The new year

Hard to believe another year is ending and that we are closing out another decade. Since I'm a list person, I thought I would close out the year with a few lists from my favorite blogs.

The first is from webworkerdaily.com and includes 10 Things to Do Before the New Year.

Another is from Forrester.com and has Predictions for the Groundswell in 2010

Finally, Talking Tech Friday's suggests the Noughtie List on Kottke.org which contains a collection of the “best of” lists for the last decade.

Have a great new year!

Hybrid Education 2.0

Here’s an interesting article from Inside Higher Ed on Hybrid Education 2.0. Carnegie Mellon University has been developing their Open Learning Initiative which is similar to the MIT OpenCourseWare Project but focuses on being more responsive to individual student needs. They have received four million in private funding and could possible secure more grants from the federal government. Their concentration is on introductory level courses and “how the open-learning software could be used in conjunction with classroom education to speed up the teaching and learning process.” Carnegie Mellon’s approach is not to use Web 2.0 tools to promote collaborative activities but to use computer programs to reinforce vocabulary and key concepts with activities that adapt to the learner. Instructors can then monitor the learning activities and customize their instruction to target the identified needs of the students.

I was a bit disappointed with the responses to this article. They’re very defensive and there seems to be a lot of soapboxes out there. Hello—we are talking about a hybrid here. Isn’t this pretty much what good instructors are doing right now except they are quizzing students in the classroom setting and grading students during their prep time? I know that several of the faculty members at the community college where I formerly worked integrated online quizzes and activities into their courses. Why not save the valuable prep and instruction time to develop and deliver instruction customized for the learners and save the tedious jobs of grading and analyzing the results to a computer program? The next step would be customizing these online activities to individual student learning needs. This is not a bash on professors or community colleges; it’s a way to incorporate technological advances into the learning cycle.

texting & tweeting in education

Why does this article, "Texting, Tweeting Ought to be Viewed as GR8 Teaching Tools, Scholar Says", bother me so much? Is it because:

Web 2.0 technologies are not being adapted at most schools?

I feel that school librarians (even the great ones) are being overwhelmed by the day to day activities and can hardly cope.

The cynic in me says “Like that will ever happen...”

Am I just tired and need a break?

How do others feel about this? Is this something that schools (or even academics) are doing or considering? I would be interested in knowing—this is a plea to save me from my inner Scrooge (bah humbug!)

SLA members vote no

As I reported in October (A rose by any other name), the Special Libraries Association (SLA) was considering changing its name to the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals (ASKPro). Members voted in November and December and today SLA announced that its membership has rejected the name change. More information can be found at SLA says "no" to ASKPro and on the SLA blog.

Another year, another top 10 list

ReadWriteWeb posted their Best Products of 2009. Among the top 10 lists, you'll see the big names like Bing, Twitter, Facebook, and Chrome as well as some I had never heard of like Feedly, DBpedia, and Echo.