EST430

"I pointed out recently that many of the older theories of pedagogy were formulated in a pre-digital age. I blogged about some of the new theories that seem appropriate as explanatory frameworks for learning in a digital age. These included heutagogy, which describes a self-determined approach to learning, a new model of peer-peer learning known as paragogy, a post modernist 'rhizomatic' learning explanation, distributed learning and connectivist theory, and also a short essay on the digital natives/immigrants discourse. I questioned whether the old models are anachronistic."

"I began blogging because I needed a way to document what I was doing, thinking and studying. My professional life is pretty hectic much of the time, and I needed a space to write down my ideas and record my thoughts before I forgot them. I could have simply used a paper based diary, but I decided when I first heard of blogging that it might fulfil the role of an e-diary for me. But this was a limited view. I quickly began to understand that writing down my ideas in blog format could also help me to organise them, hyperlink to other ideas, and encourage me to think more deeply about those ideas. In essence, blogging crystallised my thinking, and extended the scope of my knowledge. But the best was yet to come. I was quite aware that blogging is a public writing format. Once you click the Publish button, your work is online for the entire world to read. Although this took a little time for me to get my head around, I eventually came to understand that blogging is ultimately a conversation."

"The web is filled with videos, social media chatter, and more resources than your brain can handle. Who is putting all that stuff online? According to a new study on internet usage by different generations, all the content on the web may be coming from some unexpected places."

"If you have been using the sharing feature of Google Docs (now Google Drive) for some time, you may have quite a few files in the Drive that are accessible to other users. Would you like to review this list? Here's a simple Google script that will scan your Google Drive and prepare a list all files that have been shared from your Google Drive."

Capture your screen by pressing Command+Shift+Control+3. use snaggy's simple editor to crop and annotate your image. you can also paste selections from your favorite image editor. paste local files and images from websites into snaggy."

"You may have heard of Wolfram Alpha, which is a "computational knowledge engine." That makes it sound a bit scary, but it's a great tool once you can wrap your head around it. Apple's Siri uses Wolfram Alpha for 25% of its searches. You can leverage that magic and put Wolfram Alpha to work for you - the empty search box on its homepage holds endless possibilities."

Many is the blog post which highlights the ways in which Twitter is the best staffroom in the world but I've not seen too many that highlight the ways in which we can use Twitter in the classroom. Many teachers love to use Twitter as a resource to share, explore, discuss and 'magpie' ideas from other teachers and as a vehicle to help develop their own ideas and their own practice too. It's great for that… no, it's absolutely brilliant for that! So how can we capitalise on the 140 character legendary social media king to help learning in the classroom? Here are some do's and don'ts to help get you going.

"Gingko is an online word processor, that lets you work on structure & content at the same time."

Mark Carbonne's paper.li related to Digital Citizenship

"Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It's suitable for all age groups and can be used to teach subjects like geography, history, languages, mathematics and science."

"Creating maps through the new Maps Engine Lite is a different process than the process used for creating maps in "classic" Google Maps. If you want to try your hand at creating a map with Maps Engine Lite, Bradley Lands has put together a nice tutorial to help you get started. That tutorial is embedded in the video below."

ABC Zoom is a browser-based game primarily aimed at year 9 and 10 students to bring back the fun in science learning. The core objective is to engage, via gameplay, with the fundamentals of charge and electromagnetic radiation, and gain a sense of their importance in the world around us.

"For the longest time teachers and lecturers have held the monopoly on the production of academic content. They create lesson plans, produce resources, devise marking schemes and search around for activities and games they can repurpose to use in teaching sessions. Although the production of content has been the preserve of the teacher and the academic since the formalisation of education, increasingly, we also see learners creating their own content. They have the tools, they own the technology, and they have the confidence to use them, not only informally, but increasingly in formal learning contexts. Many are prolific and proficient in producing blogs, podcasts, videos and photos for sharing on the web. They can do it all using the simple smartphone in their pocket. This user generated content trend is apparent not only in universities and colleges but also in the compulsory education sectors."

"Pics4Learning is a safe, free image library for education. Teachers and students can use the copyright-friendly photos & images for classrooms, multimedia projects, websites, videos, portfolios, or any projects in an educational setting."

"While the term has become controversial since Prensky penned the phrase, the idea is still relevant-and the social perception of the "new students" Prensky was talking about continues to shift with the birth of new digital tools. However, the question that many experts are asking remains: does a fluency in new media tools like Facebook and Apple TV equate to digital savviness?"

"With an ever-expanding selection of apps on the market making educational claims, parents today have a tough time deciding which apps are worth their investment. Earlier this year, app search and discovery portal Appolicious launched a new resource called appoLearning to specifically address this problem. Today, that service has arrived on the iPad in the form of a standalone application."

"As teachers are seeing more and more iPads in education and either using their own devices or being given a teacher iPad or a class set, it is important to realize what the iPad is and what it isn't."

"We analyze your audio and do whatever is necessary to achieve a professional quality"

"But these days, Chrome looks a lot more appealing. An update made it look more like Windows or Mac OS X, and the cheapest Chomebooks cost as little as $200, making them potentially cheaper, and more useful, than a lot of 7-inch budget tablets. So I decided to take the plunge. My entire job is online and I've wanted to really try a Chromebook for a while. Last week, I finally did it."

George Couros posts about an inadvertent copyright tale