Managing+Your+Own+Personal+Learning

= media type="custom" key="23518010" = = E-Learning 2.0:  Managing Your Own Personal Learning =

Mobile Learning
= Blogging Tools = ==When blogging tools first arrived in 1998, people asked “What’s a blog?” The word “blog” is a contraction of “Web log” and is used both as a noun as well as a verb. To blog is to write content to a blog. A blog is a Web-based personal diary with dated entries. The beauty of blogs and blogging software is that they enable a writer to concentrate on content by removing all the distracting details of publishing the content to a Web site. An author can simply write and publish in one easy step. No knowledge of HTML or FTP is needed.== = =

= Blogs in Plain English =

@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI&NR=1p:
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= Quick Tour of a Blogging Tool = ==Blogging tools are available as free or moderately priced services and as products you purchase and install on your own server. To start a blog, the author specifies a title and description. The author also specifies where the blog will be located and if a password will be needed to post or read messages.==

==Next, the author picks a template to control the layout or color scheme of the pages. This template can be modified extensively.==

==The author can then add co-authors and give them posting privileges. The ability to have multiple authors makes blogs a collaborative tool.==

==To post a message, the author types into a text field and clicks the Post & Publish button. The new content is formatted, added to the existing blog, and posted to the specified location.==

==As the blog becomes long, older portions can be archived and links to the archives posted.==

How to Use Blogs for e-Learning
==Blogs can provide a convenient way for learners to document learning experiences, such as interesting readings, the Web addresses of good examples, and questions and answers they have. Blogging tools remove any barriers to publishing to a Web site by allowing authors and learners to concentrate on content instead of technical operations.== = =

= Blogosphere = =Blogosphere is the collective term encompassing all weblogs or blogs as a community or social network. Many weblogs are densely interconnected; bloggers read others' blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others' blogs. (http://westwood.wikispaces.com/blogosphere)=

= How many blogs are around the world? = ==This statistic illustrates Tumblr.com's cumulative total blogs from May 2011 to April 2016. As of that month, the social networking site had surpassed 291.7 million blog accounts, up from 227.1 million in the previous year.== ==According to critics and other bloggers, Blogger is the most popular blogging service used today, however Blogger does not offer public statistics. Technorati has 1.3 million blogs as of February 22, 2014.==

=Blogger=

@https://www.blogger.com
= =

=WordPress= ==WordPress is a free and open-source tool and a content management system (CMS). Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress was used by more than 23.3% of the top 10 million websites as of January 2015. WordPress is the popular blogging system in use on the Web, at more than 60 million websites.== = = =Blog vs. Journal= ==[[#x-Blog vs. Journal--Blogs are different from traditional journals in several ways: 1. Blogs are public. Others are invited to look at the blogger's thoughts and opinions on a regular basis. 2. Blogs are hyperactive. This means that blogs can link to other Web sites. 3. Blogs are interactive. As the lesson plan is being developed readers are also allowed to make comments. The teacher/blogger may post a decision to introduce material using a small group activity. (Michael Stach, "Introduction to Blogs and Blogging." TechLearning)]]Blogs are different from traditional journals in several ways:==

(Michael Stach, "Introduction to Blogs and Blogging." TechLearning)
= Photo Sharing: Flickr =



Flickr is an image hosting website, and online community platform. As of November 2007, it claims to host more than 2 billion images.
= Short History of Flickr =

Explore Flickr - @https://www.flickr.com/photos/flickr/galleries
= = = What is Cloud Computing? =
 * ==Major corporations including Amazon, Google, IBM, Sun, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, Novell, and Oracle have invested in cloud computing.==
 * ==See the Cloud Computing Journal website for a list of The Top 150 Playersin cloud computing.==

= Web-based E-mail =
 * ==Over 500 million people used Microsoft's Web-based e-mail, Hotmail or Windows Live Mail as of January 2009.==
 * ==193.3 million people used Gmail as of November 2010.==
 * ==Cloud computing makes our e-mail accessible from anywhere.==

Documents/Spreadsheets/Other

 * ==A number of services like Google Docs allow users to keep, edit, and share documents online.==
 * ==Yahoo’s Flickr and Google's Picasa offer hosting for photographs that you want to share with friends, family, or the world.==
 * ==YouTube and Vimeo allow users to upload their own video content, and the services take care of putting it into a form that can be easily viewed.==

Backup Services

 * ==JungleDisk and Carbonite allow you to automatically back up all your data to their servers.==
 * ==Syncplicity and Dropbox synchronize files on multiple computers.==

Banking and Financial Services

 * ==Consumers store personal financial information to cloud computing service providers.==
 * ==In addition, consumers store tax records using free or low cost online backup services.==

No. 1 Cloud Computing Payer: Amazon
   
 * Amazon founder - Jeff Bezos**

===Amazon's cloud offers a huge array of choices. It does everything from provide a bit of cloud storage for a few pennies a month to renting supercomputer-strength power for $5,000 an hour. ===

No. 3: Microsoft
  ===Microsoft's Azure is popular with the many developers who already write apps using Microsoft's coding tools. Microsoft just expanded Azure by letting users run Linux on its cloud, and promising to match Amazon's low prices. Plus Microsoft offers many of its enterprise apps over the cloud, everything from its SQL Server database to Microsoft Office 365. ===

No. 5: Google
 ===Google made big waves in cloud computing last year by launching its own the Compute Engine. But even before that, Google was running [|Google App Engine], offering [|Google Cloud Storage] and launching a new big data cloud app, [|Google BigQuery]. Plus there's consumer and business cloud apps like Google Drive and Google Apps. Its Chrome OS lead to Chromebook and Chromebox, PC-like devices that run all apps from the cloud, too. === ===Read more: [|http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-important-in-cloud-computing-2013-4?op=1#ixzz3fRYzcVLn] === = iCloud =
 * ==iCloud is the branding of Apple's cloud computing services.==
 * ==It has previously been branded as iTools in 2000, .Mac in 2002, and MobileMe in 2008.==
 * ==The cloud-based system allows users to store music, photos, applications, documents, iBooks and contacts.==
 * ==Each account has 5 GB of free storage.==
 * ==Photo Stream store 1,000 photos on the iCloud servers for free.==
 * ==For an annual charge of $24.99 users can upload 25,000 CD tracks.==

=Mobile Learning=

== One definition of mobile learning is, "any sort of learning that happens when the learner is not at a fixed, predetermined location, or learning that happens when the learner takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies." == == [|"Guidelines for learning/teaching/tutoring in a mobile environment"]  ==

== M-learning technologies include handheld computers, MP3 players, notebooks, mobile phones and tablets. M-learning focuses on the mobility of the learner, interacting with portable technologies, and learning that reflects a focus on how society and its institutions can accommodate and support an increasingly mobile population. ==

== [|Blackboard], a company that specializes in learning apps and technology for schools ranging from K-12 to colleges, has also seen a significant increase in interest in its Blackboard Mobile solutions, an extension to its Blackboard Learn platform. ==

== Among the schools taking the first steps with mobile are institutions, such as the [|Stanford University School of Medicine], which [|lent iPads] to all its new students in 2011; [|Abilene Christian University], which started giving all new students the choice of an iPhone or iPod Touch in 2008; [|Seton Hill University], which started giving iPads and MacBook Pros to all full-time incoming students last fall; and the [|University of Washington], which is focusing its efforts on expanding wireless and cellular coverage on its main Seattle campus and making its Web content easier to use on mobile devices. ==

== However, these programs haven't been without problems. For instance, [|The Chronicle of Higher Education found]that in most classes, half of Stanford's medical students stopped using their iPads only a few weeks into the term. ==

= Technical hurdles for mobile apps  = == Interest in deploying mobile apps may be high, but actual deployment is not without its difficulties. Aside from the challenge of delivering strong security and compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) pertaining to student records, as yet there are no common standards to ease the pain of cross-platform deployment. == == The big challenge that we tackle is the fact that there are multiple devices out there and multiple operating systems on those devices. When you move from iPhone to Android, it's a difficult problem because it has many different forms. The amount of testing that you need to do, maintenance, etc., rolling it out on multiple platforms could easily overwhelm a smaller institution. ==

= Develop your content plan for mobile learning  =

== The key here is to ensure that your content is optimized for mobile viewing. Keep in mind the environment in which the training information could be viewed. Learners could take courses anywhere, from the comfort of their home or on a long cab ride. For this reason, the best mobile learning content obeys the following principles: == > == Similar to e-Learning, mobile technologies can also be interfaced with many other media like audio, video, the Internet, and so forth. Mobile learning is more interactive, involves more contact, communication and collaboration with people mobile phones offer the opportunity to access institutional learning management systems. ==
 * ==Is short, precise, and presented in brief segments.==
 * ==Features straightforward topics that are easy to consume on the go.==
 * ==Contains simplified presentations that can be easily viewed on smaller screens.==

== 20 Apple and Android apps for higher education ==

== A list of All The Best iPad Apps Teachers Need: educatorstechnology.com ==

Resources:
== 7 Steps to Add Mobile Training to Your Distance Learning Strategy ==

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