An easy-to-read article on electronic portfolio by Frederick Conway, a fifth-grade teacher at William S. James Elementary in Harford County, Md.
He also maintains a website to get pple started in case one is interested.
Ten CSS tricks you may not know
If you work with cascading style sheet (css) when designing web page, here is 10 ways to improve your coding experience.
1. CSS font shorthand rule
2. Two classes together
3. CSS border default value
4. CSS document for printing
5. Image replacement technique
6. CSS box model hack alternative
7. Centre aligning a block element
8. Vertically aligning with CSS
9. CSS positioning within a container
10. Background colour running to the screen bottom
Do some learning now 🙂
[source: webcredible.co.uk]
MS Image Resizer Powertoy
Download this powertoy to very quickly resize pictures taken with your digital cameras. You can select multiple files (by using combination of [shift], [ctrl] keys and left click) and do a right-click to resize your images all at one go.
Very simple, very fast, no need for photoshop or any other imaging software anymore. The pictures are automatically optimised for screen/web quality (good small files for web).
Grab it today!
Free educational games
Free educational games are available from Sheppard Software.
Check out the Web games if do not want any download 🙂
The “FREE” policy can be found here.
[source: edugadget]
Pros and Cons of Video Games
Found this list that is good for consideration when we are looking at (video) games for education:
The Pros:
– highly motivating, it’s fun (fun is very important – we don’t underestimate it!)
– encourages risk taking and trial and error
– self-paced
– young-age friendly…young kids can begin to work with complex situations or ideas
– encourages analysis and looking for mistakes
– can incorporate or train different learning strategies- though at present visual-heavy (pictures, images, text)
– can hint without telling
– can be very patient
– solve by ideas, not strength or size (great for young gifted kids or 2E’s)
– encourages perspective changing
– encourages some problem solving (though not as much as we’d like for K-12)
– allows incremental learning, close monitoring of improvement or training
– allows precisely targeted sensory / perceptual learning (auditory / visual processing)
The Cons:
– it’s not real- may impact on how the information is generalized, taken seriously
– the process is immersive and usually fairly fast-paced (may not be as conducive to reflection compared to other learning formats such as reading)
– doesn’t encourage as much critique about the information as maybe reading original documents, magazine, or book…after all, it’s just a game
– game play doesn’t directly examine reality
– players are directed to the programmer’s teaching points or conclusions- whereas direct inspection of real experiments or phenomena may provide more individual learning points or conclusions.
– the games could be administered poorly…teacher leaves students to computer terminals, student doesn’t learn anything, copies from neighbor, etc. (this can happen in labs too, of course)
– games are interactive, but not as interactive as conversation with a smart and perceptive teacher (remember the Turing test?)…some programs are completed by kids clicking a lot or cheating
– not hands-on learning (click or toggle rather than working with original materials)…miss making projects by hands, spatial learning and modeling
[source: Eide Neurolearning Blog]