The 12 apps of Christmas

The 12 apps of Christmas is being offered by the Learning, Teaching and Technology Centre at DIT, and facilitated by Frances Boylan. Based on a similar programme led by Chris Rowell at Regent's University London. Starting on Monday 1st December, and continuing for 12 working days until Tuesday 16th December, an app will be considered each day. A short demonstration of how the app might be used in a teaching and learning context, and there will be an optional exercise.

Already there is an active twitter stream using the hashtag #12appsDIT.

Like an advent calendar, there is a sense of excitement about what might be behind the next door!

GlobalEdCon: Connecting Educators and Organizations Worldwide

http://www.globaleducationconference.com/page/2014-conference-recordings

The fifth annual Global Education Conference is a free week-long online event bringing together educators and innovators from around the world. This event will be held on Monday, November 17 through Friday, November 21, 2014. The entire conference is virtual and will take place online in webinar format. Sessions are held around the clock to accommodate participant time zones. The Global Education Conference is a collaborative, inclusive, world-wide community initiative involving students, educators, and organizations at all levels. It is designed to significantly increase opportunities for connecting classrooms while supporting cultural awareness and recognition of diversity and educational access for all. 

As conference sessions conclude, the links below will begin to take you to the recordings. No results for a link could indicate the session has not been held yet, the recording has not processed yet, or the session was cancelled. The first recordings to appear will be the full Blackboard Collaborate recordings -- in a few days the .mp3 and .mp4 recordings will then appear.

Check out the GlobalEdCon Keynote sessions on YouTube.

Listings are alphabetical by the last name of the primary presenter. Use Ctrl+F/Cmd+F to search.

1,000 Years of Scientific Texts From The Islamic World Are Now Online

Between the 9th and 19th centuries, Arabic-speaking scholars translated Greek, Latin and even Sanskrit texts on topics such as medicine, mathematics and astronomy, fostering a vibrant scientific culture within the Islamic world. Some of the most influential texts are now available at the Qatar Digital Library.

The library, a joint project of the British Library and the Qatar Foundation, offers free access to 25,000 pages of medieval Islamic manuscripts. Among some of the most significant texts are The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (1206 A.D.), which was inspired by an earlier, 9th-century translation of Archimedes' writings on water clocks. Devices such as the "Elephant Clock" (pictured below) were the most accurate time-keeping pieces before the first pendulum clocks were built in the 17th century by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens.

The Guardian: Doctor Who's new web game aims to teach children programming skills

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/20/doctor-who-web-game-bbc-programming-coding

Latest attempt to make coding fun for kids involves rescuing a Dalek and exploring the unscreened world of Sontar.

Doctor Who’s latest adventure sees him teaming up with a Dalek and trying to save the universe, but also teaching children some early computer programming skills.

This isn’t a TV show, however: it’s a game due to launch on Wednesday 22 October on the broadcaster’s CBBC website. The Doctor and the Dalek includes voice narration from current Doctor Peter Capaldi, and a new story by Phil Ford, who has written for the TV show.

The free web game is aimed at 6-12 year-olds, and involves freeing a battered Dalek from a ship of Cybermen, then building it back up to full strength through puzzles based on the programming elements of the new English computing curriculum.

Children will be combining instructions to accomplish a given goal, using variables to alter behaviour, exploring repetition and loops, and using their logical reasoning skills in order to rebuild the Dalek.

More at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/20/doctor-who-web-game-bbc-programming-coding

STEM Metrics Interactive Website

The Outlier Research Group at the University of Chicago have identified eight variables that are at work in inclusive STEM high schools. Those variables include: 

• staff foundations, 
• personalization of learning, 
• problem based learning, 
• rigorous learning, 
• school community and belonging, 
• career technology and life skills, 
• external community, and 
• essential factors. 

All of these variables can be explored further at their interactive website.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics free online

Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website are pleased to present this online edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Now, anyone with internet access and a web browser can enjoy reading a high quality up-to-date copy of Feynman's legendary lectures.

However, we want to be clear that this edition is only free to read online, and this posting does not transfer any right to download all or any portion of The Feynman Lectures on Physics for any purpose.

This edition has been designed for ease of reading on devices of any size or shape; text, figures and equations can all be zoomed without degradation.

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

The Ultimate Directory Of Free Image Sources by Dan Leeman

The Edublogger spent some time categorizing our favorite sources for free images and organizing them in such a way as to help you find what you’re looking for. 

http://www.theedublogger.com/2014/07/09/the-ultimate-directory-of-free-image-sources/