Cleverbot: talk to an intelligent bot
"Cleverbot is Artificial Intelligence. Say whatever you like - songs, jokes, memes or anything, and it will respond. It learns what people say, in context, and imitates. Cleverbot is an entertainment - not made to be logical, give advice, or be useful. Many people keep talking for hours, and say it's too clever to be a bot - that it must be human. Yet it never is: it is a bot. Cleverbot is software. Maybe it even contains a little Actual Intelligence."
(Rollo Carpenter, Icogno Ltd.)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Scrum and Extreme Programming: User Stories
"User stories are one of the primary development artifacts for Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) project teams. A user story is a very high-level definition of a requirement, containing just enough information so that the developers can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it."
(Scott W. Ambler, 2009)
Fig.1 User story card (informal, high level).
Fig.2 User story card (formal, high level).
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network
"Institutions, teachers, and learners are increasingly turning to the open architecture and customizability of the web. In doing so, they are leveraging the tools and resources of the larger PLE to create their own personal learning networks (PLNs) to manage information, create content, and connect with others. Whether termed PLEs or PLNs, these approaches 'represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize.' Scott Leslie's impressive collection of PLE diagrams reminds us that PLNs are infinitely configurable to meet individual needs and preferences. They are, after all, 'personal.'
The vision of individually constructed PLNs and their potential to transform learning extends beyond merely aggregating and using a smorgasbord of web-based tools and content. Gardner Campbell advocated the cultivation of 'personal cyberinfrastructures' that teachers and learners can leverage to become the 'system administrators of their own digital lives.' Instead of implementing tools that simply help instructors 'manage learning,' Campbell argued that we should embrace technologies that enable co-learners to frame, curate, share, and direct learning 'engagement streams.' John Seely Brown and Richard Adler argued that learning with Web 2.0 tools is so different that we ought to call it 'learning 2.0.' They asserted that, unlike old passive forms of learning, the new learner-centric paradigm (facilitated and reinforced by new tools) emphasizes participation over presentation, encourages focused conversation over traditional publication, and 'facilitates innovative explorations, experimentations, and purposeful tinkerings that often form the basis of a situated understanding emerging from action, not passivity.' The net result is an 'open participatory learning ecosystem.'"
(Jonathan Mott, 2010)
Mott, J. (2010). 'Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network.' Educause Quarterly 33(1).
Fig.1 Vahid Masrour 'synthetic view of what a PLN/E is, and what it enables'.
Fig.2 Scott Leslie 'collection of PLE diagrams'.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
E-learning 2.0: content is used rather than read and resembles language or conversation rather than a book or a manual
"What happens when online learning software ceases to be a type of content-consumption tool, where learning is 'delivered,' and becomes more like a content-authoring tool, where learning is created? The model of e-learning as being a type of content, produced by publishers, organized and structured into courses, and consumed by students, is turned on its head. Insofar as there is content, it is used rather than read- and is, in any case, more likely to be produced by students than courseware authors. And insofar as there is structure, it is more likely to resemble a language or a conversation rather than a book or a manual.
The e-learning application, therefore, begins to look very much like a blogging tool. It represents one node in a web of content, connected to other nodes and content creation services used by other students. It becomes, not an institutional or corporate application, but a personal learning center, where content is reused and remixed according to the student's own needs and interests. It becomes, indeed, not a single application, but a collection of interoperating applications-an environment rather than a system.
It also begins to look like a personal portfolio tool. The idea here is that students will have their own personal place to create and showcase their own work. Some e-portfolio applications, such as ELGG, have already been created. IMS Global as put together an e-portfolio specification. 'The portfolio can provide an opportunity to demonstrate one's ability to collect, organize, interpret and reflect on documents and sources of information. It is also a tool for continuing professional development, encouraging individuals to take responsibility for and demonstrate the results of their own learning'."
(Stephen Downes, 17 October 2005)
Fig.1 Andrey Nepomnyaschev, 'Six Seconds', LooksLikeGoodDesign.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
