Jing

Want to make a screen-capture video (for student tutorials or whatever)? Jing is a free download of some SIMPLE and quick to use software that instantly captures images or creates your screen-capture type videos (you can include sound or voice-over if you wish).

Academic Podcasts

from Duke University Libraries

20 Ideas for a Great Podcast

A blog posting from Carson McComas at "FrogBody". "So, while I'm still a relative podcast newbie and thinking about this, I want to jot down some notes about what I think works." These are FUN to read (I like his sense of humor) as well as helpful. I like this tip: "Be whimsical." (Easy for a PinkFlamingo!)

Bravo!

Blackboard's latest initiative, "...a new way...to share information, insights, and experiences. Bravo! was started with the idea that we can all benefit and have some fun as we learn more about each other and our real-world experiences with...learning technologies."

My title link is to the Bravo! homepage. Each month is a new theme/topic; this it's month PODCASTING. There are discussion forums, a Podcasting Library forum, and 2 upcoming webinars about Podcasting -- one for beginners and a second webinar for those who already know what they're doing in terms of podcasting.

Podcasting Essentials Library

Check out this Podcasting forum thread, the latest at Blackboard's new BRAVO! website. There are multiple interesting Podcasting links in the posting I've linked you to (click my post title). After you check those out, explore the other Podcasting resources and discussions, just begun this week (August '07).

AVATAR: Great Idea for a Podcast for an Online Course

In her blog, Coop's Word on Podcasting and Blogging, Alisa Cooper posts about using an Avatar to speak to her online students. She describes and links to the tools and tricks she's learned about to do this.

"I’ve been podcasting for a few years now, but I wouldn’t say that my podcasts have been big hits with my students. To be honest, most don’t bother to listen. ...I’ve been tossing some ideas around to make my podcasts more interesting and useful to students. One idea that I came up with is creating an avatar for my online courses that will deliver short podcasts to students. The podcasts will include daily updates, writing and research tips, and general motivation."

How to use Second Life for education

An article and VIDEO from Kapp Notes: Try Before You Buy:

"The goal of designers of instruction is to design environments, experiences and instruction that is realistic, efficient and effective...3D worlds offer some of these advantages. Let's not have the learning and development folks be the last ones to miss out on this new direction in learning. See some examples of how to use Second Life for education in this video created by some of the students in my Learning in 3D Class."

Research and Guidelines on Online Social - and Educational - Networking

An article from the newsletter Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day ("A daily item of e-learning interest selected by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies"). Has some interesting facts, including a colorful graph of popular social networking activites. She also provides some good links to follow.

Portfolio Assignments in Teacher Education: A Tool For Self-regulating the Learning Process?

"This study examines the effects of a portfolio programme on self-regulation – and thus among third year students of teacher education training to be secondary school teachers. ... The study indicates a significant increase in self-regulation. The portfolio programme therefore improves students’ capacity to go through their learning process independently ...The comparison of the students’ own opinions with those of the portfolio supervisors also reveals the weak links in the self-regulation cycle. Students have difficulty evaluating and re-orientating their learning process. It also appears that students do not set and/or implement new objectives themselves, which means that they cannot regulate their own learning process on a completely independent basis because they have not thoroughly mastered all the components of the self-regulation cycle."

[Quote is from the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning]

for Blackboard users

Blackboard Support & Resources for Faculty: Grand Rapids Community College has a helpful site for their own faculty, but there are items there that could be useful to any of us. For example, check their Tips, Tutorials & Help (right-side column of the page), their Faculty Tip Sheets and Student Tip Sheets, and their Quick Tutorials (these are for course management for Blackboard Academic Suite.)

Blackboard For Dummies: A book (at Amazon.com) for Blackboard Learning System 7.

Vocational Elearning

From wwwtools for teachers, this page offers a rich collection of links relevant to VET (Vocational Education & Training), and in particular Vocational Elearning.

"Effective Vocational Education and Training is considered crucial to industrial efficiency and economic productivity. To prepare learners for employment in today's technically-charged working environment, elearning strategies are proving successful in supplementing face-to-face mentorship with rich high-quality content, a variety of online networking venues, and flexible access to a range of remote learning environments. In this edition of WWWTools for Education, we consider vocational education and the role of modern ICTs in its delivery."

Video: Social Networking in Plain English | Common Craft - Video Production and Consulting

Sachi & Lee LeFever at Common Craft created this video and, even better (and more social!), they let everyone share it, post it, etc. "This video is for people who wonder why social networking web sites are so popular. We think one reason is because they help solve a real-world problem. We'll let the video explain how it works."

Click on the video image to play.

All Words.com

Online Dictionary, Language Guide, Foreign Language and Etymology. This site has a great variety of helpers for anybody who's interested in writing or just in WORDS, generally. There are some unique options, such as a crossword puzzle solver type of search, a word-of-the-week page that defines and discusses the word, plus a blog and forums. Check out the chart of Links for Word Lovers, grouped in various useful categories. Their Writing Tools section has many excellent links as well; for example, check out the Writing Tips links page.

Neil Patel's 50 favorite design resources

An excellent list!

Web standards checklist

A fairly extensive guide to standards in a question/checklist format.

"The term web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, web standards are much broader than that. A site built to web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XSLT, DOM, MathML, SVG etc) and pursue best practices (valid code, accessible code, semantically correct code, user-friendly URLs etc). In other words, a site built to web standards should ideally be lean, clean, CSS-based, accessible, usable and search engine friendly. This is not an uber-checklist. It is simply a guide that can be used..."

A Roadmap to Standards (for website design)

"This is a comprehensive, informal, and somewhat long-winded roadmap for anyone who has heard about web standards, thinks they might want web standards, but doesn’t know where to start."

Developing With Web Standards

"This document explains how and why using web standards will let you build websites in a way that saves time and money for the developer and provides a better experience for the visitor. Also discussed are other methods, guidelines and best practices that will help produce high-quality websites that are accessible to as many as possible."

5 ways to optimize your design

These are tips for website designers in general, but can also be helpful if you're designing course pages.

Women Edubloggers

Janet Clarey highlights Women Edubloggers. Her own blog is interesting and has many categories, many of which address topics in education. I like her friendly, chatty approach, while still getting her messages across. Check out her Best Practices category while you're at her blog site.