Stephen Powell, thoughts mostly about learning

Randy Metcalfe from OSS Watch gave an overview of Open Source Software using the recent decision by the Open University to chose Moodle as its VLE platform. The aim of OSS Watch is to help institutions think through the implications of becoming involved with OSS.
The OU VLE procurement process included the evaluation of a [...]

With Professor Richard Winter at Ultralab today discussing the implications of his work on patchwork texts (Guardian article) and how it is interpreted by the Ultraversity project.

Some key lessons for me:

The notion of reflection is better viewed as a reflexive paradigm. That is the ability to look at ones own practice analytically [...]

Yesterday evening I drove 30 miles to an IKEA outlet near Nottingham. One of the things I bought there was a selection of plastic containers (Tupperware style), very useful and at £4 for the lot very good value I thought.
As with many low technology goods these days it was made in the [...]

A nice little feature about Ultraversity written by Stephen Hoare of the Guardian . This short quote sums it up well “This month the first cohort of 150 students will graduate with a BA (Hons)” congratulations and thanks to all who have helped make this possible.

Many people wouldn’t have a clue where the city of Leicester is nor what it has to offer being a smallish city in the Midlands of the country of England. Reasonably enough the ‘city fathers’ commissioned an advertising agency to come up with a marketing/advertising strategy to promote Leicester and encourage economic growth.
The [...]

Hosted by cetis in Manchester.
These are personal impressions and I apologise in advance if I have misinterpreted or failed to credit anyone’s pet idea or hate!
Thoughts for would-be teachers in this online learning environment!
1. Pedagogically, it is important to understand that teacher intervention is not the tool itself, but what flows through the tool!
2. Understand [...]

Any UV researchers particularly those working in schools and who want help with resources should head over to this website ttrb offered by the TDA, funded by Microsoft. The online e-librarian is a free service, use it!
This resource came from Marilyn Leask Head of Effective Practice and Research and Dissemination of the TDA [...]

Another bit of fun, this time from From Cluster Maps. “See at a glance where your site’s visitors are located: instantaneously, even when the numbers are enormous! Visitors don’t need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient.”
I am not sure if this will work fully just embedded in a blog [...]

Playing with the integration of NetNewsWire and MarsEdit (found at the same site) which allows the grabbing of content via RSS feeds, working on them in an editor, and then the re-posing to a Blog - a key attributes of a personal learning environment. If it works, this is neat tool I will be [...]

Courtesy of Website as Graphs brought to my attention by Josie’s - EdTechUK