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