Lots of Free Stuff

There's nothing like finding free stuff and what a great thing to add for my last Blog entry for this course...


I found this really list of resources to tons of free stuff from software to free courses that you can sign up for. There is so much that this website has, that it is a bit hard to describe. You can find free virus and spyware to free CAD software, free dictionaries and joke sites, free eBooks, sweepstakes, and free education. It is really worth checking out!





Freebyte!

PC Pandora

I just had to post this!

I have been thinking about really implementing the Mac laptops that I have in my classroom on a more consistent basis- like everyday. But like most teachers, I want to be able to keep my students off of the websites that I do not want them on. This put me on the hunt for a software that monitors student activity on networks. I know of many companies that you can pay for the software, like Vision, but I know that our budget is tight. So, I started hunting for free computer monitoring software. There is a lot of them that offer free trials, but one is actually giving this monitoring software away to schools districts on an application basis to help fight cyber bullying and predating. PC Pandora calls it their SAFE SCHOOLS program. This company is giving back to the community in a very positive way-- Check it out!

Thinkfinity!

Thinkfinity is an educational resource provided by the Verizon Foundation and all materials are absolutely free. There are eight resource providers shown below that are currently affiliated with Thinkfinity - each image is a link to that tool. All of the tools allow you to search for lesson plans by state standard, by grade level, by interactivity, etc and most of the lessons offer interactive media resources and some even have primary sources digitized for viewing. Such incredible resources! Link directly to Thinkfinity or check out sites of interest below:

NASA - A Great Website for Educators and Kids Who Love Science, Math, and Technology!

I found a terrific website for anyone who is interested in Science. NASA has a website that features video clips geared to kids K-5, 6-8 and 9 to 12th grade. They are short, 5 to 10 minute video clips that are designed to inspire kids to learn more about science, technology, math, and engineering and are free to every student and teacher in the country! There are over 220 NASA eClips that range in topics (K-5) from What is a Tide, What is Weather, Digging in Moon Dirt, and The Math Behind How Gears Work. For 6th to 8th graders the topics cover subjects such as Lunar Habitats, Hurricane Hunters, Scale Models and Ratios, and Solar Power on Earth. Ninth to twelfth graders can learn about Space Food, How Global Positioning Systems Work, NASA and NASCAR, and Invention of the Doppler Radar. There are also videos for the general public such as how NASA technologies help archeolgists discover ancient artifacts in the NASA 360: Episode 4 video. I watched a few and they are fascinating and I learned a lot like there are always 24 satellites circling the earth but 12 only available to you (for GPS) because the other 12 are on the other side of the world! And the new applications that scientists are finding out that GPS is useful for that it was never designed for! Curious? Go check out the site, there is something for everyone!

Global Blended Learning

In the October 9 print edition of The Economist (the publication is a great way to get the news while you ride the train to work), the Middle East/Africa section included a short story on the Talmud. The Talmud is a record of Jewish customs, law, history and ethics. It was originally compiled in Babylon, in the 5th century. Traditionally, orthodox Jews and Jewish scholars have found the text unwieldy. Physically, it weighs in around 72 volumes. Intellectually, it has challenged its readers for centuries. Originally written in Aramaic, people that study that Talmud often spend hours (and years) deciphering the meaning and interpretation of the Talmud. Add to all that intellectual struggle the many centuries of commentary and interpretation in any number of languages, reading and understanding the Talmud is a lifelong endeavor for many. Even the 11th century commentary, designed to make the text more accessible, and written by Rashi, a French Rabbi, do not elucidate the text easily for most readers.

The Economist's article focuses on "The Art Scroll Talmud," and its electronic approach to making the Talmud more accessible to readers around the world. Art Scroll, under Mesorah Publications, publishes books and translations and their associated commentary. According to The Economist:

Fifty-odd scholars in the United States and Israel, working alone but linked electronically, provide a colloquial translation of the text grounded in Rashi’s commentary, plus a digest of other, often conflicting commentaries. They use electronic archives of Talmudic literature that can be reached by key words and concepts but cannot produce the creative analogies and fine distinctions that are the stuff of Talmud study.

The Art Scroll Talmud is available in English, and Hebrew, and should eventually be available in French and Russian. The Economist goes on to say that many people around the world now study the Talmud- even on commuter trains (amusing for me, since I read about it on a commuter train). There is a page-a-day program, so thanks to the electronic collaboration amongst scholars, people can read one page a day, the same day that thousands of others are reading the same page.

This is an interesting approach to blended learning that exhibits what electronic collaboration is really capable of. Often, we think of blended learning situations as they apply to the course, the learning unit, or the curriculum. In this case, the blended learning approach took over 20 years to compile the Art Scroll Talmud, and it is still ongoing, in a universal manner that links diverse people all over the globe.

The full text of The Economist article is available online, and in keeping with the many conflicting commentaries on the Talmud, the comments associated with the article are far reaching in their topics and offer up the conflicting views of the article's readers.

Note that if you're reading this on a Saturday, the Art Scroll website won't be available- it observes the Sabbath, and the full breadth of the site is not available until sundown.

Find an Online College

I know this isn't truly about e-Learning but I was sitting recovering from minor surgery today and saw this TV ad that allowed a person to research online colleges and universities to earn a degree. I thought it's probably some type of scam. Reluctantly I went to their site http://www.94earnmydegree.com/ and looked at it.

While I wasn't overly impressed, it was neat to see that in three (3) easy steps someone interested in earning a degree (Certificates through Doctoral) online could be directed to a university or college who offers their concnentration of interest. On my first try I was sent to University of Phoenix and thought, oh it's really their website using new marketing techniques. However, as I chose different areas of studies and degree types, I was taken to places like George Washington University and Kaplan University.

Basically here's how it works. You answer 3.5 questions. Okay your saying how do you answer a half a question? Simple the first question is What area of study. Once you choose the area of study the "half" box is populated and you choose what concentration within the area of study. The second question is what degree type, again certificate program through doctoral. The final field to complete is your zip code. Once you select submit, you are brought to a university or college matching the criteria you entered where you can complete the form and click to request information.

This type of online search could eventually change how students, usually working adults, decide on which college they want to attend online. Although this seems to be slighted toward the working adult, I could see how high school students might start to think more about attending and receiving their degree online. So go check it out!

HP's Free Online Trainings

I recently read a Wall Street Journal article that mentioned free online training videos posted on Hewlett Packard's site. The videos range from training on HP software, Microsoft products, IT training, and much more. I found free videos for project management topics as well, which can be very useful for small businesses and beginners in the field of IT. For users not in the IT field, there are loads of helpful videos that cover a wide range of topics. Some of the interesting (and very helpful) topics I have found include: Linux (3 courses), firewall basics, and Wireless Networking with Bluetooth. Hope you find something useful.

The Digiteen Project

I have recently become involved in a project with my students that has changed the way I look at education and my curriculum in particular.

The Digiteen Project is a global hands-on project for middle and early high school students which was founded by Julie Lindsay (Qatar Academy, Qatar) and Vicki Davis (Camilla, GA USA) in 2008. This project studies digital citizenship with students researching current topics, writing a collaborative report on a wiki, and performing and documenting offline action educational projects to promote effective digital citizenship at their local schools. Topics of study include digital: access, communications, literacy, security and safety, etiquette, rights and responsibilities, law, health and wellness, and commerce.

The purpose of the project is to promote effective Digital Citizenship and responsible online choices. Students are participating from Australia, Qatar, Canada, Austria and the United States. Classrooms from India and Bangladesh are also expected to join the project shortly.

The digital tools used in this project are:

• Wikispaces - students collaborate on research of Digital Citizenship
  
  
• Ning - students are members of a social network so that they can get to know each other.
  
  
• Diigo - students & teachers use social bookmarking to share helpful resources.
  
  
• Elluminate - teachers meet weekly to discuss progress and help one another with obstacles.
  
  
• Google Groups - teachers belong to a group for communication and document sharing.
  
  
• iGoogle - teachers (and some students) share a start page consisting of shortcuts to relevant links, and rss feeds of updated project information.

So far my students have learned so much about the life of the students in these other countries. They have also learned how to use a wiki (including using the discussion tab on the wiki to propose and debate ideas for wiki content). As a result of this project, I have learned that I need to do better preparing my students for global interaction. They need to know how to communicate WELL digitally, how to use multiple applications/websites to get the job done, and how to contribute POSITIVELY to the digital society that they are so immersed in.

The Digiteen2008 Wiki will contain lots of information about Digital Citizenship and, upon project completion, will contain the offline action projects developed by the collaborative teams. Be sure to check back often to follow the project progress.

Maybe as you explore this project you'll have the same inner questions as I do... Am I really preparing my students for a digital life? Can my students really, truly collaborate with others? Are their skill sets ready for the collaboration? Do they know how to research? What can WE do starting in elementary school to build their skills?

Literacy & Technology

Just returned from the KRSA Reading Conference in King of Prussia. I heard a great speaker Dr. Donald Leu from the University of Connecticut. He spoke in depth about the need for a connection between literacy and technology. He spoke about how our country is far behind the times in preparing our children for future endeavors in the world of technology. Please take a moment to check out the website related to Dr. Leu and the University of Connecticut. There are many useful links depending on what you are interested in reading about.

http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/littech.htm

Blog devoted to K-12

http://www.edutagger.com/

Edutagger is a bookmarking site that provides a wealth of links to educational tools for teachers, parents and students. Contributors post links relative to education and others can search, comment and access these websites. Edutagger then separates the links by popularity and recent postings. People who are registered on the site then have an opportunity to vote on the relevancy and usefulness of the site. Based on these votes, a site can be added to the popularity tab. The beauty of this site and most blogging sites is that no amount of individual Internet searching (google etc.) can result in the collective resources contributed by others with similar interests.

Here are a just a few of the links I found using edutagger:

Math

http://www.mathguide.com

http://www.nctm.org/resources/default.aspx?id=230

http://www.funbrain.com/

http://whdb.com/2008/learn-programming-online-for-free-75-open-courseware-collections-from-the-ivy-league-and-beyond/- Learning programming from home

As I mentioned earlier, there are a wealth of sites here. If you 're looking for some interesting resources, don't reinvent the wheel check edutagger and see if someone has already posted a link to what you're looking for.

Cyber-Children...

I was reading and came across a posting about "the rise of cyber-children." These are children whose parents introduce them to computers and the internet at a very young age. In the UK, children as young as 18months - two and half years old are using keyboards and mouses to click around on the computer. At such a young age, does this really give a child advantages of being more computer savvy than other children their age?

What's your take on this?

In my opinion, a child that young does not need to use a computer. Allowing them to click around and stare into a monitor that could start eye damage early can't possibly be helpful in their development. Once a child reaches the age of 3 or 4 they should be able to use one of those "Leapfrog" children's computers.

http://jrocas.com.ph/archives/what-age-should-a-child-start-to-use-a-pc/

UEN (Utah's Education online)

In writing a piece for my wiki project, I cam across a unique and interesting site for K-12 learning. The Utah Education Network (UEN), has an area on their website, which is dedicated to various grades. The initial portion of the site is broken into 3 general grade levels (K-2, 3-6, and 7-12). As you select the grade level, you are presented with the subject topics for that grade level, such as Math, Science, Technology etc. After selecting the subject the student is then presented with a tabled format list of games that could be categorized further (i.e. Science might be broken into Earth, Chemistry, etc.).

Each of the games is in one of three formats; flash, shockwave, or java. They load pretty quickly and can be fun. Yes, I've played several and was quite addicted. I'm from the gamer 1.0 generation and if I had this type of learning back in my day (did I just say that), I would have done much better in school. All kidding aside, this site really has their curriculim layed out well. I've book marked it because I found several brain teasers (soduku, tower of hanoi, cryptograms, etc.). I think as long as the site is maintained, students will find it engaging and enjoy their learning. Go ahead and try it, go to the site and see if you don't get addicted in a good way! Their site is located at http://www.uen.org/News/article.cgi?category_id=2&article_id=1352.

Web 2.0 Brainstorming

I truly was trying to search for some more interesting research for this week's blog, but I always seem to find more interesting tools for teaching instead. They must catch my eye!

I found a resource similar to Inspiration- it is called bubbl.us. For those of you who are not familiar with Inspiration, it is a concept mapping tool that you can use for various activities in the classroom including brainstorming, notes, diagrams, and what ever else you can think of.

It is worth checking out: Bubbl


Even better is the second resource that I found called Mind Meister. It is a collaborative online mapping tools, similar in nature to Bubbl. It is like a Wiki in the sense that you can edit the map as a group simultaneously to produce one topic. How cool is Web 2.0 getting! Awesome!

Check it the demo on the webpage before you sign up: MindMeister

Teaching with MySpace?

Several of my coworkers and I were having a conversation recently about the staggering number of people who have myspace and facebook accounts. Someone brought up the point that it would be great if these sites could be used for more educational purposes rather then just posting pictures and collecting friends. A challenge to teaching in today's modern, fast paced world is to get and keep student's interest on the lesson. Using something "cool" like MySpace or Facebook in the lesson might get students interested much more quickly. I found a video about a study that was done at the University of Minnesota that addressed the benefits of using these social networking sites on students.

http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/newsservice/Multimedia_Videos/social_network.htm

I thought one of the most interesting comments in the video was that parents and teachers help students learn how to use other "dangerous" tools, like how to drive a car, and that teaching with and learning about MySpace should be handled the same way. I'm sure this would be be biggest obstacle for a teacher wanting to use these sites in their classroom. Who knows, maybe in the future we'll see more teachers using social networking sites in their classrooms!

(I do apologize for not posting the video here directly. I think there was something wrong with the embed code on their site because it wasn't working!)

NetSupport School

I discovered a cool software that we are currently using where I work, NetSupport School. This software allows professors to interact, instruct and control students on their own computers.

One of the great functions of NetSupport is that it allows teachers to push out their computer screen and show the students a quick video or a drawing that was created, they can show important web page that are needed to view. Teachers can conduct testing and quizzes using this software.

How many times do you tell you students don’t check email during class or don’t surf the web while I am teaching. Well, now a teacher can control this. NetSupport allows professors/teachers to keep students on track by monitoring their web usage, email and text chat. Another function allows the teacher to record all screen activity made by a student. Teachers have the option is to lock out the students’ keyboard and mouse and to black out their screen so they are not distracted by the computer. This allows professors to have control over the classroom/lab.

Another great benefit is that it allows students to individually chat with the teacher. No one else in the class can see this chat. It also supports a multi-user chat or a group collaboration chat.

You know those wonderful breakout sessions we have in class? Well, you can also do this with NetSupport. There is an option to have Group Leader control and to create small groups to work together.

There are so many options with this software. Check them out at http://www.netsupportschool.com/index.asp .

Using Wikipedia in the Classroom

When I was student teaching, I can remember one of my student teaching cooperating teachers telling me about what a problem Wikipedia was with her students. She said all of them were using it and she was going to make a rule that it could not be used at all. When I asked her why, she told me because it wasn't accurate and that "most" of the information was wrong.

For a long time, I used this same mentality with my students as well. When I saw Wikipedia as a resource on a paper, I'd take points off. Now that I teach online, I see even more cases of students using Wikipedia. So, I decided to do a bit of research on the site myself to see if it was valid or not.

I've since realized that Wikipedia can be an extremely useful research tool for students. I advise them to use Wikipedia as a starting place for their papers- to use it to find additional sites or other points to research on a topic. I also found a very interesting way to use Wikipedia in the classroom that I thought I'd share with everyone. Many teachers have started using Wikipedia as a learning tool. They have their students research articles to find out if they are valid. Another teacher, who commented on this blog , had her students research their town history to add information to their Wikipedia article.

In fact, Wikipedia itself appears to be getting in on the trend of using their site in the classroom. The Wikipedia Signpost (which is a "community-written and community-edited newspaper, covering events and stories related to Wikipedia") has a great article about classroom ideas. You can read the article here. Enjoy!

Computers for Babies?

Yes! Computers for babies. Babysmash is a computer program that locks the keys that would get you out of the program (escape, windows, etc.). Instead, the baby can push any or all of the keys on the keyboard and different shapes, letters and numbers come up and greet the baby! They advertise as "baby-proof." A baby that's on a computer, now that's what I call being in the technology-forward crowd!


http://www.hanselman.com/babysmash/













I was also searching for a refresher on how to work with graphs in Excel and I came across this great website. MIstupid.com has a lot of different things to do, but the video tutorials are very good. I know that the majority of training on Excel, Word, and PowerPoint comes from hard work, asking a lot of questions in my School District, or referring to the PDFs on our website. Although these are provided, I find that it was much easier to see someone do it. This could be a great website to share with your school. Nice resource!
http://mistupid.com/tutorials/index.htm

Star Trek Classroom

A group of "techperts" (experts) at Durham University have designed the first interactive classroom desks. The multi-touch desks are very similar to giant Apple iPhones and allow interaction among students. "The team has linked up with manufacturers to design software, and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop, using vision systems that can see infrared light.
SynergyNet will integrate ICT into the fabric of the classroom. The new desk with a 'multi-touch' surface will be the central component; the desks will be networked and linked to a main smartboard offering new opportunities for teaching and collaboration."

The group recognized that this product could help collaborative group work improve its outcomes and also engage hard to reach learners. Watch the demo - I enjoyed the dominoes!

http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.MultitouchPage

Quotes on e-learning and education

This week I wanted to post something entertaining that we all could enjoy reading. With this thought in mind I searched the internet for funny or ironical quotes on learning and e-learning specifically.

Here are the some of the jewels of my search :)

Quotes on e-learning:

“Education is the only business still debating the usefulness of technology…." (Rod Paige)

"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who
manage what they do not understand. (Unknown)"

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change. (Carl Rogers)"

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. (A. Toffler)"

"I am always doing what I cannot do, in order to learn how to do it (Pablo Picasso)"

"Educations purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. (Malcom Forbes)"

"Anyone who stops learning is old whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning is young. (Henry Ford)"

"The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big; it is going to make e-mail look like a rounding error. (J. Chambers)"

"The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage. (P. Senge)"

Quotes on education in general:

"Is it easier to motivate a skilled person than to train a motivated person? (N. Dempster)"

"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. (W. Churchill)"

“Education: Being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it. (William Feather) “

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. (Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Italian physicist and astronomer) “

Education is...

“One of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get. (William Lowe Bryan) “

“Hanging around until you've caught on. Robert Frost “

“Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught. (George Savile, English statesman and author (1633-1695)) “

“Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. (Will Durant (1885-1981) )”

“Education … has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. (G. M. Trevelyan (1876-1962) British historian)”

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American president)”

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. (Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer.)”

Hopefully some of you found these quotes amysing and/or relevant!

links to the sites:
http://www.e-learning.nl/subpage.aspx?l1=4&l2=40
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/eduquote.htm

Timelines and Comic Strips

I was searching for some more resources for the professional development days that I am planning for on October 13 and 14 and I came across some more interesting and useful tools that I just NEED to share with you.





TIMELINES

xTimelines is a software that allows you to create a timeline online. You do not need to download the software because everything is online. The timelines can have pictures and hyperlinks in addition to the normal text of other timeline software. You can create a text for the date and when you click on it, you can add additional information on a supplementary page, including hyperlinks to other outside source. So, students can do extra research on their own. This is the BETA version, so they still have some kinks to work out, but it is FREE. Best of all, it is a Web 2.0 tool, so students can work on the same timeline collaboratively and print it out if they want! The picture to the right is one of the example timelines provided for you on the website about Women in Medicine.
http://www.xtimeline.com/index.aspx










REAL LIFE COMIC STRIPS


I happened to stumble over this looking for some photo publishing software. Bubblr is a software that can be used with Flickr to create comic strips. You can either search for a photo using tags or the user name from Flickr on this website and then add a talking "bubble" to it. With the ability to use pictures, students can really express their creative side when taking pictures too. I have seen teachers use similar software for comic strips for projects that involve creating storyboards or telling a story.

http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/