Diigo bookmarks for today 06/01/2009

• Why Our Current Education System Is Failing

  “Education is about unleashing one’s confidence. Education is learning from failure. Education is growing from experience. Education is discovering your passions then pursuing them.
  
  Education is not rote memorization. Education is not analyzing books that have no meaning to you. Education is not wasting your time on subjects you hate. Education is not being paralyzed because your afraid to fail.”

  Tags: squarepeg, education, failing, attitude

• Search Results - Web 2.0 for College Instructors

  Web 2.0 apps for higher education educators.

  Tags: instructors, Higher_education, web2, professors, web2.0, wetpaint, college_students

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/28/2009

• Great Source iwrite - Students: Grammar Handbook

  
  
  Grammar Handbook
  
  How to Edit your writing
  
  To edit your writing well, you need to understand some basic concepts about writing. Sometimes these concepts are called grammar, mechanics, or conventions. Sometimes they are called rules, but really these rules are just patterns that good writers try to follow so they clearly communicate what they want to say to readers.
  
  Anybody can be a good editor. First, you have to know what's important and then you have to reread your work carefully. Everyone—especially teachers—appreciate a writer who rereads and corrects his or her work.

  Tags: grammar, writing, editing, english, ELA, education

• Maptrot - Map Your Community

  Make and annotate maps

  Tags: social studies, history, geography, maps, education

• The History Teacher’s Attic

  This blog is intended for educators in general, but with special attention given to history and social studies teachers.

  Tags: history, social, studies, k-12, education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/27/2009

• Free teleprompter software - use in your video studio

  Cool tips on setting up teleprompter software in your video studio!! I WANT TO DO THIS at school. Scripts are one of the top issues we have with filming!

  Tags: education, video, film, technology, digitalstorytelling

• 21st Century Home - 21st Century Learning

  Tags: 21stcenturylearning, education, web2.0, learning, technology

• iKnowthat.com Punctuation Paintball Game - Online Multimedia Educational Games for Kids in Preschool, Kindergarten, and Elementary Grades

  learn punctuation using a video game format

  Tags: grammar, punctuation, interactive, education, english, LanguageArts

• 100 Free Web Tools for Elementary Teachers - Classroom 2.0

  Tags: education, elementary, school2.0, lists, web2tools

• [Usf] Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act

  This new act will affect erate schools. Make sure as you plan in the US this summer that you familiarize yourself if you are an erate school!

  Tags: education, learning, technology

• YouTube - MailMerge

  Mail merge instruction video for sending personalized emails!

  Tags: education, technology, techintegrator

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/24/2009

• Welcome to Planet Science

  Tags: science, interactive, resources, activities, education, astronomy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/23/2009

• Building Your Teacher-to-Teacher Community! | SimpleTechIntegration

  Tags: technology, resources, web2.0, education, teacher, lessonplans

• TravelinEdMan: Why "Share" and how can OER and OCW benefit people in these difficult economic times?

  Tags: OER, opencourseware, courses, education, ocw, travelinedman, openEducation, openLearning

• Free Learning - Educational Resources » Blog Archive » Open ed materials devolpment as service learning - via K12 Open Ed blog

  Tags: openEducation, openLearning, K12

• Welcome to PikiWiki

  Great way to make instant media rich web pages for sharing

  Tags: pikiwiki, sharing, web, ed, education, class

• Think_Ahead_Final_Small-iPhone.m4v (video/mp4 Object)

  Tags: think, ahead, think ahead, apple, video, inspiration, education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/22/2009

• Rethinking Homework

  This principal gives valuable ideas about the pros and cons of homework. Will go and check up on the research about it....

  Tags: homework, education, teaching, school2.0

• From Joystick to Diploma: Great Sites for Online Educational Video Games | AceOnlineSchools.com

  As an online student, there are plenty of free educational video games at your fingertips, with material targeted to every age

  Tags: education, games, list, students, teachers, reference, fun, play, learning, game, all_teachers

• Libraries and commitment (Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog)

  Let's face it, a school where text books, classroom book collections, and the "term paper" as the only means of student communication don't need much of a library. A small popular book collection and a word-processing lab with access to Google may actually be all that such a school needs. If the librarian and technology staff are viewed as not having knowledge that is sufficiently relevant to implementing and teaching IL/IT skills, the book room can be staffed by clerks and the techs can keep the e-mail server and student information system up and running from a small hidden office until those applications are outsourced.
  
  At the same time, if a school truly decides they want all their students to graduate having mastered a sophisticated set of IL/IT skills, having learned how to solve real problems creatively, and having experienced the power of global communications and collaboration, then a lack of resources - physical plant, equipment and human expertise will truly undercut this effort. Such an undertaking will require 1:1 laptop programs, well-stocked print collections, productivity labs, a fast and powerful network, good online materials, and, of course, a crackerjack professional staff to support both staff and students. 

  Tags: libraries, library, education, vision, learning, communication, resources, collaboration

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/21/2009

• Supercool School | Facebook

  Supercool School is a system that allows you to coordinate and hold live and interactive online classes. The process starts by creating a request for a class and specifying what you would like to learn. Other users can then join these requests by browsing through the request list, or by being invited by their friends. Once a request is full, the teacher seat opens.

  Tags: supercool, openEducation, openLearning, network, facebook, community, teaching, learning

• The Hero Factory

  make your own superhero. Make a comic book

  Tags: education, art, comics

• Opening Up Education (free ebook)

  The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge

  Tags: education, ebooks, open-education, opencontent, school2, highered

• Supercool School

  Tags: supercool, openEducation, openLearning, learning, education, school2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/20/2009

• Picnik - edit photos the easy way, online in your browser

  Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames.

  Tags: photos, images, editing, education

• Medical Animation Library

  medical animations

  Tags: animation, anatomy, biology, medicine, education, tools, health

• LoonaPix.com. Make Funny Pictures and Add Photo Frames Online.

  LoonaPix.com is a free photo editing online service. You can make it funny using LoonaPic effect or embed your face from the photo to the various templates, add photo frame or just trim it.

  Tags: photos, tools, web2.0, design, frames, education

• Social Studies Central

  Social Studies Central is intended to provide resources with a focus on the Social Studies, to support teachers as they improve their instruction and to help educators engage kids in learning. You will find lesson plans, new web sites, links to standards and assessment advice, technology integration resources and information about workshops and staff development.

  Tags: socialstudies, history, resources, integration, social studies, education

• textorizer

  Textorizer is a program that allows you to make pictures formed with text. Although there are many versions around, the only one that is continuing to supported is this one. Download app, need updated Java

  Tags: graphics, software, tools, design, generator, photography, education

• mozaiq

  rebuilds photos into mosaics from smaller photos

  Tags: tools, graphics, education, mosaic, images

• Main Page - Judgepedia

  Judgepedia is an encyclopedia about judges and courts.

  Tags: education, law, courts, judges

• tiltshiftmaker.com - Transform your photos into tilt-shift style miniatures

  Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.
  
  Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift style miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com

  Tags: photography, tools, tiltshift, photos, design, miniature, education

• FunPhotoBox - funny pictures, funny photo effects. Make fun with your photos online.

  insert your photo into other places, billboards, sides of buildings. May effects avalable

  Tags: photos, photography, funny, generator, tools, education

• Photovisi - Create a wallpaper collage and more from your photos!

  create phot collages. Good for wallpaper

  Tags: photos, collage, image, generator, tools, photovisi, tool, education

• indispensibletools / FrontPage

  The following list of ICT tools was crowd sourced from individual educationalists and not companies when the question 'What Indispensible ICT tools do you use in education' was asked  and is not meant to be exhaustive in any way. 
   

  Tags: educators, education, k-12, websites

• Music - Interactive Sites for Smartboard Use – Grades K - 5 - Oak Street Elementary School - Plattsburgh City School District

  music sites for use with smartboards

  Tags: music, smartboard, primary, education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/19/2009

• WTT - We The Teachers

  downloadable lesson plans

  Tags: resources, lessonplans, education, lesson_plans

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/18/2009

• Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware

  This program lets you kick up your mp3 player a bit. Not sure that I will put it on my ipod but planning to install on an old iriver.

  Tags: education, technology, music, techintegrator

• How to wire Ethernet Cables

  Yeah, I can now fix the ethernet in the office I tried to do from memory watching the guy who wired the school! Lots of summer projects coming here. Want to wire the xbox so we can watch netflix on it this summer.

  Tags: education, technology, techintegrator

• Lifehacker - Alpha Geek: How to digitize cassette tapes - Alpha Geek

  I plan to convert my cassette tapes from growing up this summer - we made tons of interviews each Christmas.

  Tags: education, technology, techintegrator

• Tor: anonymity online

  A leading proxy system for privately surfing - not saying you'd need this. Tor is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the purpose of protecting your INternet traffic from analysis.

  Tags: education, anonymity, proxy, technology

• How to hide files in JPEG pictures

  So, learn to hide your financial files backup after you did your taxes in that old picture of you and Grandma.
  
  OK, now this is very cool - you can hide files inside JPEG pictures. To me, it is not possible to have too many backups - of your tax records, your financial records, etc. Although this method isn't perfect, it would require maximum geekiness to sniff out and find.

  Tags: education, learning, technology

• An Inconvenient Truth About Education: Rethinking the Way Things Are | Edutopia

  Watching the Oscar-winning global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I was struck by the similarities between climate change and education change. These seemingly unrelated crises on our planet and in our schools are, in fact, connected.
  
  Both have taken many decades to develop and, at least in the United States, both originated in an industrial economy built on manufacturing. The effects of global warming and school decline are difficult to detect year to year, but over several generations, their impacts accumulate -- and are now converging to limit the future health of our economy and our society.
  
  To reverse these declines, similar fundamental shifts in thinking and behavior will be required at the individual, institutional, and societal levels. Consuming less, recycling more, and the ethic of caring for the environment should begin with our youngest children, as modeled by their parents, teachers, and caregivers. It's the same with literacy, curiosity, and a love of learning. Just as green technologies can make energy consumption more efficient, learning technologies can play a key role in modernizing the learning process.

  Tags: Edutopia, edutopia.org, education, crisis, fundamental, shift, thinking, learning, process

• Tor: Download

  You can download Tor and put it on a USB drive to use it when traveling if required.

  Tags: education, learning, privacy, technology

• 64 Things Every Geek Should Know - LaptopLogic.com

  Cool article that covers a lot of things that people should know - whether you mind being called a geek or not. Very interesting reading.

  Tags: education, learning, technology, techintegrator

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/17/2009

• ZaidLearn: ZaidLearn's Juiciest Bedtime Stories

  The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
  – Albert Einstein

  Tags: zaid, zaidlearn, stories, education, learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/16/2009

• Multiplication Tables - Flash Player Installation

  Tags: math, multiplication, game, software, mathematics, education, Free, ACSD

• Work Literacy - Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals

  Tags: ning, social media, elearning, web2.0, education, Learning, learning2.0, networking, openLearning, openEducation

• Hacking Education | Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing

  Tags: education, reform

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/15/2009

• Curiosity and Creativity in Children, Perhaps Not Quite as Sir Ken Robinson Suggests? — Open Education

  Tags: creativity, children, learning, education, TED

• Bill Gates talks about KIPP at the annual TED Conference, 2009

  Tags: kipp, education, lecture, video

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/14/2009

• NRCS Photo Gallery Home

  The NRCS Photo Gallery contains natural resource and conservation related photos from across the USA. The Gallery is a joint project between NRCS Conservation Communications and the NRCS Information Technology Center in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

  Tags: photos, images, education, nature

• 100 Incredibly Inspiring Blog Posts for Educators - Learn-gasm

  Tags: teaching, education, blogging, resources, Inspiration

• ZaidLearn: ZaidLearn's Master List

  Tags: Zaid, openLearning, openEducation, resources, list

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/13/2009

• Using del.icio.us In Education

  A very good and indepth article on the use of delicious in education

  Tags: doe, del.icio.us, delicious, school2.0, saschools, education, socialbookmarking

• A $100 Billion Question: How Best to Fix the Nation's Schools? - Class Struggle - Jay Mathews on Education

  If you had $100 billion to fix our schools, what would you do? A surprisingly smart list of suggestions for the education portion of the federal stimulus money is circulating in the education policy world. A group of experts claims authorship. I don't believe committees are capable of good ideas, so I doubt the alleged origins of the list. But let's put that aside for a moment and see what they've got.
  
  Better yet, why not come up with our own ideas? My column seeking cheap ways to improve education yielded interesting results. By contrast, think of what we could do if we had enough money to buy the contract of every great quarterback: guarantee the Redskins a Super Bowl victory. Many expensive school-fixing schemes proved just as insane and just as useless. But Barack Obama is president, and we are supposed to be hopeful.

  Tags: fix, schools, billion, $, education, money, budget

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/12/2009

• [Free Education Software GCompris]

  Tags: software, opensource, elementary, educational, education, kids

• Kindle DX: Sleeper Agent for Amazon’s Future | Green Business | Reuters

  New kindle DX - 3 months after the other - what is the difference:
  
  "the big differences are that the Kindle DX is 4 inches larger than the one you bought last month and comes installed with a PDF reader."
  
  $489 price tag
  
  Some of my students are reading on their itouch now.

  Tags: education, technology

• Future of Education

  A very solid paper on the future of education and the technological forces that are driving change.

  Tags: future of education, education, technology, future, online, learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/10/2009

• ccLearn

  Tags: creativecommons, copyright, education, opensource, resources, learning, commons, creative

• All You Need To Know About Twitter

  To the Internet hipsters who discovered Twitter in 2006, Oprah's inaugural tweet - FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY, she typed - was the end of the era, the shark jump. But that's like saying the Beatles were over after they appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show."\nTwittermania has only begun. In the days after Oprah's show, Twitter's traffic growth is accelerating. The ratings service HitWise now ranks twitter.com as America's No. 38 Web site. It's about to rocket past CNN and Wells Fargo.

  Tags: education, twitter, 21st_century, learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/09/2009

• Country Guides to Culture, Etiquette, Customs & more!

  CultureCrossing.net is an evolving database of cross-cultural information about every country in the world. This user-built guide allows people from all walks of life to share essential tips with each other about how to navigate our increasingly borderless world with savvy and sensitivity.

  Tags: culture, socialstudies, etiquette, education, travel, digitalcitizenship, all_teachers, curriculum, history

• Interactive Lessons

  Tons of great resources for teachers. Integration and technology use ideas galore!

  Tags: education, integration, web2.0, resources, interactive, lessons

• Diffen - Compare Anything. Diffen. Discern. Decide.

  Diffen allows the user to compare, contrast, and the find the difference, between any two things.

  Tags: contrast, writing, education, elementary, middleschool, h

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/08/2009

• Lots of lovely teacher and elementary links here

  Tags: elementary, education

• Podcasts (Library of Congress)

  Did you know the Library provides podcasts of some of its presentations and online resources? Listen to book festival presentations, material on music and its impact on the brain and oral history interviews with African Americans who provide first-person accounts of the hardships of the slave plantations and of life during and after slavery. Download the audio recording and a transcript of the program to your iPod, other portable media player, or to your computer from the Library of Congress website. You may choose to automatically download this and subsequent episodes via a free subscription from the Library's podcast website or through Apple iTunes.

  Tags: podcasts, libraryofcongress, loc, history, socialstudies, education, classroom

• smarthistory

  Smarthistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.

  Tags: Art, arts, education, art history

• J.ot Down - simple internet notepad

  J.ot Down is a simple Internet-based notepad. Here are some simple instructions:
  
  1) Open j.otdown.com in your browser.
  2) Start typing.
  3) Pause for a moment (or hit "Save") and J.ot Down will save your note and give you a
  permanent link for it (as seen in your browsers location bar)
  4) Continue to edit your note or share it (or a read-only version) with your friends.
  5) Bookmark your note for later access or just start another one.

  Tags: education, notes, web2.0

• Create a Reset Button on Your Notebook Page? | TeqSmart: Blogging About SMART Boards, Resources, Lessons, Training, Games...

  Using page recorder to make a "reset" for your smartboard lessons

  Tags: SmartBoard, education, whiteboard, k-12, reset

• VocabGrabber : Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus

  VocabGrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context. Just copy text from a document and paste it into the box, and then click on the "Grab Vocabulary!" button. VocabGrabber will automatically create a list of vocabulary from your text, which you can then sort, filter, and save.

  Tags: vocabulary, education, words, text, list

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

itsy bitsy spider

Last night around 3:00am, unable to sleep, my mind wandered. I really need to keep paper and pen near the bed because I had a couple of good ideas. Somehow I thought of the itsy bitsy spider song, sometimes called the teensy weensy spider. Then started to think of the water cycle, maybe because it was raining. It was then that the two things connected, the Itsy Bitsy Spider covers part of the water cycle, what it needs is other parts, so here it goes:

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.

Down came the rain, and washed the spider out.

Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain

And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Up went the water making lots of clouds
Water kept rising cooling in the clouds
The itsy bitsy spider continued up the spout.

then go back to the first verse, showing that it is indeed a cycle.
Maybe when I can't sleep I can figure out more verses

What do you think? Suggestions? Tell me to forget it?

A lazy post

My post from the Lazy Bloggers Post Generator:

Abject apologies I just climbed out from under my rock and realised I have not updated this since they let me out!... You would not believe the amount of people that are totally stalking me. Whenever will they invent electricity!.

I am lost in a sea of pseudo-olde-english with setting fire to people wearing Crocs, being distracted by the shiny, just generally being a terrible burden to various lawyers I met recently, my day starts with the dawn patrol from the second I am woken by murderous Teletubbies to I am begging my kid to go to sleep or so help me God that kid will be decorating my wall, 'Duct tape still life'. I am avoiding recapture. but this damned rock is heavy.

I swear on the bones of my ancestors I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. I promise! Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/04/2009

• westwood - Joy J

  Excellent efolio of work from Joy J in the 10th grade Introduction to Computer Science course. You can see an overview of the types of things done in this course and how Flat Classroom and NetGenEd were integrated into the curriculum as well as some videos. Joy is an excellent student and this portfolio with exception of a few tiny omissions is near perfect.

  Tags: education, learning, netgened, flatclassroom, bestpractices, technology

• Reflection - grownupdigital

  Another amazing reflection from Netgened, this student is simply phenomenal.

  Tags: education, learning, netgened, bestpractices

• westwood - Hope efolio

  Great efolio wiki from my ninth grader -- summarizes the year and accomplishments. (Videos will be added this week.)

  Tags: education, learning, efolio, technology, bestpractices

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/03/2009

• Curriculum Services Canada

  Tags: curriculum, canada, resources, education, teaching, pedagogy

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.

Diigo bookmarks for today 05/02/2009

• Futurelab: Innovation in education (lovely resource)

  Futurelab is passionate about transforming the way people learn. Tapping into the huge potential offered by digital and other technologies, we develop innovative resources and practices that support new approaches to learning for the 21st century.

  Tags: innovation, education, teaching

Posted from Diigo. The rest of educators group favorite links are here.