Web 2.0 participation rates overstated

There was a very interesting article about participation rates in Web 2.0 in the Australian Newpaper IT section on 18 April, 2007. You can find the full article at http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21578336%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e15306,00.html?from=public_rss

The article states various participatory figures and concludes that Web2.0 "is far less participatory than commonly assumed".

I can relate to this statement in the article - "The vast majority of visitors(to Web 2.0 sites) are the internet equivalent of the television generation's couch potatoes - voyeurs who like to watch rather than create. "

I was not surprised by the statements, are you?

Australia's most popluar weblogs

On 19 April, the Age Newspaper reported that by using the Technorati index, which monitors links between blogs and the Alexa index, which estimates visitor number, Blogpond.wordpress.com/top-100-australian-blogs-index/ has found Australia's most popular weblogs.

Unfortunately, I don't make the list but do you?

For your interest the most popular is problogger.net a site about professional blogging!

PowerPoint presentations a disaster

Today (4 April, 2007) there is an very interesting article titled “PowerPoint presentations a disaster” on FairfaxDigital at
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/04/03/1175366288359.html

At first I though I was an April fool’s joke but I searched around a bit and recommend you read it.

Professor Sweller from the Education faculty of the University of NSW is quoted as saying “PowerPoint should be ditched”. Professor Sweller developed “cognitive load theory” and believes that when delivering information “it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented." I have not done any research on cognitive load theory or read any of Professor Swellers work but surely Power point as a tool is not the problem but the way it is being utilised in our schools could affect the way students learn. I would be very interested in your comments.

Another particularly interesting quote from the article is “They have also challenged popular teaching methods, suggesting that teachers should focus more on giving students the answers, instead of asking them to solve problems on their own.” Again, I would need to do further research before making a comment but I would be interested in your opinion.

Cyber cop exists!

Under the heading “Cyber cop starts internet beat as bullies run rampant”, the Age newspaper on April 2, 2007 reported that “Victoria’s first cyber cop reported for duty yesterday as part of a pilot program designed to tackle the soaring problem of cyber bullying”. The cyber cop, Senior Constable Susan McLean was unable to state how prevalent the problem was but she is quoted as saying “cyber bullying accounts for almost 90% of all school abuse”. She further stated that “cyber bullying was targeting younger and younger children with authorities now getting reports from eight to 18 year olds”

The article doesn’t state the process we need to follow to contact the cyber cop if we do become aware of cyber bullying in our classrooms.

I am very curious about why the Victorian Police are taking on the responsibly for policing cyber bullying and what will be the penalties inflicted upon the cyber bully when they are caught. Possibly, a virtual prison term in “Second life”?