Dutton, W.H., Cheong, P.H., & Park, N. (2004). The Social Shaping of a Virtual Learning Environment: The Case of a University-wide Course Management System. Electronic Journal of e-learning. vol. 2 (2) pp. 69-80

A characteristic of higher education culture throughout the world is that instructors generally teach the way they were taught: using a traditional one-many teaching paradigm based on class lectures and discussion. With notable exceptions, such as the one on one tutorial approach, this paradigm is entrenched in most university cultures, which generally tie teaching rewards to the quality of lectures and discussion. These paradigms are key influences shaping outcomes from the introduction of a VLE and other ICTs within institutions of higher education.

Farmer, J. & Bartlett-Bragg, A. (2005). Blogs@ anywhere: High fidelity online communication. ascilite 2005: Balance, Fidelity, Mobility: maintaining the momentum? pp. 197-203

This article has some really great citations. Be sure to mine them.

Abstract:
Since early 2001 several institutions and many individual teachers have incorporated blogging into their online pedagogical strategies. During this time, weblog (blog) publishing technologies have evolved towards accessibility and ease of use and the technological barriers preventing adoption have, to a degree, dissolved. Blogs and their associated technologies are arguably heralding the most significant technological development in online teaching and learning since the introduction of enterprise level Learning Management Systems (LMS) (Downes 2004).
This development is all the more significant as a result of the communication dynamics inherent within blog technologies. Whereas an LMS stores and presents all information on a centralised and hierarchical basis, bound within the subject and the organisation, blogs are distributed, aggregated, open and independent. Through the use of blogs, it is suggested that teachers and learners are becoming empowered, motivated, reflective and connected practitioners in new knowledge environments. The balance between individualised and centralised technologies is restored.
The application of weblogs in an education setting will, at best, have a limited impact if due consideration of these developing communication dynamics are ignored. This paper includes a brief review of some of the institutional and individual blog projects that are taking place in higher education. In doing so it examines the different types of blog environments that are being used in terms of their communication dynamics and subsequent impact upon teachers, learners and pedagogy. Further, a more detailed examination is made of the use of blogs in teaching and learning in courses at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). In light of these studies and examination, possible approaches to implementing blogs in institutional settings are outlined in the form of an alternative Online Learning Environment. In addition, a study to be undertaken in 2006 examining the impact of blogs on teaching and learning at Deakin University will be described.

Van Harmelen, M. (2006). Personal learning environments. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’06)

Abstract:

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) are attracting increasing interest in the e-learning domain. PLEs may be characterised in a multidimensional space. Examples of PLEs are discussed.

this is a very short paper, outlining some examples of PLEs.

There is increasing awareness of a major limitation in many VLEs, namely teacher or institutional control of resources. Control of PLEs may vested in their individual users.

Duffy, P., & Bruns, A. (2006). The use of blogs, wikis and RSS in education: A conversation of possibilities. Proceedings Online Learning and Teaching Conference 2006. pp. 31-38.

Abstract:

In a ‘socially mobile learning environment’, it is no longer sufficient to use online learning and teaching technologies simply for the delivery of content to students. A ‘digital literacy’ exists where flexible and mobile technologies must be explored for collaborative and (co)creative purposes, as well as for the critical assessment and evaluation of information.

Wilson, S., Liber, O., Johnson, M., & Beauvoir, P. (2007). Personal Learning Environments: Challenging the dominant design of educational systems. Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society.

note: the authors use “VLE” where we may use “LMS”. they should be interchangeable.

Abstract

Current systems used in education follow a consistent design pattern, one that is not supportive of lifelong learning or personalization, is asymmetric in terms of user capability, and which is disconnected from the global ecology of Internet services. In this paper we propose an alternative design pattern for educational systems that emphasizes symmetric connections with a range of services both in formal and informal learning, work, and leisure, and identify strategies for implementation and experimentation.

Efimova, L. & Fiedler. S. (2004). Learning webs: Learning in weblog networks. Proceedings of the 2004 IADIS International Conference on Web Based Communities.

Abstract:

This article explores how professionally oriented weblog projects support the emergence of loosely coupled learning networks. We provide an overview of the technical infrastructure of this particular form of personal webpublishing and the social ecosystems that emerge through current weblog authoring practices. Furthermore, we suggest that some weblog ecosystems can be conceptualized as learning webs. These learning webs appear to meet the specific needs of knowledge workers for flexible and dynamic learning environments. Some preliminary results of qualitative data collection in this area are shared and some further lines of research are proposed.

Dalsgaard. C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems. European Journal of Open, Distance, and E-Learning.

Abstract:

The article argues that it is necessary to move e-learning beyond learning management systems and engage students in an active use of the web as a resource for their self- governed, problem-based and collaborative activities. The purpose of the article is to discuss the potential of social software to move e-learning beyond learning management systems. An approach to use of social software in support of a social constructivist approach to e-learning is presented, and it is argued that learning management systems do not support a social constructivist approach which emphasizes self-governed learning activities of students. The article suggests a limitation of the use of learning management systems to cover only administrative issues. Further, it is argued that students’ self- governed learning processes are supported by providing students with personal tools and engaging them in different kinds of social networks.

Lee, C.P., Dourish, P., & Mark, G. (2006). The human infrastructure of cyberinfrastructure. Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work. pp. 483-492

Abstract:
Despite their rapid proliferation, there has been little examination of the coordination and social practices of cyberinfrastructure projects. We use the notion of “human infrastructure” to explore how human and organizational arrangements share properties with technological infrastructures. We conducted an 18-month ethnographic study of a large-scale distributed biomedical cyberinfrastructure project and discovered that human infrastructure is shaped by a combination of both new and traditional team and organizational structures. Our data calls into question a focus on distributed teams as the means for accomplishing distributed work and we argue for using human infrastructure as an alternative perspective for understanding how distributed collaboration is accomplished in big science.

I'm riding in the Ride to Conquer Cancer again this year. It's a 2 day, 200km ride south of Calgary through the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, June 26-27, 2010. Last year, we were able to raise nearly $7 MILLION for the Alberta Cancer foundation. I'm hoping we can top it this year. But I need your help.

Please sponsor me for the Ride. Every dollar helps. Every donation $10 and over gets a receipt for tax purposes (in Canada, anyway).

Landauer et al. An introduction to latent semantic analysis. Discourse processes (1998)

LSA produces measures of word-word, word-passage and passage-passage relations that are well correlated with several human cognitive phenomena involving association or semantic similarity.

…the similarity estimates derived by LSA are not simple contiguity frequencies, co-occurrence counts, or correlations in usage, but depend on a powerful mathematical analysis that is capable of correctly inferring much deeper relations (thus the phrase “Latent Semantic”), and as a consequence are often much better predictors of human meaning-based judgments and performance…

I just wastedspent the evening training the Faces feature of Aperture 3. Wow. It can't put a name to a face automatically, but as you teach it, it's spooky how well it does finding photos of people. I've been sitting here giggling at all of the photos I'd forgotten of people I care about. Great stuff.

What amazes me is how few pixels it seems to need to be able to recognize a face. It's finding faces in group shots (of course), in crowds at hockey and football games (even if the shot is a wide angle photo with hundreds of people in it). It even finds faces in photographs pinned to the wall in the background of photos. Fun with recursion. It could also be a bit scary as a latent crowd identification system - but The Man has this stuff already...

it's consistently the most interesting, varied, relevant, and mind-opening conference. go. register. now. even better - there's still time to submit a proposal for a session.

I'm going. May in Vancouver? What could be better than that?