PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/26/2010

• Tips For Dealing With Spam Commenters | The Edublogger

  Defines comment spam, and explains ways of avoiding or handling it

  tags: blogs blogging comment spam comments Edublogger Edublogs spam tips blogging basics and security wink_students

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Space Weather Warnings Currently in Effect

There appears to have been concern emanating from the UK regarding impacts on communication satellites:

• UK Satellite Broadband ISP Services Under Threat... (ISPreview, 2010.08.04).

Check out this NOAA Alerts and Warnings Timeline, and think about putting on a foil suit!-)

• Space Weather Warnings Currently in Effect (NOAA)

Thanks to Bill G. for pointing out these interesting sites on the jalt-call mailing list.

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history | Video on TED.com

"TED ideas worth spreading" mesh easily with Blogger. With a single click on the Blogger button below a video display on site, it generated a post with an enclosure link to the video on site (now removed) and the linked text that remains above the video here. Code for embedding the video in this post was just two additional clicks away (Share, then Copy).

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/25/2010

• How Does Edublogs Compare? | Edublogs - teacher and student blogs

  Comparison chart for Blogger, Edublogs, and Wordpress platforms

  tags: Blogger blogging blogging platforms comparisons Edublogs Wordpress blog layout templates and themes security learners teachers

• Privacy Policy - EnglishCentral.com - Annotated

  tags: privacy policy EnglishCentral

  • If you do not want us to use the information you provide in order to inform you of products and services we think might interest you, or provide your information to third party companies, it is your obligation to please let us know, by contacting us at customerservice@EnglishCentral.com.
  • You may opt-out of use of your information as set forth above by emailing us at customerservice@EnglishCentral.com or by setting your own preferences online for receipt of EnglishCentral marketing and promotional emails.
  • If you are a registered user, you can update your personally identifiable information at any time. To do this, just click on the "My EnglishCentral" link listed throughout the WebSite and then click on "My Profile" to edit your profile. You may also select "unsubscribe" on the "My Account" page to have your email address removed from our mailing list. However, we are unable to update or delete any of your personally identifiable information that has been shared with a third party as permitted in this Privacy Policy.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/24/2010

• E-CAP Speak. Discover. Improve (Japanese site)

  English
  Communication
  Assessment
  Profile

  tags: assessments communication English languages speaking

• Athabasca University Press - Publish with Us

  Calls for prospectuses

  tags: education educational technology peer reviews publications publishing scholarly

• braz2010vance [licensed for non-commercial use only] / PLN - Annotated

  PLN: The paradigm shift in teacher and learner autonomy

  tags: autonomy braz2010vance education educational technology learning paradigms paradigm shift teacher development teaching technology

  • Etienne Wenger (2007) asked Cristina Costa when she knew she was in a community of practice and she said, when she noticed her practice had changed. And this is the correct answer.  When your practice changes, you know you have truly learned. The next step as a teacher is to model what you did for your students so that some will follow in your footsteps.

    
    

    
    So how can you do it?  Your change in practice probably won't be from this one encounter, unless I can convince you or nudge you, if you were heading that way already, into taking the next step in your journey.  The goal is to move from being just a consumer of networked content, which you in essence hoard, to a creator of content, which you share with the network that shares with you.

  • language teachers need to look beyond what it appears on the surface is happening between them and the learner and consider the bigger picture, such as ways in which technology fosters connections with communities and networks that humanize rather than isolate to strengthen individuals as an integral part of modern society and how that society acculturates, or learns together.
  • I encourage colleagues to think SMALL because in my view the computer is no longer the salient aspect of technology. The salient aspect is the use to which technology is put, and the salient use is to re-wire and expand how we are able to learn by enabling us to nurture and participate in always-on PLNs, or Personal Learning Networks.

  • In order for teachers to grasp the fundamentals of applying technology to transformative learning outcomes, practice with peers is necessary, where teachers themselves become mentors for one another while sharing with one another their discoveries and experiences with their own learning.

    
    

  • Teachers who drive their own professional development through participation in PLNs constantly express and assess each other's needs, and promote professional development on an as-needed basis, from where it is only a short leap to applying it to students.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/21/2010

• C is for Communicative « An A-Z of ELT

  Extends definition of communicative from interactive, purposeful, reciprocal, negotiated, generally synchronous, unpredictable, and heterogenous, to include interpersonal and broader contextual contingency as well as personal commitment to or investment in achieving desirable outcomes.

  tags: communication communicative activity ideas education

• Terms of Service - CO11

  Rather more than less palatable terms that give SNS creator considerable control over content

  tags: Ning terms of service SNSs

• 100 Free High Quality WordPress Themes: 2010 Edition - Smashing Magazine

  Illustrated run-down of various themes

  tags: blogging design layout themes WordPress

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mac – PC Commonalities: Conflict Minerals

This video, "I'm a Mac ... and I've Got a Dirty Secret," appears on the ENOUGHproject channnel (2010.06.25). It caught my eye in a Google Reader feed today. It has garnered almost 600,000 views to date (2010.08.20). It's worth one more, yours!

Posts from pab's ning t'ing

Today's the last day I can say:

[I'm a member of pab's ning t'ing]

Free access to such Ning networking sites is phasing out as I type. As a matter of fact, I wonder how long the badge (gadget) that I've embedded above will last.

I've grabbed a couple of posts from My Blog on that site as keepsakes:

pab's ning t'ing

a microcosm in a nanosecond 

Tweaking RSS Feeds on Main Page

• Posted by pab on February 21, 2008 at 6:02pm

In order to show enough, but not too much, of the posts coming in through RSS feeds on the Main page, I have tweaked the settings on the various feeds:

1. Blogger blog feeds: Titles only - five per blog

The first couple of Blogger feeds, if not all of them, were coming through in full - with embedded videos and all the rest of the media dragging down page loading insufferably. So I trimmed them back to titles only. Then I increased the number of recent posts showing from three to five to show more a bit more content, and make it slightly easier to distinguish one blog feed from the next.

2. Edublogs and Vox blog feeds: Extended views - three per blog

Since RSS feeds from both of these types of blogs seem to limit themselves to several lines of text, I went ahead with the extended view option for all of them. However, I limited each feed display to the three most recent post, so as not to make it necessarily to scroll virtually endlessly to read down through the entire list of posts.

Arranging RSS Feeds on Main Page: Like Herding Cats?

• Posted by pab on February 21, 2008 at 5:00pm

Arranging RSS feeds in the Main page today has taken much more time here in Ning than it does on any page in Pageflakes. That is mainly because when you go to Manage - Features in Ning, you cannot see any content in the modular elements, or edit the titles on them to make them readily identifiable. Moreover, you cannot rearrange the elements directly in Ning page view like you can in Pageflakes.

The Main Page of pab's ning t'ing now contains nine RSS feeds, three from each of three educators in the Weblogging in Kumamoto (WinK) community. I've organized those nine feeds alphabetically: first by authors' family names (unlisted), then by blog titles. I reckon the list will stay in that order for a while, at least.

[retrieved 2010.08.20]

New Ning Membership Badge

Visit CO11

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/19/2010

• ELI Discovery Tool: Collaborative Learning Workshop Guide | EDUCAUSE

  "comprehensive collaborative learning workshop guide, developed from the ELI 2009 Fall Focus Session" (¶3, retrieved 2010.08.18)

  tags: collaboration technology collaborative learning learning spaces resources workshops learning EDUCAUSE education guides

• Interview with Charles Fadel on the Neuroscience of Learning | Learncentral

  In this interview by Steve Hargedon (Tuesday, August 10th, 2010), Charles Fadel "review[s] the basic mechanisms [of learning] (physiological and cognitive) ... [and] address[es] understanding (the 5 C's: Context, Caring, Construction, Competence, Community). He ... also cover[s] issues of plasticity, timeliness, interdependence of dualities and various socio-cultural differences, as well as applications to multimodal learning, and how to evaluate interactivity" (Detail[ed] Description, ¶1, retrieved 2010.08.18).\n \n

  tags: cognition learning memory motivation multi-modal neuroscience

• The Ning Thing [TESL-EJ: June 2010—Volume 14, Number 1] - Annotated

  Vance Stevens recaps recent Ning corporate decisions influencing virtual educational community developers, and outlines alternatives.

  tags: Ning virtual communities networking social networking social networking sites

  • it would be folly for educators having suffered inconvenience at best, data loss at worst, to commit their content yet again to a potentially unreliable cloud provider. Alec Couros sees this kind of thing happening more and more in the crystal ball future and suggests that schools and educators would be better off investing in self-hosting using FOSS, free and open source software (Couros, 2010).
  • As suggested above, the only reliable alternative to Ning is to host your community yourself, or at a trusted institution, where you do your own regular backups, and your content is safe behind a firewall, with a UPS power source in case of power outages, and perhaps some sort of RAID system to keep you running through system crashes.

• The Non-Designer's Design Book - Google Books

  Offers previews of book by Robin Williams (Peachpit Press, 2008)

  tags: books design proximity alignment repetition contrast

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/18/2010

• TOEIC(R) | Group Application | Differences between SP test and IP test group applcations | Japan

  Chart for comparison of Secure Program and Institutional Program TOEIC and TOEIC Bridge

  tags: ETS TOEIC English language tests

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/07/2010

• 
  
  Blogger in Draft: Introducing Blogger Stats
  "Blogger Stats ... monitors and analyzes your visitor traffic in near-real-time. You can see which posts are getting the most visits and which sites are sending traffic to your blog" (Staszek Paśko and Wiktor Gworek, Software Engineers; THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010; ¶2, retrieved 2010.08.06).
  tags: Blogger Blogger in Draft blog traffic statistics blog gadgets and widgets

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/06/2010

• Introduction to LessonWriter

  Demo video shows Bloom's taxonomy-based question prompts used to help generate text-based worksheets with the automated, online, lesson preparation tool, LessonWriter.

  tags: LessonWriter lesson plans lessons worksheets Bloom Bloom's taxonomy tools technology teaching

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/04/2010

• BBC NEWS | Technology | Changing the way we think

  "The current generation of 'search engines' seem to encourage a model of exploration that is disposed towards assimilative learning, finding sources, references and documents which can be slotted into existing frameworks, rather than providing material for deeper contemplation of the sort that could provoke accommodation and the extension, revision or even abandonment of views, opinions or even whole belief systems" (Tech drug, ¶10, retrieved 2010.08.04).

  tags: assimilation accomodation BBC brains concentration learning Piaget technology searches

• Google Drawings - Google Docs Help

  Access point for help and tutorials - Categories include: Getting Started; Organizing your Docs List; Creating and Editing Drawings; Sharing, Collaborating and Publishing; Uploading and Exporting; Fixing a Problem; and More.

  tags: drawings documents Google Docs Google graphics concept mapping and outlining wink_students

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/03/2010

• CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media

  "This website is designed to support the book Teachingmedialiteracy.com: A Web-Linked Guide to Resources and Activities" (index page, ¶1, 2010.08.03)

  tags: teaching resources wikis media literacy curriculum literacy film media education

• Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools

  Authors of Teaching Writing Using Blogs... are hoping to collect "material related to the topics in this wikibook: links, references, files, descriptions of teaching activities, or student work." For permission to comment on or edit this wiki, "request access from Richard Beach, University of Minnesota, at rbeach@umn.edu" (Front Page, 2010.08.03).

  tags: writing tools teaching resources wikis activities

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 08/01/2010

• Q is for Quote marks « An A-Z of ELT

  Fascinating perspectives, including comments on 2010.07.26, on the use or omission of quotation marks for a variety of pragmatic purposes and stylistic effects.

  tags: writing punctuation quotations quotes pragmatics stylistics

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 07/30/2010

• Screenjelly - What's on your screen?

  Worth a try? Registration necessary. Full-screen, w/ 3 min. limit

  tags: tools technology recording screencasting

• Flag Counter » free counters - collect flags - learn about your visitors!

  Customizable hit counter shows flags for visitors countries, with optional map view, country codes and pageview counts.

  tags: tools technology free blog gadgets and widgets wink_students

• DE Tools: DE Tools of the Trade

  "Free, Web[-]Based Tools & Resources for Online Educators" (tagline, 2010.07.29)

  tags: tools technology education resources free

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 07/28/2010

• Grouply Blog » Grouply for Education

  "Grouply provides a rich feature set with dozens of applications to help parents, teachers, and students communicate and collaborate online, yet it is remarkably simple to configure and easy to use" (¶2, 2010.07.27)

  tags: social networking alternatives tools technology education Grouply collaboration communication online

• Alternatives To Ning: Guide To The Best Social Networking Platforms And Online Group Services

  "If you are considering the option of switching to a different social networking platform to replace your soon-to-be discontinued free Ning community, in this MasterNewMedia guide you will find all the data you need to identify your best Ning alternative out there." (retrieved 2010.07.27)

  tags: social networking alternatives guide reviews tools technology resources

• whos.amung.us - dashboard » slzxwry7

  Offers free stat's page for blogs and other websites

  tags: free statistics tracking blog gadgets and widgets

• Projects By Jen | K6 Online Projects

  A social networking site for K6 educators

  tags: networking social online platforms services tools technology projects Jen Wagner collaboration teaching learning education resources

• Ning Alternatives: Best Social Networking Platforms And Online Group Services - MindMeister Mind Map

  Mindmap with links to various alternative services

  tags: networking social online platforms services education tools technology

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 07/24/2010

• World Affairs Council: Teacher Resource Packets ...

  "... [T]hese packets, in compliance with copyright law, are excerpted from those distributed at our professional development trainings. ...The full packets can only be obtained by enrolling in our professional development workshops" (Professional Development Programs, ¶2, 2010.07.23).

  tags: World Affairs Council global education professional development resources teacher development

• LearnCentral resource: World Affairs Council document (Aug. 18, 2009)

  Online Games and Virtual Worlds for Global Education: Resource Packet for Teachers

  tags: LearnCentral World Affairs Council global education online games educational games

• lists:2010classes [WinK Wiki] - Annotated

  • Jeff Cairn's PUK classes

• Diigo V5: Collect and Highlight, Then Remember! on Vimeo

  Explains and illustrates features of version five, including a snapshot function enabling you to archive a webpage

  tags: Diigo Vimeo bookmarking videos

• TakingITGlobal - Youth Media - Games

  "This section of TakingITGlobal contains an assortment of fun and interactive educational games!" (TIGgames, sidebar, 2010.07.23)

  tags: TakingITGlobal educational games youth media interactive

• LearnCentral resource: Eaton (2010) Global Trends in Language Learning...

  Eaton, S.E. (2010). Global Trends in Language Learning in the Twenty-first Century. Calgary: Onate Press.

  tags: LearnCentral language learning resources languages education

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

PABeaufaitBookmarks 07/23/2010

• Derek's Blog » Participation Online – the Four Cs

  "My diagram attempts to illustrate how many participants in the online environment move through phases as they gain understanding and confidence" (Wenmoth, 2006.11.10, ¶3).

  tags: blogging participation community online

• Making Learning Visible

  "The overall goal of Making Learning Visible is to create and sustain powerful cultures of learning in and across classrooms and schools that nurture and make visible individual and group learning" (MLV Home, ¶3; retrireved 2010.07.22).

  tags: cultural transmission group learning Harvard learning learning groups research culturally+diverse+learners

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.