Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning (KSDL) Owau

Found this great article for marketing. There are some excellent ideas and things that maybe we should consider when doing marketing and advertising using social media tools. According to Allen Bonde, CMO of Offerpop and Managing Director at Evoke CRM, he suggset that contests and coupons are proving to be a low-cost/low-risk way to attract followers, reward your fans and set up discussions that make it easier to showcase products and drive conversions. When setting up these type of campaigns on Twitter, a little planning and a focus on the ‘basics’ goes a long way: Who am I targeting? – Find your audience’s passion, whether it is books, or travel, or fashion, or the latest tech gadget. Understanding where your buyers and influencers hang out and tapping into ‘shared experiences’ is huge, something I have discussed here . What type of offer fits my brand? – If you are a discount retailer, deals and coupons are a natural. If you’re a high-end boutique, perhaps a privat...

Just like Microsoft Sharepoint, Google now has a version of the cloud integrated with Microsoft Office. Cloud Connect by Google is available now for Microsoft Office versions 2003, 2007, and 2008. When you want to share a file, you can send an email straight from Microsoft Office programs to the person whom you want to share your file with. They will get a link and can open the document and edit. You will be able to see the changes made. Watch the video below to see how this works. Click here to download the plug-in.

Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of learning technology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Plymouth. "For the first time we are preparing students for a future we cannot clearly describe." -David Warlick It's not about the distance learning or the blended learning, but whether learning is formal and informal and bring this into the learning environment. "I never teach my students. I only provide the conditions in which they can learn." - Albert Einstein Everyone is engaging in technology some way or another. We all connect to information, but it is not about digital natives it becomes about what students the needs? Students want engaging and fun learning. Although they are playing games, they learn a great deal - interactive narratives, role play simulations, massively online role playing games, etc. All of these things are part of the future of education. As soon as we can start bringing in these types of learning resources, learning for s...

This article provides good insights as we continue striving to address diverse learners in our online programs. Are You Making these Four Differentiated Instruction Mistakes? - Washington, DC, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post

Attended a webinar on Google Sites. Edina Public School District in Minnesota is a Google district. All teachers have Google Sites and they use it for communicating information to parents. The district created a template for teachers to use so they didn't have to think to much, but there were those teachers who took it above and beyond. Molly Schroeder, who is a certified Google Trainer and Technology Coordinator for Edina Public Schools, shared some of the issues of what they found, but also how they got around it. One of the issues was student names being posted when blogs were used. So, the no longer use this function. Google provides the district with all the permission forms and have been reviewed by their legal department for students to use Google. She did point out regarding to any digital image of students (photos, video, audio, etc.), they require permission from parents each quarter when participating. We currently use Google Sites in our A'o Kumu KeKumu cours...

The main points of the KS workshop titled "Problem Solving and Decision Making” was to determine your personality factor profile then understand the differences in behavior styles, beliefs, etc for each. Also, problem solving techniques were introduced to help identify possible root cause(s) and how to decide on a solution. Below are some key points: Personality Factor Profile (Individuals fall into one of the below profiles) Dominant (Active and Decisive) Influencing (Optimistic and Sociable) Steady (Sincere and Friendly) Cautious (Disciplined and Systematic) Identifying the Problem (find the root cause) Identify a problem, issue or concern that you are facing (the effect). Ask the question “Why is this happening?” For each answer, re-ask the “Why” question to surface deeper reasons for the existence of the problem, issue or concern. For each “why” question, one or more answers may arise. Ask “Why” until you get to the core or root causes. “Why” must be ...

I saw this article and thought it was something great to share.

Many times we are looking for the right tool to use when trying to address multiple learners with various learning styles. This image represents Bloom's Taxonomy along with the image below of what programs you could use in those taxonomic levels. To read more, go to iLearn Technology .

Did you know that Google Advanced Search now allows you to request reading level information in your search results? Well, now you can. It’s clearly not perfect … it may lists two different pages on the same site as having different reading levels, but it’s still WAY better than having to open and scan each one to make the determination yourself. This latest improvement to Google Search will save time and improve the quality and appropriateness of materials used for instructional resources!

I thought this was an interesting article to read looking at marketing. Often times, people are hesistant to invest in a social media monitoring tool of any kind. This is understandable: When you are unsure of the value of social media, it’s hard to justify throwing money at it. This is why measurement is important. But therein lies a catch 22: paid monitoring tools offer better metrics. In his recent blog post , Jeremiah Owyang recommends that organizations invest in social business tools and talent based on market research and scale investment by their experience with social media. On page seven of his report he offers a quiz that’ll help you bench mark your social business maturity and then see where you should be investing. There are plenty of free and cheap ways to monitor mentions of your brand in social media. You can set up search terms in Tweetdeck , Seesmic or Hootsuite for your brand, competitors and industry keywords and track Twitter conversations that are re...

We talk about social media in our team meetings and in larger settings. But, what does social media really look like from the demographic stand point? We use social media to keep up with our audience, but do we know who that is? This infographic gives a little more insight to who are social media-lites are and where they come from. Click on image to the left to see entire image.

We always talk about things that are changing. As we start to look at streamlining things here is one topic that was interesting. Keeping your passwords safe [infographic]

We have teachers always looking for new resources and trying to find things out there. A new era has arrived! Well, you heard of Wikipedia, now there is WikiEducator . We talk about creating a PLN, well I think Wayne Mackintosh, the creator, is on to something here. He has started a community for planning of education projects linked with the development content for FREE. He has opened up the Open Educational Resources (ORE) for creating free learning for all students worldwide. This would be an excellent resource for our A'o Kumu participants.

This is a great article " 40 Amazing Facebook Statistics. " How are we using Facebook? They also give some really good resources for tips and tricks with Facebook.

Not sure how are programs will need marketing for the future, but this diagram is really interesting regarding to online marketing. Go to Noob Guide to Online Marketing to see the full image. This would be a good resource when looking at our main website.

Hosting, Live Support Give Instructors a Comprehensive, Cloud-Based Option for Courses WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced the launch of CourseSites by Blackboard, a free, fully hosted and supported online course system featuring the Company's latest teaching and learning technologies. The offering gives individual K-12 and higher education instructors an innovative, high quality cloud-based option to host online courses or add a Web-based component to traditional ones. The simple, easy to use system gives educators greater choice and flexibility for online courses in a system with cutting edge features that encourage experimentation. CourseSites is designed to support instructors who may not have access to a learning management system at their institution or school, or who may have access to an older platform system from Blackboard or a competing course management provider. There is no license fee, no ...

We talk about ways to get out our message rather than using print. Here is something found as a means for delivering information - 7 Ways Print Magazines are using Social Media to Engage Readers. Based on this article, we may want to consider revising some of the things we have in place. Just a few thoughts to chew on. We may want to also think about Catalyzing Connections for our programs.

As we started talking about merging our Blackboard to enterprise, this is something to think about. Go to Dare to Share: A New Culture of Collaboration in Enterprise to see more.