Start 'Waving' from Your Site

Thanks to Koldo Madariaga, I have just discovered that you can add an embeddable Google Wave right on your website. And just like Koldo, I love embeddable objects :-)

As Google explain you can "add the Wave Element to your site so visitors can see and interact with the wave on your site. This is an easy way to take advantage of the collaborative power of Google Wave".

To get started, just find (or create) a wave you'd like to embed and then paste the link into the "embeddable Google Wave" box. Waves are only viewable by participants on the wave but you can make a public wave by adding public@a.gwave.com

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Supporting Earth Hour 2010

Earth Hour began in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change.

The following year, Earth Hour became a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating.

In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.

Why not participate in Earth Hour 2010 which takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world.

Join millions of other people across the world from all walks of life by turning off your lights and unite together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet.

Help make 2010 the biggest Earth Hour yet!!!

Update: 30/3/2010 - Have a look at these wonderful photos of the event.

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Wikis and Transatlantic Collaboration

Jürgen Wagner and Verena Heckmann, from the E-Learning department of the Landesinstitut für Pädagogik und Medien [LPM] in Saarbrücken, Germany are hosting a free webinar on the topic of 'How to Use a Wiki for Transatlantic Collaboration'

* Date: Tuesday 9th February 2010
* Time: 7pm - 8.30pm (GMT)
* Venue: http://breeze.lpm.uni-sb.de/transatlantic

Guest speaker is EFL teacher Mélanie Auriel from France. Although the webinar is primarily aimed at foreign language teachers, it should be of great value to anyone intending to engage in collaborative projects.

30/1/10 Update: Full recording of the webinar is now available.

Full details of the event are included below:

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Google Docs & Tracking Progress Collaboratively

The whole collaborative nature of Google Docs provides a great way for students to keep track of their own progress in completing tasks for any subject area.

It is fairly straightforward to set up a colour coded spreadsheet that will allow students to change the appearance of the document by simply pressing one key.

Just select 'Format, Change colors with rules...' and decide on the rules you want to use. If you are not sure how this works then have a look at the settings on this shared document or just select a cell and 'press the delete key' to see how easily it works!



I am using the above template with my classes this year and the students have been enthusiastically updating their progress as they go along, without having to be constantly reminded to do so!!

This is also a great way of enabling parents to keep track of their own child's progress as a non-editable version of the document can be published to the web, as shown below.

First came across this idea looking at Dan Stucke's own version for his Y11 GCSE class. Many thanks Dan :-)

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Flashcards Collaboration

Cobocards is a handy application for creating flashcards. The editor is very easy to use and enables you to format text, add images, add mathematics formula and include links.

You can, also, print the flashcards (in pdf format) making it very easy to produce a nice laminated set for the tactile learner or for offline study! There are three print options available:
* Question on front and answer on back
* Question and answer on same page
* Sequential question and answer (ideal for mobile devices)

Cobocards provides lots of nice features, including tagging, commenting and tracking, which allow you to collaborate with others both in creating and studying the flashcards. Very useful for promoting collaboration in the classroom.

At the moment there is no facility to search for other flashcards created with Cobocards on the site. But, the Cobocards team are currently "working hard on a pool system" which "will be a platform for searching published flashcard sets, user, tags, etc". In the meantime, if you do know the URL of other published flashcards it is very easy to import them and edit them as you choose.

Cobocards is a work in progress and you are encouraged to add any suggestions for improvements/features on the users' wish list.

I like what I have seen so far and there is still more to come!!!

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Open Training with UNESCO

UNESCO's Open Training Platform is fantastic resource providing links to over 3,000 training resources within 293 categories.

The purpose of the platform is to "empower trainers or/and trainees with free resources, offer them a structured collaborative space to share their training but also to promote and value the “open” training materials, which are freely and openly accessible for trainers and self-learners to use and re-use for non commercial purposes such as teaching, learning and research".

Could be well worth your while checking out the resources on the Open Training Platform. 

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Technorati Tags: open training platform, unesco,

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Create Collaborative ToDo Lists

Just came across a lovely simple, yet powerful, ToDo list creator thanks to Lee Kolbert.

Ta-da List is the "web's easiest to-do list tool". With it you can make lists for yourself or to share with others. It is very easy to set up and use. Ta-da List can be accessed from any Internet connected PC or Mac and also from the iPhone for when you are on the move. 

If you need a bit of inspiration have a look at the video below where Lee demonstrates just how and where you can use Ta-da List.

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Technorati Tags: to do list, tada list

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Work Online with Acrobat.com

Acrobat.com provides several online services including file sharing, storage, PDF conversion, word processing and web conferencing.

Using Acrobat.com you can easily create and share documents and communicate in real time.

Adobe ConnectNow, the web conferencing part, contains all the standard required features including whiteboard, screen sharing, audio, video, chat and file sharing. However, you can only connect with a maximum of two other users in the free version.

Also, the Adobe AIR version enables you to transfer files and folders by simply dragging and dropping them from your computer directly into your Acrobat.com account. You can browse, preview, share or publish files easily from your computer.

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Technorati Tags: acrobat.com, adobe air, word processing, web conferencing

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Document Mangement and Collaboration

Epiware is a "powerful open source alternative for Enterprise Document Management" enabling users to collaborate on projects, share documents, create schedules, and manage tasks.

Epiware contains many features including calendar, wiki, tasking/gantt chart, news room, metadata search, controlled folder access and check-in/check-out.

Haven't used it yet, but Epiware looks like a very useful tool that could be used by teachers and/or students to collaborate effectively on a range of projects.

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Technorati Tags: collaboration, document management, epiware, metadata, wiki

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Online Goodies(10) - Voicethread

Voicethread is essentially an online collaboration tool.  Simply upload your image, presentation or video and get the conversation going!! With the free account you can create a maximum of three different Voicethreads.

Voicethreads can be private or public.  You decide who to share them with - either 1 person, several people or the whole world.  When the voicethread is public, you can allow or restrict new comments. You can also choose to turn on comment moderation, which means that you can decide whether to show added comments or not.

The example below shows how the Voicethread can also be used as an instruction tool. This one covers posting a podcast on the Ning social network.



Educators can now apply for the PRO account for free!

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Technorati Tags: collaboration, image, ning, podcast, video, voicethread

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