Sign in or Join FriendFeed
FriendFeed is the easiest way to share online. Learn more »
ChromeOS and Android converge sooner rather than later, create Higgs Boson and dominate the Universe. - AJCann
Saturday Cimema – The Seven Dwarves battle malaria - http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog...
eBay finalises $2.75bn sale of Skype - http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanag...
Phew? - AJCann from Bookmarklet
Researchers find new piece of BSE puzzle - http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog...
PLoStivity - is there any way to drop my PLoS activity (ratings, comments) into FriendFeed?
It's probably somewhere in the long PLoS to-do list :-) - Björn Brembs
Presumably one could create an RSS feed from your profile page? Ah, they're not aggregating comments by person anywhere...shame. Incidentally if anyone has enough CSS-fu to help me hack together a PLoS web embed service I would much appreciate it. I'm trying to replicate the top panel for a paper basically, put in static links back to the paper. Have all the content and relative links so that is fine but I don't get how the presentation works... - Cameron Neylon
I could use a scraper such as http://feedity.com/ but I'd rather see this functionality built into the PLoS site. - AJCann
Actually not even sure you can do that - there doesn't seem to be any single page which contains a person's comments as far as I can tell. But definitely agree. My current motto is RSS feeds on everything, everywhere. Every possible view of a website should have an RSS feed. - Cameron Neylon
Re: So that's why he had the office changed! - http://kperch.blogspot.com/2009...
"Congratulations Keith. I look forward to working with you." - AJCann
OER and a Pedagogy of Abundance - http://einiverse.eingang.org/2009...
OER costs money. Who's going to pay for it? - AJCann from Bookmarklet
True -- and the blog author doesn't take up the resources spent by the creator's themselves who will not see profit from their efforts in traditional forms (royalty checks, for example). - Mickey Schafer
I liked these lines: "shared exploration and collaboration works well with the “guide on the side” metaphor, where you have subject expert mentors who help create “paths” through the sea of content, providing an intelligent information filter. George Siemens mentioned that this was similar to Draken’s (1996) “wayfinder” metaphor from gaming, an apt linkage. This skill is necessary for... more... - Mickey Schafer
Also, really like the concept "A pedagogy of abundance" -- is making me sit back and think. Today I feel like I could use an external brain drive. - Mickey Schafer
eLearning Conferences 2010 - http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009...
No shortage of conference to go to then. My carbon footprint weeps. - AJCann from Bookmarklet
How the antiviral protein viperin works - http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog...
Does the UKCAT predict Year 1 performance in medical school? - http://scienceoftheinvisible.b...
Oh no it doesn't. - AJCann
Is the UKCAT not supposed to be more associated with potential effectiveness in being a medic? The best medic I know failed a lot of his exams ... - Anna Croft
Whatever it is supposed to be, UKCAT is widely seen as an entrance criterion to medical schools. Never the sole one of course, but a definite criterion. - AJCann
A Writing Revolution - http://seedmagazine.com/content...
Rates of authorship are increasing by historic orders of magnitude. Nearly universal authorship, like universal literacy before it, stands to reshape society by hastening the flow of information and making individuals more influential. - AJCann from Bookmarklet
It's also going to make search, and especially recommendation, algorithms into a potential gold mine. And a potential bubble. - Bill Hooker
Uh, I think the bubble is called "Google"? - AJCann
AJCann, I think what is meant is along the lines of 'find me something/someone I'd like to read'. - Michael R. Bernstein
They are using a very broad definition of authorship -- that isn't necessarily bad, but before social media, I'm pretty sure we didn't call someone who wrote a letter to Grandma an "author" of a letter (maybe we should have?) -- but now, 140 characters qualifies someone as author? Hmmm. - Mickey Schafer
Is authorship as simple as that? What about a person who publishes a paper or a poem that isn't read by at least 100 people? There is a re-working of the definition of "writer" going on in this article that doesn't acknowledge the connotative meaning of the word. Again, not that this is a bad thing -- but if we look at reading, I feel comfortable stating that we should have more words... more... - Mickey Schafer
If you write, you are an author, because you have switched from passive consumption to production. You don't have to be read to be an author - if a tree falls in the forest... - AJCann
Hi, AJ. Somewhere in my brain there lies a distinction between "authoring" and "being an author" -- perhaps that distinction is no longer valid. At my kids elementary school, they use the terms "author" and "publish", so perhaps it is I who is out of touch. - Mickey Schafer
Good points. I'm co-author of the Seed article. We address the question of how best to define authorship in our response to comments at the New York Times blog. http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009... - Denis Pelli
"I'm not clear if PLoS (and PLoS One specifically) counts towards REF?" - AJCann
If it doesn't we need to have words with some people. But given that the REF has moved away from metrics anyway I'm not sure how big an issue it is. - Cameron Neylon
REF has moved away from metrics? Citation data is going to play a major part http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story... and it's not clear to me how PLoS will sit within that. I strongly suspect some panels will interpret "citation data" as "impact factor". - AJCann
I read that article as saying that mechanistic citation counting was being abandoned in favour of a peer review model. Which means hopefully the numbers form Thomson won't be the main determinant. My suspicion would be that if they were then it opens up legal grounds for challenging the outcomes aside from anything else. There is too much money at stake to use a mechanistic system anyway - would almost certainly come up with the "wrong" answer. - Cameron Neylon
In successive RAEs various panels behaved very differently in how they utilized the data submitted to them. Some were very objective, effectively carrying out the REF proposals, Others weren't. - AJCann
Agreed - and that has arguably cost the university sector some tens of millions in misapplied resource to try and raise ratings that then get pulled out from underneath them - Cameron Neylon
As a complicating factor, what REF panel the article go under? Archaeology and Classics are likely to go in the same sub-panel, but the article is listed under Mathematics and Physics. I doubt this will go in REF, even if it is cited much. I'll have to settle with contributing to human knowledge and do something else for the REF. ;) - Alun Salt
...and therein lies the central failure for supporting interdiscplinary work. I am very very glad to be out of the UK university system to be honest. At least until I want to get back in of course :-) - Cameron Neylon
Next Flip Mino will have Wi-Fi - http://ajcann.posterous.com/next-fl...
Twitter / BiochemSoc_Beck We're looking for a group of UGs, PhDs or Postdocs to produce an issue of The Biochemist http://bit.ly/rzi0r - https://twitter.com/cjrw...
Simultaneously excited about the prospect of using Friendfeed for teaching next term and pissed off that I didn't start using it this term.
Slightly OT, but @AJ, will Socky be appearing in your teaching next term? For those who don't know Socky, check out "The Adventures of Socky and Alan":- http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Graham Steel
Hmm, no plans for Socky on FriendFeed at this stage. He crops up in my weekly statistics videos. Of course, if there's enough demand... - AJCann
What will you be teaching? - Miss Elle
I assumed socky would have his own account :-( - Jo Badge from iPod
Socky mostly teaches statistics, but he also pops up to give students feedback (by hijacking their attention). - AJCann
I just wished my uni would use anything beyond its walled garden - assessment policy: they don't even accept external links in essays - Britta Bohlinger
I, Cringely » Pictures in Our Heads - http://www.cringely.com/2009...
"Kiss your ass goodbye, Sulu.” - AJCann from Bookmarklet
How Meaningful Are User Ratings? (This Article = 4.5 Stars!) - http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009...
Article on The Scholarly Kitchen knocking PLoS article level metrics. Makes sense, if you're trying to sell overpriced journal subscriptions. - AJCann from Bookmarklet
LOL @ AJCann The author there is going through every publishing innovation that people are trying out and blogging about why it sucks. That's a big part of what the web is for, and he's right on many points, less so on others. Also, any criticism he gets from people who are using these technologies he immediately discredits as part of the choir, so better to say "People I talk to say X is great" as opposed to "I think X is great" if you're writing a response to him. - Mr. Gunn
Mr/Dr Gunn -- liked your comment at the post! - Mickey Schafer
Also interesting comeback from David - a reverse advertising open access model - Cameron Neylon
Crotty loves to blog about how scientists don' blog or read blogs - oh, the irony! - Christina Pikas
Yes, it's just a little silly, Christina, but hey, it got Nicholas Carr a book deal, so maybe this shtick will work for him, too. It's not like he's solely contrarian, either. It's actually nice seeing comments from him contain ideas from my side of the argument from discussions he and I have had on previous posts. It shows he's thinking about this in not entirely dismissive terms. - Mr. Gunn
Really looking forward to 9pm tonight - a bottle of Wolf Blass CabSauv and Horizon http://www.bbc.co.uk/program... (err, is that too geeky?)
BBC NEWS | LHC nears restart after repairs - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1...
Oh no it isn't! I suspect Mr Higgs will intervene again ;-) - AJCann from Bookmarklet
Insight into NHS microbiology careers - http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog...
After my media experience yesterday, the irony of this is not lost on me - http://ajcann.posterous.com/after-m...
Classroom rewards 'do not work work' - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educati...
Reward schemes reduce intrinsic motivation. - AJCann from Bookmarklet
Curious -- how many children are born with "intrinsic" motivation? Or is this something that is environmental? - Mickey Schafer
Intrinsic versus extrinsic. - AJCann
yes, learning can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated--and I believe this is true for everyone with variation depending on what has to be learned. But I've also encountered the terms as personality dimensions, and it isn't clear in the article which one was being used. - Mickey Schafer
Yesterday, I overhead a very interesting conversation during which a school counselor was advising a parent with a failing child to remove all things of value to the girl and make her earn it back by achieving passing grades. This included _everything_ the girl liked from clothes and shoes to electronics to time with friends. She quipped after that she frequently has to teach parents how to be parents since today's generation was ill-informed. I found her horrifying. - Mickey Schafer
@Mickey: that sounds like a recipe for leaving home at 16 and never going back to me. Horrifying indeed. - Bill Hooker
There is some truth to this - when I have students play games for prizes, the reward (usually a chemistry book) is not the central motivation but it does make it more fun for the very best students to compete a bit. Similarly, with our ONSChallenge where students do labwork, the cash prize is small enough to not be the primary motivation but again it makes things more interesting. - Jean-Claude Bradley
Jean-Claude, I agree that external motivation is quite useful. Nor does it have to be a big deal! I have premed students who once commented with enthusiasm that they would like get smiley stickers on their papers -- I was amazed. Didn't invest in stickers, but have thought about why this would be the case. In writing, the work is very personal and I get to see so many different sorts of... more... - Mickey Schafer
I also suspect we over-romanticize the intrinsic nature of learning in children. Yes, they do like learning, and they are curious, and the natural process of hypothesizing and testing that occurs can be rewarding (to a normal child). But this isn't the same process being used in school. And getting a kid to study for something like a spelling test in the first grade has very little to... more... - Mickey Schafer
Mickey good points. I experimented with different rewards and didn't find that much difference between a $5 reward and a video ipod - there is a type of student that responds to this type of competition so why not make their experience more enjoyable even if not all students respond? - Jean-Claude Bradley
HIV-1 latency and the eradication of long-term virus reservoirs - http://www.microbiologybytes.com/blog...
Other ways to read this feed:Feed readerFacebook