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Archive for August, 2009

Two more GREAT TED presenters

I was able to sit down today for a while and just browse. How nice that is to do, from time to time, eh? This time I took some time to again stop at TED, and I was able to watch two more outstanding presenters.

The first one I watched is one that you will HAVE to send to your art and music and Drama teachers. Natasha Tsakos presents part of her one woman show, a multimedia show that is just SO creative and ... amazing, you're going to have to watch it to see what I mean. Very cool stuff. Your arts kids will LOVE it! Here she is on Ted.

The second one, which I'll embed here, is another from Hans Rosling, the creator of that WONDERFUL site, Gapminder. You may recall his first presentation at TED a while back. Or maybe you saw this presentation. This time, however, I think he's outdone himself. In this funny and very informative presentation he uses his data to challenge our ideas about what it means to be a Developing country. As you watch this, think about how your students might be able to use Gapminder to make such a presentation. They'll have to do this in teams, I think, but I do think it would make for some powerful, long-term learning.

Here it is. Watch this from start to finish. Then share this with your favorite Social Studies teacher. This is GREAT learning!

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Web 2.0 and Autism on Webicina

Autism is getting more and more attention online and it was a pleasure to collect the best resources and web 2.0 tools focusing on this medical condition on Webicina, the first medical web 2.0 guidance service. Autism 2.0 is a free comprehensive resource containing all the web 2.0 tools from quality blogs and communities to online slideshows and mobile applications that families dealing with autism can use in their health management.

Please take a look at the table of contents:

We also published PeRSSonalized Autism which is a new category in PeRSSonalized Medicine, the easiest medical information tracking application.

Next week, we will release a Web Guidance Package dedicated to surgery.

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Time for a jerk of the knee: reasons to ban mobiles #54

"Fighting between Millwall and West Ham football fans was planned weeks before the match, the BBC understands.
"A Millwall supporter who organised some of the violence said rival fans arranged to meet via mobile phones."

The same situation within a school: what would the school do?

Pic: Millwall/West Ham

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Instructions for Ordering Materials for the November MCAS Retests and Fall MEPA (Deadline to Respond: September 18, 2009)

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Fall 2009 Training/Retraining Sessions for Qualified MELA-O Trainers (QMTs)

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Reminder about the New Competency Determination Requirement Beginning with the Class of 2010

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Links for 2009-08-30 [del.icio.us]

Introduction to SLFtalk - SLFtalk
SLFtalk is a project to gather the voices of educators attending the Scottish Learning Festival 2009. The idea is that anyone can join in and post audio snippets to this site in several ways: * Use your mobile to phone gabcast, the number and password will be available via cards and DM tweets. * Record a voice memo on an iphone, or mp3 on a mobile and email it to SLFtalk@posterous.com * Record an MP3 on an mp3 player (we will have some to borrow), drop it off or mail the mp3 to SLFtalk@posterous.com from one of the many computers at SLF.
Ping - Evernote, a Free Storage App, Seeks More Paying Users - NYTimes.com
Freemium can pay: About 75 percent of the customers walk away within the first four months. That’s not worrisome, because the revenue from Evernote’s 500,000 active users is growing faster than the growth in the customer base. How? Customers discover that they need more than the basic storage space or want some extra features, like the ability to scan PDF documents for a particular word. Evernote charges them $5 a month or $45 a year for these and other benefits.

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Ask For The Bulk Discount

[re this]

I played with this little number at FooCamp this weekend. I flew by your house but you weren't home so I helped myself to a Coke and kicked it on your couch until I had to go because someone else wanted to use it. Catch you next time maybe.

Posted: August 31st, 2009 under Education.
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Children See. Children Do.

Children see. Children do. All teachers are aware of this as a concept, many parents, too. If you're a loud, stressed out, unhappy teacher then you'll generally have loud, stressed out and unhappy students in your class.

I put this video on my Facebook profile and it's had a good few comments along the lines of "everyone should see this". It's powerful and uncomfortable, but gives us all food for thought.

The question is, how many schools would show this to parents to remind of their role in the education of their youngsters? How many would drop a link into the next school newsletter? Go on. I dare you. As for forgiveness on this one, rather than permission.

Produced by Australian Child Protection Agency, NAPCAM.

Posted: August 30th, 2009 under Education.
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What’s on the Web: WolframAlpha, Evernote in Medicine

20 ways Surgeons should use Evernote (AppleQuack): And here is a screencast about how to use the new version.

Attending a virtual conference—and what it tells us about the future of scientific communication. (SEED)

Web 2.0 revolution underway in healthcare (eHealthInsider)

Titled ‘Web 2.0 in the Health Sector: Industry Review with a UK perspective’ the report concludes that new applications based on social health networks and content generated by health service users themselves – such as reviews of doctors and hospitals – will rapidly evolve to challenge existing healthcare systems and create new ways of delivering our healthcare.

Medical Uses of Wolfram|Alpha (Brian Ahier): I shared my thoughts with Brian on the medical uses of WolframAlpha:

He said “I use WolframAlpha because sometimes (if I know exactly what I want to find) it saves me plenty of time and clicks. If I want to calculate BMI, Google lists me several calculator. WolframAlpha calculates it itself.” He continued, “If I want to find information very fast about a clinical marker, Google gives me resources, WA gives me the best answer in one click. I also use it for ICD classification, as it’s more easily accessible than Wikipedia; for epidemiological data and other calculations.

To sum it up, I think WA is for those who perfectly know what they want to find and want to save time and clicks. For other search queries, Google still is the best.”