Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

Innovation in Education - putting ideas into practice

Whether you're a high school or college student, a small business owner looking to set up a new business plan, or someone who wants to be better organized with your errands, goals and regular to-do lists, there are a variety of tools to keep your notes and tasks safe and filed away online. These 50 tools and tricks will revolutionize your note-taking by introducing you to techniques and websites that let you share ideas, store your thoughts directly on a web page and more.

Free to use, the site provides high-quality, digital images that can be used by teachers and students. The only proviso seems to be that they can't be sold on. Find images by keyword of browsing.

Zigtag's group option could be useful for creating professional learning networks. The group option could also be useful for students that are working in groups on research projects.

John Cleese provides a ten-minute insight into what many of us know already, but fail to acknowledge: 1. We do not know where we get our ideas from (but we do know we don't get them from our laptops). 2. Sleeping on an idea can help make its reappearance later so much better. 3. Ticking things off and keeping all the balls in the air means you will not have any creative ideas. 4. In our frenzied connected world we need to make some time to make some mood for creativity: a tortoise cocoon from which we can check it's safe to come out into a self-created oasis in our lives. 5. We need to set aside time and place where interruptions are not allowed - we need to create boundaries of space with a starting time and a finish time, separate from ordinary life, and only then creating a space and place where we can play. 6. The problem with some teachers is that they may not know that they are not very creative, and therefore they may not value creativity even if they can recognise it. 7. If those in charge are egotistical and wish to claim credit for the work of others, then they shall directly or indirectly discourage others from being creative.

Twitter can be a game-changer for online communicators. Education provides countless opportunities for various forms of communication, especially online. This leads to the question: Can Twitter be incorporated into an effective online communication strategy for educational institutions? The short answer is yes and I wanted to explore how educational institutions can and are using/trying Twitter to assist in their communication efforts.

Teaching children how to think has brought academic success to schools in Manchester. But will techniques pioneered by the guru Edward de Bono catch on?

Today at our Saskatchewan Curriculum Renewal workshops we were introduced to many of the new concepts and philosophies of the new curriculum. The intent of the curriculum is to reduce outcomes, provide common language for all curricula, focus more on learning than on teaching and focus on depth of understanding instead of only breadth. There was a lot of talk of big picture thinking and encouraging teachers to reflect on why they teach what they teach. Early on someone mentioned the goals of education. With some recent discussions on the purpose of education, I thought it pertinent to look up the 9 goals of education for students in Saskatchewan.

Play actually appears to make kids smarter. In a classic study published in Developmental Psychology in 1973, researchers divided 90 preschool children into three groups. One group was told to play freely with four common objects--among the choices were a pile of paper towels, a screwdriver, a wooden board and a pile of paper clips. A second set was asked to imitate an experimenter using the four objects in common ways. The last group was told to sit at a table and draw whatever they wanted, without ever seeing the objects. Each scenario lasted 10 minutes. Immediately afterward, the researchers asked the children to come up with ideas for how one of the objects could be used. The kids who had played with the objects named, on average, three times as many nonstandard, creative uses for the objects than the youths in either of the other two groups did, suggesting that play fosters creative thinking.

Social networking in education is a flattener, this breaks down barriers that would otherwise exist between the student, the program and the instructors. This also makes information on demand as long as there is a good way to find that information that students will work with and use. Reliance on the old static school room or black board computer system is not necessarily the way that things are going. Education 2.0 should be breaking down these barriers, and it is great to work for a school that is doing this, because it is all about how people learn, and if people learn, then we are doing our job.

A kid-safe search engine powered by Google custom search. It uses a combination of Googles safe search mode and their own database of restricted elements. It also has a site removal request form if something does get past the filters

A wiki to support "Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works" book...excellent resource of web 2.0 tools and how to use them in the classroom

However, not all adolescents participate in music equally, and certain groups are disadvantaged in access to music education. Families with high socioeconomic status participate more in music than do families with lower socioeconomic status. In addition to social class as a predictor of music participation, ethnicity is also a factor. Asians and Whites are more likely to participate in music than are Hispanics. While young Black children attended concerts with their parents, they were less likely to take music lessons.

Bookmark for any school or teachers! Parts and clips from this series have been posted several times, but I thought I'd try sifting this playlist, with 5 full-lenght 1 hour episodes in one neat list.If they show up in low-quality, they are all available in High quality on YouTube. Youtube desctription: Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic.

Twickie is a free service that fetches Twitter replies for you (and gives you an easy way to view AND export them).