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"A story is told by one person or by a creative team to an audience that is usually quiet, even receptive. Or at least that's what a story used to be, and that's how a story used to be told. Today, with digital networks and social media, this pattern is changing. Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable. And they are told in new ways: Web 2.0 storytelling picks up these new types of stories and runs with them, accelerating the pace of creation and participation while revealing new directions for narratives to flow." Storytelling is changing how are you going to let your students tell stories? Great article, especially if you've never thought about digital storytelling before. I like the idea that storytelling is no longer a passive reception, but an inclusive/participatory activity when expanded into remixing or open-ended. Presents lots of different possible modes, so you can pick one and go with it, open it up for students, and expand your horizons as students use tools differently than you to achieve their story.

I know the Hubble is not new, but the addition of the new spectroscope adds new life to this old tool (yes it's almost 20 years old). If nothing else exposing students to the different pictures that Hubble generates would be an addition. If you can use the pictures to help develop math/science connections then what a powerful tool. Take one picture a day and ask students to calculate how long it would take a human to get to that point in space traveling at 100,000 miles per hour (twice as fast a any human has ever gone) or at 1,000,000 miles per hour (way faster than we can currently travel)...

11 Techy Things for Teachers to Try This Year The new school year is here for many teachers. For those who haven't started school yet, the new school year will be here soon. If you've set the goal of trying something new in your classroom this year (shouldn't that always be one of our goals), here are eleven techy things teachers should try this year.

iCue is a free collaborative learning environment which includes hundreds of current and historic videos from NBC News, fun games and activities, and discussion forums. Whether you are joining to improve your grades, connect with friends, or just learn new things, iCue gives you a safe, fun environment for discussion and learning.

A site produced by NBC to collect news stories, share them, and reflect and respond to the perspectives presented by the news media. (Horizon Report, 2009)

This wiki will be open during the month of November, 2008 as an accompaniment to our just published EDUCAUSE Review article, Web 2.0 Storytelling: Emergence of a New Genre in which we propose that the new tools and forms of online creation represent a new genre of storytelling and creative expression. We have set this site up partly to add a few additional resources, but more so to engage you in an open discussion where you can push back against our ideas or share more examples.

Princeton scientist with an interdisciplinary bent has taken two well-known problems in mathematics and reformulated them as a physics question, offering new tools to solve challenges relevant to a host of subjects ranging from improving data compression to detecting gravitational waves.

Science related news brought together for multiple topic areas, including: nanotechnology, physics, space and earth, technology

Mr. Greer's ISN page. Nice example of how to set it up for kids. I really like these two boxes on the page: Why use an interactive notebook? 1. Students use both their visual and linguistic intelligences 2. Note-taking becomes an active process 3. Notebooks help students to systematically organize as they learn 4. Notebooks become a portfolio of individual learning Personal Response Instructions 1. Summarize the new information you have learned from the activity/presentation 2. Relate or connect this new learning to what you previously knew about the topic 3. Tell how you feel about what you have learned. At least 3 paragraphs are needed to meet the expectations for this assignment.

"This report is based on evidence from a small-scale survey carried out between April and July 2009 in 35 maintained schools in England. It evaluates the extent to which the schools taught pupils to adopt safe and responsible practices in using new technologies, and how they achieved this. It also assesses the extent and quality of the training the schools provided for their staff. It responds to the report of the Byron Review, Safer children in a digital world."

"NBC News Archives on Demand (K-12) is a collection of NBC News videos, primary source documents, images, and resources specifically designed for use in the K-12 classroom. * Thousands of searchable and downloadable videos (1930s to Today) * Video content aligned to State Standards * Current Events updated regularly * Sciences, Social Studies, Language Arts, Health and Business * Personalized playlists for teachers and students"

Skype in the classroom (beta) Meet new people, discover new cultures and connect with classes from around the world, all without leaving the classroom.

New simulations released by PhET @ UC Boulder

I think this is a GREAT resource with massive potential. If you teach any current issues/sociology/modern history courses then this tool is a must. Even if you teach courses like 'algebra' then this tool has potential. I spent less than five minutes looking at the query 'regression analysis' and found two valid content related applications of regression analysis that I could easily use with an algebra I, II or precal course. As an example in the first resource I came across this http://web.sny.tv/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090424&content_id=1499716&vkey=1 article from SNY.tv that mentions "each (interception) in the minus column costs you approximately six points on average over many years of regression analysis." I can see just having an algebra I course examine/explain what that means mathematically, I can see allowing some students to group, decide what data they would need to confirm that analysis and if you wanted let them analyze the data or look for the analysis that has already been done by contacting the author/NFL. If I can find that kind of information within 5 minutes then imagine what someone with imagination could do! Great resource, a must share with your core content teachers and I firmly believe this tool could quickly vault up the list of most useful very ,very quickly. I can't let this go without thinking about differentiation in the classroom, I search for a topic, let groups look at the timeline and choose their own reading (if I have a group that will be challenged by their choice, I might point them to another reading that might scaffold their understanding), but I've built in choice, built in the ability to manage the sources, opened up the ability to quickly find multiple types of sources (video, blogs, primary sources).

that over 700,000 historical images from The New York Public Library's Digital Gallery are now freely and instantly available whenever you're creating a VoiceThread. Our new Media Browser allows you to search or browse these primary source materials - maps, photos, drawings, paintings, posters and more, and then import them directly into any VoiceThread. Links back to the original location of the images on the web are automatically inserted to make citing and attribution easier for you and your students.

Read Steve Fulton's approach to researching with his middle school students as they were reading the Hunger Game. I love his approach to incorporating the book, what students already knew, Diigo for sharing, summarizing, and gathering data, and then the writing process. In my opinion, this is how it should be, the focus is on writing not the use of technology. The technology just helps achieve the goal more effectively. 

Great opportunity to have students showcase their skills, their learning, and for teachers to maximize an engagement opportunity. I would love to collaborate with someone interested in making this a class assignment. Looking for someone to help provide guidance, let me know!

Distilled Demographics Video Series Distilled Demographics, PRB's new video series, highlights key demographic concepts such as fertility, mortality, and migration. Through these videos, each under 10 minutes, you can learn demography's real-world application and impact. In these videos, Carl Haub, PRB's senior demographer, talks about: Deciphering Population Pyramids Addressing Population Myths The Birth Rate: What It Is and Why It Matters

another example of looking at the transmission of data from teacher to student differently in the age of technology. Teachers must realize that it's not just saying the information, but allowing students opportunities to interact with the material, and in lecture situations, teachers must create opportunities for students to interact. In high school, especially, it is important that teachers understand the model that they are used to doesn't work and that they must prepare students to be able to take valuable notes that in which they make connections to.

The idea of a newsGenerator is to gather the most recent headlines relating to a particular curriculum subject based on specific keywords/phrases. The most important news items will be displayed on a webpage like this, and can be subscribed to as an RSS feed or a widget which automatically updates each and every hour.