My friend David Sugden has posted a very good reply to my previous post !! Thanks David.
You can hear it from here:



I am aware that when we decide to use such tools, we are kind of 'making a pact with the devil' or 'throwing the die' (alea jacta est...). However, am I wrong or there is a 'fashion' trend being developed in web 2.0? Twitter and Facebook, for example, seem to be in vogue now, even with all the issues Facebook has around 'privacy of data'. Famous celebrities have Twitter pages and, therefore, attracted the attention of many people who are their 'followers'.

Would this mean that 'web 2.0 reliability' will be dependent on web 2.0 fashion?

What about VLEs???!!! Is there an escape?

Just a few weeks after publishing a small article on this month's Chips with Everything on the use of Etribes with my last year's Literacy with IT learners, I received the following email:

"This email is to inform you that the etribes.com service will no longer be provided as of midnight 30th April 2009 and that after that time you will no longer have access to your etribes Account nor will visitors be able to access your etribes Site.

If you have stored personal content (photos, videos, music, documents and blog posts) within your etribes Account and would like to retrieve it we would recommend that you sign into your account and download the original files to your PC before midnight 30th April 2009. After the cut-off date (midnight on 30th April) all content will be deleted from the etribes servers.

Thank you.

etribes Support"

My question is: How do we solve the issue of web 2.0 reliability without falling into the hands of VLEs? Can it be solved?

What's the plan B ???

Looking through my feeds I came across Karaokeparty. The name says it all: plug in a microphone (if you really feel like a star), sing and follow the lyrics on the screen. 

You can also sign up for an account in order to request and access more songs, invite and challenge your 'friends'.

However, read the terms and conditions of the site very carefully before signing up!!

Could it be an interesting resource for ESOL/EFL. What do you think?

Have fun !

The DIUS has just published: 'The Learning Revolution', the white paper on informal learning.

Click here to access it.

I have been looking for instructions on how to make the pens for the wii remote interactive board and came across this very useful page.

The author of the blog even gives a list of the items and where you can purchase it from. However, it's in the USA. If anyone knows where I can find the same items in the UK, please leave a comment.

Thanks

Last Friday I attended a NIACE conference on Informal Learning and Technology. It was interesting/disappointing to notice that Connectivism (Siemens, 2004) was not mentioned by the main speakers.

I really like the idea of this learning theory and it's connection to informal learning. It make us tutors think on how we should support our learners. Should formal teaching/learning only focus on content and accreditation?? Is the tutors' role changing? Are the learners' learning skills changing?

Here is one of the interesting articles on the subject. Here is another.

I hope you like it as much as I do !!

Not sure about Wikis?

Watch the video and read the article.