Connectivism: Learning as Network-Creation - 2005 - ASTD
The domain of learning is significantly hampered by progressive revisions of what it means to learn, to know, and to understand. A subset of connectivism, network forming, is presented as an accurate model for addressing how people learn. The test of any theory is the degree to which it solves problems and incongruities within a domain. The shortcomings of behaviorist, cognitivist, and constructivist ideologies of learning are answered in light of learning as a connection-forming (network-creation) process. Our metaphors of learning have become tired and worn. Skinner presented the “black box” of behaviorism (we don’t know what happens inside, so we just focus on the behavior). Ausubel and others presented a computer-processing model (inputs, processing, coding for retrieval and outputs). More recently, constructivism has been presented as a free-floating theory of learning as an individually constructed experience. Underlying each theory is a deeper ideology and worldview. Philosophers, psychologists, theorists, and linguists have long debated the nature of learning and knowing. Is learning the process of aligning with objective, external knowledge and truth (objectivism)? Are learning and knowledge an interpretive process (i.e. we learn as we experience, and truth is revealed through our action and cognition) (pragmatism)? Or is learning a process where we create our own truth through our own perspective of the world (interpretivism)?
"Americans spend nearly $7 billion on Halloween. Mostly on candy, and mostly on chocolate. But even milk chocolate has a dark side. Most chocolate today comes from West Africa, where small landholders grow more than 3 million metric tons of the fruit of the cacao tree. To turn that fruit into chocolate requires labor—and much of that labor is performed by children."
Read more at the link below.
Source:
Halloween Chocolate: More Trick than Treat?: Scientific American Podcast
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=halloween-chocolate-more-trick-than-11-10-30
 clipped from www.edhelper.comedHelper.com is dedicated to providing teachers a single shop for educational resources.
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'The USC Digital Library helps to fulfill the mission of the USC Libraries to select, collect, preserve and make accessible high quality digital images of unique materials with metadata to support research, and provides a “gateway” to resources on Los Angeles and Southern California. A portion of the images contained in the USC Digital Library come from the collections of collaborating institutions which, like USC, have valuable archival collections related to the history and culture of the region; the university's powerful infrastructure provides a host environment for our collaborators. Spanning a wide range of visual media, the USC Digital Library offers digital images of drawings, illuminated manuscripts, maps, photographs, posters, prints, rare illustrated books, as well as audio and video recordings. Encompassing the subject strengths of the vast collections of the libraries at the University of Southern California, these materials represent the applied sciences, fine and decorative arts, history, performing arts, and social sciences. The USC Digital Library now offers broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents that provides maximum access to relevant, authoritative, and scholarly resources. It also allows individuals to pursue learning at their own personal levels of interest, ability and desire."
Five College Archives & Manuscript Collections
"Archives and manuscripts are primary sources - historical records that provide detailed knowledge of the life of the era in which the material originated. The letters, diaries, reports, photographs, account books, maps and artifacts held in these collections provide raw materials that can be used to study, analyze, and interpret our history and culture."
Five College Archives Digital Access Project
"Welcome to the gateway to a digital archive of important historical resources in the Five College consortium. This Web site provides access to digitized versions of archival records and manuscript collections relating primarily to women's history -- particularly women's education at the Five Colleges. Included among the collections are official college publications, letters, photographs, articles, oral histories, diaries, and more. In making these materials more widely available online, the archivists at the five colleges seek to support the educational and scholarly research of students and scholars in the Five College community and beyond. Casual browsers are also welcome."
The Molecular Medicine Program at the University of Washington is pleased to provide webcasts from our public lectures, seminars and special courses. We are honored that our Hepatitis C series as well as several of our public lectures, are now featured on HHMI's Cool Science Website.
"Around the world, social entrepreneurs are pioneering methods to bring affordable renewable energy to these underserved customers. While they currently serve only a fraction of the existing market, the technologies and business models they are developing have the potential, if successfully scaled and replicated, to serve almost everyone. This site is designed to help you better understand energy delivery for customers underserved by traditional markets, and the technologies and business models being used to help empower the bottom billions."
 clipped from www.paperfolding.com
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Web Worksheet Wizard and Project Poster have combined to make Web Poster Wizard. This FREE tool allows educators to create a lesson, worksheet, or class page and immediately publish it online. Teachers can also set up classes and assign projects to students. Students complete the assignments by creating their own online projects or reports. Teachers and students can even add images and links to their pages.
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While most people think they are mending the world's problems by contemplating light bulbs or buying "organic", there are thousands of people making a more significant difference. And out of those thousands there are a few dozen trail blazers. And out of those few dozen there is one guy that is WAY out ahead of the pack. The mighty, the glorious, the amazing ... Sepp Holzer. Sepp Holzer was doing permaculture before he ever heard the word. To my knowledge, his farm is, by far, the best example of permaculture.
These postcards cost 1¢ to mail. Postage was temporarily raised to 2¢ from 1917 to 1919 to cover the cost of World War I & from 2925 to 1928 (not sure the reason for the latter.
The Compleat Idiot's Guide to the INTJ | INTJ Central
Numerous INTJ resources are available on the web, but they are all descriptive (telling you some things about us) without being particularly prescriptive (instructing you on how to deal with us). So we – a bunch of INTJs – decided to rectify that situation by providing you this convenient, handsomely designed, and eminently well written instructional guide. Targeted towards the friends, co-workers, and relatives of INTJs, this handbook is intended to provide you with the understanding necessary to make your interactions with us go smoother, and to surround you with butterflies and sunshine. Okay, our integrity demands we admit the real goal is to make life easier for us. Since only about 1% or 2% of the general population are INTJs and we’re a pretty reclusive bunch, we’re probably a mystery to you. Consequently you don’t really know how to interact with us, and many of you tend to annoy us. Hopefully this guide will help alleviate that. We just thought if we made it about you and your needs you’d be more likely to read it.
Springnote allows you to create pages, to work on them together with your friends, and to share files. Springnote is also a great tool for group projects as it allows group members to easily collaborate. Advanced search, numerous templates, and 2GB of FREE File Storage are only few examples of how Springnote can help you. Of course, you already know that Springnote is an Internet service, meaning you can access it from anywhere anytime.
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How YouTube Is Changing The Classroom | StateImpact Indiana
As long as there have been teachers, they’ve battled the same problems: How can they reach students of multiple ability levels at once, cover more course material in limited time, and find more time to engage with students one-on-one? Some educators think they’ve found a solution to all three problems in, of all things, YouTube.
This website provides free e-books, mainly about holistic agriculture, holistic health and self-sufficient homestead living. There are secondary collections about social criticism and transformational psychology. No fees are collected for this service. The library's subject seemingly-diverse topic areas actually connect agricultural methods to the consequent health or illness of animals and humans, shows how to prevent and heal disease and increase longevity, suggests how to live a more fulfilling life and reveals social forces working against that possibility.
 clipped from www.chartall.com
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reCAPTCHA Mailhide: Free Spam Protection
Tired of spam? reCAPTCHA Mailhide helps you protect your inbox by asking people to solve a reCAPTCHA before they can view your email address. The reCAPTCHA can only be solved by humans, so this stops spammers from gaining access to your email address through automated programs.
To make it more difficult for spam bots to "harvest" email addresses from your pages you can use this "scrambler" that turns the email address into its ASCII code equivalent.
Scanner For Zotero brings Zotero's magic wand tool out into the physical world. Scan the ISBN barcode on any book, and Scanner For Zotero will fetch that item's bibliographic info from the web and allow you to add it to your Zotero library.
Although online courses at postsecondary institutions promise adults access, flexibility, and convenience, many barriers to online learning remain. This article presents findings from a qualitative case study, which explored the phenomenon of undergraduate and graduate women learners’ persistence in online degree-completion programs at a college in the Northeast of the United States. Research questions asked why women learners persisted or failed to persist, and how factors supporting or hindering persistence influenced learners. Interviews with a purposeful sample of 20 participants revealed the complexity of variables affecting learners’ persistence to graduation. Findings suggested that multiple responsibilities, insufficient interaction with faculty, technology, and coursework ranked highest as barriers to women’s persistence. Strong motivation to complete degrees, engagement in the learning community, and appreciation for the convenience of an online degree-completion option facilitated persistence.
Where not to use QR codes - The Globe and Mail
In its eagerness to reach out to riders, the transit authority has mounted ads that urge residents to contact it by phone, in person, online – and even by QR code, printed right there on the ad. This would be fine, if the ad had not been mounted in a subway car. Toronto’s subways are, if nothing else, good to their name: well and truly underground. And for all the other places in the city you can get the reception you’d need to look up a QR code, it’s not on the subway.
What happens when you take a comic book artist, an inventor, and a toy designer? You get Howtoons. Our mission is to provide engaging content that teaches kids how to build things, combining instructions with storytelling. Howtoons has a foundation of science and engineering education, inspiring creativity through art and imagination.
Howtoons » Holy Batman Logo Equation!
Discovered by a math teacher, this equation plots out the Batman logo.
Selected Articles - Life Learning Magazine
The following is a small selection of the many inspirational essays that have appeared in Life Learning Magazine since it began in 2002. We are happy to share some of our content with website visitors but hope you will subscribe to our digital magazine and enjoy all of our articles...including back issues, current and upcoming editions.
These graphs show the number of Flickr members who have uploaded at least one photo or video with a particular camera on a given day over the last year. The graphs are "normalized", which is a fancy way of saying that they automatically correct for the fact that more people join Flickr each day: the graph moving up or down indicates a change in the camera's popularity relative to all other cameras used by Flickr members. The graphs are only accurate to the extent that we can automatically detect the camera used to take the photo or shoot the video (about 2/3rds of the time). That is not usually possible with cameraphones, therefore they are under-represented.
Invasive Species of Concern in Maryland
The MARYLAND INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL (MISC) provides leadership concerning invasive species and encourages efforts that prevent the introduction of, and manage the impact of, invasive species on Maryland ecosystems.
Indians of the Midwest - Map 5
On and adjacent to the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, this became an important fishing site after a federal court affirmed the Ojibwa's off-reservation fishing rights. Photo courtesy of Allison Kipta
Based upon proven research and informed by practical experience, this Blended Learning Toolkit will offer guidance, examples, professional development, and other resources to help you prepare your own blended learning courses and programs.
News: Freeing the LMS - Inside Higher Ed
Pearson’s new platform, called OpenClass, is only in beta phase; the company does not expect to take over the LMS market overnight. But by moving to turn the learning management platform into a free commodity — like campus e-mail has become for many institutions — Pearson is striking at the foundation of an industry that currently bills colleges for hundreds of millions per year.
Do you love free apps available on Android market but don’t have a device with Android OS to use the free apps? Want to run your favourite Android OS apps on your XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 PC? Yes, it’s now possible to run Android apps on your PC.
The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.
Information Architects – The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard
Initially it is more difficult to create a good layout with a big font size, but that difficulty will help you design a simpler, clearer site. Cramming a site with information isn’t difficult, but making it simple and easy-to-use is. At first, you’ll be shocked how big the default text is. But after a day, you won’t want to see anything smaller than 100% font-size for the main text. It looks big at first, but once you use it you quickly realize why all browser makers chose this as the default text size.
Create and share dynamic conversations around documents, snapshots, diagrams and videos -- basically anything there is to talk about. You can talk, type, and draw right on the screen. VoiceThread takes your conversations to the next level, capturing your presence, not just your comments. Anyone can join the discussion from their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC -- anytime, anywhere. Stunningly simple and accessible, VoiceThread is already in use by architects, executives, kindergartners, professors, and engineers around the world. More than 25% of the top Universities in the U.S. use VoiceThread to connect and communicate around digital media.
FlipSnack | PDF to Flash page flip - flipping book software
FlipSnack is an online flipping book software that allows you to convert PDF documents into Flash page flip digital publications. It's the ideal solution for those who wish to embed a book, magazine, catalog, newspaper, portfolio or any other kind of document into a website or blog. Once created, you can embed your flipping book collection, download them or share them on social networking websites such as Facebook. P.S. With FlipSnack you can upload several documents at once, allowing you to embed not only one, but multiple page flip publications in the same Flash widget.
King Henri IV of France's severed head 'should be reunited with body' | History News Network
The severed head of King Henri IV of France, lost during the Revolution and formally identified last year, should be reunited with his body, the pretender to the throne of France has demanded. Louis de Bourbon said the embalmed head, identified by forensic scientists in December, should now be reinterred with his body so that one of France's best-loved monarchs can "rest in peace".
This research investigated Irish Small to Medium Sized Educational Institutions (SMSEs) involved in Higher Education (HE) that adopted Moodle, the OSS (Open Source Software) course management system (CMS). As Moodle has only been adopted in the Irish HE sector in the last 5-7 years, this research crucially studied the attitudes of the SMSEs that have invested in it to uncover the influencing factors (lessons learned, rationale) concerning OSS adoption in HE from the view point of the smaller colleges. A full population of Small and Medium Sized Educational Institutions, large colleges and universities in HE operating in Ireland that utilize Moodle were included in this research. A variety of Open Source Moodle service providers (large and small) operating in Ireland were also included in this research. This research found a high degree of improved confidence in additional Open Source core system adoption and integration in SMSEs resulting from Moodle adoption. This confidence has been a direct result of the Moodle experience and the supportive community that has been found to encapsulate it. The Moodle experience in Ireland has, without doubt, challenged traditional preconceptions and fears concerning core OSS adoption. In addition, proactive SMSEs have benefited greatly in Moodle assistance from other colleges, particularly the universities. Quality external Moodle support service has been viewed very positively. This research also suggests that%
Educational hardware and content | Pew Internet & American Life Project
In addition to expanding access to educational opportunities through online learning, digital technology shows promise in revolutionizing other aspects of education. College texts are big business, with the higher education market estimated at more than $8 billion annually.6 But paper may be giving way to digital versions—whether consumed on a web page, a library’s “e-reserves” or through an e-reader such as a Nook or Kindle. The advent of digital textbooks has already begun; digital textbooks make up about 3% of sales, according to the National Association of College Stores.7 And in July, Amazon announced the option to rent textbooks on the Kindle for as little as 30 days. The college presidents surveyed believe that a rapid conversion to digital textbooks is just around the corner. Just under two-thirds of today’s college presidents (62%) believe that more than half of the textbooks used by students at their institution a decade from now will be entirely digital. Just 7% of presidents believe that less than a quarter of the texts their students will use in the future will be digital, and 30% estimate the share will be between 25% and 50%.
The Candy Bandit Strikes Again!
Authored by college classmate, Robert Cone: "The Candy Bandit Strikes Again! is based on a real-life event that happened to the author when he was a boy. He was trick or treating on West Prospect Street in his hometown of Kewanee, Illinois with his older brothers. He had collected quite a bag full of candy, when suddenly he was jumped by an older boy. The older boy was hiding behind a tall bush and tried to snatch his candy bag. The author put up a good fight (just like the little girl in this story does) and was determined to have the trick or treat bag rip in two, when suddenly the candy bandit decided to let go of the bag. The author then went on his way as if nothing had happened and stopped to trick or treat at the very next house. Ironically, the house where the incident occurred is the very same house the author (as an adult) lived in for a short while with his mother, who has since moved to Hollis Street. The bush in question is still there, but it has been cropped to nearly half of its original size and the neighbors have since put up a fence."
Eastern Screech Owl: ML Audio 85307; Megascops asio
"Sony TCD-D10 ProII HPF on. Owl approached and increased rate of song. Also, added horse-sounding ending to downward slurred trill. Add announcement at 41'20" - 42'36""
The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is the world's largest natural sound and video archive of animal behavior. Its mission is to collect and preserve recordings of each species behavior and natural history and to make them available for research, education, conservation, zoos and aquaria, wildlife managers, publishers, the arts, and both public and commercial media. Since 1930, recordists of all backgrounds have contributed their recordings, which now number to several hundred thousand in total. A large percentage of the recordings can be searched and played online. The Library also provides services for consultation, custom compilations, and professionally edited versions of its assets.
The Owl Pages - About Owls - photos, calls, books, art, mythology and more.
"Owls have fascinated man from time immemorial - to some cultures they are symbols of wisdom, while to others they are harbingers of doom and death. Here, The Owl Pages sheds some light on these mysterious creatures."
Eastern Screech Owl - Megascops asio - Information, Pictures, Sounds
"The Eastern Screech Owl was first described by Carolus Linnaeus (the Swedish naturalist who developed binomial nomenclature to classify and organise plants and animals), who classified it in 1758. The word "Asio" is attributed to Pliny the Elder in his "Naturalis Historia" around 77 AD, and is Latin for 'Horned Owl'. Eastern Screech Owls have also been called the common screech Owl, Ghost Owl, Dusk Owl, Little-eared Owl, Spirit Owl, Little Dukelet, Texas Screech-Owl, whickering Owl, little gray Owl, mottled Owl, the red Owl, the mouse Owl, the cat Owl, the shivering Owl, and the little horned Owl."
NOAA's Satellites and Information Service manages data relating to the Earth and solar environments. The links below are resources within NESDIS and NOAA which we believe may be of interest to students, educators, and anyone interested in learning more about our Earth-Sun environment. We welcome your input to our programs and invite comments, suggestions, and partners for development of new material.
This digital collection is created by the Penn State Libraries, in collaboration with the Pennsylvania State Library in Harrisburg, the Free Library in Philadelphia, and the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh.
National Center for Biotechnology Information
NCBI provides a variety of educational resources, including tutorials, problem sets, online tools, FAQs and documentation.
MathDL: The MAA Mathematical Sciences Digital Library
MathDL is an NSDL Pathway Project created and maintained by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). It is a combination and extension of the previous MathDL, a collection within NSDL, and the earlier MAA Pathway Project, Math Gateway. It combines many features of the earlier two projects.
Why Do Some People Learn Faster? | Wired Science | Wired.com
The physicist Niels Bohr once defined an expert as “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Bohr’s quip summarizes one of the essential lessons of learning, which is that people learn how to get it right by getting it wrong again and again. Education isn’t magic. Education is the wisdom wrung from failure. A new study, forthcoming in Psychological Science, and led by Jason Moser at Michigan State University, expands on this important concept. The question at the heart of the paper is simple: Why are some people so much more effective at learning from their mistakes? After all, everybody screws up. The important part is what happens next. Do we ignore the mistake, brushing it aside for the sake of our self-confidence? Or do we investigate the error, seeking to learn from the snafu?
Five Funky Flickr Tools for Teachers | The Whiteboard Blog
Flickr is a fantastic site for sharing photographs with others, and as such it’s also a brilliant resource for finding and using photographs to use in a lesson. There are lots of websites that use the Flickr API to pull in photographs from Flickr and use them in quite creative ways.
60+ educational resources for teaching yourself anything.
From its inception, the web has always had appeal as an educational resource. Recognising the potential for remote learning, in 2002, the launch of OpenCourseWare at MIT helped propel the initiative into the spotlight, with many universities following suit and providing quality educational material available through the web. No longer is there an excuse for anyone with access to the web to say that education is outside of their reach. This collection of links and applications highlights just the tip of the iceberg of educational resources that are available on the web. If you are interested in teaching yourself a new skill or learning a new topic indepth in your spare time, hopefully some of these will be of use.
Learn English like a native speaker!! Understand how to write a resume to get the job you want!!! Writing assignments can be fun, and easy!!! Understand how to use correct punctuation and the punctuation rules, so you don't have to guess!! Improve your writing skills!! Learn & improve your English skills, it's free and everyone can learn English!!!
[and use exclamation points!!!!!]
Advanced Composition for Non-Native Speakers of English
This web site is for non-native speakers of English who want to write in English for academic purposes. The material in this site is aimed toward high intermediate or advanced English learners who have never taken a formal English writing course and whose TOEFL score is about 500 or more.
Blair English 30 Minute Free Business English Exercises
A website of free online business and social English vocabulary exercises for both learners of English and native speakers who want to improve their use of business and social vocabulary.
Learn English Online | Open English World
Open English World provides free online lessons to help you learn English and speak English more fluently. We invite you to use our free activities to practice your conversation, vocabulary, pronunciation, business English, and idioms.
ESL Lesson Plans, Printables, Games, Materials for Teaching English | ESL Lounge
1000 pages of interactive grammar, listening, vocabulary and reading exercises. Full English grammar guide and phrasal verbs section with definitions, examples and tests. Games, puzzles and more.
Easy English ~ free online English tests
Welcome to EasyEnglish.com! Test yourself online in English free! You'll receive answers and marks for each test. Plus we give you easy explanations, and suggest what you need to study. "Question of the Day" gives you a new test every time, or you can choose from "Free English Test" or "Free Personalized Test" at any level. Visit Easy English every day and your English will improve much faster. English is easy at EasyEnglish.com!
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