At the heart of this change is the fragmentation of information. No longer does information only exist in a pre-packaged format, such as books, CDs, newspapers or even as a course. Information is now available in a whole range of formats, and this information can be “personalised” by editing, adding, re-designing so the user ends up with information in a format that makes sense to him.This creation of  “personal frameworks of coherence” by users is one of the most important drivers for transformative change within the HE sector. No longer is the creation, delivery, validation and dissemination of information under the control of the lecturer, expert or university. The growth of user-generated content, Google, Wikipedia,  Open Educational Resources, Web 2.0 technologies, social software and mobile technologies means that the individual is now in control.

Information Fragmentation and Coherence

The Handbook gives a good overview of the pressures bringing about change and how these impact on the learning process. The discussion on the role of technology in teaching and learning goes a long way to summarising where we are at at the moment and provides some useful guidelines on its effective use. The use of technology by lecturers and departments can help bridge the gap between the traditional and the, as yet undefined, role of education in the future.

The final paragraph really brings home what we in HE are all trying to grapple with:

“Through a process of active experimentation, the academy’s role in society will emerge as a prominent sensemaking and knowledge expansion institution, reflecting of the needs of learners and society while maintaining its role as a transformative agent in pursuit of humanity’s highest ideals.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

AccessApps is a collection of over 50 open source and freeware assistive technology applications for Windows PCs, that can be used directly from a USB memory stick without the need to install anything onto your computer.
The applications have been collated by the two Scottish JISC Regional Support Centres (Scotland North & East and Scotland South & West) in partnership with JISC TechDis.

They consist of 12 categories of applications with options to download all (the Works), a pre-defined selection (Lite) or your own chosen selection (Pick n Mix). The applications include the Open Office tools, a range of multimedia tools (Audacity, GIMP, Artweaver) as well as some presentation tools and utilities. There are also an impressive collection of assistive applications, such text to speech readers, accessible browsers and keyboard alternatives.
The AccessApps team have also put together a number of excellent tutorials and video screencasts to help get started with some of the main applications.

All-in-all, a useful selection of applications for all learners, including those with additional support needs.


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by willstewart

This failure to adopt new technologies in order to transform and enrich teaching and learning appears to be a global phenomenon. The book has been collaboratively written and edited by 50 HE practitioners from around the world and covers a wide range of topics on the use of new Information and Communication technologies to support and transform teaching and learning

It is divided into 5 sections:

1. The impact of instructional technologies
2. Creating online course
3. Implementing technology
4. E-learning in action
5. Engagement and communication

Aimed at practitioners, administrators, managers, decision-makers, it provides valuable advice, case studies, resources, tools, ideas and reflections on creating socially engaging learning experiences within an online learning environment.

A great research tool that sits within Firefox and can be accessed both on- and offline. Like del.icio.us, Zotero automatically captures citation information from web pages and allows you to add notes, tags and attachments. Unlike del.icio.us it also stores copies of Word and PDF docs, images and other files.
Zotero’s main window consists of three panes. The left pane is your library and holds your collections. This is a repository of all the webpages, files, articles and books you have added.

The middle pane displays all the items in the currently selected collection. It’s also a working area, where you add new items and edit existing ones. Use the New Item button on the top of the middle pane to add a new item, which can be a journal article, webpage, podcast, map or book. The other buttons on the toolbar, allow you to add the currently opened Web page to the collection, take a snapshot of the Web page, create a standalone note or do an advanced search.

In the right hand pane you can add notes (I often cut and paste the first few lines of a webpage in here), attachments and tags to a item. This pane also displays all the bibliographic information about an item such as publisher, edition, date, ISBN, and URL.

Another neat feature of Zotero is that it can detect items within the currently open webpage. For example, in Amazon a book icon will appear on the address bar when you are looking at a book. Clicking on this automatically adds it to Zotero, with all the bibliographic information. This feature works on a large number of other sites.

The only drawback with Zotero at the moment is that your entire library is stored on a single machine so, unlike del.icio.us, it can’t be accessed from anywhere.

Download Zotero from here.