jason

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

I can’t believe it but I got two proposals submitted to the American Educational Research Association, for the conference in Chicago next April! It is a struggle to get them in in mid-summer, but this time I had three to get in, and got two of them done.

Rochelle and I got “Critical and Reflective Narrative Technologies: Developing Pedagogically Appropriate Blogging Environments for Institutions” submitted two days ago. And today I got “Polysychronous perspectives on technology: do learning objects go bump in the night?” submitted.

Sigh of relief. Now I know that that my first year at Ryerson’s complete, and the next is underway.

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

Rochelle pointed us to the YouTube Knights of the Round Table - Star Trek TOS video. This has really got to be an artform of, rather than imposed on, the internet and technology. As with everything, you gotta start lowbrow.

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

Inside Higher Ed :: New Model for Scholarly Publishing

It’s hard to attend scholarly meetings these days without someone talking about the “crisis of scholarly publishing,” which goes something like this: Libraries can’t afford to buy new scholarly books; in turn, university presses can’t afford to publish books no one can buy and so cut back on their sales of monographs; in turn, junior professors can’t get their first books published and have a tough time getting tenure.

Rice University on Thursday announced a plan to shake up those interconnected problems. Rice University Press, which was killed in 1996, will be revived. But unlike every other university press, it will publish all of its books online only. People will be able to read the books for no charge and to download them for a modest fee. Editors will solicit manuscripts and peer review panels will vet submissions — all in ways that are similar to the systems in traditional publishing.

Personally, I don’t know why people don’t use Open Journal Systems which I’ve been using for a few years with The Harrow. Of course, the real problem is that if your tenure committee will not count electronic publications, it is all just a waste of time. That is until after you get tenure. [Thanks for pointing me to this Rochelle!]

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

I got my copy of the handbook! Here’s all the info. Check out the Table of Contents (below) for a list of the 63 amazing chapters and around 100 authors!!!

International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments. Series: Springer International Handbooks of Education , Vol. 14. Weiss, J.; Nolan, J.; Hunsinger, J.; Trifonas, P. (Eds.). 2006, XXXV, 1615 p., Hardcover. ISBN: 1-4020-3802-X

About this book
What is virtual reality and how do we conceptualize, create, use, and inquire into learning settings that capture the possibilities of virtual life? The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments was developed to explore Virtual Learning Environments (VLE’s), and their relationships with digital, in real life and virtual worlds.

Three issues are explored and used as organizers for The Handbook. First, a distinction is made between virtual learning and learning virtually. Second, since the focus is on learning, an educational framework is developed as a means of bringing coherence to the available literature. Third, learning is defined broadly as a process of knowledge creation for transforming experience to reflect different facets of “the curriculum of life”.

To reflect these issues The Handbook is divided into four sections: Foundations of Virtual Learning Environments; Schooling, Professional Learning and Knowledge Management; Out-of-School Learning Environments; and Challenges for Virtual Learning Environments. A variety of chapters representing different academic and professional fields are included. These chapters cover topics ranging from philosophical perspectives, historical, sociological, political and educational analyses, case studies from practical and research settings, as well as several provocative ‘classics’ originally published in other settings.

Originally published at .... You can comment here or there.

Rochelle just told me about Ajax write… a wordprocessor that works IN your web browser… for free. Interesting. www.ajaxwrite.com: “AjaxWrite is a streamlined word processor, comparable to Microsoft Word. To keep the program lean, we left out some obscure advanced features; you’ll find the functions you use most often, right where you’d expect them to be. (We’re still working on the spell checker.) You can import and export documents in all popular formats, including documents with graphics. The save function lets you save your work to a drive on your computer. Also, since you run ajaxWrite from your web browser, it is platform independent and can therefore be used with any operating system.”

Originally published at .... You can comment here or there.

Rochelle is redesigning my site. I like the misprinted type font!