Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 6

Image from Rakka, under a
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license

It's Friday again... and not just any Friday, but Good Friday!  Thanks to the joys of scheduled blog posts, I can write the weekly digest a day early but have it posted on the right day... and get to enjoy a nice Hot Cross Bun from the comfort of my own home on the actual day itself as it's a Bank Holiday!

So... down to business... what's made the learning technology digest this week?

• The Spring edition of JISC Inform came out - covering everything from predictions for tech-enabled universities to making the most of the open web, this is a great place to stop off to find out what's happening across the sector as well as giving you food for thought for your own practice.
• Then, there was an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education about the rise of e-books... but another in The Guardian about the death of print being greatly exaggerated!  This will be an interesting debate to follow in the short term and have huge long term consequences either way.  Keep your eyes peeled for developments in the role of e-books in education.
• There was also a good summary of changes to Google Search during March 2012 - while some of these changes are minor, if you're working in information literacy or just want to know more about how to get the most from the web, then it's worth keeping on top of these.  Plus, this little article pulls out the highlights rather than forcing you to wade through the whole report!
• And, talking of information literacy, I really liked these '6 Free Tools to easily cite resources for students and researchers' - I've used Zotero and the Purdue Online Writing Lab before in my teaching, but some of the other tools I didn't know about and I think others might be interested too.
• For more simple tips, how about the article 'You need to know these seven tips if you build graphics for e-learning'?  Creating graphics is far easier than you think and I bet you hadn't considered using plain old PowerPoint to do the job for you?  Well, it can do more than you think - this is an article to give you some ideas!
• And finally... 'University-level eduction for all' from Sebastian Thrun (formerly a teacher at Stanford) who has launched Udacity and though all computing subjects right now this is a seriously ambitious bit of open education.  Plus, free is a hard price to ignore!

I haven't ignored the furore that blew up over Governmental plans for greater email and web monitoring plans... but the reaction has been so vehemently opposed to this announcement (which came out on April Fool's Day!), that it's really too early to be concerned about the reality of this taking place.  On the 'things to watch' list for the future though!

Right, all that remains is to say Happy Easter and I'll see you the other side of the Bank Holidays!

Sarah