EduBlog.NET v3

these few days were in and out of major meetings reporting and demoing on the upcoming The ICT Connection website, and was guided to think of the website’s next phase of development. the idea of building a community among teachers who are interested to come together to work and improve on existing ICT lesson examples. and saw this post by Christopher D. Sessums defining web2.0:

Web 1.0 = me
Web 2.0 = me + you

Web 1.0 = read
Web 2.0 = read + write

Web 1.0 = connecting ideas
Web 2.0 = connecting ideas + connecting people

Web 1.0 = search
Web 2.0 = recommendations of friends/others

Web 1.0 = find
Web 2.0 = share

Web 1.0 = techies rule
Web 2.0 = everybody rules

part 2 and 3 probably’s the way forward for The ICT Connection. but again, are our teachers ready and have the time to embrace this Web2.0 culture or perhaps i should say “Web2.0 lifestyle“. it’s like owning an iphone, it’s not abt the physical device, it’s abt adapting to and owning a new lifestyle.

learning is our core business but at times if you are asked “how do people learn?” we may not be able to give an answer outright or an explanation following the latest development in learning sciences research. chanced upon this website while looking at AifL, Learning About Learning is a very informative website. you’ll find video illustrations, checklists for evaluation, info on further reading and staff development resources for 9 areas covering:

• Differences (in learning)
• The brain
• Emotions
• Thinking
• Motivation
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Digital learning
• Assessment

nice (:

if you’re an EL/CL/ML/TL/any other language teacher and seeking ideas to “web2.0″ your language classrooms, check out this resource put together by Alan Levine. the idea’s not too difficult:

1. Outline a Story Idea
2. Find Some Media
3. Pick a Tool to Build Your Story

change the tool as often as you like and you can plan unlimited ways (use a different story prompt, coupled with different media, and when more and more tools’ made available) of getting students to tell/write stories the whole year round (:
if you need an example of how it can be done, take a look at Alan’s 50+ Ways to Tell the Dominoe Story.
enjoy (:

am doing stats ‘OJT’ these days for my current research and come across these TWO excellently (IMHO) written text (language’s simple n clear, explanations’ in-depth for newbies like me):
1. Tabachnick, B.G., & Fidell, L.S. (2001). Using Multivariate Statistics (4th Ed.). Allyn & Bacon. [latest edition is 5th]
2. Field, A. (2000). Discovering statistics using SPSS for windows. SAGE Publications. [latest edition is 3rd]
a pity i couldnt get the latest edition for these two books from nie lib but the older editions landed in my hands are already excellent materials. great to have them on your personal shelf if you’re into research, esp book (1). EXCEPT these books are so EXPENSIVE (take a look and u’ll agree: 1 2)

am battling “zombies” these days and comes the time that i need to use factor analysis for analysis. however, there are so many questions for a newbie like me, came across a few readings but nothing as useful as this which Dr Chai CS has shared:
Costello, Anna B. & Jason Osborne (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation, 10(7). Available online: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=10&n=7
if you are exploring the use of factor analysis and you have qns like which extraction methods to choose, no. of factors to retain, sample size etc, just grab this article and you’ll be on the way to a good start. Thank you 蔡老师 (:

it’s been another long while since there’s any update to this blog, and today marks a day worth celebrating — the long-awaited (albeit 6 months delay) revamped version of Culture Bridge is officially launched. Culture Bridge (aka 文化桥) has been the babies of multiple webmasters, and i believe the current webmaster Tan Ying 丹盈 (and 凤琳、自金 as well) must have been through a great deal of efforts to get this revamped version go live. thank you for taking over the work and giving the Bridge a new breath of life
am regretted for not being able to contribute to new content much as we wished to as our current “full-time parents, part-time student” portfolio is unexpectedly overwhelming. however, i shall end this post with another great news for the future development of Culture Bridge, as on this very same day, Adobe has announced that it’ll release codes needed to search engine developers to make Flash content indexable! yes, until now the Flash-based Bridge has remained a ‘void’ to the web spiders, so what better news can there be

it’s been eons since i last posted anything and the examinable essays are running behind me ……. *SCREAM*
ok 言归正传 , saw an article by Christopher D Sessums entitled “Internet Safety Discussion and Resources” and the topic would definitely be something of interest if i were back in school now (此 school 非彼 school). some words that came as a form of reminders: “online predators”, “parental supervision”, “youth victimization”, “cyberbullying”, and there’s a link to a presentation on safety entitled “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do“. interesting title? but Christ reassured readers that it’s a presentation on safety, but the download’s very slow at my end, only clocking abt 3000bytes per second? reminds me of downloads off my good old 56kbps dial-up.

chanced upon this “Classroom Action Research” page put up by Madison Metropolitan School District, it presents a good breakdown for easy reading, and you’ll be guided through the steps and processes of carrying out an AR. the content headings are as follows:

• What is Action Research?
• What Do Teacher Researchers Do?
• What Are Some Effects of Teacher Research Projects?
• Five Phases of Action Research
• Reasons to Do Action Research
• Descriptors of Action Research
• Starting Points
• Guidelines for Developing a Question
• Guidelines for Data Collection
• Data Collection: The 5 W’s and an H
• Techniques for Gathering Data
• Guidelines for Analyzing Your Data
• Writing Prompts for Classroom Action Researchers
• A Process for Analyzing Your Data
• Role of Participants in a Group
• Ideas for Your Final Write-up
• Impact of Action Research

And here’s an AR report entitled “Curriculum Adaptation And Literacy For Non-Auditory Learners” written by Bari Solochek, it’s both a very good example and an interesting read as well. it begins with:

For as far back as I can remember, my place has been in a rocking chair. All
throughout my elementary and secondary education, if I was studying, I was sitting in the
living room in “my” rocking chair with the stereo on. Everyone said that I had terrible
study habits. I agreed, but, I did well in school nonetheless.
When I went to college, one of the first things that my father told me was that the
house seemed so empty when he walked by the silent rocking chair. Not only did that
empty rocking chair affect my father, but it also affected me … …

if you are interested, do read on to find out about how a teacher relates his ‘own problem’ to the way he carried out his teachings in class.
oh yes, i was looking for references to VAK learners when i found what’s above.

Read More

if you have backup your dvd and ended up having two folders audio_ts and video_ts, you can rebuild your dvd with 2 freewares alone. afterdawn.com has this HOWTO guide which can guide you through the steps (including getting the reqd software).
quick steps:
1. grab Folder2Iso.
2. use roxio creator, nero burning rom, dvd decrypter or some software that can write the ISO file.

was looking for a reference on Sigmund Freud’s (1900) “The Interpretation of Dreams” and came upon a 3rd edition available on the web via Psych Web put up by Dr. Russell A. Dewey (PhD).
Psych Web is an excellent web site on psychology. you can find a complete, 725-pages introductory psychology textbook that’s available on the site! you can find many other related resources on the left menu bar and even an apa style reference sheet called the APA Manual Crib Sheet.
explore n enjoy