Use Linkedin to Collaborate with the Corporate World?

"While Facebook is a goldmine for connecting people and having social fun, Linkedin is the present and future goldmine for connecting students and ideas to the corporate world."
- Zaid Ali Alsagoff

Not that this is so exciting, but as universities around the world are striving to create industrial or corporate linkages, and explore innovative ways to connect their students and research projects with relevant companies, professionals and experts out there, Linkedin looks increasingly like a great connector.

WHAT IS LINKEDIN?

Today, Linkedin has over 90 million registered users, and the company is growing at a rate of around 3 million new people per month. Although, most of its current users (as of January 2011) are located in US (52%), European Union (25%), India (8%) and Canada (4%), I predict that the user demographics will dramatically change in 2011, and you will see mega growth in many other countries, especially in South-East Asia. Linkedin has already members in 200+ countries, and delivers around 1 billion pageviews per month (Source).

It is already being touted by Josh Bersin to radically transform corporate recruiting, which means companies like Jobstreet.com and Monster.com might be facing tough times ahead, unless they can keep on innovating, and encourage people to continue to use their services.

Though, I am not going to waste or fickle my words on that, but instead focus on what Linkedin can do in terms of facilitating corporate learning connections.



WHY NOT USE FACEBOOK INSTEAD?
I have already discussed earlier on this blog about how Facebook can be used for learning and creating learning communities. It is still a useful tool to do exactly that, but I have to admit I am getting more and more annoyed with the increasing number of distracting picture adverts (4-5 adverts per page) taking over the Facebook interface. We were first introduced to 3 annoying picture adverts per screen (mostly irrelevant ones, too!), and at one time I am sure it was 5 (getting dizzy!), but now it is 4... What is going on?

From a learning point-of-view:

• GOOD
  Facebook is great for connecting me to friends and uploading baby pictures to keep my Mum connected with what is going on, while living thousands of kilometers away. It is also a great tool to communicate and interact with students, create small learning communities, play games together, promote ourselves...More
  
  
• BAD
  Facebook is increasingly becoming a BIG BUSINESS, which is understandable when you have 600 million users, and still growing significantly. Though, this also means more adverts, spam, rubbish, junk, distractions, etc...You name it! I actually respect Mark (Seen to be notoriously uninterested in money in the past) for keeping the Facebook interface clean from annoying adverts for so long, but sadly that is no longer the case.
  
  
• UGLY
  Have you ever seen a Facebook junkie at work. I have! If your colleague is checking Facebook updates and pictures every 3 minutes, and is always busy (doing nothing work related), then you have seen one. Did you know that a study showed that 54% of US companies ban Facebook (and Twitter) at work? Working when connected to Facebook is like having a daddy day care full of kids screaming in your ears nonstop. It can be done, but you need discipline!
  

Having said that, we should not blame Facebook on all this (or should we?), but instead discipline ourselves (and others) to use it appropriately, because if used appropriately it can be an amazing connector and a great learning tool.

It will be interesting to see how Facebook evolves, but for me I will be exploring Linkedin more in 2011, and see how it can be used to connect and transform learning.



WHY NOT USE LINKEDIN FOR LEARNING?
Actually, I have been on Linkedin for several years (since 2005 or 2006, If I am not mistaken), but it wasn't until recently that I felt the urge to explore and really use it. I had just completed a 3-part series discussing my frustrations with the Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS):

• Part 1 - Would Nemo Survive Using the Blue Ocean Strategy?
• Part 2 - Simplify Blue Ocean & Make Consultants __________!
• Part 3 - ZaidLearn's Blue Ocean Strategy for 2011

Although, I didn't get many comments on the blog, I noticed there was an interesting BOS discussion taking place on Linkedin, which was initiated by Dick Lee (CEO and Chief Innovation Officer at Value Innovations, Inc), using my BOS article as a trigger.

Me being me, I joined the group and as a result, I experienced a refreshing and truly insightful discussion, which ironically was triggered by my bashing or 'Critique of Blue Ocean Strategy' as Dick Lee articulated it. Reading and reflecting arguments by people that have been initiating value innovations for decades was really enriching, and then that got me thinking...

Why can't we encourage more students to participate or join relevant groups in Linkedin. Professionals and experts out there are always looking for refreshing ideas and suggestions, while students want to learn from experienced people in the corporate world. Bingo!

Also, Linkedin is becoming more user-friendly, the discussion forum is not too bad, and it will probably be introducing more collaboration tools in the near future. WOW, what a potential!

Why not use Linkedin to link up students and educators with awesome people in the corporate world, and explore ways to create value innovations and win-win situations, etc...! Yes, why not?

Finally, I have to agree with Professor Thomas Baker that both Facebook and Linkedin are valuable for their own reasons, and that we should use both to good effect!

What do you think? Do you have any learning experiences with Linkedin to share?

I am still learning the Linkedin way to learn :)

#CCK11 - Connectivism & Connective Knowledge in Action!

CCK11

This is my first reflection (posting) for the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course (CCK11), which is a 12-week open online course facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. This course will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. Participation is open to everyone and there are no fees or subscriptions required....Register here!

Important links:

• Discussion Threads
• Daily Newsletter
• Newsletter Archives
  
• Elluminate recordings (Links to all recorded live sessions in the course)

Click here to read my experience participating in PLENK 2010, which was also conducted by Stephen and George.

WEEK1: WHAT IS CONNECTIVISM?

"At its heart, connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks. It shares with some other theories a core proposition, that knowledge is not acquired, as though it were a thing. Knowledge is, on this theory, literally the set of connections formed by actions and experience.

Readings list for week 1

• George Siemens, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
• Stephen Downes, What connectivism is, and What Connectivism Is Not
• George Siemens, What is the Unique Idea in Connectivism?
• George Siemens, video recap of Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2008
• Rick Schwier interview of George Siemens on connectivism.
• George Siemens presentation on Defining Connectivism and Comparing connectivism with other learning theories
• Stephen Downes presentation: A quick introduction to connectivism (ustream) (Spanish, German)"

(Source: CCK11 - Week 1)

So, what does connectivism and connective knowledge mean to me? Instead of dwelling upon my own contextualized remixed or mashed-up version of this theory, I will instead share with you a true story that I believe manifests the potential effect of embracing connectivism, and connective knowledge.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY

A couple of months back (November 29th, 2010), I posted an article on this blog entitled, 'Islam, Higher Education & The Virtual Campus!', which Stephen Downes spotted in his RSS galaxy (I assume), and then he shared and reflected it on OLDaily. And as a result:

"Zaid, I read with interest the ZaidLearn blog that Stephen described in OLDaily. Great column! (And thanks to you, Stephen, for including it. This is what I meant when I sent you a note lauding your service to the educational community. You get people like Zaid and me together!)..."
- James Morrison (via E-mail)

First, thanks Stephen for connecting me to amazing people like James L. Morrison. I have probably lost count of how many amazing people and renowned educators, Stephen Downes has connected me to (knowingly or unknowingly) ever since I first appeared on OLDaily (in 2005). Those 26 appearances on OLDaily over the years (until now) have been magical in terms of connections and plugs to amazing people around the world, so I certainly owe him in appreciation and respect for that. THANK YOU!

JAMES MORRISON
Interestingly, thanks to this awesome Zaid-to-Stephen-to-James connection, I got to hook up with James L. Morrison for half-a-day, when he came to Malaysia on the 2nd January (2011) to conduct a couple of lectures and one workshop. If you are not familiar with this renowned educator and futurist, perhaps these 3 sites will enlighten you more about his contribution to mankind:

• Horizon
  This is where (his homepage) you will find all his shared resources, including articles and workshop/presentation slides. And when you have written more than 200 articles, and conducted more than 240 lectures/presentations/workshops around the world, it becomes like....WOW...Thanks for sharing! This site has been hit more than a million times, so surely it must have had some impact on educators and learners around the world.
  
  
• Innovate
  Founded and served as editor-in-chief, Innovate (2004 to 2009), a journal of online education.
  
  
• The Technology Source
  Co-founded and served as editor-in-chief, The Technology Source (1997 to 2003).
  

What even amazed me more was his eagerness and excitement to have a learning conversation with me, which was really humbling, and I honestly felt a bit embarrassed. Here is man who has contributed so much to learning and education, and he is going all out to meet me. Who the ___ am I? Anyway, it didn't get to my head, and I showed similar genuine excitement to hook up with him, because surely I could learn some gems from this exceptional guru.



HIGHER EDUCATION IN TRANSITION
As I was recovering from a flu, we could only meet up a few hours before his Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Speakers Series Lecture at Sunway University (3rd January), which was entitled, 'Higher Education in Transition'.

We met at 2.30 pm (3rd January) at Sunway Resort Hotel, and soon after a car sent us to the lecture hall at Sunway University where he was to deliver his lecture at 5.30 pm. Yes, 5.30 pm! Although, James has done more than 200 official lectures around the world, he still likes to take his time to setup his Mac, rehearse his presentation, and get comfortable with the environment before delivering his lecture. I certainly found that amusing for a man that has delivered lectures for decades, but then again that is one of the signs of a great educator, which is that they are always striving to improve whatever they are doing.

Besides the preparation, he was eager to go through his slides with me, and get my feedback and insights to improve further. Those couple of hours before the lecture was probably more valuable and enriching than the actual lecture, because I got to have an enriching learning conversation with him, and see how a great educator prepares for a lecture.

"Higher education is in a major transition period that will fundamentally change the way colleges and universities will conduct their business in the coming decades. Although change in social institutions is seldom rapid, the combined forces of demography, globalization, economic restructuring, and information technology are forcing colleges to reconceptualize their markets, organizational structures, and pedagogical practices. This presentation focused on the impact of these forces on American and Malaysian higher education." - Source

Click here to download presentation slides.

The lecture itself was also crispy and refreshing, as it also explored the new evolving paradigm of learning, and the importance of facilitating more authentic learning (e.g. project-based learning), instead of lecturing students through too much theory without allowing them to explore and experience the possibilities. Let's enjoy and reflect the recorded lecture broken down into 3 parts:

 
Higher Education in Transition, Part I from James Morrison on Vimeo.

 
Higher Education in Transition, Part II from James Morrison on Vimeo.

 
Higher Education in Transition, Part III from James Morrison on Vimeo.

After the lecture he insisted that I join him for the special dinner in honor of him. I suppose Sunway University Executive Director Elizabeth Lee, and Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Bignall were surprised, but obviously I would not turn down an opportunity to continue the learning conversation with a renowned futurist. In short, it was an inspiring learning experience and a great connection.

LESSONS LEARNED

So, what lessons can we draw from this inspiring experience, and connectivism and connective knowledge?

First, if we have a reasonably good Internet connection today we can all connect with amazing learning resources and exceptional educators around the world. However, by simply passively connecting to content and people, and just consuming without contributing ourselves back to learning ecosystem and connective world, we will probably never experience the learning possibilities that connectivism and connective knowledge can empower.

In other words, if you really want to experience the empowering learning possibilities and inspiring connections, you need to take an active role, which means sharing your ideas and discoveries openly, and joining actively in the learning conversations (relevant to you) taking place online around the world.

"The juicier your shared discoveries and ideas are, the more likely people will want to connect and interact with you."
- Zaid Alsagoff

On January 19th, to my big surprise George Siemens wished me Happy New Year, and asked me whether I was available to present to CCK11 this year. I have to admit I nearly choked when I read the e-mail, and was thinking have you gone ___! Anyway, challenging it may be, I am not planning to chicken out, and will be hopefully be giving my online Elluminate presentation to CCK11 on Wednesday 16th March (Week 9 - Openness & Transparency).

Oops, what have I agreed myself into! If you have any tips to share, or topic you want me to discuss during my CCK11 presentation, I would certainly appreciate that. For once, help me out here...Please :)

A Sizzling Collection of Anatomy Games & Resources!

It is amazing how much knowledge, skills and attitudes a medical student must internalize (memorize, understand, apply and practice) before he or she can graduate, and making that learning journey a bit more engaging and exciting would surely not hurt. Personally, I would probably need brain shock therapy before even grasping the basics of Anatomy during the first semester. The language used for anatomy is way too complex for my impatient and simplifying brain to learn.

Interestingly, a pro-active IMU student (Ibnu Haniffa) shared an awesome Anatomy Arcade Games site on IMU E-Learning Facebook page recently (22/01/2011), and that just sparked me to an unexplored galaxy of great anatomy games and resources. In other words, unless you are using some of the sites coming next, why not spice up your Anatomy learning activities (or reading list) with some of the sizzling resources shared right here:

• WebAnatomy
  A collection of study aids and games from University of Minnesota for entry-level anatomy and physiology students. For example, the Anatomy Bowl multiplayer games could be used to spark the class to life learning different aspects of anatomy in a competitive, but exciting manner.
  
  
• Anatomy Arcade Games (Ben Crossett)
  This mission was born of frustration with what he saw as a lack of truly engaging material in the area of anatomy and also a frustration as a teacher catching students wasting class time playing flash games every time they were in a computer lab. The catch phrase "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" sums up the decision he made; to investigate the potential of these "pesky" little games to invigorate the delivery of anatomical material to the teenage audience (Source). Use some of these awesome anatomy games in your class (collaborative fun!), or at least share these games with your students where relevant.
  
  
• Visible Body (3D Human Anatomy)
  Visible Body is a content and software development firm that produces award-winning interactive and visual content. Visible Body's clients include many of the world's top pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, and educational publishing companies. The revolutionary Visible Body web application is a 3D human anatomy visualization and learning tool available by subscription.
  
  
• BBC Interactive Body
  A sizzling free 3D animated anatomy resource that even includes interactive games to explore the senses, organs, skeleton, muscles and the nervous system.
  
  
• Get Body Smart
  Visually learn about the human body through beautifully detailed and interactive Flash animations.
  
  
• The Virtual Sports Injury Clinic
  Covers interactive information on over 100 sports injuries.
  
  
• TeachPE
  Check out the anatomical section especially on bones, muscles, the heart, lungs and energy systems.
  
  
• Human Embryology Animations
  It explores General Embryology, Cardiovascular Embryology, Development of the Head and Neck, Gastrointestinal Embryology, Development of the Limbs, and Urinary and Reproductive Embryology. Amazing stuff!
  
  
• Think Anatomy
  Is the creation of Vanessa Ruiz, art director, medical illustrator, blogger, and all out anatomy fanatic. This great site links, categorizes and discusses the best anatomy resources on the Internet.
  
  
• Street Anatomy
  Covers the use of human anatomy in medicine, art, and design (Vanessa Ruiz again!).
  
  
• Ourselves & Our Bodies (Shambles)
  A growing collection of excellent anatomy resources worth visiting once a while to discover new anatomy learning gems.
  
  
• To be Discovered!
  If you have any other excellent (free) anatomy online resources that you want to share, please share them in the comments section, and it will be added (if appropriate). Thanks :)
  
  

Ibnu Haniffa, thank you for being a pro-active students sharing your learning discoveries, and hopefully more students (lecturers and learners) will participate in sharing their learning discoveries on IMU E-Learning Facebook (or here!).

Finally, now we should not have any excuses in making our anatomy classes (or courses) boring, because with physical anatomy tools (at the medical museum), and sizzling online resources above, we have tremendous opportunities and possibilities to engage and inspire the medical students' mind, body and soul like never before :)

The One Stop Learning Blog

ONE STOP LEARNING

"As I have progressed along my journey as an educator, I have come to better appreciate that teaching is about sharing—sharing what I have learned with others, including the public at large. This blog is my expression, my way of sharing my passion on the issue of teaching and learning, lifelong learning and education in general. It is also intended as a repository of resources related to teaching and learning. This is my humble attempt to put together useful links, articles, websites, presentations, videos, etc. in one place -- for my own reference and for those who are interested to learn more about teaching and learning...more"

- Professor Karim (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

I am always thrilled to discover new edublogs from educators in Higher Education in Malaysia passionate about sharing their learning discoveries and journeys. This blog by Prof. Karim has already been around since November 2010, so it is not totally new, but without doubt worth sharing here. Interestingly, we met during a workshop (National E-Learning Road Map) late last year (2010), and have since communicated through Twitter (@biopolimer) and e-mail, but ironically I didn't really discover his juicy blog until today.

As the One Stop Learning blog is also Prof. Karim's own reference for learning discoveries on teaching and learning, means that his motivation to keep it going goes beyond hits and fame, which is important to keep it rolling until the world discovers this gem of a blog. Besides being self-motivated to share, it is always great to know that you have readers and people willing to challenge your ideas and thoughts. If he can keep it up (like now!), I am pretty sure that this blog will achieve just that as it explores and grows.

In short, why not visit...I shall say no more... just CLICK HERE :)

One Secret Recipe to Great Memory is

Trying hard to forget it!

"The harder you try to forget something, the more likely you will remember it!"
- Zaid Ali Alsagoff

FORGET IT!

Have you noticed that when you try hard to forget something that you don't want to remember (e.g. a crappy presentation you did!), it becomes harder to forget it. It just sticks in your mind like glue....Forget! Forget! Forget! It isn't going to happen! Memorable incidents whether bad or good will stick longer (or are easier to retrieve from the memory archive).

Or you are preparing for an important exam trying really hard to remember something, and you simply can't remember anything! And then when you finally do remember it, you forgot something else! And it just continues in a stressful cycle until the end of the exam. Interestingly, within days after the exam many of those important memories are archived somewhere, nowhere to be found or retrieved anymore (unless used!). Memory or memory retrieval is a funny thing.

MALE BRAIN VS FEMALE BRAIN

Have you wondered why it is nearly impossible to win an argument with your wife (sister/girlfriend/mother/any women for that sake), especially if it's about personal, emotional, or social incidents. You will have one big point (It wasn't me!), and then she will have a few hundred small points that you can't challenge or remember. It will be like...but, but, but, but, but... Oh man, I wish I had such great memory for details. That would make my life easier (or worse)!

The secret? One word: EMOTION!

Don't believe me, watch this:

MY 32 CENTS! 

Have you wondered why subjects you enjoy to study are easier to learn and remember? What happens in your mind when you enjoy something? You keep on thinking about it! If you don't enjoy it? You think about something else!

The secret? One word: REPETITION
Things you like, you repeatedly think about in your mind.

To improve your memory you could eat healthy, exercise well, play brain games, use millions of memory techniques, and all the other who-ha prescribed by the memory gurus. I have tried them all without too much lasting success.

But I do know that when I try really hard to forget something, it usually sticks better than any other method that I have ever tried. I suppose in the process of trying hard to forget I am evoking an emotional state (e.g. angry), and by doing it repeatedly it makes it nearly impossible to forget.

In a never forgetting memory shell, make whatever you want to remember memorable by trying hard to forget it in an emotional state repeatedly.

Now, forget what you have just read! FORGET! FORGET! FORGET! FORGET!

If you can't remember, you haven't tried hard enough to forget! GET IT?

Who cares if you can remember (digital databases do a better job!), if you can't understand, apply or create some form of value from it! That makes more sense... Now I get it!

What about you? What is your secret recipe to great memory (with understanding!)?

MAKNAZ - The Saudi Repository for Learning Objects

"The Maknaz project provides a complete solution for the implementation, customisation, maintenance and support of a reliable and effective online learning environment, including all the required hardware for sustaining a highly sophisticated environment supporting 22 leading national universities."
- Abdullah Al Mogheerah (NCEL's Manager for Planning & PMO)

Bob Little ranked Abdullah Al Mogheerah as the 4th most influential person in the corporate e-learning world in 2011 (on Jan 4, 2011)

CLICK HERE TO EXPLORE MAKNAZ

MAKNAZ (or Treasure Chest)?

"The National Center of E-learning and Distance Learning (NCEL) guides the various efforts of Saudi higher education institutions to develop digital content, enrich the curricula and facilitate learning to achieve excellence in the educational process as a whole...As a result, an electronic national repository has been built to facilitate the process of developing, archiving, retrieving, reusing and sharing of learning objects. The national repository will support the efforts of Saudi universities and serve as a basis for building digital curricula with higher quality and less cost..." - Source

In developing and implementing Maknaz, NCEL has been working closely with eXact learning solutions, and they have fused "eXact LCMS and Harvestroad Hive DR infrastructures to provide a nationwide digital marketplace within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia...Academics and students use the HarvestRoad Hive DR to share and access a wide array of educational materials. The eXact LCMS and other collaboration tools are used to facilitate the production and management of online learning contents." - Source

Maknaz is "integrated with all NCEL's internal repositories, including Qanatech and the Saudi Digital Library (SDL) as well as with a network of over 36 international repositories, making it possible for Maknaz users to search for contents across all these repositories." - Source

THE BIG CHALLENGE

The problem with many Learning Object Repositories (LOR) in the past was populating the repository quickly (too costly and too few people willing to share), and attracting people to use it. In general, people will only visit the LOR, and continue to use it if they can easily find content relevant to their areas of interest.

Interestingly, Maknaz empowers users to search for (and filter) contents across more than 36 international repositories, including ARIADNE, NSDL, University of Cambridge, MIT (OpenCourseware), IDEALS @ Illinois, JorumOpen, Delft University of Technology, Johns Hopkins University (MUSE Project) and Hong Kong University. By doing so, users have access from one search box more than one million learning resources (objects/items), which makes it immediately attractive to find potential learning resource gems.

So, while Maknaz is being populated with local content from Universities around Saudi Arabia, Maknaz has already an immediate attraction with its federated search across multiple learning repositories around the world.

To go beyond just focusing on developing and sharing content, Maknaz has areas for communities, forums and blogs to bloom, which is great to spark connections and facilitate collaborations among users.

The big challenge with such massive projects is getting buy-in by stake holders (Universities, academics, students, etc.), changing people's learning and sharing mindset from copyright to copyleft (or Creative Commons), and creating an environment where honest discussions and constructive criticism can flow without disruption and fear.

Having now been to Saudi Arabia twice for educational purposes (Nov 2008: 2 E-Learning workshops and Jan 2010: E-Learning Audit of Universities), I am still amazed how fast they are moving ahead with e-learning and investing in the infrastructure to make it happen.

What is even more encouraging and exciting was meeting several young upcoming academics during the process, who have brilliant ideas, and are very passionate about innovating the way they learn, and empower students to learn. I remember even one E-Learning Dean, who told me that he woke up at night having dreams about e-learning. I am passionate about learning and e-learning, but I have yet to have any dreams to testify that.

Finally, having a passionate and strategically driven NCEL push forward with so many innovative projects, hosting conferences, and providing tons of training programs (for both men and women) to support the development of the learning nation, and topping that with a growing group of academics hungry to learn and innovate, it will certainly be interesting to see how the transformation of Saudi Higher Education unfolds in the future :)

IMU Student Blogging Project to Promote a Healthy Lifestyle!

"Every blog has a story behind it."

- Teenage Advisor

THE STORY

In late October 2010, Sheba DMani, the coordinator (facilitator) for the 'A Critical and Reflective Response to Media' (Medical Humanities Selective) course (at IMU) explored with me the idea of assigning students to work in groups to develop blogs addressing important issues and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Of course that made me excited, as I have been promoting the usage of web 2.0 and social media for learning ever since I joined IMU (June 2009). And having already been through one cycle assisting Prof. Khoo Suan Phaik with her students' project using Google Sites, I was quite confident it would be an inspiring and valuable learning experience.

Interestingly, both these inspiring lecturers are not exactly IT-savvy, but they were willing and open to explore possibilities, and with a bit of assistance they managed to get through both projects successfully without too much hassle. As today's Y-generation (Most IMU students) is already quite IT-savvy, you don't exactly need to train them, but instead explore and empower them with creative ideas and possibilities.

A CRITICAL & REFLECTIVE RESPONSE TO MEDIA
This module facilitated by Sheba DMani focuses on connections between media and health within socio-cultural contexts. Media in the form of text and graphic presented through visual and audio modes from magazines, television and internet will be explored. These may include advertisements, films and music videos related to themes on health and healthcare. Students will approach these media texts through critical interpretation, reflective thinking and creative presentations. Upon completing this course, students will have learned that the media constructs views of the real world and that these views have been mediated to provide filtered and partial meaning of health belief and behaviour.

THE PROJECT & EVALUATION PROCESS

So, instead of writing a group assignment (using Microsoft Word/PowerPoint) to impress the lecturer, students were assigned to create a blog and promote their mission to the world. Surely that is more inspiring and exciting, right?

The students were assigned randomly into groups (consisting of 10 or less) and had three weeks (29 Nov-17 Dec) to prepare the blog, before presenting their project to the class and a selected group of evaluators. The blogs purpose was to promote health information to a specific audience (i.e. children, teenagers, adults, special needs and pregnant women).

The blogs would be evaluated based on their originality and creativity (title, tag-line, content, etc.), and the blog had to include at least 3 articles/columns and/or editorials that convey messages on the chosen topic. Finally, each blog had to include at least one video or audio message developed by the group.

Strong emphasis was given on originality, and students were reminded the importance of avoiding plagiarism and dealing with risk communication. In other words, it is important to acknowledge and appreciate authors and sources (re)used to develop the content for the blogs.

Overall, the blogs were assessed for accuracy and relevance of information, creativity, interactive features and the use of media techniques. To make it more exciting and competitive, each group did not make their blogs available to the other groups (or public) before their group presentation on the 16th December (2010).

Each group was given 30 minutes to present and defend their blog on the 16 December. Interestingly, Assoc. Prof. Dr. SriKumar Chakravarthi (IMU lecturer) whom was one of the evaluators was in India during this period, but still managed to watch and participate in the evaluation process using Skype. In addition to getting feedback from other class mates and evaluators, students voted for their favorite blog (using the Moodle poll feature) after the group presentation.

So, what was my role besides being one of the evaluators? As Sheba DMani is not too familiar with blogging, I handled a Q&A session on creating a blog with the students on the 3rd December. No, I didn't present any PowerPoint slides! I simply came to class, asked them relevant questions, and explored possibilities from this awesome list of free learning tools they could use to create or reuse sizzling content for their blogs.

So, how much did this project cost? In terms of technology, all the online tools they used to spread their message to the world cost.... ZERO! Not bad!

STUDENT LEARNING OUTPUT?

Nutrition 101 in Pregnancy

"Healthy foods for a healthy baby"

This blog aims to guide pregnant women through the process of making a positive change in the diet. It discusses and explores nutrition tips, delicious recipes, common myths, pregnancy tips and no-nos, useful links, and a few cool widgets, including the 'Weekly Pregnancy Calendar'. Overall, the blog is well-designed providing the user with a visually soothing and user-friendly navigation experience, which is certainly a requirement for any pregnant woman.

The project team (Amelia, Melisa, Moushini, Natasha, Ray, Shahira, and Sharon) did a great collaborative effort. Congratulations!

In one word: Wonderful!

Teen Advisor

"Teenage Life is Never Black & White"

This blog focuses on adolescent issues aimed at the teenage population of 13-19. It explores in an emotionally creative, but informative way common youth challenges such as alcohol, drugs, relationships (family/friends/girlfriend/boyfriend), stress and smoking.

To really connect with the youth in an inspiring and engaging way, this hard working project team mashed-up their own original graphics, directed and recorded a short Abstinence Educational Video, set up a Facebook page, and used Xtranormal to create this cool animated video:

In one word: AWESOME!

Pink Awareness

"BIG or small, We Save them All"

This blog aims to provide a one stop avenue for information on breast cancer in an easy way to understand. Its' combination of stylish (pink) and interactive design, easy navigation, and relevant topics makes it a great place to discover more about breast cancer, which include symptoms, risk factors, preventive measures, test and diagnosis, and alternative medicine. In addition to developing a great website, the project team (Qi Quan, Melody, Wern Ching, Shariffa and Praveena) developed a very informative 'Breast Self-Examination' video...

In one word: INSPIRING!

Understanding Asperger’s Syndrome

This blog focuses on Asperger's Syndrome, which is often misunderstood among people. Asperger's Syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. The project team has done a good job in designing and structuring the few (identified), but relevant issues regarding this disability, which include helping people to recognize it, statistics and epidemiology, books and resources, and famous people with it. Did you know that Albert Einstein had Asperger's Syndrome? Now you know!

In one word: INTERESTING!

An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

"Don't Forget to Brush Your Teeth"

This blog provides some useful tips on how to take care of your health, including brushing your teeth, eating oranges and carrots, and washing your hands. The highlight of this blog has to be the creatively designed video developed by the project team (view contributors), entitled "The story of Bluey and Pinky'.

In one word: CREATIVE!

LESSONS LEARNED

From my experience working with students involved in projects requiring them to develop a website (using web 2.0), often complain that it is time consuming and that it requires a lot of work. But by knowing that their work will continue to live on (more meaning), and that they are publishing it to the world (instead of only to the lecturer), they are willing to take up the challenge and put in a greater effort. In other words, their motivation often goes beyond grades, and that is very exciting and encouraging.

Though, we still have to work on their fair use or reuse of external content and graphics, and teach them proper online referencing procedures, which is something we have to continue to work on. It is alright to quote and reuse (if permission is given), but we must appreciate and recognize other people's work. As such we have already setup a site for IMU staff and students (only) exploring project based learning (in the e-learning portal), including proper online referencing procedures.

Although, our e-learning portal (using Moodle) is wonderful for uploading and organizing course content, linking online resources, online discussions, assignment submissions, online quizzes, and so on, we should also encourage and empower students to use other web 2.0 and social media tools for creating creative content and informal learning. For example, several lecturers from the School of Pharmacy use Facebook for communicating online with their students, and have experimented with conducting Problem-Based Learning (PBL) sessions using Facebook Groups.

I have noticed that some Universities in Malaysia ban the usage of Facebook and YouTube at their campuses, and use the excuse that they encourage poor learning/working habits and clog up their network (bandwidth) for other usages. That might be true, but if staff and students learn how to discipline themselves using such tools (no choice!), they will actually have access to some of the most amazing learning resources on the planet (for free), and be able to interact with experts and students from all over the world through Facebook groups/pages (e.g. Harvard University - Facebook). I can't think of a better investment for learning than boosting the network (bandwidth) to support online learning in all forms. The Internet is the heart, blood circulation, and oxygen of learning in the 21st century.

More importantly, today more than ever, it is critical to encourage students to nurture their communication, collaboration, creative and analytical skills using the web and multimedia tools. Increasingly in the future, people in organizations will be working and collaborating online using the cloud, so it is important to encourage and necessary to prepare our students for this new world.

Also, it is important to highlight here that the quality of the students' output (results) at this stage is not as important as empowering their passionate and inquiring mindset to explore possibilities and ideas, and continuously reflect, learn and improve from these learning experiences. In short, focus more on the learning process than the output (results). Results will come as they learn. Some are early bloomers, others are late bloomers, and that is something we should never forget.

Can you imagine hiring a graduate that cannot communicate and collaborate online? Try asking that same question in four year's time :)

Buzzing with Social Curation Tools!

Today, we are all facing information overload, and it is often difficult to find what we are looking for, especially if we are looking for updated collections of resources to support a topic, issue or idea. Major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo don't exactly do a great job in assisting either, which might also be partially due to the growing influence and spam of 'Search Engine Optimization (SEO)' gurus, engines and companies. It is amazing how much spam comments I get on this blog alone (10 - 20 spam comments a day!), thanks to SEO strategies. Amazingly annoying!

DELICIOUS = RIP?

As Yahoo is trying hard to kill (sell) off Delicious gently, it is perhaps time to find and explore other alternatives to sort out my management of juicy learning resources and discoveries (URLs). Well, we still have Diigo, Stumble Upon, Digg, and a bunch of other cool social bookmarking tools to use. However, today there is a new wave of social bookmarking tools in the name of 'Social Curation', which are empowered with some really innovative collaborative sharing tools to make sense of the overloaded web by organizing discoveries and resources into mind-stimulating topics, stories, collections, etc. Let's explore!

SOCIAL CURATION

While the buzz word of 2010 was 'Social Media', don't be surprised if 'Curation' or 'Social Curation' (attempted definitions) will be the buzz word for 2011 (signs). Just in the last few months alone, several social curation tools have emerged, including (source):

• Pearltrees
  A social curation community that empowers you in a social way to discover, organize and share the stuff you like on the web.

• Scoop.it
  Create your topic-centric media by collecting gems among relevant social media streams, and then publishing it to people sharing the same interest.

• Trailmeme
  Enables you to create a trail of content on a specific topic that’s interesting to you. You can also read other peoples’ trails and walk them to keep up with any updates they make.
  
• Storify
  Turn what people post on social media into compelling stories. You collect the best photos, video, tweets and more to publish them as simple, beautiful stories that can be embedded anywhere.
  
• Keepstream
  A social media curation tool that gathers all your favorite content in one place. It pulls in content from multiple sources, including Facebook likes and Twitter retweets, and let users build "collections" of social media content. Users control the presentation of their content, add their commentary, and embed these collections on a website or blog.
  
• Curated.by
  A growing collection of topics & interests edited, organized and curated by everyone. Follow the topics you are interested in or create and share your own topics with everyone else.
  
• Pinterest
  A content sharing service that allows members to "pin" images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.
  
• Edcanvas
  What can you do with a canvas? Student assignments: Web quests, project-based learning and class presentation. Flipped classroom: Easily gather and annotate online resources. 1:1 environments: Share content using just one link Dynamic presentation: Make your class come alive with rich multimedia.
  
• Zite
  Zite learns what you like and gets smarter as you use it. Zite analyzes millions of articles each day and brings you the best of your favorite magazines, newspapers, authors, blogs, and videos.
   

CONTENT CURATION
While we are at curation, here are a few really useful content curation (customizable auto-filters) tools to consider:

• Cadmus
  A real-time service that manages your stream (Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS) by displaying the most relevant content since the last time you checked in. It helps you get caught up on what you have missed.
  
• PostRank
  Tap into the intelligence of millions of online users active on the Social Web. PostRank captures real-time data and analysis on any topic, trend, or interest relevant to you or your business.
  
• Yahoo Pipes
  A powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web.
  
• gRSShopper
  A personal web environment (masterminded by Stephen Downes) that combines resource aggregation, a personal dataspace, and personal publishing. It allows you to organize your online content any way you want to, to import content - your own or others' - from remote sites, to remix and repurpose it, and to distribute it as RSS, web pages, JSON data, or RSS feeds.

WOW! Which one(s) to use? It really depends upon what you want to collect and how you want to share them. However, if you ask me what I really want, well here is a brief summary of what I really want:

• Easy-to-Use
  Drag-and-drop and please minimize the clicks and loads... Plain and simple! Works on any mobile device with sizzling simple and user-friendly interfaces.
• Adding & Organizing Resources
  
  Besides simplifying adding and organizing discoveries (topics, titles, descriptions, tags, etc.), it should have a search feature, and intelligently suggest resources (crawling and filtering out) within the topic (tags) I am using to collect (and even beyond to spark random discoveries).
• Connecting & Collaborating
  It should enable me easily to connect and collaborate with others on topics, interests or issues, including plucking resources (or pearl branches) from others (giving automated recognitions to original curators), and so on.
• Visually Stimulating & Intuitive
  
  Yes, it should be stimulating to the eyes and intuitive to the mind, and obviously be light enough to avoid slow interactions due to possible bandwidth constraints in certain areas, while curating on our mobile devices.

I could go on, but if these tools above can fulfill these basic needs, then I am willing to ditch Delicious for a new world. Ideally, I would love a large white learning space (in the cloud!), where I could easily dump everything discovered related to a topic, including videos, audio, images, files, sites, quotes, Twitter/Facebook updates, etc. and then organize them in a visually exciting and intuitive way, as easily as it is to scribble on a white piece of paper. And yes, I would be empowered to embed this saucy and visually stimulating interactive collection on my blog (or any site).

Still haven't found the ideal social curation tool :)

The MOOC Survival Kit in Plain English!

WHAT IS A MOOC?





5 STEPS TO SUCCEED IN A MOOC





KNOWLEDGE IN A MOOC?





STILL CONFUSED?
Read this Stephen Downes article: 'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge

Connectivist teaching and learning consists of four major sorts of activities (read the article above):

1. Aggregation
2. Remixing
3. Repurposing
4. Feeding Forward

"Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus... by neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation -- autonomy, mastery, and purpose -- they limit what each of us can achieve."
- Daniel Pink

TRY A MOOC?

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2011 (CCK11) is an open online course that over 12 weeks explores the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. Participation is open to everyone and there are no fees or subscriptions required.

Click here to register.

What? You want me to spoon-feed you more! Just do it! I mean register :)