Summary: Title: Super Sized, Open Textbooks and the iPad! Jokes: Business Plans Two women were comparing notes on the difficulties of running a small business. "I started a new practice last year," the first one said. "I insist that each of my employees take at least a week off every three months." "Why in the world would you do that?" the other asked. She responded, "It's the best way I can learn which ones I can do without." Friends Pete and Larry had not seen each other in many years. They had a long talk trying to fill in the gap of those years by talking about their lives. Finally, Pete invited Larry to visit him in his new apartment. "I got a wife and three kids and I'd love to have you visit us." "Great. Where do you live?" "Here's the address. And there's plenty of parking behind the apartment. Park and come around to the front door, kick it open with your foot, go to the elevator and press the button with your left elbow, then enter! When you reach the sixth floor, go down the hall until you see my name on the door. Then press the doorbell with your right elbow and I'll let you in." "Good. But tell me, what is all this business of kicking the front door open, then pressing elevator buttons with my right, then my left elbow?" "Surely, you're not coming empty-handed." Mosquitoes Two young men were camping out in the forest one night. But the mosquitoes were so fierce that the boys had to hide under their blankets to keep from getting bitten. Then one of the boys saw some lightning bugs. "We may as well give up," he told his friend. "Now they are coming at us with flashlights." On Our Mind: Gearing up for the school year. iPads in the classroom. Eric’s Shirt. Listeners: Guys, I hope you are having a super fantastic summer. Yes, during my 6 days in the States, I picked up an iPad. I was very skeptical at first, but WOW! This thing is amazing. My question is about the practical use of the iPad in the class. I see that Apple just upgraded iBooks to allow videos and audio within the epub format. This means that textbooks could have audio/video boxes that support the main text or apply material in a cross curricular presentation. My question is this - who is creating the open source etexts that we can use in class, and how can I help? Robert Sent from my iPad Related links we sent Robert: http://open-education.org/ http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000027.html http://www.opentextbook.org/about/ http://web.me.com/mcgirr/Summer_PD_Notes__ISTE__MiJEC____MSC_/pages/20.html From the Twitterverse: Advisory: Is “What you see, What you get?” Here are 5 optical illusions that you could share with your students (or class). Good lead in to discussion about perception, point of view, etc. http://mashable.com/2010/08/01/optical-illusions-videos/ Stats on Soft Drinks http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/softdrinks/ TED Talk: The Art of Choosing: http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html Tech Tools: Teacher’s First TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. We offer our own professional and classroom-ready content along with thousands of reviewed web resources, including practical ideas for classroom use and safe classroom use of Web 2.0. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our subject/grade level search, keyword search, or extensive menus. http://teachersfirst.com/index.cfm Vanilla Forums Vanilla Forums is an open-source, standards-compliant, customizable, modern, community-building discussion forum. http://vanillaforums.org/ KnoteBooks http://knotebooks.com/ Webspotlight: Teacher inspires students to work through adversity http://www.southtownstar.com/lifestyles/vickroy/2551488,080110vickroy.article Tiering Lessons http://help4teachers.com/samples2.htm
