Learning Curve

straightening the curve

Archive for December, 2008


Websites I Found Interesting 12/16/2008

  • From Linda Nitsche on Twitter, EtherPad lets you share a document collaboratively in real time, with color coding for each writer. Great for IP.

    tags: education, etherpad, web2.0, IP

  • Welcome to the web’s cutest URL shortening service. If you have a really loooong URL, just paste it in the text field below, and we’ll milk it, creating a moourl for you. It lasts forever, It’s automatically copied to your clipboard, and It’s really cute. Similar to tinyurl.com

    tags: education, url, moourl, webtools, bookmarklet, web2.0

  • This extension does one thing: It makes Firefox load pages faster. Speed of page loading can be increased by allowing simultaneous connections and prefetching. This extension is currently in the experimental stage because of the release of Firefox 3. To install it, you have to log into a Firefox account to download. The extension is worth the hassle. The speed increase is noticeable.

    tags: education, fasterfox, addon, firefox

  • The world’s largest social music platform. Show off your taste, see what your friends are listening to, hear new music, get personal radio, recommendations, and downloads, all for free. Great free resource for IP.

    tags: education, web2.0, mp3, streaming, music, radio, IP

  • Winner of the Extend Firefox 3 contest, Fire.fm is your direct access to the extensive music library on Last.fm. Listen to music related to your favorite artist, and discover new artists and music in the process. Listen to your friends’ favorite music. Find Last.fm users with musical taste similar to your own. Quickly access your favorite stations by just typing a few letters into the location bar. This is the ultimate add-on for the music junkie. For IP, this is a great add on for music searches.

    tags: education, last.fm, music, lastfm, fire.fm, firefox, plugin, IP

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

Connectivism and the Networked Student

I found this video on Cliotech’s blog, which was nominated for Edublog Awards 2008 Best Individual Blog (and she really does deserve to win). She found it on Steve Dembo and Kathy Schrock’s blogs, and I wanted to share it with you. It is a timely Common Craft production, because it addresses the work you are currently creating.







Turbo Tagger

Websites I Found Interesting 12/09/2008

  • Send a digital Christmas card like no other using Animoto.

    tags: Animoto, education, digital greeting card

  • Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap. You can send text, images, and soon video too through
    Mobile Phone / SMS / MMS, iPhone, iPod Touch or standard mobile phone text messages; Instant Message / E-mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, Windows Live Messenger and standard e-mail;
    3rd Party Apps / Developer AP with Over 30 web and desktop apps from 3rd party developers.

    tags: ping.fm, education

  • TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.

    tags: twitter, tweetdeck, microblogging, twittertools, adobeair, education

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

Fashion Your Firefox

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

Tech Prompt

The link to the tech prompt is located on each period’s wiki (not wiki roster). Here is a link you can use to access the “how to” write a five-paragraph essay.
Remember:
1. You can work in your blog, then Save your work if you are not finished with your essay.
2. When you want to find your saved essay, log in to your blog, and on your dashboard, select Manage, then Posts, and then click Edit on your saved essay.
3. You CANNOT double space on a blog, and you CANNOT indent. You MUST put a SPACE BETWEEN YOUR PARAGRAPHS (so the reader knows where each new paragraph begins). You put a space between your paragraphs by hitting the Return key once.
4. Please do not put three supports in your thesis; your thesis is about ONE idea.
CORRECT: By far, the most important technological development to benefit society is the wheel.
Incorrect: By far, the most important technological development to benefit society is the wheel because of easier transportation, construction, and future developments from the wheel.
5. At the end of paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, your last sentence needs to summarize the paragraph you are leaving AND transition to the next paragraph.
Example: Although the wheel improved transportation, it also made construction of buildings or monuments easier as well.
6. Your last paragraph CANNOT summarize your essay. You need to cover new ground in the last paragraph, so you need to think about (for this essay) the benefits we enjoy today and what we might anticipate for the future.
7. In order to embed a video, you need the code for the video and YOU MUST WORK IN HTML for the code to work.
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Speaking of the future of technology, take a look at these 2 YouTube videos. You won’t believe your eyes. Thanks to Noah Sanders for bringing these videos to us. What the technology does is integrate touch screen capabilities of a computer with a BlueTooth connection. Lending new meaning to awesome, Microsoft Surface has been available since November, but only for restaurants and casinos right now.

If you want to take a look at an interesting post on technology of the future (already out in beta version), check this post from a year ago.