I've read a post by Graham Wegner (linked by Stephen Downes) on e-portfolio's. Wegner is performing a research project with the central questions "Are teachers e-portfolio sustainable?". In his post he wonders wether this wouldn't be a wrong question as he says: "So maybe things need to take a step back. Rather than worrying about whether teachers will get into e-portfolios or not, the question should be more along the lines of “How do we get teachers developing an online presence?”"

 

In my opinion lots of teachers still haven’t caught up with todays online life. But instead of focussing on the technology part, I’d suggest to focus on the pedagocial issues. Lots of teachers, tech savvy or not, still want to be instructors and bring out there knowledge to the students instead of guiding students with their journey of learning. Once teachers (as well as their students...) have made that mindshift and learn that portfolios can be usefull instrument in that process I’m sure that technology isn’t an obstacle anymore.

Together with Ida Wogum and Martina Meelissen from the University of Twente, The Netherlands, I've submitted a proposal for a working paper presentation on the 8th International Conference on HRD Research and Practice across Europe, Oxford, 27th and 29th June, 2007.

 

The paper is based on my final thesis project (Wogum and Meelissen are my coaches) and will be titled "Learning environments for Net-Generation learners".

 

Somewhere in februari I'll hear if the proposal is accepted....

Just finished playing SL (time flies when you're having fun!) and I realized that I was tagged today by Wilfred Rubens!

 

I've never seen it before but as far as I can tell now it's a great game to explore (digital) communities of practice and to enlarge them. The idea is that you write 5 things on your blog that's not allready known about you and you pass the game on to 5 others.

 

Here the 5 things:

 

1. I need vacation...

 

2. It's just 3 weeks away from now...:)

 

3. Me and my girl are celibrating our 3 years together at the first day in the new year!

 

4. I like to play sax and party at Dutch carnival.

 

5. I was invited today by Ida Wognum (my coach at Uni) to fill in a proposal for the Oxford HRD conference on my Net-Generation research!(submission= tommorow)

 

I'm passing this on to:

... I realized I need to extend my network of dutch bloggers...

I'd like to wish all the best to YOU, person of the year!

 

My employer has designed a great memory game, if you play it you might be one of the lucky winners....

This weekend I've been on an exploration in the world of second life (SL) for the first time. Lately there's a lot of emphasis on second life in the media, primarily because large companies are starting their own equivalents in this virtual world. Also a lot of edubloggers are writing about SL and it's value for use in education.

 

One weekend living in this virtual world has left me with a great new experience, but also with a lot of questions about the effects this virtual world wil have on our real lives.

 

At first sight, SL just seemed to be overwhelmed with sex related stuff, most popular places are sex related. Believe me when I tell you that I've seen a man with a dragon's head and his 2 meter johnson playing around with a rabbit at the beach! But when I tried to look around this playground of the sex industry (realizing that all new technologies were first endevoured by it), I realized that SL is in its primary sense a virtual communication tool. Some girl I was sitting next to at a bench in (Virtual) Amsterdam explained it to me as MSN Messenger, but a lot more interactive. In my opinion that is what SL is all about: communicating with others in a virtual world. This virtual world, on the other hand, makes it possible to experiment with whatever you want. You can be anoyne you'd like and you can technically do anything you'd like to do. What I find intersting is in what way you can experience SL as a second life or should you regard it more as an extention of your real life?

Esspecially when companies are starting to mix real life bussiness in the virual world, there will be a point when you can't speak of a second life, but rather should speak in terms of an extention of real life activities.