RT @WeejeeLearning: Exploring the Virtual Online Learning Classroom: What Students Need to Know (and Teachers Should Consider) http://t.co/FUWoHWnT... 
Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners. With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training Via Nik Peachey
Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners. With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training Via Nik Peachey 
It’s naïve to assume textbooks will disappear from our classrooms anytime soon. A more realistic outcome, in fact, is a transition from the print textbook to the digital textbook. 
The textbook should be active and interactive. It both reflects and magnifies the learner, the teacher, and their world – and it adapts to its interactions with each. It does not respond with a “right” or a “wrong.” Instead, it causes the reader to say, “that worked” or “that didn’t work.” The textbook will also contrive long-term narrative-puzzles that reach other readers, building communities of mutual concern. Via Nik Peachey 
This tool is a great alternative to PowerPoint / KeyNote and enables you to create presentations online without any other software. The presentations can have video and audio added and are all stored online. Great way to create multimedia presentations. Via Nik Peachey 
This is an excellent free screen sharing tool. It requires no downloads or registration and works in the browser so it's platform independent (works on MAC or PC). This is an excellent tool for giving or getting tech support. Via Nik Peachey 
Test your listening and spelling skills with the Oxford Dictionaries Spelling Challenge. Listen to the words then type them. You can select your level and choose between UK or American English. Via Nik Peachey Record yourself speaking and then evaluate your performance. Great way to improve your speaking and presentation skills. Via Nik Peachey 
This is a great tool for developing storyboards based around scripts. Great for helping to visualise a text / script. Via Nik Peachey This conceptual paper critiques the popular Community of Inquiry framework (CoI) that is widely used for studying text-based asynchronous online discussion (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). It re-examines the three main aspects of CoI (cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence) and their relationship, and further highlights the specificity and complexity of online discussion forums. The paper explains that the multi-functionality of communicative acts which often combine instruction, knowledge construction, and social interaction in a single utterance. It further argues that all online expressions are inherently social. It clarifies the confused relation of cause and effect in CoI and specifies the leadership functions of teaching presence and how they are intertwined with social and cognitive presence. A game metaphor and Gadamer’s notion of “play” are employed to explain the dynamics of online discussion forums. The article concludes with a discussion of the practical and methodological implications of its main arguments.
Communication is the first step to any substantive change and being able to use advanced tools like Twitter to make connections between related issues within education’s various subsystems allows for meaningful discussion of these issues. In this way, potential solutions can also be explored where no such possibility previously existed. Via Nik Peachey 
With a little planning, many of these potential technology roll out and adoption issues can be avoided. Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa) , Fiona Price |
Compare your digital teaching skills to those of other teachers from around the world. Via Nik Peachey, Silvia Rettaroli
Compare your digital teaching skills to those of other teachers from around the world. Via Nik Peachey 
Every time we share info about ourselves across various networks, it is revealed to everyone even though it is meant only for a select few. As a result, people or organizations outside our network could easily exploit such info about us even without us knowing. Must users be willing to pit having a healthy online social presence against a firm hold of their privacy? Via Nik Peachey 
The concept of ‘social reading’ was not so clear to me when it was first discussed a few years back. I did understand what Jeremy LeBard (what an excellent surname he has) was getting at with ReadCloud, especially in a school context but wondered if it would catch on or not. Now, that I am reading books almost exclusively via my iPad, social reading is becoming more clearly a concept that will develop as more people start to engage with ebooks. Via Nik Peachey 
Using Technology as the tool for creating the preparation for the discussion means there are opportunities for the teacher to check in on the potential online discussions that may occur and have access to the prep work the students have done for the discussion. Read on to find out how the iPad can be used in each of the roles in Literature Circles. Via Nik Peachey 
This site gives you example pronunciation or words and also finds videos with subtitles that show the words being used in context. Via Nik Peachey By cultivating strong school leadership, committing to ongoing professional development, and exploring innovative models like its tech-infused Future Schools, Singapore has become one of the top-scoring countries on the PISA tests. Via Nik Peachey 
I think the concept of a school (or any educational institution) being a complete learning zone is essential today. Learning does not happen in the 50 minutes slot in a computer lab which is otherwise locked up. Learning does not happen only when the teacher gives permission for students to turn on their laptop. And learning certainly does not happen just because there is an IWB in the classroom (which more often than not, is merely used as a white board to project images). Via Nik Peachey
This is an excellent free screen sharing tool. It requires no downloads or registration and works in the browser so it's platform independent (works on MAC or PC). This is an excellent tool for giving or getting tech support. Via Nik Peachey 
This is a great free paint type image editor. Great for creating art work and has a great range of tools. This looks like a great new free video messaging servcie. Just register and start sending video messages directly from your webcam. Via Nik Peachey 
[Curated by Giuseppe Mauriello]
I excerpted some interesting pieces from this article by David Weinberger. He wrote:
"The rise of the digital is changing just about everything about curation, mainly for the better but not entirely.
Collections themselves used to be physical assemblages of works. Now, not only are the works unassembled, the collection consists of metadata about the works. The metadata includes not only where the object exists (usually a clickable address), but also information designed to help the user evaluate whether it's worth the click.
You know you have to include the standard reference works, but for most of the works there's no right answer and probably no uniform agreement among the curators themselves. Now every curator can have her own digital collection even if other curators disagree.
Digital curation often only brings an item to our attention and reduces the number of clicks to get to it. The items outside the collection are still available on the Web and may show up at the top of a search results page or on someone else's curated list. The cost is in discovering the item; once discovered, items generally are only one click away.
Finally, curation protects us from works that are a waste of time, works that would mislead us or works that are objectionable. In a digital world, we have lots of other ways of accomplishing these goals: We use recommendation systems of various sorts, and a wide variety of evaluative tools have emerged to help us decide what is helpful and what is misleading.
Curation is thus changing at its core. It's curating metadata, not primary materials. Multiple curations can exist in the same space. We are losing the sense that there is a right curation for almost anything, and are also losing our sense of mastery of topics. And collections often are not as safe as they once were. Because of its strengths, curation will be with us forever. Indeed, as the welter of content continues to increase, we'll have more of it than ever.
In some areas—medical information, legal text—it will retain its old virtue of providing a reliable, authoritative source. In most areas, though, it has already been transformed, simultaneously transforming our idea of what constitutes a topic, what constitutes expertise, what constitutes authority and what constitutes a collection."
[read full article http://j.mp/uA5gJC] Via Giuseppe Mauriello 
If the concept of community is fundamental to our lives, what characteristics must it show to be successful and of value to the individual? What makes it gel, so that its value is greater than the sum of its individual contributions? Via Nik Peachey |
| 1 | 2 | 3 |
|
Next |
