EDTEC572

If any of you have had the training on foldables, you will love this site about online flip books. Flip books are easy to make foldable books that flip or turn horizontally or vertically. It allows you to create online flip books in four simple steps'; name your pages, pick a printer, add text and print. In the add text section you have a few options for templates and styles and the book can be printed in either color or black and white. These books can be used for vocabulary in any subject, plots, character studies, writing, student bios you name it. Kids can definitely use this website easily as well as the teacher.

Blog: Spectrum Is Devoted To Documenting Any and All Topics Relating To Mobile Learning, Mobile Library Services, and Mobile Technologies.

Facebook group "Educators Using Facebook".  Note: Most helpful bits are under Discussion threads. 

It is always bad when you have too much of something..too much cake, too much tv, I dont think tehnology is to blame for kids bad health, that is the parents job to monitor that.

Facebook video:  Facebook for educators.  Great 8 minute video introducing FB to educators and showing important tips and best practices.  Easy view. Available from within FB.

This is a great video! Although facebook is blocked at our schools, among other amazing web resources, students can still access material from home. I'm thinking that if a teacher creates enough buzz about a class facebook, students will get involved with it at home. Teachers can even give participation points for students who post. This brings up a question of equity. .. What about students who don't have computers or internet access at home? My answer to that is for students to network with family and friends, and find someone who will let them use the internet. Many public libraries have internet access. Of course this is coming from a high school teacher point of view. Love the video! But I still need to get familiar with all of the settings and privacy controls on there before I use it in class. :)

This is a blog by a woman who has worked in the health and education sectors. She has always been interested integrating different types of technology in education.

This is a great place educators can go for a robust discussion topic that pertains to education. This chat links to a Twitter discussion with another person by just adding the hashtag #edchat to the end of your tweets.

My school has a focus on multiple intelligences. I found that this website gives suggestions for technology activities appropriate for the Gardner's multiple intelligences.  Check it out!

In doing research for my emerging technology, I came across this wiki about instructional strategies and technology. 

Main points from ISTE 10 conference session by Elliott Soloway and Cathie Norris's entitled: "From Add-on Technology to Essential Technology: Constructing 1-to-1 Aware Curriculum".  Mobile learning.

Very practical tips for classroom Facebook use.

This is a youth publishing site that provides young writers and illustrators with an online method for sharing their work with others. LaunchPad is different from other publishing sites in that submissions are accepted free of charge, which also means there is no physical book produced. There is also an editorial team that reviews each submission and only accepts those they deem worthy. The submission process is very easy, consisting of filling out a handful of informational boxes and uploading the doc or image file. Students are required to provide a parent's email address as a security method. This is a great site to share with your students, especially for those interested in writing!

For all you math teachers and parents, MathBoard may help your student learn to love math. MathBoard is appropriate for all ages from kindergarten (with simple addition and subtraction problems) to elementary school, where learning multiplication and division can be a challenge. You can control the range of numbers you want to work with, the amount of questions you want to answer and length of time allowed per quiz. Kids will likely love it. Even if this were merely a calculator, students would be lining up to play with it because it's on an iPad. The fact that it comes through on its promise makes it all the more useful. The random problem generator is particularly handy for creating quizzes. Gone are the days of picking through or creating your own problems and pasting them into a quiz. MathBoard does all of this for up to 250 problems per quiz. Can I use it in my classroom? This tool is designed specifically for classroom use. Students can use it to work on new math techniques, and teachers can use it to generate homework and quizzes. It's a perfect match. I'm providing a link to a youtube demo above. Please click on it and judge for yourself.

Invision - a simple prototyping software, with out the bloat of flash.

Here is the entire blog on Twitter for Dummies. Interesting section in Parts 5 and 6.

A discussion of appropriate use AND NON USE of technology in the art and craft of teaching in higher education. Good discussion starter for instructional design and tech integration. Examples of when technology (ie. tools, gadgets and trends) did not result in "better" learning.  A reminder that we DESIGN instruction intentionally - not according to the latest fad.

A conference in Beijing. I often read the topics just to see what's the newest.

#edtec572 This screencast movie shows how to access the free materials archived by Google. This can be useful for research.

Fascinating article/Blog post from NPR about Verizon and Google and their proposal to "regulate" then internet. It opens the debate about Google's "Do no evil" motto.

I asked undergraduate students in my two classes, "This Is Your Brain on the Internet" and "Twenty-First Century Literacies" to come up with a list of skills they had mastered in my peer-driven, peer-assessed, peer-led classes they had not gained elsewhere.  We might call these skills "digital literacies."