Daily Bookmarks 06/19/2008
June 19, 2008-
ZaidLearn: University Learning = OCW + OER = FREE!
Huge directory of links to free educational resources–open courseware, open educational resources, and general resources. Mostly higher ed.
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Learning in the Webiverse: How Do You Grade a Conversation?
Principles for assessing online discussions and other conversations (blogs, chat, etc.) by coherence, awareness of audience, and diction. Writing for asynchronous discussion isn’t the same as writing an essay, and the author argues that students who simply post essays to the discussion board should receive good grades.
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High Tech in Hawaii: The Real-World Relevance of Technology | Edutopia
Profile of a Hawaiian school using technology and project-based learning to engage students and give them 21st century skills.
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“What the animation does is it assists the children in visualizing the action,” explains Mitchell, who teaches language arts enrichment classes. “The animation is a way of them developing the picture so they relate that to the writing, to what they hear, what they see, what they feel.” Technology, she adds, “gives you one more way of teaching something.”
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“Looking for real-world relevance has to do with students being interested in what they do, knowing that it’s useful outside of school,” says Kaninau. “The experiences are not contrived or in isolation, but they’re a part of a larger learning activity. Without those connections, it won’t be meaningful, and it’ll be forgotten tomorrow.”
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“They love it,” says sixth-grade teacher Geraldine Kajitani. “If you start with … hands-on activities and things that are fun, their attention is focused.” And once that happens, she says, it’s a snap to get them to study some of the drier material because they’ll relate to it and remember it.
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Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom | Edutopia – Annotated
Marc Prensky on uses of technology in the classroom, moving from simply dabbling to doing “new things in new ways.”
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- Dabbling.
- Doing old things in old ways.
- Doing old things in new ways.
- Doing new things in new ways.
First, it helps to look at the typical process of technology adoption (keeping in mind, of course, that schools are not typical of anything.) It’s typically a four-step process:
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Video and article about assistive technology for college and high school students, specifically focused on physical impairments. The euphonium player who uses a joystick to control the valves was especially intriguing to me as a former band teacher.
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Global Education On a Dime: A Low-Cost Way to Connect | Edutopia
Edutopia summary of the Flat Classroom project, emphasizing the possibilities for global collaboration even without a big budget. Nice introduction to these ideas for those who aren’t familiar with the project.
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Tool for liveblogging that is actually live–it works like typing an instant message. The app sits in an iframe, which means it can’t be embedded in WordPress or Edublogs, but it does work in a wiki. Also allows for reader comments–could be interesting for doing an interview or discussion and recording it for others to view.
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Nine Notable Uses for Social Bookmarking
Ideas for using social bookmarking for a portfolio, database of people, calendar of events, and more
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The Bamboo Project Blog: Using Del.icio.us to Create an Easy, Always Updated Online Portfolio
Create a specific tag for your portfolio and have an easy-to-update page for your content. It’s not pretty, but it is easier to keep current. You could build on this idea by posting the RSS feed from your custom tag to another site where you could control the look and feel.
