Help for Your Students

The Center for Alternative Course Delivery has been busy this summer developing new and exciting innovations to share with students.

One of these new innovations is a Distance Learning Social Network. This network was created to by our Distance Learning Mentor to connect with and network students taking online courses here at ECC. Our online mentor, Kate Griffin, will be available on this site via Meebo (an instant messaging system) to answer questions students may have about their online courses. The site also includes FAQ’s, tips for taking online courses, an online blog and much more.

Please visit the site and become a friend!

Direct your students here!

http://eccdlearning.ning.com

Free Guide To Technology Integration

From the author of the Free Technology for Teachers blog, Richard Byrne.

This guide is designed to give teachers descriptions of 12 tools that can be used regardless of content area. These tools are all 100% free for educators.

Click on the image above to view the document. Some of these tools I have already discussed. Some will be new to most of you.

Let me know if you find one that you like, and how you are using it.

I'm Back!

After a great day at ANGEL Summer Camp spending time sharing some cool tools and ideas for educational uses, it was time to spend some time with my family. A week away, (all the way to PA!) camping and hitting the roller-coasters left me with renewed energy.

Since I have a lot of things to catch-up on here in the office, I won't be sharing any new tools today.

BUT - I do have something to share with you!

If you haven't had a chance yet, check out Merlot. (No, not the wine, but I like that too!)


Merlot is filled with peer-reviewed lessons on many topics. You can create an account and share some of yours as well.

For those of you interested in learning about a variety of instructional strategies, there is also a Pedagogy Portal for you to access.

There are contributions from several of our SUNY peers, as well others from across the country.

Take a look around...I think there is something here for everyone!

Web 2.0 Tools

Some tools I have used or seen.
I can't claim that these are necessarily the best ones available, but these are pretty useful!

Meebo - Instant messaging
beFunky - cartoonize a photo (see previous post)
Wordle - create word clouds out of any text or tags
Plinky - daily questions or challenges

Social Bookmarking:
Diigo - bookmark, highlight, annotate webpages
Delicious - save, access, organize, share your bookmarks

Animoto - videos from your photos

Go2web20 - tools organized by type

We're Cartoonized!

beFunky is a tool to cartoonize your photos...

Try it at beFunky

Web 2.0 Wordle

Click the image above to go to the Wordle site.

Online Student Experience

Here is a video created to show the frustration that online students feel at having online courses that are not engaging and or interactive:




(Thanks to A. McDaniel http://www.amcdaniel.com/interact/)