Beyond School

If you’re having trouble downloading David’s keynote from k12Online, I got an okay to share this link to my upload of the video so you can download it here.

Technorati Tags: k12online, k12online07

Dear Teachers,

Please excuse my recent absence. This

has just been proposed (and, goodness help Her, accepted). So we’re talking about buying one of these

in Oregon next summer, as a summer vacation home between international school gigs evermore. And if we’re lucky, this

will follow in a year or two (a nice Korean-American blend, I hope with Her triple-eyelids).

That’s all assuming I make it through the Korean wedding planning.

Life’s funny. At 45, I thought my window for family had shut behind me. I also believed myself every time, over the past three or four years, that I repeated the mantra, “I love being single; I’ll never get married.”

I used this personal case in class today as a classic example of situational irony. But what can I say? A good heart, a good sense of humor (in English, Korean, and Japanese), and the ability to put up with this monomaniacal workaholic.

Call it Clay 2.0. Life won’t be the same. We get hitched next May.

Marin Independent Journal – Marin educators creating the 21st century classroom

• 1:1 schools in Marin County to try to pull into a network.  Interesting comments about the “top-down” and “bottom-up” continuum in making integration happen.
   - post by cburell

newteachergeekday

• Patrick Higgins‘ wiki for new teachers introduces:
  • Connective Writing
  • Social Bookmarking
  • Flat Classrooms
  • “Ten Essential Tools for Educators”
  • Resources

  A great professional develpment resource in the quest for classroom conversions.

   - post by cburell

Flixn.com | Video Everywhere

• Thanks to Patrick Higgins (who thanks Will Richardson) for this find:  this might be just the peer feedback tool we’re looking for for the 1001 Tales writing workshop.  It requires a webcam, but otherwise is dead easy to embed–easier than Yackpack, and video added to boot.  (And check out the film debut of Patrick’s Audrey, who can’t be more than four moons old, on his demo.  Priceless, Patrick.)

  I’m seeing this as a way for students to give peer feedback by reading their flat classroom peers’ works aloud into their webcam, pausing for commentary all the while.  At a couple stages in the Flat World Tales, we had students podcast themselves reading their own works, then listen and reflect about what they heard.  Otherwise, no audio-video was used; instead, students only wrote their feedback on each other’s wiki page.  My students said this took them upwards of a half hour per story feedback.

  So Flixn might be faster, easier, and more effective–and more social.  Some of the student feedback expressed regret that they could not see or hear their flat classroom partners this time around.

  I’m really liking this….Chris Watson, are you listening? 

   - post by cburell

Plotbot: Collaborative Screenwriting

• Very interesting.  Thanks to Jeff Wasserman for the tip.
   - post by cburell

World Without Oil :: Document Your Life In The New Reality

• On online game meant to educate about the “habits of mind”–and action–needed to face the growing oil shortage as wisely as possible.
  – post by cburell

Center for Media and Democracy – Publishers of PR Watch

• A media watchdog group, keeping an eye (especially) on the growing incursion of political marketing techniques into journalism. – post by cburell

Geoscience Australia: Query Nuclear Explosions Database

• Database with the time and place of every nuclear bomb test, per country, since 1945. Wonder who exploded more, the USA or USSR? Here’s where you can compare.
  – post by cburell

toledoblade.com — Why did some troops target civilians but others did not?

• Vietnam vets discuss why they did or did not kill Vietnamese civilians in the war. Part of a powerful series of the Toledo Blade.
  – post by cburell

Mickey Mouse drops the racist “N-bomb” in a 1932 comic

Key Issues: Nuclear Weapons: History:

• Excellent site with streaming audio of Cuban Missile Crisis discussions during the “13 Days” at the White House.
  – post by cburell

I just saw this photo on Edge — The Third Culture, my very favorite science and culture online magazine. The Cassini satellite snapped it of Saturn. Steven Pinker gives more background.

Notice the speck of light (inset upper left) between the rings?

Say hello to home. And say a word of thanks to hard science for Revealing to us its Wonders.

Just had to share the most sublime digital photo, and the most miraculous feat performed by man on earth, I think I’ve ever seen. I need to start supporting the scientists more.

hoefler » Research 2.0

• Eric Hoefler’s wiki for “research 2.0″–I haven’t checked it out closely, but Patrick Higgins at Chalkdust plugs it, which says something.
   - post by cburell

Militant ‘Mickey Mouse’ pulled off air – Yahoo! News

• Mickey Mouse preaches fundamentalist political agenda on children’s show.  Excellent supplement to “authority” and “education” themes of All Quiet on the Western Front, Animal Farm, and V for Vendetta.

   - post by cburell

TalkShoe™ – Featured Demo Videos

• This seems the most promising web-based podcasting service I’ve seen yet.  Definitely worth checking out for recording conference calls.  Skype-friendly and, so far, free.
   - post by cburell

Podcast Stations & Podcast Advertising :: Podango

• Another web-based podcasting site.  Free?
   - post by cburell

BlogTalkRadio

• One possible web 2.0 alternative to Skype conference call restrictions.  Web-based conference call recording.  Don’t know if it’s free.
   - post by cburell

CriticalThinking.org – Critical Thinking Development: A Stage Theory

• Interesting paradigm for scaffolding metacognition about critical thinking in the classroom.
   - post by cburell

McREL: Mid-continent for Education and Learning, Content Knowledge Standards and Benchmark Database

• Good set of standards to guide the editors of the Broken World wiki.
   - post by cburell

Blogger & Podcaster, April 2007

• Interesting “flippable page” online magazine–with “talking ads.”  Lots of web-based podcasting sites advertised there.  Worth a look.
   - post by cburell

Main Page – Wikimedia Commons

• Wow.  This seems to rival Archive.org as a multimedia archive.
   - post by cburell

Wikibooks:Image use policy – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

• And this is a good resource to teach the etiquette of image use on wikis and blogs.
   - post by cburell

Wikibooks:Editing guideline – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

• This one’s essential for getting beyond individually authored pages to collaborative writing.  This will be interesting to watch unfold in the classroom.
   - post by cburell

Help:Welcome, newcomers – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

• More for the wiki textbook editors.
   - post by cburell

Help:How to start a book – Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

• A good resource for the Broken World wiki textbook editors.
   - post by cburell

XplanaZine: Fast-Track Development of High-Quality Online Courses

• From the site’s intro:

  The following approach represents a way to fast-track the development
  of online courses by using an integrative approach to develop unique,
  high-quality courses that reflect the core values and vision of the
  institution while bringing together media assets, supplemental subject
  matter experts, and a highly effective online instructional strategy.
  This article was first written in 2003, but in reviewing it, it seems
  to be remarkably helpful, particularly as institutions are faced with
  creating courses and course content for new learning management systems
  and technologies
  
   - post by cburell

Behlendorf.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

• Edtechlive’s podcast interview with one of the creators of Apache. 
   - post by cburell

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

• Did I just buy a $50 php manual unnecessarily>  The php website offers an introductory tutorial and online manual–d’oh!!!
   - post by cburell

Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops – New York Times

• Recipe for 1:1 initiative failure: buy PC’s instead of Macs; don’t train teachers and students; measure success by success on standardized state testing.
   - post by cburell

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

• Good warmer for World History unit and/or for Animal Farm or V for Vendetta?  By Naomi Wolf
   - post by cburell