Welcome back - Ideagora

I've been away for a while with a new baby and a cross country move.  Here is an intereing website I think you may enjoy:


Ideagora - http://innovate-ideagora.ning.com/

Ideagora is growing and adapting as a professional network of individuals, organizations and professional groups engaged in knowledge and resource sharing, research, social policy, political strategy, technology issues, and business policies.

Ideagora will focus on generating ideas and support projects that result in sustainable solutions and actionable outcomes. When a significant group of cross discipline thinkers and doers come together under one roof all participants benefit from a shared commitment to results. We will continue to highlight ideas and creative solutions to enhance the global educational process via technology, digital content, social media and web 2.0 tools.

In addition to posting discussions and blogs, we invite all members to post their articles, on the creative use of information technology to enhance education and training in academic, commercial, and governmental settings. Our basic assumption is that innovation in one sector can inform practice in each of the other sectors.

Want to Learn a Foreign Language?

Social Language Learning - Online!

• Learn languages online at your own pace with fun language lessons
• Connect with foreign language partners around the world
  

http://www.livemocha.com/

"Livemocha is the best online language program I have seen and used—vastly superior to Rosetta Stone in terms of cost and the variety of language functions it offers."

Dr. Steven J. Sacco, Language Professor, San Diego State University
PhD in Foreign Language Education

Want to learn a foreign language? Check out Live Mocha.com. It is free to join, you must be at least 13 years old, and there is a wide variety of languages to choose from. You also have the opportunity to connect with native speakers. Learning a 2nd, 3rd, or more language helps you enhance your world view and make even more international connections.

Student Presentations

So often students feel limited in their online classes to turn in assignments as Word Documents. With so many technologies available, think outside the box when turning in an assignment or project. Is there a way to add audio? video? additional graphics? See what you can come up with to make your assignments stand out. It doesn't take much more time or effort.

• Jing- http://www.jingproject.com/
  downloadable screen capture software (Free, but creates a limit of 5 minutes so you will need to break your presentation into parts and link each part to the Forum.)
• PowerPoint Narration- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/CH063500681033.aspx
  creates a file that can be quite large, but can be uploaded to a forum.
• Tegrity - this is a software we use at Thunderbird, your school may use it as well or have something similar.
• Create a recording with your camera and upload it to YouTube or a create a slide show that you can link to on Flickr.
  

Stay Connected

How do you stay connected with your peers around the world?

Some possibilities for you to use:
Skype - can be run from a USB drive : http://www.von-phone.com/portable-skype.php
Meebo - can combine several IMs into one (ie Messenger, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and more)

Students looking to travel - check this out:

United Airlines - Earn College Plus miles with United College Plus

Source: www.united.com

United College Plus members can earn miles for free travel on United flights and with Mileage Plus partners. Get bonuses and other exclusive opportunities.

E-Learning Around the World

No longer do students need to test, enroll, and attend a 4 year college if that doesn't fit their life, schedule and/or budget. Additionally, many learners are going back to school later in life or for a second or even third career move. These resources are just a few example to show how to continue your learning in an online environment around the world.

Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) focus on progression into and through vocational education. They aim to create new learning opportunities; forge agreement across institutions on how qualifications are valued; and produce publicity to help people understand how they can progress through the system. Networks will clarify existing progression opportunities and engage in collaborative curriculum development in order to meet the needs of the vocational learner.

StraighterLine provides high quality, better supported, and lower cost required college courses - online, on your schedule. You can knock out your required courses here with personal, on-demand instruction and earn real college credits that give you a head start on your degree.

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and they are building pathways to formal credit as well.

In Sync Training

InSync offers free online trainings through WebEx sessions. Take a look at the link and see if there is something that you find interesting. They have several sessions on adult learning, effective assessments, and e-learning. Also, if you cannot attend the live session, there are links to recordings of some of them.

YUDU Publishing

YUDU.com is an ePublishing library & marketplace that helps you create, enhance, share, promote and sell digital publications with the world.

Share your interests and expertise with the world.

Find interesting digital documents, magazines and ebooks - many for free and others that you can buy - and save them to your own free library. Add photos and music and bookmark your favorite websites. Start an Interest Group to share your passions and expertise or create a private group online for your club or class. Invite friends and other users to join your group and allow them to add relevant content of interest.

Be your own Publisher.

Upload your Word, Powerpoint and PDF files and convert them automatically into page-turning digital editions, ebooks, ezines and e catalogues which are hosted by YUDU for free. Add YouTube videos and other multimedia with a Plus account. Keep your publications private or share them with the world - YUDU publications are searchable by Google, Yahoo and others. Self-publishing with YUDU is quick and easy!

In addition, upload podcasts, MP3 and photos and bookmark your favourite websites with thumbnail screenshots, so you can remember them easily and encourage others to view them. Organize your published items within albums in your library and promote your digital content on your own site via embedded libraries or embedded single digital publications.

Carbon Neutral Publishing

It's not difficult to imagine the environmental benefits of publishing online with YUDU. Their system was designed with energy efficiency in mind. Each page has the lowest electronic footprint possible, whilst maintaining the highest quality viewing experience - YUDU publications use very little energy.