April is National Poetry Month:

Here is a whole list of Online Poetry Resources for Viewing and Listening:

Google's Art of the Day

Google offers this option for the Google Desktop. If you are not wanting to add the desktop but would like to expand your exposure to famous art, Google does provide the code to embed the "gadget" on the webpage of your choice.

MERLOT RSS Feed to Highly Rated Materials

This RSS feed lists highly-rated learning objects at MERLOT.org--potential objects for use in our courses:

Placing an RSS Feed in Your Class

Placing an RSS Feed in Your Class:

Is there a blog, online publication or podcast that you would encourage learners to routinely visit in your course? You can embed it by taking the RSS URL and converting it to javascript. We had a link to another RSS feed converter earlier, but it is no longer working, so here is a new one (also bookmarked in Del.icio.us under ccconlinefaculty and RSS tags/key words):

RSS Converter

Cheers,

Alice

Additional Communication Tools: Phones, Skype, E-FAX

Tools and Features

Additional Course Communication Tools: E-fax, Skype, and Phones

Here are some Plan B’s for communication and transmission when the online tools aren’t quite doing it—either allowing submission, or resolution of a course concern.

Phones: We think of phones as tools for emergencies or difficulties, but the call can also be a source of welcome and connection AND retention! What if you were to set a short call w/ each learner in Week 3 or 4 to see how the course is going?

We ask that faculty provide a phone number for students to call or leave messages. Telling learners to leave name, concern, a number and a few times to return the call limits phone tag. Letting learners know they can request a phone conversation through email and asking for the same kinds of information also assists setting that type of appointment.

Using Voice-Over-Internet Telephony like Skype (and there are others…). Two to five people can meet online if each has Skype software on his/her computer. Files can also be passed, and there is a chat feature. Using Skype is a way to avoid long distance fees, though many cell plans make long-distance pretty much a non-issue: Free software download is available at Skype.com.

E-Fax: Here’s a way for you to send or receive a FAX if that is necessary via your computer. E-fax is one service that allows a free thirty-day trial – a person does need to read the user agreement—there’s a limitation on the number of pages transmitted. MyFax is another, though I didn’t see an offer for a free trial.

PCC tries rehabilitating - not booting - cheaters | www.tucsoncitizen.com ®

PCC tries rehabilitating - not booting - cheaters | www.tucsoncitizen.com ®

This article details Pima CC's "Traffic School for Plagiarism." Also listed are suggestions
for pro-active instructional strategies.

Dialing into a Podcast from Your Cell

It's happening--the podcast world is moving beyond the mp3 player and making it possible to just dial into the podcast. Of course it uses cell or other minutes...

My limited initial evaluation is the quality might be on the primitive side, but this protocol has interesting possibilities for education.

Here an item that explains two of these services:

"Techcrunch: Listen to Podcasts on any Phone"

Ask yourself, would/could you or another listen to language lessons or readings from Shakespeare while you are waiting somewhere?

Alice

WCET Conference Blogging

Hi All-

I'm hanging out in Portland at the WCET conference. I thought I'd bring you the conference highlights via blog.

Today's opening keynote speaker was Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and all things wiki. He was an enthusiastic and fascinating speaker. I recommend you visit some of the wiki initiatves such as www.wikia.com. Wikia is a wiki housing discussion groups and information on a huge variety of subjects. It's not meant to be another wikipedia, but an area for a different type of discussion and writing. I visited the economics portal -- there is a lot of information there and much that would be of use and interest to students.

If you haven't visisted www.wikibooks.com, that's another interesting web site -- the goal is to replace the textbook with free, open-source wiki-books. As many of you know we are looking for solutions to the high cost and frequent updates of the traditional textbooks -- this site might give you an additional source for information for your students.

From wikipedia I wandered over to a session on the national repository for Online Courses. This is another initiative CCCOnline has joined. You can see some of their content on www.hippocampus.org; there is more available from within the community that I can give you access to. NROC is another group looking at the social authoring model for course content development.

More updates as the week goes on....

best,
Lisa