Read: “LMS and LCMS – What’s the Difference” by Leonard Greenberg (2002) http://www.learningcircuits.org/NR/exeres/72E3F68C-4047-4379-8454-2B88C9D38FC5.htm

Read: “Course Management Systems Versus Learning Management Systems” by Saul Carliner (2005) http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/nov2005/carliner.htm

What is a Learner Management System (LMS)?
A Learner Management System (LMS) is software that plans, delivers and manages all learning activities within an organisation. “The focus of an LMS is to manage learners, keeping track of their progress and performance across all types of training activities. It performs heavy-duty administrative tasks, such as reporting to HR and other ERP systems but isn’t generally used to create course content.” (Greenberg 2002, para.1)

In more depth, a LMS “identifies the people who need a particular course and tells them how it fits into their overall career path, when it’s available, how it’s available (classroom, online, CD-ROM), if there are prerequisites, and when and how they can fulfil those prerequisites. Once learners complete a course, the LMS can administer tests based on proficiency requirements, report test results, and recommend next steps. In that capacity, LMSs are instrumental in assuring that organizations meet rigid certification requirements in such vertical markets as healthcare, finance, and government.” (ibid, LMS close-up section, para.1)

What is a Learning Content Management System (LCMS)?
A Learning Content Management System (LCMS) on the other hand, focuses on learning content. It gives authors, instructional designers, and subject matter experts the means to create reusuable content chunks (learning objects) and then stores this instructional material in a central repository which is accessible by developers throughout the organization who can retrieve and assemble them into personalized courses. “The primary business problem an LCMS solves is to create just enough content just in time to meet the needs of individual learners or groups of learners.” (Greenberg 2002, para.2)

Which would you recommend to your organisation? Why?
“Because an LMS can have a direct impact on the work of thousands of learners and manages all aspects of organizational learning, experts recommend starting with an LMS that can be easily integrated with an LCMS.

IDC’s report The Learning Content Management System: A New E-Learning Market Segment Emerges explains: “LCMSs and LMSs are not only distinct from one another, they also complement each other well. When tightly integrated, information from the two systems can be exchanged, ultimately resulting in a richer learning experience for the user and a more comprehensive tool for the learning administrator. An LMS can manage communities of users, allowing each of them to launch the appropriate objects stored and managed by the LCMS. In delivering the content, the LCMS also bookmarks the individual learner’s progress, records test scores, and passes them back to the LMS for reporting purposes.”" (Greenberg 2002, How does an LCMS fit within an LMS infrastructure? section, para.1-2)

Comparing CMSs and LMSs
A Course Management System (CMS) is very similar to a LMS. The only difference is that they are designed for very different uses and thus serve different purposes – CMSs for universities and other academic environments and LMSs for workplace learning environments.

“Course management systems (CMSs) are online systems that were originally designed to support classroom learning in academic settings, such as universities and high schools” (Carliner 2005, CMSs: designed to support academic classroom courses section, para.1). Examples of CMSs include the commercial products Blackboard and WebCT, and the open source system, Moodle. Carliner’s article explores these differences in depth.

One of the distinctions that Carliner made: “A client once asked why universities and other academic institutions cannot use LMSs. The answer: because education and training are different types of learning activities, the systems that support them are essentially different. As education is intended to build long-term knowledge, the CMSs that support it are designed to support long-term academic classroom classes. In contrast, as training is intended to build knowledge for immediate application, so LMSs are designed to support a large number of short training events.” (ibid, Comparing CMSs and LMSs section, para.5)

Read: LMS Survey Results from 2005 http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/jun2005/LMS_survey.htm

What do you find interesting from these figures?
It was interesting to see that in the span of 10 months the percentage of organizations who used learning management systems grew from 46% to 81.7% in June 2005. It doesn’t surprise me as the importance of organisational learning is growing and the employment of e-learning to meet these learning needs have to be managed in an efficient manner – of which the solution is found in LMSs.

The figures on how LMSs are configured – 62.7% using LMS only and 27.8% using LMS/LCMS combo – also stood out as another interesting point because from the previous readings the latter has shown to be a more “richer learning experience”. I would think that these figures would change over the next year as more research and upgrades emerge about advances in these technologies.

Employee buy-in was listed as the third biggest challenge in implementing a LMS. I think this needs to be addressed by organizations as employees are a major stakeholder in successful implementation of LMSs and they bring many benefits to the learner which is something they should understand. Generally, if introducing new technologies it is always best to build understanding and acceptance of the technology so that the issues such as buy-in and resistance and so forth can be reduced.

Most organizations listed that in the next 12 months they would be keeping the current system that have in place. As technologies continually change I would think that most organizations would seek to upgrade the current system in the next 12 months. Again I wouldn’t be surprised if these results would change for reasons similar to those mentioned before.

Bersin and Associates (http://www.bersin.com) have been researching the LMS market for a number of years. To understand the size and impact of this market – listen to Josh Bersin discuss their latest research results: http://store.bersinassociates.com/lms.html#

What are some of the key issues raised by Josh Bersin?
In his discussion of directions of the LMS Market, Bersin raises the point that there has been an increase in the level of capability in enterprise learning – he notes that with any emerging technology regardless of what it is within a few months someone is going to find a way to apply it to corporate learning and so this is a continual process. There has also been an increase in talent management capabilities.

The key findings of the research:

• Continued market growth and maturity
• Core requirements continue to be training related
• Vendor consolidation into three primary segments
  - global enterprise, enterprise, mid-market (largest and fast growing market)
• OnDemand solutions now proven
• Customer satisfaction still disappointing
  - service, data quality, reporting still challenging
• Governance and change management keys to success
• Talent management is real but few implementations
• LMS evolving to “Backoffice System” over time

Summarise the key issues – as you see them – from the readings
From the readings the key issues would arise from integrating LCMSs with LMSs. This is supported by the figures on content integration (42.7%) as the biggest challenge in implementing a LMS. Other challenges identified were:

• customization requirements (41.1%)
• employee buy-in (32.3%)
• system administration (29.8%)
• system performance (25%)
• management buy-in (23.4%)
• integration with legacy systems (22.6%)
• vendor management (18.5%)
• IT buy-in (17.7%)
• vendor selection (16.9%)
• standards compliance (16.1%)

Furthermore, another issue would regard implementing the correct systems. As identified in Carliner’s article, in particular with CMSs and LMSs, they are designed for different needs and so a needs analysis should be conducted prior to implementing any system so as to ensure a match.

How could virtual worlds, like Second Life be used for learning?

Points raised in Gronstedt’s article:

• Second Life can be a playground or a business adjunct, a social networking hub, or a programming haven.
• Second Life is different from gaming environments because nearly everything you see is created by the site’s users. Residents use 3-D modeling language to build houses, trees, streets, and furniture. These tools also can be used by training professionals to illustrate technical concepts in powerful new ways.
  
• Second Life is ultimately a social networking tool that takes online interaction and collaboration to unprecedented levels, breaks down hierarchies, and eliminates geographic boundaries.
• The real breakthrough for Second Life as a learning application is the full integration of voice capability. Instead of having to rely on instant messaging and chat, users can now speak to each other via voice in 3-D. The voices of nearby avatars sound louder than avatars that are farther away, and voice from avatars to your right feed through the right speaker.
• One of the unique attributes of Second Life is what IBM’s Hamilton calls the “sense of self.”
• Second Life is creating more virtual classrooms. Unfortunately, most e-learning still looks like a classroom lecture. It takes time for a new medium to develop its own character and unique vernacular.
• There remain various barriers to widespread adoption of Second Life in corporate training. First of all, it’s primarily a consumer application. There also are firewall issues. Hardware and infrastructure requirements pose another barrier. Second Life’s main challenge, however, isn’t technology, but people. “The knee-jerk reaction to a lot of people is that they have too much work with their first lives to start a second one,” says Thomas. “Second Life excels at synchronous training,” says Widmeyer, “but you still need a website, a wiki, a threaded discussion group, and a blog. Second Life is not a good information repository.”
• Virtual worlds provide learning organizations with a powerful, unique ability to engage and empower employees in ways that accommodate their digital and mobile lifestyles, adapt to their individual learning needs, and encourage collaboration.

Learning applications in Second Life

What are the primary learning applications in Second Life? Here are a few candidates:
Hard skills. Create 3-D models that participants can fly around or walk inside.
Soft skills. Role-play a job interview or sales call, or meet a subject matter expert.
Simulation. Cultivate business acumen by running a virtual business or learn about schizophrenia by experiencing powerful hallucinations.
Meetings. Talk via voice or instant message; gesture, show objects, or go for a walk. Second Life will save us from the conference call doldrums.
(Gronstedt, 2007)

Having a look at Sean Fitzgerald & Jo Kay’s wiki I was blown away by how well designed and set out this wiki is. The information is categorically organised and points are supplemented by images. It makes our wikis look so bland compared to theirs. Their wiki is worth referring to especially in regards to searching for the educational uses of Second Life. The list they compiled seems endless.

We were lucky to have Jo Kay speak to us in a special lecture. My experience of that lecture is documented in a previous post: http://tdinh86.edublogs.org/2008/03/26/e-learning-design-virtual-worlds/

Networks get things done. They make things happen. People networks can help us find jobs, meet new friends and find partners. It is a social network. The problem with social networks in the real world is that most of the connections between people are hidden. Our networks are only as valuable as the people and connections we can see. This problem is solved with social networking sites as they make these connections visible. You accumulate a list of friends with whom you can see their friends and then theirs and so on and thus the connections are made visible.

Read: Danah Boyd’s article in the Knowledge Tree journal http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/edition-13/social-network-sites-public-private-or-what/

Rather than read the article I decided to listen to the podcast.

The following is the abstract of her article:

“Social network sites (SNSes) like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo are ubiquitous and today’s youth are spending a great deal of time using these sites to access public life. How is public life shaped by social technology? How are the properties of mediated publics, like social network sites, different from unmediated publics? This article seeks to explore the social dynamics of mediated public life in order to help educators understand their role in socialising today’s youth.”

I was hoping that I would enjoy the podcast however, I think that the reason why I didn’t was because it was simply the author reading the article. I prefer podcasts that are more free flowing and not so word for word. I think because she is reading it straight from the paper, she reads too quickly. However, the article does raise points very relevant to our experience of social networking sites today.

“Mediated publics are here to stay; yet they are complicating many aspects of daily life. The role of an educator is not to condemn or dismiss youth practices, but to help youth understand how their practices fit into a broader societal context. These are exciting times; embracing societal change and influencing the norms can only help everyone involved.”

What is your experience of social networks?

I must say that I am a social network addict as I probably check my profile at least once a day. I use it for the purpose of staying connected with my friends and also as a way to share photos and to stay updated with events. The club with which I am part of conducts most of its updating activities via Facebook as we know that the majority of people have and frequently use Facebook.

How could these be used in learning environments?

As mentioned in the articles these social learning sites foster a lot of informal learning. Knowledge is shared and built across communications with one another and through focussed areas such as ‘groups’. The informality of these sites makes it less intimidating to express opinions and because it is a public domain it invites opinions from a number of different perspectives.

Synchronous

What is synchronous communication? Provide examples:

A real-time, instructor-led online learning event in which all participants are logged on at the same time and communicate directly with each other. In this virtual classroom setting, the instructor maintains control of the class, with the ability to “call on” participants. In most platforms, students and teachers can use a whiteboard to see work in progress and share knowledge. Interaction may also occur via audio- or videoconferencing, Internet telephony, or two-way live broadcasts. (http://www.learningcircuits.org/glossary)

What is the benefit of synchronous communication?

The benefit is the instant response between instructors and participants. This direct communication allows clarification of points raised and so on, on the spot. It also gets participants in the momentum to think about the topic discussed.

When would you use it?

Perhaps you would use this to replace classroom settings. Also for any collaborative work that needs to be done.

Asynchronous

What is asynchronous communication? Provide examples:

Learning in which interaction between instructors and students occurs intermittently with a time delay. Examples are self-paced courses taken via the Internet or CD-ROM, Q&A mentoring, online discussion groups, and email. (http://www.learningcircuits.org/glossary)

What is the benefit of asynchronous communication?

It allows the participants to work at their own pace. Also allows for time to reflect on issues and to conduct independent research.

When would you use it?

I think it would be appropriate in settings where the student is engaged in with other commitments and so needs to work in their own time.

Current trends in e-Learning are indicating that effective learning can be enhanced through the use of these communication techniques. What do you think are some of the drivers in the current environment?

I believe the main driver of these communication techniques is the fact that distance is a major barrier to communicating effectively and with these technological infrastructures they aren’t just a means of communication but a support system in encouraging communication and the expression of ideas. Furthermore, the anywhere anytime aspect is becoming more and more appealing to learners as we all have busy lives and various commitments that aren’t as flexible as synchronous and asynchronous communication.

The use of asynchronous technologies has been widely ignored as an appropriate method for enhancing learning through collaboration of learners.

Gilly Salmon’s Computer-Mediated Conferencing (CMC) Model (2000) however, now provides the e-moderator or facilitator a structured process through the use of e-Tivities to create meaningful learning activities.

The diagram above outlines Gilly Salmon’s 5-stage CMC model. (Salmon,G. 2000, e-Moderating, Kogan Page, UK)

Follow the link below for an interactive explanation of the model:

http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml

The interactive feature of this site is very well designed. It is very simple and straightforward with its explanations that are sequenced in a logical order.

Re-read (from e-Learning Experiences): e-Learn 2.0 from Stephen Downes 2005 http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1

Honestly, this section of the module annoys me as it is revision of previous work which I would prefer done through class discussion, rather than individual readings and answers. The reading I found was quite tedious hence why I am disgruntled with this activity and why I am trying to work around it by pulling up previous posts and just including my own reflection on the question.

Refer to previous work http://tdinh86.edublogs.org/2007/08/28/activity-11-defining-e-learning/

What is meant by web-based application?

Web-based learning entails content in a Web browser and actual learning materials delivered in Web format. Web browsing is the key feature of Web-based learning. Web-based applications would refer to those materials or programs that are delivered in Web format. These applications are necessary to carry out the activities that are necessary in web-based learning. Examples of web-based applications include blogging sites, wikispaces, bookmarking sites and so on.

What is Web2.0?

Web 2.0 is a platform in which content was created, shared, remixed, repurposed and passed along. Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution but rather a social revolution.

What is its relevance to learning?

In my opinion, Web 2.0 is relevant to learning as the value of knowledge is increasingly rising and accessing this knowledge in order to build one’s own knowledge base is an important learning process. Nowadays, we can’t just depend on being fed information to dictate our judgements and behaviours and so on. At our fingertips is an abundance of information and what web 2.0 provides is this concept of social learning hence we can access information from a number of sources and not just in formal contexts but informally. We can never know everything but web 2.0 connects us with other people so that we can at least gain different perspectives on particular issues. Furthermore, we have the opportunity of sharing our own knowledge with others, which engages us in dialogues which criticize our work so that our learning is improved. We need to become involved in our education to fully embrace learning and I think web 2.0 enables this. We are also becoming more technologically savvy and dependent, which is something that educators need to consider in their approaches to teaching as traditional methods gradually become dated. Well that’s just my view. I can’t say that I’ve remembered everything I’ve ever been taught but this is the knowledge that I have gained from my experience on web 2.0.

List web-based applications you are familiar with:

• Email
• Weblogs
• Wikis
• Chat
• Podcasting
• RSS & aggregation
• Social Networking
• e-Portfolios
• Virtual worlds
• Vodcasting

List web-based applications you would like to explore further:

I’m not too familiar with podcasting/vodcasting and virtual worlds as yet so I would like to explore them further. Web conferencing is also something I would like to engage in.

What is RSS?How does it work?

How can RSS be used in this subject?

What is aggregation of information referring to?

How does it work?

How could aggregation be used in this subject?

Refer to previous work http://tdinh86.edublogs.org/2007/08/30/activity-15-bookmarking-and-aggregation/

However the answer below is derived from viewing the video, CommonCraft “RSS in Plain English” http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english, and is essentially an explanation of how RSS and aggregation work.

Technorati says that there are over 50 million blogs that are continually increasing. Two ways in keeping up with what is happening on the web – the old slow way and the new fast way – the old way requires you to check your favourite blogs and sites for updates individually whereas the new way reverses this and sends updates to you using a single website (your reader) that becomes your home for reading all the new stuff that comes from your favourite websites. Firstly you need to sign up to a reader, then set up a connection between your reader and your favourite sites, what is called subscribing. To subscribe you need to find the rss icon and then click on it. You can either click to add it to your reader or may be required to copy and paste a link into your reader via an add subscription or add feed option.

List self-publishing applications you are familiar with:

blogspot.com, wikispaces.com, edublogs.com, youtube.com

These videos we were advised to watch are great in explaining blogs and wikis!

Watch: CommonCraft “Blogs in Plain English” http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs

Watch: CommonCraft “Wikis in Plain English” http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english

Consider your use of self-publishing in e-Learning Experiences. What impact did this have on your learning?

Self-publishing in e-Learning Experiences was challenging for me as I’m a very lazy person and to be required to blog frequently was a task I didn’t look forward to. However it did made me think about what I was learning and how relevant it was to me. Then being able to document this on a website allowed me to return to my thoughts and to revisit information that I had collected prior. Working with a group in wikispaces was a bit more difficult as we each had varied degrees of confidence in using the technology. In the end however we didn’t really utilize it much. This semester however, I have found that we are trying to make use of more of the tools such as the discussion board tool to relay short messages and updates.

Can you identify examples where you have used social sharing in a learning context? del.icio.us

These videos we were advised to watch are great in explaining social bookmarking and photosharing!

Watch: CommonCraft ” Social Bookmarking in Plain English” http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Watch: CommonCraft ” Online Photosharing in Plain English” http://www.commoncraft.com/photosharing

What impact can this have on your learning?

It has a positive impact in that it keeps a record of all the resources (in a website as opposed to on one computer) you use and because it is a record you can return to it (from any location). Being able to tag these resources also categorizes them and assigns keywords or descriptions to them so they can be easily located and judged for relevance. The option of sharing these resources, because it is in a public arena, also gives other people access to what we find as well as to what they have found.

“More than one-third of the world’s population is under 20. There are over 30 million people today qualified to enter a university who have no place to go. During the next decade, this 30 million will grow to 100 million. To meet this staggering demand, a major university needs to be created each week.” – Sir John Daniel, 1996

Opening with a quote to set the scene, the article explores the possibilities of supplying education to an increasing demand using emerging learning technologies. Brown and Adler recognizes a need to supply resources to support innovation and productiveness as well as to continuing education in order to remain globally competitive, which becomes increasingly significant in an age where the world changes at an unstoppable pace.

“We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis” (para.2); consequently, the current methods of teaching and learning and the environments in which they take place will become dated as technology becomes more and more embedded in our lives. As such, initiatives that have been launched over the past couple of years as a direct result of the growth and evolution of the Internet have shown that they could provide a means of meeting this challenge. The ‘global’ platform of the Internet has enabled access to formal and informal educational materials and has also “fostered a new culture of sharing” (‘The Brewing Perfect Storm of Opportunity’ para.1) where “content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions of cost” (ibid). Two examples provided were the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and Web 2.0.

Brown and Adler move on to discuss various factors that have contributed towards this push for more emphasis on emerging learning technologies. Beginning with social learning, they provide a definition which describes the concept as “based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but how we are learning” (‘Social Learning’ para.1). This latter statement is indeed supported by the fact that a higher success rate sits among students who engage in study groups. Another important aspect of social learning is the participatory role of the student in their learning, hence the shift in attention from content to learning activities and human interaction.

Social learning is indeed the backbone of communities of practice in which people work together to produce and edit content. With many online arenas already established, such as Wikipedia, learners are increasingly building knowledge and sharing knowledge through collaboration. This move of social learning online has also given birth to many other new tools for extending education in many different fields as evidenced in the examples given by Brown and Adler – Terra Incognita project of the University of Southern Queensland (Australia), Harvard Law School and Harvard Extension School fall 2006, Digital Study Hall (DSH), Faulkes Telescope Project, Hands-On Universe (HOU), Bugscope Project and The Decameron Web. The examples provided by Brown and Adler, are nowhere near the scope of how many different learning tools that are out there on the Internet. Among them all are an infinite amount of courses of study which is a number unmatched by the physical institutions in which are currently educated. The authors recognize that “for any topic that a student is passionate about, there is likely to be an online niche community of practice of others who share that passion” (‘The Long Tail in Learning’ para.3). Furthermore, “Finding and joining a community that ignites a student’s passion can set the stage for the student to acquire both deep knowledge about a subject (”learning about”) and the ability to participate in the practice of a field through productive inquiry and peer-based learning (”learning to be”). These communities are harbingers of the emergence of a new form of technology-enhanced learning-Learning 2.0-which goes beyond providing free access to traditional course materials and educational tools and creates a participatory architecture for supporting communities of learners.” (ibid. para.4).

The points that Brown and Adler have raised in their article are extremely relevant to education today and as a concluding point, they discuss the necessity of a ‘reflective practicum’. They touch on the concept of learning about learning and stress the need for this reflective approach so as to continually improve technologies by taking into account the experiences of the learners. In discussing these different aspects, Brown and Adler propose a solution to the problem we face of not having the resources to accommodate an increasing number of learners.

It is what they call the demand-pull approach to learning and is, in their own words, “based on providing students with access to rich (sometimes virtual) learning communities built around a practice. It is passion-based learning, motivated by the student either wanting to become a member of a particular community of practice or just wanting to learn about, make, or perform something. Often the learning that transpires is informal rather than formally conducted in a structured setting. Learning occurs in part through a form of reflective practicum, but in this case the reflection comes from being embedded in a community of practice that may be supported by both a physical and a virtual presence and by collaboration between newcomers and professional practitioners/scholars. / The demand-pull approach to learning might appear to be extremely resource-intensive. But the Internet is becoming a vast resource for supporting this style of learning. Its resources include the rapidly growing amount of open courseware, access to powerful instruments and simulation models, and scholarly websites, which already number in the hundreds, as well as thousands of niche communities based around specific areas of interest in virtually every field of endeavor.” (‘From the Web 2.0 to Learning 2.0′ para.4-5)

This article was a very interesting read and shed some light on an issue I hadn’t even considered. It is true that the demand for education is ever increasing from all facets of society and we definitely need to consider alternatives to the institutional systems we have now. That is not to say that we do not need them, but rather we need the infrastructure in place to support these institutions. Education is extremely vital to society and indeed survival in the global environment and the learning technologies that are emerging are worth exploring and investing in.

Read: The 2008 Horizon Report and the 2007 Horizon Report http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page

What are the 6 key emerging technologies identified by the 2008 report?

The 6 key emerging technologies identified and explained by the 2008 Horizons Report were:

1. Grassroots Video – Grassroots video has emerged as a key technology as almost anyone can produce video clips thanks to inexpensive equipment such as mobile phones and free or nearly free software. Video sharing sites have also enabled these user-generated clips to be broadcast and distributed in the public domain. The content itself continues to evolve and is being created for a number of purposes. Indeed in the educational context, video is becoming a popular means of sharing knowledge.

2. Collaboration Webs – The move of collaboration onto the web has enabled people to edit group documents, hold online meetings, swap information and data, and collaborate in any number of ways without ever leaving their desks. It has also been made increasingly seamless by a host of complimentary developments in networking infrastructure, social networking tools, web applications and collaborative workspaces. The constraints that were once posed by distance are now becoming less evident as collaboration webs are taking off in the educational and organisational context.

3. Mobile Broadband – As innovations continue in mobile technology, it has made it possible for users to remain connected using a compact portable device. Mobiles are now equipped with cameras, audio recorders, digital video recorders, pocket datebooks, photo albums, music players, video players, web browsers, document editors, news readers, and more. The accessibility of the Internet from these devices has allowed people to stay in touch with their networks from almost any location, which was something previously provided by laptops. As mobile technology advances, its popularity appears to overtake that of the laptop.

4. Data Mashups – A mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source via a single, unified tool. The availability of large amounts of data is converging with the development of open programming interfaces for social networking, mapping and other tools. Data mashups are powerful tools for navigating and visualizing datasets; understanding connections between different dimensions such as time, distance, and location; juxtaposing data from different sources to reveal new relationships; and other purposes. It is essentially about uniting large amounts of data in a manageable way.

5. Collective Intelligence – Collective intelligence is a term used for the knowledge embedded within societies or large groups of individuals. Divided into two categories, explicit collective intelligence and implicit collective intelligence, the former is knowledge that is gathered and recorded by many people (eg: Wikipedia) whereas the latter is the data that is collected over time by the activities of people. This data reveals patterns, correlations and flows amongst people and provides accurate predictions about people’s preferences and behaviours which has helped researchers and everyday users understand the map relationships, and gauge relative significance of ideas and events.

6. Social Operating Systems – Social operating systems are the essential ingredient of next generation social networking. The way in which they are organized will be based around people; which is an indication of how valuable connections and relationships are becoming. The first social operating system tools, only just emerging now, understand who we know, how we know them, and how deep our relationships actually are. They can lead us to connections we would otherwise have missed. As they develop further, these tools will transform the academy in significant ways we can only begin to imagine. This is much more than facebook, which only shows a minute scale of the networks we interact with. Social operating systems are advancing to include more detail and analysis of our relationships.

Which of these technologies are you familiar with, and in what context have either used them, or heard of them?

I have encountered each of these technologies, mainly in recreational contexts. For example, grassroots videos are available through Youtube and more and more, my friends are starting to post their videos onto their facebook profiles. In the case of mobile broadband, I have accessed the Internet from my mobile phone to check emails and to download music. I have never accessed the Internet for extended periods of time mainly because of the cost associated with it. Data mashups are most encountered in facebook when photos of myself or friends of mine are tagged. It’s funny how these tags often show friends that are from different groups by coincidentally know each other in some other way, it definitely shows how small the world is becoming.

As for collaboration webs, collective intelligence and social operating systems, as part of some of my group assessments I have had to use wikispaces to communicate and share knowledge with my peers. Collaboration webs in particular, have been used when I communicate with my club executives – we use google docs to view documents and edit them as we gather more information. Again with the work I do with my club, there is extensive emailing and gmail, considering social operating systems, sort of tracks our history by having all our previous emails tabbed behind the most current email.

Review the significant trends (p.6) – how do these relate to your experiences of technology in learning contexts?

The significant trends identified in the 2007 Horizon Report were user-created content, social networking, mobile phones, virtual worlds, the new scholarship and emerging forms of publication and massively multiplayer education gaming.

Reviewing these technologies:

• User-created content is content that is produced at almost all levels of experience found in blogs, photostreams, wikibooks, machinima clips and so on. It is a new form of contribution and an increasing trend towards authorship.
• Social networking are the sites that connect people with their friends, colleagues, or strangers who have a shared interest. Truly engaging social networking offers and opportunity to contribute, share, communicate and collaborate.
• Mobile phones are becoming the gateway to our digital lives. They provide instant access and their capabilities are ever increasing very rapidly.
• Virtual worlds mirror the real world through imaginative and almost fantasy-inspired environments. They present the chance to collaborate, explore, role-play and experience other situations in a safe but compelling way.
• The new scholarship and emerging forms of publication are becoming more apparent as new tools and new ways to create, critique, and publish are influencing new and old scholars alike.
• Massively multiplayer education gaming are engaging and absorbing users in a way that commercial games have. Although relatively small, new games are emerging as barriers are brought down.

Thinking about the way in which these technology have related to my experiences in learning contexts, I can honestly say that they are truly embedded in the way I communicate with my peers and to a great extent the way I am gaining knowledge and producing work. Blogs have now become a part of my educational experience, although yet to become a habitual acitivity. Social networking enables me to connect with people from different groups that I interact with. My mobile is perhaps the one thing that goes everywhere with me. However, virtual worlds and massively multiplayer education gaming have yet to become immersed in my learning experiences.