It's an old person's game apparently!

So AOL - Time Warner have bought Bebo in an attempt to get in on the social neworking act. Not THAT much money(£417 million-ish) and I'm sure they know what they are doing! I'm quite sure they have done their sums and know what they are about - with 40 million subscribers there are lots of users out there and time will tell if they have backed the right horse. Will Bebo remain popular with notoriously fickly kids who wouldn't feel they have any particular brand loyalty if something cooler came along...

Anyway, I heard an interesting statistic on BBC Five Live as I was driving home this evening - during an interview with a web analyst bloke from an organisation whose name I forget. He said that there are almost double the number of over 50s online as under 18s. This seemed a remarkable figure, and it certainly took me by surprise! There must definitely be an opportunity for someone to come up with that killer app for the silver surfers out there!

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Dr Richard Schwier, Informal Learning and My Web

Way way behind in commenting on the goings on in eci831, but it's been another busy week. This past week I have listened to MP3s of George Siemens ' session on Connectivism, and Richard Schwier 's session on Learning Communities. I also watched the Elluminate recording of Sue Waters ' session on Educational Blogging where she posed the question " what are your thoughts on educational blogging? ". There has been lots of food for thought from all 3 sessions and it's very difficult to summarise where I am with it all. A few key points would be: - I'm a lurker, but hopefully not a loafer - I DO feel engaged, with the learning if not so much with my fellow learners - I'm a 'not for credit' student - what I'm involved in is definitely non-formal learning with the odd informal moment along the way. - I feel connected to the course and the social element is something I am conscious of and engaged with on the periphery. I wish I was more engage...

Words, words, words...

A couple of items in the media caught my attention and started me thinking about the strange beast that is the English language. Firstly, there was an interview on Radio 5 Live with two people in Corby in connection with the story about birth defects and the link with toxic waste . During the course of the interview both interviewees either used a word incorrectly or made up a word. In both cases, on first hearing, it was almost possible to believe that the words were correct, but something jarred and the errors made me laugh and despair at the same time. In the first instance, the interviewee said that "the council was clearly negligible " in their dealings with the toxic waste. In the second instance, a few seconds later a second interviewee said that "the ruling showed that there had clearly been neglection on the part of the council...". I assume that the first interviewee meant to say negligent and the second neglect, but the two mistakes started me thin...

Social Media and Open Education - getting started...

So, I signed up for a Social Media and Open Education course (EC&I 831) as a non-credit student. The course is being run by Alec Couros from the University of Regina in Saskatchewan (which always makes me think of the Proclaimers song "Cap in Hand"), but that was a several weeks ago. Since then, I have, for various reasons, done nothing... Now, I'm catching up! Easy stuff: Follow all the people from the course who are following me, and follow a few extras. I didn't opt to follow everyone - not sure why not, but I imagine it's because I just felt slightly intimidated by the sheer numbers of them. I'm sure I'll add a few more over the duration of the course as I get to see who's doing what and who has interesting things to say. Mind you, if others use the same criteria, I'm not sure I'll generate many new followers! Sort out Twitterdeck - new Twitter column for course related activity. This should help me to keep track of what people are...

Shifting Expectations

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