LMS Satisfaction Features & Barriers

Tony Karrer's summary post about a survey that measured, among other details, user satisfaction with a number of Learning Management Systems. He links us to the eLearningGuild's Learning Management System research report, and includes some of the charts that illustrate various satisfaction categories...answers to questions such as satisfaction level, satisfaction with particular features, are you planning to replace, primary barriers, importance of features, etc.

CBC Archives

"On this Website you'll find a selection of radio and television clips from the Archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some of these files have rested quietly at the bottom of our vaults for more than 60 years and are, for the first time, now accessible to the general public."

A section for Teachers, with grade level lesson plans to complement topics on the website. Podcasts. Archives timeline. Index of topics, index of clips, index of interviews. Topic-based sections of the site (e.g. people; war; arts & entertainment; politics & economy; etc.).

"All educational materials are free to use within the framework of educational, non-commercial use. Copyright restrictions dictate that clips cannot be downloaded."

Educational Uses for Google Earth

Quoting directly from my Google Earth email newsletter. NOTE: THE FIRST 2 LINKS BELOW WILL OPEN YOUR GOOGLE EARTH; they're not weblinks!

"Teachers and students should be aware that Google Earth is a great tool for education. And, it's not just about geography. Google Earth has been used by educators in many subjects including: science, literature, history, cartography, GIS, and more. Check out some examples like: Places quoted by Shakespeare or the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

For Google-created resources, teachers should visit our Google Earth for Educators site, or check out some Sky lesson ideas. For some ideas from our users, see the JuicyGeography blog by Noel Jenkins in the UK, or a summary by Frank Taylor at the Google Earth Blog."

Jottit

Kathy Schrock introduces "Jottit": "Neat wiki! This allows teachers to have a classroom wiki that is only accessible to students who have the password and students do not need an email address to sign-up." I'm linking to her post, which includes a link to the wiki site.

Webinar: Podcasting Xtreme

Led by Jane Himmel and Julie Navar:

"When we talk about "extreme" podcasting, we're not just talking about cutting-edge tools. Rather, we're trying to help people take their podcasting to the next level by delving more deeply into the design process of producing an effective, educational podcast. How? Primarily by taking an instructional design approach, and analyzing information needs and audiences to determine if podcasting is the right match with your instructional needs. During our Webinar we also discussed current trends; how to incorporate music and other elements of commercial podcasts; hardware and software needs; and ideas about distribution - all with the goal of helping you create a more creative and engaging final podcast."

[They provide the link to the the archived recording of the Webinar; click this post's title.]

Text to Speech Software

TextAloud: In 2004 I posted an entry about this application. "TextAloud MP3 is Text To Speech software that uses voice synthesis to create spoken audio from text. You can listen on your PC or save text to MP3 or wave files for listening later."

Just as an update, this week's WinXP News says: "TextAloud is the world's leading text-to-speech program, available now with optional AT&T Natural Voices for the best in computer speech. TextAloud uses voice synthesis to convert text into spoken audio. Listen to text from email, web pages and documents on your PC or create MP3 or WMA files for use on portable devices like iPods, PocketPCs, and CD players. Imagine being free to relax, get up and stretch, or work on other things while the information you need is read to you in a pleasant, natural sounding human voice. Better still, leave your computer behind. TextAloud can save your daily reading to audio files for your portable player."

NextUp.com, makers of the above software, offers several other tools for text-to-speech.

Moodle Playpen

"This site demonstrates the use of Moodle when augmented by community code." Helen Kershaw of Knowplace says, "The best Moodle theme expert in the world. We're not kidding -- this fellow is just the best! On his site you can take a look at the leading, bleeding edge of the latest Moodle versions and manipulate things too!"

Online Education Glossary sites

Glossary of Online Education Terms from Digital Bridges

eLearning Glossary from WorldWide Learn

ELearning Glossaries from EdTechPost

eLearning Glossary from eLearning Guru

Some readings about Online Learning

Annotated Bibliography for Online Teaching: Categories of articles include Overview of Online Teaching; Theory of Online Course Writing; Practice of Online Course Writing; Web Design for Online Course Writing.

Theories of and for Online Learning: "We see changes in teaching and learning emerging from the nexus of a changing landscape of information and communication technologies... We see the need for, and the emergence of, new theories and models of and for the online learning environment, addressing learning in its ICT context, considering both formal and informal learning, individual and community learning, and new practices arising from technology use in the service of learning. This paper presents six theoretical perspectives on learning in ICT contexts, and is an invitation to others to bring theoretical models to the fore to enhance our understanding of new learning contexts."

File Extensions

File extensions and file types resource. Find file extension details here including easy-to-understand descriptions and associated applications. Search by extension, view common and most visited extensions, and click to extension categories including audio and music files, game files, system files and text files.

Firefox Extension for Ask Dr. C Search Engine

In her blog, Laura Gekeler says: "The WebCT 'Ask Dr. C' forum/knowledgebase is still alive and well. And I still use it frequently before responding to questions I'm asked. Nowadays my preferred browser is Firefox (especially for administrative tasks in Blackboard Vista because of the 'stop script' feature). So I installed Henk Schotel's Firefox extension (last updated 11/2006) which searches Ask Dr. C for me, much as a Google toolbar would perform a websearch. To get it, use Firefox to navigate here and click on the Ask Dr C link to install it. It works great!"

SchoolTube

"A network of students, educators, and professionals working together to foster video production and internet publishing in a safe online learning environment. SchoolTube gives you the ability to safely upload your video onto the internet to share with other educators or students. All SchoolTube videos have been moderated or teacher approved for viewing. Our high standards are based on the STN Code of Ethics."

Theories and models of and for online learning

"For many years, discussion of online learning...has been pre-occupied with the practice of teaching online and the debate about whether being online is ‘as good as’ being offline. ...We see the need for, and the emergence of, new theories and models of and for the online learning environment, addressing learning in its ICT context, considering both formal and informal learning, individual and community learning, and new practices arising from technology use in the service of learning. This paper presents six theoretical perspectives on learning in ICT contexts."

Pedagogical Templates for E-Learning

A report that "...describes a series of pedagogic templates for the integration of technology into teaching and learning... The main objective of this report is to provide an overview for IoE academics who are interested in integrating e-learning into their courses. This report has been designed to guide practitioners on how e-learning can be used in the context of a course, and the description of each template focuses on the pedagogical aspects of using e-learning."

eXe : eLearning XHTML editor

[eXe = eLearning XHTML editor]

"The eXe project is developing a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. eXe can export content as self-contained web pages or as SCORM 1.2 or IMS Content Packages."

Watch the video intro on YouTube.

Grammar Grater: PODCASTS

"...a weekly podcast about English words, grammar and usage for the Information Age. Because we live in a time of e-mail, blogs, instant messaging, even online product reviews—everybody's a writer. And with the global nature of communication, there's not a single style guide everyone uses. To help sort through some of the confusion, host Luke Taylor and the Grammatis Personae Players (Cory Busse and Amy Ault) take linguistic bugbears and put 'em through the Grammar Grater."

Grammar Girl: PODCASTS

I've seen this referred to as "one of the most downloaded educational podcasts on iTunes" [reference]. A "real-life science writer", Mignon Fogarty, has built up a great resource site of "Quick and Dirty Tips: Clean Up Your Writing". My title link is to this week's tip; scroll down to see others (they're all on one page). The left panel has links to titles and a search box. I like the fact that the podcast also appears in text form.

Google Maps ~ Embedding in webpages:

This is a great idea for courses that involve reference to maps. "The Google Maps API (Application Programming Interface) lets you embed Google Maps in your own web pages with JavaScript." Embedding a fully interactive map is easy. The interactivity on your embedded version is identical to the original: your page visitor can see/close the address box, drag to move the map, zoom in/out, toggle between map/satellite/hybrid views.

How do you do this? When you look at their sign-up site, it seems more complicated than it is. Here's the simple version:

First, you have to sign up and get a "Maps API key". Keep track of that key somewhere.It gives you permission to embed any Google Map in a webpage. (Sign-up is quick. You need one key per website you use.)

How to embed a map:
1. Navigate to the location you want to show on Google Map.
2. On the top right corner of the map, there is a [link to this page]. Click it to get a snippet of HTML. From there you can use "customize" if you want to select a map size. (Default size is shown in my example below.)
3. Copy and paste the HTML code to your web page.

Easy, right? You can also go beyond basics to add a number of features: define areas, add text, add links, add controls, pop-up info/event windows, overlays, driving directions, and more. Google supplies "mapplet" codes for these. The maps do NOT include advertising at this time. (Google will give 90 days notice if they change this policy.)

Here's an example (the place I work, Columbia Square Adult Learning Centre):

View Larger Map

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.

Random Walk in Learning: Boundary Characteristics of Game, Simulation, Drama & Role play Learning - Early draft

"Game as a structured or semi-structured activity is becoming more and more attractive to educators as a learning environment. ... Many teachers/facilitators have recognised the existence of an "environment" while using these techniques. Frequently, and correctly, teachers and facilitators put great emphasis on the rituals in entering and existing ... "game environment". ... This paper provides a theoretical analysis of the environment based on the anecdotal evidences gathered by the authors."

JobProfiles.org

Jobprofiles.org: "We have build a collection of profiles and job descriptions about various different types of careers so you will better understand your area of study before you enter the workplace." This is an EXCELLENT site because of the variety of its offerings. Beyond those Job Profiles, their site sections include:

• Job profiles (as the site's name indicates):


• Guidance for Choosing a Career: A list of some excellent career-specific articles


• Information for students: "Helpful and humorous guides for college students of all ages."


• How to write a killer resume - 50 resources: Just ONE of the great resources in their Library section


• Online Schools: with full descriptions of where they are located, what they offer, etc.


• Online Degrees: An extensive list of degrees with descriptions that tell you what you'd study and what the degree is useful for


• Online Programs: The same kind of information as above for Degrees, this section describes many Programs listed by topic/subject.

Instructional Design & how to create QUALITY courses

• The title above is a link to a discussion on this topic at the Ask Dr.C Forums (acknowledgement: some of the following links are from that discussion
  
• Document Preparation for Online Courses: (a little course -- free to use)
  
• Ten Advanced Instructional Design Tips
  
• Instructional Design Tips for online instruction
  
• Instructional Design Tips
  
• Instructional Design for Online Learning
  

ASL American Sign Language

A very full site that includes free lessons, mini-movies to illustrate the finger alphabet, and much more!

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary

The words dance around graphically in grouped, dynamic, ever-changing visuals of connected words and ideas. I can't describe it well, so check it out.

"Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. It's a dictionary! It's a thesaurus! Great for writers, journalists, students, teachers, and artists."

Hacking Knowledge

77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better: "77 tips related to knowledge and learning to help you on your quest. A few are specifically for students in traditional learning institutions; the rest for self-starters, or those learning on their own. Happy learning." I was going to say "for your students", but these tips are good for all of us involved in lifelong learning.

Bibliomania

Read, study, research, shop. Free online literature (fiction, drama, poetry, short stories) with more than 2000 classic texts. Study guides, literature book notes, reference books, book summaries, author biographies. Here are just a few of my favorite links from the site:

• Quotations: click for Grocott's Alpha list or Grocott's Thematic list.
• Roget's Thesaurus
• Soule's Synonyms
• Oscar Wilde biography/links
• Actually, their whole Reference section

Study Guides and Strategies

"The Study Guides and Strategies web site is authored, maintained and supported by Joe Landsberger as an independent educational public service. Collaborative projects are developed across institutional, cultural and national boundaries. I resist advertising, registration, and distracting graphics or features that may interfere with maximizing learner access."

Printable Worksheets

Teachers will appreciate this huge list of items to explore -- it's worth a click to see what's there.

edu 2.0: welcome to the future of education

edu 2.0: welcome to the future of education: "...free, web-hosted learning management system." Also has "a library of educational resources contributed by our community" and a community network for educators/students.

Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources

Stephen Downes describes this site:

"This is a huge list of online video resources, including tools that support live video communications, online video how-tos, online video editors, video converters, video sharing sites, video hosting sites, video management, vidcat and vlogging tools, video mashup tools, mobile video, video search, video downloading services, and online television. Phew!"

Open Second Life

A project from a group of programmers not associated with Linden Labs. Hosted at OpenMetaverse.org, a site that hosts projects related to Open Source Metaverse development. About Open Second Life, John Goldsmith says, in a posting to BCEdOnline, they

"...are attempting to "reverse engineer" the Second Life server code, making it possible for anyone to set up and operate their own Second Life Virtual World. Open Second Life will use existing Second Life clients (which are a free download from the original Linden Labs/Second Life web site). While this project is still in the formative stages, it does provide hope to DE schools, teachers and others who want to utilize the educational research being generated by Post Secondary educators who use Second Life, to create more engaging learning experiences for their K-12 students but, in a more controlled setting."

Canada must “unlock potential” in adult learning

"'There are clear and well-substantiated links between lifelong learning, productivity and innovation. If Canada truly wants to unlock its potential, we must help workers engage in lifelong learning,' said Paul Cappon, the president and CEO of the Canadian Council of Learning."

Presentation: Digital Game-Based Learning

"In this podcast of the presentation "Generation G and the 21st Century," Richard Van Eck, associate professor of instructional design and technology at the University of North Dakota, discusses the theory behind the effectiveness of games in teaching and learning; what the past can teach us about if, how, and when to implement digital game-based learning; and what this will mean for colleges and universities."

The Ten Most Common Photographic Mistakes

From Andre Gunther Photography, "Here is a quick rundown of the most common mistakes people (like me) make that mess up a good photo or prevent us from taking a good photo...to kick off [the author's] series on photography techniques." These are good tips and I'll be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series.

Factors Motivating and Inhibiting Faculty in Offering Their Courses via

From the same journal/edition as I posted in the entry below, this paper reports on a study the purpose of which

"...was to discover what factors may motivate faculty members at small, private colleges to adopt distance education, as well as what factors may inhibit that adoption."

Visions Shaping the Future of Online Education:Understanding its Historical Evolution, Implications, and Assumptions

(Click the title to link to the paper.) The purpose of this paper from the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration is to

"...present a historical background of online education, review its current status, and provide visions shaping its future in an attempt to understand its potential and limitations that will lead to the advancement of the scholarship of teaching and learning. Online instructors must understand the way online education has evolved over the years from previous conceptions of education and the wide array of implications and assumptions involved in the delivery of online education. Recommendations for the advancement of online education, including future research, are given."

Freebies Round-Up: Icons, Buttons and Templates

Some VERY AWESOME items here! I'm amazed they're free, they're so good. Check it out.

UBC Style Guides

Getting Started with APA Style: A site from the library at UBC, Vancouver, BC, Canada. The opening page has a really useful chart of sample formats for Reference list (which seems for most people to be the most difficult aspect of following 'style' formatting.

Similar assistance for MLA can be found in their Getting Started with MLA Style page

Teaching Digital Photography?

Visit DP Rounds ~ Digital Photography In The School. First visit their site of free Instructions. Good information, tips, and tutorial-like pages can be found under the headings of Photo Techniques, Photo Editing, and Photo Equipment. If you're teaching digital photography, they have a teacher's site as well. They offer "e-Rounds": student-ready handouts, integrated with web resources such as "how to" step-by-step instructions, downloadable exercises, showcase of high quality photo examples as well as student "best examples". Teacher-ready resources include teacher's notes, PPT presentations, a student CD, and on-line quizzes. Note: The school packages have a price tag, but reasonable. They also have an annual-fee-based access to their resource sites.

WebAIM: Captioning for Windows Media - Getting Windows Media Captions on the Web

A very helpful page from WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) provides several methods to include captioning, illustrated with code. Discusses how to include a SAMI file, whether to embed or not -- Win Media Player 9+ do not "support embedded captions when the browser uses the embed tag to display Window Media content"; includes ideas for how to get around this issue.

Wikis in Plain English

Thanks to Common Craft I can show you the video here. The title of this post links to Lee Lefever's site (the video creator) where he displays the video.

We made this video because wiki web sites are easy to use, but hard to describe. We hope to turn you on to a better way to plan a camping trip, or create the next Wikipedia

Tips On Developing A Wiki Community

(If your monitor isn't wide enough for this blog page it looks like there's nothing in the middle column. Scroll down; I found the article halfway down the page.) There's no "about" or "intro"; the author jumps right in with the first in his list of tips. Definitely worth reading even if you're not creating a wiki but just using one regularly. Several comments about one of the tips; apparently in the case of wikis size does count. :)

Society for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education

STLHE "...is a national association of academics interested in the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education. Its members comprise faculty and teaching and learning resource professionals from institutions of post-secondary educaiton across Canada and beyond."

Podcast directory for educators, schools and colleges

"...the first and best UK directory to locate quality podcasts from over 390 carefully selected podcast channels for educational use - ideal for teaching and learning activities with children, young people and educational professionals. In our podcast directory, you can access educational content from over 4000 podcasts from different podcast channels."

Making iPod content interactive for education

Mobile Musings, a blog at K12Handhelds.com: This post offers links to programs that offer "...various ways to incorporate more interactivity into iPod content."

Custom Curriculum - K12 Handhelds.com

K12 Handhelds.com's page of FREE materials that you can download. Check out their free poetry unit.

Carol's Corner Office - MS Office tips and tricks

Lots of tips and tricks for MS Office here. Also check out her Free Word Bytes Newsletter. I hear from very-inside sources that Carol is going to start offering Open Office information along with MS Office very soon.

Free Computer Utility Software

Dave, the site owner, writes, "All of the software listed is spyware and adware free at the time it is listed."

IconArt -- FREE utility for creating icons

"IconArt is a highly-compact cursor & icon creator. Icons are used to illustrate programs and files. One example are the shortcuts on your desktop. IconArt allows you to either draw the whole image from scratch using all common tools or to import an image to turn into a icon or cursor."

Dave's Computer Tips

"This site contains tips, tweaks, and general advice related to computer hardware, computer software, computer peripherals, and other technology devices." Dave also offers a free biweekly newsletter that:

"...contains important computer news, computer security tips, software reviews, computer hardware, and software tips articles, as well as discussion about programs I find useful. ...Whether you are a geek, a computer owner, a computer user, or someone who thinks Windows are only for looking out of you will find something useful in my newsletter!"

SLurl: Location-Based Linking in Second Life

What is SLurl?
SLurl provides direct teleport links to locations in Second Life. If you have Second Life installed, clicking on the map link will automatically teleport you to that location in-world.

Why use SLurl?
In addition to allowing customized control over mapping locations in Second Life, SLurl also provides a better experience for web users who don't have Second Life. Instead of getting an error when clicking on web links that begin with "secondlife://", visiting a SLurl link gives potential new users a chance to sign up.

Also, check out this SLurl Builder, a handy online tool to help you build your direct links to SL locations.

Reuters reports from Second Life

Reuters of London have assigned a bureau chief, Adam Pasick, to a full time job reporting from inside Second Life! (He says it's difficult to explain his full time job to his mother/grandmother :) This site, complete with RSS feed, is filled with news, blog, videos, audio & video interviews with a range of Second Life subjects, Second Life Business News and Economy reporting, including a dollar value & daily spending charts, a Dollar/Linden currency converter, and lots more, all directly from Second Life. Of course, there's also a Reuters office tower in Second Life.

See this video report from CBC [note: you may be asked to install DivX to view it, but that's all Good!]. Complete with action videos taken inside Second Life, it's an excellent overview of what Second Life is growing to mean and do in our world. As a non-Second Lifer (I bet they have a word for us 'outside world' people?), I thought this video was one of the most informative I've seen so far. I've been told it costs money to "film" scenes from inside Second Life, so I guess this video is like an exclusive treat, courtey of CBC News and Reuters.

Games & Learning

UK's FutureLab's handbook "reports on some of the latest developments in the design of bespoke educational games. Such games are designed to be as rich and dynamic as their mainstream 'cousins', but are intended for particular formal educational outcomes. It also asks whether and how schooling should be adapted to accommodate the use of games."

Top Ten Missing Features of Second Life as an Educational Simulation Platform

Clark Aldrich's says,

"Second Life truly is a phenomenon. It is exactly what the name and vision imply: an example of a parallel 'multiverse'. People will learn much in it, as they might alternatively learn via participating on a real-world sports team, running a real-world lemonade stand, or walking around a great real-world city....Perhaps most importantly, participants learn 'to be' through expressing themselves, including building elaborate sets, and exploring alternative groups with which to interact. Meanwhile, corporations will set up shop in Second Life, as in FaceBook and MySpace, to be where the kids are in an attempt to speak their language and get some eyeballs. But when people talk about it as a platform for Educational Simulations, I am less excited. In fact, here are my list of top ten missing features from Second Life..."

Macleans.ca - NEW Education Site

A CNW Group (Canadian Newswire) article calls this new section at Macleans.ca "Canada's most comprehensive online destination site for current and potential post-secondary students has finally arrived. Announcing the launch of macleans.ca/university, the first website in Canada to offer continuously updated higher education news... up-to-the-minute analysis, interactivity and points-of-view ... It's an essential resource for students and recent graduates looking to make educational decisions." Extensive education/university content, including a personalized version of the famous Maclean's University Ranking Tool: Use Maclean's data to create your own ranking of Canadian schools.

Free Language and Translation Tools

"Lingo24 seeks to be the leading language and translation site on the Internet. Below you can find our early offerings – please do bookmark this page and come back soon, as we have more irons in the fire!" I recommend you check out their "Parasaurus Englix – English language paraphrasing tool". It's kind of like having a thesaurus for full phrases rather than just words. I used it on a few English phrases and idioms and got some interesting results.

WebCT Tips by Dick Evans

"I have been using WebCT since the 1990's at Rhode Island College. We are currently on release 4.1, but are testing release 6. As questions arise and I find a solution, I write a White Paper for faculty reference. This blog describes some of those papers and links to them on my college Web site."

Scratch - FREE application / programming language

Developed at the MIT media lab,

"...a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design. Scratch is available free of charge from the Download page. To find more about the educational ideas underlying Scratch, visit our Educators page."

Free e-Learning Tools

from UBC Arts ISIT: "The e-learning tools listed here are publicly available for academic use, within and outside the University of British Columbia."

The tools include a WebCT Discussion Extractor, Timeline tool, Multimedia learning object authoring tool, Image annotation tool, and more.

PowerPoint to Flash Conversion Tools

Robin Good's "PPT2Flash Top20". Robin asks, "Why Would You Ever Want to Convert a Powerpoint Presentation into a Flash File?" and gives us a "detailed list of the key advantages for converting a PowerPoint presentation into a Flash file. No matter what your final goal is, a Flash-based presentation goes a long way in making your content easily accessible and distributable."

Computer Science Directory

"This directory is developed as a project to list computer science links and articles with high quality. Here you'll only find the best of the best.This directory is developed as a project to list computer science links and articles with high quality. Here you'll only find the best of the best."

Blog Law » 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

"...increasingly Internet activity, and particular blogging, is being shaped and governed by state and federal laws. For US bloggers in particular, blogging has become a veritable land mine of potential legal issues, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that the law in this area is constantly in flux. In this article we highlight twelve of the most important US laws when it comes to blogging and provide some simple and straightforward tips for safely navigating them."

Moodle Buzz

A collection of links to "Moodle news and publications from around the world."

Zamzar - FREE FILE CONVERSION

Convert Document, Image, Music and Video Formats (even YouTube videos!). Exact conversion types listed here.

Blackboard Educate / Innovate

"Educate Innovate is the Blackboard blog about the convergence of education and technology. We aim to use this as a forum to generate discussion about the topics, news, and latest trends impacting e-Learning and campus service offerings; and hope to provide insight about how technology can enable educational innovations for both."

Check out Rob Shea's May 8/07 posting about Ask Dr. C.
[look for moi ;)]

Chemistry Resources

Doc Brown's online Chemistry Clinic

Just Free Stuff! Freebies For Teachers

Check out the extensive collection of free resources in their teacher section.

Wiki Pedagogy

"This article endeavours to denote and promote pedagogical experimentations concerning a Free/Open technology called a 'Wiki'."

Second Life Keyboard Shortcuts

I'm linking you to an EduForge blog post that links you to a file of shortcuts and also provides credit for the file.

Games-based Learning; a serious business application

"This white paper has been written to serve as an introduction to what is rapidly becoming a very hot topic in training and education: gamesbased learning (GBL), also known as ‘Serious Games’."

Check out the extensive resource lists within this paper/report.

Math Videos on YouTube

> Etraffic Solutions, Victoria, BC, Canada has developed some good animations for different math concepts and made them available via YouTube: Etraffic's 9 videos

> Etraffic's site for "Pilot Math"

> Several pages of other YouTube algebra videos (linking you to the search results -- try your own searches)

RSS in Plain English

RSS in Plain English: Thanks to Lee and Sachi Lefever, who shared the code to display the following video. "We made this video for our friends (and yours) that haven't yet felt the power of our friend the RSS reader. We want to convert people... if you know someone who would love RSS and hasn't yet tried it, point them here for 3.5 minutes of RSS in Plain English."

Click To Play

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.

Powerpoint Learning Objects

World of Teaching: Free Powerpoint presentation Learning Objects in biology, chemistry, math, English, history, physics, geography, Spanish.

Learning Objects - a huge collection

Learning Objects from the WISCONLINE.ORG Consortium: My partner found this, calls it "the motherlode of L.O. sites". It's VERY full of a great variety of lesson snippets and learning activities. Note: "We encourage all faculty to visit and register at the Wisconsin Online Resource Center and comply with the full terms and conditions when using any of the resources provided by the Wisconsin Online Resource Center."

Serious Games - Resource Links

In conjunction with SCoPE's current seminar series, Serious Games & Virtual Worlds, members are developing this page of Resource Links. I assume the page will still be there after the seminars are over, so check it out. While you're at it (and if it's still there), here's their Mind Map on this topic. [Click the title of this post to go directly to the Resources page.]

Vedic Mathematics

What you find when you're browsing! I'm no math person, but I love the 'puzzle' nature of math -- when I can figure things out it's rewarding, and the actual figuring is puzzle-like. So This Vedic Math stuff is fascinating. Here's an example that drew me in -- the 11 times table:

11 X 17 (this will work for any two-digit numbers multiplied by 11)
Add the 1 and the 7 together, giving 8
Put this 8 in between the 1 and 7
Giving the answer to the sum 11 X 17 as 187!

11 X 253
Layout the sum like so:
2 / 2 + 5 / 5+ 3 / 3
2,7,8,3
Giving the answer 2783

My favorite online school, LVS Online, is teaching a class about this:
http://www.lvsassociates.com/register/product_info.php?products_id=195

Learning by Design: Good Video Games as Learning Machines

"How do good game designers manage to get new players to learn long, complex, and difficult games? The answer, I believe, is this: the designers of many good games have hit on profoundly good methods of getting people to learn and to enjoy learning. They have had to, since games that were bad at get themselves learned didn’t get played and the companies that made them lost money. Furthermore, it turns out that these learning methods are similar in many respects to cutting-edge principles being discovered in research on human learning."

Student Self Directed Learning

A new blog from an Australian educator, Phil Brown, a teacher in a secondary college. There's always something good coming from Australian educators, seems to me. This blog is focused on the above topic, and Mr. Brown has begun by selecting some interesting articles already, such as: Exemplary Online Educators; What Makes A Good Learner? "This blog is about my developments in understanding student learning." What a great approach by an educator!

Technology in Schools: What Does The Research Say?

A new report from Cisco Systems and Metiri Group is intended to assist educators to make informed technology investments.

"Overall, across all uses in all content areas, technology does provide a small, but significant, increase in learning when implemented with fidelity. While this statistic is encouraging, the real value to research lies in the identification of those technology interventions that get sufficiently positive results to warrant the investment. Most educators are looking for the value proposition that will significantly advance learning, teaching, and school system efficiencies. Taking advantage of these leverage points requires serious review of specific research studies that specifically address the needs and challenges of specific schools and serious attention paid to leadership development, professional development for teachers, school culture, curricular redesign, and teacher preparation.

"The reader should be cautioned that, although single studies with positive results are encouraging, such results could not be generalizedbeyond specific student populations and contexts within the studies. Educators are encouraged to pilot such solutions and research the effect locally prior to full-scale implementation."

Karen’s Mashups - K12 podcast compilation

This podcast features mashups (compilations) of short excerpts from podcasts and other digital content of potential interest to the educational community. It is intended to give you a taste of a various podcasts that you might want to explore further. Most shows will have a theme, such as math, science, student productions, professional development, museum productions, or technology news. Some shows will be focused on podcasts for administrators and teachers, while other shows will highlight podcasts for students or parents. The show is produced and hosted by Karen Fasimpaur of K12 Handhelds. On this web site, we will include links to the web sites for each of the shows included in the episode, along with brief notes on the nature of the content included.

Windows Vista - what works and what doesn't

Keep a watch on this page. Ohio University maintains this page about issues resulting from using MS Vista. They're testing all applications used on campus to determine compatibility. The page links to Microsoft's list of applications that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo. Ohio U. also lists a compatibility list for software. One surprise to me is that iTunes doesn't yet work well with Vista, another that Acrobat Reader 8, PhotoShop 8, and a few others only work "with modifications". Good page to bookmark if you don't have time to keep up your own research about whether or not to move to MS Vista. 04/03/07

History Education - Trends and Issues 2007

If you teach history, this page from wwwTools For Education will no doubt be a useful source of resources. Click the heading of this post to go directly to the history resource page.