World of Warcraft in Education

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This week I am going to be implementing World of Warcraft in my gaming and simulation class. We are going to be exploring the use of WoW as a learning tool. Specifically, I am going to be showing my students how WoW can be used for:

Teamwork
Math
Writing
Reading
Economics
and much more

For this lesson, I am having all students download and install the free version of WoW on their computers before class. I have divided the class up into teams and each group need to choose a Race in the game and then create a character based on that Race. When students arrive in class, we are going to have a brief discussion on MMORPGs and their use in education, we will let them know that even when they struggle they can find a solution, now they can Hire someone to do you online course. Then we are going to play WoW. My goal is to get each team to work together and level their new character a few levels together. In a similar lesson last year we played Diablo 3 and used this buy path of diablo items to get special perks. Game play will last around 1 hour. After, I will have the class watch my computer and I will show them many of the other things they can do in WoW as their new characters are really unable to do very much. This will be lead into an online discussion on WoW throughout the week and its use in education. Then next week, we are having a guest speaker who will speak on their use of WoW in K-12 Education.

This is a very exciting week. I will post how the activity goes. Here are some links on WoW in education:

Kids Perceptions

A Schools Wiki

Forums: Setting up phpBB3

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The best open source forum software available is phpBB3. I have been using phpbb for years. The best paid for forum is vBulletin. Both phpBB and vBulletin have their advantages and disadvantages, however, since phpBB is free, its the best option in my opinion. The following video guides you through the phpBB installation process. The video assumes that you have set up your database and have uploaded all of the phpBB files onto your server and are ready to install.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYtTa1WRrfc]

Send a Fax from your Email for FREE!

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Found this awesome tool that is very useful: faxzero.com

You can send word and pdf files, up to 3 pages, for free using your computer – no fax machine. This is awesome for me, since I believe fax machines are way outdated and use scanning and email for everything. So when someone needs a copy of that form and only has a fax machine, use this service and you can do it right from your computer. They do offer a pay service that lets you fax more pages….but we like FREE here!

Install and set up Moodle

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The following videos show you how to set up and install Moodle. The videos assume that you have downloaded the latest standard package and put them onto your server using FTP (that means putting the whole moodle folder onto you web server). The first video here shows you how to create a database which may be different depending on your web host but they are all pretty much the same. The second video goes through the moodle installation and set up.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya8mK9BbOy0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqw8-w4qQhM]

Best Android Apps

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Here is my list of android apps that I find most useful:

Advanced task killer – kills all apps that running. helps save memory and battery life

aTrackdog – shows you what apps need to be updated

Barcode scanner – scans bar codes which allows you to download apps and scan bar codes at stores

CardioTrainer – records you walks, runs, and bike rides distance, time, and map

Dropbox – can be used to share files with your desktop

Gdocs – gives you access to your google docs

ringdroid – lets you create your own ring tones from mp3s

RealCalc – a scientific calculator

Google voice – sends me my email via text so i dont have to listen to it.

Additionally I use:

accuweather – weather app and widget
adobe reader – read pdfs
antivirus – protects phone from viruses
coupons – has coupons for stores and even has barcode scanner for register
documents to go – reads word and excel files
goggles – takes a picture of a place and shows you where it is
kindle – lets u read kindle books
places directory – finds restaurants, gas stations, etc
shazam – if a song is on the radio it will tell me what its called and who sings it
voice recorder – makes droid a voice recorder
yellowbook – to look people up
zillow – to look up cost of homes anywhere
pandora – internet radio

of course there are apps that i use a lot that i did not list such as facebook, twitter, gmail, google maps with gps, etc but these are common and actually came with my android 2.1 OS. As far as widgets go, I only have one because they drain a lot of battery. The one i use is the power widget, which allows you to turn power settings on/off if you are using them (wifi, bluetooth, gps, sync, brightness).

All of the apps I have mentioned are free!

Free online storage

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Need a place to store your files? Sick of USB thumb drives? Well then drop box is the solution for you (http://www.dropbox.com/). This is a very cool tool that can even be accessed from your mobile device and you get over 2 GB of free online storage. Check it out!