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 moreAuthor: Lawrie Phipps
Portrait 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…
Read moreWhat’s on your business card?
A colleague from a library in the North East sent me a SodaPDF of his new business card this week. It looked for all intents and purposes like a traditional business card but I noticed that other than just the institution’s website, his email and directline, there were two additions. These included his MSN messenger…
Read morePortrait of a User #1
These ‘Portrait of a user’ posts aim to provide snapshots of both staff and students in higher education. Mel, Mature 3rd Year Anthropology Student (part time) Interview conducted by MSN, Oct 07 What do you think of as ‘technology’? Anything online, I use the University databases a lot. How would you describe your ability to…
Read moreSocial-learning mash-up?
I was sent a link this week to an application within Facebook, CourseFeed. This is a small application that integrates your Virtual Learning Environment with Facebook. At the moment it seems to support Blackboard® only, with some limited functionality for others. The full app when used with Blackboard® allows (using their words not mine): Course…
Read more7 things to do in Education with Web 2.0
I recently read an article by Laurel Delaney about small businesses marketing within the social software environment. It tells the story of ‘Sidney’ a web designer who reinvigorated her business by using existing social networks and web 2.0 technologies. My immediate thought was how this can be applied to educational projects and individuals (ignoring the…
Read moreTechnology and language: a plea for calm…
Over the past 18 months I’ve been immersed in activities with staff across the UK higher education sector looking at technology that is characterised as web 2.0. Purely from anecdotal evidence it is, to me, becoming apparent that some of us are not speaking the same language as the practitioners that we seek to influence.…
Read moreWeb 2.0 Briefing Paper
For the Association for Learning Technology conference 2007 I was asked to prepare a short Web 2.0 briefing paper. Limited to 2 pages this has not been an easy task, the paper can be found at http://www.jisc.org.uk/publications/publications/web2socialsoftwarev1.aspx. However below is a longer version with live links. The terms Web 2.0 and social software are now…
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