order / disorder

Wikipedia in Academia

easegill — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:11:51 +0000

Is Wikipedia any use for students and academics? Are the derogatory comments justified and can it be used in ways that support learning? So many times when I hear academics refer to Wikipedia it is in condescending tones. Comments from “You can’t trust anything in Wikipedia”, “It’s just written by amateurs”, “It’s not real peer-reviewed content’, [...]

#Blackout NZ

easegill — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:09:54 +0000

This Saturday, February 28th, Section 92A of the Copyright Act is due to come into force. This website has voluntarily been taken down in protest against this law, which will be used to disconnect New Zealanders from the internet based on accusations of copyright infringement, without a trial and without evidence held up to court scrutiny. May [...]

CCK08 Map

easegill — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:36:45 +0000

Getting set for the start of the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) course being facilitated by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. Is it significant that they are both based in Canada? Being a geographer at heart, I find places and the connections between them interesting. If I go somewhere new, I always like to have [...]

Mobile Phones and Attitude

easegill — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:14:52 +0000

I recently became aware of an article in HERDSA News entitled “HOW TO… get students to turn off their mobile phones“. This is meant to be a modern dilemma for university teachers according to the article. It flags three main responses to phones ringing or students texting in lectures - ban all phones shame repeat offenders ignore the [...]

Herdsa Reflection

easegill — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 03:48:58 +0000

Well it’s a conference, tiring and hard work especially with the 10 ½ hour days that they run. As always the people, networks and connections that you make seem the most rewarding part of a conference. The conference theme is Engaging Communities and the opening address was eloquently given by Dr Pita Sharples gave that [...]

Wireless expectations

easegill — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:09:46 +0000

Well no tweets from #herdsa. Why? Because there’s no freely available internet access in the conference rooms. We have broadband in the hotel rooms that works out at about $40 per hour; or we can pay for wireless in the conference lobby, but that doesn’t extend to the 9 different rooms that the conference is [...]

Enviroschools for authentic learning

easegill — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:54:23 +0000

New Zealand has an Enviroschool scheme where it tries to support schools with sustainability. One of the local schools here in Hamilton has just been on the telly detailing what they have been doing. They started a garden to grow veg and teach the children elements of sustainability. The project grew as they decided [...]

Edupunk (Shhh..!)

easegill — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:41:27 +0000

Edupunk seems to be the word on everyones lips at the moment - well at least those that are talking about it! See D’Arcy Norman; Lesley Madsen Brookes; Stephen Downes; Brian Lamb; Doug Noon A conjunction coined by Jim Groom, however, as both commentators and protagonists seem to be agreeing, creating a name and a definition runs [...]

Blogs, discussions and portfolios - learning, ownership and change

easegill — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:34:58 +0000

Yesterday, we had a quick demo of Mahara by Mark Nichols as part of a wider day of information exchange. Mahara has been built as an eportfolio tool and appears to have taken some influence from Elgg. It contains a blog tool which has the ability to be kept private, shared selectively or [...]

Pre-web assessment in a Web2.0 era

easegill — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:48:19 +0000

Have been doing a lot of reading recently and assessment is a theme that keeps recurring. Ewan McIntosh and David Muir both blog a recent talk by Stephen Heppell where he revisits the idea of assessment equivalence. I heard him talk on this theme some time ago and I don’t think that the [...]