• Top News – Six technologies soon to affect education From E-School News. Collaborative environments, cloud computing, and "smart" objects are among the technologies that a group of experts believes will have a profound impact on K-12 education within the next five years or sooner. 

  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teachers A post, by Milton Ramirez, paraphrasing the popular The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, a business self-help book. Secrets effective teachers put into practice: 1. They build confidence 2. They’re not afraid to make difficult decisions 3. They develop others 4. They’re good communicators 5. They’re non-conformists 6. They thrive in the company of others 7. They see the bigger picture But what makes teachers highly effective? We should start with two basic premises: Teachers are facilitators and not entertainers even though occasionally have to play that role. The second point to have in mind is that learners are not anymore the passive subject who only listens, new technologies put students in charge of the information they access, they are able to save, reformat and share it. 

  • Talk to Me: 5 Great Translation Tools 5 translation tools to aid you in your quest to translate and communicate

  • Create text-to-speech (TTS) podcast from RSS feed for iPod, iPhone, MP3 player and mobile phone Odiogo’s media-shifting technology expands the reach of your content: It transforms news sites and blog posts into high fidelity, near human quality audio files ready to download and play anywhere, anytime, on any device. It reads your text into a "listen now" button that can create an MP3 download 

  • State Library of Victoria SLV Research Guides – Bushfires in Victoria – 2009 Fires (Black Saturday) A great collection from the SLV on information about Victorian bushfires

  • YouTube – Copyright for Educators – Overview Episode 2 part 1 "Hall Davidson’s Updated version of Copyright for Fair Use, which is aligned with the teachings from the Code of Fair Use for Media Literacy Education (Temple University). There were a six videos on copyright law produced with Hall Davidson for KOCE Public Television" (abubnic)

  • 2. User Rights, Section 107 Music Video | Media Education Lab A good video for introducing students and teachers to the basics of copyright and fair use. The Temple Media Lab provides an excellent collection of case studies, FAQs, and lesson plans for teaching about fair use of copyrighted materials in education. 

  • Tech Savvy Teacher: SUP228 –Best Practices in Fair Use for 21st-Century Educators Review of: SUP228 Best Practices in Fair Use for 21st-Century Educators\nRenee Hobbs, Temple University, Media Education Lab with Katie Donnelly, Kristin Hokanson, Michael RobbGrieco and Joyce Valenza (abubnic)

  • New Book for Tweens and Teens Explains How to Tell Real Friends from the Other Kind New book for teens and tweens. Part graphic novel, part practical life skills, REAL FRIENDS VS. THE OTHER KIND by Annie Fox is here to help. The second book in the Middle School Confidential™ series, it follows a tight-knit group of fictional seventh graders–Jen, Jack, Michelle, Chris, Mateo, and Abby–as they work to strengthen friendships while navigating tough social situations. New book for teens and tweens. Part graphic novel, part practical life skills, REAL FRIENDS VS. THE OTHER KIND by Annie Fox is here to help. The second book in the Middle School Confidential™ series, it follows a tight-knit group of fictional seventh graders–Jen, Jack, Michelle, Chris, Mateo, and Abby–as they work to strengthen friendships while navigating tough social situations. New book for teens and tweens. Part graphic novel, part practical life skills, REAL FRIENDS VS. THE OTHER KIND by Annie Fox is here to help. The second book in the Middle School Confidential™ series, it follows a tight-knit group of fictional seventh graders–Jen, Jack, Michelle, Chris, Mateo, and Abby–as they work to strengthen friendships while navigating tough social situations. (abubnic)

  • http://edtechavenue.com/2009/06/29/cyberbullying-using-virtual-scenarios-to-educate-and-raise-awarenessli "Cyberbullying: Using Virtual Scenarios to Educate and Raise Awarenessli June 29th, 2009 by Jill Research Study We need to have a better awareness on how to educate on cyberbullying. Graduate students in counseling and education came together in this project. Cyberbullying “refers to bullying via electronic communications tools.”

  • k12cellphoneprojects – home K-12 projects that have integrated student cell phones

  • Digi Teen – Digital Citizenship for Teenagers Global project (Ning) for high school students to explore what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. 

  • Digi Parent – Digital Citizenship for Understanding Ning network for parents around the world to learn about digital citizenship. Learn about today’s social landscape, discover the pressing need for digital citizenship, and act to become better digital citizens.

  • http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/upload/2009/06/focus.gif Leadership, Collaboration, Data & Engagement

  • The Art Institute of Chicago: Education: Storytime, Match Up, Play with Art. Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

  • History Channel Classroom: Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked 

  • Cartoon Analysis Worksheet The National Archives Digital Classroom: Primary Sources, Activities and Training for Educators and Students. 

  • ReadWriteThink: Lesson Plan: Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media In this lesson, students explore representations of race, class, ethnicity, and gender by analyzing comics over a two-week period and then re-envisioning them with a "comic character makeover." (CMIS eval) Takes 2 weeks, 10 50 minutes lessons

  • ReadWriteThink: Lesson Plan: The Comic Book Show and Tell comic book scripting requires the writer to give the artist detailed, descriptive instructions while also crafting exciting dialogue and otherwise rich language. In this lesson, students encounter an authentic writing experience designed to get them thinking about their choices as writers and how they can best get their mental images out of their head and on the page.

  • art junction: a collaborative art space for teachers and students This site provides many different resources for both teachers and students. Some of the resources for teachers are very basic and specific, eg. advice on teaching students to draw or information on the stages of art development. Other resources are very broad (but extremely useful) like a collection of reviews of art based books and links to other arts website. The most ineresting and individual resource the site provides in "Art Education 2.0" a social network for teachers of art. 

  • Lovely Charts | Free online diagramming software Free online diagramming software. Flowcharts, Sitemaps, Organisation charts, Wireframes, Family trees, Network diagrams.

  • Online image markup tool – Aviary.com’s Falcon "Use Falcon and Talon to quickly capture images and web pages from your browser and crop, resize or mark them up. " 

  • Video Tutorials for Camtasia Studio 5 Video tutorials by category for Camtasia Studio 5 screen capture software. Learn how to use Camtasia Studio to record anything on your screen visually.

  • xkcd – A Webcomic – Snopes This comic references Snopes.com and urban legends.

  • Ideas to Inspire ’Ideas to Inspire’ is a collection of collaborative presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities. They are the result of the collaboration of teachers from all around the world.

  • Facebook’s Own Estimates Show Declining Student Numbers; Now More Grandparents Than High School Users Facebook users aged 55 and over have skyrocketed from under 1 million to nearly six million in the same time period. College and high school users have declined in absolute number by 20% and 15% respectively in a mere six months, according to estimates Facebook provides to advertisers that were archived for tracking by an outside firm. 

  • Global Education Teacher resources supporting the integration of a global perspective across the curriculum: Country profiles, international issues, development and poverty. Initiated and funded by AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) which manages the Australian Government’s official overseas aid program 

  • 100 Best Blogs for School Librarians | Online College Tips – Online Colleges With a US bias these 100 bloggers serve as good reference resource for learning about everything from library technology to young adult fiction

  • Task Force Recommendations for Best Practices for Child Online Safety Ι Point Smart. Click Safe. "The most important and timely recommendation from the report (which previous online safety task forces all agree upon) is the need for digital media literacy and safety education that empowers kids, parents, and educators. It’s important that kids of all ages learn what it mean to be a digital citizen and how to navigate the online world safely, and it’s equally important that parents and educators have the resources and online tools to help kids make the right choices online." [quote from: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-practices-for-online-child-safety.html] 

  • Related Top News – Task force tells how to keep kids safe online 

  • Effects – PhotoFunia The website offers some fun image effects enables users to create and save some pretty nifty images to print out and use at school (or home.) Images can be saved to your computer, saved as an avatar or published on the web by embedding into blogs, etc.

  • Digiteen – Group | Diigo Digiteen Diigo group that we use with our students on the digital citizenship project. The 9 aspects of digital citizenship correspond with the 9 aspects from Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey’s Digital Citizenship in schools.

  • dragonsinger » Blog Archive » Why we have changed our classroom – the students reflect.

  • Wisdomap | Welcome Wisdomap is mind mapping that allows you to attach notes, videos, pictures, links and files. The colourful, bright maps engage the right side of the brain, while keeping notes and media outside the mind map ensures clarity.

  • Sage: Open Source Mathematics Software Sage can be used to study general and advanced, pure and applied mathematics, including algebra, calculus, number theory, cryptography, numerical computation, commutative algebra, group theory, combinatorics, graph theory, exact linear algebra and more.

  • twtpoll :: a simple survey twitter app. Twtpoll is a free feedback tool that helps you to create and distribute polls on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

  • 50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom | Teaching Degree.org Promoting Education; Promoting Community; Skype Ideas for Teachers and Parents; Resources for Getting Started and Using Skype; Finding Others Using Skype

  • Vision Mapper by Futurelab Vision Mapper is a free web resource to support long-term planning and decision making in education. With its wide range of group activities and inspirational materials designed to inspire broader thinking, challenge your views and create realistic, achievable action plans, Vision Mapper can help you create a long-term vision and strategy for your organisation

  • Create-A-Scape – Home Create-A-Scape is a website that provides resources for creating digitally-enhanced learning experiences, using mobile technology to experience location-sensitive sounds and images that have been ‘attached to’ the local landscape. Can be used right across the curriculum with all age groups. 

  • Enquiring Minds Enquiring Minds is an approach to teaching and learning that takes students’ ideas, interests and experiences as its starting point, and provides them with more responsibility for the direction and content of their learning. Free guide and supporting resources available online. 

  • Exploratree – Exploratree by FutureLab A free web resource which can be used for downloading, using and making interactive thinking guides. Thinking guides can be useful for supporting independent and group research projects with frameworks for thinking, planning and enquiry.

  • Million Futures Million Futures aims to identify what people think are the biggest challenges facing education in the future. The site invites visitors to launch their thoughts about future life and learning via virtual paper planes, and explore what others have written. A lesson plan is available.

  • Power League | Home Power League is a free web resource for exploring any topic, through sampling group opinions and provoking group discussions. Create your own online leagues or use our existing ones. Can be used right across the curriculum with all age groups; includes lesson plans

  • NECC 2009 – List | Diigo 

  • Best Audiobooks for Kids: Travel Savvy Mom 

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