This Just In: Free Image Editing on the Web

My professor pal, Dr. Jason Rhode, just sent me a heads up on Aviary. It looks to be a most amazing site with a variety of image editing tools that rival Photoshop but are available free on the web. Looks like they have also added sound editing recently. Haven't tried it out yet, but thought I'd get the word out. I'm guessing a lot of my teacher-students are going to love it.

Resources for Building Online Communities

This post lists several sites that discuss aspects of the process of building learning communities--some focus specifically on online communities and others are more about the face-to-face experience. The first one is something I came across, and the rest were discovered by my students. In those cases, I included a link back to their original blog posts.

How To Build An Online Community
http://www.feverbee.com/2010/01/how-to-build-an-online-community-the-ultimate-list-of-resources.html

Seven Keys to Building Healthy Online Community
http://www.yelvington.com/content/seven-keys-building-healthy-online-community
Originally posted: http://cohort2010-karen.blogspot.com/2010/02/online-vs-face-to-face.html

Skills required for maintaining a successful online learning community
http://massageonline.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/skills-required-for-maintaining-a-successful-online-learning-community
Originally posted: http://jbutikofer.blogspot.com/2010/02/keys-to-successful-online-learning.html

Professional Learning Communities Virtual Workshop
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/virtualwkshp/virtualwkshp005.shtml
Originally posted: http://schomig.blogspot.com/2010/02/schomig-and-final-project-2-10-10.html

Transform Your Group into a Team
http://www.nsdc.org/members/tools/tools11-05.pdf
Originally posted: http://schomig.blogspot.com/2010/02/schomig-and-final-project-2-10-10.html

Free Technology for Teachers

http://www.freetech4teachers.com

This is an amazing blog site for teachers by a teacher. Be careful, you might get lost in the endless posts about cool technology and how to use it in the classroom. Yesterday’s post was about tools students can use to explore the Olympic Games. (I followed a couple links and had some fun playing here: http://www.olympicschool.ca/default.aspx?PageID=1061&LangID=en)

Check out their free downloadable PDF titled 12 Essentials for Technology Integration. It presents a good “starter kit” for newcomers.

2nd Resource Site for K12 Educators

Just a quick post this week as I prepare for face-to-face class. Found this vast and amazing list of social network sites for education. This will take you a while to get through, so go make a cup of tea and get started!

Educational Networking Wiki's List of Networks

http://www.educationalnetworking.com/List+of+Networks

It's on a wiki page, so if you've got your own site to share, you can just add it!

Resource Sharing #1

OK, told my students I would do some posts about resources for our course "Using Technology to Build Learning Communities." What makes this tough is narrowing down the resources to select only one at a time! Since I'm hearing a lot of requests for ideas that can be used in the classroom, here's my first pick:

Using Screencasting to Engage and Build Community with Online Learners

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/using-screencasting-to-engage-and-build-community-with-online-learners

True, this short article is focused on the community of students in an online class, but these ideas translate pretty well as supplements to a face-to-face class also. The author talks about using screencasting to create various elements to assist students: an introduction to a class, short tutorials about student tasks and activities, recorded demos or lectures. Also, using screencasting to record feedback on student work is a great idea--who hasn't gotten annoyed at a returned and marked-up paper that is devoid of personal touch. Hearing a teacher talk through their response could add so much meaning.

Finally, for the right level, subject, and teacher, consider having your students create their own screencasts as part of an assignment. For example, if they are making PowerPoints on a topic, rather than having them present in class you could give them the option to record their presentation and share it on the web. It's a different style of presentation--they will want to script rather than make note cards; they will need to think about timing and the listener in a different way, and they will have the chance to hear their own presentation played back.

I would recommend trying the free downloadable tool Jing for making screencasts. You can create short recordings of your voice and activity on your computer screen (Jing screencasts are limited to a length of 5 minutes), and then post those recordings to your class website or other web location. A lot like podcasting only better!

Another Reason to Love the Internet: PostCrossing Follow-Up

Just a quick post to comment that it is very easy to get connected to a like-minded postcard lover in Lithuania (through Postcrossing.com) while lounging in bed at my home in Chicago. But buying a stamp and mailing a postcard to her from Todos Santos, Baja Sur, Mexico involved driving down some really bumpy and dusty roads to track down a poorly marked building where I climbed the stairs and asked the guy sitting all alone in an office, “Se vende estampillos?” And then buying a stamp for 13 pesos (he didn’t seem too sure where Lithuania was, but I think he understood Europe). And then watching him put the stamped postcard in his desk drawer. Good luck, little postcard! I may have to mail a second one from Chicago just to make sure that she receives something from me!

Clicking, Connecting, and Crisscrossing

One experience I love, which is now ubiquitous but still perhaps somewhat taken for granted and unexamined, is the experience of finding something new through a series of haphazard clicks and connections. You know what I mean… It all started today when I finally got back to reading my Twitter feed again. Something to do with comps prep/work got me signing up to follow a bunch of new people and then fairly quickly dropping out altogether, as I could no longer take in new info for a while. I’m still in resting mode, but took a peek this morning.

At the bottom of the first set of tweets, a post from gsiemens caught my attention: “Prepare to feel old: http://bit.ly/7uHXrP.” Maybe it seemed like it might be funny and not require my brains to work. At any rate, I CLICKED THE LINK, and was taken to a blog post about outdated technology terms and phrases. Not really learning for me—more like reinforcing my experience. Somewhat amusing to an old-timer like me, who frequently finds herself explaining “historic” terms like carbon copy or floppy disk in an effort to shed light on the impact of current technology on education, and on our culture in general. Really, how do you get across the magic of Web 2.0 to those whose introduction to the Internet was through Facebook? “Yeah, so we can post. That’s what you do on the web--what’s the big deal?” But I digress…

I read through the “Prepare to Feel Old” post and the comments, and then scrolled back up and CLICKED THE LINK to the blog post that had prompted this blog post. I read through that post, titled Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History, and was reading through the comments there also when I came across a reply about the listing of “pen pal” as an outdated term. The poster, Douglas Armendone, referenced www.postcrossing.com, an updated pen-pal-type site.

So I CLICKED THE LINK, and began reviewing and learning about the site. At Postcrossing, you register and agree to send one or more postcards to other randomly chosen participants. Once those participants have received and registered your postcards, you are in line to receive postcards from other participants. The site looks to be well organized and thought out, with a comprehensive FAQ and a straightforward process for participating. Launched in July of 2005, the site has quickly grown in popularity. By September of 2009, three million postcards had been registered as received.

This site, in its beautiful simplicity, supports my love of postcards, travel, and helping the world shrink by connecting with unknown others. In addition, it is sure to be a hit with my teacher-students and their own students in K12. So, of course, I CLICKED THE LINK to register and request an address for sending my first postcard through the site. Though you can send postcards right from where you live, I will be traveling in a few days and will be able to send a few from elsewhere also. The site also connects to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, so your activity there is shared with your networks.