Group items tagged

"The last four months have been tumultuous ones for our university. With the end of educational discounts for our island in Second Life, we faced a tough decision. Second Life's steep learning curve and our local system of incentives and rewards for faculty had discouraged any use of virtual worlds in our curriculum."

This Yudu book from Patrick Cauley is an excellent guide to getting started with Edmodo

"Do you learn from your mistakes? Many don't. Different people deal with their own flaws, foibles and flat-out wrong-doings very differently. Healthy people look carefully at their screw-ups and learn whatever they can. Others ignore or minimize their errors, or worse, start blaming circumstances or someone else for whatever it is they did badly. But those who can examine their own mistakes learn more than others. Period. They learn more skills, more deeply and more quickly. "

"I'm firmly of the opinion that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools is misplaced and therefore misused. In essence, the way it is conventionally deployed negates much of the potential of ICT, and unless there is a dramatic reappraisal, we won't be witnessing much in the way of learning gains in schools. Here's my argument in two points:"

"When I was 10 years old I was hitting a digital puck across the screen with a digital paddle playing Pong. My son at age 10 was learning metallurgy and materials management in an online multiplayer game called Runescape! I knew nothing of the game at the time, and he soon showed me how he learned to collect items in the world in order to make new things that he needed to complete quests and gain experience. In particular, he showed me how he needed to collect certain metal ores, take them to a smelter to extract metals, and then take those to a forge to create tools or to a craftsman to make other things. This is one of the reasons that I am still excited about Minecraft."

"Connect.ed is an innovative, self-paced cybersafety education program offered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as part of Cybersmart. Connect.ed provides teachers with the flexibility of a self paced environment to learn about current online behaviours of students, potential risks involved in these activities, a teacher's and school's duty of care and the appropriate tools, resources and strategies to help students to have safe and positive experiences online."

Great Google presentation with lots of examples embedded about using Google Docs, (A copy has been saved in my G Docs)

"An interesting question was raised today during the Effective Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age event at the University of Birmingham. Organised by the Higher Education Academy, the one day conference attracted around 40-50 people from a number of universities across the UK. One of the invited speakers was Professor John Traxler (University of Wolverhampton) who spoke on how mobile technologies are extending and enhancing learning. In a 'hot off the press' publication from the HEA, which he also edited, John writes about mobile technologies, (of which he includes smart-phones, media players, games consoles, netbooks and handheld computers):"

"Astro Empires is a strategy game played in real-time. Persistent universe with thousands of players. Browser based, no downloads or installs. Play for free."

"Last week, I read this interesting blog post from Kevin McLaughlin Entitled "Switching off the interactive whiteboard for good". It revisited the argument that IWBs have been a huge waste of taxpayers money, and should be replaced with alternative technologies. The post generated a large number of comments, and even caused Kevin to go over his bandwidth allocation, reminding me of an earlier IWB-related post to this blog, which remains to this day my most commented upon blog post ever! Matthew Pearson then posted a robust defence of IWBs, which again provoked debate in the comments and on Twitter - including the (rather amusing) retitling of Matt's post as "Interactive Whiteboards Are Awesome, It's Just People That Suck"."

"This video highlights the growth and development of a Google Doc as an Elementary School student in Edmonton Public Schools takes us on a journey of how she collaborates with classmates and her teacher to create a finished piece of writing."

"The reality is the power of social media is enormous. It's what students are using to make a difference, our president used to get elected, and what Egypt used to start a revolution. Educators must get over their fears lest they make themselves irrelevant and leave their students unprepared. As I shared in my post Being Safe Online Is Being Safe In Life, the lesson is this. It's not primarily having a social networking profile, or giving out personal information that puts kids at risk. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. As the post is titled, the rules for being safe online are really just the rules for being safe in life. "

"Below is a series of frequently asked questions regarding the capabilities of the iPad and the reasons for our decision to use iPads from Years 5-9, with a strong recommendation they also be used in Years 10-12. Please take the time to browse through as it might cover some of the questions you have been asking yourself."

Copyto is a new unique way to bookmark sites by allowing teachers and students to simply select parts of sites they want to have backed up. Like a mix between Diigo or Delicious and Evernote, this site is a great way to clip out pieces of websites, articles, research papers, and more, in order to save it for use later on or to share it out with collegeaues or students. There is also a browser plug-in and a mobile site to access all the links and content on the go. This has a slick interface and easy to use tool.

"So I'd like to get more specific about what I think is wrong about the Khan Academy approach by writing about things I see as wrong with the way we teach math in the US. No matter if we agree or not about Khan Academy, I'm fairly certain we can agree math learning is not going as well as we'd like (to say the least.) Too many people are convinced by the system that they "hate math", and even students who do well (meaning, can get decent test scores) are often just regurgitating stuff for the test, knowing they can safely forget it shortly afterward."

"Alan November is recognized internationally as a leader in education technology. He began his career as an oceanography teacher and dorm counselor at an island reform school for boys in Boston Harbor. He has been a director of an alternative high school, computer coordinator, technology consultant, and university lecturer. As practitioner, designer, and author, Alan has guided schools, government organizations and industry leaders as they plan to improve quality with technology." This is his address to TEDxNYed.

"Free Password Manager. Works in your browser and with our free desktop application HyperSafe. Works on Windows/Mac/Linux any modern browser Fast and easy to use. Secure SSL connections, all data encrypted. No advertising, no spam. Convenient, on the web or your desktop. Store Passwords & memos too... Never forget a password again!"

"Time is precious. Our website is dedicated to helping your loved ones, friends and colleagues. In the world of social media, the corporations believe that responsibility for security rests on the hands of the users. Our community website exists to protect our children and to make sure they know and practice safe surfing on Social media sites. Our aim is simple. We want to help parents how to recognize and deal with most common social media threats. We want to help children identify their responsibilities. Our website would best thrive on support from people like you. Join our community to get your social media questions answered, discuss your concerns and provide guidance to others within the community. Together we can avoid social media mistakes at home and professionally at work."

"Welcome to the distribution center for BYOB (Build Your Own Blocks), an advanced offshoot of Scratch, a visual programming language primarily for kids from the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. This version, developed by Jens Mönig with design input and documentation from Brian Harvey, is an attempt to extend the brilliant accessibility of Scratch to somewhat older users-in particular, non-CS-major computer science students-without becoming inaccessible to its original audience. BYOB 3 adds first class lists and procedures to BYOB's original contribution of custom blocks and recursion. "

"MissionV is providing a highly creative, totally immersive, game based learning environment for primary and post primary students. We're putting the focus on 21st century skills, helping chidren to become original digital creators with 3D modeling and programming skills. MissionV allows high potential students from all backgrounds to connect, create and collaborate in a 3D world entirely of their own making."