As well as developing technology and processes many of the Users and Innovation projects are also engaged in much wider debates, pushing our understanding of the role of technology in the wider education sector. The Habitat project is currently exploring the role of virtual worlds such as Second Life, which may on one hand be…
Read moreAuthor: Lawrie Phipps
Guardian Article
There’s a great article in today’s Guardian “Tracking technology in the corridors of learning”, it reports on the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) antennas and tags at the University of Washington’s computer science department. Rather than the Orwellian overtones you might expect, where the ‘evil overseers’ monitor our every move, the system is open…
Read moreEliciting Answers using web 2.0 tools.
Linked-In is a tool for maintaining and developing contacts – one of the features is the ability to ask questions of your network of contacts and the ‘public visibility’ of these questions. I thought it might be interesting to pose a question around web 2.0 and then see what sort of answers we got back.…
Read moreU&I Showcase: The Web2Rights Project
One of the joys of working as a programme manager at the JISC is working with a group of people that you can bounce ideas off, find gaps and then elicit solutions. Following a series of reports about IPR and Copyright issues around new and emerging technologies, we, (JISC, and the JISC Users and Innovation…
Read moreConnectivism at the Blackboard Users Conference
Last week I spoke at the Eighth Annual Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference (metaphors on a postcard!). The theme of the event was Connectivism and suggested reading prior to the event was George Siemen’s paper ‘Connectivism: a learning theory for a digital age’. I opened with a quote from Dave Cormier’s blog: Many of us have…
Read moreDigital footprints
Dotsam. Defined as: The wasteland of abandoned Web sites, Hotmail accounts, blogs, wikis, MySpace pages, etc., that their creators have ignored for months or years but which remain accessible. The word was coined in imitation of flotsam and jetsam; “flotsam” refers to goods that float in the water without having been thrown there, as after…
Read moreTowards digital exclusion?
Earlier this month I read a great article – Social networking: Not as inclusive as you might think! Some people will know that I have a passing interest in accessibility and that I have written a little on it in the past. So, when I saw the article it piqued my interest. I won’t repeat…
Read moreSeven steps to developing an effective communications plan
This week Alice Gugan, who works with the U&I team on communications and marketing, has written seven steps to developing an effective communications plan. This is a really important area for any project involved in the Users and Innovation programme as many of the themes will be based on new and emerging technology; effectively communicating…
Read moreFacebook Friday?
While Facebook is being banned from many workplaces, Serena Software has decided to take the opposite approach. A company-wide program called “Facebook Fridays” will encourage employees to spend one hour each Friday updating their FB profiles and creating personal connections between colleagues and clients and having ‘fun’. The initiative began on Friday November 2nd and…
Read morePortrait of a User #2
S, Academic Interview conducted by email, Oct 07 What do you think of as ‘technology’? Well, even a pen was technology at one stage! Technology is practical, every day, stuff which we take for granted (umm, usually powered by electricity in some form) as well as gadgetry and gizmos. How would you describe your ability…
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