RSC NewsFeed

Welcome to this latest edition of NewsFeed and to the month of March. Large parts of the country are still blanketed in snow at the time of writing and scenes like the one below – though without the fruit – won’t be too uncommon.

Image Winter Meal by Jan Tik, from Flickr used under Creative Commons

Come into the warm, pull up a comfortable chair and treat yourself to some of the goodies in this edition. Here you’ll find news of possible funding opportunities from the JISC, of podcasts and infoKits and the latest paths through the minefield of copyright.

You’ll find a whole section devoted to the increasingly important subject of digital storytelling, allied to other ways of building in narrative via video and stop motion photography. There’s even a bevy of free applications courtesy of Microsoft, including flash card generators, augmented reality and tools to build song accompaniments.

There’s a full meal just in this one issue if you choose to eat up every word but perhaps it’s better to be selective and only choose those tasty morsels which fit your palate and your technology needs. As usual we hope we’ve included something for all tastes, but as ever if we have missed your area out, if you’d like to comment on any item in NewsFeed or point us towards a story or a tool that we’re currently missing then we really want to hear from you. Meantime…

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then we’ll begin…

JISC
JISC Grant Funding Call: 4-08 Learning and Teaching Innovation Grants
One year projects that fit with the vision, outcomes and principles of the JISC e-Learning programme
JISC Grant Funding 1/10: Access to Resources and Open Innovation
Projects demonstrating (i) good practice in access to resources and (ii) open innovation as part of its Business and Community Engagement Programme
JISC ITT: Promoting Researcher Engagement with Web Archives
Examine the current provision of tools, services and processes that enable researchers to effectively engage and exploit the value of web archives
JISC Podcast: Building a Business Case for an Open Access Policy
A new report shows how universities can work out potential savings when they share their research papers through Open Access
JISC Podcast: Sharing and Re-Using Catalogues in a Web 2.0 World
A new JISC toolkit helps librarians navigate the legal minefield of making their catalogue records available to others
Digital Repository infoKit
Practical information on how to set up and maintain a digital repository
JISC RSC ‘Mashed’ the BBC iPlayer
RSC Scotland North & East Higher Education blog (MASHe) presents a method for replaying twitter discussions within the BBC iPlayer
Copyright? What Copyright?
A recent UK survey shows the majority of people have little or no knowledge of what is legal when it comes to copyright issues

Conferences & Events
Joint PDP Forum-e-Portfolio Forum Meeting – Supporting Transitions
Looking at how e-portfolios and PDP can help students making the transition into and from schools, colleges and HEIs
RSCtv – March and April Schedule
Tune in to the latest online broadcasts from the Scottish Regional Support Centres

Once Upon a Time (Online)
Comprehensive New Guide to Digital Storytelling
Comprehensive 120-page guide on how to use free tools to tell stories electronically
Storytelling for the 21st Century
Free e-book designed to show how free Microsoft digital tools can be used to bring the art of storytelling into the 21st Century
Stopmotion Made Simple
Step-by step guide about using stopmotion techniques to make stories come to life digitally
Flixtime: 3 Steps, 3 Minutes – Watch Your Video
New online site where you can use your pictures and videos to generate short movies
Twitter Handbook for Teachers
A powerful case for why you shouldn’t dismiss Twitter out of hand by demonstrating its application in the field of education

Microsoft Education
Microsoft’s Free Tools for Teachers
Showcase video from Microsoft highlighting key free educational applications and services
Flashcards from Microsoft Education Labs
Free, highly customisable, and adaptive flashcard tool from Microsoft
A New Dimension to Fieldwork: Mapping with Microsoft’s Bing Maps
First glimpse of how static images can be overlaid in a ‘street-view’ as well as the ability to stream live video in Bing Maps

Accessibility
Empowering Learners with Assistive Technologies
Video case studies showing how Guide, a new assistive tool at Borders College is helping to promote inclusive e-Learning
Making Accessible e-Books for Free!
Download the ‘Save As DAISY’ plug-in for Microsoft Word and Open Writer to create e-books for free

Online Xtras
Blooming Marvellous – Online Garden Design
Design your new garden online in less than 5 minutes
What Kind of Web Animal Are You?
Discover which sort of creature you become when you’re online by taking a short quiz on the BBC Lab UK website
Search Made Simple with SortFix
Search engine that assists the user in structuring a search by suggesting additional keywords

Misc
New Report: Active Ageing and Universities
Reviewing how higher education can improve on the engagement with older learners in education and training
Question Mark Over Learning Styles
Questioning the validity and value of ‘learning styles’ which has had a great deal of currency in educational circles in recent years
Pew Internet: The Future of the Internet IV
Report reveals the way the Internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered

Snippets
Spring Slivers – March Snippets
Space Shuttle images, saving the tigers, calculators in Word, themes for the Futurelab conference, Microsoft Access guides, art resources, historical maps, the rise of spam and discovering what happened in the year of your birth

The Scottish Regional Support Centres have produced a series of online interactive presentations on a range of subjects. These short 20-minute sessions are free to attend and allow you to communicate directly with the presenters, tailoring the experience directly to your needs.

It’s an excellent opportunity to pick up information on the latest developments in e-Learning – all you need is a spare 20 minutes and access to a PC with an Internet connection. Just click on a live link to book a place!

Some of you might be familiar with the DAISY format. DAISY stands for Digital Accessible Information System and is associated with providing a standard for publishing digital talking books. DAISY is particularly beneficial for blind or partially sighted learners and can even be useful for those with dyslexia related difficulties. However recent developments have increasingly made DAISY an invaluable resource for everyone, and more importantly, a resource which is free and easy to make.

The clip below is an example of someone using a tradtional ‘CD’ based DAISY player.

A recent development between DAISY and Microsoft is the ‘Save As DAISY’ plug-in for Microsoft Word and Open Writer. What does this mean? Well, if documents are created using the correct heading styles, with alternative text for images etc, it is possible to create e-books, for free.

To find out how to create free e-books select this link

The Digital Repository infoKit, created by JISCinfoNet in association with the Repositories Support Project,  provides practical information on how to set up and maintain a digital repository.

The kit contains guidance on a variety of topics, including planning processes, repository maintenance, management and policy issues.  It assumes no prior knowledge of digital repositories (or related technical issues) and will be of interest to repository administrators or anyone wanting to know more about this subject.

This very useful and mercifully short guide (18 pages)  takes no prisoners right from the start… Watching from the outside, Twitter is like the dumbest thing you’ve heard of: “Why would anyone want to tell others what they are doing in 140 characters?”

The remainder of  the guide then goes on to make a powerful case for why we shouldn’t dismiss Twitter out of hand by demonstrating its application in the field of education. The Twitter Handbook for Teachers, created by Tomaz Lasic (Twitter: @lasic),  is a good read – and a useful introductory manual – whether you end up ‘tweeting’ by the end of it or not.

Sam Anderson, college lecturer and course tutor, runs adult returner classes for blind and partially sighted students at Borders College. In the past Sam introduced new students to the screen reading program JAWS. However, many of his students, particularly those who were new to computing, found the screen reading program difficult to learn, particularly when they were also learning new applications such as word processing, email and learning to surf the web.

Sam set about looking for an easy-to-use program that would encapsulate screen reading, word processing, email and internet access. After exploring various software solutions he eventually came across a software program which offered all the features his students needed.

Guide can magnify text and images, has a crystal clear voice and above all, is very easy to use.

The following case studies provide an insight into how the new software has enabled his students to access the curriculum – an excellent example of how assistive technology is used to promote inclusive e-learning.

Sam Anderson explains how Guide has helped his students

Read the transcript

Jason’s story

Read the transcript

Karen’s story

Read the transcript

Olive’s story

Read the transcript

SortFix is a search engine that assists the end user in structuring a search by suggesting additional keywords (or ‘power words’) for inclusion or exclusion.

Once an initial search has been carried out, SortFix presents a number of additional terms that can be added to or removed from a search by dragging and dropping the words into corresponding boxes. The interface demonstrates how it is possible to retrieve more relevant results by structuring your search effectively.

An interesting piece from JISClegal. A recent UK survey shows the majority of people have little or no knowledge of what is legal when it comes to copyright issues. Three out of four people asked, aged 15 and above, are unaware of what is allowed within the law for copying or recording, particularly when using audio and visual technologies. Colleges and universities cannot take for granted that new students and staff are clear on what they can and cannot do regarding copyright materials and clearly there is a need to provide guidance for users and consumers.

Click here to see the full survey report from Consumer Focus.

Click here to watch some of the survey responses.

JISC invites institutions to submit funding proposals for projects that will demonstrate good practice in access to resources for external parties (Strand 1) and open innovation (Strand II), as part of its Business and Community Engagement Programme.

Strand 1 – Access to Resources

Demonstrator projects of locally-based and collaborative integrated service models, which will provide information and knowledge services to external business and community parties.

Total funds: £450,000. Up to 5 projects will be funded. Maximum funding for any one project is £100,000.

Strand II – Open Innovation

Pilot projects in online open innovation, which will open up institutional ideas and services for co-development with collaborating business and community external user groups.

Total funds: £350,000. Up to 4 projects will be funded. Maximum funding for any one project is £100,000.

The call has a dual purpose to:

• enhance the institutional role in facilitating and generating innovation, by exploiting online media and extending institutions’ business and community engagement services through innovative partnership and collaborative models.
• improve access to information and knowledge resources, and development opportunities, for external parties.

Timescale: Projects in both strands should start by the end of June 2010 and run for 12 months.

Deadline for Proposals: 12 noon UK time on 19 April 2010.

Click here for more details and documentation.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest report is the latest piece of research in a series which we’ve followed closely here on NewsFeed since the early days. Based on survey of nearly 900 US Internet users the report reveals fascinating new perspectives on the way the Internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered. According to the respondents, Google won’t make us stupid (as some critics have claimed) nor will it damage our reading or writing skills – exactly the contrary. Click here to view the full report.