RSS Ideas for educators

RSS Ideas for educatorsBy Quentin D'Souza from TeachingHacks.com

The Professor as intant messenger

By Kathryn Wymer
Determined not to be left behind, I decided last semester to follow the lead of those pioneering instructors who have become IM buddies with their students. If my students found e-mail a clunky and outdated way to communicate, I wanted to reach out to them and use instant messaging.  

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Study: "Power Users" drive pedagogy

Research suggests tech-savvy students are having an impact in the classroom Students who excel in the use of technology are driving change in classroom instruction, according to a new survey of educators. Dubbed "Power Users," these ultra tech-savvy students have a growing influence over what--and how--teachers now teach, the survey saidArticle continues

Microsoft - accelerating search in academic research

Live Labs is a partnership between MSN and Microsoft Research (MSR) focused on applied research for Internet-enabled products and services at Microsoft. Live Labs includes people with many different skills and perspectives on internet technologies -- researchers, engineers, developers and designers. Together, they foster Internet-centric research programs, rapidly prototype and launch emerging technologies, incubate entirely new inventions, and improve and accelerate Live product offerings. The Live Labs team will collaborate closely with the academic research communities through research grants, fellowships, workshops, conference sponsorships, sabbaticals, internships, and more. More information on Live Labs is available at http://labs.live.com. This Request for Proposals is in support of Live Labs’ collaboration with the academic research community and is focused on the Internet Search research area.

National Youth week: just add you

National Youth Week  1-9 April 2006
NYW is a joint Australian Government, State, Territory and Local Government initiative.
The Australian Government Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA), in collaboration with the Departments responsible for youth affairs in each State and Territory, coordinate NYW.
NYW aims to encourage young people to:
share ideas
attend live events
have their voices heard on issues of concern to them
showcase their talents
celebrate their contribution to the community
take part in competitions, and have fun!
Find out more

Loomia - podcast and videocast search engine

Loomia is a podcast and videocast search engine plus much more. Our goal is to help you discover, share, and manage things of interest to you. We make use of the likes and dislikes of an ever-increasing community to filter through thousands of channels to help you find good stuff.

Paying kids to attend school?

And for Perfect Attendance, Johnny Gets... a Car - New York Times"I was at first taken a little aback by the idea: we're going to pay kids to come to school?" said the principal, Morton Orlov II. "But then I thought perfect attendance is not such a bad behavior to reward. We are sort of putting our money where our mouth is."Read the whole article

Schools open up to single sign-in

Open source software provides foundation to transform UK education
The Government's educational technology agency has picked an open source solution to give every student, parent and teacher a single secure sign-on for all web resources in schools.

International Polar year Portal launch

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today launched a portal Web site to provide the general public and members of the news media with easy access to news releases, classroom resources, listings of museum and gallery exhibits, and catalogs of video and still images and other materials produced or supported by the federal government as part of the U.S. contribution to the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008.The site is at http://www.us-ipy.gov

Norman Lindsy festival of children's Liyerature

The Norman Lindsay Festival of Children's Literature Saturday and Sunday 25th and 26th March 2006Norman Lindsay Gallery 14 Norman Lindsay Crescent Springwood, Blue Mountains NSW Featuring:  Andrew Daddo, Kim Gamble, James Roy, Mark Macleod, Emily Rodda, John Hockney, Bruce Whatley and Suzanne Gervay. There are workshops for adults and children included in the cost of admission. For more information and to download a copy of the registration form visit the NSW Branch of the National Trust's website : http://nsw.nationaltrust.org.au/

Using instant messaging for collaborative learning

 “…In this article, I describe the results of a pilot study involving the provision of corrective feedback to ESL learners through collaborative work utilizing the text-based chat and audio features of Yahoo! Messenger (Yahoo IM), a form of synchronous desktop videoconferencing (DVC). I also discuss the implications of such studies for enhancing language learning outside of traditional contexts and possibly encouraging connectivity and informal collaboration with colleagues and students." Read the whole article

Cooee! Aussie books

Get lost in Aussie books
Cooee! website live all year
www.connectqld.org.au/cooeeThe Cooee! family summer reading club 2005/6 was developed by the State Library of Queensland in collaboration with Qld Public Libraries to engage children and young people in the discovery of great Australian books, reading, writing and art activities during the summer holidays.  The program was conducted in public libraries throughout Queensland and via the interactive website www.connectqld.org.au/cooeeThe website will remain online for use in schools as curriculum support.In levels 1, 2, & 3 you can access:
Choose your own adventure stories by Queensland authors Jill Morris, Rebecca Johnson, Anita Bell, Josie Montano and Pat Flynn
What happens next? Continuous stories by Narelle Oliver
Book Reviews
Activity sheets
In the ‘for the whole family’ section you will find: Reading Compass – young readers can match a book to their interests
Transcripts of online chats with Andy Griffiths and Meme McDonald
Pirate Plunge fun interactive game
A-Z: know your library
Celebrity readers
…..and test your own knowledge of Aussie books, play the adult book quiz.

Earthworks- interactive game for kids promoting sustainability

"Earthworks is a new interactive game aimed at children to encourage them to be more aware of sustainability issues and the environment. The game was commissioned by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and funded by the EDF."

Google Earth for Macs released

Google Earth in a Mac world (PC too)
"We feel like proud parents around here. Our eldest, Google Earth for the PC, is officially leaving beta status today, and we couldn't be more pleased. For those of you who downloaded early, upgrade to the latest and discover Google Earth all over again.And we have a brand new member of the family -- Google Earth for Macintosh."

Teachers' Guide to Scientriffic

Teachers GuideThe Teachers's Guide supports articles and activities in each edition of Scientriffic. With blackline masters, extension activities and links to the curriculum, the Teacher's Guide has been designed to assist teachers to stimulate young minds about science.

Student book reveiws WANTED for YARA

From Barbara BraxtonYARA is live again for 2006 and we are seeking student reviews of books by Australian authors with a publication date of 2005-2006. 
So if you are including book reviews in your planning, you might like to consider reading the criteria at  http://www.yaraonline.org/main_pages/write_review.htm  and submit your students' work.  ONLY reviews which meet these criteria can be published because of our limited web space.
Later, I am hoping to be in a position to send review copies of books to schools and I will ask for expressions of interest when I have some titles to share.
Barbara

Virtual professional development

  VIRTUAL CONNECTIONS
The ICT Learning Innovation Centre is pleased to present a number of 'Virtual Presentations" which allow teachers and other staff, who may not be able to make it to the Centre, to connect with us virtually to build their skills and knowledge in the quest to make the use of ICT integral to learning. Some of the presentations can be downloaded from this site, whilst other CD and DVD resources are available usually  through a small charge to recoup duplication and postage charges  
Visit the site

Digital literacies and learning in the information society

Digital literacies and learning in the information society
5th International Conference on eLiteracyLoughborough University,Loughborough, East Midlands, UK 28 - 30 June 2006
eLit2006 is the 5th international conference examining the challenge of eLiteracy. eLit2006 will draw together teachers, educational researchers, policymakers, trainers, librarians, IT support staff, learning technologists, and many others to share experiences and to talk and think through issues such as the embedding of eLiteracy skills in the curriculum to the challenges of creating online education.

Information Literacy: food for thought

INFORMATION LITERACY: FOOD FOR THOUGHT
 by Marylaine Block 
 Students sometimes seem to have a kind of magical view of the net, without a great deal of understanding of the information landscape on it and beyond it. The invisible net (and the visible library) remain largely invisible to them, because they appear to believe everything they need to know is available for free with a simple Google search -- and, if they don't find it there, that it doesn't exist at all.   My guess, though, is that, if absolutely forced to think about it, they'd readily admit this is not the case. So I'm offering here a few leading questions to ask at the start of information literacy sessions that might force students to examine their assumptions.  
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refurbished PCs for low=income students

Kentucky offers refurbished PCs to students Some low-income eighth-graders throughout Kentucky soon will get used personal computers through a program that teams the Kentucky state government with Microsoft and Lexmark.

Early childhood interventions

Early Childhood Interventions
Proven Results, Future PromiseRead the e-book

Computers a drag on learning

Contrarian finding: Computers are a drag on learningBy G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor For all the schools and parents who have together invested billions to give children a learning edge through the latest computer technology, a mammoth new study by German researchers brings some sobering news: Too much exposure to computers might spell trouble for the developing mind. Article continues

Google Earth for Macs released

Google Earth in a Mac world (PC too)
We feel like proud parents around here. Our eldest, Google Earth for the PC, is officially leaving beta status today, and we couldn't be more pleased. For those of you who downloaded early, upgrade to the latest and discover Google Earth all over again.And we have a brand new member of the family -- Google Earth for Macintosh.

Classroom Toolkit

ClassroomToolkit
"ClassroomToolkit is an Open Source movement for teachers. We offer strategic planning and management tools and tell-it-like-it is advice. We offer creative materials, reproducible modules, and tutorials that save teachers time and reduce stress. We provide a newsletter and eZine."

Enrich teaching with technology

Download presentations from the Microsoft conference (link)
Enrich teaching with technology and two presentations by Innovative teaching award winners