Bookmarks for October 13th through October 15th

These are my Jumptags for October 13th through October 15th:

• Weebly – Create a free website and a free blog – Weebly has now added an education section. Weebly is perfect for creating classroom websites, student e-portfolios, and websites for assigned projects.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial for Creating Layouts in Dreamweaver | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the process of building a CSS-based layout from scratch using Dreamweaver. Great beginner tutorial.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial – Basics of Working with Cascading Style Sheets | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the basics of creating CSS in Dreamweaver using the CSS Rule dialog. Great intro.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash part 2 – A simple tutorial for moving around Flash CS3. Part 2.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash – A simple tutorial in two parts for moving around Flash CS3.
• Flash CS4 |Timeline Animation | Motion Editor | Layers Magazine – With Flash CS4 now has auto-keyframing, a full-featured motion editor, and—most importantly—the ability to animate each property of an object separately from one another.
• Open Access Educational Technology journals – George Veletsianos – One of the resources developed for my students is a listing of open access journals (name, url, and RSS feed) that publish papers on the nexus between technology and education (educational technology, instructional design, e-learning, online distance…
• Best Time-Tracking Application: Klok – Time management – Lifehacker – Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite time-tracking applications and then we rounded them up for your review.
• The speed of information – The speed of information between neurons.
• 33 Websites For Vector Images Download | Pro Blog Design – Here is a list of free vector images for download, if you're designer and look for vector images for your design project, you can simply download this…
• 3 Ways To Find The Best Website Color Scheme – Learn how to pick a website color scheme that keeps visitors engaged. Includes a list of questions to ask clients and a color psychology cheat sheet.
• Using John Keller’s ARCS model to motivate online learners « Onlignment – ARCS provides a good summary of the issues to be considered when designing a learning intervention. In particular it makes sense to me when putting together a live online learning event.
• Live Online Learning – a facilitators guide « Onlignment – To download your free copy of “Live Online Learning – a facilitator’s guide” just sign up for the free newsletter.
• Healthcare Napkins wins World’s Best Presentation Contest 2009 | SlideShare Blog – Thousands of presentations are uploaded to SlideShare everyday. But some catch your eye from the moment they get uploaded. Tha's the case with the winning
• 5 Steps to Slide Design for Non-Designers by Ellen Finkelstein | SlideShare Blog – I’ve come up with 5 steps that you can take to create a presentation that will work, even if you’re not a designer.

Bookmarks for September 9th through September 16th

These are my Jumptags for September 9th through September 16th:

• The SQ3R Method – An overview and summary of the SQ3R method for studying and reading comprehension.
• Reciprocal Teaching – An overview and summary of reciprocal teaching by Palinscar.
• Behaviorism Tutorial – A tutorial on behaviorism from Athabasca University.
• Periodic Table of Typefaces on the Behance Network – This particular table lists 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces today.
• Basics of APA Style 6th edition – An Adobe Flash presentation with slides and audio narration of the basics of APA style. References to page numbers in the 6th edition are given.

IDT 7074-8074: Welcome to our fall semester

Welcome! Today is the first day of the fall semester for IDT 7074/8074.  This course is centered on learning theories and instructional models used by instructional designers and K-12 teachers.  Our course materials will be housed inside a protected wiki at http://theoriesandmodels.pbworks.com and our grading will remain within UofM’s course management system eCourseware (http://elearn.memphis.edu).

I encourage you while you’re here on my blog to consider adding your email address to receive email updates from my blog or subscribe to my RSS feed.  I promise not to fill up your inbox.  I also invite you to comment liberally in areas that interest you.  There will be a number of opportunities throughout our semester for us to read and comment on topics here.

Image from sirwiseowl at Flickr.com

New book chapter: Web 2.0 in teacher education

Clif Mims and I have a new book chapter that will be published in the next couple of weeks or so. It’s taken over a year for this to get to press, so I’m happy for it to finally get out. Web 2.0 in teacher education: Characteristics, implications and limitations will be published by Information Age Publishing in the book Wired for learning: An educators guide to Web 2.0. The book was edited by Terry Kidd and Irene Chen.

You can order a copy of the book directly from the publisher at http://www.infoagepub.com/index.php?id=9&p=p49a46fbae54e1. Information Age Publishing also a deal going on right now to celebrate their 10th anniversary. If you order 10 books, you can get them for $10 a piece. (Yes, you have to order 10 books.)

Here’s the abstract for the chapter:

Like the variety of Web 2.0 applications, theories of learning and instructional models are also primarily content independent. So it is left up to the teacher educator to match learner characteristics, content, pedagogy and technologies. This chapter will concentrate on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in contemporary constructivist and cognitivist learning environments. We will present the characteristics of Web 2.0 tools to support teaching and learning, including low threshold applications, a variety of tools and models, as well as access to tools and knowledge. Finally, we will identify the limitations and challenges that exist with using these tools, such as immature applications, longevity of applications, number of applications, unconsolidated services and security and ethics.

AERA presentation: Understanding projects in project based learning

I’m at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting this week in San Diego, CA.  I’m presenting three session throughout the week, which is a little tough to get through.  On Tuesday, I presented on “Coming to Understand the Influences on and Artifacts of Learning.”  Today, I’m presenting “Understanding Projects in Project-based Learning: A Student’s Perspective.”  The abstract reads:

Project-based learning offers promise as an instructional method that affords authentic learning tasks grounded in the personal interests of learners.  While previous research has presented results of learning gains, motivations and teacher experiences, still limited empirical research has presented the student perspective in project-based learning.  This research sought to explore how learners created projects. Using a case study design and five purposively selected participants from eighth grade geography, five themes emerged:  (1) internal influences, (2) external influences, (3) beliefs about projects, (4) tools for technology-rich environments, and (5) learning outcomes and products.  The first four themes describe influences to shape the fifth theme, learning products.  The term learning products was used to describe both the learning garnered by the participants and the learning artifacts the participants produced as part of the instructional unit.  Implications for practice and future research are considered.

You can download the complete file here.