Aug
29
2009
ThinkQuest is an online learning platform that helps you to to integrate learning projects into your curriculum and encourages your students to develop 21st century skills.
ThinkQuest includes a:
* projects area for teachers and students engage in collaborative learning
* competition area for students to participate in technology contests
* library area containing a large online repository of student-developed learning projects
* professional development area offering comprehensive training for educators
Sample lessons and projects are included to help you get started and the library area includes over 7,000 websites created by students from around the world.
ThinkQuest is a fabulous resource for 21st century learning!
Aug
20
2009
MegaZine 3 is a powerful pageflip engine, which allows you to create striking interactive pageflip books. Include text, images, videos and background sounds.
You can also add a ‘zoom’ function to your image by including a link to a high resolution version of the same image.
A certain knowledge about HTML and/or XML is needed in order to use MegaZine 3 but if you have the basics then setting up a book is extremely simple as an intuitive XML structure is used to control the content of a book. But, even if you do not know any HTML there are a couple of tutorials provided in the forum, which will help you to get started.
Creating books with MegaZine 3 could prove to be a nice incentive for those students needing to learn HTML.
Check out the demo book to see all the features in action!!
Aug
08
2009
Sclipo is a newly created social network designed specifically for those in education.
Sclipo’s main social learning features include:
* A Profile which connects you with people of common educational interests.
* An Academy where you teach through the use of the other educational applications.
* A Courses application which allows you to create and post your courses.
* A Library where you store, manage and share educational content in any format.
* A Live Web Class allowing you to teach up to 100 students live through webcam, whiteboard and document presentation. Students can participate actively through audio, video and chat.
* A Live Web Meeting room for audio and chat only meetings plus upload image files.
* Facebook Connection allowing you to easily connect and publish to Facebook.
* Payments Option (premium service) enabling you to charge students for your courses and web classes – directly through PayPal.
The
Sclipo platform looks promising. For me, the strongest features include the facebook connection (including single signon), the live web class and the live web meetings. As well as this, keeping track of the courses you are following and teaching is very well set out and a good message updating system is included.
I would, however, like to see a desktop sharing element added to the live web class to allow for live demonstration from websites. I would, also, like to see a feature in the Library enabling embedded content. With so much creative commons content already available on the Internet, it should be easier to use it without having to download and upload again.
All in all, Sclipo is well worth checking out!
Aug
04
2009
Google Docs Spreadsheet provides a lovely motion chart widget which will very easily bring your static data to life! I can see this little tool being very useful for projects in ICT, history, geography, mathematics, social studies etc….
You can see the motion chart in action at Gapminder World as well as viewing many interesting videos using motion charts.
Gapminder also provides an excellent tutorial explaining how to use the motion chart widget.
Check out this interactive example, from Gapminder, to see what can be done.
Patricia Donaghy
