Understoodit.com is a new web-based tool for gauging students' understanding in real-time.  Instructors pay a small monthly fee; student use is free. Students use their smartphones or laptops to submit an "understood" or "confused" status which is displayed in a graph that the instructor can monitor during a lecture or conference presentation. Instructors can gauge student understanding in real-time and tailor their presentations to ensure that the material is being communicated effectively.

See a demonstration video here: http://vimeo.com/41031546

Socialbrite: Social Tools for Social Change

Updated: January 19, 2011

Virtual meeting smackdown! 15 top Web conferencing services compared

This Socialbrite blog post reviews 15 popular virtual meeting tools.

1. Watchitoo: Multimedia collaboration

2. Infinite Conferencing: Nonprofits are top of mind

3. GoToWebinar: Solid track record

4. Elluminate: Strong in the education market

5. Adobe Connect: Revamped & ready for prime time

6. ReadyTalk: The choice of TechSoup

7. Zoho Meeting: Embed it in your blog

8. Cisco WebEx Meeting: An industry stand-by

9. Microsoft Office Live Meeting: Made for the Enterprise

10. AT&T Connect: Built for business

11. Yuuguu: Share your screen

12. Yugma: Free for 20 participants

13. IBM Lotus Live: Feature-rich & intuitive

14. HearMe: Not keeping up

15. Dimdim: A simple & inexpensive solution

Read the full post here: http://www.socialbrite.org/2011/01/19/comparison-top-web-conferencing-services/

Born to Learn from Born to Learn on Vimeo.

 Check out the Born to Learn website for more information: http://www.born-to-learn.org/ 

The University of California at Berkeley has chosen Google over Microsoft for its campus-wide email and calendar services, and it will tell you why — in great detail.

Read the full article by Caleb Garling at http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/12/berkeley-google-docs-microsoft

 If you'd like to get involved, the first open meeting will be held on Sunday, November 27th, 4PM EST in Elluminate. See http://connectedcanada.org/ for more information and to sign up for the planning meeting.  

 For the full press release and a list of funding allocation by district, see the following link: http://education.alberta.ca/department/budget/additionalfunding.aspx  

 Read the full article here: http://the99percent.com/articles/7059/Training-Genius-The-Learning-Secrets-of-Polyglots-and-Savants 

 Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.....  

 https://trello.com

When: Tuesday, September 13, 2011, at  6:00pm-7:00pm MT

Thinking in Mind blog post by  Neil Stephenson

 I’m currently working on a ‘field guide to inquiry’. My goal is to create a document (that is somewhat concise and practical) that can assist teachers as they begin to adopt an inquiry-based teaching perspective into their classrooms. I just wrapped up the intro. I’d love thoughts and feedback…  

  Read the full post here: http://www.thinkinginmind.com/2011/08/what-is-inquiry-based-learning/

Dan Pontefract talks about social learning at TELUS in this YouTube video:

 http://ideas.education.alberta.ca/engage/about-engagement/what's-new.aspx  

Congratulations to Loretta Bartholomew!

Loretta's name was pulled out of the hat at the AGM as the winner of the iPod Touch draw for folks who participated in the ADETA Community Survey.

Elluminate session available from 3:30pm on June 14 for setup.

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.FCFBC0B79072D530B91EE61E3F6A2B&sid=977

In Person Attendance

The AGM will be held in Room T107 at Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW, Calgary, Alberta.  T107 is on Level 1, the lower level.

 Read a summary of the paper or download it here: http://cultureofyes.ca/2011/05/15/technology-and-other-wrong-system-reform-drivers/  

1. The most common job functions are teachers and managers/directors
2. The most common workplaces are K-12 Schools and Post-secondary Institutions
3. Participants are actively involved in professional development activities such as webinars, face-to-face conferences in Alberta, and daylong workshops.
4. Popular professional development activities ADETA could offer are a face-to-face conference, a newsletter featuring Alberta online activities/ideas, web audio or videoconferences, and real-time web conferences.
5. Participants are active in social media (Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter).

Hip Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education from sam seidel on Vimeo.

Why Education Needs to Change: A Student Perspective from Calgary Science School on Vimeo.

 A full description of the project, with teaching material and examples, can be found here: bit.ly/?eKLSxf 

For more information on Bill  18, Alberta's Education Act 2011 see http://education.alberta.ca/department/policy/education-act.aspx

"By forbidding the use of social media sites in 52% of our nation’s classrooms, schools are suppressing a learning revolution that is characterized by several truths: 1) facility with social media tools is critical to learning and working in the 21st century; 2) 75% of online adolescents are already social networking outside of school; 3) many students hack through Internet filters during class; and 4) exploration of social media sites is part of the adolescent identity. Teachers might not value, use, or understand social media tools, but they need to. Not authorizing the use of these new tools will lead students to question teacher’s relevance in helping teens negotiate the 21st century." (Blog post by Todd Finley on Edutopia)

Read the post here: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teen-culture-social-media-tools-todd-finley

 Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.  

View the TED Talk here http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

Khan Academy website: http://www.khanacademy.org/

 See the etug website for more information: http://etug.ca/2011/04/07/we-want-your-videos  

Mark Smithers: Learning and Educational Technology in Higher Education (March 11, 2011)

Is lecture capture the single worst example of poor educational technology use in higher education?

Licensed CC by The Reith Lectures

Mashable, May 11, 2010 by Jolie O'Dell 

From robotics to space research, from physics to computer science, the Internet is a vast trove of information about the sciences. Resources such as Wikipedia (and its easy-on-younger-minds counterpart, Simple English Wikipedia) and online video make the process of learning about and teaching science subjects much easier than ever before.

In response to input from those in the educational field, Alberta Education has embarked on an exciting project with sixteen high schools throughout the province. The purpose of the four-year High School Flexibility Enhancement Project is to provide participating high schools with the opportunity to organize their schools with the removal of the current 25 hours of face-to-face instruction per course credit restriction. Read more...

You Want E-Learning Success, But Are You Prepared to Go All the Way? 

 Source: The Rapid E-Learning Blog, by Tom Kuhlmann  

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself. 

www.zotero.org

 Challenge Based Learning: Take Action and Make a Difference

Students embrace media that presents participants with a challenge and requires them to draw on prior learning, acquire new knowledge, and tap their creativity to fashion solutions. The entertainment networks have capitalized on this formula with shows like The Amazing Race, Top Chef, Trading Spaces, and Project Runway in which participants creatively draw on their knowledge and resources to create appropriate solutions to challenges. To address the need to create new ways of engaging students to achieve, Apple worked with educators across the country to develop the concept of Challenge Based Learning. 

This is a website sponsored by Apple that promotes the concept of challenge-based learning and has videos, research papers, and other resources.

Is Social Media a Fad? Fast-paced recap of social media trends in education and the workplace (about 4 minutes)

1. opportunities to communicate and plan with other teachers and mentors
2.  opportunities to participate in online learning 

 http://prezi.com/u9snkgn0eo-0/teaching-with-mind-maps/

Teaching with Mind Maps - This is a 5-minute Prezi presentation about how mind maps can be employed in teaching and learning.  By Rod Corbett

There is no audio, and you need to advance the presentation manually by clicking the play button for each transition, but it has some great ideas for using mind maps in educational settings.

Trends to watch in 2011. Click on the image to open the slideshare in a new window/tab.

http://www.slideshare.net/jwtintelligence/2f-100-things-to-watch-in-2011-6306251?from=ss_embed 

For all you LinkedIn users out there, you can now find ADETA on LInkedIn.

Join the ADETA — Alberta Distributed Education and Technology Association Group  

Or follow our company profile page. To find it, login to LinkedIn, select the Companies tab and search for ADETA.

Let me know if you have any problems finding us, or if you have any suggestions for how we could better use LinkedIn.

Cheers,

Sandy Gough, communications@adeta.org