Further to this posting, I have downloaded a few more Genesis WordPress Child themes, still playing… not TOO long before a nice shiny site though!
Podcasts: enhancing or replacing normal lectures?
February 25, 2010 1 Comment
Online lectures are no substitute for face-to-face contact, argues UCU. Melanie Newman reports
Pre-recorded lectures: a means of providing “flexible learning” to students juggling other commitments or a way to phase out face-to-face contact time on the quiet?
Bournemouth University is encouraging staff to record lectures and upload the videos to the university website as part of a pilot project.
Managers say the system helps the university to avoid lectures being cancelled if academics are sick, attending conferences or away doing research, and that they are helpful to disabled, international and mature students with other commitments.
But the University and College Union has raised concerns that the online offerings will replace some face-to-face sessions.
Still Think Social Networking is Just a Trend?
February 25, 2010 2 Comments
From Flowtown. Brought to my attention by Tony Watkins.
Would Jesus text?
February 25, 2010 Leave a Comment
“Filippone, “We found out that about 80 % of this generation will look at your website before they ever look into the foyer of your church.”
Social media, i.e.. Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, blogging etc. .has exploded, looking at the numbers. Facebook alone claims 400 million members, Twitter is expected to go over 26 million adults this year.”
A 16 year old says: “”I use it to communicate with everyone, I look up things. it’s just my way of life.”"
Read full article, and thanks to Pete Phillips for putting me onto this story.
Facebook: Share with Specific Users
February 21, 2010 Leave a Comment
When Facebook recently added friend lists, I believed that this meant that you could post information only to specific audiences, but that wasn’t the aim – it was for you, as a viewer, to read information from specific users (so you can remain ‘friends’ with people who you don’t necessarily want to see in your feed).
Mashable, however, has given a great guide re a new ability that Facebook have now added – the ability to make each individual post or status update visible only to the people you want. Mashable demonstrates how to use that feature in tandem with friends lists to get the most out of Facebook without worrying about stepping on any toes or sharing information with an unwanted audience.
Read full story. Thanks to @CanDoCanBe for bringing it to my attention.
Bex: A Web Fox
February 21, 2010 2 Comments
You are a Web Fox
Fast-moving – Web Foxes like you are great at finding information quickly, just as real-world foxes are always ready to pounce on an opportunity.
Sociable – Foxes are highly social animals, maintaining complex relationships with the other members of their social group. When you browse the web you are also a social creature, often using social networks, or other sites whose content is created by its users, as sources of information.
Adaptable – Web Foxes are highly adaptable multitaskers, able to do several things at the same time – just like real-world foxes who can rapidly change their behaviour to suit their environments.
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The Web Behaviour Test on the BBC’s Virtual Revolution… contribute to the crowd-sourcing. See all 8 web animals.
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How we worked out your web animal
Our web animals are just for fun, but the test is based on solid and rigorous science, so your results should tell you something interesting about your web behaviour.
Three aspects of your web behaviour were used to work out your web animal.
Adaptable or specialised?
We aren’t always as good at multitasking as we think we are
The internet allows us to do lots of things at the same time. You might be listening to music and updating your blog while receiving news alerts and chatting online with friends. Then an email arrives. Can you switch seamlessly between different tasks? Or are you actually less efficient?
Indeed, a study from Stanford University in California suggests that people who spend their time multitasking might actually be less good at juggling tasks than non-multitaskers.
If you are an ‘adaptable’ web animal, then you scored highly on our tests that measured your ability to multitask. If your web animal is ‘specialised’, then you are probably better suited to taking on one task at a time.
Fast-moving or slow-moving?
Slow and steady sometimes wins the race
The internet helps people find information fast. Practice makes perfect, and its possible to learn techniques for getting to the information you need quickly. But speed isn’t the same as accuracy. The first answer you find isn’t necessarily the right answer.
We measured the time it took you to complete a series of search tasks. If you are a fast-moving web animal, you took less time than average. This maybe because you know exactly what you’re doing, but could also mean you missed important information. If you are a slow-moving web animal, this could be because you’re less confident, that you focused on getting the right answer rather than the first one.
Social or solitary?
An online social life could influence the way you trust people
The internet has radically multiplied the ways in which we can meet new friends and stay in contact with existing ones. (Internet guru Clay Shirky once said that before the internet came along, the most recent technology that affected the way people sat down and talked to each other was the table.) So how social are you online?
If your web animal is social, you probably told us you spend quite a lot of time on social networking sites and that you tend to trust sites whose content is created by its users. If your web animal is solitary, you probably don’t socialise as much online and are inclined to trust sites whose content is produced in a more traditional, ‘authoritative’ way.
Social behaviour online is a fascinating area of study for our scientists. They would like to understand the relationship between time spent online and the type of information sources users choose to trust.
Fast Company: Facebook #1
February 18, 2010 Leave a Comment
Facebook, which is just turning six, has achieved a level of maturity most wags thought would never come. Somewhere along the road to becoming the platform of choice for 400 million users in every country on earth, the company grew up. Baby photos now dot the worktables at its Palo Alto headquarters. Chefs provide free gourmet fare in the company cafeteria. And the founder, who once coded the site while dashing between makeshift offices in a beat-up car that didn’t need a key, now mingles with his 1,200 employees, recruited and supported by a real HR person, in a new 135,000-square-foot office space. “We used to stand outside of Stanford looking for engineers to help us,” laughs Chris Cox, vice president of product, and creator of the original news-feed feature.
Today, Facebook feels the way Google, Intel, and Microsoft likely did at similar stages in their own life cycles — still agile enough to invent the future, but sufficiently stable to handle some real turbulence. In fact, Zuckerberg has been studying those companies, and their histories, closely. “There are advantages to being both bigger and smaller,” he tells me. “But the cool thing is, we’re in our sweet spot now.”
Read full story.
TheMediaNet.org
February 18, 2010 Leave a Comment
I make an appearance at 2.26 for about 10 seconds… I love the idea of themedianet.org,a network founded last year for Christians and others who work in media. It is hosted by the Church and Media Network, who host the annual conference in Swanwick (always smack bang in the middle of marking time, but I find it such an inspiring event!). Encourage young Christians you know to apply for one of 16 places on the MediaNet Academy, which I attended in 2007, which led to an invitation to ‘Christianity in the Digital Space‘, which has led to great contacts and currently some interesting discussions about possible projects.
“TheMediaNet is a broad-based community. People come here from all sorts of backgrounds and faith traditions. They may hold different views on issues that you feel strongly about, and they may express themselves in different ways to you. We view this positively.” Core Values for Participation (PDF).
There’s now over 300 people on the site, and some great content, contacts and job opportunities floating around. The list illustrates membership backwards… and I was only the 8th person on the site… ahead of the crowd, that’s me, clearly!
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