Is it really necessary to purchase text books for those computer classes anymore? Take a look at your content area on each of these sites. You be the judge.

• 1. freecomputerbooks.com
• 2. freetechbooks.com
• 3. techtoolblog.com
• 4. computer-books.us
• 5. onlinecomputerbooks.com

...as this list expands keep track here: del.icio.us/cravens/freebook

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News Update

The university’s Faculty Committee on Educational Technology (FCET) said the decision followed on an earlier pledge to support its view that UCLA students, “now require a consistent, powerful, and transparent application of our educational technology applications across disciplines and across the campus.”

The decision to choose Moodle over Sakai as its convergence platform FCET said, “was based on many factors that, over time, led us to believe it to be a better match for UCLA’s current needs.” But the school intends to continue as a Sakai Foundation member, and “as capacity is available, to work with others in the Sakai, Moodle, and IMS communities who are interested in working on data, tool, and language interoperability solutions.”

Is College Worth It?

This article takes a look at the decision of investing in an education. It doesn't consider the social aspect of the college experience, but simply the return on the investment.

The analysis begins by assessing a college education purely as a
monetary investment. Undoubtedly, there are other benefits beyond money
to attend college, but it's such an enormous economic decision that it
seems foolish to not fully understand the financial ramifications and
use that as a primary factor in the decision process.

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On Walkabout with Greenfoot » Microworlds

I've begun to examine Greenfoot as an environment to introduce my 9th grade computer programming students to Java. After running through the first tutorial, I have found it to be a great way to visually organize my presentation of OOP (object oriented programming) and also provide my students with a creative way to begin exploring basic game design with Java.

I've offered an incentive for the class to vote through the poll module in our moodle install for the best implementation of the WombatWorld scenario; I'll display the winner along side our iboerne.com presentation at the 2007 TCEA Convention Student Showcase.

Specifically, we will be using the WombatWorld scenario, but Ill also be interested in exploring the MBCS ('Marine Biology Case Study'). More on our progress later.

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I'm definitely into the hybrid thing lately. Hybrid instruction not only in the sense of implementation: online and face to face learning through moodle (http://moodle.org) and short class lectures/discussions, but also philosophically in a sense of allowing students to have some type of control over the curriculum, and direction of their own study. Every moodle assignment I offer, is open to interpretation and creativity. This is why I believe that rubrics can potentially take the fun out of learning. They limit learners to the parameters made by the teacher. Especially when we are teaching technoloies that are more native to the learner than the educator.

This article takes a neutral approach to - what I will call the Sudbury model, but really applies to many other free, democratic school models. I agree with both sides of the argument, and I have settled on balance and moderation of both freedom and standardization. This combined with a balance between face to face and elearning and I think we might make some real progress in my classroom.
Free Radicals

In the country's most alternative classrooms, there's no such thing as a report card.

Sudbury schools are only one variety of so-called free, or democratic, schools, which eschew most conventions of traditional education in favor of a much more radical program. At most free schools, literally every decision, from those about staff hiring and firing to determinations concerning rules, facilities, and budget issues, is made by the entire school community in a one-person, one-vote process. There are no tests, no report cards, no requirements, and no classes -- and no curriculum, other than what students set for themselves.

It is a philosophy that may strike the uninitiated as far-fetched, if not irresponsible, but it seems to be working.......

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