Are You a Totally Wired Teacher?

This July at the 2007 Y Pulse Mashup in San Francisco, Yahoo! Teachers and the George Lucas Educational Foundation will honor a teacher who has "successfully pioneered the innovative and educational use of social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing or audio groups) in the classroom.

The award-winner likely had to overcome challenges from parents and administrators in order to use the technology, but because they understand how students use social media outside of school, they persevered with their initiative and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and knowledge with the larger teaching community." (via)

If you, or a teacher you know is Totally Wired, you can nominate them by sending and email along with why you feel they are deserving to : jdaly@edutopia.org.

Related Resources

• Edutopia
• Yahoo! Teachers
• Ypulse > Media for Gen Y
• 2007 Ypulse Mash-Up
• Upcoming + YPulse Mash-Up
• Gen Y & Digital Learning Styles

Yahoo! Teachers Documentary: By Teachers, for Teachers

Excerpt from a documentary made during the Yahoo! Teachers, Summer Session 2006 camp held on the Yahoo! campus. Check out http://teachers.yahoo.com to see what educators and Yahoo! created together!

Be sure to check the Yahoo! Teachers site for information about upcoming workshops in a city near you!

Museum On The Go

Here is a great idea to get Art in the hands of all your students by making Art and History mobile.

MuseumOnTheGo lets you download software to your mobile device to access images, audio and video from museums, collections and archives. Save the image to your cell or share the image with others in the form of a postcard.

Send your students messages on these postcards each week. The students could use these as a ‘study guide’ for their art or art history courses. The students could view work from new artists each week and by the end of the semester they will have a great collection and a greater appreciation of art from being exposed to many different artists. At the end of the semester they would easily be able to choose one artist and do a research paper or a presentation.

Even in Micronesia almost all students have cell phones. This would be a great way to extend learning beyond class time and use a technology the ‘net generation always has in their hands.

Yahoo! Teachers Open House @ Tapped In

On Wednesday May 16th there will be a 1 hour Yahoo! Teachers open house in our Tapped In Group Office (Yahoo!Teachers_Grp) at 4pm & 6:30pm Pacific Time.

Tapped In (TI) is free, but if you don't have a TI login and password you'll need to get registered in order to attend the open house. My TI handle is DerekB, so look for me!


Learn How Yahoo! Worked With Educators to Create Yahoo! For Teachers.

I'll be answering questions about Yahoo! Teachers and other Yahoo! tools you can use in your classroom. It's also a great opportunity for you to get ideas, support and connect with other teachers. It's going to be pretty casual, so drop by and say hello!

If you haven't already, check out Yahoo! For Teachers, an exciting new community built by teachers, for teachers.

You can watch the Sneak Peek video and see how Sue Wright, one of the teachers we've been working with to help develop this new service, has been using Yahoo! For Teachers and the Gobbler in her classroom.

Web Apps- Leafletter & Sheester

Leafletter and Sheetster- are two web-based applications that are worth looking into. No more need to have specific applications on your computer and worry whether anyone else can open them and edit. These applications are on the Internet for easy access from any computer.

Check them and make sure to share…

• Leafletter creates web pages right in your web browser. Create brochures that look like a mix-up of a leaflet and a newsletter. Publish them to your social networks or your blogs. There is a lot of use for this in k-12 curriculum and for college projects.
• Sheetser is another application that has great potential in k-12 as well as college curriculum. It is a web-based spreadsheet that allows users share spreadsheets without emailing them, and even post spreadsheets to blogs or websites.

Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop

Mark your calendar- June 3-5
The ‘Blended by Design' workshop hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago will take place at the Indian Lakes Resort in Bloomington, Illinois.

The 3 day face-to-face workshop will focus on research, pedagogy and implementation of blended learning and continue throughout the summer via synchronous and asynchronous methods to extend the learning beyond the conference dates.

A great way to experience blended learning.

$100 Lpatops with $3.00 Office Suite

Are we there yet? Almost.

We have high hopes of getting cheap computers into the hands of all school age children world-wide. The non-profit ‘One Laptop Per Child’, founded by MIT and Nicholas Negroponte, is working to develop $100 laptops to sell to developing countries' governments, who will then distribute them.

Microsoft’s Corporate Vice-President Will Poole recently said, ‘maybe’ they could develop a $3.00 Windows Software Suite to run on low-cost laptops….(from Reuters)

We’re getting closer to the 'cheap laptop' realization, but just because kids will have laptops don't think we’re 'there.' Allowing students to use laptops all day and not actively participate in learning activities is not an effective method of teaching.

Teaching & Learning with Technology will be crucial in developing countries. The laptop is a tool and capable of connecting students globally. More teaching of teachers, like Yahoo! Teachers will be needed worldwide to improve the learning environment for students, as well 'places' created for sharing resources of best practices, and making sure teachers put into practice what they have learned. Web2.0 social media tools will play an essential role in connecting students with others all over the globe as well as providing additional software at no cost. Exciting times ahead.

Yahoo! Teachers Impresses Singapore PM

On Monday, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spent some time here on the Yahoo! campus to learn more about our innovation process and to take a look at some of the newest products being developed here at Yahoo!

In addition to the new Yahoo! oneSearch mobile service, the prime minister also got a sneak peak at Yahoo! Teachers. Karon Weber, our principal designer, showed him how teachers can use the Gobbler and Yahoo! Teachers to create, collaborate and connect with each other.

The entire Yahoo! Teachers team is honored to have the opportunity to share Yahoo! Teachers with Prime Minister Lee and look forward to sharing this new service with the rest of the teaching community this summer.

If you haven't seen our Yahoo! Teachers preview site, go check it out. Be sure to sign up for an invite and get connected on our Peer Network Map.

Look Ma! No Downloads: Yahoo! Messenger for the Web

Last November at our second Yahoo! Teachers Workshop, we had the Yahoo! Messenger team pop over and share some tips, tricks and features of Yahoo! Messenger with our cadre of teachers.

Needless to say, our group of teachers were pretty impressed and quickly saw how Yahoo! Messenger can be used to collaborate with parents, students, and each other.

In fact, they were so happy to learn that Yahoo! Messenger had been mashed into Yahoo! Teachers, they could barley contain their urge to yodel.


Watch this short video to learn more about Yahoo! Messenger for Web

One of the really cool features of the soon-to-be-launched Yahoo! Teachers tool is that we've integrated Yahoo! Messenger to make it even easier for you to collaborate with members of the Yahoo! Teachers community.

Using Yahoo! Messenger, teachers will have real-time access to colleagues and their curriculum so they can ask questions and discuss ideas via Yahoo! Messenger right from Yahoo! Teachers . Think of it as a virtual teachers lounge!

Last week our friends over on the Yahoo! Messenger team released a new web-based version of Yahoo! Messenger that requires no downloads! Yes, you heard that correctly--no downloads. Here's the skinny from the Yahoo! Messenger blog:

"Ever wish you could use Yahoo! Messenger without having to download or install anything? Well, today is your lucky day: please give a big Yahoo! welcome to the all-new Yahoo! Messenger for the Web .

Now you can sign in from any web browser (PC or Mac!) and immediately start IM’ing with friends. This is great for when you’re on someone else’s computer or traveling and need to stop in an internet café.

Plus, time at work just got a lot more fun. If you or a friend is prevented from IM’ing at the office due to firewalls or other IT restrictions, you’ll love this new version. Because Yahoo! Messenger for the Web runs in a regular web browser window, it sidesteps these obstacles and lets you connect easily with your friends."

Pretty cool eh? So why not give Yahoo! Messenger for the Web a whirl? And if you haven't signed up for a Yahoo! Teachers invite, do that too!

Webware

Everyday it seems like hundreds of new Web 2.0 applications are popping up while I'm sleeping. When I look at Go2Web2.0 my head throbs with all the sites I haven't had chance to work with. Where do these guys find time to do all this work? How can I possibly keep up-to date with the new ones to let my faculty know which ones would be good for their use?

Aha...now CNETs Webware will keep me and you informed. "Webware.com is the site where computer users can learn about new and useful Web applications." Add the RSS feed to your news reader.

Software is becoming webware. Of course we all develop favorites like Blogger, Flickr, and LinkedIn, but check out new ones you haven't tried before. Octopz, SuTree, and Yoono look like keepers to me.

If you're wondering what else will pop up while you're sleeping check out the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Oct 17-19. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that conference.

Seriously, with such great free, web-based applications available on any computer why would anyone buy software anymore? oh...Did I say that out loud?

the next wave: mLearning

the next wave: mLearning
Originally uploaded by derekeb.

I just got the reprints on my latest article. You can read the abstract here. If you want to know more, or need a cure for insomnia, let me know and I'll send you a copy.