EduTechie.com

21 Nov, 2006

Instructional Technology Site Recommendations - EduTechie.com

Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: General

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For those who don’t already know about these sites, you should check them out! They are great sites for those interested in integrating technology in education and keeping up with the latest and greatest developments!

EdTechTalk.com - I found this site today thanks to a comment by Vicki Davis on my review of Skypecasts blog entry. I have to say I totally love it! From their webpage:

EdTechTalk is a community of educators interested in discussing and learning about the uses of educational technology. We webcast several live shows each week. During shows, listeners can use any common media player (i.e. Windows Media Player, Real Player, or iTunes) to listen to the discussion and use the chat room to make comments and ask questions. It is also possible to join in the discussion using Skype or (sometimes) a U.S. based teleconference.

You can read more about their site on their about page, including the different types of shows they host each week. I just listened to my first webcast and found it very intellectually stimulating. What they are doing, and apparently have been doing is what I was trying to accomplish with the Skypecast yesterday. Multiple people get online and chat about what is new and what is going on in the instructional technology world. It’s great! I highly recommend it and will be joining as many webcasts as I can in the future. I have even added the events I plan on attending to the EduTechie.com calendar.

Weblogg-ed.com - This is a blog hosted by Will Richardson. From the about page:

This site is dedicated to discussions and reflections on the use of Weblogs, wikis, RSS, audiocasts and other Read/Write Web related technologies in the K-12 realm, technologies that are transforming classrooms around the world.

I can’t remember how I ended up on this blog, but I subscribed (via Google Reader) after reading his entry : Wikinomics–How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. I found it thought provoking and interesting. He obviously has a long history of writing and I even heard one of the people on EduTechTalk.com webcast mentioned above mention him in the webcast I listened to this morning. Check it out!!

What other sites do you subscribe to? Do share!

5 Responses to "Instructional Technology Site Recommendations - EduTechie.com"

1 | Vicki Davis

November 21st, 2006 at 10:02 am

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I’ve learned so many new things online as well and if you are interested in hosting a talk you can put in a proposal to the people at WorldBridges who run EdTechTalk. I also highly recommend the tapped in. Even if your talk isn’t accepted on edtechtalk, you can use a room in tapped in and a skypecast. I’ve had to use skypecast so many times when I didn’t have another forum.

Tapped In is great. I’m a newbie and still learning about all of these new places to go as well!

2 | Jeff VanDrimmelen

November 21st, 2006 at 10:27 am

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Vicki. I would love to host a talk… if it were about Google. :-) For now I think I am probably content to just enjoy/participate in what others are doing. The talks they are hosting now look great. I look forward to todays talk. Thanks for all the help!

3 | Pat from NY

November 21st, 2006 at 11:31 am

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I was the one who mentioned Will at the skypecast. I have had the great pleasure of hearing him speak at a conference. I also purchased his book. Fortunately, Will is no longer a classroom teacher or district administrator so we can reap the benefits of his knowledge as he travels around the world enlihtening educators about the Read/Write Web. I hope his enthusiasm catches on and lights some fires under our educators & administrators.

As a former classroom teacher of almost 25 years, I know the time and financial constraints. of course there are also the administrative ones. I remember having to buy my own internet account for the high school students to use way back when all we had was Gopher, Veronica, Archie, etc. The district just couldn’t understand why this new “stuff” was so important and how it would help the kids.

For $240 a year, I was able to introduce a lot of kids to the internet with a slow dialup connection. Then came the web browser….and I had a waiting line of kids AND teachers! Nope, the district STILL couldn’t see the value in it.

Things have sure changed. Jeff’s Skypecast was a great experiment of his which I hope he continues. The edges will be smoothed out as more of these are done and we all learn the process of using Skype. It would be nice if they could be done by invitation or registration only..almost like the Breeze conferences of Adobe/Macromedia. Perhaps Skype will move along these lines if they receive enough suggestions.

Will also has some info up at http://del.icio.us/willrich. Google him and you will find lots of his posts and comments all over. He is a great speaker and visionary and I hope you are able to hear him sometime.

Again, thanks, Jeff and I am hoping to attend more of your Skypecasts.

4 | Doug

November 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm

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These aren’t really blogs or news sites, but have some general purpose info on instructional technology:

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/inst/inst.html
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itcon.html
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/

5 | Jeff VanDrimmelen

November 30th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

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Wow! Great links Doug! Thanks so much!!

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I am an Academic Computing Expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I love Google, Mac's, and Web Technologies that help us better reach, teach, connect, and prepare students to solve the world's greatest problems.