Webheads

"Succeeding with Science is a website built around fun and interactive educational games, activities, and videos to help students learn and love science. The student activities are sorted by age range from 4-7 years up to 16+ and there is also a teachers section. Each activity come with PDF lesson plans and support materials as well. Science teachers at all levels should find this site to be useful way to support their curriculum." Thanks to Sam Sheridan

In an ideal world, every time your company rolls out a new application or a major upgrade on an existing application, full-time trainers would handle the duties of educating end users. In the real world, however, help desk analysts not only provide support for these applications but are often asked to train users on them as well.

We all have had many years of experience in learning in face-to-face settings in both classrooms and seminar rooms. Although the face-to-face learning environments are often complex and unpredictable, we are very familiar with them and have developed high levels of skill in working in these environments. We cannot assume, however, that the skills, strategies, and techniques that we so effectively use in face-to-face learning environments will also work well in online learning.

"What you see here are candid submissions from people who have engaged in a little exercise. Here's how it works. Think about the word Race. How would you distill your thoughts, experiences or observations about race into one sentence that only has six words?" This National Public Radio blog makes the perfect starting point for a multicultural lesson for ESL/EFL students. The entries are sheer poetry and give a great deal of content to think about the issue of race and one's place in society, for better or worse. Each 6-word "poem" makes us, as one contributor said, "Look past race to underlying humanity."

"The Frayer Model is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer for vocabulary building. This technique requires students to (1) define the target vocabulary words or concepts, and (2) apply this information by generating examples and non-examples. This information is placed on a chart that is divided into four sections to provide a visual representation for students."

"The Frayer Model is a vocabulary development tool. In contrast with a straight definition, the model helps to develop a better understanding of complex concepts by having students identify not just what something is, but what something is not." This is an example of a worksheet, which I wasn't able to download in the other citation. The sheet is quite straightforward, and looks useful, insofar as vocabulary can be taught through direct method. Good for important concepts, class discussion, and work with definitions.

"Many schools are currently using Forms as a way to easily and quickly record data from teacher observations. The advantage is of using a Google Form is that it compiles all the data into a spreadsheet which allows school leaders to quickly and easily see trends in the school's classrooms." Suggests that the administrator can also use the Google spreadsheet to collect data on what teachers are doing in the school as a whole. Video shows how to go to the Template and create your own by copying the document. Links to template, which has an auto-mail feature.

"With the advance of web 2.0 technologies, there emerged a wide range of educational tools that we can use with our students in and outside the classroom.Collaborative web tools is one example. Using such websites, teachers will be able to help in holding online and real-time discussions with their students, help them in their projects and assignments, guide their learning, do backchanneling, and synchronously moderate discussion threads and many more." The focus here is on tools for collaboration. Many are new and interesting, such as virtual whiteboards, search team to do online searches together, browse websites together, create online projects collaboratively, create your own chatroom, etc. Some of these will be gone quickly, but they all appear quite useful. About 30 in the list.

A search engine for apps, organized first by the type of interface you are using: mobile, desktop, browser, or web (or all). May create some good short-cuts in the elusive quest for the perfect app.

"If you're the "techy" person in your school but you're not in the IT department sometimes your colleagues come to you with their tech help questions before heading to the IT folks. Sometimes those questions come over the phone and you find yourself trying to explain where to click next or struggling to understand the problem the other person is trying to explain. That's when it's handy to have a screen sharing tool readily available. Here are five that are quick and easy to use." Actually, these screen-sharing tools might be really great for seeing what your students are doing, or to allow remote collaborations.

This looks like a cute app for the very young. You upload pictures and arrange them in a set, create one or more questions for each, which you record. The user taps to hear the questions and taps a place on the picture to answer it. TinyTap also has a market with free and purchaseable games already made. Lots of potential for ESL vocabulary practice, since once you get by the interface it doesn't look childish at all.

"ScheduleHangout is great for scheduling group hangouts on Google+ Invite your guests, give them a few date options and ScheduleHangout does the rest. We'll help you organize the Hangout session around your friends/colleagues optimized availability." This may be a way to organize Google+ a little.

"The invention of the LMS (Learning Management System) was a mistake. And here I'm not going to make the same frustrated argument made numerous times before now that LMSs are limiting structures, that their interface and functionalities control how teachers teach online (although those things are true). The LMS was a mistake because it was premature. In a world that was just waking up to the Internet and the possibility of widely-networked culture, the LMS played to the lowest common denominator, creating a "classroom" that allowed learning -- or something like learning -- to happen behind tabs, in threaded discussions, and through automated quizzes. The LMS was not a creative decision, it was not pushing the capabilities of the Internet, it was settling for the least innovative classroom practice and repositioning that digitally. As a result classes taught within its structure generally land with a dull thud. No matter how creative and inspired the teacher or pedagogue behind the wheel, the LMS is no match for the wideness of the Internet. It was born a relic -- at its launch utterly irrelevant to its environment and its user." Very thought-provoking article on how digital pedagogy really differs from just "teaching online."

"A whole course can be organized around a wiki as shown here, an excerpt from the upcoming Multimedia Kit, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" which will include his book of the same name, a video, and a facilitator's guide from Corwin (corwinpress.com)." A concise (3 min) video on how to organize a course using wikis, with interviews with students. The course also uses Diigo to annotate readings. One students says it really makes her a better reader. As you read others' annotations, "It's really another way of having a discussion."

R. Stannard: "This tool allows students to create sound files and then the teacher or other students can listen, click on the sound wave and add written comments. So it is great for providing feedback as teachers can listen to the recordings and then click at the appropriate point and add comments regarding language, intonation, content or pronunciation." You can embed the audio file with your comments into your teacher blog for students to explore. Obviously very useful for listening-speaking practice. Can also be used on smartphones.

This important article by the ACTFL discusses how the U.S. Common Core standards can be aligned with the National Standards for Learning Languages. Presents several diagrams and other visuals to help teachers see the crossovers for each skill--reading listening, speaking, and writing--in presentational and interpersonal modes, and how culture is woven into the whole.

This looks like a great invention. As you are watching a video, take notes and the timeline codes will automatically link your notes to the portion of the video you were watching. The note tool will embed your video from YouTube, Khan Academy, or any of a number of sites, with the note-taking apparatus beside the video. Students might take notes of you or another lecturer in a flipped environment, and then compare each other's notes for review. Appears to be free so far.

Use video presentation and interactive assignment, with 13,000+ lessons in the video library. Video tutorials walk you through ways to animate your own content and record your face while lecturing. Use the screen cast on your tablet to create lessons.

An app for iPad: "Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere." Allows you to synchronize video and audio in MP4 files, and use timeline editing. $2.99 US.

"...professional iPad interactive whiteboard and screencast recorder with sophisticated tools for hand-drawn graphics and remote desktop control." "You can create your own slides with the variety of tools available. More importantly, you can capture the screen shot and make notations directly on it." "Doceri is certainly a whiteboard app - and a great one. But it also allows you to control and use your pc apps remotely. So your presentation can consist of a pc app and then switch to a whiteboard display, all from your iPad." This seems like a great app for creating presentations while also controlling a smartboard and your computer from your iPad.