Free Course to Download and Restore - Intro to Spreadsheets

I built an Introduction to Spreadsheets about 12 months ago and just rediscovered it. If anyone is looking for a short course made to give students a primer in using spreadsheet applications (Excel, Open Office Calc or Google Docs Spreadsheet) then this might be a place to start.

The course is available here, at no cost and the download is located in a displayed directory. Just download the backup and restore it to a course on GlobalClassroom.us or any other Moodle. If you make changes to the course, please consider letting me know and sending me a copy so we can continue to offer the freshest version online. I would be happy to share the attribution.

The course includes several resources to free texts and sites online to help students learn, a short quiz on spreadsheet terminology and five assignments, each requiring a higher level of spreadsheet know-how.

It's not a definitive training course by any means. But I do think it could be the basis for a more in depth course or a hybrid course where an instructor is meeting with students regularly in a computer lab.

Show your colleagues what Moodle is all about (presentation)

Here's a great presentation I found on AuthorStream (another great presentation hosting resource we've covered). The author is lehane and I thought the presentation was a great overview of what Moodle is, what it includes in each install and best of all, what you can expect to find on GlobalClassroom.us. Share it with a skeptical colleague or newbie.

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by lehane

Related post:

1. Want a PPT with Audio in your classroom?

Take the First week of Digital Photography for FREE!

FREE TRIAL: TEACHING, LEARNING AND HAVING FUN WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

I love the look and feel of a freshly created course. Especially when I know that the facilitator is invested in providing his/her students a top-notch experience in learning a particular skill or technology.

Rusti Gregory, who teaches both Dreamweaver for Teachers and Teaching, Learning and Having Fun with Digital Photography, recently revamped both titles and I want to make sure as many interested teachers as possible experience the high quality.

Digital Photography is the original GlobalClassroom course (which launched our 80+ title course catalog, our free Moodle platform and most recently our eSchool services and hosting). It's a great course that covers the basics, gives students real field experience and lets them interact with a "pro". Not to mention that Rusti gives is a really personal touch and is very attentive in the classroom via discussion forums, email correspondence and the great presentations he's created to guide students through the materials.

That being said, any interested individuals can sign up and take the first week of Teaching, Learning and Having Fun with Digital Photography for free. Meander through the first week, review the resources and participate in the activities before deciding if it's for you. If you then find yourself eager to complete the online course (and to receive graduate level credit for doing so) just click the link to the course purchase page and check out for one of the upcoming dates. The next course starts at the beginning of October 09.

So if you want to dip a toe into the world of online education but want to try it before you buy it, check out the first week of Digital Photography for free. Whether you buy it or not I think you'll see that online courses can be enjoyable, straight forward and easy to master.

Below is a screen shot of the course interior:

OER Galore

If you're interested in Open Education and Open Education Resources (OER) then a good resource for news and information is http://openeducationnews.org. The site has a great pulse of all that is Open Education and open source and I've happily referred to their site and posts for such finds as Linux-for-education.org (which is a great resource of open educational resources all based in Moodle).

Recently they posted a quick post about OER and a repository pulled together by BonEducation. The BonEducation site is a great primer for OER sites and destinations across the web. Each resources gets a "summary" and then some information directly from the website. So whether you're looking for lesson plans, college level curriculum, information about copyright or just some ideas about what is available, check it out.

The page is broken down by grade level and the relevant resources available from each. Not an exhaustive list by any means, but like Open Education said: "good reference for people who want a general sense of what is available without being overwhelmed."

• Here's the original Open Education post: http://openeducationnews.org/2009/08/26/bon-education-posts-a-list-of-oer/
• And a direct link to the BonEducation resource page: http://boneducation.com/edtech-resources/open-education-resources

On another, slightly celebratory note, we just passed 200 subscribers! So thank you everyone that catches up with GlobalClassroom.us through this blog. Personally I'm always happy to share the good online finds, tips and tricks and GlobalClassroom-happenings. It's interesting to note that we're also running up on 200 posts (which is almost a 1 to 1 growth rate in audience).

Don't forget to leave us some comments!

10+ ways to use Moodle - from Miguel Guhlin (mguhlin.org)

Miguel Guhlin, blogger at Around the Corner (http://www.mguhlin.org/) recently re-posted a collection of 10 "Moodle instructional use scenarios" which is basically 10 ways that you might successfully use Moodle in a typical or atypical classroom environment. If you've ever wondered what you might do with Moodle beyond posting assignments and facilitating instruction, this is a great guide of some possibilities.

Here succinctly without descriptions, please click here to read the full post and to visit Miguel's sources (note that the original thrust of the post comes from Ken Task who maintains the Coloodle site we've posted about before: there are some great CC courses hosted there).

1. use Moodle to facilitate student blogs (note that blogs are disabled for privacy/security reasons on GlobalClassroom.us)
2. allow monitoring of forums through RSS
3. use Moodle to host podcasts for students
4. Moodle use for peer review/evaluation of student writing
5. use Moodle's chat feature to facilitate online office hours outside of school hours - also can be used for parent inquiries/communication
6. collaborate with a classroom in another school, state, country using a shared classroom space
7. differentiate role assignments to give students more access to managing aspects of the course (such as rating forum posts, viewing submitted work--but not grading, editing certain resources and assignments)
8. have access to student records and activity logs online
9. interactive writing feedback directly from teachers (not necessarily peer evaluation)
10. students can maintain a learning diary using the journal or online text assignment type
11. online book discussions using forums

Follow the link for the full post: http://www.mguhlin.org/2009/08/10-moodle-instructional-use-scenarios.html

If you're interested in setting up any of the above scenarios for your classroom please contact us today: support@globalclassroom.us

Online Education Beats the Classroom

...Well, kinda. The NYTimes recently reported on a SRI study that concluded that supplemental digital or online educational opportunities and resources increased student testing performance by a slight margin.

It's not that face to face instruction is falling behind, it's that when technology--especially computers connected to the internet--was used in tandem with regular classroom instruction students did a little bit better.

According to the post, written by Steve Lohr:

A recent 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education, has a starchy academic title, but a most intriguing conclusion: “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The recent innovations in elearning and it's nearly ubiquitous availability through sites like GlobalClassroom.us has done a lot to promote these supplemental resources and opportunities:

Until fairly recently, online education amounted to little more than electronic versions of the old-line correspondence courses. That has really changed with arrival of Web-based video, instant messaging and collaboration tools.

We fully support all teachers and schools that are trying to bring collaboration tools, embed videos or provide communication and discussion opportunities directly in the classroom. Our eSchools provide a quick, easy and affordable way for schools to take advantage of the Learning Management System (LMS).

Not to mention that free classrooms through GlobalClassroom provide over 3000 (3000!) classrooms to teachers worldwide to use with their students (where they can access anything from chats, discussion forums, embedded video, assignment dropboxes and so much more).

If you've been contemplating adding some online component to your classroom-based instruction and activities: there's never been a better time. Contact us today to find out how you do this for free, or how your school can do it at very low cost (2 dollars per teacher).

Holy Moly More Free Books! (Google Books)

Great news recently from Google Books (which already had one of the largest book archives on the Internet): they now allow books with Creative Commons licenses to be uploaded by the right-holders.

This means that any organization, group or author that's created a book/manuscript under one of the CC licenses can freely submit the book to Google Books and it will be indexed and available for download/viewing.

According to the Google Books blog they also will soon make changes to book search to pull only from CC listed results:

As authors and publishers tell us which works they want to share on Google Books under CC licenses, we'll be turning on the option to restrict your search to books you can share.

There doesn't seem to be a huge list of books right now, but they did start a list of pretty good titles including Lawrence Lessig's book, Code v2.0 (I'm reading Free Culture through DailyLit.com and really like it--he's a wealth of information about copyright law and the evolution of it's effects on the Internet and media).

Additionally, it's important to note that Google recently settled the class action case brought against it by major publishers and authors so there will certainly be many more books scanned and indexed online through this great, free service.

More free books!

Here are two resources where you can find free digital resources for your Moodle classroom. Search for and link to full text classics, textbooks, essays, novels or otherwise; these two sites have millions of resources available to link to and use.



http://www.thefreelibrary.com/



http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/



Related posts:

• Free books for your classroom
• Free text books online (wowio, textbookrevolution, connexions)

Not sure about taking an online course?

...Then try one for free!

One of our newest facilitators, Russell Gregory of Vermont, who teaches Digital Photography and Dreamweaver (CS4) For Teachers, recently refreshed his two courses with all new content, tutorials, presentations and updates. The courses are truly preparing teachers for the 21st century classroom.

That being said, I want to make sure as many teachers as possible see the quality of Rusti's courses and how much fun and easy they are to take.

So we're offering all teachers the ability to sign up and take the first week of Teaching, Learning and Having Fun with Digital Photography for free. There are no obligations, sign up and register with GlobalClassroom and you can be viewing the actual resources, presentations and activities that constitute the first week of this great online course.

Try it out, alleviate your worries and learn a little about digital photography. What's stopping you?

FREE TRIAL - TEACHING LEARNING AND HAVING FUN WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Get some OER content...

Opened is another new clearing house of open content provided by ccLearn and Creative Commons. It is a resource for teachers to learn about Open Educational Resources (or OER) and the forces that affect them (copyright, hosting, availability, etc.).

This site aggregates a lot of useful information about OER, creative commons and news about new initiatives, as well as promoting the newest Discovered OER search tool I mentioned a little while ago.

OpenEd is a good destination to check out how to create, license and contribute OER content, where to do it, where to find content and how it can be used.

It's a great primer for any teacher just getting started in using open educational resources in the classroom or online. It's easy to navigate and there are lots of great links to explore further. Check it out: http://opened.creativecommons.org.

For more information about ccLearn projects (like opened and discovered) check out http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/

Related posts:

• 3 great resources and OER sites for teachers