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This week's UBC podcast includes a discussion about the pros and cons of mobiles phones in schools.  As well a link to the Ericsson Mobility Report

Should we teach our kids to have two lives, or one? Our current technological trajectory promises unfathomable, roller-coaster innovation with no braking system. While the ride is exciting, it moves so quickly that we typically don't have time to think about the possible unintended consequences that might accompany it. The result is that we find ourselves unable to effectively respond to hot-button issues like cyberbullying and sexting because they seem to come out of nowhere.

"In this interview Blackboard Learn President Ray Henderson and Moodlerooms Chairman and CEO Lou Pugliese explain why Blackboard is getting into the open source business, what's different about delivering services to those customers versus Blackboard's traditional customers, and what might be next on the open source agenda for the No. 1 learning management system company in the world."

Create your own video channel to collect a stream of videos. This could be good for a course that requires the students to post youtube videos and the instructor would like to share the videos with the whole class.

"I've been hesitant to dive into using Windows Live because I've already become so familiar with GoogleDocs. However, there are good reasons for me to start learning. For one thing, my students and colleagues are, for the most part, already using Microsoft Office in their work, and Windows Live doesn't require them to learn yet another interface. (Yes, I know that GoogleDocs isn't really that different, but I've frequently found that people consider the need to switch interfaces off-putting.)"

Should we be considering using MS Live instead of google docs?

This is from the comments below the article "When I tried this I ran into a problem with it not working cross platform with Mac. This made it useless in an academic environment." We would likely need to do some initial testing to see if it viable to make the switch. If it makes instructors more comfortable then it should be seriously looked at.

There is a small town, about 12 miles east of Austin, Texas, where a high school devoted to teaching every subject to every student through project-based learning (PBL) opened five years ago. On its own, this would not have been a noteworthy event. The list of schools across America deepening the learning process through PBL has been growing for quite some time. But few schools have fine-tuned the process like Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, where 98 percent of seniors graduate and 100 percent of the graduates are accepted to college

The Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment compares the performance of 39 countries and one region (Hong Kong) on two categories of education: Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment. The Index provides a snapshot of the relative performance of countries based on their education outputs."

"If you prefer the second theory, then you might consider grades a useful instrument of positive or negative reinforcement, but the only thing that matters is what students actually learn. There is stuff that every adult ought to know, and college is the best delivery system for getting that stuff into people's heads. "

"As many of my colleagues know, I have not been a big fan of Twitter for academic purposes. Why? The impression I had is: * Twitter is tacky. Great if you want to know what Paris Hilton's dog is up to, otherwise: aahhh, no. * Twitter is unfiltered. Too much chaff, no wheat! * Twitter is too open. Students will be encouraged to let loose, to mix topics, to lose the thread that an instructor can maintain in a more tightly controlled discussion forum In the interest of an open mind, lately I have been exploring Twitter a bit, and while I still basically believe the points above, I have found some uses for Twitter that might be helpful."

get to know the man behind the words "The medium is the message,"

"The Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University is pleased to announce our 2011 Centennial Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, November 10-12, 2011 in Banff Alberta Canada. This gathering of teacher/scholars is a "practitioners conference" dedicated to developing individual and collaborative teaching and learning scholarship, sharing nascent data and findings, going public with compelling results of completed research projects, and building an extended scholarly community. The goals of this event, and the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University, include understanding and improving student learning through systematic scholarly inquiry and building collective knowledge for the future."

"What are some of the attributes of eText, and what are the related issues institutions looking into eText are considering? The creation of fully interactive, technology-robust eText (not simply a scanned copy of a paper textbook) should include the following components, each of which should be considered by institutions planning an eText implementation: "

I know the tools are out there, but sometimes I feel like I don't have time to find them.  Luckily, Mohamed Kharbach did it for us!  Check out his blog learn about the skills educators should have and use the links to learn or brush up on them. 

Online journal dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available on the web

"Every college that offers online courses should require students to pass an online orientation. I'm envisioning a one-credit course, taken online, that covers the technical requirements of online classes, familiarizes students with the pedagogical approaches they can expect, addresses candidly the time commitment and degree of responsibility and motivation required, and essentially teaches students how to take a course online."

"Apple has always made accessibility one of their top priorities when it comes to the Mac, and more recently the iPhone and iPad. As a Mac user would come to expect, when Mac OS X Lion was recently released, there were a few new accessibility features that made the upgrade process even better for users with motor, visual, and hearing impairments. In Mac OS X Lion, Apple has added over 11 new features that allow individuals with disabilities to use their computers more easily. "

"October 17 - 21, 2011 - Honolulu, Hawaii - Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort Proposal Submission Guide & Form Invitation E-Learn 2011 - World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, & Higher Education is an international conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and co-sponsored by the International Journal on E-Learning."