30 November, 2006

New Virtual Learning Environment Name

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As we are looking at upgrading our VLE from WebCT 4.1, we've been talking about rebranding it. This will mean that any changes in the future can be a little more transparent and all references to WebCT in documents wouldn't all need to be changed to for example Moodle, if we were to go that way.

Webteam called it 'myLearningSpace' on the portal. Personally I think this is a bit misleading as the VLE isn't your space, it's the teacher's space. 'Online Classrooms' would perhaps be more correct.

'myLearningSpace' would be better used to brand an eportfolio system like PebblePad, or a 'Personal Learning Landscape' like ELLG. These are actually spaces owned by the students.

29 November, 2006

Subcribing to a Blog: www.feedblitz.com

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In our work at Edge Hill University, we find that getting people to subscribe to blog feeds can be difficult because it seems like a new technology to understand.

If a class was using blogs in the course, and the teacher wanted to keep track of all the posts, they would need to.

If they don't want to use feed aggregators in for example Bloglines or a web browser, they could use www.feedblitz.com

I'm still testing the site, but I think that you register at the site, then subscribe to the blogs you want to keep track of. The service will then email you with the new posts each day (I think). I'll post again when I've tested it.

17 November, 2006

Zamzar: Online File Conversion

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I might be worth us keeping Zamzar.com in mind if we, or the academic staff that we are supporting do not have the necessary software to convert certain files.

There is a list of file types supported, and although it is in beta, it has worked OK for me.

If Zamzar doesn't do what you need, try Media-Convert.

Finally, if you want to keep track of it's development, subscribe to Zamzar's blog.

02 November, 2006

Highlights of the SOLSTICE Conference

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This video is a one-minute encapsulation of the May 2006 SOLSTICE conference.

SOLSTICE is Edge Hill's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. It's aim is to help develop a method of course delivery that has the use of technology integrated into it, rather than added on to it.

Either watch the high quality version (.wmv format) or watch the embedded version held on YouTube (below).



Details of the 2007 conference will be available soon.