New OER search tool

ccLearn is working with the Hewlett Foundation and Google to create a new “open education web-scale search."

The ccLearn group is devoted to the support of open educational resources. These are educational resources that are licensed in a way that they can be freely shared and used by others.

This new tool should offer much wider access to all the great open resources already out there. Hopefully, it will also increase awareness so that more people consider open licenses for materials they write and publish.

Palm special offer

Palm is offering a couple special back-to-school offers. For a limited time, buy Palm TX handhelds and get a free hard case with each one, or buy Palm Tungsten E2 handhelds and get a free keyboard with each one.

This is a great deal for educators.

PD podcasts

My newest mashup with audio podcasts for professional development is up.

If a part of your job is providing professional development, you should be thinking about podcasting as a delivery option.

The next mashup will be on museum podcasts. Post or email me your favorites!

8 things about me

Well, I've been "tagged" multiple times now for the "8 random things about me" game. I did this awhile back with five things, so I've repeated here and added three new things.

1. I've been a vegetarian since I was 12 years old. (A very strange thing to do in Ohio back then. I read "Charlotte's Web" and went to farm camp one summer , and that was it.)

2. One of my favorite childhood memories is going to Cincinnati Reds baseball games with my dad. We went on week nights, and the games often went very late, but we always stayed to the very end.

3. I taught school for two years in Africa. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. I expect that at some point, I will go live overseas again. (If you're looking for a way to shake up your life, I highly recommend it.)

4. In younger days, I have parasailed, gone hang gliding, and jumped out of a plane. (See, I'm more fun that I seem. Or at least I used to be...)

5. I have climbed to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. It was unbelievably hard.

6. I love trains. Recently, I took a train trip across the country from DC to Montana. We live in a beautiful country.

7. I have dreams that are very detailed and interesting, often like adventure movies, and I remember several dreams almost every night.

8. I sleep really well almost all the time. My dad used to call me the "perfect sleeper" when I was a kid.

If you are reading this and want to join in, consider yourself tagged.

Podcast on Ed Conferences

The newest episode of Karen's Educational Mashups is now up. This show features podcasts from educational conferences. This is a great way to get the professional development benefits from conferences that you may not be able to attend in-person.

Image courtesy of Todd Fishburn.

NSBA-"Explore ways in which [you] could use social networking for educational purposes"

Kudos to the NSBA for a forthcoming report that urges schools to relax restrictions on the use social networking technologies at schools.

It's about time that educational policymakers (and politicians) recognize that these technologies are important tools for differentiating instruction, engaging students, and developing important new (and old) literacy skills.

More thoughts on prof dev

Last week, I did some hands on workshops in new format -- 2 hours! Normally, the shortest hands on session I'll do is 3 hours, and I prefer 6 hours, especially for beginner podcasting sessions. But I thought I'd give this a try.

Well, I pretty much knew that with only 2 hours, I really couldn't talk much or give any background -- I'd need to do a very quick run-through of the software we'd be using and then turn folks loose to create.

I was pleasantly surprised that this format worked great! Everyone in the session jumped right in and created amazing projects. It was really a great experience.

One thing that made this work is that nearly everyone in the workshops had been in one of my earlier one-hour presentations (not hands on). This provided them the background that they needed, whet their appetites, and left them chomping at the bit to jump in and do it.

Lessons learned:

1. As a facilitator, I don't need to talk so much.
2. People can jump in and create with minimal instruction and make amazing things in a pretty short timeframe.
3. This is a great format for differentiating instruction in professional development workshops. It lets you work individually with those who want more instruction and lets others get busy on their own.
4. Perhaps an optimal conference format is 45 or 60 min. presentation sessions in the morning, followed up by 2 or 3 hour hands-on sessions in the afternoon.