I have been experimenting with a variety of open source applications during the last few years. The ESU is currently running Moodle (Learning Management), Elgg (Community Building & Blogging), WordPress MU (Blogging), phpESP (Survey), and Gallery (Photo Storage). The whole open source community is very intriguing to me. The creators of this software are willing […]

The fear of students’ use of social networking sites, such as MySpace, is eliminating what could be a valuable learning opportunity. Student use of the internet in general, and specifically social networking, continues to grow. I recently became aware of a couple of wonderful resources to help adults understand digital kids. Wesley Fryer has created […]

The new International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) technology standards for students give educators a great model for using technology for teacher and student learning. What I found most interesting about what they had designed, is that the call for technology operations and concepts is the final standard. I’m guessing that this was done […]

I did not post any new entries during the Christmas break, but I did spend significant time reading, listening, and watching posts from some of my favorite edu-bloggers. One thing that was common to nearly all sites, was an optimism that web 2.0 tools can have a positive impact on teaching and learning. Another similarity […]

The video below was created using an open source video capture application called Camstudio. There are a few issues that will have to be addressed if we plan to expand the use of this technology beyond a select few. The default file type of AVI generates a huge (20MB per minute) file. I have not […]

Second Life is an online 3D virtual world created by Linden Labs, and was originally launched in 2003. Second Life provides an online world for users to play and interact in, allowing residents to create their own virtual spaces. Recently there have been numerous examples of the educational opportunities that can be realized within […]

Online learning has recenty seen dramatic growth at the middle/high school grade levels. Michigan became the first state to require high school students to take at least one online course for graduation. ESU #13 is planning to incorperate online and hybrid courses into the current two-way interactive schedule. Over the last two years the ESU […]