Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Canadian Information By Subject

"The objective of the National Library of Canada's Canadian Information By Subject service is to provide links to information about Canada, arranged by subject, from Internet resources around the world. ... Canadian Information By Subject includes pointers to many different information sources. ... Please note that this service is updated regularly and is constantly developing and expanding. Be sure to check back often to see the latest additions."

Learning & Teaching using ICT

Material for Primary & Secondary school teachers. A rich site of resources, lesson plans, ideas for using communication technologies in the classroom.
"Develop your teaching practice using ICT. Here are all the materials you will need to teach a wide range of subject topics using ICT, from planning and preparation to evaluation. Whether you are new to ICT or more experienced, these materials can be used by all teaching professionals."

SKYPE in the Classroom

The article explains what Skype is and offers suggestions for how it can be used in education. Tells you how to get started, discusses safety and technical issues, and more.
"Skype is an example of a potentially “disruptive” educational technology tool because it can fundamentally change the teaching and learning environment. ... teaching and learning in the 21st Century can no longer be a traditional experience of “sit and get.” Teachers as well as students must strive to creatively employ technology tools to access, evaluate, synthesize and communicate information. Only by engaging in this active process can “information” from the Internet be translated into “knowledge” in the minds of learners. Classroom teachers can leverage the potential of disruptive technologies like Skype, weblogs, podcasts, or one to one technology immersion initiatives to increase student motivation to communicate with authentic audiences, spend more time on assigned tasks, and develop essential literacy skills needed for vocational and lifetime success in the twenty-first century. Translated, this means increasing student achievement, while simultaneously encouraging students as well as teachers to engage in worthwhile and creative tasks. Twenty-first century educators should aspire for nothing less."

Sunday, March 5, 2006

Free Online Educational Resources

Annotated links to various types of resources, including locations of courses & online institutions, podcasts on education topics, articles, lessons and more.

More Podcast sites

Podmatic: "Create, find & send podcasts" Lots of categories to browse/use, including an Education category containing hundreds of podcasts and other links. "...podcasting has traditionally been restricted to the crafty, tech-savvy and patient. ... many would-be podcasters are confronted with an array of technical hurdles (i.e. recording software, RSS and XML syndication, hosting, etc). ...To expedite podcasting's transition from fad to mainstream, our goal is to drop these barriers of entry for people interested in producing podcasts."

The Learning Pod: "Conversation, chat, discussion and information provided by people in education for people in education together with teachers notes."

Odeo: "Odeo is a creative way to record and share audio—and it's free. ...As a company, we believe strongly in the democratization of media. We think that giving more people powerful tools for the creation and distribution of media will result in more knowledge, ideas, art, truth, and amusement available to all."

Contemporary Online Teaching Cases

This site "... has been designed to help teachers work creatively and productively in their online teaching. Each of the cases locate new media and online technologies in the context of broader views of what it means to teach and learn effectively in different disciplines and professional fields in tertiary education. ...We hope the site provides you with plenty of ideas on how to develop and use new media/new technologies in your teaching."

The menu is good for drilling down to see the topics/cases you're most interested in. One example: I went to Approaches To Learning > Activity Based Learning and found this case study: "Using online multimedia to help student teachers develop post-primary curriculum and teach art and graphic design. ...This case illustrates the use of rich multimedia and online discursive activities to enhance students' learning and curriculum development skills in visual arts education."

Each case/topic is presented in voice segments, and many provide text transcripts of those audio clips.