It's good stuff. It's not hard stuff. And it's good learning.
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
In a couple of years just about every school would have at least one student blogging away on his own time and space about what was going on at the school.
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
Stephen Downes, reacting to this point/counterpoint on banning instant messaging in school:
"You know, it's funny - I read so much about teachers trying to find ways to get students' attention, and when they find a device - a communication device - that captures students' attention, they want to ban it."
I still remember the cold war era. One country builds a weapon designed for offense...a counterpoint country develops a defense to negate the offensive nature of the other's country's weapon...and that cycle repeated itself over and over. Apparently we are facing a similar cold war scenario in terms of developing defenses to keep offensive materials from being delivered to our children on the Internet.
Chasing the Dragon's Tale: Internet content filtering...the challenge for schools
Strategies for Online Teaching
Hundreds of Educational Web Sites rated by popularity.
Thanks to Kim Komando for the links to kids games sites.
There are one-of-a-kind games and activities aplenty here. One challenges you to match Star Wars music to the right movie scene. Another gives neat facts like where E.T. characters make an appearance. You can play a part in the Clone Wars as Obi-Wan Kenobi or Anakin Skywalker. Children can also be introduced to the older Star Wars films.
Here you can get all sorts of goodies from your favorite shows. See Batman, Scooby-Doo, Yu-Gi-Oh! and other great stars. Watch video clips, look through photo galleries or play some games. You can even send e-cards to tell your friends where you've been.
Legos may be expensive, but the Lego games here are free! They've got sports, Clikits girl and Bionicle games. There are more than 20 games to choose from here. Lego offers even more if you join the Lego Club for free.
This site is as enormous as dinosaurs! Learn about the dinosaurs you've seen in the movies with the Dinopedia. Then head over to the Dino Lab. You can help the researchers study dinosaur eggs. If you need a break, there's good Dinotainment available. You'll discover games, puzzles and activity ideas.
Time isn't just about world news and social issues. They've got some great games for kids. Most of them manage to sneak in brain-boosting facts. There are lots of animated trivia games and quizzes. You can also build your own Time magazine cover. You pick the photos and make the headlines.
Here you'll find favorite cartoons that you might see nowhere else. There's Inspector Gadget, Super Mario Brothers and Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego. And these aren't just clips. Most of them are complete episodes. In fact, they even have the commercials you'd see on TV.
There's bound to be at least one Yu-Gi-Oh! fanatic in the house. There are clips here from hundreds of episodes. You can watch your favorite duels to satisfy you between Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes. And you can do it without hogging the TV.
Crafts, Science Experiments, Activities, Recipes, Coloring--National Geographic Kids
I liked this so, I re-wrote it with less swear words...but you get the idea.
Hello, my name is, well, enough said, and I suffer from the guilt of not forwarding 50 billion chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, a poor 6-year-old girl with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her to a traveling freak show.
Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you, and everyone to whom you send "his" email, $1000? How stupid are we?
"Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get to date a model I will just happen to run into the next day!" What a bunch of bull.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my house and attack me in my sleep for not continuing a chain letter that was started by Peter in 5 AD and brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower.
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 10 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times.
I don't care.
Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out these forwards. Chances are, it's our own unpopularity. The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on.
Don't make people angry by making them feel guilty about a leper on the other side of the world with no teeth who has been tied to the back of a dead elephant for 27 years and whose only salvation is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this email.
Now forward this to everyone you know.
Otherwise, tomorrow morning your underwear will turn carnivorous and will
attack you.
Have a nice day.
P.S. Send me 30 bucks so I can buy a bottle of rum, or I'll come over there and beat you up!
See, now that is a chain letter.
Below are four (4) questions and a bonus question. You have to answer them instantly. You can't take your time, answer all of them immediately.
OK?
Let's find out just how clever you really are. No looking at the answers in advance.
Ready? GO!!! (scroll down)
First Question:
You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person.
What position are you in?
Answer:If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely
wrong!
If you overtake the second person and you take his place, you are
second!
Try not to screw up in the next question.
To answer the second question, don't take as much time as you took for the first question.
Second Question:
If you overtake the last person, then you are...?
Answer:If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong
again. Tell me, how can you overtake the LAST Person?
You're not very good at this! Are you?
Third Question:
Very tricky math! Note: This must be done in your head only.
Do NOT use paper and pencil or a calculator. Try it.
Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30.
Add another 1000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000 Now add 10.
What is the total?
Scroll down for answer.
Did you get 5000?
The correct answer is actually 4100.
Don't believe it? Check with your calculator!
Today is definitely not your day.
Maybe you will get the last question right?
Fourth Question:
Mary's father has five daughters: 1. Nana, 2. Nene, 3. Nini, 4. Nono.
What is the name of the fifth daughter?
Answer:Nunu?
NO! Of course not.
Her name is Mary!
Read the question again
Okay, now the bonus round:
There is a mute person who wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing one's teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.
Now if there is a blind man who wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how should he express himself?
He just has to open his mouth and ask, so simple.
So simple it is...
Learn how to type correctly in just a few hours using all your fingers.
You will soon be typing faster than you ever imagined.
27 guided lessons to learn step-by-step from the beginning.
Web-based course. No downloads required.
FREE ONLINE TYPING COURSE
Ready for Work offers you 12 short online training courses on subjects of real importance to all prospective employers.
Students from around the world are lining up to dissect pigs at Andover High School.
Except these teens don't have to cross borders - or get their hands dirty - to tackle the required lab experiment in advanced placement biology. With the click of a mouse, Virtual High School classes are enabling students in Andover and abroad to connect to courses that would otherwise be unavailable.
SYSTEMATIC College Kuching has been commended by its education partner Australia's University of Sunshine Coast (USC) for providing the students with a conducive atmosphere for learning.
"Many Systematic Kuching students who find it difficult to study on conventional time schedules have been offered an alternative -- they can now take advantage of the e-learning study mode," said USC's senior academic coordinator Joanne Freeman on a recent visit to the institution.
If you read press coverage about blogs, you might conclude that just about all Americans are reading a blog. But then you wouldn't have time to read the press coverage, because if surveys are to be believed, you're probably busy creating your own blog.
The numbers of the blogosphere range widely. Are there 10 million blogs, or 32 million? Do a quarter of online Americans really read blogs, as one oft-cited survey found? And why do rankings of the most popular blogs vary so much?
JIM HARRIS, a lifelong bookworm, cracked the covers of only four books last year. But he listened to 54, all unabridged. He listened to Harry Potter and "Moby-Dick," Don DeLillo and Stephen King. He listened in the car, eating lunch, doing the dishes, sitting in doctors' offices and climbing the stairs at work.
The University of Georgia's faculty resources for Webct.
WebCT at The University of Georgia
Here are answers to the top ten designer questions.
With the right technology, parents can watch everything their kids are doing on the Internet -- every keystroke they make, every Web site they visit and every chat room they enter.
Mom and Dad also can screen their kids' incoming and outgoing text messages, make sure they're not ditching school or falling behind, and tell where they've been and how fast they were going while tooling around in the family car.
Top Stories - The Olympian - Olympia, Washington
A group of academic publishers is challenging Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its internet search-engine index, highlighting fears that the ambitious project will violate copyrights and stifle future sales, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Legislators, law-enforcement officials, educators, and members of WiredKids met in Washington to discuss ways to help kids and parents handle Internet bullying.
InformationWeek > Security > School-Yard Bullies Add Internet To Arsenal Of Pain > May 25, 2005
A school in Stockholm has reduced the time students spend logging on to computer systems in class by up to 50 per cent, by introducing a fingerprint registration system.
Passwords are history as school rolls-out fingerprint registration - vnunet.com
Free Quizzes that you can play right in your browser!
Corey Potter will graduate next year not knowing half of her peers she took classes with. She's never even seen most of them.
Potter, 15, is among a couple dozen West Michigan teenagers enrolled in Michigan Virtual High School, where classes consist of independent study, e-mail messages back and forth to instructors, and online chat rooms with other students.
Internet classes get good reviews from students
For half her classes this past year, she no longer had to visit a library to get the reading materials professors had placed on reserve. Instead, she only needed Internet access and a password.
ABC News: The Business of Life: E-Learning Threatens Publishers
One definition of AT is additional hardware or software added to a PC so that students with disabilities can access the computer.
Assistive Technology (AT), what is it?
Teemu Leinonen, one of the members of the FLOSSE Posse has bravely cast out the notice in "Learning objects - Is the King naked?". He argues that the IEEE definitions of "any entity, digital or non digital hat may be used for learning, education or teaching" is broad enough to mean nothing, or that if everything is a learning object, what does that mean?
As for me, I agree with both sides. Appropriate use of computers can be a good thing...without adequately trained teachers to integrate computers into the learning experience, computers can turn into nothing more than babysitters.
Chasing the Dragon's Tale: Too much technology for k-12? Two views
Virtual High School Meanderings: Teaching in a virtual high school
Additionally, one of the things we're trying to do is create products that engage people more naturally. We want to offer online courses that get people to take them and like taking them simply because they're good, not because they're mandated.
For several years now, colleges and universities have been translating parts of their curriculum into distance learning courses that students can taek without having to set foot on campus. Now, a new trend is emerging: online education for primary schools. These virtual schools, operated by either state governments or local school districts, promise to give students more flexibility while also lowering education costs for the state.
Virtual schools: the next big thing in public education? - Blogging Baby - www.bloggingbaby.com _
In a survey commissioned by software firm Intervoice, 17% of people said they had stopped banking online while 13% had abandoned web shopping.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Public worried by online ID theft
The work of instructional designers has changed considerably in the past decade. Gone are the days when our biggest challenges were getting enough time from subject matter experts for task analysis or building interactivity into computer-based training materials.
Trends and Issues :: ISPI Front Range Chapter
Jim Ellsworth has posted an excellent response to last month's rant about the commodification of Education. He and I are substantially in agreement actually.
Cognitive Dissonance » Education as Commodity
This summer, software giant Microsoft Corp. plans to release a new tool designed to make doing homework--long a source of mental anguish for students--less about headaches and more about learning.
Today's educational system needs a complete overhaul--and technology is precisely the agent to accomplish this change, according to the speakers at Intel Corp.'s fourth annual Education Visionary Conference. Held May 18 in Washington, D.C., this year's event was titled "Educators Driving Change in Communities: Creating New Uses for Technology and Impacting Economic Development."
This self-guided tutorial outlines the steps and technologies that can be used to create electronic storybooks. Additional background information about e-books is linked to this tutorial and several online e-books are available for viewing.
"Adaptive Dimension" is the concept of making adjustments in approved regular educational programs to accommodate diversity in student learning.
The Adaptive Dimension is a provision in Core Curriculum that enables teachers to respond to diversity in the learning needs of students. It may be applied in all regular, modified and alternative education programs to accommodate individual students and maximize their learning.
Over on on the Flosse Posse weblog, Teemu Leinonen has posted a bit of a rant on the term "learning object." I'm glad someone stepped up and said it. I agree, let's kill off the word "learning object" and while we are at it, let's throw "learning object repository" on the funeral pyre too.
EdTechPost: FLOSSE Posse - Is the "Learning Objects" King Naked?
People like to learn from people. In training courses, we like to ask an instructor how to apply a theoretical concept in our specific situation. We like the give and take of small group exercises. Most of all, back at the office, we like to prairie dog over our cubes and ask a colleague to help us out.
Collaborative Learning: Building interactivity into e-learning
In Britain, broadband penetration is a tale of haves and have-nots. Just as we found in Europe, relatively young and affluent areas have higher broadband penetration rates than older, less affluent constituencies. Does Labour beat the Tory party in the race for broadband supremacy? In April, U.S. broadband penetration jumped by 1.42 percentage points to 58.46% among active Internet users. At its recent growth rate, broadband penetration in the U.S. should break 60% by July 2005 at the latest. The charts below, derived from Nielsen//NetRatings and Point Topic data, show trends in connection speeds to the Internet for United States and United Kingdom users.*
May 2005 Bandwidth Report - UK's Digital Divide - US Broadband Penetration Jumps to 58.5% in April
The Potashville School Division has been involved with a year long project entitled, "Technology Planning: A Plan for the Future!" This project is an in-depth study on how to effectively plan for and
At the Yorkton Regional High School, the Life Skills courses and modules offered cover a wide variety of "life skills". There are some basic modules that are usually covered in all student programs - for example cooking, cleaning and kitchen safety. In addition to the basic modules, and the various already prepared support modules we use, we also encourage all staff, parents and students to recommend new module ideas which may be of particular interest to the current students. These additional modules are then included in a particular student's individualized program or may be taught to a small group of students with similar interests.
Best Practices ...
instructional approaches and strategies for teaching and learning in today's classrooms, creating a differentiated learning environment
Instructional Strategies Online
Regina Public Schools is developing a comprehensive web-based resource
for administrators across Saskatchewan.
The template for the resource is the Role of thePrincipal/Vice Principal.
Online Learning for Administrators
What you need to know about learning objects can be found here.
Research indicates that critically reflective learning provides students with an opportunity to evaluate concepts learned and apply them to their experiences, contemplating its affect on future learning. This process occurs in a learning community where student interaction and feedback fuels the learning process leading to a higher level of critical reflective thinking for the learner. The challenge for online instructors is how to incorporate critical thinking in the online environment in an effective manner.
Failing schools in England are being closed at the rate of one every eight days, official figures reveal.
The Queen's Speech outlined plans for a more streamlined approach to shutting underachieving schools
BBC NEWS | Education | Weak school shut every eight days
Cabell County seventh- and tenth-graders made history in March when they took the West Virginia writing assessment online.
At the Cabell County School Board meeting Tuesday night, the board reviewed the county's assessment results.
Related story
Cabell County School Board Meeting actions
Elayna Conard, a seventh-grader at Barboursville Middle School, smiled when she saw the writing test results.
"I got a distinguished score on my writing exam, which is the highest you can get," Conard said. "I think the school did very well."
Conard said she was well-prepared for the test thanks to all the practice tests she took in her English class.
7th-, 10th-graders take writing assessment online
New developments in online educational technology have a profound effect on notions of intellectual property. Theories of the social construction of technology explain the extremely unstable nature of new technologies. Walter Ong's theory of the alphabet effect provides insight into the ways in which knowledge changes as media of communication change. Shoshana Zuboff's ideas on how managerial knowledge is transformed by technology help us understand how certain kinds of knowledge resist being textualized. These ideas help us understand the effects of new teaching technologies in terms of a long--standing struggle between two views of knowledge: knowledge as performance and knowledge as thing.
Teaching as performance in the electronic classroom
This paper discusses what makes a high-quality online teacher, examining: what it takes to be a high-quality teacher (knowing one's subject and how to teach it); what is unique about online teaching (online teachers rarely see their students, need strategies to ensure that each online student participates actively, and provide courses online so are able to work any time and any place); and how the quality of online teaching is assessed. A checklist identifies essential qualities of online teaching to help states and schools select, train, and evaluate online teachers. It discusses: state qualifications (the extent to which the teacher meets the state standards for professional teaching); curriculum, instruction, and student assessment (the extent to which the teacher meets the criteria in such areas as promoting student participation and interaction and using online resources effectively to deliver instruction); management (the extent to which the teacher meets the criteria in such areas as providing students with timely feedback and ensuring that students' work and data are secure); and evaluation (the extent to which the teacher meets the criteria in such areas as understanding that student success is an important measure of course success and ensuring that students participate actively in the course).
I like the format..check this out.
Conceptual Frameworks Learning Object
Do you think he is talking about the Teaching and Developing Online blog?
Dan Mitchell's Teachnology Blog : News
Many people in the UK won't have heard of The World, but the BBC has been contributing to a bit of interesting terraforming. The World provides international news for the National Public Radio network in the US and is a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International (PRI) and WGBH Boston. But what riches lies within? ...
The world of Catholic bloggers is a window into contemporary and orthodox Catholic thought that takes Pope John Paul II's call for a new evangelization and turns it into a worldwide discussion of faith, morals, politics, and plain old daily life.
Invasion of the Catholic Bloggers | By Valerie Schmalz | May 9. 2005
Having my first child who is 18 months old makes this of interest to me.
a) For those with no children - this is totally hysterical!
b) For those who already have children past this age, this is hilarious.
c) For those who have children this age, this is not funny.
d) For those who have children nearing this age, this is a warning.
e) For those who have not yet had children, this is birth control.
The following came from an anonymous Mother in Austin, Texas...
Things I've learned from my Boys (honest and not kidding):
1.) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep.
2.) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
3.) A 3-year old Boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
4.) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
5.) You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on.
When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
6.) The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
7.) When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh", it's already too late.
8.) Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.
9.) A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old Man says they can only do it in the movies.
10.) Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old boy.
11.) Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.
12.) Super glue is forever.
13.) No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water.
14.) Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
15.) VCR's do not eject "PB & J" sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.
16.) Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
17.) Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.
18.) You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.
19.) Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens.
20.) The fire department in Austin, TX has a 5-minute response time.
21.) The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.
22.) It will, however, make cats dizzy.
23.) Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
24.) 80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.
25.) Women will pass this on to almost all of their friends, with or without kids.
In fall 2002, 99 percent of public schools in the United States had access to the Internet. When NCES first started estimating Internet access in schools in 1994, 35 percent of public schools had access. In 2002, no differences in school Internet access were observed by any school characteristics. This is consistent with data reported previously (Kleiner and Farris 2002), which showed that there have been virtually no differences in school access to the Internet by school characteristics since 1999.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has employed its Fast Response Survey System (FRSS)1 to track access to information technology in schools and classrooms since 1994. Each year, NCES has conducted a new nationally representative survey of public schools to gauge the progress made in computer and Internet availability, based on measures such as student-to-computer ratio and the percentage of schools and classrooms with Internet connections.
Selected Findings, Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994â€"2003
Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Blogtalk Downunder is coming up with an amazing number of high quality papers looking at blogging in education, here they are so far:
Blogsavvy - your professional blogging consultant » Blogging for Education
Bill Gates raised some hackles with his withering assessment of American high schools, but at least the billionaire founder of Microsoft is putting his money where his mouth is. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested $2.3 billion since 2000 in new visions of education, with smaller schools and more personalized instruction to prepare young people for the working world and post-high school learning.
Boston.com / News / Education / K-12 / Gates foundation puts $2.3B into education
I use an aggregator (NewsGator). There is no sense in visiting each website individually to figure out whether they have posted something new, particularly with the number I am reading. This means that if a blog doesn't have a web feed, it is highly unlikely that I will read it. In fact, there are no blogs today that I read on their website directly.
What is your blog reading policy?
I am not sure this is a good thing or not. I would like to hear others opinions. Has this world gotten to the state where it is necessary to hide?
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
Whether it's Bill and Melinda Gates lamenting the state of American high schools, the CEO of the week lamenting the ongoing slippage in our ability to keep pace with the rest of the world, or Thomas Friedman lamenting our lack of a crisis-mode mentality about it all, it's getting harder and harder to deny that we're headed toward a serious wake-up call regarding this country's competitive capabilities in a world that is becoming increasingly more connected.
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
From the new Blinq blog at the Philadelphia Inquirer comes this description of the blogosphere:
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
Good behaviour and positive attitudes are the key foundation for educational success. Having been interim head of 13 inner-city, multi-ethnic schools, all with what is described as challenging behaviour, I believe there is just one effective way of dealing with indiscipline. The leadership of the head teacher and a high level of visibility about the school at all times is key. Pupils must know that if their behaviour is unacceptable, sanctions will follow with absolute certainty and consistency.
BBC NEWS | Education | Your views on school discipline
A student in remote Orissa village taking his MBA exams from a Mumbai university using broadband network; American students taking Maths lessons from teachers sitting in New Delhi or people from across the globe doing a crash course on disaster management from Honolulu university. The power of information technology is using learning tools to make it happen anywhere and anytime.
E-learning: the new wave on education front
Over the past year weblogs have become a popular topic of conversation -- both in private discussion and at conferences and other events. Understandably, a lot of people who are talking about blogs have little or no experience with weblogs. For a variety of reasons, these weblog neophytes often are the ones who start or lead high-profile discussions about blogging, especially within organizations and at conferences.
Contentious » What's a Blog? Bag the Stereotypes
When is last time that you heard fans at an athletic event cheering: "We're number 26!, We're number 26!!..??" We do love our rankings and love being Number 1, but I wonder at some of the formulas for how we are determining rankings, and how we are measuring the usefulness of technology in our schools.
Chasing the Dragon's Tale: We love our rankings...but
Working in a Catholic School I found this article interesting. The recent so-called debates on the teaching of evolution in Kansas have me thinking about different theological reactions to the teaching of evolution.
School Boards Want to 'Teach the Controversy.' What Controversy? - New York Times
Maryland Public Television (MPT) today announced the results of a scientific evaluation of web-based resources used in classroom instruction and their positive effect on reading performance among middle school students.
This teaching resource is free on line learning that comes in both French and English. Have look and use what you like to enhance both elementary and high school. The resources are informative and connects Indigenous knowledge to science, etc. with the Kainai people of Southern Alberta.
Which is not to say that my online classes don't offer some great interaction and fun learning moments. They do. It's just that all those moments come via text interaction. Throughout the whole semester I learn the students' personalities and tendencies and each one's sense of humor (or lack thereof) via e-mail, journals and discussion board interaction.
Dennis Jerz links to an article in the Balitmore Sun that basically says essays are good, blogs are bad. (See the Metafilter thread of the same name for a lively discussion.) For me, here's the salient "the author doesn't quite get it" quote.
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
A government adviser is calling on independent schools to take in disruptive state school pupils.
BBC NEWS | Education | Unruly pupils should 'go private'
Robib is a group of six small villages in a remote, practically inaccessible area of Cambodia. In fact it is every such village in the world.
Its situation reflects the poverty, isolation, health hazards and limited educational and commercial opportunities that is the fate of the overwhelming population of the world.
But is doesn't have to be that way. The Internet now offers leapfrogging opportunities to take such villages out of their isolation and poverty into our global village.
Bridging the Digital Divide In Cambodia :: AO
The aim of this module is to enable participants to make informed decisions, based on sound educational principles, about the use of computer aided assessment.
On completion of this module, participants will be able to:
describe different types of computer-assisted assessment and illustrate with examples
design a simple CAA exercise
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of CAA and of different tools.
Developing Computer Aided Assessment
This site was designed to provide information and guidance on the use of computer-assisted assessment (CAA) in higher education.
Designing and Managing Multile choice questions.
This site is about how to write tests. It covers both test-taking and good test design.
As learning organizations seek to expand their distance programs (online and mobile technologies), and to find the best and most appropriate use of technology, there is an increasing awareness that the strategic planning methods of the past are often inadequate. Leadership theories that focus on managing change do not address the issues of long-term constituencies who have unchanging long-term goals, although the methods of achieving the goals are constantly problematized by situational, financial and technological barriers and change. Scores of new books have claimed to offer the one sure remedy, the latest and greatest leadership book.
SCOTT MADDIX, a self-described "computer potato," went without consistent exercise for years, in part because he found gyms and their trim clientele intimidating. "I historically have been a fairly antisocial type," said Mr. Maddix, a 35-year-old shipping clerk. "The idea of doing any exercise that required being in front of other people has been a problem for me."
Online Trainers Keep Their Distance
Generally, we all experience some level of nervousness or tension before tests or other important events in our lives. A little nervousness can actually help motivate us; however, too much of it can become a problem -- especially if it interferes with our ability to prepare for and perform on tests.
Test Anxiety--UIUC Counseling Center
This extensive collection of resources was compiled and reviewed by Al Cavalier, School of Education, University of Delaware. CTE gratefully acknowledges Dr. Cavalier's work, and posts this document with his permission.
Teaching College Students with Disabilities
David A. Kolb's model of experiential learning can be found in many discussions of the theory and practice of adult education, informal education and lifelong learning. We set out the model, and examine its possibilities and problems.
david a. kolb on experiential learning
This site contains resources for a model of learning styles generally referred to as the Felder-Silverman model. The model was originally formulated by Dr. Felder in collaboration with Dr. Linda K. Silverman, an educational psychologist, for use by college instructors and students in engineering and the sciences, although it has subsequently been applied in a broad range of disciplines.
The Learning-Styles Network fosters life-long academic, intellectual, and personal success through the promotion and dissemination of research, information, publications and other resources focusing on learning, teaching, and productivity styles.
We offer a number of handouts for students and teachers. You are free to link to these handouts, print them out, and distribute them to your classes as long as copyright information remains intact and as long as you are not distributing them for profit. See our fair use policy for more information. If you would like information about reprinting OWL handouts, please visit our contact page.
Welcome! You are about to explore a website that has been designed to improve your college study skills. The mere fact that you've taken time to visit this site suggests that you are already aware of the need to improve some area of your academic skills, but in case you're still uncertain about whether the information available here is appropriate for you, ask yourself the following questions:
One of the critical parts of a WebQuest that often gets left until last is the development of a rubric. Is there something hard about it? Not really.
To help you get off to a quick start and avoid getting bogged down in mechanical details, we've put together a template for your rubric. While you have the rubric on the screen, then from the File menu, save the new window as Source and call it myrubric.html.
How can I get my students to think?" is a question asked by many faculty, regardless of their disciplines. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method that challenges students to "learn to learn," working cooperatively in groups to seek solutions to real world problems. These problems are used to engage students' curiosity and initiate learning the subject matter. PBL prepares students to think critically and analytically, and to find and use appropriate learning resources.
UD PBL: Problem-Based Learning
Teachers are now working on assimilating this knowledge into their strategies for helping children learn. While it is too early to tell all the ramifications for this research, it is clear that the day is past where educators teach the text book and it is the dawn of educators teaching each child according to their orientation to the world.
Walter McKenzie's Multiple Intelligence Pages
Most college teachers lecture. Even those who embrace a modern view of participatory learning still turn to the lecture from time to time. As a teaching method, the lecture has been used for hundreds of years. Certainly, today, no student can acquire an advanced degree without listening to dozens of professors lecture. As perhaps with other teaching methods, the lecture gets a mixed review. Although most of us have been inspired by brilliant lecturers, all of us have been bored, confused, and anesthetized by poor lecturers. We have vivid memories of the psychology teacher who read from his scripted notes without once looking up for an entire semester, the geography instructor who spoke to her maps, and the mathematics teacher who spoke so softly and obliquely that he could neither be heard nor understood. It is little wonder that we sometimes worry about our own lecturing practices, hoping that we will escape the traps that other well-intentioned teachers have fallen into.
Improving Lecturing Skills: Some Insights From Speech Communication
Do you consider yourself "name-learning challenged?" Do you find it difficult to think of a student's name when the two of you meet? Or is it harder for you to match faces with the names of students on your class roster?
Despite the feelings of anxiety associated with learning students' names each semester, many instructors believe that knowing exactly who each student is helps to improve the classroom climate. But many instructors find learning students' names difficult and frustrating. If the classes are large lecture classes, the problem may seem insurmountable.
UNL | GSAPD | Learning Students' Names
The Large Classes Teaching Guide was first sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs. As part of the campus initiative in Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), the CQI project focused on a persistant problem area for academic programs in many disciplines--the challange of providing high quality educational experiences to undergraduates in large lecture classes. This guide and the Large Classes Newsletter were two of the recommendations of the CQI team in order to provide a resource to help teachers improve their work in the challenging environment of the large lecture course.
Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) |
Microsoft has come up with a unique solution to the legendary 'blue screen of death' in the next version of its Windows operating system. With the release of Longhorn, the Redmond behemoth has added a red screen to face users when their system crashes.
Red screen of death? | News.blog | CNET News.com
List of Net Resources for C&DE; Program Development
The Directory of Online Resources for Information Literacy (DORIL) is intended to provide librarians and other educators with a comprehensive, up-to-date guide to a wide variety of informational resources available on the World Wide Web that relate to the concept of information literacy. The Directory was first established in November 1997 and has been continually expanded and revised since that time.
Directory of Online Resources for Information Literacy (DORIL)
Icebreakers to facilitate introductions and warm-ups to introduce the topic of a meeting or training.
In the last 30 years, research has generated new conceptions of learning in five areas. As a result of the accumulation of new kinds of information about human learning, views of how effective learning proceeds have shifted from the benefits of diligent drill and practice to focus on students' understanding and application of knowledge
Contents | How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
This web site is an outgrowth of an op-ed piece that I wrote on grade inflation for the Washington Post, "Where All Grades Are Above Average" In the process of writing that article, I collected data on trends in grading from about 30 colleges and universities. I found that grade inflation, while waning beginning in the mid-1970s, resurfaced in the mid-1980s. The rise has continued unabated at virtually every school for which data are available.
National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities
The Society for the Advancement of Games and Simulations in Education and Training
SAGSET encourages and supports the development of gaming, simulation and other forms of active learning in all aspects of education and training from Primary School to University and in all levels of adult, lifelong learning from shop floor to the board room.
Educational institutions are microcosms of culture and the society that supports them. As such, they should be bastions of ethical behavior. These institutions should be the training ground for students to determine and practice their personal ethics code which will guide them for the remainder of their lives.
The mission of the Consortium is to aid the advancement of research and practice related to emotional intelligence in organizations. The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations is currently made up of eight founding members and 30 additional members who are individuals with a strong record of accomplishment as applied researchers in the field. There also are four organizational and corporate members. The Consortium was founded in the spring of 1996 with the support of the Fetzer Institute. Its initial mandate was to study all that is known about emotional intelligence in the workplace.
Emotional Intelligence Consortium
Welcome to DiversityWeb, the most comprehensive compendium of campus practices and resources about diversity in higher education that you can find anywhere. This site is designed to serve campus practitioners seeking to place diversity at the center of the academy's educational and societal mission.
DiversityWeb - A Resource Hub for Higher Education
How can I get a discussion going?
Discussions need to be carefully planned. Sometimes we see instructors try to get a discussion going on the spur of the moment, by asking a question they have just thought up. These often fail to stir much student response. Arguably, good discussions can take more thought than a lecture might.
It is important to plan an activity that gets at the most important issue in the class, as we discussed in the workshop. Planning a discussion is easier said than done. TRC staff frequently help faculty plan discussions until they get the hang of planning one.
Frequently Asked Questions about Discussion
The Teaching Academy is composed of University of Wisconsin faculty members and instructional staff. We provide leadership to strengthen undergraduate, graduate, and outreach teaching and learning at UWMadison.
WWW Teaching and Learning Resources
The Foundation and Center for Critical Thinking aim to improve instruction in primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. We offer conferences and professional development programs, emphasizing assessment, research, instructional strategies, socratic questioning,critical reading and writing, higher order thinking, quality enhancement, and competency standards.
Welcome to my collection of pages on varied aspects related to creativity and creative processes. I use many of the following ideas and concepts in my course on creativity
One of the most important things to consider in using someone else's work is its copyright status. To help the user determine if something is covered, Laura Gasaway has prepared "When Works Pass into the Public Domain," a helpful table that simplifies the issue of when a copyrighted work is no longer covered by copyright restrictions based on its date of publication.
Here is a comprehensive compilation of instructional design resources:
The Learned Man!: Instructional Design Resources
As adult learners and teachers, we can ride the crest of the current revolution in brain research. We can learn easier, faster, better, and more enjoyably!
The new scientific understanding of our most vital organ can help us improve everything about our learning -- from choosing our best times and places to learn, to setting grander goals for how much we can grow.
Based on the work of the world's leading brain researchers over the past twenty years, here are the top five ways to enhance your learning:
Your Brain and Learning - Five Tips
"Actions which make the campus environment uncomfortable or hostile for another person are considered serious offenses by the University. Contemporary technology makes it possible for mistakes to be made more rapidly, and spread about more widely, than ever before. The most difficult error to correct is one that affronts another's sensibilities, or assaults another's dignity. When you compose, send, or redistribute electronic mail or voice mail, when you create or publish postings to newsgroups, World Wide Web pages, or produce and submit for campus broadcast video materials, consider whether you would make identical statements face to face with the person or people who may read, hear or view your work. The same principles pertain regarding people or groups you may address outside the University community as to those within."
Instructional and Information Technology Learning
I would like to draw the attention of the users of this website to a unique and powerful set of teaching materials developed primarily at UC Santa Barbara since 1996-97. Our purpose is to facilitate for teachers around the world the use of the case method of learning as a pedagogy in their own teaching.
UCSB Case Method - Introduction and Welcome
Beginning in 1948, a group of educators undertook the task of classifying education goals and objectives. The intent was to develop a classification system for three domains: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor. Work on the cognitive domain was completed in 1956 and is commonly referred to as Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom et al., 1956). Others have developed taxonomies for the affective and psychomotor domains.
The major idea of the taxonomy is that what educators want students to know (encompassed in statements of educational objectives) can be arranged in a hierarchy from less to more complex. The taxonomy is presented below with sample verbs and a sample behavior statement for each level.
Educational Psychology Interactive: The Cognitive Domain
This page provides links to some resources on blended learning - that is a learning solution created through a mixture of face-to-face, live e-learning, self-paced learning as well through a mix of media - "the magic is in the mix!" or "the beauty is in the blend!" Listed in order of entry with most recent first.
e-Learning Centre: Blended learning
A list of Internet resources for higher edcuation outcomes assessment.
Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment
Active learning isn't a new idea. It goes back at least as far as Socrates and was a major emphasis among progressive educators like John Dewey. And yet, if you peer into many university classrooms, we seem to have forgotten that learning is naturally an active process. It involves putting our students in situations which compel them to read, speak, listen, think deeply, and write. While well delivered lectures are valuable and are not uncommon, sometimes the thinking required while attending a lecture is low level comprehension that goes from the ear to the writing hand and leaves the mind untouched. Active learning puts the responsibility of organizing what is to be learned in the hands of the learners themselves, and ideally lends itself to a more diverse range of learning styles.
Active Learning on the World Wide Web
The Center for Academic Integrity provides a forum to identify, affirm, and promote the values of academic integrity among students, faculty, teachers and administrators. The CAI Web site is divided into a public tier, which contains general information about the Center and its activities, and a members-only tier, which contains specific information on CAI projects, research, and a list-server for members to exchange ideas and information. Learn how your academic institution can gain access to all of the online resources provided by the CAI by becoming a member today.
Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning - From explanation, to demonstration, to exploration and to implementation, follow constructivism "from concept to classroom" in this well-developed site for educators.
2Learn.ca - Professional Growth Topics: Constructivism [How to...]
The goal of this section is to provide the instructor with some starting ideas: Things to consider as you contemplate incorporating collaborative learning structures into your course. This section does not seek to be a complete treatise on collaborative learning. If you wish to probe further into collaborative learning structures, assessment techniques, group dynamics, and the other myriad of topics.
Classroom Assessment is a simple method faculty can use to collect feedback, early and often, on how well their students are learning what they are being taught. The purpose of classroom assessment is to provide faculty and students with information and insights needed to improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality. College instructors use feedback gleaned through Classroom Assessment to inform adjustments in their teaching. Faculty also share feedback with students, using it to help them improve their learning strategies and study habits in order to become more independent, successful learners.... Classroom Assessment is one method of inquiry within the framework of Classroom Research, a broader approach to improving teaching and learning."
When her three children aren't using the laptop, Clarissa Wann-Bobo is online checking their grades and progress at school. The family frequently competes for time on the computer, one of 2,500 IPS has loaned to students.
Schools struggle to keep kids connected
Only a limited number of Houston County students who need to retake a class or catch up this summer likely would enroll in the state's new virtual high school, Houston school officials said Monday.
Macon Telegraph | 05/10/2005 | Houston official: Virtual high not a fit for most
Most high school students say they plan on going to college. Yet they fail to put in the necessary time and academic effort before graduation to succeed in college, according to a special report from Indiana University's High School Survey of Student Engagement.
High school students need college prep reality check
Lightness Perception and Lightness Illusions
interactive movies based on a paper by Edward H. Adelson
Desktop computing, distance education, and ubiquitous computing no longer appear among the top-five, while funding IT continues as top challenge, security continues to grow in importance, and research support emerges
EDUCAUSE Quarterly | Volume 28 Number 2 2005
The space at Belmont University that was filled this last weekend with the blogosphere's elite (and elite-wanna-be's) is now filled with headset-ed-exam-cramming students. I have high hopes that both of those populations manage to demostrate actual learning. OK, so I am a romantic and an optimist.
There are a few lingering thoughts about BlogNashville that I want to post for myself. I have read and read and read the banter and interesting commentary from so many attendees that if I do not write this down, these thoughts will be drowned from my consciousness in the text-spewing aftermath.
Chasing the Dragon's Tale: Oh, for something profound to say
As summer approaches and the sun starts to really shine this website might come in handy.
WHO | Ultraviolet radiation related publications
Bill Gates is on a mission to build a Google killer. What got him so riled? The darling of search is moving into software--and that's Microsoft's turf.
Technology - Why Google Scares Bill Gates - FORTUNE
Three BC Universities have just received funding to use open source software to develop weblog and wiki services for higher education.
They intend to create policy recommendations, tutorials, templates, and multimedia resources that can be used by higher level education institutions in adopting and using wikis and blogs by students and faculty. I think it's a great idea, especially since they are not tied to any one service.
Social Software for Higher Education: Corante > Get Real >
Like all philosophies, my learning philosophy is ultimately a personal one, and did not arrive fully-formed. As a result, my learning philosophy is ultimately an autobiographical account. Certain themes remain part of my teaching, largely because of my own experience.
We've been having a spirited discussion in the journalism department at New York University. With newspapers hemorrhaging readers and people migrating to the web for their daily news fix, should we consider changing the way we teach journalism?
Wired News: The New Old Journalism
"This powerful communication tool of instant messaging--wonderful as it is--is simply too tempting, too distracting in the classroom. Our students are better students without it."
What's New at the e-Learning Centre: Should we ban Instant Messaging in school?
Think the teenager in your house can out-surf you? Think again. So says a study of 13- to 17-year-olds released Monday by the Nielsen Norman Group. The results suggest that some businesses are using ineffective strategies to target a teen market of some 20 million.
USATODAY.com - Study shows some teens not as Web-savvy as parents
In Bell's view, the big gains so far have been in the realm of research. "Today, a scholar in South Dakota, or Shanghai, or Albania--anywhere on earth with an Internet connection--has a research library at her fingertips." A democratization has taken place, comparable only to the change unleashed by the printing press. The ease and speed of searching, comparing, and collating digital documents is similarly a great boon to scholars and students. . . .
Conversational Reading: The Bookless Future
Imagine getting your kids an education without the need to leave the confines of your home.
It's called virtual learning, and it's available for students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade.
Parents can check out virtual school Saturday
This paper presents the authors experience using weblogs in a final year Communication Design class entitled Contemporary Issues in Design and Technology, at the Queensland University of Technology in the Faculty of Creative Industries. Students in this class actively contributed to a weblog for the duration of the semester, with this activity being integrated into both formative and summative assessment. The experience provided a range of insights into the weblog phenomenon.
Blogtalk Downunder » Gavin Sade: Weblogs as Open Constructive Learning Environments
High school teachers face enormous pressure to prepare students for state standardized tests, college admissions tests, and AP exams. Do computers "get in the way" of teaching in such an environment or can technology improve achievement without taking time away from the curriculum? Education World's Tech Team offers opinions on the reality and possibilities of "teching" in high school. Included: Nine easy ways to integrate technology in high school and links to technology in action at high schools across America.
Education World ® Technology Center: Computers in the High School Classroom
In a recent "Ethics and Public Policy" class, Brown University professor Ross Cheit asked his students if they had a moral obligation to report cheating if they knew about it.
ADVERTISEMENT
The room began to hum, but no one called out an answer or raised a hand. Still, in 90 seconds, Cheit had roughly 150 student responses displayed on an overhead screen, plotted as a multicolored bar graph -- 64 percent, yes, 35 percent, no.
Several times in the average class period, Cheit's students weigh in on his questions using handheld wireless devices that resemble television remote controls.
Technology Changes Classroom Dynamics - Yahoo! News
I'm receiving nasty e-mails at my job. The return address is a person with whom I worked two years ago at a different employer. She is no longer there, and is not sending the e-mails. How does someone connect me to two places over a period of two years? The e-mails have an attachment that supposedly is sex-related. I am worried about a stalker.
Komando.com, Website for The Kim Komando Radio Show®, Tip of the Day
If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the changing field of communication your blog exists in, take a look at the presentations from WOMMA Summit 2005. The focus is obviously word-of-mouth marketing, and blogs are just one tool from that perspective. But many of the speakers did talk about blogs as part of their strategies.
A resource for disaster recovery workers in countries affected by the tsunami of 12.26.04
Better Aid: Aid partners for disaster recovery in South Asia
Who will ever forget the tsunami disaster of December 26, 2004? Those who survived the experience face serious health concerns, both physical and psychological. This site provides information on health issues to help survivors and those caring for them.
In this site you will find a wide variety of topics related to the science of tsunamis. Additionally, the origins of the word as well as historical and legendary aspects of these dramatic natural events are explored. Site visitors are also invited to integrate content from this website and other sources to create a research report that may be submitted in the site's research area.
Sask Trends Monitor tracks social, economic, and demographic trends in Saskatchewan
Sask Trends Monitor , Saskatchewan
For students: Discover our interactive tools where you can have live online chats with SaskTel experts, play a virtual interview game, or find out what SaskTel is all about. You'll find everything you need to plan the career you've always wanted.
For educators: The pace of life continues to get faster, and today's students are presented with a multitude of new ways to learn. Here you'll find some easy tools to help you engage students in career planning in an interactive way.
For volunteers: SaskTel believes our strength is our people, and it's our employees' spirit of volunteerism that will help turn today's students into tomorrow's successes. Here, SaskTel employee volunteers can find information and tools to reach and engage students.
Over the years, faculty have creatively adapted to the asynchronous, text-based environment of the Web and the
online classroom. As a community, we've learned that while e-mail and discussion boards aren't the same as the live classroom, they have their own unique instructional effectiveness. And, indeed, for some interactions and purposes, the online space actually is better. The shy students seem to talk more; students often graciously engage and support each other; they seem to reflect and express more thoughtful ideas in online forums; and busy students can learn anytime, anywhere.
Designing for the Virtual Interactive Classroom: Campus Technology
Albert Ip has some positive words to say about Bill Gates, especially his views on education, and provides these rules, attributed to Bill:
Learning for 2020: Bill Gate's Solution to American High Schools being obsolete
Welcome to the RSC eToolbox Service. This service is intended for use by post 16 education practitioners interested in enhancing their teaching practice through technology. Within this website you will find information pertaining to a variety of software which can be used to develop learning situations. Along with factual information about each product, you will also find links to the product website, and further information regarding license details and other associated information. You can view the tools either by accessing the category listings below, or if you know what you are looking for, try the free text search option.
RSC Website - Tools for e-Learning
Why not, say some students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who have organized what they call the first convention for time travelers.
Actually, they contend that theirs is the only time traveler convention the world needs, because people from the future can travel to it anytime they want.
Time Travelers to Meet in Not Too Distant Future - New York Times
I was pretty chuffed when Derek Powazek actually posted a comment on my whinge about him not providing full RSS feeds... so chuffed, in fact that I'll reprint it here:
"I prefer to only include excerpts in RSS, because I don't want my content to appear elsewhere in totality. If someone wants to excerpt it in a rss reader or on a website, that's fine, so long at there's a link to the rest. But if I had full content in the feed, then what's the point of the website?
I make a website, first and foremost. The RSS is icing." - Derek Powazek
Which made me think, and comment that, for me the RSS feed is more the flour than the icing, going along more with Scoble's unsubscribe / subscribe policy of favouring full feeds.
incorporated subversion » Archive » To publish full RSS or not to publish full RSS
Twenty-three years ago, an American philosophy professor named James Flynn discovered a remarkable trend: Average IQ scores in every industrialized country on the planet had been increasing steadily for decades. Despite concerns about the dumbing-down of society - the failing schools, the garbage on TV, the decline of reading - the overall population was getting smarter. And the climb has continued, with more recent studies showing that the rate of IQ increase is accelerating. Next to global warming and Moore's law, the so-called Flynn effect may be the most revealing line on the increasingly crowded chart of modern life - and it's an especially hopeful one. We still have plenty of problems to solve, but at least there's one consolation: Our brains are getting better at problem-solving.
What if you were given that choice? For real. What if it weren't just the hyperbolic rhetoric that conflates corporate performance with life and death? Not the overblown exhortations of a rabid boss, or a slick motivational speaker, or a self-dramatizing CEO. We're talking actual life or death now. Your own life or death. What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon -- a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?
The written English language is becoming a lost art among the young people of this country. Keyboarding is being stressed more and more in our schools. As computers reach the next generation, i.e. voice activation, I fear that the ability even to print and use a keyboard will also be lost to us. With spell-checking, dictionaries and thesauruses online, the ability to use the English language will be lost altogether.
North County Times - North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists
Cyberbullying knows no boundaries.
Online cruelty may happen off school property via home computers and cell phones, but that hasn't prevented it from infiltrating schools and disrupting the educational environment.
In fact, a January study by the MindOH! Foundation, a Houston-based company that helps kids who are having problems in school, found nearly 80 percent of the 5,500 children it surveyed had either read or spread gossip online.
Many school districts have no policy
There is a technical high school in Turner's Falls, in western Massachusetts, which has a cooking program (among a wide variety of training options) that teaches kids how to buy, prepare and serve lunch on weekdays to whoever comes in to eat - and also offers a display of bakery goods to be purchased - in a restaurant setting, and at a moderate price. It is very popular. I have driven over there for lunch on a number of occasions. It's a very good experience. Except for the ones cooking and serving the food, the kids are free at lunchtime and just get to hang out with each other. Around Christmastime, many of them have tables set up in the hallways at which they sell various goods made in their classes.
I can only characterize the whole feeling tone of this big bunch of kids as downright unAmerican - at least if compared with most high school groups under the same circumstances. No teachers monitoring, no kids teasing each other, no excessive flirting or harassing, no frenetic dashing about, no smoking in sheltered corners outside the building - just kids strolling about in small groups, chatting with each other or selling their products, those from the greenhousing group offering sturdy plants - and being very knowledgeable about their management - along the corridor, some studying in a sunny corner - well, you get the picture. These kids love what they're doing, and they are good at what they do!
Against School as Presently Constituted
John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the
Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American
Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill,"
which appeared in the September 2001 issue.
Against School, by John Taylor Gatto
A colleague just asked me by email how she could get started edublogging.
She wants to build contacts with 'peers / students/ friends / strangers' in her area (education, culture), get feedback on her PhD research and generally 'get into' blogging.
incorporated subversion » Archive » How to get started edublogging
California State University implements procedure to determine collegian's ability to navigate online, assess Web site credibility and use spreadsheet
New test shows internet skill - The Daily Aztec - City
"I have found it really helpful to have your lectures
recorded and available on the web. I always think that I
am taking accurate notes but always find myself with questions
when I review them later. Being able to go back
and listen while I go over my notes and make up flash cards is
extremely helpful. I think one of my problems is
that the class is so late in the day and is after clinicals. My
intellect bottoms out after about 2:00/3:00 in the
afternoon.
Feedback from Student Re: Lecture Podcasts
Constructivism is:
A Philosophy
that incorporates a range of views of constructivism, from radical constructivism, where each individual constructs their own reality, to social constructivism, where reality is constructed by social consensus
Constructivism: Knowledge Building in the Secondary Classroom
How to Recognize Plagiarism (via Weblogs in Higher Education) is a nice resource for educators confronting this growing trend. Many students today have grown up downloading music, videos, and utilizing free online content. They've downloaded open source tools. Our traditional concept of ownership has not been transferred to this generation (and some would argue that it shouldn't be - the digital era affords new value propositions that need to be reflective of the abundance of content and low cost of content duplication).
elearnspace: How to Recognize Plagiarism
KidsHealth is the largest and most visited site on the Web providing doctor-approved health information about children from before birth through adolescence. Created by The Nemours Foundation's Center for Children's Health Media, the award-winning KidsHealth provides families with accurate, up-to-date, and jargon-free health information they can use. KidsHealth has been on the Web since 1995 - and has been accessed by more than 170,000,000 visitors. On a typical weekday, more than 250,000 people access KidsHealth's reliable information.
91 Ways to Respond to Literature
Instructional strategies determine the approach a teacher may take to achieve learning objectives.
Five categories of instructional strategies and explanation of these five categories can be found within this site.
Instructional Strategies Online
Instructional strategies
Without adult intervention, the children got to grips with the technology, even with their limited understanding of English.
Sugata was able to make some important but controversial observations.
"Groups of children given adequate digital resources can meet the objectives of primary education on their own - most of the objectives."
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Teach-yourself computing for kids
Marcy's 13-year-old daughter has a knack for switching computer screens or shutting the laptop when mom walks in the room. Like in many families, the two often argue about whether mom has the right to see what her daughter is doing online. The conversation is never really resolved.
Kids, blogs and too much information - Consumer Security - MSNBC.com
know I've mentioned it before, but I've had the great fortune this year to team teach the technology part of a doctoral course at Seton Hall with Alan November, and tonight we were back in class talking about blogs and wikis and the like. There are about 25 students in the cohort and about half have dipped into blogs in one way or another. I've linked to some here previously, but I found out tonight that there was quite a bit of blogging going on under the radar as well. There was actually blogapplause...cool!
Weblogg-ed - The Read/Write Web in the Classroom :
Friday, April 29, 2005
Technology if necessary, but not necessarily technology!
In 1942 during WWII, the Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie King, launched a plebiscite to Canadians asking them if they wanted to support mandatory military service overseas: conscription. He led the campaign using the now famous motto: "conscription if necessary, but not necessarily conscription."
A colleague of mine (Thanks Louise!) showed me that a derivative of this quote rings true today in the DE context. When I think about technology in higher education settings and about LMSs in particular, the software and product choices number in the dozens!!!
e-Learning Acupuncture: Technology if necessary, but not necessarily technology!
Over the next decade, the United States will face ever increasing competition in the global economy.
To an overwhelming extent, this competition will involve the mastery and application of new technologies in virtually every field of human endeavor. It will place particular emphasis on the need for heightened skills in mathematics and science.
It is the responsibility of this nation's educational enterprise -- including policymakers -- to help secure our economic future by ensuring that our young people are adequately prepared to meet these challenges. Today, they are not. The National Education Technology Plan explores why -- and recommends steps to ensure that they will be.
Authentic Educational Technology » Educational Technology
"Housework is a breeze. Cooking is a pleasant diversion. Putting up a retaining wall is a lark. But teaching is like climbing a mountain." - Fawn Brodie
"Teaching kids to count is fine, but teaching them what counts is best. " ~ Bob Talbert
"Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach." ~Albert Einstein
Quotes 4 Teachers: Inspirational Quotes for Teachers
Ever wonder why God never received a permanent job at a good university?
The Reasons :
1. He had only one major publication and it had no references.
2. Some people doubt that he even wrote it himself.
3. He expelled his first 2 students - for learning!
4. When one particular experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the evidence.
5. He rarely appeared in class, usually just telling students to read the book.
6.Although there are only ten requirements, the majority of students can never pass his tests.
7. He may have created the world, but what has he done recently?
I found this on workinghumor.com, I found it funny.
Prayer :
It's a must for all teacher's, to help them keep their sense of humor through the day.]
Dear God,
So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper, I haven't even criticized or moaned. I haven't been snappy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent and I'm thankful for that.
But in a few minutes Lord, I'm going to get out of bed and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help.
Amen.
Don't you love the honest of children...
When your dad is mad and asks you, "Do I look stupid?" don't answer!
Michael, age 14
Never try to baptize a cat!
Eileen, age 8
Stay away from prunes!
Randy, age 9
Felt markers do not make good lipstick.
Lauren, age 9
Puppies sill have bad breath even after eating a tic-tac.
Andrew, age 9
Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time!
Kyoyo, age 9
You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk!
Armir, age 9
If you want a kitten, start out asking for a horse!
Naomi, age 15
Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat.
Joel, age 10
Never flush the toilet when Mom's taking a shower.
Hailey, age 7
Having a child who will be learning to ride this summer, this interested me.
I want one.
New Design Could Transform 1st Bike Ride - Yahoo! News
On not "getting" blogging. You hear lots of "so-and-so just doesn't get it" bouncing around the blogosphere when somebody slams blogging, but that knee-jerk response probably doesn't accomplish anything. It's tempting, for example, for a fan of blogging to rant about a recent column by Blaise Cronin, who is Dean of the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. To give the flavor of the thing, glance at the title: BLOG: see also Bathetically Ludicrous Online Gibberish. Or a few highlights
In the meantime, the real story in the corporate blogging arena these days which I didn't anticipate back then, is bloggers outside a corporation who decide to create "corporate fan blogs," in other words, people who love your products so much, they launch a website praising your product without your knowledge or consent. And sometimes, they go a little overboard.
Worthwhile: Corporate Blogging Redux