Episode 26: No Reform

After a little time off, we're back again with a new podcast: No Reform.

After my little rant entitled: In education, there really is no reform and let's just drop all of the rhetoric and let the people who need to teach, teach...I get back to some more practical ideas.

With Ning.com announcing their new pay-for-services schedule, there are some Open Source options (one being BoonEx Dolphin).

EduMemiary
From the makers of Memiary (memory + diary) comes the educational version with the question for students: What did you learn today? Wonderful way to engage students in reflecting on their own learning.

Messaging in Moodle
Instead of turning it off because we fear that students may *gasp* message one another, let's use the feature for our own advantages in education: students communicating with the teacher.
Also, if you want to limit student messaging to only other students in the same class, take a look at this hack from moodle.org.

Here's the podcast:



Next Week: ReadCloud and Grading Strategies in Moodle.

After a year, things haven't changed much

After a year of concentrating my efforts on my summer project, 40 Plays in 40 Days, I'm ready to return again to this topic of technology in education and how really messed up were are sometimes in the thinking that the Internet or Web 2.0 or a Kindle or iPod Touch or any of the things to come will save US education.

Wait a second, that wasn't an entirely accurate statement: my gut feeling hasn't changed, but I do have more experiences of using technology in the classroom and more things to share about using Moodle in the classroom.

Look for some regular podcasts to be coming here and to the iTunes Store soon.