http://www.globalrichlist.com/
This tool seems to be a typical “look how many rich people there are” list. However; it actually makes you realise how much money you have in comparison to the massive number of people living in abject poverty.
Tag Archives: social
Jamendo: Free, Legal Music
Jamendo is a fantastic source for music that students can legally use in their own creative works. Shared under Creative Commons licenses, the site offers a whole range of sounds, much of which is very professional in its composition, performance and production.
Time Magazine: Why Facebook Is for Old Fogies
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0;9171;1879169;00.html
An interesting look at the constantly changing face of the Web, and the various ways we use it to communicate. It is vital for teachers to understand the system’s that students use, and how they operate.
Mining The Thought Stream
As online content is updated more and more often, traditional search engines are becoming less and less effective at knowing what is going on right now. This article looks into the concept of “real time search”, and what makes it so powerful and interesting (in short it allows us to see change and trends as they occur, so we can learn from and act upon them).
The Hazards of Social Networks
http://www.pcworld.com/article/159560/social_network_hazards.html
Useful in terms of making students aware of the risks associated with social networking, an area in which students often fail to realise that online actions can have real-world consequences.
Rate My Drawings
http://ratemydrawings.com/
Online drawing community allowing young artists to learn from others and get feedback on their work.
Basecamp
http://basecamphq.com/
Advanced software for project management, collaboration and team work. Basecamp is used by many ICT project teams to coordinate their work.
Swivel.com
http://www.swivel.com/
Swivel is an online system for creatively and collaboratively working with data.
Wikispaces
http://wikispaces.com/
A wiki building tool; available free for educators and students. Excellent for embeding content from other sites. Wikis provide a great platform for teachers and students to work together in the construction, presentation, analysis and dissemination of knowledge.
Wikipedia
http://wikipedia.org/
A giant; world-wide collaborative encyclopedia . Often criticised because anyone can edit it; but most people miss the point that this is what makes it so great. Shunned as a tool for student research, it does in fact make an excellent starting point, with articles that are usually up-to-date, well researched, accurate and comprehensive. It also provides a great vehicle for students to practice skills of information literacy. Students can be asked to consider questions such as “What is the truth?”, “What is a reliable source?”, “Should we trust what we read?”, “How can we use references to decide if a source is reliable?”. Further, by having students contribute to Wikipedia, they can learn to appreciate their own knowledge, learn to work with others, and value being part of something bigger. I believe there is a nobility behind the Wikipedia concept that many people simply fail to see.
As all of the content on Wikipedia is licensed under a Creative Commons license, it is a great source for text and images that students can edit in the course of their learning and teachers can edit in the course of their teaching. As once example, there are many high quality maps on Wikipedia, which can be freely edited and incorporated into teaching resources.