Free Range Learning

Last week I wrote a post on how Google's autocomplete function gives us an interesting insight into what theological and biblical questions are being asked .

Well, last night I ran across a December issue of the NY Times Magazine that had a fascinating article on the Google Search Algorithm as Extinction Model . Apparently a couple of research scientists recently had a bright idea:

Google's search engine uses an algorithm called PageRank to identify the most important Web sites on a given …

This image is from Google's autocomplete function. Although I couldn't begin to explain understand the algorithm that Google search uses, I know enough to know that it is based upon user's searches. That is, the things that people search for the most tend to be the most heavily weighted. So when I typed "why does the bible…" the autocomplete fills in the most popular searches that begin with the same phrase.

This is an interesting sociological (and theological) exercise, …

Thanks to Mary Hess for linking us to a fantastic article from First Monday: Insidious Pedagogy: How course management systems impact learning , by Lisa M. Lane.

Lane writes a superb critique of course management systems (CMSs), such as Blackboard , Moodle , and our very own JICS (i.e. MyLutherNet ). Lane's point is not that CMSs are bad, or poorly designed, or even that they should go away. Lane's point is that CMSs are "not pedagogically neutral shells for course content. …Course …

 Hat-tip to BoingBoing for this article on how to reduce your online stress: delete your emails .

I used to have loads of folders, date-based folders, even … but for me all that amounted to was this elaborate procrastination system. I realized that if something can't be dealt with immediately, it needs to stay right in front of you. So it's either in my inbox or it's deleted. And if it sits in my inbox, then it has to be turned into action.

I have been trying over the past few months to keep …

We in Learning Design & Technology are pleased to announce that exciting changes are coming to MyLutherNet !

This January, Luther will be upgrading the basic software that runs MyLutherNet (i.e. Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution ) from version 6.4 to version 7. This upgrade will offer us more powerful tools for running online courses and faster performance from previous versions of MyLutherNet.

Then, in early February, we will roll out a new visual design of MyLutherNet. Our office has been …

Last week the Learning Design & Technology team were in Denver for the annual Educause conference. We heard lots of great speakers and saw how other colleges and universities are thinking about technology in education.

So it was fun to see Educause 2009 promoted on the Official Google blog today. In the slideshow, you can even see the Luther Seminary logo along with all the other schools who have "Gone Google."

I found this YouTube clip (see below) a while back, but thought about it again recently in relationship to what we do here at Luther . Lecturing, preaching, leading Bible studies, much of this is dependent on telling stories. This clip is of Ira Glass, host of NPR's This American Life , one of the great storytellers of our generation. He's talking here about how to tell a great story. One of my favorite words of wisdom:

...often you have the two parts of this structure, you've got the anecdote and …

One of the big things I've noticed recently is a surge of online multimedia that takes advantage of the web's simple tools to explain complicated phenomena.

Planet Money is a podcast produced by National Public Radio that does a fantastic job of looking at the economic crisis in terms that non-economists can understand. All while avoiding over-simplification and dumbing-down, not an easy task. Having scored a C+ in my introductory college economics course, I never thought I'd be faithfully downloading …

A movement that later became the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther began with a simple premise: the Christian church had become overly professional. The Priests were the only ones who had both the education and the access to be able to read and interpret Scripture. The average person had no way of knowing, much less disputing, whether the hierarchy of the church was being faithful to the tradition handed down by the Apostles.

Luther understood that for Scripture to have real power, it needed …

Here is the video of our most recent Tech Talk. The Student Network Access Portal (SNAP) allows students to transfer files from their home computer to and from their campus HomeDrive. See how below: