Weekly Learning Technology Digest... 31

Image from LollyKnit, under a
CC BY-NC 2.0 license

This time next week we'll be into November - that really is a scary thought!  Just shows how quickly the time is ticking by and yes, bucket-loads of learning technology-related bits and bobs in just this past week.

As ever, I'll try to summarise some of the things that caught my eye and which I think you might be interested in.  So, grab a cuppa and a biccie and let's start on this week's round-up!

• Have you heard of the Knowledge Graph in Google Search?  Well, Google Knowledge Graph Gets Explanations As Google Adds Value to Search was a short article which I spotted and I think it's an example of the little things that can make a real difference. Take a look!
• Rather than bore you with tech updates, The Guardian has rounded them up Boot up: Surface reviews redux, Wikipedia complete?, Apple's music move and more  so that's your place to go for a slice of geekery!
• And in another Guardian article they've got a nice article on Open Access: Credit where credit is due and if you've heard about the open access journal which accepted an auto-generated nonsense article, then this and other things are discussed here!
• Since we're now wandering about in openness world, did you hear about the fact that Minnesota Gives Coursera the Boot, Citing a Decades-Old Law?  Which, considering the open nature of Coursera courses and the fact that the law is basically unenforceable was a particularly odd one to come across...
• ... but then... the law was rescinded and all went back to normal!  This is a particularly pertinent quote in the follow-up article: "The Minnesota state law that sparked the controversy clearly did not anticipate a world where students in the state could have access to full courses for free on the Internet, and perhaps many states will be struggling—like Minnesota—to re-evaluate and assess their laws surrounding the distribution and licensing of post-secondary courses for their students" - did the paradigm just shift for you too?
• Another innovation I've just read about came from the Open University who have launced iBooks textbooks for the iPad and for a pretty reasonable looking cost, these are resources which will really complement their iTunesU offering.
• Heard about 'gamification of the classroom'? If you haven't then have a look at ClassBadges is a free way to gamify your classroom which could be a nice way to dip your toe into the waters of games and badges.  If you have a go, drop off a comment and let me know what you made of it!
• The final technology has been around a while but Donald Clark has written Blogs: vastly underused teaching and learning tool and I think he's right.  People dismiss blogs as 'online diaries and why would I want to share my diary with the world', but they're much mistaken about what's possible.  Nice article which goes through some of the clear pedagogic benefits of blogs.
• And for the weekly bit of inspiration, a TED talk from Clay Shirky on How the Internet will (one day) transform government which will get you thinking about our digital citizen students!
  
  
  
  

And that - albeit a tad late - is the weekly digest!  I'll see you on Friday for another dose of learning technology goodness and hope you have a good week in between times!

Sarah