E-books are becoming an increasingly popular medium for displaying information. And if you find yourself frequenting these new electronic books, you may have noticed that it becomes quite dull after a while. I, for one, miss the tangible page flip of a novel or a good instructional guide.
That's why Codebox's web app - that's called PDF to Flash Page Flipper (or Flip) - appealed to me. It's an app that can replicate the more interesting animations found on my iPad or a similar tablet and put them onto my laptop. In fact, it's almost better, allowing you to turn any old PDF file into a superior flash-based and flippable book. The conversion process is fairly easy, with a lot of customization options that really don't need to be messed around with. All in all, it is a pretty slick app, at the right price….$0.
Reasons for blogging.
"There seems to be a growing divide between teachers who share their content, and teachers who don't. In a recent blog post, I gave seven reasons why teachers should blog. It was subsequently expanded to 10 good reasons by the contributions from readers - which is actually an eleventh reason why teachers should blog - you get back such great comments, suggestions, arguments and advice, "
I love CUNY and I love public education. Blackboard is a parasite on both. Writing free software is the best way I know to disrupt the awful relationship between companies like Blackboard and vulnerable populations like CUNY undergraduates.
Good list of why Bb is bad, including It forces, and reinforces, an entirely teacher-centric pedagogical model.
Timelines enable chunking. Another ideal feature of timelines is that by their nature, they chunk information. Because events on a timeline occur at a point in time or during a segment of time, you're residing in a chunking environment. Chunk away!Timelines are a good source for interactions. Asking learners to build their own timeline or to drag and drop events on a timeline can make an effective online learning activity.
As ambitious as we are as students, we're not always guaranteed good grades or perfect scores despite long nights and exam crams. With nothing more than a few syllabi and red ink, keeping track of your grades and measuring your performance with a calculator is outdated and unnecessary. Weighted grades and a failed exam can turn a trip to the calculator into a worrisome mess of numbers and unmet expectations. In your pocket, however, you already have all the tools necessary for instant grade-ification. Grades 2 is your personal performance record that crunches all of the numbers so you don't have to, providing near instant feedback on what you need to aim for to maintain your target grade (preferably an A). Jeremy Olson is at it again, refining the user experience from Grades and delivering a free update that adds a GPA calculator and due dates to keep you on schedule.
One of the great benefits of digital publishing is its flexibility and the capability for ebooks to bring something for every reader. Like Amazon's Kindle Singles or Atavist's shorts, these ebooks are generally in the range of 5,000 to 30,000 words and are reviving interest in a variety of short form literature
Automated aggregation is not the solution. Human-powered, manual news curation is.
Human news curators can add more value and understanding to the news, by aggregating, filtering and curating them, than it is available in individual news stories taken by themselves.