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You’re probably familiar with student response systems (aka clickers). Perhaps you even use PollEverywhere (see this blog post). Both allow you to get feedback from your students in real time. Back channel communication also lets your students communicate with you, but without you asking a question. And everyone else can see what others are saying. In real time. There are a few different systems out there, but Backchan.nl (open source from MIT; free) is, of the ones I’ve seen, the one I like the most. What it looks like Give students the URL. It works fine with both computers and mobile devices. Here’s one I’veRead More →

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For those of you who are using Dropbox, you can get up to an extra 1GB free by participating in DropQuest 2011, Dropbox’s scavenger hunt. If you need nudges along the way, leave a comment below.Read More →

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Ever look at your Windows folders and just see a sea of yellow? What if you could color-code your folders? You have a couple options. Rainbow Folders (free) is an older program that still works just fine in Windows 7. In this post, though, I’m going to cover Folderico (also free) since it’s optimized for Windows 7. Once downloaded and installed, right click on the folder you’d like to change. Mouse over “Folderico,” then select the icon you’d like to use. I’m going with violet for my Psych 100 folder. And this is what it now looks like. To change themes, when you right-click andRead More →

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You’ve probably heard of microloans. Let’s say a gentleman in Peru needs $1000 to expand his internet café. Through Kiva.org, you can loan him $100. All he needs is another nine like-minded people to do the same to get enough for the expansion. Over time, he pays the money back, money that’s deposited back into your account which you can loan out again if you’d like. Microvolunteering applies this same concept to volunteering. Sparked connects nonprofits with online volunteers. The volunteer projects vary widely. Some are looking for suggestions, such as how to get more people engaged in their blog, what a mobile app forRead More →

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In the last few days, well over half the hits on my website are on my Google: AROUND post. From what I can gather, it looks like teachers are emailing this post to each other. That tells me that there’s a serious interest in detecting plagiarism. As a teacher myself, I’m not surprised. Given that interest, I thought I’d point instructors to another piece of technology that can help with plagiarism detection. The Cloze test was designed as a test of reading comprehension. For an example, check out this website. In short, some words are deleted from the text, say, every 5th word or everyRead More →

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Having played my share of games like World of Warcraft and Diablo, I’ve been fascinated by the built-in reinforcement of achieving experience points, gaining status by leveling up, acquiring better weapons and armor, and finding treasure. I’ve toyed with the idea of structuring my class in a similar way. My class is point-based, so it’s easy enough to see how that could work. After earning so many points, a student levels up. After completing certain tasks, the student can roll a die for treasure. But that has always felt like one of those 3am ideas. You know, the ones that you have in the middleRead More →

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I’ve added a new page to this blog site. “Tech Essentials” contains the top tech tools every educator should seriously consider. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, these tools will be familiar. What tech tools can’t you live without?Read More →

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Yesterday I gave you a tour of the main page of my website. Today I want to give you a tour of my Psych 100 course site. The link to my syllabus will download a pdf of it. The first page of the syllabus contains two QR codes for students who want to use their smartphones to quickly bookmark my website or have a copy of the syllabus on their phones. (See this post on QR codes.) I created a Google calendar for my course. This is brand new for Winter 2011. Following the link opens the Psych 100 calendar, which I created as aRead More →

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I’ve been writing about technology and education for almost two years now, and I thought I’d take some time to show you how I’m using these various tools on my website. Of course you’re welcome to visit the live site and try them out. At the top of my main page, there’s a quote. Every time you reload the page, another quote is chosen at random from the 25 I’ve selected. It’s produced with a little javascript I got at JavaScript Source. I can’t find the original there anymore, but you can find the same script I used and installation instructions here. To schedule anRead More →

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When I look at new technology for use with my students, I apply a 2-step litmus test. Is it easy for me to learn? Is it even easier for my students to learn? I learned a long time ago that if it took me hours to learn how to use something, it was going to take me even longer to help my students learn to use it. Second Life is a good example of that. While a virtual world is very cool without a lot of applications for education, it comes with a steep learning curve. I crossed that one off my list. Corkboard isRead More →

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