Podcasts are better than lectures

Students have been handed another excuse to skip class from an unusual quarter. New psychological research suggests that university students who download a podcast lecture achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person. Podcasted lectures offer students the chance to replay difficult parts of a lecture and therefore take better […]

Moodle

For over a year now my dear host Christian has put up with my Moodle platform. You’ll remember, I ran a few courses on it and did something for the LMU and for the VHS, and I was intending to run a train-the-trainer session for MELTA. But being hacked has come as a shock and […]

Cheap, cheap, cheap

The world’s cheapest computer, the Sakshat, which translates as “before your eyes”, is being developed in India. It’s supposed to cost 1000 Rupees (16 Euros) initially and to come down to 500 Rupees (8 Euros) through mass production. It’s a joint project of the Vellore Institute of Technology, the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, […]

Wijng

Wijng is an emerging online platform for learning English, and currently it’s free. I’ve looked at a few of the units, including one on skiffle, that nice music of the 50s, and here are a few thoughts: The makers of this platform are taking existing videos, e.g. on YouTube. These are not skripted or specifically […]

Nick Peachey on video

One of my favorite educators in the blogosphere has posted a series about online video and what it has to offer teachers and learners: Find out about free video editing software YouTube for IWBs with PicLens Free Educational TV Channels Open source video animation News Videos for EFL ESL Materials Design Things You Can Do […]

Dalango

A star is born. Dalango is a brand-new web-based series of language courses (English, Business English, Spanish). 1/2 a year in the works, a major investment (so they say), Spotlight Verlag inside expertise and cool young dudes and gals bringing in new media ideas, some 300 minutes worth of good videos based on great scripts, […]

Paying for Web 2.0, part 1

Steve Hargadon, the man who was the consultant to the social networking service Ning in Education, is out of his paid job due to the economic downturn. (See his blogpost Thanks, Ning.) I’m almost ashamed to admit that I have taken this great service for granted, to the extent that I didn’t use it nearly […]