Everything EDTECH

My Shared Items for January 17th through January 25th:

• Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education – I am looking forward to this online conference. I have been spending a lot of time researching MUVEs and playing/building in them lately. I think that MUVEs have the power to transform online learning as part of a synergistic relationship with traditional asynchronous and synchronous online learning modalities. More to come on this topic for sure.
• Horton Hears a Tweet (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE – This is an excellent analysis of using Twitter to model building a PLN for students & other educators.
• Comparing 12 Free Screencasting Tools – This is a pretty good comparison. I prefer Screenflow or Camtasia for anything I want to create with some longevity, but the free stuff works in a pinch as well.
• Coping With Too Much Wisdom – Rod's tips are very spot on. I've been struggling with this of late and really trying to determine (1) what I am specifically passionate about with regards to education and (2) where my time is best spent. It's hard. I love learning about anything and everything. However, the time has come where I need to set aside my desire to learn something about everything and focus on what I believe is the future of education/online learning = MUVEs and virtual worlds.
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Wants You to Punish Your Kids for Gaming –

• New Video: Protecting Reputations Online in Plain English – Excllent video for students, parents, and teachers. Definitely going into my bag of digital citizenship tips & tricks.
• Part I — Hot Startups to Watch in 2010
  Some really interesting startups and they all seem to revolve around different angles of social media.
• Don’t Lose It – This post resonates with me personally. I was VERY interested in computers and programming at a very early age. I had the fortune of taking a BASIC programming class the summer after 4th grade and loved it. I mean who wouldn’t love learning how to control a computer and write Hello World programs? Anyways, the problem was that my interest wasn’t supported in school, nor was it supported outside of school as we did not have a home computer at the time. I longed for one, but it just was not in the cards. As a result, my passion and fire could not be sustained without consistent access to a computer as well as a guide to help me learn programming…I sure wish I was a kid today, but only if my teachers were some of the awesome educators in my PLN. Otherwise, I’m afraid it might just be more of the same.

My Shared Items for December 23rd through December 26th:

• No Rows, No Desks -
• Google Presentations are Mobile Phone Ready -
• School is no longer constrained to how far the bus can travel in the morning -
• YouTube – iPhone 3G Disassembly – EASIEST Way To Open Your iPhone 3G – The mute/sound toggle switch busted on my 3G so I started looking around to see what it would cost to replace it since it’s out of warranty. I was amazed by the choices and selection available to fix up your iphone. I love that this video was created by an obviously young kid. Informal learning at its finest