This post lists 5 resources that in, one way or another, will be or have been helpful to me. These resources were discovered by my students and I am posting them here to serve 4 purposes: First, this post celebrates the fact that students have as much to add to the learning experience as instructors/professors (all of you out there who think that your work is about giving out knowledge, pay attention). Second, this is a way for me to acknowledge some of the things that my students have brought to my attention this semester without spending time in class to talk about them (after all, most of my students are subscribed to my blog). Third, I can model how social technologies can be used in educational contexts. And finally, the post serves as an example of how networked technologies and filtering information through tags can empower relevant learning.  So, here we go:

Practical Advice from Working Researchers… (From Chris: http://delicious.com/c_costello)
“4researchers is an NIH supported project that disseminates practical information to help you conduct research. Get advice from experienced researchers through our catalog of quick tips, Q&As, and presentations. Or, sign up for advanced online training courses. Currently, there are more than 1000 articles posted by over 200 contributors.”

A Don Norman talk at TED: The three ways that good design makes you happy (from Woonhee: http://delicious.com/swhee03)

The Online Course Evaluation Project (OCEP) “identifies and evaluates existing online courses in higher education, Advanced Placement© and high school. The goal of OCEP is to provide the academic community with a criteria-based evaluation tool to assess and compare the quality of online courses.” (From Renata: http://delicious.com/rgeurtz).

Apture “gives content creators the power to find and incorporate relevant multimedia items directly into their pages. Readers can then access these items without ever leaving the page, providing them with a deeper and more meaningful web experience.” 3 years ago, we developed a similar system in our endeavors to scaffold learners who were learning geography. This application opens lots of possibilities for effortless implementation in other areas. (From Yin Li: http://delicious.com/moonchild100).

River City project “is an interactive computer simulation for middle grades science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills. River City has the look and feel of a videogame but contains content developed from National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and 21st Century Skills” (from Royce: http://delicious.com/roycekimmons).