Recently I received an email from Joe McNulty regarding the technology tips on my own site and his extensive suite of technology tips. I reproduce components of his email here for you so that you may learn of his efforts in this area. Joe had mentioned that as a computer teacher at Newtown Middle School in Pennsylvania, USA, he was being asked many technology questions by his peers. As a result he began sending out daily tips to his colleagues and this has evolved into a web site with 180 tips.

The site is known as 180 Technology Tips. The tips are all listed on the opening page. You can also subscribe to receive a daily tip. It is well worth your exploration and Joe mentioned that the site already has about 2500 subscribers which is quite amazing. Joe has allowed me to link to his resources. Thank you Joe for the tip!

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Now playing: David Bowie – Suffragette City
via FoxyTunes

Doug Belshaw’s excellent post, The Map Is Not The Territory: the changing face of the edublogosphere, generated an idea that a list of significant blog posts should be created so that bloggers new to the field can receive valuable insights and good exemplars of education blogging. Well, this morning, or last night, Doug posted that the project had begun with the help of Scott McLeod of Dangerously Irrelevant fame.

Scott has created page for such blog posts at the wiki Moving Forward. You can add links to significant and thought provoking blog posts to the wiki. Doug specified three practical and I feel rather sensible guidelines when creating an entry. They are as follows:

1. Don’t spam the wiki by adding lots of links to your own blog. That’s not cool at all.
2. If you don’t think a blog post should be included, use the strikethrough formatting feature and explain why.
3. Include only those that talk about pedagogically-oriented concepts and ideas, not just those that talk about cool ways to use Web 2.0 tools.

This is a good idea. Newer bloggers can dip into these posts. Perhaps a second wave of discussion will be generated as original thoughts are given a new beginning. They can give all of us a chance to focus on where we are at and what we are about.

I added a post by Clay Burell, On Leaving Teaching to Become a Teacher.

I simply tagged this post Teaching. That is what it is about.

I was conducting a little research on the Battle of Hastings by closely examining the Bayeux Tapestry. It is 270 metres in length and 50 centimetres in height. It is an amazing document and truly one of the great primary sources of history.

Can you imagine my shock when I found a reference to the term diigo! I captured the scene and I reproduce it below for your enlightenment.

The image was created with Historical Tale Construction Kit. Via Instructify. Neat, eh? I shall blog a little more on this online app in the future.

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Now playing: David Bowie – Kooks
via FoxyTunes

Well, what’s this video mean to you? I occasionally elicit replies like this at school. I definitely need to rethink my questioning techniques at times. A little more open ended.

Sort of ~ Dunno ~ Nothing by Peter Denahy

It is Sort Of Dunno Nothing by Peter Denahy. I want to make a joke about a popular online bookmarking slash social networking tool in relation to this song however I shall refrain.

This post popped up in my reader just then. Its from Intute in the UK. They provide resources for students among other activities. Well worth a look-see. This is their blog. Have you subscribed to it?

There are guides/booklets that are designed to improve the Internet experience for students. Many students just Google a term and often choose a site without applying serious critical skills. This has come up in blogs before: Intute. EduBlog Insights. There must be many more.

http://www.intute.ac.uk/subjectbooklets.html

These booklets (html and pdf) are targeted at HigherEd but our seniors and brighter juniors could handle them. Topics include:

Science and Engineering:

Internet resources for environmental science [March 2008]
Internet resources for materials engineering [March 2008]
Internet resources for environmental engineering [March 2007]
Internet resources for physics [March 2007]
Internet resources for chemistry [July 2006]
Internet resources for computing [July 2006]

Arts and Humanities:

Internet resources for film and theatre [March 2008]
Internet resources for philosophy [March 2008]
Internet resources for fashion and beauty [March 2007]
Internet resources for religion and theology [March 2007]
Internet resources for archaeology [July 2006]
Internet resources for visual arts [July 2006]

Social Sciences:

Internet resources for education [March 2008]
Internet resources for Olympic studies [March 2008]
Internet resources for law [March 2007]
Internet resources for social research (2nd edition) [March 2007]
Internet resources for social welfare [March 2007]
Internet resources for business and tourism [July 2006]

Health and Life Sciences

Internet resources for biological sciences [March 2008]
Internet resources for pregnancy and childbirth [March 2008]
Internet resources for animal health [March 2007]
Internet resources for physiotherapy and orthopaedics [March 2007]
Internet resources for agriculture, food and forestry [July 2006]
Internet resources for healthcare and medicine [July 2006]

There are also interactive guides at the Intute Virtual Training Suite designed to teach students how to research more effectively when using the Internet. They cover a diverse range of topics. They are easy to follow. http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/

[ Here I am cloning data. I shall try to blog something original or 'me' soon. I simply thought this would be useful news to share. ]