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"EdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium. EdX offers interactive online courses and MOOCs from the world's best universities and institutions. Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses. Through our commitment to the open source vision, edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. Our goal is to build a thriving worldwide community of educators and technologists who share innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere. We invite you to explore Open edX and participate in our growing movement. Frequently Asked Questions What is Open edX? The Open edX platform is a free--and open source--course management system (CMS) that was originally developed by edX. The Open edX platform is used all over the world to host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as well as smaller classes and training modules."

"EdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium. EdX offers interactive online courses and MOOCs from the world's best universities and institutions. Open edX is the open source platform that powers edX courses. Through our commitment to the open source vision, edX code is freely available to the community. Institutions can host their own instances of Open edX and offer their own classes. Educators can extend the platform to build learning tools that precisely meet their needs. And developers can contribute new features to the Open edX platform. Our goal is to build a thriving worldwide community of educators and technologists who share innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere. We invite you to explore Open edX and participate in our growing movement. Frequently Asked Questions What is Open edX? The Open edX platform is a free--and open source--course management system (CMS) that was originally developed by edX. The Open edX platform is used all over the world to host Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as well as smaller classes and training modules."

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, m

1) the ways they currently implement Twitter in their teaching and learning, 2) ideas for future development of Twitter-based assignments and pedagogical practices, and 3) issues concerning the integration of Twitter and other digital media into both traditional and non-traditional pedagogies. Collaborators should feel free to add material to these pages, to comment on existing material, and to share links to relevant external readings and resources. It may be helpful to tag your contributions with your Twitter handle. Collaborators are asked to please respect this space as a forum for open and respectful dialogue and networking. Let's fill up the pages below with great ideas!  Share the ways you currently implement Twitter in your teaching and learning: Students in my course New Information Technologies do an "Internet Censorship" project, focused on a specific country. I ask them to follow a journalist who tweets on that country as part of their research to understand the state of Internet freedom in the country they select. -- Lora Since shortly after Twitter was launched, I've experimented with various iterations of "The Twitter Essay," an assignment that has students considering the nature of the "essay" as a medium and how they might do that work within the space of 140 characters. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) In my fully online classes, I've started using Twitter to replace the discussion forum as the central location for student interaction. -- Jesse (@Jessifer) Show Tweets that have gotten people arrested and prompt discussion on whether it is fair that anyone be arrested for any Tweet in the US, who is likely to be arrested for their Tweets, what kinds of Tweets are likely to prompt arrest, etc. Students in my First Year Seminar course "The Irish Imagination: Yeats to Bono" developed a platform for digital annotation of Irish literature. Embedded in their platform was a twitter feed of relevant individuals/groups, m

"Build your own virtual tour Capture and upload your own 360° photos into CoSpaces Edu to build an immersive tour. Simply organize your images as scenes, add text and details, and let others go on your virtual tour!"

"The Fairphone is a modular handset designed with repairability and ethical sourcing of its materials as headline features. It sold 60,000 units. Amazingly, for what sounds like a nerd-phone, almost half of those buyers had never owned a smartphone before. Now the Fairphone 2 is launching, and with a totally-new, in-house design. The new phone is even easier to repair, and because it was wholly designed by the FairPhone team, its supply chain is even more responsible than ever. The Fairphone is thicker than the latest iPhone or Samsung flagship, but that's the point. Instead of packing everything into a tiny case and keeping it there with glue, the Fairphone is designed to be taken apart. The lightweight magnesium frame supports modules that can be easily replaced by the user. "We have designed it with an aim to last three to five years, looking at making it robust and modular-for repairability," says Fairphone's chief communications officer, Tessa Wernink. "Obviously how long it lasts depends quite heavily on the user, so what we as a company are doing is offering an ecosystem around the phone that supports long-lasting use, first-hand or second-hand." Inside the case (itself one of several options) you'll find the core unit, containing all the chips and radios; a replaceable battery pack; a display that can be snapped off and replaced without any tools (not even a screwdriver); a receiver unit, which contains the front camera, sensors; the headset connector and microphones; a speaker/vibrator unit; and a camera module. These modules are designed to balance manufacturing complexity with repairability. For instance, the display comes as a standalone unit, but less-vulnerable components are bundled into one module. The camera, which people are most likely to upgrade as better versions become available, is also housed in its own module. That way you don't need to toss out your whole phone just to get a better camera. "In fact, the motto from the maker mo

"To revert the current ecological overshoot and build a sustainable society, we have to collectively engage in changing our economic model. "Sufficiency: moving beyond the gospel of eco-efficiency" suggests introducing hard limitations to unsustainable trends-in particular to overconsumption-and putting emphasis on distributional justice. Seven chapters written by sustainability and economics experts plus a foreword by Janez Potočnik (Co-chair of the International Resource Panel and former European Commissioner for the Environment) shed light on different angles of sufficiency and formulate concrete recommendations to EU policy makers. The booklet ends with a discussion of several eco-social policies that can start the transition towards an "economics of enough". Many new ideas for an economic paradigm shift have been developed and discussed at the academic and grassroots levels in recent years. The aim of this booklet is to build on a rich body of knowledge and bring these ideas to the attention of engaged citizens and policy makers in order to advance the debate on how to implement sufficiency."

"A kit to build a mechanical display that cycles through the numbers 0-9 by turning a crank. Do you love building mechanical contraptions? Complicated looking gear trains that perform some task? Then this kit is for you ! However, beware. It is not for the faint-hearted. The assembly instructions are 26 pages long. The counter comprises of well over 100 parts. If you want to take it even further you can install a motor and drive it automatically."

"Back in the 1980s, a group of social workers in Jamaica visited low-income homes one hour a week for two years, bearing age-appropriate toys for the kids and advice on child rearing for the parents. Researchers tracked the outcomes, and a generation later, the results are in. The children whose homes were visited by social workers became adults who earn wages that are 25 percent higher than those earned by peers who had not been visited. Their I.Q.s are an average seven points higher, and they are less likely to resort to crime or suffer from depression. Other studies, including several recent ones in the United States, have shown similar results, contributing to a consensus on the importance of early childhood development that has led governments around the world to increase spending on the first five years of life. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of longstanding social and economic inequality, several countries have been especially ambitious. Brazil and Chile doubled the coverage of day care services over the past decade, while in Ecuador they grew sixfold. These investments build on historic gains in child nutrition and health. But while Latin American children are now healthier and more likely to attend preschool, they still lag far behind in learning, particularly in the areas of language and cognition, when compared with their counterparts in wealthy countries. What are we doing wrong? ..."

"Back in the 1980s, a group of social workers in Jamaica visited low-income homes one hour a week for two years, bearing age-appropriate toys for the kids and advice on child rearing for the parents. Researchers tracked the outcomes, and a generation later, the results are in. The children whose homes were visited by social workers became adults who earn wages that are 25 percent higher than those earned by peers who had not been visited. Their I.Q.s are an average seven points higher, and they are less likely to resort to crime or suffer from depression. Other studies, including several recent ones in the United States, have shown similar results, contributing to a consensus on the importance of early childhood development that has led governments around the world to increase spending on the first five years of life. In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region of longstanding social and economic inequality, several countries have been especially ambitious. Brazil and Chile doubled the coverage of day care services over the past decade, while in Ecuador they grew sixfold. These investments build on historic gains in child nutrition and health. But while Latin American children are now healthier and more likely to attend preschool, they still lag far behind in learning, particularly in the areas of language and cognition, when compared with their counterparts in wealthy countries. What are we doing wrong? ..."

Primitive technology is a hobby where you make things in the wild completely from scratch using no modern tools or materials. This is the strict rule. If you want a fire- use fire sticks, an axe- pick up a stone and shape it, a hut- build one from trees, mud, rocks etc. The challenge is seeing how far you can go without modern technology. If this hobby interests you then this blog might be what you are looking for. Also It should be noted that I don't live in the wild but just practice this as a hobby. I live in a modern house and eat modern food. I just like to see how people in ancient times built and made things. It is a good hobby that keeps you fit and doesn't cost anything apart from time and effort.

"Build a brand not a business (Construye una marca, no un negocio). El docente como marca personal. Aunque el concepto de marca personal esté muy ligado al mundo empresarial, me gustaría que pensaras por un momento en ti como un referente, como un docente que deja huella en sus compañeros de profesión y en sus alumnos. En el artículo titulado ¿Qué tipo de docente eres? ya me referí a cuatro categorías de docentes. Eran estas: El docente mediocre El buen docente El docente superior El docente que inspira Si lees con detenimiento el artículo, observarás que hay una distancia enorme entre estos cuatro tipos de docente. Pues bien, el docente que inspira a los demás vendría a ser el docente que se convierte en su propia marca personal, en un referente para sus compañeros y alumnos. Pues bien, MJ DeMarco en su libro The Millionaire Fastlane te enseña que lo primero que uno debe hacer para convertirse en una marca personal es tener lo que él denomina Unique Selling Proposition o USP (Propuesta única de venta). Si trasladas este concepto a tu labor como docente, te darás cuenta de que tan sólo se trata de cambiar el concepto de venta por el de enseñanza. La propuesta única de enseñanza para un docente. ¿Qué es? ¿Cómo se consigue? Puede ser que lleves años en la docencia y nunca te hayas planteado cuál es tu verdadero propósito. Me explico. En muchas ocasiones la zona de confort en la que un docente se instala le impide ver el auténtico propósito de su profesión. Esa zona de confort es la que, precisamente, hace que un docente acabe únicamente por explicar en lugar de enseñar. Si quieres ver la diferencia entre explicar y enseñar, aquí te dejo un enlace. En mi opinión no se puede enseñar si no se tiene claro el objetivo de lo que se está enseñando. Y este es precisamente el objetivo de cualquier negocio que fundamente dicho negocio en una marca personal. Y ahora viene la pregunta: ¿Cómo me convie

"Build a brand not a business (Construye una marca, no un negocio). El docente como marca personal. Aunque el concepto de marca personal esté muy ligado al mundo empresarial, me gustaría que pensaras por un momento en ti como un referente, como un docente que deja huella en sus compañeros de profesión y en sus alumnos. En el artículo titulado ¿Qué tipo de docente eres? ya me referí a cuatro categorías de docentes. Eran estas: El docente mediocre El buen docente El docente superior El docente que inspira Si lees con detenimiento el artículo, observarás que hay una distancia enorme entre estos cuatro tipos de docente. Pues bien, el docente que inspira a los demás vendría a ser el docente que se convierte en su propia marca personal, en un referente para sus compañeros y alumnos. Pues bien, MJ DeMarco en su libro The Millionaire Fastlane te enseña que lo primero que uno debe hacer para convertirse en una marca personal es tener lo que él denomina Unique Selling Proposition o USP (Propuesta única de venta). Si trasladas este concepto a tu labor como docente, te darás cuenta de que tan sólo se trata de cambiar el concepto de venta por el de enseñanza. La propuesta única de enseñanza para un docente. ¿Qué es? ¿Cómo se consigue? Puede ser que lleves años en la docencia y nunca te hayas planteado cuál es tu verdadero propósito. Me explico. En muchas ocasiones la zona de confort en la que un docente se instala le impide ver el auténtico propósito de su profesión. Esa zona de confort es la que, precisamente, hace que un docente acabe únicamente por explicar en lugar de enseñar. Si quieres ver la diferencia entre explicar y enseñar, aquí te dejo un enlace. En mi opinión no se puede enseñar si no se tiene claro el objetivo de lo que se está enseñando. Y este es precisamente el objetivo de cualquier negocio que fundamente dicho negocio en una marca personal. Y ahora viene la pregunta: ¿Cómo me convie

Artículo en inglés... "Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones - 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into their lesson plans, too, by embracing bring-your-own-device policies and leading the push for an iPad for every student. In 2013, an estimated 25% of U.S. schools had BYOD policies in place and it's reasonable to assume those numbers have risen in the past two years. ..."

Artículo en inglés... "Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones - 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into their lesson plans, too, by embracing bring-your-own-device policies and leading the push for an iPad for every student. In 2013, an estimated 25% of U.S. schools had BYOD policies in place and it's reasonable to assume those numbers have risen in the past two years. ..."

"Las ilustraciones del sistema solar nunca evidencian a las claras su tamaño. Parece una cuestión cuántica: o los planetas están a escala o lo están las distancias, pero nunca ambos. Sería imposible. Por ello un grupo de seis amigos se dirigieron hacia el desierto de Navada, en Estados Unidos y contruyeron el primer modelo del sistema solar, con sus órbitas y a escala. En él la Tierra es una canica y el diámetro del conjunto completo es de unos 10 kilómetros. Aunque está en inglés, el vídeo se entiende perfectamente y destaca por dos factores: cada planeta está iluminado y se ve su órbota por la noche en time-lapse y al amanecer, el modelo del Sol, tiene el mismo tamaño que el astro rey que se alza por el universo. Un ejemplo de escala perfecto. On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe. A film by Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh"

"Las ilustraciones del sistema solar nunca evidencian a las claras su tamaño. Parece una cuestión cuántica: o los planetas están a escala o lo están las distancias, pero nunca ambos. Sería imposible. Por ello un grupo de seis amigos se dirigieron hacia el desierto de Navada, en Estados Unidos y contruyeron el primer modelo del sistema solar, con sus órbitas y a escala. En él la Tierra es una canica y el diámetro del conjunto completo es de unos 10 kilómetros. Aunque está en inglés, el vídeo se entiende perfectamente y destaca por dos factores: cada planeta está iluminado y se ve su órbota por la noche en time-lapse y al amanecer, el modelo del Sol, tiene el mismo tamaño que el astro rey que se alza por el universo. Un ejemplo de escala perfecto. On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe. A film by Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh"

"Our new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Low-tech Magazine was born in 2007 and has seen minimal changes ever since. Because a website redesign was long overdue - and because we try to practice what we preach - we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine. The new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content. Why a Low-tech Website? We were told that the Internet would "dematerialise" society and decrease energy use. Contrary to this projection, it has become a large and rapidly growing consumer of energy itself. In order to offset the negative consequences associated with high energy consumption, renewable energy has been proposed as a means to lower emissions from powering data centers. For example, Greenpeace's yearly ClickClean report ranks major Internet companies based on their use of renewable power sources."

1. Know your audience. 2. Show off your expertise. 3. Present vital data. 4. Keep it practical. 5. Build confidence.

"This article analyzes teacher strikes in Argentina during 2006-2012. It stands out how teacher strikes prevail over claims from other unions, and are shown to be relevant events for education policy just for some provinces and only for public schools. We found that none of the policy measures implemented over the last decade has proven to be effective in reducing conflict. Analyzing a dataset on labour unrest, this study builds an index of teacher labour conflict to better understand the evolution of teacher strikes over time and under the various provincial governments that integrate the Argentinian federal education system. The article shows no correlation between teacher labour unrest and the growth of private enrolment. However, we note that despite the lack of statistical correlation, teacher strikes should not be ruled out as an explanatory variable of the increase in private education in Argentina."

Great tool that allows you to see how words are used in context.  This would be excellent for vocabulary building.

"What does that mean exactly? It means you play in a multiplayer world that has the possibility of being permanently destroyed, resulting in server-wide perma death. What's more, the reason it's destroyed would be the players' own fault. It's not that different from our own world in that way. "This ecosystem is your only lifeline in a race against time." It works like this: a new server is started, and players enter at the beginnings of civilization. There's a world-destroying cataclysm looming, like a drought or a flood or a meteor heading for the Earth, several real-time weeks away. In order to prevent that catastrophe from happening, you need to build a civilization and advance technology and resources to the point that the crisis can be averted. However you're not alone in this world. Besides the other players, you'll be sharing the world with a detailed wilderness simulation full of plants and animals. They simulate 24 hours a day, living out their lives with or without human interaction, growing, feeding and reproducing. Together they form an ecosystem rich with resources, resources that you must use to survive and develop a civilization."

"Close Reading and Argument Writing - Authentically Across the Curriculum 7/16/2015 0 Comments Close reading of informational texts and non-fiction articles is not - and should not be - reserved for language arts classes. Every content area would be immensely enhanced if science teachers, social studies teachers, physical education teachers, welding teachers, woodworking teachers (in other words, "all technical subjects," as Common Core states) would not push aside the textbook, but instead embrace it, along with content area and trade articles. Students would then simultaneously learn how to dissect the readings while gaining knowledge in these content areas. What often happens is that teachers feel that students can't handle the text books or can't read the articles independently - and often that is true. However, when teachers instead go into a survival mode, of sorts, and read aloud the whole chapter or article or summarize it with a slideshow, it ends up doing a disservice to students - students are not learning HOW to read these complex texts. They are not learning how to acquire the information on their own. They are not being given the skills to read the sometimes intricate information within a particular content area or even within their possible future trade. They are not being given the opportunity to read, understand, articulate, and discuss or even debate topics within their area of study. Teachers sometimes feel that they can't do these things with students because they are not language arts teachers, or because they don't have time, or simply because they don't know how. Alternatively, a simple solution is to let go of the control and let students do…..with the guidance called close reading. Close reading is a guided reading approach. It is guided because 1) the close reading strategy is reserved for complex texts that are often too high for students to be left with independently and 2) students don't use close reading strateg