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RoBloggersSurvey2008

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Rezultate RoBloggersSurvey2007

TPark - sistem de parcare prin mobil

eLiberatica - The Benefits of Open and Free Technologies Conference 2008

Proiectul  Zestre pentru Europa – Capsula Timpului

eLearningBlog este blogul lunii august la jurnalismonline.ro

Castigator la categoria Cel mai informativ blog
marker Pe bloguri despre bloguri

Juriu roblogfest 2008

JobShop Timisoara

eLearningBlog

ReadBurner and Shared Reader - or new ways to find popular news; Google Reader and Bloglines - possible new facilities
01/19/08

ReadBurner Shared Reader

Two new tools, ReadBurner and Shared Reader, show the items shared on Google Reader by the most numerous users.

via louisgray.com - Shared Reader Latest to Take on Google Reader Shared Item Rankings

The shared items lists of those users are displayed also, similar with the collections of those who saved a particular resource at  del.icio.us. We can speak here about loosly coupled online communities who share domains of interest.

ReadBurner offers language filter, while Shared Reader publishes tops for shared lists and for the sources of the shared items. 

These new tools are interesting because you can find in real-time news / information, which are appreciated by many users.

I would say that because the tools process the lists added by users to their databases, the results are not very relevant. 

I pressume it's possible that Google Reader will provide soon the facility of displaying the items shared by the most numerous users, also tops of the sites / blogs with the most numerous subscribers using Google Reader / iGoogle.

Google Reader could publish for each RSS feed, together with the subscribers number and the posting frequency ( which exist now ), the medium number of users who share items from that RSS per item. For this blog this could be as below:

propunere Google Reader

Share items of Google Reader is similar with Clip / Blog This at Bloglines, which could also provide the top of the items saved by the most numerous users.

Here the information for an RSS feed could include not only the subscribers number, but also the citations number, the frequency and the medium number of Clip / Blog This per item. As example, for this blog:

propunere Bloglines

The maximum number of users who can share an item on Google Reader is equal with the subscribers number of that RSS feed. We can find this number at Google Reader / Discover / Search and Browse, providing the feed address.

Let's take the blog louisgray.com, which is monitored by 159 persons with Google Reader. For the note Shared Reader Latest to Take on Google Reader Shared Item Rankings, which was commented on 3 blogs and saved by 4 users at del.icio.us:

It would be interesting to be able to seach for a blog address on ReadBurner and Shared Reader ( or Google Reader ), and to display the items which were shared and the numbers of shares - this would be another metric for a blog visibility / notoriety. 

Similar Bloglines could provide for a blog address the number of items saved at Clip / Blog This.

One of the RomanianBloggers Survey conclusions was that Google Reader si Bloglines are the most popular aggregators.

Posted by Carmen at 02:45:23 pm into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Despre RSS, Notes in English


Despre OS, OER si eLearnTS in interviul din Checkpoint eLearning, cu o zi inainte de Software Freedom Day
09/14/07

Checkpoint eLearning

Elena-Andreea Liţă, Permanent Editor, Checkpoint eLearning, a avut amabilitatea de a-mi adresa cateva intrebari referitoare la utilizarea sistemelor Open Source, a resurselor educationale deschise in invatamantul romanesc si la deschiderea mediului eLearnTS de la Timsoft spre acestea.

Cu o zi inainte de Software Freedom Day, interviul a aparut sub titlul Open Source in Romanian Education in sectiunea European Projects - Interviews din Checkpoint eLearning, un cunoscut portal european de eLearning.

Timisoara (RO), September 2007 – (by Elena Lita) Open Source, a term proposed in 1998, refers to a set of principles and practices that promote the access to the process of planning and implementing various products and resources. The term is primarily used in relation to software. A wider term is FLOSS (or FOSS) - Free Libre Open Source Software. Carmen Holotescu, an instructor at the Automation and Computer Science Faculty - Politehnica University of Timisoara, the coordinator of the eLearning firm Timsoft, and the author of two eLearning guides speaks about the use of Open Source in Education.

1. Why should OS be used for educational purposes?

Carmen Holotescu: The main benefits of open source software as concluded by UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning are adaptable functionality, lower overall costs, vendor independence (increases choice, competition and transparency), adherence to open standards, the software’s position as a public good, interoperability, and security.

The recommendations of the EU for educational policies are to avoid lifelong vendor lock-in in educational systems by teaching students skills rather than specific applications and by encouraging participation in FLOSS-like communities. This adds value to the skills learnt by students, such as a positive attitude towards information technology that favours the ability to create and actively participate and collaborate rather than just consume.

In Romania, the interest and the use of open source software by teachers, pupils, and students is very important, but most initiatives are personal. Many Linux and LAMP users are active in user groups, building online communities with online support and discussions forums, but also with periodic face-to-face meetings. Romanian Linux distributions were developed by teams formed by young students.

A lot of workshops and conferences in which actors from educational system participate take place, such as Linux and Virtual Learning Environments at University Vasile Goldis Arad (, which has convened five times editions), Linux Open Alternative Days - LOAD , or the International Conference eLiberatica organized by Romanian Open Source Initiative.

2. Is OER a viable alternative at this moment?

Carmen Holotescu: Open source software is based on and uses open formats, and for this, it is used to create Open Educational Resources (OER). In Europe and worldwide, there many projects have been developed that deal with OER that are the subject of numerous debates, studies, policies, and educational priorities. The term Open Educational Resources was adopted at the UNESCO Forum in 2002, following the analysis of the impact that the Open Courseware projects have had on higher education.

The Open Educational Resources include materials (content) for teaching and learning: open courseware and open content projects, free courses, learning objects directories, and educational journals. The OER are generally characterised by the following attributes:

  • the access to open materials - open content - is free for educational institutions and individual users;
  • the content is licensed so that it may be reused or modified during educational activities; to this end, the content observes open standards and formats;
  • educational applications are open-source - the source is available, and it can be modified or adapted, or interfaces are made available - APIs - that enable the creation of new applications.

Information technologies make it possible for educators to access and exchange online resources. Until a few years ago, most of the materials created were protected, the authentification of the users’ identities being needed. Nowadays, most of the resources are created and posted freely on the Web using the collaborative systems available via Web 2.0. Just like the FLOSS enables the users to reuse or modify the software, the OER allow users to adapt the materials and systems to self-instructional and other learning environments.

But ultimately, the OER imply a fundamental change in the educational process, favouring the focus on the student.

3. Is there any connection between eLearnTS and the OS movement?

Carmen Holotescu: The eLearnTS is an online environment developed by Timsoft that can be configured for online courses, for training in companies, for online communities, or as a collaborative platform for distributed teams. In our company, we use it to deliver IT, management, training the eTrainers, online courses for universities, firms, or for individual learners, and as collaborative platforms for our European projects.

No matter what the subject of a course is, the learning community formed by the participants and the facilitator builds a pool of useful resources for future reflections, too: RSS feeds; blogs of the facilitator, participants, and other practitioners; wikis with topics related to the course; collections using collaborative bookmarking systems; and localization of other open resources.

The platform is based on open technologies - LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), and collaborative exercises realized by the participants frequently use Web 2.0 tools. We consider that each online course, each new learning experience in which somebody takes part, should be integrated into the continuous learning process in which the person is involved.

Posted by Carmen at 06:45:40 pm into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Open Source / Content, Notes in English


My proposals for ICT in Education in Knowledge Economy Project
08/17/07

-- see note --

ICT infrastructure

The number of computers, especially in the rural areas, should be increased at least at the value of the EU indicator of number of computers connected per 100 pupils: 11.3.

More computers should be located in classrooms, in libraries, in teachers rooms. 61% of EU25 schools provide computers in classrooms.

Investigate the possibility to provide to schools presentation toolkits consisting of ( wireless ) computer / laptop, projector and interactive whiteboard for be used in the classrooms.

The provision of other ICT equipments could be taken into account: whiteboards, laptops, printers, projectors, PDAs, scanners, digital video cameras.

Broadband access for schools should be provided - now 44% of Romanian schools are connected, while 67% in EU25.

Assure ICT support and maintenance: extend the possibility that schools sign contracts for ICT support or maintenance with professional ICT service providers.

Create a website for ICT support ( on MERY or MCTI websites ):

  • with tutorials,

  • FAQ ( both could be organized as wiki ),

  • live chat,

  • discussions forums,

  • online courses for administrators, technical staff, teachers who want to improve their knowledge,

  • presentation of free and open source solutions,

  • download area,

  • blogs of practitioners,

  • RSS feeds.

A methodology and a specific online integrated system are needed to the ongoing monito-ring and evaluation quantitative and qualitative of ICT use and impact in education ( ARACIP makes no references to the ICT evaluation and doesn't have an online system for evaluation ).

  • Such a methodology is needed to inform decision makers on whether to expand or modify a particular policy or programme and develop future actions.

  • The online system could offer the possibility to schools to evaluate the grade in which ICT is used and to suggest future steps.

  • The system to implement the European indicators and benchmarks [10], Romania has to report in EU and international programmes.

Open Source Software

Some specific actions related to open source software could be:
  • implement pilot programmes in schools to evaluate the using of OS

  • encourage the use of open source software in schools and in educational institutions for operating systems, applications, for virtual learning environments and content management systems, for open educational content development

  • the training programmes for teachers and administrators to contain open source solutions presentations and applications, not only proprietary solutions

  • teach pupils and students skills, not specific applications; the ICT and Technological Education manuals to present both proprietary and OS solutions

  • implement a dedicated website ( or an area on the Ministry's website ) which provides technical support, download area, best cases sharing, online communities for actors from education systems and other practitioners

  • organize ( be partner ) round tables, conferences related to open source software

  • equip schools with DVDs containing OS software and guides

  • partnership with organizations which activate in OS, with user groups.

Educational Content - OER, proprietary solutions, transparency, quality criteria

  • The educational content which already exists, mainly in AeL, should be used more intensive by teachers and students: connections with curricula, the skills they develop should be more clear; encourage and support the sharing of best practices - could be published on the MERY website, and aggregated from other sites, blogs of educators.

  • Partnership with European Schoolnet and eTwinning Schools and participation in projects related to OER, presented above. Schools to be informed and stimulated to participate. It seems that in the autumn Romania will be a partner in the eTwinning programme, with ISE as the national coordinator ( update: in October 1st, Romania has become partner ). Also the possible partnership with Romania appears in European Schoolnet - Work Programme 2007 [20].

  • Create a repository with the educational projects in which Romanian schools and educational organizations have participated, such as Leonardo, Socrates, eContent programmes: trained human resources, gained experience and skills, produced materials could be used, projects could be continued or new ones could be started.

  • Partnership with publishers, broadcasters, libraries, cultural institutions to provide access to their own resources.

  • Implement an online system for collaborative production of open educational resources by teachers and students, based on Web2.0 collaborative technologies. OER can make a valuable contribution to a diversified supply of learning resources, supporting methodological diversity, and promoting the individualization of the learning process:

  • content organized by tags, specifying target groups, disciplines, skills, types of activities in which to be used; define quality criteria; possibility for peer review, user comments and ratings, best practices sharing. It is not necessary that the resource to be created and uploaded on this platform, but it is possible that a link to a resource elsewhere created by user is shared, and then validated with the other users

  • collaborative tools to create materials; templates could be provided

  • community - users profiles could include interests, name, location, skills, inte-rests specified and searched by tags; users to be able to work together for produ-cing educational materials, communicating in discussions forums, and using the collaborative tools; support also for blogs, wikis, RSS feeds

  • training - self-paced tutorials, but also online courses could be organized for teachers and students on this platform.

  • In general, the teachers training programmes should contain topics related to OER, new licenses and tools to create educational materials in a collaborative manner.

  • Encourage a competitive market for educational resources production, guarantee transparency of supply and equal opportunities to market actors.

Define a set of quality criteria:

  • pedagogic principles:effective learning and teaching, the focus from presenting content to engaging learners in productive learning activities. assessment, improve practical and cognitive skills

  • design principles: resource design, accessibility, interoperability.

An online system to evaluate the educational software with a database of suppliers could be implemented.

  • A central portal can be created to provide the connections with all the categories of resources above.

Collaboration and Sharing - Web2.0 technologies

  • Inform, train, and encourage the teachers and pupils to use Web2.0 technologies: RSS, blogs, podcasts, wikis, collaborative bookmark systems, social networks.

  • Topics such as online plagiarism, new licenses, online security should be discussed with pupils.

  • The educational websites should offer information related to these issues.

  • Provide RSS feeds for all the educational sites developed, for better monitoring by possible users.

  • Promote blogs written by innovators in education.

  • Offer hosting service for educational blogs and wikis, using open source solutions.

  • Encourage and support schools and other educational institutions to use virtual environments for learning and collaboration based on these solutions.

Personalisation of Learning - Virtual Learning Environments, eAssessment, ePortfolios

Start with a pilot program to investigate the impact on education of a 21th century open school, having an integrated online platform, based on open source solutions and open source resources and practices:

  • spaces for communities of learning and interest dynamically created

  • traditional courses supported by a virtual environment with online resources and discussions, being accessible from anywhere, anytime, from home too, open also to parents to monitor their children's progress

  • online tool to assess pupils knowledge and skills, and to provide online guidance and materials for development

  • support for pupils ePorfolios which will be ongoing developed during their lifelong learning; learners set up and develop their own ePortfolio for documenting and reflecting on the progress and results of their study work

  • school online resources accessible to the community

  • online projects collaboratively developed with other schools

  • blogs, wikis to share experience.

Teachers Training - flexibility, online courses, new technologies

  • The standard for ICT skills for teachers to take into account the new skills recommended by EC, required to collaborate, to share practice, to use the new technologies, to moderate online environments.

  • Encourage a competitive market for training programmes, guarantee transparency of supply and equal opportunities to market actors.

  • During the training programmes, teachers should be able to know and practice new collaborative and communication technologies.

  • The training programmes for teachers to contain open source solutions presentations and applications, not only proprietary solutions; also OER, new licenses, tools to collaboratively create educational materials.

  • The possibility to acreditate online courses would assure flexible in-service training, assuring the tailoring to the specific needs, and would give examples of good practices

  • Competences developed via formal, informal and non-formal to be recognized, as recommended by EC.

  • Implement an online system to assess teachers ICT competencies and to offer guidance for future development.

  • Peer mentoring and collaboration in online communities - with online tutorials and guides, case studies, discussions - assure experience sharing, learning from the others experience.

  • Encourage the use of blogs, wikis to share experience and to continuously learning.

  • Train e-trainers, use the experience of organizations which activate in this domain, in Leonardo, Socrates, and Grundtvig programmes too.

Posted by Carmen at 08:59:39 pm into the following categories: Cursuri online, Bloguri in Educatie, eLearning in scoli/facultati, Notes in English


Celebrating BlogDay
08/31/06

Please consider each blog in the Romanian Collection ( over 600 ) as a recommendation for 3108 This!..

The BlogDay rules specify that the recommended blogs should be new, different from the own culture, point of view and attitude.

It's hard to select only five, but here's an attempt.

I've recently discovered the following 6 (!) blogs written by BlogHers, and I'm sure you will appreciate them too:

  • Public Policy Watch - my own interests are in urban, education, and economic development policies; the focus will be on Republic of Moldova, since this is my current location; the 31th of August is the Romanian Language Day in Moldavia - please read Lucia's note on this topic.
  • Mihaela Berneaga - words about branding, publicity, PR, journalism
  • Marketing, Communication and PR - comments, case studies
  • elf of Bucharest - irony on two feet, with a dash of romanticism. Bitter-sweet, with a good sense of humour
  •  eFashion Blog - beauty is in the eye of the beholder
  • Lidia's Weblog - a Sofware Engineer

How do you find my proposal?

Don't forget to browse the blogs recommended by the other participants in BlogDay at Technorati Tag ( RSS ).

You still have time to join us for this celebration!

see the rules ( ro )

Posted by Carmen at 02:01:38 am into the following categories: Evenimente, Notes in English, Blogosfera romaneasca


Book Meme 123.5 - Find what the others read
02/19/06

Book Meme: 123.5

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don?t search around and look for the ?coolest? book you can find. Do what?s actually next to you.

Via Catherine Howell - educause.edu

The nearest book is:

Learning Design - Rob Koper, Colin Tattersall, Springer: "MOT+, described above, provides a powerful graphical language which aims to provide learning designers with the tools which they require to define any structure which they may need."

Technorati Tag:

Posted by Carmen at 10:36:36 am into the following categories: Notes in English


The Seven Competencies of Online Interaction
02/12/06

Northern Voice 2006 Blogging Conference takes place now in Canada - via CogDogBlog.

Nancy White had a wonderful presentation about competencies of online interaction.

The seven competencies would be - yes, Nancy put the most important on the last position:

  • 2. Online Communications
  • 3. Learning with Others
  • 4. Facilitation for relationship, identity/reputation, presence, flow
  • 5. Intercultural Antennae
  • 6. Tolerance for Ambiguity
  • 7. Ability to switch contexts
  • 1. Finally, most important? Self-Awareness

Please see the echoes of Nancy's presentation - with BlogsBattle.

Update - and look, the competencies presented by Nancy are shown by herself in such a simple, concrete, but also surprising way for me: she already wrote two comments at my note telling that:

Thanks again, Nancy!

Gabriela announces us at Coniecto that she participates now in the Facilitating Online Workshop, organised by Full Circle; success, Gabriela, we are waiting for your stories.

Update: Technical Skills is the 8th in a later presentation.

Posted by Carmen at 12:21:32 pm into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Notes in English


Two blogs written by expats in Romania on Most influential expat blogs in Central Europe
01/11/06

Via Andy's blog - Csikszereda musings, I just found about two blogs written by expats who live and work in Romania, which appear on the 2nd and 5th positions of the top Most influential expat blogs in Central Europe.

The top is realised by the author of ExpatAnchor.net and it is based on the values of:

  • PageRank
  • Technorati links
  • Bloglines subscribers number
  • number of comments.

Congratulations to the authors of these blogs which are also listed at Collection of Romanian RSS - weblogs / foreigners weblogs:

Halfway down the Danube RSS i 6 39

Csikszereda musings RSS i 5 13

Following the i link you can find more information on the notoriety of these blogs. BlogsBattle gives you the same information on the other blogs at Most influential.

I kindly invite you to read the other blogs at Collection / foreigners weblogs:

Do you know some other blogs written by expats in Romania?

Posted by Carmen at 11:19:39 am into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Notes in English, Blogosfera romaneasca


Some principles of ( online ) learning
01/08/06

Five years ago, when I was trained to become Online Instructor for UMUC, one of the papers I have to study and to debate with my colleagues was the wonderful article Seven Principles of Good Teaching Practice written by Dr. James W. King from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The principles are listed below:

  1. Encourage Student- Faculty Contact
  2. Encourage Cooperation Among Students
  3. Encourage Active Learning
  4. Give Prompt Feedback
  5. Emphasize Time on Task
  6. Communicate High Expectations
  7. Respect Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning.

See new adaptations of these principles and a table with these principles for traditional and online instruction.

Since then I have read and have written a lot of articles on this topic.

Two days ago I found a very clear article at Xplanzine: Parables on Learning - The Basic Principles by Rob Reynols:

  1. Ask questions
  2. Collect wisdom
  3. Don?t compartmentalize
  4. Be free
  5. Promote good character
  6. Be open and clear
  7. Have fun
  8. See abundance
  9. Embrace community
  10. Be spiritual

--I will extend this note, explaining how I apply all these principles in my online courses;
just to find a little time for this--

Posted by Carmen at 01:39:29 pm into the following categories: Cursuri online, Notes in English


Using flickr and BubbleShare to create Educational Resources
01/06/06

Working on his book "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful Web Tools for classrooms", Will Richardson comes with an example of using annotated flickr photos.

Some visitors comment on their experiences.

I also use this tool in my online courses: here is an example for a Unix course, having an extended HTML description - which the examples above don't have, and also comments on the image and in the forum.

Learning Resource using flickr

Sometime ago I invited the Romanian teachers to join the flickr in Education group in order to learn/produce/share Educational Resources.

And a few days ago I presented the possibility of using BubbleShare: to an image/set of images you can add a voice presentation and the students can comment in a forum - so a new possibility of creating Educational Resources.

Subscribing to the RSS provided for each image - Learning Resource in our case - by both flickr and BubbleShare, the teacher/facilitator and the students can monitor the posted comments.

In august 2007: This note is cited on web20-instruction.wikispaces.com/Using+Flickr+for+Instruction, thanks.

Posted by Carmen at 10:26:57 am into the following categories: TaggingTools, Learning Objects, Notes in English


Grundtvig 3 Course - Open Distance Learning ? Teacher Training
12/15/05

The Grundtvig 3 Course - Open Distance Learning ? Teacher Training ( Reference Number: IT-2006-048 ) will be organized during 10 - 14 July 2006, in Urbino - Italy.

The objective of the course is to introduce the participants to considerations needed before successfully providing ODL. Focus will be on:

? the ideas and concepts of ODL
? pedagogy of ODL
? reusable Learning objects
? identifying and analysing needs and wishes
? looking at examples of best practice
? examining the components of ODL
? Evaluation, legal aspects and quality.

Participation fee:

1250 ? (all included: tuition, excursions, course materials, book, full-board). Only travel to and from Urbino is not included.

Registration and application for a grant:

If you want to apply for a grant it is essential to follow the following procedures:

1. Send an e-mail to training.2000@provincia.ps.it with your name, your function, your private address, the address of your institution and your fax number. Also give us a short description of your experience in ODL. You can do this by completing the form attached to this document and by sending by e-mail to training.2000@provincia.ps.it and / or by fax to +39 ? 0721-979988.

2. You will receive a statement from Kylene De Angelis (by fax and by post) if you have been accepted on the course (pre-inscription)

3. Request a grant application form from your national agency. You can find the address of your national agency on: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/nat-est_en.html

4. Send the application, together with the pre-inscription statement to your Socrates national agency.

5. Deadlines for submitting the grant application are flexible depending on the country: ask your national agency!

6. If you receive a grant from your National Agency, immediately notify the course organisers: training.2000@provincia.ps.it. You will then receive the final letter of acceptance.

The course organisers:

This course, organised by Training 2000, is the result of the Grundtvig 1 project ?IAML?? co-ordinated by the Het Gemeenschapsonderwijs (Belgium ? Flemish Community). The partners are: Provinciaal Onderwijs (Belgium); Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium); Odense Seminarium (Denmark); Training 2000(Italy); Universidade Aberta (Spain); Edinburgh University (United Kingdom); Pedagogick? Fakulta Ostravsk? Univerzity (Czech Republic); Eesti Taiskasvanute Koolitajate Assotsiatsioon Andras (Estonia).

More information:

Contact: Elmo De Angelis or Kylene De Angelis
Training 2000 snc
E-mail: www.training2000@provincia.ps.it
www.odlexpert.net

Posted by Carmen at 09:04:13 am into the following categories: eLearning in firme, LLL, eLearning in scoli/facultati, Notes in English


Some Resources for the ELF Project
11/28/05

Some Resources proposed for the partners in ELF Project - "E-Learning Facilitators: analyses of their different roles within different methodologies and approaches"; coordinator Universit? degli Studi di Napoli IT:

Facilitators Competencies

Glossary of e-Learning Terms

Courses Evaluation

Posted by Carmen at 08:32:22 am into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, eLearning in firme, LLL, Termeni eLearning, eLearning in scoli/facultati, Notes in English


Some Resources for the OBELFA Project
11/23/05

Some Resources proposed during the meeting in Ankara, for the partners in OBELFA Project:

1. eLearning Sites

2. Where to start with Blended Learning

Blended learning can be defined as the combination of multiple approaches to pedagogy or teaching. For example:- self-paced, collaborative or inquiry-based study. Further to this blended learning can be facilitated through the use of 'blended' virtual and physical resources. Examples include combinations of technology-based materials and traditional print materials.

Blended Learning is learning which combines online and face-to-face approaches. The following material resulted from an ANTA-funded project which set out to investigate.

3. Open Source Learning Management Systems - LMS

2 demo courses ? What is Open Source software?, Teacher's Hands-on Playground

LAMS is a revolutionary new tool for designing, managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities. These activities can include a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration.

Integrated wıth Moodle, Sakai, Blackboard, WebCT, .LRN, uPortal

4. Open Course Initiatives

5. On eLearning Standards

- free online courses: Creating Web Courses, An introduction to eLearning Standards

Posted by Carmen at 08:51:45 pm into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, eLearning in firme, LLL, Notes in English


Qualifications Transparency Resources
09/29/05

Qualifications Transparency refers to the visibility of certificates for vocational and other qualifications.

What it is:

  • Consists in the adoption of certification indicators or instruments that apply the principle of the 'transparency of certification'
  • Makes visible the information required for understanding the contents and characteristics regarding a vocational qualification;
  • Improves the spendability of vocational qualifications in the training systems and on the labour market in a perspective of a European education, training and labour-market context, thus fostering personal mobility.

From  NrpItalia : Qualifications Transparency

Some resources on Qualification Transparency in Europe:

:: Europass: for better transparency of qualifications and skills

:: NrpItalia : Qualifications Transparency:

:: ICT-Skills Cetifcation in Europe ( .pdf ) - Cedefop Report, 2004

:: documents on Qualification Transparency - TrainingVillage; ETV survey - transparency of qualifications, recognising and valuing learning seen as challenges for EU enlargement

:: Future Prospects in Romania: Scenarios for the Development of the Knowledge Society in Romania ( .pdf  ) - Effective Decisions  Report, 2005 - contains a reference to Timsoft eLearning products

:: Phare Programming Document for Economic and Social Cohesion, 2004-2006 ( .doc ), Government of Romania, Ministry of European Integration: "vocational training quality provision, the social partnership for CVT and ensuring the qualifications transparency system are priorities in Romania"

-- to be updated; resources for a Leonardo Project --

Posted by Carmen at 10:55:20 am into the following categories: eLearning in firme, LLL, Notes in English


Google Blog Search added to BlogsBattle Tool
09/17/05

The number of links returned by Google Blog Search and the corresponding RSS was added to the BlogsBattle tool - see tool presentation.

This value is a new useful criterion in appreciating the visibility / notoriety of a weblog / note in weblog ( or site / specific page in site ) and in comparing the visibility of two weblogs.

  • You can subscribe to the RSS provided by BlogsBattle for the visibility of each search
  • You can create a bookmarklet to find the visibility of the current page in browser.

Also the number of links returned by Google Blog Search appears for each weblog/RSS in Romanian Collection - see i for each item.

Let's examine the results offered by BlogsBattle for Google Blog Search: click Google Blog Search at BlogsBattle - www.timsoft.ro/ro/blogsbattle.php?url=http://blogsearch.google.com/.

It can be seen that the principals competitors give close results:

It is strange that Feedster, returns 0.

See also the values for the alternative address: www.timsoft.ro/ro/blogsbattle.php?url=http://www.google.com/blogsearch.

Comments are welcome.

Technorati Tag:

Posted by Carmen at 12:08:32 am into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Despre bloguri, Despre RSS, Search Tools, Notes in English, Blogosfera romaneasca


GIREP Seminar
09/07/05


I?m participating now in the 3rd Girep Seminar in Ljubljana.

It?s a good oportunity to present and to disseminate our work in SUPERCOMET2 project - see my article abstract "Online courses for teachers and pupils in SUPERCOMET2 Project"; 9 of the 15 partners in SUPERCOMET2 are here - so we have valuable meetings to establish the new steps.

Posted by Carmen at 04:34:10 pm into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Evenimente, Notes in English


BlogDay echoes
09/01/05

echoes

Please find below a short review of BlogDay echoes:

Posted by Carmen at 10:52:47 am into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Evenimente, Notes in English


Celebrating BlogDay
08/31/05

See also Before BlogDay and Echoes.

Please consider each weblog in Romanian Weblogs Collection ( over 300 ) and in my Bloglines Collection ( over 1200 ) as a recommendation for 3108 This!.

The BlogDay rules specify that the recommended weblogs should be new, different from the own culture, point of view and attitude.

It's hard to select only five, but here it's an attempt.

All five are weblogs written by young Romanians:

How do you find my proposal?

Don't forget to browse the weblogs recommended by the other participants in BlogDay at Technorati Tag ( RSS ), IceRocket Tag ( RSS ), and BlogDay2005 Guten Tag ( RSS ).
You still have time to join us in this celebration!

Posted by Carmen at 06:47:26 pm into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Evenimente, Notes in English


How to determine Bloglines subscribers number
08/25/05

Fernando Plaza Blog?s 02 Experiment is a nice tool which compares the Bloglines subscribers number of two weblogs chosen from a list ( it would be better if the links to the weblogs would appear too, not only their names ). Also you can add your weblog if it has over 200 subscribers.

via @rgumente

I would like to make a few comments on how the number of Bloglines subscribers can be calculated and on the importance of this metric.

How people read a weblog? A few variants would be:

  • subscribing to the weblog RSS feed of ATOM using an aggregator - see a list of aggregators
  • using a RSS Reader ( desktop application )
  • subscribing by e-mail - a few services can be used
  • visiting the weblog site.

A recent survey reveals that only 11% of the weblogs readers use RSS to monitor them.

Only if the feed is provided by Feedburner you can find the total number of your readers who monitor the RSS.

Presuming that the percentage of the readers who use Bloglines is similar for most of the weblogs, to know the Bloglines subscribers number is important, being an useful metric for the weblog value ( notoriety, visibility ).

Bloglines API doesn't offer this value.

You can find a weblog subscribers number by browsing a Bloglines account - see mine - or by browsing the Feed Directory - the search service here would be more useful if it would return the weblog having the name specified.

So a program which to display the number of subscribers should determine the siteid value of that weblog starting from an account which contains that weblog.

For each entrance in Romanian weblog/RSS collection, the number of Bloglines subscribers is displayed - here is for eLearningBlog.

Below are the steps which are used in order to determine the number of Bloglines subscribers:

I think that also for Fernando Plaza Blog?s 02 Experiment, the author subscribe to those weblogs before being able to calculate and display the number of subscribers.

Monitor tool visibity at BlogsBattle.

Which is your opinion related to the importance of knowing the Bloglines subcribers number and did you find other better variants to determine it?

Posted by Carmen at 01:11:02 am into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Despre RSS, Notes in English


Web 2.0
delicious Backlinks value listed at Romanian weblogs/RSS Collection and BlogsBattle
08/10/05

New items for each weblog/RSS in Romanian weblogs/RSS Collection ( see i link  ), and for each weblog/site at BlogsBattle are displayed: del.icio.us Backlinks and the corresponding RSS.

Why also the number of del.icio.us Backlinks is important in order to have a correct view of the visibility/ notoriety of a weblog/site?

It tells you how many people bookmarked the weblog/site at del.icio.us, considering it useful.

Don't forget to browse other social bookmarks systems and to seach for specific URLs - see my note about social bookmarks systems and this fresh review on roxomatic weblog.

The PageRank, the Bloglines number of subscribers, the number of links found by search engines, together with seach feeds, but also links to different systems which offer other valuable information on the visibility/ notoriety of a weblog/site are listed now:

URL
PageRank
Bloglines Citations
Bloglines Subscribers
Technorati Links
Feedster Links - RSS
Blogdigger Links - RSS
IceRocket Links - RSS
BlogPulse Links - RSS
Google Backlinks
MSN Backlinks - RSS
Yahoo Backlinks
PubSub LinkStats - RSS
delicious Backlinks - RSS
BlogPulse Conversation Seed
BlogPulse Profile
Grafolicious
BlogShares Value
Fagan Finder?s URLinfo
Alexa Info
Silktide SiteScore
KartOO Conexions
TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

Please try Romanian weblogs/RSS Collection and BlogsBattle and comment them.

Technorati Tags:  

Posted by Carmen at 10:02:03 pm into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Despre bloguri, Notes in English, Blogosfera romaneasca


Bloglines number of subscribers displayed for each weblog in Romanian Collection
08/09/05

For each weblog/RSS in Romanian weblogs/RSS Collection, you can find now also its Bloglines number of subscribers. See i link for each item, which displays:

URL
PageRank
Bloglines Citations
Bloglines Subscribers
Technorati Links
Feedster Links - RSS
Blogdigger Links - RSS
IceRocket Links - RSS
BlogPulse Links - RSS
Google Backlinks
MSN Backlinks - RSS
Yahoo Backlinks
PubSub LinkStats - RSS
BlogPulse Conversation Seed
BlogPulse Profile
Grafolicious
BlogShares Value
Fagan Finder?s URLinfo
Alexa Info
Silktide SiteScore
KartOO Conexions
TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

The PageRank, the Bloglines number of subscribers, the number of links found by search engines, together with seach feeds, but also links to different systems which offer other valuable information are listed for each item in Collection.

Technorati Tags:  

Posted by Carmen at 11:23:51 am into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Despre bloguri, Notes in English


Three new European projects in which Timsoft is partner
08/02/05

This autumn three European projects in which Timsoft is partner will start:

  • OBELFA - Open BlendEd Learning For Adults: coordinator Ankara University, Turkey; partners from Germany, Italy, Romania, Greece, The Netherlands, UK, Portugal; a Grundtvig project
  • Defeminization of Poverty: The Balkans/Asia Minor e-Entrepreneur Project: coordinator Kavrakoğlu Consulting and training Commercial Ltd, Turkey; partners from Turkey, Romania, Norway, Greece; a Leonardo project
  • ELF - E-Learning Facilitators: analyses of their different roles within different methodologies and approaches: coordinator Prima Universit? degli Studi di Napoli, Italy; partners from Italy, Romania, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Poland, UK, Danmark, France; a Leonardo project.
Posted by Carmen at 12:25:10 pm into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, eLearning in firme, LLL, Notes in English


BlogsBattle
08/01/05

Till now at Romanian weblogs/RSS Collection, you could find information about the visibility of a weblog in directory - see i link for each item.

A new service is available now:

BlogsBattle

The visibility of two weblogs can be compared:

URL
PageRank
Bloglines Citations
Bloglines Subscribers
Technorati Links
Feedster Links - RSS
Blogdigger Links - RSS
IceRocket Links - RSS
BlogPulse Links - RSS
Google Backlinks
MSN Backlinks - RSS
Yahoo Backlinks
PubSub LinkStats - RSS
delicious Backlinks - RSS

BlogPulse Conversation Seed
BlogPulse Profile
Grafolicious
BlogShares Value
Fagan Finder?s URLinfo
Alexa Info
Silktide SiteScore
KartOO Conexions
TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

The PageRank, the number of links found by search engines, together with seach feeds, but also links to different systems which offer other valuable information are listed for each weblog .

You can type the URL of a weblog, or a note in a weblog; also the URL of a site or a specific page in site.

Do you find the service useful? Comments are welcome.

Listed on Blogging tools - e-Learning Centre UK

Posted by Carmen at 11:10:09 am into the following categories: Proiecte la Timsoft, Despre bloguri, Despre RSS, Notes in English, Blogosfera romaneasca


How to create a group RSS?
07/22/05

There are situations when you need a group RSS starting from a few RSS feeds:

  • If your site provides more RSS feeds, you can offer the possibility of subscribing to a single one, to the group RSS; as example, the four RSS feeds produced by Timsoft have as equivalentTimsoftRSSs, a Blogdigger feed, and are listed on this page.
  • Students participanting in my online courses implement sites providing RSS. To monitor their projects I create a group RSS; all the students subscribe to this one too, thus having the image of all projects.
  • Sometimes you would like to have a single RSS which to contain the items of your favourite newspapers RSS feeds.

Which systems can "mix" RSS feeds?

Please find a list below:

::1::Blogdigger Groups:

  • create a group RSS, starting from a few RSSs or an OPML file;
  • a HTML page of the group is built, which displays the new items;
  • search operation is possible, also search feeds can be created;
  • I consider this is the best solution;

::2::FeedPaper - a Feedster service:

  • you can obtain a HTML page which lists the items of the RSSs in group;
  • options to import OPML and to create the group RSS are not implemented;

::3::FeedShake:

  • creates a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;
  • option to import OPML is not implemented;

::4, 5, 6::RSSMix, FeedJumbler, FeedCombine:

  • create a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;
  • a HTML page of the group is built, which displays the new items;
  • option to import OPML is not implemented;

::7::BlogSieve:

  • create a group RSS,  starting from a few RSSs;
  • different search filters can be applied;
  • option to import OPML is not implemented..

Do you know other similar services?
Which group RSSs have you created?

Note:

  • TagCloud starts from a few RSSs or OPML and creates tags; this service is used "to disclose" which are the top subjects of the Romanian Blogosphere - please take a look at ROTags.
Posted by Carmen at 05:01:46 am into the following categories: Despre RSS, Notes in English


Why I love Bloglines; my wish list
02/14/05

image from/ answer for Welcome, Bloglines - Ask Jeeves Blog

Bloglines is a wonderful service, which I use daily, in order to monitor over 850 feeds - http://www.bloglines/public/camih, but also to search and to find new information ( search, related feeds, users public collections, credibility of an RSS given by number of subscribers and citations ).

My feeds include weblogs, sites announcing their news using RSS, search feeds, podcasts; but also the weblogs of my students working for their diploma or participating in online courses.

Bloglines deals wonderful with the private RSSs produces by the online courses using the virtual environment of Timsoft. Colections of RSS are displayed in my online courses using the Bloglines export service.

My wish list for Bloglines future development:

  • for each account create an RSS with the new added feeds; why? we learn from the resources collected by others ( a solution is given by Superfan - http://www.unpossible.com/superfan/userBloglines ); this RSS would be a measure on how her/his OPML is changing; of course each user might choose to share this RSS or not; such an RSS would be similar with that one created by del.icio.us for each user:

http://del.icio.us/rss/user

  • the possibility of creating search feeds for the citations option; it's useful to keep up with the citations of sites or specific postings
  • the possibility of searching specifying the OPML in which a search to be realised; now each user have the possibility to search in her/his feeds collection; the option could be extended: to specify whose collection to be used; or an external OPML to be specified;
  • because very often a user feeds collection counts hundreds of RSS: when you try to add a RSS you already have in collection, the message "You are already subscribed to that blog." to specify also the Folder which contains that feed;
  • to be able to find the collections saved by users under specific Folder/ categories - similar with Technorati, delicious, flick,MetaFilter; as an example: a search for the feeds saved under Java folder to display all the users who have a folder named Java in their collections:

    http://www.bloglines.com/tag/java # proposal

    would display users and folders similar with:

    http://rpc.bloglines.com/blogroll?id=carmenH&folder=java

    See below similar applications:

Do you have your own wish list related to Bloglines?

Posted by Carmen at 12:40:36 pm into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Despre RSS, Search Tools, Notes in English


What is a RSS feed and how can I create one?
12/20/04

I'm sure you already met the above images on various sites or weblogs.

The images can be created using RSS Graphic Tool; see also RSS Button Collection. There are talks now about accepting a standard image - Feed Icons.

RSS is an open protocol for publishing/syndicating the information on Web. An RSS ( or RSS Feed ) - Rich Site Summary feed - is a XML file, which describes the updated content of a site. Initially this protocol was used by Netcape in order to create My Netscape pages; then RSS was adopted by the news syndication services and weblogs.

Recently RSS has turned 6 - see RSS history and versions.

RSS is also considered the abbreviation of RDF - Resource Description Framework Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication.

A RSS file includes a logo, link and title of the site, and also the news items; each item consists of the URL of the news, a title and a description.

Systems called aggregators ( online systems - the best knows is Bloglines; read why I love Bloglines ) or desktop RSS Readers read RSS feeds and inform the subscribers on the news on the corresponding site; thus the information is syndicated. The contents of RSS feeds is stored in databases, which can be searched using different search keys.

By subscribing to RSSs you are able to monitor different sites without having to visit them periodically; also you reduce the possibility of receiving viruses and spams by newsletters.

The search engines specific to RSS index the information in a few seconds/minutes after the RSS feeds were updated, while the classic search engines make the new information visible in a few days.

This is why the RSS feeds and weblogs - which produce RSS - are called the World Live Web.

More at RSS and Weblog-uri ( in Ro ) - eLearning eJournal.
RSS: the next big thing is useful in many domains.
See also RSS Quick Start Guide for Educators, RSS Workshop, Tools for RSS

A technology similar with RSS is Atom ? se AtomEnabled.org, RSS and Atom compared.

The weblog systems automatically create RSS feeds. But how can you create a RSS for your site?

Here there are some solutions - see also RSS Compendium - RSS Editors:

Which is the variant you use to create the RSS for your site?

Check with BlogsBattle the notoriety / visibility of your site, which is assured by your RSS; and learn how to create a better RSS.

Posted by Carmen at 06:20:00 pm into the following categories: Despre RSS, Notes in English


eLearning for SMEs - online resources
10/10/04

Preparing a resources collection for the projects/proposals in which Timsoft is partner: eLearning pentru manageri, ELFA, Defeminization of Poverty: The Balkans/Asia Minor E-Entrepreneur Development Project, Grundtvig/Leonardo projects:

--will be updated --
Posted by Carmen at 11:41:24 pm into the following categories: eLearning in firme, LLL, Notes in English


Tips for webloggers
07/13/04

Let's learn from the others:

1. Blog Tips - Central Register: "There are no hard and fast RULES of how to blog - basically:
it's about being true to yourself,

getting what's inside you into cyber space,

connecting with others and

growing in your ideas as you interact with them."

2. Rebecca Blood - The Weblog Handbook -
Weblog ethics:
Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.

If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.

Publicly correct any misinformation.

Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.

Disclose any conflict of interest.

Note questionable and biased sources.

Weblogs: a history and perspective

There is a blog in your future

3. 3 Steves and a Blog:
be short and brief,

find your voice,

draw connections,

be human,

participate.
4. Downes's How to be heard:

plan

design

implement

blog

market

audio and video blogging

revise.

5. Tips and Suggestions for Launching a Successful Blog

 

Find your voice: find your style - two weblogs more than original: daily notes starting from an image of himself - 09h09 - or from wife's shoes - Blogger me!.
Posted by Carmen at 06:18:16 am into the following categories: Despre bloguri, Notes in English



Carmen Holotescu
Director Timsoft
Activitati curente
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