Video Toolbox: 150+ Video Tools & Resources

If you're searching for video resources, do not miss this post in Mashable's Social Networking Blog, "Video Toolbox: 150+ Video Tools and Resources"

This one post contains a phenomenal number of links to resources from over 150 sites that deal with online video. More links than you ever thought possible that provide knowledge about online video:

• Online Video How-Tos
• Online Video Editors
• Mobile Video Apps
• Online Video Converters
• Video Sharing
• Video Hosting
• Vidcasts & Vlogging
• Video Mashups

Post it to your social bookmarking tool for later when you have time to spend hours checking out all the links or to use it as a curriculum resource for your 'digital natives' so they can spend their time on the web - learning.

RSS+Social Bookmarking: Building Shareable Collections

Remember it’s all about learning……

Frequently I hear teachers say, “I’d try a lot more curriculum ideas with technology, but I’m not sure how to use all the new technologies.”

It's all about Student|Learner-Centered Learning….

So here’s the key – you don’t have to know how to use all the technology tools, web 2.0 apps, or software apps on the market, there are too many to learn. But the digital natives we are teaching today are already familiar with most of them, let them decide which tool to use for your course assignment or project.

For you to get more familiar with new technologies subscribe to RSS feeds from blogs, websites, and podcasts to get the information coming to you, so you don’t have to go surfing.

For a great reader to receive your RSS feeds try out: Google Reader!

Here’s some places to get started learning about RSS:

• CNET: Simply RSS|Home
• RSS Specifications- everything you need to know about rss
• Video: RSS in Plain English
• Lockergnome
• Psst..Have you heard about RSS?
• Technology Review- published by MIT

Now to build a sharable collection of these new technologies you've discovered via RSS:

• Save your newly acquired links to your social bookmark account, such as del.icio.us.
• Save each link in a bundle specifically named for each course you’re teaching.
• Share your social bookmark account through email, your blog, your course site on your Learning Management System, or build your 'contacts network' in your bookmarking tool....

This collection is a great resource to share with students or colleagues, so they can regularly check what you’ve added new.

You will have planted the seed, let the students do the rest.

Podcasts as a Course Resource

Here is a great article from Educause "Confessions of a Podcast Junkie"

Podcasts hold a great wealth of information. You can listen to podcasts while on the treadmill at the gym, or while at your desk working, or plug them in during your free time to learn more about things that interest you. That's a good way for us to use them for our own professional development, but what about student learning?

A Criminal Justice instructor turned me on to Grammar Girls Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing. She found this podcast a good resource to use with her students.

Another teacher in Japan hooked me to NPR Wait Wait, Don’t Tell me. This weekly podcast humorously relates current events and even includes a quiz to see if the audience has been listening. She passed it along to Social Students teachers to use as a resource for their students or for ESL teachers to build oral students' listening skills.

With so many podcasts to listen to how do we get students to find time to listen to podcasts that we feel will enhance their learning?

One way to do that is talked about in Confessions of a Podcast Junkie. Use the podcasts as support material after briefly discussing the topic in class.

Assign the podcast as required reading material, then use the discussion forums of Blackboard, Moodle, or your LMS to extend the discussion and learning beyond the classroom. By utilizing the discussion forums your students will get the ‘depth of learning’ often needed for certain topics that 50 minutes of class time doesn’t provide.

Or have your students listen to a podcast, then do a survey asking others what they think about the topic, and then report their findings to the class for oral discussion.

One thing to know is that podcasting is not just relegated to recording class lectures for playback; they can easily be integrated into your curriculum and used as a course resource to enhance student learning.

Schwab Learning: Resources for Kids with Learning Challenges

Schwab Learning Foundation is a philanthropic foundation set up by Charles and Helen Schwab dedicated to providing resources, information, and research on learning difficulties. They also have a Spanish language mirror site.

Schwab Learning is chock full of important resources to help parents connect, identify learning difficulties, along with strategies for working with the education system. Be sure to check out the vast collection of videos, books, and articles in their digital library.

In addition, Schwab Learning has developed an online community called Spark Top where children with various types of learning difficulties can connect and discover their "unique ways of learning, develop their strengths and self-esteem, and discover strategies to succeed in and out of school.

Spark Top provides a safe place for kids to interact, share their worries, concerns and successes, and get feedback from kids just like them."

I highly recommend both Schwab Learning and Spark Top to teachers, parents or anyone who works with children with learning challenges. Be sure to check out the SparkTop teachers resources too. There isn't a "one size fits all" learning style. We are complex creatures and we all learn in different ways.

Thanks to Lisa and Pearl for introducing me to the wonderful array of resources they provide to children, parents, and educators. If you have any questions--drop them a line! These are wonderful people who have dedicated their careers to helping children with learning difficulties.

Related Resources

• The Schwabs' Story
• Preparing for Your Journey through the Special Education Maze
• Online Events
• Schwab Learning Newsletter
• Sean O'Sullivan's weblog

Ten Podcasts to Build Your Vocabulary

Ten Podcasts to Build your Vocabulary

Post this handy podcast list from OpenCulture to your del.icio.us account to help your students increase their English language vocabulary and improve their listening skills. This is also great resource for ESL/EFL teachers everywhere.

Top 100 Webware sites for 2007

These are the best web applications according to you, Webware 100-2007.

Check them out while you still have some free time.....

The Visual Dictionary

The Visual Dictionary is a great resource for Art Teachers and a great resource for English Writing Teachers. Since its beginning in 2006 the Visual Dictionary collection has grown to over to over 5000 images and 3000 words.

• Think Writing Prompts- If a picture paints a thousand words, how many words would it take your students to describe these pictures ? Now get them to describe the images in 1/2 less words...can they do it in 1/4 less?.....
  
• Think Visual Imagery - If a picture paints a story, what story can your students tell that describes these pictures? Then have your students describe the images from different viewpoints- such as, describing the image from the 3rd person point of view....or have them mash-up 2 images and tell a new story about the combined images....
  
• Think Art- If a picture evokes emotions what emotions do these images evoke from your students? Then have your students look at colors in the images and explain what changing colors would do to that image.....

Those are just a few ideas for using this visual repository with your students...so why not contribute some of your photos you took this summer while on vacation to a worthy site?

>>Go Ahead- do it- Contribute.

ASIA PACIFIC REGIONAL MOBILE LEARNING CONFERENCE 2007

Mobile Learning is one area of learning still in its infancy. Recently at the ED MEDIA World Conference in Vancouver, BC many presenters shared ideas on how mobile learning enhances and enriches learning by extending learning beyond the classroom walls.

Mobile Learning is not an 'instead of' technology- it's more an 'in addition to' for the learning process and with the emergence of cellular devices, such as the new iPhone, Mobile Learning has the potential to connect the always-on students of today with their learning - wherever & whenever they are.

Mobile Learning is also a great way to connect people in hard-to reach, geographically isolated- remote areas with learning resources. Think about that potential!

If you're plaanning on being in the Malaysia area in August put this conference on your calendar - 1st Asia Pacific Regional Mobile Learning & Edutainment Conference. It will enlighten you as to how mobile learning can enhance students' learning and "it will also help in understanding of the challenges faced in providing technology tools to support the learning process and ease the creation of instruction material using mobile technologies..."

Gee I wish I could go along with you...