Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Plagiarism by numbers
Posted by: ashleytan on: December 1, 2009
One of the things I did prior to grading essays was to submit all 130 of them to SafeAssign (SA). This online tool is embedded within my university’s learning management system (LMS) and it compares each essay with other works in a large database.
Both my trainee teachers and I get to use SA to remove [...]
Tweet Cloud
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 30, 2009
According to Tweet Cloud, the top three things I tweeted about over the last year were Google, videos and learning.
That makes sense since my blog postings automatically generate tweets and I do write about those things. But it was interesting for a tool to let me know objectively what I tend to focus on.
But while [...]
Question the model
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 27, 2009
It’s almost the end of a long teaching semester. For reasons too long and boring to mention, some of my colleagues and I had to start next semester’s teaching this semester.
The two things that usually happen at the semester’s end are I fall ill and I think about what to do next. So I type [...]
Different media…
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 26, 2009
Different literacies!
Video source
‘Nuff said!
Google Forms quiz
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 24, 2009
So far my EdPsych2 classes have been using Google Docs as a platform for collaboratively written articles, personal notes and activity templates. We have also used Google Presentations for (duh!) presentations, and Google Forms and Spreadsheets for surveys and class administration. Everything has been “held together” by a class wiki hosted by Google Sites.
The going [...]
PowerPoint tongue-in-cheek
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 20, 2009
A light-hearted but critical look at PowerPoint.
Video source
But really, it’s not just the fault of PowerPoint. We don’t blame the just the car for killing someone. Look at who’s driving and how.
Cloud computing
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 19, 2009
CommonCraft released a video last week to explain cloud computing. It’s presented well (as most of their videos are) but it is from a business perspective.
A teacher might look at it and not know how cloud computing applies in education. If teachers jump on the Google Ed Apps bandwagon, they might experience this for themselves.
They [...]
Pushing the envelope
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 18, 2009
When I read the BBC news article Great writers ‘fail’ online test, I was not surprised. Why? Two reasons.
First, one of the writing samples was actually a speech. Writing for a speech is not the same as writing for print. Yes, you are writing a speech, but not for someone to read like a book. [...]
No one knows everything, but everyone knows something
Posted by: ashleytan on: November 17, 2009
That was my favourite quote from Polivka’s recent blog entry. Simple but true.
Call it what you will, crowdsourcing or the wisdom of crowds, it is here to stay and evolve. Information, knowledge and power lie not only in the Internet, but also in the people and the connections between people that network via the Internet.
As [...]
