Setting up a vodpod - for video

A blog posting at EduBlog provides a simple tutorial. "Vodpod is a great way to show videos directly in your blog. No downloading needed for the viewer."

Edublogs tutorials

"This blog is designed to get you started in blogging with simple tips and hints on how to improve what you are doing."

Learning in Immersive Worlds: a review of game based learning

I like Stephen Downes' comment in his review of this report: "Rather than using games in learning, I still think educators should be looking at how to use learning in games."

"[The report], authored by Sara de Freitas, scopes out the current use of games for learning in UK HE and post-16 education and has been produced to inform practitioners who are considering using games and simulations in their practice.
The report includes:
. a review of the literature
. a series of case studies from practice to illustrate the range of uses of games
. synthesises the key issues and themes arising from learning in immersive worlds."

Scholar - academic social bookmarking

"Blackboard Scholar® is a social bookmarking service customized for education. It provides an exciting new way for students and instructors to find educationally valuable resources on the Web. Using the knowledge and power of our network of educational users, Scholar makes it easier for instructors and students to find relevant resources on the Internet for courses and research. Furthermore, by storing and sharing associated information with each resource such as tags, disciplines, other users who have tagged and more, Scholar allows users to evaluate the resources and find the most relevant and reliable. And it is directly integrated within the Blackboard Learning System(TM) - Enterprise, Vista, and CE Licenses, providing easy access right within the course environment."

OER Commons - Open Educational Resources

Welcome to a worldwide learning network — OER Commons: "Resources, or OER, offer new ways to engage with free-to-use learning content." "...open network of shared resources and practices, from K through college, from algebra to zoology -- it's all free to use."

Peterson's - a very helpful website for students

Search "Online Learning Programs" by filters of Course of Study and Level. "Even if you don't have a clue where you want to go, there's no reason to worry. We'll guide you through every step of the college-planning process, from discovering the right school to finding scholarships."

Many other tools available on the site -- search for colleges by discipline; get advice about choosing a college or about campus life; lots of help for new college students; help with preparing for tests --filtered by specific existing test types; excellent last minute study tips for various types of tests; and MUCH MORE!

Distance Learning Moves Into 'Second Life' Virtual Classroom

Another higher education institution has moved into Second Life -- University of Florida in Gainesville.

"Paul Fishwick, a computer science and engineering professor, is teaching one of at least two classes offered at UF this semester largely in cyberspace — specifically, the trendy three-dimensional online world called Second Life. There, Fishwick’s 'avatar', the character that represents each player in Second Life, leads discussions among some 30 other avatars controlled by upper-level UF undergraduate and graduate students in CAP 4403/CAP 6402, Aesthetic Computing.

With distance learning decades old, classes on computer are nothing new. But Second Life, which has more than 2 million users worldwide, opens a wealth of fresh possibilities, one educators nationwide are increasingly experimenting with."

Curriki ~ Global Education & Learning Community

Curriki stands for (I'm guessing) curriculum wiki. They're new, so resources are limited right now, but please join and contribute!

"The Curriki Community is comprised of thousands of people like you who want to create and use high-quality educational resources. ...Our mission is to improve education around the world by empowering teachers, students and parents with user-created, open source curricula, and it's all free!"

Embedded Media HTML Generator

"The Embedded Media HTML Generator has been developed to ease the burden of inserting video and animations into web pages." The page will generate code for embedding Flash, Quicktime, RealMedia, Windows Media.

Accessibility Information & Resources

Accessibility Information & Resources: from Saskatoon Catholic Cyberschool, a commented list of resource sites.

Instructional Scenarios Wiki for WebCT Vista

Topics included are Content, Communication, Course Management, Evaluation. Lots of good tips 'n' tricks here!

"This site is designed and maintained by the Teaching Technology Services group of Instructional Multimedia Services of McGill University. This wiki describes how to use WebCT Vista to do complex instructional tasks using multiple tools. We (the Teaching Technology Services staff) built this wiki to explore the potential of the technology and to experiment with collaborative group work. These instructional scenarios are meant as a complement to the WebCT Vista manuals and do not duplicate any information from them. "

Video Blogging Resources

Video blogging made easy: From Telus, a step-by-step how-to for those who are new to videoblogging. The article includes links to other help/tutorial sites, so I'll include those here too:

• The Video Blog Handbook - a community project for documenting tips and tricks


• Node 101 - an educational resource aimed at teaching people how to video blog


• Freevlog - a multi-lingual how-to on video blogging


• How to video blog with Blogger - A tutorial on video blogging with Blogger and QuickTime

DropShots: A Free sonline video host -- "family friendly photo & video sharing service". s"We support MPG, AVI, MOV, WMV, and 3GP from all major digital cameras. You just drag and drop the video to our application and we resize, transcode, upload, and host your video. We use the Flash plug-in to stream the video, which is already installed in over 98% of browsers and has a 1-click install process. This makes video easy to post and easy to view."

Zippy Videos: "Your media sharing community." Free host for an unlimited number of videos up to 100mb each. You can create your own URL on the site for sharing videos.

Think.com - An Online Community for Learning

A password-protected learning community, Think.com "turns students into multimedia authors for a global community and allows peers to think and learn together. ...Experience a new level of collaboration with Think.com Projects. Identify a topic of interest, assign your students, and allow others locally or across the globe to join. ...Free service without any advertising for accredited primary and secondary schools. Think.com provides interactive learning tools to thousands of schools around the world in 8 languages."

EduNation - Second Life in Education

"...the first private island simulator in Second Life dedicated to online training seminars and conferences, and the use of Second Life in Education. EduNation is a 65,000m2 island in the Second Life virtual world with seminar, powerpoint, audio and videocast facilities. Use of the seminar facilities is free. It also features small land and accommodation rentals for other educators to rent and use on a weekly basis."

My Second Life - An Educator's comments

Educause Connect: a post by Jeff VanDrimmelen, which Stephen Downes describes as a "description of a teacher's experimental forays into Second Life." A short but interesting read if you're an educator who is either new to Second Life or haven't yet experienced it.

Distance Learning Programs

A free guide for researching, evaluating and applying for online college degrees and online university programs from online universities worldwide. Undergraduate and Master’s programs plus trades. Thousands of distance learning options.

With so many online universities to choose from and so many online college degree programs, we felt there needed to be a top-notch, easy to use free online resource to help people learn about these distance learning programs and to get more information from the ones that they are interested in.

The OWL at Purdue

A fantastic resource site: "Free writing help and teaching resources, open 24/7" Here are some of their categories:

The Writing Process; Professional, Technical, and Scientific Writing; Job Search Writing; General Academic Writing; Research & Citation; ESL; Literary Analysis & Criticism; Writing in the Social Sciences; Writing in Engineering; Creative Writing; Teaching Writing.

-- and each one has many sub-menu items. I can't describe it; you'll just have to check it out for yourself!

Learning with Handheld Technologies

"This handbook on learning with handheld technologies arises from a two year study by the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol... . This study comprised observations and interviews with some of the leading practitioners of handheld learning in the UK, and desk-based research to identify other developing projects in this area. In the course of the project, a number of key recommendations and observations emerged which have been distilled by the researchers on the project in this publication." The handbook includes recommendations on:

• planning and implementation
• outreach
• professional development
• technology provision and support
• teaching & learning

Teacher Created Rubrics for Assessment

From the Online Professional Development for K-12 Teachers - University of Wisconsin: Rubrics for various subjects at various levels:

Cooperative Learning Rubrics
Research Report Rubrics
Writing Rubrics
Math, Art, Science Rubrics
Oral Presentation Rubrics
Rubrics for Primary Grades
Web Page and ePortfolio Rubrics
Video and Multimedia Project Rubrics
...plus a section on Creating Your Rubrics

Ready for Internet Explorer 7?

Maybe you already have it, if your settings are for automatic updates. If not, here are two helpful sites.

Internet Explorer 7 checklists
"Whether you're a consumer, developer, or IT professional, we've created the checklists to make sure Internet Explorer 7 is compatible with your favorite websites and applications."

Internet Explorer 7 Readiness Toolkit from Microsoft.