eme6414

I like the idea of a "teacher tech smackdown" -- would love to have IS faculty do this, although we're probably too small in number to have it be meaningful.

Thought this could be a good tool for teachers lets say if they had a competition and wanted the class to vote on a winner. A self-run online voting solution. It is time to rethink the way we run elections. It is time for an easy-to-use, online election solution that allows you to execute flawless voting while connecting your membership with your organization. It is time for myDirectVote - self-administered online voting software for your organization.

Some more ideas on things to use for schools.

This site offers some fun widgets for your website/blog. Its so easy to use, just customize, cut and paste the code and you're done. I added the weather and my tweets to my class blog.

Here is the game I used for my assignment this week. Warning: it's really addictive.

Interesting site that explores the future of teaching and Web 2.0. I think the creator of this site did a good job making it easy for educators who are not technologically savvy.

Easily create professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more! Save Thousands Compared to Visio Gliffy's intuitive drag-and-drop interface combines the power of traditional desktop software with the lightweight, low learning curve and flexible features of today's most popular browser-based applications. No Compatibility or Access Issues Gliffy works through your web browser, it's Mac and PC friendly.

Gliffy looks awesome! Wish I had known about it in the beginning of the summer. I would have used in it my trends and issues class. There's still a couple more weeks of class, so I may get my chance. If not, I'm sure it will come in handy for a future class.

This is really cool. I stumbled on Webspriation PRO and used that for this weeks assignment which is similar to this. Does this have collaboration tools and chatting like Webs. Pro?

I stumbled on this and wanted to share this if anyone wants to take the time to read about Web 2.0 and online communities. There is a lot of stuff we already know, but a lot that we don't know. Seems like this fits right in with Produsage.

This is a nice alternative to WebEx. It gives you a virtual classroom to work in where you can store documents of most types, present them in class, do all the things Web Ex does like web conferencing, whiteboard, etc. I am posting this in their virtual classroom where you can access the web collectively. I found this to explore Web 2.0 tools used for learning.

Alyn, Thank you for sharing all this valuable information. I'm taking notes. In my "free" time, I'm going to be figuring how to implement all these new technologies into my classroom. I'm feeling submerged by technology at this point, but like it!!!

This takes the popular Inspiration concept/mind mapping one step further : Designed for professionals and college students, WebspirationPRO™ is a visual thinking and cloud-computing productivity tool, dedicated to promoting success in a knowledge-based society. WebspirationPRO gives you everything you need to brainstorm ideas, organize information, solve problems, plan projects, write, study and communicate more effectively. With WebspirationPRO, work is always available and securely stored online.

In response to Denise's reply to my Second Life post, I found this to give further illustrations on using virtual learning.

I don't know much about Second Life, and while it might have some elements that I could do without, I was thinking that this could tie nicely into a formal or informal Web 2.0 learning platform, game based learning, and Produsage. What do you think?

Second Life creeps me out too. I've tried exploring what it is, but I think it just boils down to me thinking that I would have to be dissatisfied with my first life to indulge in a second one. There was a season of The Office devoted to this, I think. It also doesn't help that the only Second Life example I have ever seen was the one that shares the thoughts and visuals of a schizophrenic and that the graphics look like the Grand Theft Auto video game (one that my little brother played WAY too much). I know all of what I just typed is silly (although true for me) because some really great things are coming out of Second Life. I have a friend who is working on her doctorate in ISD at the University of Southern Alabama, and she put a lot of work into a research on using Second Life to rehabilitate long-term prison inmates, prior to their release. She ultimately chose another topic for her thesis, but her work showed astounding results. Before learning about her work, I assumed Second Life was nothing more than a glorified Sims game.

To some degree, I agree Denise that its a little creepy. Especially since there are a lot of undesireable elements (at least to me) that seem to permeate the S.L. landscape. However, I am fascinated with using a virtual world setting to encourage learning because people tend to "get in to it" better when its in an environment that they can relate too.

Use of twitter to share or re-enact great novels

I think web 2.0 storytelling is a great way to keep the students motivated, to help their knowledge construction through collaboration, and to enable the teacher to formative evaluate and monitor the learning process.

Cool article. I love storytelling, both telling and listening. This would take it to the next level of not just telling/listening but actively involving yourself in a story with others. Its like the produsage of storytelling where people, while not changing the outline of the original story, get to create, organically, all the inbetweens. Thanks V.

If you've got an hour to spare (I know, I know), this lecture by Henry Jenkins is worth a watch. Good stuff about participation, content (distribution vs circulation), etc.

After checking out Vanessa's post on Creative Commons, I googled the title of this post and found an easy to read article that sheds some light as to the power of our tools and providing Open Education. There is mention of C.C. as I think the two are interlinked. When I see stuff like this, it gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction (maybe taking a side step or two along the way).

Creative Commons is a way of protecting the rights to your work as you share it online. It's an alternate to traditional copyright, and it has a variety of options (including remixing) for permissions/use. Flickr makes use of CC licenses, as do many repositories. Totally worth checking out.

This, among other things, is taking our very restrictive concept of ownership to a much more productive and logical level, especially in this age of global knowledge. Many praises for CC.

A Google a Day provides daily trivia, and can be a fun way to teach your students important online research skills.

Hi Fabrizio, I just tried the Google a Day and I like the concept very much. However, unless I was doing something wrong, I found it cumbersome to do the research and get back to the original question. In addition, when I tried to access Google Map, which was needed for answering today's question, it said it would not support it in the Google a Day window. So I opend GM up in another window. Did you experience something similiar? With that being said, I think the idea is great, especially since they give you tips and hints at how to find the answer. I think researching tips and exercises are very important, even for graduate students. You can never get enough practice in researching topics. Thanks for sharing this, I really liked it.

When I type a research on the search box it opens a pop-up window with the data, so I have two pages open, the A Google a Day one and the search one. I think it works pretty well on Chrome, I didn't have any problem, but I haven't tried it with other browsers. A Google a Day is fun and challenging; however, I don't think you can learn too much from your answers, they are too general. Maybe in the future there will be a way to customize it and create your own challenges, it would be really interesting to use with our students/learners.

100 Ways to Use VoiceThread in EDU is the title of a collaborative effort to gather educators' ideas for using VoiceThread in the classroom. This site has a live Voice Thread where you can listen to educators as well as leave your own VT comment. It looks interesting. I just liked the idea of leaving a comment for others to listen to if they're interested.

So I guess its time for me to jump on the VoiceThread bandwagon. This is officially my next "exploration" project.

Jennifer, Warning! Once you get on the bandwagon, you'll never want to get off....lol. :)

Just found this journal and it just might be of interest to some of you. Articles on CoP in higher ed, teaching with wikis ...

Thanks for sharing this journal! Just when I wanted to learn more about this topic :)

Shuang, check out the first issue -- I want to read every single article in that one (and downloaded them all). Think I'll start with the Engstrom one.