Group items tagged

A great visual way for generating word clouds; the phsyical size of the word in the word cloud indicates the number of times a word appears in the document provided to Wordle.

More than 100 online courses are modified to be in compliance with Section 508 , making them accessible to hearing and visually impaired disabilities.

Key concerns about the sudden rush to dump textbooks for open source content

This transition will happen relatively quickly given the current cost of textbooks and the low cost of tablets. Fortunately, I think we will find that the digital textbooks and other features on the tablets will be far more engaging and effective teaching tools than the traditional textbook. The ability of the digital text to read aloud (in several languages) and provide visual support including high def color diagrams, animation, and video, as well as create intuitive links to vocabulary and 'checking for understanding' will be a great support to students and teachers.

User created app ratings for Android phones. Appsfire, a leading and pioneering marketing platform for mobile apps through visual and social discovery.

I've heard of 3D printers before. I thought it would be interesting to try out in schools. For example, if students were designing towns to learn volume and surface area. This could help with spatial learning, which is essential to understanding math. I don't know how feasible this it though...

Hi Irina, Yes! Nothing like seeing your ideas take a concrete shape. Looks like the cost of these printers is comparable to that of SmartBoards, so it may be feasible to try them out in classrooms pretty soon. That said, unless the projects are well integrated into the curriculum, they will end up as another fancy toy.

Harvey and I had a conversation about these last week - Harvey spoke of the way that these printers could open up opportunities for those who can visualize their creations in their heads, but have trouble putting those ideas in tangible form. We spoke of the potential in art and design.

Great group at the University of Chile developing educational software for the visually impaired using virtual environments.

''safe search for kids, by kids' - Kidrex (powered by Google). Wonder if there are any downside to using this vs regular Google in classrooms. (amount of the info limited? but safety assured due to filtering?)

Interesting - I understand the concern for safety but think that educators should also try and promote and support "safe googling" techniques. Here's a visual teachers can refer to or put up in their class (meant for older students I assume): http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/11/10-google-search-tips-all-students-can.html#.ULrCi6VRpUQ

This group at connectedlearning.tv is doing interesting work, focusing on very high level learning objectives while departing from the content delivery mode of "teaching".

A visual representation for learning in a digital age.

Digital books allow students with disabilities to read more easily.

I think the main idea and KEY affordance is getting books to these kids faster and more efficiently. In the past, for a visually impaired student, a district would have to request or find the book in Large print or in Braille after the typical book had arrived, so by making an HTML version of the printed book available (at the same time) as the print, allows for screen readers to work and be available to the students without the traditional wait time. Excellent use of technology.

Conceptual change is aided by model building. Visualizing the relationships between different components of the model using a graphical interface is a powerful technological capability. Powersim is one such tool. Such an iterative model building activity to predict theoretically principled outcomes is stated to be conceptually engaging. There are other tools like Stella and VSim that fall into the same category.

Mind mapping is the process of using visual diagrams to show the relationships between ideas or information. Its popular uses include project planning, collecting and organizing thoughts, brainstorming and presentations - all in order to help solve problems, map out resources and uncover new ideas.

Implementing blended learning in schools, in one awesome visual.

Infographics make me so happy. This one is fantastic!

Fascinating article on augmented reality technology that is being built into contact lens!

interesting take on the technology that's competing for our attention--creating multi tasking monsters of us all, or as some would argue, ADD junkies with continuous partial attention

Football fan? First down lines superimposed on our TV screens have been the most visible form of AR for years....

The first (or at least most comprehensive!) 3D visualization of this kind of surgical procedure; arguably these kinds of animations are superior to 2D animations for showing anatomy. Next step for education: interactive surgical media?

These kind of videos would be helpful for medical students to watch in their surgery clerkship before observing a particular surgery, especially since anatomy curriculum has been shortened and cut throughout national medical school programs.

Does this type of 3-D aid learning? And what type of research evidence is needed to establish this

Video games can improve cognition and foster positive behavior. (not that we didn't know that already...)

Do videogames boot brain function?

Ha ha. Booting brain function. Got it... I think. Maybe I need to go play a video game.