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RSC NewsFeed – November 16th 2004
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NewsFeed opens
with another release of NLN materials to download, and goes on to bring you yet
more free downloads and interesting online resources to add spice to your
teaching. There’s up-to-the-minute information about technical developments in
browser technology and supercomputing, and a competition to enter for online
content developers. All this delivered straight to your desktop with no strings
attached, except to ask that you let us know what you think by giving us
feedback on NewsFeed (or any of the RSC services you may have used) through our
website at www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/rscne/contact.html.
---------------------------- CONTENTS ------------------------
·
10X10 News Visualiser
·
Grokker Web Search
Visualiser
·
What About Visually
Impaired Students?
--------------------------------- 1 -------------------------------
New NLN Materials Release
More, free, interactive
e-learning materials from the National Learning Network are now available to
download. There are 121 new Basic Skills learning objects, 1 Construction
object and 4 Geography learning objects.
The resources are
available on the NLN website at http://www.nln.ac.uk/materials/Common/displaynews.asp?id=436
--------------------------------- 2 -------------------------------
Visualise This!
Theories of ‘learning styles’ suggest that learning
takes place along various pathways, and that effective teaching should create
opportunities for appropriate combinations of learning styles to suit varying
needs. Two contrasting sites offer interesting examples of visual approaches to
handling information while a third site, VisCheck, offers a online website
audit service for colour blind users:
10X10 News Visualiser
10x10
is a new visualization tool which showcases the top 100 words in the news and
the 100 photos associated with them, drawing on sources such as the BBC and
Reuters websites for information. The result is a dynamic dashboard that
displays in one screen a mosaic of the key news images for a given hour next to
an interactive ordered list of all the most popular words appearing in those
news stories. The tool requires the commonly-available Flash plug-in
The
Visualiser can be found at http://www.tenbyten.org/10x10.html
Grokker Web Search Visualiser
Google
is one of the marvels of the Internet age, but we all have a tendency to just
click on the first few entries of the first results screen returned. Might
there be other important gems hidden away on page six that we never get around
to viewing? Grokker may be a way to break this habit, and encourage students to
think about web search results in a new way. It displays search results as
interactive nested series of coloured circles, which can then be zoomed into
and out of to move up and down classification levels. The user can choose from
a range of search engines, and can specify the search ranking levels to be
returned in the display.
Download
a 30-day Grokker trial for yourself from http://www.groxis.com/service/grok/
What About Visually Impaired
Students?
The
last NewsFeed featured a downloadable web accessibility toolbar which included
a section simulating various visual conditions. Another site which specializes
in colour blindness, and offers the ability for users to run a check on how
websites appear to colour-blind users, is VisCheck, which can be found at http://www.vischeck.com/
--------------------------------- 3 -------------------------------
Sharing Images – Talking Pictures
The
original (and in many ways still the most powerful) visualisation device is of
course the photograph. In a Times Education Supplement ‘New Waves’ special report
this month, RSC North & East’s Curriculum Adviser Hugh Dailly reviews the
online opportunities available to FE and HE staff through the Education Image
Gallery. These images are free and copyright-cleared for use by teaching staff,
but Hugh’s article has some dramatic illustrations of the importance of
handling potentially explosive images with care.
We
would love to be able to show you some pictures to illustrate this point, but
since this is (at the moment) a text-only NewsFeed, you’ll have to hunt out
Hugh’s article in the library to see what he means!
--------------------------------- 4 ------------------------------- Learning Platforms and Systems Integration Learning Platform Guide NIACE (the National Institute for Adult and Community Education) have just published a report on "Choosing and using a learning platform in Adult and Community Learning". Although it is based on ACL it is very relevant to other and offers an easy to read guide to what a learning platform is; what a VLE is; benefits to various parties; how to choose one; implementation; how to get engage and enable staff; and quality control issues. The report, and relevant ACL Case Studies, can be found at http://www.aclearn.net/leadership/learning-platforms/ MLE/Systems Integration Special Interest Group Meeting The 8th CETIS Enterprise Special Interest Group is meeting at Sun Microsystems Customer Briefing Centre in London on Friday 3rd December. The Enterprise SIG is for people involved with MLEs and systems integration. Greg McClure from the JISC NIIMLE Project (Northern Ireland Integrated Managed Learning Environment) and Jon Rowett from Brockenhurst (FE) College will be discussing and demonstrating some interesting new work they have been doing with the new IMS Enterprise Services Specification. Scott Wilson of CETIS will be talking about work he did in Australia recently, working on a Meta-Access Management System (MAMS) and Julia Von Klonowski of Sun will be discussing open source educational technologies. There are nearly 30 people registered already, and there's room for more! A booking form and agenda are online, together with full details of times and location, at: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/members/enterprise/registration/meetingeight --------------------------------- 5 -------------------------------
FireFox snaps
at Microsoft’s heels
The
original, 'open-source' web-browser (many of you will remember) was Netscape,
which was shouldered aside by Microsoft in the first browser wars which we
covered in a previous NewsFeed edition (05.10.04). Netscape's founders went on
to establish the Mozilla Foundation and the uprated browser of the same name.
Now Mozilla have launched Firefox as their latest attempt to break Microsoft's
stranglehold on the market with Internet Explorer (IE). Firefox is free to
download, and - according to its supporters - offers significant advantages to
users over the conventional IE browser which comes bundled within Windows. It
is more secure than Explorer, and it has a pop-up blocker installed. It also
allows the pages of different websites to be arranged as tabs so users can
switch easily between the pages they have browsed.
More
information on Firefox can be found on the BBC's website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3993959.stm
The
download itself can be found at http://www.mozilla.org/
An
interview with FireFox’s President can be found at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1721483,00.asp
A
useful overview of the current Open Source situation is a recent Guardian
Online article which can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1347674,00.html
--------------------------------- 6 ------------------------------- It’s Xmas!! Well, not quite yet – but here’s some free software downloads in the meantime! Wink Gets Our Nod Wink is a free software download which allows users to create annotated screen demonstrations similar to those produced by Viewlet Builder. The application captures screen shots and mouse movements, and can then be annotated, saved and played back to lead students through software sequences or processes, for example.The download is available at http://www.debugmode.com/wink Virtual Rooms VideoConferencing System Virtual Rooms VideoConferencing System (VRVS) is a desktop video-conferencing tool which can be used to support collaborative activities between distributed researchers, and be implemented without having to link to an Access Grid Node. Developed with JISC funding, VRVS claims to hide all complexity from the user and to be able to mix all kinds of videoconferencing clients. Background information on the VRVS tool can be found on the JISC website at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=video_conferencing_news_051104 The VRVS website itself can be found at http://www.vrvs.org/ Bridge Building Simulation Software The West Point Bridge Designer is a free software download from the famous American Military Academy which enables users to try out a range of construction options and receive feedback on the viability of their design proposals. Intended to create entries for a scholarship competition, this could be a useful resource for engineering students to work out whether that extra bit of steel reinforcement is really necessary before starting work on the real thing.The Designer can be found at http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/download.htm
-------------------------------- 7 ------------------------------- UK moves to Third Place in World ICT Use Ranking -
A government-commissioned study
ranked the UK third in its world index of use of information and communication
technology (ICT). The report suggests 69% of UK firms are now using broadband
and that 30% of micro businesses are trading online.
More from the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3995311.stm
-------------------------------- 8 ------------------------------- - while Edinburgh moves to First Place in European Supercomputer league.
The Edinburgh Parallel
Computing Centre at Edinburgh University is to host the first IBM Blue Gene
supercomputer in Europe. The Blue Gene project is the latest in a series of
attempts to deliver the ‘high performance computing’ that is increasingly
required to address complex problems in areas such as physics, chemistry,
biological sciences and environmental modelling. Its great advantage over
competitors is a significant reduction in size – the latest prototype occupies
a twentieth of the space of equivalently powered competitors and is, according
to IBM, “ a glimpse of the future of supercomputing.”
More details of the
announcement can be found on the EE Times website at http://www.eetuk.com/tech/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=52600416
Details of the Blue Gene
project itself can be found at http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/index.html
-------------------------------- 9 ------------------------------- Where Will RAE Go Next? "A 4 in 1996 was pretty good but it was the kiss of death in 2001, though of course everyone will be chasing 4s next time round". If you're interested in the possible meaning of this sentence you need do no more than turn to this informative article from Guardian Education about the future fate of the universities' research assessment exercise. The article is available at http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1346366,00.html -------------------------------- 10 ------------------------------- Learning on Screen Awards 2005
The British
University Film and Video Council ‘Learning on Screen’ Awards were established
to ‘celebrate excellence in the production of effective learning material
employing moving pictures, graphics and sound’. Entries for the 2005 awards are
now being invited from producers, publishers, broadcasters or content
developers working at education establishments. Eight award categories are
available, including Student Production, Interactive Multimedia, Broadcast and
Technical Achievement and winners receive a trophy, a certificate and an
invitation to the awards ceremony held at the 2005 Learning on Screen
Conference. To be eligible, productions
should have been completed in the twelve months preceding December 2004.The
deadline for entries is 7th January 2005 and entry forms can be downloaded at http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/conferences/learningonscreen/entry_forms.html
-------------------------------- 11 -------------------------------
The inaugural
meeting of the Celtic WebCT Users Group will be held on Friday 26th November
from 2.15pm - 4.30pm in the Wolfson Suite at Edinburgh University Library.
Staff supporting WebCT in universities and colleges in Scotland, Northern
Ireland and Ireland are invited to attend to hear Steve Clark from Birmingham
University discussing Birmingham’s experience in deploying WebCT. The
organisation and aims of the group will also be discussed and refreshments will
be available.
Further
details about the Users Group can be obtained by contacting RSC North &
East on 0131 315 7674.
The
booking form for the event is available at
<http://www.celticwebct.org.uk/> http://www.celticwebct.org.uk/.
--------------------------------- 12
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EDINA
still have places open for the following free training workshop for Education
Media OnLine and Education Image Gallery:
At
Wolfson Suite, University of Edinburgh Main Library, Edinburgh
Tuesday
30 November, 10am-5pm
Lunch
and refreshments will be included.
EDINA
Digimap training is being offered as well.
Further details of all EDINA training courses and workshops are
available at:
http://edina.ac.uk/events/courses.html
You
can book via the online registration form, a link to which is at the bottom of
each timetable page.
This
workshop is a great opportunity to learn more about these services and how to
make best use of them at your institution
Even
if your institution is not subscribed to the services, please feel free to come
along and see what they have to offer.
--------------------------------- 13 -----------------------------
JISC Funding Opportunities
JISC offers regular
funding opportunities across both FE and HE, generally by calling for project
proposals which tie in with work areas identified by the various JISC
Committees. You can check these opportunities, or look at the work of completed
projects, on the JISC website at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=funding