In working on a presentation for this week, I came across EarthSwoop, a site which uses the Google Earth Plugin to visit a group of sites via Google Earth through a regular web browser. While there are not many tours available as of yet, the one which caught my attention is the tour of the Olympic venues in Beijing. Because the tour is connected to the full Google Earth capabilities, the tool may be used to provide a larger geographic context for Beijing, China, and the Olympics in general. Check it out!

Today in an email newsletter I received information about Knol, an initiative from Google designed to produce user-created encyclopedic content that is more authoritative than Wikipedia. As you probably know, Wikipedia is controversial among educators and librarians since anyone can create or edit an article on this site, raising questions about the validity and the accuracy of their articles. However, Wikipedia articles may also be corrected quickly through this method, leading to an accuracy level that rivals traditional encyclopedic sources.

Here is a list of sites which I have found recently which may be of interest to technology specialists and educators:

Here are my NECC notes from a session entitled Virtual Opportunities: Interactive Strategies for Online Instruction. This was a panel discussion highlighting best practices for teaching and learning online. This session had particular relevance for me since I've started teaching online courses through Concordia University Wisconsin and the MTM Project. This is a growing area in the field of education -- one which opens the doors for all kinds of new learning, and all kinds of new skills to facilitate this learning. Here are the notes:

Here are my notes from NECC from the Gail Lovely presentation entitled Web 2.0 Meets Grade 2.0. I must say that Gail is one of my favorite presenters. Her manner is exceptional as she shares practical ideas for early learners. But what I appreciate most about her is that she readily shares her philosophy about what makes a good activity for these learners, giving me insights into the education of age groups which I didn't study in my preparation for teaching. Here are the notes:

Yesterday I made the 16 hour drive from NECC in San Antonio back home. There was plenty of time during the day to reflect upon our country and the blessings of our Lord through the country in which we live. While these reflections don't necessarily have anything to do with technology and education, I do feel compelled to share them nonetheless:

Here are some unedited notes from a session at NECC about strategies for online discussion. I personally found this session very helpful in thinking about instruction strategies for a new era with new tools. Here are those notes:

This really isn't the best timing, but I'm having difficulty with the battery on my laptop, so any NECC updates today will rely on my ability to move close to a power supply during the various sessions.

In the meantime, here are some resources from the conference from yesterday:

Here are my blogging notes from NECC for David Warlick's presentation, Our Students, Our World. Please excuse misspellings, typos, etc. as this is being published as soon as possible.

Here are my quick notes from a presentation on improving PowerPoint presentations at NECC in San Antonio. I'm copying these to the post as is, so there might be mistakes in the spelling, grammar, etc. Enjoy!