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Best content in NetGenEd 2010 | Diigo - Groups You can see the research happening by the students on the @netgened project on this Diigo group. Learning to collaboratively research is an essential skill! tags : education , learning westwood - Open Sim Tutorials and Instructions My ninth graders have completed a module documenting how to do various tasks in OpenSim, the virtual world we use that is hosted by Reactiongrid. This wiki has the links, instructions, and other pages with tutorials on how to do various items. I was assessing this today and thought I'd pass it along as there is some great information to show you how to do things. (If you are a beginning second lifer you may also learn some things.) tags : education , learning , opencontent , edu_trends , techintegrator , arts_entertainment , web2.0 , worldonline , invention [ #gbl10 ]: Game-Based Living: the core of new media literacies [Part 1] - Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education Excellent read for everyone in ...

ASCD Literacy in a Digital Age Presentation Notes I just love this presentation from ASCD with Ben Grey and Angela Maiers - the presentation slides are beautiful and thoughts are compelling - a great read on the redefinition of literacy! tags : education , learning , literacy , ascd , all_teachers , professionaldevelopment Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Image via Wikipedia My house was built in 1953 - we bought it in the early 2000's.  We've put in new floors, repainted a few times and been redoing things.  Anyone can build a new house, but if you have an older one in good shape, that says a lot about the people who live there.  At least that is what I tell myself as I struggle to "whip things in shape" around here. As I was working in the front yard today, it struck me that this relates to what is happening in education. If you have the time and money and resources you can build a new school and have exactly what you want -- TODAY. But how long will you have it?  The longevity of a school is determined by the culture and the leadership and the teachers and ecosystem that evolves in that place.  Sure, starting from scratch is attractive and if you have a complete failure of a school (or a termite-ridden house) - this could make sense.  But most often, we have existing schools and have to re-work, reinst...

Flat Classroom Workshop 2010 We do one of these every two years and this summer it will be in St. Louis. We also have a Flat Classroom Workshop and Digiteacher workshop at ISTE as well. Sign up early - last year the workshops we did filled up quickly. This is the wiki on the workshop: Co-founders of award winning Flat Classroom Projects, as well as Flat Classroom Conference and Events, Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay announce their July 13-14, 2010 2-day "Flat Classroom Workshop: Seven Steps to Global Collaboration" Workshop. Over 3 years ago the first 'Flat Classroom Project 2006' was created that connected our classrooms in Dhaka, Bangladesh and Camilla, Georgia, USA. Since then we have developed a series of global collaborative projects including Digiteen, Horizon Project/Net Generation Education, and Eracism, many of which run 2-3 times per year and have included 1000's of students from numerous countries, cultures, backgrounds and geographic locations. Learn m...

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth | Video on TED.com This tedtalk discusses how Microsoft is building augmented reality into searchable maps and is from Blaise Agüera y Arcas with Microsoft. This software is supposed to transform how we look at digital images. This is fascinating and also a topic that the students of NetGenEd will be reviewing as part of their research into augmented reality. tags : education , microsoft , bing , augmentedreality Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

YouTube - Font Conference ARtist humor here -- the Font Conference tags : education , learning , humor , art Schedule « 140 Character Conference Lots of my friends here on this agenda -- @Parentalla (Aparna Vashisht) {Her mother took us around India and is a delightful person} Kevin Jarrett @kjarrett, Lisa Nielsen @InnovativeEdu Mary Beth Hertz @mbteach Chris Lehman - @chrislehmann to name a few. So much fun! Also, my friend George Haines has his 8th grade students speaking - looking for them on the program as well. Of course Ivanka Trump and Anne Curry are also on the list. Have fun and good luck everyone! tags : education , learning , twitter , web2.0 , wireless_connectivity Flash Mobs Take Violent Turn in Philadelphia - NYTimes.com This is upsetting. Flash mobs have traditionally been a lot of fun -- now they are violent teenage rampages. Some cities are outlawing them! tags : education , learning , worldonline , virtual_communication , www_world 13 of the Brightest Tech Minds...

"All his oratorical efforts were made for practical effect. He never spoke merely to be heard." Abraham Lincoln , in his eulogy on Henry Clay . We could literally starve to death eating  cotton candy - well, at least that is what I've heard. It is sweet, it is very fluffy, but there is just not much there. You know the 1980's were a time where we had "big everything" - hair, cars, spending... then we moved into the 1990's where we went faster. Now, I think partially because of our economy and society today, we are drowning in meaningless fluff.  We are still of the abundance mentality where we measure people by how many followers they have, how many readers, how many hits, and how many tweets - but what about the quality there? Nothing is free. Nothing!  I mean, Twitter is free, but it costs you time! Blogger is free but this blog is my life's work. I've been lectured how this blog couldn't survive with just one writer (but the best b...

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense | Video on TED.com Important video for gesture based students to view. This is about the evolution of input into the computer. tags : gesturebased , innovation , education Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Film Foundation Educational Program from the The Film Foundation Edutopia issue of the Story of Movies featured this middle school curriculum and film lesson libraries. Lots of resources and a message from Martin Scorsese. tags : education , filmmaking The Connected Classroom: What do YOU see as the future of Education Please consider dropping by and leaving a message for this student about the future of education! Let's inundate his inbox! From Krysten Hokanson. " Subject: My E-mail to the educators Hello, My name is Andrew Wisniewski and I am a senior at Upper Merion Area High School in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. For my end of the year project I have decided to explore education and how technology is changing how students learn. Ms. Hokanson has helped me by creating a drop box and by forwarding this email to all of you. You can help me by visiting, http://drop.io/FutureEd and leaving me your thoughts about the future of education. In my drop.io, you wil...

My only disappointment from MACUL is that I didn't get to meet someone I admire very much, Dr. Jeff Stanzler, from the University of Michigan.  I just received an email from him about a very special event that relates to the wonderful Arab-Israeli Conflict Simulation that my student and I just love! "I wanted to let you know of an event that the ICS group is co-sponsoring on campus that may be of interest to you. The attached flyer describes the "Minds of Peace" project, a collaborative venture of an Israeli (Sapir Handelman) and a Palestinian (Mazen Badra). The idea animating their project is that it may be too dangerous for Israelis and Palestinians to wait for political leaders to solve the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and that the effort may need to start from the ground up. To that end, over the last several months, they've convened several negotiations (in Israel, the West Bank, and the US) wherein five ordinary Israelis (or Israeli-Americans) sit across the n...

flylady word Download Here is the "fly librarian" for organizing a library. ;-) tags : education , learning , organization FlyLady.net: Teacher Control Journal I love the "fly lady" for being organized and cleaning and just found the downloadable Teacher Control Journal. I'm just downloading it on Saturday night, so I'll let you know. tags : education , learning , organization , teaching Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

YouTube - Across the Metaverse: from Second Life to OpenSim Interesting - teleporting from Second Life to OpenSim. This video tutorial shows how. tags : education , learning , tools Google SketchUp So, I'm finally testing Google sketchup! They have some cool competitions for modeling your town and some examples on this website and also a link for educators to download the pro version of sketchup. tags : education , learning , google , tool , augmentedreality Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

How Privacy Vanishes Online, a Bit at a Time - NYTimes.com Data that is innocuous or is it? Excellent article from the New York Times on Privacy. "In a class project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that received some attention last year, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree analyzed more than 4,000 Facebook profiles of students, including links to friends who said they were gay. The pair was able to predict, with 78 percent accuracy, whether a profile belonged to a gay male. So far, this type of powerful data mining, which relies on sophisticated statistical correlations, is mostly in the realm of university researchers, not identity thieves and marketers. But the F.T.C. is worried that rules to protect privacy have not kept up with technology. The agency is convening on Wednesday the third of three workshops on the issue. " tags : privacy , analytics , education Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Cloud-Based, Open-Source Future For Teachers? 60 day period for input for the US National Educational Technology Plan is open. Here is the summary from the Read Write Web. tags : education , learning Larry Magid: Submit Internet safety video & win $10K A contest conducted by Trend Micro in partnership with Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely and Identity Theft Resource Center will award $10,000 to the person who can create the best short video on Internet safety. There are four additional awards of $500 each. Anyone in the U.S. or Canada that is 13 or older can submit a short video (up to 2 minutes) to What's your Story, about an aspect of Internet safety. To qualify, your entry must focus on one or more of these topics: "Keeping a good rep online", "Staying clear of unwanted contact" (including dealing with bullies), "Accessing (legal) content that's age-appropriate," and "Keeping the cybercriminals out" (computer security issues like ...

Image via Wikipedia Spring in the US is such a busy time with "spring sports" and so many things going on including the end of the school year.  I'm trying to get my feet under me after a spate of trips (including the one to India.)  So, since I'll be grading until 2 am, I just thought to share a little bit with you about some of the ponderings running around in my head. No Child Left Behind is Long Overdue I've been thinking about the plan to introduce legislation here for the long-overdue revision of No Child Left Behind and was struck with an analogy (perhaps not a perfect one) with what is going on in education. Tests can only tell you so much. What I saw in my  minds eye is an old cartoon from the 70's where the hood of a car is up with the proverbial lady looking at the engine with the lovely figure -- the cartoon character whistles and then the lady with her head in the engine looks up and is the face of a cow with the cartoon character's jaw d...

Film Webquest Film activity with critique. tags : education , learning , film Lights, Camera, FILM PRODUCTION Awesome webquest for those using film. tags : education , learning , film Google Calendar - publishing events from Google Calendar This is a cool way to let people add individual events to their calendar. tags : education , learning , google Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Net Gen Education Challenge underway | Don Tapscott Don Tapscott shares his announcement on the NetGenEducation Project we're running again with him this year! tags : education , learning , netgened Flat Classroom Conference Website This is the website for the Flat Classroom conference. The 2011 conference will be in Beijing China and registration information will be posted within the next month. We are very excited about next year's conference. There are two strands which join together and separate at various times depending upon learning outcomes in this unique project based learning conference experience. tags : education , learning , flatclassroom , edu_news Industry Pitching Cellphones as a Teaching Tool - NYTimes.com Cell phones in the classroom. Summary of CTIA information from 2009 which is a basis for what is happening now. Again, this should be educator driven not industry driven, but there is potential. tags : education , cellphone Executive Summary | U.S. Department...

YouTube - Social Networking: Horizon Project Excellent social networking video from the archives of FlatClassroom projects. Demoing this at MACUL. tags : education , digitalcitizenship , bestpractices Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell, Chevy Chase, Ron Howard, Jim Carrey, Fred Armisen, Darrell Hammond, Dan Aykroyd, Maya Rudolph, Dana Carvey, FOD Team, Jake, and Antonio Scarlata - Video For those who like political humor - this comedy includes some of the greatest people on Saturday Night Live to ever impersonate presidents. tags : education , learning Posted from Diigo . The rest of my favorite links are here.

Google Groups A wonderful way to share information with a group of people. We use these behind the scenes to manage all of our flat classroom projects. tags : education , learning Share Documents and Files Online | Create a Free Website | Microsoft Office Live IF you use office, you should set up the office live add in. It is so useful for sharing and backing up files! tags : education , learning , office , productivity , wordprocessing , workflow_software , edu_newapp Blog Smarter | Zemanta Ltd. Great tool to enhance blogging whether you blog on Ning or blogger or wherever. I set up the profile and it helps me put related posts at the end, find matching graphics and suggests links. Just makes it easy. tags : education , blogging , edu_newapp Login to Your Account » SocialOomph.com Cool place to schedule tweets and get a lot of productivity out of Twitter. tags : education , learning , twitter TweetDeck Tweetdeck is my favorite tool for accessing Twitter. I also highly recommend follo...

Hello, my friends, I'm in Michigan this lovely evening and just had a delightful chat with my good friends Anne Truger , Hall Davidson , Steve Dembo , and Rushton Hurley - all fellow spotlight speakers here at MACUL 2010.  Attendance is up, which is delightfully great news - about 3,300 will be here tomorrow. I enjoyed dining with Spotlight Speaker Chair, Ren Baldwin today at lunch as he discussed their Mi-champions Program. (See the video below.) The second class of graduates will be graduating at this conference (they have had 300 per "class") and the third cohort will begin.  The year begins and ends with the MACUL conference here in Michigan.  The premise of the Mi-champions program is that teachers of core subjects who are novices at technology education apply to the program and are paired with a "coach." They have extra training in the summer and then coached and encouraged and mentored.  The attrition rate is very slow.  I WANT TO MEET SOME OF THES...

Women of Web2.0.4 - Discussion with Patsy Lanclos | EdTechTalk Getting requests for information on keyboarding research - Patsy Lanclos, who worked with Texas Standards for years in this area gave the most comprehensive discussion I've heard back in an older archived version of the Women of Web 2.0 show that we did some time a go. Don't let the time fool you - this is still as current as if it was recorded yesterday. tags : education , keyboarding Girl starved to death while parents raised virtual child in online game | World news | guardian.co.uk This is just too far. Too FAR! Online game raising a "virtual child" causes parents to neglect their real life daughter - their three month old starved to death. I cannot even express the horror I feel at this article. Perhaps sharing this with my students and others will help people realize that face to face is FIRST PRIORITY! If you have addictive behaviors online - get OFFLINE for goodness sakes. tags : education , virt...

John Maxwell in his book Attitude 101 quotes a story from two artists David Bayles and Ted Orland about an art teacher who did an experiment with his grading system. The ceramics teacher told the left half of the room that they would just be graded on the quantity of what they produced. If they had fifty pounds of pots on the last day, they'd get an "A," forty would get a "B" and so forth. The right half of the room would be graded on "quality" and "needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A." An interesting thing happened when it was time to grade.  The HIGHEST QUALITY came from the HIGH QUANTITY side of the room.  The author tells it like this: "It seems that while the 'quantity' group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the 'quality' group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grad...

EBook Trends and Information from the Horizon Report 2010 eBooks are becoming more affordable and with devices like the Kindle, Nook, and soon to be released iPad, ebooks are becoming more practical (as well as environmentally friendly as they save paper.) This trend is predicted to move full scale into the college scene within the next 2-3 years. These are the links from the Horizon Report 2010 on this topic. tags : hz10 , ebooks , education Augmented Reality Links from the Horizon 2010 Report Augmented Reality is enhancing the world around us by using electronic devices to create a reality that is supplemented (or "augmented") with additional information. Sometimes this is location based (using GPS) or uses QR Codes (with QR code readers) and most often with handheld devices making this truly possible. These links are from the Horizon Report 2010. tags : education , learning , hz10 , augmentedreality Horizon Report 2010 Resources about Visual Data Analysis This listing of...