by Christian Dalsgaard
At the Centre for IT & Learning we are organising a seminar on “Open Educational Resources in primary and secondary education”.
May 5, 2010, 13-16.
Participation is free, but registration is required. Read more about the seminar here.
The seminar is the first in three seminars on Open Educational Resources.
Together with Morten Flate Paulsen (from NKI Distance Education) I have written an article for IRRODL (The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning) entitled “Transparency in Cooperative Online Education” (note that the article is available in both html, pdf, mp3 and epub). The abstract reads:
“The purpose of this article is to discuss the following question: What is the potential of social networking within cooperative online education? Social networking does not necessarily involve communication, dialogue, or collaboration. Instead, the authors argue that transparency is a unique feature of social networking services. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s actions. Cooperative learning seeks to develop virtual learning environments that allow students to have optimal individual freedom within online learning communities. This article demonstrates how cooperative learning can be supported by transparency. To illustrate this with current examples, the article presents NKI Distance Education’s surveys and experiences with cooperative learning. The article discusses by which means social networking and transparency may be utilized within cooperative online education. In conclusion, the article argues that the pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students.”
I have written an article for MedieKultur, which has just been published. It is entitled “From transmission to dialogue: Personalised and social knowledge media”. The abstract reads:
“The purpose of the article is to develop an approach to the use of digital media to support learning. Based on socio-cultural theory, the article develops the concept of knowledge media and argues that personalised and social media can support new ways of learning with media. Personalised and social knowledge media take the individual as the starting point and support the activities of individuals rather than transmitting or broadcasting content. The concept of knowledge media is intended to describe individuals’ use of media for learning in both formal and informal situations inside and outside of institutions. How can cultural and educational institutions learn from informal learning situations, how can they utilise digital media to move beyond their physical boundaries and websites, and how can they move from transmission and broadcasting to a dialogical approach?”
I was at the ICELW 2009 Conference (The International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace) in New York last week. I presented my paper on “Supporting Transparency between Students” (pdf). The abstract reads:
“The paper presents the results of a case study that explores the potentials of weblogs and social bookmarking to support transparency in a university course. In the course, groups of students used weblogs and social bookmarking in their work. The objective of the case was to empower students by providing them with tools that would be visible to the other students in the course, thus, making students’ ideas, thoughts and questions visible to the other students in the course. The paper concludes that use of digital media for transparency can support empowerment of students and inspiration among students in a course, but that the challenge is to create a balance between personal tools and tools for collaborative group work that are also suitable for transparency between students. “
March 17th I gave an interview on learning styles to TV2 / Østjylland. In the interview I express some of my criticism of the theory. The interview was motivated by an initiative of the municipality in Aarhus (of about 7 mio. kroner) in support of learning styles in the public school.
You can see the interview here.
I have written the paper “Touch the World - and communicate the experience via Mobile Phones” (pdf) together with Jørgen Bang, Kristian Engelbrecht, Rolf Lemminger and Thea Skaanes. The paper was presented at the 3rd WLE Mobile Learning Symposium in London. The abstract reads:
“The paper presents a project involving school children’s use of mobile phones at Moesgaard Museum, in Aarhus, Denmark. A special anthropological exhibition called “Touch the World” is arranged around items supplied by UNESCO. The paper will discuss the pedagogical perspective of using mobile phones as a vehicle to enhance pupil’s learning by making their own documentation of their experiences and by communicating these experiences to fellow pupils. We argue that mobile phones have a potential to support these learning processes as a personalised tool for documentation and communication.”
Together with Elsebeth Sorensen I have written the paper “A Typology for Web 2.0″, which was presented at ECEL 2008 (the The 7th European Conference on e-Learning). The abstract reads:
“Web 2.0 is a term used to describe recent developments on the World Wide Web. The term is often used to describe the increased use of the web for user-generated content, collaboration, and social networking. However, Web 2.0 is a weakly defined concept, and it is unclear exactly what kind of technologies it covers. The objective of the paper is to develop a typology that can be used to categorize Web 2.0 technologies. Further, the paper will discuss which of these technologies are unique to Web 2.0. Often, Web 2.0 is described by way of different kinds of software; for instance, blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, and social networking sites. The problem with this type of description is that it fails to distinguish between different types or categories of technologies. As an alternative, the typology developed in the paper distinguishes between technologies on basis of, how - and in which contexts - they are used. In a given use context, it is not the technological characteristics themselves that are interesting. Rather, it is the function of the technology in a given learner empowered use context, which calls for specific characteristics that appear significant in the coupling of action to process. The typology suggested by this paper relates to four functions or use contexts, which are believed to be central to the potentials of Web 2.0: dialoging, networking and awareness-making, creating and sharing.”
Together with Mikkel Godsk I’m editing the next issue in the new Danish peer-reviewed journal Læring og Medier (Learning and Media). The theme issue is entitled “Implementing Audio, Video and Interactive Media in Teaching Practice”.
You can read the call here (in Danish) and here (in English).
At the Centre for IT & Learning we are organising an international Conference on Knowledge Media, January 19 - 20, 2009. The conference is now open for registration (the conference is limited to about 80 participants). Among other presenters (including myself), the keynotes are:
Together with Jørgen Bang, I have written the article “Digital forskningsformidling - kommunikative potentialer ved at anvende Web 2.0 til videnskonstruktion” (in English: “Digital research communication - communicative potentials of using Web 2.0 for knowledge construction”). The abstract reads:
“En kortlægning af dansk forskningsformidling (Burchardt 2007) viser, at traditionelle publikationskanaler som trykte tidsskrifter dominerer forskningsformidlingen, mens digital forskningsformidling endnu ikke er udbredt. Digitale tidsskrifter er ofte online udgaver af trykte tidsskrifter og udkommer som disse ofte i samlede udgaver (”volumes”). Kun enkelte tidsskrifter findes i rene digitale udgaver og endnu færre benytter sig af løbende udgivelser af enkeltartikler. Det ses tydeligt, at den digitale forskningsformidling primært finder sted gennem digitale tidsskrifter, der remedierer (Bolter & Grusin 1999) trykte tidsskrifter. Parallelt med eller i forlængelse af remedieringen dukker der imidlertid en række nye kommunikationsformer op på nettet. Weblogs, wikier, podcats og sociale netværk giver nye muligheder for forskningsformidling. Artiklen forsøger at skabe et overblik over de nye kommunikations- og formidlingsmuligheder, der eksisterer i nye digitale medier (Finnemann 2005), ofte kaldet Web 2.0. Det centrale spørgsmål er: Hvordan kan man formidle forskning gennem digitale medier? Artiklen er et indledende studie i et større projekt om potentialerne i digital forskningsformidling i relation til tre målgrupper: andre forskere, virksomheder/organisa¬tioner og offentligheden. Fokus for projektet er bevægelsen fra monologiske til dialogiske medier. Kan nye kommunika¬tionsformer i forskningsformidlingen bevæge sig ud over envejs-kommunikation og i stedet fostre dialog - herunder styrke diskussion, udveksling og samarbejde mellem forskere indbyrdes, mellem forskere og projektpartnere og i forhold til den brede offentlighed?”
The article is published in the new Danish journal Læring og Medier (Learning and Media) . It is an online journal, and the articles are available online without subscription.
