Teach Collaborative Revision with Google Docs

Revision is a critical piece of the writing process—and of your classroom curriculum. Now, Google Docs has partnered with Weekly Reader’s Writing for Teens magazine to help you teach it in a meaningful and practical way.

The sharing features of Google Docs enable you and your students to decide exactly who can access and edit documents. You’ll find that Google Docs helps promote group work and peer editing skills, and that it helps to fulfill the stated goal of The National Council of Teachers of English, which espouses writing as a process and encourages multiple revisions and peer editing.

Get the rest of the story including a lesson plan and lots of great resources at:
http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.html

Free online classroom resources

Thank you Susie for this resource!

A very user friendly resource for educators and a little something for everyone! =;->  

Free Web Tools Blog
http://freewebtools.wordpress.com/

Here is a sampling under the Creativity Tools section.
Toondoo- free comic strips and comic books creation tool.
Animoto-free music video creation site for 30 second spots. Then it costs $3.00/video for longer videos/
Flickr-free photo sharing website and online community platform.
Picnik.com-free photo editing online and integrates with Flickr.

Flat Classroom Wiki Project

Thank you Bethany for sharing this cool wiki project 
http://flatclassroomproject2006.wikispaces.com/  
:)
~julz

On-demand webinar: Building better Moodle rooms

Building better Moodle rooms: Online strategies and best practices
Sponsored by: Moodlerooms

Original broadcast date: December 4, 2007
Expiration date: March 3, 2008
Audience link:

http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=94646&s=1&k=9B7400E6E6534B9DD4FC267D25E2CF8E&partn
erref=opn24

This event is now available on demand. The archived webinar will be
available for viewing through the expiration date listed above.

To view this Webcast you will need to have Real Player or Windows Media
Player. You may download either of these at
http://webcast.on24.com/clients/help/.

2007 VSS Resources now available

The North American Council for Online Learning is pleased to announce that the 2007 VSS Resources page is now available online at http://www.virtualschoolsymposium.org/resources.php. On this page, you will find links to webcasts, vodcasts, articles, PowerPoint presentations, photos, etc. from many of the presentations offered at last month's Virtual School Symposium.

Don't forget to mark your calendar for next year's VSS: 2008 Virtual School Symposium, October 26-28, 2008 in Phoenix, AZ. It is sure to be even more exciting and innovative than ever!

Video sites make science more accessible

Inspired by YouTube's success, several new science video web sites have sprung up online
From eSchool News staff and wire service reports

Haim Weizman is a chemist by trade and an internet movie maker on the side. In his first video, a telegenic narrator in a lab coat swirls a flask as electronic music plays in the background. Created by four science and film students at the University of California, San Diego, the video shows a typical recrystallization experiment straight out of Chemistry 101.

The six-minute epic, complete with bloopers, got 1,205 views on Google Inc.’s YouTube, but the number increased fourfold when the video was posted to SciVee, one of a number of online video-sharing startups designed to let scientists broadcast themselves toiling in the laboratory or delivering lectures.

Read the rest of the story at http://snipurl.com/1uuxi
:)
~julz

OTLO F2F Kick Off Meeting

Dear OTLO Teachers,

We are looking forward to having you here for the Orientation Workshop on Saturday, Dec. 15. We will be meeting in Room 81 of Milton Hall. Directions are at the end of this message. Parking tickets won’t be an issue on Sat. However, traffic on University will probably be heavy, because NMSU graduation will be happening at the Pan American Center that day.

Doors open at 8:00. The draft agenda below is just that, a work in progress.

There will be a Hospitality Table. You are welcome to bring a food/drink contribution to share. Lunch will be onsite. We will order from a local restaurant. Please bring $8-$10 for lunch. You can also bring your own lunch. If you have special dietary considerations (food allergies, diabetic, Celiac Disease, vegetarian or vegan) email Susie and accommodations will be made.

Pre-Workshop Assignments

You will be receiving advance emails with instructions on completing two surveys before the workshop. Please start thinking about the online class you want to develop. Gather and bring with you useful hard copy and digital materials such as course outlines, course materials, textbooks, etc. Remember to bring the NM Content Standards and Benchmarks for the subject area(s) of your online course.

Draft Agenda for Saturday, Dec. 15

8:00 - 9:30 - Getting Started

• 8-9am Registration, Laptops, Hospitality Table, and paperwork
• 9-9:30am Welcome & Introductions, Program Overview, and Review of the Day’s Session

9:30-11:00 - Beginning Online Course Development

• Online class identification, outlines, course materials
• Chunking Course Content - Essential Questions, unit/module/activities, unit/module length (days, week, weeks?), content for each section

11:00 - 12:00 - The Story of an Online Course

• Present Short Story (what we did right and what we did wrong)
• Deconstruct Short Story course and Create an Online Course Checklist

12:00-12:30 - Lunch onsite

12:30 - 3:00 - Show me the Moodle!

• My Moodle Development Course

3:00 - 4:00 - Brief Orientation to OTLO PLC

4:00 - 4:30 - Final Business

That’s it for now!

Directions to Milton Hall From T or C

• Off of I-25 take University Exit
• Turn right onto University (west)
• Turn left onto Jordan (the third or fourth stoplight)
• Drive 2 short blocks into the parking lot between Corbett Center and Milton Hall
• Milton Hall is the building on the right.
• Facing the building walk around to the left side opposite Zuhl Library.
• Enter the door on the ground level.

Directions to Milton Hall From Deming, Lordsburg, & Animas

• Or I-10 NMSU Exit
• Go right onto University (east)
• Turn right onto Jordan (the fourth stoplight)
• Drive 2 short blocks into the parking lot between Corbett Center and Milton Hall
• Milton Hall is the building on the right.
• Facing the building walk around to the left side opposite Zuhl Library.
• Enter the door on the ground level.

Free MIT high school content

Check out http://snipurl.com/1ukkz

MIT is offering free content on their OpenCourseWare site for high school teachers and students in just about every subject. There are videos, learning objects, demonstrations on video, and online learning labs (check out the toolbar to the left).

These would be great resources for online courses.

WOW!

Dabareh Vowell

Learning 2007

I really wanted to go to Elliot Masie's Learning 2007 Conference, but
here's the next best thing - they are wikifying much of the good
stuff. They have added hours of video and
audio content including keynotes from Dan Pink, Jenny Zhu, Bobby Flay,
Wharton Faculty and Ken Blanchard. Check it out at
http://www.learningwiki.com

:)
~julz

2 Things 2 Know 2day

ONE – National Distance Learning Week http://ndlw.org starts 2day and NMSU College of Extended Learning is working hard to do its part http://nmsu.pbwiki.com TWO – The XO Laptop, Buy 1 Get 1 started 2day http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php I just bought mine; my son, Jon and I, will be having fun with these over Christmas and two children somewhere in the world will have the opportunity to access knowledge and tools in a way they’ve never had before. Here’s a great vodcast featuring the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) team: It’s a FABULOUS day! ;) ~julz

National Distance Learning week Nov. 12-16

The NMSU Office of Distance Education and the RETA Project within the College of Extended Learning (CEL) will host webinars, blogs, chats, an online Moodle open house and other events in honor of the 2007 National Distance Learning Week (NDLW) Nov. 12 -16, http://ndlw.org

The NDLW Webinars http://www.ndlw.org/learners.html will be hosted throughout the week from 9 to 10 a.m. and from noon to 1 p.m. in Milton Hall, Room 185, La Academia.

CEL and RETA offerings are viewable BUT still under construction at:
http://nmsu.pbwiki.com/

Later in the day (today is Friday, November 9, 2007), we will be extending the invitation to our eLearning friends (RETAzens, OTLOzens, eTeachers,
OTLCers, etc.) to join us in a variety of ways. Contributors and attendees will be entered into a drawing at the end of the week.

Online Underwater First! Project SeaCAMEL: Live Broadcasts November 12 - 14

Online Underwater First! Project SeaCAMEL: Live Broadcasts November 12 - 14 Marine Science Classes from the Aquarius Habitat KEY LARGO, Fla., Nov. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Distance learning goes to the extreme November 12 - 14, when Project SeaCAMEL aquanauts go live with high tech marine science classes broadcast from Aquarius, the world's only undersea research station. Live action coral reef science will be a click away for students and ocean enthusiasts around the world via satellite and the Internet from Conch Reef, located 4 miles off Key Largo and 60-feet beneath the sea in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The mission is the first in a series of online sea-to-shore educational programs sponsored by the Maryland-based Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (http://www.seacamel.livingoceansfoundation.org organization focusing on ocean research and conservation. Related Links: http://www.vims.edu/events/ http://www.livingoceansfoundation.org/ http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/ Project SeaCAMEL Goes Live November 12-14! http://www.seacamel.livingoceansfoundation.org

Let's help change the world, here's one way...

You are receiving this update because I requested a reminder from One Laptop
per Child about the limited-time "Give One Get One" program. Starting
Monday, November 12 at 6:00am EST, you will be able to donate one XO laptop
to a child in the developing world and also receive a laptop for the child
in your life, by visiting www.laptopgiving.org or calling toll-free
1-877-70-LAPTOP.

"Give One Get One" is the only time they are making the revolutionary XO
laptop available to the public. For a donation of just $399 ($200 of which
is tax-deductable), you will be giving the gift of education. Additionally,
T-Mobile is offering donors one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile
HotSpot locations throughout the United States, which can be used from any
Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO laptop.

I will send another update when the program begins on November 12. I hope
you'll join the mission to bring education and connection to children in
even the most remote regions of the globe.

I'm thinking of doing this myself and sharing a laptop with my teen. The
free T-Mobile HotSpot and portable, somewhat indestructible mobile device is
totally worth it.

Let's spread the word!
:)
~julz

SLOAN-C International Symposium

Are you using technology in cool ways for teaching and learning (think
blogs, wikis, moodle, audio/video, etc.) - please submit an abstract to the
SLOAN-C International Symposium. SLOAN has traditionally been focused on
higher education but now they have said they'd love to see what K12 folks
are doing. The upcoming conference is May 7-9, 2008 and is close by in
Carefree, Arizona. I'm sure some fun caravanning could be arranged!

Also, check out the social network that SLOAN is working on.

http://www.emergingonlinelearningtechnology.org/

:)
~julz

A Web Event for K12 eTeachers

Thanks to Bethany for this resource. I have attended a Cider event and they
do an excellent job with the research. K12ers, let's attend.
:)
~julz

CIDER has the following eLuminate presentation coming up. It's free
- all you have to do is become a member of CIDER community (also
free). See

http://cider.athabascau.ca/CIDERSessions/

Research Results from BC¹s Connected Learner¹s Technology Projects
Institution: BCEd Online
Date and time: Nov 16, 2007 11:00 AM

What factors help to create effective online learning environments in
K-12? In this session, Dr. Elizabeth Childs and Lara Jongedijk will
report on the final data from nine provincial Connected Learner¹s
Technology Grant Projects that ran across 18 months and involved 14
school districts in British Columbia. The technologies used in the
projects included: webcasting, web-conferencing, synchronous courses
using Elluminate Live, use of Smartboards, online tutoring and data
archiving. Lessons learned will be discussed and recommendations for
making informed decisions when planning and implementing similar
technology projects will be shared.

NACOL VSS Conference

Hi Everyone,
Reporting live from Louisville, Kentucky and the VSS Conference. I
wanted to let you know that you should visit the NACOL site at
http://nacol.org because a lot of cool NEW stuff is being posted, like
the updated Keeping Pace report by John Watson. AND I'm not sure if
you noticed because I didn't until just now, that some of the events
going on are being webcast LIVE using Elluminate! Also, I noticed that
last year's webcasts are all there now too.

And I have tried emailing all my groups but the Internet has been up
and down so I'm not sure they all went out, so here is my information
again. I am blogging to http://juliaparra.blogspot.com and
microblogging at http://twitter.com/desertjul

My friend, Holly is also blogging and she takes better pictures than I
do, http://technologyadventures.blogspot.com

Enjoy and Have a FABULOUS day!
:)
~julz

Cool Volunteer Site

My friend, Bethany, was telling us about a wonderful site that helps
people volunteer at the global level. The site is called Global Vision
International:
http://www.gvi.co.uk/

:)
~julz

Teachers can use Lijit

I'm still trying to figure out the coolness of Lijit. My new friend
Kevin, at Lijit told me the following:

--- a good point to remember about Lijit is that we provide a
controllable search engine that lets teachers uniquely build
sites students can search (as I mentioned before), instead of the entire web.

Here is an example educator site using the Lijit Search: Global Learners
http://principianteglobal.blogspot.com/

On Classroom 2.0: Breaking News: Ning announces ad-free networks for K-12 educators

This is very cool!
:)
~julz

From Steve Hargadon:

“Will post more on this at http://www.classroom20.com and http://education.ning.com later today, but for now details at http://www.stevehargadon.com/2007/11/big-news-from-ning-ad-free-student.html.

Have a great day!  Huge thanks to Ning!

Steve

About Classroom 2.0
The social network for educators using collaborative technologies!

Click here to visit Classroom 2.0!
http://classroom20.ning.com”

Cool Links

My friend, the Lone Eagle shared the following links with me and I thought I'd share them with you: Open Educational Resources - OER Commons And within there: EduForge Happy Day Everyone! :) ~julz

ISTE in Second Life

Thanks to my friend Larry Jeffryes for the following notice:

ISTE's Second Life social occurs on Thursdays at 6 PM (Pacific Time). The
ISTE SL docents are very helpful.

Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its Residents.
Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today
is inhabited by millions of Residents from around the globe. Read more
at http://secondlife.com/whatis/

To explore ISTE's Second Life headquarters, visit
http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/93/83/30
If you don't have an account and avatar in Second Life, you'll be
prompted to create one (they're free!). If you already have an account,
you'll need to log in first. The above link will display a map to
ISTE's Island just select "teleport" and you'll be transported
directly there. (You'll need to download and install SecondLife
software.)

I found SecondLife to have a much bigger world than just ISTE. As I
explored the SecondLife world, I teleported to some very interesting
and some very strange virtual worlds. I'm still learning the interface
and a bit confused by this and that at times.

Larry Jeffryes
Los Alamos, NM

USDLA Launches National Distance Learning Week to Increase the Awareness of Distance Learning

Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) September 19, 2007 -- The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) will hold the 2007 National Distance Learning Week (NDLW), November 12 -16, 2007. Read all about it! And of course, we plan to have some fun activities for you all! :) ~julz

Did You Know 2.0? Join the Conversation!

For when you have time... 8 minutes on the case for web 2.0 education.

Twitter + Second Life = Spontaneous Web Meetspace

Tech Crunch provides an article about using Twitter and SecondLife to conduct web meetings...
Read the article at
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/11/twitter-second-life-spontaneous-web-meetspace/
:)
~julz

NM TIE Podcasting Workshop

I'm helping Bethany today at the NM TIE conference with her podcasting workshop. We started by investigating iTunes and EPN - http://epnweb.org.

Right away, some folks found a couple of very cool things:

• Tamara found Willow Web, an elementary podcast show at EPN and she said she listened to elementary students expressing their knowledge about the constitution in authentic way to an audience of their peers (and a global audience).
• Jim noted that the second language podcasts, specifically the French ones, at EPN were just like taking a class.
• Gail noted that in the general topics of EPN, there were 137 podcasts for English and 9 for math...

Then they came up with some great ideas for uses of podcasts!

• Have students record and edit movies and broadcast via podcast - moviecasting!
• Creating tech instructional podcast on how to do various tasks like email
• Opportunities for training on district-wide systems
• Have students do podcast presentations, thereby addressing the issues of time where you can't get everyone up in front of the class. An immediate win is that students don't often get the opportunity to hear themselves and self-critique until college.
• Virtual campus/school tours
• Audio quiz/audio answers
• Library could do weekly/monthly podcast on new or featured books, bibliographic or library use
• Enhancement to lessons
• Students in the hospital never gets the full class experience, could get more of an experience with a vodcast
• This workshop could have been podcast
• Coaches created podcasts of the team plays and the team listened and learned on the bus

Some advantages were brought up:

• Focused, what you want when you want, just-in-time learning, segmenting, smaller files
• Addressing different learners
• Reaching more students
• Achieving hard to achieve educational goals
• 21st Century Skills addressed

Next everyone is going to use the following to create podcasts right here, right now.

• Gcast - http://www.gcast.com/
• PodcastPeople - http://www.podcastpeople.com/

Lots of fun was had. Wish you'd been here ;)
~julz

Webinar

Register Now to Attend: Beyond the Collaborative Project: Student-Created Content

On October 3 at 11am Eastern, Alan November, a long-time leader and visionary in the area of Education Technology, joins Jan Zanetis, Market Manager for Education at TANDBERG, to discuss the power of students as content creators. To read more about it and register, <a href=”http://now.eloqua.com/es.asp?s=206&e=72FBE03CD79946349970D367FEB837D1&elq=2F”>click here</a>

New Mexico forming an ISTE Affiliate :)

Today, New Mexico started the formation of an ISTE affiliate. For further information check out http://nmste.org/

:)
~julia

Interwrite Learning & TeacherTube Classroom Makeover Contest

TeacherTube \"Teach the World\"®

We at TeacherTube wanted to make sure our community members were aware of a great opportunity to win an interactive classroom makeover worth over $15,000.00. That\'s right-- $15,000.00! Interwrite Learning and TeacherTube are partnering to bring this contest to classroom teachers.

Check out all the details at http://www.teachertube.com/makeover. Your video submission could be the big winner!

Bethany

NACOL Standards of Quality for Online Courses

Here it is friends, hot off the press!

The North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) has released a new publication, the National Standards of Quality for Online Courses. NACOL adopted the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Standards for Quality Online Courses and included a standard to include 21st Century Skills.

The National Standards of Quality for Online Courses can be found at the NACOL website at:
http://www.nacol.org/nationalstandards/

:)
~julz

For my Skype users

Though we love Skype, you should be aware that like everything else, there are security issues. Do not accept strange messages, files, etc. Remember to set those preference that I told you about.

On PC
1. Go to the Menu bar, select Tools > Options > Privacy.
2. Select Show Advanced Options
3. Make sure all of the right things are selected, i.e. Allow calls from: Only people in my Contacts list.

On Mac
1.Go to the Menu bar, select Skype > Preferences > Privacy.
2. Make sure all of the right things are selected, i.e. Allow calls from: Only people whom I have authorized, or Allow SkypeIn calls from Only people from my Contacts.

Here is an article about the current Skype security issue:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2181764,00.asp

Safe Computing!
:)
~julz

OTLO Newsletter August/September

New OTLO Resources OTLO Moodle - http://206.169.47.11/ OTLO Blog - http://otlocommunity.blogspot.com/ (oddly, the otlo.blogspot was already taken) OTLO Wiki - http://otlo.pbwiki.com/ OTLO Site (coming soon) Online Course Beta Testing Wow! The time has arrived. The OTLO eTeachers are beta testing four courses this fall with a small group of students. They are utilizing the course management system, Moodle. Thanks to Animas Public School District for hosting OTLO courses on their server. Students taking the offered courses will start with the OTLO Student Boot Camp and Orientation. The four courses being taught are: Reading & Writing the Short Story Ecology Exploring World History, Art and Cultures Algebra 1 Great job OTLOzens! New OTLO Friend Welcome to Holly Bemis-Schurtz! Holly taught middle school for 3 years at Picacho Middle School in Las Cruces. She led a group of teachers in an action research study funded by a Center for Teaching Excellence grant where they utilized Moodle to provide interactive course websites for face to face courses. OTLO Friends Online Orientation In September, we would like to host an Online Orientation for any administrators who are interested in what is going on with OTLO. More on this in the next newsletter. OTLO Open House Sometime toward the latter half of the semester (November/December), there will be an OTLO Open House for students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community members. The OTLO Open House will occur online in a Moodle course and on-site in the sponsoring schools/school districts. OTLO 2? We are awaiting notification as to whether or not we will receive funding for another year of OTLO and another group of teachers. Cool Online Resource/Article http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/reports/creditrecovery/