"To acquire and practice literacy skills today, students and educators in Oklahoma City Public Schools require access to Evernote, Google Docs, Gmail, Edmodo, Posterous, Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, and other educationally appropriate, interactive websites. All these websites are currently (as of February 9, 2012) blocked by OKCPS for student access. OKCPS must stop its "draconian" and unjustified Internet content filtering policies and adopt BALANCED policies. The district must TRUST teachers and empower them to directly bypass the content filter with their login credentials when it is professionally justified for instruction and learning."
" The real complexity should come out of the emergent work, not the software. A collaboration platform that is over-engineered would be counterproductive. The key aspect of a collaboration platform is that should make work more transparent and rewards sharing. Does your LMS do this? Does it simplify work and make it more transparent for everyone in the network? Does it enhance serendipitous learning?"
"My parents are stockbrokers, where the phrase "market correction" is used to describe what's happening to the LMS market right now. Schools are realizing that we have been paying too much for a big, integrated system with many features we don't use, and we're exploring smaller, cheaper systems. Canvas is attempting to offer all of the services that Blackboard does for less money by using free and open source components. "
"BrandYourself recently conducted a national study with Harris Interactive that looked into the Googling habits of over 2,500 online US adults. It was surprising to see how much a persons Google results influence everything from who we vote for, do business with and even date.
You can view it here and below we included a summary of the key findings and key takeaways from each of the main sections of the study."
"Grade online assignments in a single step!
Get reporting and analysis on student performance!
Email students their scores.
Designed by a teacher, for other teachers!"
"I created the document below as a menu of choices between iPad apps and Web 2.0 applications that can be used to employ types of formative assessments. It is organized to encourage a balanced approach to formative assessment so that teachers can easily see the various options they might have to encourage Write, Do, and Say in the classroom."
"Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream."
"Blog posts became Facebook updates and Tumblr posts, which shrunk to Tweets and finally to Instagram or Pinterest. Here's how smart brands are navigating the new visual social-media era."
"Below you'll see a guide to who is using social media (pretty much everyone is aware of it) to which actual social networks they prefer.
Surprising Info
Most teachers don't use Twitter. They opt for Facebook and YouTube by a large amount
LinkedIn is preferred over both wikis and Twitter
Just about every social network can play a pivotal role in education, so it's time to start learning about all of them!"