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Categories:
Arts(1)
Assessment(4)
Audio(1)
Authentic Learning(2)
Blogs(1)
Book Club(1)
Bulletins(1)
Calendar(2)
Change(1)
Chat(1)
Citations(1)
Coaching(2)
Collaboration(7)
Community(8)
Contest(1)
Conversations(1)
Cross-curriculum(2)
Cue(1)
Curriculum Development(3)
Data(1)
Ecoaching(4)
Edutone(1)
Embed(3)
Ementors(1)
Events(1)
Facilitation(1)
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Information Literacy(1)
Mentoring(2)
My Ecoach(10)
Navigation(1)
Necc07(1)
New Teachers(1)
Open Source(1)
Partnership(3)
Printing(1)
Profile(1)
Project-based(3)
Quizzes(2)
Social Network(2)
Standards(1)
Surveys(2)
Templates(2)
Universal Builder(7)
Videoconferencing(1)
We The Teachers(1)
Web 2.0(2)
Widgets(1)

Check these sites:

Rethinking Learning: Ideas and thoughts about the future

Digital Citizenship (Diana Kenney's Blog)

Quiz Reporting Tools
July 9, 2008 -- 06:50 AM
Check out the Quiz builder in your Toolkit. You can set up a quiz and assign correct answers and score for each question. You can also add files including images or video to each question. Create a test with separate sections and even embed your quiz in the Universal builder or any blog or website if you know how to embed code. The Quiz builder walks you through a wizard to create a quiz with a choice of questions: Yes or No Multiple Choice Checkboxes True or False Numerical Scale Likert Scale Short Answer Long Answer Matrix of Choices A comment box can be added to each question. Mark ... more...

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Pinellas eMentor Cross-Age Cross Curriculum Projects
June 26, 2008 -- 12:52 PM
Pinellas County Schools received the EETT grant again to expand the cross-age cross curriculum projects they started in 2006. Barbara spent a week with a fantastic group of eMentors from Kings Highway Elementary School and John F. Kennedy Middle School. The focus is on science where there will be six new cross-age projects. The 12 eMentors mapped the curriculum, looked for gaps in the standards and where their students needed more engaging projects. The topics so far include the Changing Earth, Forms of Energy, Habitats and Life Cycles, Force and Motion, Ecology and Ecosystems, and Space. This ... more...

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Announcing New Partnerships
June 25, 2008 -- 09:31 PM
My eCoach proudly announces new partnerships with EduTone and We The Teachers. The EduTone Xchange^TM brings easy, convenient access to applications and information with a Single Sign-On Portal for all users, including administrators, teachers, parents and students. The EduTone area of the EduTone Passport will offer a single sign on access to My eCoach for free memberships or be able to join as full lifetime memberships. We The Teachers (WTT) is a social network for teachers with forums, groups, tools, and lesson planning. My eCoach will provide the professional development solution for ... more...

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Add a Calendar to your Project
June 25, 2008 -- 08:51 PM
Several eCoach members requested the ability to add different month calendars to their class site. Now you can add a calendar to the text editor. Click the calendar icon on the text editor toolbar. A pop-up window appears where you can choose the month, year, and border color. Then click Insert Calendar. The calendar uses the table feature with the appropriate days of the month you chose. You can change the fonts, add color fill, insert images, links, animation, and much more. more...

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Add a Widget
June 25, 2008 -- 06:54 AM
You can share that you are a lifetime member of eCoach or post a widget from eCoach on any blog. Go to My Toolkit to Widgets A widget is a logo or image of a site that your users can click to access that site quickly. We created four different widgets for you: the eCoach logo, I am a Lifetime Member of eCoach, one that goes to our free eLibrary, and a login to eCoach. Choose one of the widgets to put on the sidebar of your blog. If you use another blog outside of eCoach, embed the code from the widget you would like to share with your readers. more...

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New Features in Survey Tool
June 19, 2008 -- 06:34 AM
The survey tool works with any program and can be shared with anyone on your team, specific members, and others outside of eCoach. We even have newspapers using eCoach for public only so they are the only ones seeing the results. We have received requests for some new features in the surveys. You now have access to the text editor in the description and each question. What that means is that you can upload images, videos, podcasts, and most types of files. ... more...

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Embed Code - We made it easy!
June 6, 2008 -- 09:23 PM
Now you can add Web 2.0 tools like SlideShare or stream videos from Teacher Tube using our new Embed Code box in the Universal Builder. Under Contents either Add a New Page or Edit an existing page and now your will see an Embed Code box. I went to TeacherTube and found a great presentation by Karl Fisch called "Did you Know?" and copied the embed code. After you click Save. The video will appear below the text box. You can use the text box to introduce your embedded file or video. You can still use View Source that is in the lower left corner of your text editor to embed code. The text editor works with blogs, surveys now, message center, and calendar. We found using View Soure was a little difficult for some of our members so now with the embed code box, all you have to do is copy, paste, and save. You also have a similar box to embed code on the sidebar of your blogs and Universal builder. more...

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Citation Builder

May 20, 2008 -- 03:48 PM

We encourage our members to cite all of their sources. So now you can use the eCoach Citation Builder instead of going out to another site. We are listening to our members and basing our research and development on member requests. You can find the citation builder in your toolkit:

Fill in the form with the information from the website you wish to cite:

Create Citation

Save and add more

After you save your citations, they are available in your locker under My Citations. You can then copy and paste any citation into your work. We will eventually be creating a way for you to embed the ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By small

Charles Cummins June 25, 2008 -- 10:10 AM

New Conversation Corner
May 3, 2008 -- 08:02 AM
Conversation Corner is a new feature on your Home where you can ask questions to the entire eCoach community. Everyone including Free members can share ideas, ask questions, and provide answers or possible solutions to questions. Conversation Corner works like the blog tool where each question is a new post on the Conversaton Corner blog. You can also see Conversation Corner in your Blog Home. On your Home, click Ask Questions to start a new question or thread. This will open the text editor. Add your question in the title. You ... more...

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NEW Profile, Add Friends, Change Settings
April 24, 2008 -- 11:02 PM
When you click My Profile on the upper right or under My Locker, now you will find that it is really different. My Profile is where others can learn about you, add you to their Friends list, and connect with tags. Now you can edit each section by clicking the pencil. Members will be able to view all of your published work at the bottom of your profile. Published work includes your projects, surveys, and blogs. Only you and your eCoach will be able to view your ILP, phone number, and street address. You can hide your email under settings so members or others viewing you as author of a project ... more...

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Standards, Resources, and Programs - Oh My!
February 26, 2008 -- 02:53 PM
Up to Standards Every state�s content standards are available in My eCoach. We add standards based on community requests. Some communities have asked us to add professional, technology, and even local standards. Check your standards from the left menu and add any resources to your standards. These will then go to our eLibrary for review and publishing. Resources Galore! Look for thousands of new resources in our eLibrary. Along with your submissions, we have a group of interns and students who are finding rich resources for you ... more...

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New Left Navigation
February 21, 2008 -- 06:05 AM
The left navigation bar was changed based on much input from our members. Since My eCoach tries to bring together all the tools you might need for your community, the left sidebar navigation was getting long and cumbersome. We asked for ideas from many of our members to come up with ways to make navigation easier. Home field is now Home. Icons are different. Looking ... more...

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2008 Presidental Election
February 12, 2008 -- 11:29 AM
Wondering what a Super Delegate is? Are presidential candidates really chosen by the people who vote in the primaries? Check out The 2008 Presidential Campaign Project. Help your students become involved. See how the media is playing a role in this historic election. Get the up-to-date delegate count and much more! Take our survey "How Will You Vote?" .

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Have you entered our contest yet?
February 6, 2008 -- 04:59 PM
Now you can share activities and projects using the Universal Builder and win prizes too! Enter today! Help us continue sharing quality activities and projects within our community as we expand and enhance our eLibrary. Add your project to the thousands of resources already available to maximize our time, energy, and creativity. eCoach members have access to the new Universal Builder. Entering the contest is as easy as moving a project you�ve already created with an old builder into the Universal Builder. We�d love to have you share your projects with the rest of our community! Contest details inside eCoach...... more...

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New Look on Home Field
February 6, 2008 -- 03:19 PM
We changed Team Up to Bulletins where you can ask for collaboration, promote events and new teams, and share new features. We combined Tips and Tricks, Featured Projects, and eLibrary Spotlight into one box that rotates along with the Bulletin box on its left. Click Bulletins on the left and go to View All Posts to create a new bulletin to be approved and posted. Check out the new personal space below just for you and only you. Use it as an aggregator for all of ... more...

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Standards Added and Updated in eCoach
January 18, 2008 -- 08:20 AM
We have been busy adding standards based on requests by our eCoaches and what they need for their communities. Keep checking in, click on My Standards and edit them to add more standards to your list. We will be moving My Standards from your profile to where there already is My Standards on your left sidebar. We will also be reworking how you update your standards and the look of the page where you choose your standards, so keep checking in. We have over 45 states content standards listed and adding the rest soon. We also input professional standards for eCoaches states and local curriculum ... more...

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Print and Export Features

December 11, 2007 -- 08:45 PM

Print Feature

The Universal builder keeps getting more features based on members' requests. Now you and your audience can print your project. From the view mode, you and your users will see Printable View on the sidebar. If you allowed cloning, then Printable view appears below Clone This.

When you click Printable view, your project appears in PDF on multiple pages. The Print dialog box appears so you can print all of the pages.

Click Preview if you want to view how ... more...

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New eCoach Partner: CILC
November 29, 2007 -- 08:02 AM
My eCoach is pleased to announce that the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) is a new partner. Established in 1994, CILC specializes in videoconferencing and collaboration technologies to deliver all types of programs to K-12 students and educators. As CILC continues to build their cadre of professional development content providers, their subject matter experts will utilize My eCoach to create online learnng communities to continue dialogue and provide ongoing professional support and coaching. Go to http://www.cilc.org to find out more about CILC. About CILC Established ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Joey Serim December 31, 2007 -- 11:08 AM

How do you support new teachers?
November 8, 2007 -- 02:53 PM
The East Bay BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support) Alameda BTSA program is designed for new teachers to be successful with their teaching practice with the guidance of their Support Providers. The Program Coordinators, Theresa Anderberg, Shirley Clem, and Teri Olsen with support from Diana Kenney, District Technology Instructional Specialist, designed an online learning environment in My eCoach that included communication, coaching, resources, project builders, induction standard 16, and a digital drop box. They set up one team for Support Providers with the Program Coordinators as eCoaches as the ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Laura Smith November 26, 2007 -- 07:55 PM

LAUSD Arts Education Branch eCoach Program
October 28, 2007 -- 05:06 PM
The Los Angeles Unified School District Arts Education Branch (AEB) has set up an eCoach program and communities for each elementary and secondary arts discipline: Theatre, Dance, Music, and Visual Arts. The AEB staff are the League eCoaches who were trained this June as part of the AEB staff team: Karen Coates, Robin Lithgow, Steven McCarthy (Theatre), Shana Habel (Dance), Luiz Sampaio (Visual Arts), Steve Venz (Music), Chris Gilman and Dain Olsen (Media Arts to be developed). The Elementary AEB developed Arts Instructional Guides (AIG) for each discipline with modules for each ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Carolyn L. McKnight November 6, 2007 -- 10:11 AM

Updates with Blogs
October 24, 2007 -- 11:55 AM
Several new updates with the eCoach blogging tool: New templates Add categories to posts Blog posts now appear in recent activities New Templates Check out the extended list of templates for your public blog. We adapted the new templates in the Universal builder so you could extend your collaborative projects using a similar template. Just put a link to your blog in the Universal builder. Add Categories to your Posts Why would you do this? If you have multiple posts and people are having trouble finding a post on a particular topic, they can check your list of categories on the right sidebar. At the ... more...

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Event List for your Calendar
October 23, 2007 -- 04:14 PM
Now you can see a list of all of your events on your calendar over as many months as you want. Go to My Calendar on the left sidebar. At the top of the calendar you will see a link to List: Click List and you will see a list of current events. You can choose the dates (from one date to another) to view your event list. more...

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Updated Chat Room
August 30, 2007 -- 03:18 PM
Go ahead and check out the chat feature now. Some of you were concerned about the jumping when you were chatting with others. We fixed that because of your request, so now it is seamless. Just make sure you are in the right chat room. The room that shows up is the All Community Chat room and everyone can read what you are writing. You will also notice that your messages will stay in the room even after you leave. We did this because many of you wanted to archive the chat. So now the messages will last about 2 hours. Also one more thing - when people left the chat room, their name and profile would ... more...

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Embed Code with a Welcome
August 27, 2007 -- 10:28 AM
Thought I�d share a Voki welcome by embedding the code here. I�ll share how to do this in a tip. Try moving your cursor around and my eyes will follow it. Kind of eery! Then click play to actually hear my voice welcome you. Get a Voki now! more...

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New Templates for Universal Builder
August 21, 2007 -- 10:47 PM
We thought you might want to change the look of your website that you create with the Universal builder. So we checked out some pictures from our eLibrary and played around with color schemes to come up with some interesting templates that we hope you will like. We have other ideas floating around in our heads on designs. Since it�s almost Fall, Barbara took the picture in the banner when she was up at Tahoe and gave to Pearl to make a new Fall template: To see the new templates, edit one of your Universal builders and go to Customize to Templates and scroll to the bottom rows. more...

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Book Club in eCoach
July 30, 2007 -- 02:18 PM
Have you ever wanted to join a book club to discuss a book you just read, are reading, or want to read? Do you want to share ideas about a book that you would like to develop into a curriculum project? We set up a book club with help from a few of our members and are determining focus. The book club is available to members of the eCoach community who have full access to all features. Here�s our ideas so far: Use team forum to discuss focus and direction of book club submit books to discuss determine how we will set up the forum We also plan to use other team tools such as the team page to put up ... more...

Comments: 7 Last Comment By Elizabeth Oviedo August 14, 2007 -- 06:00 AM

Online Facilitation Certification Course
July 19, 2007 -- 07:00 PM
Are you looking to create an online course, facilitate an existing course, or develop and sustain an online community? Ever have a problem keeping participants motivated or staying in your community? How about encouraging online participants to share and collaborate? We developed this five week course to give you the skills, tips, and resources you need to become an effective online facilitator and to provide an online community for facilitators. First Session begins August 1st and goes to September 4th, 2007 (30 hours). Course Content includes: Building Trust Individual ... more...

Comments: 4 Last Comment By Barbara Bray August 1, 2007 -- 09:10 AM

Universal Builder is Really Universal
July 18, 2007 -- 08:42 AM
The Universal Builder is open-ended and so flexible that you can use it for presentations, websites, class sites, ePortfolios, or really anything you want to publish on the web. You can allow comments and cloning, add co-authors, upload any file, video, podcast, link. You can select your audience and provide options for what they can do. Each project you build has RSS feed in ... more...

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NECC 07 a Success!!!
June 28, 2007 -- 03:14 PM
We decided to try a different format for our booth at NECC in Atlanta this year. We wanted to sit with each person and give a personal tour. This seemed to work much better. At least we think it was better than doing stand up and deliver presentations. Each of us (Roxanne, Janice, Ken, Barbara, Sara, and Anne) listened to your needs and designed our personal tour around you. We will be sharing who won the iPod next week. The poster session on Tuesday was a real hit. The teachers from Pinellas County Schools (Nancy Kuznicki, Phyllis Hand, and Susan Brown) along with Barbara and Ken shared the ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By George Reither June 29, 2007 -- 08:17 AM

New Front Page
May 25, 2007 -- 08:06 PM
My eCoach has a new look. The front page looks more like our online community and has links to new information. You can still login from this page and access our store and the community eLibrary with thousands of free resources. Some resources are archived and others will be repurposed and added to our eLibrary. Please visit and let us know what you think! My eCoach more...

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New Program in eCoach
May 25, 2007 -- 07:27 PM
Starting in June, My eCoach will work with the Los Angeles USD Arts Education Program (AEB), CA. My eCoach will support the AEB staff as they develop instructional guides for each discipline and grade level in eCoach: Dance, Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, and Media Arts. Teachers and community partners will develop lessons aligned to the guides. The online instructional guides will replace binders. Instead of binders with hundreds of pages of paper, there will be links, images, videos, and lesson aligned to standards and Arts big ideas. more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Jim Siering February 28, 2008 -- 08:12 AM

Cross Curriculum Projects
May 25, 2007 -- 07:17 PM
Pinellas County Schools, in Largo, Florida is planning this coming year the Pinellas science project will be expanding to add more teachers. This past year 38 eMentors ... more...

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Example Communities continuing next year
May 25, 2007 -- 07:11 PM
The New Teacher Center (UCSC), CA: adding more principal candidates across seven regions using the customized Individual Development Plan (IDP) builder. This year some will be providing evidence on their ePortfolios. San Diego County of Education Leadership Services, CA: adding another 200 administrators as part of the required AB 430 training required for their admin clear credential. The program is growing beyond their county. eMINTS eCoach Program, MO: continuing into their fourth year with Veteran eMINTS teachers using eCoach. eMINTS just received funding for 100 new eMINTS classrooms ... more...

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Create and Link Quizzes
May 17, 2007 -- 08:28 AM
Now when you create a project for your students, add a link to a quiz that you create using the Quiz tool. Many of our members were creating their quizzes in word and uploading them so they weren�t interactive. You will be able to pull up each respondent�s quiz and find the percentages answering specific questions. This is data you can really use right away that will help you design the next quiz. It�s easy! Title the quiz with a description. Customize it with a logo. Invite another eCoach member as a co-author. Add as many questions as you would like before publishing. A comment box ... more...

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How do you know it's working?
May 2, 2007 -- 11:22 AM
As a teacher or administrator, you may be asking yourself: how do you know this lesson or new activity or program is working and really making a difference for kids. A simple method is to put together a survey and ask the questions that will help you find these answers. What do you want to know? How many of your 5th grade boys have Internet at home? How many of your middle school girls are worried about bullying and chat online? How many students are home after-school alone and have Internet access? How many of your veteran teachers (5+ years in the profession) use email daily and blog? These may not ... more...

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eCoach or Open Source?
March 19, 2007 -- 03:28 PM
Some of you love Moodle as your learning management system (LMS) and that�s great. My eCoach can complement Moodle or Bb but some are finding that eCoach does the same and much more. eCoach was not created to replace any LMS - it was created to support, supplement, and enhance face-to-face programs. We encourage blending f2f with online - that is not always possible - so some people are trying to find a solution for online only. In my opinion - this is very difficult to do. You can set up a course in Moodle or Bb or even eCoach and find that maybe 50% participate. Do you ever feel like you have ... more...

Comments: 4 Last Comment By Sarah Zykanov March 26, 2007 -- 10:55 AM

Great CUE Conference
March 5, 2007 -- 08:57 PM
CUE (Computer Using Educators)- A great conference where all of us are family. Great place for a conference: Palm Springs. It seemed like around every corner was an old friend I haven�t seen in a long time and then met so many new friends. Thursday I did a fun pop-up session called Feelin� Googley where everyone followed along with me doing a karaoke. So glad I wasn�t the only one singing. Don�t have much of a voice even if I look like Bette. Next session was Web 2.0 and Fun Tools. Both audiences jumped in and participated by sharing ideas and tips. I made these websites with the Universal ... more...

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Theme of the Month: Black History
February 4, 2007 -- 11:53 AM
February is Black History month so we decided to pull together projects for a thematic collection for our commuity from members from our eLibrary, websites that many of you contributed, linkable original art, and several links to books as Featured Projects on our Home Field. Here are a few from that site - go ahead and login to see the full list. Use this blog post to share any websites, images, books, videos, podcasts, or any other type of resource you believe that will benefit others researching the topic of Black History. African-Americans Impact America by Jeffrey Taylor What impact ... more...

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Universal Builder Launched!!
January 17, 2007 -- 10:24 PM
The Universal Builder is an open-ended flexible builder that is like a project and blog combined. You can create a website and publish it as a class site, content site, lesson, unit, collaborative project, course, etc. in no time at all. Customize your Site Similar to a blog, you can customize your site choosing from a variety of templates. You can even customize your site even more by adding an image to the template either as a small image on the left or as a banner to make your own look. Add links and embed code to the sidebar. You can add RSS feeds and all types of files including text, ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Ken Bakken February 5, 2007 -- 08:48 PM

Clone that Survey
January 17, 2007 -- 04:11 PM
Clone This Our survey feature is becoming really popular. Now not only teachers, administrators, and schools are using it, but businesses and newspapers. Found out one thing that needed to work differently. When you create a survey and someone answers it, you could not go in and change the questions. Think all surveys are like that. Well, we fixed that - had to make it better than any other survey - right?. Now you can create a survey, test it, and then if you want to make changes, clone it. A clone of that survey appears in your survey home with (clone) after the title. It is the survey with questions ... more...

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Your Web, Your Way
January 1, 2007 -- 08:56 PM
I was reading the January Time magazine where the "Person of the Year" is You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age. With Web 2.0, everyone and anyone controls the media. The focus is on citizens of the new digital democracy: Harriet Klausner as one of the world�s most prolific and influential book reviewers (12,896 reviews on Amazon.com). Ali Khurshid shares 200 of his photos of the beauty of Pakistan on Flickr. Wordsmith at War, mil-blogger Captain Lee Kelley, writes about his experiences in Iraq. Simon Pulsifer has authored between 2-3,000 Wikipedia articles and edited 92,000 others. ... more...

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Happy Holidays!
December 14, 2006 -- 01:09 PM
We want to wish you and everyone in the eCoach community a wonderful holiday and a very Happy New Year! This time off (if you have time off) is a good time to reflect on the year and what you plan to do next year. This is also a good time to read and maybe write a comment to a blog or blog yourself. Just finished Small is the New Big by Seth Godin - an interesting compilation of his blogs about the new marketing strategies. The Internet has changed everything. Each chapter is short, on different subjects, but mainly why viral marketing may take over traditional sales and marketing strategies. ... more...

Comments: 1 Last Comment By Donna Taylor December 26, 2006 -- 08:52 PM

Going Online
December 6, 2006 -- 08:24 AM
Imagine what would happen if a terrorist organization and or pandemic outbreak disrupted an entire county or city school district, forcing schools and area college campuses to close indefinitely? Where would the teachers and professor go to teach and where would the students go to learn? These questions are from an article from the Courier Post titled "Schools must learn to use Internet to quickly recover from disaster." They write "...that less than 1 percent of K-12 teachers have ever taught online or received any training on how to teach online, and most universities and colleges teach less ... more...

Comments: 2 Last Comment By Stephanie Pierce January 18, 2007 -- 10:18 AM