Below, I share the results of clearing out my Google Reader queue – posts from blogs I follow that all seemed interesting but not interesting enough on their own.  The links are all centered on using technology in teaching.

First, my own thoughts and what I’ve learned from teaching mandatory-but-non-major classes in ESL.  My students are not English majors and even enthusiastic ones must obey time management rules and focus on their majors first.

I’ve tried Edu 2.0 , Ning, Edmodo and Voicethread. I know the tiniest bit about Moodle.  All have their good points but really are too much for my students.  First, registration is a challenge as many students exist firmly in Korea’s internet ghetto (the best link I could quickly find): many Korean internet services do not interact well with international ones.  Hanmail and Nate work okay with Gmail but not consistently with Yahoo or Hotmail.  In practice, this means students need to register for two services: an international email account and the class website.

For most of my work, a blog -on blogspot, because that’s where I started out – is everything I need to communicate with my students.  I can post presentation slides and other class materials there, including homework and the syllabus.  The blog is easy to open in class because I don’t have to sign in first – a big plus considering the viruses these always-accessible-to-multitudes computers have.  It means I must be careful with privacy issues, but that hasn’t been a problem yet.

Alright, on with the list:

Nic’s Learning Technology Blog offers help on making questionnaires.

At TED, Wolfram discusses how Math is not arithmetic. It is  - or should be- much more creative

Shelly Blake-Plock suggest jointly publishing an eBook.

Shelly Terrell suggests jointly making a video to put online.

A different Nik offers his own list of ways to digitise coursebook activities.

He also questions the role of technology in education.

Jason Renshaw offers help on what and how to teach online.