Group items tagged

Would teachers use a tool that they can draw on a website?

Google has announced that it has rebuilt Google Docs from the ground-up. The result is a massive overhaul of Google Docs, including completely redesigned spreadsheet, document, and drawing editors, group chat functionality, and the ability to collaborate with real-time character-by-character mark-up, much like Google Wave. You can preview the new changes, starting today."

"The term personal learning environment (PLE) describes the tools, communities, and services that constitute the individual educational platforms that learners use to direct their own learning and pursue educational goals. PLEs represent a shift away from the model in which students consume information through independent channels such as the library, a textbook, or an LMS, moving instead to a model where students draw connections from a growing matrix of resources that they select and organize. The use of PLEs may herald a greater emphasis on the role that metacognition plays in learning, enabling students to actively consider and reflect upon the specific tools and resources that lead to a deeper engagement with content to facilitate their learning.\n\nThe "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues."

New comic making web app which also has an i-pod compatible app. This lets you combine drawings, photos, and ready to use artwork to create caricatures. This is great. You can also mash up regular backgrounds with caricatures in the foreground.

"Mobile connectivity provides an opportunity to offer new ways of teaching and learning that ultimately will improve performance and results whilst at the same time open up new markets formobile operators across the world. Mobile will increase access to up-to-date materials, will enable collaboration and strengthen learner engagement. In response to this opportunity, the GSMA's Mobile Education initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of Mobile Education solutions; in particular, the use of mobile-enabled portable devices ,such as e-Readers and tablets in mainstream education settings.This global initiative seeks to understand and address the landscape, barriers and opportunities in this emerging market. The GSMA has recently published its first Mobile Education Landscape Report describing the emerging global Mobile Education and related eTextbook Publishing markets. While education systems are country or even local authority specific, we believe that globally coordinated activity drawing on common experience sharing and best practices will be vital to understand and act upon the Mobile Education opportunity. To help Mobile Operators become familiar with this new space we have produced aseries of Mobile Education reports which we hope you will find useful. To get involved, whichever part of the ecosystem you belong to, please contact mobileeducation@gsm.org to learn how."

"Communication is fundamental to any form of organizing but is preeminent in virtual organizations. Virtual organizations are characterized by (a) highly dynamic processes, (b) contractual relationships among entities, (c) edgeless, permeable boundaries, and (d) reconfigurable structures. Relative to more traditional settings, communication processes that occur in virtual contexts are expected to be rapid, customized, temporary, greater in volume, more formal, and more relationship-based. To glean insight into communication processes for virtual organizations, we draw on the rich body of literature on synchronous and asynchronous electronic organizational communication. The vast set of empirical findings regarding mediated communication can foreshadow how communication will change as firms "go virtual." Six areas of electronic communication research provide implications for the major aspects of virtual organization design: (1) communication volume and efficiency, (2) message understanding, (3) virtual tasks, (4) lateral communication, (5) norms of technology use, and (6) evolutionary effects. "

the artist sketched out a dude instead of actually drawing him