Just trying out Cuil - a new search engine developed by former Google software engineers. It claims to index three times as many web pages as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft. Cuil uses this in ranking pages based on their content, concepts, inter-relationships and coherency, rather than how often pages are linked to or 'popularity metrics'.

The whole interface is very different, just entering a search not only uses autotext to predict what I might want, but also gives me potential websites as I enter my search terms. Looking for 'digital literacy' returns a page that looks very much more built using web 2.0 - there are panes with each found site's link, a description, and photos. I can explore or drill down by category. The following look interesting - Human Skills, Internet Governance, Educational Stages, Educational Technology. Hovering my mouse over the categories opens up options.


Here's the same search from Google. And if you look at the url, there are indicators of the differences in privacy. While Google has tracked my browser - and lots of other information in the background - the Cuil url is pretty clean - http://www.cuil.com/search?q=digital+literacy. In fact, Cuil emphasise that they do not store any personally identifiable information.

Cuil returns 101,721 results, while Google lists 591,000. So which search engine helps me find useful sites? The top page results are different, and they both list sites of potential interest to me. Given the very wide nature of my search term that isn't really surprising. Looks like this could be worth further exploration.

Labels: digital literacy, internet, researchtools, search, web2.0

Although details aren't yet available on the eLearning Alliance site, the next annual conference sounds to be a must attend event! Entitled Jock Tamson's Bairns (a reference to a Scot's saying meaning "underneath we're all the same"). The conference aims to question whether Web 2.0 marks a transformation in approaches to learning. Will this present further challenges in providing access across organisations, considering that learners could come from across four generations?

Headline speakers include Clive Shepherd chair of the eLearning Network and author of The Blended Learning Cookbook and Stephen Downes renowned eLearning expert. This slideshow is one of Stephen's more recent on the development of online community since the mid 90's, and includes lots(!) of examples of Web 2.0 tools in use for education and learning.

Labels: conference, digitalnatives, elearning, futures, scotland, web2.0

I keep seeing blog posts with colourful word arrays. So, thought I'd join in. Here's Wordle's take on our delicious bookmarks.



Essentially, this is a visual representation of what we have posted about the most, or at least the tags/labels we have used. It reminds me of some of the ways that cluster analyses are presented. There are some examples of these in Edial Dekker's slideshare on data visualisation - the Great War soldier visual is particularly effective.

Wordle also has the option to paste in text. I've seen reference to this being used with documents, and it makes me think it could be an interesting research tool. At least for demonstrating what is really being said. Perhaps as an initial indicator for consultation analyses...? Lots of possibilities!

Labels: consultation, researchtools, text, web2.0

PublicTechnology.net report on the Samaritans' plan to roll out a text service to improve their reach to the most vulnerable young people.

A pilot of the scheme was carried out during which over 10,000 texts a month were received, "with 63% of contact from people aged 10-24-years-old". They believe once rolled out nationally there could be a "rise of up to 1,000 texts a day by 2010 - that's one text every two minutes, every hour of the day".

Increasingly public and voluntary sector organisations are looking towards new technologies to identify, engage and maintain contact with harder-to-reach groups. Inspire Research Ltd recently completed a project with the Renfrewshire Workforce Plus Partnership (a collaboration between public and voluntary sector organisations who are working around the workforce agenda) to review current communication methods. This study also looked at organisations' and client's perceptions of communicating via new technologies, and investigated possible future approaches. For more information, please contact us.

The Samaritans are looking for a strategic corporate partner to help deliver this project.

Labels: digitalnatives, engagement, hardtoreach, sms, text, web2.0

I've just come across two interesting news items - one about the use of Web2.0 in the Health sector and another about using online games to encourage children to respond to a consultation about play spaces.

Although the full text is not available without paying a hefty sum, the Executive Summary of the E-health 2.0 report is available. The report offers an overview of twenty "leading e-health 2.0 providers", and discusses a number of themes that emerge from this overview, including: Transparency in the health system; Rebalancing the doctor-patient relationship; Consumer empowerment; Empowerment through connectivity; and Mobilisation of data. According to Public Technology.net "The profiles provide a snapshot of innovation across healthcare: from organisations providing online communities for patients with specific conditions, tools for chronic disease management, sites that enable patients to rate the quality of care they receive, together with tools to enable clinicians to better search for and share research data."

The second story I saw came from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The Playspace consultation tool is a neat online tool which is aimed at 8-13 year olds to try and get them involved with a national consultation on the development of play spaces. In a Sims type game it allows kids to create their ideal playspace, and they earn credits to buy cool things (like skate ramps, swings, etc) for their playspace by answering child-friendly questions based around the consultation.

I suppose what struck me most about these is the way in which technology is changing the relationship between organisations and their 'clients'. Whether that's through finding interesting and fun ways to engage children and therefore enable them to contribute to developments in their world, or encouraging greater interaction, support and freedom of choice through the use of social networking in the health sector.

It's encouraging engagement, interaction, involvement and ownership of these issues and with increasing familiarity and access to technology it seems likely to become more prevalent in every part of our lives.

Labels: consultation, digitalnatives, education, engagement, freedom, games, health, IT, online gaming, open, socialnetworking, web2.0

This short extract in elearning papers from an article by Richard Straub discusses how "The idea of 'openness' is emerging as a dominant attribute of key developments in our economic and social fabric" and how with the emergence and increasing dominance of Web 2.0, we now have "the infrastructure and tools to operate in new ways in open systems".

Yet collaborative, open souce, open access is not yet the norm (understandably as it often forces a complete u-turn in business strategy). However, this trend for 'openness' is likely to continue to grow, particularly as more of the big names join in. Google have recently announced that they will join Myspace and Facebook in enabling users to move their personal profiles and applications to other websites, further facilitating the social (and open) aspects of online life.

Labels: freedom, online, open, socialnetworking, web2.0

Just been dipping into the Eduserve symposium on 'Inside Out: What do current Web trends tell us about the future of ICT provision for learners and researchers?' It's all streamed, which is nice for those of us who couldn't make it to London in person, especially with the linked live chat. I particularly like the way the chat is set up alongside the video stream - sounds obvious and simple, but has probably taken someone a lot of head scratching on the technical front. Shame we can't see who is in the live chat, but you can't have everything. There is a efsym2008 social network tho.

The first presentation was from Larry Johnson of the New Media Consortium. (NMC is the organisation that along with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative produces the Horizon report.) Larry talked through some of the history of innovation and the impact of inventions (like washing machines!) drawing on "When old technologies were new. Thinking about electric communication in the late 19th century". He moved onto the Horizon report which "charts the landscape of emerging technologies" especially as they expand the "boundaries of teaching, learning and creative expression by creatively applying new tools in new contexts". The report is in its fifth year, and part of his talk included a meta-analysis of the last five years. It was striking how despite changing membership of the panel who produce the report, there was a shared vision over the years.

Larry's presentation was delivered via his avatar in Secondlife, which was a neat idea, but not so easy to see his slides over the video stream. Although Kate has just pointed out in the chat that if Larry shares the location, anyone can explore the presentation later and chat together there, "which would be a much richer experience than just looking at his slides somewhere online".

I'll just have to read the report direct, which is probably a good thing!

Labels: conference, education, efsym2008, futures, web2.0

Google have announced their open social networking platform will enable developers to create applications that work across different networking sites that have joined forces with OpenSocial (already including LinkedIn, Ning and Friendster). This should streamline development processes, meaning that applications are compatible across sites. See ZDNet.com for some more detailed analysis of the implications.

Labels: internet, IT, networks, online, web2.0

Yesterday I attended an interesting presentation by Ewan McIntosh (his edublogs site is worth checking out) run as part of the Urban Learning Space seminar series (a podcast of it will be available soon).

What I found refreshing was his discussion of how emerging technologies (social software in particular) is really just another development in a long line of 'in-things' (from sliced bread in 192x!) whose use seemed daunting, unusual or even inappropriate initially.

What I took from his talk was that maybe educators tend to take the use of emerging technolgies too seriously, treating them as an all-or-nothing. Overplanning the use of technolgy, putting so much emphasis on the need for them to be successful (or the need for it to not fail) means that the flexibility, spontaneity and innovative use of technologies is often stifled in the learning environment. And yet our learners are displaying exactly these traits in their personal use of the technologies - from using their blogs to publish creative writing, to producing videos for youtube sharing their comments on current affairs, and using some impressive technical features to showcase their talents. Maybe it is time we learned from them and see it as a creative medium rather than looking for the way to assess it and 'prove' the value of the excersie... maybe the value is it can engage the interest of learners!

Labels: digitalnatives, education, educators, elearning, freedom, internet, IT, learnerexpectations, online, web2.0

The Guardian reports that MySpace and Skype have joined forces to allow MySpace users to chat to each other for free within the social networking space using Skype VoIP technology.

The development has been hailed as 'The start of a convergence of social networking and communications applications' by Tim O'Reilly. It will afford users with another alternative communication channel, making the social networking environment an increasingly rich communicative tool.

Labels: digitalnatives, internet, IT, networks, online, web2.0

Terry Freedman (and others) have publised an online book about Web 2.0 from an educators point of view, called "Coming of Age: an introduction to the new worldwide web".

It includes intriguing sounding chapter titles such as:

- What Are Rss Feeds And Why Haven’T I Heard About It?(Rss Feeds From An Educator’S Perspective)

- Virtual Support Via The Blogosphere

- Diary Of A Potential Podcasting Junkie

- Video Blogging: Terry Freedman Interviews Paul Knight


The book was completed in April 2006, but Terry is working on an updated version as we speak. To download the 2006 publication you do have to complete a short questionnaire (5 or so questions) by following this link.

Labels: education, educators, elearning, internet, practitioners, web2.0