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Mar 14

My blog posts are like buses

.. nothing for ages (7-months) then three in 3-days :)

By freeing our journal from the ghetto of academic library subscriptions we will foster discussion and impact (on LSE Impact Blog)

BarCamps, DIY Moodle & Digital Pens (on still-being-built new team TED blog)

Open Access Journal & Academic Magazines (on my own Reluctant Technologist blog)

Mar 09

#M25ltg Notes

Brief Notes from 8/3/2012 #m25ltg at QMUL

• HEA Travel Fund - get travel to UK conferences paid for by HEA
• UCISA Engaging hearts and minds -  cases studies for engaging staff with TEL http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/publications/engaging.aspx
• Paul Lowe introduced Barcamps - Community of practice…Nobody’s as clever as everybody… etc etc Paul then led mini 30-min barcamp with 3 x 3 sessions. Very successful. We already host some for students. Place for using them with staff? Part of T&L event?
  (Would all conferences benefit from a barcamp-style session at them, in addition to the more formal peer-reviewed sessions?)
• Tim Neuman explained process he has undertaken for review of web conferencing tools for BLE.  Very thorough.  Interesting to see that video was relatively low on priorities of users, fits with my (limited) LSE experience.
• Kris Roger introduced Cloud LMSs - VLEs, hosted in ‘cloud’, setup by individual teachers, more modern usable UIs e.g. Coursekit, Piazza, Instructure Canvas
• Digital pens - Colin & Hendrik showed examples of digital pens including LiveScribe which also records audio.  pen & special paper a bit pricey but produces PDFs with embedded audio.

[video]

#Muggl Notes

A few notes from 2nd London Moodle Users Group (#muggl)… although some may be from m25ltg… all a blur.

• Other institutions Moodle 2 implementations / testing /training plans etc seem to be progressing well. A few niggles, unresolved bugs but only as you would expect.
• Sussex also holding off until 2013/4. There are definite advantages in our (City’s) timeline & we will really benefit from all the work others are doing ahead of us :)
• Navigation (block & breadcrumbs) are a concern and a potential area staff might get frustrated by. Again, the kind of thing earlier adopters will have worked thru’…
• Matt Jenner (UCL) showed a great Moodle support site he has developed: includes FAQs. Not public yet but as with Bath Uni all the content is available for re-use. They have used Confluence but it’s the content, it’s organisation & process for updating, not the tool that is key. (of course tool must be fit-for-purpose).
• Moodle 2 mobile theme (shown in LSE hands-on) nice and clean. Still not perfect but taking a quiz was easy (enrolling was not). Lack of mobile themes a downside for keeping 1.9 in 2012/3.
• Training for ‘moving to moodle’: Important to offer but I’m still not convinced masses of f-2-f will needed, especially if navigation is done well. File management potential area of concern although at Goldsmiths (already 6-months into using M2) it hasn’t been an issue (nor was it in my one training session at LSE last Nov!).  I still think files in M2 is a selling point.

Nov 22

Programme for #m25ltg Meeting

Weds 23rd Nov is a an M25 Learning Technology Group meeting. Fully booked, 60 attending! Great line up:

• Exploring the usefulness of e-book readers for academic staff
  Hendrik van der Sluis, Kingston University
• Setting lecture capture free: creating short screencasts using Echo360
  John Davies, University of Sussex
• VLE Watch
  Mimi Weiss Johnson, Imperial College; Rose Heaney, UEL; Sarah Sherman, BLE
• Future of Learning Technologists - Discussion
  Leonard Houx, CIPD; Matt Lingard, LSE
• How we use WordPress
  Tony Coombs, University of Greenwich
  Gill Ritchie, QMUL
  Kate Reader, City University
  Mike Kelly, University of the Arts
  Plus one more

Sep 28

Finding your Twitter RSS feed

Updated 31st October

Much easier method via @LTNottingham

1. Find out your Twitter numeric ID (you can do this by entering a Twitter username at idfromuser
2. Add it into the following URL (replace the Xs)
   http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/XXXXXXX.rss

From: http://comms.nottingham.ac.uk/learningtechnology/2011/10/31/how-to-find-your-twitter-rss-feed-url/

Original post / workaround

Shouldn’t be this difficult… I wish all those web2 kids would stop messing with the great tools they created… (see previous post)

Thanks to Issac Hepworth via Stay ‘N Alive for this:

Finding your Twitter Timeline RSS feed Add your standard Twitter URL (e.g. http://twitter.com/mattlingard) to “Add Subscription” in Google Reader which will auto discover the feed URL.  You can then see it via Manage Subscriptions.  For the above account it is http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14434363.rss

There may well be an easier way… anyone?

Sep 27

Delicious fail

While i understand the need for Beta - if you’re this far from being ready, don’t launch.

From Delicious FAQs

Below is a list of features that are still being worked on:

• Edit Network: We have ability to add/remove users, but do not currently support nicknames
• Edit Network Bundles: We will migrate existing bundles, but not initially have support for editing network bundles
• Set Network Privacy: We retain existing settings, but do not have an option to change at launch.
• Rename Tags
• Delete Tags
• Edit Tag Descriptions
• Edit Subscriptions
• Edit Subscription Bundles
• Delete People
• Network Badges
• Link Rolls: we will support existing link rolls via feeds
• Tag Rolls : we will support existing tag rolls via feeds
• Blog Posting: we will support existing blog post jobs
• Forums: we are evaluating options
• “My Tags” Page Example: http://www.delicious.com/tags/
• “Explore Tags” Page: http://www.delicious.com/tag/
• Follow /[user]/[tag]
• Post saved links to Twitter

Sep 09

@francesbell - feed of feeds

Hi Frances,

I can add your blog to the feed of feeds but first I need an altc2011 specific feed.  You need to add your post(s) to either a category or tag that’s specific to the conference.  Most people have been using altc2011 but it actually doesn’t matter what the tag/category is, just that it’s used only on the conference related posts..

This what I need, either

Category: http://mattlingard.wordpress.com/category/altc2011/feed/

or

Tag: http://mattlingard.wordpress.com/tag/altc2011/feed/

and you add the tag/category to relevant posts

Aug 08

Accreditation, CMALT & UKPSF

In relation to the ALT Trustees election, I’ve just been asked by @lawrie “Where do you stand on accreditation, CMALT and UKPSF?”.

Honest answer Lawrie: I don’t have a position on this, as it’s not something I’ve come across & had to consider.  I’ve clearly got a lot to learn.

I know what CMALT is but I’ll have to admit that the HEA UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) is a new one for me. (Assuming I picked the right acronym here - the UK Paintball Sports Federation nabbed top spot in Google :)).

I’d be very interested to hear more. Anyone? Presumably, for there to be a position to take on this, there must be some sort of debate in progress…

In terms of vote Matt, what can I say? I’ll bring a fresh perspective to the issues.

Twitterfountain

I’m looking for a visual tool for us to display in lecture theatres between sessions at ALT-C & just came across Twitter Fountain

It looks great.  The example below is using images from Flickr, Picasa & TwitPic tagged “altc2010” & tweets tagged “#LSE”.

You can play with colours, speeds and so on

Example Twitter Fountain: http://thefounta.in/RCcFj

Better version from@jamesclay:http://t.co/XSnnQPy

Comments? Any other tools?

Embedded version

James’ version