RSC NewsFeed

Welcome loyal readers to this, the final edition of NewsFeed for session 2008-9 - and what a rollercoaster of a year this has been. Putting aside MPs’ expenses, pandemics, toxic assets, global warming, pirates and presidents for one moment, this has also been a year where the flow of new ideas and new technologies has continued unabated. And still the torrent continues in this issue.

The links below will take you to a swirl of interesting places, beginning with an invitation to put your own immediate locality on the digital map. There’s a raft of resources covering everything from 19th century newspapers newly digitised to an attempt to define every word in the English language, via You Tube, the Curriculum for Excellence and a birthday honour. There’s even a glimpse into a possible future as the final Digital Britain report is published

Image River Braan in Spate by Stuant63 from Flickr used under Creative Commons

We’d also recommend a careful look at this edition’s ‘snippets’ section where the cuttings really are top-quality, including online survey tools, movie screenplays and eye-witness history. Enough to keep you going all summer.

Here at the two Scottish JISC Regional Support Centres we’d like to thank you for joining us on this voyage through the academic year and we look forward to welcoming you aboard once again in September when we’ll be launching a regular Green IT section. (Indeed, we’ve planted the first seeds below.)

Till then, as usual, if you have any comments on any aspect of NewsFeed or if we’re missing landmarks we should be adding to the itinerary then we’d be happy to hear from you.

Guest Contribution
Fix your Place in the World in Words, Images, Video & Sound

JISC
JANET tests 100Gbps network links
Open Habitat
JISC Legal Copyright Survey
Video Assist from JISC Digital Media
JISC Podcast- ‘Orphan Works’ Restrict Access to 50M Items
JISC Executive Secretary Awarded OBE

SQA Funding Opportunity
Innovative Electronic Assessment Resource

Resources
YouTubeEdu
Digitised 19th Century Newspapers now publicly available
EarthPulse- Exploring Global Trends Online
Tracking Down Every Last Word – Online
New Features from Google Books
Copyright Cleared Images from English Heritage

eAssessment
eAssessment Scotland 2009 - Sept. 25th, Dundee
e-Assessment Association Newsletter

Accessibility
A VOCA in your pocket!
Thought Control

And in the Green Corner
PowerSaving for £0.00
Implementing Green IT (Event 24 Aug 2009, QMU)

Awards, Competitions & Conferences
Napier Receives a ‘Thelma’ Award
Jorum Learning & Teaching Competition 2009

Read All About It
e-Books for FE Update
Digital Britain Final Report Published
New JISC Inform Published

Scotland
APUC Launches Procurement Guidance for Scottish FE & HE
RSC Scotland South & West - Top of the iPops
‘Curriculum for Excellence’ CPD Materials on iTunes

Snippets
Clippings from the IT Garden

Youtube now have an educational section on their video site, entitled YouTubeEdu. There are thousands of educational videos from many different educational institutions.

Here’s one to get you started…..

Traditional voice output communication aids (VOCAs) have tended to be very expensive and bulky devices. Although many vary in portability, with some devices being smaller, lighter and less expensive than others, none compare to the latest VOCA, or should I say iPhone!

In some cases users have been reluctant to use their VOCAs out of embarrassment or because they are too bulky. But all that is about to change! Prologuo2Go is an iPhone and iPod touch app which features a symbol based communication system. Prologuo2Go provides an inexpensive yet ‘cool’ VOCA system for people of all ages. And even better, it fits in your pocket.
To find out more visit the Prologuo2Go site

To watch a short Prologuo2Go  video clip select this link

Scotland’s first annual e-Assessment conference has been scheduled for the 25th of September at Dundee’s Hilton hotel. Bringing together speakers from schools, further and higher education, the event will showcase Scottish innovation and best practice in the field.

It’s free to attend the one-day event, which will also play host to the Scottish e-Assessment Awards, which recognises achievements in the categories of:

• Formative e-Assessment
• Summative e-Assessment
• e-Portfolio/PDP
• Mobile e-Assessment
• e-Assessment Administration
• Innovation

The conference is being organised by the University of Dundee, e-Assessment Association, Scottish Regional Support Centres, SQA and Higher Education Academy.

More details on how to book a place at the conference and submit an entry to the Scottish e-Assessment Awards can be found on the eAssessment Scotland website (which is due to be launched at the end of this week - 26/06/09).

The British Library, in partnership with JISC and Gale (part of Cengage Learning) has launched the public version of its 19th Century British Newspaper website, providing access to over 2 million pages from 49 national and regional newspaper titles.  (Note that the public site charges for access to full-text downloads).  This follows a previous announcement from JISC which detailed arrangements for free access to the materials for UK FE and HE communities.  Find out how to subscribe to the free version for education.

The RSC Scotland S&W have been publishing podcasts on Apple’s iTunes Store since last October and our video podcasts are currently featured on the iTunes Store under Education. There is a selection of 17 audio and video podcasts from the RSC Scotland S&W, freely available to subscribe to and enjoy.

Listen and Learn

iTunes is an ideal way to automatically deliver learning materials to learners and subscribers. Apple has created the iTunes University where learning providers can publish their own materials in areas tailored to their own specific target audience, whether globally or for just their own students.

A is for Apple

To subscribe to the iTunes podcasts, simply download the iTunes application from the apple website. Find the Podcasts in the left hand panel of iTunes and type JISC in the search box in the top right of the iTunes window.

RSS Feeds

In addition to the iTunes podcast store, the RSC has an RSS feed. Once subscribed, you will automatically receive each episode as and when they are published, downloaded directly to your work station. If you want to learn on the go, transfer it to your iPod for later viewing or listening.

If you have any questions or would like to know how to publish podcasts via iTunes, contact Mark Clark on m.clark@rsc-sw-scotland.ac.uk

The latest copy of the e-Assessment Association’s quarterly newsletter has just been published. Among the articles featured are:

• WebPA - online peer-adjusted grading;
• LISC - system to assess sentence translation;
• Dumfries & Galloway Wordpress e-Portfolio solution.

And much, much more!

If you have an e-Assessment story that you would like featured in the e-Assessment Association’s newsletter (a UK publication), then please contact Kenji Lamb at RSC Scotland North & East.

Also, if you’re involved with e-Assessment, you might like to take adavantage of the current offer of free annual membership to the Association (details in the newsletter).

Pick up the latest newsletter here.

Google has recently launched a number of new features to Google Books, the search service which offers free access to content from a range of online books.  Features include the ability to embed a book within a website or blog, the option to view the plain text version of a book and the provision of a thumbnail view, which provides an overview of the pages contained within a particular book.  Additional features, such as ratings, reviews and web references are available from the book overview page.  View the full range of features.

Controlling a computer with your mind is the sort of story you’d expect to read in a science fiction novel. But scientists in France have developed a computer system which can do just that. Using electrical sensors attached to the brain, the French researchers  are able to detect electrical activity in the brain and convert it to movement and communication via computer software.

There is however a serious side to this. Locked-in-syndrome can leave someone completely physically paralysed with their mental faculties still intact. Locked-in-syndrome happened to the French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby,  after he awoke from a coma caused by a massive stroke. Despite having no body movement, apart from the ability to blink his left eye, Bauby, with the help of an assistant managed to write his memoire The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

To read more about this exciting area of research and view the video select this link

Pauline Randall (aka Liz Ferlinghetti) has been awarded Gold Solution Service Provider status by Linden Labs, creators of the virtual world Second Life, a first for a Scottish entrepreneur.

In February of 2008, as the e-Learning Development Co-ordinator at Elmwood College, Pauline wrote a guest contribution piece in NewsFeed about the college’s experiences in Second Life. Later in October, she gave a keynote at the RSCs Virtual World 2008 conference. Now, as managing director of her company virtual-e, Pauline’s proving that she’s making a success in the virtual and real world.

Read more about Pauline’s success story here.