Catch the Wave - Connexions Conference Streaming, Tuesday February 2nd

Couldn't make it this year? Don't miss the presentations and panels. The Connexions Conference 2010 main sessions will be webcast live, on Tuesday February 2nd, starting at 9AM.

The live webstreaming will be available at http://webcast.rice.edu (or it can be directly accessed at: http://webcast.rice.edu/webcast.php?action=details&event=2129).

Links to the media servers are shown 20 minutes before an event's scheduled start time. However, the actual stream might not be available until the time listed for the event.

After the Connexions Conference, Workshop on Adopting Open Text Books

The day after the Connexions workshop, Texas higher education faculty will be gathering for this workshop on adopting open text books. The workshop will be led by Houston Community College faculty and the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative.

This Open Textbook workshop will be conducted by Jacky Hood, Ken Busbee, Lora Gough, and Angela Secrest and hosted by Rice University. It is for all Texas higher education faculty and administrators interested in adopting or knowing more about how to use open text books.

Time: February 3, 2010 from 10:30am to 3:30pm
Location: Rice University, Duncan Hall 3092

Learn more about the workshop at their open Ning group.

Speakers, Panels, and Breakout Sessions at the Connexions Conference

Connexions Conference 2010
The Connexions Conference 2010 is fast approaching. We are less than a week away from an exciting gathering of the communities that contribute to and value Connexions. We have updated the agenda to include all the speakers, panelists, and presenters. Companies and organizations building communities and businesses around Connexions will be demonstrating their ideas in sessions and during lunch. We look forward to hearing from all the communities involved in Connexions.

Connexions Conference 2010 web site
Updated agenda
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Duncan Hall, McMurtrey Auditorium, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Connexions Consortium
Connexions Conference 2010 will be one day after the first annual meeting of the newly formed Connexions Consortium, and the consortium members will be introduced at the conference. The Connexions Consortium is dedicated to the design and development of collaborative, open source code, software efforts and open access educational content that are targeted at supporting education, research and related scholarly activities. The Consortium is a group of organizations and individuals, who work together to advance open source educational technology and open access educational content. The Connexions Consortium website has more about joining the consortium and the current membership.

Connexions Makes the Top 3

The Top Three Ways to Get Free Textbooks, that is

KVUE News in Austin has three suggestions on how to get more textbooks for less. Among their top picks are free online resources, with Connexions first on their list. Students continue to clamor for lower cost textbooks and Connexions aims to please.

Watch the KVUE newscast and read their summary.

The video has also been picked up by MSN Money.

Connexions Feeds : Feed Your Curiosity

Connexions makes it easy to keep up with updated content that teachers and authors add, lenses that recommend content, or Connexions own project news. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) lets the content come to you, rather than having to check all the time to see if something new and interesting is available. RSS feeds can be viewed by web browsers, e-mail clients, and web-based feed readers such as Google Reader. You can learn more about RSS feeds by reading this tutorial or you can watch this short video, "RSS in Plain English", by Common Craft.

Below is a list of Connexions' useful RSS feeds.

• The Connexions Blog - Connexions site news, new content, upcoming developments, and tips to help you get started authoring in Connexions. The "kitchen sink" of Connexions RSS feeds.
• Connexions Site News - Official press releases from Connexions. More formal, business-oriented information about the project.
• Recently Updated Content - A feed that is updated any time a collection or module is created or modified. Handy for discovering new content!
• Recent Updated Collections - Contains a list of the most recently updated collections, if you only want to know about larger bodies of content -- textbooks, journals, reports, courses, etc.
• Lens feeds - The feeds below point to new lenses that organizations and individuals use to recommend Connexions content that they have reviewed, or to highlight content related to their organization or a specific topic. Once you find a lens you care about, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for just that lens by clicking on the little orange RSS symbol in the right hand corner.
  • All lenses
  • Endorsement lenses
  • Affiliation lenses
  • Member lists

We hope you enjoy keeping up with Connexions using these handy shortcuts to new and updated information.