Group items tagged

The poll for this list — The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2009 — is located below this post, and closes on February 1, 2010. Please vote for no more than ten of the thirty-two sites listed. Please note that I’ll be listing these sites in my post from my pick from number thirty-two and ending at first place, but the poll is listed in the opposite order.

Number twenty: PodOmatic is an extraordinarily easy way to create a podcast. Sign-up and your class has your own channel — all you need is a computer microphone. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Practice Speaking English.  I’m also adding it to The Best Places Where Students Can Create Online Learning/Teaching Objects For An “Authentic Audience”.

PinDax is a new web tool that lets you “pin” virtual “Post It” notes on a virtual bulletin board.  It’s very, very similar to a tool I like a lot called Wallwisher.  It has a lot more “bells and whistles” than Wallwisher.  That additional complexity (and I have to admit, it doesn’t seem that much more complex — it just seems to have a lot more options) doesn’t necessarily make it more attractive for classroom use.

Embodied learning theory maintains that associating movement with content results in better learning. The creators of SMALLab, an immersive virtual learning environment, introduced the Flow system last spring. Flow allows educators to implement embodied learning at a much lower cost: In classrooms with an interactive whiteboard, the only new equipment needed is a Kinect camera. The Flow learning scenarios (some available free, but most by subscription) are projected onto the whiteboard, and the camera captures students’ actions.

Educational software and systems are not easily usable for many learners and educators, and for that matter present obstacles for educational institutions.

The necessary business models and key transactions that enable the missions of knowledge-driven institutions are not yet adapted to computers and distributed systems. Equally problematic: educational networks do not yet offer sufficiently high reliability to become a viable alternative to many educational media, such as desktop systems or traditional classroom techniques.

In the current environment, end users will have to wait some time yet until many technological advances such as virtual reality and distributed simulation become preferred tools among trainers and educators.

based on the current Maryland Educational Standards; the difference is the thematic problem-based approach to covering the content. Unit design within the program is driven by the grade-level science curriculum.

The team plans the units around an overarching question or problem that meets the following criteria: The problem is valid. Students can relate to the problem. There can be multiple paths to a solution. The problem can be applied to the various classes to truly integrate the unit across the grade-level curriculum

an advantage of the Internet is that students can stop the lecture and rewind when they do not understand something.

Kristin Joos built interactivity into her Principles of Sociology course to keep students engaged. There are small-group online discussions, and students join a virtual classroom once a week using a conferencing software called WiZiQ.

In a conventional class, “I’m someone who sits toward the front and shares my thoughts with the teacher,” she said. In the 10 or so online courses she has taken in her four years, “it’s all the same,” she said. “No comments. No feedback. And the grades are always late.”

was also concerned about her students’ lack of engagement — so few were completing the assignments she emailed to parents

Playing with her family’s laundry marked the first time Maliah seemed happy — actually happy — since the start of the pandemic.

Nobody should ever be penalized or put at a disadvantage for the supplies they don’t have,” Dillingham thought to herself. “But everyone’s got laundry!”