February 2006 Archives
And so PCWorld reports:
Microsoft has officially verified the editions for Windows Vista a week after the information leaked when it prematurely appeared on the company's Web site.Vista will have six core editions, four aimed at consumers and two aimed at the enterprise, says Neil Charney, Microsoft's director of Windows product management. The consumer editions are Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, and Windows Vista Ultimate; the business editions are Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise.
The rest of the report goes here. Another source on the issue can be found here.
Looks like it's time to start saving $$$ for the new OS(es) :o
a very comprehensive list at frozentech.
Read this piece of great news off eSN for history teachers, though not strictly pertaining to the Singapore history, teachers will be able to find this resource useful and adapt when needed :)
Through an agreement with the National Archives, Google Inc. has added historic video footage of such events as the Apollo moon landing and Japan's surrender in World War II to its internet search engine. Students, teachers, researchers, and others now can access these digital video clips free of charge through the Google Video search portal.
Read the full article, and visit the NARA on Google Video site too :)
If you are currently hosting podcasts/audioblogs on your own personal webspace, and the RSS feeds are not automatically generated (or the fact is that you are writing/editing your own feeds), you can make use of this feed generator to generate the necessary feed automatically.
[source: podcastingnews]
If you are currently hosting podcasts/audioblogs on your own personal webspace, and the RSS feeds are not automatically generated (or the fact is that you are writing/editing your own feeds), you can make use of this feed generator to generate the necessary feed automatically.
[source: podcastingnews]
... and so reports The Daily Vanguard from Portland State University.
�Podcasting isn�t a replacement for in-classroom teaching: it is, however, an excellent supplemental study aid,� said Chris Dawson, CTO of Web Cast in a Box. �The option to review a lecture on an iPod, while in the car, on the train or on vacation, is something many students are interested in. Many already have iPods [or another MP3 player] and can listen to podcasts with very little effort.�Schools and universities are beginning to use podcasting to archive and make
available lectures and seminars. Bart Massey, professor of computer science at
Portland State, is investigating podcasts for use in his own classes.
and the full report goes here.
Anne Davis's latest post contains her personal reflection on her teaching to write experience. You'll surely gain some learning points if you need to teach pupils to write too :) Check it out.
gotten this off one of my feeds, littlemisskool [lmk] is writing a thesis on the abovementioned. let's wish her all the best in her writing :)
darren will surely love this but he's not in these 2 days :|
In need for a free/paid survey tool, this table would definitely help :) Great work!
eSN has this article entitled "For some educators, tagging is 'it'" that explores issues on tagging services, and the use of it for education. Read the article to get the full picture.
If you would like to explore some tagging sites, Del.icio.us and Flickr are two great examples to start with. Just type in something that comes to your mind in the "discover favourites" or "find a photo of" box, you'll begin to see the wonders of tagging. And perhaps then we can start to think how we can integrate it into our teaching and learning processes :)
chanced upon these two games by the same programmer kevan, not sure how these 2 plain/text games will appeal to you though. check out nethack and urban dead :o
Tired of remembering the 1001 passwords, and having to change some of them once every 3 months? Having nightmares about some of your account being hacked? Read this excerpt from New.com article "Gates: End to passwords in sight"
Now, with Windows Vista, Gates feels he finally has the right weapons to supplant the password as a means of verifying who is who on computers and over the Internet.
The new operating system, due later this year, introduces a concept called InfoCards that gives users a better way to manage the plethora of Internet login names and passwords, as well as lets third parties help in the verification process. Vista will also make it easier to log on to PCs using something stronger than a password alone, such as a smart card.
The full article goes here.
Here's another quick guide to audioblog/podcast, check it out :)
very bad at remembering names, and it has always been that old time friends are able to call out our name, and we cannot call his/her name in return *jialat* anyway, this post on professional-lurker shared some tips on remembering students name, which might come in handy in the near future with my fast failing meomory ? :o
How To Learn Student Names:1. Make it a priority. Focusing on any goal is the first step towards making it happen.
2. Read the registrar's list before the first class.Pay attention to the names that may be difficult to pronounce.
3. Take roll call on the first day of class. Take your time, pay close attention and repeat each student's name. Make sure that you have the proper pronunciation. If a student's name is unfamiliar be sure to ask explicitly if you've got it right. Students who are shy, or from cultures where greater deference to authority is the norm, may hesitate to correct you unless prompted and yet will still find it grating to be referred to incorrectly the entire semester.
4. Ask the students what they prefer to be called and be sure to write down nicknames on the class roster. You may want to preface your roll call with a request for nicknames: while you are likely to wonder whether Elizabeth whether goes by "Liz" or "Beth", you'll have no idea that Amy Jones goes by "A.J."
5. If you have access to students' photos, use them to familiarize yourself with names as part of your preparation in the first weeks of class. My client Jim had been unaware that he had access to student I.D. photos until he checked with the registrar.
6. If there are no photos available, consider taking your own photographs. In Tools for Teaching, Barbara Gross Davis suggests taking Polaroid shots of students and pasting them on index cards with the students' names and other personal information. Creating class "I.D. cards" is even easier with access to digital cameras.
7. Often it is most difficult to remember foreign students' names, which may be unfamiliar to Western ears. Be sure to write a phonetic version of the name if needed. For example, in one of my classes the name of a Chinese student was transliterated as Xiou -- but pronounced something like "Shaw."
8. A common memory trick is to link the name with something or someone else - thus my student Xiou became the unforgettable George Bernard "Shaw" in my mind.
9. Think of another person you know who has the same first name as the student. Then make a link using a visual image. For example, I imagine my short-haired brunette student Susan with the wild grey mane of my cousin Susan, who hadn't changed the style of her coiffure since the late 1960's. The incongruous image cements the student's name in my cortex.
10. Use humor in your associative links to make a lasting impression. I kept getting confused about whether a student was Egla or Elga until I imagined her with a hard-boiled Egg of a head.
11. Find a rhyme to create mental associations: Is Jim slim? Or an adjective that tips you off about the name's first letter: Is Thomas tall? Can you visualize Sarah in a sarong? Again, humor helps. Thus Slim Jim becomes a life-size stick of dried beef sausage. And Sarah, well, sarongs fall off easily, right? (Need I admonish you that the mnemonic devises should be kept to yourself?)
12. Use your students' names frequently both to call on them to participate and to refer to previous points made in the discussion. Davis points out that this technique can be used in even very large classes: Ask students their name when they make a comment and later refer to it as "Jeff's point" or "Audrey's contribution."
13. When you take roll, consider creating a map of the seating arrangement labeled with student's names. I'm always surprised at how consistently students sit in the same seats, or at least the same quadrant of the room. In my small classes, we sit around a large table and for the first few classes I write down who chooses to sit where as students arrive. Writing the names down also helps commit them to memory. Some professors ask students to sit in the same seats for a few classes, a request that communicates their earnest efforts to learn names. I prefer to keep my mnemonic methods mysterious. Either way works.
14. Using name tags for the first few class sessions can help students learn one another's names at the same time it helps you. I ask my students to write their first names in very large letters so that I can read them from the front of the classroom.
15. When teaching very large classes it is tempting to give up. Resist the temptation. Try learning five names per class and try to use those names.
16. One professor I know uses name cards for her large classes. Students pick up the cards as they file into class and place them at the front of their desks. This United Nations style name card strategy is also useful because the tags that aren't retrieved indicate absent students.
17. With any sized class, look at registrar's list during week and see how many faces you can recall.
18. Make sure you know the names of students who visit you during office hours. Take a few minutes to ask the students about themselves, their major, where they are from, etc. Personal contact is one of the ways you can increase the effectiveness of your teaching.
Becoming an expert at memorizing names is a small but respectful step toward demonstrating personal investment in your students' well-being. Building a mutually respectful relationship with students is as important as having an organized lesson plan, giving a dynamic lecture, or encouraging enthusiastic class participation. Positive student-teacher relationships foster engagement and achievement.
the original source of the above tips goes here.
A new blog is created every second and the phenomenon has grown 60 times larger than it was three years ago, says Technorati in its periodic State of the Blogosphere report ... There are about 1.2 million new posts daily, or 50,000 an hour ...
and the full article goes here.
[source: information week]
EDUCAUSE has a 2-sheet pdf on the above, check it out if you want to find out more about wiki. 8 ways of using wiki(s) are highlighted:
1. Student journaling
2. Personal portfolios
3. Collaborative knowledge base
4. Research coordination and collaboration
5. Curricular and cross-disciplinary coordination
6. Conference and colloquia website/coordination
7. Syndicating/Aggregating web resources
8. Inter-term project management
I presume this tool will be useful if you are publishing podcasts on your personal webspace, without the help of a (audio)blogging platform as an backend support. Free Podcast Maker helps to generate the XML that is needed to podcast the podcasts.
[source: podcasting news]
podcasting news has posted on the Sony PCM-D1 portable recorder. It's surely a cool gadget to have, if you can swallow the US$1999.95 price tag that is.
Apple is adding iTunes/Pods to it's repertoire of Apple Education Slutions. They are now offering US universities free hosting services for their educational content.
Apple shares common goals with education � to advance teaching, learning, and research through innovation, and engage and empower students. Students expect a campus environment that accommodates their digital lifestyle, adapts to their individual learning needs, and encourages collaboration and teamwork. Introducing a way to simplify and meet all these needs � iTunes U.
Let's see if Creative is able to counter this move to capture the market share. The iTunes U home page goes here.
