IMS Learning Impact 2008
Monday 16 June 2008, 17:33

IMS Learning Impact took place in austin between May 12th and 15th. We presented MyWay project, more specially our iPhone solution that mixes text and audio, to the anual awards and . Vece Rector of Technology Llorenç Valverde, Eva De Lera an myself had a wonderful time chatting with people all over the world about e-learning, standards and the future of teaching and learning. The feeling that we perceived is that we are really at the beginning of a new era. In the picture: Eva, Chris (from Peirce College and a good friend) and myself receiveing our correspondant prizes.

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MyWay | José Manuel Rivera López

UOC AT THE OPENIWORLD'08 (LYON, FRANCE)
Wednesday 28 May 2008, 16:19

The UOC has a relevant role in the OpeniWorld, as one of the organizers. In collaboration with MIT’s Open Knowledge Initiative, the event will focus its attention on resource federation, one of today’s key educational technology challenges. Dr Llorenç Valverde, Vice-rector of Technology at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) leads several teams in the design and development of e-learning technologies as well as being responsible for setting up the path and leading all technology resources at the University. Furthermore Mr Francesc Santanach, Chief of Transversal Architecture of the UOC will participate in a Showcase demonstration through his paper “The Campus Project: e-learning tools and platforms integration". The Campus Project, promoted by the Secretariat for Telecommunications and the Information Society (STSI) of the Regional Government of Catalonia, grew out of the agreement signed by the majority of Catalan universities in order to have an open source virtual campus, which make it possible for them to provide higher education, both online and semi face-to-face. This initiative came out of the university system open to the world, aiming at becoming an international benchmark for e-learning. Ms. Eva De Lera will attend as a representing of the organizer team. The url of the event is http://www.openiworld.org/Europe2008.html

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Edtech | Israel Conejero

Meeting Jutta Treviranus at IMS 2008
Monday 26 May 2008, 13:12

It was great meeting Jutta in person at this year IMS 2008 conference in Austin, TX. At UOC, we share the vision that Jutta so clearly exposed during her IMS 2008 presentation (ppt). We believe that disabilities or special capabilities are context or individual dependant, for everyone! And that these circumstances need to be accounted for in the design and development process.  UOC's efforts toward designing for engagement and for the individual (see this Joy of Learning website and also MyWay project - winner of Best Mobile Learning Solution), demonstrate our desire to transform the way we have been tackling education, specifically online education, and believe that innovations in learning and technology can help us achieve just that: a learning environment that is optimized for each learner, is inclusive and transformable. We look forward to collaborating with Jutta and her team on the The Fluid Project, and other projects from the Adaptive Technology Resource Center led by Jutta Treviranus.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

Eva de Lera at NMC Summer Conference 2008
Monday 26 May 2008, 11:30

NMC Summer Conference 2008 - Eva de Lera will be participating at this year's Summer conference which will be held June 11-14 in Princeton, New Jersey. She will be presenting the ENJOY Guidelines and also joining other Horizon Report 2008 Advisory Board members. UOC has also collaborated with NMC and Educause in translating the world renowned report into Spanish and Catalan. Please contact her if you plan on attending this event.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

Irene Manresa presents at EDEN 2008.
Monday 26 May 2008, 11:19

EDEN 2008 - Irene Manresa, a graphic designer from the User Experience Group at the Office of Learning Technologies, will be presenting the ENJOY Guidelines for designing engaging e-learning environments at the upcoming EDEN 2008 in Lisbon. Please feel free to contact her if you plan on attending the conference.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

Marc Sanmarti and Eva Gil at UPA 2008
Monday 26 May 2008, 11:15

UPA 2008 - Marc Sanmarti and Eva Gil will be presenting a couple of Posters at the upcoming UPA 2008 international conference in Baltimore. Rebuilding telemedicine devices through user requirements, by Eva Gil, Albert Farré-Cobos, Daniel López-Gómez, Israel Rodríguez-Giralt y Yann Bona-Beauvois. The ENJOY Guidelines: Guidelines for designing engaging environments, by Eva de Lera, Magí Almirall, Marc Sanmartí y Eva Gil. Please contact them if you plan on attending the conference.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

Chuck Severance & Campus Project
Friday 23 May 2008, 11:07

Chuck Severance was here, some weeks ago, talking about Campus Project with developer teams involved on the project. See him talking about the campus project: Campus Project Overview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBJZ1kpYI4 Campus Project Architecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATwP3V0brfI Campus Project and IMS TI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt8Rvhlsvew Dr. Charles R. Severance (http://www.dr-chuck.com) is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan focused on the teaching of the practical application of web technologies. Charles is currently a IMS Global Learning Consortium Developer Network Coordinator. Previously he was the Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation and the Chief Architect of the Sakai Project, a leading open source collaborative learning system. Charles is the Author of the book High Performance Computing, Second Edition, published by O'Reilly and Associates. He has also been a leader in standards development, including serving as the vice-chair for the IEEE Posix P1003 standards effort and the editor of the Standards Column in IEEE Computer Magazine from 1995-1999.

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Edtech | Francesc Santanach Delisau

Final "karaoke" prototype
Wednesday 30 April 2008, 12:07

The final prototype of the "karaoke" project. It's an mpg4 movie so you can upload it to your iTouch / iPhone. Video to desktop (mpg4, 80Mb, Right click to dowload). Thanks to Albert (Omaonk, programming) & Irene (design). They have done an outstanding job!

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MyWay | José Manuel Rivera López

Mobile content v.0.1
Thursday 24 April 2008, 15:34

We have uploaded a very first version of a content for mobile devices. As you can see it's a flash movie that reproduces an speech, shows a text and higlight what is beeing said. With this format we are trying to overcome the loose of attention that occurs when you listen a long speech generated by a TTS. If you get lost you can get track of the content just by taking a look at the screen. The sytem transforms the original XML content to SMIL and then to swf files using Open Laszlo. A last transformation to a video is required to reproduce it on mobiles devices as iPhone - as far as we know iPhone doesn't play flash -. In addition we are still working in the audio format. Check a previous sampler to listen it.

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MyWay | José Manuel Rivera López

An iRex Iliad (short) tutorial
Monday 3 March 2008, 17:51

We've just started a pilot with seven students that are going to use an iRex Iliad eBook during a semester. Irex Iliad is an eInk device capable to reproduce text, pdf an html files. The screen is slightly bigger than in other eBooks but the point with Iliade is that it allow to take notes over the pdf files with an special magnetic pencil. We've edit a (very) short video with the basic instructions to use it. Here you have.

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MyWay | José Manuel Rivera López

A new phone with rollable eInk display
Friday 22 February 2008, 16:47

As we work toward automatizing multiple output formats, we were impressed by one of the newest gadget presented at the last Mobile Congress in Barcelona. The rollable phone and display has been created by PolymerVision, a spin-off of Philips, and it's still going through a pilot phase. See the Product Brochure for more information.

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MyWay | Eva de Lera

Participating in OpeniWorld 2008 (Lyon, June 24-27)
Friday 22 February 2008, 16:27

Vijay Kumar, Rob Abel and our own Llorenç Valverde will participate at the first European OpeniWorld event. We invite you to join us in Lyon. For more information please visit Openiworld 2008.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera

Attending Curriki and ERC (San Francisco, Feb 25-27)
Friday 22 February 2008, 16:24

We will be in San Francisco from February 25th through the 27th participating in the Curriki Advisory Board meeting and Sun’s annually ERC Conference. Please contact Eva de Lera if you plan on being there and would like to set up some time to meet and discuss common interests.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera

Our meeting with Martha Cleveland-Innes
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:57

It was great having an opportunity to speak to Martha Cleveland-Innes from Athabasca University. UOC interviewed Martha during her visit. Here's the link to the interview.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera
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UOC participates in the new Horizon Report 2008
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:41

The New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiave have published the latest edition of the Horizon Report 2008. UOC has been an active participant in the Advisory Board and is also responsible for its translation to both Spanish and Catalan languages.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera

The ENJOY Guidelines at iLearning Forum 2008
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:37

We presented the first version of the ENJOY Guidelines at the iLearning Forum 2008 in Paris. For more information about the ENJOY project please contact Eva de Lera.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

MyWay nominated for the IMS Learning Impact Award
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:32

MyWay has been nominated for the IMS Learning Impact Award. The awards will be presented at the upcoming IMS conference this May 14th through 18th in Austin, Texas. Josep Rivera will also be presenting the MyWay project on Tuesday May 15th at 11:20 in the Elizabethan room.

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MyWay | Eva de Lera

UOC launches its OCW site
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:29

UOC launches its OCW website in English. All of the content materials from the Master Program in Open Source and Free Software are available through the site.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera

ePortfolio at iLearning Forum 2008
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:23

Josep Mora presented the ePortfolio project at this years' iLearning Forum in Paris. For more information about the project, please contact Josep directly at jmora@uoc.edu.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera

Designing an engaging eLearning environment
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:21

We are looking for institutions or companies who also believe that the design of the elearning environment has a direct impact on the students’ motivation and ability to learn. The project is looking at elements beyond the classroom environment that intervene, participate and have an effect in the overall learning experience. Social as well as personal aspects (interests, desires, etc.) are some of the aspects being integrated into the project. For more information please contact Eva de Lera.

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Joy of Learning | Eva de Lera

Text-to-voice developments
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:17

We are currently pilot testing our latest text-to-voice technology development in which background music, sounds, and a choice of different voice tones and styles are applied to ensure that the automatization from text to voice is engaging to the listeners. For more information about this project please contact Josep Rivera at jrivera@uoc.edu. An audio sample using Loquendo as TTS engine, background music and sounds to organize the speech.

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MyWay | Eva de Lera

UOC 5.0 version on the works!
Friday 22 February 2008, 13:06

This coming September 2008 we will launch the 5.0 version of the UOC virtual campus. The most important changes in this version include: An open source platform Interoperability elements that will allow the integration of elements from other platforms such as Moodle and Sakai, through OKI standards. Personalization elements Ensure accessibility Evolved graphic design and interactivity And many more... The 5.0 version will be adding its new features throughout 2009.

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Edtech | Eva de Lera