MVCR Tech Tools

New blog I found with educational widgets.

This blog entry provides us with very useful ideas of using Twitter in education.

I must admit that when I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication. While I obviously spend a great deal of time online and thinking about the potential of these new networked digital communication structures, I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears, so for many months I did not investigate it at all.

This article describes ways to use twitter to enhance academic work. With twitter, the class goes on beyond the assigned class period because (i) the technology is appealing, (ii) students have much to say/ask, (iii) students can 'talk' without concern for "who's (physically) in class that might make fun of me", and (iv) students respond in their own time. Twitter has the dual benefits of quasi-synchronous and asynchronous communication.

A few interesting apps for educators

Flat World Knowledge: "We are the world's largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. With our ever-expanding catalog of top quality books by expert authors, now is your chance to be a hero and help your students save thousands of dollars. Get started today and join the textbook affordability movement."

Summary of useful mobile apps for mobile learning and thought provoking ideas for wikitextbooks.

FREE webinars include collaboration technologies, Merlot Introduction, and ePortfolios in the Cloud. Resources include Sloan Semester Archives that tell the story of how "Using online learning, colleges and universities from across the country responded in record numbers to help students and institutions impacted by the storms. Dubbed "Sloan Semester" the initiative provided free online courses to students impacted by Katrina and Rita storms." Here you can identify more benchmarks in a useful case-study of how Institutions committed to online learning were transformed to leverage learning resources in a time of need. I know that Illinois schools looked at Elluminate when H1N1 was an active global pandemic.

See Best Practices tagged by Use Categories: Medical, MBA Programs, Engineering, LMS Integration, Professional Development, Blended Online/Onsite Events, Online Events/Communities, Virtual Office Hours/Tutoring, Staff/Administration, Meeting Collaboration. *Elluminati* (Power User) Slideshare of Higher Education Case Studies (begins @ p 68) shows exceptional applications of Elluminate Live and identifies benchmark institutions for collaboration, mentoring, or peer review. I plan to add SLOAN-C to my PLN Personal Learning Network.

Past years lists are also linked. Checkout AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner organized by grade level.

great article for students and teachers

This site claims it collects the "best information about elearning".

Georgia Southern University site on online course design

I really like all the good information that can be found on YouTube

Great way to learn Google Doc

100 Video Sites every Educator Should Bookmark

The author covers a variety of topics in instructional design and elearning. She uses a variety of media on the site, which keeps it interesting.

great slide show of facts, etc, how to's

The present is behind one of the three doors. In order to get the present you need to choose one door. Monty Hall will then pick one of the remaining doors and show you the present is not behind that door. If you switch your original choice you will double the probability of getting the present.