Video games that teach beyond basics

Video games that teach beyond basics
Alex L. GoldfaynPublished December 25, 2006For more than a decade, professor David Williamson Shaffer has been trying to change the world, one video game at a time.And he has his work cut for him. Shaffer is not just trying to change kids, but the very school system that teaches them."The fundamental premise of school is that there are these disciplines--math, science, history--and these are the building blocks of anything we have to do later on," Shaffer said. "Kids' jobs are to master these basics."But Shaffer has a problem with this premise, and it's a bombshell: Using this approach, our schools are not preparing our kids to be successful in today's high-charged, high-tech world.

Video games that teach beyond basics | Chicago Tribune

Blogged with Flock

List of web 2.0 Apps for use in K-12 Schools

The following list is useful if you want to create a "walled garden" of safe Web 2.0 tools you can use within your school's intranet, or even Internet, but have complete control over. So, a quick review of the tools available for those who want to "lock" things down and eliminate social networking OUTSIDE of school environment during the school day:

mguhlin » Creating the Walled Garden - List of Web 2.0 Apps for Use in K-12 Schools

Blogged with Flock

ProfCast for podcast

ProfCast is a versatile, powerful, yet very simple to use tool for recording lectures including PowerPoint and/or Keynote slides for creating enhanced podcasts. ProfCast provides a low cost solution for recording and distributing lectures, special events, and presentations as podcasts. ProfCast offers an integrated workflow that makes creating, recording, and publishing podcasts easy. It's as simple as Launch, Load, and Lecture!

ProfCast - ProfCast 2.0

Blogged with Flock

Connectivism Online Conference

Connectivism Online ConferenceThe evolution of teaching and learning is accelerated with technology. After several decades of duplicating classroom functionality with technology, new opportunities now exist to alter the spaces and structures of knowledge to align with both needs of learners today, and affordances of new tools and processes.

University of Manitoba: Learning Technologies Centre

Blogged with Flock

MogoPop

Looks like a great tool to make podcasts

Blogged with Flock

A Petition Calling for the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act

To: U.S. CongressWe, the educators, parents, and concerned citizens whose names appear below, reject the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act and call for legislators to vote against its reauthorization. We do so not because we resist accountability, but because the law's simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy.Below, briefly stated, are some of the reasons we consider the law too destructive to salvage. In its place we call for formal, state-level dialogues led by working educators rather than by politicians, ideology-bound "think tank" members, or leaders of business and industry who have little or no direct experience in the field of education.

A Petition Calling For the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act Petition

Blogged with Flock

Portable Apps Suite

PortableApps Suite bundles more than 20 free applications with a menu system for launching the programs and organizing document files, and it runs on Windows PCs as well as on Wine-equipped Linux systems.

Portable Suite Runs Apps From Flash Drives, iPods - News by InformationWeek

Blogged with Flock

Plone

Another CMS system - just when I am liking Moodle - so much good stuff out there.

Plone is a ready-to-run content management system that is built on the powerful and free Zope application server. Plone is easy to set up, extremely flexible, and provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets.

What is Plone? — plone.org

technorati tags:CMS

Blogged with Flock

Google for Educators

This could be a great resource!

Google recognizes the central role that teachers play in breaking down the barriers between people and information, and we support educators who work each day to empower their students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. This website is one of the ways we're working to bolster that support and explore how Google and educators can work together.

Google For Educators

Blogged with Flock

eSN TechWatch (Monthly video)

eSN TechWatch, anchored by Managing Editor Dennis Pierce, brings you the latest news and information for K-20 decision makers -- also featuring reports from Senior Editor Corey Murray and Assistant Editor Laura Ascione.

eSchool News online

Blogged with Flock

Increase your productivity

Productivity, both at home and at work, is something everyone would like to increase, and Mac users have a plethora of applications that can help you do just that. Below is a list of 10 apps that can help you increase your productivity. From burning disk images, to managing your time, giving your mouse and Apple Remote additional, time saving, functionality, and much, much more.

  10 Apps to Increase Productivity on Your Mac by Apple Gazette

Blogged with Flock

Collaborating

This is EducationBridges.net: Teachers Collaborating with Teachers, a learning landscape. The purpose of this site is to create an environment for educators to collaborate about teaching and learning in the 21st Century. The creators of this site believe that to make the world a better place, educators need to share their best practices/lessons learned that are research as well as experience based practices. This is a place to do that. Why not check out what people are saying right now.

EducationBridges.net: Teachers Collaborating with Teachers

Blogged with Flock

A Wiki to Share

The Collaborative Guide to Information Technology in K-12 Schools

School Computing Home Page - School Computing

Blogged with Flock

Kairosnews

Kairosnews is an open community of members interested in the intersections of rhetoric and pedagogy with technology. Visitors should register and join in the many discussions by posting comments or creating a blog entry.

Kairosnews | A Weblog for Discussing Rhetoric, Technology and Pedagogy

Blogged with Flock

21st Century Information Fluency Project

IMSA's 21 st Century Information Fluency Project (21CIF) provides free resources and training to all educators and learners so that they may locate, evaluate and use digital information resources more effectively, efficiently and ethically. 21CIF addresses the information needs experienced by today's teachers and students through IMSA's "Full Circle Resource Kit", online courses and webinars, face-to-face workshops and interactive tutorials. All curricular resources are informed by the latest research and supplemented with interactive Wizard Tools.

IMSA 21st Century Information Fluency Project - Search Help for Students of All Ages

technorati tags:21st, Century, Libraires

Blogged with Flock

EdTechTalk - Poscast you can particpate in

I listened to an EdTechtalk - and found they have a regular schedule with the ability to Sykpe in - I think I'll watch and listen a bit more....

Edtechtalk is a webcasting network of educators dedicated to helping those involved in educational technology explore, discusss, and collaborate in its use. Edtechtalk is part of EducatioBridges, which is a division of Worldbridges

Educational Technology That Talks - EdTechTalk | EdTechTalk Educational Technology That Talks...

technorati tags:podcast

Blogged with Flock

K12 Online Conference

Driving to work today I heard Wesley Fryer's podcast which today discussed the K12 Online Conference - a free two week long conference on the power of Web 2.0 tools for classroom use.

The “K12 Online Conference” is for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice! This year’s conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, Oct. 23-27 and Oct. 30- Nov. 3 and will include a preconference keynote. The conference theme is “Unleashing the Potential.”

For more details, please refer to:

• The conference announcement post
• The Submission guidelines post
• Our growing FAQ page

Please share this event with other educators you know. Everyone is invited, admission is absolutely free! :-)

k12 Online Conference » About

I plan on attending and urge any of you who can spare th time to as well - it will be both sychronous and asynchrounous. It looks exciting!!! Feel free to downlad and post this flyer about the conference.

technorati tags:Web2.0, Conference

Blogged with Flock

Open Source Software in Education

Worthwhile reading! If you do not receive the email alert from innovate - journal of online education I suggest you subscribe!  Every issue has great items.  This months summary is below.

Welcome to the October/November issue of Innovate. Among the range of technological developments that hold significance for educators, one of the most far-reaching in its future implications is the rapid growth of open source software. In this special issue of Innovate, our contributors explore, assess, and illustrate the potential of open source software and related trends to transform educational practice.

Innovate - October/November 2006 Volume 3, Issue 1

technorati tags:OpenSource, Software

Blogged with Flock

NCLB - Relevance at risk?

The No Child Left Behind Act risks losing relevance if an innovative approach to reauthorization is not pursued, according to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. As Congress prepares to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which NCLB is the main component, the Partnership has provided federal policymakers with a statement of principles (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/NCLBMemoandPrinciples0630.pdf) for infusing 21st century metrics into the Act.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills Calls for Innovative NCLB Reauthorization: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

technorati tags:NCLB

Blogged with Flock

Internet Safety and MySpace

MySpace.com, the leading social networking and lifestyle portal for connecting with friends and discovering culture, announced today the launch of an Internet safety campaign with the publication and distribution of Parents' and School Administrators' Guides to Internet Safety. The launch, a strategic partnership with Seventeen Magazine, the National School Board Association and the National Association of Independent Schools, supports the third annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month in October, a nationwide effort to educate Internet users about safe online practices."We're committed to doing everything we can to improve internet safety," said Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer of MySpace. "While technology plays a critical role in tackling the challenges of Internet safety, any measures must be part of a comprehensive solution, and education is an essential component." Nigam continued, "We're pleased to enlist experts such as Seventeen magazine, the National School Board Association and the National Association of Independent Schools to continue a productive dialogue on safe Web practices."

MySpace Launches Internet Safety Campaign with Parents' and School Administrators' Internet Safety Guides

technorati tags:Myspace, Safety

Blogged with Flock

Vyew.com - Free Web-Based Collaboration - Vyew.com - Free Web-Based Collaboration

Vyew.com - Free Web-Based Collaboration - Vyew.com - Free Web-Based Collaboration: "Vyew is a browser-based conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that provides instant visual communication without the need for client downloads or installations."

Quia

Quia Create online quizes and tests - activities, games and much more!

Lazybase

Lazybase: "Welcome to Lazybase.com. Lazybase allows anyone to design, create and share a database of whatever they like."

Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » Great web 2.0 tools for students

From Wesley Fryer..... Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » Great web 2.0 tools for students: "Great web 2.0 tools for students Sindya Bhanoo has posted a nice top 10 list of read/write web tools students can use for educational purposes. Although the post is ostensibly for college students, most of these tools can be used powerfully in the K-12 space as well. Tools on the list I had not heard of before include: * Soundslides - Storytelling management made easy. Allows you to easily merge sound and audio to create and audio slideshow presentations. Requires a small registration fee. * Blue.Us - A great social bookmarking/networking service. With the click of a button, you can “Dot” a Web site / page that you find interesting and instantly share it with all of your friends. Perfect for groups of students who have similar interests - it’s an easy way to share information. * mynoteIT - mynoteIT is a free service built for students to help keep school information organized and have it easily accessible whenever, wherever. We are still living in a day when many, if not most professors in classrooms where students are using laptops are VERY concerned that the students will use them to be off-task, doing things like instant messaging. Marc Prensky stated the digital native response to this sort of worry very succinctly several years ago: “Engage Me or Enrage Me!” (PDF) Rather than banning laptops or tools like Skype, teachers as well as professors (but especially professors) need to get over “The Synchronous Non-interactive Fallacy” and engage students with these digital tools! More educators need to teach digital! :-)"

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities: "The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my personal pick of the 'best of the best.' All the utilities in this list have featured in past issues of my free monthly newsletter 'Support Alert' More freebies are published in each new issue. If you are interested in great utilities and freeware you really should consider subscribing. It's free. Listed below are 46 different freeware categories with my selection of the best products in each category. The list is ordered by program function rather than merit so you'll get the most out of it by browsing down this page at leisure. The pathologically impatient can consult the index below."

Killing NCLB in 2007

Killing NCLB in 2007 By Jamie McKenzie About Author

Congress must decide in 2007 whether to reauthorize NCLB/Helter-Skelter or let it die and replace it with a new law that makes sense.

The law is so badly flawed, it cannot be fixed. It is a wreck. It is un-American in its basic principles, relying upon fear, intimidation, threats and punishments in ways that would make Stalin happy. NCLB is the very kind of big government "state planning" that we were taught would be the downfall of the Soviets.

We need a new law with a focus on capacity building and encouragement rather than testing, fear and punishment...........

Word Cloud Keyword Density Tool

Word Cloud Keyword Density Tool Want better accuracy, try using better Key Words - and this service can help.

Wired 14.09: Spam + Blogs = Trouble

Wired 14.09: Spam + Blogs = Trouble: "I am aware that spending a lot of time Googling yourself is kind of narcissistic, OK? But there are situations, I would argue, when it is efficiently – even forgivably – narcissistic. When I published a book last year, I wanted to know what, if anything, people were saying about it. Ego-surfing was the obvious way to do that. Which is how I stumbled across Some Title."

The (merely) Demanding Question

The (merely) Demanding Question: "

The Question Mark

A great article on questioning. By Jamie McKenzie - take a look.

Epic 2014

Epic 2014 Epic 2014 is the original flash online movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History Set in 2014 Epic 2014 charts the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and the way news and newspapers were affected by the growth in online news. It coined the word "Googlezon" from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid, and speaks of news wars with the Times becoming a print only paper for the elite culminating in EPIC Evolving Personalised Information Construct As a flash animation, this film is extraordinary, not just for it's use of technology but for it's fantastic perception looking forward. Epic 2015 is a new updated vision of the future built on Epic 2014set but now set in 2015.

Making Slam Dunk Lessons

Making Slam Dunk Lessons I found this article from Jamie McKenzie to be a great idea in structuring lessons for technology. I think it would benefit many teachers as they struggle with integration - a good read.

Future Tense from American Public Media

Future Tense from American Public Media: "Free Internet TV application aims to democratize 'Net media Listen in RealAudio The Democracy Player is a program that lets users subscribe to video channels, download programs in the background, and view most video formats in full-screen resolution. There are 500 channels, including popular video blogs like 'Rocketboom' and mainstream content like ABC News. There are Windows, Mac and Linux versions of the free, open source program. The Democracy Player has a political mission as well: to give individuals more control over the TV they watch and produce. The project is being led by the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation, which is dedicated to free, open access to media. Co-founder Nicholas Reville says Democracy Player does a better job than internet video sites such as YouTube of providing a picture quality closer to traditional television."

Google Help Center: How can I view my calendar from other applications?

Wondering how to access the calendars we are using at Stritch? Wonder no more..... Google Help Center: How can I view my calendar from other applications?: "How can I view my calendar from other applications? Your calendar's 'Private Address' in XML or iCal format lets you easily view a read-only version of your calendar from other applications -- like a feed reader (e.g. Google Reader) or a product that supports the iCal format (e.g. iCal for Mac). Your calendar's 'Private Address' in HTML format lets you view a read-only version of your calendar without signing in to Google Calendar. To obtain your calendar's 'Private Address,' just follow these steps:

1. Under 'Calendars' in the left column, click on the down-arrow next to the appropriate calendar, then select 'Calendar settings.' (Alternatively, click on 'Manage Calendars' under 'Calendars' in the left column, then click on the name of the appropriate calendar.)
2. In the 'Private Address' section, click on the 'XML', 'iCal', or 'HTML' icon. A pop-up window with your calendar's public URL will appear.

Additionally, you can export your calendar information by clicking on the 'ICAL' button and clicking on the displayed URL. Note: the private address was designed for your use only, so be sure not to share this address with others. If you want to let others view your calendar, you can share your calendar's public address (or 'Calendar Address') with them. If you accidentally share your calendar's private address, click on the 'Reset Private URLs' link to regenerate your calendar's private address."

OpenSource and Drawing

Inkscape. Draw Freely

What is Inkscape?

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

 

Main Page - OpenContentWIki

Main Page - OpenContentWIki This workshop has a ton of resources for assisting all of us in creating Online Gaming for Education - awesome!

Six Jobs That Won't Exist In 2016

Six Jobs That Won't Exist In 2016 What an interesting concept - much like the Wired Magazine article on CrowdSourcing - I wonder how many jobs will be created and lost through the evolution of technology. Are we preparing students with the right skills?

Talking to 49 Superintendents - Practical Theory

Chris Lehmann really hit this on the head - good reading! Talking to 49 Superintendents - Practical Theory: "Talking to 49 Superintendents Will Richardson has a great opportunity tomorrow -- he's got a captive audience made up of 49 Superintendents, and he asked for input about what to say to them. I was grappling with this one for a while, and I finally hit on what I wanted to say when I talked to Will on the phone today. Tell them that our schools have to change or die. Tell them that there are more and more people arguing that the classroom... the very thing that we have spent our professional career in love with... is becoming obsolete. Tell them that those people are right unless we learn to change. Tell them that our kids already have changed. Tell them that our kids need us to teach even more. Our kids have more access to a more varied level of information than ever before in human history and our kids need us to teach them how to navigate that space more than ever. Tell them that locking out the sites and tools of this new world our kids live in will render us irrelevant and useless when our students need us most. Tell them that this new world means that teaching skills -- cognitive and meta-cognitive -- is now more important than memorizing content. Tell them that multiple choice tests can't possibly measure the new skills our kids must master. Tell them that our students can be content producers now as much as content consumers. Tell them that many of our students know how to reach a larger audience more quickly than any school district memo could ever hope to. Tell them that"

Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » Cheating? Of course it is but….

This captures the essence of the friction between good instruction and how technology can uproot poor instruction quickly. Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » Cheating? Of course it is but….: "Cheating? Of course it is but…. Filed under: Musings — Steve @ May 31, 06 | 1:22 pm Via Dan Mitchell NY Times At the University of California at Los Angeles, a student loaded his class notes into a handheld e-mail device and tried to read them during an exam; a classmate turned him in. At the journalism school at San Jose State University, students were caught using spell check on their laptops when part of the exam was designed to test their ability to spell. And at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, after students photographed test questions with their cellphone cameras, transmitted them to classmates outside the exam room and got the answers back in text messages, the university put in place a new proctoring system. Yes, it’s cheating. I know it is and it’s wrong. But let’s look beyond that for a minute and abandon our stranglehood on traditional means of testing. Let’s take an alternate look at the UofNevada students. Pretend that they’re in a world history class. One of the questions is 'Who won the war of 1812?' They message the question to a friend, and a friend messages the answer back. Problem solved. I know that the intent was to get the student to memorize the answer, but is memorizing a fact really more important than being able to find the necessary answers under adverse conditions? Let’s say the quesiton was, 'Why was the War of 1812 inevitiable?' That requires much more than a simple one word answer. Nobody is going to text in that one. They could text in a couple of conditions, but the student is still going to have to synthesize the information and compse an answer. And isn’t that what we want them to do? When I was working on my B.A. at UofIowa, there were more than a few times that I had open book tests. I hated them. Why? Because without fail they were always much harder than ‘close book’ tests. They rarely asked easy questions. They required you to really think critically and prove your ideas with facts. I’d love to see professors make more tests open book, open PDA, open Wikipedia and open cell phone. Let students use every resource available, but still make them prove that they understand what they’re talking about. Which prepares them more realistically for the world they’re going to encounter when they leave school?"

Spiral Notebook » The Ringing!

Some teachers have been complaining about cell phones in schools - here is an interesting different view. Spiral Notebook » The Ringing!: "The Ringing! By Ron Smith When I started experimenting with text messaging, I would text this student or that student, usually one or two at a time. Once I got all my seniors’ numbers, though, I decided to try a broadcast. During my class, second period, I talked with the seniors about a variety of topics, so I thought I would follow up on one topic in a text message to all of them. During third period, I thought of some points I wanted to make, so I gave them a blast. It turns out that the coordinator of our academy has all the seniors during third period. Around the midpoint of her class, every student’s cell phone went off, almost simultaneously! She cried out, “The ringing! The ringing!” After she climbed down from the ceiling, she called my classroom and gave me a dressing down. By the end of the period, though, when she came over to my classroom, she had been thinking about the potential of being able to contact every student at once. To her credit, instead of chewing me out, she walked in with lots of questions about how it worked. Now, I regularly “ping” our students with updates on schedules, assignment reminders, even wake-up calls, and they answer with questions of their own. They even send me messages regularly to let me know what they are up to. My phone vibrates, though, so I never get “the ringing!”"

Best education software

Best education software: "A surprising number responded with variations of 'Don't use it.' But Inspiration (along with its junior version, Kidspiration), designed specifically for students to organize and research projects, was the clear winner. The second- and third-place finishers were PowerPoint and Microsoft Office, software packages essentially for business applications. Many other readers mentioned Internet browsers, word processing programs, Photoshop, even classic books available for MP3 players. One reader responded simply, 'Can't afford any.' OUR TAKE 'PowerPoint?' we asked, slightly stunned at its runner-up ranking. 'Isn't PowerPoint fairly high on the list of quintessentially ineffectual modes of instruction?' Well, yes, in some ways, answers Peter Norvig, director of research at Google and author of the famed mockery 'The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation' (available online at www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm). Norvig's joke presentation was inspired, he says, by attending one too many PowerPoint presentations that just weren't, well, getting to the point. Presenters too frequently use the slides to display lists of text-based bullet points that perfunctorily summarize their speeches rather than offer additional, meaningful visual information, he adds. To make matters worse, many end up sticking so diligently to the lists they've created."

Pageflakes - The whole Web at your Fingertips!

Pageflakes - The whole Web at your Fingertips! Option number three for putting it all together. PageFlakes will allow you to create one page to put photos, RSS feed, Del.icio.us and more together in one format.

SuprGlu - Gluing your life together.

SuprGlu - Gluing your life together. Good grief! How marvelous - a way to link Web 2.0 applications together and make them easy to access and view. This will be another option for the CEd534 course.

Netvibes (28)

Netvibes (28) Another way to make a personalized presence online - the best of Web 2.0 To put all the pieces together is the challange - but a worthy one - how fabulous to make these tools available to students and staff.

2 Cents Worth » Gliffy — Web Based Graphics

2 Cents Worth » Gliffy — Web Based Graphics Another Web 2.0 tool to bring into the classroom, A collaborative way to create graphical communication. Neato!

Dabble DB

Dabble DB Well, I have finally been able to get my 30 day trial to Dabble DB - I am going to give it a try to see what we can do in terms of productivity. Be an interesting thing to try out.

Weblogg-ed » Blog Banning Update

Weblogg-ed » Blog Banning Update: "Blog Banning Update Good thoughts on this issue....

Tom’s been cranking at the Gray List of sites that he wants to test over at the Blog Banning wiki, and, in fact, he’s ready to give it a shot. It will be interesting to see what happens, and if you can take part, I’d really urge you to participate. The whole blocking issue really hit home this morning. I was chatting with a superintendent and a principal about some upcoming, summer bloggy training we have scheduled and I asked about the level of blockage at their district. Blogger? Blocked. Edublogs.org? Blocked. PBWiki? Blocked. Wikipedia? Hahahahahaha. Teacher and student Internet access at home in this district is nearly 100 percent. Does it really make sense to block literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of potentially worthwhile, safe, educational sites with the flip of a switch when those same sites are being accessed from home? There’s more of a post brewing in all of this. For now, let’s see what Tom comes up with."

Protopage v2 released - free AJAX start pages now with RSS news feeds, sticky notes and bookmarks

Protopage v2 released - free AJAX start pages now with RSS news feeds, sticky notes and bookmarks What an interesting concept - I'm not certain what I can do with a startup web page like this - or how I can use it educationally - another thing to find more time to experiment with and discuss with peers.

Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » AjaxSketch - Sketch it for free online

Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo File this one under 'Yet another application that can be replaced by a website'. AjaxSketch is exactly what it sounds like, an Ajax website that serves as a sketching program. It’s clearly superior to MIcrosoft Paint, and clearly inferior to Adobe Illustrator. However, it IS free and is web based so your students can have access to it from any computer and any OS at any time (it does require Firefox though strangely enough). I’m not much of an artist, but it seemed to work pretty smooth. The menus are well laid out and for the most part the tools are arranged according to industry standard. If it had the Bomb and some stamps, I’d even suggest it could serve as a poor man’s Kid Pix! One more site to add to your toolbox of online apps."

The Shifted Librarian: 60 Sites in 110 Minutes

The Shifted Librarian: 60 Sites in 110 Minutes: What an inersting concept - introduce people to a site a minute - perhaps around a theme. Worth looking at as well as looking at the Wiki they made to go with it.

2 Cents Worth » Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New World Wide Web

Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New World Wide Web: "Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New World Wide Web I’m copying and pasting this in from Ewan Macintosh’s weblog, Edu.Blogs.Com. Hope you don’t mind, Ewan. I’m getting ready to present a session at a regional conference, and I want to get this post out there. Terry Freedman, an independent education consultant in London, coraled some pretty forward thinking educators, and me, to write a little something about Web 2.0. The contributors are listed below. I think that the project came out very well, and it’s free, as a downloaded PDF file. Coming of Age The book provides a set of stories, describing the ways in which Web 2.0 technology can be used in schools, particularly as a way of supporting social, collaborative learning, and a more individualised curriculum. I am flattered to be amongst some really thoughtful (and cool) educators and adventurers in the Web 2.0 world:"

Gcast. Make your voice heard.

Gcast. Make your voice heard.: "" What fun! I just made my first podcast using this service - all you need is a phone and you can make one. What does this open up for people? Educators can easily use this idea - and not need to be tech savvy at all.

Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » GCast.com - An great resource for EduPodcasters!

Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » GCast.com - An great resource for EduPodcasters!: "GCast.com - An great resource for EduPodcasters! Filed under: Tech — Steve @ Apr 25, 06 | 1:14 pm Huge kudos to John Blake for pointing out this one out to me. GCast.com is a sister site to GarageBand.com, which has long been known for being a great source for ‘pod safe’ music. GCast is similar to Audioblogger.com but has some great features that give it the nod in my book. First of all, it’s perfect for mobcasting. You can dial up a phone number, enter in a pin and record a podcast via phone. My one problem with Audioblogger was that you had to enter quite a few numbers before you could record your podcast, too many to remember. This is nice and simple. A phone number of your choosing and a 4 digit pin. Easy. Second reason I like it is that it creates an RSS feed for your recordings automatically. If you don’t have or don’t want a blog, you don’t need one. It’s an instant podcast, enclosures and all. In fact, it’s even iTunes compliant! Third reason I’m a big fan is that you can upload your own mp3 files! You were never able to do that with Audioblogger. You recorded via phone and that was it. Gcast is providing free hosting for your audio! Only stipulations is that it has to be an MP3 and encoded at 44.1khz. Not a big deal at all. Fourth reason is that if you DO have your own blog, they provide full URL’s for your podcasts so you can handle your own RSS feed if you want. They also provide a groovey little player that you can embed into your blog or html site to allow people to play your podcasts. There’s a bunch of other features as well, but I’ve seen enough to be a convert. I tested it out a bit and find it extremely easy to use. Unlike OurMedia.org, the publishing process is pretty speedy. It took about three minutes for my test podcast to go live. I’ve had it take hours to go live on OurMedia.org and "

Teleflip Home

Teleflip I don't use SMS much - but the idea intrigues me - so I really like the ability to send an email message to someone (cellnumber@teleflip.com) - I do have some friends and family who do SMS - this may add me in.

TechCrunch » The State of Online Feed Readers

This looks like another good Web 2.0 item TechCrunch » The State of Online Feed Readers: "The State of Online Feed Readers Posted by Frank Gruber Syndication is undoubtedly the heartbeat of the web 2.0 movement. A feed reader, the most common solution to consuming synidcated content, saves the user time by monitoring countless sites and sources and providing near real-time updates to one location. There are a number of different types of readers: web-based, desktop, Outlook based, etc… This post is focused solely on web-based feed readers. I’ve included the big guys plus some up and coming readers with outstanding features and/or performance like News Alloy, Gritwire, Attensa and FeedLounge."

edublogs.org - free blogs for education professionals | Free blogs for teachers, librarians, researchers, writers, lecturers and other professionals i

Free blogs for education professionals: EduBlogs may be the vehicle I need as I prepare the Web 2.0 course. Looks like something I'll be signing up for.

eSchool News online - New course teaches instructional gaming

eSchool News online - New course teaches instructional gaming: "New course teaches instructional gaming Teachers explore the benefits of computer gaming as a classroom tool By Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News advertisement eMail this article Send us a news tip Discuss this article Print this article Reprints & Permissions More Headlines TOP PICKS: from eSchool News readers # Discover the latest news and information on technology products and services! Go inside the 'Product News Update' # Explore over 4,000 company profiles--with product profiles, research and white papers, and funding solutions! Go inside the 'Technology Solution Center' # Learn more about the key organizations who support the eSchool ideal in education. Go inside 'eSchool Partners Update' # Post eSchool News headlines on your school websites—FREE! Go inside our 'Content Exchange Program' # Hear what fellow educators are saying about the latest school technology initiatives. Go to the 'Ed-Tech Insider' blog Top headlines this week: Stanford targets gifted high schoolers AP: States omit minorities' scores Free online courses teach tech skills New Va. law: Teach web safety Tech helps teach complex reading skills A developer of educational video games for the classroom is offering what is believed to be the first comprehensive professional development course for educators who want to incorporate instructional computer gaming into their curricula. The course comes as interest in gaming as an instructional tool appears to be on the rise."

Healthier Testing Made Easy

Healthier Testing Made Easy: "Healthier Testing Made Easy Tests don't just measure absorption of facts. They teach what we value. By Grant Wiggins Download This Page Download a PDF of this article photo Credit: Thomas Reis Here's a radical idea: We need more assessment, not less. Seem crazy? Substitute feedback for assessment, and you'll better understand what I mean. The point of assessment in education is to advance learning, not to merely audit absorption of facts. That's true whether we're talking about that fourth-period pop quiz, the school play, or the state test. No one ever mastered a complicated idea or skill the first -- or fifth -- time. To reach any genuine standard, we need lots of trials, errors, and adjustments based on feedback. Think of assessment, then, as information for improving. This idea takes a while to get used to if you teach, test, and move on. The research could not be clearer, though: Increasing formative assessment is the key to improvement on tests of all kinds, including traditional"

Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » F2F conversations and dialog as the answer

Moving at the Speed of Creativity » Blog Archive » F2F conversations and dialog as the answer: "F2F conversations and dialog as the answer Andy Carvin wrote a thoughtful post today on the Digital Divide Network about the recent controversies over blogs (and all webpages) being censored by some school district Internet filters if they use/mention the word “MySpace.” Andy cites my post “Censored for Relevance,” which I also made available as a podcast over the weekend. In his post and reflection, Andy asks the following: How do you spread a campaign when the very act of describing the campaign gets you censored? Good question. I think the answer is simple, however. We address this situation through face to face conversations and dialog with other educators. There has been a good deal of discussion in the edu-blogosphere about concerns over “the echo chamber.” In other words, are we just writing and ranting to ourselves in the blog ether, and not really affecting the minds, attitudes, and actions of a majority of teachers, educational administrators, and policymakers? This discussion is warranted, but I see little cause for alarm. The blogsophere is going to continue to grow in its scope of access and its impact. RSS is not even supported in the current version of Internet Explorer for Windows. That will change when Windows Vista arrives, and slowly but surely, more people will gain knowledge of and access to the tools of the read/write web, including blogs. The voices of the blogosphere (including mine, Andy’s, Miguel’s, and many, many others) are not going away. We are not going to be silenced. In fact, we are going to grow in power, because we are going to continue collaborating and working together. Just as the Chinese government is not going to silence the collective voice of its people crying out for self-determination and respect for other basic human rights, short-sighted and reactionary school districts banning the .....

Kids outsmart Web filters | CNET News.com

Kids outsmart Web filters | CNET News.com: "Kids outsmart Web filters By Stefanie Olsen Staff Writer, CNET News.com Published: April 19, 2006 4:00 AM PST Last November, Ryan, a high-school sophomore, figured out a way to outsmart the Web filters on a school PC in order to visit the off-limits MySpace.com while doing 'homework' in the computer lab. A teacher eventually spotted the social network on the screen in front of 'Ryan,' a fictitious name for a real student attending school in Phoenix, Ore., a small town with a population of about 5,000. The teacher flagged the activity for the school's technology expert, who then followed Ryan's tracks online through the school network. Ryan had apparently set up a so-called Web proxy from his home computer so that when he was at school, he could direct requests for banned sites like MySpace through a Web address at home, thereby tricking the school's filter. (Web, or CGI, proxies can be Web sites or applications that allow users to access other sites through them.) 'I eventually tracked down the (Internet Protocol) address, so that it doesn't work for him anymore,' said Don Wolff, tech coordinator in the Phoenix-Talent School District, adding that Ryan didn't face disciplinary action. 'It's against our acceptable-use policy, but he's not going to quit trying, (and this way) we can keep learning.' 'This is a hot new trend among kids for getting around Web filters,' Wolff said. 'It's going to be the constant battle. No matter what you put up, kids are going to work around it.' -- Lynn Beebe, school counselor Web proxies are almost as old as the Internet itself as a means to route Web traffic through an anonymous domain name or circumvent content-filters, and they've long been the territory of corporate networks and the tech savvy seeking privacy. Nowadays, an increasing number of teenagers are setting up proxies on home PCs to sidestep school filtering traps, in addition to using free proxies set up on the Web, according to technologists at schools and at content-filtering technology providers." ......

HandBrake homepage

HandBrake homepage: "What is HandBrake? HandBrake is a GPL'd multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. HandBrake was originally available on the BeOS, but now has been ported over to MacOS X and to GNU/Linux. A Windows port is being worked on."

Mindfulness: The practice of being “here” | 43 Folders

Mindfulness: The practice of being “here” | 43 Folders: "Mindfulness: The practice of being “here” As I mentioned in a recent Lifehacker interview with Matt, I’ve been casting about for a good way to work in my newfound interest in mindfulness, or the ostensibly Buddhist practice of bringing your attention and focus back to the present moment, primarily through breathing and awareness. Well, here you go: one rank Western novice’s collection of blurbs and excerpts on an ancient (yet oddly timely) method for easing yourself back into this moment — any day, at any time, and in anything you choose to do."

Xdrive : Secure Online Storage

Xdrive : Secure Online Storage Looking for a way to store and share data - yet be able to access it from anywhere? This may be one solution. Especially when you work in in multiple locations, or have people who need to share information, but do not have access to a network drive from all locations.

Thinking Out-loud! » My Space

Thinking Out-loud! » My Space A great look at kids and their use of social networking - worth a look if you are concerened about the use of technologies like blogging in schools.

2 Cents Worth » Podcasting Session

2 Cents Worth » Podcasting Session David Warlick describes a session he attended on podcasting - and five reasons why a classroom should podcast:

• Communication with parents/community
• demonstrate learning
• student ownership of product
• authentic audience
• METS (Michigan Ed Tech Standards)

Mich. first to mandate online learning

eSchool News online - Mich. first to mandate online learning Michigan became the first state in the nation to have students experience some form of online instruction before receiving a diploma when the state legislature on March 30 approved a bill to ratchet up the state's graduation requirements.

ZeroSpan - share your iTunes

AboutZerospan - Zerospan - Trac I have many songs in iTunes - but no way to access them while at work - this appears to be an application which may allow it to happen. Worth a try!

Questia - The Online Library of Books and Journals

Questia - The Online Library of Books and Journals I am introduced to different technologies in many different ways. Some by friends, some by sales folks, some by reading.... you get the picture. This site was sent to me by Jane Hess - and is the product of the company she represents. Imagine - books available online through subscription. How cool. From their site..... What is Questia? Questia is the world's largest online library of books, with over 65,000 full-text books, 1 million articles, and an entire reference set complete with a dictionary, encyclopedia, and thesaurus. Your subscription to the entire Questia academic library also includes digital productivity tools for highlighting text, taking notes, and generating footnotes and bibliographies in seven different styles.

November Learning | Building Learning Communities 2006

November Learning | Building Learning Communities 2006 I am asked what conferece I recommend - and while I have been lucky to attend NECC, FETC, NSBA and others, this is one I seem to have learned the most from. To all who wish to have their thinking about teaching and learning stretched. Building Learning Communities is THE conference for meeting leading-edge thinkers, international leaders in education and colleagues from around the world.

43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero | 43 Folders

43 Folders Series: Inbox Zero | 43 Folders My thanks to Andrea P for pointing this out to me. We all have so many interruptions and emails - I need to follow some of this advice and pronto.

Self Discipline Is Better Predictor Of Academic Success Than I.Q.

Self Discipline Is Better Predictor Of Academic Success Than I.Q. Ian Jukes, who spoke at WEMA had this article on his Blog - worthwhile reading for educators to consider.

SightSpeed

I attended a workshop at WEMA on video-conferencing - what a great product this might be. SightSpeed has the ability to work cross platform (Windows and Macintosh currently) and is free - with a subscription cost for additional features. Imagine working with others, sharing and doing conferences with classes, student teachers, museums, etc for a minimal cost (web cam, microphone). Wow!

Blogging Through The Curriculum

Hey! It's ready for prime time (or at least the workshop Monday Morning. Lets go take a look at Blogging through the Curriculum - the workshop I am presenting at WEMA/Brainstorm this year.

Dock-n-Talk

PhoneLabs Well - it works! Amazingly well too. We dropped our land line - and added a 3rd cell phone with the number used by the land line. Then - to make the entire house active again, and to use all the phones in the house (channelled through the cell phone) we purchased the Dock-n-Talk. Plug it in and it works. Wow!

New Office Pics

New Office Pics
Originally uploaded by ljldog.

Well - we have made the move - now to unpack and find files, etc - but a good move it has been. Come visit!

Tapped In Calendar

Tapped In Calendar Tapped In - A community of education professionals. If you have not seen or participated with this online staff development resource/community - it is time to take a look. Tapped In is a Web-based learning environment created by SRI International to transform teacher professional development (TPD) for professional development providers and educators. Tapped In enables providers to offer high-quality online professional development experiences and support to more teachers cost-effectively. Through Tapped In, educators can extend their professional growth beyond courses or workshops with the online tools, resources, colleagues, and support they need to implement effective, classroom-centered learning activities.

WEMA and Brainstorm

The WEMA and Brainstorm Wiki is coming along pretty well - and should be very useful at the conference next week.

2 Cents Worth » Happy Birthday Jude

2 Cents Worth - Happy Birthday Jude Mr friend Jeff sent me this link from David Warlick with the following quote: "We desperately need...… we may not survive without...… a generation of young people who are imaginative, inventive, fearless learners, and compassionate leaders. Yet, what can we say, as educators, about the students we are producing. We can prove that they can read, do basic math on paper, and they are able to sit for hours filling in bubble sheets. No generation in history has ever been so thoroughly prepared for the industrial age. How have we allowed ourselves to be led by such a miserable lack of imagination?"
Worth pondering don't you think?

Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder

Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder As I start to explore doing podcasts for myself and the University - I need to explore ways to make this occur. Here is some software that has been promoted (free) on many of the podcasts that I have been listening to. Its the tools! Certainly, with Apples new version of iLife you have these features built in - but it is not always possible to upgrade, and iLife only runs on a Macintosh.

Summer Schedules - Cardinal Stritch University

Cardinal Stritch University Summer Schedules are now available - including the Digital Media class I will be teaching which focusses on many of the items I follow in this blog

Welcome - Ubuntu Linux

Welcome - Ubuntu Linux: "Linux" "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world. As I look to learn another OS - this may be the one I start with. I especially like the fact that it will work off of a bootable CD - letting me try without reformatting my PC or Mac. I heard about this from TheTechTeachers podcast.

flagrantdisregard.com Flickr Toys

flagrantdisregard.com Flickr Toys A great site to help you play with flickr photos - simple yet effective ways to enhance them. I wonder what creativity could be unleashed in a classroom by students.

digg

digg What is digg? Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

School CIO

School CIO: "News from TechWeb: Business Technology Network" A good paper journal now available inline - resources for school technology coordinators and administrators interested in knowing more about technology in education.

Read/WriteWeb: Web 2.0 Office

Read/WriteWeb: Web 2.0 Office In researching for the CED534 course - I listened to another podcast from Moving at the Speed of Creativity. Podcast #29 discussed Web 2.0, which so deeply aligned with my thoughts, it has me renaming the course (in draft at least) to Web 2.0 - the Read/Write web. This includes applications that will transform how we do things (gmail for instance) and part of these are Office suites delivered through the web. Here are a series of them.

S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System

S5: A Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System Wow! A way to do presentations based on Open Source software. How cool! I love when I stumble across this kind of resource. This one came from doing research for a new class that I am researching curriculum. In the process I stumbled across a great new podcast - "Podcast 13: Podcasting as a Disruptive Transmediation" at Moving at the Speed of Creativity - the weblog of Wesley Fryer. I have added this as another to have downloaded to iTunes automatically. So many good resources.

Technorati: Home

Technorati: Home Looking for a podcast? Looking for a Blog? Technorati has listings of podcasts to assist you in finding these and more.

Personal and small business information manager: Get organized, Backpack

Personal and small business information manager: Get organized, Backpack Another interesting concept. A way to be organized from any Internet capable computer. Add ideas, to-do's, notes photos and then collaborate with others. What a great way to do some classroom cooperative learning projects. This is a resource I will be embedding into a new class that I am working on - it has great potential.

To do list, simple, easy, fast, sharable: Ta-da List

To do list, simple, easy, fast, sharable: Ta-da List Gee - I was listening to another podcast on the way in - and they mentioned this site. It's part of BaseCamp - and when I came here I recalled that i had indeed signed up for using this at an earlier time. This is another great online resoource for helping get things done.

Bloglines

Bloglines Need a way to have web access to RSS feeds - Bloglines is a simple way to organize the Blogs or other RSS feeds you may be working with or following (hey - use it for this one!)

eHuddle™- Something every committee can agree on.

eHuddle™- Something every committee can agree on. A good friend sent me this site - and said the following: I am attending the Wisconsin Data Summit for Successful Schools next week Tuesday. The reason I mention this is that we have been using ehuddle (http://www.ehuddle.com) to prepare for the day long meeting. It is a very cool online collaboration tool that "makes your committee more efficient and effective by empowering every group member to brainstorm, express opinions, and vote without ever attending a single meeting! eHuddle allows them to do it all...online...and in their own time!" Last week we did an "estorm" (individual brainstorming) and our task this week is to escore (prioritize) all of the ideas. After the escore session ends, we will be able to see how the group rated the ideas. These results become the groundwork for next Tuesday's meeting. I thought this might be a useful tool for us as a department. What do you think? What do I think - wow - what a great idea.

Online Learning

Online Learning This site at Edutopia - explores the current state of Online Learning. As usual, this site rocks! Included are videos and more - worth a look.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.

Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.: "This week, Apple Computer announced that it sold a staggering 14 million iPod music players over the recently ended holiday quarter -- more than 100 every minute. But as popular and well-designed as the iPod is, it's not perfect. There are a couple of aspects of the way it works, or doesn't work, that are becoming increasingly annoying as people acquire both more iPods and more computers." When I saw this article, I thought of the number of students and teachers who may be using iPods for their ability to store and transfer lectures and podcasts. Since you cannot use an iPod on multiple computers, a flaw (in my opinion) built into the iPod by Apple to minimize the possibility that songs will be illegally shared, I found the solutions offered by 3rd party folks to be of interest. For windows users, there is CopyPod - designed to assist by letting you share music on more than one computer. For Macintosh users you may use PodWorks to do the same thing. These utilities should help teachers and students in using educational media between machines.

MECA

MECA What a pleasure to rediscover the Milwaukee Educational Computing Association (MECA). I was a member maybe 10 years ago - it's nice to know that this organization still exists and is helping teachers as a technology resource. I will need to reconnect and get active again now that I am working in the Milwaukee area.

JotSpot

In an article from InfoWorld, the discussion of JotSpot as a place to allow users to cut and paste an Excel spreadsheet onto a secure Web site for sharing of information. Imagine the collaborative learning opportunities when you start a process like this..... The site bills itself as an application wiki - what an interesting concept. This fits in with some of the web based tools that I have been exploring recently.

One Big Head

One Big Head What great thoughts by J.P. Moore on several different things - with the theme being the future of education and how change is resisted. As he gives us My 2 Cents on the Future he shares more than two cents worth of ideas. He focusses on two big ideas in this podcast:

1. Do Schools have the Power to Change? He examines this through many lenses and
2. Digital Natives - Digital Immigarants - can this really occur with the disparity of distribution of technology.

Great thoughts - worth the 20 minutes of listening time - and the hours of reflecting after listening.

The Complete Teacher

From an email forwarded to me.....

---

The Complete Teacher Program is being offered, free, to the profession as a way of improving teaching skills. (This program normally sells for $105.) The Complete Teacher™ is a computer-based system for delivering training in the praxis of teaching. The program is designed around a complex clinical training model which views the teacher as an actor, developer, professional, manager, salesperson, subject expert, and writer. New York University Professor Robert Swerdlow, the program's author, has hypothesized that it is the degree of mastery, both within and among these seven performance areas that will determine a teacher's effectiveness. The Complete Teacher™ can be downloaded for free from the publisher's web site --- www.completeteacher.com "Teachers have many hats to wear during the course of a teaching day…The Complete Teacher, a new computer-based training system, addresses each of these roles through a series of training modules."--- INSTRUCTOR MAGAZINE

More from LibriVox

Well, this morning I listened to my first chapter of Notes from the Underground (by Fyodor Dostoyevsky). The sound quality in no way matches the quality one finds from a professionally read book, but the passion of the reader makes up for the microphone. I beleive this site could be a launching pad for educators in introducing some of the classics to their classes. With their request for readers, it could also fill a niche in introducing students to creating podcasts or the technologies needed. It could be a great class project as well for an english class to create an entire book and upload it.

Learning about LibriVox

As I listened to some PodCasts this morning - driving to work - a new site was mention on APM's Future Tense on Turning classics into free audio books. It features LibriVox, which bills itself as "accoustical liberation of books in the public domain". Basically this source is providing free audiobooks - with volunteers recording the chapters. It looks like a site worth visiting and investigating.