Happy Chinese New Year ?????

today marks the first day of the Chinese New Year?????, wishing all a very healthy and prosperous new year ahead!
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Handbook of Research on ePortfolios

The Handbook of Research on ePortfolios is the single source for comprehensive coverage of the major themes of ePortfolios, addressing all of the major issues, from concept to technology to implementation.
The book will be released only in May 06. Can take time to request for budget if you are into ePortfolios and intend to buy a copy. It’s not cheap though, US$195.00 *wow*

[source: Elgg]

Wikipedia and student research

eSN Online reports:

Wikipedia and other reference sites that allow users to submit and edit content themselves are creating new challenges for educators. Experts say the rise of these kinds of web sites underscores the need for educators to teach students strong information-literacy skills.

this would surely signal a need for change in what and how teachers are going to teach in class:

Instead of pretending that Wikipedia and similar sites don’t exist, experts say it’s important to help students understand and practice good research habits….

here goes the full report. and a link to wikipedia’s approximately 3.2 million articles 🙂

Audio books, serialised and free to listen

Podiobooks.com is offering 19 titles to listeners in serialised fashion. Best of all, it’s free for all. Here’s more information about the site taken from the FAQs:

What are “Podiobooks”?
Podiobooks is a term coined by Evo Terra of The Dragon Page and Slice of Scifi to describe serialized audio books which are made available in podcast format. Subscribers to the podcast feed for each book will receive a new chapter each and every week. Some listeners keep it on their computers, some transfer the book to CD, but most (hopefully) transfer the file on to their mp3 player so they can listen no matter where they are.
All the books you’ll find on podiobooks.com are provided by the authors to you for free. Many authors do this to get exposure for their work, others do it in the hopes you’ll buy their next work in development. Still others simply do it for the sheer joy of writing. And while it’s not required, you have the option to donate money to the author of your choice. When you consider that audio books run usually 50% more than their hardcover counterparts… we hope you’ll be generous. Authors receive one half of all the proceeds from the donations from listeners. The other half goes to the maintenance and upkeep of podiobooks.com.
Thanks for giving our site a try. We hope you find podiobooks as infectious as we have!

[source: podcasting news]