Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 20

Image from Mohamed Muha, under a
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license

Today's image was a toss up between some kind of cake - to celebrate 20 weekly learning technology digests (it made sense in my head at the time!) - or something to transport you away from the grey and rain of our extremely dismal summer.  I've gone for the latter!

So... kick back, relax... and enjoy the loveliness of the learning technology treats I've found this week...

• The first article worth a mention is 4 Questions to ask before implementing education technology - there's nothing ground-breaking here, but the simplicity of the questions to ask are extremely useful but often overlooked.
• I also spotted a handy '7 Things' from Educause, this one is 7 Things you should know about projecting from mobile devices and it's a) handy to know about and b) could be useful for turning the floor over to your learners if they're working with mobile devices and you want them to share what they've created.  As ever, the simple Educause approach makes these guides a great way into a subject!
• And by way of a little bit of interestingness, 20 Illuminating facts about Twitter from the PR Daily including 'If Twitter were a country, it would be the 12th largest in the world' and '11 Twitter accounts are created every second' - phewie those are some big numbers! Twitter is on the 'too large to dismiss list', I think.
• Now, this one isn't strictly learning technology, but it is about learning - How goals and good intentions hold us back which appeared on the 99% website.  I like the handy reminder that revelling in the process can keep us motivated far longer than focussing on the long term goal.  Thought provoking!
• The Guardian's Higher Education Network article Academic blogging: minority scholars can not afford to be silent is also well worth a look.  Blogging offers academics a ready way to engage with others and build strong learning networks as well as making your work visible.
• Sage on the stage your time is up appeared in the Times Higher and it is a call for the support of innovative teaching rather than treating it as being an outlier in education.  Martin Bean, Vice Chancellor of the Open University is quoted as saying 'You may not like this world, but it is coming at you at a million miles an hour' - true.  Very very true. 
• ... and for just a little more educational provokation... University lectures are a legacy of our pre-digital past from the Sydney Morning Herald should be on your reading list.  If for no other reason than the 'quiet season' during the summer is a great period to think about your teaching practices and challenge yourself to think a little different!
• And the last thing to read is Digital resources: Researchers need better access and more training - a response to the JISC Researchers of Tomorrow paper from the head of higher education at the British Library.  A useful additional perspective.
• Oh, and I have a video for you too... it's related to the article about blogging and Twitter above... it's about the Power of Networks brought to life by RSA Animate based on a talk given by Microsoft's Manuel Lima (interesting and excellent to watch too!)...

And that really is that for the week.

Plenty of stuff to read - from learner motivation to presenting with mobiles, challenges to think about the role of the lecture and the digital skills needed for our future researchers. Never a quiet moment!

See you next week

Sarah