The week before Jan 31, 2011 - in a nutshell

I read the blog Hyperbole and a Half just for fun. The writing is fantastic and pithy and the author uses a simple paint program to make marvelous illustrations. This blog has nothing to do with education or technology except for the infrequent posts about grammar which still have some slightly inappropriate language for younger students. Enjoy anyway.

If you're interested in having your students practice social networking along with content but your district won't open MySpace or Facebook, there is a new tool for you. My Fake Wall looks and acts similarly to a the wall on a Facebook profile.

Second Gen Web Tools new to me this week:
http://myths.e2bn.org
http://www.aviaryeducation.com/ - in Beta now, it looks promising! Terry, I think you should try this!
http://www.magicstudio.com

I'm loving this internet safety site for teenage girls by girls: http://lmk.girlscouts.org

This eBook could potentially be used with tweens and teens for education about internet usage and cybersafety. Linda McCarthy of Microsoft has done a great job staying current. The book has a publish date in September 2010 but some of the cases referenced occurred after that date leading me to believe they are updating it with new information as it becomes available.

A smattering from this week: Jan 24

Here's a smattering of what I read this week:

Creative Commons - New announcements from the White House include grants to fund higher education. The exciting thing about these grant are the fact that the funding requires that resources be released under the Creative Commons attribution. Curious about Creative Commons? The founder defines it here: http://youtu.be/AWxyx5iYdvI

Mingoville: mingoville.com

Site for young students needing to practice English. Uses a social networking and gaming aspect. There are three levels, at its simplest form, Mingoville is free. Math apps are new at this site - give them a try as they are free for all of 2011.

Three services to check out when your students are doing research: Evernote, Klippt, The Awesome Highlighter These services perform the same function in different ways. They allow students to clip information from the internet along with the data they'll need to cite the source and find further information later.

http://www.easellearning.com/ - Easel is an iPad app for Algebra and SAT prep

This is just...well, beautiful. http://khanacademy.org

Google Doodle is back! What do your kids "want to do someday?"

http://www.google.com/doodle4google/

Next Generation money...want some?

http://www.cs4hs.com/ - Google offers grants to higher ed institutions who develop workshops and projects about computer science for their local high school colleagues .

Follow my blog because I follow others. Also titled: I can send you less email if you follow this blog.

Each week I attempt to get caught up on all the latest through reading the blogs of other instructional technologists and people pushing for educational change. I find myself sending out multiple emails to different people with information about a variety of topics. While this feels productive, my recent thoughts are if I keep this blog up to date interested parties can subscribe saving us all a lot of email and effort.

At times, this blog will be my own thoughts and reflections about the use of technology. Mostly, it will be a compilation of what I read weekly and hear about daily. Sometimes, I'll probably step out of the educational realm but I figure I can loop most posts back to the topic of information literacy thus the title.

I hope the posts are helpful. Below you'll find a list of blogs I follow and find useful. Twitter is also a great place to gain new perspective. You can check the list of who I follow via my profile.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/ - This is an exchange between two intelligent women on educational policy. Sometimes they differ vastly as they write letters back and forth. The discussion is always rich.

http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com - Vicki Davis

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org - Scott McLoed

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/ - David Warlick

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com - Karl Fisch

http://opencontent.org/blog/ - David Wiley

http://janeknight.typepad.com - Jane Knight

http://blog.kathyschrock.net - Kathy Schrock

http://www.speedofcreativity.org - Wesley Fryer

http://novemberlearning.com - Alan November

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com - Bill Ferriter

http://weblogg-ed.com - Will Richardson