Configurable Applets & other Java components for Math

Thirteen (so far) configurable JCM applets. No restrictions on using them. The author provides configuration instructions.

The configurable applets cover a range of mostly calculus and pre-calculus topics including: graphs of functions, families of functions, composition of functions, tangent lines, parametric curves, and Riemann sums.

DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association)

A non-profit, international association of academics and practitioners whose work focuses on digital games and associated activities.

There's a membership fee to join (in UK pounds), but even if you're not a member there are many resources and links at this site, of course all focussed on digital games for education.

DiGRA 2005 Conference: June 16 - 20/05 in Vancouver, BC, Canada

FOR YOUR ONLINE STUDENTS: Resources, Guides, Tips & Tutorials

Please refer your students to my "For Students" page. It includes these sections:

• Am I ready to eLearn? Am I the type of person who can do this?
• Find a place to eLearn
• Tips, Guides & Tutorials
• Tools & Resources to help your eLearning experience

Here are two more listings I've just added to "Find a place to eLearn" section:

DegreeAdvantage.com: (U.S.A. schools only). You can browse by degree desired, by state, by specialty area, by schools, by degree category. There's a whole section for Distance Learning.

Distance learning degrees and online degree programs are designed for aspiring career professionals who just can't affort to put their career on hold while seeking a higher education degree at a traditional college. The online colleges you will find on this site provide associate, bachelor, master and doctoral degree programs designed for working adults and aspiring professionals like yourself.

HigherEdDegrees.com: "...the Internet's most comprehensive directory of online, distance learning and campus based higher education schools and colleges for serious career professionals. Find hundreds of higher education institutions and online degree programs offering job-specific career training and advanced career education."

WordPress

FREE blog publishing tool for your desktop. If you feel ready to use your ISP's PHP service and set up a blog on your own site, this is the application for you. I haven't tried it yet, but they seem to make it really easy at WordPress. Lots of demos, tutorials, etc.

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there.

The Free Library.com

The EduResources Weblog says this about it:

A short biography of each author accompanies the e-texts, which include both short and long works; writers of fiction and non-fiction (such as Aristotle, Abraham Lincoln, and John Kennedy) are included. Additionally, a selection of famous quotations and additional resources accompany each listing. Textual searches, both within the entire library, and within a selected e-text can by made. Perhaps some evaluators might be critical about who is included in this e-library and who is missing, but I'm grateful to find such a readily available free library.

Here's a link to my website's Texts Online resource page.

Exemplary Online Educators

This paper outlines the initial findings of a qualitative study that asked students who study online their perspectives on why they recall certain online educators as outstanding.

CSS - Style Templates

I always love to find a good source of some new CSS ideas, some layout templates, etc. This is a good one.

... this is like peeking at the answers at the back of the book. Some of these styles are like low hanging fruit, ready to pluck and use. Others take a little work to adapt. And some even let you specify a couple of things on a form, turn a crank, and out comes your styles. So you've got no excuse for building nasty, unmaintainable web pages any more. Let's get stylin!

Want more CSS resources? Here's a link to my website's CSS Resources page.

Learning by Design ~ Good Video Games as Learning Machines

This article asks how good video and computer game designers manage to get new players to learn long, complex and difficult games. The short answer is that designers of good games have hit on excellent methods for getting people to learn and to enjoy learning. The longer answer is more complex.

Link to other articles and resources for Games in Education on my website's Digital Games For Learning page.

Blackboard vs. Moodle

This report is easy to read, with % comparison statistics on various items, as well as graphic comparisons.

View other Management System comparisons via links from my website's Content Management Systems page.

Canadian Geographic Atlas Online

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society proudly presents a groundbreaking Internet achievement, The Canadian Atlas Online, which brings cartography to life with exciting graphics and animation. This state-of-the-art interactive atlas allows you to explore Canada in a way you've never experienced before, and helps the Society to fulfill our mission 'to make Canada better known'.

If you're a teacher, ALSO NOTE THIS:

The Canadian Atlas Online offers valuable assistance to teachers and educators across Canada. From the Learning Centre, you can download complete sets of lesson plans and supporting material for use in classrooms. These materials have been prepared by teacher-members of The Canadian Council for Geographic Education. The lesson plans are categorized by province reflecting differences in provincial curricula and by grade level.

Permanent link to this appears on my Teaching Resources: Miscellaneous page and on my homepage.

For Students: finding an online school

Here are two new sites I've added to my "For Online Students" resources page:

CollegesDirectory.com: Huge list of links to colleges, categorized by subject and also by location.

Online Degree Direct: This site's "Links" page that provides a long list of resources: listings of online schools, links to sites for assistance, information, etc. (It's where I found the above very useful link.)

SMS Everywhere - Text Message any Cell Phone

Send a short text message from your browser to any cell phone in USA or Canada. All you need is the phone number!

Paint.NET

Paint.NET: A freeware enhanced Windows Paint Program developed at Washington State University with additional help from Microsoft.

Paint.NET has many of the powerful features that expensive commercial applications have, including the ability to use layers. Paint.NET will do a lot of the things that the commercial graphics programs do. If you're looking for a good graphics program but don't want to pay for it, check this out.

SSI (Server Side Includes): a new page in my site

I'm taking an online course in how to use SSI. I've created this new site page for my own bookmarks and all links to resources.

What is an 'include'? When you have sections that are the same on each of your pages, as in a navigation menu, when you want to make changes it can become a nightmare if you have more than a couple of pages. The best way to get around this is to use 'includes' (server side includes).

An 'include' file is a text file, which contains the section of the webpage that you want to remain the same on each page. When you want to make changes, you change the text file, then upload it to your webspace. You note on your html page the name of the text file to 'include', then when someone loads the html page it pulls the html from the 'include' and anyone who views your source can't tell you have done it this way. [explanation is from HTML Basix]

HTML Basix

Lots of stuff here for webpage makers, including a bunch of online CODE GENERATORS.

10x10 - An AMAZING way to get the news of the hour

NEWS at

You have to experience it!

Preparing Instructors for Quality Online Instruction

With a growing number of courses offered online and degrees offered through the Internet, there is a considerable interest in online education, particularly as it relates to the quality of online instruction. The major concerns are centering on the following questions: What will be the new role for instructors in online education? How will students' learning outcomes be assured and improved in online learning environment? How will effective communication and interaction be established with students in the absence of face-to-face instruction? How will instructors motivate students to learn in the online learning environment? This paper will examine new challenges and barriers for online instructors, highlight major themes prevalent in the literature related to “quality control or assurance” in online education, and provide practical strategies for instructors to design and deliver effective online instruction. Recommendations will be made on how to prepare instructors for quality online instruction.

Developing Student Electronic Portfolios

An online workshop page by David Brear. David links to articles, assessment ideas, many resources sites. H also illustrates examples of student created portfolios, Grade 2/3 and Grade 8; he examines different software that can be used to create portfolios; and he identifies Web sites that can help in the understanding and creation of portfolios.

[Link to my own ePortfolio resources page]

[K-12] Internet Sites for Students & Teachers

David Brear teaches in Coquitlam, BC and posts monthly additions to his site of internet resources listed under a wide variety of headings.

[K-12] Virtual Manipulatives for Interactive Mathematics

From Utah State U,

A library of uniquely interactive, web-based virtual manipulatives or concept tutorials, mostly in the form of Java applets, for mathematics instruction (K-12 emphasis)... Manipulatives [are] physical objects that help students visualize relationships and applications... A national library from which teachers may freely draw to enrich their mathematics classrooms. The materials will also be of importance for the mathematical training of both in-service and pre-service elementary teachers.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)

...a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students. Founded in 1920, NCTM is the world's largest mathematics education organization, with nearly 100,000 members and 250 Affiliates throughout the United States and Canada.

While you're there, review the NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics:

...has four major components. First, the Principles for school mathematics reflect basic perspectives on which educators should base decisions that affect school mathematics. They then describe an ambitious and comprehensive set of goals for mathematics instruction. Finally, the document discusses the issues related to putting the Principles into action and outlines the roles played by various groups and communities in realizing the vision of Principles and Standards.

Flickr: FREE Online Image Storage

The best way to store, search, sort & share your photos.

I'm sure I'll make of this new (beta) site, but some of their features hint at many possible uses beyond what I can think of right now. Flickr makes it easy to add a photo to a blogger.com blog, for example, by letting you set this up in advance by entering your list of blogs blogger.com and the photo-post settings to use for each one. You can even use email to upload your photos, complete with their own titles and descriptions. Or you can select to download their small desktop application (WinXP and Mac) that will batch upload to your flickr account. How much easier can they make it?

Video Blogging

Here are a couple of links on the topic. I'm adding them to a new VideoBlogging section on my blogging information page.
.....................................

How to Set up a FREE Video Blog: A tutorial, based using a blogger.com blog along with a couple other free online applications. Michael Verdi says,

I'll take you through creating your own free website/blog, using Flickr for free image hosting, and the Internet Archive for free video hosting.

.....................................

VLogger Directory (Video bloggers): A growing list of video blogs you can tour or subscribe to by RSS.