All African Bazaar reports on the work of awardwinning Virginia Mupanduki, she "...is building up a broad national organization consisting exclusively of previously illiterate women and using the power of that organization to eradicate illiteracy, teach skills development, and create a political voice for them.Virginia Mupanduki has used her previous union experience to read the political climate of Zimbabwe, where, through her powerful organizing elements, she is giving a political voice to women without money or literacy. By combining literacy training and women's empowerment, she encourages their emergence as a new political and economic base, and she is persuading the government that the women represent a constituency that has been ignored and needs to be recognized. Virginia's "bottom-up" approach empowers women to do for themselves, thereby destroying poverty via literacy, even when government has tried and failed. Her project is thus likely to have a higher rate of success than that of adult literacy programs sponsored by the government. Her work is sustainable not only because once obtained, literacy is permanent, but also because it is rooted in the targeted communities..."
Virginia Mupanduki
The Meaning of Wealth
Mutumwa Mawere recently addressed the Nigerian diaspora he stated:
...There are countless examples of African entrepreneurs and professionals who have substantial amounts of money in Africa but it is evident that the prosperity has not been democratized to the extent of creating an African ownership class able to take the continent’s majority into a new and dynamically positive direction underpinned by new values of work, combined with saving, investment and an ownership mentality. It is also important to underscore that there is a distinction between being “rich” and being “wealthy”.
Yes, some Africans have made money but because financial literacy and “platinum rights” was not stressed as much as a sense of public justice and civil rights were by our founding fathers and we did not keep it (the money) and we certainly we did not grow it.
Many have made money but no one has really taught us how to keep it in our communities.
Imagine, after 13 years of South Africa’s democratic dispensation, we still do not have a new mutual for blacks? No one taught us about financial literacy and the basic tenets of a free enterprise system that appears universally to capture the imagination of many progressive and successful nations.
The challenge of understanding the free-enterprise system and making it work for the majority of Africans has to become a core part of any conversation among Africans concerned about wealth creation and creating sustainable wealth addresses for Africans. Most of our wealth addresses are not assignable and transferable let alone from one African generation to the next.
Any successful nation building enterprise must necessarily be sustained by a healthy, robust and growing tax base and not foreign aid. Africa’s post colonial budgets still remain principally funded by bilateral and multilateral sources of finance.
Africa must create its own dominant class of very successful entrepreneurs, at all levels. We should have our own wealth builders and not become a continent specialized in distributing other people’s wealth.
As we approach the 47th birthday of Nigeria, we must focus on converting ourselves from cash economy customers into banking (our own banks), tenants into homeowners, small business dreamers into small, medium and large scale business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage workers, economically illiterate into economically empowered citizens.
Many of us are consumed with directionless conversations that are primarily focused on what governments can do for us and not what we can go for ourselves. We tend to be good at being against something and not for something.
Literacy can be a sustainable instrument for poverty eradication. They often say that when you know better, you tend to do better.
Any when Africans know better, I have no doubt that we can transform ourselves from islands of affluence to oceans of hope and prosperity. We have not invested much in literacy and integrated the literacy challenge in our post colonial agendas.
Any nation is as good as the interests that inform it. The only power we have as Africans in any field on endeavor whether it is in politics or the wealth game is the power to organize ourselves. One hand cannot clap but two hands can surely make a noise.
Why then is it the case that we have not been able to use our collective spent to our advantage? Many of our African governments have benefited from the financial illiteracy of Africa’s intellectuals. Africa has invested in human capital and yet such investment has not been able to provide any leadership on the bread and butter issues.
Surely, it is evident to all of us that any consolidation of our pain and opportunities can create a critical mass that is missing in action. Imagine if all Nigerians resident in South Africa could consolidate their mobile phone expenses into one pool, how much impact would they have in the South African economy.
Equally, if all Zimbabweans resident in South Africa chose to use one bank, how much would that bank be worth? Even the obvious things that Africa needs to do are not so obvious to our leaders.
I think it is self evident that the poor need the rich in as much as the rich need the poor. Can you imagine a nation of only poor people with the same means and possibilities? On the key ideological questions, we have heard many people argue that a free enterprise system is not suited for Africa and many of our governments in Africa have perfected the skill of creating ideological and theoretical entrepreneurs/bureaucrats without asking the question whether in fact if all the rich people were eliminated, Africa would be any better.
The post colonial experience has confused many of us to the extent that we are now looking for intelligent leaders to govern us when leadership may have little to do with intelligence. Even in a family, it would not be normal for all the children to be the same. Those who do well in one generation inspire the next generation to do better.
Is Africa’s future safe with a system where the state thinks for its citizens or where the citizens think for themselves and act in their own self interest? Many believe that governments (created by the same citizens) can and should be expected to lead the anti-poverty crusade and yet human history has not given us any good examples of governments acting in the interests of citizens who are not in government.
We must take ownership of our destinies and we must be the change that we want to see in the continent. No one else is going to do it for us. We must sell ourselves as worthy of investment and we must change our attitudes because in the final analysis, our attitude to wealth determines our altitude.
Anyone can make money in a growing economy than can be stolen in a decaying and dysfunctional system. If we look at Africa’s unmet needs, then we can appreciate the possibilities that exist in the continent and yet we think and act in a fragmented and confused manner. Those who should ordinarily lead appear to be visionless preferring to focus on yesterday (which is gone) and not on actions that create a better Africa.
Before we can think of creating an African pool of wealth, we need to understand the meaning of wealth. Wealth has come to mean an abundance of items of economic vale or the state of controlling or possessing such items and encompasses money, real estate and any personal property.
In many countries wealth is also measured by reference to access to essential services such as health care or the possession of crops or livestock. Accordingly, an individual who has accumulated wealth relative to others is often described as wealthy.
Therefore, wealth refers to some accumulation of resources. In light of the above, Africa is not recognized as a wealthy continent because of the inferior relationship between the majority of us and items of economic value. We are generally challenged in the resource accumulation enterprise...
photo courtesy of ZimDaily
Elearning and global competency #flatclass #globaled 01/11/2012
-
Connecting Classrooms with Skype
How this teacher uses Skype to connect her classrooms with others. I like the preplanning - something that needs to be done to be ready for this.
-
Flat Classroom Projects: Applications Open Now
If you want to look into a Flat Classroom project for your school, applications are open. Our goal is to be the best collaborative learning experience where students co-create and collaborate together. We have projects for all ages and we're totally teacher run (most of us are full time and do this on the side or have classrooms in the project.) Find out more or ask me questions if you need to.
-
Template projects | British Council Schools Online
The British Council Connecting Classrooms program has free projects for global learning on their website. It also has a way to find links with schools. I like that you can download templates.
-
Projects on Skype in the classroom | Skype Education
Here are projects from Skype in the classroom. Posted by teachers. A lot of teachers are looking for people to Skype with. There should be a better way, but kudos to Skype for doing this.
-
Amy's Travels Project:Connecting Children Through Global Awareness Literature | Skype Education
Skype in the classroom has lists of projects that you can do with Skype. This is very innovative. Here is one using the Amy's Travel's multicultural children's book.
-
Partnership for Global Learning Annual Conference
This is just after ISTE. I hope that many of the ISTE people will be able to go there and vice versa.
Asia Society's Partnership for Global Learning Annual Conference will take place June 29-30 at the Brooklyn Marriott in New York City.
The two-day event connects educators, business leaders, policymakers and resource providers to share best practices, build partnerships and advance policies to ensure the next generation is ready to lead in an interconnected world.
This year's theme is "Pathways to Global Competence" and the four conference strands are:
Innovations in Teacher Practice
Exploring the Global Issues of Today
Going Global Through Technology and Media
Assessing Global Competence Through Student Work -
Worldwide list of reading/literacy charities 2012 | Playing by the book
A list of reading and literacy charities worldwide for 2012. This author has spent a lot of time compiling the list and asks for your feedback. Hope you'll help. We should NEVER throw away books, there are a lot of people who need them. In fact, I tend to not want to throw them away now anyway because I'm not replacing them like I used to. It is a bit scary.
-
A program from Neustar to Kentucky schools about Digital Citizenship. Lots of people are jumping on this "bandwagon." I think my biggest concern is that:
#1 It needs to be "real" and not based on preachy scare-based tactics
#2 Students should talk with those who share the program - if it is just videos and worksheets, that doesn't cut it.
#3 To talk about and learn social media, you should be doing it. (That is what we do on Digiteen.)
a major new initiative to bring social media digital literacy education to students across the state of Kentucky through a program called “My Digital Life.” Neustar will partner with EverFi, Inc., a leading education technology company, to provide this innovative, online student experience to all Kentucky schools interested in teaching and certifying their students in digital literacy skills and responsibility. Most importantly, Neustar’s partnership is making the cutting-edge program available free of cost to the schools and state.
A Roundup of Reading Research
Get the facts when you're teaching a child how to read.
I have a child with dyslexia and one of my biggest ambitions is to help my children love reading. Mrs. Grace Adkins in our learning lab is an invaluable help in this way and sent me some links to current research on the topic. I may not be an official "reading" teacher but I am my child's reading teacher.
I cried this summer when my fourth grader became so fluent that he's poured through one of the Chroncile of Narnia books and is now on his second book. He reads every night with me - we take turns and he's nailing it. I really wondered if I'd ever see the day. We've done multisensory everything, spent summers, extra help, whatever it takes. Reading opens up the world and is dear to my heart. I love it and I want my children to love it too!
A book recommendation from Mrs. Adkins
Mrs. Adkins just sent me a note recommending this book: Ready to Read: A Multisensory Approach to Language-based Comprehension Instruction and also sent some other resources across my desk for looking at the research behind teaching reading.
Read up on Reading Research
You don't have to be the expert to read what the experts say and break it down into practice. As I"ve shared before, it is appalling that so few people like to read and how many never pick up another book after high school or college. (See my post Time to Get Angry About Reading.)
I've got a whole list of reading resources I've pulled from the web in a Diigo list, so please take a look, but here is a list of some great PDF's that you'll want to read.
Round Up of Reading Research
Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading International Dyslexia Association
This guide is from Dr. Louisa C. Moats and the International Dyslexia Association. It bridges research into practice to create a "research-based tool for practitioners." These are the standards used by the IDI to guide teachers of reading, spelling, and writing.the Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read
The updated 2006 copy of the National Reading Panel teacher's guide to give a framework for using the findings of the 200 national Reading Panel in the classroom. This is another guidebook for teachers and curriculum directors.
Teaching Reading: Report and Recommendations, National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy
This December 2005 report talks about best practices in teaching literacy. For those of you who like to review best practices from around the world, this came in from the International Dyslexia Association in their Summer 2011 Perspectives on Language and Literacy "Global Perspectives" column.
Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading : The Department for Education
Here is another study for literacy people. This report from the UK talks about effective teacher training and good teaching methods but interestingly talks about early reading instruction and the debates surrounding whole language and constructivism.
Remember your noble calling, teacher. Take time to read and learn -- you expect your students to do it too!
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 01/05/2012
-
Google Digital Literacy Tour — iKeepSafe
Google Digital Literacy Tour along with videos. Here are some great lessons and videos and a full curriculum. Just realize that you should involve students in discussions and activities, this is a pretty poor candidate for lecture-based delivery because it is changing so quickly. I use Digiteen but these are great resources. (Hat tip to Theresa Allen for sending this through the Digiteen google group.)
Elearning and global competency #flatclass #globaled 01/03/2012
-
Young People And Social Media: 'Kiss My Hash(tag)!'
Teens are using hashtags on Facebook, tshirts, and even speaking with them although now they haveclittlecmeaning outside Twitter. (listen up facebook.) Maybe any global platform we use with kids should support hashtags to aggregate data. (Edmodo Ning)
-
WorldWideBooks.org - Promoting Global Literacy | 1,210 Books donated locally
The worldwide book frive is a great way to donate books.
This world wide book drive is a great way to donate books.
Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 04/19/2011
-
Writing Better Blog Posts: What You NEED to Know | The Edublogger
Excellent post from Sue Waters about writing better blog posts.
-
24 free kindergarte apps from kindergarten.com Download all 24 of these apps. (From The Edcational Technology blog) by jonathan Wylie.
-
Scholastic: Best in Tech Today | Livescribe Education
I love my livescribe pen and agree with this review even if it is posted on the Livescribe website.
-
iAdvocate for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store
Free iAdvocate app to help parents who have children with learning disabilities advocate for them. It is a start and worth testing. Plus it is free!
-
School of Education launches new free mobile app to assist parents, advocates
New Mobile phone app from Alan Foley of Syracuse University - called iAdvocate designed to help parents advocate for their child with learning disabilities.
The app has 3 sections: strategies for parents, information and links, and simulated conversations to help guide parents. I hope that my friends who work in this area will test and post their reviews. If you do, let me know and I'll feature you in the daily spotlight! ;-) -
QR Codes, Electronic Devices,Nonprofits, and Concert Etiquette | Beth’s Blog
Ecellent blog post on the use of QR codes in nonprofits from social media nonprofit guru - Beth Kanter. Tons of potential here!
-
10 Futuristic Inventions in Wearable Tech — Life Scoop
A fun discussion topic with technology students, this blog post about futuristic inventions in wearable tech includes buttons that are really mp3 players, a dress with room for a sim card that makes it funciton as a mobile phone when you lift your wrist, and the one I want -- the Massage Me Massage Video game - that makes a game out of having someone massage your back! (Oh yeah!)
This would be a great area to review and then have students invent their own. -
Money Lessons: A Guide to Financial-Literacy Resources | Edutopia
Financial literacy resources. Curriculum directors and math teachers at all levels should take time to read this article from edutopia.
-
Another One Bites The Dust: Yahoo To Kill Buzz On April 21
Google video. Delicious. Now yahoo Buzz - their "digg" site. what else?
-
Congress, Can You Spare a Dime? A Teacher Makes the Case for the National Writing Project | Edutopia
Great things have come out of the national writing project. Their research is wonderful and many of them have taught me a lot in the hallways and byways of conferences around the world. It is a shame to see this go. Read more about this project so you can share your 10cents with congress - that is all it would take per child to keep it going.
-
Apple Launches iPad School Donation Program - Edudemic
Donate your "old" generation 1 ipad to schools through apple.
-
The Evolution of Classroom Technology - Edudemic
Fascinating Evolution of Classroom Technology over at Edudemic (hat tip Stephen Downes.) Look at how many of these technologies are still here in some forms. All I can think as I read about halfway down is the ah so lovely smell of that mimeograph paper!`
-
Apple Sues Samsung Over Galaxy; Are Other Tablet Makers Next?
Apple suing samsung over galaxy! With the iPad 2 in dwindling supply because of the components made in the affected area in Japan, I guess apple is trying to keep others out temporarily while they are rushing to find another supplier.
-
Another book review from one of our 8th graders. We are looking to add some more schools over the next few months. Fill out the info form on the bottom left of this page.
This is a great website for finding books that kids like.
Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 05/31/2011
-
edubloggercon - EduBloggerCon 2011
I'm going to edubloggercon at ISTE2011 and am excited! Care to join us? Anyone is welcome. This page has all the information.
-
DimensionU - Educational Video Game Technology for the 21st Century Student
For parents who want fun things for their students to do over the summer that will help students learn more and move forward in math and literacy skills - this is a website to check out.
"Students enter the tournament by going to www.DimensionU.com/SummerChallenge. Once registered (parental permission is required) they will compete in math- and literacy-based games for a chance to win gift cards and summer-related prizes like inline skates, inflatable pools, beach volleyball sets, or tents. Five lucky players will be randomly selected to win an iPod Nano each.
New this year is a social networking component that encourages students to build online “learning communities” of friends, family, community members, or even teachers – basically anyone who wants to help support the child’s academic efforts during the summer. Participants who earn the highest number of social network points in each tournament round will win prizes separate from those awarded for game play performance."
Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/28/2011
-
Create a Facebook Page | Custom Fan Page Design - Pagemodo
If you are a school and need help with your facebook page, this may be the option. Every school should have a facebook page in addition to your website.
-
Twitter for Newsrooms – Twitter Media
Twitter for newsrooms is out. This is a guide to help journalists. It is fascinating to watch journalists have to grapple with some of the most significant changes in their profession since Gutenberg's press.
Citation: RT @web20classroom - New guide called Twitter for Newsrooms launches today #edtech20 #edchat #iste11 #edchat #ukedchat #socialmedia #engchat http://t.co/mmYNXYP -
You Can't Just Google It! | Xtranormal
Students need to learn to go deeper than just Googling. Here is a short 2 minute video on that topic.
-
McGraw Hill Launches First Digital-Only Textbook for K-12 at Iste
McGraw-Hill launched its first all-digital, cloud-based textbook for the K-12 market on Monday at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.
This is called CINCH and is a "cloud based curriculum" for K-12 math and 7-12 science. It makes everything available through a browser.
Citation: RT @TradRobinson - Publishers Launch First Digital-Only Textbook for K-12 http://t.co/C1Ny9ck via @mashabletech @mashable #ISTE11 -
I wasn’t there, but I was CONNECTED | Connected Principals
As more people connect via Skype, the demand for live streaming is there. I think conferences can either acknowledge this and make it possible or they will continue to see us do it ourselves, taking bandwidth. The tough thing is that sometimes licenses are tricky and presenters may not want it recorded - this information is not usually shared publicly as it should be.
Great read for administrators -
WPClipart is a collection of high-quality artwork and photos optimized for use with word processors and inkjet printers.
Citation: @wfryer: WP Clip Art is great site of openly licensed clip art http://www.wpclipart.com via @kfasimpaur #iste11 -
Google Advanced search now lets you filter by reading level! (Hat tip to Tammy Worchester)
Remember, however, that google searches are becoming personalized which makes it more important than ever to use deep web resources. -
Tammy’s Top 20 Favorite Web Tools!
Tammy Worcester's top 20 Favorite web tools include: avatar editor, jam studio, odosketch, several things from igoogle, and more. This is her handout given out at iste2011.
-
Some lovely video resources. For US educators, they have the resources aligned with US standards. You can register on the site and organize the resources into your own folders (like for your classes.)
"Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You’ll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities." -
The Kids Open Dictionary Builder
Collaborative writing and editing continues to move into the classroom. If the pundits didn't like wikipedia, what about a dictionary that students build for themselves?
"The purpose of this project is to create a free, open simple dictionary for students to use. This dictionary will ultimately be published in a variety of formats and for multiple platforms.
To add to this project, find a word you'd like to write a definition for or click "Instant Karma" for a random word. Please consult the style guidelines for editorial information." -
Mike Fisher's Livebinder on Ipads in schools. If you're using iPads, this is an excellent resource.
-
KB Connected's livebinder with some great animal webcams. If you study animals, this is a great place to go for resources. Why not let your students build these resources for you?
-
Student Digital "Textbooks" using LiveBinders
Here are Michael Thornton's student livebinders. These are textbooks written by the students. Except for the typo on Ancient Greece review, this is a marvelous example of having students build meaningful textbooks.Interestingly, Michael's livebinder puts together livebinders themselves. I'm going to be learning more about this tool and have my students use these this year.
-
Top 10 EdTech Livebinders of 2011
This was named at ISTE 2011 on Monday.There are some great livebinders here.
-
Kleinspiration: Hi, I'm a Textbook and I'm a Tablet
@web20classroom Was hoping you could share this video with the #iste11 audience: http://t.co/xjF8E9s Thanks, Steven!!
-
All Things ISTE 2011 http://t.co/yCwm1a3 Conference Resources. Thanks PLN! #iste11 #edtech #edchat I <3 EduTech!
-
Amazon.com: WWW: Wake (WWW Trilogy) eBook: Robert Sawyer: Kindle Store
A rich trilogy written for geeks like us #iste11: http://t.co/3sgjS8l
-
360 view of the Blogger Cafe at #ISTE11 http://360.io/PRwNCc
-
My 5 Take-Aways from Edubloggercon | School Technology Ideas
RT @cfanch: RT @bradflickinger: My 5 Take-Aways from Edubloggercon: #ebc11 http://bit.ly/kWKLu0 {Good Post} #iste11 #edchat
-
Children’s wisdom and innocence « Children’s Land
Story Medina just told about the empathetic child found here -> http://bit.ly/lzdilx Medina #ISTE11
-
RT : New Post: The "Bring Your Own Device" Debate
RT @isteconnects: New Post: The "Bring Your Own Device" Debate http://t.co/Nr3612q #ISTE11 #ISTE
-
Day 1: ISTE Liveblog from EdReach | EdReach
Check out the ISTE Liveblog from EdReach! http://t.co/2N1I4bx #iste11 #EdReach
-
Seriously. If you've not shared http://t.co/DGw2xnX with other folks, or played with it yourself, you're missing out. #nwphackjam #iste11
-
RT @jessievaz12: RT @dianadell: Here's what I learned at #ISTE11 and #EBC11 sitting in my recliner :-) http://t.co/SMKso1Z Watch it grow.
Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/29/2011
-
Real Time Search - Social Mention
Social mention lets you track what people are saying about you, your school or more. It looks like it works a lot like Google alerts. Another great way for administrators to monitor "the buzz" about their school, particularly if it has a hashtag.
-
A lesson plan search engine for teacher lesson plans.
-
Website that sends you text messages to encourage literacy in their children. Great for parents or teaches. Interesting idea.
-
ShowMe - The Interactive Learning Community
The showme app on the ipad has some fascinating potential. I am going to play with this over the summer. Would love to hear from anyone who is already using it.
-
Mindshapes Launches Jellytoons Birthday Countdown for iPad and iPhone
Not sure how interactive ebooks will help students learn (dual encoding works) but here are some more interactive story books.
-
Flat Classroom teacher "alumni"
Our project coordinator, Lisa Durff, makes lists of the Flat Classroom teacher "alumni" so we can keep in touch. This is a great group of incredible global collaborative teachers who are doing it.
-
ISTE'11 ~ Diigo it - WebSlides
Suzie Nestico's webslides (made automatically from a Diigo list) for the diigo session at ISTE.
-
krillworkshops - Other Diigo Features
Lovely wiki about diigos. Lots of things from Michell Krill who pitched in to help in our diigo workshop.
-
Debby Atwater's Public Library | Diigo
Debby Atwater has some great links in her public library. Another example to review.
-
Vicki Davis's Public Library | Diigo
here is my public library of diigo bookmarks.
-
Neil Wetherbee's Public Library | Diigo
Neil is pulling over his bookmarks for his fourth and fifth grade classes. Here are some sample libraries from diigo users.
-
Lady Gaga accused of scamming charity - Live, Local, Late Breaking news, weather, and sports
Not everyone does what they say with money for charity. Lady GaGa is under scrutiny and criticism for not donating money to japanese quake survivors from the sale of her wristbands.
-
Worried about jobs, college women go 'geek' - CSMonitor.com
Some major computer science programs at top universities are seeing a slight uptick in the number of women going into the programs. Citing statistics from Harvard (up from 13% to 25%) and MIT (a 28% jump in 3 years), and Carnegie Mellon (from 1/5 in 2007 to 1/4 last year.)
Most think it is the economy although some attribute programs to get more women interested in the programs. -
MyRegistry.com - All Stores, One Registry® Gift Registry, Gift List, Wishlist
Interesting website for those who are graduating or getting married. This lets you create one master registry out of everything on the web. Interesting.
For nonprofits, you can create a list of the things that you need and people can put money towards those items. So, this could be used for schools too. Teachers could make a wishlist. Cool idea. -
Dragontape - YOUR TASTE ON MIXTAPES
Start mixing music. Got this information from an iste tweet (without the link.)
citation: RT kwinsper - Dragontape looks promising for creating mashups #ISTE11 -
Will Richardson's #iste11 presentation http://t.co/C9LkCCn
-
Wish I was at ISTE conference.
Wish I was at ISTE conference. RT“@dwarlick: Notes from Heidi Hayes Jacob's presentation: http://t.co/1WoqvW0 -- 3 thumbs up! #iste11”
-
The Nerdy Teacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11)
love this post!! “@thenerdyteacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11) - http://t.co/N2QSzVE - A new post for Tuesday.”
-
Emerging Tech Schools K-12 Horizon Report toolkit download #cosn #iste11 http://bit.ly/csUELC
-
Learning Tools Family Feud See the "Answers" to o
Learning Tools Family Feud #ISTEFeud See the "Answers" to our Crowdsourced Survey HERE! http://t.co/ZdFsKeQ #ISTE11 add Yours!
-
Pretty cool chat convo from my #iste11 session yesterday morning. http://bit.ly/jrsAoK Sincere thanks to all who joined in.
-
Top 50 Teacher Blogs by Innovative Educators
@coolcatteacher Woo hoo! Congrats! http://t.co/PCSoDOQ
-
DoInk Animation & Drawing for iPad on the iTunes App Store
RT @gazzabrown @Kdmiller4 LOVE DoInk. http://t.co/1vnIMM4 Will spread the word. @lisanash9 #iste11 #edapp #ipad
-
Teaching the Civil War with Technology. Ideas for teaching the Civil War
RT @pammoran: Just learned this term tradigital history http://j.mp/klt8Rr #iste11@MR_EHN @MrHadleyHistory @nksocialstudies @LPralleKeehn
-
ISTE 2011 - Day Two - Dr. G's Teaching With Technology Portfolio
Random thoughts from Day Two at #ISTE11 - http://t.co/hnlaQvz
-
ASCD Inservice: Eight Shifts for Teaching and Learning
Are we empowering & enabling students to create their own learning? 8 shifts for education http://bit.ly/jjuIpR #iste11 @willrich45
-
GREAT site of free eBooks geared for elementary & middle school: K12 Open Ed eBooks http://ow.ly/5rrTj via @kfasimpaur #iste11
-
Kathy Shrock's slidedeck is here - http://linkyy.com/infographics #iste11 (how cool is it that her son developed Linkyy?!)
-
315 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist – 3fSimpleK12
5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist http://goo.gl/YgudI #ISTE11
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/07/2011
-
Free Skype calls and cheap calls to phones - Skype
The defining voice over IP program, recently purchased by Microsoft.
-
iEARN | Learning with the world, not just about it ...
Another webiste where you can go and join and find great projects.
-
A great learning community to find others. Just remember that sometimes teachers are taken in here because of PD and not because they are going to engage. Vet the teachers and take small steps before you jump in and plan a collaboration with someone who hasn't proven themselves as a collaborator.
-
Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder
The definitive editor for audio. Note, this week, I found some malware linked from the lame encoder. Be careful about downloading anything from another site.
-
Wolfram|Alpha: Examples by Topic
Examples of how wolfram alpha can be used in the classroom. From math to physics to research and economics, you can use this data crunching engine in very powerful ways. Another important tool for students and authentic researchers of all ages.
-
Google ngram viewer is an important tool that searches the frequency of the occurrence of certain words across all text of a period. I've blogged about this before. Another important tool for researching.
-
Some interesting conversation starters with students can be found on Ted Talks. Not every talk is great but many of them are wonderful.
-
The well known site with a lot of tutorial videos. The math videos are particularly useful. Students should now how to tutor themselves by finding reputable sources of information where they can get tutoring.
-
Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing
FRee paint software that is much more powerful than the native paint program. The students love this open source software.
-
Kodu game lab. A free programming language that lets you make programs for x-box style games.
-
Microsoft's free worldwide telescope. The coolest thing about this is the planetariums that people build with it.
-
My students love this free open source planetarium software. It is a phenomenal tool and the kids love it.
-
Another cloud alternative for managing documents and email. For those that may prefer Microsoft or are very heavy Microsoft Office users, this is the site where you can sign up.
-
Dipity - Find, Create, and Embed Interactive Timelines
A website that lets you find and create timelines. Powerful tool for history teachers.
-
A very simple place to blog. All it takes is an email. Just email to posterous and it automatically creates your blog.
-
Wonderful, flexible tool that I've used to take my classroom paperless.
-
DROPitTOme - Securely receive files from anyone to your Dropbox
Send and receive files from anyone into your dropbox. Annual staffs can use this to have people share photos with them or other teachers can have their students turn in files. Great augmentation to dropbox.
-
A great tool for brainstorming and mind mapping in the classroom.
-
ClassTools.net: Create interactive flash tools / games for education
Twister lets you create fake tweets for a person. You can see samples of what some people would have really tweeted. Another neat social media twist to help you analyze historical figures. Note: I have seen this working but on 11/6/2011 it looks like they were having trouble with the server.
-
Fakebook: Fakebook. Create educational games and quizzes at classtools.net
Fakebook tool from Classtools.net. You can create a fake facebook profile for a famous person in history along with friends. It even looks up photographs when you add the names. OUr AP literature teacher is using this tool and loves it. It is not real facebook so you won't get in trouble with them for making a fake profile.
-
ClassTools.net Interactive Learning Tool
I love the arcade game and flashcard generator at classtools.net.
-
Great website for creating rubrics. This is one of my favorites
-
My favorite tool for tweeting and managing my twitter account. It is also great for the school as I can schedule tweets and facebook updates. Although, I've really started posting directly to the Facebook page because sometimes facebook puts updates from hootsuite down on the priority list and they don't get distributed.
-
Feedburner is a great place to create site feeds and has the option to create html feeds (to embed your blog in a website) and email distribution lists (to email out updates.) I use this for my blog.
-
Blogger in draft: Blogger Dashboard
A great blog platform for setting up your school blog due to how easy it is to configure and the search engine friendly nature of it. NOte that there may be some better places to work with students.
-
Welcome to Google Calendar – Google Calendar
Google calendars are wonderful ways to share school and class calendars. I have all of our school calendars on my ipad and when I enter it on my ipad or iphone or computer it automatically goes to the website.
-
This semester's digiteen project with over 500 students collaborating and editing the wiki. They are learning about digital citzienship.
-
Flat Classroom 11-3 Project - home
This semester's Flat Classroom project. As people are now discussing global literacy, you can see it happening while these students interact and work together.
-
Photo Sharing. Your Photos Look Better Here. | SmugMug
So your annual staff needs to make money. Leslie Fischer mentioned last week that some schools are pulling in thousands of dollars off of the photos they take for the annual. Smugmug automates this for you.
-
Tagxedo - Word Cloud with Styles
A word cloud creator that makes things into shapes. Take a popular book or website and convert it into a word cloud that is in a shape. What a cool thing you could do for your school.
-
A library of information of all types of sources and documents. AS a suggestion copy out of wikisource and paste into Tagxedo to find meaning and format. This should be a strategy for making meaning out of massive texts by students. You can do this with whole books.
-
Create word clouds with just about anything. (Tip from Tammy Worcester) paste in free answers from Google forms surveys. (Tip from me - paste into MS word first and turn it all into lowercase.)
-
This site used to be RBF&D. While not free, those with learning disabilities in the US qualify for a membership for this site. For less than $100 a year you can check out audio copies of textbooks and just about everything. I've found that those I work with at school who used to ignore the clunky tape recorders and CD players LOVE the learning ally app and now I'm having kids who don't qualify want it as well. Parents want this app for their kids. I think textbook companies need to look at audio versions for all of their students and learning ally has the system down pat.
-
Georgia Download Destination - Participating Libraries
In the state of Georgia they have the Georgia Download destination for checking out books. I've got this set up on my library account and can check out books to my kindle, ibooks to my ipad (or kindle app there) or audio books to my overdrive account. I LOVE IT. It is time for schools to have their students take their devices down to their libraries and learn how to check out books all over again.
-
Google Apps for Education | Official Website
Official website of Google apps for education. If you're interested in setting this up for your school or college, here is where you start.
-
Google docs is a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software of choice in the cloud for many that need to be collaborative. But perhaps the most useful thing to me is google forms which let students make the form and put it out on the web for others to answer. Then, examining results is as simple as pasting into a word cloud maker.
-
Remember Everything | Evernote Corporation
One of my favorite tools is evernote. I email to evernote. I pull it up on my ipad. I take photographs and scan to evernote and can search text. It is on my phone, my ipad, my computers. My notebook that I carry everywhere. Great tool.
-
Cool Iris (in the Chrome store also available for Firefox)
This plug in is an incredible way to find pictures and graphics on the web. It is in Chrome and Firefox as a plug in and is very cool.
-
Here is an example of how Teacher Donna Browne uses Wiffiti to begin class.
-
I've used this site before but as we were talking on my FAcebook page the other day about how to start class, teacher, Donna Browne left this message, "Donna Browne Instead of writing the class agenda on the board, I simply send it as a message to Wifitti. It is easy to do when you are the creator of the screen. I send a message for things I would mention anyway, like upcoming due dates, school events, changes in schedule. The Wifitti screen is projected onto a screen and catches kids eye's as they walk in the door. Since Wifitti only flashes one message at a time, they continue paying attention to see what will pop up next. See one of the screens at http://wiffiti.com/screens/timeline/81606" Cool idea.
-
The Six Sides of Steve. » #Top12 Teacher Hashtags#
Twelve most popular teacher hashtags. From a little while back but I think this analysis is interesting ahd helpful.
-
Keyboard Drag and Drop Quizzes - Resources - TES
Interested to know how this person created these drag and drop quizzes in word. For use in Microsoft Word and you have to enable macros. Interesting technique.
-
Jeopardy - revision game for speed and velocity - Resources - TES
Free jeopardy game for those teaching speed and velocity.
-
Teachers TV: Children in WW2 - Resources - TES
Since I've been exploring the @TESConnect site as part of the work I'm doing highlighting the best resources of TES that apply to US teachers, I've been drawn to some of the World War 2 footage from the site. This video is Children in World War 2 and I think it is especially helpful to pull video footage from other countries when talking about wars, etc. to gain multiple perspectives. What about drilling down to look at other wars as well?