Hapgood

Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy

August 2007

  • This is your Italian course. This is your Italian course on WordPress.

    Some day I’ll get tired of admitting how far ahead of the pack UMW is. Today is not that day. So to paraphrase that guy with the egg… This is your Italian course: And this is your Italian course on WordPress: Click the above image to check out a module a UMW Italian professor put Continue reading

  • A meager start

    OK, we’re not godlike. We ain’t Jim Groom. But we are launching our own WordPress MU intitiative: KeeneWeb. Our particular angle is going to be less academic, and more creating community on campus, community outreach, and (hopefully) getting some tradmed attention. We have some really talented people on our campus, it’s just hard for the Continue reading

  • The Parable of the Thingamajig

    We are reaching the end of our evaluation process here on my eportfolio committee. So in a month of impassioned pleas, I hope y’all forgive me one more. This is the last push. But I want to do it this time by telling a story. I want us to pretend it is 1985, and we Continue reading

  • Announcing the Learning 2.0 Pecha Kucha Contest

    Heard of Pecha-Kucha? It’s poetry slam for the design crowd. Haiku for the business world. It’s the solution to Death by Powerpoint. Here’s the rules: Each pecha-kucha participant delivers a PowerPoint presentation Each presentation must comprise of 20 slides, no more, no less Each slide must be displayed for exactly 20 seconds Consequently, each presentation Continue reading

  • The SmallWonder arrives

    We want to go guerrilla video over here, and inspired by the Stanford ePortfolio crowd, we got a couple of SmallWonder cameras from TigerDirect. The idea is that they are less intrusive than a traditional camera, more portable, and easier to use, and that sets the video threshold to a level where people are more Continue reading

  • The college as student/project matchmaker

    What would happen if instead of encouraging students to build yet another fake bookstore project we had encouraged them to write wikiscanner? They’d have changed the world, that’s what. What if instead of having statistics students take multiple choice tests on data analysis we had them examine earmarks or deficit spending using ManyEyes? They’d change Continue reading

  • Giving your students a toolbelt

    UMW has put together a tools section for incoming freshmen and new faculty. The idea is to present to them six free low-threshold tools which will be their tools of the trade for the years to come. The tools are: Firefox, WordPress, del.icio.us, Google Docs, Google Reader, and Flickr. As much as I like to Continue reading

  • At eportfolio workshop

    I’m at an eportfolio workshop at Stanford. More on that later. The weather here is beautiful, much milder than in New Hampshire. I had no idea. On the other hand, there is a “What to do when there’s an earthquake” card in my hotel room. So perhaps a mixed bag. Continue reading

  • There is no “tech”. Get over it.

    Via SmartMobs, regarding our millenials: “Young people don’t see “tech” as a separate entity – it’s an organic part of their lives,” said Andrew Davidson, vice president of MTV’s VBS International Insight unit. “Talking to them about the role of technology in their lifestyle would be like talking to kids in the 1980s about the Continue reading

  • Progress on loosely coupled assessment

    So we watched a presentation yesterday by True Outcomes, and of course I had to hold my nose a bit. I come from the “merit badge” school of Roger Schank, that ideally assessments fall into to the category of “Student X can build a fire, and we know that because he built a fire” (or Continue reading