Group items tagged

"We have to do more than check out books. One way a small local library can stay relevant is to become a repository of local information."

"Given an expectation of digital literacy among students, why should we worry about student perceptions of CMS tools? For the same reason exemplary instructors stay aware of their students' general learning style preferences-to evolve their teaching styles to meet diverse preferences and maximize learning while also attempting to develop and enhance students' abilities to learn in different ways. Likewise, knowing the CMS tools that students find most effective establishes an important baseline for understanding student needs that can be addressed not only in a CMS but also through other online systems and services. The University of Florida (UF) conducted a survey investigating that question in spring 2009, during the university's most recent CMS evaluation and adoption decision to replace the existing CMS. This research bulletin presents the survey results to help inform other institutions with their own evaluation and adoption processes. The information will also benefit instructors looking to maximize their own use of a local CMS and/or to choose tools that enable personal learning environments, as well as specific tools for learning."

9 year old Martha Payne's blog about her school dinners. Went viral and then some when the local council tried to ban her taking photos of her meals.  Social media did the rest.

"The WAVE Firefox toolbar provides a mechanism for running WAVE reports directly within Firefox. Because the toolbar reports runs entirely within your web browser, no information is sent to the WAVE server. This ensures 100% private and secure accessibility reporting. The toolbar can check intranet, password-protected, dynamically generated, or sensitive web pages. Also, because the WAVE toolbar evaluates the rendered version of your page, locally displayed styles and dynamically-generated content from scripts or AJAX can be evaluated."  Accessibility checking.

* investigated how commencing first year students and their teachers use traditional and emerging technology-based tools in their everyday lives and to support student learning * drawn on the expertise of teachers and the results of this investigation to develop and implement pedagogically sound, technology-based tools to enhance student learning in local learning environments

"It isn't a completely introductory level document, but should be useful and informative for people who have a responsibility care towards children and young people - including governors, principals and senior management teams, Safeguarding boards and local authorities - people who are making decisions concerning educational provision and resourcing. It will also be very handy for anyone working within the sector and wanting to use internet based services with young people."

Delicious taking a lot of flak on social media after the relaunch. Will they get it right or fizzle out? More arguments for local storage with web services to join people and artifacts.

"... wearable computers allow people to do things like google information straight into their eyeballs while chatting on the street corner - or project a map overlay on the street in front of them, labeling every store. Or turn the local vacant lot into a wonderland filled with Pokemon characters ready to do battle. This is an augmented reality scenario. Now our technology can actually do this, using smart phones as a crude mobile interface. In these demo videos below, we're getting a first glimpse of what happens when the internet comes out of the box and into the real world"

News report that refs Michael Cameron and his create a video assignment.

We are stooping lower. After an Apple presentation, a US school board moves to claim copyright on all student and staff work.

"The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts with a URL string. You can embed these charts on your web page, or download the image for local or offline use."

What's hot Twitterwise around the world.

ITinteroperability is a newsletter aimed at informing you about technical, standards and interoperability projects pertinent to education in Australia. It includes news items on local interoperability projects as well as summarising activity in international standards bodies relevant to education in Australia.

"Recently the Ministry MLE roadshow visited Tauranga and I had some calls from local teachers who attended asking about the hidden cost of running Moodle in a school as it was indicated that running Moodle could be more expensive than one of the commercial vendors (eg Knowledgenet or Ultranet). I decided to sit down and work out ..."

Open shared local networks in a box. Useful for collaboration and when you don't need the internet getting in the way.

I had a look and think we could do. Might need Rob to do some soldering.

Here's our justification, it turns out "Darts built the device, originally called Freedrop, as an easy way to share files with his students in class. "I was looking for a device that would allow users in the same physical space to easily share files,' he says. It was a hit, but he soon found that his students had other sharing plans. 'Students started sharing non-class related materials, their favorite albums and so on.'"