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A great searching tool for educators.  Educational websites are already prescreened and available for your age group.

This is a search engine that is a subscription service. It is monitored and updated by educators. Great resource for research projects.

The volume of social networks and resulting conversations is growing exponentially everyday. People are discovering new social networks, making more connections, downloading more social apps and buying smarter devices, all contributing to an explosion of social data. Organizations are seeking to use this data to increase sales, advance their bottom line and meet corporate goals.

The American Pshychology Association reviews the research findings about Game-Based learning. The article also talks about pilot programs that were conducted to explore GBL, links are provided to these studies.

A few months ago we started up a new Twitter chat series, #Bufferchat. So far, we've talked about everything from productivity to social media monitoring and lots of other topics in between. These days, we have up to 185 participants each week, sending out nearly 2,000 tweets. It's a true delight!

This website is monitored by edublogs and geared towards teachers who are wanting to create professional learning networks. Step 1 provides a detailed examination of what a pln is, which includes videos, images, and other media to convey content. From this page teachers can move forward in creating their own pln.

Great share Courtney! I love the videos explaining what a PLN is (very simple and to the point). The video about connected educators is one I want to share with my district on my proposal to get social media active. It discusses why educators need a PLN and how beneficial it can be!

A PLN is personal because you choose who is in your group and if you want to lurk or comment. A PLN is what you want when you want it- reminds me of the Burger King slogan- "your way right away"

Don't let the academic sound of the title push you away from reading this article. The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, presents arguments: "This paper set out to propose a research framework that will aid in advancing the research agenda of connectivism, particularly developmental work. " It is very dense with lots of synthesis of research that has been done on Activity Theory, Connectivism, and Communities of Practice from 2000 - 2011, when it was published. If you need to do a content-based paper on activity theory, connectivism, or communities of practice, this has several references listed at the end that will help you find original sources of ideas.

Thanks Melissa, this is helpful. No doubt that many of us are going to benefit from this type of research in our own academic pursuits. As you said, this study is fairly dense. But I also found that it breaks things down in nice chunks. I liked the explanation that a learning community is "a group of people learning together through continuous dialogue."

The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, from University of Botswana, points out the interconnections of online communities of practice, design-based research, and activity theory. The author proposes designed-based research as a framework to advance connectivism. I found the first half of this article particularly helpful with definitions and key points synthesized from pioneers in the field of connectivism. Central ideas encompass the importance of learners connecting in a CoP both as providers and gleaners of information. Learning networks or communities of practice are complex and dynamic in nature, providing challenges to researchers and studying their effectiveness. The article provides food for thought about the complexities of the interconnections of these theories and the development of frameworks to monitor and assess learning success when putting them into practice.

This link will take you to a collaborative workspace that is intended to create a compilation of what technologies we should be monitoring today for creating instructional materials for tomorrow's students.

Jing allows you to make a short video of what you see on your computer monitor, recording your voice as you click away. Excellent for creating "how to" videos, this tool has a free educational version with quite a bit on online space to store what you create!

Monitor all your apps, feeds, sentiments, Tweets and even enterprise systems-all in real-time Pick from 200k+ apps, create custom layouts and publish gorgeous microsites - all in a few easy clicks Access from your iPad, iPhone or mobile, manage multiple dashboards and even read articles offline-anywhere, anytime New Netvibes mobile and tablet version for Android, iPad and iPhone

USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, responsible for monitoring, reporting, and researching earthquakes and earthquake hazards I used this with my third grade classes - great for explaining earthquakes

This article states that a personal learning network is a major component within digital learning. After that, the writer explains that simply "surfing the web" is not an example of a PLN, but monitoring a specific set of resources is. It then goes on to discuss how personal learning networks can help teachers use class time more effectively while giving students access to materials through the use of the internet. The article explains this with the use of a blog for a class.

In this article faculty and graduate students at the University of Plymouth wrote about the growing use of blogging in higher education classrooms. The authors see connectivism as the theory that helps to legitimize the use of blogging in the teaching and learning environment. They acknowledge that Web 2.0 tools such as blogs give students the ability to easily make connections with their peers and others outside the classroom walls. One of the most interesting aspects of the article was that the authors advocated for the use of course blogs rather than individual blogs for the simple fact that it promotes a single platform for students to share and connect. The authors gathered much of the information for this article from a case study that they did with university students. They asked several students to complete a survey. Instead of a survey, the staff involved in the project were interviewed. Through this case study, the authors were able to produce both qualitative and quantitative data on the use of blogs. Overall, the results showed that blogs are an acceptable medium for using the connectivist model and that by and large, most students achieved the learning goals while completing the assignment.

Kelly, This is a very interesting article especially since I have had to use blogs for many courses and have considered having my own students use them as well. I definitely understand having a single platform, but I wonder if that takes away from the individuality students gain from getting to create their own.

Tiffany, I too am torn on the use of a single platform in the classroom. I love that it would be easier to manage one account rather than individual student accounts. I have over 100 Spanish 3 students (which doesn't include my Sociology and Spanish 2 classes). It could be a nightmare to monitor appropriate blog use of all of those students. At the same time, I agree that students lose the ability to create a personal site, and could be less engaged on the single platform.