Create an Animoto digital book trailer video during to motivate others to read a book that you recommend.

From Steve Wheeler: Ever since I first began to use Twitter I have been thinking about how to harness the potential of microblogging for the benefits of my own students, and have tried out several ideas to exploit it already. Below are my 10 top uses of Twitter for education

This qualitative study explores a cohort professional development experience that brought new teachers together every few weeks from across an urban school district. Observation data were analyzed through Wenger's (1998) Communities of Practice social learning framework. The purpose was to examine how a cohort can be a valuable resource of new teacher support, particularly in areas where novices, who are being prepared largely through alternative routes, start their careers in some of the most challenging teaching assignments. Key theoretical insights resulting from the analysis include (a) the importance of interactivity of the Wenger elements, (b) the centrality of the community component, and (c) the implications of what legitimate peripheral participation looks like for a solely novice community of practice. Implications of these theoretical considerations are discussed and then linked to possibilities for practice and research to supplement current, traditional induction and mentoring practices.

Apologies - that UKL works: http://www.cvwer.org/2011/01/journal-of-virtual-worlds-and-education/, but the link to the journal itself does go to a holding page saying the domain is pending renewal or deletion. I wish I had downloaded the sample issue! Hopefully the publishers will renew their website...

Florence Nightingale was a master in visualising statistics - see how she did it + interactive updates to her coxcomb diagram

When learning how to read, analyze, and design one's own research, it is useful to review examples of similar research. Understanding and Evaluating Qualitative Educational Research uses published research articles to teach students how to understand and evaluate qualitative research in education. This text gives students in qualitative educational research a well-rounded and practical look at what qualitative research is, along with how to read, analyze, and design studies themselves.

The game, BiblioBouts, turns collecting citations into a competitive event, pitting students against their classmates. Students are rewarded for their research skills and their ability to differentiate between good and bad material. To play, they find sources, which are judged by their peers for relevance and credibility, and then measure the worth of sources their classmates find. They gain more points the more sources they assess accurately and the better their own sources are judged.

Abstract: Previously assumed to be a homogenous and highly skilled group with respect to information and communications technology, the so-called Net Generation has instead been shown to possess a diverse range of technology skills and preferences. To better understand this diversity, we subjected data from 2096 students aged between 17 and 26 from three Australian universities to a cluster analysis. Through this analysis, we identified four distinct types of technology users: power users (14% of sample), ordinary users (27%), irregular users (14%) and basic users (45%). A series of exploratory chi-square analyses revealed significant associations between the different types of technology users and the university that students attended, their gender and age and whether the student was local or international. No associations were found for analyses related discipline area, socio-economic status or rurality of residence. The findings are discussed in light of the rhetoric associated with commentaries about the Net Generation, and suggestions about their implications for teaching and learning in universities are offered.

a great audio guide

Thanks for pointing out this change. I too have been a 'cheerleader' for Diigo, but if password-protected documents cannot be easily used, I'll have to make a decision about Diigo. Pity.

Could interest people using Wordpress to support their teaching.

An interesting remapping of of the teacher and learner roles, from hierarchical and 'wirearchical' viewpoints

Look at the report: http://www.m-learning.org/docs/The%20m-learning%20project%20-%20technology%20update%20and%20project%20summary.pdf "The m-learning project - funded by the European Commission, the project partners and (in England) the Learning and Skills Council - was considered highly innovative and unusual. It not only involved developing learning materials to run on handheld devices in a time of rapid technological development, but also targeted reluctant young adult learners with poor literacy or numeracy."

This paper explores the role that notemaking strategies can play as part of an emancipatory pedagogy designed to empower students. We will argue that being taught active notemaking is fundamental in enabling students to use information with confidence and thus that notemaking allows students to gain a voice (Bowl, 2005; Burns et al., 2006) within their own education. Rather than taking a psychological approach to notemaking, we suggest that notemaking allows students to take ownership of ideas and concepts in powerful ways (Gibbs, 1994 cited Burns and Sinfield, 2004), ways that reinforce understanding and build knowledge. These processes and practices can essentially help students to learn what they want to learn - and, pragmatically, to write essays that are adequately researched and correctly referenced (Burns and Sinfield, 2004). The final focus will be on the collaborative development of NoteMaker, a Reusable Learning Object (RLO) designed for use across the university - and across the sector.

This paper outlines the methods used to explore student experiences of e-learning at Sheffield Hallam University. Placing e-learning in the context of the holistic learning experience, the diary interview approach (Zimmerman and Wieder, 1977) was employed in order to collect rich personalised accounts of our students' experiences. Whilst the study highlighted that each student has differing experiences, here we will discuss the common experiences and what has been done at an institutional level to address issues emerging from the study.

Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally - By Andrew Churches, April 1, 2008