Embracing the mind games and bad runs

I recently came across the following short movie about the mind games runners face when choosing to run and challenge themselves on a daily basis. I think it's a great snapshot if internal battles that go through our heads when we try to do something outside our comfort zone:

Yes, it's hard to go out and run with temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius, it's hard to go out and run in rain or even snow. And when you do it, the internal battles don't end. You think you won't be able to run more than a mile today, your legs are heavy, the water puddle appears out of nowhere and your feet are wet now... The list of "reasonable" excuses seems endless.

And this isn't specific to running, of course. We play that sort of mind games when it comes to other tasks that are difficult and (usually) non urgent. Going into super productive mode when facing a deadline or pressure from someone comes naturally to us, but when you choose to do something for your own good, like a New Year's resolution... ah, that's when the mind games come into play.

And it's that sort of mind games I personally often face when it comes to blogging. I'll finish this blog post tomorrow... What if my ideas aren't good enough? Someone is better at this than I am...

But if there's something I've learnt from running on my own, it's that the effort pays off in the end. Mind games are part of the challenge, and the trick is to take it slowly, one run at a time, stick to your schedule, and not let the bad runs stop you. Oh yes, there will be bad runs in the mix, you can count on it. But in the end it's those runs that count the most and make you stronger. Because afterwards, you feel like a hero, and you won the game against the part of you that wants to keep you safe by doing nothing.

So, what are you waiting for? Go take that run, publish that blog post that has been collecting dust as a draft for way too long now, take the trip you've always wanted to take, start that big personal project you've been putting off. Just don't fear the bad runs.

7 things I love about Evernote

In the Web 2.0 era I don't really use a lot of desktop applications anymore - everything is on the web, right? But there is one application that I just can't imagine living without (even though you can also use it on the web): Evernote.

You might have heard of Evernote before - after all, it now has over 4 million (very happy) users. At its hearth, Evernote is a simple note taking app that works on almost every computer, phone and mobile device out there, and can instantly sync your notes across all your devices. You can use it as a repository for all your ideas - not just in shape of simple text notes, but also as webpages, photos, audio recordings and various files. For a nice overview of the service, check out the intro video below:

How can you not love a service that includes hard working cloud elephants? ;) If the video hasn't convinced you to give Evernote a try yet, here is my list of 7 things I love about Evernote:

1) Available anywhere

I love the fact that I always have access to Evernote, regardless of which computer or mobile device I'm using. And with the desktop version, I don't even have to be online to work with Evernote (very useful on train trips!). Most of the time, I use the Mac OS X desktop version, but I sometimes check notes on my Android phone or iPod Touch. And yes, there's also a Windows version, a web version and custom applications for major smartphone platforms (see the list of available downloads).

2) Free for basic use

Oh, did I mention it's free? You don't have to pay for basic use or any of the apps. But in case you need more space or want awesome features like Note history, you can go Premium for $5/month or $45/year. I'm still using the Free version, which has plenty of space for all my text notes, but I'm thinking of going Premium just because I find the service so useful.

3) Capture ideas, prepare them for publishing

With Evernote I finally have a single place to store all my ideas and little notes. No more sticky notes all over the desk, no more .txt files on the desktop, just one app. And I also find it great for transforming ideas I collect into drafts that I can move to blogs, text editing software etc. for final design and publishing. And yes, I also wrote the draft for this post in Evernote and only moved it to Blogger when it was nearly finished. I really prefer to write in the simple, clutter free Evernote window - I usually double click the note I'm working on and leave just that note window open.

4) Easy sync

I always use Evernote to take notes on my laptop during meetings. No more wasted paper and illegible hand written notes! And if you still need to draw something on paper or whiteboard, you can just take a picture of that and add it to your Evernote meeting note. The best part is getting home after meetings to find the latest notes already waiting for me on my desktop computer. In other words, no extra time needed to sort and read through notes, as I can start working right within Evernote.

5) Image recognition in the cloud

The cool part is that Evernote is not just a simple backup service for notes. In fact, the Evernote elephants in the cloud also do image recognition on any photos you add, so that it's easier for you to find your stuff. You can for instance use Evernote to scan and save images of business cards and Evernote makes sure all the text becomes searchable.

6) Different ways to search and sort

There are many different ways to sort notes in Evernote. I like to create new notebooks for major projects or areas of interests, and you can use tags to sort your notes even further. I must admit I'm pretty sloppy when it comes to using tags, but that's ok - Evernote doesn't mind that, and helps me find what I'm looking for through Search.

7) The magic Evernote Trunk

And if you're looking for ways to improve Evernote, look no further than into the Evernote Trunk! The Trunk, also accessible from the desktop applications, is basically a showcase of apps that work with Evernote and can enhance your Evernote experience. The Trunk has only been launched this summer, so I'm really looking forward to seeing more apps added in the future.

Nearly perfect for remembering everything

The only two feature requests I have for Evernote are better sharing/collaboration options within the desktop app and color coding for notes. But other than that, I really think Evernote is a great product that is simple, yet incredibly flexible and usable in all sorts of situations.

So, if you're not using Evernote yet, I suggest you give it a try and see how it works for you. Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong way to use it - be creative and start adding your ideas in any format into your digital notebooks. And if you're looking for new ideas on how to use Evernote, check out the Tips and Stories section on the Evernote blog.

If you've got any good Evernote tips, let me know in the comments!

My grandpa is a blogger and doesn't even know it

When I talk about social media I often mention the fact that my grandpa has a blog. Well, actually two blogs: one for his local mycological society and the other for his local pensioner organisation. It all started when his mycological society wanted a website where they could post news and announcements. I told him I would set up a website where he could post his own news. And that was it. I also created a short manual with a few annotated screenshots of the Blogger interface, so that it would be easier for him to start. And now he rarely needs my help with his two blogs; he writes and tags his posts, adds pictures from various events, and even gets an occasional comment from his peers.

Why am I writing about this? I think this is a good example of how sometimes there is no need for getting too involved with the specifics of a technology we want to adopt (or convince others to adopt). My grandpa doesn't need to know what social media or blogging is and he doesn't even need to understand how hyperlinks work because he mainly writes about real life events nobody else is blogging about. He had a need and I helped him to find the right tool for the job and provided what he needed to start. And that's where we should all start when thinking about new technologies: with the need they can help us fulfill. The tools are usually not the problem anymore. So don't be tempted to make web 2.0 (or any other shiny new technology) about buzzwords or about technical specifications. Web 2.0 is a web that enables people to share experiences easily and more effectively, and Web 2.0 is for me a web where my grandpa is a blogger.

"the mobile experience" blog goes, well... MOBILE

I've been wanting to take this blog to a mobile platform for quite some time. I was actually surprised to learn that of all things, Google (Blogger team) haven't already come up with a way to parse and render blogspot accounts to a formatted for mobile screen. I suppose with all the customization that is going on, it'd be a nightmare for Blogspot account to figure out what to display or not.

mobile.theMobileExperience.com is born!

So here I am, trying to construct a somewhat dynamic and mobile-friendly website (mostly optimized for iPhone's Safari browser). After some research online, I learned that the mobile Safari browser relies on a unique meta tag called "viewport". In short, because desktop browsers rely on the ability to resize a window to deal with webpage scaling, iPhone's fix width browser gives you the ability to zoom in n' out via two-finger spread. By implementing the meta tag "viewport", you can control how your page is displayed and scaled at launch from an iPhone. Apparently, the viewport is pretty flexible, allows you to set your content width between 200 all the way to 10,000.

The trick I've learned thus far has been setting the initial scale to display my content end to end. For example, if you have a webpage which uses 640 pixel width, I would set the initial-scale to 0.5 to basically scale down 50% so it fits iPhones 320 pixel width perfectly when holding the phone upright in portrait mode.

I used a feedburner "BuzzBoost" function to generate the latest 10 entries from this blog to be displayed on the mobile-friendly site. As mentioned yesterday, Apple offers a nice guideline to help you build a far more advanced mobile web capable of using all of iPhone or iPod Touch's bells and whistles. This is just the first stage for me. I intend to do a little more and get better at optimizing my content for mobile handsets.

PS - I noticed some folks building websites with really wide table or div (900+ pixels) but uses really large thumbnail and font. They proposely let iPhone scale giantic fonts and pictures down. My guess is that they do this because they want people who accidently land on these pages via Desktop to still be able to operate with ease? I am open to any thoughts or feedback regarding to best practices for iPhone browsers.

TheMobileExperience.com is Officially Mine

After working on this blog for two years and patiently waiting for the domain "themobileexperience.com" space to become available, I am happy to report that it is finally mine. I have setup a 301 permanent redirect (good SEO practice) to point to this blogspot account. The currently blogspot address will still be available. I can now setup more specific domains, subdomains and directory to help make this blog even more dynamic. Cheers!

Engadget vs Gizmodo

Wired.com has an excellent coverage on the rivalry behind two of the most influential tech/gadget blogs of our times: Engadget and Gizmodo. This article covers the competitive nature in gadget blogging down to the "minute". An excellent article depicting the nature of blogging and evolution of it's business model (paying writers based on page views and comments). Very interesting for bloggers or people wanting to know more about the blogging business.

Join us at Bloggers Cafe!

In case you haven't heard yet: edubloggers now have a new place to get together in Second Life at the brand new Bloggers Cafe.The Bloggers Cafe is an attempt to keep the conversation that started at this year's NECC going (and it is of course a great opportunity for all of us that missed NECC to join in the conversation). You can visit the Bloggers Cafe on Eduisland II, on land that was kindly offered by Ryan Bretag (aka Existential Pain). Also, don't forget to join both the SL and the RL group (set up by Jennifer Wagner) and have your blog added to the virtual blogroll at the Cafe.

The virtual blogroll wall at the Cafe

For more info about how the Bloggers Cafe started and where it is going see Ryan's blog. See you all the Bloggers Cafe! :)

RSS in Plain English in 3.5 minutes

I just wanted to share with you a great video that explains what RSS feeds are in plain English in 3.5 minutes:

Click To Play

Just what I've been looking for an introduction to RSS! I'm just amazed that so many people are still unaware of this great technology. But of course that also means that are still many people out there that we can show the magic of RSS to ;) RSS feeds really help me to get all the interesting news; although I admit that I sometimes do feel overwhelmed by so many new items calling for attention and deserving to be read on my own computer :)

(By the way: for more info on the video check this Common Craft post)

Student blogging: first impressions

Last night I had another meeting with my RL E-business Management students in Second Life. We talked a lot about different course activities, but mostly our discussion was focused on blogs. Why blogs and what did I learn during the discussion? Read below ;)

Waiting for students

I already mentioned in a previous post that we'd introduce research blogs as an obligatory study activity this year (for our postgraduate students), and this Monday was the end of their first week of blogging. My task was to read them all though, assign grades, and write comments on blogs as a whole (I think the commenting part was THE important part of my task). I was really impressed with some of our students' blogs: many have managed to write really interesting posts, and it was really enjoyable to read some of their posts, get to know my students a bit better through their opinions and writing styles. We all still have a lot to learn about blogging, but the results of the first week show that some students have potentials for becoming good bloggers (I'd certainly love to some of them choose to continue blogging after the course), and that the majority of them will have no problems in completing this activity successfully.

But of course, that was just my personal observation of the activity, so I was really excited about last night's meeting in SL, as I saw it as a perfect opportunity to talk about how they feel about their blogs and blogging. Some students said blogging really engaged them, and that they really enjoyed this activity although it is quite time consuming (that's pretty close to my personal experience of blogging). A few students said they still didn't understand the point of blogging: why would someone want to make his/her own journal public? That is quite a usual question related to blogging that I often hear (not just from my students). People often see blogs as public, personal journals and don't understand why people are willing to let everyone know what's going on with their lives. I think that a lot of people don't know that the blogosphere isn't just about people writing about their personal lives, but also about people sharing their professional experiences and their passions. I don't like to blog about my personal life, but I enjoy sharing my professional experiences - both to keep track of my own development and to contribute my knowledge and experiences to the community.

During last night's virtual discussion I was also positively surprised by some of the questions my students asked. For example: how can we tell the relevance of information on blogs? Another student figured out that blogs can't be the only source of information when doing research. This shows that they have a positive critical attitude towards blogs. Although most of them never used or even read blogs before, they approached them both with an open and a critical mind. They don't just do what we told them to, but they ask their own questions! Isn't that great? One student even asked: who invented blogs? And I must admit I couldn't answer that question *blushes* But I find it extremely positive that students think of such questions! Especially because my students are adults, most with kids and jobs, and some with little or no experience with ICT - but still they show great readiness to learn, and great curiosity! I really feel lucky to have such students.

During our discussion about blogs

Of course, I realize that the students that were willing to come to our virtual meeting in Second Life were probably the ones that had the most positive attitude towards the course or are naturally more motivated to learn new things, but still; honestly, I didn't expect so many students in SL, and I didn't think that so many of them would feel so positively about blogs, and all other course activities. But I guess it goes to prove that our educational systems have to be reinvented (call it Education 2.0 if you want :) ) and that the problem is not always with students not being interested.

I'd like end this post by pointing out some of the important lessons that I've learned from last night's discussion and our first week of student blogging:

• Number one: the students really appreciate the fact that we're showing them new, real-life tools and giving them an opportunity (or even a reason) to try out new tools and learn about them in a different way (learning by doing). They like the fact that we challenge them, put them outside their comfort zone, and show them new tools.
• Number two: not everyone likes the concept of blogging. Some still think forums are the best way to express yourself and connect with other users. However, those that like blogging feel really engaged by the activity.
• Number three: Second Life is a good place to have discussions with your students. Adult students can put their kids to bed, and meet with their fellow students and instructors in the comfort of their own home. It can be a bit confusing to have multiple people trying to talk at the same time, but their "physical" presence does add a special feeling to it.
• And last but not least: it is all worth it. It does take a lot of time to read students' blogs, it does take a lot of time to master new tools like SL. In fact, since we've started with our online course I've often felt overwhelmed by having around 80 students to follow more times a day (also during the weekends), 32 blogs on different topics to read and to comment (and not being to use RSS as their blogs are private), preparing the SL meetings, and all other every day obligations. But in the end, when you see happy avatars typing about how much they enjoy your course... that's really the reward every educator wants to get at the end of the day, isn't it? :)

Yes, it is all worth it.

What are you up to Alja?

The past week has been quite busy for me, because we were working on the final details for the E-business Management course (for postgraduate students) that has just started today with a pleasant, well attended face to face meeting and a short introductory lecture. The rest of the course will mostly be delivered online, through our e-classroom (based on Moodle), with the constant support of online tutors (ahem, that would be me ;-) ). I am really looking forward to this experience, because I really enjoy online tutoring, although it is a lot of work. And I'm also very excited because we've added some new tools and different teaching/learning methods to the course this year. Let me mention just a few of them.

One thing I'm excited about is the use of blogs during the course. The students will be keeping a research journal on their blogs, and will be invited to respond to current news related to the topic they'll be covering in their research paper. Also, they'll be reading, commenting, and responding to each other's blog. I hope this activity will be well accepted and that students will learn a lot from the experience. I am also very happy about the fact that we won't be using Moodle's blog module for this activity, but dear old (well, actually New :-) ) Blogger. I think that's great because Blogger is a real world tool the students can use any time, and not part of a LMS, which is only used for their studies. So this is is also a small step outside the walled garden of traditional LMS. The students' blogs will be private, and visible to selected readers (the teacher, tutors and other students of the course), but the students will be free to make their blogs public and enter the real world of blogosphere.

We'll also be offering new channels of communication and interaction. They'll have the opportunity to contact their tutors through Skype and Google Talk, and we'll also have meetings in Second Life. This will not be a compulsory activity, but we want to offer them the opportunity to discover different technologies. For this purpose I created a new Second Life group for my faculty (the group is called Fakulteta za management Koper), and even made a faculty T-shirt that all our students will get for free when they visit Second Life (if you want one too just IM me - iAlja Writer ;-) ). I used The Robin (Sojourner) Wood T-Shirt Template to make our T-shirt, because it provides simple and step by step instruction on how to make a plain T-shirt with a logo.

It's hard to tell whether we'll get any students involved in Second Life, but I hope we can get at least a few of them in-world. If we manage that I hope you'll come by to some of our meetings - business/management students, teacher and professionals are especially welcome :-)

So, lots of interesting stuff going on for me (and hopefully for our students) right now, and we already got some extremely positive feedback from our students about the course format. I hope this trend will continue, and I'll of course be posting any interesting findings and experiences from our virtual classroom.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've already got some interesting blog posts to comment on ;-)

View Blogger Labels in a Label Cloud

If you are a faithful reader of my blog (ah, the dreams of a young blogger ;) ) you might have noticed that my post labels are now organized in a tag (label) cloud. How cool is that? :) Yesterday, a reader reminded me that I haven't wrote a word about how to achieve this, and I must admit I simply forgot to post about this *blushes* (thanks Dino for the reminder!).

So, if you're blogging on the new blogger and want to get a label cloud, just follow these simple instructions. Don't be afraid when you see all the code (though make sure to backup your existing blog template before you try anything new!). Mainly it's just copy and paste, and the author provided a great explanation on how to customize the settings of the label cloud. I just wish I had a label cloud when I started blogging. I always felt so limited by the default label view because I don't like long lists and it was sometimes so hard to limit myself to using just 10 labels. Now the label cloud might seem a bit messier, but I think it's just a better visualization of the purpose and topics I like to blog about :)

And by the way, here are a few links about tag clouds:

• the Wikipedia Tag cloud page
• some interesting posts on Joe Lamantia's blog:
• Tag Clouds Evolve: Understanding Tag Clouds
• Second Generation Tag Clouds
• Text Clouds: A New Form of Tag Cloud?
  

Living the Web 2.0

The video Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch that I posted last week made me think quite a lot about my personal relationship with Web 2.0 (or the Read/Write Web as some prefer to call it). I think that the concept of Web 2.0 can really be understood only if you use and explore its technologies and apply it on your own life. And I also think that reflecting on how Web 2.0 technologies affect our lives can provide additional valuable information. In this post I'd like to share with you my personal account and thoughts on what Web 2.0 means to me and what impacts it's having on my daily life.

My typical day starts with a cup of coffee and a click on my browser icon. It's strange now that I think about it, but the first thing I do in the morning (no matter what I have to do during a particular day) is to start my browser - Safari. I don't stop to think - oh, I need my browser now! - I just do it. Just a few years ago I'd then type in the address of a news site, but now the first thing I check in my browser are the web feeds. I regularly try to organize and reduce the number of feeds I'm subscribed to, but usually I'm stuck between 50 or 100 feeds (and here I'm counting just the feeds I regularly read). I have my feeds organized in folders in Safari's bookmark bar that is always visible. That allows me to see how many unread feeds I have at any given movement. It is a bit intrusive, but that's the way I like it (most of the times). I've tried using applications and web sites to keep track of my feeds, but I always come back to Safari's bookmark bar because it's always there, always telling me hey! click on me, I've got news! And sometimes I do feel the pressure of all those unread feeds; I feel like I'm missing something if I don't click them right away. Reading web feeds and following links they provide in a ways makes me feel connected. It gives me the feeling that I know what's going on right now and what the most interesting topics on the net are.

The number of feeds makes me read a minimum of 10 posts a day (on a calm day that is), but it doesn't just stop at reading and clicking links. Fact is that whenever I find an interesting post or link I immediately feel the need to share it. A few years ago I'd perhaps email or IM the link to family or friends, but now it's just much more. I feel the need to share it with the world - I don't want just friends and colleagues to read this link, I want to give everyone in the world that might be interested in a certain topic a chance to read it! And so I always make sure to share the really interesting posts/links at least on TeacherShare.org or/and Moodle.si. Isn't that interesting?

Checking web feeds and sharing interesting links is just the beginning of my Web 2.0 connected day. Both activities continue throughout the day, no matter what I do. My browser is always with me, showing me new feeds, offering opportunities to share, to connect. During the day I of course do other things - research, write, create, innovate - and I think that now more than ever I also actively think about what I do, try to find meaning, try to extract valuable lessons etc. and what for? To share them on this blog.

Keeping a blog makes me an active seeker of content that will be interesting and relevant for you: the readers of my blog. I am now the editor of my personal channel and for this reason I feel a big responsibility for the "life" of my blog - it is up to me to keep it interesting, current and worth reading. And all this also makes my primary work as a researcher more engaging, and even more valuable and meaningful to me. I feel that I can do much more than just the task in front of me. I am constantly learning, collecting experiences and thinking about how they could be shared for others to read. I try to write at least one post per week about what I currently do, what I am thinking about, what questions I am trying to answer... and I love the way my blog "obligation" is keeping me busy and active. If I can't find any new valuable ideas in my work I am motivated to go elsewhere. On other blogs, where I can even interact with the authors and readers of those blogs. I have in fact became an active seeker or ideas that I try to transform into new content that can be shared with the purpose of inspiring new ideas. Wow!

And though a lot of my usage of Web 2.0 technologies is work related, it certainly doesn't stop when I stop working or thinking about work. In the evening when I try to relax and get away from the computer, usually my activities involve watching a movie, reading a book, playing games or just having a great conversation with my dear ones. One would think I forget Web 2.0 at this point - well, think again. The Web 2.0 is always at the reach of our hands. When deciding upon which movie to watch we go and check IMDB, see what other users say, or check out the list of the highest rated movies. The same happens when choosing books or games. It seems so normal that you look anything up on the net and see what others say - and in most cases what matters most is not the opinion of professional critics, but of ordinary people (though all persons of the year 2006 according to Times magazine).

I'm really amazed at what big part Web 2.0 plays in my life (and I in its life). In just a few years it has entered our lives from different doors and it's growing stronger and more powerful days by day. And for this reason I agree with what Michael Wesch pointed out in his video - we really need to rethink a lot of things. Among these things I think that rethinking ourselves is one of the key points. We are being linked in previously unthinkable ways and our lives are being changed. What kind of changes is that bringing us? Are the changes improving our lives or crippling the social aspect of our analogue real lives as some fear?

The answers to these questions are many - and there should be. For me the most important changes are the feeling of connectedness, the feeling of responsibility, the need to share and the trust systems that the users of Web 2.0 are building among each other (just take for example Wikipedia). These are the changes I find most valuable and that I hope I (and others) will be able to keep and use not just for a better and more useful Web 2.0, but also to build a better future - together, by connecting are ideas and constructing new worlds.

Why are our teachers afraid to share?

The Time Magazine chose you, me and everybody else that is building the new global web community with collaboration on a scale never seen before the person of the year 2006; but I wonder how many of our teachers really fall into that category?

The Internet offers many opportunities to collaborate and share knowledge, and I'm really happy that there are many teachers around the world that are embracing this technology not just for their their teaching, but also to connect with fellow educators worldwide. However, what makes me sad is the fact that there aren't many teachers in Slovenia that are actively sharing their teaching knowledge and experiences on the web. The main way to share experiences and findings for our teachers still seem to be by attending conferences. Nothing wrong with that, but we're in the 21st century and we have the tools to connect virtually without having to gather together in one physical place (although that still is a valuable experience!). But why aren't we doing more?

Lately, the number of Slovenian companies that offer "e-learning" solutions seems to be growing, but they mainly focus on providing e-learning materials and only a few of them include online teaching or tutoring as part of their solution. And there also doesn't seem to be any online community for teachers in Slovenia! The fact that I know more about how e-learning is being dealt with in the USA than in my own country worries me. I know that many of our schools are playing with e-learning, but I can't find much more about it on the web: no e-learning blogs, just web sites that are telling the world they are doing e-learning, but it's practically impossible for an outsider to know how.

We sensed that gap at our faculty, so we launched Moodle.si - an online community for Moodle users in Slovenia with the goal to bring people together and provide all of us with an opportunity to discuss current Moodle and e-learning issues in our native language (more about the project). Now, a month after the opening, I can say that we managed to attract a decent number of users, but not many reactions. People signed up, took a look around - many of them returned again, but only a few actually posted anything. At this point we practically have no feedback about the site or the resources that were freely provided to all teachers. The only enthusiastic response came from a person that isn't actually a professional teacher, but still uses Moodle to share his knowledge. Ouch. Well, perhaps it is too soon to speak, perhaps we did something wrong - we can't know that because nobody wants to tell us! :-( But I do find it odd that our teachers don't seem to be willing to share their experiences online. So why is that so?

The main feeling I've got (and at this point I can only rely on my feelings as there is practical no verbal feedback) is that our teachers are afraid that someone might "steal their ideas" (that's also a concern we got from some of our students when delivering online courses in Moodle - they were actually worried their classmates might steal some of their ideas!). And that's also a concern I often heard (and actually still do sometimes) when I started this blog. I don't know what that really means: Does it mean that we don't think others are able to respect copyright? Does it mean that we go online just to collect ideas, but are reluctant to share our own for somebody else to collect? Does it mean that we don't believe our ideas are good enough?

I still can't answer these questions. Maybe the true answer is hidden somewhere else. But, what I do believe is that even if somebody goes around "stealing" other's ideas, he/she will have A LOT of trouble turning these ideas into real learning. It takes much more than just an idea to do learning. It takes people that know what they are doing, are passionate about what they are doing and know HOW to really do it - not just in theory, but also in practice. And that's the really, really hard part. In today's digital world there are many opportunities for being really innovative, many resources on the same topic, and although it all seems so great, it usually stops when you've got to do it, not just dream about it. Just an example: we've all been dreaming about Minority-Report-style touch screens for years, but it takes a genius to really bring that technology to the market (compare what Apple did and what Synaptics did - same idea, same principle, but such a difference in the actual product!). Just reading about e-learning doesn't make you an e-learning expert and it doesn't prepare you for all the real challenges of e-learning you will have to face in real situations. But I do think that discussing your ideas, comparing notes, sharing failed or successful experiments etc. can help you to improve your strategies and consequently improve your practical work.
At least that's what I believe. Maybe I'm still too young and too naive; I don't know - I hope you can tell me. I sure hope that more and more teachers will decide to share their knowledge with others and in the process help to construct new knowledge that will make education better and more fun not just for the students, but also for the teachers. No, you don't get any points or awards for doing that, but you can learn many, many valuable new things that are in fact priceless - both for you and for your students!

And please feel free to post a comment or write me an e-mail if you've got any additional thoughts, ideas or suggestions regarding this topic :-)

A list of basic resources on Web 2.0 concepts and tools

These days I'm busy revising and rewriting some study materials for our E-business course. In this year we'll hopefully be adding a chapter dedicated to currently popular web tools and concepts. For this purpose I've written a quick guide to some Web 2.0 concepts and tools (although I think that the best way for our students to learn about Web 2.0 would be to let them create their own study material using collaboration and Web 2.0 tools).

In this post I'm sharing a list* of web resources that were the most useful to me while writing about these concepts. I hope the listed resources might also be useful (or at least interesting) for you.

Web 2.0 defined:

• Tim O'Reilly: What Is Web 2.0 (the essential Web 2.0 article)
• Tim Berners-Lee on Web 2.0: "nobody even knows what it means" (if you want to be fair you've got to show other opinions as well)

Web 2.0 related concepts:

• Chris Anderson: The Long Tail (THE Wired article that put a name on the Long Tail)
• Brynjolfsson, Hu & Smith: From Niches to Riches: The Anatomy of the Long Tail (an interesting research paper about the Long Tail phenomena)
• Tony Zhu: Google PageRank: Facts and Fiction (a simple yet interesting Q&A list of facts about Google's PageRank algorithm)
  
• Wired News: Folksonomies Tap People Power (about tagging content and the value it adds to web content)
  
• Dick Weisinger: Metadata: Folksonomy and the Art of Tagging in the Enterprise (thoughts about using folksonomy in the enterprise world)

About wikis:

• Brian Lamb: Wide Open Spaces: Wikis Ready or Not (an article about wikis and the use of wikis in education)
  
• Tom Stafford & Matt Webb: What Is a Wiki (and How to Use One for Your Projects) (a guide for choosing and using a wiki system for different projects)
• Tim Duckett: Four ways to use wikis for project management
  
• Philip Evans: The Wiki Factor (about why wikis are important for business students)
• Wired News: Wikipedia, Britannica: A Toss-Up (yet another article about the comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica)

Some public wikis that might be interesting for our students:

• Wikibooks (freely available wiki books - for business students there's also a business bookshelf)
  
• Wikiversity (learning materials and activities)
  
• Wikimapia (a wiki system that uses Google maps and on which you can add info about locations all around the world)
  
• Wiktionary (a wiki dictionary)

About blogs/blogging:

• Wikipedia: Blog (the Wikipedia article about blogs is imho quite good - I especially like the part about types of blogs)
• Anne Bartlett-Bragg: Blogging to Learn (a paper about blogs in general and more specifically about blogging in education)
  
• Tim Duckett: 10 ways to use blogs for managing projects
  
• Neville Hobson: Blog vs forum: What's the difference? (some thoughts about the differences in focus between blogs and forums)

About web feeds:

• Will Richardson: RSS: A Quick Start Guide for Educators (a really simple guide about web feeds)
• Heinz Tschabitscher: RSS Feeds are the Better Email Newsletters (some advantages of web feeds over traditional email newsletters)

*Do note that this is a very basic list of resources. If you think I've missed any important or interesting links please leave me a comment :)

How can blogging help our brains

Today I came across the article Brain of the Blogger in which the author explains his hypothesis that blogging has beneficial affects on our brains and can help to develop critical and analytical thinking.

Although I've been seriously blogging only for a short time, I can already agree with most of the ideas presented in the article. Keeping a blog makes you analyze what you read more deeply because whenever you see an interesting idea you feel the need to share it with others through your blog. And as publishing new posts is so easy that you don't need to worry about the technology behind it, you can just focus your mind on how to best present this new ideas to the readers of your blog.

Also, for me reading other people's blogs is very stimulating not only because I pick up many new ideas and points of view, but also because you can see so many different forms of expression (both verbally and visually).

And finally, I also think that blogs bring back the fun to "surfing the web" that we had when first web sites appeared online in the 90ies. And it's not just fun - from my personal experience following links between blogs can be a great learning experience - and I can only humbly hope that my blog can be part of a learning experience for its readers :)

Creating Passionate Users

Marketing professionals are already aware of the importance of user attitudes towards products. User loyalty can be won by regularly exceeding user expectations and giving them just that extra bit more to create passionate and thus loyal users. Products that consumers mark as good are on a good path, but those that users mark as very good or even excellent have the potential of gaining user loyalty.

And while most of the really successful companies are trying to catch up with the consumer centered production, or educational system is still ages behind. From my experience of formal education schools are run for school's sake - meaning that they don't really try to create knowledge, but to achieve preset goals that don't really care about the participants (and here I mean both teachers and students). Teachers must "teach" a certain quantity of facts that students will forget in a few months anyway - but hey! the school's plan was carried out! And the evaluation only takes place a few times a year and few care to wonder if what is being taught is really being learnt.

Surely, these days learner centered design is a big word, but (speaking from my personal experience) it is still too slow in catching up with real life education. And that is why I think it is important for educators to actively think about the needs of our students and share our experience with other educator - and more than ever the technology to do it is now at hand.

Blogs are certainly a great way to stimulate reflection and share ideas, and one blog I will certainly keep an eye on is Creating Passionate Users. The reading of this blog was actually what motivated me to write this post, and although there are still many interesting posts I have to catch up, I'd suggest reading the article Crash course in learning theory as a starting point in this great blog. Click, click - this blog certainly goes to my favorite RSS feeds!

Blogger beta

Today I decided to give the new version of Blogger a try, and some of the new features are really great. Finally, we have post labels, and the new way of editing blog templates is really cool and easy! I had to change my blog template a bit, but I'm pretty satisfied with the new look :)

Why blog?

Before filling my blog with any serious posts, I'd also like to explain the motives that made me start this blog.

Firstly, out of gratitude towards many of the blogs I’ve been visiting lately (check my links to blogs), and that have shown me the value of sharing great ideas that can help to improve the overall quality of e-learning (both for me personally and the students at our faculty). And for this reason I felt that I can offer my share of ideas that will hopefully inspire somebody out there and make learning more fun and efficient.

Secondly, I realized that the number of my bookmarks and saved articles on the broad subject of e-learning is rapidly increasing and that I need a way to keep track of all the interesting things I stumble upon during my research work. And so I got the idea that I could use a blog to keep some sort of list of interesting subjects, sites, ideas, and thoughts that I encounter on a daily basis. And, as already mentioned, I can also hope that my journal of thought stimulating posts can help others that are (like me) surfing the cyberspace for new ideas.

And so it was (lo and behold!) that with a few clicks my blog was born. And to keep true to the purpose of the blog, here’s an article about blogging in education I found today and that provides links to a few interesting articles on the subject (and yes, a few of them already made it to my “interesting articles” folder :) ).