CITations

It has been a busy semester break for CIT. Today, being the first day of the new Academic Year, we would like to announce the soft launch of Blog.nus, Wiki.nus and the Online Mindmapping Tool.

Blog.nus Access | More information
Blog.nus is a new blogging platform for NUS staff and students. Those who want to create a blog for academic, educational, research and administrative use can do so at Blog.nus. Of course, if you want a personal blog, there are many free services such as Blogger and WordPress.com instead.

Speaking of WordPress, Blog.nus runs on it. If you have used a WordPress blog (or most other blogs, for that matter), you will be able to use Blog.nus without a cinch. In fact, Blog.nus has several advantages, such as the ability to embed a wider range of content than the regular WordPress blogs. Also, there is a lot more storage capacity, more themes to choose from and more privacy options - stuff that's important to educators.

If you have any queries about Blog.nus, please contact Mr .

Wiki.nus Access | More information
Wiki.nus is our very own wiki platform for NUS staff and students. If you've ever required a wiki for collaboration, knowledgebase building or other educational purposes, Wiki.nus is your solution. Wiki.nus is powered by Confluence and hosted on our servers. It is single sign-on enabled, so you can sign in and create a wiki immediately in a few steps.

Wikis can be set to different levels of privacy e.g.
- Public access, public editing
- Public access, restricted editing (probably the most common model)
- Restricted access, restricted editing (excellent for collaboration)

If you have any queries about Wiki.nus, please contact Mr .

Online Mindmapping Tool Access | More information
Finally, we have our very own online mindmapping tool, powered by Mindomo. This allows staff and students to create and share mindmaps online.

Mindmap software allows you to do something that cannot be done with paper - editing the mindmap. You can also embed the mindmap in a web page or blog.

If you have any queries about the Online Mindmapping Tool, please contact Mr .

YouTube recently introduced a beta feature in YouTube: video annotation. You can add notes, links, highlight specific areas within a video and more. Quite nifty, if you ask me.

Annotation in YouTube is limited to the video uploader. There used to be a collaborative video annotation service, Mojiti. Unfortunately, this service, which was previously featured here, has shut down.

Another related service is dotSUB. This one allows people to collaboratively add subtitles to videos. Terrific for educators, especially those in language education.

Via Digital-Lifestyles, Hat tip to Vantan, who highlighted this in her Google Reader shared items.

The librarians have gone all Web 2.0 now. First, they started a blog. Now, they've got a Flickr account.

So far, just a few photos from the recent Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Open Day. It's a nice outreach tool. Hopefully, we can see what's going on in the different libraries, such as exhibitions and events, on their Flickr account.

Very nice to see our friendly librarians putting their best smiles forward in the photos!

Wiki guru Stewart Mader provides pertinent advice on success strategies for wiki adoption.

In summary, he lists five points:

• Start with what you already do


• Go viral


• Invite senior leadership


• Find the champions


• Practice what you preach

As CIT looks for a wiki engine for the university community, we hope that we do not fall into the trap of "build it and they will come".

For academics who are keen to use wikis in the classroom, here are some case studies. Also, check out The Science of Spectroscopy's Using Wiki in Education.

| View | Upload your own

Uber-blogger and Lecturer N. Sivasothi (a.k.a Otterman), over at the Department of Biological Sciences, shared his lecture preparation methods with NUS librarians last Wednesday.

With his trusty Mac, he gathers information and materials from readily accessible, reconfigurable and redistributable content via del.icio.us, Flickr and numerous video sites such as YouTube.

You can check out the slides from his presentation above and he's created a Google Document with the links mentioned during the talk.

Siva also briefly touched on his use of NUS Module Blogs for a student assignment. You can read the students' blog posts about animal behaviour. He also runs a module blog for LSM1303 Animal Behaviour, which is where a lot of the online material he gathers gets featured after lectures.

P.S. And if you really want to know why he is an uber-blogger, check out this video at theory.isthereason.com. (Just skip a little past the first bit.)

During my presentation at last week's 2007 CIO & Digital Library Forum, I made the point that wiki use in education, unlike blogs, is not entirely ready for prime time. Educators who use it are pioneers (or early-adopters, in marketing-speak). That's not to say that wikis shouldn't be used. Just don't expect people to jump right in and use it.

That's a reminder to myself that I can get overenthusiastic about these tools, not realising that many people have yet to become familiar with them. Lee LeFever of the Common Craft Blog, who has an excellent video primer on wikis, points out some results of a survey on social media tools:

16% of the US online population is familiar with what a wiki is. Even if you just look at the online trendsetters (18-34 year olds), only 27% of those online users are familiar with wikis.

Blogs, which have universal awareness among nearly anyone reading this post, are only familiar to 35% of online users. And familiarity with social networks as a category still ranks below that of online forums at 28% and 35% respectfully.

For context, consider that 76% of the same population know of search engines and 97% of toilet paper.

Although this is a US-based survey, I figure that numbers are similar here. Traditional media can report about blogs and wikis but the general public is still unfamiliar with these, particularly the latter.

Turnitin Bibliography by Charles P. Nelson via Stephen Downes

Charles has written and collated a rich treasure trove of Turnitin (an online plagiarism detection service) resources. While it is touted as a solution to a problem, not all educators approve of Turnitin's methods and philosophy. The bibliography reflects boths sides of the story. Charles also shares his thoughts about Using Turnitin, concluding that: "Turnitin, used properly, can be one tool among others, not simply for catching plagiarism, but more importantly for teaching students how to use sources appropriately."

If you're a NUS faculty staff, you can use Turnitin. Log in to IVLE, click Resources on the left hand toolbar, then click the Plagiarism Prevention link. (P.S. I am at a loss as to why it is labelled 'Plagiarism Prevention' here.)

Academic Culture eModule, Centre for Instructional Technology, NUS

Since we are on the topic of plagiarism, you might want to check out the Academic Culture eModule. This self-contained interactive module introduces university students to the academic norms, values and practices. Through video-based scenarios and interactive questions, students learn about Academic Conventions, Academic Inquiry and Academic Ethics. The eModule is freely accessible, so do have a look.

A Teaching with Technology White Paper: Podcasting [download pdf] by Ashley Deal via Stephen Downes

A useful primer on podcasting in education. This includes a look at what podcasting is, how it can be used in education and some examples of classroom use. This primer brings to mind a recent post I read by Jacob Christenson, reflecting on the reasons his department's podcasting project failed.

Free Geography Tools via Google Earth Blog

The Free Geography Tools blog is about the latest in "free tools for GIS, GPS, Google Earth, neogeography, and more".

Blog2Learn Wiki by Anne Davis

I'm glad that it's Blog2Learn instead of Blog2Teach. We're all learners! Anne's blog is a wide-ranging collection of links to edublogging resources and projects (K-12 through to tertiary level). Click on the SideBar link to see the navigation menu. Anne teaches writing, and she says this about blogs:

[They] give us an avenue to teach writing (blogging) as a cluster of complex thinking and writing behaviors that provide ownership to the student and the possibility of getting a multitude of responses from others. We have to orchestrate that. Yes, it takes time but we can truly model this process through our own blogs and provide the type of environment to support young writers and give them the challenges necessary to foster writing development. What a joy!

Mobile Learning, Vol 8, No 2 (2007), The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning via elearnspace

Mobile learning is an area in educational technology which is fraught with issues. The emphasis tends to be on how content can be delivered via mobile devices. This brings with the the problem of compatibility: operating systems, file formats, screen sizes, battery life, storage capacity... you get the drift. On the other hand, those that want to exploit the use of mobile devices in classroom projects need to overcome issues with sufficient and equitable access to the necessary tools. Regardless of what you conceive m-learning and how it will affect education, this issue of IRRODL has a number of peer-reviewed journal articles which explore mobile learning.

Reflections from EduBloggerCon07: Crafting a Compelling, Cogent Message for Change by Chris Sessums

Chris Sessums summarises a session he participated in at EduBloggerCon07, bringing together the thoughts of the participants:

For many educators who are actively engaged in the blogging process, weblogs have reportedly transformed the way they learn; it has challenged them about the ways they think about themselves individually, as well as the way they think about teaching and learning.

For many educators at this meet-up, blogging extends their ability to connect to other people and ideas, enhancing both personal and professional relationships. Weblogging has reportedly challenged them to learn more about themselves as well as challenging the way we think about a variety of subjects.

Two Zs: Zotero and Zentation

Zotero is a browser extension which "helps you collect, manage, and cite your research sources" from within the Firefox. I've not installed it yet, but it might be a handy tool. No harm trying - it's free!

I've mentioned Slideshare a few times previously. It's been called the YouTube of PowerPoint, and it works as advertised. But a presentation slides are just that: presentation slides. Where's the actual presentation?

Zentation promises to change that. You can upload your slides to Zentation and upload the video recording to Google Video (chosen for its ability to jump to any point of the video during streaming). Zentation puts them together. You get an shareable online webcast. Very nice if you're not on campus.

UPDATE: Slideshare allows you to load an accompanying audio file. I have not checked it out, but I gather that the audio and slide synchronisation is an issue.

Education is not cheap. Likewise, the tools students need to support their education aren't cheap too. Despite academic pricing, some software is still out of reach of some students. Also, a lot of software have more features than you will possibly use. What's a student to do?

There are alternatives to paid-for bloatware.

At home, I try to use as many web-based applications and free/open source software as possible. Many of the services I use were recently highlighted in Read/WriteWeb's feature on a whole bunch of useful Web 2.0 applications for students. Josh Catone suggests various apps for office, note taking, mind mapping, studying, bookmarking, collaboration, calendars, calculations and other tools.

However, some of these are not free services. Me? I'm a fan of the Google services. They're free, and they're great! I feel I'm too dependent on them, but I can't get away from their excellent software.

Here are a few more web apps to add to Josh's list:

• Slideshare: The YouTube for PowerPoint slides
• Motiji: Online video annotation service
• DotSub: Collaborative online video subtitling
  
• Fleck: Webpage annotation
• BibMe: Bibliography tool
  

For truly free software, check out Software for Starving Students. The creators of this website have compiled the best free and open source software for Windows and Mac. You download the relevant version, then burn the ISO image file to CD (burning instructions for Win/Mac).

From the CD, you can install various free/open source software "including a fully-featured office suite, a cutting-edge web browser, multi-media packages, academic tools, utilities and more." Since the software is on a single disk image, the individual titles might be slightly out-of-date. You can download the programmes individually from the software authors instead. Check out the software list, then click the titles to go to the homepage for the respective software.

Even if you're not starving or even if you're not a student, there's definitely something for you.

Do you have any other software to add to this list? Please share your recommendations in the comments!

Lifehacker featured a nifty online tool - BibMe - which lets you add sources, auto-creates entries in various formats (APA, MLA, Chicago), and enables you to save and export your entries.

I registered for an account, which says you can store up to 20 entries. I suppose they will eventually charge if you want to store more. Also, the website refused to acknowledge that I was logged in.

In any case, it's good particularly for the more esoteric sources. No need to refer to that style manual. Just choose the source on the tabs, search for it, then copy and paste the entry.

Click To Play

You must have seen That Orange Button. It's everywhere.

Sometimes, it has RSS written on it. Sometimes, XML. Sometimes, it looks like this:

What exactly does it do?

Well, let the good people at CommonCraft help to demystify That Orange Button in this 3.5 minute video.

There are a few books about blogs in NUS Libraries. Most of them deal with either personal blogging or business blogging. Yes, blogs are being used in public/customer/corporate relations and in marketing. However, I couldn't find any books on blogging in education, which surprised me because we are an institution of higher learning.

To rectify this anomaly, I sent a request to purchase new books. I'd never used this service before, so I wasn't sure what the outcome was going to be. I was pleasantly surprised when the library notified me that the book I requested was available in the Central Library. Kudos to the librarians in NUS!

Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms looks to be an easy read. Just skimming through, I can see that Will Richardson explains new concepts in plain language. He gives a quick overview of each tool, goes through how to set it up and shows how they can be used in the classroom. Although many examples are from the K-12 (primary and secondary school) environment, I believe the concepts are applicable to higher education. The content page gives you some idea of what Will touches on:

1. The read/write Web p. 1
2. Weblogs : pedagogy and practice p. 17
3. Weblogs : get started! p. 45
4. Wikis : easy collaboration for all p. 59
5. RSS : the new killer app for educators p. 75
6. The social Web : learning together p. 89
7. Fun with Flickr : creating, publishing and using images online p. 101
8. Podcasting and screencasting : multimedia publishing for the masses p. 111
9. What it all means p. 125
10. Epilogue : the classroom of the read/write Web p. 135

I see that there's already a request for the book. Better make use of the upcoming long weekend to read this and return it to the library so that others can get their hands on it! Oh yes, the call number: LB 1044.87 Ric 2006.

P.S. Some of the links mentioned in the book can be found at Will's wiki. It's too tedious to copy URLs from a print source.

I've thought long and hard about highlighting this post by a former NUS student. Kian Ann was a Computing student who has now gone full-time into promoting blogs for marketing. He writes about his sociology lecturer:

What the lecturer did was he used a blog for us to keep updated with his announcements, and used the blog comments for us students to post our questions. It was wildly successful. Because of the lecturer’s own participation (and its back to the basics - transparency, authenticity, and building relationships), it was fun for the students to discuss online. The lecturer also frequently posted jokes related to the module, so we could really enjoy studying the module.

Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I fully agree, which is why I run this blog. Kian Ann implies that files and resources uploaded to the blog have context - another very salient point. However, Kian Ann also has some criticism about IVLE and these Module Blogs. Once again, nothing wrong there.

The thing is, I generally agree with his criticism, particularly about IVLE.

What Kian Ann hints at, but does not fully express, is that learning management systems (LMS) such as IVLE are almost diametric to many Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. At its most basic, the former is a closed system and the latter are open.

What happens when a student leaves NUS? His/her account is shut down. And with it, access to the LMS. Hardly a model for reflective and lifelong learning.

Blogs and wikis, on the other hand are truly learner-centred and learner-driven. If lecturers and students are encouraged to blog their learning, what they have pondered and articulated remains with them. Almost as important, their blogs remain freely accessible on the internet, so that others can gain insights, responding and building on what has been expressed.

Stephen Downes comments on a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC - a UK body promoting the use of ICT in teaching, learning and research) report by Paul Anderson:

If you are new to Web 2.0, this is an excellent introduction. The author depicts Web 2.0 not simply as a new set of technologies but also as the emergence of six major ideas: individual production and user generated content, harness the power of the crowd, data on an epic scale, architecture of participation, network effects, and openness. The author gets into the details quite well - there is, for example, a nice outline of AJAX, an informed discussion of SOAP vs REST, and a good sketch of the issues between Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web.

Listen to a 5-minute podcast on the new Centre for Life Sciences (CeLS) - download the mp3 (via RSI).

On a related note, besides educational use, there is plenty of scope for new media tools to be used in corporate and public communication. The School of Business seems to be on to something, but there is potential for so much more. I wish I could share a video from BizAd Vibes, but it's not meant to be repurposed.

Related media coverage

• NUS research now under one roof (Straits Times)
• Forays into Life Sciences – S’pore ready to adjust focus if needed: Tony Tan (Straits Times)
• Biomed industry needs time to grow: Dr Tan (Today)
• New scheme to attract young researchers to continue their research (Berita Harian)
• Important research programmes under one roof (Tamil Murasu)

Heard of The Long Tail? Chris Anderson's Wired article, now a expanded into a book, explores:

The theory... that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

About Me, The Long Tail blog

The popularity and power of blogging, as well as other social online media, fits squarely into this. The clip above, from FORA.tv, is a presentation by Chris Anderson explaining The Long Tail.

FORA.tv itself is a demonstration of efficacy of The Long Tail. It is something like YouTube for the thinking person (although that is slightly demeaning because FORA.tv's features trump YouTube's). Not exactly mainstream stuff, but it definitely has its niche. Would we have seen this in the pre-social media internet?

Fleck and Mojiti are two online annotation tools that I've been exploring. They help web surfers to refer others to precise points in a web page or video respectively, as well as to add descriptive notes.

Fleck can be deployed in several ways. You can start annotating other websites by putting the desired URL into Fleck's input field. There are other ways of integrating Fleck with your browser, from bookmarklets to browser extensions (the latter method requires registration, but the service is free).

You can see an example of a Fleck-ed page here. (Wait a while for the annotations to load.)

As you can see, once you annotate a page, Fleck provides a unique URL so that other users can see the annotations. The annotations exist on a separate layer from the website. It does not cache the website. That is, if the website changes, your annotation might not point to the right content.

Nevertheless, it's a nifty tool.

If you haven't clicked the Fleck example above, please do so. I've annotated Mojiti's front page to tell you more about what Mojiti does. In case you don't have time: it allows you to annotate online videos.

UPDATE 22 Feb | Just came across this via LifeHack. zpeech allows you to run a discussion/comments thread about any website on the website itself.

UPDATE 11 Mar | TechCrunch points to four other annotation services besides Fleck.

The Biomedical Multimedia Unit at the University of Melbourne has come up with a preliminary report which details first-year students' use of  and engagement with technology (kudos to collegewebeditor once again).

The report has this to say about blogs:

It may be surprising to some in the University community that more than one-third of first year students have kept their own blog in the last year and well over half (57%) read others' blogs. The educational possibilities of blogs are beginning to be explored... and it is important for academics and faculties to be aware of this public form of self-publishing and online interaction.

In NUS, we have already set out to explore academic blogging with the establishment of NUS Module Blogs. However, more will need to be done to help students discover how to push the boundaries of learning with the latest tech tools. The report further points out that:

In a recent US study of undergraduate students' uses and perceptions of technology in their learning, Katz [in Caruso & Kvavik] (2005) concludes that:

'freshman students arrive at our institutions with a set of electronic core skills. Such skills include communications (telephone, email, text-messaging, and IM), Web surfing (not to be confused with research skills), word processing and video gaming... these young people can make technology work but cannot place these technologies in the service of (academic) work.' (p. 7)

It is not that first year students are incapable of using technology for specialised, context-appropriate purposes... The critical point is that while first year students might use technology in a range of ways and may, apparently, be digitally literate, we cannot assume that being a member of the 'Net Generation' is synonymous with knowing how to employ technology-based tools strategically to optimise learning experiences and outcomes in university settings.

Do Singaporean students' attitudes, skills and experiences with technology mirror their Australian and American counterparts? There is some anecdotal evidence that they will likely be similar. The challenge for educational technology departments and progressive educators is to open their eyes to the possibilities.

Original photo by Wesley Fryer from here, reproduced under a cc by-sa 2.0 license.

This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 License.

The University of Warwick, one of the most innovative universities in terms of social software usage and social networking prowess, has been producing short video news items and putting them on YouTube. The video above, discussing the phenomenon of Chinese support for the England football team, is one of the many which focus on research outcomes, current affairs analysis and campus events.

It is not a mere marketing tool, points out Alice Lau, from the University of Glamorgan's Learning Zone:

The aim of the project despite what everyone might think, is more than just advertising. To them, it is about communicating the research work in the university to the wider community in a very different way. It also provided a new channel for researchers to reach new people.

Warwick's iCast has high quality production values, suggesting a concerted and deliberate effort to put these bulletins out. While NUS may not choose to go this way to promote its research (although, in my personal capacity, I don't see why not), I think it trailblazes a way for individual lecturers to innovate in their teaching and personal branding.

Now, where is that camcorder...?

The video about Web 2.0 I posted a couple of days ago keeps on popping up on the blogs that I read.

NUS student, November Tan, highlighted it too, reflecting on how she uses the read/write web to help build environmental awareness and interest in Singapore's rich biodiversity:

Indeed, the way the environmental "movement", ideas of conservation, of environmental awareness, outreach, sharing, inspiration, motivations, passing on of information in Singapore has changed tremendously and in fact expanded by leaps and bounds thanks to the wonders and beauty of Web 2.0.

For example, I can upload my photos of my beachflea trip to Hantu and tomorrow somebody searching for "hantu" tags might be introduced to the beauty of our southern shores and from there he might then see my blog and then linked on to the many issues by looking at tags, through del.icio.us or other such aggregators. Somebody can then submit it to tomorrow.sg or any other blog aggregators and then the word is spread. Likewise, photos and videos can be linked and shared with ease on a user-created wikipedia entry on Pulau Hantu and then contribute the information they have on the great biodiversity on Hantu and then linking other bloggers like the Hantu Blog, they find out about reclamation projects. That is the beauty of Web 2.0 connectivity.

Inside Higher Ed examines this viral video hit (cheers to collegewebeditor), interviewing Michael Wesch about it. He makes an interesting point regarding how the video came about:

As part of an article on Web 2.0 that is intended to appear in a journal of anthropology, Wesch created the video to appear on the publication’s Web site.

“I was trying to explain this stuff in the traditional paper format, and I thought, ‘This is ironic,’” he said. “I can illustrate this much better in a video.”

Likewise, if you're passionate about what you teach, blog about it. Use all the technological tools you have at your disposal to find new and more effective ways to make a point. Michael Wesch did and the results are there for all the web to see.

Numerous educational technologists and social media advocates have linked to this short video titled The Machine is Us/ing Us.

It is the work of Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology Michael Wesch, from Kansas State University. The video summarises the revolution that is the read/write web, including rss feeds, blogs and wikis.

It'll take just five minutes of your time.

UPDATE The original video links pointed to a beta version. I've updated this post to point to the final version.