I received the following email from the Edublogs:
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.
Kerpoof is meant to be fun, but the producers serious about its educational value. There are many ways that elementary and middle school teachers can use Kerpoof to enhance their classroom activities and meet educational standards as well.
Primary and Kindergarten teachers might find this site useful. Have a look at it today and you may be surprised!!!
Technology can be used to create Engaged Learners who are:
- 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.
| View
Click on ‘View’ above to view slideshow on using Web 2.0 in Education.
The Storynory site has many stories in audio format that your students would love to hear. Give this site a try. If you have iTunes or another RSS feed reader, you could download all the episodes using it.
Ning is a platform for creating your own social networks. It puts new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone.
You start by choosing a combination of features (videos, blogs, photos, forums, etc.) from an ever-growing list of options. Then customize how it looks, decide if it’s public or private, and add your brand logo if you have one. People who join your network will automatically have a customizable profile page and will be able to message and friend each other.
I have set up an eteacher ning site to try out the Ning features. Feel free to visit and have a look.
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.
Do you want to email some photos and wondering how to reduce the size of images befor posting it? No wants wants to receive photos that are a few MB’s each and takes ‘ages’ to download. Shrink Pictures is your savior.
You don’t need to have almost no grapics skills or knowledge to use this program.
To resize your images it is as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!
- Browse your computer and select your image/photo to resize
- Select the new size for your picture – use a preset or choose a custom size
- Optionally, add an effect to your image
- Select output image/picture quality Lower quality means a smaller file
- Click “Resize” and wait for the processed images to be displayed
