We’ve got some pretty big news this week, something we’ve been working on for quite a while and something we think you will love.

It’s now simple to create blogs for all your students (or colleagues) without having to leave the comfort of your own blog!

http://edublogs.org/2008/03/11/simply-create-blogs-and-usernames-for-your-students/

All you have to do is visit the ‘Users’ tab in your admin area, pop in a username, email address and blog title and the system will automatically create a blog (you can create up to 15 at once) and email the login details to the new user.

If your students don’t have email addresses, no dramas, we link to a simple gmail hack that allows you to set up hundreds of different blogs with one email address.

And to top it all, you can decide to be a ‘co-administrator’ of every blog you create… so you can administer the site and even set the student as a ‘contributor’ or ‘author’ so that you can check their work before it’s published.

If you are not using Edublogs, why not give it a go. It’s FREE.

If you are looking for a easy-to-use website  creation program, then you have your answer at www.weebly.com. This WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website building tool for non-techies offers a one-step process for adding content that’s already somewhere else on the Web, such as Flickr photos, YouTube videos and Google maps.

When you click-and-drag a YouTube video onto your page, a flash player appears with it, and you can adjust the viewing screen size. It allow easy creation of blogs.

You can change design on the fly and there is a very large number of templates to choose from. The drop and drop interface makes it a breeze to add images, Google maps etc. You can easily use this program with kids in the primary school and it is not ‘blocked’in schools as many other web 2.0 programs are.

What is special about TipCam?

One-click record, Easy and intuitive control, Record up to 20 minutes of video.

Other features: Voice-over; If you make a narration mistake, you can redo just the audio.

Flash Video (FLV) Optimized for web delivery. Viewable by anyone anywhere with nothing to download. Full motion video with audio; Smart panning; Zooming window can be fixed or follow your mouse cursor; Adjustable zooming window during recording; Free style hand drawing markup during recording.

What can you use it for?

Record and show how to use a particular feature of any program; You can even record an online video from other video site or TV feed.

Primary and Kindergarten teachers might find this site useful. Have a look at it today and you may be surprised!!!

• Responsible for their own learning.
• Energized by learning.
• Work collaboratively (locally and globally).
• Investigate authentic problems & solve them.

Technology should be used by teachers to teach Science, Social Studies etc. Teachers must be shown how to do this, using data analysis and other tool.
The best way to encourage teachers to use technologies is to give them personal experiences and examples of the use of technologies in the classroom and in thier subject areas.
Teachers should engage in researching authentic problems such as ‘Global Warming’, with their students.
A effective teacher rarely solves student’s problems, so as to develop independence and autonomy.
Teachers must visit workplaces to see for themselves how technologies are used there.
Teachers can use the skills of tech savvy students (both boys and girls) as aides to support them in their use of technologies in the classroom.
Teachers must be given more time each year to develop learning activities incorporating the new technologies.
For creating WebQuests
Teacher & Student Surveys
FNO.ORG: An Interesting Site by Jamie McKenzie has numerous useful links.

Click on ‘View’ above to view slideshow on using Web 2.0 in Education.

Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel, Moodle etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

Look at some examples at the Wink website.

Sign up today HERE.

Kartoo is a search engine with visual display interfaces. Kartoo gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of attractive, interactive and visual maps. Your kids will love using it. Quickly gather and present information related to a theme or topic. the visual results interface makes it good for searching the web as a group.

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey is an online tool to quickly create and publish custom surveys and then view results graphically and in real time. Let your students create a
questionnaire and then get other students in the school to take the survey. The students can view the results as they are collected in real-time and watch live graphs and charts, and then dig down to get individual responses.

Skrbl

Skrbl is an online web resource which allows users to type notes, sketch drawings, upload pictures and share files. You can use it as an online white board or notice board, wher you could put all sorts of information. Or simply use it as a shared common space where everyone in your team can write, read, draw, edit, share files and show pictures… all on the same page. You don’t even have to sign up to start using it.

Below are a small sample of these programs. Click on the icon to go to the site.