Group items tagged

Google waves discontinued but kept alive gadgets, allow for collaborative work, using quite a few interactive and sharable gadgets. 

Google Shared spaces let you create Gadgets for sharing, planning and working with others.

worth noting for volume of Twitter posts following 2011 tsunami in Japan, use of Twitter following phone outages, and sharing expected arrival time of waves in US before official government announcements

A nice sound editing download with a large collection of tools and effects. But the most useful tools have their own buttons at the top of the screen making simple operations easy to do. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Music,+Sound+&+Podcasts

Australian Government site

The popularity of online education is growing at a steady clip. Whether it's due to the weak economy, quality of online tools, or the price difference… online schools can't (and shouldn't) be ignored. Heck, Bill Gates thinks online education tools like Khan Academy are the wave of the future.

"Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop

What are our assumptions about how students get research done in the humanities? How do those assumptions affect our instruction, and what really is our students' approach to research?

spatial inequality, climate change, poverty

the new supercomputer capabilities are much better now than they were during Katrina 7 years ago.  They help position people and supplies in the areas needed for the recovery, and determine which roads will flood.

On teaching