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Teaching with Facebook is a way for me to engage my students, since many of them will be on the site before, after, and during any lecture. More than engagement, using Facebook allows me to build a bridge between my classroom curricula and what my students are doing outside the lecture hall. I must admit that student expertise with digital media often exceeds my own, and my attempts at using Facebook function as a common language that sets up my classroom as an experimental space allowing students to take risks, make connections, and participate with an alternative teaching style. As much as there are a number of other Facebook educators—there is even a Facebook groups for educators—I am certain that on my university campus I am the only instructor using this social network. My university administration has accused me of subverting our institutional course management system. They are correct. Facebook may be a commercial enterprise, but I argue that students can maintain a Facebook identity after they leave university. The work done in our lecture as represented in our Facebook group is something that lasts beyond a typical university course management system. In other words, access to the information, discussion, links, and learning is not cut off once the course is over.

Google Apps Scripts can be used to automate tasks such as "sending emails, scheduling calendar events, creating and updating site pages using data from other systems, and more." You can create a script in Google Sites by clicking "More actions" > "Manage site" > "Apps Scripts." Once created scripts can be embedded on any Google Sites page.

Blog > Putting Together an Effective Portfolio Putting Together an Effective Portfolio

most freelancers with a decent body of work nowadays will also have an online presence, used, in the main, to display their work. Take as much care with your online portfolio as you would your physical one. Strive for a uniformity and dynamism in your photography of projects, and make sure that images and pdfs saved from the computer are of sufficiently high and consistent resolution. Write concise, foolproof explanations to accompany the work and organise it all in an intuitive level-based fashion, much as you would a website. Sites like Flickr and View Creatives go some way to aiding the freelancer in this professional-feeling endeavour, but you’ll still need to pour energy and vim into the whole enterprise to create the right appearance.

Useful Top Tips Keep things small. A portfolio any larger than A3 is really too big Keep things clean & uncrumpled Loose-leaf sheets are better than ring-bound sleeves Assembling a portfolio should not be a one-off exercise, but a dynamic and continual process Request and absorb other people’s comments and allow this information to flow back into the way you maintain your portfolio Interleave your loose-leaf sheets with a bold and dazzling substrate, though choose something that doesn’t overpower the work contained within If you choose to carry your portfolio on a laptop, for pity’s sake avoid using Powerpoint in your presentations!

A phenomenographic research approach was used to gather the expressed experiences of e-learning and professional development for e-learning held by teachers and support staff from institutions across New Zealand. Five conceptions of e-learning (as tool and equipment; as a facilitator of interaction; as learning; as a reduction in distance; and as a collaborative enterprise) and four conceptions of professional development for e-learning (as training; as opening up possibilities; as collaboration; and as relevant and purposeful) were discovered.

With its open-ended nature and robust creation tools, Minecraft has been used to create some amazing things. And as one teacher learned, those very same elements that make the game so compelling also make it a great educational tool.

OpenClass integrates seamlessly with Google Apps for Education