Other resources from Thursday's conference: The first session I attended - mapping PD - showed ETEC415 http://ksdl.ksbe.edu/oiti/courses.html (prerequisite skills) and ETEC 649 (integration/pedagogy skills.) Resources - Blackboard (http://www.blackboard.com/)
Skipped to Online Computer Science (http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/) - mentioned Markbook (http://www.markbook.com.au/), Impatica (to shrink .ppt files prior to emailing) and CAMtasia. They use First Class email system (http://www.atomiclearning.com/firstclass)
On to laptop learning - expecting a handout by email, but check out scholastic.com (http://teacher.scholastic.com/ilp/index.asp?SubjectID=4&SubheadID=11&TopicID=168) for K-8 lessons, webquests and activities. Also mentioned Gaggle,net filtered email system.

The Ecoach system aids design of teaching resources with a well thought out, easy to use structure. Plans are to make any member profile allow collaboration with other team members; e.g. if designing a lesson on polynomials, the system will find other people interested in the same topic and bring up their details for you to contact them!! The lesson builders give structure and allow you to link the elibrary resources directly into the lessons. So far I am very impressed.
A hint on checking the readability of a block of text on a website: use MSWORD! Copy and paste a section of text, use Word's Spellechecker, and in OPTIONS, check readability. It shows the Fleisch score.
Another way is Lexile.com - this has measures for every book in the library of congress. Hmm!

There's a blog section to the system - here's the intro to the concept behind online collaboration:
Encouraging Participation - By Barbara Bray June 21, 2005 -- 03:22 AM
So you built an online course or have a team in My eCoach Online - how do you encourage teachers to login, share ideas, collaborate?We built My eCoach Online around the coaching and mentoring model. However, teachers are still used to the traditional lecture model. Some programs are built around the course idea where the teacher leads the course, provides a syllabus with a timeline of due dates.The coaching model is not a course and can be designed as a collaborative workspace. Teachers log in when it is convenient for them to review standards, find resources, create projects, and possibly develop collaborative units with another teacher from another team (still working on this feature). Soon, you will be able to create your personal blogs and participate in team blogs.This Blog format is customized for My eCoach. Right now we are creating the blogs - and encourage your comments. Please share how and what you or others need to make our online community THE place to go.