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Free eBooks for iPhone, Blackberry or Palm Pre - Kobo

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:00:41 -0000

Tags: kobo, ebooks, reader, download, books, literacy, education, marketplace

by: Patrick Black

Manage This! » Blog Archive » Configuring Google Voice as a Jott / reQall Replacement

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:12:40 -0000

Tags: google voice, voice transcription

by: a h

Robert Putnam - Bowling Alone - Journal of Democracy 6:1

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:17:33 -0000

An article about the loss of social capital in America

Comments:

An article about the loss of social capital in America - Reynold Redekopp

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

ocial scientists in several fields have recently suggested a common framework for understanding these phenomena, a framework that rests on the concept of social capital. ⁴ By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital--tools and training that enhance individual productivity--"social capital" refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.

Whether or not bowling beats balloting in the eyes of most Americans, bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital.

the most fundamental form of social capital is the family, and the massive evidence of the loosening of bonds within the family (both extended and nuclear) is well known.

Across the 35 countries in this survey, social trust and civic engagement are strongly correlated; the greater the density of associational membership in a society, the more trusting its citizens. Trust and engagement are two facets of the same underlying factor--social capital.[End Page 73]
America still ranks relatively high by cross-national standards on both these dimensions of social capital. Even in the 1990s, after several decades' erosion, Americans are more trusting and more engaged than people in most other countries of the world.
The trends of the past quarter-century, however, have apparently moved the United States significantly lower in the international rankings of social capital. The recent deterioration in American social capital has been sufficiently great that (if no other country changed its position in the meantime) another quarter-century of change at the same rate would bring the United States, roughly speaking, to the midpoint among all these countries, roughly equivalent to South Korea, Belgium, or Estonia today. Two generations' decline at the same rate would leave the United States at the level of today's Chile, Portugal, and Slovenia.

Other demographic transformations. A range of additional changes have transformed the American family since the 1960s--fewer marriages, more divorces, fewer children, lower real wages, and so on. Each of these changes might account for some of the slackening of civic engagement, since married, middle-class parents are generally more socially involved than other people. Moreover, the changes in scale that have swept over the American economy in these years--illustrated by the replacement of the corner grocery by the supermarket and now perhaps of the supermarket by electronic shopping at home, or the replacement of community-based enterprises by outposts of distant multinational firms--may perhaps have undermined the material and even physical basis for civic engagement.

The technological transformation of leisure. There is reason to believe that deep-seated technological trends are radically "privatizing" or "individualizing" our use of leisure time and thus disrupting many opportunities for social-capital formation. The most obvious and probably the most powerful instrument of this revolution is television. Time-budget studies in the 1960s showed that the growth in time spent watching television dwarfed all other changes in the way Americans passed their days and nights. Television has made our communities (or, rather, what we experience as our communities) wider and shallower. In the language of economics, electronic technology enables individual tastes to be satisfied more fully, but at the cost of the positive social externalities associated with more primitive forms of entertainment. The same logic applies to the replacement of vaudeville by the movies and now of movies by the VCR. The new "virtual reality" helmets that we will soon don to be entertained in total isolation are merely the latest extension of this trend. Is technology thus driving a wedge between our individual interests and our collective interests? It is a question that seems worth exploring more systematically.

who stress that closely knit social, economic, and political organizations are prone to inefficient cartelization and to what political economists term "rent seeking" and ordinary men and women call corruption.

Tags: technology, netgeneration, putnam, robert, isolation, connectedness

by: Reynold Redekopp

Shortie Awards

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:07:05 -0000

The Shortie Awards: International Film & News Festival is for students ages 7-18 and their teachers.

Deadline April 9, 2010

Comments:

The Shortie Awards: International Film & News Festival is for students ages 7-18 and their teachers.

Deadline April 9, 2010 - Fred Delventhal

Tags: digitalstorytelling, education, writing, film, video, teacher, filmfestival, competition, students, create, for:edtechtalk

by: Fred Delventhal

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:48:34 -0000

Tags: no_tag

by: Gerry Davis

Vertex42 - Excel Templates, Calendars, Calculators and Spreadsheets

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:56:11 -0000

"Vertex42™ is a leading provider of Excel templates, financial calculators, and calendars. We also host The Excel Nexus - The ultimate directory of 3rd-party Microsoft Excel® resources, including add-ins, templates, tutorials, and consulting services."

Comments:

"Vertex42™ is a leading provider of Excel templates, financial calculators, and calendars. We also host The Excel Nexus - The ultimate directory of 3rd-party Microsoft Excel® resources, including add-ins, templates, tutorials, and consulting services." - Allison Kipta

Tags: templates, resources, spreadsheets

by: Allison Kipta

Textbook Revolution

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:44:49 -0000

"Textbook Revolution is a student-run site dedicated to increasing the use of free educational materials by teachers and professors. We want to get these materials into classrooms. Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world."

Comments:

"Textbook Revolution is a student-run site dedicated to increasing the use of free educational materials by teachers and professors. We want to get these materials into classrooms. Our approach is to bring all of the free textbooks we can find together in one place, review them, and let the best rise to the top and find their way into the hands of students in classrooms around the world." - a h

Tags: textbook, education, textbooks, ebooks, book, opensource, books, ebook

by: a h

IRA Radio

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:18:04 -0000

IRA Reading Radio interview with Peter Johnston about assessment standards related to digital literacy learning

Comments:

IRA Reading Radio interview with Peter Johnston about assessment standards related to digital literacy learning - Rick Beach

Tags: digital

by: Rick Beach

ICTAC MEMO iPhone Apps for Education

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:07:35 -0000

Looks like a very comprehensive list!

Comments:

Looks like a very comprehensive list! - Dave Truss

Tags: PODs, iphone

by: Dave Truss

Tech helps teaching

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:37:53 -0000

Comments:

Fairly new blog looking at various free web2.0 based teaching and learning tools. - Graham Trick

Tags: teaching, and, learning, planning, education, web2.0, free

by: Graham Trick

New app for iPhone to help autistic children - The Irish Times - Fri, Dec 11, 2009

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:22:39 -0000

Tags: autistic, education, tools, learning, technology, iphone, ipodtouch, PECS

by: Patrick Black

Online-HTML-Editor.org - The free online WYSIWYG Editor!

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:06:17 -0000

Tags: editor, html, WYSIWYG

by: Scott Shelhart

Websites as graphs - Visualize your PLN

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:45:44 -0000

Interesting visual creator for the connectedness of a web site. Visualize your PLN

Comments:

Interesting visual creator for the connectedness of a web site. Visualize your PLN - Fred Delventhal
Websites as Graphs - Fred Delventhal

Tags: graph, html, java, tools, visualization, web, webdesign, social_networking, images, design, for:edtechtalk

by: Fred Delventhal

Free Technology for Teachers: Embedding Books Into Your Blogger Blog or Google Site

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:28:27 -0000

Tags: no_tag

by: Tracy Lee

Blog about growing use of mobile phones across economic groups, countries, causes

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:22:12 -0000

Tags: mobile, phone, cell, socialjustice, criticalpedagogy, global, education, aroundtheworld, beyondwebct

by: Barbara Lindsey

Lazyfeed

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:09:39 -0000

Comments:

Want a homepage that updates your favorite topics via rss in real time? Lazyfeed. - Seth Bowers

Tags: rss, lazyfeed, feed, reader, realtime, tool, web2.0

by: Seth Bowers

How the iPhone Could Reboot Education | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:06:23 -0000

Use of the iPhone on a college campus

Comments:

Use of the iPhone on a college campus - Rick Beach

Tags: iPhone

by: Rick Beach

If you host it they will come

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:02:18 -0000

Video on hosting an online project.

Comments:

Video on hosting an online project. - Leigh Newton

Tags: tools, web2.0, collaboration, free, video, learning, online, jlwagner, k1209

by: Leigh Newton

print of fake airline tickets

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:33:41 -0000

This is pretty cool. I was thinking that this could be cool for an around the world project

Comments:

This is pretty cool. I was thinking that this could be cool for an around the world project - jason mammano

Tags: no_tag

by: jason mammano

50 Best Blogs for Special Ed Teachers | Online Universities

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:13:23 -0000

Comments:

Several great bloggers on this list - SMD Teacher, TLWMSN, Free resources from the Net, EdTech Change, AT Cubed....to name a few! - Patrick Black

Tags: universities, onlineuniversities, blog, free, specialed, education, blogs, specialneeds, assistivetechnology, UDL

by: Patrick Black