ElluminateLive- vRooms for Three for Free

Recently ElluminateLive began offering vRooms for three for free. Snag one quick!

vRooms or Virtual Rooms can be used to for web-conferencing. Meet and collaborate with colleagues or to hold office hours with your students. Meeting students in your private vRoom allows you to speak with the student, go over a powerpoint that they may have misunderstood, or work out problems on the whiteboard to drive home a concept. It’s a great resource that is now available to you free, thanks to Elluminate.

Northern Marianas College began using Elluminate Live as their synchronous component with Moodle , LMS, for online courses last Fall Semester. NMC students, who are remotely isolated by distance due to the islands’ physical separation in Micronesia, have given this new addition to their distance learning program a ‘thumbs-up.’ Thanks Elluminate!

Yahoo! Teachers: Your Passion, Our Technology

Yahoo! Teachers was launched today at the 2007 National Science Teacher Association conference in St. Louis. Check it out!

Don't forget to put yourself on the Yahoo! Teacher Network map and join teachers from around the country (and the world) in this new community!

Come join Yahoo! Teachers.....we're just getting started!

Mind Mapping with Web 2.0 Tools

With the recent explosion of so many Web 2.0 tools on the web available free, there's no reason not to try out the web-based Mind Mapping tools that can help you organize your blog posts or organize your work to be more productive.

These tools are great collaborative tools you can access anytime, anywhere. Start by brainstorming and let the mind map do the rest for you. Now your brainstorming can be done on the web and shared with others too and there's nothing to download either.

Be sure to share these mind mapping tools with your students so they can learn the benefits of brainstorming & organization.

• Mindomo
• mindmeister
• bubbl.us

And if you're not sure which one is the best for you, The Mind Mapping Software Weblog has done a side-by-side comparison for you.

WikiMatrix

Just because there are so many WIKI applications to choose from - you don’t just have to guess which one is right for your needs or your students-

Try WikiMatrix. It lets you compare WIKI applications to see which one fits your needs.

Borders Educator Savings Week

Borders Educator Savings Week is March 22-27, 2007. Current and retired Educators save 25% on books, CDs, DVDs, and cafe purchases.

On Friday, March 23 all Borders stores will host a Special Educator Reception. For more information, click here.

This is a good excuse to stop grading papers and grabbing some books for that "it can't come too soon" summer vacation! Happy Reading!

Clipmarks

Watch the Clipmarks Demo- it explains it all! - a cool new way to clip things off the web to save, to share with others, or send it straight to your blog.

Definitely something you want to check out.

PBS Teachers

PBS has just launched a new portal for k-12 teachers, PBS Teachers, well stocked with state of the art resources and links to everything PBS has to offer educators including on-demand streaming videos from selected PBS programs.

Add PBS Teachers from PBS to your del.icio.us site.

Google Reader

Google Reader will help you keep up with all your favorite websites or the news all in one place. Google has made it as easy as checking your email to keep updated.

One feature - a shared public page, moves Google Reader into the Social Networking arena by allowing users to easily share sites & information with others. Using the "Public Page" feature allows teachers to share interesting course content & information to keep students informed and up-to-date. Seriously - Easy!

Subscribe to the Official Google Reader Blog or Tour Google Reader to learn more.

Innovation: Yahoo! Research Berkeley

What do you get when you combine the brain power at Yahoo! and UC Berkeley? Big time innovation! Watch this video to get a tour inside Yahoo! Research Berkeley--a world-class research organization that focuses on creating the next big thing on the web.

But if you think it's all work and no play---you'd be wrong! Take a peek at this video and discover how "hard fun" is an integral part of the Yahoo! culture.

Related Links

• You're Invited: Yahoo! Research Berkeley
• Education, Web 2.0 & Yahoo!
• University of California at Berkeley
• Yahoo! Search Blog: Mobile, Media, Marc, and Me

Research Paper Time

It's getting to be that time of the semester again when research papers are due.

Last December we posted on Zotero, a great new web-based tool that lives in your web-browser that will help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources.

And here's a blog entry from Beyond My Mind, that does a Comparison of Free Bibliographic Managers. You might to add this your del.icio.us account to share with your colleagues and students.

International Women's Day

If you missed International Women's Day this year, its not too late to connect your students with the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET - Science, Engineering, & Technology and 4000 Years of Women in Science.

Have them create a project video of careers of interest or create their project idea on the impact of collective power of women in the world today. Then have them upload the video to YouTube for the world to see. Believe it or not, today's students are so tech savvy, you won't even have to show them how.

Do you wiki?

Do you use a wiki in your classroom? Has it changed the way you teach? Share your thoughts on this topic or see what your peers have to say about it over on Yahoo! Answers.

Podcasting- UVA's Global Future

It's just amazing that with a simple technology like podcasting, The University of Virginia, is able to provide information for the world to listen to that addresses its "Global Future- the Future of the University"....

Listen and hear how the "University of Virginia feels its' obligation is to be as “bold and revolutionary in our thinking and actions” as its founder, Thomas Jefferson, was in his time."

Thinking 'bold and revolutionary' will get their students prepared for their future!

Podcasting provides a revolutionary way to deliver information on the Internet. Now that The World is Flat anyone can reach out and have the world as their audience too.

Miller Center of Public Affairs & Presidential Recording Program

Looking for audio recordings of US Presidents to share with your social studies classes? Check out the Presidential Recordings Program, brought to you by the Miller Center of Public Affairs and the University of Virginia.

"This site is designed as a service to the research community by making freely available all of the presidential recordings, along with relevant research materials, so that scholars, teachers, students, and the public can hear and use these remarkable tapes for themselves."

Or better yet, let your students listen to the recordings and share what they have learned with their classmates.

Congrats on debaird.net blog

With the look of what you have already posted on your new debaird.net blog, you have lots more to share with our readers...so blog away, we will be reading.

Now Live: debaird.net

Just a quick note to announce the launch of my new blog debaird.net! Yes, the name is quite original isn't it? I'll still be blogging here on BlendedEdu with MaryAnne sharing ed tech resources and reviews.

Over on the new site, I'll be blogging about Social Media, Gen Y, Education Technology, Community and other stuff. So come on by and have a read!

Web Resources

• debaird.net + blog
• debaird.net + feed
• debaird.net + flickr
• debaird.net + winksite
  

StumbleVideo

Did you know that you can find video by your interests - or a curriculum topic from a very cool new service, StumbleVideo?

StumbleVideo, from StumbleUpon is a new way to find video clips to use in your curriculum.

Make sure to watch "Did You Know This" its amazing!

With Stumble Video you can:

• Channel surf the best videos on the web from our slick interface. Never leave the page as great videos are brought right to you
• Choose a particular channel to Stumble within, Stumble a particular user's favorite videos, or Seach for great videos
• Easily share what you find with your friends
• View videos in our new full-screen mode
• Save your favorites and access them from any computer

Stumbleupon StumbleVideo you might be surprised at what you and your digital natives will learn.