On education

Software development is going mobile, bringing applications to phones, laptops and tablets everywhere, including the classroom.

 

- Gartner predicts that by 2015 mobile app development projects will outnumber PC application projects by 4 to 1.
- Mobile app developers are reaping the benefits of 45 percent year over year employment growth, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

- Dice.com reported a 100 percent increase in job posting for mobile app developers between 2010 and 2011.

 

Read more:

http://edudemic.com/2012/09/how-to-start-developing-your-own-apps/

 

Via Gust MEES, Lynnette Van Dyke, Jim Lerman

Pathbrite ePortfolios are the best way to collect, track and showcase a lifetime of learning and achievements, and to get recommended pathways for continuous success.

 

Gust MEES

 

Very easy to set up and you can chose your own categories to make it very personal... You can even use it as an ePortfolio to show your skills to future employers...

 

Read more:

https://pathbrite.com/

 

Via Gust MEES, Jim Lerman

This is quite a clever and helpful device to tie together a large number of ideas about Bloom's Taxonomy in the Cognitive Domain. I highly recommend that interested readers visit the website and play with it. It's done quite well (although it would be even better if the few misspellings were attended to). Access it at http://eductechalogy.org/swfapp/blooms/wheel/engage.swf

 

But this gets me up on my soapbox because it highlights quite a significant oversight, in my opinion.

 

When Benjamin Bloom wrote his original work, he spoke of 3 domains, not just one. All 3 were, and are, of roughly equal importance in educating young people. The other 2 are the Affective Domain and the Psychomotor Domain. These correspond roughly to what, in today's parlance, might be called Social and Emotional Learning (Affective) and Mental and Physical Health (Psychomotor). Too much (or too little) emphasis on any one of the domains almost guarantees a lack of balance in childrens' learning and development. We can see this in the pejorative, hurtful names students call their peers when one of the domains assumes an unblanced priority over the others. Cognitive imbalance can lead to students being called eggheads or nerds, Affective imbalance to students being called geeks or loners, and Psychomotor imbalance to students being called dumb jocks or crazies.

 

It seems to me that the standards movement and the high-stakes testing movement have come to symbolize an educational environment that is seriously out of balance...with far too much emphasis on the Cognitive Domain, and too little on the Affective and Psychomotor. We have too many students who excel in one domain, and too few who are well rounded in two or three, as well as too many who do not reach their potential in any.

 

Furthermore, the emphasis on the separation of the Cognitive from the Affective and Psychomotor, has created structural imbalances in the operation of schools (read allocations of time, financial and material resources, personnel, and intellectual enegy) that work to the detriment of our young people and our communities.The drive toward home schooling and charter schools can be viewed as two manifestations of this structural imbalance...increasing numbers of parents view schools (especially public ones) as unsuitable places to send their children and clamor for alternatives that offer a better balance among the 3 domains.

 

This is a great graphic organizeer, but it represents only an exaggeratedly large part of a much more important whole. -JL

 

 

Via Gust MEES, Paulo Simões, Shary Lyssy Marshall, Lynnette Van Dyke, Freddy Håkansson, Katharina Kulle, Rui Guimarães Lima, Jim Lerman

Robin Good: Amara / Universal Subtitles is a free web-based service that allows anyone to easily sub-title and add captions to any video. 

 

As long as you have a URL of a published video, Amara makes it very easy to caption it. The clip may be on a video sharing site or embedded in custom video player and Amara can still get to it.

 

Amara is made up of three main parts:

 

a) A subtitle creation and viewing tool (aka the widget)

b) A collaborative subtitling website

 

c) An open protocol for subtitle search/delivery

 

All tools inside Amara are free and open-source.

 

Supported video players and video sharing sites include:

 

Flowplayer JW Player Firefox native player Chrome native player
  YouTube Vimeo Dailymotion blip.tv

 

See examples: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/watch/ ;

 

To start subtitling now, go here: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/create/  ;

 

FAQ: http://support.universalsubtitles.org/solution/categories/13504/folders/21914 ;

 

Find out more: http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en ;

Via Robin Good, 173 Sud, michel verstrepen, Gust MEES, Jim Lerman

Sketch Star is a fantastic place where you can create animations and drawings, see them online and and share them with a community of fellow artists!

Via Gust MEES, Smaragda Papadopoulou, Natassa Dourvetaki, Nikos Amanatidis, Elena Elliniadou, Official AndreasCY, michel verstrepen, Kathleen Cercone, Let's Learn IT, Sheila Fredericks, Jim Lerman

Wes Freyer's awesome interactive resource for product-based learning.

 

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Gust MEES

 

Great examples how one can use 21st Century tools in the classroom while every part is well described with "Definition", *Workflow", *Tools", "Workshop Description"... This is how it should be, take it as a very good practice example!

 

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Read more, a MUST:

http://maps.playingwithmedia.com/

 

Via Lisa Johnson , Nusa Ouis, juandoming, Gust MEES, Aki Puustinen, Dr. Joan McGettigan, Digital Maverick, John Evans, Official AndreasCY, Rui Guimarães Lima, Jim Lerman

A few brief, high-impact guidelines for using technology in the classroom.

Via Susan Bainbridge, Gust MEES, Jim Lerman

Robin Good: If you are looking for a free video conferencing solution, here is my selection of the top 15 (and more) solutions available right now online.

I have personally checked each one of them, and while you may not like each one, they all guarantee the ability to video conference with more than two people (FlashMeeting is the only exception I have included) without you needing to pay anything for it.

 

Some, as good as Vidyo or Zoom.us may provide HD quality video and even full support for mobile platforms. Others, like MeBeam or Sinfor offer bare-bone ad-supported solutions that have zero frills but can do the job if you need an immediate, zero-cost solution.

 

Check it out here: http://pinterest.com/robingood/top-15-free-video-conferencing-tools-2012/

 

P.S.: Feel free to suggest tools you know that should belong in this collection.

 

 

Via Robin Good, Gust MEES, Lynnette Van Dyke, Jim Lerman