Photo at www.internettime.com

New photos from Abu Dhabi

Who are we?

Hello, I am Jay Cross. This is a Blog (or weblog) for us to practice with. I have turned on "Comments.". Please introduce yourself. (Click "comments" below.)


If you have questions you'd like me to answer in our sessions in Abu Dhabi, please include them in a Comment.

Blogs and wikis are increasingly common in Silicon Valley. If you're interested in the learning culture of the Valley, cut on your sound, and head to: Silicon Valley, The DNA of a Community of Practice.

You can find out more about me -- and my thoughts on learning and performance at Internet Time Blog.

Wikis in education

The Teachers' Lounge

The most recent issue of Educause contains a marvellous article on wikis in education.

The most radical aspect of wikis is this: "Content is ego-less, time-less, and never finished." Of course, nothing is ever finished in this world, but books go into print and movies are edited into a final version. Wikis never close.

Wikis work great as shared online sketchpads or as spaces for brainstorming. They are perfect for creating perpetually updated lists or collections of links, and most users can instantly grasp their utility as informal bulletin boards. Because it takes only a couple of seconds to set up a new page, no purpose is too trivial.

Blogs in education

Will Richardson's weglogg-ed

Will Richardardson at the first EdBlogger Conference

New York Times Features K-12 Ed Blogging

Well, I think the title just about says it all: "In the Classroom, Web Blogs Are the New Bulletin Boards." Um, I beg to differ.

You know, it's amazing how often I get asked that question: "Well, how are blogs different from, like, news groups?" Graphics. Collaboration. Shared space. Digital paper. Syndication. And so on, and so on... But for some reason, so many people still look at them and see, well, bulletin boards I guess. Too bad.

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Stephen Downes on Blogs in Education

Stephen Downes has just written a great roundup article on blogs in education in Educause.

Highlights. Three types of blogs in the virtual extension of the classroom:

1. online assignment sheet and bulletin board
2. public space where students can post their work or reflections
3. private personal space, reserved for private thoughts and teacher guidance

Fifth graders at Institut St-Joseph were motivated upon finding that the whole world could read and comment on their blogs. Write about the circus and someone from the circus may write you back. Blogs create learning communities that go beyond school walls and extend beyond the end of the term.

Blog posts tend to be short, informal, sometimes cocntroversial and sometimes deeply personal, no matter what the topic.

Five uses identified by Henry Farrell:

1. class web page to announce times, rules, assignments, readings, exercises
2. links to topics
3. to organize in-class discussion (the anonymity prompting posts from shy students)
4. organize seminars and provide summaries of readings. groun blogging.
5. students write their own blogs

Will Richardson says blogging helps teach reflection, writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, and engaging readers in a sustained conversations that then leads to further writing and thinking.

e-Merging e-Learning

e-Merging e-Learning

Beach Rotana Hotel & Towers

Higher Colleges of Technology


A 50-page white paper on pragmatic learning, a gift to you for visiting here. (It's 7 MB in Word.)

Wikipedia & Abu_wiki

Wikipedia entry

الشيخ زايد بن

سلطان أل نهيان

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Abu_wiki is ours to play with. Feel free to add a comment or just play around.

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi

The Emirate of Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi is the largest of the seven Emirates and the Federal capital of the UAE. It occupies an area of 26,000 square miles. Its long coastline - the shallow waters of the Southern Gulf, extending from the base of the Qatar Peninsula in the west to the border of the emirate of Dubai on the north east, was once the world's best waters for pearling. When the pearling industry declined, oil discovery in the offshore oilfields of the Southern Gulf revived the economy of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi was also the first emirate to export oil from the Umm Shaif offshore field in 1962. On the land, it stretches south to the oases of Liwa where some of the world’s largest sand dunes can be found , and east to the ancient oasis of Al Ain. This makes Abu Dhabi the largest as well as the most populated of all the emirates.

from BlogThis!

Telephoning to blog

Telephoning in a blog entry...

Email to blog

This is an email I'm sending to the E-merging E-learning blog.

What could be easier?

jay

Jay Cross, Berkeley, California 510.528.3105

Internet Time Group, http://internettime.com

Workflow Institute, http://workflowinstitute.com

Emergent Learning Forum, http://emergentlearningforum.com

Workflow Learning Symposium
October 11-13, 2004 in San Francisco!

Recreation

Blogger appears to have instituted a new rule: No underscores in a URL. Hence, I'm moving the former Abu_Dhabi blog here. Without the underscore.