David Davies’ Weblog » Blog Archive » Edublog simile generator

David Davies’ Weblog » Blog Archive » Edublog simile generator.

Here’s a bit of fun for you. Pokes fun at some of the hype surrounding education and the blogosphere. Try it out. What is interesting is how this simple phrase generator (keep asking for more and it soon becomes clear how it works) produces phrases that are eerily similar to the cliches that the marketing mavens put out. Good fun. Nice one, Dave.

Interested in blogging?

Over the past few months, there has been mounting interest in the topic of blogging. Blogs are potentially a very useful tool to add to our communications methods - a great way of spreading news and interesting items, promoting discussion, sharing information, building communities of practice.

 

We have got two initiatives under way at present. The first is a simple, wide-open public blog called NOSMeLD - you can find it here:

 

http://nosmeld.blogspot.com

 

On there you can also find an explanation for the name, and some general stuff about blogging. Check it out.

 

We are also presently testing a blog engine that can be more tightly integrated into our current NOSM discussion boards and forums. Initial testing has shown this to be stable and secure - it ties in well to our current sign-in/authentication for NormedNet. It is not quite ready for prime time.

 

For blogs to be successful, there are a number of things that need to be in place. Firstly, a small but committed and enthusiastic number of contributors. Then, a clear focus but with enough breadth of material to appeal to possible readers.

 

I have contacted you because I know or have heard that you may be interested in getting to know more about blogs and in helping to get one going. The first question, apart from whether you are actually interested, is how people would like to discuss the use of blogs and find out more about them. We could call a meeting...or we could use the blog itself to discuss this issue - for those of you who have never blogged before, it is real easy to start off.

 

To prevent our blog from being spammed, you do need to register with BlogSpot in order to post a Comment on this or any of the other posts in this blog. This is easy to do and there is no cost to this. The name and password that you use for this BlogSpot registration can be anything that BlogSpot will accept. It does not have to be (and probably should not be) the same login and password that you use for NormedNet.

 

So let me know how you think we should discuss this...either by posting comments in the blog itself...or by emailing me direct if you have a problem with posting to the blog.

 

David

 

 

Community Server

Thought you'd like to see what Steve Sisko has done so far.

Medical Education Blog: Teaching the Hidden Curriculum: "Today I’m going to talk about seven methods that you can use as a clinical teacher to assist students to learn the hidden curriculum – in other words the skills and attitudes we expect doctors to demonstrate, but in most cases don’t teach and don’t assess as part of the medical curriculum. Some of the methods you will already be familiar with, others will be easily implemented, some will be more difficult to implement, but all of them will help reveal the hidden curriculum to medical students."

Portals and KM: BlogBridge's Support for Reading Lists

For those of you who may be considering getting into serious blog browsing, I'd recommend taking a look at BlogBridge.

There are a number of blog readers out there. BlogBridge is free open-source software (FOSS). But what makes it particularly useful is that you can use it across multiple machines and still have your feeds all kept in sync, including where you got to in terms of reading them. Simple google on BlogBridge to find it.

This post that I have linked to above describes how you can use BlogBridge to generate your own Reading Lists. You can also share these with others - now there's a useful knowledge management tool.

Steve Richards - Adventures in home working :: Office 12 and Web 2.0 in the Enterprise

A brief overview of what is happening with Microsoft's plans over the next while, relating to web services etc. It can be a little difficult to wade your way through the marketing hype of MS - of course, this could just be an example of viral marketing but I don't think it is.

There is a neat schematic that attempts to illustrate the scope of what is happening in the Web 2.0 world. Worth taking a look at if you are wondering what all the fuss about Web 2.0 is about - although it still only gives you a broad overview.

Presentation Graphics Slide Show

I found this simple slide show by Lana Johnson, giving some tips on how to make best use of graphics in your PowerPoint presentations. Simply click on the blue arrows at the bottom of each slide to move onwards or backwards.

Good PowerPoint Design: How To Recognize It, Where To Find It

Some straightforward tips on how to improve your PowerPoint slides.

Windows CardSpace (WCS)

A couple of days ago, I posted some stuff relating to Identity 2.0 and identity services in the blogosphere and the web. Well, here for those who are interested in this stuff (yeah, sorry ...pretty technical...but it will have an impact on how we use web services - just that it will be suitably buffered for most of us), is an offering from Microsoft that provides an identity service.

OUseful Info: Stephen Downes - The Students Own Education

This is an interesting, if somewhat disorganised, piece about Personal Learning Environments. I think it is quite likely to provoke some discussion...but there are some fascinating concepts contained herein.

Some of this stuff is a bit way out, but some of it looks pretty powerful. The sorta stuff that will give those who are used to a traditional teaching environment a sharp intakes of breath and much muttering. In particular, I'm a little uncomfortable in the link to the concept about some of the current social networks - all too easy for naysayers to use material like this to shoot down the whole concept - but hey, we're all open-minded here.

Some of it gets pretty esoteric - I'm sure that most of you could care two hoots about things like Shibboleth...but authentication and cross-domain sign-on will become increasingly important as our learning material is increasingly placed online. Maybe, just maybe, this Identity 2.0 stuff (see earlier post on this) could be an answer to our authentication issues...but we're probably being overly optimistic on this.

OUseful Info: Google Browser Synch

Well, here's an interesting set of concepts that I found referred to on Stephen Downes' blog (a great blog by the way - see our links at the right side of this page).

Starts off with some brief comments about Personal Learning Environments and goes on to talk about keeping your info in sync across multiple computers. (This used to be a rare thing, with only a few people with access to more than one computer - but is increasingly common with people accessing stuff from work, home, a laptop, internet cafes, airport lounges etc). Indeed, witness the popularity now of sites like del.icio.us and BlogBridge which allow you to access bookmarks and blogs readings from multiple computers.

This idea is gaining momentum, and could be potentially very useful. But please also take note about the comments made regarding potential risks to your information in doing this. I suspect that these security concerns will be ironed out but in these early phases, be careful how you use tools like Google Desktop Search or Browser Sync.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger: Informal Learning and Community Libraries

Builds on the work of John Seely Brown, former Science Director of Xerox PARC, who is a great proponent of tacit knowledge and workplace learning. (There is a link to a recent presentation by John SB). Commentary on the observation that much of the learning that we engage in is outside of formal educational channels, especially for adult learners.

Irving Wladawsky-Berger: Business as a Complex, Continuously Evolving System

An interesting, albeit complex (scuse the pun), piece on complexity theory as it applies to some business systems. Might be a bit esoteric for some but Irving is often a good read.

This is my longest post in ages. Created by voice recognition - probably got carried away - but hopefully, there are some useful tips in here.

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Maximising your voice recognition accuracy

Background

Typing, even touch typing by an experienced typist rarely surpasses 80 words per minute for a maximum sustained speed. Most executives and senior management are hard-pressed to sustain a typing speed above 25 words per minute. The idea of voice recognition software has been around for a long time but, despite promised advances in both hardware and software capabilities, seems not to have penetrated the market to any great extent.

The situation has improved over recent years a significant number of users, after an initial dabble with the software, do not persist with the use of a voice recognition software package. Users have become sceptical of the accuracy claims of manufacturers. Even these claims that should be viewed with a sceptical eye. For example, 98% accuracy sounds very good until one realises that this means 20 errors per page. No human transcriptionist would get a job with that kind of error rate.

So how does the average user increase their success rate of these programs?

Equipment tips

Voice recognition software is still quite demanding on the hardware in your computer. A fast processor is helpful but generous amounts of RAM are more effective in producing accurate recognition. Because the computer has to work quite hard during this process, any internal distractions will affect accuracy. Therefore it is a good idea not to have too many open running applications when you are doing voice recognition. On slower computers, this also means shutting down some unneeded background tasks that may be running in your System Tray.

Choosing which voice recognition software application to use is now very easy these days. For the Windows platform, there are only two commonly available programs still on the market. Dragon NaturallySpeaking and IBM ViaVoice. These two programs are extremely similar in terms of features and performance. Both are easy to train and to use and are of similar price.

But there is one piece of hardware that is extremely critical to your success with accurate voice recognition. This sole factor is commonly overlooked and yet remains the biggest determinant in recognition accuracy. The microphone. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense as the computer will have much more success if it can clearly hear what you're saying, with a minimum of background noise, distortion, and a good range of frequency response. If you do a significant degree of voice recognition for your dictation, do yourself a favour and spend as much money as you can afford on a really high-quality microphone setup.

A recent innovation that has been very promising is the advent of microphones that feed their input directly into the computer via the USB port. Because the audio input circuitry on the average computer is extremely simple, even a high-end microphone fed into the simplistic hardware that comes with the average computer will not achieve optimum results. USB microphones that have a digital signal processor built into the dongle attached to the USB port have the benefit that the DSP can offload much of the signal processing from the computer's own brain. This job sharing results in increased accuracy.

Not all USB microphones perform equally well. Recent testing with a wide range of microphones showed that there was a clearly audible difference between one set up and the next. For those users who are planning to dictate a large amount of text input, it is well worth while researching this thoroughly. High-end microphones from companies such as Plantronics or Andrea are well worth the money.

Dictation tips

In days gone by, the software required that you pause briefly between each word. This is no longer the case, which is just as well because that style of dictation caused a serious amount of vocal fatigue. Indeed, current voice recognition software works best when you talk as normally as possible to the computer. Placing particular emphasis or stress on certain syllables or words often causes the computer to become more confused and less accurate in its recognition.

Speaking clearly has its advantages, but speaking naturally is much more important. Many users find that it works better not to constantly watch what the computer is writing and instead to only check the screen occasionally to see how the accuracy is going. Speaking in full phrases and with many words run together also helps with recognition accuracy because the software is highly dependent on the context of the surrounding words. It is for the same reason, that the software is much better at recognising fully expounded text such as in formal letters and reports, rather than in the abbreviated style used in short notes.

The software used to require considerable training time getting used to the nuances and vocal patterns of the particular user. Nowadays, this training time is very minimal, often requiring only five to 10 minutes of dictation of a short prepared text. However, training does not stop there. The software becomes much more accurate over time, if you tell it when it goes wrong. Using the built in voice recognition commands to correct the mistakes is a bit of a chore at first but pays off in the long run as the software becomes much more accurate at recognising what you're saying. It is well worthwhile putting in this time in the early days with the software.

Voice recognition software is still speaker dependent. This means that it is highly individualised to one particular user. This is not to say that the software cannot subsequently be used by another user, even on the same computer. It is simply a case of telling the software that the user has changed. However, it does rule out the use of voice recognition software for recording group discussions. There are some interesting research developments underway at present which look quite promising and being able to provide multispeaker input with reasonable degrees of accurate recognition. However, we are not there yet! In the meantime, try out this kind of software again. With a good microphone and a little bit of patience, you may soon find that you are able to quickly dictate documents with a minimum amount of correction and hassle.

Jon Udell: Re-imagining education

A thoughtful piece from Udell on the effects of Web 2.0 on education. As much a social phenomenon as it is a technical shift, the impact of this information sharing paradigm looks to be huge. Some examples given that clinicians can relate to.

Jon Udell: On business/education partnership

A short piece expounding on the benefits of biz/academic partnerships. Uses the Open Source Software movement to highlight his points. Refers to a concept called 'narration of work' - interesting stuff.

EdTechPost: Dynamically Wikipedia-fying Text: Drawdoc and Wikiproxy Greasemonkey script

This short article is a bit technical but the points are good ones. Don't fret about the connectivity jargon. Think about the power of mashups and connecting Web 2.0 resources together.