Group items tagged

"In the face of the "new normal" of decreased budgets and increased expectations, many administrators are turning to technology to enhance teaching and learning while mitigating the consequences of consecutive years of budget cuts. Mobile learning, in particular, has attracted a great deal of attention for its potential to engage students by leveraging the technology environment they have grown accustomed to in their non-school lives; its potential to scale personalized learning and reduce the digital divide; its potential to extend learning beyond the four walls of the classroom and the limited hours of the school day; and its potential to enable new pedagogies based on the affordances of these devices that students already carry at their fingertips.Still, the field of mobile learning is still emerging and there are many questions to be addressed when contemplating a mobile learning implementation. How do we create a program with a sustainable impact on teaching and learning, rather than a superficial adoption of the currently "hot" technology? What are the steps involved in implementing a mobile learning program? How do we optimize the investment of our technology dollars? How do we choose devices, networks, and software for our implementation? What are the security considerations in implementing a mobile learning program? What are the policy considerations for a mobile learning program? What are the professional development considerations? What are the teaching models associated with mobile learning? What are the options for funding a mobile learning program?"

"By Kurt Schick My university recently convened an emergency "summit" for librarians, tutors, and concerned faculty members to solve a citation crisis. Our library help desks reportedly cannot complete their core mission of assisting students with information literacy (finding, choosing, and using sources) because students keep pestering them with questions about how to format obscure citations: "I'm analyzing poetry for my 'Punk Literature' seminar. Using MLA style, how do I cite a limerick scribbled in the third-floor toilet?""

uquery.com is a new search engine focused on the emerging market of iPhone & iPod Touch applications. We have listened to many requests of the community and the frustration of being able to search and find applications on the iTunes AppStore. With 81,816 applications available on the AppStore, it has become tremendously difficult to find the right application. Our goal is to index and offer a very fast and easy way to find the application that you need. Utilizing new indexing technologies we have created a huge index of all the applications currently available in the United States iTunes AppStore. With features like: filtering by price, date and category and a full-text index of the application description, we allow all iPhone & iPod users to quickly improve their app discovery experience. We strongly believe these applications that we allow to search on our website is considerably changing the way we live our lives, and we would like to improve this experience with an awesome search product. We encourage all iPhone & iPod users to send us feedback on how we can improve our product

"We'd be the first to admit using Apple's iPad isn't exactly rocket science, and we will also admit that Apple is at the top of its game when it comes to easy-to-use products. But if you didn't take the time to read the owner's manual, we have some quick and neat tips and tricks that can help you get the most out of your tablet. From managing the sound levels of your tunes, to organization your apps, to muting in the case of emergency, we have 10 handy hints for you to work your way to iPad ninja status. Check out our tried and tested iPad tips, and impress your friends when they come to you for help with their iPad. Be sure to let us know if there are any shortcuts you'd like to share in the comments below. "

"Video: The Amazing Youtube Choir Social media continues to amaze me. I believe a new online collaborative art form has emerged in which several people contribute to create a masterpiece. This virtual choir conducted by Eric Whitacre and produced by Scott Haines will show you what I mean by a collaborative masterpiece. Read the rest of the story of how this was created here. You may also want to see the collaborative video masterpiece my PLN has helped me create. This video was tweeted by @larryferlazzo."

"Students are so emerged with technology, sometimes they act as the educators, showing their teachers how to do certain things and use certain tools. This video asks the simple question of if we are paying attention to the way our students learn. Besides being a visual, spatial or audio learner, most students fall under the category of "digital learners." With fascinating facts like the 10,000 hours college graduates have spent playing video games and the 70% of our nation's 4-6 year olds that have used a computer; it is no wonder why students are being classified as digital learners. The video also asks if we as teachers are reaching our students. Are we engaging them? The technologies that students are using so much in their everyday lives should be infused into the classrooms so that we do reach our students and so that we do engage them. Blogs, wikis, podcasts, virtual tours. These are just a few of the dozens of items presented in the video that offer a new way to use technology with our students. It brings up a great point that since our students already know how to use these technologies, we should be using them to teach. Even recent graduates who are no longer in school encourage the idea of using technology to engage students, not enrage them. Podcasts are another great option to teaching. With thousands available in almost any subject, you can teach students without having to stand up and lecture them. This video offers great advice and inspiration for engaging digital learners today."

In this video presented by Mobile Learning Institute, Alan tours his hometown of Marblehead, MA and comments on the historical global vision of his community. Alan challenges us to think about the emerging role of "student as contributor" and to globalize our curriculum by linking students with authentic audiences from around the world. (For more on this topic read Alan's article, Students as Contributors: The Digital Learning Farm."

"In the spirit of the open source movement, new copyright-friendly (and some copyleft) archives are emerging, removing many of the legal and ethical thorns relating to image use in student production. In addition, a number of government image archives provide their archives with limited restrictions. Check out this cool video for an explanation of new, alternate forms of licensing: Creative Commons Video http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/getcreative/clicktoplay.html Most of the images in the collections below include images with a variety of less restrictive licensing. Though students may not need to ask permission to use them when publishing on the Web for educational purposes, they should cite these images unless otherwise notified! Important: Any copyright notices on these pages, should be read carefully and heeded!"

"Wordless picture books have been around for well over 60 years. Almost every learning objective in the language arts curriculum of every grade level can be taught or enhanced using them. However, wordless books are most often associated with emergent readers, typically preschool and kindergarten aged students. "

A decade ago, when eLearning as we know it today was an emerging practice, developers installed authoring tools on a local computer. Their organizations controlled all installation, storage, and security. It was, truly, a different world!