\\ Screen & Media Studies - Writing essays //

Our traditional view of academic work is often very misleading. The process of study is frequently thought of as being primarily about reading. We speak of someone 'reading' for a degree: "She read Classics at Cambridge;" or "He's reading for a degree in Political Science." The popular image of the diligent student is of someone pouring(sic) over large tomes late into the night, surrounded by stacks of even more books, as yet unread. When this process of reading has been accomplished, it is assumed that the student will have completed his or her studies. They will have read their way through their discipline.It isn't like this. Being a student is a job like any other. Ultimately, it's not about consumption but production. Of course, reading plays a very large part in this; but it's not an end in itself. The purpose of reading is to gather materials in order to write.

\\ Screen & Media Studies - Writing essays //

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching'

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught." -- Oscar Wilde

How long ago did you teach your first class?"

I responded, "In September of 1941."

"Wow!" The student said. "You mean to say you have been teaching for more than 60 years?"

"Yes."

"When did you last teach a course in a subject that existed when you were a student?"

This difficult question required some thought. After a pause, I said, "September of 1951."

"Wow! You mean to say that everything you have taught in more than 50 years was not taught to you; you had to learn on your own?"

"Right."

"You must be a pretty good learner."

I modestly agreed.

The student then said, "What a shame you're not that good a teacher."

The student had it right; what most faculty members are good at, if anything, is learning rather than teaching. Recall that in the one-room schoolhouse, students taught students. The teacher served as a guide and a resource but not as one who force-fed content into students' minds.

'The Objective of Education Is Learning, Not Teaching' - Knowledge@Wharton

Really interesting article. Also ref the book - Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track, authors Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg

Netsafe.org.nz

"NetSafe provides cybersafety education for all New Zealanders - children, parents, schools, community organisations and businesses.  NetSafe's aim is to educate all New Zealanders about safe, secure and responsible use of information and communication technology."

They also provide a toolkit of policies and resources for schools in order for them to implement cyber-use in the school safely.
Netsafe.org.nz

Welcome to the Web 2.0 Wednesday Challenge (WEB 2.0 Wednesday Challenge)

Excellent tool for educators to look at and try out Web 2.0 tools for use in the classroom.

Welcome to our Web.20 Challenge. Join us each week to learn about a helpful Web 2.0 tool and then take the challenge. Share your results and you could win great prizes and worldwide fame.

Welcome to the Web 2.0 Wednesday Challenge (WEB 2.0 Wednesday Challenge)

BrainStreet Learning from Guyana

BrainStreet Learning.com is based in Guyana. They have already developed systems for the UWI Cave Hill School of Business, as well as having major courses available for Guyanese students.
Here's a bit from their website:

"BrainStreet is a powerful, self paced online education environment that harnesses the power of the Internet to enhance the learning experience. It is specifically designed to provide timely online support to students in accordance with their learning abilities and fundamentals. It is a powerful flexible learning tool that provides instructors, students and administrators with a unique combination of state-of-the -art web technology and extensive education content."

R.I.P.: Lectures, Notes, and Tests (Scrapping the Old Ways)

This is a totally mind-blowing post on the Britannia Blog. Unfortunately I doubt I will be allowed to do anything of the sort at UTT anytime soon, but I will definitely be trying to get permission to do so!
Especially in Teacher Education, why not consider co-teaching with my students?
Things to think about.

Online document creation in a Flash

Online document creation in a Flash
Nice announcement about Adobe's online offerings. There is now Buzzword, Photoshop online and of course PDf creation online. All free to some extent.

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Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free - NYTimes.com

Link by Link - Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free - NYTimes.com
Interesting article on the new trend towards free and open content...

Free 'Quiz School' Resource Adds Analytics, Integrates with Flickr and Google Maps

by Dave Nagel

ProProfs has upgraded Quiz School, a free online resource that allows educators generate custom assessments. The new version, launched this week, adds integration with popular social media services and includes new analytics and reporting features.

Quiz School is designed to let educators create online quizzes and practice tests for their students. In addition to custom quizzes, the service provides a library of pre-designed quizzes, which range from K-12 education to technology certification, SAT and GRE prep, and general trivia.

Students can take tests without logging onto the system and receive instant scores and personalized feedback, including tips for improving performance, according to the company. Users can also assign keywords to specific quizzes for easy retrieval.

read more here

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PBwiki Offers $25 Million in Web 2.0 Tools for Educators : August 2008 : THE Journal

Link to full article here

Collaborative technology developer PBwiki has launched two new grant programs for education offering free upgrades to the company's hosted wiki service and other awards.

The first of the programs, called the Back To School Challenge, will allow up to 100,000 teachers and librarians to earn a gold-level PBwiki account for free. (Gold upgrades normally run $250.) They can do this by "by using, blogging about, and referring others to PBwiki." Other prizes in this program include a $1,000 gift certificate for purchasing school supplies; autographed books; Lego educational products; and games. Prizes are awarded based on a point system. A complete list of prizes and point totals can be found here.

The second program, called the Partner Program for Education, allows districts and associations to offer PBwiki gold accounts to members for free.

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Free and Open Source Educational Software

Free and Open Source Educational Software from Central Queensland University
OSWINS DVD is a collection of Free and Open Source software for educational use that run on Windows.   The educational software varies from mathematics to music, from science to graphics, from programming to educational gamesi and includes office tools, business software, network tools and security software. The aim of this website is to make finding the software easier by categorising them by Key Learning Areas used in Education in Australia.  In addition, under each category, links to useful websites that provide information or free resources are listed.

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OS School DVD: Free and Open Source Software for Education

http://os.cqu.edu.au/open/school.html

The open source educational DVD was created as an aid for schools
and universities. The catalogue on the OS-school-DVD is aimed at the
Key Learning Areas used in Queensland schools as well as more learning
areas used at University.

The objectives of the DVD are firstly to provide schools with a catalogue
of useful free and open source educational software for Windows, MacOSX and
Linux. The Windows software can be installed directly from the DVD.
The second objective is to provide a live (bootable) Linux DVD which will
allow the user to run open source educational software before installing it.
The Live Linux DVD component also provides non Linux users exposure to
software which is not available on Windows, such as software written for KDE desktop or
developed on Linux but yet available on Windows such as Rosegarden (music composer).

The DVD can be used to demonstrate open source software without the need to install software.

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iTunes U - College and university lectures to download

More and more universities are moving towards open content. Lectures are now available from some of the major US universities on iTunes.
See from Apple's website below.

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges and universities, so users can easily search, download, and play course content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.*

Always in session.

iTunes U delivers easy, 24/7 access to educational content from hundreds of top colleges, universities, and educationally focused organizations across the country. And it’s accessible to anyone with a Mac or PC.*

Learning to go.

Students can sync iTunes U content with any iPod or iPhone, so they can go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.

Keeps them motivated.

Engaging students on their home turf, iTunes U offers audio and video that make subjects more vivid than any printed page ever could.

Open-minded.

iTunes U lets schools open all or part of their content to the public, from parents to alumni to anyone with a love of learning.

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Diigo - Web Highlighter and Sticky Notes, Social Bookmarking and Annotation, Social Information Network!

Diigo   is del.icio.us taken to the nth level. It's a personal research tool, a collaborative research platform, a social content site and a knowledge sharing community!
"It’s not a solution to a problem; it’s a group of many solutions to many problems. If you ever need to share stuff you’ve found online, or if you need to keep all your clippings in one place, this is for you."
Diigo has a toolbar that allows you to bookmark sites. Your bookmark is saved to diigo, and can be sent as a post to twitter, sent to your friends, tagged, etc. Very cool.
You can see people who bookmarked the same stuff as you have, you can see what they've said about the site, and you can find new content that matches your interests.

Technorati Blog Post

Just a post to claim the blog on Technorati - need to update as I changed the URL!
Technorati Profile

Technology Review: Web Mashups Made Easy

Technology Review: Web Mashups Made Easy
Interesting review of mashup tools for the non-programmer.