Sunday, July 4, 2010

Hard to teach

An inspiring video showing 3 case studies on using ICT for secondary foreign language study.

Hard to teach from José Picardo on Vimeo.

Monday, June 28, 2010

A blast from the past

Check out this early (1990s, although it seems to be even older) news report on probably one of the greatest inventions of all time - the Internet. (c/o Paula Ledesma)
It's crazy to think about how far it has come in such a short period of time.
For me, watching the video really brings to light the cliche "history in the making".
What are your thoughts?


First Report On The Internet - CBC Prime Time News - The best home videos are here

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Presentation: The World of Moodle

This is a totally cool presentation on Moodle using Prezi (c/o Cecelia Foster).
I haven't seen any presentation like this before.
I'm definitely going to have to try it out for myself soon. Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Interesting PD course for educators

"The 30 Goals Challenge that helps educators develop Personal Learning Networks and accomplish social media goals." (c/o Shelly Terrell)

Haven't tried it myself yet, but hopefully sometime soon.


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Online Publishing from YUDU

Monday, June 21, 2010

Social Media Counts

This was just too cool to pass up. I wonder if the data is really accurate...any ideas? Still inspiring nonetheless.

What if our analog and digital worlds became one?

Here is an interesting take...

The Art of Analog Computing from meltmedia on Vimeo.


Would love to hear what you all think.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

A Recap of Classroom 2.0's – Saturday LIVE Show: Technology in the First Grade Classroom (June 12, 2010)

I attended a pretty fascinating online discussion yesterday on Classroom 2.0’s weekly “Saturday LIVE Show”. The guest speaker was Aviva Dunsinger (Twitter ID: @grade1), a grade 1 teacher with Hamilton-Wentworth district school board (Hamilton Ontario, Canada).

She talked about her experiences using various web 2.0 tools with her 1st graders. You would think most 1st graders wouldn’t be up to a whole lot in school besides activities like drawing pictures and learning their ABC’s, but times have definitely changed. Today’s primary grade students are now “wired” more than ever and would eat alive many my first year university students with respect to technological know-how.


All the discussion participants were just so amazed not only because 1st graders have been able to use these web 2.0 tools, but the breadth and variety in which they have been using them was astounding as well. From now onward, I have a new outlook on today’s primary grade students, and will no longer underestimate the knowledge and potential they possess.

Anyway, the following is a brief rundown of some of the new (well, at least for me) tools I was exposed to. For a complete list, you can find them
here:
gl.am links (http://gl.am/qi7_b)

Crocodoc
- share and mark up PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations online

Evernote
- save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer, phone or device you use. For free.

Today’s Meet - helps you embrace the backchannel and connect with your audience in real-time.

Storybird
- short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share and (soon) print.

Posterous - place to post everything. Just email us. Dead simple blog by email.

Kidblog
- simple, yet powerful tools allow students to publish posts and participate in discussions within a secure classroom blogging community.

Twitter
-related apps:
Twitpic
- post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, our API, or through the site itself.
Twitvid
- easiest and quickest way to share videos on Twitter from your phone or computer. Also, you can share videos in real-time.
Twitlonger
- simple service that lets you post those tricky messages that really do need more than 140 characters and send them to Twitter.
Twiducate
- social networking site for schools. Share links, resources, questions, ideas, reflections, etc. with your students.

Click on the image below to view the recording session:

Thursday, June 10, 2010

FREE two day online conference!

This looks interesting...

Looking for a FREE e-learning professional development opportunity that gives you access to a range of e-learning experts from the comfort of your own desk?
The Making e-technology work for you online conference will provide insight into exciting ways to use social
media and e-technologies, as well as strategies for embedding e-learning across a range of industry contexts.
The conference will feature eleven interactive web conferencing sessions, plus lunchtime opportunities to network and interact with some of the presenters and conference delegates.



(compliments of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

eLearning requires authentic learning scenarios and social interaction

You can read and download this EU elearning paper that examines the 'new learning' we know as online learning and describes the ways in which social media is helping to re-define learning scenarios and activities.

English Out There teaching and learning materials, to our knowledge, are pretty much the only ones that currently tick all of the boxes in this report. They do that because they focus on the user's learning experience with the language, not on the technology. This makes them highly flexible as well as being highly effective.

(compliments of Languages Out There)

Thursday, February 25, 2010

My extended absence - Photostory

Hello all.

My apologies for the extended absence, but I took a vacation a couple weeks ago which kind of set me back. Not to mention, we just started a new semester at school and I've been busy working on putting together a class wiki. Anyway, I'm back now (well at least part-time) and will try and post any new findings every so often until I get settled once again.

In the meantime, below is a short film I made using Photostory highlighting portions of my recent trip to Makkah and Madinah in Saudi Arabia (home of the two holy sanctuaries in Islam).
This was actually the first time I've played with the software and found it to be fairly simple to use. One downside I found though is that it is kind of limited on it's feature set (esp. with audio editing). Anyway, I think it's a good tool starter tool for those creating videos for the first time.

Please feel free to leave comments letting me know what you think either of my video or your personal thoughts/opinions and experiences using Photostory.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Khan Academy

Khan Academy was a site mentioned during one of the sessions (can't recall exactly which one) of Connecting Online 2010 (CO10). The following is a brief introduction from the actual site:

"The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

We have 1000+ videos on YouTube covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance which have been recorded by Salman Khan."

Here is a promotional video:

Friday, February 5, 2010

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

This project was created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.
(Compliments of Technology Integration in Education - http://tech-in-ed.ning.com/)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

My Dream Classroom

Here are the details of my dream classroom:

(A) Large mobile IWB and LCD projector connected to an e-podium (decked out with all the latest A/V equipment) in the front of the room

(B) Videoconferencing system

(C) Flat-screen displays in/on each corner of the classroom (no more complaints of “I can’t see”)

(D) Class set of tablet PCs and PDAs which can connect to all of the displays.

(E) Essential office equipment (printer, copier, scanner, etc.) in the back

(F) Horse-shoe seating arrangement

(G) Normal whiteboards off to the sides