Friday, April 27, 2007



One of the games that comes standard on the iPod is Music Quiz. It will randomly play a part of a song you have loaded on your iPod and give you a list of 4 songs. You have to pick the correct song in the shortest amount of time.

Just the other day, Apple released iQuiz. Which does the same thing, but with updated graphics. And now today, iQuizMaker www.iquizmaker.com was released. This allows you to make up your own quizzes and sync them to your iPod. You can also download and share quizzes on their site. Right now the software is only on the mac, but the PC version is coming in May.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Tested Generation

I just had to install some test generator software from a SS book. And it wasn’t Exam View Pro. This is what we need, an open source or internet based test generator. It would have to be able to read the question banks from the text book companies and allow teachers to add their own questions. It would be nice if it had a web 2.0 collaboration to it. You could end up with teachers all over the world helping make a test.

The problem would be keeping the students from getting the answers. Of course that could be eliminated by not giving test, but using projects and such for evaluation. Which, in turn, eliminates my need for the test generator website. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

Monday, April 23, 2007

The way they grieve

The horrific events at Virginia Tech last week have stunned the world. Senseless. Unimaginable. Inconcievable loss. But I keep finding myself in a different plane of thoughts, separate from my personal feelings of grief for the families, students, and friends who are trying to survive this tragedy. Maybe it is because I've been trying so much lately to investigate the possible uses of web 2.0 tools and other technologies in the classroom.

I am truly amazed at the way this college generation is dealing with their emotions. In a CNN article from the 18th:

There are now more than 200 groups related to the tragedy on Facebook.com alone. Some have only a handful of members; others have thousands. One group, "April 16, 2007," had more than 28,000 members as of Tuesday afternoon.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/04/18/vatech.online/index.html


These students, and others around the world, learned of the massacre, got in touch with family and friends to let them know they were safe, shared their grief, and have begun the healing process all with the use of technology.

Pictures, videos, instant messaging, facebook, myspace, message boards, digg, maps, online news portals, websites. Ways to communicate, to network, to mourn.

And while I am continually amazed, I am certain that for these students it was natural.

I've noticed too that they seem to also value the human touch and face-to-face interactions. They don't exist completely online. But, they each find the balance.

So, as I search the internet for some of these pictures, memorial groups, and news articles, I'm reminded that our younger generation is moving on, taking the technology tools and using them the way that fits their lives and their needs, with or without us. It's time for those of us in education to pay attention and listen to them.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Countries I Have Visited

Pretty cool and simple tool which shows all of the countries you have visited. Could be useful in education. How about a map of all the countries the kids have learned about in 7th grade. Plus, who says Google Earth doesn't count.



create your own visited countries map

Friday, April 06, 2007

Who are we?

I found this on David Warlick's Blog - and it moved me. I'm not totally sure exactly what it is about it but for me it has meaning... The internet is a collection of us, all of us. Me, you, they, someone far away. We are the participatory culture - all of us - I saw me, do you see you?

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

United Streaming Webinars

April is full of United Streaming Webinars

April 4th
EdTechConnect with Hall Davidson - Staggeringly Great Things Mixing Media and Google Earth

April 11th
EdTechConnect with Lance Rougeux - unitedstreaming 24/7

April 18th
EdTechConnect with Steve Dembo - Widgetizing the Builders

April 25th
EdTechConnect with Jannita Demain - Do You Have the Audacity to Podcast

All webinars are at 5-6 PM EDT

You can enroll here...
https://discoveryed.webex.com

Classroom 2.0 Social Networking Site

Classroom 2.0 is just getting going - please join and add to the discussion!

Classroom 2.0 " Welcome to the CLASSROOM 2.0 social networking site! This network is devoted to those interested in the practical application of Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in the classroom and in their own professional development. Especially we hope that those who feel they are "beginners" will find this a comfortable place to start being a part of the community dialog and to learn more."

Monday, April 02, 2007

Free Stuff from PBwiki

I got an email from PBwiki and figured this would be a good place to share. If you don't know, PBwiki offers ad-free wiki hosting for educators.

More information can be found here...
http://pbwiki.com/edu.html
http://educators.pbwiki.com/

They are offering PBwiki Presenter Packs. So, if
you're giving a presentation about wikis, they will ship you a free PBwiki t-shirt, an easy-to-read PDF about wikis, a Powerpoint with pictures of real PBwiki users, and 3 FREE Gold Premium wikis to give out to your audience.

They have also posted
, self proclaimed, the coolest videos in the world. They filmed real educators using PBwiki and asked the questions: what they like, what they can improve, and common concerns. They have posted 7 videos, including:

How do you use PBwiki?
Is PBwiki safe?
How does collaboration work?