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So when I hear about the Gamification of learning, particularly from those who are passionate about the ability that it could have to transform the educational landscape, I become excited. If the same drive and will and energy that led me through those agonizing levels to defeat Gannon could be harnessed for the power of educational good -- EPIC WIN.
This is a stable release of Mahara 1.6. Stable releases are fit for general use.
The internet is fast becoming a place of spectacle.
Early transition to the world wide web was marked by text-heavy prose while developers struggled for ways to “digitize” old media forms. Admittedly, this process is not entirely new. The benefits and allure (not always one and the same) of multimedia have been leveraged from the beginning by web designers and app developers trying to leverage the strengths of the electronic media vs print.
Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between whiteboards and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. Our new interface is simpler, cleaner and better. Here is what changed.
Whilst some teachers do not like Moodle because they have an aversion to using technology altogether, there are also ‘technophile’ teachers who simply do not like Moodle for other reasons (interface, clunkiness, etc.). In this post aimed at Moodle admins/enthusiasts, I’ll share some tried and tested techniques (in no particular order) to get ‘them’ to use Moodle.
Online and blended learning options provide millions of students with the opportunity to learn from the best teachers available regardless of geography, using engaging digital tools and resources that allow educators to teach -- and kids to learn -- along a customizable learning path. Online learning is not for every student -- or teacher -- but it is a powerful way to expand educational options for students who need flexibility and a more competency-based, student-centered learning environment.
Google’s new Course Builder software comes on the heels of a massively popular online Google class ‘Power Searching With Google‘ hosted by Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig.
Education is experiencing a seismic change. The chalkboard and print-based textbook classroom of yesterday is fast becoming the digital-whiteboard and e-book classroom of tomorrow. But as students across the country head back to school this month, the companies charged with helping to implement these changes cannot forget the golden rule: the motherboard and the memory chip will never replace the passion and inspiration of a real-life teacher.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, we are in the midst of the largest technological revolution in decades. The proliferation of wireless computing and personal technological devices capable of accessing the world has created a new landscape that schools must be aware of now. This isn’t like the other waves that have come across the proverbial bow of education.
When we started Diaspora two years ago, the project kicked off with amazing reception and support from people that believed in our ultimate goal: giving users ownership over their data. It’s a powerful idea, one that captured the imaginations of millions of people across the world. This vision has expanded and evolved over the past two years that we have been working on it as the project has grown.
Diaspora* began when we were still at NYU – just four guys trying to scratch our own itch. We had an idea about how social networks could work in a new and exciting way. We intended to be done over the course of a summer, and with an expected budget of $10,000 from our Kickstarter campaign. The reception of this idea was so good that we managed to reach 20 times the expected amount in donations, and the project expanded to cover far more than just a summer. It’s been over two years now, and we are proud of what Diaspora has become.
Today, the network has grown into thousands of people using our software in hundreds of installations across the web. There are hundreds of pods that have been created by community members, and it has become one of the biggest Github projects to date. It has been translated to almost fifty languages, with hundreds of developers worldwide contributing back to the project.
As you probably know by now, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has created a separate section labelled educational web tools where we provide quick reviews of websites we assemble from different online resources each week, and because of the time constraint that do not permit us to review each one of these websites in single posts we deem it important that we compile them in a bulleted posts so that you do not miss any resource. The purpose is to keep teachers and educators updated about the newest web tools that they can use in education.
The internet is a big place. For a long time, I found the task of organizing and remembering all the articles, images, videos, posts, tweets, and sites to be formidable. The mass of information only continues to grow, but I have latched on to 10 free tools that help me organize my online journey. 5 are common, and 5 are just getting big on the scene. I hope you can find some that help you as well.
Designed by Michell Zappa’s Envisioning Technology (which also created that fantastic interactive infographic mapping the future of technology), this chart maps innovations in education technology for the next few decades.
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CompendiumLD is a software tool for designing learning activities using a flexible visual interface. It is being developed as a tool to support lecturers, teachers and others involved in education to help them articulate their ideas and map out the design or learning sequence. Feedback from users suggests the process of visualising design makes their design ideas more explicit and highlights issues that they may not have noticed otherwise. It also provides a useful means of representing their designs so that they can be shared with others. CompendiumLD provides a set of icons to represent the components of learning activities; these icons may be dragged and dropped, then connected to form a map representing a learning activity.
A look at four different ways that students benefit from using social media in their everyday lives, despite concerns about the overuse of social media by today's youth.
Dear Cacoo user: We upgraded Cacoo earlier today and we would like to inform you of the changes that are a part of this update. Insert Table easily Just pressing a button on the toolbar, you can insert Table into your diagram.
I have liked using Mahara since way back in Alpha, both personally and recommending for clients. It provides a great option for those seeking an ePortfolio to work tightly with Moodle and also for those seeking to build a community of practice.
Packt publishing have kindly provided me with a copy of the new book Mahara ePortfolios Beginners Guide eBook by Richard Hand, Derrin Kent and Thomas W Bell. It looks to provide guidance on both of the key uses “Create your own ePortfolio and communities of interest within an educational or professional organization”. So apart from the z this looks interesting!
The novelist William Gibson said, “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” What training and development professionals can expect in the next year is already here, but not yet visible to everyone. The near future will look like the near past, with more complex social and technological connections inside and outside organizations. The rapid pace of change is unlikely to abate in the near future.
Over the summer, the team built Class2Go using code from Stanford’s existing course-hosting platform, called Courseware, and a similar platform from the nonprofit Khan Academy, along with software for integrated online classroom forums hosted by Piazza. Other colleges may add to the platform or adapt it for their own purposes, said Sef Kloninger, engineering manager for Class2Go.
Not only are tablets emerging as a new class of devices in their own right, shipment numbers indicate that they might even overtake personal computers in the near future. In Q3 of 2011, Apple shipped 15.4 million iPad tablets, more than the total volume of personal computers sold by each of PC heavyweights HP, Dell and Lenovo. More recently, in Q2 of 2012, Apple shipped 17 million iPad tablets globally out of 24.9 million tablets in total (Android tablets accounted for 7.3 million of those).
Summary: HTML5 promises great things for smartphone developers, but is yet to deliver in full. That leaves developers with a tricky choice: to build for openness or go with what works now.
A diagram of the influences on the development of connectivism and MOOCS that also shows the influence of connectivism and MOOCs on subsequent developments.
Stanford University announced the creation of an Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning today, appointing computer science professor John Mitchell as the office’s inaugural head. In the past 20 years, Stanford has only established two Vice Provost offices, for undergraduate and graduate education, both of which “fundamentally reshaped education at Stanford.” University spokeswoman Lisa Lapin tells me the Vice Provost for Online Learning intends to do the same.
Social media offers some great opportunities for learning in the classroom, bringing together the ability to collaborate, access worldwide resources, and find new and interesting ways to communicate in one easily accessible place. Teachers around the world have found innovative ways to use Twitter as a teaching tool (including TeachThought’s favorite), and we’ve shared many of these great ideas here with you. Read on, and we’ll explore 60 inspiring ways that teachers and students can put Twitter to work in the classroom.
Launched by the executives behind Flip video camera, Knowmia offers a video lesson platform for teachers and students. The startup, which is part of startup accelerator Y Combinator's latest class, works with teachers to review and curate videos.
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