LearningwithComputers

great list of tools and apps

On this page, Boettcher explains, "ten best practices for anyone just getting started in the online environment. Research and experience suggest that these practices contribute to an effective, efficient and satisfying teaching and learning experience for both faculty and students" (para. 2, retrieved 2012.02.03 ["Minor revisions May 2011"]).

Open Educational Resoueces

Great article on relationship of reading and spelling

On this blog, Vinicius Lemos presents learning activities and tips  "utilizing mobile devices like smartphones, digital cameras and tablets."

Spin the lottery wheel and find out what your life would be like if you were born in another country. A bit shocking, but excellent food for thought. Useful to practise Conditional II or III, and perfect modality for probability and speculation, with late teens or adults.

Two New Free Games! Just in time for the Holiday Season - two brand new games! Test-N-Teach (TNT) is our new spelling game and Read-A-Word is our first-ever reading game. Both games are available to everyone!

"It's 2012[,] the Age of Information[,] and we're STILL using PowerPoint Wrong" (The Presentation Designer, SlideShare, 2012.11.14).

Shame I've only tried the first one so far!!!!

Automated tool for creating your own cloze tests: Thanks to EnglishCentral for pointing it out in Teacher Tips for Making a Transcript.

Davis (2012.10.22) supports her assertion, "For my money (which usually means free), blogging provides the best venue for teaching student writing" ( ¶1).

Oxnevad suggests, "Students can develop transferrable knowledge and skills as they engage in learning experiences that require them to construct knowledge" (¶1). She argues for "seamless integration of technology" that will enable "students students to have access to the tools and information they need for success" (¶2), and proposes five instructional strategies for teachers to use to achieve those ends, namely: 1. Preparing "complex questions that require students to use higher level thinking skills" (Help students uncover knowledge, ¶2); 2. Facilitating learning from engaging and online resources, rather than delivering content (Eliminate the front of the classroom); 3. Creating opportunities for real world collaboration (Encourage collaboration); 4. Exploiting classroom and online opportunities for "frequent [and] informal assessment to gauge the effectiveness of your instruction and make adjustments to maximize the learning experience for each student" (Informally assess students [and instructional practices]); and 5. Preparing and publishing screencast tutorials for students to peruse whenever necessary, "...[i]Instead of spending valuable instructional time teaching the same tech skills over and over again to individual students" (Provide students with built in tech support). This October 30, 2012, post ends with an illustration comprising focus questions and a ThingLink product of fifth grade students' work. A list of links to related posts follows.

Complete, step-by-step demonstration and instructions for getting started with WordPress: sign-up, site navigation, blog creation, creating and deleting posts, adding categories and tags (labels), using views, tabs, and filters, using pages, creating links, adding images, and embedding videos (23 short segments).

"Creating long, secure passwords can be extremely difficult, especially when you have multiple accounts and have to remember them all. It's no wonder that we end up writing them down, or using the same password again and again. This is however, a terrible habit to get in to." (Creating (and remembering) Great Passwords, ¶1) To help online site and tool users do a better job of password protecting their accounts, ShouldIChangeMyPassword (the Avalanche Technology Group) recommends: Padding, Passphrases, Formulas, and Password Managers.