Digital Directions

The 'Hype Cycle' for education, 2009

According to today's Times Higher, Second Life is out as techies embrace cloud email as reported by Zoë Corbyn.

It would seem that Virtual worlds - such as Second Life - have passed their "peak of inflated expectations" and are now set to slide into the "trough of disillusionment" unless they happen to become obsolete before even decending into that valley of possible death.

Some interesting readers' comments already made on THES, but further analysis on Microblogging, Twitter and Hype Circles can be found on Jeffrey Mann's blog - within the Gartner IT advisory firm's website - the origin of the report.

Interesting to see that 'e-learning respositories' and 'podcasting learning content' are out; that 'open source portals' and 'social networking in HE' are moving up the plateau of productivity with less than 2 years to mainstream adoption; and that 'wikis' and 'e-portfolios' are higher up the plateau, but with 2-5 years before they hit the mainstream.

The full forcast for emerging technologies is displayed below, and has aparently generated a bit of a twitter backlash, which is the next technology (as an example of microblogging) set to tip over the 'Peak of Inflated Expectations', but as Mann observes, everything must dip into this trough - the main issue is how long a technology must remain in the trough and whether it will weather the storm.

22 Tweets! Interviews with practicing lawyers who tweet...

I've just discovered Lance Godard's website 22 Tweets where he conducts real-time Twitter interviews with practicing lawyers who tweet.  There are 22 questions and answers each no longer than the standard 140 character tweet message.  Launched in March 2009, I've recently come across it as Glasgow solicitor, Brian Inkster, will be interviewed on the site tonight at 8pm (UK time) as the sixth lawyer (and second in the UK) to take part.

In July, Christopher J Sherliker founding partner of Silverman Sherliker LLP took part, and I note  his final reply:

22.   That’s a positive message. What advice do you have for people going to law school today?
        Learn web marketing skills. Do your own thing. Do something different.Take joy in service.  Love your clients, (even the mad ones!)

Many of the previous interviewees also seem to mention business or marketing skills as part of their 140 characters of advice.

You can follow the twitterview live this evening or at anytime afterwards at: www.twitterfall.com/22twts.

Evidence Net - new from the HEA

For those who were at the HEA's annual conference in July, you may have heard about the launch of Evidence Net.  It is a new Academy initiative that provides access to evidence on learning and teaching in HE, as well as opportunities to discuss and explore how that evidence can usefully impact on practice and policy to enhance students’ learning experiences.

The website covers three main areas: resources, events and networks. The EvidenceNet team will be producing and commissioning summaries and syntheses of research so that you can always keep up to date with new research or policy documents, get a quick overview of key or seminal articles, and make sure you don’t miss out on high profile work. EvidenceNet is aimed at anyone working in teaching and learning in higher education, and the website is searchable by keyword, discipline area, pedagogic theme, or type of resource.

This website is the hub of EvidenceNet's activity but  the virtual community is expanding thorough a ning social networking site and wiki pilot site.

A quick search for the term 'law' within resources yields 17 hits.  This is conveniently broken down in a side bar so that I can see that 3 relate to technology, 9 are equality and diversity, 2 are policy and 1 is CPD etc.

The team will be expanding the content and adding new features throughout phase two over the next year so that this site will grow to become an authoritative stop for learning and teaching research and resources.