alexmikro.net

How can I become a self-regulated learner?

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:48:21 +0000

If you’d like to learn more about Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and how you can become a self-regulated learner, visit the new SRL course in OpenLearn. The course is free and enables you to use the tools developed by the ROLE project in order to apply the SRL principles to your own learning, as well as assess your SRL skills.

Filed under: Technology/Internet Tagged: Education, Learning, OpenLearn, Self Regulated Learning

Gmail Tap: Who needs 26 keys anyway?

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:00:26 +0000

Last year Google revolutionised emails with Gmail Motion, this year they went with Gmail Tap. Why bother with 26 keys, when you can just use 2 to type all your messages? Tap away!

Well, they sure know how to celebrate April fools’ day in Google

Filed under: Fun Tagged: April Fools' Day, Gmail, Gmail Tap, Google, Google's hoaxes, Morse code

Social media trends in 2012

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:08:38 +0000

What will be the major social media trends in 2012? According to this article, smartphones and tablets will play a significant role in the development of new services on the Social Web. We’ll also see the following trends:

More social media into corporate websites

An increase in social media usage on mobile devices

An increase in personal support

An increase in social media budgets

More social media advertising

More social gaming

News will be increasingly social

More websites will be compatible with mobile devices

More election campaigns will be run in social media

Your social media footprint will grow

Facebook users will surpass 1 billion

Filed under: Social Web Tagged: Facebook, Internet Marketing, Social media, Social Web, Twitter

Santa’s new helper

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:39:41 +0000

Christmas eve is coming soon, the busiest day of the year for Santa Claus
But this year, Santa has got some extra help!

Merry Christmas!

Filed under: Fun, Technology/Internet Tagged: Apple, Christmas, iPhone, Santa Claus, Siri

Free online course about Responsive Open Learning Environments

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:57:26 +0000

What is a widget? What is a Personal Learning Environment? How can I start building my own Personal Learning Environment? If you’d like to learn the answers to these questions, then visit our new course about Responsive Open Learning Environments. The course is free and also available for download, reuse and republishing.

Filed under: Technology/Internet Tagged: Education, Personal Learning Environment, Technology/Internet, widget

Steve Jobs

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:01:53 +0000

An amazing person. A beautiful mind. He’ll certainly be missed.

Filed under: Misc, Technology/Internet Tagged: Apple, steve jobs

I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:47:00 +0000

Conversations with chat bots can be quite amusing. Their intelligence hasn’t yet evolved to a point where they would fool us to believe we’re talking to a human being. What would happen though if a bot had a conversation with another bot Cornell’s Creative Machines Lab tried just that. The result is at least surreal:

Filed under: Technology/Internet Tagged: Bots, Chatterbots, Communication, Conversation, Cornell's Creative Machines Lab, Technology/Internet

ROLE widget contest

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:51:26 +0000

The ROLE project (Responsive Open Learning Environments) is organising a Widget Enchantment Contest. Build a widget using ROLE technologies, make it available through the ROLE widget store and win a prize worth 500EUR

The contest will run till July 15th and the winner will be announced on July 31st.

UPDATE: The contest has been extended till August 31st.

Filed under: Technology/Internet Tagged: ROLE, Technology/Internet, widget

Linked Data at the Open University and the ROLE project

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:43:02 +0000

The Open University and the Lucero project have recently launched data.open.ac.uk, an RDF repository of metadata from Open University datasets, such as podcasts, courses, and more. The metadata from these datasets are interlinked and accessible through SPARQL queries.

Needless to say, this initiative provides excellent opportunities for harvesting previously disconnected datasets and providing new services to Open University learners. So, I’ve reused some code kindly provided by Fouad Zablith, in order to produce a widget for the ROLE project. The widget has been built as a Moodle block for recommending learning material inside OpenLearn courses. The widget queries data.open.ac.uk and displays a list of Open University courses, iTunesU podcasts, as well as OpenLearn tags related to the course that the user is currently viewing. You can try it out by logging in as guest at PlaySpace.

Here is also the blog post at the Lucero project: http://lucero-project.info/lb/2011/04/role-widget-consumes-linked-data/

Filed under: Semantic Web Tagged: Education, Metadata, Moodle, Open University, OpenLearn, SPARQL

Google launches Gmail Motion

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:34:03 +0000

Tired of sitting on your desk, typing and clicking? Well, Google is changing this! Try the new Gmail Motion and you’ll never go back to the keyboard and mouse!

…but also look closer at this post’s date

Filed under: Fun Tagged: Computing, Gmail interface, Google Inc., Google's hoaxes, Keyboard, Mouse