Links and Coffee

Sites worth a second look:

War Animated - a look at animated battles and the events that caused them.

First Day of School - Start with problem solving from Copy/Paste

Twitter lists - Who should I follow?

Engaging with Cell Phones Even in Districts that Ban Them - from Tech and Learning

The Texting Effect

I saw an excellent presentation at this year's NECC from the boys from the Committed Sardine on the influence of digital technologies on brain development and its effects on adolescent skill development. The presentation cited the research from the book IBrain by Gary Small who ironically will be part of Steve Hardogen's Elluminate Sessions Thursday. The purpose of the post is an article that caught me today, Texting May Rewire Young Brains that dealt with the negative effects of texting on adolecent brain development and also cites research from IBrain. It makes me wonder how research and publications like this affect the debate on the use of cell phones in education and whether increased errors will steadily become an overlooked side effect of speedy communication. As teachers we see these effects daily, but I look at them as lazy writing not a learned pattern. What do you think?

Socialnomics

I spotted this earlier this week on elearning technology and was very impressed. We have all seen Did You Know, but I really enjoyed how this was put together.

check it out!

Cool Tools

I've been working on a presentation of "cool tools" for my staff during pre-service week. I want to show them tools that will be easy to incorporate and infuse technology into their lessons or projects that will engage students. I picked a few of my favorites that they can easily be incorporated through the Promethean boards and mobile labs.

Images
Spell with Flickr - create words with Flickr images and then cut and paste them to your board
Geo-Greeting - create words using images from google map

Web 2.0:
book r - digital storytelling with picture search
Wordle - create customizable word clouds
Capzles - create timelines
Glogster - create interactive posters using multi-media
animoto - create customizable video using a group of images
makebeliefscomix - create short comic strips
Scriblar - free interactive whiteboard

Other
Crappy Graphs - create your own graph
Newsmap - visual news search
The Differentiator! - objective creator

from prezi.com

ActivInspire Module 5 - Customize your Toolbar

ActivInspire Module 4- Navigation and Presentation

ActivInspire Module 3 - Resource Library

ActivInspire Module 2 - Working with Text

Promethean ActivInspireTraining Modules

I have created a series "How To" ActivInspire training modules for the new Promethean software. I've started with the basics and will move to more advanced modules throughout the year.

Module 1 - Basic introduction to ActivInspire's interface and toolbar.

One Foot in the Water

I've been standing at the edge of the edu-tech blogisphere for a long time, reading and lurking, and sharing the occasional comment on a thought-provoking article, but I think it's time. After coaxing from fellow classmates, co-workers, and friends requesting that I share more of my ideas and resources and after reading the post Never Question your power on Blogush it's time I get off the edge and jump in. So here goes!