850-644-9623(Director)
850-644-2725Spring 2008 Technology Newsletter
February 2008
Directory of learning tools
FETC 2008
Horizon 2008 report
After EdTV
RoadMap to the Web page
Free MIT resources
Learning Marketplace
Zotero
Directory of learning tools contains over 2,000 tools that can be used for creating learning and performance support solutions as well as for managing your own personal learning. The tools in this Directory are both freeware/open source and commercial. You might find top 100 tools for learning link of particular interests
FETC 2008: Education technology took center stage in Florida in January as teachers, administrators and district technology experts gathered at FETC 2008 in Orlando. Podcasting, digital collaboration and Web 2.0 dominated much of the discussion, but security, new and emerging technologies, and environmental education were also major themes. You can find our complete coverage of this year's record-setting event on this special news and information page.
Horizon 2008 report attempts to identify technologies that will shape Education in 2008. Mobile broadband, collaborative Web technologies, and mashups will all significantly impact education over the next five years, along with "grassroots" video, collective intelligence, and "social operating systems." This according to a new report released last week by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, the 2008 Horizon Report. Follow this link for details in brief.
After Ed TV: For 2008 the Teachers College Record is beginning a bit of an experiment by welcoming to its home page a new web video channel produced at the EdLab at Teachers College. The mission of After Ed is to bring new thinking in the education sector to a wide audience through engaging short-form video. These shows begin to illustrate some of the new possibilities for communicating about education and educational research. I will briefly review them here to indicate only some of the possibilities that the channel will explore as we move forward.
- After Ed News provides brief stories on news of the education sector with a special interest in those that indicate new and exciting learning opportunities as well as those that show the increasingly odd machinations that current educational systems are being forced to endure as they struggle to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
- 10 Things uses a "top ten" numbered list structure to capture key facts about some aspect of education or educational research.
- Blackboard of Truth presents provocative questions pertaining to education and seeks answers from an oracle with the mysterious capacity to leave answers on a blackboard.
- EdWorld features first-hand reports on educational systems and practices around the world filed by students and faculty members whose research has taken them to diverse and fascinating locales.
- Level Up! covers news of the gaming world with special attention to the educational potential of games and the gamer culture.
- Looseleaf Report juxtaposes an audio track dealing with a contemporary issue or controversy against a set of custom created illustrations in the style of student notebook drawing.
- Out of the Box spotlights individual educators engaged in innovative practices in classrooms and schools.
- Pep and Squeek are a pair of animated rats engaged in contrapuntal dialogue as they review films and other works with particular attention to educational applications.
- Speak Out poses a series of related questions to school children of all ages.
- TechKnowledge explores uses of new technologies to facilitate learning.
- Willoby and Himrod are pair of long-tenured puppets who explore a variety of education topics from a sometimes scholarly perspective.
RoadMap to the Web page: Visit THEJournal.com's revamped RoadMap to the Web page to find the latest resources on 10 of today's hottest education and administrative topics. You'll also find ideas to help motivate students to learn, plus tools your school or district can use to implement IT projects.
Free MIT resources might be of particular interest for MSE instructors: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is making freely available to high-school students and teachers a collection of material in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The material is available on a new Web site, an offshoot of its popular OpenCourseWare effort to put lecture notes and other information about every course online. It features video and audio clips, animations, lecture notes, and assignments from MIT courses. "We hope it will inspire students to reach beyond their required classwork to explore more advanced material and might also encourage them to pursue careers in science and engineering," said Susan Hockfield, president of MIT, in her written statement.
Learning Marketplace: With a subscription to the Learning Marketplace, teachers can access digital resources from some of the world's leading content providers and education publishers. It's a simple and convenient way to find copyright-cleared content that's relevant for every subject and grade level. A world of resources at your fingertips (and a trial version is available!).
Zotero is a free Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. You can manage citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects.