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Educators discussing the advantages of wikis as a collaborative tool for school and classroom usage.

Ning is the social platform for the world's interests and passions online.People every day are coming together across Ning to explore and express their interests, and meet new people around shared pursuits. These can be used in a classroom environment to share ideas, collaborate, post homework, have discussions, and share videos and photos. Great site and you create your own or join others. It is possible to make yours private as well.

This multimedia artifact is a video that demonstrates how to effectively use clickers in the classroom. The video takes educators through a series of steps on using the clickers to promote a higher level of engagement with students. The steps include: how to create a good question, how to foster peer discussions, wrapping up the lesson, and moving forward. I believe this video is a more learner-centered approach to multi-media design as the focus is helping educators reach a deeper level of understanding on how to create a lesson for students that just happens to use clickers as a tool for delivery. A learner-centered approach should expand our cognitive capabilities and the technology is the tool. Mayer (2009)

Great ideas for using Voicethread in the curriculum. This is a very large wiki that covers using VoiceThread in the curriculum. It is a the essential processing level, although the examples given likely prompt visitors to envision VoiceThread at the generative level. The site is particularly helpful due to the abundance of lesson plans and examples, divided conveniently by grade level. There is a best practices page with useful how-to tips and a discussion about how to prompt students to comment. Great resource!

This site gives an in-depth discussion of authentic assessment and the difference between it and traditional assessment. It includes rubrics and examples, and offers how to apply authentic assessments to portfolios and workshops. I feel this complete approach is important when starting to use authentic assessments, so as to stay true to the purpose.

If your training is research-based, Mendeley is a great option for creating collaboration and discussion around scholarly publications. You can upload specific documents, including research papers and journal articles, and share access to the documents with a group of individuals. In addition, participants can comment on and discuss the documents. Mendeley offers a database for referencing resources, as well as some social networking resources that can help participants begin to understand content that will later be used on the training.

The Ultimate Guide to Backtesting with NinjaTrader Have you ever wondered how to use NinjaTrader to backtest your trading strategies? What is all the hype about? Then this blog is for you! In this guide, we'll walk you through the basics of backtesting with NinjaTrader, show you how to run a backtest, and discuss the benefits of doing so. You'll also learn how to use NinjaTrader's improve your trade backtest indicator to make your trading strategies more reliable. So whether you're a beginner trader looking for a bit of help, or an experienced trader looking for new methods to test, this guide is for you!

The presentation is potentially useful to my workshop because it addresses motivation through the theory of Albert Bandura. The learner-centered presentation incorporates simplistic and easy to read PowerPoint slides that can be incorporated with verbal presentation. The presentation inspires cognitive learning because it promotes discussion by asking questions based upon the assumption that student motivation is heavily influenced by how they perceive their place in society.

This website offers information on the use of blogging as a Web 2.0 tool. There is a video that discusses specific benefits and attributes. A direct link to the video is http://weblogg-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/WebLoggingSmall.mov

My final website is a blog which reviews and discusses many of the applications that educators could benefit from in their classes. The author of the blog, Gregory Swanson, compiles a comprehensive list of important apps for various facets of the educational community. He also provides tricks and tips geared for the education community. There is also a link to another blog: http://teachwithyouripad.wikispaces.com/ which provides a video that helps teachers visualize how they could incorporate the device into their classrooms. These sites would fall into the cognitive activity realm of Mayer's (2009) theory. They are also on the low end of the cognitive activity scale. There is not as much activation of prior knowledge or structure that would enhance the learning, but they do offer information relevant to the education profession.

This website contains an article on educational multimedia with tangible enhanced interaction. The article discusses the design and evaluation of E-du Box - an educational, authoring and sharing multimedia platform including a tangible companion that provides feedback for users. This tangible multimedia software focuses on literacy.

Brain Honey is a site that is available for purchase that offers quizzes, tests, discussion boards, and more for users. Brain Honey also has a grade book and massive storage available.

Wordle also features a gallery of multimedia content in which words are displayed as a form of art.

* Wordle is a "word cloud" generator from text that you provide giving greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. The clouds can be tweaked with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes, and the images can either be printed out or saved to the Wordle gallery to share with others online. Wordle can be used to introduce key vocabulary for a lesson or unit providing a visual of important terminology. * I found Wordle to be better than other "word cloud" websites I looked at because it is simple to use and there are many excellent examples created by others that are provided for ideas.

o Wordle provides already established wordles or word maps around numerous topics. In addition, users can create their own customized wordles to demonstrate they have key understanding of a particular concept. To enhance generative learning, not only can students try to make sense of the concept but also work with others to compare wordless and discover other ways of viewing concepts, characters, books, and just about any topic being discussed. o Wordle provides an easy way to create wordles and instantly change format, colors, fonts, and look and feel.

The site provides a free service as well as one that can be purchased. For the purpose of classroom or workshop use, the free version is all that is required. By signing up, if the user has a Google account this process is only a matter of linking the two, the user creates a name and password, and can begin creating. There are samples provided and a help center if needed. This site provides the presenter or teacher with speedy feedback to help monitor the lessons. Easy to use and fun, even for students.

o SurveyMonkey is a useful site for creating surveys and polls. Responses can be instantly shown in a graph to generate discussion. For pre-training specifically it can allow teacher to get background information on learners, and to get an understanding of what students may or may not know. Identifying gaps in pre-training can help better gear a lesson towards the audience's needs. Thus, from the beginning, this tool can help learners make sense of what they know, and what they need help with to fully comprehend. Presenting pictures to foster generative learning is crucial according to Mayer (2009), and SurveyMonkey can provide data in various graphic formats to help learners visualize and solidify a mental picture of data. o SurveyMonkey provides many features in the free version. Other than customized urls, analysis, and major reports, all else that is needed for polling and surveying can be found in the free version.

The topic of my multimedia Artifacts project is How to Utilize Multimedia to Create Effective Instructions. Robertson, et.al (2010) article on cognitive tools-emerging perspectives on learning and teaching, was definitively learner-centered approach to learning. Various multimedia artifacts such as PowerPoint Presentations, Notebook Online discussions, Teleconferences, Video streaming and Podcasting (LearnOutLoud.com) allow students to retrieve and identify information through learning situations that required the seeking of information. Information was presented in a meaningful and appropriate representation that supported the participants by allowing them to use technology tools to establish relationships among information by structuring or restructuring information and manipulating the information (p.1). Mayer's (2008) dual coding /dual channels is where participate take in information as visual (through the eyes) and the verbal channel which deals with processing sound,( spoken text ). The tools in the above paragraph does generate visual and verbal channel for students. Robertson, B., Elliot, L., & Robinson, D. (2007). Cognitive tools.-Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching and technology. Retrieved June 13, 2010, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Cognitive_Tools

The topic of my multimedia workshop is on How to Utilize Multimedia to Create Effective Instructions. I plan to use PowerPoint as my multimedia artifact. In Jones (2005) article she establishes the fact that the technology of choice for most projects was PowerPoint. The main reasons for selecting PowerPoint for my multimedia project coincided with what was discussed in this article. PowerPoint is accessible and familiar to most educators and students. It is simple to use, can be created on desktop, visually stimulating, sounds or auditory stimulation can be added and can be use for cognitive abilities. In addition, PowerPoint has presentation versatility because it can be used as an original file, PDF format, and html format. It can also run with videos and have narration added. Finally, the software allows for interactivity. The focus of the multimedia workshop is to create a learner-centered approach to learning instead of a technology approach to learning; the software is used to facilitate this process (Jones 2005, p. 1). Mayer's (2008) active processing is when meaningful learning occurs and learners are engaged in the active cognitive processing during learning and instructors must figure out ways to prime the learners to pay attention to relevant material, and mentally organize the information and integrate the information based on their prior knowledge. The ability to actively process information can be associated students dynamic, collaborative and synergistic construction of significant knowledge within a multi-learning environment. Jones, D. (2009.). PowerPoint with a learning point. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater--19th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, Retrieved July 10, 2010, from http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/03_37.pdf

authorSTREAM is an online tool that will convert timed or narrated PowerPoint presentations to video and retain most settings applied to the original slide show. Also, the videos can be downloaded or posted to various locations online and linked to via blogs, wikis, and other Web sites. Learners can benefit from the variety of features offered such as retaining transitions and special effects to capture attention and the use of video and narration adheres to dual coding principles. By combining those features, complex material can be presented in a manner that assists learners generative cognitive load. I found this tool to be better than others given its simplicity and the fact that it retains transitions and animations. The overall quality of the output is quite good also and the use of the tool is fairly straight forward.

Authorstream is the hosting site for uploading and storage of PowerPoint (PPT) presentations. Participants can then download these presentations as video for editing into one seamless presentation of a mixture of PPT and video for uploading to YouTube or other video hosting site. This is initially a free site for users, but you will find it soon necessary to pay the annual Authorstream Pro fee of 30 dollars or $2.50 a month that is, if you want to convert PPT presentations to video formatting. Authorstream offers other significant options in the Pro package that helps you do plenty more with your PPT creations. This is the best suited site for supporting Microsoft PPT for it is user friendly and quite common.

Like Google Presenter, Authorstream allows users to upload and share presentations. This can be used by instructors to assess student integration and generative learning. Authorstream allows users a public space for broad distribution and visibility of their shared presentation. This is important for students as they prepare to leave academia and enter the professional world. In addition, students can easily embed and share their presentations in blogs and other social media. Finally, Authorstream more easily integrates audio and animation when compared to other online presenting formats.

Authentic AssessmentFile Format: Microsoft Powerpoint - It discusses how one can use PBL and authentic assessments to meet the needs of learners. It's a essential learning tool as well as an assessment tool. This website was one of the most effective and easy to identify with. http://www.tcet.unt.edu/weblibrary/ppt/rubric2.ppt - Similar

Assignment, Module 3 - Edmodo.com is a free, secure, social learning site for classrooms.  It is a blogging-type platform that allows users to share ideas, post questions, polls, files, links, and other assignments.  Students can create an avatar for responding to the assignment.  It also allows for mobile access and messaging.  It includes a class calendar, a grading application, and RSS feeds.  Educators can set up a secure site for each class or learning unit.  It can be employed in a  synchronous or asynchronous format.   Also, it includes a teacher connections forum.

* Edmodo is a social networking/learning management system tool for students and teachers to engage and personalize learning, connect with resources, and measure progress. It can be used for essential or generative learning through participation in discussion threads, learning groups and communities, delivery of content for assignments and resources, and taking tests and quizzes. * I found Edmodo to be better than other authentic assessment activity resources because many teachers use it as a learning management system, it is easy to use and provides a safe and secure online classroom environment that is free. Edmodo also provides the capability of interfacing assignment and assessments with other web resources.