August 2008 Blog Posts (103)

Being There –Panoramic Virtual Field Trips

By Alix Pehette

Cross-posted from The Impetuous Geek

Live, real-time field trips involve all the senses. We walk, stand and turn around to view our surroundings. We move closer to inspect an object or look to see a distant view. The experience is immersive and that’s what makes it memorable.

The opportunities for field trips are often limited by funding, transportation issues and administrative… Continue

Added by Alix E. Peshette on August 21, 2008 at 8:00pm — 2 Comments

Summer 2.008 Recap

I bumped upon this great post by Mathew Inman who shares the State of the Web 2008 through a set of his own illustrations. I just thought it was a great recap of some very interesting and real experiences that transpired this summer. Click image to see the full summer recap.…

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Added by John Costilla on August 21, 2008 at 3:14am — No Comments

Home Buying Essentials

Home buying is never easy. As it implies a new chapter for a family, it also demands a lot of effort to ensure that you will choose the right one – suitable for your budget, taste and needs. Being an informed buyer is therefore the prime requirement in home buying. Knowing the essentials in buying houses will definitely guarantee your family a bright and hassle-free future.

Here are the key elements in a successful home… Continue

Added by Chadchaze on August 20, 2008 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Pop Rocks Science

I enjoy subscribing to Steve Spangler's experiments via email always offering opportunities for cheap and entertaining science exploration. This one involves a bottle of pop, and pop rocks. Use the small cute bottles of soda for maximum effect and it will either blow the balloon off the bottle or blow the balloon up rather large - either way you'll enjoy the effect and much less messy than the menthos.…

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Added by Teresa Morgan on August 20, 2008 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Online Conference at Second Life

I'm looking forward to diving into this world called Second Life. Quite honestly, I really don't get it and don't understand why their avatars are so "off-the-wall." I assume there are good and no so good "islands" in the 3D environment, but I've just struggled to find out what the point is. So in any case, I am going to dive in 3D glasses and all and join in to participate in this Pre-conference for Learning… Continue

Added by John Costilla on August 20, 2008 at 3:13pm — No Comments

Question on leadership

I posted this in the leadership group too.

As I continue my search for a position in Educational Leadership one question keeps haunting me that has been brought up three times during interviews. How can you as an instructional leader improve a mediocre teacher's performance?

That's an interesting and extremely difficult question to answer and I've given two different answers to the same question.

What can one do to improve a mediocre teacher's performance? In… Continue

Added by Peter Carlson on August 20, 2008 at 1:44pm — No Comments

chapter 5

Great information on WHY wikipedia works!! But the best was last, the final sentence-"When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of a scope and longevity that were previously impossible; they can do things for love."

When I read that I thought back to NECC and at the end there were some ramblings (well intentioned and I shared them) about yeah, great ideas, but when is something going to actually happen. I think this chapter shows that a small but passionate user… Continue

Added by Sean Williams on August 20, 2008 at 11:00am — No Comments

Chapter 4

On page 89 he writes," Online, by contrast, the default mode for many forms of communication is instant, global, and nearly permanent." Super important to teach this!!! Also starting on page 96 he discusses the new forms of filtering - publish then filter. Completely changing the structure of teaching writing. Hmmmmm...

Added by Sean Williams on August 20, 2008 at 10:30am — No Comments

Chapter 3

Kind of a snoozer. Good background knowledge but not a whole lot of new stuff for me

Added by Sean Williams on August 20, 2008 at 10:00am — No Comments

Wet Pants

There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet.

He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it..

When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he… Continue

Added by Harish Rajpal on August 20, 2008 at 3:50am — 1 Comment

A Bedtime Story for Your Heart

My nine year old son cleaned off his book shelf last month and put all of the books he didn't want into a "give away" box.

I brought that box into school yesterday to donate to various primary classroom libraries, but decided to take a look through the books he deemed too "babyish" for him first. I set the box down on the table in the teacher's lounge and dug through it. Lo and behold there it was The Emperor's New Clothes. You know, the 6 inch "Golden Books"… Continue

Added by Michelle TeGrootenhuis on August 19, 2008 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

Introducing Mango

Throughout the spring my kindergarten and first grade students watched the development of Tim Bowerbank's early literacy game with his new character, Mango. As he created his game, he shared sketches and preview posts so that the kindergarten and first grade students could see his progress and give him feedback via audio files. It was great fun for the students to… Continue

Added by Lorraine on August 19, 2008 at 8:30pm — 2 Comments

The Vendee Globe

Skipper Rich Wilson is preparing for the Vendee Globe in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. The race, beginning on November 9th, is held once every four years. This year, Skipper Rich Wilson, a former math teacher in the Boston area, will be sharing… Continue

Added by Lorraine on August 19, 2008 at 7:00pm — No Comments

1950 Prediction of the home computer by 2004

I think they got it right...who would have known that my toaster would have more computing power than this thing.

A Chumby can do more in it's small shell that the beast above. With over 700 widgets across 30 different categories such as weather, social networks, photos, sports, news, entertainment,… Continue

Added by John Costilla on August 19, 2008 at 1:59pm — No Comments

Explore our new Opensim Virtual World server

Explore our Opensim server & help load test it at the same time !
(1) grab the client http://grid.greenbush.us/portal
(2) create an account
(3) login !

Added by Rich White on August 19, 2008 at 12:56pm — No Comments

Are you Geek enough?

So what type of geek are you? I recently came upon this interesting set of characters that illustrate 56 Geeks types by Scott Johnson.

I would definitely consider myself to be a Gadget Geek. I love my iPhone, widgets, and my son's… Continue

Added by John Costilla on August 19, 2008 at 11:24am — No Comments

Building E-Assessment: The Practical Guide to Online Quizzes in Moodle

Feedback on performance is a critical part of a learning environment and assessment is one of the most important activities in education. It seems like lately a lot of educators have been trying to make quizzes in Moodle, as a part of their online learning courses for effective practices.

For those of you that don't know Moodle, it is the best one of free, open source course management system (CMS) designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online… Continue

Added by William Peterson on August 19, 2008 at 2:16am — No Comments

THE PERILS OF BRAVE DEDICATED SCIENTIST

All of the scientists on this list died or were injured in their pursuit of knowledge. Many of their sacrifices paved the way for some of the greatest discoveries and inventions known to mankind.

What can we learn from these explorers of years gone by? Gaining knowledge often comes with a price … but without a few brave people willing to push the limits, society as we know it would not be the same or.... genuis and good sense are inconstant… Continue

Added by Harish Rajpal on August 19, 2008 at 1:56am — No Comments

Online Training Needs Assessments: How to Measure Learning Performance Effortlessly

For online training instructors, creating meaningful performance assessments for online training is a critical issue.

Nowadays, most online training instructors like to evaluate what learners learnt during the learning process through traditional summative evaluation. However, this assessment approach needs to be changed, as it only considers final learning outcomes without considering the learning process of learners. Actually, learning performance can be tracked by related… Continue

Added by William Peterson on August 18, 2008 at 11:38pm — No Comments