What's a MOOC?

I was asked this week: “what’s a MOOC?” by someone who probably should have known by now what a MOOC is. As a professional, I refrained from this behaviour: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5SQQnl4ZJg&feature=youtu.be]   If you’re after a description, a look at this video (under 5 mins) gives an overview – albeit from 2010. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW3gMGqcZQc]   And more…

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How to imagine the future

At a work meeting today we had an exciting chance to see the emerging ideas for our University’s new library extension. These were presented by the architects who did a great presentation – very refined and to the point, and without too much “architectese”. They then turned the tables and set a workshop session for…

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e-Textbooks

A quick note on e-textbooks following up on a tweet this morning. Site: http://www.kno.com/homeOnly available to students with a .edu account at the moment (I think that was how Facebook got started). A simple sell: lighter, cheaper, and even easier. Cheesy videos on their homepage… More about them on this AllThingsD article: Kno Taking Electronic…

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What happens when Google starts offering degree courses?

Google are getting into selling music: BBC News – Google unveils Android-based online music store, which will presumably, over time, start to threaten the dominance of Apple and iTunes. It will be interesting to watch how this market develops… Arguably Apple’s renaissance owes much to the iPod, iTunes, and the associated stash of credit card details that Apple…

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The Wonderful World of HTML5

      A picture is worth a thousand words…   Via: HTMLGoodies HTML5 Development Center via The Wonderful World of HTML5.

Does ‘uni app’ usage spike in the evening?

Analysis from Flurry suggests that mobile app usage is active all day, and spikes in ‘prime time’ – i.e. between 7pm and 11pm. How does this affect students? Many universities have created or purchased a ‘uni app’ which provides portal-like information and links. It’s not clear to me whether these apps actually provide long-term benefit to students…

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BBC Online showing they’re good at change

When the BBC changes its homepage its likely that quite a few people will notice: they have over 9 million unique browser views per week. So they do it carefully… with a lot of explanation and a beta launch. In the blog they talk about enabling serendipitous discovery, with a link to a talk from…

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Data visualisation as a storytelling medium

Visualisation has been around for ages – we all learnt how to do pie charts at school for example… but the current trend of making data open – led largely by the public sector – with large data sets becoming available, combined with the emergence of free and easy to use technical tools, are creating…

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Should you use (sometimes) use Comic Sans?

Fabulous piece in the SitePoint Design View newsletter today. Comic Sans is the font that we all hate – right? And yet it won’t die. No school web site or newsletter is fit for purpose without it. It’s used a lot by a lot of people in a lot of places. I trained (years ago)…

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