Comments:

• This is a suite of fun tools from the BBC for organizing ideas and generating new ideas. In Pinball you will find tools for creating mindmaps, outlines, and simple slideshows. Pinball also has tools to help you brainstorm and generate new ideas.  - Rhondda Powling

Tags: mindmapping, digitalstorytelling, bbc, collaboration, creativity, brainstorming, mind mapping

by: Rhondda Powling

Tags: taxonomy, educational technology, poster, mobile learning, learning, Bloom's Taxonomy

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• "reate drawings and documents on your tablet. You can create using free-hand drawing tools, using typing tools, or a combination of the two tool sets. Your drawings and documents can be sent to and synced with other users so that they can comment and edit your drawings and documents." - Rhondda Powling

Tags: mind mapping, brainstorming, tools, concept_mapping

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• "This tool is built on Google's Advanced Search and conducts a Google search with the keywords that you fill in for each field. As you type, WATCH as the Wizard builds your query in the search box above. Then click Search. Evaluate the results and revise your keywords to get the best results for your topic!" - Rhondda Powling

Tags: google, searching, wizard, research_tools

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• 30+ mind mapping tools. Some are free and others have a fee  - Rhondda Powling

Tags: mind mapping, mapping, tools, brainstorming, concept_mapping

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• A list of concept or mind mapping tools with short descriptions  - Rhondda Powling

Tags: teacher tools, online, learning, concept_mapping, visual learning, mind mapping

by: Rhondda Powling

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Dan Zen

I was fascinated by this tweet this morning from #CanEdu13:

Noticing tht @courosa is referencing his slides with #twitter handles.#endofapa #ensofmla #CanEdu13

— Mitch Champagne (@MitchChampagne) May 6, 2013

I thought about the way that our students do “assignments” and many of them still write traditional “essays” that would never necessarily reference a “tweet”, blog, or YouTube video, yet there is a lot of learning that can happen from these digital spaces, they are just not what we are used to. For example, recently talking to an educator currently finishing her thesis, she told me how she was not able to reference a “blog” as it was discouraged in her cohort.

Why?

Should we not be able to curate, assess, and evaluate information from a blog as we would from a paper?  Information often loses accuracy in many instances because it is time sensitive, and a journal takes a while to be published, as well as a book.  Is there not any relevance in the “real-time” web?

Thinking about this, I found the following quote from Henry Jenkins’ paper on “Media Education for the 21st Century”:

“Adolescents need to learn how to integrate knowledge from multiple sources, including music, video, online databases, and other media.They need to think critically about information that can be found nearly instantaneously through out the world. They need to participate in the kinds of collaboration that new communication and information technologies enable, but increasingly demand. Considerations of globalization lead us toward the importance of understanding the perspective of others, developing a historical grounding, and seeing the interconnectedness of economic and ecological systems.”
—Bertram C. Bruce (2002)

If we are looking at how people are “moved”, some are through what they have read, but many are from what they see and hear.  I am not saying to get rid of looking at “traditional” media in assignments, but how often do we encourage our students to use a YouTube video as a resource?  Is this not a skill that our students need?

• February 6, 2013 -- Revisiting Cursive
• August 21, 2011 -- Texting Improving Literacy?
• July 17, 2011 -- Literacy…Just Literacy
• February 22, 2012 -- Is our vision too generic?
• March 18, 2013 -- 6 Reasons Why You Should Do a “Blog Study”

Tags: digitalcitizenship, internet safety, online safety, education, digital citizenship

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• "An assistive technology: a technology used by an individual with a disability to perform a function that might otherwise be difficult or impossible." Samantha Thomas, a student, future librarian, and educator at Kutztown University, created this handy collection of assistive technologies that you may find helpful. Some are commonly used with special needs individuals, such as augmentative & alternative communication apps and others are general consumer apps. Listed alongside each app is her assessment of its value as an assistive technology." - Rhondda Powling

Tags: apps, learning, tools, assistive technology

by: Rhondda Powling

Comments:

• Post about a video from Dr. Wesley Fryer walks you through how to create multiple track podcasts using free tools including Audacity and AudioBoo.
  
  - Rhondda Powling

Tags: technology, teachers, video, how to, audacity, audioboo, tools, Wes Fryer

by: Rhondda Powling

I rarely just post a video into my blog and provide no commentary, but this is a pretty amazing Ted Talk.  It is seven minutes and is extremely valuable to all of those in the teaching profession.

• December 1, 2012 -- Does Twitter Improve Education?
• January 17, 2013 -- Points of Emphasis
• January 30, 2013 -- The Bigger You Are, The More You Should Connect
• October 16, 2010 -- One of those days
• March 23, 2013 -- Making Meaningful Sense of Our World