Spotlight: Free Social Media Tools for Educators

by Dave Nagel

While most districts are still tackling Web-based collaboration tools from pedagogical and security perspectives, a large number of teachers are already out there using these tools to supplement instruction, engage learners, and encourage their students to become producers of information, as well as consumers of it. In other words, they're experimenting. And here are some of the free tools they're using to do it.

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SUNY Offers Electronic Versions of Hardback Books

New program offers electronic copies of front-list, hardcover texts

By News Report

The State University of New York Press recently unveiled its new Direct Text program, which provides a cost-effective alternative for college faculty members looking to offer students more affordable versions of newly printed, hardback-only texts. Under the program, which was announced April 15, the press will make available, for $20, electronic copies of front-list books that are released only in hardcover.

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Fear of classroom technology just doesn't compute

Technology is not a substitute for good teaching, but rather provides the best teachers with the tools to engage pupils in learning, says Stephen Crowne

April 4, 2008 12:03 AM

Computers are going to replace teachers, and our classrooms will soon be overflowing with useless pieces of technology that have no obvious benefit to anyone except the greedy manufacturers who make them. Or so Phil Beadle would have us believe in a recent piece for Education Guardian, in which he bemoaned the use of technology in schools, says Stephen Crowne.

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Vanderbilt Responds to Phone's Popularity

University sees iPhone's potential to act as a mobile learning device

By News Report

Responding to the iPhone's popularity among students, many universities are rolling out initiatives that aim to take advantage of its potential as a converged, mobile learning device.
The timing is good for such initiatives, because Apple Inc. recently moved to expand the use of its iPhone by unveiling software intended to allow third-party developers to build new iPhone applications.

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Tech Literacy, the British Way: Assessing Students' Mastery of the Computer

U.K. schools begin using a literacy test to gauge application of technical skills to everyday life.

by Grace Rubenstein

The British government has tackled head-on the need to cultivate one essential twenty-first-century skill: computer literacy. This year, U.K. schools began using the ICT Literacy Test for students ages 11-14 to gauge not only their mastery of technical skills but also their readiness to apply these skills effectively in everyday life and work.

Far beyond the simple keyboarding tests of old, this exam challenges students to create presentations with text and images, manipulate databases, and write simple computer programming, among other skills. Basic techniques such as saving information, using email, and doing simple searches are included, too. The test, taken entirely on a computer, embeds these assignments in practical tasks, all done in the virtual town of Pepford.

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Tech Literacy, the British Way: Assessing Students' Mastery of the Computer

U.K. schools begin using a literacy test to gauge application of technical skills to everyday life.

by Grace Rubenstein

The British government has tackled head-on the need to cultivate one essential twenty-first-century skill: computer literacy. This year, U.K. schools began using the ICT Literacy Test for students ages 11-14 to gauge not only their mastery of technical skills but also their readiness to apply these skills effectively in everyday life and work.

Far beyond the simple keyboarding tests of old, this exam challenges students to create presentations with text and images, manipulate databases, and write simple computer programming, among other skills. Basic techniques such as saving information, using email, and doing simple searches are included, too. The test, taken entirely on a computer, embeds these assignments in practical tasks, all done in the virtual town of Pepford.

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Timelines 2.0: A Fun, Easy, and Free Classroom Tool

By Chris O’Neal

3/20/08

Timelines are one of the most useful and effective tools I've found that can fit in nicely with any classroom's content area and grade level. They are fantastic vehicles for doing research, being creative, and sharing and publishing information. In addition, they are easy to use for simple classroom projects such as tracking birthdays, major significant events, and holidays. Furthermore, they offer a rich opportunity to explore the goings-on behind significant events, allowing students to uncover what led up to wars, significant scientific breakthroughs, changes in culture, or shifts in art styles and music. The possibilities are endless.

A fantastic new timeline tool I've been playing with is xtimeline. This free Web-based tool makes it simple to create timelines, and it has built-in capabilities that allow you to conduct research, embed photos and videos, do group editing, and engage in social collaboration. Imagine combining the power of a traditional timeline tool with the history and edit features of a wiki while making it a social, globally published, living online document. It doesn't get much simpler, or more effective, than this.

Getting started is easy. Just register, log in, and hit Create. Fill in the basic information for your new timeline, then click the next Create button. From there, it's simply a matter of adding your events. You can customize each event with data, images, embedded videos, links to source information, and so on. And each timeline has a discussion section, so a class can debate certain topics, justify the order of events or their significance, and share more details and suggestions. Users can also embed the timelines into blogs, discussion forums, and emails.

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Classroom technology helps motivate students

Harold&Review.com

By DAVE FOPAY - H&R Staff Writer

CHARLESTON - It looks something like a drawing board the size of a big-screen TV, and it can be used as both.

The difference is that third graders can put their fingers on the board to "drag" their names under their choice for what they want for lunch, much as they would with a mouse while using a computer. They also can change a program on the human body so it shows internal organs or the skeletal system, again with a touch of their fingers.

And one day last week, students at Carl Sandburg Elementary School used the technology known as SMARTBoards to create a chart on "Sports That Our Class Likes," with the program letting them choose the number of columns and which sports to include.

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Video: Tech in Real Life: Students See Devices as Tools, Not Toys

Classes at Clearfield High School, in Clearfield, Utah, apply computers and diagnostic equipment across the curriculum to engage in authentic learning.

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Reviewing for a test could be just a click away on your iPod

By Sherry Saavedra

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 4, 2008

Students who space out at a critical moment in their college chemistry class can now recapture that instruction on their iPods.

Today's classrooms are increasingly high-tech with electronic “chalkboards” that work like touch-screen computers, wireless access, Web cams and clickers that use infrared rays to project students' responses on a screen.

So perhaps it was inevitable that an electronic version of the daily class lecture is now available to students anytime, anywhere.

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Chicago Adopts Gaming for After School Math Programs

T.H.E. Journal

by Dave Nagel

As part of an initiative to extend math activities for its students into the "immersive learning" arena, the third-largest school district in the United States, Chicago Public Schools, has rolled out videogames in four of its after school centers. The rollout includes algebra and pre-algebra gaming software from Tabula Digita, called DimensionM.

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