If they can replicate this interface for the regular web browser, students would love it.

TerriblyClever does it again!

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Dan admits he was not the first to think up this concept, but he did champion and popularize it.  He even accepts strips from the public:

Q. Can I submit a strip?
A. Of course you can! Send your strips or your ideas for a good candidate for a strip to garfieldminusgarfield (at) gmail.com
Please note that while I really appreciate submitted strips, I can’t publish individual credit for them as I don’t have the resources or time to record each submission.

Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, seems to be okay with the idea, as documented in his interview in the Washington Post

This would be a great activity to foster the idea of differing perspectives, and strengthen Photoshop skills.  Students take a comic strip, scan it, and then use Photoshop to take out a particular element, creating an entirely new meaning.  Peanuts minus Charlie Brown?…LuAnn minus LuAnn?…Blondie minus Dagwood?…

Wix is a drag and drop tool for creating high quality Flash websites, with no need for any Flash expertise.  A large catalog of  graphic-rich templates are provided, ready to be edited.  You simply click on an area of the page and a context specific editor appears.  Depending on the type of content, you make your changes in the browser, preview, and save.  Wix has a free service, and premium, depending on your website needs.  Wix recently received $10 million in Series C funding to continue their development.

About Yola:

Yola, rebranded from Synthasite, markets to small-businesses and non-profits looking for a quick way to publish a website.  Yola provides customizable templates to get started, and a multitude of add-ons to spice up your site.  They provide a free and premium service.

Who needs Dreamweaver?

Aviary is a suite of creative tools. There are currently six editors including image and audio editors.

Our applications run on your browser and allow you to store and access your work from any computer. With Aviary there is no expensive software to buy or maintain.

Use Aviary to create, modify and share your work- from graphic designs to audio files- easily and effectively.

Aviary integrates seamlessly with Google Apps to let your users share and edit documents directly from the Google Docs interface.

Free design tools and templates to create, modify and share images, logos, presentations, audio tracks, podcasts & more. Teams can collaborate on multimedia projects. Works directly in Google Docs.

• Create Logos, Slides, Business Cards & Letterhead
• Retouch photos, Make Web Templates & Banner Ads
• Develop Podcasts, Remix Audio & More

Three clicks was all it took to install it on my domain.  One concern is that it is Flash-based, and Google has been moving away from Flash tools.  Google may be positioning itself to acquire Aviary and make it a part of the Apps Suite.  Take that Microsoft!

Subjects range from Arts and Entertainment to Travel, covering such topics as foreign language, mathematics, golf tips, and photography.

If you have some expertise you would like to share, Knoodle has a user-friendly interface for you to post your lessons on their site.  You can also charge for users to view your lessons, and make a little money in the process.

In a national survey that reveals K-12 students’ use of technology at home and at school, students overwhelmingly agreed that access to digital media tools and the ability to collaborate with peers both inside and outside of school can greatly enhance education.

“Speak Up 2009: Creating Our Future: Students Speak Up about their Vision for 21st Century Schools,” the latest education technology survey from the nonprofit group Project Tomorrow, identifies the emergence of “free agent learners”—students who increasingly take learning into their own hands and use technology to create personalized learning experiences.

The article points to three elements needed in the classroom:

• Social-based learning: Students want to leverage emerging communications and collaboration tools to create and personalize networks of experts to inform their education experience.
• Untethered learning: Students envision technology-enabled learning experiences that transcend the classroom walls and are not limited by resource constraints, traditional funding streams, geography, community assets, or even teacher knowledge or skills.
• Digitally-rich learning: Students see the use of relevancy-based digital tools, content, and resources as a key to driving learning productivity, and not just about engaging students in learning.

I would argue this report is applicable to the Higher Ed community as well.  I have lost count how many times this type of information bubbles up from the K-12 environment, only to catch universities off guard by the expectation of their students.

The U.S. Army needed an innovative way to communicate its mission, values, resources and career opportunities to a new generation of Americans on a local level. The Army Experience Center (AEC) now serves as a twenty-first century destination for people to get accurate information about the Army directly from the source.

Conceived and built over a ten-month period in the Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia, the 14,500-square-foot technology and education center is fast becoming a model for Army recruiting nationwide. Touch screen kiosks, state-of-the-art presentation facilities, community events and high-action simulators are just a few of the AEC features helping to shatter outdated stereotypes and start new career conversations.

CNN reports:

As the U.S. wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has been looking at new approaches to attracting soldiers since a dismal recruiting year in 2005. Other steps have included increasing bonuses, hiring more recruiters and easing some standards.

Some people are not too excited:

Over the past year, as part of the United for Peace & Justice—Delaware Valley Network’s campaign to close the Army Experience Center (AEC) located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, there have been regular protests and a monthly vigil (3rd Saturday of the month) at Knights & Woodhaven Roads, urging people not to shop the mall until the AEC is closed.

Thoughts?

10 - Internet safety becomes an integral part of the K-12 school curriculum (link)

 9 - “Sexting” becomes a huge problem for educators and parents  (link)

 8 -  Microsoft vs. Google: Two technology heavyweights square off in a battle for student loyalty (link)

 7 - Google’s ambitious book-scanning project draws antitrust concerns  (link)

 6 - Online learning becomes a true “disruptive innovation” … (link)

 5 - …while also preventing the disruption of class during the swine-flu scare  (link)

 4 - Billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding helps rescue ed-tech budgets–but schools are still hurting, despite the increase  (link)

 3 - Federal officials seek a national strategy for getting broadband to every American  (link)

 2 - Technology is a key part of the Obama administration’s school-reform efforts  (link)

 1 - Digital textbooks open a new chapter in the history of U.S. education  (link)

Purdue is piloting their home-grown tool, Hotseat, which:

“creates a collaborative classroom, allowing students to provide near real-time feedback during class and enabling professors to adjust the course content and improve the learning experience. Students can post messages to Hotseat using their Facebook or Twitter accounts, sending text messages, or logging in to the Hotseat Web site.”

It is built so that it can accommodate the latest social tool students use. Expected full campus rollout next year.

http://www.itap.purdue.edu/tlt/hotseat/

I like this approach, since it is not being marketed as a “facebook killer”, but a way to harness the power of these type of sites for the classroom.

Contacting them to see if this will be available to other schools.

Not so long ago, students relied on crib sheets and word of mouth to cheat. And while some of those methods live on, cheating today has taken a new twist.

Here’s Education-Portal.com’s list of the eight most popular ways students are cheating (in no particular order):

• Copying — Whether it’s eyes roving during a test or a so-called “study group,” it’s still copying.
• Buying papers online — It doesn’t get much easier than this. Papers on just about any topic you can think of are available — and most can be downloaded instantly.
• Cheat sheets — This perennially popular form of cheating is made even easier with today’s electronic devices.
• Take a picture — If a professor leaves a test on his desk, all it takes is the click of a student’s cell phone camera to steal it.
• “Can I go to the bathroom?” — Once there, a student can call or text friends for answers during a test.
• MP3 players — Students can put anything on their iPods — including lecture notes. And with many professors letting students listen to their MP3s during tests in order to focus and relax …
• Cell phones — Is there a better — or easier — way to store data?
• When is a candy bar more than a candy bar? — Believe it or not, some students have peeled off the wrapper, scanned it, edited the nutritional info into test answers and rewrapped the candy bar — where it sits on the student’s desk during an exam.

As long as teachers continue to rely on basic levels of assessment, then cheating will occur.  If a student can pass your class by cheating, then you are doing a disservice to that student.

Education is not about how well one does on a multiple choice test. Can the student apply the knowledge gained to the world around them?

Teachers need to get away from the objectiveness of learning, and assess at a higher level, thus eliminating the term cheat from their vocabulary.

How do you cheat in a open discussion forum? How do you cheat on a group project, with an oral presentation? Am I able to cheat at my workplace?

In the past 5 years, I have not been assessed with a multiple choice test, I am assessed on my multiple decision-making skills.

When will this stop being an issue?