[cfp: interdisciplinary perspectives on e-learning]

Special Issue of E-Learning on globally networked learning in higher education

E-Learning, a peer-reviewed international journal directed towards the study of e-learning in its diverse aspects, invites submissions for a special issue on “Globalizing Higher Education Across the Disciplines: Innovative Partnerships, Policies, and Pedagogies for Globally Networked Learning Environments,” guest edited by Doreen Starke-Meyerring.

Early national and global policy discourses around the role of the internet in higher education advanced utopian and dystopian understandings of the internet as a new global market for existing industrial-model, locally produced higher education courses and programs to be repackaged for global delivery and global trade online. As a result, hundreds of millions of public and private dollars have been spent on global internet-based higher education marketing consortia, many of which have since failed. As initial responses to digital technologies, these initiatives had largely tried to reproduce established institutionally bounded practices in digital environments, disregarding the networked nature and peer production potential of digital technologies, and therefore lacking pedagogical innovation to re-envision learning in a globally networked world.

At the same time, however, many faculty across the disciplines in higher education have begun to develop alternative pedagogies and learning environments that take advantage of the globally networked nature of digital technologies. These globally networked learning environments (GNLEs) connect students with peers, instructors, professionals, experts, and communities from diverse contexts to help students develop new ways of knowledge making and learn how to build shared learning and knowledge cultures across traditional boundaries, especially with peers and communities that have been the most marginalized and disadvantaged in the emerging global social and economic order. However, such GNLEs are difficult to develop because they require robust partnerships, must negotiate a multitude of divergent national and institutional local policies, and as innovations, face challenges of institutional support infrastructures and policies designed around traditional local classrooms.

The purpose of this special issue is to understand the current state of globally networked learning environments across disciplines in higher education and to advance insights into their development and sustainability. The special issue therefore invites both conceptual contributions that address larger questions surrounding GNLEs as well as research studies of GNLE development across disciplines, addressing questions such as these (among others):

- What is the current state of globally networked learning in higher education?
- How have GNLEs addressed issues of global and local social justice?
- What kind of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge making do GNLEs enable that would be difficult to achieve in traditional institutionally bounded classrooms? How?
- What challenges do educators face in designing, implementing, and sustaining such partnered learning environments? How do they overcome them?
- How do national and global policies regulating higher education as well as those regulating digital technologies (e.g. privacy, intellectual property, and censorship policies) enable or constrain the development of GNLEs?
- How do local institutional policies, including policies regulating digital technologies, enable or constrain the development of GNLEs?
- What institutional initiatives (e.g., task forces, innovator networks, centres for research and faculty support, integrated support networks) have emerged to support the work of faculty innovators?
- What research is needed to advance globally networked learning environments in higher education? Schedule:

• Proposals indicating the purpose, rationale, and possible approach of contributions (250-500 words): January 31, 2009
  
• Submissions (full manuscripts): May 31, 2009
  
• Accepted manuscripts revised for publication: September 1, 2009
  
• Scheduled publication of issue: Winter 2010
  

Please direct inquiries and proposals to the guest editor: Doreen Starke-Meyerring doreen.starke-meyerring@mcgill.ca

Please also contact the editor if you are interested in serving as a reviewer for this special issue. *****************************************************

[social media in education - cfp]

CALL FOR PAPERS

Electronic Journal of Communication (EJC)

Special Issue:

Communication Pedagogy in the Age of Social Media

Over the course of the last few years, social media technologies such as blogs, microblogs, digital videos, podcasts, wikis, and social networks, have seen a dramatic increase in adoption rates. To date, Internet users have uploaded roughly 80 million videos to YouTube and launched approximately 133 million blogs worldwide. Because of their ability to connect people and to facilitate the exchange of information and web content, social media technologies not only provide a powerful new way to interact with one another, but they also present exciting new pedagogical opportunities.

Earlier this year, the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative released the 2008 Horizon Report, which seeks to identify new technologies capable of affecting the way we teach and learn. Among the critical challenges outlined by this year’s report is the need for universities to equip students with new media literacy skills and to develop curricula that “address not only traditional capabilities like developing an argument over the course of a long paper”, but also “how to create meaningful content with today’s tools.” (The New Media Consortium, 2008, p. 6).

Considering that these tools center around the ideas of collaboration, participation, and conversation, they should hold special interest to communication researchers and educators alike. As a result, this special issue seeks to examine the pedagogical applications of social media technologies, especially with regard to the communication classroom. Examples of best practices in social media adoption in all areas of communication education are welcome, as are case studies or empirical research analyzing the effectiveness and/or effects of incorporating social media technologies into the communication classroom. Research examining the role these technologies play in the social construction of a collective knowledge pool would also fit within the scope of this special issue.

The special issue is scheduled for publication in the first half of 2010. Deadline for completed manuscripts is April 1, 2009. Submissions should be electronic (.doc or .rtf format) and must conform to the specifications of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. Place author’s contact information in an email to the editor only, not on the title page of the submission.

Issue Editors:
Corinne Weisgerber, Ph.D. and Shannan H. Butler, Ph.D.
St. Edward’s University

Send inquiries and submissions to: corinnew AT stedwards DOT edu


via: Social Media for PR Class.

[blogging rubric]

Thanks to Nancy Bosch's post at classroom2.0 I found Andrew Churches' Blog Journalling Rubric focusing on the "understanding" level of Bloom's Taxonomy.

I wonder what this rubric might look like if we focus instead on knowledge, evaluation or application rather than the comprehension level of Bloom's taxonomy. Churches does have examples of rubrics that fall into other taxonomic categories.

A handy resource for educators and students.

[visual literacy periodic table]

Interesting visualisation tool over at visual-literacy.org. I can imagine employing this tool as an educator, as a way of modeling to students how they might go about addressing problems or working through essay development etc... A good exercise might involve asking students to pick two "elements" of the visual literacy periodic table and apply them to the same problem to see which tool works best for the problem and their learning style.

Usefully, when clicking on each element an image appears with an example of the visualisation element. For example, clicking on the RI (Rich Picture) Element brings up:



Similarly, clicking on Tr or Mi elements brings up:



and:

Try it yourself at http://www.visual-literacy.org.

[txt spkish and learning english?]

At The University of Toronto there is an interesting development in the teaching of English as a second language...using tv colloquialisms ("eat my shorts man," "how YOU doin'" "I'm wasted"). Though these examples don't exactly suggest an "intellectual quest", they do however help students pick up "real-life" English.

"You can have academic English down pat, but that doesn't help when a classmate says `Catch you later' or `Get out of here!'" says Damjanovic, who dreamed up the notion of teaching conversational English through shared viewings of popular shows, with a cram session first on the phrases the class is about to hear.

When Damjanovic moved to North America as a high school student, she spoke English yet had no clue what kids meant when they talked about getting "wasted" on the weekend.

"I thought, `Wasted what? Wasted time? Money?' But these little phrases mean a lot when you're trying to communicate on a day-to-day basis, and sitcoms are surprisingly rich."

Damjanovic is careful to note which phrases are considered rude, a distinction the students carefully write down."

Read the whole article here.

[web 2.0 and education report]

Interesting report issued by BECTA on the use of web 2.0 technologies in elementary classrooms in UK schools.

Report 2: Learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in and out of school in Key Stages 3 and 4 (June 2008)

This report focuses on learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies both in and out of school, including their use of social networking sites, online multi-player games, instant messaging and other web-based activities.

• At Key Stages 3 and 4, learners’ use of Web 2.0 and related internet activities is extensive. Despite most learners being confident or even prolific users of Web 2.0 sites, use is not generally sophisticated. Broadly speaking, learners may be characterised as consumers rather than producers of internet content
• Of the 2,600 learners surveyed across 27 schools, 74% have social networking accounts and 78% have uploaded artefacts (mostly photographs or video clips from phones) to the internet. However, nearly all Web 2.0 use is currently outside school, and for social purposes
• In the sample, the percentage of learners with home access to the internet was high and the range of personal devices used by learners was extensive. However, PC/internet access outside school was often shared, and this could limit its use by individuals
• Overall, although most learners use the internet for learning, there is only limited use of Web 2.0, and only a few embryonic signs of criticality, self-management and meta-cognitive reflection
• Many learners lack technical skills, and lack an awareness of the range of technologies and of when and how they could be used, as well as the digital literacy and critical skills to navigate this space. Teachers should be careful not to overestimate learners’ familiarity and skills in this area. There is a clear role for teachers in developing such skills
• There is a disparity between home and school use of IT, both in terms of the larger range of activities and the increased time spent on IT at home. Many learners do not see some aspects of Web 2.0, such as social networking, as relevant to learning in school.

Download the report summary in Word (311KB) PDF (182KB) or ODT (224KB)

The points that I've bolded are exactly aspects which I've been attempting to address through my pedagogical work with the digital story Inanimate Alice. There are quite a few educators who are employing I.A. for many of these reasons and I know several, like Angela Thomas and her students, have had great success. It seems a key to many of these bolded points comes down to teaching...and teachers receiving appropriate training/time/resources to bring web 2.0 into the classroom and encourage both critical and digital literacies.

There are five parts to this report with statistics (quite helpful) and suggestions for further reading.

[conference: IT and teaching]

SITE 2009 - Charleston, South Carolina - March 2 - 6, 2009

Proposals Due: October 17 2008

Call for Presentations

Presentation Types

Proposal Submission Guide & Form

Advance Program/Registration

Deadlines

Topics

Proceedings Guidelines

Presenter Lounge

Corporate Participation

Overview

Registration Rates

Hotel & Travel Information

Charleston, South Carolina

Program Committee

Review Policy


GENERAL TOPICS:
* Assessment and E-folios
* Corporate
* Development of Future Faculty
* Digital Video
* Distance/Flexible Education
* Electronic Playground
* Equity and Social Justice
* Evaluation and Research
* Games and Simulations
* Graduate Education and Faculty Development
* Information Literacy
* Information Technology Diffusion/Integration
* International Education
* Latino/Spanish Speaking Community
* Leadership
* New Possibilities with Information Technologies
* Web/Learning Communities
* Workforce Education


See more at the conference site: http://site.aace.org/conf/

[21st century learning...4 educators]

As educators we are aware of the necessity to share with students ways of understanding and interacting with 21st century literacies. Not only should we help students use online resources but we must help them develop an appropriate digital literacy - a literacy which is critical of resources (the same goes for offline stuff: who wrote it, when etc...) while helping them navigate the plethora of information. Reading Dean Groom's excellent post on "No Teacher Left Behind" raises several other issues which I think are often overlooked. What about equipping teachers with a 21st century literacy? They too need to learn. And, as Dean and his blog readers note, once that shift into digital literacy is enacted, how does one manage the blurring of work into home time?

"If we want to get more teachers engaged in reading, learning and participating in the exponential growth in the use of social networks as professional development vectors, then there is a significant cost to those teachers - in addition to their normal workload.

This is a personal, not school or government burden. They do it at home – and may are awake at ridiculous hours to do it - because they see the benefits for the kids - not just talk about them.

This cost needs to be recognised, these people need to be recognised! – with more than a pat on the back."

My question on work seeping into non-work time of course affects many people, not just teachers, but perhaps remains most silent within educational realms?

As Lisa Dumicich, explains:

"wondering what my school would do if I got rid of the internet at home?? They rely heavily on me having it at home and using it for work………would they pay for me to have it at home? I had to buy my own laptop as Head of ICT. What would they do if I refused to spend my money on one or refused to use my personal computer for work??? Governemnts and schools have a long way to go in recognizing the true workload and expenses of teachers."

[technology and improving literacy]

A topic I'm always interested in and am examining during my research fellowship at the IOCT and through pedagogical work on multimodal story Inanimate Alice. With this in mind, the recent article by James Paul Gee and Michael H. Levine on "Innovation Strategies for Learning in a Global Age" seems particularly relevant.

As Katie Ash notes, the article by Gee and Levine "using new, innovative technology can help students who are struggling with language to increase their vocabulary and form associations between what they're learning with the real world." Also, being au fait with 21st century technology means that the digital divide is closing and students won't be left out of the "global economy."

Some key points:

• According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, most low-income children in this country [U.S.A.] are below grade level in reading by 4th grade [known as the fourth-grade slump]
• What gives students a good head start toward comprehension is a wide-ranging, sturdy vocabulary of complex words in the early years, before the age of 5
• Video games, simulations, modeling tools, hand-held devices, and media production tools can allow students to see how complex language and other symbol systems attach to the world
• Mastery of digital media for the production of knowledge constitutes a new family of “digital literacies,” since such media, like print before them, are tools for the production of meaning
• Digital media offer other advantages. They naturally elicit problem-solving behavior and attitudes in students, and have the potential to create different modes of assessment
• [Digital media] can also be used to track how learners learn, moment by moment, allowing constant feedback based on our knowledge of various trajectories of learning.

Read the entire article here.

[new media and not so intelligent reporting]

The Independent on Sunday did a piece which included "quotes" from Professor Sue Thomas on reading and writing in digital climates. Besides misquoting Thomas (and OMG he says she's a lecturer!! Hello...I think he'll find it's Professor) and making fundamental generalisations the reporter (or observer as this write-up is imbued with numerous personal surmising) the article sees digital literacy as a highly straight-forward, black and white issue. Print books are good and "e-books" are bad. I'm slightly simplifying the argument, well nah, that's pretty much the gist of it. For the article writer, e-books and seemingly anything available online is there for entertainment and readers become "power browsers." While print fiction is "intelligent" and a collection of "classics" including "Don Quixote, Bleak House, Moby Dick, In Search of Lost Time." Umm... Most perplexing to me, is the comment that gone are the years when teenagers (yes! teenagers) "confidently approached" these books (specifically Quixote et al.). Speaking from a small and necessarily parametered experience, I've never know a teenager to approach these books with confidence...in fact, I wonder whether anyone does. These are books that instill questions rather than answers so I'm not sure really whether confidence is synonomous with the kind of literacy this reporter is striving for. In fact, why is it not "A la recherche du temps perdu" because serious readers would surely only read the book or, erm, text in its original language (the same for Don Quixote de la Mancha and my, isn't this a good example of self-conscious/self-reflexive language-play?).

Digital literacy and programmes devoted to instilling and encouraging this (still) nascent skill emerge alongside other forms (and teaching) of literacy, including print, visual and sonic. Thomas's course, just one example, focuses on narratives crafted in an online or digital environment. It's not about replacing Moby Dick or handing someone an e-reader and replacing the whole publishing business, but it is about learning more and reading more and, as Thomas says, connecting more.

[employment opportunity - Kairos is hiring]

Kairos - An online academic open-access peer-reviewed journal that focuses on digital and multimodal practises and pedagogy. They're hiring a Praxis section assistant editor(s) and a Reviews section assistant editor(s).

Get applications in by Friday, September 19, 2008. Interviews are scheduled for soon after. The start dates is November, 2008.

[phd studentships - virtual worlds and pedagogy]

The Socio-Political Impact of Virtual World Learning on Higher Education

Applications are invited for three three-year, fulltime PhD research studentships for a study funded by The Leverhulme Trust. The study seeks to explore ‘The socio political impact of virtual world learning on higher education' . This study will use participatory action research to examine staff and students from a wide range of disciplines in Higher Education Institutions across the UK. It will investigate their conceptions of and decisions about the way in which they teach and learn at the socio-political boundaries of reality. This study will focus on the exploration of three main themes and a studentship will be attached to each theme

1. Students' experiences of learning in immersive worlds.
2. Pedagogical design.
3. Learner identity.

For more info see here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobs/SL655/Three_fulltime_PhD_research_studentships/

[assessing digital/new literacies]

I'm still trying to craft a pedagogically-sound rubric for the assessment of digital narratives (ones undergraduate students create) and am finding it really tricky. Bryan Alexander has been updating his finds on web 2.0 storytelling and education and he also wonders whether there are any rubrics out there tackling both the medium and the content. Since I originally blogged about this, I have come across interesting resources but my latest find is from Sheila Webber at Information Literacy. She shares with us a fantastic resource for developing a module on information literacy. It sounds somewhat similar to the Education Pack I've made for teaching Inanimate Alice.

"there are five 'chapters' with titles like "Learning Theories and Information Literacy" which provide summaries of some theories and issues, and short reading lists. There are also supporting documents, including an example assessment briefing and mark sheet for an assignment "Design and prepare a training event to develop information literacy skills."

Though this resource by Barbara Chivers is aimed at those teaching librarians, I'm sure all educators will find cross-overs and aspects they can use in other learning environments.

It might be more interesting to read Chivers' IT Literacy pack alongside Lynne Spichiger website assessment. (via Bryan Alexander) Lynne says:

"In developing a website that depicts a controversial subject from a variety of perspectives, we wondered if visitors to the site would be interested in exploring each of the perspectives, or if they would be partial to just one or two perspectives. Would they be partial to the European viewpoint that has predominated for hundreds of years, or would they explore competing views? Although we do not know the backgrounds of our visitors, we do know something about their behavior on the site:

Visitors to the attack scene viewed each culture's tab in roughly equal numbers.
Most of the visitors who viewed each of the non-English cultural tabs, also viewed the English tab: 1,211 of the 1,367 who viewed the French tab viewed the English tab; 1,104 of the 1,272 who viewed the Kanienkehaka tab also viewed the English tab; 997 of the 1,174 who viewed the Wendat tab also viewed the English tab; 942 of the 1,068 who viewed the Wobanakiak tab also viewed the English tab.
866 visitors viewed all of the cultural tabs.
This data suggests that many of the visitors to the website were indeed open to viewing multiple perspectives. But did they learn anything about the event and its competing viewpoints, and did they change in any way as a result of their experience?"

Read the case-study here and see the site in question here.

Don't know your learning style or want students to figure out theirs? Have a go at testing yourself at VARK. After doing the test myself, VARK rightly concluded that I'm a multimodal learner though I didn't realise I heavily favour kinesthetic learning...hrmm...will give it a think:

Your scores were:

Visual: 10
Aural: 6
Read/Write: 5
Kinesthetic: 12

You have a multimodal (VARK) learning preference.

[auditory learning styles and education]

I've been working with a small group of teachers (key stage 3) to design lesson plans that include various types of learners and learning styles. The idea of having students tell stories (i.e. re-tell what they've learnt) seems to play a key role in deep learning. Or, in Dawn Hogue's words, this kind of engagement can push students' learning "up the taxonomy."

Judie Haynes at Everything ESL says auditory learners find these tactics useful:

• interviewing
• debating
• participating on a panel
• giving oral reports
• participating in oral discussions of written material

Then I see over on Cool Cat Teacher Blog a video of students *re-telling* what they've learnt in history class. As Cool Cat Teach. says, if students can't tell a story of what they've learnt, maybe they didn't understand the lesson.

NB look at Lynn Schultz's "new" version of Bloom's taxonomy:

[grading digital storytelling]

For ages now I've been on the hunt for some rubrics geared towards grading digital stories...I mean, how do we mark for both narrative (and all the aspects including point of view, plot, character, language etc...) AND the digital medium (images used, html, sound, user-interaction etc...). Bryan Alexander has been keeping track of web 2.0 storytelling and education and he also wonders whether there are any rubrics out there tackling both the medium and the content. I've found Meg Ormiston's rubrics at tech teachers and another rubric at the bottom of the "Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" page. The latter is based on rubrics found here, Dr. Helen Barrett's work and Scott County, Kentucky Schools.









Does anyone know of any more?

[inanimate alice and edu in the news!]

"An interactive novel created by a writer and artist who work at De Montfort University has been nominated for a national education award, and is being showcased by the EU as well used by teachers in classrooms around the world.

'Inanimate Alice' (see www.inanimatealice.com ) tells the adventures of a girl who becomes a games artist and it has been nominated in the Interactive Productions category of the 2008 Learning On Screen awards given by BUFVC, the British Universities Film and Video Council.

Winners will be announced in York on 18 March. For more information on The Learning on Screen Awards which celebrate excellence in the use of moving image and related media in learning, teaching and research, go to: http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/learningonscreen/.

Author Kate Pullinger said: "Inanimate Alice has proven to be popular across a broad range of ages as well as with a broad range of viewers, including both book-lovers and gamers. Because the level of interactivity starts out low in episode one, increasing with each subsequent episode in order to reflect Alice's own growing abilities, we've found that we can take an audience unfamiliar with multimedia fiction with us. Educators like Inanimate Alice because of this; students from primary to post-graduate level find the work engaging."

Chris Joseph said: "It's fantastic that the BUFVC have recognised Inanimate Alice for its use within educational environments, and the nomination is confirmation of De Montfort University's growing status as a centre for cutting edge digital arts and education within the UK. It is particularly satisfying to be sharing the platform with the high budget productions from the BBC and CBBC."

Jess Laccetti said [woo hoo! that's me!]: "Students from primary to post-graduate level find Inanimate Alice engaging and it can help teachers successfully integrate new media literacies into the classroom. Because of its multimodality (images, sounds, text, interaction) students see storytelling in a new light and this can them develop and refine the multiple literacies (literary, cinematic, artistic, participatory etc.) required today for successful navigation of the online environment."

Download the education pack that goes with Inanimate Alice episodes 1-3 from here. Any comments, add them to the iteach blog or send me an e-mail.

A press release at MCV: Market for Home Computing and Video Games.

[web 2.0 + storytelling = education]

Creating Lifelong Learners has an interesting post on a "Digital Storytelling Blog Carnival" featuring links to everything educators might like to know about digital storytelling. A link from his (Matthew Needleman's) post leads to an EduCause Connect conversation featuring Bryan Alexander, Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) and Gail Matthews-DeNatale, Associate Director for Academic Technology at Simmons College.

A blurb about the discussion:

"Digital storytelling merges leading-edge technology with age-old storytelling processes. Digital stories are typically in video format but can also include Web pages, digital maps, and other emerging technology mashups. With the addition of a Web 2.0 focus, audience also becomes co-author. How do these concepts apply to pedagogy and how can instructors evaluate and assess the process and final product?"

The discussion begins with the question: "What is Web 2.0 storytelling and how is it different from multi-media?" Bryn responds: "Web 2.0 storytelling is the combination of web 2.0 platforms and practises with storytelling, the desire to tell a story and narrative structure." He also add that web 2.0 is based on the social and micro content, both these ideas have a big impact on how students can use the web.

Gail: "With the 2.0 experience there is a much lower barrier to use..."

Bryn also makes the point that educators shouldn't try to stop students from using wikipedia or googling for answers but should encourage students how to "search more broadly."

"How do you access digital story telling production?"

Gail: "I'm a very big fan of the process...the power of story as this kind of conversational iterative process is the power of assessment (formative assessment)...I give them a rubric and they give feedback according to the rubric."

Bryan: "This is the problem with the audio, you can't tell if I'm agreeing or disagreeing...it's important to recognise that we've been composing in multimedia for a long time...it's hard for us to recognise the history of technology, we tend to define tech. as the most recent thing. We can draw on how people were asssessing hypertext in the 80s and how people were assessing web pages in the 90s. You have to select evidence and materials and assess them and that process (of selection) can be assessed."

Gail: "I would add to this that there is a context, what I'd have a first year, first semester student do would be very different for a final year communication student...Sometimes it's useful to have two rubrics, one for the subject matter and one for the media literacies."

I like Gail's idea of having two rubrics...that would certainly make it clear to students exactly how their work was being assessed...but, for transliteracy or digital literacy or new media literacy etc...should we be working towards rubrics (and other strategies) that can more fully *intertwingle* form (process) and content?

Listen to the entire podcast here but I've tried to embed it below:

This discussion took place at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas where Gail Matthews-DeNatale presented a session at ELI 2008 called "Digital Story Making: Understanding the Learner's Perspective" and Bryan Alexander presented a workship at ELI 2008 on "Web 2.0 Storytelling".

["don't be efficient"]

David Eaves has a great post on gen y-ers using (or attempting to use) social networking tools to be "more productive" but ending up shot down...

"Take for example my friend who wanted to use survey monkey to send out a questionnaire asking 10 public servants across their department about potential dates and times when they would be free to meet. The survey took 5 seconds to complete and would quickly identify the optimal date for such a meeting. However, her manager let her know very quickly that this was unacceptable. It was more important that each person be emailed - or better, called - individually, a process that gobbled up hours if not days. Time after time I hear stories of young people who, after doing what they do at home, quickly feel the full weight of the department descending on their cubicle. I won’t even mention an acquaintance who related a story of trying to set up a wiki (not even on accessible to the public!)."

I've read quite a bit about bringing these kinds of technologies into educational environments or at least educating people about their possibilities and there are certainly a lot of people out there working on it...I just assumed that businesses etc... would have already sunk their teeth (mostly) into these kinds of tools that allow sharing of information so easily and quickly. I guess not...

A point I'd like to make explicit though...as one of David's commenters explained "A vast majority of young people are entirely clueless about the technology they’re using - they see it as magic as much as the older generation does." Too true! But, I don't think it's just a case of Gen Y-ers being able to do it better than others...I strongly feel it isn't a generational thing and certainly not a "digital native vs immigrant" thing either...(maybe it does have a lot to do with access though)

[web 2.0 resources]

I recently came across this excellent compendium of web 2.0 resources via Dawn Hogue's own useful "Blogs, Wikis, & Web 2.0 in the Classroom" site.

Some of the more interesting ones:

• pimp my news: "scours the web 24/7 for text news and blogs you love and instantly converts them to MP3s that you listen to on your iPod, iPhone or your computer, anytime, anywhere."
  

• trackr: "Use trackr! to let people know where you are and where you have been. All you need is the Internet, a GPS receiver and your mobile phone (or a mobile phone with an internal GPS receiver). Download the application to your mobile phone, create a friendslist and let your friends know where you are."





• arenAsia: "a good way to get ahead in Asia. Professionals use ArenAsia to cultivate business relationships, promote their skills or services, and share insights, opinions and information through discussion groups, event listings, marketplace and knowledge base."






• trutap: "allows you to take your online social life where you go. You can send group messages, SMS and email from your mobile p