Finally got around to writing up the list of open source or free design and development applications that are used in New Zealand schools. Thanks to members of the MLE list for providing this list.

http://www.core-ed.org/lab/os-design-dev-tools

The Open University’s SocialLearn paltform is trucking along. They seem to be replicating a lot of things that are available already in elgg. I am sure they had good reasons to start from scratch though. It will be interesting to see if they release the platform open source, or if it will only be a cloud service – and if the second what the eligibility for access will be. They have a walk through video available which gives a good idea of where they are heading with the platform.

Have just upgraded to WordPress 3. For starters the upgrade process is streets ahead of what it used to be – I used to dread upgrading our WordPress MU site, as it generally involved reading a long list of steps to take depending on which version you were moving from – now it is just an “Upgrade Automatically” button – nice

Working a treat on my single Tek4L blog, so now just need to do a test upgrade on the main CORE blog MU installation.

Diaspora could be worth keeping an eye on. With all the fuss around privacy on the likes of FaceBook they may just be hitting it at the right time. After recently undertaking a major review of open source social network platforms I was amazed at how few ‘real’ options there were to choose from, so there is definately an opening there for these keen and eager young men. They will just need to make sure they get past the facinating encryption algorithms and APIs and give it an interface that your average FaceBook user can cope with.

The Open University’s SocialLearn project looks like it is still worth keeping an eye on. No sign of any beta access yet, but they are obviously still putting quite a bit of research and work into it. An update worth a glance  from 7 April 2010 here …

A good summary of some of the big changes coming in Moodle 2.0:

http://blog.hansdezwart.info/2009/12/10/did-you-know-moodle-2-0-will-online-educa-2009/

Some more background to the Open University’s SocialLearn platform development.

http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2009/09/using-learning-environments-as-a-metaphor-for-educational-change.html

Lots of other people playing around in this area also, but the OU has resources to throw at a project like this, so it will be really interesting to see how it shapes up. It will also be interesting to see where it leaves Moodle in the OU mix medium-long term, as moodle is very much focused on taking traditional approaches to education online at the moment.

An interesting sounding project from the Open University

http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sociallearn/2009/09/10/sociallearn-announced-softly/

Just picking up on a comment of Derek’s

Just over one in five (20.2%) said they left the phone on in lessons – which is usually forbidden by schools. Should this statistic be a surprise – and what of the ‘forbidden by schools’? Does this represent a bias in the way mobile phones are regarded in a school setting? What’s wrong with having a mobile left on in class – provided the appropriate courtesies are observed about sound off and avoiding distracting behaviour etc.?

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing an innovative english teacher in a secondary school who was integrating the students’ mobiles into her lessons in several ways:

• She was getting them to use predictive txt to teach spelling.
• Those that had internet access on their phones she appointed as researchers to look up quick facts for the rest of the group, eg. when students came back from break saying they had heard that Michael Jackson had died she got somebody to find out as much as they could from their phone and report back to the class.
• She put a mobile number up on the board and said it was a mobile phone dictionary and if you txt a word to it the definition will be returned. The number was actually her phone, and when students sent a word to it she would secretly return the definition.

The mobiles that students have in their pockets are being increasingly powerful devices – why not try and make maximum use of them.

Recently watched Emily Levine’s theory of everything Ted Talk. I am no post modernist, so wouldn’t agree with all of her thoughts, but I liked her concept of the trickster – the one who deliberately avoids trying to be objective, or drawn into win/lose debates.

There is currently a lot of debate going on at the moment around various aspects of educational technologies, eportfolios, IAM, etc. which is trying to be very objective, and narrow everything down to neat and tidy applications with fixed standards for interoperability, etc. I can’t help thinking that there is the need for a trickster or two in these discussions.