There is a comprehensive area on Shambles to support ESL ... which includes a subsection "ESL and Assessment"

There are now a number of new links in this area to websites offering ESL / EAL / TOESL online assessments, some for free.
 

The most regular presentation I do at conferences and workshops seems to be "Free Software and Resources to Support Teaching and Learning" - regardless of curriculum area ... from ESL to Science to Mandarin.
There is great potential here for schools to save lots of money !
The two relevant areas of links on Shambles are above.

Each year a website "TechSupport Alert" list their choice of the "46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities" at www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm .... it is worth a visit.
 

Naace is the professional association for those who are concerned with advancing education through the appropriate use of information and communications technology (ICT).

Naace now has an 'Institutional Membership' category for whole schools which allows three named people within a school to be the contacts for Naace benefits.

If you would like to find out more visit the Naace website at www.naace.org and for information on Institutional Membership CLICK HERE

Join now to be eligible to attend the Naace Annual Strategic Conference and to receive the Spring editions of Naace termly publications due out at the end of February.
   

An interesting start to the year in that there were several major exhibitions that have some relevance to ICT in Education ... CES: Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and BETT : British Education Technology Show in London ... and right in between was MacWorld with Steve Jobs giving the annual blockbuster announcements on all things Apple .... and this all happens during the first 2 weeks of 2006. So how do you keep up-to-date with what is happening in all of these if job demands or finances mean you cannot spend the start of the year flying around in business class. The 'web' to the rescue of course .. more so than ever before .... here's what I did .... in addition to visiting the official websites ....

CES with over 150,000 visitors and 2,500 exhibitors was extremely well covered by an independent 'gang' from Engadget would had a dedicated web site at http://ces2006.engadget.com/ ... these guys really did work hard to bring together all the latest news as soon as released in Las Vegas. But an even more 'lazy' way to feel a part of CES this year was for me to use Podcasts .. in particular from the guys at TWIT and Digital Life TV (which is a video podcast) .. and listen to them when convenient. Keynotes | Bill Gates | Paul Otellini CEO, Intel Corp. | Terry Semel Chairman & CEO, Yahoo! Inc. | Sir Howard Stringer (Sony) |

MacWorld was a 'no brainer' ... just view S.J.s' keynote on the Apple Website ... an excellent presenter .. and subscribe to MacWorld Podcasts

BETT described as "the world's leading educational ICT event, attracting over 600 educational suppliers and 27000 visitors" was a more difficult challenge.
"iPod in Education" , the website of David Baugh, had a podcast feed from his site at http://ipodined.org a Podcast of his own presentation about Podcasting.
The "Blast/UltraLab/Apple" group published a Podcast ... mainly 1 minute music clips with a couple of interviews all done by students ... sounded a brilliant fun & learning experience.
A number of 1 minute Podcasts from the Naace lounge went live in the very early hours of Saturday (must have been a very long day for David Baugh)

OK .. so I gave up looking for "information" Podcast coverage of BETT ... the BLOGosphere must have it covered ... so on Friday 13th I searched Technorati for the tag "BETT" ... ummm lots of German Language sites (BETT must be a well used German Word) ... but in English only a few BLOGs were highlighted that mentioned BETT and in most cases it was simply a 'mention' ... by Saturday this had risen to over 3,000 posts, most that I looked at were short accounts of how great it was ... and a few pics (but I didn't look at all 3,000) .. it turned out that most of the posts displayed were because Technorati picked up the word "BETTer" ... a search for "BETT Show" came up with only 200 posts.
The EdTechUK BLOG was the most informative that I looked at (thanks to Josie Fraser)

The TES BLOG did have " Prof's vision for a better BETT" from Stephen Heppell where he talked about what he thought was missing .... interestingly enough he did not mention "Podcasting" and "BLOGS" being missing as a means of making BETT more widely available.

I did find RM's own (impressive) Virtual BETT Show ... but strangely it only had RM products in it?
BETT themselves published a daily newsletter downloadable as a giant pdf file. (3.3M) but it was really a misnamed brochure of what was to come rather than a newsletter of what happened.

Teachers TV produced an excellent online roundup one week after BETT.

CONCLUSION : BETT let itself down in the area of getting itself out to the wider world community .. .... BETT could learn from the CES and MacWorld coverage ... 2/10 ... could do much better ;-(
Come on guys .... for BETT 2007 .... let's see someone using the technology to reach a larger audience ...
it doesn't have to be formal ... have a team of about 6 people sit down in a quiet room at the end of each day and simply (over a beer or G&T) share their experiences and highlights of the day for 40 minutes ... and podcast it.

2005 saw the announcement of the US$100 laptop ..... they are not yet in production and will not be available for sale to individuals. The laptops will only be distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives.

There is an eight minute interview about the $100 laptop at Andy Carvin's Blog ... requires QuickTime

There are a number of new machines now appearing that may help us move closer to the "one student-one machine" scenario.
e.g. see Nokia 770 Internet Tablet | Dana Wireless ||

Information about Tablet PCs in Schools can be found on Shambles
 

Seeing Reason Tool
Seeing Reason Tool prompts students to investigate cause-and-effect relationships in complex systems. Students use an interactive causal mapping tool to create maps that communicate their understanding.

Showing Evidence Tool
Students use the Showing Evidence Tool to construct a well-reasoned argument and defend it with credible evidence. The interactive workspace prompts students to assess sources and analyze evidence.

The term "Web 2.0" (pronounced "web two point Oh") was conceived in 2005 to describe a new breed of websites that use newer web authoring tools, are low learning curves (for the user) and support a co-operative and sharing environment .. and usually with a FREE option.
ALL done in a web browser

It is difficult to say exactly what a Web 2.0 site looks like although there is an online "Validator" that attempts to do this.

CLICK HERE to visit the main Shambles Web 2.0 page
(with examples of Web 2.0 websites and education resources)
 

'eWindward: Outsmart the Weather in a Race Around the World is the third in a series of award-winning, interactive broadband learning demonstrations by Cable in the Classroom , the cable industry's education foundation.
"Introduce a unit on weather by playing Windward. Generate interest and enthusiasm as students see how weather concepts affect a sailing race around the world.
Play Windward at the end of a weather unit. Students can put their weather knowledge to use sailing around the world."