March 2009 Blog Posts (259)

Live Online Event on Moodle and Twitter for Instruction and Learning

Just click on the image and join the live online event on how to integrate technology with Moodle and Twitter for instruction and learning with Dr. Anne Thorpe and Deirdre Bonnycastle.…

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Added by Dr. Nellie Deutsch on March 27, 2009 at 5:41am — 1 Comment

FunnelBrain.com Public Beta

This past week we launched a public beta of FunnelBrain.com , an academic question and answer site that provides an environment for collaborative online learning. Students work in teams to create review questions and answers, paired with video explanations, for academic subjects. Wiki-style content creation tools including video, audio, text and images empower the group collaboration.

Key Features Include:

Free… Continue

Added by Joe on March 26, 2009 at 10:56pm — No Comments

Rock Stars of Reading video series

Finally!!! Mark has produced more than half of the videos from our six-day holiday to Connecticut and North Hampton -- our November 2008 Rock Stars of Reading road trip. This means we'll begin publishing the video series, one video at-a-time, beginning on March 31; filling up the "off-days" in the Just One More Book!! publishing cycle until all of the videos are available.

To prove this is really happening, here is a promotional video for the series. It's an extract from…

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Added by Just One More Book! Children's Book Podcast on March 26, 2009 at 5:48pm — No Comments

What are the tech basics no teacher should be without?

I do a lot of professional development on integration, and I am always surprised by how many teachers, even those who use computers every day, don't know what I consider "must-know" tech skills. I'm not talking so much about broad areas like word processing or spreadsheets, but more small skills that make life easier no matter what application you're using.

Here are some "must-know" tech skills on my list:

- Right-clicking

- Tabbed browsing

- Efficient file… Continue

Added by Karen Fasimpaur on March 26, 2009 at 2:19pm — 14 Comments

Ask and it shall be given

I was teaching Chemistry in school system to be unnamed (The name has been excluded to protect

the innocent). The lab equipment was so outdated, I hated to use it. I was frustrated one day I

left and just took a walk (on my lunch hour). The school was located in an Industrial District.

I found there was a building in walking distance that had a sign on the front that said Shulton

(the… Continue

Added by William Lambert on March 26, 2009 at 2:05pm — No Comments

Teaching is suposed to be fun.....

..... where has all the fun gone in teaching?

My classes were rigorous .... I had the students working.

....today these digital kids have so much energy ... I figured ou tthe hard way I have to use energy to my advantage or else they're a fast moving train that's 'bout to run me over.

I was talking to a teacher friend the other day and we were reminiscing ...... we had both been reading and talking to other folks .... all we were hearing ....from many different… Continue

Added by J Harrington on March 26, 2009 at 11:19am — 2 Comments

4th Annual Wild Weather Project

Here I go again. I just launch my "iProject" called The Wild Weather Project. Check it out at: http://wildweather.usd259.org This time I have added a twist, H.323 video conferencing.

Added by Brad Niessen on March 26, 2009 at 9:37am — No Comments

21st Century Tools from Twitter District PD today

I was asked to help with a District Professional Development training on 21st Century Skills today. One of the first things that I did was to to Twitter and ask my PLN for help. I posted the following ... "In District PD on 21st Century Skills. Please reply w/where R you from, what is your favorite on-line 21st Century tool & why do you use it?"

Below are screenshots of the responses to my tweet. Thanks to everyone who responded - the information was well received!…

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Added by Glen Westbroek on March 26, 2009 at 9:30am — 2 Comments

Virtual Classrooms

I try to be creative and innovative in my approach to teaching . . . I've just about perfected the game show approach to education (name a tv show and I'll think of a classroom application!!) . . . but I'm not convinced about the Ultranet-everything-online-24/7 approach. I don't think that the majority of students are ready for it . . .

. . . however, today I took the next step in my personal evolution in online education . . . I now have a virtual classroom on moodle! I know it's… Continue

Added by Helen Digby on March 26, 2009 at 4:12am — 3 Comments

Invitation to collaborate

We would like to invite you to collaborate

on a new open source conference at the university of

Prishtina in Kosovo.

It will be also covering open course ware and open knowledge.

We would like to have the video conference as a integral part of the

conference and have

the room connected with institutes around the world at the conference.

Here is our working web page, until we get a better one:…

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Added by James Michael DuPont on March 26, 2009 at 1:30am — No Comments

"This is the Collaborative Environment I've Been Looking For!"

Based on positive feedback from a number of our teachers about the Professional Development model we're using this year, I thought I'd share the format.

First some background.

Our school has a mandated focus on Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) and integrating technology to support the learning we design for our students. I realize that IBL can…

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Added by Neil Stephenson on March 25, 2009 at 10:55pm — No Comments

windows 7 on iMac Attack

Installation of windows on mac ??? what the what.

Technology stack:

* intel imac
* rEFIt
* Ubuntu
* Mac OS X // maybe you do not need this; and thus should not be in the stack; :?:
* Windows Seven

just because we can ....

Added by Geoff St. Pierre on March 25, 2009 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Why Don't Students Like School?

Podcast with Author Dan Willingham:

http://snipurl.com/ekfa7

Enjoy!

Added by Tim Holt on March 25, 2009 at 6:19pm — No Comments

How to be happy at work ( for teachers)

see the video clip.

and

Consider this.

Who do you work for?

How would a typical teacher answer this question?

Maybe, they she would answer "John Doe Middle School"

or may be he would answer " the board of education" knowing that he could be transferred

from one school to another within the same system in one day for no obvious reason.

I personally had this idea.

Teaching was not a job. It was not even… Continue

Added by William Lambert on March 25, 2009 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Tips for Online Teaching and Earning

If you are thinking to start an online teaching career or just started it, this online discussion might be useful for you. This free online class will show you how to start your online teaching brand using WiZiQ. Nidhi Sehgal, the presenter, will show you the benefits of using WiZiQ for your online teaching career. Hope you like it… Continue

Added by Alfajri Alwis on March 25, 2009 at 6:42am — No Comments

TEACHING TECHNIQUES- Puppets

I am a former teacher in the Memphis City school system. I have an experience I would like

to share. You decide if you can use the concepts.

I had a second job at a neighborhood community center at night.

Color Video cameras had just come on the market. I bought one to use in my teaching effort. I found some unusually

cool hand puppets on sale and I bought them. I got this great Idea.

At my community center job I used an overturned table, a small 13 inch… Continue

Added by William Lambert on March 25, 2009 at 6:04am — No Comments

Education Stimulus Wordle

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, signed into law on February 17, aims to lend a helping hand to not only employment, health care and taxes, but significantly for the struggling state school systems: It more than doubles the education funding of the previous presidential administration.

Of the…

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Added by John Costilla on March 25, 2009 at 4:39am — 1 Comment

Evolutionary basis of ADHD

I found the Discover March 2009 article "Are we still evolving?" by Kathleen McAuliffe very interesting. The article discusses evidence for human evolution that has taken place over the past 50,000 years. As an educator I found it particularly interesting when the writer discussed the possible evolutionary basis for ADHD. The notion that ADHD and the patterns of behavior that are associated with the disorder, could have at some point, provided our… Continue

Added by Cameron Brown on March 25, 2009 at 1:23am — No Comments

I Education Apps Review

We have created a new resource for teachers called, "I Education Apps Review", or IEAR.org. I Education Apps Review's goal and or focus is to take a look at practical, useful, and educationally sound ways to use the IPhone or ITouch in the classroom. The IPhone, ITouch and other similar devices are amazing pieces of technology. We believe that these devices have a place in today's classroom as long as they are utilized properly. There are a ton of apps identified as educational that are… Continue

Added by Scott Meech on March 25, 2009 at 12:45am — No Comments

Web 2.0

Tonight in my Introduction to Educational Technology classroom, we took an in-depth look at Web 2.0. We started off the class exploring the internet and youtube compiling a list of ten adjectives that describe what we think Web 2.0 is. Through this rendezvous of a scavenger hunt, I came across wikipedia and their definition of what Web 2.0 is. Wikipedia explains Web 2.0 as a perceived second generation of… Continue

Added by Matthew Davidson on March 24, 2009 at 7:30pm — 1 Comment