What on earth has happened to Google Reader?

Tēnā koutou katoa

Greetings to you all

I'm normally quite careful to keep up to date with things that appear in my Google Reader.

But lately I've found it to be a blogger's nightmare!

Only yesterday I noticed that some sites I checked regularly simply didn't appear in the list (I have about 90 listed blogs).

Then I spotted a bubble that obscured part of the screen telling me something about Reader and my blog roll - something to do with items on my blog roll being not listed in my subscriptions, or whatever.

I didn't bother about this, probably because I was viewing Reader on another computer and got distracted, so I decided to ignore it.

But no, I found that this was indeed what was happening. And by a process that seemed to take place over 24 hours, most of my blog roll items were removed from the listed sites in Reader. During this time I made several attempts at opening manage subscriptions but to no avail. Some perfunctory checks on different browsers confirmed that it wasn't anything to do with Firefox or IE.

This morning I found that manage subscriptions was working again and to my relief, all my subscriptions were listed there. So I dashed back to Reader home page and refreshed it, only to discover that, yes, it listed most sites that were NOT on my blog roll. Even my own blog site, that I had subscribed to when first built, was not on the list!

I thought I had been shown something fantastic when Michele Martin first explained how Reader worked - I had. I could check to see what new posts had arrived from all my favourite blog sites and tell at a glance how many of each there were. But now when I read the new posts in a site it disappears from the list.

What use is that?

Well, it appears that Reader will list those sites that have posts not yet read. Any sites not appearing in Reader's list are those that have been read up to date with no unread new posts.

Phew!

I thought I was going mad!


(Update 3/08/08) As you can read from the discussion below, Angela prompted me to do a bit of playing about. The solution is simple. Under Add subscription in the left panel in Reader is a toggle option that I had obviously clicked by mistake. It threw Reader into the mode described above - I've toggled it back now:

Ka kite anō

Catch ya later

NetSafe Conference 2008 - July 28 - 30

Lake Wakatipu - Queenstown, New Zealand

The NetSafe Conference 2008 got off to a fine start (Rydges Lakeland Resort) with a wide range of keynote speakers and presenters from all over the Globe. Now at the close of Day Two I have a clearer view of the issues.

All speakers certainly know their stuff and I am impressed with their commitment to the issues. Among the most energetic of them all was Jeffrey Cole with his keynote on general aspects of the development of the Internet, ' What Are We Really Talking About?'. Points from his presentation are:

Dial-up as a barrier to logging on to the Internet so the advent of Broadband was a major accelerator in the promotion of the use of the Internet.

Web 3.0 on the horizon and will be with us in 5 to 8 years - his vision of Web 3.0 is where there will be a truly free platform for the flow of information.

Newspapers (apart from their odious reputation for a large carbon footprint) will disappear in 20 - 25 years.

Teenage use of the web and related technologies were key players in changing the emphasis of the use of social networking service tools simply because of the age groups already using some of them.

Cole sees the film industry being diminished by TV (and is already suffering because of it) but that TV will be diminished through the preferential use of the Internet.

Other general themes I picked up from the Conference:

• specific issues to do with cyber-safety are not widely reflected in the content of the education curriculums in western countries and in some are not even mentioned as such.
  
  
• in one prominent university in New Zealand the topic of ICT (including issues to do with cyber- safety) was only an option in teacher education courses - a point that made me think of the implications of this for future teachers who will be educating our lifelong learners.

I haven't stopped thinking about both these last points for they seem to be cornerstones to an important means to assisting to address the issues from the teacher/school point of view. It was significant that when I raised the matter of the weight of these issues on two separate occasions, there was strong general agreement about the importance of them.

When I put a motion (and I put it on two separate occasions at different forums) that a recommendation should come from the Conference, there appeared to be a reluctance from the NetSafe facilitators to follow this through (nevertheless, I confirmed this morning 30/07/08 that NetSafe had approached representative from the Ministry of Education of New Zealand about the matter of curriculum content - good on them!)

I'm off to dinner. More to come tomorrow.

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Antics with Google Analytics on my 50th

Courtesy Google Analytics

I’ve been having fun with Google Analytics recently. I have to say that at first sight the software all looks very impressive. Not being a statistician, however, I take everything with a chunk of salt. My head spins, not with the data so much as with the implications of the results. I suspect that much of what I’ve gathered isn’t too useful, considering GA has been running on my site for only 10 days, I’m new to blogging anyway and this is only my 50^th post – but who knows?

Some numbers that may show a few home truths are visits according to locality. Of all the 140 visits since recording started on 16 July, 67 of them were from my home town of Middle-earth. Next is the whole of USA with 32 visitors.

I suspect that data to do with Middle-earth could well be skewed for a raft of different reasons. I’m strongly tempted to discount those as useful indicators, at least for the time being. Ten days isn’t a long enough time to collect data that’s likely to be useful.

Firefox clearly ahead

What is probably more valid, but less useful to me as a blogger, is the Technical Profile on browsers, which shows clearly that Firefox is head and shoulders above its rivals. I suspect that this statistical ratio is similar to results gathered at other locations and is more or less universal rather than blog site specific.


I’m off to Queenstown for three days (dig the scenery on the link!), to the NetSafe Conference with a view to genning up on all that’s new in the field of cyber-citizenship. I’ll try and keep you posted.

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No Barriers to Elearning

Barriers to learning are problems that have been in and out of the spotlight in education since before the beginning of this century. There's nothing new about these barriers. Frustrating reassessments of them are revisited regularly. In a selection of featured sites [1], [2], [3] on barriers to learning, there is a universal lack of reference to elearning. It is almost as if the nonappearance of any specific reference to that mode of learning is a silent acknowledgement that there are no barriers within it.

Any thought that elearning can provide a way through the charted and well known barriers to learning should be immediately applauded as showing insight and genuine vision. It's a wonderful way to look at things, it's the height of optimism and such confidence has to be admired. Anyone who suggests that elearning could be anything other than the true way to go about learning deserves the name Carmudgeon.

There are many barriers to elearning that appear to be ignored, however, often by the authorities purporting to address barriers to learning. Obvious and common barriers are to do with lack of online capability, poor or lack of accessibility to a computer or the unavailability of necessary software. These very real situations often appear to be overlooked when programmes of learning are planned for distance-learners.

Add to cart

Elearning presents a whole range of new blocks that can be added to those barriers already in the cart. Most were previously identified as significant well before the advent of the present elearning drive. Barriers introduced by the hardware and software of the electronic interface between student and learning material have been acknowledged and recorded since online course delivery began. The advent of learning resources based exclusively on electronic means, or that require the use of electronic agencies, simply provide a new set of barriers to student learning.

If this is to be believed, then why is it that so many proponents of the method claim that elearning is the best thing to happen to education since sliced bread? Clearly there must be shades of grey. There must be learning topics that just seem to be made for elearning.

Animation a saviour

There is no doubt, and it has been proved, that animated diagrams are a saviour to learners in Biology, Physics, Chemical Thermodynamics and a whole raft of other heady topics where student access to understanding difficult concepts can be opened in ways that were not possible before. It has been shown that online communities really do work when it comes to putting learning through networking on the map. Do I believe there is a place for elearning? You bet I do, but . . .

Many learners who can write well are often at the seek-and-pick with one finger stage for a significant time during the initial stages when studying with a computer. Achieving proficiency in this often represents one necessary and extra step that must occur before topic learning begins. For many, unfortunately, it also represents a major barrier. It means that the aims associated with the programme of learning may not be achieved through that means. Digital participation that is free from significant obstacles relies so much on keyboard expertise, yet many students who frequently use the keyboard cannot touch-type.

Barrier to communication

The keyboard also presents a real barrier to student communication in special subject areas like Chemistry and Mathematics. Likewise in language learning, such as in Chinese and Japanese, as well as many other areas of learning, it is either impossible or extremely difficult to use the keyboard to write script or complex expressions and formulae. In many instances, one of the accompanying skills the student has to acquire is the use of a pen, for which the keyboard provides no easy substitute.

The interface and required associated technical skills

Learning management systems require a level of technical competency that is not possessed by a significant proportion of learners. Depending on the requests from the teacher, a student may have to perform a range of technical activities, from optimising an electronic file transferred from a digital camera or photo scanner, to depositing a data file in a 'digital drop box'. All of the individual tasks may seem simple enough. But it is rare that students can get through a day of learning without performing several combinations of technical tasks to do with the receipt, processing and return of their study assignments. Many students, especially the younger ones, are dependent on the competency and guidance of a parent, caregiver or supervisor to accomplish these.

Barriers in resource design

The design of elearning resources is extremely important, but it must be one that is suited to learning and not simply a design that's emerged from the craft of making the screen look good. Gina Minks has already highlighted the need for good design of Web 2.0 tools.

Many of the qualities of good page design for educational print resources apply equally well to an elearning context. There is need for designers to discard the myth that text is a necessary evil, for the place of text in educational resources is as important today as it ever was. Relegating text to the background, a practice used by many Web 1.0 developers at the turn of the century, is simply not smart if the environment is to be of any use to learners. Paradigm shifts in elearning resource design should neither eschew the fundamental principles of good pedagogy, nor should they deny the need for necessary content, or iterative skills practice.

Barriers to assessment

While the move to elearning is undoubtedly innovative in what it affords the learner, acquisition of elearning techniques are not necessarily helpful when it comes to assessment. Nearly all examinations require the student to read questions from the printed page and write their answers with a pen. The exclusive use of the screen and keyboard simply does not provide the necessary experience for a student to be adequately prepared for those assessments. What's more, skills that the student eventually acquires in using screen and keyboard are not universally useful for the entry of assessable material.

Clearly there's a long way to go for elearning to become the A B C of learning for many of our students.

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5 explanations of a Zen proverb

1

I had a Mathematics teacher who could not control the behaviour of her year 10 class. Sometimes she despaired and was close to the brink of tears as we were so inattentive, noisy and often quite rude.

One day when my form teacher sent me on an errand, I happened to visit her classroom. I was struck by the participation of her senior class during the lesson. Her students were respectful and behaved in a way conducive to learning. I’ve never forgotten the experience of witnessing this. It wasn’t until I became a teacher that I understood more fully that learning, as a class, was necessarily complicitous.

When I was next in her class, I sat quietly and listened as best I could through the noise of my classmates. She had been there all along, but only when I was ready to recognise her as my teacher was I able to learn. Some teachers “appear ordinary in every way, yet can turn out to be great teachers.” - Jean-Claude Gerard Koven

2

Many years ago I had an accident when driving to work on my newly acquired motor-scooter. I was two lanes out on the main road into Edinburgh when a van pulled away from a standing start right into my path. Not being too skilled with the scooter, I attempted to brake but the bike simply skidded from under me. Of course, I didn't realise emergency stops don't work on two wheels.

There I was, travelling in mid-air at 55 km/hr. I knew instinctively what to do. I walked away from that accident without a scratch, and there were several reasons for this.

One was that I was very lucky. Another that I was wearing a hard helmet, which incidentally was ruined in the accident. I also had on several layers of clothing including two pairs of trousers and leggings and two woollen jerseys. I wore boots, thick leather gloves, an overcoat as well as a thick vinyl garment, known as a Wimpy jacket. I needed the layers simply because I'd have frozen travelling in the icy winter air.

But I’d also remembered something that I’d learnt some five or more years before in the gymnasium at school. It was to do with balance and body position. I was no gymnast, but rolling myself into a ball was something I'd found I could do, and particularly well.

“It seems that we learn lessons when we least expect them but always when we need them the most, and, the true gift in these lessons always lies in the learning process itself.” - Cathy Lee Crosby

3

Not long after I began teaching in Wellington, part of my job was to assist Science teachers who had difficulty with the subject matter they were asked to teach. There was a shortage of Science teachers then. Teachers who were skilled in other fields had been recruited to teach Science. A common difficulty they had was in teaching students how to balance chemical equations - a tricky topic even for a trained Science teacher.

It didn’t take me long to find the main cause of their problem. Lessons were being given without recourse to suitable scaffolding. Students need knowledge about chemical symbols, of valency and a sound understanding of how to write correct chemical formulae before they have any chance of understanding how to balance a chemical equation. It is the last step in a traditional learning unit in Chemistry. Even bright students can’t cope with that step unless they have been introduced to and practiced preliminary steps that are fundamental scaffolding.

When they were ready, most students found that the last step was not so difficult and some could balance chemical equations better than their teachers! It confirmed that, "whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps." - Saul Bellow.

4

While I was an undergraduate, one of my student friends came to me in distress. George had just learnt he was supposed to have taken a language - study that was usually completed prior to the final year. But he had omitted to enroll and had to take a language course in his final year while coping with the study of his honours subjects. George was beginning to panic.

I suggested that he should visit the new language laboratory and choose a language that he liked listening to. He took my advice, but was again in despair when, having listened to several languages, he found he didn't like any. He approached the tutor and asked what to do. “Have you tried Russian?” was the reply. George hadn't, but he didn't like the idea of learning Russian, which was why he hadn't heard it. The tutor persuaded him to listen and George was astonished.

“Are you sure this is Russian?” he asked. “It sounds like Polish!” The tutor explained that the Russian language was very similar to Polish. Lucky for George, his parents were both Polish and spoke the language at home. George could speak fluent Polish. The examination required a written translation from Russian script into English. Being a language with sounds that adhered strictly to its phonetic alphabet, all George had to do was learn the alphabet. He was then able to read a Russian script and translate the sounds into Polish, then directly into English.

He passed his end of year language examination with top marks. He’d also discovered serendipitously that in learning, “you cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.” - Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

5

Every good teacher thinks well of the student who asks a question. The role of tutoring, so often claimed to be the action of the teacher, is owned by the student who enquires. Asking the question from within – curiosity - followed by attempting to find its answer, sets in motion mechanisms important to learning.

It all depends on how fierce the student’s desire is to want to know. “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” - Clay P. Bedford.


And the proverb . . . ?

When the student is ready, the master appears.