G’day
June seems to have wafted by with not much activity to report other than an unseasonably warm spell of weather in Auckland, punctuated with the rain of course. I’ve been brushing up on the
and looking at how each questions could or might be answered to ensure what needs to be achieved, is achieved. Slow process but well worth while. MOOC’s are in the news again and the article form Cornell and Stanford is worth reading. Still think the MOOC’s need some grooming.
The links for this month include a spell checker, toolkit for educators, NMC K12report, Google for educators,Cellphones in the classroom, list of technologies and tasks, google search, digital storytelling, an illustrated Moodle guide, top education tools, research guide for students, conferences and the odd one out.
Sun is shining, have a good week!
1. Engaging with Massive Online Courses. A recently released comprehensive paper on MOOC’s from Cornell and Stanford Universities. I was interested in the large scale use of badges as microcredentialing seems to be on the rise.
http://cs.stanford.edu/people/ashton/pubs/mooc-engagement-www2014.pdf
2. A research Guide for students. Lots of tips and suggestions for writing better essays and pronjects. Each heading provides a different dimension. Should be a useful toolbox for your students.
Spell checker plus will improve the writing even more.
3. Toolkit for educators. An almost never ending list in alphabetical order of everything an educator should need to make sure his/her students succeed!
https://sites.google.com/site/ptcweb2/toolkit-a-z
4.Top 25 Educational Web tools to boost your teaching. An interesting list and description of various tools available online. Not sure they are the top 25 but there are certainly some useful resources to explore and use.
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/05/top-25-educational-web-tools-to-boost.html
5.Cellphones in the Classroom: A comprehensive list of Mobile learning resources. Have a look around the site. Lots more links to a wide range of resources for educators at all levels.
http://cybraryman.com/cellphones.html
6.Illustrated Moodle Guide: Moodle 2.0 for Teachers. Always great to find a useful guide on the use of Web tools such as Moodle. This one is well presented and worth having a look at to sharpen your knowledge, understanding and use of Moodle.
http://dawsonite.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/guides/
7.What do you want to do? There’s a tech tool for that. An interesting and useful list of tools that could be used for specific student tasks. Some well known, others not so (to me anyway)
http://www.veooz.com/photos/GH7Pbvk.html
8.Google Educator Groups: A programme made up of communities of educators who can connect with each other to learn, share, and help each other. While it is mainly online, there are real world connections and events as well.
http://www.google.com/landing/geg/
and for the students ( or maybe even you):
Google Search Education is another great educational resource from Google. The site has lesson plans and even live training to help students, and teachers, learn how to search for academic sources, as well as develop critical and independent thinking skills.
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/
9. Adobe Voice App for the iPad.
A new Storytelling App for iPad. Adobe Voice. It provides the ability to create and share video stories. Video stories can be created using a combination of media including own voice, images, graphics and video. Animated videos can be quickly shared via social media, email, personal blogs and websites, by posting a single link, and can be viewed on virtually any device. Worth downloading and getting into it. Great for student creativity.
10.NMC Horizon Report 2014 K12 Edition has been released. Identifies key trends and significant challenges in relation to the use of technologies in education over the coming five years. Always worth perusing and musing about the predications.
Download from:
http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-nmc-horizon-report-k12-EN.pdf
11. Conferences
11.1 altc2014: Riding Giants: How to innovate and educate ahead of the wave.
The 21st annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology 1 to 3 September 2014, Warwick, UK
Put the date in your diary.
For more information about the conference go to:
https://www.alt.ac.uk/alt-conference/altc2014
11.2 The Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education
(ascilite) warmly invites everyone with an interest in educational
technologies in tertiary education to join us at the 31st ascilite
conference (23-26 Nov 2014, Dunedin, New Zealand).
The Call for Papers is now open:
http://ascilite2014.otago.ac.nz/call-for-papers/
and we are inviting contributions describing critical perspectives on the use of educational technology, under the following sub-themes:
*Emerging technology practices (e.g., MOOCs, OERs, virtual reality,
mobile learning, games or gamification)
*Institution-wide technology integration (e.g., implementation of
digital strategies)
*Focus on research evidence (e.g., impact-focused methods such as
educational design research, inquiry and action research, and
experimental studies)
*Technology-enhanced learning design
*Learning analytics
*Educational technology and society
*Role of learning theories
12. NZ happenings: 7th annual NZ Shar-E-Fest will take place in Hamilton at the end of September followed by the regional symposia. Theme for this year is’ E-learning in practice: How are learning technologies and social media being used effectively to enhance student learning and achievement?
We are very pleased that Alan Levine from Strawberry, Arizona has accepted our invitation to be our international keynote speaker and workshop presenter for this year:
http://wordpress.isle.ac.nz/international-keynote-speaker/
Alan, a pioneer of using the Internet and technologies in education, blogs about his activities at http://cogdogblog.com.
We are delighted that
Ako Aotearoa, New Zealand’s National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence
is a GOLD sponsor of the event
Full details on:
http://wordpress.isle.ac.nz/shar-e-fest-2014/
FIRST call for submissions:
http://wordpress.isle.ac.nz/submission-process/
13. Odd one out: Open Culture, Frankenstein: A certain football player might have got his inspiration from this:The First Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Novel to Film (1910) Anything to keep the kids entertained This is an interesting read and view for anyone interested in the original Frankenstein. Fascinating. You can download the movie from the link on this site. Lots of other great resources (mostly free) if you have time to have a womble around.
http://www.openculture.com/2012/02/frankenstein_the_first_film_adaptation_1910.html
That’s it for now. August company is waiting in the wings
Richard
Richard Elliott
The Eternal Macademic
Auckland
New Zealand