Virtual Voices - Event in Bristol

Futurelab is running a workshop on Create-A-Scape at this event, which is organised by South West Screen

10 July 2008
Watershed, Bristol

How can we develop young people’s voices so they become the content creators and storytellers of the future? Virtual Voices brings the media industry together with young media makers and their teachers or tutors to attempt to answer this question and many others…

What will it be like?

The event will include inspiring speakers, involving workshops (including one on Create-A-Scape run by Futurelab) and hands-on activities. See www.swscreen.co.uk/virtualvoices for more information as the programme is finalised, or sign up to the Virtual Voices e-mailing list by e-mailing virtual.voices@swscreen.co.uk.

Author: FutureLab, 7th April 2008

Full post and more information available here.

7 Ways Teachers Can Use Online Tools to Keep Students Interested

A 22 year old gives advice to teachers and parents on teens and young adults. Interesting post on how teachers can use onlines resources effectively to engage this generation with learning:

“Can schools keep up with their net-generation, text-savvy students? A lecture and a white board pale in comparison to online videos, cell phone games, interactive virtual worlds and 3-d animation. Already, schools have been incorporating more high-tech technology such as smart boards and projectors in the classroom. My old high school uses ipods to test and record listening comprehension. This is great–and really expensive.

I plan on writing a few blog posts on this topic, but I first wanted to review a few free resources teachers (and parents) can use in the classroom or for homework to keep kids interested in learning. Most of all, by employing new technology you will be speaking in this generation’s language, appeal to what already interests them and therefore make school really relevant to their lives.”

Author: Vanessa Ven Petten, vanessavanpetten.com, 16th March 2008

Full article available here.

Also great interview with Vanessa available from OpenEducation.net here.

The Many Virtues of the Virtual Lab

Very interesting article on virtual labs and their uses in science classes with limited lab equipment:

“Thanks to rapid development in information technology, all real life situations can be simulated on your very computer screen, loaded with programs such as Java, Flash, Real media etc. With increasing number of e-learning companies and academic websites offering virtual laboratories, it is easier today than ever before, for a science teacher to use virtual lab. He simply needs to download the virtual experiment from the World Wide Web or buy it as part of an e-learning package from product manufacturers. Virtual labs can help the teacher and the taught, to a significant extent. Let us visit a few virtual classrooms.”

Author: P.R. Guruprasad, TechLearning, 1st April 2008

Full article available here.

Homeschooling on the rise in the US, thanks to adundance of online resources

Homeschooling Innovations and Networks
The continued growth of the number of home­schooling families has led to a proliferation of resources and networks that facilitate homeschool­ing. Twenty-five years ago, a family that wanted to homeschool would likely have had limited curricu­lum and instructional options. Today, the options are nearly boundless. A Google search on “home schooling” produces more than 13 million hits.[21] This demonstrates the wide range of instruction options and homeschooling networks that parents can access when they choose to homeschool their children.

Parents can find and purchase curriculum mate­rials through online exchanges and other net­works.[22] Hundreds of Web sites, blogs, and books are devoted to supporting parents who home­school. In some cases, parents can access free or low-cost instructional products to teach their chil­dren. Other options include online learning services such as K12.com, which offers professionally devel­oped courses online for relatively low monthly fees.[23] Across the United States, a growing number of for-profit tutoring providers are in operation, such as Kumon and Sylvan Learning Centers, which offer parents opportunities to provide supplemen­tary instruction to their children.

Author: Dan Lips and Evan Feinberg, The Heritage Foundation, 3rd April 2008

Full article available here.

Spotlight: Free Science Resources Online

Looking for ways to encourage student interest in science? These authoritative sites arm teachers not only with free multimedia, projects, and other deep resources, but also lesson plans and standards-aligned, curriculum-focused materials that will help you make the most of these educational and entertaining tools.

1. MIT OpenCourseWare: Free Education for All
MIT’s OpenCourseWare for Secondary Education (OCW SE), also known as Highlights for High School, is the first attempt on MIT’s part to bring OCW to secondary education and the first step in a broader plan for secondary education that has been in development since 2006.

Author: Dave Nagel, T.H.E. Journal, 5th April 2008

Full article available here.

Grid 16: How Fast Can You Learn, Prioritize, and React?

OK…take 3 minutes and head over to Kongregate and try Grid 16. I don’t care if you’re a ‘gamer’ or not (whatever that means)…head over and see how you do…no instructions…just the admonitions to “Use Your Gamer Logic” and “Do Not Panic”….play it twice…did you get better?

Author: Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings Blog, 4th April 2008

Full article available here.

Recent Workshop Wikis: Sketchasting and More…

I’m in the middle of two weeks of relatively intense workshop activity and realized I haven’t been sharing my workshop wikis here lately. So, here are the agendas (with links to everything I mention and materials if applicable) for each of the recent workshops that I have permission to share:

Sketchcasting - This workshop was based on the latest tool I found to share with teachers using Tablet PCs. In essence, sketchast.com is a web-based sketching program that is actually responsive enough to work well with a Tablet PC pen and which allows users to save and share their sketches online, complete with narration. It’s like being able to save what happens on the whiteboard - erase the board and keep going as many times as you like during your narration.

Author: Mark Wagner, Educational Technology and Life Blog, 4th April 2008

Full article available here.

SLanguages 2008:

Virtual Conference Explores New Frontiers in Language Learning

Barcelona Spain, 20 March 2008 - - SLanguages 2008 is a 24-hour multilingual conference to celebrate and investigate the use of 3D virtual worlds for language education. The event will be held in Second Life on 23-24 May 2008…

SLanguages 2008 is a 24 hour multilingual conference to celebrate and investigate the use of 3D virtual worlds for language education. The conference will be held within Second Life allowing the participants to exchange ideas and share experiences simultaneously around the world. The online conference is free to attend and includes talks, workshops, discussions and posters on language education using virtual worlds such as Second Life. The events will cover methodologies, teaching tools and experiences.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world that has attracted over 12 million residents worldwide and has become a mainstream phenomenon for education, business and entertainment. Throughout 2007 Second Life has become an important tool for language learning with many universities using the 3D world for language tuition, including Michigan State University and the University of Southampton. “Interest in using Second Life for education has increased exponentially over the last year” says Second Life educational consultant Gavin Dudeney, author of The Internet and the Language Classroom, Longman 2007.

The event is an opportunity for those new to virtual language teaching to learn about the opportunities virtual worlds offer. The conference also allows experienced language educators to share experiences and ideas. “3D virtual worlds such as Second Life offer a unique form of immersive learning not found elsewhere. The SLanguages 2008 conference is the perfect opportunity to see the recent developments in this area and to meet those involved in truly innovative educational projects” says Graham Stanley, who has established the British Council’s ‘Learn English Second Life for Teens’.

SLanguages 2008 will be hosted within Second Life on the tropical “EduNation” islands owned by The Consultants-E. The conference starts 10am (PST) Friday 23 May and ends 10am (PST) Saturday 24 May. The seminars will continue to also reach a much wider audience through archives of the event on the www.slanguages.net website.

To register for the conference or for further information, please contact Gavin Dudeney of The Consultants-E or visit the website www.slanguages.net.

About The Consultants-E:

The Consultants-E is an educational consultancy company specialising in online education, offering tailored consultancy in technology for education. Their consultants assist companies and educational institutions to integrate innovative technologies into their teaching practices. The company also offers courses in e-learning tools such as Second Life, wikis, podcasts and Moodle. The Consultants-E own and run three private islands in Second Life that foster education and training.

Contact:

Gavin Dudeney
The Consultants-E
c/ Cerámica 54
08035 Barcelona
Spain

gavin.dudeney@theconsultants-e.com
www.theconsultants-e.com

Dudeney Ge (Avatar in Second Life)

[Authorised press release from The Consultants-E]

Digital Age Assessment: Part 1

A look at technology tools that aid formative assessment.

Effective observation and diagnosis of student learning can be greatly assisted by 21stcentury technologies. Below are five practical tools to help educators measure student progress.

Clickers

Personal response systems such as those by GTCO allow us to get a snapshot of students’ comprehension in real time. We might ask a middle school social studies class: “Which state does not belong in this list and why? A) Florida; B) New York; C) California; or D) Nevada.” As the computer displays the answers on a teacher desktop or on a projection screen, the results (appearing in chart or graph form) provide quick information on any gaps or trends in student understanding.

Online quizzes

Students take an online practice quiz offered by a course management system such as Blackboard, HotChalk, or Baudnet; a quiz-giving service such as Quia; or through a noncommercial service such as ProProfs. The teacher can organize the test so that it evaluates the learning standard at a high level of thinking.

Author: Harry Grover Tuttle, TechLearning, 15th March 2008

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven - 11

11 - Light Versions (Split personality!)
Twitter is so popular because it is so Light! I mean, 140 characters, can work on cell phones (mostly ones here in the US, though.) However, as we look to link with people (and classrooms) in countries with little or no broadband access, we need to have easy ways for our (social) networking pages to connect to and from cell phones of all kinds.

Access in Africa
This first hit me during a recent discussion with Beth Kanter on Wow2. She is recently back from Cambodia where she was teaching 18-24 year old students about blogging. We need alternatives to make our content more concise, easy to read and the ability to pull residents of bandwidth-limited areas into our conversations.

Lemonade
Additionally, as I was listening to last week’s Digital Planet podcast from the BBC, I heard about the open cell phone standard entitled Lemonade which will make email access more readily available on even non-smart phones. So, why can’t we do the same thing with networking sites?

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

Full article available here.