Diigo Bookmarks: Week Ending January 21, 2012

Posted on January 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course by Jay Caulfield

Posted on January 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

When I found Jay Caulfield’s book How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course:  Achieving Student-Centered Learning Through Blended Classroom, Online, and Experiential Activities (Sterling, VA:  Stylus Publishing, 2011) on WorldCat, I was excited because I thought I have found a manual that would help me convert face-to-face and online courses to a hybrid format.

If that’s what you’re looking for, don’t bother buying or borrowing this book, which focuses more on theory and generalities.

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Devil’s Food Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

I finally found and read Joanne Fluke‘s latest Hannah Swenson Mystery, Devil’s Food Cake Murder (New York:  Kensington Books, 2011).  Except for the ending (more later), I generally enjoyed the book.  Some of the recipes looked especially good or helpful:

  • Butterscotch Bonanza Bars (30-32)
  • Mini Mac Cookies (83-85)
  • Orange or Lemon Creams (96-100)
  • Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk (223)
  • Strawberry Shortbread Bar Cookies (248-50)

SPOILER ALERT

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t like the ending where Norman told Hannah that he was going to marry Bev because otherwise she wouldn’t let him “be part of Diana [his daughter's] life” (322).  As I stated in my post about the last Hannah Swenson book, Apple Turnover Murder, I think that ” Norman is clearly the better choice.” I also wrote that “Based on the ending of Apple Turnover Murder, it appears that Hannah may lose Norman to his new partner in his dental practice.”

My prediction appears to be correct, but I have my doubts.  At the end of Devil’s Food Cake Murder, Norman told Hannah “I love you so much!” (321).  If I were writing the next book, Diana would end up not being Norman’s daughter.   In addition, Bev will be the murder victim, Norman will be the obvious suspect, and Hannah will prove that he’s innocent.

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Diigo Bookmarks: Week Ending January 14, 2012

Posted on January 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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The Online Learning Idea Book, Vol. 2 edited by Patti Shank

Posted on January 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Patti Shank of Learning Peaks has included some good ideas in The Online Learning Idea Book, Vol. 2:  Prove Ways to Enhance Technology-Based and Blended Learning (San Francisco:  Pfeiffer-Wiley, 2011).  I particularly liked these:

  • “Survival Skills,” which includes some good “Tips for Online Learners” submitted by Susan Barber of Stephen F. Austin State University (pp. 48-51)
  • “Reading Guide,” which provides an example of a reading guide for online courses submitted by Saul Carliner of Concordia University (pp. 82-86)–a good idea especially if you discover as I have that online students don’t always buy the textbook
  • “Learning Log,” which explains how Kate Cobb of Blended Learning Zone suggests having online students complete “an online learning log at the end of each module” (pp. 91-94), a good reflection exercise
  • “Project Grading Checklist,” which was submitted by Kathleen Chatfield of Clark College and resembles peer review checklists and rubrics that I have used (pp. 95-100)
  • “Comments, Please,” which shows how Nancy Linger of Moraine Park Technical College uses free tools at Collab and VoiceThread “to facilitate peer feedback on learner documents” (pp. 140-142)
  • “Who Are You” Alternative Online Meet-and-Greet Tactics,” which discusses how Joanna Dunlap and Patrick Lowenthal have their students use various web 2.0 applications like Tinysong, VoiceThread, Xtranormal, Flickr, Wordle, and Animoto to get to know each other (pp. 149-52)
  • “Online Classroom Clickers,” which explains how to use polling tools “to easily and effectively poll their learners on a variety of topics and then instantly display the results,” was also submitted by Lowenthal and Dunlap (pp. 171-74)
  • “Word Me,” which shows how Karen Hyder of Kaleidoscope Training and Consulting uses word searches (pp. 199-201)
  • “Word Clouds,” which shows how Terry Morris of Harper College uses web-based applications to create word clouds (pp. 305-08)

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Video: “Poet’s Corner and Globe Theatre”

Posted on January 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Video:  “Poet’s Corner and Globe Theatre“

This video, which is a tour of the Poet’s Corner and the Globe Theatre on Renaissance Island in Second Life, was created using Screencast-O-Matic.

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Diigo Bookmarks: Week Ending January 7, 2012

Posted on January 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

  • Themeefy

    Create, Curate, Publish – Themeefy is a cool new way to discover, curate, compile and publish knowledge from the web to create your personal Theme magazine.

    tags: web2.0 publishing tools writing curating

  • Smivi

    Smivi aims to improve the video search experience by bringing you fast and relevant search results. Finding the videos you want through the hundreds and millions of videos over the web can be a tall order.

    tags: searchengine video socialsearch

  • TwHistory

    Students or volunteers pick a well-documented historical event. They pick real historical figures who were at that event, and create tweets based on original source documentation. These tweets are then scheduled to be broadcast in real time. The end result is a virtual reenactment of a historical event, broadcast in real time.

    tags: tools web2.0 Twitter history

  • MyTweetMag

    MyTweetMag turns your twitter-links into your personal blog-stream. Curate your topic and show, what you are passionate about!

    tags: tools web2.0 Twitter curating

  • Smarthistory

    Smarthistory.org is a free and open, not-for-profit, art history textbook. Part of the Khan Academy, we use multimedia to deliver unscripted conversations between art historians about the history of art. We are seeking contributors—especially for canonical non-Western material and other survey topics not yet covered. We welcome comments, feedback and corrections.

    tags: education history humanities art

  • JotForm

    JotForm is a free web form builder. For basic usage, upto 100 submissions/month, you can use JotForm fully.

    tags: tools web2.0 free surveys

  • Research in Learning Technology

    Research in Learning Technology is the journal of the Association for Learning Technology. It aims to raise the profile of research in learning technology, encouraging research that informs good practice and contributes to the development of policy. The journal publishes papers concerning the use of technology in learning and teaching in all sectors of education, as well as in industry.

    tags: journal elearning blended IDT

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Video: “‘A Princess to a Dragon’”

Posted on January 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

Video: “‘A Princess to a Dragon‘”

I created this video of me reading my sonnet with Screencast-O-Matic, which I want to use to create screencasts for my classes.  I’ve tried using Jing before, but I couldn’t convert the file to upload to YouTube, though it works well for screenshots.  I also downloaded CamStudio to try, but it seems pretty complicated.

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Infographic: Get More Out Of Google

Posted on January 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

This infographic comes from HackCollege:

Get more out of Google
Created by: HackCollege

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Blog Posts, Articles, and Reports To Read: December 2011

Posted on January 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

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