Learning analytics treats students as numbers, invades privacy, and doesn’t elevate education. Originally published in IT Web 4 April 2003 When I was about 6 months old, my well-meaning and sleep-deprived parents bought me an indispensable and comprehensive education technology: the multivolume, all-inclusive reference source known as the Encyclopædia Britannica. The salesman convinced them that …
Author archives: Derek
It’s official – Sakai is the new LMS at Wits
The wheels of Wits take a while to turn…but a decision has been made. Wits is going to move from KEWL and WebCT to Sakai. A copy of the press release is below. At the Senate meeting on the 10th of November, Prof Ballim, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, formally announced Wits’ decision to adopt Sakai as …
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Open Access Week 2011
It’s the second year that Wits celebrates Open Access Week. Along with 2,000 individuals from more than 110 that have registered at openaccessweek.org, eLSI and the Library will be hosting two events. 24 October 2011 (Monday) 13.00-14.00 Wartenweiler Conference Room, 4th Floor Theme: Open Access & Scholarly Communication Prof. Yunus Ballim – “Wits and Open …
Bootcamp Lingo
As one of the last of the generation of white South Africans, who were conscripted to a wasted two years in the “”defense force”, the term “bootcamp” doesn’t site well with me. It conjures up an image of drilled troops, marching around while, a buzz cut officer barks orders to compliant recruits. Instead of creating …
Three steps to a Twitter +
Wouldn’t be useful if public posts on Google +were also published on Twitter? It’s helpful when platforms can talk to each other. My tweets with links, for example, are automatically stored in my delicious account, thanks to packrati.us Google + looks like it has a future with other Google sites, but I’d like it to …
A wet & soggy account of ANT
Wits has decided that if they are going to prepare students for a 21st century world, then they will have to equip their students with connected digital devices that enable 21st century thinking and work. Accordingly, they have embarked on a number of projects to wirelessly connect the campus and improve the ratio of students …
Digital Slates
So, you want to move from OHP transparencies, where you portably project the process of working through a problem to a class on a transparency, to a more modern device that should allow you to do the same…and more. Projecting and recording the process of obtaining a solution on a data projector should be simple, …
Resident, Visitors and Tourists
Many students that I come across could be called “digital residents”. They are people that have grown up in a world where the novelty of digital has word thin, the computer is no longer an exciting, mysterious machine. Open their bags, desk drawers and it’s likely that you’ll find flash sticks, self printed airline/concert/movie tickets, …
What do I want to do in 2011
At 5:56 AM I started my first formal day of work for 2011. Work Life Balance: My alarm, set for 5:00 a.m. reminded me of my first intention, to balance work and life. I’m no longer a migrant knowledge worker with a remote family. I’m going to arrive early at work and leave early. Provoke …
Augmented Reality = Hollywood + Ordinary Reality
Augmented Reality – for libraries View more presentations from Weblearning. I spoke at the National Library in Pretoria this morning about Augmented Reality and Libraries. [Disclosure: I’m a bit of a fraud. Neither a librarian, nor a seasoned AR guru]. As a heutagogist, I went to YouTube, because that’s where we go when we don’t …
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