Sebastian Wernicke: 1000 TEDTalks, 6 words | Video on TED.com

Increasing understanding by classifying ideas.

If you want to remember a lot of ideas then a good way is to classify the ideas into easy to remember groups. This is common practice in Ecology, and many other areas. When I watch a Ted talk I'm often inspired or impressed, but I can only tell you any details from about three Ted talks I can remember and I always feel like it's increasingly difficult to keep up with new ideas.  This diagram helps.

Sebastian Wernicke uses this nice classification in his talk.  These seem to be just the pigeon holes I need to help me remember a bit more, and to understand a bit more about the nature of Ideas worth spreading.
He manages to distil the essence of human nature which Ted talks appeal to; and that is interesting in itself.

see the whole talk:    Sebastian Wernicke: 1000 TEDTalks, 6 words | Video on TED.com:

More online Professional development ideas for free

• Simple K12 webinars- Attend free webinars with experts on various topics. In 2012, I will be hosting a few of these webinars! Simple K12 was the winner of the Edublogs Award for Best Webinar Series.
• Free Webinars by the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG- Learn about various technologies and how to integrate them effectively in the classroom. January 15th is the first one this year, Cool Activities with IWBs. I will be hosting one on March 25th, Integrating Collaborative Projects with ICTs.
• Join the online International Teachmeet event where you will see over 20 teachers worldwide present about various topics in 3 minutes! The next one is March 3rd, but you can sign-up to present now.
• The Virtual Round Table E-Conference- ELTon nominated free online conference focusing on language and technology. Unique in that participants can attend via a live video conference or in Second Life. Check out the next conference in April 2012.
• Edublogs Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar on various topics. Usually, Jo and Phil Hart hosts these free webinars that cover effective use of web 2.0 tools or instructional methodologies.
• Future of Education- Steve Hargadon will be hosting a free worldwide virtual Future of Education: Learning 2.0 conference January 23 – 27, 2012.
• Classroom 2.0 Live Events- Every week, attend a free webinar with an expert in a field or listen to some great authors speak live and ask them questions.
• Integrating Technology for Active Lifelong Learning (IT4ALL)- provides free online workshops on Moodle for Teachers (Orientation, Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced), Professional Electronic Portfolios (PEP), WebQuests, Facilitating Online Classes, Grant Writings, TESOL, Integrating Technology and using Web 2.0 in the classroom.
• #Edchat- Join over 2000 educators every Tuesday to discuss various topics you get to vote for and suggest.
• Education Chats on Twitter- Find out the dates and times of educational conversations that occur on Twitter.

Online classes

Free Online Classes Throughout the Year!

free online courses taught by authors, subject matter experts, and university lecturers.

• SEETA Courses- The South Eastern Europe Teachers Association offers several week courses with a guest author or expert in the field. You will have to register, but the courses are free!
• MOOC- Massive Open Online Courses where 1000s attend for free through discussion forums and free webinars. Follow the hashtag #MOOC for the latest MOOC. University professors, TED speakers, and notable educational theorists moderate these courses. You learn from the very best in our field! Topics range from Personal Learning Networks to Mobile Learning!
• MIT Open Course Ware offers over 1900 free online courses in over 20 subjects. You can subscribe by RSS or get e-mail updates.
• Stanford on iTunes- Download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports that will play on your iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac or PC.
• 17 Universities with free online courses- Find out how to access these free courses from some of the most respected universities in the world! This article also describes the experience of learning through these online classes.
• 250 Free Online Courses- Find a list of several more free online courses from the top universities categorized by subject.

Thanks to Shelly Terrell for these ideas: http://edupln.ning.com/profile/ShellyTerrell

Teaching ideas - from a physics teacher

For more information about how people learn, I highly recommend two great FREE online books from the National Academies Press:

• How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School
• How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom .

If you are a physics teacher, be sure to get these discipline specific books about how students learn physics:

• Teaching Introductory Physics (Arons)
• 5 Easy Lessons (Knight — who also wrote calc-based and algebra-basedphysics texts)
• Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite (Redish, FREE online)

And just in case you think I’m an armchair critic with nothing to contribute, I want you to know I’ve opened up my classroom to the whole world on myNoschese 180 blog, where I’ve been sharing a picture and a reflection from each school day.

Wisdom Begins with Wonder - and other blogs about science teaching

SCIENCE TEACHING BLOGS

• Adventures with the Lower Level
• Large Q Quality
• Science Education on the Edge
• Science Teacher
• Shifting Phases
• Teaching as a Dynamic Activity
• TEACHING|chemistry
• What It's Like on the Inside
• Wisdom Begins with Wonder

Free Technology for Teachers: Google Tutorials

Free Technology for Teachers: Google Tutorials: "Google Tutorials

Google Tutorials

This page contains some  tutorials for using Google tools.  Thanks Richard.


Google for Teachers


Google for Teachers II -


Google Earth Across the Curriculum -

Create and Publish a Quiz in Google Docs
Below I've embedded a slideshow with directions for creating and embedding quizzes using Google Forms, but here are a few points that should be emphasized.

1. Make sure the first question is "student name." Otherwise you won't know who submitted which answers.
2. You can mix question types (multiple choice, short answer, paragraph) but if you have too many types and too many students, the spreadsheet can become difficult to navigate.
3. When embedding the form into a blog, make sure you edit the width to fit within your blog's main column. You can use the same principles of editing the size of a YouTube video for editing the width of a spreadsheet.

'via Blog this'

Breathe New Life Into Your PowerPoint Slides With Dozens Of Exciting Free Tools & Resources

Breathe New Life Into Your PowerPoint Slides With Dozens Of Exciting Free Tools & Resources

This is a great set of ideas for anyone wanting to look sharp using powerpoint.

Imagezs

This advanced set of templates contains two dozen striking animations and step-by-step instructions on how to recreate each of them with your own pictures and text

Slideshare Presentations Plus Audio
SlideShare is a popular free tool that lets you upload your PowerPoint decks and run them across the web. This SlideShare presentation explains how you can add audio to a SlideShare deck using the free applicationAudacity.

Check out Presentation Magazine for tons of tips, tricks, and templates: http://www.presentationmagazine.com/
This online magazine has lots of great resources focused on improving your PowerPoint presentations, such as:

• A whole section of articles devoted to enhancing your PowerPoint presentations
• Tips to give your PowerPoint presentation the ‘wow factor’
• Plenty of articles focused specifically on PowerPoint 2010
• Hundreds of free PowerPoint templates