Can you imagine a community that’s spending between £209,976,000 and £1.9Billion worth a year of unpaid labour for a commercial organisation? (via Martin Weller, the Ed Techie)

That’s exactly what scientists do by peer reviewing articles of other scientists for the academic publishers. Research being a tax-payer funded activity, one could expect the output is freely available. Wrong. Most universities suffer from an almost never ending subscription price increase. Last week, this resulted in the University of California considering a boycott of the Nature Publishing group (via Frederik Questier on Twitter).

So I wondered, me, being a junior researcher and a big fan of open access, who wants to publish 2 articles next year (*), would I be able to publish in Open Access journals only?

The answer today is ‘No’. I did some research, and it looks like in my field almost no journals are already indexed in the ISI Web of Science. So I guess I will have to spend some tax-money myself (by writing an article for free) in order to obtain my Ph.D. Disappointing.

(*) At my university, only articles published in journals who are indexed by the ISI Web of Science databases ‘Science Citation Index’, ‘Social Science Citation Index’ and ‘Arts and Humanities Citation Index’ are considered ‘valuable’ (**) for a Ph.D.

(**) Update: Only students who published at least 2 of those articles will receive their Ph.D.

I’ve been thinking about negative feedback lately, and found some very helpful principles.

Tim Ferriss gave a short keynote (video) at The NextWeb 2010 in Amsterdam on how to deal with haters (and their negative feedback). A part of that keynote was dedicated on 7 principles that help you deal with negative feedback (they were originally published on Mashable by Amy-Mae Elliot).

1. It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.
2. 10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it.
3. “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.” (Colin Powell)
4. “If you are really effective at what you do, 95% of the things said about you will be negative.” (Scott Boras)
5. “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” (Epictetus)
6. “Living well is the best revenge.” (George Herbert)
7. Keep calm and carry on. Focus on impact, not approval.

The principles were originally meant as a (mental) response to the commenters on Tim’s blogposts (somewhere between 200 and 2000 comments a post) and overall critiques he received on his book, but I think they are worth a thought as well for negative feedback you receive in your personal or business life.

Note: I’ve been writing a lot on my Dutch blog about the ideas and principles of Stephen Covey, David Allen and Tim Ferriss. If you’re into GTD and Lifehacking, I would recommend you to read them as well.

Anyway: keep calm and carry on.

One of the definite pro’s of being a teacher (or lecturer in general), is learning together with your students. I already gave 2 presentations on PLE’s in a conference setting, received lots of interesting feedback, and will give my last and definite one tomorrow. The last one because I want to move on and explore new paths (unless someone really wants me to present it again).

During my previous workshop, a participant suggested to incorporate my own PLE as an example. That’s why I decided to make a Prezi presentation. It’s my first Prezi ever, so don’t expect a spectacular effect.

Making a Prezi seems pretty simple, but I have to admit I spent a few hours just on creating the one included above.

The workshop (Dutch) can be found Slideshare.

I don’t like all their comics, but this one is funny (and so true):

On the 6th of march 2010, a very interesting TEDx took place in New York on: ‘the role of new media and technology in shaping the future of education’. The event was streamed live, but unfortunately, I missed it. But good for us, all TEDx conferences are made available on YouTube afterward.

The list of speakers was quit impressive: Gina Bianchini (CEO Ning.com), Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine.com), Lawrence Lessig (Creative Commons), Jay Rosen (prof. journalism), George Siemens (connectivism) and David Wiley (reusable learning objects).

I will include David Wiley’s one, as he plays an important role in my own Ph.D. research:

More information can be found on the TEDxNYED website, all video’s are published on the YouTube TEDxTalks channel.

In the future, I will be a big consumer of papers and magazines on e-readers. I’m just waiting for the technology and the publishers to offer me online subscriptions on a decent piece of hardware that doesn’t hurt my eyes (will the iPad get us there?).

Anyway, this month, I got a paper copy of the UK version of Wired. A few articles focused on the people who succeeded in turning around a lost business case into a success again. I liked the conclusion of the editor (David Rowan):

“The comeback of public figures ranging from Mickey Rourke to Martha Stewart illustrate that being knocked down isn’t necessarily the end. Not if you have a purpose and a mission, a reason to prove yourself and a willingness to innovate.
And if you stay hungry. And stay foolish.”

Stay foolish.  Must not forget (note to self).

I decided to give 2 presentations on connectivism, to finish up my CCK09 course. The first opportunity took place last weekend @Barcamp 3 Ghent. The presentation can be found on Slideshare.

My presentation starts with some observations out of my own classroom. I ask my own students every year (pre service teachers, professional bachelors, 3-years of study) if they think they can learn from and with others via Twitter, weblogs, podcasts, Facebook etc. And every year, I get the same type of answers for all the applications I mention, except for Facebook. I took Twitter as an example here, but it could be replaced with blogs or podcasts or…

My last task for the CCK09-course was finalizing my concept map (PDF-format).

To be honest, I don’t like concept maps which are too big. That’s why I choose to concentrate on the topics that interested me the most in this course (or maybe: which I was ready for in my learning process).

Some words on the concept map:

• As a Ph.D. student, I read almost every day articles on learning theories. So far, connectivism has not been mentioned in any of those articles. The CCK09 course was a good starting point in widening my view on learning theories.
• Being a teacher myself, the course made me reflect on my own job. My second article, the end of the fishbowl, reflects my thoughts on this topic.
• A third focus for me was my own learning process, where I did a lot of thinking on learning in networks and the personal learning environment. I discussed my view and questions on this topics in podcast one part 1 and part 2.
• And finally, I learned a lot about (and did a lot of thinking on) the impact of technology and authority on learning and teaching.

The concept map was made with Cmap. I consider the concept map to be a snapshot in time.

This podcast (part 2) was recorded as my final project for the CCK09 course. I invited Wilfred Rubens and Erwin van Hunen to reflect and discuss with on my PLE (personal learning environment), the CCK09 course and the difference between a LMS and a PLE.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Shownotes:

• Analyzing Cindy’s PLE (0:00 – 11:00)
• The influence of the CCK09 course (11:00 – 20:15)
• the difference between a LMS and a PLE (20:15 – 25:10)

About the panel:

Wilfred Rubens (1964) currently works as a policy advisor at an institute for vocational education and training (ICT in education, educational development and innovation). Furthermore Wilfred provides keynotes, presentations, workshops and classes about technology enhanced learning. He is professionally involved in e-learning for more than 12 years. For more than 5 years he blogs about ICT and learning and can also be found on Twitter and various other software tools.

Erwin van Hunen works as a senior technical architect and competence manager for an IT company in Stockholm. He’s also the creator of various Doppler versions (Windows podcast aggregator and RSS reader on iPhone platform) and blogs on the Mobile Viking weblog.

Your host is Dr. Smetty.

This podcast (part 1) was recorded as my final project for the CCK09 course. I invited Wilfred Rubens and Erwin van Hunen to reflect and discuss with me on PLE’s (personal learning environments) and the impact of technology on our learning.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Shownotes:

• Introduction (0:00 – 2:00)
• PLE Erwin (2:00 – 3:15)
• PLE Wilfred (3:15 – 4:15)
• PLE close-up Wilfred (4:15 – 7:15)
• PLE close-up Erwin (7:15 – 8:45)
• Conclusion (8:45 – 9:45)
• PLE Cindy (9:45 – 13:45)
• Impact of technology on learning Erwin (13:45 – 16:30)
• Impact of technology on learning Wilfred (16:30 – 20:20)

About the panel:

Wilfred Rubens (1964) currently works as a policy advisor at an institute for vocational education and training (ICT in education, educational development and innovation). Furthermore Wilfred provides keynotes, presentations, workshops and classes about technology enhanced learning. He is professionally involved in e-learning for more than 12 years. For more than 5 years he blogs about ICT and learning and can also be found on Twitter and various other software tools.

Erwin van Hunen works as a senior technical architect and competence manager for an IT company in Stockholm. He’s also the creator of various Doppler versions (Windows podcast aggregator and RSS reader on iPhone platform) and blogs on the Mobile Viking weblog.

Your host is Dr. Smetty.