EdReach Show

This week’s EdReach Extra asks: What are some of our favorite tools that have died, or joined the dead pool?

Thanks so much Judi Epcke and Jay Blackman- this show digs deep into the attention (or lack thereof) that Silicon Valley has been paying to education. To start things off with our EdReach News Nuggets: We discuss the glorious news of Delicious being saved, and that the world’s last typewriter factory was shut down. As always we’re interested in how these stories affect education. News Watch: The big news story this week is entitled This Tech Bubble is Different, from BusinessWeek.com. We’re curious as to how this new tech bubble is going to affect education- or if education may get completely ignored. We have a great discussion about the struggles educators may be facing in this economy, and if educational innovation may be suffering because of it. Blog Watch: We continue the Tech Boom talk with an older post from Sylvia Martinez with her prediction (now two years old) about how education would be affected by the poor economy. She really nailed it two years ago.  Also, we discover an interesting post on why rote memorization is still good for you. You can guess how we react to that. Twitter Talk: This week I found an interesting possible education tool called Bo.lt. Once it comes out of beta, we’ll get chance to implement it in the classroom. Looks like it has a lot of possibilities. On the Radar: This weeks On the Radar brings a bunch of new things: Wolfram Tones: http://tones.wolfram.com/ The most confusing music generator I’ve ever seen.- Rezac Puppy cam is back! http://www.ustream.tv/sfshiba Epcke Powerful Learning Practice eCourses? http://plpnetwork.com/get-involved/ecourses/ Epcke A Space Apart – http://www.aspaceapart.net/ (Jay)  

This week’s EdReach Extra asks: How do we approach teachers with Free and Open Source Software  (FOSS) from a professional development standpoint?            

This show is dedicated to all things free- Free and Open Source Software that is. We welcome Phil Lacey, President of the Illinois Computing Educators (and FOSS guru) to share with us his favorite free resources, and help explain what all the FOSS is about (had enough of that, yet?). News Watch: This show is inspired by the news that OpenOffice was no longer being supported by Oracle. Lots of schools dumped Microsoft Word for this free version, so how would that impact education? Phil shares his insights and talks about the free alternatives. Blog Watch There’s been a lot of talk about using netbooks in schools and we zero in on Jim Klein’s blog, which is a great resource for FOSS ideas. Twitter Talk Here’s some great Twitter hashtags to follow for FOSS: #opensource #FOSS #SCO #OSS #foss #gnu #ubermix Some great FOSS educators on Twitter: Jim Klein twitter.com/jnetman1 Steve Hargadon  twitter.com/stevehargadon Miguel Guhlin: twitter.com/mguhlin (always talks about Linux and Ubuntu and Moodle) Ben Grey: twitter.com/bengrey  (currently implementing Jim Klein’s Ubuntu remix on netbooks) On the Radar: Too many to count this week: FOSS: resources- libreoffice.org OpenEducationDisc 10.10 Sharable .iso with ~45 FOSS apps OpenSourceMac Similar to Open Education Disc for Mac Ubuntu – download .iso for desktop or netbook versions Edubuntu – http://www.edubuntu.org/ KDE Education Project – http://edu.kde.org/ http://www.k12opensource.com/ Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching: OFSET – PROJECTS OFSET is actively promoting and developing free software for schools. http://www.osalt.com/ Open Source as an Alternative http://www.opensource.org/ Open Source Initiative Phil offered so many resources- thanks so much! Follow Phil on Twitter @philacey

Another one of our beloved Education tools has died. This week’s show mourns the loss of the Flip, only to get excited about the many alternatives that already exist that will take its place. News Watch: We take our first headline from Mashable: RIP Flip, and discuss the effect that the loss of the Flip will have on educators. Jay says to move on. Judi says there are iPod Touches.  Dan eulogizes the Flip. Blog Watch: EdWeek’s Liana Heltin ponders the loss educators feel, but helps us decide on five Flip alternatives for the classroom, thanks to Mediabistro.com. We build on this. Twitter Talk: Tons of eulogizing of Flip over at search.twitter.com (keywords: educator, flip) , you’d think this was an Irish Wake. Finally, some great new resources and Ed Gadgets in On the Radar: Check out this Random Name Generator- great for student contests and such: http://primaryschoolict.com/random-name-selector/ (Rezac) Here’s a too-simple Create-Your-Own-Jeopardy game for interactive white boards: jeopardylabs.com (Epcke) Jay saves the best for last with his impressions of his new Sifteo Cubes:  sifteo.com (Jay)  - Also: check out the TED Talk from David Merrill, the founder of Sifteo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeJ0jDF_mCA    

This week’s EdReach Show comes live straight from the Mobile Learning Conference in Arizona. EdReach Show contributor Judi Epcke reports and special guest Meg Wilson joins us from there as well. They give us a nice round up of some of the great presentations and apps that were being shared there, as well as what’s on the horizon for mobile learning. News Watch: This week we look into the problem of student texting, and its impact on their livelihood, sleep, and productivity. We draw inspiration from this Boston.com article: Connected, Exhausted     Blog Watch: In blog watch we try something different this week- Jay, Judi, Meg, and I all list our favorite blogs that deal with mobiles in the classroom. Jay: http://moblearn.blogspot.com/ http://themobilelearner.wordpress.com Dan: http://learninginhand.com/blog/ -Tony Vincent http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/ Liz Kolb She recently talked about Studyboost: http://www.cellphonesinlearning.com/2011/02/mobile-reviews-with-study-boost.html “There is a new free resource called Study Boost that connects with mobile phones. You create an account on Study Boost, then you can create your own “batches” of study questions. You can subscribe to the study questions via cell phone (you can also view them on the mobile web). In addition you can share your study questions with friends, teachers, and others so they can also review on the go.” Judi: http://www.ipodsibilities.com/iPodsibilities/Home.html http://wiki.canby.k12.or.us/groups/ipodusergroup/blog/ iear.org http://www.mrcoley.com/ Meg Wilson: Mobile Learning Experience Blog - http://mobile2011blog.posterous.com/ Twitter Talk: The EdReach Tweeter of the Week is: Graham Brown Martin:  @grahambm On the Radar: Dropbox Forms from JotForm –  http://www.jotform.com/dropbox/ (Jay) www.qwiki.com – - has an iPad App on the way.  (Dan) Study Boost.com  - thanks to @lkolb Comic Life for iPad is in Beta-  (Judi )

This week's show focuses on the issue of test anxiety and the consequences that standardized testing can have on a child. Earlier in the week, I interviewed Dr. Roxana Marachi of San Jose State University, to try to get a picture of the mindset of a student going through this type of stress, and I share her thoughts here.

In this EdReach Show Extra, we talk to Rushton Hurley about Next Vista and ask: What is NextVista.org?

Wow! Many thanks to Rushton Hurley for joining us this week! This show’s roundup includes: - Our discussion on the controversy over opting out of state tests. - Chris Lehmann’s thoughtful post on teacher’s unions and our comments regarding teacher solidarity. - Career counselor: Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? We ruminate on the educational philosophies of each of these important figures. - We have a new segment- “Comment Corner,” where we discuss the Khan Academy feedback from my Khan Academy post from Monika Hardy, Daniel Fiore, and Dan Thompson. Finally- we end things on out Twitter talk, where we highlight a couple of great hashtags to look for like #PBTechConf11 and #WEMTA, where you can find some great new educators and ed news to follow. This week’s On The Radar Tools: VuSafe m86vusafe.com (Epcke) http://www.animalsandearth.com/ -Really awesome appropriate place to find images of animals. (Rezac) SpringPad - http://springpadit.com/ (Jay) http://goanimate4schools.com/public_signup (Scott) http://www.algogeom.org/ – Also … http://www.androidtablets.net/ (Rushton) – for those following Android news http://teach12.com (Rushton) – not free, but great lectures! And do check out the NextVista 90 Video Contest: http://nextvista.org/contests/nebraska90/  

Well, what a show! This week’s highlights: *Lots of talk about Google, Docs, and Education: Should we not trust Google? *Huffington Posts’ Education section suddenly gets harder to find. * We talk about Dan Pink’s recent post about giving teachers bonuses as an incentive to improve student achievement. * Interesting trend with higher ed link-baiting Websites handing out Top 100 Educator Blog badges. Thanks to DY/Dan for pointing our the hypocrisy of this issue. * Twitter Talk highlights the Michigan educators that are on Twitter, and the #MACUL hashtag because of the Michigan Association of Computer Using Learners. Make sure to check out John Sowash @jrsowash, Liz Kolb @lkolb, Cheryl Lykowski @CLykowski, and Ira Socol @irasocol. *What’s On the Radar today: www.greplin.com : A unique search tool that searches your own stuff from Facebook, Twitter, and other services. Great new online book creation app:  http://littlebirdtales.com/ Another unique visual search tool for students:  http://www.quinturakids.com Thanks again for listening!  

In this EdReach Show Extra, we ask: Why is there such vitriol surrounding the Interactive White Board?

This week’s show brings us some very helpful search information via Judi Epcke and Sweetsearch.com. We take a look at the alternative to buying the iPad 2. In this case, we take on Jim Klein’s and Ben Grey’s ideas from Twitter about rooting the Barnes and Noble Nook device for classroom consumption. Interesting! Also- the Gates Foundation is putting listening devices in teachers ears, and the Khan Academy is at the TED Conference. In Blog Watch, Jen Wagner’s post about PLNs draws some remarks from us and Jon Becker. In Twitter Talk, the debate about iPads vs. Netbooks again comes up, thanks to Dean Shareski’s thoughtful post. Finally, Judi and the gang give us their On the Radar suggestions and advice in regards to Sweetsearch and Easybib Notebook.

We’re back! We have some great reflections about the Illinois Computing Educators’ Conference, and Rushton Hurley’s nice contribution to that. It was also very hard to resist talking about the iPad 2 today, as the lust for the next generation of the device definitely had Mr. Meech, our new Apple Distinguished Educator, very excited. Mr. Gary Stager has delighted us with another Interactive White Board controversy. In Twitter talk, we follow the fascinating hashtags like #witeachers and #wiunions and see the divisiveness that’s happening in Wisconsin. Finally, check out Myfav.es for a great new angle on creating a Start Page for your school. (BTW- lots of background kitchen noise in this episode: water pouring, food cutting- it’s the most interactive episode yet!) Here is this week’s show notes: http://www.diigo.com/user/drezac/edreach11

Wow! What a great show, made so much better by the presence of Jen Wagner. With Judi Epcke out this week, Jen graced us with some great insights on Twitter #hashtags, and shared a great new blog, Miss Night Mutter. We start off by disagreeing over whether this high school in Illinois was really the first high school to actually get an iPhone App. Kahn Academy finds yet another avenue to deliver its videos to students, and high school student Allie Kauffman, finds a unique way to get the attention of Wake Forest University. In Twitter talk, we focus on all of the awesome tweets coming from the #peteandc , #metc_CSD, and #tcea2011 conferences that are happening all this week. On the Radar tools this week: The Evernote/ Idea Paint tool. Delicious alternative http://www.linkable.com/ Jen also share this great TED talk from Melinda Gates. Thanks again group for a wonderful show! Correction: Kahn Academy received only $2 million as part of a $10 million initiative by Google, for the record.

This week’s EdReach Extra feeds off of the Facebook firing fiasco in Georgia: Should districts do more to educate teachers on social networking privacy and policy issues? See what the panel has to say!