MIT Open Course Ware

Maybe I am behind the times here as MIT released this in 1999, but it is awesome.

One of the worlds greatest universities releasing their educational content for anyone in the world to view, study, and better themselves free of charge.

the site is: http://ocw.mit.edu

they have a lot of content; video lectures, problem sets, lecture notes, and more. Topics from many departments; Mathematics, History and many more.

I can not speak for other content areas, but obviously MIT is known for mathematics and technical education throughout the world. I have been studying the Differential Equations Course 18.03 and there are many other courses I intend to take a look at.

I have tackled the first of 32 lectures of the 18.03 and am working on the first problem set that corresponds to the lecture. In other words do more than watch, do the homework and actually learn stuff. I look forward to completing this course and "taking" more courses.

MIT is clear about the mission; this is NOT an MIT education, but it will give you insight to their educational process, the world, and make you a better person. Just like reading a book will. You get bragging rights and understanding if you take it seriously.

I will probably also study some Engineering and Linear Algebra courses. I think you should take some too.

videos, wikis, and fun

I am excited to tell you I got the video working in the wiki.



Completing the Square Video

I will understand if you do not watch the video since it is about boring math, but just to see it in the wiki is exciting. I can now incorporate video lessons into the maths text I am writing :).

I had to use a newer digital camera to hook up to the computer I was able to get the video from your camera to the DVD and then onto the computer, but not in a format that allowed me to edit it. With my camera I could get it to the computer and edit it, but then I still had to use google video to host the video and then embed it into the wiki.

Anywho now that I have a process I can replicate it with other videos.

This means that if any teachers would like to incorporate video in blogs, wikis, or podcasts I can probably be of some use.

I is happy.
Geoff
jasperstreet

My l33t skillz, let me show you them!

I was thinking: maybe something we could do to help people take advantage of our new tech integration peeps is to give everyone some idea of just what we can help with.  Our colleagues may not be sure what it is we know how to do (that they don't), what kinds of questions we're able to answer, etc.  So I thought it might be a good idea if we had some listing of skills/areas of knowledge to get people thinking about what they've always wanted to know about technology, but didn't know who to ask.

(Or maybe y'all have been swamped with questions, and I'm the only one who's just been answering the same old "Jen, can you make the DVD player/projector/computer work" kind!)

I'll start.  Some things off the top of my head that I can use/answer questions about/show someone how to use (better):

Equipment:

The laptop projector carts

The 140 lab

iPods

Software

MS Word

PowerPoint

PowerTeacher

iTunes

iMovie (Mac)

iPhoto (Mac)

Photoshop

Outlook

Adobe Pagemaker, which is probably not terribly useful anymore

Platforms

Mac OS 

Unix 

[I hate Windows, but I could answer basic stuff]

Programming/Markup languages

HTML

Javascript (it's been a long time, though)

Java (ditto)

uh... BASIC? *g*

Web things

Searching.  (how to use Google image search, e.g.)

Web 2.0: Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia (it's not just evil or full of misinformation, honestly), blogs/LJ/fun RSS feeds (have the English teachers seen Samuel Pepys' blog?  Or Geoffrey Chaucer's?  Languagelog?), del.icio.us (which I absolutely love as a way to save links for other people!)...  but not Twitter.  I don't tweet.

Lots of world language/Latin specific things (how to use online dictionaries effectively!  Please let's teach people how to use online dictionaries *effectively*...).

Urban Dictionary!  For when you just aren't down with the kids' slang anymore.

Fun teacher websites that will do things like create word searches for you!

And many more, I'm sure.

Project types

Webquest

video editing (i.e. clips from digital source/ripped from DVD + music + titles + effects, etc.)/playing videos

Powerpoints

Basic webpage (I never learned CSS, fwiw)

Creating a podcast.

Create your own LOLcat!

Completely useless/obsolete things!

Gopher

Usenet

Telnet/ssh!  Lynx!  Emacs!  Pine! (I use these all the time, but I do know that most people, uh, don't, anymore.)

DOS and...

the Apple IIe!

Wikis

Hello,
One thing I have been using is Wiki sites. The students can easily collaborate, edit, and reedit content that they or their peers have posted.

There is an LHS Wiki that is only available inside of LHS.
Check out the Cards page.

my personal wiki lives at JS Wiki.
Check the Math page.

You can get free wiki of your own at pbwiki.com or use one of the above wikis. The choice is mostly about access. Do you need your students to have access at home? Are you going to use the wiki with students or just among teachers for collaboration? The answers to these questions will help you decide on the way you set up your wiki.

You can also post images, files, movies on your wiki :>).

This video explains simply a wiki in plain english (~5min).

Hey Geoff

Just me checking in. We'll talk later about php and getting that quiz maker to work on my site.

cugnology; what are you?

Cugnology is the cuddly friend of technology. We are a group of educators that want to help you use technology in your lessons. We want you to come to us in the planning stages of your lessons, and we can help make them streamlined, select the proper software and hardware tools, to make you an independent technology user; particularly bringing technological tools into the hands, minds, and lives of your students.

We will use this blog to keep you up to date with what we are using, studying, and playing around with.