James Farmer: incorporated subversion: the book

RSS to Javascript

Tue, 25 May 2004 03:31:26 GMT

Mmmmmm... tasty... Feed2JS... render me!

My Brilliant Failure: Wikis In Classrooms

Mon, 24 May 2004 01:30:25 GMT

Cool! Good wiki teaching article from Kairos:

"... I used an instructionist and fill-in-the-blanks approach, whereas, what I would have rather have done is for the student to identify the blanks themselves, and build from there. In other words, it's as if I had installed a blog, but only for myself to publish to the class, and allowed them to only make comments. To really use blog to it's fullest potential, the participants need to be writing their own posts and making comments on each other's pages. To really use a wiki, the participants need to be in control of the content- you have to give it over fully..." [Heather?]

More Wikis... enterprisey ones

Thu, 13 May 2004 00:03:40 GMT

As Tom Suggested, Confluence looks pretty neat, it's a one off US$2000 enterprise wiki system (Acad. price). It's certainly pretty and it's got among all the basic functionality you'd expect RSS and all! I also like the 'breadcrumbing' structure. Not to sure about the price tho' and what it makes up for in prettiness it seems to lose (on a VERY brief exploration) in simplicity. Hmmmm... interesting...

Hell, if I'm going to start thinking about these then it's also worth looking at Courseforum which is a kinda wiki-based courseware management system... it has a free system, which is cool and is dead simple to use (and includes RSS :O). But again... I'm not sure if we wouldn't be overshooting the mark with a course system and, politically, whether we'd be seen as encroaching into territory the Uni's already paid $$$$$$s to set up.

Editme... progwiki or wikifree

Wed, 12 May 2004 22:42:50 GMT

Tom wonders about the intuitiveness of editme and whether "more "sophisticated" wikis are going to become progressively less wiki-like."

Mail to the Future

Wed, 12 May 2004 22:25:09 GMT

How cool is this! Via Peter who posts about the potential uses of this in reflecting over, say, a term or so.

"The purpose of this site is to allow you to send mail to yourself or others at a specified date and time.. in the future!"

Wooo hooo! RSS-Edu News-ticker in Operation!

Mon, 10 May 2004 23:12:57 GMT

Hey, Stephen's made my morning... RSS_Edu News Ticker now operating :o)))))

A new Addition to my homepage! I've even change my page to white so it fits in (dunno how to get it in without a white background and was kinda getting sick of the yellow :o)

So... now to get it customizable :o)

Thankyouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Swiki, Teaching Wiki - free hosted wiki services for your educational pleasures

Mon, 10 May 2004 02:00:26 GMT

First I found Swiki (and wrote a bit about it before losing it (ed. not the swiki - my posting!) grrrrrr) and now here's Teaching Wiki:

"Hi! Welcome! Teaching Wiki aspires to be a community for college-level faculty. We imagine our primary audience to be faculty who are interested in writing instruction, perhaps technorhetorians but (as we invoke the wiki way here), we invite all college faculty and instructors to be wikiteachers with us... We invite you to use Teaching Wiki to support your teaching efforts." [Teaching Wiki]

So... if you wanna do something with Wikis but don't have the server, tech know-how or webspace to install one... use these!!!

Quick Topic

Thu, 22 Apr 2004 23:43:31 GMT

This is worth a mention as it's justabout the easiest bulletin board creator you could ever get... and could actually be useful too as you can invite people through email (a la Chatzy) and participate through email too (a la Yahoo Groups). Now all it needs is RSS :o)

Re-branding... teaching online lesson plans

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 10:09:12 GMT

OK, so a little re-branding to reflect what's been going on with the plans, get better search engine relevance and perhaps get me burnin' on them again, gone is 'incorporated subversion: the book and here is teaching online lesson plans (which, much as I'd like to avoid 'teaching' and use 'facilitating' probably makes about as much sense as my continued wish to call 'blogs' 'personal and collaborative publishing tools' ;o)

Student AIM

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 23:27:35 GMT

Debby Kilburn posted to ITForum yesterday about her use of AIM with students...most excellent ideas and reflection and reposted here with permission:

"...I ask my students to sign up for AIM (http://www.aim.com) at the beginning of the semester and have them email me their username. I create a class list and encourage them to add their classmates to their buddy lists. The second week of class I post an assignment that asks them to contact three classmates through AIM and learn 3 new things about them. They then save and send me the log file. At the midpoint of the semester, I hold required online office hours just to touch base. I also have my AIM open when I am online most of the time and tell students that if they see me online, my office door is open.

I have used this for several semesters now and it has worked extremely well. The students that take advantage of AIM report very high levels of satisfaction with the course and tend to do very well. They say they feel very connected and appreciate the access to their peers and instructor. I haven't had too many problems being overwhelmed by "chit chat" or being pestered by students because in the beginning we set out guidelines for use. For the occasional student who constantly pops their head into my virtual office door just to say hi, I have plan B... another screen name that I use only for friends and colleagues. I like being able to make a connection in this way and the students like it also."

FAQs: Discussion Board Plan

Thu, 11 Mar 2004 01:12:59 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: Large Group (lot of teachers)
Tool: Discussion Boards
Timeframe: 2 weeks - Forever
Focus: FAQ provision, consistency

Introduction

This isn't so much a lesson plan as a class management one. Basically you use a discussion board as a place where learners ask questions about the course (for example, about assignments) and you (and your colleagues) answer them.

Suggested by Dr Eileen Honan (who I'm lucky enough to have the odd conversation with) this kind of approach is used in a lot of support forum contexts (for example, Radio Userland offer a VERY good support structure IMO: http://radio.userland.com/discuss/ ) and offers several things: consistency (especially across a large course with multiple tutors), resources (time-saving & easy to access) and a teaching aid (really helping to guide the design of future materials / the unit in the future).

Steps

1. Probably the most important thing to set up is an understanding with teachers and learners that all queries about, for example, assignments must be posted to the appropriate discussion forum you're using. Then you'll probably want to 'man' the forum with only one person at a time and build some sort of schedule making sure it gets checked every day.

If you don't already have one you can get plenty of 'free' discussion forums... I'd go for http://groups.yahoo.com or http://nicenet.org if I were you.

2. Teachers and learners should be familiar with how to search the content of the forums and post appropriately (i.e. new threads for new issues). How you do this is up to you but if you can build in instructions into the page on which the discussion is on then that's the best way I think.

3. If you can, keep the forums open for the next semester. If not, you should certainly try to archive / store them as the kind of questions asked and issues raised will be invaluable collected together in better designing your courses and material.

RSS from the BBC

Tue, 09 Mar 2004 03:25:41 GMT

Outstanding... RSS from BBC news (never noticed this one!) now I can... finally... keep up to date on the soccer through RSS. Wish the Guardian would follow suit!

Introducing RSS

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 05:04:36 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >50
Tool: RSS Newsreader
Timeframe: 2 weeks+
Focus: Introducing RSS

Introduction

This is kindofa rip off of earlier weblogs and rss lesson plans but I figured we need some quick 'Introduction to...' lessons which can familiarize learners with technologies and ideas that aren't so current (i.e. searching the web, email, web pages etc.)

Basically learners start to use an RSS reader to keep track of information you're posting as a teacher, course related information and developments and stuff they're interested in.

Steps

1. First up you need to select an aggregator which you can all work with.

Here's some lists:

http://blogspace.com/rss/readers
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/directory/5/aggregators
http://www.lights.com/weblogs/rss.html

Unless all your learners are working from their own laptops I'd say go for a web-based such as:

Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
NewsisFree: http://www.newsisfree.com/
Feedster: http://www.feedster.com/

Personally, right now, I'd go for bloglines (although Feedster is pretty interesting too - if a bit slow and clunky)

However, if learners can use desktop based aggregators then walk that way... especially if they integrate with their email app!

2. Make sure you're familiar with it... use it for a bit :o)

3. Think about what'll get your learners using it, I'd recommend:

-Post important info (tasks, dates, details) as well as regular / interesting info on your class blog.

-Make sure you've got lots of course-relevant RSS feeds to hand to share around... you can get these through a ton of ways... these are probably the easiest: Relevant blogs / Feedster Searches http://www.feedster.com/ / News Sources (Like Yahoo http://news.yahoo.com/rss/ / PubSub http://www.pubsub.com / News Sources http://backend.userland.com/directory/167/feeds/newYorkTimes or http://www.newsisfree.com/

[This'll need a major search engine and academic dbases to use it before it REALLY cracks on though]

-Using the above to get learners subscribing to stuff they're interested in... hey, you can even start with Dilbert (or any number of daily comic feeds!) http://dwlt.net/tapestry/

4. Get learners to sign up with / download a news reader, give them feeds (course & class) that you'd like them to sign up to and let them roam for others... ask them to email any new ones they have (if they don't blog) and post them on the class blog to share [if your learners already blog... get them to share their rss feeds and get signed up to each other]

5. Ask learners to check their aggregators every weekday for the next two weeks and think about their value, how they could help them.

6. After 2 weeks, have a discussion on the benefits of and problems with news aggregating, devise a path to 'better aggregating', ask learners to implement this and reflect on the value of aggregation as a hurdle task down the track.

7. Provide, throughout the term, useful rss feeds (especially relevant to assessments and major tasks).

Extras & Tips:

-Although this is designed as a 'stand alone' RSS introduction I reckon aligning it with weblogging (especially in the social sense of subscribing to each others feeds and having conversations about news & resources) can be a much more rewarding experience... perhaps :O)

What Wiki Works Best?

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 23:19:17 GMT

Sebastian asked in these comments "do you have any recommendations for a Wiki system?" which is well worth asking out loud here I think.

So... what wiki works best?

I don't really have an answer... but I think I can throw out some specs (I've had a play around with several and these have bee n important factors...

Free
Hosted by someone else (for us techno-dunces)
Multiple-edit-possible (i.e. if two people are editing at the same time one can't overwrite what the other has done)
Good lookin' (no TNR, please... please)
Easily backupable (for soft security purposes)
Solid... so everything doesn't disappear at a whim
RSSifyed (this is rapidly becoming a MUST)
A nice add-on would be the ability to secure pages if need be

I think I'm asking too much... am I?

Wiki Activities Catalogue

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 04:51:09 GMT

Well buy me a syrup and call me 'ginger', here (.pdf), pointed to by Doug Holton (presumably this guy rather than this one :o) is a rather natty collection of educational activities (non-subject specific) using Wikis.

Good plans too! With teacher feedback! I might as well give up and go home (or hey, I could quietly steal them... d'oh too late ;o)

A MUST HAVE if you're thinking of teaching with or are teaching using a wiki...very very very cool!

Wiki Basics & Wiki RSS Feeds

Thu, 04 Mar 2004 23:21:38 GMT

Hey, cool referrer brings me Wiki School Basic Course which looks like a most excellent introduction-to-wikis-type-thing and has some pretty useful links too (including me ;o)!

It's got an RSS feed too which is exciting... either I'm totally blind or I haven't seen an RSS enabled wiki before (could be for the whole wiki or just this section) perhaps... and this is a pretty significant possibility I reckon... Wikis haven't taken off simply because they haven't had that 'push' syndication thing... could this be the beginning?

Wikipedia Code

Thu, 04 Mar 2004 02:27:01 GMT

So, while creating your class wikipedia why not use the real thing, sweeet.

A new version of (_thanks Tom_!) the code that runs the Wikipedia is available for general users, including multi-lingual support and the ability to display mathematical formulae and other hard layout challenges using LaTEX.... [Many-to-Many]

Micro-WikiPedia: Wiki Lesson Plan

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 04:39:08 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: Any
Tool: A Wiki
Timeframe: 2 weeks - 10 years+
Focus: Sharing resources, collaborating

Introduction

Based on the rather marvelous Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page this lesson plan is especially useful if you teach a similar course each year / semester. However, if you have a nice institution then this could be used across courses to pretty good effect!

Basically it involves collaboratively building a knowledge resource for a particular subject area. Your learners build it together, recognizing the value of sharing (i.e. they suddenly have access to plenty more resources - suggested by their peers! - than they ever had before) and building on / adding to resources developed by previous cohorts.

Steps

1. First up you need to have a wiki tool, there are plenty out there, you could try http://www.seedwiki.com/ or http://www.bloki.com/ for free.

2. Secondly you need to get your learners familiar with Wikis (see forthcoming plan, 'Getting learners familiar with wikis'). A quick way of doing this is to get them to build a class list identifying similarities between themselves and other learners (hence building your class dynamics).

3. Now take your learners to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and get them to critically review some sections... what's useful, what's not, what do they think of the concept etc.

4. Now set them the task of building a micro-wikipedia for the subject they're studying (or building on a past one). They can use the structure in wikipedia or you can kick it off with a template for them to work from. If there's already one there then that should dictate things nicely (although never rule out complete makeovers or dramatic changes)

[If someone has some of these going could they drop a comment so people can use these as models]

5. A simple assessment piece is to tell learners that as a hurdle task they need to reflect on the value (or otherwise) of their experience contributing to and using the Wiki.

Extras & Tips:

-Again, soft security is important (keeping a daily backed-up copy so someone doesn't accidentally delete the whole shebang)

-The degree to which you might moderate this is an important question, personally, I'd encourage encourage encourage people to go there (to the extent of posting my resources there) but wouldn't interfere with how it goes. But that's me... I'm slack ;o)

Guest Speaker: Chat Room or MOO activity

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 03:24:04 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >30
Tool: Chat Room or MOO
Timeframe: 60 minutes
Focus: Meeting an expert

Introduction

This is really simple, basically you can use the fact that it's so very very easy for someone to use a chat room or MOO to entice experts to give you 60 minutes (allow 10 minutes to get set-up, everyone there etc.) of their time in which your learners can ask questions & discuss issues.

This is also pretty cool as it can get some seriously heavy stuff in seriously concise form (your expert certainly won't be going into the kind of detail that can kill off these things and your learners will be trying to make the most of the time)

Steps

1. First up you need an expert who is willing to give you 60 minutes (and who can type :o)... I'll eave that up to you!

2. Get your learners to complete a small research project (in groups) on the expert and the area they're looking at. A very simple exercise can be to ask them to compose short presentations on that person and their area of expertise, post them a week before the interview and have everyone feedback on them (presuming you're using a discussion board, email or are able to do this face to face)

3. Ask your learners to prepare questions and tell your expert that this is what'll happen (they'll be asked questions).

4. Get everyone together in a chat room or MOO (if you have one in your course, use that, otherwise you might like to look at spaces such as those offered by Tapped In http://ti2.sri.com/tappedin/ or Chatzy http://www.chatzy.com/) and go for it... you can moderate / host. Tell everyone that you'll be saving the transcript and sharing it (you can do this by copying and pasting)

5. After the sessions finished ask learners to review the transcript, select an area that's of particular interest to them, think about the experts opinion and further develop their own. You can then use these to 'spark' group discussions.

Extras & Tips:

-Hosting this kind of thing can be pretty chaotic, I remember participating in one where people kept on getting thrown out by accident and every time someone came in or left the area it came up (which was OFTEN as they kept on getting thrown out!). So... definitely definitely definitely do a trial run first, perhaps to talk about what you're going to do in the actual task. Get all the learners involved and try to eliminate as many tech issues as possible.

Group Journal: Email Plan

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 01:35:35 GMT

Learner Group: Any.. although short course learners might be best suited
Group Size: >25
Tool: Email
Timeframe: 4 weeks +
Focus: Community Dynamics

Introduction

I've done this several times with groups of ESL learners over in Australia for a short time (c. 10 weeks) and it works really well as a tool for getting groups bonded, working together, empathising with each other and organizing stuff.

Basically you get everyone sending group emails (I've used Yahoo Groups http://groups.yahoo.com for this as it makes it a lot easier and saves the messages for you) talking about their experiences on the course (and for the ESL learners, in Australia) and as a spin off you can use it for class management and they can use it for organizing stuff like nights out and project work.

Easy peasy :O)

Steps

1. Get everyone's email address (asking them all to send you an email introducing themselves to you is always a good way to do this... always email a reply though!).

2. Create a group email address (you could use a listserv or, much easier, add everyone to a Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com (make sure you tell everyone that you're going to do this and make sure the initial message is clear!)

3. Send out an initial email setting the tone which could look something like this:

"Hi!

Welcome to the ____ email group :O)

I've created this group for two reasons:

1. For you to, as the course progresses, share your experiences with your peers. Tell us how you're finding it, what's a challenge, what's boring as hell, what you would like to do etc.

2. To allow me to share stuff with you all really easily (y'know, when your assignments are due and all that ;o) and for you guys to organize things among yourselves (nights out, coffees, group projects etc.)

So, please do use this email group for just that, you can post as few or as many messages as you like, 5% of your final mark will be based on a short reflection (>500 words) on your experience of using group email in the course (NOT on your participation or postings though)

If there's too much email you can go to the group homepage ___________, click on _______ and select to receive daily 'digests' (one email containing all the emails from that day). I would ask though that no-one un-subscribes themselves or blocks email... it's cool to hear what others have got to say, promise :o)

To sen a message to the group simply email: _________________

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!"

4. To help it get going you could ask a couple of learners to get the ball rolling (better than doing it yourself) and, as much as possible, try to stay out of it!

5. At the end of the course you can copy and paste most of the messages from the group into a word document, add any photos or images that are appropriate (I always got mine from the people on the course) and print out / email a really funky record of their time in the course :O)

Extras & Tips:

-This may not work... they may not want to work together, share experiences or socialize with each other... 'tis the way of the world, don't get disheartened, it will get better :O)

-If you get a very large group or issues arise you can always create a couple of groups ('because of the number of people') and get learners to subscribe to the one they want to join

Comments: Discussion Board Activity

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:21:00 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >30
Tool: Discussion Boards
Timeframe: A couple of weeks+
Focus: Feedback & Comments

Introduction

Let's face it, a conversation is a great way to learn but a bulletin board is just not a conversational medium, it's a bulletin board!

And what do you do with a bulletin board... well, besides posting announcements you stick stuff on it, let people read it and make a comment. So, I hereby propose this lesson plan as being the most effective possible use of a bulletin board.

And I also promise to rename this section... they're not *really* discussion boards are they! That's using language to cheat us a bit dontchathink! I mean, I think that over a set period with regular access you can have a discussion, but in reality, that's not the way to do it, it just plain isn't.

Steps

1. Give your learners a task to complete individually or in groups, make the result of the task something that can be represented electronically (like a presentation, article etc.)

2. When complete, ask learners to start a new thread on the bulletin board you're using, the subject should be the title of their project, a short description and their names, if possible. They can then post the completed project as an attachment or as text.

3. Ask learners to visit each project, experience it and make comments in the thread (ask them to make comments that they would like to receive i.e. not 'good!') You may want to allow anonymity for this.

4. Ask the learners to write a response to these comments that incorporates reflection on their project and, if you want, a final mark awarded to themselves. If your aim here is to build reflective and critical skills you could then mark them on their reflections as well as their comments... or you could just let them have what they want!

Extras & Tips:

Ensuring participation isn't really possible (or desirable really... I mean, who wants comments from someone who doesn't care!)

Violet: Weblogs and RSS

Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:28:36 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >50
Tool: Weblogs & RSS Aggregator
Timeframe: A few weeks+
Focus: Research and Interpretation

Introduction

My Nan, Violet Farmer, died yesterday (Sunday 21st February 2004) aged 90. She passed away peacefully at 6am in the UK and we'll all miss her. One of my overriding memories of Nan is watching TV in her Little house (which my dad was brought up in and in which she lived for well over 50 years) and her just not giving in to the 'passive expectancy' of watching TV. Endless comments, ideas, sympathies, thoughts and commentary would accompany anything from the ads to 'Strike it Lucky' and so this one's for her, she'd probably like it. Bye bye Nan, love you.

This is fundamentally driven by the really webloggy nature of weblogs (that is, to 'log' information found on the 'web'). Based around the premise that people like to comment on resources (especially new ones), get a lot out of sharing with their peer group and reading what their peers think about resources and find value in 'filing' online resources in a more accessible and useful form than bookmarks, the idea is that learners share what they find and thoughts on what's supplied to them and 'compete' for attention, using a tool like Technorati http://www.technorati.com or Google http://www.google.com to establish who's generated the most links in from their peer group and the rest of the world!

Steps

1. Make sure your learners are familiar with RSS and weblogs (you could use the steps from 'Reflective Reflections' or the plans I'm going to put up later for specifically this purpose [I'll add a link].

2. Talk about the concept of 'logging the web' get learners to look over some leading weblogs such as Scripting News http://scripting.com Instapuntit http://www.instapundit.com/ or Seblogging http://seblogging.cognitivearchitects.com/ and find some examples of 'logging the web' (that is, providing a link to something and commenting on it) ask them to think about how this might be useful in their studies.

3. Get learners to do a bit of initial 'logging the web' based on a google search related to their area of interest, collate RSS feeds, share them around and get everybody subscribed to everybody else using an aggregator like http://www.bloglines.com. Ask learners to reflect on the weblogging they've read, what they liked and didn't like etc. Ask them to make sure they include links to what they did like.

4. Demonstrate, using a tool like technorati http://www.technorati.com or Google http://www.google.com (just put in the URL and then click on 'sites that link to this site'), how these links (to good stuff) have been recorded (make sure you've made some links). Look at one of the more established weblogs to show how this can grow.

5. Tell your learners that there will be 'special credit' or a prize or a grade point or whatever you want to give them for the writers of the top 10 (as judged by number of links) blogs by the end of the course. Point out that the best way they can get links is by blogging about resources and ideas which other people will find useful and interesting and consequently link to. They can, of course, try to drum up interest from the world outside (although you should specify that the majority of their content should be related to the course in some way).

6. Let 'em go... keeping tab of how people are doing, technorati links etc. and taking part yourself would be a good thing to do.

My Instant Community: Instant Messaging Plan

Fri, 20 Feb 2004 03:02:10 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >50
Tool: Instant Messaging
Timeframe: 2 weeks+
Focus: Class Dynamics

Introduction

This is based on the old metaphor / replication idea of technology, filling a typical kind of gap that distance learning, students working and a lack of community in this day 'n age brings about.

For that reason I'm a little suspicious of it :O) BUT, instant messaging IS the second most used communication technology, IS used primarily among young folk and IS a pretty darn effective tool for facilitating individual relationships and group dynamics (I think... anyone got any concrete research out there?)

So, basically this involves getting all your learners onto IM, facilitating the sharing of usernames, talking about and demonstrating how this could be of benefit to them and then seeing how it goes....

Steps

1. First up you need an IM device. I've always liked MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.com/ or Yahoo messenger http://messenger.yahoo.com/. But for sheer flexibility AND the fact that you can use it in a browser (so you are not tied down to a particular machine or downloading it all the time) you can't get much better than ICQ http://web.icq.com/ (here's the web-based version http://go.icq.com/)

2. Once your happy with the device you need to get all your learners to sign up and get one, a neat way of incorporating this into the class is to ask them to complete a task or share a reflection on the course with you when they've completed it.

3. Now you might want to explain to them the possible benefits of them all being linked up with IM. For example:

"Welcome to the IM side of this course :o)

I've asked you all to get hooked up by IM because I think we can all benefit a lot from it. I feel that in this day and age there are increasingly fewer opportunities to learners like yourselves to get together in a bar, a café or a library. If you will the 'social dynamic' has kinda dropped out of the higher education scene.

I think this is a problem for two reasons:

-Learning is not all about formal activities (tutorials, lectures and assignments). In fact, research has demonstrated that people learn far more informally!

-Learning can occur much more effectively in a supportive, dynamic and friendly social environment. It's much harder to learn on your own!

Now, granted, you can communicate in class, through discussion boards or through email but outside of class there's often limited opportunity for interaction with people who are studying the same subject as you and discussion boards and email don 't really work for ad hoc conversations (they're not real-time in the first place!) So....

What I'd like you to do is to add the members of your class to your IM list of friends so that you can see when they're online and thinking about the course / study in general and they can see you.

You can send a 'hello' to an individual or a group (or me!) and then talk about what you're doing / thinking or wondering about... you might get some really good help, ideas and conversation!

Here's the list of usernames:

[list here]

See you online!"

4. Now let it roll... you could have an activity like an online tutorial to get it started where everyone attends through IM or you could schedule weekly 'chat' times (although it's the ad hoc nature of IM which partly makes it so attractive) or you could just see what happens!

Extras & Tips:

-Worth remembering that most of your learners will be far more au fait with this technology and form of communication than you are!

Blogversaries, C21st Role-Play: Weblogs and RSS

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 04:53:25 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: >30
Tool: Weblogs and RSS
Timeframe: 4 weeks+
Focus: Debate

Introduction

The inspiration for this comes from a lecturer at Deakin, Kristin Demetrious, who set up a very interesting role-play activity in WebCT. She had environmentalists and developers slugging it our over a proposed development and I've been thinking since talking with her (I've been lucky enough to talk extensively with many exciting teachers at Deakin) about how this could be developed.

This plan basically uses weblogs and rss to assist learners participate in a roleplay which pits two sides against each other. Each group has a collaborative weblog, individuals aggregate the opposing groups postings and other relevant news sources and post their arguments, supporting evidence, comments and alike to their own collaborative weblog.

Besides the 'role construction' possible in a weblog this also draws on the age old practice of 'letters to the editor' where great debates can stretch out over weeks in newspapers... in this case I reckon the writing is similar (public, published) but rss and weblogs allow for much greater support, building and speed of debate... perhaps :o)

Steps

1. Make sure learners are familiar with the concepts of RSS and weblogs. You could start by using the plans here (or a proportion of them):

RSS: http://radio.weblogs.com/0120501/categories/incorporatedSubversionTheBook/2004/02/18.html#a537

Weblogs:
http://radio.weblogs.com/0120501/categories/incorporatedSubversionTheBook/2004/02/18.html#a537

[I reckon I'm going to have to write some plans which introduce RSS and weblogs More overtly]

2. Set up your role-play. Kristin made a short video but you could equally well find a real-life one on the web (for example from http://news.bbc.co.uk/) or write an introduction. Basically, it should be a controversial issue relevant to your area (for Kristin it was a practical experience of politics in action) and something in which there are at least two different 'sides' (there could, of course, be more too)

3. Establish groups (randomly) and set up a roleplay task, you might want to do something like this:

"Welcome to the ______ group, in this task you'll be arguing that______. We're doing this to learn more about ____ / practice ____ etc. and our tools will be weblogs and RSS.

Your group consists of ___, ___, ___ ... Together you have to try to convince the public and the authorities that _____ should/n't happen. To do this you have decided to set up a weblog to publicly argue your case, provide supporting evidence and respond to your critics. This is your weblog address __________ you will shortly receive email invites to this site with usernames and passwords and you can then begin to design it and write to it as you want.

As writers you should:

-Put forward reasonable and detailed (but readable and not too long) arguments for your case (you can communicate by email together to collaborate on joint submissions)

-Post supporting material for your case

-Reply to materials and opinions put forward by people who oppose your views

You can regularly check what your your 'opposition' are writing by checking them in your aggregator.

This is the xml address of their site for you to subscribe to: ____

You cam keep track of postings by people in your group by checking your weblog through your aggregator too

This is the xml address of your site for you to subscribe to: ____

You can also keep track of people with similar views by subscribing to these feeds:

______
______
______

and you may want to make a search using an engine like http://www.feedster.com which will allow you to subscribe to a particular search so when new items are posted about this you will aggregate them, for example:

http://www.feedster.com/search.php?q=environment+pollution&;sort=date&ie=UTF-8&limit=15&type=rss

Is the RSS of most recent posts in the blogosphere containing the terms 'environment' and 'pollution'

Please make sure you have posted your first collaborative piece by next week. The debate will last for four weeks at which point the public will decide. Some aspects of public opinion will come up in this weblog _____ You will benefit from subscribing to this feed _____."

4. Get this going through prodding and helping and posting to the 'public opinion' weblog yourself. This may just contain 'responses' to ideas the groups are putting forward or you could also introduce problems / ideas and alike which could stimulate discussion and ideas.

5. If you have the opportunity to see your learners face to face you could have a 'real' final debate or alternatively you could host a live chat final discussion in which the mayor / chairman / public make their decision. You could even ask learners to slip out of roles and to vote on your weblog using a voting tool like this one http://www.bravenet.com/webtools/vote/index.php (if you want to keep it private * a bit more protected you could use http://groups.yahoo.com instead)

Extras & Tips:

-It's important to figure out whether your learners will really run with this or they will need a lot of encouragement. The better the scene setting you do and the more relevant and interesting the argument... the more involvement you'll probably get.

-You could also have learners publishing individual blogs... a bit trickier to pull together but possibly more effective?

RSS Me: Aggregator Plan

Wed, 18 Feb 2004 06:29:49 GMT

Learner Group: Any
Group Size: Any
Tool: RSS Aggregator
Timeframe: 2 weeks+
Focus: Research, Knowledge Management

Introduction

This is pretty simple... basically it involves getting learners to use aggregators to keep up-to-date with developments in their field, what they're interested in and friends.

I'm using http://www.bloglines.com here but there are plenty of other aggregators, here's a couple of lists: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/directory/5/aggregators & http://www.hebig.org/blogs/archives/main/000877.php

Steps

1. Introduce learners to the concept of regularly updating websites... blogs, newspapers, anything with regular news... and the concept of RSS (these sites might help: in detail - http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml, simple: http://rss.lockergnome.com/resources/articles/quickstart.phtml, varied: http://rss.lockergnome.com/resources/

2. Introduce how you aggregate sites that publish ideas, news and information (here's a good post you could use to introduce this: http://paolo.evectors.it/2003/09/05.html#a1850) that you want to keep up to date with. YOU HAVE TO BE AN AGGREGATOREE (?) TO REALLY PULL THIS ONE OFF :o) You could do this on http://www.bloglines.com where you can easily make public your aggregator!

3. Get your learners using a search engine which is built from aggregated posts (for example, http://www.feedster.com) for topics of professional or personal interest. It's really cool if you have a list of subject area relevant blogs (for example, my blogroll is a bit of a darn good intro to educational technology weblogs). Get them to add these to their aggregator.

4. At this point you could also point out that these are a great way of keeping in touch with your peers & classmates should they be blogging (but this isn't the focus of this sesh)

5. Get learners to check their aggregators daily for a week or two, add new sources, delete ones they don't want and generally see how they feel about it. Ask them to prepare an 'experience review' to share with their peers and you.

6. Get learners to share their experiences (in face or virtually), offer help for problems and highlights for successes.

Extras & Tips:

-One way of ensuring learners get their heads around how useful RSS is could be to post course information, news and resources on a weblog or number of weblogs with RSS feeds. Tell everyone they can visit everyday or just check their aggregator for information... post sporadically ;o)