Useful sites (weekly)

  by  ransomtech 

• Books, artifactually and anecdotally speaking … – Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog @Lorcan Dempsey “it seems to me that the artifactual and design elements of print books are coming more to the fore, albeit in different ways. As the use of ebooks grows this is not really surprising, as this change creates niche opportunities for experiences focused specifically on the possibilities of the print medium. Some related trends are interesting”

• 10 Technology Enhanced Alternatives to Book Reports – TheApple.com The post offers alternatives to the more traditional book reports. “Writing book reports are often dreaded by students after reading a book. They can kill a book or kill a love of reading. Alternative include: creating a cartoon, creating a short video clip about the book, or advertising the book in their own way.

• Green Eggs & Facebook: 15 Social Media Tips from Dr. Seuss | Social Media Today These tips are adapted from from Dr. Seuss’ writning

• Historic Sites | Historic Holidays | Historvius This is part search engine, part map, and part reference source. The purpose of Historvius is to help people locate historically important sites associated with people and events from 4000BCE through today. Visitors to Historvius can search for places by selecting range of dates, choosing a historic period, selecting a person, or by entering a combination of search terms. Search results are displayed on a Google Map. You can then click on a placemark on the map to find more information about that historic site.

• WhatWasThere – Put history in its place! A good example of using Google Maps to show the way places used to look. What Was There allows registered users to upload old images of buildings and landmarks and have them displayed in the place where they were taken. Anyone can explore the map and view the historical images on the map. Enter a city name in the search box or browse the map’s placemarks to find images.

• FBI — The Vault The Vault is our new electronic reading room, containing more than 3,000 documents that have been scanned from paper into digital copies so you can read them in the comfort of your home or office. Included here are more than 25 new files that have been released to the public but never added to this website; dozens of records previously posted on our site but removed as requests diminished; and files from our previous electronic reading room. Since the launch of the Vault in April 2011, we have also added more than 30 new, previously unreleased files.

• E-Reader Radio | Good E-Reader Blog – ebook Reader and Tablet PC News

• GridCalc – Grid calculator and generator | Problem AB GridCalc is a easy to use grid calculator. Just enter the desired width of your page and an aproximate range for your column and gutter width and the calculator will give you all the possible combinations within the limits you entered. You get a nice visual representation of the results, click preview on a result and you get a better presentation of how the grid can be used. When you have decided which grid configuration you want to use you can download the configuration as a css file to use in your project.

• Challenge of focusing education reform | The Australian

  Article on 7 Jun 2011 by John Hattie (Director of the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education) He was formerly a Professor of Education at Auckland University where he produced the high influential book ‘visible learning’ “Finally we need to consider alternative ways of teacher education. The current teacher training model is bankrupt and a disruptive model is needed to show a better way. Maybe it is the Melbourne MTeach model, but whatever the new model there is a need for more exciting and effective ways to educate teachers across their teaching life. After school sessions, warm tea, and cold seats are a poor basis for learning. Perhaps those claiming to be involved are funded only if they can show, with the teachers, that they have demonstrable gains on the students’ learning from the professional development provided. John Hattie is the Director of the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education he was formerly a Professor of Education at Auckland University where he produced the high influential book ‘visible learning’.

• Ten ideas for interactive teaching | Curriculum | eSchoolNews.com ” While lecturing tends to be the easiest form of instruction, studies show that students absorb the least amount of information that way. Interactive teaching methods are an effective way to connect with a generation of students used to consistent stimulation—and education professor Kevin Yee has some advice for how teachers can make their lessons more interactive.” eSchoolNews

• What iCloud means for Education – You can “iCloud it” from Apps in Education: @AppsForEducation. “Steve Jobs announced iCloud along with Lion OS and iOS5 the other day at the WWDC. What is the iCloud and how will it effect the Education sector. iCloud can be explained as the new Digital Hub of our ever increasing digital lives; Photos, Video and Music”

• Gartner Identifies Five Collaboration Myths Collaboration initiatives fail because IT leaders hold mistaken assumptions about basic issues

• 5 Tips For Assessing What Students Know – Articles – Educational Technology – ICT in Education ”It is not enough to teach students how to understand information and communications technology. At some point you are going to have to assess their knowledge and understanding. “

• Has young adult fiction become too dark? – Teenagers – Salon.com

• a3office_witrand.pdf (application/pdf Object) ”Read” poster in different languages  tags:

• New Report: “‘If It Is Too Inconvenient, I’m Not Going After It’ [OCLC] ”New Report: “‘If It Is Too Inconvenient, I’m Not Going After It:’ Convenience as a Critical Factor in Information-seeking Behaviors”

• A dictionary of e-learning jargon – A dictionary of e-learning jargon This is a dictionary of e-learning jargon. It aims to explain the jargon associated with e-learning in increasingly simple terms. It is still very early in its development, and people who are interested adding to it are invited to fill in the contact form at http://philhart.edublogs.org/about/.

• Apps in Education: Apps 4 Teachers ”Most of what we do is for the students. The focus of this and many other blogs and websites is about learning, and rightly so, but there are also apps that will make our jobs easier too. I am talking about that catergory of apps that are designed specifically for the classroom teacher. There are plenty and I am sure as more and more teachers gain the confidence to design their own apps, there will be more suitable one to come. Here is a list of apps that you can use to make your job easier.”

• How Social Media & Game Mechanics Can Motivate Students ”Social media and online games have the potential to convey 21st century skills that aren’t necessarily part of school curricula — things like time management, leadership, teamwork and creative problem solving that will prepare teens for success in college and beyond. Making the transition between a highly structured environment in high school to a self-driven, unstructured environment in college can prove a huge challenge for many kids.”

• Is It Worth It? Student Created Tutorials | Langwitches Blog @langwitch Her post in the series “The Digital Learning Farm” based on Alan November’s work of “The Digital Learning Farm”, which he also outlines in his chapter of Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ book “Curriculum 21″.

• 250 best iPad apps: education – Telegraph  list of some of the best learning apps for iPad users of all ages

• 7 Reasons To Leverage Social Networking Tools in the Classroom | Emerging Education Technology Instructional uses of social networking software can provide opportunities for learning, connecting, and engagement.

• We asked, you answered! 15 more brilliant ways to use Edmodo Some of the innovative ways teachers are using Edmodo in the classroom to engage students

• How To Embed Practically Anything On Your Blog or Website A post from Mashable. People want the hands-down, easiest way to embed practically things onto their blog or website. nThere are many7 tools to help you do that. “The nature of the web is such that sharing and republishing content is common – and often even encouraged. The problem is, we increasingly store bits of our data on various services scattered across the web. Aggregating that content into one centralized personal hub can be time consuming – requiring user to manually copy text and links or upload files and photos – or fiddling with RSS feeds trying to make content automagically appear”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.