Technology in Education

Omeka.net - digital collection website

2011-06-05T10:45:00.000-04:00

Omeka.net is a web-publishing platform that allows users to create or collaborate on a website to display collections and build digital exhibitions. Very useful idea to use for student work exhibitions.

Free for All: National Academies Press Puts All 4,000 Books Online at No Charge - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

2011-06-05T10:23:00.000-04:00

Very good news. More open access to educational material!

Free for All: National Academies Press Puts All 4,000 Books Online at No Charge - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education:

"the National Academies Press announced it would offer its entire PDF catalog of books for free, as files that can be downloaded by anyone. The press is the publishing arm of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, and publishes books and reports that scientists, educators, and policy makers rely on."

The Free Graphics Store

2010-10-18T13:27:00.001-04:00

Found this link on Small Business Computing, but useful for educators as well. See excerpt below, or read the whole article here.

"Free" is the most overused word on the Internet, but in this case, the Free Graphics Store really does mean it. This Web tool delivers exactly what it advertises: free graphics.

The site offers a huge list of free graphics that you can use for your website design. For example, you can choose 15 Everyday Objects, 18 Assorted Graphics, 48 Bullets, Animations, Icons, Backgrounds, Tiled Backgrounds. That's just a small sampling; the list goes on and on.

Now is the site really free? Where can you use these graphics, and are there any restrictions? It says you’re free to use them on private or commercial sites. You can’t resell them, you can’t claim them as yours, and you can’t copy their pages. You just have to download the items you wan

An Easy Way to Introduce Inkscape Drawing Program to Youth and Adults

2010-10-17T20:15:00.002-04:00

This was written by @philshapiro in 2008, but has come back up again. and Inkscape is pretty good and FREE, so I thought I'd bring it back here.

Inkscape is a fun, free and very powerful vector drawing program that runs on all major computer platforms: Linux, Macintosh and Windows. This program can give you endless hours of enjoyment, even if you're not an artist. And if you develop mastery of using Inkscape, someone wants to pay you money to create graphics for them.

Welcome to Aviary

2010-10-16T19:50:00.000-04:00

Aviary is a free suite of powerful online creation tools: Photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more at Aviary.com.
This is a really great site of tools - almost everything that you need to make multimedia in the classroom, all free and online!

Stock Footage for Free

2010-08-04T11:34:00.003-04:00

I found this very cool blog post (excerpted below) that speaks to a point that I have been working on recently. As students start developing their own materials in class, they will not be required to really produce everything from scratch. One of the major problems is that if they cannot find suitable material that is available for use under fair use or other copyright regimes (creative commons, royalty free, etc), they will use any materials that they can access on the Internet. Therefore we need to have at hand a wide range of locations where students can access legal material to use in their class projects. That's why this post was so useful, even though it was designed for small business and not specifically for education.

Stock Footage for Free

If you produce projects that include video, one Web tool that you must know about is StockFootageforFree. Here you’ll find both standard definition and high definition NTSC video that’s been shot exclusively for StockFootageforFree, and it’s been made available royalty-free. That means that you can not only download and use these clips for free, you can even use them in commercials.

StockFootageforFree.com
(Click for larger image).

There are a few legal caveats to be aware of, so be sure to read the end-user license agreement to make sure you’re staying on the up-and-up. For example, you can’t re-sell this stock footage as your own; you can’t use it in trademarks, and they retain ownership of the footage. However once you become a registered member, you can download these clips and use them pretty much any way that you want.

Registration is free, and it’s very easy. Simply provide them with a user name that you’ll use to log into the website, your email address and your first and last name. As a registered member, you have access to clips in a whole bunch of different categories like animals out in the wild; beaches, the waterfront, lakes, yachts, ships; construction and energy. There are some clips dealing with oil refineries and construction.

The site has a special category for high definition clips, so if you only produce high-definition video you would want to limit yourself to that category. Other categories include the holidays, mansions and wealth -- which is really useful if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re trying to convey a feeling of wealth and wealth-building -- sports, time-lapse photography, specific U.S. cities and transportation.

The site covers a lot of different categories and offers a lot of different standard and high-definition stock footage. It’s all available for free to use in your video projects. It's a great resource.

Microsoft's Web-based Office goes live

2010-06-13T16:10:00.002-04:00

Microsoft's Web-based Office goes live (Beyond Binary - CNET News)

So MS Office Live is live. Another cloud-based service for document creation. Great things about it:

it's Microsoft, so those of my students who totally refuse to consider anything not from Redmond can finally get into the collaborative writing assignments I want them to do
It comes with 25GB of storage! That is massive. And cool.
It works like a stripped down Office application, so most people should know how to use it. (Given that 99% of the world uses Office... :( )
It connects with the off-line MS Office you spent all that money on, so you can use both seamlessly.
It's free. Did I not mention that earlier? Oops... yes, it's free, so many students can use it once they are connected. You don't NEED the expensive desktop applications to use it. It stands on its own, kind of like... Google Docs!
It works with all browsers, even Chrome! That's cool.

Bad things about it:

It's MS proprietary.

So I hope that more online applications will get more students to use the systems to share and collaborate. Now there's almost an application for anyone and any style.

Phone texting 'helps pupils to spell

2010-05-16T14:20:00.002-04:00

Everyone has been assuming that texting and the shorthand associated with it, is terrible for children and reduces their ability to spell, write and so on.

This article from the BBC references a study that shows - NOT SO! Texting is good! It helps children to learn language skills and does not necessarily create a world of poor spellers!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/8468351.stm

"Children who regularly use the abbreviated language of text messages are actually improving their ability to spell correctly, research suggests.

A study of eight- to 12-year-olds found that rather than damaging reading and writing, "text speak" is associated with strong literacy skills.

Researchers say text language uses word play and requires an awareness of how sounds relate to written English.

This link between texting and literacy has proved a surprise, say researchers.

These latest findings of an ongoing study at the University of Coventry contradict any expectation that prolonged exposure to texting will erode a child's ability to spell."

HP Slate with Adobe AIR applications and Flash.

2010-04-20T08:29:00.001-04:00

Tech Tools: Student Blogging | Quisitivity

2010-03-08T11:29:00.000-04:00

Tech Tools: Student Blogging
"Twenty-first century learning is about communication, collaboration, problem solving, and technology, all of which are integral to blogging."

A good post as to WHY blogging in the classroom works.

on presenting | Ramblings

2010-03-07T11:39:00.000-04:00

on presenting | Ramblings:

"This is totally not confined to at-work presentations.

The number of sessions I have sat through that could have taken 5 minutes instead of 20,30,40 or even 60 is amazing. Remember: I have not flown half way around the globe to see you read. I have come to hear a story, to see how conclusions were formed and interact."

"I (and anybody else in the audience who has learnt to read) can read your dot points faster than you can. While I’m reading, I’m not listening to you."

I have been telling my students this FOREVER! And they DO NOT LISTEN TO ME. I try to model good presentation behaviour, and they want my slides to have every word I say. My slides are their notes. What's wrong with paying attention to a presentation, jotting down some thoughts and later, going over the notes and filling them out with material gleaned from my references (that they have gone and read through themselves) ?
No wonder when they present I have to continually pinch myself to stay awake and try to follow. And these students are prospective teachers. They will go into schools and bore children the same way they bore me.
At least one young lady has gotten totally into using Prezi - I am eagerly awaiting her presentation to see if she's managed to break through.

Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources in the U.S. National Education Technology Plan - Creative Commons

2010-03-06T17:41:00.000-04:00

Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources in the U.S. National Education Technology Plan - Creative Commons

"The United States Department of Education 2010 National Educational Technology Plan (pdf) includes the following:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are an important element of an infrastructure for learning. OER come in forms ranging from podcasts to digital libraries to textbooks, games, and courses. They are freely available to anyone over the web."

This is really great. Consider the sharing and the opportunity that this gives to disadvantaged students who do not have access to great teaching, great libraries or educational resources. Especially students in the developing world. I hope that we will also start producing and sharing our own content, as we cannot simply be consumers of the material, we also have to share our knowledge and experiences. They are important and valid.

OOo4Kids - Open Office for Kids

2009-11-05T13:13:00.002-04:00

taaa daaa!

Finally children have thier own office application suite. Open Office 4 Kids is a lighter version of Open Office, with the folowing specific features:

Dedicated to 7-12 years
Specific adaptations to the world of education
Works everywhere (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows)
International / Multilingual

Don Tapscott and learning from our kids

2009-10-07T11:54:00.000-04:00

Ethan Zuckerman writes in his blog on a presentation from Don Tapscott re: learning from our kids.

"A student, Joe O’Shea, reacted to this presentation, saying that it resonated, and confessing, “I don’t read books.” He explained, “I think I know what’s in books, but I get my information from the web, and I’ve got really good BS detectors. If I need to read in a book, I have Google Books.” Using that site, he approaches books like a website. The dean of the film school reacted, saying, “I don’t know if that’s really exciting or the end of modern society.”"

Really interesting for teachers to try to understand our new students!

Are dinosaur managers and poor teaching holding back Digital Britain?

2009-09-28T10:10:00.001-04:00

Interesting article on the results of an expert panel that is looking into the UK IT future. One very interesting note was that:
" if UK kids are technophiles in their spare time, they are technophobes at school "

"A recent report by the CBI blamed poor teaching in schools for contributing to a shortage of graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths. "Scientific potential at the age of 14 is not being fully realised," the report noted.

"If you talk to 12-year-olds they'll say I don't want to work in an office because what they're taught at 12 is [Microsoft] Word and Excel," Clarke added. "They're not taught what this profession is really about so I think that's fundamentally important to get the best kids looking at this profession."

Are dinosaur managers and poor teaching holding back Digital Britain?

Back to School: 10 Terrific Web Apps for Teachers

2009-09-07T15:31:00.000-04:00

Back to School: 10 Terrific Web Apps for Teachers
Some of these applications are really useful. My particular favorites are Curriki and edmodo.
I can see many teachers wanting to use docCop to check for plaigiarism.
But they are all worth a check.

How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education | Fast Company

2009-09-01T09:23:00.000-04:00

How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education
This article from Fast Company Magazine is an excellent roundup and review of initiatives in higher education that are using Web 2.0 and Internet technologies to change the education paradigm.

iLearn Technology � Blog Archive � Kideos

2009-08-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

Great YouTube alternative for elementary students, categorized by age and subject.
" Kideos is a collection of kid friendly videos. Each video featured on Kideos has been carefully screened by the Kideos Video Advisory Council (made up of a select group of parents and educators). The videos are categorized by age range (from 2 to 10) and by category. Categories include Baby Einstein, Barney, Book Characters, Cartoon Characters, Cute Animals, Disney Channel Programs, Disney Movies, Dr. Seuss, Educational Videos, Fairy Tales, Kids, Mickey Mouse and Friends, Muppets, Nursery Rhymes, Sesame Street, Songs, Teletubbies, Trains and Machines, and Wiggles. If you register with Kideos, you can set it up to only view your own selection of ages and characters. The videos are streamed from You Tube and placed inside a Kideo player ."

http://kideos.com/

Team WhiteBoarding with Twiddla

2009-07-28T21:57:00.000-04:00

Painless Team Collaboration for the Web:

"Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more productive than ever. No plug-ins, downloads, or firewall voodoo - it's all here, ready to go when you are. Browser-agnostic, user-friendly."

50 Open Source Apps Transforming Education

2009-07-28T21:48:00.000-04:00

50 Open Source Apps Transforming Education — Datamation.com:

"While some educators have been quick to grasp the potential and promise of open source software, many others have been hesitant to stray from the comfortable zone of commercial applications. Yet that’s changing.

More teachers and institutions are now participating with organizations like SchoolForge, the Open Source Education Foundation, and Open Source Schools. These educators are beginning to see that the open source philosophy has the power to transform education in several key ways."

Howard Rheingold on essential media literacies

2009-07-27T09:10:00.000-04:00

We need to start changing the definition of literacy. We have to prepare students for the future, not for the past as we are doing. But a big problem is that the teachers, instructors, etc are themselves not literate in the new sense.
Where can the change start?

Read the article here
Howard Rheingold on essential media literacies

Banning Scientology doesn't make Wikipedia more credible

2009-05-29T16:39:00.000-04:00

"Our students, whether they are Googling, Bing-ing (just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?), or digging through Wikipedia should be able to identify sources of limited credibility. This isn’t just a web skill, either. It’s a matter of critical thought. Is there bias in a source? How much of a source is news and how much is personal spin?"

One of the major things that I find I have to fight to get through to my students - it's not on the radar. Especially in Trinidad and Tobago, I hear far too often - "but it was in the papers", or "it was on the Internet" as if once it is in some sort of distribution medium, it is gospel truth and papally infallible.

The text books are equally problematic - we don't see print as able to be wrong.

Google Unveils Google Squared

2009-05-12T17:13:00.000-04:00

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Google Unveils Google Squared: "

Google today showed off a forthcoming service called 'Google Squared' that creates tables of numerical data culled from searches of websites. In the example given, a search for 'small dogs' created a table on different breeds, including data on such things as the breeds' heights and weights, placed inside boxes. Once an initial table is created, users can click on individual entries to check the source and--if the number was erroneous--they can correct the numbers through new searches. Finally, they can save their customized table for future reference."

How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood: Scientific American

2009-05-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood: Scientific American

Really interesting article. Discusses the influence of room design in the way the brain processes information.

One very useful point for education was:

"Over eight weeks and more than 50 lessons, the researchers rotated a class of fourth-grade students between two seating arrangements: rows of desks and a semicircle of desks around the teacher. The semicircle configuration increased student participation, boosting the number of questions pupils asked. Other studies suggest that putting desks in rows encourages students to work independently and improves classroom behavior."

Teaching: No ‘Fallback’ Career - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-04-21T01:24:00.000-04:00

Teaching: No ‘Fallback’ Career

As private sector professionals lose their jobs or suffer cutbacks in pay and benefits, more and more of them are thinking about second careers. Public service is suddenly popular with all generations. Teaching may not pay a lot, but it comes with relatively good benefits and, in public schools, job security in the form of tenure after three years. But this fallback fantasy may be unrealistic, despite reports of a possible teacher shortage in the next several years. Does such a shortfall really exist? What does it take to become a teacher, let alone a good one?

Cell phones get top marks in class -- dailypress.com

2009-04-17T13:37:00.000-04:00

Cell phones get top marks in class -- dailypress.com:

"Students sat in small groups in Tony Neeley's science classroom, staring intently at a projected image at the front of the class. A question popped onto the screen. Neeley gave the students a six-digit number and said, 'Go.' Instantly thumbs began dancing over cell phone keypads. Within seconds, phones trilled the signal that a text message had been sent. At the same time, answers began dropping into view on the screen, one answer for each group of students, identified by a student's cell phone screen name.

In less than an hour, the Mary Passage Middle School students worked their way through more than 70 questions for a semester exam review, with every eighth-grader participating in a drill that looked more like a game show than a quiz.

'They only get one crack at it so they have to make sure they are right,' said Neeley.

Cell phones, considered a nuisance or worse in many schools, are welcome at Passage. At least eight teachers are using them for a range of lessons, from reports to quizzes in English, social studies, science and math classes."

One Cell Phone Per Child

2009-04-17T13:35:00.000-04:00

One Cell Phone Per Child - Columns by PC Magazine:

"To get an understanding of the scale of the worldwide mobile revolution, consider that 4.1 billion people subscribe to a mobile phone service, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is part of the United Nations. More than half of the world's people are connected, right now. High costs and spotty Internet access limit the functionality of those connections for many users, but the infrastructure is there."

It's amazing to think that the cellphone is a major communication/Internet/Computer is our children's hands, and instead of looking for ways to use it for education, we are banning and tightly controlling its use in schools.

Use of mobile phones for quality education

2009-04-05T17:52:00.000-04:00

"When the mobile phone was invented, little did we realize how much this piece of technology would be embraced by Filipinos. In fact, “texting” in the Philippines was seen as a social phenomenon in the late 1990s, with the country ranking first in the world in text message use. Even now, wherever you’d go, you’d see somebody clutching a mobile phone. High-level executives conduct a lot of business through the device. Even sari-sari stores in remote areas display “karatola” [posters] advertising pre-paid loads."

The Philippine Text2Teach alliance is composed of Ayala Foundation, Nokia, Globe Telecom, SEAMEO-Innotech, Chikka Asia and PMSI-Dream Broadcasting Systems.

This uniquely Filipino innovation aims to enhance education opportunities for children and resource solutions for teachers in developing countries. BridgeIT believes that Text2Teach can contribute to raising the quality of basic education in the country.

Use of mobile phones for quality education - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos:

What’s In Your Social Media Toolkit?

2009-04-03T07:52:00.000-04:00

What’s In Your Social Media Toolkit?:

"You can think of social media as a set of tools that organizations can use for a variety of purposes - customer service, branding, promotion, relationship-management, etc. Just as with any toolkit, you’re not going to use every tool every time.

Sometimes the hammer fits, but if you’re trying to measure something the hammer is pretty much useless. Similarly, sometimes a blog will fit perfectly, while other times YouTube might be a more suitable tool. Sometimes (say it ain’t so!) social media outreach won’t fit at all.

If social media represents a set of tools - what’s in your toolkit?"

How to Grow a Blog

2009-04-02T21:09:00.002-04:00

A very good analysis of what's wrong - I see it in my students all the time. Learning takes place during the PROCESS, but they almost always want to skip the process and head to the product and the grade. So they learn nothing really. They cram, get the grade and promptly forget everything. They are not interested in learning anything, just in getting the paper.

People often miss the opportunity to enjoy what they do because they focus all their attention on the outcome, rather than savoring the steps along the way. Where does the pleasure in singing come from - finishing the song, or producing each note or phrase? … To be overly concerned with the ultimate goal often interferes with performance. If a tennis player thinks only of winning the match, she won’t be able to respond to her opponent’s powerful serve … our primary concern here is not with what constitutes a successful performance, but with the quality of experience during performance. If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.

"In education, however, the product - the grade, the final draft, the test mark - still often takes precedence over the process of learning - the sense of personal journey without which the final destination is meaningless. What is even worse is that many of our students are very comfortable with that idea. To them, school is often about “playing the game.” They follow along, raise hands, submit assignments, study for tests. Of course, there is nothing wrong with these activities as long as they do not impede their progress as independent thinkers, researchers, and writers. Unfortunately, most of the time, “playing the game” means following the rules that we’ve set up for the students. We bring in the hoops, and the students jump through them. It’s an easy process for everyone involved."

Google Moderator

2009-04-02T16:03:00.000-04:00

"What does it do? It lets anyone ask a question and then people can vote up the questions that they’d like answered. "

Sounds like a really useful tool to use in large lectures and classes - as immediate as twitter, but more specific, especially as you can prioritise questions...

New issue of the International Journal of Education and Development using ICT

2009-04-02T09:56:00.000-04:00

Vol. 5, No. 2 (2009) of International Journal of Education and Development using ICT has now been published online at http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewissue.php?id=20

Research in Progress
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Data Completeness Analysis of Malaysian Educational Management Information System
Azlinah Mohamed, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Nik Abdullah Nik Abdul Kadir, Ministry of Education
May-Lin Yap, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Shuzlina Abdul Rahman, Universiti Teknologi MARA
Noor Habibah Arshad, Universiti Teknologi MARA
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=477

From the Field

----------------------------------------

e-Education Systems Implementation Success Model
Saadiah Yahya, associate profesor
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=601

Refereed Articles
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The conditions and level of ICT integration in Malaysian Smart Schools
Wan Zah Wan Ali, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Hajar Mohd Nor, Ministry of Education, Malaysia
Azimi Hamzah, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Nor Hayati Alwi, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=618

Literature Reviews
----------------------------------------

Growth and Improvement of Information Communication Technology in Kenya
Gatana G Kariuki,
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=667

Project Sheets
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The Computers for Education Forum COF (www.cof-cameroon.ning.com): Working with 57 rural schools (Ngoketunjia, North West Region, Cameroon)
Tamara R Palamakumbura, Partners for Community Development Initiative (PCDI)
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=684

Editorial
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Technology integration and adoption in education and the community
Stewart Marshall, The University of the West Indies, Barbados, West Indies
Wal Taylor,
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=734

Refereed Articles
----------------------------------------

Action research practices and media for development
Jo Tacchi, QUT
Marcus Foth, QUT
Greg Hearn, QUT
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=560

From the Field

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Brazilian Teachersâ Agency in a Web-based U.S. Reform Project
Eduardo S. Junqueira, Universidade Federal do CearÃ¡
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=617

Literature Reviews
----------------------------------------

Effective Technology Integration: Old Topic, New Thoughts
Bude Su, CSU Monterey Bay
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=620

Refereed Articles
----------------------------------------

A Problem-based approach to accounting education: Pragmatic appraisal of a technologically enabled solution
Carla L Wilkin, Monash University
Phillip A Collier, University of Melbourne
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=658

From the Field

----------------------------------------

Essential Features of Teaching Chemistry Using Computer in the Iranian High Schools
Zohreh Abedi Kargiban,
Saedah Siraj,
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=691

Refereed Articles
----------------------------------------

Analyzing the usage patterns and challenges of telecenters among rural communities: experience from four selected telecenters in Tanzania
Wulystan Pius Mtega, Sokoine University of Agriculture
Andrew Watson Malekani, Sokoine University of Agriculture
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=625

Development and validation of a computer instructional package on electrochemistry for secondary schools in Nigeria.
Oloyede Solomon Oyelekan, University of Ilorin, Nigeria
Adekunle Solomon Olorundare, University of Ilorin, Nigeria
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=677

----------------------------------------

International Journal of Education and Development using ICT
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/

Stop Twittering, learn Latin!

2009-03-29T10:23:00.000-04:00

Dumbing down the curriculum is not the way to go. Technology doesn't mean stupid. Imagine having students twittering to each other in Latin, or blogging in Spanish or French?

"it's exactly a lack of high expectations which underlies making the curriculum relevant to pupils. Lame attempts to engage them by trying to adopt their vernacular signpost attempts to win back disaffected pupils. Disaffected by poor standards, low expectations and weak curricula, rather than because Shakespeare didn't coincide with the MTV era. By secondary school, wooing lost pupils is totally futile. There is nothing less hip than a 'cool' curriculum – and missed opportunities in primary school spent messing around with pop culture will only mean less well-equipped secondary school entrants."

Read more here:

The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter | Webdesigner Depot

2009-03-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter | Webdesigner Depot:

"Twitter isn’t just a cute way for keeping in instant touch with friends on mobile phones anymore. It has ramped up quickly to be the search engine of choice for some with its human driven results.

Applications galore allow you to find friends all over the world with similar interests and keep up with them in real time."

There's lots of educational uses of Twitter as well
From Twitter itself -
" Is anyone using Twitter in (or around) the classroom? If so, I'd love to hear how/what."
" I require my students at X College be on Twitter. "

- more links below:
http://twitter.com/education
http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html
https://explore.twitter.com/DEN
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1605
http://searchenginewatch.com/3630980
http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-education/
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2699/a-professors-tips-for-using-twitter-in-the-classroom

Six technologies for educators to watch � EducationPR

2009-03-24T19:02:00.000-04:00

Six technologies for educators to watch :

"The authors of this report predict that by the year 2020 most people across the world will be using a mobile device as their primary means for connecting to the internet. It is clear that mobiles are already well on the way to becoming a universal tool for communication of all kinds.

This new edition of the Horizon Report discusses six categories of technologies to watch:

In the first adoption horizon (within the next year) we find mobiles and cloud computing.
In the mid-term horizon (two to three years), geo-everything and the personal web.
The far-term horizon (four to five years): semantic-aware applications and smart objects."

And in my EdTech course I am still being asked to teach MS Word! Not even Google Docs for collaboration!

Social media for education communications

2009-03-24T18:37:00.001-04:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Social media for education communications

View more presentations from Paul Baker.

Do students need to physically go to class at all?

2009-03-22T17:49:00.000-04:00

globecampus.ca ~ A Parent's View:

"Unlike my generation, thanks to laptops, podcasts, and the internet, my children can 'attend' virtual lectures, join in discussion boards with other students, and complete and submit assignments, quizzes, and tests.

They can also enroll in courses, drop courses, pay their tuition, and order their textbooks. All online.

Oh, and they can email any questions or concerns to their teaching assistants or course professors.

Uh, why bother ever showing up?"

Podcasting Toolbox: 70 Podcasting Tools and Resources

2009-03-18T11:04:00.000-04:00

Podcasting Toolbox: 70 Podcasting Tools and Resources: "Podcasting may not have lived up to the early hype, but with iPods and other MP3 players still selling like crazy, the potential audience for these audio shows is huge. We’ve compiled a monster list of 70 tools and resources for podcasters and wannabes."

This is from 2007, but a lot of the tools and links are still valid.

Blogs vs Social Networking

2009-03-18T10:15:00.000-04:00

Blogs vs Social Networking: "What is the difference?
Most people (OK, most adults) don't know the difference between 'blogs' and 'social networking' sites."

And that is so true. Blogs are really a space on the web for someone to post their information (it's easy, much easier than creating a full fledged website, and more and more blogging tools allow you to add loads of interesting content, photos, videos etc)

BUT Blogs are NOT an interactive tool. That's a major misconception. People can comment on my blog, but I don't have to pay attention, respond, anything. If I do, they don't really get pushed to respond...

Interactivity is definitely a major part of a social networking site. They are built for people to interact with each other - thus the name.

This article is pretty good at explaining the differences and alos gives a couple of ideas as to how to use social networking in education.

Teachers on Target

2009-03-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

teachers on Target:
A site that was referred by a reader of this blog - excellent resource.

"

Teachers on Target provides teachers on-the-job activities to help them not only gain a better understanding of their teaching skills, but also to help them appreciate the depth and range of what it means to be a teacher. The activities are designed to build connections: To connect with colleagues, to connect with students, and to connect with one’s professionalism. In total, these professional development activities work to meet the following objectives…

To improve teaching competence
To build greater collegiality
To understand and appreciate the art of teaching
To discover the interplay of self, career, and professionalism"

Free lesson plans, homework help and professional development for teachers, students and parents | Verizon Thinkfinity

2009-02-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

Free lesson plans, homework help and professional development for teachers, students and parents | Verizon Thinkfinity: "FREE educational resources for everyone"

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Home

2009-02-27T10:13:00.000-04:00

Employers feel that to-day's graduates' of universities, two-year colleges, and high schools' are deficient in "applied skills" such as critical thinking, problem solving, written communications, leadership, and professionalism. An organization called The Partnership for 21st-Century Skills found as much in a 2006 study, "Are They Really Ready to Work?" The study identifies which skills students lack and how important those skills are today and in the near future
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Home

Images: Zooming in on photo editing tools | TechRepublic Photo Gallery

2009-02-27T10:05:00.000-04:00

Online photo editing services are more and more popular and feature packed. Stand alone tools are expensive. Here's a roundup of interesting and useful online photo editing tools that teachers and their students can use.

"While most photographs are rectangular, the tools we use to edit them come in all manner of shapes and sizes. We've looked at more than a dozen different online services that let you edit your photos and capture what each one of them looks like so you can get a preview before you dive in.

To see how they stack up against each other, click here for a complete comparison chart."

Images: Zooming in on photo editing tools | TechRepublic Photo Gallery

Welcome to The Year of Science!

2009-01-08T09:31:00.001-04:00

(2009 is the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species.) Can it be that you’ve forgotten this is the 400th anniversary of both Galileo’s first use of a telescope to explore the heavens and Kepler’s publication of the first two Laws of Planetary Motion?

Welcome to The Year ... :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs

\\ Screen & Media Studies - Writing essays //

2008-12-23T20:56:00.002-04:00

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'

2008-12-23T20:27:00.002-04:00

"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

2008-12-21T16:09:00.001-04:00

"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)

2008-11-16T15:25:00.001-04:00

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

2008-11-12T18:59:00.001-04:00

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)

2008-10-28T11:43:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-14T10:08:00.001-04:00

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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

2008-09-20T08:22:00.000-04:00

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

2008-08-20T14:29:00.001-04:00

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.

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

2008-08-20T14:28:00.001-04:00

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Free and Open Source Educational Software

2008-08-14T08:13:00.001-04:00

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

OS School DVD: Free and Open Source Software for Education

2008-08-14T08:11:00.001-04:00

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

iTunes U - College and university lectures to download

2008-06-18T13:39:00.001-04:00

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.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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

2008-05-28T09:44:00.001-04:00

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

2008-05-26T13:14:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-18T11:47:00.000-04:00

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

The Sky's the Limit

2007-08-17T11:56:00.002-04:00

DDN Articles - The Sky's the Limit
A comprehensive article about the possibilities for technology use in the classroom. Most children and teens in school today have grown up with technology. School is almost a prehistoric place for them now, with the lag in tech adoptation in most educational institutions.
Here are some ways to start using everyday technology in the classroom.

New NSBA Report on Social Networking

2007-08-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

New NSBA Report on Social Networking

Andy Carvin's blog at PBS on the new NSBA (US National School Boards Association) study on Social Networking and student use. Some interesting notes are the improvement in the children's sense of safety online (m0re private sites, not as much personal info, less interaction with shady characters)
But also - a not so good item is that teachers are less comfortable than parents.

Andy did a really nice article on it. Well worth a read.

Free Web Hosting

2007-08-16T10:19:00.000-04:00

Free Web Hosting at freespaces.com

Banner-less hosting. You will have a small tag on your site that says "hosted by freespaces.com", but it's less intrusive and of course, FREE

Connect the Dots: Students, Blogs and the Nobel Peace Prize | PBS

2006-10-20T12:42:00.000-04:00

Andy Carvin talks about blogging and the Grameen bank Nobel Prize. What's the connection, you might ask, but read it and see. Then comments from students about the value of blogging are eye-opening.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Course Development

2006-10-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Course Development is a really cool Moodle-based site that assists in content development.
From the site - "

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Course Development is designed as a resource for individuals with varying levels of course design experience.

Individuals new to higher education can use this site to help design their first classroom based course integrating technology where appropriate.

Experienced instructors, being encouraged to place materials within a learning management system, can use this site to decipher the differences between Web-Presence, Web-Enhanced, Web-Centric and Online courses and how to plan courses for online delivery.

Instructors of online courses, looking for new ideas and ways to improve their course, can use the site to improve content development by finding sources for pre-developed content and ideas to improve student centered learning.

Instructional Designers and Instructional Support Staff can use this site as a reference for themselves or as a resource for the faculty they support."

Gmail - [TTLUG] CMS Matrix

2006-06-29T11:05:00.000-04:00

I got this via email on the Trinidad and Tobago Linux USers Group mailing list.
This is for anyone who needs to choose a Content Management System (CMS) for a particular project.
They compare many of them, both open source and non-open source.

http://www.cmsmatrix.org/matrix/cms-matrix

Education website with interactive games for children

2006-06-11T09:10:00.000-04:00

CHILDREN: ACTIVITIES RECREATION AND ENTERTAINMENT : EDUCATION: K-12: EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: New Student Interactives
This website, provided by the US state of UTAH, provides online games for Language Arts, Math, Health, Social Studies and more. These are fun and interesting ways for students to learn and test themselves on concepts. They include Puzzling Puzzles, Brain Benders, Strategy Games, Memory Games, Word Games, Math Activities, Social Studies, Science, Health, Media, Money Games and more for students from K-12.
Try it out and explore, and comment on how they work.

How to Design and Publish Your Website with Open Source tools

2006-06-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

How to Design and Publish Your Website with Nvu:
For people in the developing world and especially in Education, where funds are perenially low, open source tools can solve a lot of needs. In the web development space, here are a few tools that can replace the expensive proprietary tools, such as dreamweaver, photoshop and illustrator.

Web development: NVU is a free alternative to Dreamweaver ( http://www.nvu.com )
Graphics:
InkScape ( http://www.inkscape.org/ ) is a free vector art application similar in many ways to Illustrator or Fireworks
Paint .NET ( http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/features.html ) for Windows, or The Gimp ( http://www.gimp.org/ ) are bitmap editors (similar to Photoshop)
Animation:
GIMP-GAP is a set of plug-ins for the GIMP-2.0 that extends GIMP for creation of animations based on a series of frame images. GIMP-GAP is the next development step of the Video Menu that once was part of gimp-1.2." http://www.gimp.org/
Unfortunately, Flash has no open source alternative as yet... but there is some work going on here

I'll update as I get more tools.

Relationship Of Gender To.Faculty Use Of Online Educational Tools

2006-06-07T00:59:00.000-04:00

Relationship Of Gender To Faculty Use Of Online Educational Tools
This is a really interesting research paper that questions whether gendered use of the Internet and hte Web extends to higher education faculty, and discusses possible implications.
"Online courses have become a vital part of the curriculum for most post-secondary institutions in the United States. Whether used for distance learning or as an enhancement to classroom teaching, the integration of online courses marks a distinct change in the system of higher education. According to this attitude of innovation, especially in the online environment, the traditional method of lecturing is no longer appropriate. New methods of instruction must be introduced into the online teaching world. How will these methods be defined and implemented? Who will define and implement them? One aspect to be considered here is the role of gender. The role that gender plays in online teaching has not yet been investigated to the extent this topic warrants, and specific pedagogic questions with respect to gender have neither been asked nor answered. The purpose of the study was to pose and report on some gender-related questions. Do male and female faculty make different teaching choices in online instruction methods based on their gender? Do these choices reflect societal gendered tendencies regarding technology? What are some of the implications for teaching and learning in higher education?"

What Exactly is a Blog, Anyway?

2006-05-22T14:48:00.000-04:00

TeacherSource | learning.now . What Exactly is a Blog, Anyway? | PBS
An interesting article by Andy Carvin that discusses bloggin gin the classroom. It's meant to
help teachers who are unfamiliar with blogging, and also as a launching point to talk about things like podcasting and video blogging in the future.
I think that this might help teachers in Trinidad who are afraid to allow their students to blog as part of the course, to get more comfortable with the use of these tools.

Education Podcast Network -- The Landmark Project

2006-05-12T05:26:00.000-04:00

Education Podcast Network -- The Landmark Project
Way cool - this is what we are talking about!

Webby awards - educational websites... are they any good

2006-05-12T05:24:00.000-04:00

Interesting take by Andy Carvin on the 206 nominees for the Webby awards. BTW - I totally agree with Andy that sites in the education category need at this time to be looking at how to USE the web to get students involved in ONLINE learning, not just using the web in the same old ways. Community sites, tags, collections, multimedia, all these are possibilities.

TeacherSource | learning.now . Should Students be Allowed to Carry Cell Phones? | PBS

2006-05-12T05:04:00.000-04:00

TeacherSource | learning.now . Should Students be Allowed to Carry Cell Phones? | PBS
A very interesting discussion about the use of technology in classrooms. Should students be allowed to carry cell phones to school? The parents say YES- it's about safety. The school admins say NO - it's disruptive. But then, what about looking at using the phones in the classroom? Can we not use cellphone techoogy in education as well?

Online Discussion tools

2006-04-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

From a mailing list that I subscribe to - a very nice concise explanation of the tools that we have been looking at - written by James Jones
"Discussion Lists -- Great for this is me announcements, What do you think about this type questions, or I'm having issues implementing such and such. If archived online can be indexed by search engines. :-) Check out http://www.mail-archive.com/ Not so good when restricted to a single topic. Or when an online archive isn't present. The list tends to stagnate. Forums -- Pretty good for how to posts, tips and tricks, and tracking comments. Indexed by search engines :-) Here is an example of a highly used forum - http://forums.gentoo.org/ A royal pain to find useful information, when the base structure is disorganized. Or when the comments on a single post goes on and on for several pages. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-231506.html that post has 5 pages of comments. Now if that is the absolute only place I can find any information about the topic at hand I'll wade through that but a trip to the dentist would most likely be more interesting. Twiki / Wiki's -- Really good for how to posts, best practices, editable by a large number of people etc. http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page Can be over kill for static content. While you can edit the page you can't really place a comment outside of the discussed area. You have to make a new entry in the posted page and anyone can remove your comment. Blogs Defiantly fits the news post type role and people can comment. Blogs can also be used to give a recap of the more interesting dialogs that occurred during the week with groups using any of the above methods. Could be a good way to point people to your more user active areas. Doesn't really foster an active community. Seems to foster a passive community....

MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning

2006-04-04T10:21:00.000-04:00

The New Media Consortium and the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education, working in collaboration with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, are soliciting abstracts for chapters to appear in a series of volumes entitled the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. The MacArthur Foundation Series will explore the intersection of digital media and learning from the perspectives of experts, visionaries, and thought leaders chosen from across the globe.

As many as 60 authors will be selected to write chapters for one of the six volumes that will comprise the first topics in the series. The project enjoys substantial support; authors who are selected to participate will each receive an honorarium of $10,000 US for their chapters.

I write to encourage you to submit an abstract for consideration.

The Call for Abstracts contains considerable information on the project, submission information, and detailed descriptions of each of the topics. That document can be downloaded at http://www.nmc.org/pdf/MacArthur_Series_CFA.pdf

I hope you will also share this announcement with others whom you think may find it of interest -- we hope to reach both the leading thinkers and writers in the world on these topics as well as those whose ideas are significant but less well known.

Dr. Laurence F. Johnson
Chief Executive Officer

___________________________

The New Media Consortium
sparking innovative learning and creativity

2499 S Capital of Texas Hwy
Building A, Suite 202
Austin, TX 78746-7762

tel 512 445-4200
fax 512 445-4205

email johnson@nmc.org
web www.nmc.org

Podcasting: A New Voice on the Net

2006-03-26T18:36:00.000-04:00

Podcasting: A New Voice on the Net
This interesting article discusses podcasting and how it can be used.
"If you've ever wanted to speak directly to your audience, here's your chance. While blogs give anyone with something to say a means to publish their views on the Web, podcasting gives those with a computer and Internet access a chance to create and post their own radio broadcasts."

Building Educational Web Sites with Moodle

2006-03-25T14:15:00.000-04:00

Building Educational Web Sites with Moodle
An excellent article on the value of using content management systems, and educational systems, such as moodle, for education activities."

Five years ago, Web designers and teachers who wanted to build a site had to code HTML by hand or use an editor like Macromedia Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, or Adobe GoLive. You then had to upload files to a server. Few busy teachers had the time to acquire these skills. With the advent of content management systems, Web publishing became easy enough for anyone to pick up quickly.

With a CMS like Moodle, you don't need any Web design skills, all you need is the ability to write and teach your ideas using images, text, or any media on the Internet -- there's no software to buy or install. Just go to any computer, open a Web browser, and make changes to your site. Moodle also works well for those with old computers, slow Internet connections, and older browsers. All you need is PHP -- an HTML scripting language -- installed on your system, and you're ready to go."

Pretty much what I've been trying to say since October. Dreamweaver is useful, but a lot less useful than Moodle or Mambo for non-technical people to develop powerful tools quickly.

Google Web Page Creator

2006-02-27T20:31:00.000-04:00

"Google Page Creator <http://pages.google.com/> is a web based application that uses a basic what-you-see is what-you-get style of interface, designed to allow anyone to create and publish web pages, regardless of skill or knowledge level.

"It's as easy to create a page on the web as it is to create one on a word processor," said Justin Rosenstein, product manager for the new tool.

Google Page Creator allows you to arrange text, images or other types of web content and upload the web pages with a single click, without the need to know web programming languages such as HTML or Javascript, or how to configure and transfer pages to a web server."

Read full story at:
Google Introduces Web Page Creator
<http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3586916>

Public Library of Science

2006-02-15T18:21:00.000-04:00

Public Library of Science
Excellent resource!

NEW dgSURVEY: Online Education: What Can It Deliver?

2006-01-17T02:15:00.000-04:00

Just got this in an email - interesting survey. It would be cool to have responses from the Caribbean.
Jacqueline

Educational resources available via the Internet, from online course materials to virtual classroom videoconferencing, offer some of today?s most cutting-edge applications of cyberspace. However, e-learning has not always lived up to its promise for schools, faculty, and students in developing countries. A Development Gateway Special Report scheduled for March 2006 will examine the challenges and opportunities of online education in the developing world.

We would like to know what Development Gateway members think about online education in developing countries. Please take few moments to answer a short survey at (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=864101622251). Selected responses will appear in the 'From Our Members' section of the Special Report. Thanks for your help!

Wikis in Education - Westwood - a case study

2006-01-13T09:59:00.000-04:00

http://westwood.wikispaces.com/

Our Space: We began to use our wikispace as the companion to our Computer Science curriculum but are expanding it for use in Computer Fundamentals, Keyboarding, and Computer Graphic Design.

We started with one page (http://westwood.wikispaces.com/Web+2.0) where I posted words relating to Web 2.0. I divided the students into groups and had them collaboratively research their topic on the Internet, summarize their findings, and link to their sources. I have found that it is the perfect tool to help students summarize and synthesize information! Every student, regardless of ability level was able to contribute in a meaningful way!

We've expanded it considerably and now have links to our student wikispaces (http://westwood.wikispaces.com/Westwood+wikilinks+page). Of particular interest is the 10th grade "study hall" (http://studyhall.wikispaces.com) where the students have created a
listing of homework with links to the pages they have created to study for exams! They update this on their own! It has its own life!
I'm most excited that they have an electronic forum to exchange academic information from home! I like that I can monitor who has added material and can control who contributes to each space.

Our Community: The students and faculty of Westwood Schools.

Our Experience with Wikispaces: The first day, the students started getting excited. The second day, they were thrilled and engrossed in learning about our topic. For their quiz on creating wikipages I had them create their own space on the school topic of their choice. That
is when I found them squealing in the hall talking about their english wikispace or history wikispace. The other faculty, who are always cutting edge, began asking what this "wiki thing" was. Some of them have created their own pages and are creating projects next semester
to move from paper portfolios to wikispaces. I've been asked to do a teacher in service training on January 2nd to bring all middle school and high school teachers up to speed.

I have used countless technological tools -- but I have never found a tool so useful in the educational process. We use blogging, podcasting and all of the other features of Education 2.0. I believe, however, that wikispaces are the thing that will integrate all of these technologies into meaningful experiences.

Read more about about which features work well for us:

http://www.wikispaces.com/Wikispaces+Update+December+2005+More+Westwood

Read a full summary of our Wikispaces experience:

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2005/12/wiki-wiki-teaching-art-of-using-wiki.html

Looking for Blogging Mentors

2005-12-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

This is a very interesting way to use blogs to stimulate students.
ATTENTION BLOGGERS:

Interested in developing the worldwide blogosphere? Like working with young people?

We are looking for bloggers from around the world to be a blogging mentor for 1 week sometime in February, March, April or May 2006.

The project, Young Caucasus Women, is a group blog for young women from the Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). The young
women will be given a topic to blog on each week, although they are welcome to blog on any topic throughout the week.

We need bloggers to blog on a specific topic on Sunday, hence inspiring the young women's blog entries. The topic and week need to be determined at least month in advance.
Then throughout the week, the adult mentor blogger would need to comment on the young women's blog postings.

THAT'S IT - simple, yet a project with a lot of impact.

You don't need any background in the region. Just be culturally sensitive, have a topic that would be of interest to international young women and have a blog. We'd love to have English language bloggers from around the world.

Interested or know someone who is? Contact katy (at) katypearce (dot) org for more information.

Background:

There are almost NO blogs written by national individuals living IN-COUNTRY in the Caucasus. Generally blogs are written by ex-pats or diasporas. The students participating in this project are high school aged foreign exchange students currently in the US. The hope is that they will continue blogging once they return home in the summer of 2006.

The immediate aims of the project are:

To highlight the similarities and learn about the differences between young women in these neighboring countries.

To promote citizen journalism in developing countries as an alternative to mainstream media.

To promote weblogs as a method of democratic expression.

To expose young women to journalism and technology.

Gmail - [DDN] Making Computers Useful in Education

2005-12-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

Quoting from an email on the Digital Divide Network mailing list:

Take a look at this meta-study of 59 computer-assisted instruction
(CAI) reports. http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/5/cu10.html
It indicates that:

* The use of CAI as a supplement to conventional instruction produces higher achievement than the use of onventional instruction alone.
* Research is inconclusive regarding the comparative effectiveness of conventional instruction alone and CAI alone.
* Computer-based education (CAI and other computer applications) produce higher achievement than conventional instruction alone.
* Student use of word processors to develop writing skills leads to higher-quality written work than other writing methods (paper and pencil, conventional typewriters).
* Students learn material faster with CAI than with conventional instruction alone.
* Students retain what they have learned better with CAI than with conventional instruction alone.
* The use of CAI leads to more positive attitudes toward computers, course content, quality of instruction, school in general, and self- as-learner than the use of conventional instruction alone.
* The use of CAI is associated with other beneficial outcomes,
including greater internal locus of control, school attendance,
motivation/time-on-task, and student-student cooperation and collaboration than the use of conventional instruction alone.
* CAI is more beneficial for younger students than older ones.
* CAI is more beneficial with lower-achieving students than with
higher-achieving ones.
* Economically disadvantaged students benefit more from CAI than
students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
* CAI is more effective for teaching lower-cognitive material than
higher-cognitive material.
* Most handicapped students, including learning disabled, mentally
retarded, hearing impaired, emotionally disturbed, and language
disordered, achieve at higher levels with CAI than with conventional instruction alone.
* There are no significant differences in the effectiveness of CAI
with male and female students.
* Students' fondness for CAI activities centers around the
immediate, objective, and positive feedback provided by these
activities.
* CAI activities appear to be at least as cost effective as--and
sometimes more cost-effective than-- other instructional methods,
such as teacher-directed instruction and tutoring.

Educational Weblogs:

2005-12-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

http://educational.blogs.com/instructional_technology_/
Technology resource blog for educators - Disruptive Technology Resource for Educators using Weblogs, Blogware, Collaborative tools, RSS & Podcasting, web services and digital tools at home, school, university and community.

NSW Open Source :: Open Source for Education

2005-12-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

NSW Open Source :: Open Source for Education
useful document (pdf format) that discusses the use of FLOSS in education (free and open source software - makes sense for impoverished schools in developing countries)

Mambo Server up and all your base websites created.

2005-12-07T18:51:00.000-04:00

Please check with Mr. Paddington or email me directly for the information. I have finally received all the information necessary from the Department to set this up, and I apologise again on behalf of the Department for the length of time it has taken to get this done.
You can find the site at www.educationuwitt.com.
Note - you can also register on the main site to be able to post and stuff... it'smoderated, so I will need to finalise all registrations - this is to reduce SP@M on the site.

Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia

2005-11-23T12:13:00.000-04:00

Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia
All Users Are Not Necessarily Created Equal
By Jude Higdon, Project Manager
The Center for Scholarly Technology
University of Southern California
Complete story at Campus Technology:

______________________________

A Learning is For Everyone, Inc. article recommendation.

______________________________

Like many academic technology groups at campuses around the country, the Center for Scholarly Technology (CST) at USC has been wrestling with how to implement various types of social software, such as blogs and wikis, in the classroom. Over the past few years we have found some very good uses for blogs, including peer-reviewed journaling, Just-in-Time Teaching (Novak, et al, 1999), and meta-cognitive reflective practice. While we hit a few stumbling blocks early on, we seemed to be coming to some level of sophistication and adoption with the use of blogs as tools for enhancing teaching and learning as we entered into the 2005-2006 school year.

Use of wikis in the classroom has proved more elusive. While we never like to advocate the use of technology as an end of itself, our group saw great potential in the affordances of the wiki for teaching and learning. Students co-constructing meaning in a democratized digital space has a certain social constructivist (Bandura, 1976) elegance. And yet we struggled to impart this sense of potential to our faculty collaborators. By and large, people didn't seem ready for the freewheeling, uncontrolled wiki environment.

_________________________________________

Learning is For Everyone, Inc. is a nonprofit 501 C(3) organization whose goal is to provide information resources on the web and assistance through its activities in all aspects of education from cradle to nursing home!

More HTML references

2005-11-22T10:44:00.000-04:00

HTML reference online
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/lessons.html

Class Blog List

2005-11-09T09:24:00.000-04:00

You should also post links to your own blogs - if you email me I'll put them in the sidebar.
Jacqueline

Protecting your kids from online predators

2005-11-09T08:20:00.000-04:00

Given the concerns about children blogging that have been raised, here's an article from MSNBC that offers some tips. May be useful to hand this out to your students and their parents.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9972020/

Expert offers tips to parents to help keep kids safe while on the internet.

On the heels of a 'Dateline NBC' investigative report exposing sexual predators who attempted to lure young teenagers into sexual encounters, MSNBC's Alison Stewart welcomed John Shehan from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to Tuesday's MSNBC Live to discuss how parents can keep their kids safe online.

Shehan, who heads up the center's cyber tip line said that since the program's inception in 1998, they've received over 350,000 reports regarding some sort of child sexual exploitation. Through their work, they've learned that predators have no favorite way to lure children into bad situations.

"There isn't really one specific method. It's really how they can communicate, how they can establish a bond with that child," he said. "It's estimated that 30 million children in the United States are accessing the internet, and it's estimated that one in five children has received an unwanted sexual solicitation while online."

"It's an entirely different world where anyone can be anybody. They can pose as a friend, a nemesis, they can be anyone they want, and a lot of times the predator is just looking for a child that needs attention. They are quickly there to initiate that conversation and to be a best friend," he said.

Within that anonymous world, the vulnerable are the easiest targets, he said.

"It's dangerous in the fact that while that child is online for hours and hours at a time, they're seeking something, whether it's assurance, whether it's a friend, that child predator is going to be online, they're going to read those online blogs, they're going to be in chatrooms, and they're going to be looking for children," he said.

Shehan noted that there are several things that can be done by parents to keep their kids safe.

"First and foremost, parents need to educate themselves before they can even talk to their children about the issue," Shehan said, noting that most parents know far less about the internet than their children.

According to Shehan, in addition to learning about the problem, supervising children while they are online is key, as is communicating with children.

"As we get through the holiday season with Halloween, I'm sure parents took the time to talk to their children of the real-life dangers with strangers," he said. "But are they taking the time to talk to their kids about the cyberworld?"

Team blogging

2005-11-06T14:22:00.000-04:00

For those of you who would like to post to this blog, please email me and I will add you to the team permissions.
Jacqueline

Blogging as a tool : innovative approaches to information access

2005-11-06T14:14:00.000-04:00

DDN Document: Blogging as a tool : innovative approaches to information access
Blogs and RSS (Real Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary) feeds and their applications in libraries are increasing exponentially. These applications range from current awareness type of settings in keeping up-to-date with new information, table of contents alerts of journal articles, feeds based on a research query in electronic databases, and news alerts from different subject areas. Other library related use of blogs and RSS feeds may include availability of new books based on selected keywords, feeds based on new subject guides, creating simple blog entries for course related useful
information, and announcing library related events such as the Scholarly Communications Speaker series. This presentation provides information on these applications and recommendations on how they can be implemented in any library setting. A particular emphasis on the Engineering Resources blog created for the College of Engineering and the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems is given to highlight a variety of information published so far. Future directions and vision of how blogs and
RSS can be used in academic library settings are discussed."

Schools can be joyful places

2005-10-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

An interesting blog re education. You can take some ideas from Marilyn's blog to help you with your own.Schools can be joyful places

Programme approved.

2005-10-21T09:40:00.000-04:00

The Diploma in Educational Technology programme has been approved by the University and all students should complete the application and registration forms next Thursday. Mr. Paddington suggests students should come early, at 8.30am, in order to not disrupt the digital audio class.

Update on server and assignment

2005-10-20T07:58:00.000-04:00

Mr. Paddington has responded re the server issue and the assignment.
"The assignment was that the students would write and post a blog and develop the first page of a web site using Mambo or HTML."
About the server, he has indicated that he will finalise the permissions today. As soon as I have the go-ahead, you will receive emails with the location of each website space.

Web Logs Go to School

2005-10-18T14:57:00.000-04:00

An interesting article on using blogs in the classroom.

As a middle-school teacher, Clarence Fisher is used to spending some time each evening grading papers and reviewing lesson plans. But this year he's got an additional after-school task: updating his students' blogs. Fisher set up online personal journals--Web logs or blogs--this fall for each of his students at Joseph H. Kerr School in the Canadian town of Snow Lake, Manitoba. His combined seventh- and eighth-grade class generates about a dozen entries a day on topics ranging from classroom assignments to weekend plans, which Fisher reviews before posting online.

He's more than glad to do it. Like other teachers bringing blogging into the classroom, he thinks the online journals will spark students' enthusiasm for computers, writing and opining.

"They're learning the technical skills, but they're also learning that they have a voice online," he said. "They may be from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but they're writing online, people are commenting on it, and they're learning that they have a voice."

Fisher is among a small but growing number of teachers and professors experimenting with classroom blogs. The exact number is hard to pin down but it's well into the thousands, said Will Richardson, author of "An Educator's Guide to Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Cool New Web Tools that are Transforming the Classroom," which is set for publication next year.

Another Mambo tutorial

2005-10-17T18:50:00.000-04:00

What makes this guide different from others, is that it is written by someone relatively unfamiliar with the concept of Content Management Systems. So this easy simple guide is aimed specifically for newbies. It might help those of you who are having difficulty with the concept of a CMS, even though youhave the manual processes covered.

Mambo Hosting Providers

2005-10-16T10:13:00.000-04:00

In reply to the requests about hosting a website, here's a link to a series of hosting providers who support Mambo.
Mambo Hosting Providers

The RSS feed for this blog

2005-10-14T15:14:00.000-04:00

http://uwiclass.blogspot.com/atom.xml
In case you want to add it to your newsfeed list in your Mambo site.
It would be good to create a wiki page with useful feeds - feeds and links that you find interesting and useful in your work. The Wiki is at http://uwiclass.wikispaces.com/

Yeah! The Wiki is up...

2005-10-14T15:09:00.000-04:00

The wiki for the class is up at http://uwiclass.wikispaces.com/.
A Wiki is a website or similar online resource which allows users to add and edit content collectively. Excellent for working on a group FAQ. The Wikipedia is a hugeonline encyclopaedia, that's edited collectively.
A wiki is a great tool for class use, as group projects are made very easy using it.