed il 47% (59% degli Internet Users) almeno un sito di social network. In Italia secondo una ricerca svolta con metodologia analoga a Dicembre 2010 dal laboratorio di ricerca LaRiCA erano 58% di Italiani adulti ad aver usato Internet e 32% (55% degli Internet Users) ad aver usato un sito di social network;
Solo il 3% dei contatti su Facebook degli utenti Americani è costituito da persone che l’utente non ha mai conosciuto ed il 7% da persone incontrate una sola volta.

Come al solito vorrei sottolineare quanto sarebbe importante, utile e relativamente semplice riproporre uno studio identico in Italia. Se qualcuno vuole finanziare l’operazione io mi metto a disposizione per lavorarci gratuitamente anche da domani

The Three Most Important Questions in Education

2011-06-17T14:58:37Z

Shared by Anto
Tre domande chiave per l'educazione del 21° secolo!

Sam Chaltain, Huffington Post, June 16, 2011.

Huffington Post article plus embedded TED Video (hence hitting all the major media) on the central questions of 21st century education:
1. How do people learn best?
2. What are the essential skills of a free people?
3. What does it mean to be free?
According to Chaltain, "we need a model for a new age -- the Democratic Age. And we need strategies for ensuring that young people learn how to be successful in the 21st-century world of work, life, and our democratic society." I agree, but the deeper question here is how we characterize that model. [Link] [Comment]

The crusade against college

2011-06-07T19:04:18Z

Ben Werdmuller, benwerd, June 7, 2011.

I think we need to manage the message a bit. This is the conclusion I draw after reading Ben Werdmuller's analysis of the 'crusade against college'. "There's been a lot of buzz in tech circles about college being a waste of time," he writes, giving a number of examples. But "if we are to lose faith in college degrees, how can we best represent what an individual is capable of?" Moreover, "if you take salaries away and look only at the overall education of a person, and the overall knowledge of our global society at large, don't universities have some inherent value?" He argues, and I agree, that they do. But - and here's the key point - maybe college (properly so-called) isn't the best way to achieve this end. Leaving aside the other (unsavory) purpose of the college system - to create an elite ruling class - it seems to me that while we may say 'college is not for everyone' we also want to say that 'a college education is for everyone'. The world does not divide naturally into geniuses and dullards; we divide it that way, and contribute in great measure to the creation of each. [Link] [Comment]

The curious guide to browsers and the web: now in 15 languages and open-sourced

2011-06-03T13:35:45Z

Shared by Anto
Ed ecco la versione italiana!

When we published the illustrated HTML5 web book, 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web, late last year, we were excited by the positive response from teachers, web developers and many of you who shared in the joy of rediscovering how the web works.

Today, we've made this web book available in 15 languages, including Bahasa Indonesia, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Spanish, and Tagalog. If you have family members and friends around the world who speak these languages, you can point them to the translated guidebook at www.20thingsilearned.com, where illustrator Christoph Niemann brings to life topics ranging from 什麼是網際網路？ (“what is the Internet?) to so schützen moderne browser vor malware und phishing (“how modern browsers protect you from malware and phishing”) and otevřený zdrojový kód a prohlížeč (“open source and browsers”).

For those of you who want to tinker with the code and build your own web books, you can now dive into the HTML5, JavaScript and CSS used to build 20 Things I Learned with the fully open-sourced code. In developing this web experience, we took inspiration from the things we love about books and extended them to the world of bits and bytes with the capabilities of modern web technologies. We paid special attention to finding the right balance and weight in the cover and page flips; making the book available offline, easily searchable, as well as bookmarkable by allowing you to pick up where you previously left off; and implementing a "lights-off" mode to simulate reading with a flashlight under the covers.

20 Things I Learned was celebrated this year as an Official Honoree at the 15th Annual Webby Awards in the categories of Education, Best Visual Design (Function) and Best Practices. To learn more about the technical details behind some of the most-loved features of the book, see our post on the Google Code blog.

We hope you’ll continue to find this curious guide to browsers and the web useful and informative. 20 Things I Learned is best experienced in Chrome or any up-to-date, HTML5-compliant modern browser. For those of you who’ve previously read this web book, don’t forget to hit refresh on your browser to see the new language options.

Posted by Cory Ferreria, Localization Lead, Google Chrome Team

Documerica: l’America degli anni ’70 in 15mila fotografie su Flickr

2011-05-05T20:00:08Z

Shared by Anto
Straordinario viaggio fotografico negli USA anni 70

Matthew Vieira Stands in the Very Place Where, Some Thirty-Five Years Ago, He Took These Pictures of His Children, 06/1973, foto di Michael Philip Manheim - Flickr, National Archives

Da qualche settimana le fotografie di Documerica si possono vedere su Flickr:
DOCUMERICA Project by the Environmental Protection Agency

Le oltre 15mila foto di Documerica raccontano molto di più di quel che i creatori del progetto, nel dicembre del 1971, avevano in mente.

Doveva servire per documentare i progressi e i fallimenti dell’Epa (Environmental Protection Agency), l’agenzia del governo degli Stati Uniti per la protezione dell’ambiente, creata appena un anno prima dal presidente Richard Nixon (proprio quello del Watergate).

Documerica, Arizona - Navajo Nation, foto di Terry Eiler - Flickr, National Archives

In effetti, invece, è un progetto che ricorda da vicino quelli avviati dal governo americano durante la grande depressione, dai quali uscirono immagini memorabili, come quelle di Dorothea Lange, capaci di raccontare complessivamente l’America di quegli anni.

Lo stesso si può dire di Documerica, relativamente alla prima metà degli anni Settanta. Nel 1974 furono 81mila le fotografie censite nell’ambito del progetto, scattate da oltre 100 fotografi. Le più significative – 22mila – vennero rese disponibili per giornali e riviste, e autori ed editori di libri e curatori di mostre.

Mi sembra che queste immagini ci aiutino a guardare il cuore dell’America di quegli anni. Anni nei quali quel grande paese ha prodotto idee, cultura, cose, sofferenze, riflessioni che ancora oggi segnano e condizionano il modo in cui pensiamo agli Usa.

Documerica, Downtown Parking Lot 08/1973, foto di Tom Hubbard - Flickr, National Archives

Per molti versi queste immagini mi ricordano anche il modo in cui Robert Frank raccontò con le fotografie il suo viaggio negli Usa del 1955 in un grande libro, The Americans, che venne pubblicato con alcune pagine introduttive di Jack Kerouac (una parte delle foto venne allestita in una mostra che circolò in Italia qualche anno anno fa; giusto per ripetermi: su Robert Frank e il suo lavoro, ha scritto alcune pagine irrinunciabili Geoff Dyer in L’infinito istante. Saggio sulla fotografia, Einaudi).

Tagged: Documerica, Dorothea Lange, flickr, Fotografia, Robert Frank, The Americans

Networks explained by Barabåsi

2011-05-05T09:26:35Z

Shared by Anto
Notevole anche il sistema utilizzato per il web seminar

Judy Breck, SmartMobs, May 3, 2011.

From the post: "Captured on this video is a 34-minute lecture by Albert-Låszló Barabåsi on Network Science delivered to The Royal Society. Barabåsi led the original discovery a decade ago that small-world networks obey the power law. He now presides over the BarabasiLab at Northeastern University's Center for Complex Network Research where seminal network science continues." Certainly worth a half hour of your time, I would say. [Link] [Comment]

Networks explained by Barabåsi

2011-05-03T21:57:48Z

Judy Breck, SmartMobs, May 3, 2011.

The Evolution of Classroom Technology

2011-04-20T09:00:44Z

Shared by Anto
Una carrellata su quasi quattrocento anni di tecnologie educative.

Unattributed, Edudemic, April 18, 2011.

Fun timeline looking at different educational technologies used over the years, from the incredibly useful (the blackboard, the pencil) to the useless (the reading accelerator). Don't miss the video featuring the Skinner teaching machine! [Link] [Comment]