Well, the clocks have gone back, it's goodbye to the guizers and Guy Fawkes has been incinerated for another year. The world turns and as sure as day follows night another edition of Newsfeed arrives to keep the fires of learning technology burning and the smoke going up your e-lum. Here among the glistening coals you'll find free books to download, free courses to attend and smouldering new ideas to consider from the JISC and elsewhere. We hope this issue will generate enough heat but if it leaves you cold or if you'd like to comment in any way on Newsfeed (or any RSC service you may have used) then please contact us through the RSC website.
More than a hundred top musicians, teachers, students and music professionals, have contributed to SoundJunction, a pioneering new website that gives young people the opportunity to explore, discover and create music. Commissioned by Culture Online, SoundJunction has been developed by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. The website aims to inspire learning by providing a mix of information, interactive tools and know-how that anyone can use to delve deeper into the world of music. SoundJunction draws on real music made by real musicians and embraces a diverse range of traditions and styles. Get into the groove at: www.soundjunction.org.uk.
This free e-book is published by EduCause, the North American non- profit association which aims to advance intelligent use of IT. The Net Generation has grown up with information technology and the aptitudes, attitudes, expectations, and learning styles of Net Gen students reflect the environment in which they were raised—one that is decidedly different from that which existed when their lecturers were growing up. This collection of articles explores the implications for institutions in areas such as teaching, service, learning space design, faculty development, and curriculum. Download your free copy of Education the Net Generation.
The JISC invites proposals to:
a) DEVELOP A NEW TOOLKIT - to produce software development kits (known as E-Learning Framework (ELF) Toolkits) that enable developers to create applications that ‘Provide Services’ and ‘Consume Services’ as defined within the e- Learning Framework
b) DEVELOP AN EXISTING TOOLKIT – to trial (that is install, test, demonstrate, evaluate and contribute to), the use of one or more of the ELF Toolkits. A total of £500,000 is available for this work and as a general guideline it is expected that most projects will be awarded funding of between £30,000 and £50,000 depending on the extent and complexity of the work involved.
The deadline for receipt of proposals is 13:00 hours on Monday 28 November 2005. Projects are expected to last for six months. They should start as soon as possible and no later than 1 February 2006, with submission of the final work on or before 31 July 2006. Full details can be found on the JISC website.
This month's issue of the online journal 'Ariadne' features an article by JISC's Balviar Notay and Catherine Grout – "Looking for More than Text?" - on developments in the provision of online images. Research increasingly indicates that the use of non-text materials can help to develop certain skills in learners and the authors suggest that the online environment and skillful use of sound and images is well-suited to enhancing the learning experience.
EDINA would like to announce the following free training workshop for Education Media OnLine and Education Image Gallery, open to staff members in FE and HE. A great opportunity to learn more about these services and how to make best use of moving and still images at your institution.
Dates and locations:
Further details on these courses are available from the EDINA web site.
JORUM is a free online repository service for FE and HE, helping to build a community for the sharing, re-use and repurposing of learning and teaching materials. The JORUM Contributor Service is now open (from 7th November) and the JORUM User Service will be available from early 2006. What this means is that the repository is now ready if you want to PUT things up there, but if you want to GET materials out you’ll have to wait until the New Year.
To contribute to JORUM, see the information in the News Section of the JORUM website www.jorum.ac.uk.
If you don't know a lot about online repositories at the moment, but have a suspicion that you'd like to find out more, have a look at the current issue of ' Ariadne'(see above) which has a useful article entitled "Online repositories for Learning Materials: a User Perspective".
As part of the JISC e-Learning Programme, the JISC eSpaces Project Page (coordinated by the University of Birmingham) has just released a study into how innovative technologies are influencing the design of physical learning spaces in further and higher education institutions. The full study can be obtained from: http://www.ldu.bham.ac.uk/espaces/
And finally in this section some early warning of the JISC Conference dates for 2006. The conference will take place at the International Conference Centre, Birmingham on Tuesday, 14th March next year.
Scotland is set to receive £75 million of European funding to help enhance skills and training in a number of sectors. More than 150 new projects will receive £34.5 million between them, and the remaining £40.5 million will go towards a series of continuing and rolling projects, in what is likely to be the final significant round of Objective 3 European Structural Funds in the 2000-2006 Programme. The projects cover a wide range of economic development areas including enhancing training and skills. More Info from the Scottish Executive.
Microsoft announced a major new Internet initiative in San Francisco on Nov 1 - with hardly any fanfare though this development is arguably the most significant Net strategy announcement since Microsoft launched its so-called 'browser war' against Netscape ten years ago. Bill Gates has declared that we are entering the era of "Live" software. Put simply, this means that instead of buying application software and loading it up on your machine you'll access the software you need, when you need it, 'live' across the internet. But for once is Microsoft a little late in coming into the field? Find out more, read the BusinessWeek online artice "Why Microsoft Is Going Live".
About 100,000 books in the British Library are going to be scanned and put online by software giant Microsoft. The books, which are out of copyright, will be digitised from 2006 and put online as part of Microsoft's book search service. Microsoft is already working with the Open Content Alliance (OCA), set up by the Internet Archive, to put an initial 150,000 works online.
A separate global digital library plan by Google is also under way. The search giant is spending $200m (£110m) to create a digital archive of millions of books from four top US libraries. It is also digitising out-of-copyright books from the UK's Oxford University. Read the full story on the BBC web site.
IBM's Supercomputer, has broken its own record to achieve more than double the number of calculations it can do a second. It reached 280.6 teraflops - that is 280.6 trillion calculations a second and thus officially became the most powerful computer on the planet in June. The fastest supercomputers in the world are ranked by experts every six months in the Top 500 list. Blue Gene's performance, though it's still under construction, has quadrupled in just 12 months. Details at: http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/. Plus, feed your inner geek with photographs of IBM's Supercomputer project.
New from the BBC. Find out how to make the web easier to use. This site explains the many ways you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible for you. Your computer can be made-to-measure at:www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility
Techshare 2005 will take place on 17 and 18 November with pre- conference workshops on the 16 November at Jury's Inn, Birmingham. This annual conference, aimed at professionals who work in the field of sight loss highlights the role of technology in the everyday life of people with sight problems. You can find more details on the RNIB's web site.
PDF files can raise particular problems in terms of accessibility but a new guide Making Accessible PDF contains detailed guidance on how to produce accessible documents in PDF format.
http://www.iprimus.ca/~martha/PDF- resources.htm
An interesting opinion piece on the role of the online tutor. In Portrait of the Online Tutor as Thelonius Monk Paul Maharg of Glasgow Graduate School of Law likens online teaching to being a jazz musician: you have to know your stuff; you have to be able to play; and you have to have a plan, and to know what conclusions you intend to reach.
But you also have to be able to adjust what you do in tune with your learners, exploit serendipitous opportunities, choose your transitions. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing ....get some from the Higher Education Academy.
A packed schedule at the Curriculab this month includes the following courses:
101 ways of using Excel and Word to Support Learners (using Microsoft Office applications to create inclusive and accessible learning materials).
e-Communications Strategy and Management (1/2 day). A JISC infoNet Course for managers. Can you and should you control the way your staff and students make use of online communications tools like email?
Databases on the Web. A Netskills course for users of the World Wide Web who would like to publish database driven content.
Exploring XML. A practical Netskills workshop aimed at experienced HTML authors designed to introduce a wide range of new and exciting possibilities from multiple content transformations to creating WAP pages and producing XML from databases.
101 ways of using Excel and Word to Support Learners (using Microsoft Office applications to create inclusive and accessible learning materials).
Risk Management for Further and Higher Education. JISC infoNet return with an interactive workshop which introduces delegates to a structured approach to risk management and a set of tools for use in day-to day operations
Full details of all RSC Scotland North & East Courses are available on the RSC Scotland North & East web site .
The full listing of all the workshops currently being run by both RSCs in Scotland is available at:
These courses and others are listed on the Scotfeict website which also lists other staff development opportunities for FE staff within Scotland. Nationwide training opportunities are available on the NLN events database.
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