I stumbled across this BBC podcast only after I forgot to turn off the proceeding podcast for history, and realized that it dealt with a conversation from the morning in our staffroom. It is called "Cheating in Internet Age", 7 min., and the simple message is "if life [or technology] gives you lemons, make lemonade." Great lesson ideas regarding book reports and other common assignments or tasks that are plagiarized from the web.
This podcast, also from the BBC, reviews "Technology and Teaching" and reviews some of the current trends as well as uses for technology for teachers.
The final clip is from a school board in California (found while searching for a lost link to a similar podcast).
Here is a link to a cell phones and teaching post by W. Freyer on his blog. There is also a debate regarding cell phones in schools in the December/January 2001-8 issue of ISTE's Learning and Leading with Technology.
Problems and Possibilities with New Technologies
Setting up a class blog
The instructions here are for blogger, but the basic principles will work with other free hosts such as wordpress and edublogs. The instructions will include registering with Google, then setting up a blog at blogger, managing comments, setting up an account with wikispaces, uploading content to wikispaces, and then writing posts that include links to content.
Sample blogs using this format include:
Academic English 12, http://www.academicenglish12.blogspot.com .
IB HL History http://ibhlhistorya207.blogspot.com/
Room A207 http://rooma207.blogspot.com/
PreCal and other pages at Mr. K's page
Steps to follow and remember to keep this set of instructions open to read as you work.
1. Register with Google and gmail.
2. Open an account with blogger, it is the same username and pasword as gmail. Follow the instructions and create a new blog. Do not close this window.
3. Open a new browser window and go to wikispaces and register for an account.
4. Once you have an account and create a page, then select the page and choose manage space (third option on left hand menu), in manage space select list and upload files from the Contents, then upload a file from your computer to this space. Right click on the blue file name in the list of files and copy the complete url or address as it appears in the little box that has appeared.
5. Go back to the window and blog that you created in #3 and in the posting section select create post. Write a comment, make sure the compose option is selected, and include the name of the file in the comment. Highlight the name of the file select the button at the top of the text box with the link and the earth and paste the address (url) of the file from wikispaces.
6. Select publish post.
7. Go to settings and select comments and turn off each comment option as you scroll down the page. Select save. If you wish to have comments make sure that you select the moderate comments option and have all comments first emailed to you.
8. Select view blog and see your work.
Rubrics Rubrics Rubrics
Here is a link the Rubistar site for teachers looking for online rubric creation site with templates, sample rubrics, and rubrics saved by other teachers. I have found the sample rubrics and templates to be the most useful as it can be difficult to sort through the very long list of rubrics posted by other teachers.
You may register as a user to save your rubrics on the site or you may copy the rubric that you create and paste it into a word document.