Haiku

Allen Angell founded Haiku Learning Systems in 2006 after 6 years as Vice President of Sales for an education industry web development firm. They have a quaint but qualified team working on developing new features to progress the program into the future. “haiku LMS's zen-like design and streamlined interface puts the power of custom web design at your fingertips without you having to write a single line of code. Lay out your lessons complete with images, audio and video. Rearrange content and columns with drag-and-drop ease.” Haiku is one of the most media rich programs that educators can use. They have a solid design with personal customization features to allow educators tailor their content to how they see fit.Haiku has 9 main features that can help educators develop media rich content for their students while being able to communicate, track and asses their students.

• Assignments & Events
• Announcements & Inbox
• Virtual Dropbox
• Discussion, Journals & Blogs
• Assessments
• Attendance & Grades
• Embed the Web
• Resource Library
• On-Demand & Up-to-Date

I highly suggest checking out this program especially if you have never used an application like Haiku in your education system before. Haiku does not only allow teachers to create rich content for their students but allows students to use a program that companies around the nation are utilizing. Similar programs other than Haiku are being used in the corporate scene. Allowing students to interact online through programs like Haiku will help students be prepared for their future careers.

How to Fail a Test....

A little humor to get the day rolling.

For the Teachers

4Teachers is a new site helping teachers integrate technology into the classroom. On the site they state the 4Teachers.org “works to help you integrate technology into your classroom by offering online tools and resources. This site helps teachers locate and create ready-to-use Web lessons, quizzes, rubrics and classroom calendars. There are also tools for student use. Discover valuable professional development resources addressing issues such as equity, ELL, technology planning and at-risk or special-needs students.” This is an interesting platform and is definitely helping pave the way in integrating technology into the classroom. The following is a good video that walks you through the different offerings of 4Teachers.




If you have the time, check out their educator’s resources. There are some great tools that teachers can use to help themselves out in planning or in action.

TeacherTube

At first glance TeacherTube site seems a little too much like YouTube. It’s nice to have some diversity these days especially when a site is playing off another. However, once I spent some time looking through the videos I ran across a Bill Nye “The Science Guy” series and all of the sudden I was back in elementary school.



This site provides a safe place for students and teachers to collaborate on educational videos. This site is open to all levels of education and is a great resource for students and teachers to find educational videos and a whole obscure set of topics. However like I stated at the beginning it would be nice to see the site a little bit more customizable. Originality I would score this site a “0” but the functionality is a ten “10”. Let me know if any of you have used site before as a student or teacher. I would like to here how other people are using this site.

The Class Connection....Good or Bad?

Technology is changing daily and so are the avenues that students are collaborating. One website that has the potential to make a major impact on the way students interact, study, and work with one another is The Class Connection. This site allows high school, undergraduate and graduate students to set up communities based around their classes to create flash cards, share information, message one another and more.



As you can see the education space is changing quickly with the adoption of social technologies. It’s very interesting to see private companies creating these technologies where if high schools and colleges embraced social technologies they would more than likely make major advancements in education. What are your thoughts? Do you find social technologies a helpful tool for students and teachers or are they misleading in their educational abilities.

Yahoo Teachers

Yahoo is in the process of launching a social networking site dedicated to education.

This site is free for all teachers, administrators and education specialist. Yahoo is taking the first step in providing a place where teachers, administrators and education specialist can collaborate and interact with one another. This site will be critical for advancing new ideas into the education system and will be a place for educators at all levels to have a chance to be a thought leader in the industry. Check you the video here.

Let me know what you think of the site and if you think that this is a beneficial service or just a website that distracts from the need of face-to-face interaction with students.

Community Commotion and Education

Social networks are starting to open their doors to education. Community Commotion a start up in Seattle, WA is working on some interesting ideas in the education industry. Many private and even public schools have a difficult time making sure that parents are receiving school news and update. Most importantly schools have a hard time gaining participation from parents these days and this is where Community Commotion is steping in.

Community Commotion is an online social network where they’re committed in building local community throughout the United States. “What’s all the commotion about? Whether it’s a gathering to exchange ideas, thoughts, things or just for fun . . . this is the place to connect with your neighbors, strengthen existing relationships, find tools for homegrown and local businesses, green living ideas and to better your life through stronger community . . . through community commotion.” Most importantly they are offering a helping hand in the education industry by offering schools to set up free accounts and create private groups to have parents and the schools interact and collaborate on ideas. Parents have a one stop shop to find out what is going on in their child’s school and schools ca visually see who are collaborating and interacting in the community to find valuable resources for financing, volunteer work and overall networking. It’s a very interesting idea and Community Commotion is on the forefront of utilizing web 2.0 and social networking in schools.