Digital Alliance Foundation

Mozilla and Creative Commons teach practical open education skills

2009-03-17T15:39:00.002-06:00

Mozilla, in collaboration with ccLearn and the Peer 2 Peer University, launches a practical online seminar on open education.

This six week course is targeted at educators who will gain basic skills in open licensing, open technology, and open pedagogy; work on prototypes of innovative open education projects; and get input from some of the world leading innovators along the way.

The course will kick-off with a web-seminar on Thursday 2 April 2009 and run for 6 weeks.

Weekly web seminars introduce new topics ranging from content licensing to the latest open technologies and peer assessment practices.

Participants will share project ideas with a community of peers, work on individual projects, and get feedback from experienced mentors. We will also take a close look at some of the most innovative examples of open education projects, and speak to the people who designed them, including:

The Open Source Software courses at Seneca College;
David Wiley's Introduction to Open Education;
The open blog infrastructure at Mary Washington University; etc.

The course is targeted at educators who want to help shape the open education future. Participants should have some knowledge of web technologies, or open content licensing, or open pedagogy (or all three), but don't need to be experts.

Interested in participating? Head over to the course wiki, and submit your project idea!

Course outline: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/EduCourse

Sign-up page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Education/EduCourse/SignUp

For questions about the course or the sign-up process, contact:

Philipp Schmidt
Peer 2 Peer University
philipp AT peer2peeruniversity.org

Contact Mozilla:

Frank Hecker
Mozilla Foundation
hecker AT mozillafoundation.org

Contact ccLearn

Ahrash Bissell
ccLearn
ahrash AT creativecommons.org

Creating a Flat Classroom

2008-09-18T00:11:00.000-06:00

The Seven Steps to a Flat Classroom workshop was created by Vicki Davis, recognized Web 2.0 expert and creator of the Cool Cat Teacher blog, for Atomic Learning.

In the Seven Steps to a Flat Classroom workshop, Davis herself utilizes Atomic Learning’s short, show-and-tell video tutorials to guide users through flattening their classroom by expanding it to include global communities and collaboration tools.

The workshop is a valuable resource for educators seeking to integrate technology and includes over 80 tutorials on topics such as Applying ISTE NETS standards to your project, Connecting Classrooms online, Digital Citizenship and Safety and many more.

View the workshop by clicking here.

Related Resources

Amazon.com Partners with OLPC

2008-09-08T00:11:00.000-06:00

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has announced that they have partnered with Amazon.com to revive the Give One, Get One program. This program, first launched last year, allows consumers to purchase two XO laptops, one is shipped to the buyer, and the other is sent to a student in a developing nation.

According to PC World, Amazon.com will start selling XO laptops in late November, around the time of Thanksgiving in the U.S. Sales will likely extend through to around the end of December.

Related Resources

Education 2.0 Conference

2008-07-18T02:11:00.001-06:00

The Knowledge Bank online conference out of Australia this year is focused on Web 2.0 in education: what it is, how it’s being used today and its potential to radically change education. Steve Hargadon will be giving the keynote address on why "Web 2.0 Is the Future of Education."

You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

Related Resources

2008 K12 Open Minds Conference

2008-07-18T00:11:00.000-06:00

If you have an interest in Open Source Software and its benefits for K-12 schools, I hope you will consider attending and/or presenting at the 2008 K12 Open Minds Conference, September 25-27, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This is an unparalleled opportunity to talk with teachers, administrators and technology staff from around the U.S. and the world. Here are some important links:

General conference information at http://www.k12openminds.org
Call for speakers information at http://www.k12openminds.org/conference/call-for-speakers/
Sponsorship information at http://www.k12openminds.org/sponsors.html/

The conference expects more than 600 attendees, from the US, Europe, Asia and North and South America. Dozens of sessions that address teaching and learning, leadership and policy, and technology and infrastructure issues related to open technologies make this conference a "must attend" event.

Featured Speakers include:

Donna Benjamin - Executive Director of Creative Contingencies and board member of Open Source Industry Australia;

Alex Inman -- Director of Technology at Whitfield School, St. Louis, MO - an Essential School using open source;

Chris Lehman -- Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA.;

Dr. David Thornburg - Director of Global Operations for the Thornburg Center and author of several books including, When the Best is Free.

Related Resources

Teachers.tv: Online Safety & Social Networks

2008-07-08T20:11:00.000-06:00

Teachers.TV, a UK-based professional development site for educators, has a great video on teaching kids about information literacy, social networking and web safety. This is a refreshingly rational analysis and discussion of the issues surrounding kids, web safety and social media.

This video also outlines several classroom activities that teachers can use with their students (and parents) to help them gain a better understanding and awareness of the potential dangers of sharing too much information in social networks.

Related Resources

Call for Papers: 2008 K12 Online Conference

2008-06-16T14:11:00.000-06:00

The K12 Online Conference 2008 has just issued a call for proposals. This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is "Amplifying Possibilities."

Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. The deadline for proposal submission has been extended to July 11, 2008.

You can get more information, including the proposal form, over on the K12 Online website.

Related Resources

Oprah Launches a Youth Movement

2008-05-30T00:11:00.000-06:00

Oprah Winfrey, in partnership with Free the Children & Oprah's Angel Network, have announced the launch a new social change organization for youth called O Ambassadors.

This is a grass roots effort and educators and students alike are encouraged to sign-up and form their own O Ambassador chapters. The O Ambassador program hopes to have 1,000 new clubs for the 2008-2009 school year.

The program has several goals: connecting children around the world, encouraging them to be more aware about the world around them, and then empowering them to take active steps to "create lasting change by working toward the UN Millennium Development Goals."

The O Ambassador website also has a myriad of international education resources for teachers. These resources include videos, lesson plans and activities that teachers can use in their classroom. Another good site, not affiliated with the O Ambassador program, is the International Education website sponsored by the Asia Society.

While there are a lot of really great organizations that are trying to connect kids and teachers, I've long held the belief that it will take money, a big brand and lots of patience to make it happen. And it looks as though Ms. Winfrey is stepping up to the challenge.

Donating money to an organization is always a leap of faith. You donate with the hope that the organization will really "do good" with your donation. I've personally worked with the Free the Children team and I can tell you with 100% certainty that they are worthy of your trust.

Related Resources

NECC 2008 Community Network

2008-05-14T02:11:00.000-06:00

Hot off the grapevine that is Twitter, here's an online community set up by Steve Hargadon for NECC 2008. Come join us!

Welcome to the NECC Ning, designed to help you connect to like-minded NECC attendees and extend the conversations. We hope you will use the Ning to:

Document and share your NECC experience by posting videos and photos
Interact with conference speakers
Create your own profile and find like-minded colleagues
Discuss and review conference sessions
Start or contribute to a forum discussion
Create a group for your school or organization
Stay on top of the action during the conference by receiving RSS feeds to your mobile

Yale University Launches OCW

2008-04-18T11:11:00.001-06:00

Yale University has joined the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement and is now offering free courses through Open Yale Courses that anyone in the world is free to participate.

Seven departments (astronomy, English, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology and religious studies) at Yale are among the first at the university to offer classes via the Open Yale Courses program.

The Open Yale site describes the program as follows:

"Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to seven introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

Open Yale Courses reflects the values of a liberal arts education. Yale's philosophy of teaching and learning begins with the aim of training a broadly based, highly disciplined intellect without specifying in advance how that intellect will be used.

This approach goes beyond the acquisition of facts and concepts to cultivate skills and habits of rigorous, independent thought: the ability to analyze, to ask the next question, and to begin the search for an answer.

We hope these courses will be a resource for critical thinking, creative imagination, and intellectual exploration."

The Open Yale Courses have been funded and supported through grants from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation, as well as the Yale Center for Media and Instruction. Open Yale Courses have also integrated Creative Commons licensing into their course materials.

Additional Resources

K12 Online Conference

2007-09-19T14:02:00.000-06:00

Announcing the 2nd Annual K12 Online 2007 convention for teachers, administrators and educators around the world interested in the use of Web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice.

The 2007 conference is scheduled to be held over two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26 of 2007, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 8. The conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries.”

Additional Resources

PB Wiki Tutorials on Atomic Learning

2007-09-05T20:05:00.000-06:00

You already know that PBwiki is the easiest and best wiki platform out there. But did you know that Atomic Learning has FREE tutorials on PBwiki?

These tutorials will help you learn step-by-step how to create a PBwiki. Hurry, the tutorials are only available for a short time!

Related Resources

Digital Alliance Toolbox: Introduction to Social Bookmarking

2007-08-08T15:28:00.000-06:00

Facebook Apps for Education

2007-08-02T15:35:00.000-06:00

The FaceBook developer blog posted a note to encourage developers to create educational applications for Facebook. Here's the scoop:

"Developers - Now is the time to build education applications on Facebook Platform! Facebook will be phasing out its Courses feature in early August, and we wanted to make sure you were the first to know.

Collaboration services and applications are a big part of the world of Education. Especially on college campuses, where we first found our roots. Many of you have probably used some kind of collaboration software as a part of your courses.

Our courses application was a great way to connect with new friends, and find your classmates. But, we think Facebook Developers can create even more robust ways to create, connect, and collaborate around teaching and learning in the classroom.

This is a great business opportunity, with vast distribution potential, and a great way to fundamentally affect an important part of the lives of students worldwide."

AFT Resources for Teaching AIDS & Darfur

2007-07-28T15:40:00.000-06:00

I recently had the privilege of attending the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conference in Washington D.C. where my colleague Karon Weber and I had the opportunity to present Yahoo! for Teachers at a workshop being held at the 2007 AFT QuEST Conference.

One thing that really struck me was how progressive the AFT is in their approach to teaching as well as their positions on social issues. There were several booths that centered around what the AFT membership could do to support AIDS Advocacy, Genocide Awareness in Darfur, and Democracy in Africa.

"As men and women of conscience and as educators committed to the dignity and worth of all humanity, we have a responsibility to speak out against injustice on behalf of vulnerable and disenfranchised peoples across the globe." ~ 2006 AFT resolution on Opposition to the Genocide in Darfur

The AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign is a multi-country campaign in partnership with African teacher unions to provide resources to fight the spread of this disease. The impact of AIDS in the teaching community is staggering.

"This year in South Africa, more than 1,000 teachers will die of AIDS. In Zimbabwe more than 30 percent of the country's teachers carry the HIV virus. Many school age children have lost a parent to the epidemic. Throughout Africa, the statisics tell a similar story--teachers' lives lost and whole education systems endangered (Source: AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign)."

Here are some of the excellent resources complied by the AFT to help teachers educate their students on issues related to Africa, HIV and AIDS.

Related Resources

debaird.net + Africa
American Federation of Teachers
AFT AIDS Campaign (pdf)
Flickr > tag > Darfur

The Digital Alliance Foundation

mLearning: The Next Killer Learning App

2007-06-01T16:48:00.000-06:00

The use of mobile technologies is growing and represents the next great frontier for learning. Increasingly we will continue to see academic and corporate research invest, design, and launch new mobile applications, many of which can be used in an educational context.

At the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel outlined the explosive growth of web-based and mobile technologies. According to Semel, there are 900 million personal computers in the world. But this number pales in comparison to the 2 billion mobile phones currently being used around the world.

Even more astounding is how mobile devices are increasingly being used as the primary way in which people connect to the Internet. In fact, Semel notes that 50% of the Internet users outside the United States will most likely never use a personal computer to connect to the Internet. Rather, they will access information, online communities, and create content for the Internet via a mobile device.

In order to create a better and more relevant learning environment for the digital learning styles of Gen Y student, there is a need to use pedagogical strategies and methods that support the authentic use of technology to support and foster student motivation, collaboration, and learning.

Related Resources

Get Involved: Junior 8

2007-04-18T18:32:00.000-06:00

Junior 8 (J8) is the official youth programme of the G8 and is designed for young people aged 13 to 17. J8 is a collaboration between Morgan Stanley, UNICEF, and the country with the presidency of the G8.

J8 helps young people to get informed about global issues and gives them an opportunity to have their voices heard on an international stage.

It is a fully international programme involving young people from over 15 countries. Last year at the J8 Summit in Russia young people from each of the G8 countries had a 45 minute audience with all the G8 country leaders.

There are two main ways to get involved in the J8 programme:

1. Use the Education Programme: The J8 website provides free educational resources to help you teach your students about the major issues facing the world today.

There are fact sheets, opinion pieces and exercises and games covering everything from poverty reduction to infectious diseases to climate change. There are also lesson plans with individual and group exercises and opportunities for whole class discussion.

2. Enter the J8 Competition: Entering the competition enables students from G8 countries to develop their own solutions to global problems, and win the chance to take them to the leaders of the G8 at the J8 Summit.

To enter the competition, teams need to put forward their ideas on the topics discussed by the G8 in 2007. These include climate change and poverty reduction in Africa. This year we are looking for practical, interesting and innovative solutions to issues that affect all of us.

Everything you need to know about submitting your entry can be found on http://www.j8summit.com/. The competition closes on March 29, 2007. Winners from each country will be selected in April and the J8 Summit will take place in early June in Heiligendamm, Germany.

At the Summit young people from around the world come together to take part in workshops and roundtable discussions to determine their own ideas on the G8 agenda items. They will then present their ideas to all G8 leaders in a special audience.

The Summit will be a unique chance for your students to broaden their horizons develop their ideas and make a real impact on global politics!

Kiva Microfinance Loans

2007-04-15T18:52:00.000-06:00

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence.

Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Kiva partners with microfinance institutions across the globe who are on the ground vetting loan applications and working with entrepreneurs to ensure the best chance at their business succeeding.

Learn more about Kiva and more importantly-get involved!

The world is flat. Why isn't education?

2007-04-07T16:39:00.000-06:00

We don't drive the same cars we did a hundred years ago. Doctors don't operate on patients the same way they did a hundred years ago. Why do we educate our kids the same way we did a hundred years ago?

Isn't it time to embrace social media and find ways to integrate it into the 21st Century classroom?

Yahoo! Teachers Open Content for K-12

2007-03-30T07:18:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! Teachers was unveiled last week at the National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) Conference in St. Louis, MO. On the preview site you can learn how to use the Y! Gobbler to easily search, collect, and organize materials from across the web and save them directly into your own Yahoo! Teacher ePortfolio.

There's also a ton of social networking features integrated into the Yahoo! Teachers community. Members can see what other teachers have Gobbled and created, and if they find something they like, they can copy the project (along with attribution) into their own Yahoo! Teacher ePortfolio.

Essentially, Yahoo! Teachers is providing the infrastructure for teachers and educators to create a repository for Open Educational Resources (OER). This will be an invaluable tool for teachers and NGOs working with developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other areas of the world.

Almost a year in development, Yahoo! partnered with teachers on this project who helped steer the design and usability of the service. Yahoo! Teachers will be released this summer and teachers and other educators from around the globe are invited to sign up so they can be among the first to join and contribute to this new teaching community.

Youth Embrace Mobile ICT

2007-03-25T19:40:00.000-06:00

One of the interesting results of a recent study by the Irish National Teachers Organization (INTO) was the discovery that students are using their mobile phones for just about everything--except making phone calls.

Only 20% of the 671 students surveyed report using their mobiles to make phone calls, whereas 81% report using their mobile to communicate via text or IM.

The INTO survey seems to dovetail similar results of a 2005 Pew Internet and American Life study on teens and technology. Like their peers in Ireland, American youth preferring using IM or text messages for everyday conversations with friends.

Other key findings from the Irish National Teachers Organization:

96% of 11 & 12 year old students have a mobile phone
60% have a camera on it
72 % say they use it to access the Internet
20% use it to make calls
81% use it to send texts

Looking towards the future, it's becoming increasingly evident that the next frontier of learning will take place in the mobile space. Already teachers are using podcasting as a means to distribute content, provide customized on-demand learning opportunities.

The rapid adoption of wireless, mobile and other handheld computing devices will require educators to begin designing courses for mLearning environments for the wireless, mobile, or other portable web-enabled devices (video iPod, PSP, Palm).

Links

Edutopia on Flickr

2007-03-21T09:01:00.000-06:00

The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) has long been an advocate of helping teachers use technology to support instruction and student learning in the classroom. This month's edition of Edutopia, their online community and print magazine, has a feature article on using Flickr in the classroom.

The article, written by Amy Standen, features interviews with Tim Lauer, Flickr Community Manager Heather Champ and several other educators on how they use Flickr in their classroom.

At the end of the article, Amy lists several education oriented groups created in Flickr. These groups (and there are quite a few!) are an excellent way to find out how your colleagues are using Flickr in their classrooms.

So read the article, check out and join a Flickr education group today! Also worth noting:

Flickr has over a million photos with a Creative Commons license that you are free to use in classroom projects.

You can create a private Flickr group where you control both membership as well as the content in the group. This is a great way to create a "micro-Flickr" for your school and/or classroom.

There are a TON of Flickr hacks (like Spell with Flickr) created by and for members of the Flickr community that you can use to make some fun and creative art projects. Huge Big Labs (aka FD's Flickr Toys) has an excellent (and free!) collection of Flickr projects. Thanks FD!

Jeff Utech, the uber edublogger behind The Thinking Stick (always a must read!) has posted a Flickr tutorial over on YouTube.

Flickr + Creative Commons

debaird.net + Flickr

$100 Laptop and the Digital Divide

2007-03-20T15:21:00.000-06:00

Negroponte brings Green Machine to Hong Kong on Vimeo

100 Laptop: "The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created.

The initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, Lab chairman and co-founder, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005." (via)

Related Resources

Invisible Children of Uganda

2007-03-20T14:23:00.000-06:00

via Global Youth Fund: "It’s not often you see this kind of production value in documentaries and social issue campaigns. But video after video, the Invisible Children team (young filmmakers in their 20s) breaks new ground in how they engage mass audiences in difficult subjects.

Their latest production is a video to launch the Bracelet Campaign, which raises money for children and schools in northern Uganda."

Related Resources

Yahoo! Messenger Translator

2007-03-20T14:20:00.000-06:00

Yahoo Translating HTTP Proxy (YTP) is a two-way translator which works with Yahoo! Messenger to translate messages into various languages.

For example, if you IM a friend in English, she can receive the message in French. She can then IM back in French and you will get the message in English. The following languages are supported:

English > German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese
German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese > English
French > German
German > French

It should be noted that this is not an "official" Yahoo! product. Yahoo Translating Proxy is an open source project designed by a rather brilliant web development team based in Toronto.

Related Links