Why Would Teachers Use Diigo? | Clif's Notes
Discussion on reasons to use Diigo in educatinal settings
Blog posts
First Steps Toward Becoming a 21st Century Educator | always learning
Kim Cofino's suggestions for steps to take to build skills and a Personal Learning Network (PLN).
Spotlight: Free Science Resources Online : March 2008 : THE Journal
Overview of free science resources from NASA, the Smithonian, and MIT OCW
Call Graph: The free Skype call recorder
Free tool for recording Skype calls without limits on time
About Fire Vox
Open Source screen reader for Firefox. Nice to have a free option that you can use for development and testing purposes without violating the TOS (i.e., JAWS).
TeacherTube - How to create a great PowerPoint without breaking the law.
45 minute presentation from the eTech Ohio 2008 conference by Alvin Trusty. Half of the presentation is about creating good presentations, half about copyright law in education. Touches on color, contrast, font, and more.
Social Bookmarking Soulmates at WRT: Writer Response Theory
Classroom activity using Diigo's user profiles to find a "social bookmarking soulmate" who has similar interests
TravelinEdMan: Job Searching in Educational Technology and Instructional Systems Technology?: Hold Your Head Up High!
Collection of sites for finding jobs in ed tech and related fields. (I'm not looking, but I get requests from people looking sometimes.)
Boolify: PubLearn's Boolean Search Tool
Visual tool for creating Boolean searches--shows search criteria as puzzle pieces. Also includes a few lesson plans
Google Earth Lessons
Lesson plans using Google Earth. Includes basic tutorials on Google Earth as well as lesson plans divided by subject.
Kuler Color Schemes
User-submitted color schemes from Adobe. Search by most popular, highest rated, or just see a random set. You can also search for keywords or create a theme from a photo.
University of Houston Study: Hybrid Courses More Effective for Students
Research comparing traditional and hybrid methods of teaching a college course. Students in the hybrid course with access to materials online scored 10% higher in the course.
A technical report from a University of Houston <a target="_blank" href="http://grants.hhp.coe.uh.edu/%7Eclayne/HHPPage/main.html">Department of Health and Human Performance</a> researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.
Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog - Blue Skunk Blog - Changing how we teach copyright Pt 1
The first part in a series on a new approach to teaching copyright, starting with a focus on what is allowed by Fair Use
<span class="sizeGreater20">Change the focus of copyright instruction from what is forbidden to what is permitted. </span>
Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog - Blue Skunk Blog - Changing how we teach copyright Pt 2
Part 2 in a series on teaching copyright in a different way. This post argues that educators should be more willing and able to assume that their use is allowed, rather than always assuming it's forbidden if it's a gray area.
Place the onus of proof of wrong doing on the provider, not the proof of fair use by the user.
Wikispaces Blog » Blog Archive » A Classroom Wiki Webquest
7th & 8th grade wiki on rock history, where students researched and presented information on the wiki. The instructor also acknowledges learning a lot from her students on using Photobucket and other tools in combination with the wiki.
Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning? : April 2008 : THE Journal
Survey results on attitudes towards technology in education, including games.
<p>According to the survey, the majority of middle and high school students (51 percent of students in grades 6 through 12) indicated that "games make it easier to understand difficult concepts. Forty-six percent said they'd learn more about a subject if information were presented in a game format; 44 percent said gaming "would make it more interesting to practice problems"; and about a third said that "the use of games in schools will help them learn how to work in teams and see the direct results of their problem solving activities."</p>
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<p>Teachers were apparently even more enthusiastic about gaming, as 65 percent indicated that they thought educational gaming would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help engage students in coursework. More than half said they'd like to learn more about educational gaming, and some 46 percent said they would "like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum," according to the survey.</p>
<p>According to the survey, the majority of middle and high school students (51 percent of students in grades 6 through 12) indicated that "games make it easier to understand difficult concepts. Forty-six percent said they'd learn more about a subject if information were presented in a game format; 44 percent said gaming "would make it more interesting to practice problems"; and about a third said that "the use of games in schools will help them learn how to work in teams and see the direct results of their problem solving activities."</p>
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<p>Teachers were apparently even more enthusiastic about gaming, as 65 percent indicated that they thought educational gaming would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help engage students in coursework. More than half said they'd like to learn more about educational gaming, and some 46 percent said they would "like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum," according to the survey.</p>
Read The Words
Free text-to-speech application that creates mp3s of content from multiple formats. Audio can be shared on a blog as a podcast but not sold commercially. Originally designed to help students with learning disabilities access text more easily.
Blackboard 7.3 Discussion Board
Changes in the discussion board in Blackboard 7.3, including the grading options
ASCD: Whose Problem Is Poverty?
Educational Leadership article arguing that closing the achievement gap requires a combination of both improved education and improved socionomic conditions. The article lists a number of health issues for low-income children that can affect student achievement.
Elearning writing style: using lively verbs » Making Change
Cathy Moore created this quick practice on using active verbs to liven up e-learning. "It's time for...celebrity verbs!" is a great example of a short learning object that is complete by itself.
Top News - Panelists: Online learning can help minority students
Advantages for online learning at the K-12 level to help disadvantaged students. In spite of the title, this is about more than just racial issues.
In fact, Jackson said, out of all the high schools in Illinois that implement online learning, a predominantly Hispanic high school has the highest online learning pass rate. This school has managed to recover dropouts and has encouraged parents raising children and/or working full-time to enroll as well.
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Online learning isn’t just some remedial course we’re giving to minority or disadvantaged kids,” said Rose. “It’s a high-quality education that’s helping to meet individual student needs.”</div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Jackson argued that sometimes online courses are even more rigorous than traditional courses, because they are more interactive, require technology literacy, and provide a host of online resources for a student to take advantage of.</div>
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Wikis for Curriculum Development and Instructional Materials
Description of a group that used a wiki to develop curriculum
National Archives Experience
Flash site for accessing the US National Archives with a visual searching tools.
Digital Vaults: Social networking for primary sources «
Description of the National Archives Digital Vault and how it may help digitial natives find primary sources in a more accessible way. I'm not sure whether the digital native/immigrant difference is as important as the simple fact that the Digitial Vault is more visually appealing and interactive. I think it helps show patterns and connections between primary sources more effectively, which can be helpful for people of any age.
Education Week: Learning to Teach With Technology
Instead of teaching technology as a separate course, more colleges training preservice teachers are integrating technology in content areas like math and science.
the standards require teacher-candidates to exhibit knowledge, skills, and dispositions that equip them to teach technology applications. Candidates also have to show they can use technology to support student learning of content.
<p>Joel Colbert, who heads the committee on innovation and technology, says the handbook seeks to make the point that stand-alone technology classes are now obsolete. </p>
<p>“We are saying that’s not the way to integrate technology into teacher training, because each subject area uses technology differently,” Colbert says.</p>
Coherence or interest: Which is most important in online multimedia learning?
A challenge to the coherence principle: the idea that all information in multimedia learning should be essential, and nothing should be added simply for interest. This research found that in an authentic learning setting that performance was the same whether learners had only the essentials or had additional interesting information, directly contradicting Clark & Mayer's work.
eLearning Guild Annual Gathering 2008 - Day 1- Social Learning Discussion « eLearning Weekly
Tips and tricks for implementing social learning tools (Web 2.0 tools for learning) in organizations, focused on how to get people in the organization to buy in and actually use the tools.
<li>Oftentimes, when social learning is discussed at an organization, some workers shy away. They see their knowledge as their power, and they’re afraid to give up that control. How to overcome this? Emphasize their ability to help others and play a bigger role in helping the organization, instead of hoarding the knowledge. (Sometimes easier said than done.)</li>
<li>If you’re getting pushback on social learning technologies (ex. blogs and wikis), you may want to have evangelist(s) at your organization who take lead and emphasize the potential of these tools, show examples, etc.</li>
"What is the perfect social learning implementation? There is no such thing. Use whatever tools and methodologies that help your teams collaborate best."
Technology Integration Matrix
Matrix for integrating technology in K-12 classrooms from entry-level to transformative use. 5 learning environment characteristics are shown: Active, Collaborative, Constructive, Authentic, and Goal Directed. Each cell in the matrix is accompanied by a video and lesson example.
Professors Gone Paperless :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs
Describes the experiences of 3 faculty who contribute to and support open source online textbooks
Lifehacker Code: Texter (Windows)
Lifehacker app for text replacement. Use for common phrases like your sig line