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!