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The takeaway here for me is that as fantastic as web services are, many of them are controlled by one party and are thus a single point of failure. If they go down or the particular site makes a change to the web service call, it can potentially ripple th

Prompts main image The best prompts are the ones that spark a personal connection between the writer and their ideas. Provided here are some generic writing prompts to get you started, but you will also find some tips on how to write your own prompts. These self-written prompts will offer better starting blocks for your students than the generic prompts because they spring from the immediacy of their lives. Another source for writing prompts is Blowing Away the State Writing Assessment by Jane Bell Keister. Narrative 1. It is 20 years from now. Your name has just been called and you are about to receive an award. Tell the story of how you came to be so successful and win this award. (Gr. 6-12) 2. Rewrite a fairy tale from a different point of view. For instance, * The Three Pigs as the wolf would tell it * Hansel & Gretel as the witch would tell it OR, use any example you like. (Gr. 5-8) 3. Write a story based on one of the following: * Where is it? * Breaking loose * If I had my way ... * Suddenly, in the headlights ... * That noise! * Don't even remind me * The biggest nuisance * Annoying! * At last! (Gr. 5-12) 4. Think of your best or worst day in school. Tell the story of what happened. (Gr. 4 & up) 5. Write a story based on ONE of the following * Little brothers (or sisters) * Older sisters (or brothers) * A narrow escape * My first memory * I'd like to go back * You won't believe it, but ... (Gr. 4 & up) 6. Think of a friend you have, in or out of school. Tell one story that comes to mind when you think of this friend. (All grades) 7. Think of an event you will want to remember when you are old. Tell about what happened in a way that's so clear that if you read this story again when you are eighty, every detail will come flooding back as if it happened y

Prompts main image The best prompts are the ones that spark a personal connection between the writer and their ideas. Provided here are some generic writing prompts to get you started, but you will also find some tips on how to write your own prompts. These self-written prompts will offer better starting blocks for your students than the generic prompts because they spring from the immediacy of their lives. Another source for writing prompts is Blowing Away the State Writing Assessment by Jane Bell Keister. Narrative 1. It is 20 years from now. Your name has just been called and you are about to receive an award. Tell the story of how you came to be so successful and win this award. (Gr. 6-12) 2. Rewrite a fairy tale from a different point of view. For instance, * The Three Pigs as the wolf would tell it * Hansel & Gretel as the witch would tell it OR, use any example you like. (Gr. 5-8) 3. Write a story based on one of the following: * Where is it? * Breaking loose * If I had my way ... * Suddenly, in the headlights ... * That noise! * Don't even remind me * The biggest nuisance * Annoying! * At last! (Gr. 5-12) 4. Think of your best or worst day in school. Tell the story of what happened. (Gr. 4 & up) 5. Write a story based on ONE of the following * Little brothers (or sisters) * Older sisters (or brothers) * A narrow escape * My first memory * I'd like to go back * You won't believe it, but ... (Gr. 4 & up) 6. Think of a friend you have, in or out of school. Tell one story that comes to mind when you think of this friend. (All grades) 7. Think of an event you will want to remember when you are old. Tell about what happened in a way that's so clear that if you read this story again when you are eighty, every detail will come flooding back as if it happened y

An easy and convenient way of sharing a browsing session with friends without using IMs, Skype, or similar tools is the Channel.me service. This online service lets you and your friends (or a work group) explore a webpage together. It also has a Chrome extension, which when launched, opens the page for you in a separate browsing session and provides you a link to share with anyone you want to collaborate with.

This is a great tool for teachers. It allows you to record your presentation slides and present it as well. As the website suggests, the effectiveness of presentations falls by 55% when the audiences do not see the face of the presenter. This is good for presenting information that you would like the students to re-visit. It is an excellent tool for those school thinking about flip classes, where the lecture component of the class can be completed at home so the practical component, the experiments, the collaborative workshopping of concepts can be done in class.

"Lucky for you, there's a printable PDF available here and embedded below that enumerates the various ways someone should use the iPad. It is a pretty general acceptable use policy for iPads and seems (to me at least) that it'd be perfect for a K-12 classroom. "

It disturbs me to read this and how familiar it is to what the LNP have been spruiking. Is this the future of Australian Ed?

Ebooks downloaded through Kno offer capabilities like 3D diagrams and a "Quiz Me" button that tests readers on portions in the textbook. By utilizing its search Mechanism, readers will be able to find certain words and sections with a simple click. Other than its interactive eleMents, ebooks are up to 50% off their market price.

"Let me guess, you heard about Pinterest. Or more like, you can't spend 15 minutes online without hearing about it… And now you're thinking, "should I jump on the wagon too?" or "another social network to keep up with?" and on top of that, everybody is talking about using it for marketing and getting tons of traffic and, you just don't see it. Alright, I hear you. I'll give you everything you need to know about Pinterest and a bunch of resources so you can decide if you or your business are ready to join the hottest trend online."

" since I wrote my post on Google Reader replacements, I've had a lot of people ask me what benefits I gain using Flipboard that they missed! So I've put together this information to help you get started using Flipboard or get more out of using Flipboard."

This blog post from Scott McLeod talks about the lessons he has learned via digital storytelling. "I've been working with digital storytelling for a couple of years now, first as a learner, and then as a facilitator. I find the process to be transformational, not only for me but for my students. I learn something new every time I work with students and teachers in this process."

In breaking news, Lindsay has joined Kevin and Julia in the PM's office. Not bad, considering he's three metres from me and we're off to dinner. If something doesn't happen soon, the Australian media will burst like a festering boil. Time to get out of there.

A response to Marc Prensky's BLC'08 session on teaching programming

I have an irrational compulsion to learn and educate those around me.

I do a lot of work with organizations funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). My work as an evaluator provides me the opportunity to see the high quality work these organizations produce.

this story was recommended to me by David Kees (davidkees.blogspot.com) in response to a post I wrote about mLearning where David states that we may be shortsighting ourselves if we see mLearning only as a learning plarform.

They grabbed my attention within seconds of telling me what they do as a business - they are into 'Organisational Storytelling'.

Create a timeline including pictures, video, blogs, documents and even web pages.

Timeline tool - currently in beta. message me for invite.

Avatar maker using human and animal parts

A link sent to me by the wonderful Jaclyn C. "The above activity (webpage) is in English, but I think it could be useful to label in German. Ich habe Fluegel und Pfoten. mein Fluegel sind schwarz und orange. Ich habe Horner. Ich bin schoen aber gefahrlich. Ich habe kein…… Viel Spass Jaclyn"

Professor MacFarlane discusses many issues which ring true to me. In particular: - lack of vision for what education could be like with new technology (around 4 min mark) - the web2.0 and technology revolution is great for the 15% of people who have a good life anyway because of their suituation and culture (5:30) - others don't benefit from the access to the technology - they need help (6:00) - no change in classroom over last 20 years with computers and in danger of no change in next 20 years (7:30) - instruction vs. construction (8:30) - expect learning to change with introduction of technology (10:30) - but hasn't really done so - student self-directed learning is separate from school work i.e. at home and not related to school (14:30) - much of what kids do on computers at home is trivial (16:00) - the ones that do have good experiences are the same 15% (16:30) - kids that are missing out have a computer at home probably but no access to the community that enables them to have these experiences (17:10) - doing something by themselves does not really benefit them - it is being part of a community that had benefit for learning - what are we dong for these people? (19:10) - talking about missing pedagogical model for how to teach (22:00) - teachers are expected to use technology to provide innovative learning but no model against which to do so, some don't use it at all, some use it inappropriately - there maybe some individual examples but not overall (23:00) - schools bad at connecting with their communities in a learning sense (26:00) - talks about chinese online writing community and how they comment, collaborate (34:00) - community (47:30) - communitites aren't formed when people are brought together in schools etc. - need to have a common problem or interest (48:30) - Plant's definition? - in education the problem is because assessment is done individually (49:00) - so forming groups and sharing ideas is not attractive for students - worried about not getti