Archive for January, 2007
January 30th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
ClaimID - Manage Your Online Identity. ‘Imagine that you are applying for a job. You know that your prospective employer is going to search for your name online, and since you’re a rational person, that worries you. How will your employer know what online stuff is actually about you, and not about that other person who shares your name? And what if the good stuff about you online doesn’t mention your full name, or uses a name you no longer go by (such as a maiden name)? How would your prospective employer ever find it? Why do you have to lose out in the eyes of that employer? And the worst part is there’s no way for you to easily influence what search engines say about you.
ClaimID is a service that lets you claim the information that is about you online. That information is then associated with your name, providing folks an easy way to see what is and isn’t about you online. In doing so, you get to influence the search engines, and provide people more relevant information when they search for you. It’s time to reclaim some power back from the search engines. ClaimID is about letting you have some say in what search engines say about you.’
ClaimID Blog
January 29th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Odiogoâ„¢ announces the launch of a groundbreaking Web 2.0 application that enables text content providers to create new audio media in a snap. Blog entries are converted on the fly into high fidelity voice files ready to play on MP3 players, PDAs, phones, or laptop computers.
Odiogo – a play on “Audio To Go†– extracts blog posts or articles from member news sites and converts them to lightweight MP3 files in seconds. The files can be loaded to any mobile device, giving users anytime-anywhere access to their favorite web content.
How It Works: Odiogoâ„¢ Generates Podcasts of Text Content: Many news and blogs sites available on the Web today leverage the standard distribution format, RSS. Odiogo monitors its content partners’ feeds and automatically creates for each news item small audio files using cutting-edge text-to-speech technology. Unlike many of its predecessors, this new breed of artificial intelligence technology observes punctuation and more natural speech patterns to provide a high fidelity listening experience, which the company is continually fine-tuning.
Odiogo-enabling a content site requires minimal effort and bandwidth. The service is run from Odiogo’s data center, where the MP3 files are stored, and later downloaded to iPodsâ„¢ and other mobile devices, free of charge.
Read full press release
January 26th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Kineo’s E-learning Crystal Ball 2007. ‘If you want to live in the future, you have to make it up, right? So we asked some of the industry’s big thinkers to peer through the looking glass to paint us a picture of where e-learning is headed in 2007. Some made bold predictions (all references to hoverboards have been removed). Some expressed their hopes, some their fears. Some didn’t respond in time for the deadline. They shall not go to the ball. For a slightly different way of looking at some of these predictions, have a look at our e-learning predictions book, which we produced using Rapitivity, the tool we review this month. It’s great for quick interactions like this one.’ [via The Boggs e-Learning Chronicle]
January 23rd, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
To provoke thought leaders to think about the future of education in new ways, KnowledgeWorks Foundation has launched a fully interactive version of its 2006-2016 Map of Future Forces Affecting Education.
Developed in partnership with the Institute for the Future, the Education Map of the Decade identifies external future forces that are likely to shape the primary and secondary education system over the next 10 years. It identifies six key global and American trends and considers how those trends may affect five “impact zones”: family and community, markets, institutions, educators and learning, and tools and practices.
It also identifies five “hot spots” – trends that will profoundly affect educators and students over the next decade and deserve particular attention. Trends range from dark – such as bio-distress and increasing chronic illness – to hopeful – such as the potential for new technology and media to stimulate entirely new kinds of teaching methods.
January 23rd, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
SREB: EvaluTech - Timely, reliable, useful and free resources for teachers. ‘EvaluTech offers expanded access to resources that are aligned with the work of the Educational Technology Cooperative. It is committed to providing high-quality information to K-20 education agencies —states’ departments of education and higher education agencies— in the 16 states.
EvaluTech grew out of a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the Southern Regional Education Board to create an online, keyword-searchable database of reviews of instructional materials that had begun in 1965 in North Carolina. This review service has grown to include over 10,000 recommended reviews of software and print resources.’
January 23rd, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
SREB (Southern Regional Education Board): Checklist for Evaluating Online Courses. ‘Evaluation is key to ensuring that online courses provide students with access to quality instruction and resources. With sections on content, instructional design, student assessment and technology, this checklist is based on the SREB report Standards for Quality Online Courses and is designed to assist states and schools in determining the quality and effectiveness of online courses.’
Download Links:
SREB Educational Technology Cooperative. ‘The SREB Educational Technology Cooperative, comprised of state higher education and K-12 coordinating and governing boards, focuses on ways to help state leaders create and expand effective uses of technology in schools and colleges. This unique, multistate cooperative represents more than 3,300 school districts and nearly 800 colleges and universities in the 16 SREB states. It monitors and reports on a wide array of educational technology topics and works with states to use technology wisely. As schools and colleges implement and use technology, they need to see the connection between technology and higher student achievement.’
January 22nd, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
StikiPad is a hosted wiki solution that gives you an easy way to organize your information and share information with others. StikiPad runs completely in your browser with no downloads and easy administration, letting you take your StikiPad wherever you have access to the Internet.
StikiPad Examples
Tags: StikiPad, Wikis
January 18th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Collaborative Coaching and Networking for Online Instructors, Jason D. Baker, Kristin L. Redfield, Shauna Tonkin, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volume IX, Number IV, Winter 2006. Abstract: This paper presents a model of professional development using collaborative coaching and networking which has been used to improve online instructor effectiveness. Components of the model are presented in the context of a ten-year-old faculty development program at a private university in the Southeast. A collaborative coaching checklist is also provided. [via The Boggs e-Learning Chronicle]
January 18th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
TeachOutLoud is a revolutionary new service offered by LearnOutLoud.com that allows you to spread your knowledge to the world using audio and video. A simple web-based interface allows you to upload your digital content and sell it, or offer it for free.
Tags: TeachOutLoud, Educational Podcasts
January 12th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Boston College Front Row. ‘Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College. Front Row is a service of Boston College Magazine and is produced by the Office of Marketing Communications in partnership with the colleges, schools, departments, and programs of the University.’
January 12th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
Learnativity.com. ‘Learnawhat? Learn-a-tivity is the notion that individual and organizational effectiveness depends on learning better, faster, smarter and through the consistent application of learning, combined with creativity, flexibility, and paying close attention to the right things.
This site introduces you to resources that support that learnativity revolution. We have no products to sell here, but rather introduce you to ideas that help expand imagination and business practice.’
Highlight: Learnativity Resources: Organizations, Glossary, Websites, E-mail lists, People and Companies.
January 8th, 2007 by Jorge Goncalves
GetEducated.com: Online Degree Rankings and Directory and Online MBA Rankings. ‘Looking for online college rankings? Searching for the best accredited online masters or bachelors degree? Need to know who offers the #1 ranked online MBA among more than 100 options? Online Since 1989, our national distance learning degree rankings help consumers get educated about the best online colleges and universities. GetEducated.com is the only distance learning college directory that offers free listings to CHEA-accredited universities, and that bars advertising from fake universities and online diploma mills. No Degree Mills. Â No Online Universities accredited by Fake Agencies. Just thousands of accredited online universities offering masters, bachelors, and doctorates through distance learning.’
Free Guidebooks: Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools in:
