Collaborative work

Lecture presentation

2009-04-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Lithuania, 20-24 of April, 2009.

Dear Colleague.
Welcome to the presentation of the lecture: Collaborative work by means of new technologies.

My name is José Domingo Villarroel and I am the teacher in charge of this short course.

You are reading this post on a blog that I designed as a meeting point of the lecture. Here you will find: the information about the content of the lecture, the tools that we will use, the complementary materials and, also, some links about where I come from: The University of The Basque Country.

Let me offer you some guidelines about the work that we will do.
Firstly I need to tell you the main subject of our work: how to carry out cooperative tasks by making use of the Internet.

Moreover, we are going to do a hands-on work in the computer room. This kind of work will afford us the opportunity to try some interesting on-line tools: mainly, wikis, blogs, the google tools and conceptual maps.

On the right hand side of this blog you will find some buttons and labels. Please click on them to look into the different posts that make up this blog and, also, to pick up useful software and tools.

Before finishing, let me invite you to get in touch with me even before beginning the lecture. Just fill in the following form and I will give you an account to enter our on-line tool.

I am looking forward to meeting you in Vilnius! ;-)

José Domingo Villarroel.

Some references

2009-04-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

More information?
Just look for it on google academics. I am sure you will find useful information whatever you need about web 2.0.
Anyway, let me offer you some interesting resources you can download from this blog.
The first one is a interesting article about how web 2.0 social software can be used to improve health and health care education.
The second one is a research I carried out between students from my university about how personal feelings could influence how people face up to the challenges that new technologies entail.
To finish an interesting book that can be found on Internet (given it is shared with Creative Commons licence).
I hope it is useful.

Wiki

2009-03-29T00:06:00.000-07:00

Wiki is a kind of web-site that makes editing on Internet easy. It also promotes cooperative work between different authors working simultaneously or at different times, even if they work from different places.

If you need more specific information click on the photo on the right hand side. You will find a conceptual map to sum up main linked concepts to this useful on-line tool.

Also, this map provides you with some useful links which help you to discover where you can register for your own wiki.

We should not omit to mention the wikipedia project, which is a wiki that almost everybody knows. This encyclopaedia is one of the largest cooperative tasks that has been ever carried out. Do you know that wikipedia is a wiki?

Before finishing, please take into consideration that we will make use of this wiki.

Find more information about wikis on this video:

Google tool

2009-03-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Almost every one knows google as a search engine.
However fewer people are aware of the outstanding ways that this company is opening in the field of collaborative tools.

In regard to this last topic, google provides Internet users with some tools that make the work on-line possible. In fact nowadays working on Internet can be carried out almost as if it were done in the traditional office suite (for example openoffice).

In fact, what google offers is an office on-line and despite the fact that the development of these tools remain further away from, for example, the office suite that openoffice is, these on-line tools have two notable features:

The documents (writings, presentations, spreadsheet,...) remain available whenever we are, if the Internet connexion works, of course.

The documents can easily be shared with other authors (or only viewers) or, eventually, they can be published as web pages so that it turns out that they become accessible to everyone.

Gmail service can be a good starting point to get o know these tools and, maybe, google apps is the best tool that this company has developed.
Lets have a look at it here.

Conceptual Maps

2009-03-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Conceptual maps are a visual representation of knowledge.
It is a powerful technique that promotes communication and collaborative work that was originally used to research students' awareness at the beginning of the 70s.
Joseph Novak was the forerunner of this technique for educational studies .
Yet, today conceptual maps have become an important tool to learn from, to teach and also, to cooperate (see here).
Regarding the tools that facilitate the design, edition and on-line publication of conceptual maps, there are many different software (you can visit this page to have a loot at them) but CmapTools might be the most interesting one.

Even though we should install on the laptop (so it does not run on-line) this free and very reliable software provides users with the opportunity to work on-line, both to create, edit and publish web sites and also, to carry out tasks in groups.

You can find download free this software from this page, powered by The Institute of Human cognition.
You can find more information about conceptual maps clicking on the photo placed on the left hand side of the page.

The U. C. of Teacher Training of Vitoria-Gasteiz

2009-03-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

The University College of Teacher Training of Vitoria-Gasteiz is one of the colleges and faculties that The University of the Basque Country has in The Campus of Araba.
The College offers three academic programs in the area of teacher training:

Primary Teacher, speciality in Physical Education
Primary Teacher, speciality in Infant Education
Primary Teacher, speciality in Primary Education

These programs are provided both in Basque as in Spanish and in 2007-2008 academic year 1238 students were enrolled at the College. 70 per cent of students chose to study in Basque.

There are 75 teachers and 60 per cent of them are bilingual (Basque-Spanish).

At this moment, the curriculum is structured three academic years and courses are usually designed in two four-month terms.
Theorical subjects are blended with internship periods. The internship-programs are done at second and third academic-year and students usually go to schools from Basque Country to put in practise what they have study at classroom.

The academic year is from September to June and there are two holiday seasons: Sumner holiday, from July to August and Christmas (apart of this, at the beginning of the Spring there are some holiday days on Easter).

From 2010 to on and according with the new studies plan, the College will implement two Bachelor's degrees: preschool teacher and primary teacher.
These new programs will take four school years (240 ECTS) with more opportunities for doing internships (at second, third and forth course).

Contact person
José Domingo Villarroel.
Assistant director of University College of Teacher Training of Vitoria.
Juan Ibáñez de Sto. Domingo, 1
01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz
+ 34 945013273
txomin.villarroel@ehu.es

Blog

2009-03-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

What is a blog? In fact, you are reading a blog at this moment.

Blog, also entitled weblog, is a sort of web-page that is easily editable and this is the reason why many people use a blog as a personal journal. They can spread their opinions, feelings around the world or, for instance, likes and dislikes in a very easy way.

Also link-lists and media gadgets as pictures, videos and audio can be embedded on a blog, almost knowing nothing about HTML and other languages for web-pages.
Of course, a weblog can also be use for educational goals. For example this blog, which was created to make the information of the lecture available so that you will be able to pick it up at any time and from anywhere.

Apart from these features, the blog encourages people to get in touch with each others. For example you can write a comment on this post (see below) or backlinks can be used to let other blog authors know that you are writing about them.

Please find more information clicking on the photo above on the video below.

Web 2.0

2009-03-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Internet is changing very fast. Few year ago the network was considered a sort of window in which many people should find what few experts managed to show.

At this point in time, however Internet is no longer a simple window to look at.
Now everybody has the opportunity to create his/her own on-line contents: writings, documents, photos, videos and audio files. This is a new phenomenon which is called Web 2.0.

In fact, web 2.0 leads us to a new way to comprehend the net as a interactive space to work and to communicate each other in which we can create, edit, share and spread many different kind of files.

It turns out that working on own laptop, isolated from the world is being progressively replacing with on-line work by which interaction between people and content is growing more and more.
This is the case of, for example wikis and blogs.

Please find more information click on the photo.

The Basque Country

2009-03-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Basque Country is one of the 17 Autonomous Communities that make up Spain. It is the most eastern Spanish community that borders on The Atlantic Ocean into the Bay of Biscay.
The capital is Vitoria-Gasteiz and Bilbao the largest city with its famous Guggenheim Museum.

Moreover, the Basque language (here you have a English-Basque dictionary) and Basque traditions conform to a cultural region that extends further away the administrative and political limits (you can find more information by looking at what wikipedia tells us about it).

Also, you can find very useful information on the official web-site by The Basque Country Goverment , this one about travelling to The Basque Country.

Anyway, maybe you would rather have a look at a video, here you are! :