Blended Edu

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Blogging the Future of Higher Education

Tomorrow's Professor Blog: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Stanford University have joined forces to produce a forum to allow readers of the “Tomorrow`s Professor Mailing List” to reach out to other subscribers and to hear and share thoughts with colleagues from around the world.

posted by Derek Baird at 23:34 | 0 Comments

Monday, February 27, 2006

eSchool News: For some educators, tagging is "it"

via eSchool News: "A new way to find and store information online has implications for schools : A new way of searching the web that has emerged in the last year or so makes it easier than ever to find, store, and share information online.

Supporters of the method, known as "tagging," say it could have broad implications for educators looking to direct students quickly and easily to more relevant information on the internet."

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posted by Derek Baird at 14:46 | 0 Comments

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Online Social Networking

wwwtools For Education has compiled a page of links for Online Social Networking that is well worth the time to check it out.

"Social networking stands out as the most obviously social category, in the way it caters to basic human drives to socialise and form communities. In this issue of WWWTools for Education we focus on this tip of the Web 2.0 iceberg, and look at educational applications both proposed and in practice."

Included in this issue are updates on Social Networking, links to Popular Social Networking Services and links to many publications that will let you know just what Social Networking is all about, why the "net gen" is hooked on it, and what we can expect in the future.

This is a valuable resource for beginners in Social Networking as well as those well seasoned in socializing online.

posted by maryanne campo at 21:05 | 0 Comments

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Media Awareness Network

The Media Awareness Network (MNet) is home to one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of media education and Internet literacy resources. The website has a wide variety of free resources for teachers (en)(fr), parents (en)(fr), and students (en)(fr).

One of their special initiatives is the Be Web Aware (en)(fr) program, which includes many helpful tips for teens using social software, instant messaging, blogs, and web search. The resources are available in both French and English.

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posted by Derek Baird at 12:25 | 0 Comments

Digital Geography

Digital Geography is an UK-based website for teachers focused on using ICT and social software resources in the geography curriculum.

Noel Jenkins, the brains behind Digital Geography, uses Google Earth and Flickr, along with his own model curriculum (including animation), to make geography a fun, interactive, and active learning experience for students.

This is a perfect example of a teacher using ICT to support instruction and student-centered learning environments. With so many resources, Digital Geography (and its former incarnation Juicy Geography), it's no wonder that teachers from every corner of the world are flocking to this treasure trove of resources.

Brilliant! Just brilliant!

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posted by Derek Baird at 00:27 | 0 Comments

Friday, February 24, 2006

Millennials: It's All About Them

To: Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me
by JONATHAN D. GLATER
New York Times

"One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party.

At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance." more >>

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posted by Derek Baird at 00:20 | 0 Comments

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Our Time is Now

Our Time Is Now: "Young People Changing the World tells the stories of more than thirty young people in over twenty countries who are taking action to contribute to their local and global communities.

The book spotlights the efforts of young leaders who are addressing a host of urgent global challenges: poverty, violence, racism, environmental destruction, and civic apathy, to name only a few.

For those youth profiled, serving the community is both a challenge and an adventure; serious work and creative fun. Each provides insights on strategies that can help ensure the success of an initiative, while reflecting on the rich personal rewards of giving back."

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posted by Derek Baird at 14:04 | 0 Comments

MemoryWiki: Curriculum Idea

MemoryWiki is interested in developing features specifically designed for use in educational settings.

This page has some ideas for how MemoryWiki can be used in Elementary, Junior High and High School classrooms as a part of History, Social Studies or Creative Writing classes.

Because MemoryWiki is always changing and its collection of memoirs is expanding, check the site often for new ideas and uses.

posted by Derek Baird at 09:38 | 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Qwika: Bridging the language gap in Wikipedia

Qwika: "A search engine designed specifically to search wikis. Our aim is to cover all sizeable wikis in all sizeable languages, translate them, make them easily findable in the shortest possible time.

Quika is the only search engine to index machine translated content, so that users may search for terms in their own language and see results translated from English. Languages included are German, French, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Korean, Chinese and Russian."

Very cool. Give it a try!


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posted by Derek Baird at 19:50 | 0 Comments

What is a Blog?


TheWeblogProject is the first open source, FREE, grassroots movie to promote and evangelize bloggers, the blogosphere, and their potential.

While most of the interviews are conducted in English, a few of the interviews, like the one with Eugenio La Teana, Director of Research and Development for RTL 102.5 are in Italian.

After watching several interviews, I found myself reflecting on Eugenio La Teana's observation on how blogs can be used as a way to communicate and share our emotions:

"It's a tool for communicating, it's a virtual 'square of emotions.' It's an instrument that changes while using it, for sure the essence of it is to be able to share what our emotions are which can be in text, video, audio or images.

But this way of sharing emotions can be described as 'falls'; you don't have to stop to think but add the most of contents you can, waiting for comments, in order to create a virtual forum where it's more personal, thus creating a flowing debate."

Eugenio detto buono, detto bene! Brillante!

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posted by Derek Baird at 00:06 | 0 Comments

iPod and Language Learning

iPods Helping Languages Click: "Moorestown Friends High School is using one of today's hottest media devices to help students acquire foreign language skills, providing students in 12 French and Spanish classes with iPods to use to practice speaking and improve pronunciation."


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posted by Derek Baird at 00:02 | 0 Comments

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Discovery Spotlight: More on The Flat World




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posted by Derek Baird at 20:38 | 0 Comments

Newsvine Scoop


Latest talk on the town -Newsvine- is by invite still, but if you click on sign-up here you can get on the Newsvine private beta wating list.

I've been told Newsvine is a collaborative, social news site that shows major news publications and allows reader to comment. Sounds like lots of tools merged into one.

Can't wait to give it a run. Wonder how long I'll have to wait for an invite?

posted by maryanne campo at 00:48 | 0 Comments

Student Voices on Technology

Listening to Student Voices on Technology: The Student Voices study, a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University, conducted research on student attitudes, perceptions and behavior on technology and its current and potential role in K-12 education.

The verdict? Today's web-savvy students are stuck in text-dominated schools.


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posted by Derek Baird at 00:33 | 0 Comments

Freedom's Song

Farmers Insurance and The Association for the Study of African American Life and History joined reources to create Freedom Song:"100 years of African-American struggle and triumph highlights significant milestones in the history of the African-American experience during the past century."

This great resource package is free to use in your classroon and includes a DVD, engaging and thought-provoking lesson plans and an interactive web site that will be continually updated with audio and video content.

Sign up here to get your free Freedom's Song DVD and lesson plans for your use.

posted by maryanne campo at 00:32 | 0 Comments

Monday, February 20, 2006

mLearning Toolbox: Video, PSP, & iPod

Google Video

Video content from Google Video Search can be downloaded in either an iPod or Sony PSP compatible file, making it even easier for instructors to aggregate video-based content for use on mobile devices.

In addition, Google Video provides users with the HTML code required to easily embed video into a course blog or website, which in turn may be viewed by students on a web-enabled mobile device.

CNET Insider Secrets

CNET Insider Secrets has put together an informative and easy-to-follow tutorial which will show you how to put video on your PSP. Actually, it's more of a hack tip using Videora Labs' PSP Video 9.0, available for download here.

Lifehacker: YouTube videos to iPod or PSP?

Lifehacker explains how to use a Greasemonkey script to save video from YouTube onto a portable device like the PSP or video iPod.

Apple Video iPod

Apple has put together a tutorial on creating video for iPod using QuickTime, easily converting video into a format that iPod understands.


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posted by Derek Baird at 19:32 | 0 Comments

MySpace Goes Mobile

MSNBC: "The social networking site MySpace, hugely successful among teenagers and twenty-somethings, is about to become more ubiquitous with the launch of a cellular service that will let users read and post to the site for free."


Web Resources

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posted by Derek Baird at 10:16 | 0 Comments

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Ready! Set! Read!


Read Across America is a literacy program sponsored by the National Teachers Association (NEA). The annual program coincides with the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to children around the world as Dr. Seuss!

Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful learners. Research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.

Target is supporting the Read Across America program by sponsoring a Happy Bookday celebration in their stores on February 26th. In addition, they have put together a very fun, colorful, and interactive companion website called Ready. Sit. Read.

Kids (young or old) can use the Ready. Sit. Read community to pick a book, form an online book group, design and send ClubVites to friends, and create their own My Club online meeting space.

And if they get stuck on deciding on a name for their club, there is even a quirky Club Name and Logo Generator, complete with a whimsical flying monkey friend to help out!

There's even a coupon for $2.00 off any book at Target. This is a fun and interactive way to combine kids love of technology with reading.

And for the record, my favorite Dr. Seuss book is The Sneeches. Why? Well, it's all about one of my favorite topics: community!


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posted by Derek Baird at 15:17 | 0 Comments

Saturday, February 18, 2006

ProfCast: Publish Keynote or Powerpoint


ProfCast: "An ideal tool for recording and publishing your live Keynote or PowerPoint presentation.

All elements of your presentation, including slide timing and voice narration, are recorded. You can then publish your complete presentation on the Web as a Podcast, complete with RSS support."

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posted by Derek Baird at 22:13 | 0 Comments

Friday, February 17, 2006

Easy Peasy: Yahoo! Search Hacks

CNET Insider Secrets+Yahoo! Hacks: "Using Yahoo Web Search is deceptively simple. You can type in any word or phrase and find matches in documents across the Web. The trade-off for this simplicity is having to look through hundreds, thousands, or millions of results to find those that are actually useful to you.

By understanding how Yahoo expects queries to be phrased, you can limit the results to include only those documents most relevant to you--saving you the time of looking through extraneous results."

Paul Bausch, co-creator of the weblog software Blogger, has put together an excellent tutorial (including video) on how to get the most out of Yahoo! Search.

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posted by Derek Baird at 13:31 | 0 Comments

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Trendspotting: Social Networking

Daily Show with John Stewart reporter Demetri Martin takes a light hearted, yet spot on, look at the growing influence of MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites in teen life.

At the core of Demetri's humor is an important point: "If you want to communicate with the youth, you've got to get into social networking."

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posted by Derek Baird at 19:18 | 0 Comments

Rosetta Project - An Archive of ALL Languages

The Rosetta Project aims to be the largest collection of the world’s languages with a goal to create a complete database of languages on earth to date. This collaborative resource is available for everyone interested in the cultural preservation of languages as well as for academic researchers, educators, language learners and endangered language communities.

Currently the Rosetta digital library has more than 2,300 languages with more languages added. The library is being created by contributions and peer review, a process similar to the building of the original Oxford Dictionary.

“Our goal is an open source "Linux of Linguistics"- an effort of collaborative online scholarship drawing on the expertise and contributions of thousands of academic specialists and native speakers around the world.”

When completed the contemporary “Rosetta Stone” will be archived at 5 year intervals and micro-etched to a nickel disc and made available to anyone.

“The Rosetta Project is a non-profit effort of the Long Now Foundation, supported by the National Science Foundation, Lazy Eight Foundation, and many individual members like you.”

posted by maryanne campo at 05:03 | 0 Comments

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Social Media and Digital Learning Styles

Journal of Educational Technology Systems
Issue: Volume 34, Number 1 / 2005-2006

Neomillennial User Experience Design Strategies: Utilizing Social Networking Media To Support "Always On" Learning Styles

Derek E. Baird and Mercedes Fisher

Abstract:

Raised in the "always on" world of interactive media, the Internet, and digital messaging technologies, today's student has different expectations and learning styles than previous generations. This net-centric generation values their ability to use the Web to create a self-paced, customized, on-demand learning path that includes multiple forms of interactive, social, and self-publishing media tools.

First, we investigate the formation of a burgeoning digital pedagogy that roots itself in current adult and social learning theories, while integrating social networking, user experience design strategies, and other emerging technologies into the curriculum to support student learning.

Next, we explore how current and emerging social networking media (such as blogs, iPod, RSS/XML, podcasting/audioblogs, wiki, YackPack, Flickr, and other self-publishing media) can support digital learning styles, facilitate the formation of learning communities, foster student engagement and reflection, and enhance the overall user experience for students in synchronous and asynchronous learning environments.

The data included in this article are intended as directional means to help instructors and course designers identify social networking resources and other emerging technologies that will enhance the delivery of instruction while meeting the needs of today's neomillennial learning styles.

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posted by Derek Baird at 00:06 | 0 Comments

Monday, February 13, 2006

Invisible Children of Uganda

Global Youth Fund: "It’s not often you see this kind of production value in documentaries and social issue campaigns. But video after video, the Invisible Children team (young filmmakers in their 20s) breaks new ground in how they engage mass audiences in difficult subjects.

Their latest production is a video to launch the Bracelet Campaign, which raises money for children and schools in northern Uganda."

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posted by Derek Baird at 19:26 | 0 Comments

Sunday, February 12, 2006

More "Learning on the Go":Tech on the Fly


In our busy world we usually don't have time to sit down for a workshop to learn tips to keep us informed in technology. Though to keep knowledgeable in technology we need to be lifelong learners.

But how do we fit learning into our busy schedules?

Podcasts and RSS feeds make that easy for us. Take Tech on the Fly or Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech, these sites let you take your learning in chunks, when you have time. Subscribe to The Laporte Report and listen to the latest tech news, or subscribe to the RSS feed and bring the learning to you on the fly.

Download podcasts into iTunes and whenever you login to iTunes your feeds will automatically be updated for you to listen to the podcast from your computer or transfer your iTune subscriptions to your iPod and listen wherever you are, when you want.


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posted by maryanne campo at 15:38 | 0 Comments

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Google News: Chat in Gmail


Google is always up to something and now look what else is new. Chat in Gmail.
Now you can chat while you're doing email. Chat with anyone of your contacts, if they are online at the same time you're in Gmail.
Great tool to keep in touch, combining synchronous technology within an asynchronous tool!

I can't wait for my friends to be on so I can try it out.

posted by maryanne campo at 05:34 | 0 Comments

Learning-on-the-go or Just-in-time-learning

Today finding time to learn is hard to fit into busy schedules. Students have full-time jobs and many responsibilities that include spouses and children.

So when do you have time to learn a new language, to learn how to use a new tool, or learn how to build a garden greenhouse? With new mobile technology 'mobile learning' has the possibility to become not only 'learning-on the-go' but also 'just-in-time learning'.

Why not grab your Blackberry handheld device and bring up online learning to help you build that greenhouse with the plans right right in the palm of your hand?

Suddenly find yourself in Japan for a conference and need to learn a few words of survival Japanese? Why not grab your mobile device and listen to a podcast right from your earbuds?

Learning today doesn’t stop when you leave school, lifelong learning is becoming a household word. We need to learn new skills every time we turn around. And with a mobile device and new technology we can listen to podcasts to learn a new language, such as Japanese or Spanish while we fly or drive.

We can watch Powerpoint presentations with charts and graphs right from our mobile devices, we don’t have to be in a classroom for to find out what we need to know. New technology, like Impatica, has been developed to make learning easy and sometimes we don’t even think we are learning--we just think it's fun!


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posted by maryanne campo at 04:16 | 0 Comments

Friday, February 10, 2006

Torino: It's All About the Journey


The Journey: A blog for Olympic athletes and fans to share their thoughts and experiences on the road to the XXth Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy.

The site also includes athlete podcasts, video, and a growing collection of photographs over on Flickr. And be sure to check out snowborder Seth Wescott's Flickr photoblog too!

The USA Olympic Team website includes team podcasts, interactive Winter Olympic sport guides, pictograms, and winter athlete bios.

Buona fortuna a tutti gli atleti che partecipano ai 2006 giochi olimpici di inverno in Torino!


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posted by Derek Baird at 19:06 | 0 Comments

Torino 2006: Higher! Faster! Stronger!


"The U.S. Olympic Base Camp originally launched with the 2002 Olympic Winter Games as the official source for "kid friendly" information about U.S. Olympic Team, focusing on enhancing kids reading skills while providing them with interactive lessons in teamwork, discipline, vision, and goal setting.

New for 2006, an interactive game called, "Play Sissy's Hockey Havoc," features on 2006 Olympians and a Q&A where some of the greatest Summer Olympians talk about their favorite Winter Olympic moments.

Features include interactive Olympic value-oriented cartoons: "What about Bobsled," "If First You Don't Succeed," and "You Snooze You Loose," communicating key Olympic Ideals of teamwork, discipline and persistence.

Plus, interactive Olympic-themed games and trivia, word searches, as well as printable drawings, coloring and assignment sheet pages for kids to share with friends and parents are also included." (via USOC)

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