Web 2.0: Pedagogical Evidence and Brain Research | We Teach We Learn By Jeffery Ayer, Before I was introduced to wikis in April 2008, I never would have envisioned how much my teaching could use these new technologies. More importantly, my students could not be more ready to take their education to a new level that I sincerely hope will better connect them to the world and prepare them to participate in a digital world. The time is now, and while students have been hungry for this opportunity, the reinforcing research is thorough enough to justify using wikis,blogs, podcasts, Flickr, Moodle, and online writing technologies that I feel can significantly improve students’ writing, and perhaps more importantly, prepare them for digital citizenship. This article is the 1st in a series, based on action research I collected while studying for my M.Ed, explores the impact digital technology can have on how our students learn, and how we, as educators, can leverage that impact for the good of our students. The Pedagogy and Politics of Technology in the classroom
Expert Offers Bully Prevention Tips Many children with special needs experience bullying, and often they and their families are unsure of how to handle it and the best way to overcome the effects of bullying. Today I am interviewing an expert on the topic who has advice for all of us. Annie Fox, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, app developer, and youth empowerment activist. Her books include Too Stressed to Think?: A Teen Guide to Staying Sane When Life Makes You Crazy and the Be Confident in Who You Are (Middle School Confidential Series). You can learn more about Annie’s work with students, parents and teachers at I love your resource page, Cruel’s Not Cool on your site and your interactive Facebook page by the same name. You give hope to many who may have lost theirs by offering solutions to actively address a complex problem. About D.S. DS is the author of Delightfully Different, an inspirational, award winning, YA novel written to teach respect for differences.
Personal Brand Awards - Dan Schawbel Julia Bacha: Pay Attention To Nonviolence In this special year-end collaboration, TED and The Huffington Post are excited to count down 18 great ideas of 2011, featuring the full TEDTalk with original blog posts that we think will shape 2012. Watch, engage and share these groundbreaking ideas as they are unveiled one-by-one, including never-seen-before TEDTalk premieres. Standby, the countdown is underway! Watch Julia Bacha's talk on why we must pay attention to nonviolence. In many ways, 2011 was a year when the people finally had their say. From Cairo to Wall Street, throngs of frustrated yet invigorated civilians poured into the streets and took their societies' futures into their own hands. In 2012, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to learn the necessary lessons from these movements, and to apply them to some of the world's most pressing problems. Many pundits have already written off 2012 as a year in which progress towards an equitable resolution to the conflict will be impossible.
Free Tools for Getting the Most out of this Blog I love all of the web apps and cool sites that pop up on the Internet. Many of them are cool in a gadgety way but not always practical; but they are fun to play with. And then there are some that are practical. I’m also a big Dropbox fan. Those are just a few of the types of sites that can make your life and work easier. Listen to a Podcast of the Rapid E-Learning Blog Hear a Blog offers a free service where they convert the blog posts to a podcast. Of course, lost in the podcast are the graphics and links to examples. When we access information the same way all the time, the familiarity could produce a certain level of complacency. The post as a podcast makes me stop and listen. Are there ways to change up the info or structure of the elearning course so that it forces the elearner out of a complacent mindset? Seth Godin had an interesting post about doing a 200 slide presentation to change up the pace of your presentation. Convert the Rapid E-Learning Blog to PDF Here’s what you do:
School Bullying Prevention: Teach Empathy at Young Age Since the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old in South Hadley, Mass., who committed suicide after being bullied by fellow students, many onlookers have meditated on whether the circumstances that led to her after-school hanging might have been avoided. Could teachers have stepped in and stopped the bullying? Could parents have done more to curtail bad behavior? Or could preventive measures have been started years ago, in early childhood, long before bullies emerged and started heaping abuse on their peers? Increasingly, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying and other kinds of violence can indeed be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age. Without empathy, we would have no cohesive society, no trust and no reason not to murder, cheat, steal or lie. Although human nature has historically been seen as essentially selfish, recent science suggests that it is not. What the ancient Greeks intuited is supported by research today.
The Primary Barrier to Virtualization Performance : VMblog.com - Virtualization Technology News and Information for Everyone Hardware virtualization has solved many problems in computing environments. First among these would be the advanced utilization of hardware; prior to virtualization, a new server meant new hardware, a new version of the OS and new applications. Virtualization now means that a new server is as simple as its virtual creation. It can run the same or a different operating system as the host server. It can be running the same or entirely different applications. With the rapid proliferation in the use of virtualization by enterprises, hardware manufacturers have ensured that servers could handle the load created by multiple virtual machines. One barrier to virtualization performance, however, that is not addressed by hardware solutions is file fragmentation. Fragmentation affects performance on all hard drives, but in a virtual environment carries several other issues. Additionally, virtual disks set to dynamically grow don't shrink when users or applications remove data.
eBay and Microsoft Announce Cloud Computing Agreement: Microsoft unveils new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing; eBay signs up as early customer. WASHINGTON — July 12, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. and eBay [NASDAQ: EBAY] today announced that eBay will be one of the first customers of Microsoft’s new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing. The partnership is a significant joint engineering effort that will couple the innovation and power of the Windows Azure platform appliance with the technical excellence of eBay’s platform — to deliver an automated, scalable, cost-effective capacity management solution. Microsoft also announced the limited production release of the Windows Azure platform appliance, the first turnkey cloud platform for large service providers and enterprises to deploy in their own datacenters. eBay will incorporate the Windows Azure platform appliance into two of its datacenters to further optimize its platform and achieve greater strategic agility and datacenter efficiency. eBay and Microsoft will deploy the Windows Azure platform appliance this year.About eBay Inc. About Microsoft
3 Web-based Tools for Creating Screencast Videos Earlier this month my favorite web-based tool for creating screencast videos, ScreenToaster, announced that they are shutting down on July 31. The news that ScreenToaster is shutting down has me taking a look at some other web-based tools for creating screencast videos. Here are three other web-based screencast recording tools that you should consider as a replacement for ScreenToaster. If you're wondering why screencasting is important please read Using Screen Captures to Enhance Instructions. Screenr is a very simple, easy-to-use tool for creating screencast videos. Screen Castle is a simple screencast creation tool that is completely web-based. Screencast-O-Matic is a web-based screencast creation tool similar to Screen Castle.
Online Language Education with private teachers | Welcome to Myngle Packrati.us = Twitter + Delicious Here Are More Than 200 Free Rapid E-Learning Tutorials A few weeks ago I offered some advice on how to become an elearning pro without spending a dime. The essence of that post is: You have access to a lot of free tips and tricks. So there are plenty of opportunities to learn and it doesn’t cost you anything more than your time. Practice doing what you learn. The learning is only going to happen if you do more than watch the tutorials and read information. I also offered up a small challenge and your peers responded by creating a number of tutorials. Click here to view the tutorial. Here’s a quick mock up using the ideas from Linda’s tutorial. Click here to view the prototype. Below is a list of great tips and tricks that you can apply to your elearning courses right away. Creating PowerPoint Graphics Some of these tips are really practical and probably work right away. Create transparent background for your images in PowerPoint. PowerPoint Animation Tips & Techniques Rapid E-Learning Miscellaneous Tips Course Management