New Website Links 2 - Blogs

Blogging Resources: Minnesota and New York. I came across these two pages by chance. Although some of the listed blogs are a couple of years out of date, there is an interesting sample of some of the ways blogs could be used with learners:

1. Tutor writes blog on topic, and learners respond through comments anonymously, here; even better would be for the learners to add their names ("Ahmed wrote...".
2. Students respond through logged in names here.
   
3. Teacher (here) writes main blog, and adds links to students who write their own blog entries, example here, with teacher responding through comments.
4. Teacher and learners all on same blog (see Clan)

I will probably find more, but the links are a bit slow this afternoon. I'll get back. I think it is the flexibility of blogging as a writing tool that makes it so powerful, it's sequential, it's the comments, it's the feeds, it's the simplicity of the interface, it's the tags (labels), and so on.

New Website Links 1

Scientific Calculator: I know this isn't Numeracy, but every now and then I need one when working with a student, and this is such a beautiful tool. I found it as a new link on Maggie Harnew's site and so it gives me the opportunity to plug the Adult Basic Skills Resource Centre, which probably needs no introduction, as it must be the country's leading (the world's leading?) online depository of paper-based Skills for Life resources. Although my focus is very much Elearning, I need paper-based stuff and I like to dip in when my own resources don't cover what I'm looking for. I was however brought up in the old school: my literacy volunteer training in 1983 stressed strongly coming into every session with something specially made for each learner. You can't do that of course, but I like to have my own materials where I understand why they were designed in the way they were. I need to know that on, for instance, a maths sheet of sums or a spelling reinforcement that all the issues are covered and that there is a learning progression to be worked through.