Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0

Video tutorials with step-by-step tips on basic filmmaking techniques

An article about story boarding and how it relates to a modern presentation such as the TED style talks. Very good embedded video about Walt Disney and the development and use of story boarding in animation.

A wiki to support teachers wanting to use technology in the classroom. An excellent resource of web 2.0 tools and how to use them in the classroom

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

Technology needs to trickle up, she said, not down. We need to give the most powerful tools to the most vulnerable populations because they are the ones who need it. "Young learners, non-readers," she continued, "need high-speed access, they need animation and graphics and sound. And that's the truth." According to Lovely, and education technology consultant and speaker at the FETC 2009 conference in Orlando, FL in January, it was the recognition of those needs that led her to develop a "top 10 list" of go-to technology tools to help inspire young students and empower under-funded teachers. "The important thing to remember here," she said, "is that this isn't about simply providing you with 10 links. It's much more important to ask, 'What are you going to do with these things? How are you going to use these tools?' That's why we're here," she said. "So I can show you not only what's out there but also how other educators are using these resources to teach their students right now."

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.

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.

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?

Create quizzes, surveys, tests, eportfolios and more Discover modify and share assessments Set work for the whole class with a few mouseclicks Mark automatically

This is for all those people that find it more convenient to bother you with their question rather than google it for themselves.

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.

"Connexions is:a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute"