The Ed Techie

Some big hitting technologies (shiny show special)

Well, it's been an eventful few weeks for technology releases, which have been blogged to death, but here's a quick roundup from my point of view.

Google Wonderwheel - the smallest of the releases, but potentially significant. Wonderwheel gives a visual representation of search terms, with the term at the centre and then related ones around it. Naturally, each of these terms is itself searchable, so you can quickly build up an expanded search tree across a domain. Here is a search I did using Tony Hirst's blog name (OUseful Info) as the starting term:

You could dismiss this as just some shiny added to search, but hat is interesting from an educational perspective is how users might engage with it, and what would be sharable. It encourages exploration around a topic in a manner that standard text results doesn't, so you explore one term after another. And if that expanded tree of searches is sharable, then what you have is a means of generating mindmaps but with the power of search underneath. The search result itself becomes a more sharable object.

Having said that, it gives some strange results currently (it isn't just a Google search made visual), so it has some way to go still.

Wolfram Alpha - speaking of having some way to go still, we have Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram is touted as the tool which will bring sense to the web. To quote from their site:

"We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity."

The most immediate comparison is with Google, but Wolfram is different, it aims to be more of a scientific oracle: come to it with a question which systematized knowledge can answer and it will generate a structured response.

One has to except it is in alpha (the clue is in the name), but even so, I found it disappointing. For a successful term it generates a page not dissimilar to a wikipedia page (eg try 'clouds'). But given its claims to 'free-form input', this aspect was weak (eg, try 'cloud formation'), and it doesn't degrade gracefully outside its domains (try 'FA Cup'). I do like the structure it provides, with different categories, and the neat bundle of different representations it gives.

Potentially then it could be used to generate overviews of subjects, and in this respect perhaps wikipedia is a better comparison than Google. Beyond this will be the ability to ask more detailed scientific questions, when it might really become a useful tool for helping students become researchers and ask intelligent questions of data.  And this may be our problem with it at the moment - knowing where it fits amongst our current array of knowledge tools. At the moment, it's a wait and see proposition.

Microsoft Natal - this is Microsoft's answer to the Nintendo Wii for the Xbox. It does away with controls and instead claims to be able to allow interaction purely by camera. There is a good deal of demo about it at the moment, so let's not be surprised if it isn't as good as this flashy video:

But let's assume we get there within the next few years. We should view this not as a games console but as an interaction console: the potential for interaction in education are obviously enormous. Can we really expect students to be using forums when they are used to interacting like this? And beyond this it has implications for how we all work - if we had this level of high quality interaction then the notion of a shared physical space (the office) becomes substantially weakened.

While this may be Microsoft hype at the moment, as a vision of interaction it's powerful. And it demonstrates to me that the gap between what we conceive of as technology (and communication, collaboration, user experience, etc) in the educational world and what people experience in the real world is getting wider.

Google Wave - Google seem to have done what many of us have been expecting they would do, and bundle together some apps and add some new ones to create a suite of tools that looks a lot like a VLE/LMS, only interesting. They call it a 'personal communication and collaboration tool', and it's open source. Michael Feldstein has an excellent overview of its potential. Here is a very long video of its announcement:

Jim argues that it is the death of the VLE/LMS. I have been wary of the argument that higher education has to change because the generation of students today are so accustomed to using cool tools and resources that they will demand the same from education. I am sceptical of it from two perspectives:

1) It overstates the proficiency of lots of students

2) Students don't perceive the tools and resources they use in education as the same type of thing as they do in 'the wild', so therefore accept that they have a different experience.

But I think Google Wave and Natal (and if not them, things like them) change this dynamic. These are very much the same type of tool, and doing the same type of behaviour that will be asked of them in education. Even the most accepting student is then going to ask of their VLE, 'couldn't this be better done in Wave?'

I'm aggregating, aggregating (a shiny show special)

Image: Different uses of tools from last post, created in Gliffy

Following on from my last post, I have been looking at tools which allow users to collect together different online resources for sharing. What I'm interested in is aggregating and sequencing content together so you can distribute your sequence to others easily, a kind of flash mini-course creator. Scott Leslie twittered the other day, asking a similar thing and pointed me at the wiki scratchpad for his upcoming educator as DJ talk. So I worked through some of these, and here si my experience:

Tumblr - as I mentioned in my previous post, I've rather taken to Tumblr. It's real selling point is the ease of use, simply install the toolbar button and you can easily add anything into your Tumblr blog. It is thus ideal for harvesting all the web paraphernalia you encounter in any one day. I see it more as a personal record, like Liam I see it as a kind of digital scrapbook. But it seems a very personal, slightly anarchic tool, so not really suited to my aim of sharing a defined sequence of resources. Here is my version of Tumblr.

Posterous - AJ Cann is a fan of Posterous, and like Tumblr it's easy to use and ideal for instant sharing and harvesting. Functionally there isn't much to use between the two, I could try and justify my preference for Tumblr but it would be post-hoc rationalisation. Maybe it was the aesthetics of the themes in Tumblr, I'm a shallow kind of guy, but it's often an emotional 'decision' between similar software. Here is my Posterous.

Suprglu - this is a site for aggregating the various social data elements you create in other sites and presenting them in one nice package, sort of like your Facebook/MySpace profile, but prettier. So you can add in RSS, your LastFM tracks, Flickr, delicious, etc. It generates some tags from your content also. It's easy to use, and if you are active with different tools and what an easy to create central hub to represent your identity, it works well. It isn't about sharing a sequence of resources as such, but I guess you could create a suprglu page for a project or subject, and not an individual, which would create a dynamic set of resources. Here is my suprglu page.

Glogster - I covered this in a previous Shiny Show. It lets you embed various resources into a multi-media poster. This is probably closer to what I was after, but you can't get a sequence from it.

SecondBrain -I signed up for SecondBrain ages ago, but didn't really get it. Like suprglu it is a self-aggregation (definitely not to be confused with self-flagellation) site, but rather more extensive with password authentication agreements across a number of sites so you can pull in your content from everywhere. My initial confusion over it remains however, I'm still not quite sure what it's for. While suprglu gives you a nicely presented site, SecondBrain seems to be offering too much, it is partly a conversation and partly a resource share, and I'm not sure it works as either. But it may work for some as an archive of your online activity. Here is my SecondBrain site.

FriendFeed - again, I've not really taken to FriendFeed, although I know some people swear by it. Initially I viewed it as a twitter rival, but it has become more of an aggregator, pulling in various streams from yourself and others. The use of FriendFeed 'rooms' which allow you to gather together several streams may go some way to providing the sort of dynamic content around a particular subject, but it doesn't provide the predetermined, shareable sequence I was after. Here is my FriendFeed.

Trailfire - this lets you create shareable trails across the web, with associated comments, so on each page a trailfire link is added, allowing you to read my comments, add those of your own, and then move on to the next resource. This is close to what I want, although the interface definitely needs a bit of work, and I'm not sure how robust it is. Like most tools it has an easy to use toolbar button, so I can quickly add any site into a particular trail. I'd like it to be exportable as embed code, but this is the closest to what I had in mind, so have a look and see if it works for you. I created a trail for the sites in this post.

Shiny show #4

The latest edition of the highly unanticipated Shiny Show. This month's shinies go to the following, who can bask in shiny glory.

AudioBoo - sort of Flickr for audio, so you can upload audio clip, tag them, follow someone, sort by tags, embed clips, etc. It's restricted to iPhone and computer upload at the moment, but the mobile emphasis is interesting. You can imagine students using it in a number of ways:
i) An audio reflective journal for thoughts, ideas, etc
ii) Gathering around a topic, for example agreeing a tag and then having global projects where students share audio clips ('What's the dawn chorus like where you are?')
iii) Finding content from educators.
Here is the video explaining it:

Walking through Audioboo from Mark Rock on Vimeo.

Mailana Twitter network analysis - I try to avoid doing Twitter apps because a) everyone else does them and b) they don't often have much value. Mailana is a commercial tool for analysing corporate data I think, and this twitter analysis is driven by it. It's nice, it shows the network of your twitter friends and lists your BFFs ('Best Friends Forever'), based on the number of replies you send each other. Here is my twitter network.  Not particularly educational, but I think getting to know and analyse your PLN will be something we all do regularly (maybe it's a digital literacy?)

Glogster - this is quite old, but I didn't get around to blogging it last year. It creates multi-media 'posters' so is really just a cool way of aggregating a lot of embed items together. As for a lot of shinies, this one could be used just as an alternative activity for getting students to engage with a subject. Here is one ccosmato did for edupunk:

We tell stories - from Penguin, six authors tell a story using different means, such as Google Maps (21 steps). Really neat, simple ideas, which would work well in a number of educational settings. Want to tell the history of computing? Use a map approach and see what locations and elements students think are significant. Discuss. Get good grades.

Shiny show #3

I had an email from Kate Winslet this morning saying she would gladly swap her Oscar for a Shiny, but I had to let her down. Sorry Kate, unless The Reader is in fact a mashup tool for finding great quotes and blending them with socially constructed text, you can't have one. Yes, Oscars, schmoscars, these are the awards that really count.

This month's shinies go to:

OpenZine - let's you create your own magazine, using a simple layout tool, and you can find shared content, subscribe to other magazines, etc. I have produced the first, and yes probably last, issue of The EdTechie, which looks at PLEs. It was quite fun, and there is a certain affordance to the magazine layout - I wrote in a certain style and to a certain length. See KryKey also, the educational importance (unless you're teaching magazine layout) is in providing a socially accepted framework for students to work within. They know what magazines are like, and so no matter what your subject, they could work collaboratively to create one. It may not be grounded in deep pedagogy, but what I think this provides is both fun and an element of forced reflection, since they have to look at their topic in a different manner from the traditional essay.

aMap and Cohere - last time I mentioned DebateGraph and aMap is another mind-mapping tool. This allows you to easily create nice argument structures, starting with your position ("I think"), propositions ("because"), supporting arguments ("As") and supporting evidence ("As supported by"). You can reply to other people's aMaps, thus creating a kind of threaded forum structure in mind maps. It looks nice, but there are a few usability features, such as I found the argument structure limiting and when I responded to Matt Jukes' Superman vs Batman one, it overwrote his one and doesn't seem to credit him at all. Still, could be quite useful:

Cohere is an Open University tool, developed by KMi. Similiar to aMap it allows users to structure arguments visually. It's difficult for me to be objective in their comparison, but my feeling is that aMap is a bit easier to use initially, but Cohere allows you to go deeper. They have different functionality, so it's probably a matter of playing with them and seeing what you like best.
From an educational perspective there is a lot of potential here for collaboratively really working through arguments. Here is the same argument in Cohere:

KryKey Personal Radio - with this still quite Beta site, you can create your own personal radio station. This involves uploading songs (copyright notice is no doubt on its way), promos, adverts, news, etc. You can then invite others to be a DJ, which means they can voice over the recordings. You can see how it could be fun, like with openzine you could set students to create a radio station around their subject. It asks for rather too much info on sign up I felt, and there are a few bugs - for instance I couldn't change the order of my music, and I can't find a way to give you a direct link to my radio station, so you'll have to go there and search for EdTechie. Sadly you won't get to hear me in cheesy DJ mode.

LovelyCharts - like Gliffy, LovelyGraphs lets you easily create graphs and network diagrams. I see an increasing need for applications like this - most drawing packages offer too much functionality so creating even the simplest diagram requires you to become a graphic designer. You can share your diagram so others can add to it. Unfortunately it's a pay for service, you only get one free image, which will limit its uptake. Personally, I rarely need more than the wonderful crappy graphs for my work. Here's something I created in LovelyCharts, when I was thinking about the justifications for revolution in higher ed:

Shiny show 2

Following on from the hugely irrelevant Shiny Show 1, I bring the next instalment, where I look at any new technologies that have crossed my path and evaluate them from an educational perspective. The usual proviso that some of these may not be that new, it's just when I get to them.

Odadeo - a social network site for dads. It is built around the concept of 'pledges', eg 'I pledge to be more patient', or 'I pledge to take my daughter to see High School bloody Musical 3'. You can then 'pip' your pledges when you do something towards them. You can share pledges and there is a 'Dadsdaq' which shows your progress. I like the way it gets you to define yourself according to various labels (you can invent your own tags), and then find others in those groupings. My concern was that it would be populated by either a) angry Fathers for Justice types or b) American dads who kept crying every ten minutes and hugging each other. But it's not, and is quite a fun place. If you're a dad, check it out.
What's more interesting for me though is if you replaced pledge with 'learning pledge' you've suddenly got the makings of a good learning social network site.
Shiny score - 4/5 Educational score - 2/5

PostRank - I covered this in detail in my previous post, but want to include it for a shiny award too. They get a shiny for their widget alone, see the left hand column on my blog. I think this way of measuring engagement with content is something we need to explore as educators (to help students) and under the digital scholarship banner, as a means of demonstrating the type of response and value there is to your online output.
Shiny score - 3/5 Educational score - 4/5

Shelfari - a social network for book readers. It takes the bookshelf idea from Facebook a little further, so you add books from an extensive database to your 'bookshelf' (I've added a couple to mine as illustration). This can be shared with others, and you can join groups, meet authors, etc. It's well done, and books are a subject people are passionate enough about to make a network viable. Books are sufficiently rich social objects to foster community.
From an educational perspective, like with Odadeo, you could see this being adapted to work around subject areas, or rather the user's bookshelf being imported into a learning environment so that they can join groups around other text books. Because you can tag books, it also adds to resource discovery for learners.
Shiny score - 4/5 Educational score - 4/5

Debategraph - takes the concept mapping idea and wikifies it. It looks nice, and being able to share maps and argument structures clearly has educational potential, but I found it difficult to use. Like a lot of concept mapping tools, it has a range of terminology (for example all the different nodes and types of links), that produce a high threshold to entry. They need to simplify I think, at least on the first play, so you can quickly bash together a mind map, without needing to take a course in mind map theory first. This is in competition rather with the Open University's own Cohere. There is definitely something in this shared maps for education, you can imagine them being legitimate forms of output, or group process, but the software isn't quite there yet.
Shiny score - 3/5 Educational score - 4/5

That's it for now folks, and remember - keep it shiny.