Suzi's Notebook

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! to develop ethical code of conduct

According to an article in the Register.  Not much information, but they're working with Human Rights Watch, the Centre for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in Washington and Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and they have said that companies signing up to the code of conduct will be held accountable.  All of which is good.

Finding good podcasts

Now that so many universities are making lectures available online, I wonder if anyone has a system for reviewing and rating them, or for sharing related material.  As the material is on such a diverse range of subjects and each lecture is likely to be an hour long I doubt that one person, or even one blog, could handle the task.

A site reviewing lecturers as well as lectures might be appropriate (and sites for reviewing lecturers already exist - such as Rate My Professors) ... but I'm not entirely sure how useful what 18-year-olds studying full-time think about the lecturer or material would be particularly relevant to me.

There are several sites listing available educational podcasts:

• Open Culture's list of university podcast sites
• Eliteskills.com's list of resources is well organised and highlights video as well as audio lectures

There's also been a converation on lifehacker about transcribing podcasts. The conclusion so far seems to be that it's still a task for people rather than machines, but there's some useful advice in there.

eLearning Reading List

Online journals of eLearning:

• JUTLP (Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice)
• JALN (Journal of Asynchronous Learning Netwoks)
• JLD (Journal of Learning Design)

Events round-up

Some (potentially) interesting events that I've heard about recently.  No firm plans to go to any of them at the moment.

13 March - JISC Conference - Birmingham

22 March - Shock of the Old 6 - Oxford - £90 (academic)
A one day conference in Oxford on Web 2.0 (and "related collaborative technologies").  Call for papers currently open.  Looks very broad.

16 May - Virtual Fieldwork in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences - Worcester - Free
"This one-day conference seeks to explore, in a relaxed, informal atmosphere, some of the pedagogical and technological aspects of virtual fieldwork... In addition, there will be an opportunity to try out some of the equipment and software used in producing virtual fieldwork content.

10-11 July - Computer Aided Assessment Conference - Loughborough - £460 (early bird)
Topics covered are expected to include accessibility, case studies, evaluation, free text and speech, item banking, national and international initiatives, novel question and assessment design, peer and group work, pedagogy, policies and procedures, services, standards, student experiences, training and support as well as tools and services.

Math teaching of the future

Keith Devlin in Edge's questions for 2007 (what are you optimistic about) thinks that we are finally in a situation to get maths teaching right.

At one end of the spectrum he suggests that mobile phones to deliver learning materials in poor countries - and takes a swipe at the $100 laptop project.  At the other he also suggests that 3D virtual worlds are an ideal environment to teach mathematics, particularly basic mathematics.

Maybe not the beacon of hope the reader might have been looking for in these days of doom and gloom, but something to distract you for a few moments none the less.

Keith Devlin's response: http://edge.org/q2007/q07_2.html#devlin
Edge's questions for 2007: http://edge.org/q2007/q07_index.html