Early september news
From EduTech Wiki
< Blog:DKS
Summary: A busy week, one major "project" finished, smaller ones launched. A PHD dissertation at TECFA/UniGE using a design-based research approach in education. On october 23: the 20th anniversary party of TECFA. Failed to make it into the shortlist for an award. The latest trend in eyeglasses are progressive workplace glasses. Expect EduTechWiki to be much faster sometimes very soon.
- I am happy that the first PhD thesis I directed in Education was well accepted last Monday: Barbara Class, "A blended socio-constructivist course with an activity-based, collaborative learning environment intended for trainers of conference interpreters". It's got conjecture maps and activity diagrams and an extensive general literature review inside. There will be an online version once she is done with minor corrections. It's a "design thesis" using DBR methodology, something that is not obvious in the French culture.
- On october 23, TECFA (Switzerland's first educational technology unit) will celebrate its 20 years of existence. Keynote speakers from our alumni will include Pierre Dillenbourg and Patrick Mendelsohn. Maybe we even might find the energy to relook our website.
- I failed to make the short list of the WISE awards. I thought the EduTechWiki project might have chance to make it into the finals (not to win), but I was wrong. I addition, it probably was a dumb idea to go for "pluralism", but "innovation" wasn't good either. Web sites are not a new idea :) Some of the short listed entries certainly deserve a price. I am a bit surprised about some others, but then I don't have all the information and won't spend time googling (you can try yourself, it's not obvious to find any information about some of these finalists).
- I am becoming an expert eyeglasses customer. More about this later, but the bottom line is: At a certain age, when you can see neither far nor near, you won't be able to get all-purpose glasses. You will need "progressive workspace" glasses or whatever they are called and that optimize work on the screen plus good vision in the whole room. Count around $1000 Euros for a pair of good glasses, plus an extra $1000 for the driving/reading glasses (at least 300 Euros / glass + a light-weight frame).
- I like to look at Graínne (spelled "Gronia") Conole's tweets once in a while (She is chief e-learning at Open University). Yesterday: 7 top tips for design: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2198 (over at Cloudworks. Sweet and very short :) Btw. she also got a blog, called E4innovation.
- Earlier this summer we got some new hardware. One of the three new boxes will be dedicated to our MediaWikis and we will migrate next week or tomorrow. That means much better response time for you. There might be some downtime. Also, some extensions may not work as expected for a little while. I probably will just block write access for a few hours...
