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""Always on" access has created an abundance of learning potentials that scarcely existed even a decade ago. "No, this is not the picture most of us painted for ourselves when we went into education. Most of us went into teaching understanding that school was pretty much the only education game in town, the place where kids came to get information, where, at the end of the day, we were responsible for disseminating the knowledge, we assessed whether our students got it, and we stamped it "an education." For that vast majority of kids (and for us, too) who attended a brick-and-mortar school, that's been the unbending, monolithic vision of schooling for 150 years. "So what do we do when that vision begins, finally, to be undermined?" Technology is changing what it means to be educated. Thoughtful article.

Turn your words into a 3D animated movie, creating online, with any browswer, or on your desktop (Windows only). This looks like an interesting way to have students present what they have learned. [Thanks to Christel Broady from the CALL-IS community list.]

"We learn most effectively when motivated. This is a list of games your kids will have fun playing ... while also learning important skills and lessons as a by-product!" Spotted this, via Sam Gliksman's blog. Several are social games also. I'm eager to try The Oregon Trail. Now, if only they made a Hypercard app.

Shows how and why to use video of yourself during teaching practice to determine how to grow as a professional. Uses only a Flip camera and a tripod.

For very advanced students only. Gives sample thesis statements and sample discussion questions, but the site is not interactive at all, and not reading based.

"As part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), students need to "ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century." Many teachers have little to no formal training on how to teach about climate change. Along with the ever-changing research and the controversy that comes with it, some teachers inevitably shy away or even prevent students from digging deep into the content. Some suggest that teachers might be getting climate change all wrong. Since teachers can't rely on books to stay current with all the new research, digital resources are the only effective way to stay on top of such a dynamic field. Consider these practices when using technology to teach about climate change:" Sites include NASA Global Climate Change, Climate Kids for younger learners, Global Oneness Project, and Earth-Now to analyze realtime data.

"The idea here is to create a simple menu at the top of your Moodle course page that allows your learners to click and have only the relevant unit or cluster appear on the page. Essentially, this removes the 'scroll of death' issue if you find your learners are having to wade down through dozens of units to find something."

"I attended a webinar two week's ago featuring Stacey Harris of Brandon Hall Group and Mark Hellinger of Xyleme. The topic of conversation was this idea of going mobile with your learning; a hot topic in the learning space no doubt. They touched on the concept that learning expectations have shifted with all of the new technology, which has caused change among those who are initially developing the content. Furthermore, while social media monitoring and exploring, I am seeing an increase in not only speculation of that point, but a firm belief from others in the industry that there IS a shift happening in todays learning market. People haven't exactly been able to call it by name, but its being felt. People are feeling a shift from the current learning demands of just getting the information out there, to infinite accessibility and readability. " = Dawn Poulos An interesting article on how e-learning is responding to the push-pull of mobile accessibility.

A nice app for your iPad by a language teacher in Brasil. Free version has 80 sentences, but the pro version is only $1.99. Practice prepositions and phrasal verbs sentence by sentence to cross a flowing river of lava.

"This is one of my favorite websites for advanced sentence-level writing. The exercises on run-on sentences and fragments, for example, have lots of challenging vocabulary and funny situations. The exercises provide immediate feedback with cool (or yucky) "cyber prizes." "One caution: the exercises are only useful for advanced-level students who can understand the vocabulary and appreciate the humor." - by Nancy Overman New exercises appear to be added fairly regularly.

Not only excellent video lectures, but extraordinary support, with transcripts, subtitles, quizzes with answer keys,lecture notes, labs, downloadable materials, and the opportunity to join a study group, etc., depending on the course. Over 2700 courses in science, humanities, engineering, architecture, etc. Also good for teachers preparing to teach ESP.

A blog describing, very briefly, a large number of tools. Mostly a list, but promises to do more later. Includes both Web and mobile tools, but sorted only roughly into categories.

A video on how to use Keek to make and share short video messages. Although limited to only 36 secs, this might be a good application for beginning learners, or for a quick pronunciation quiz (you will see who is taking that quiz!) You can also embed a finished recording in your blog or wiki, as well as sending it by email. A good way to have students create a short, practiced conversation. Also has smartphone apps for mobile recordings, RSS feed to follow, and links to Facebook, Yahoo, and Twitter.

"Do you Diigo? To be honest, I signed up but never used the online social-bookmarking tool. Fortunately, TESOL's Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) Interest Section has been busy bookmarking some great online resources. Dr. Elizabeth Hanson-Smith shared the Diigo CALL IS Virtual Software List on the TESOL CALL Community: http://www.diigo.com/user/call_is_vsl. This list contains tons of resources on various teaching topics! However, this post focuses only on the teacher-training videos." A nice review and selection by Sandra Rogers for the TESOL Blog.

The concept is easily adapted to a higher end technology, using blogs or wikis. These might be private, with only teachers making responses, or open to classmates so that the comments run freely. Yes, students really do improve by free writing in quantity, esp. as they will be corrected and guided by the teacher elsewhere in the course.

Still in what I would call Beta, Mbedr is a handy tool to ensure that Flickr embedded notes will show up when you embed the photo on your own site/blog. Some reported glitches, so follow the blog links. For advanced/confident users only. Embedded notes can be used for instructional purposes, especially when students create their own labels.

This looks like a great project, with pages to help you design your own apps, step-by-step guides, a library for App Inventor (the tool), curriculum and resources for teachers, and a community forum to get answers. Now if only we had time . . .

This blog discusses a tool that allows you to collect data on your personal use of email, and helps you understand all the controversy over government collection of data. "They have created a new program called Immersion. It works by signing you into your Gmail account and collecting only the meta-data from your account usage history. From there you can get a picture of your emailing habits from that single account, and you will be shocked at what you see. "According to the three creators, there are four purposes to the program: self-reflection, artistic representation, privacy revelations and the ability to develop a strategy in your communications on a professional level."

"Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. So when we saw a post sweeping the Web titled "40 maps they didn't teach you in school," one of which happens to be a WorldViews original, I thought we might be able to contribute our own collection. Some of these are pretty nerdy, but I think they're no less fascinating and easily understandable. A majority are original to this blog (see our full maps coverage here), with others from a variety of sources. I've included a link for further reading on close to every one." Exceptionally explanatory. Use for class projects and problem-based learning.

Simple Modular Programming Language & Environments is presumably simple enough for kids to use to create tablet apps or computer programs. Haven't had a change to try it out. For Windows-based computers and tablets only.