Some resources from TCETC 2011 #edtech #edhat

Vialogues, States with Online School Initiatives, Culturally Situated Design Tools.  This past weekend I attended (and presented at) Teachers College Educational Technology Conference. My presentation (click here for Prezi) was about a project using mobile phones to leverage opportunities for formative assessment in a math class. Below is information about a couple of interesting projects/resources/tools.

Vialogues (free)

Some folks from EdLab at Teachers College have built a really nice interface that supports asyncrhonous dialogue about videos (user uploaded or linked from YouTube).  It is a nice way to engage in commenting and idea exchanges without worrying about outside chatter that may happen on the regular comments section of YouTube. A nice feature is that you can easily attach comments to specific time codes, and during the course of playback the relevant comments become highlighted as their time stamp is crossed.

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning

This group produces an annual report on US online schools and state supported online school initiatives, broken down by state. I haven't had a chance yet to read the whole report, but I do like how they make some of their infographics readily available.

Courtesy of Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, 2010

Culturally Situated Design Tools

A group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have been doing research on tools that they have developed to connect mathematical concepts to the cultures of particular students.  The tools themselves can be a little tricky to get used to, but I really like how each subset provides the cultural information, classroom activities, and the tool itself.

Iterative 3D Pyramid Building applet from CSDT group at RPI.