Friday, October 31, 2008

More ways to make Gmail work for you

Daily Debrief: The customization of Gmail - CNET News
On this edition of the Daily Debrief, CNET's Kara Tsuboi talks with senior writer Stephen Shankland about the constantly evolving features on Gmail, Google's Web-based e-mail program. From calendar modules to colored stars to quick access to your Google Docs, Shankland explains how the popular service is trying to become the one-stop shopping landing page to compete with Microsoft and Yahoo.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Public Resources for Wisconsin's educators

http://www.ecb.org/education/08EduTemplate_images/ECBedu_header.jpg
The Educational Communications Board is pleased to bring you the collections of teachers' domain!

ECB: Teachers' Domain
This online educational service includes classroom-ready multimedia resources
for use in lessons or independent study. This service includes FREE digital
resources using video clips from award-winning PBS programming.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Twitter Tools

Brian Solis had this wonderful post on Twitter Tools - I had to share

PR 2.0: Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
Friday, October 17, 2008
Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals



Twitter is nothing short of a phenomenon. At the very least, it connects people to each other through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and vision in one, highly conducive ecosystem (known as the Twitterverse). The social fibers that weave together this unique micromedia network is strengthened by the expertise, respect, trust, admiration, and commonalities. These fabrics bind the people who breathe life and personality into the global community as well as fueling the disparate micro communities that ultimately extend across the Long Tail.

Cell Phones in Education

Edutopia has a good article on why we should be embracing and not banning cell phones.

Learn2luvcell: A Powerful Multipurpose Mechanism for Learning | Edutopia
Query most secondary school teachers on the subject of cell phones, and you're likely to get an impassioned rant about the device's insidious ability to provoke distraction in the classroom. All that giggly sub rosa texting not only robs students of attentiveness, they say, but also presents an inveterate disciplinary problem. It's why most school districts have strict cell phone policies, and most teachers are grateful for it.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Knol: A Unit of Knowledge

Google's Knol is designed to verify the authorship of articles, so every knol will have an author (or group of authors) who put their name behind their content. With Knol, authors can work together through "moderated collaboration." Any reader can make suggested edits to a knol, which the author may then choose to accept, reject, or modify.
Knol
Knol: a unit of knowledge
Welcome to Knol
A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic.
Here are some examples of knols.

Creative Commons

Techlearning > > The New Rules of Copyright > October 15, 2008
Complying with, and teaching young people about, copyright in an educational setting often feels burdensome. That's because copyright laws were not designed to facilitate the sort of sharing and collaborating that has become widespread in the digital age. The innovative nonprofit organization Creative Commons turns the process around, making the concept of protecting and sharing work online not onerous, but positive. We asked Ahrash Bissell, Executive Director of Creative Commons' ccLearn division, for a primer:

Special Needs Tools

Techlearning > > Special Needs Guide to Tech Products > October 15, 2008
Between the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school years, the percentage of students with disabilities spending 80 percent or more of the school day in a general classroom increased from 50 to 52 percent (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2007). While this raises some challenges in busy classrooms, there are also many rewards. Learning to teach to a diverse population makes for better overall teachers. Combining students of all ability levels creates a better understanding of the unique abilities among students. And—technology can be the great equalizer.

This exclusive T&L supplement can be your guide to the tools available to help meet the needs of all of your students

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What a great way to help with Gmail

Gmail Canned Responses: If I've Said It Once... - ReadWriteWeb
Gmail Canned Responses: If I've Said It Once...
Written by Rick Turoczy / October 21, 2008 11:00 PM / 4 Comments
« Prior Post Next Post »

Google LabsYou got that email again. You know the one. The one you've answered a million times. And even though you don't have anything more you can add to your response - time after time after time - you dutifully craft the same exact email, each and every time. If only Gmail had some way to save a standard response to that question.

Now, it does. Enter Gmail Canned Responses, a new release from Google Labs that lets you save that response as a template. With Canned Responses, you can answer that annoying question with a few clicks of your mouse. And you can do some other interesting things, too.

After installing Canned Response via Google Labs, building a response is as easy as composing a message and then saving it.

Sending a canned response is even easier. Just select it from the menu.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

40 Brilliant Gmail hints, hacks and secrets

40 brilliant Gmail hints, hacks and secrets | News | TechRadar UK
Gmail goes from strength to strength as Google rolls out new features every few months.

We've dug deep to bring you 40 top tips that'll make you a Gmail super-user, with total control over every aspect of the service.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Poll Everywhere

Text Message (SMS) Polls and Voting, Audience Response System (ARS), PowerPoint Polling | Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere replaces expensive proprietary hardware-based response systems with standard web technology. It's the easiest way to gather live responses in any venue: conferences, presentations, classrooms, radio, tv, print — anywhere. It can help you to raise money by letting people pledge via text messaging. Its simplicity and flexibility are earning rave reviews.

Analog TV to Digital

This might be too true

What do you think?

On the Wings of a Butterfly

Northwest Elearning

George Siemens does a great job of describing education as it is and how it is changing, and the impact we may have in the change.  Nice slide show and well worth watching.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Curriculum to use for Second Life in the classroom

Global Kids Second Life Curriculum - RezEd
Global Kids, Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in using digital media to promote global awareness and youth civic engagement. Global Kids’ Online Leadership Program integrates a youth development approach and international and public policy issues into youth media programs that build digital literacy and STEM skills, foster substantive dialogues, develop resources for educators, and promote civic participation.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Social Networks in Education

If you are looking for information on using Social Networks in Education, I was sent this great link by Steve Hargadon - take a look.

Social Networks in Education » home
A listing of social networks used in educational environments. Please add to this list (alphabetical by category and within categories).

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

RexEd - The Hub for Learning and Virtual Worlds

RezEd
Welcome to RezEd (BETA), an online hub providing practitioners using virtual worlds with access to the highest quality resources and research in the field to establish a strong network of those using virtual worlds for learning.

DE Streamathon

I was able to participate in some of these - they were wonderful and are now archived - worth the look!

DEN Blog Network » DE Streamathon
This year’s streamathon featured presentations by all your favorite members of the DEN team, from Hall Davidson to Lance Rougeux, and each of our expert DEN Account Managers. They shared a series of information-packed sessions on how to integrate the newest online technologies used by today’s media-savvy students into classroom instruction.