Screencasts with Screenr

Screenr is VERY easy to use! Click record and off you go creating a screencast up to 5 minutes in length. There is nothing to download and it is free.

Here is an example created by Amanda Coolidge, Communication Chair for the BC Educational Technology Users Group, to highlight upcoming activities. Through the Screenr site Amanda published a link to her screencast directly to Twitter.

Pimp Your Post

Why use text when you can talk from a coffee cup!! :-D Research and experience shows that a strong start toward building community can do wonders for learning and engagement in your online course. For most online courses, this begins with the introductory post or icebreaker activity. Join us for Pimp Your Post -- Jazzing up Introductory Posts in Online Courses, a 1 week extravaganza of exploring easy, fun, and free ways to go beyond the plain text forum post. We'll kick off with a 1-hour web conference on February 12, and carry on a week of "sandboxing" at SCoPE.

What:
* Combination of synchronous and asynchronous discussions
* Participate in all or any portion of this event

Facilitators:
Gina Bennett and Tracy Roberts

Where:
http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=6301

When:
* Web conference: February 12, 2010 at 11:30 PST, 19:30 GMT (check your time zone)
* Asynchronous discussion February 12 - 19, 2010

How:
* No registration required
* Create an account on the SCoPE site to contribute to discussions and to customize your visits

This web conference and seminar is brought to you by the British Columbia Educational Users Group.

FREE online educational games, learning activities

Sheppard Software says, "We make learning fun."

FREE online educational games, learning games, and activities for kids of all ages. Articles, quizzes, and more, all quickly accessed online. There's even some good Canadian content there; for example, Canadian geography tutorials and games.

ALSO from Sheppard Software: Free software for teachers & Schools. "We design educational software and online games with these goals: 

1. To add sound and visual effects to make learning fun and more memorable. 
2. To design games with many difficulty levels so that players will continue to be challenged no matter how far they progress.
3. To provide games that will exercise players' brains."

...........

Kate's little side note: So, this guy calls me on the phone, raves about my site, PinkFlamingo's Resources Lists, then asks me to provide a link to Sheppard Software on the site. In the 10+ years I've had the site, I've had many link-exchange contacts, but never before by phone. But it was really the compliments that worked on me; whether or not they were just a marketing ploy, they worked. Good thing to keep in mind as an approach to take when trying to get anybody on board about anything -- the compliments go a long way, don't they?