Collaboration & Brainstorming

Indaba Music – a great resource for music teachers and students

June 13, 2010

Indaba Music is a wonderful example of how Internet based tools can raise “collaboration” to a level far exceeding what has been possible up to now. Alexandra Stewart from Indaba Music reached out to me and introduced me to this site. I was instantly intriqued, as I am an amateur musician (here’s an example of my work - I [...]

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6 Free Online Interactive White Boards

April 18, 2010

An update to last April’s post about free web-based IWBs. Last April, I wrote a post about a few Online Interactive Whiteboards that I had checked out. That post remains one of my most popular posts, so obviously this is a topic of interest to a lot of people.  I figured it was time for an [...]

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Choosing between Microsoft’s Live@edu and Google Apps for Education

October 7, 2009

This week’s mid week post is a wrap up of the brief 2 part overview of the free offerings for Education from Microsoft and Google that I did here over the last two weeks.

I spent some time looking for notable differences between Google Apps for Education and Microsoft’s Live@edu, and while there are plenty of little differences to point out and discuss, few things jumped out at me as undeniable deal breakers.

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Google Apps for Education vs Microsoft’s Live@edu

October 5, 2009

The second part of our look at the free online apps for education from these kingpins of the software industry.
One of the first things that struck me about Google’s “Education Edition” of Google Apps was that their informational pages seemed a lot less cluttered than Microsoft’s. You get a cleaner, more precise overview, and while there is some depth to the information and links provided, I didn’t find myself with the sensation I had on the Microsoft Live@edu pages, where I was quickly lost, clicking from link to link across a seemingly endless set of pages, link, goofy videos, etc. The functionality available in Google’s Apps for Education were easy to learn about.

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Microsoft’s Live@edu versus Google Apps for Education

September 28, 2009

What free tools are these giants of the software industry providing to Education?

Both Microsoft and Google offer an evolving set of free online tools specifically for the education community. This week and next we’ll take a brief look at these offerings. I imagine we’ll find a good deal to like about both sets of applications, given the price and ease of a hosted (i.e. Internet based) tool set. Before starting I should add that Microsoft and Google are certainly not the only providers of free applications for education – in a brief look at collaboration tools back May I discussed a similar app suite from Zoho, but since Microsoft and Google are such behemoths of the software industry, there is particular interest in what they have to offer and how these offerings compare.

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Collaboration & Brainstorming Tools (Part 3)

May 10, 2009

This is the final post in a 3 part series on web based collaboration and brainstorming tools for educational application. In the first post, we examined some mind mapping (a.k.a. idea mapping) tools, last week we looked at some collaborative document editing applications, and this week we wrap up by checking out a free collaborative workgroup application for teachers and students, and some alternative tools. Edmodo.com is a tool that has been around for a little more than a year now, and provides workgroup functionality specifically for education, and I am going to sign up and give a trial run.

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Collaboration & Brainstorming (Part 2)

May 3, 2009

This week in our investigation of collaboration and brainstorming tools, we’re checking out collaborative document editing tools. Last week we took a brief look at some mind mapping/idea mapping tools and next week we’ll wrap up with a look at some workgroup applications. As I researched no cost or low cost online document collaboration tools, [...]

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Mid Week Update: Real world uses of mind mapping tools in the classroom

April 29, 2009

All this talk about technology in the classroom means nothing if the tools aren’t actually being used, and in a way that really supports the teaching and learning process. I conducted a quick search for comments about uses of collaboration tools in the classroom this morning in the forums on Classroom 2.0 (an excellent social network focused on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom – I highly recommend it – click here to learn more). Here are a couple (abbreviated) comments I came across:

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Collaboration & Brainstorming Tools (Part 1)

April 26, 2009

In a recent survey of faculty at my institution, this was one of the most frequently cited topics to learn more about, so I am taking a cue from this and will spend a few weekends briefly researching some of the tools available on the internet for collaboration and brainstorming. On reflection, I may have erred somewhat by lumping ‘collaboration’ and ‘brainstorming’ together, since the former includes an expansive array of tools and ideas, whereas the latter could be considered just one, specific collaborative concept. Nevertheless, let’s dive in and start exploring!

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