Edubeacon

The word has been out in recent days that Wordle.net would be unavailable indefinitely until some sort of legal wrangle was sorted out.  As one of the very popular Web 2.0 sites that has been adopted by teachers more readily than most, this was quite a blow.  Well, let’s celebrate because it’s back!

Thankfully, I didn’t make this discovery before reading the excellent blog post by Philip Bradley – Wordle closed-alternatives where he offers eight alternatives to using Wordle.   While they achieve a similar result, the popularity of Wordle has been its absolute simplicity for use in the classroom with no login required, so it’s return is welcomed.  Students will once again be able to visualise their essays, book reviews and any other slab of text in a word cloud with emphasis on the most used words.

See Philip’s blog for details on his well researched list of alternatives to Wordle which include:  TagCrowd, WordSift, ABCya!, Tagul, WordItOut, ImageChef word mosaic, TagCloud builder, VocabGrabber.

It’s been 16 hours since ‘An open letter to educators’ was uploaded onto Youtube during which time it has had 14,565 views and 2023 comments.  It speaks for itself.

Transferring to a new school this year has meant abandoning the relaxing 7 minute drive through scenic hilly back roads for a 25 minute hike down the freeway but it’s not all bad, it provides me with the opportunity to catch up on some of the wealth of podcasts loaded on my iTouch.   I only tap into a sample of the learning and discussion available which, for ease of access, I download via iTunes.  It’s a form of professional learning I’d recommend to anybody at any stage of your learning journey.  Here is a sample of my favourites:

Ed Tech Crew – A weekly podcast by local Victorian educators Daryl Branson and Tony Richards. Now up to number 114, the longevity of this podcast is a reflection of its professional quality that’s presented in a relaxed style.   Content:  technology in education news, 1:1 computing, news and resources with a community of listeners.  Duration: 1 hour.

Teachers, teaching teachers – Educators Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim and others have presented this webcast since 2006.  Hosted on the EdTechTalk channel of the World Bridges Network, it introduces  best practice, research, classroom activities and technology integration.  Duration: 1 hour.  This is only one of the 14 education podcasts on the EdTechTalk channel.

Bit by Bit – Presented by Bob Sprankle, Cheryl Oakes and Alice Barr from Maine, USA, this is another podcast on the EdTechTalk channel that I wouldn’t miss.  Promoted as ‘a place for thoughts, discoveries, links, and tips’, I enjoy the feedback from conferences, the discussion and exploration of ideas from these three educators and their guests.  Their inclusion of student involvement from time to time also provides interesting insight.  Duration: 1 hour.

EdTechRoundup – A weekly British podcast presented by Doug Belshaw, Dai Barnes and others.  Discussion on this podcast usually relates fairly directly to classroom issues and experiences.  It always provides a range of perspectives and good discussion on the obstacles that can be encountered depending on the setup of you school network and resources.  it provides insight into the British education environment.  Duration: 1 hour.

The Teacher’s Podcast – Presented by teacher educators Mark Gura and Dr Kathy King this weekly podcast is a discussion between the presenters of news, research and technology integration practice.  As experienced educators, they provide valuable information and ideas that can be applied directly to the classroom.  Guest interviews explore issues and applications making for an informative session.  Duration: 1 hour

The Library Gang 2.0 – This is a monthly round-table podcast hosted by Richard Wallis, and others from a pool of regulars.  It provides a lively discussion on the state of libraries, cataloguing and the influence of players such as Google on the traditional role of the library.  It can be technical in nature but provides insight into the trends in library practice worldwide.  Duration: 1 hour.

Infopeople Project. I like the common sense discussion on the George and Joan- Thinking Out Loud component of this project.  It’s relatively new and is directed to public library staff in California specifically but is good listening for all of us in libraries.  Michael Cart’s discussion of books and writing is also good listening.  A little irregular in production, this is settling into a fortnightly listen.  Duration: 30 minutes approx.

I’m also a great fan of Leo Laporte and his stable of TWIT shows including This Week in Tech, This Week in Google,  Net@Night and MacBreakWeekly.  They’re technology related and provide the stories behind much of what we hear in the news relating to social media and its players.

Finally, some more good value and a great place to start are:  ABC Radio,  BBC Digital Planet, Ed Tech Chicks,  and Always On

This is just a guide for getting started that won’t suit everybody but if you’ve got an iPod, iTouch or any sort of mp3 player, it’s a very easy professional learning on the go.

‘Just what does it take?’ is a question that has been asked within a number of my professional conversations recently.  As teacher librarians who have been discussing the changing nature of information, its access and impact on the role of the library for some years now, we are wondering what we have to do to bring all school library staff, not just the teacher librarians, to an understanding of the critical state of our school libraries if staff don’t get on board with digital resources including the web.

Airing these thoughts via this blog will not really have much effect because if musings such as this were being read, there would already be an understanding and a knowledge of resources such as those linked on this site, for instance,  the award winning SLAV Bright Ideas blog, Skerricks and so many others others.

Perhaps the SCIS Connections newsletter that has arrived in library mailboxes this week will stimulate some to get onto the computer and explore.  It includes two particularly thought provoking articles, one by US school library director, Doug Johnson entitled Libraries for a post-literate society, and the other by Australian educational consultant Mal Lee – A library without books.  Mal was one of the very early heralds of change in Australian school libraries and has offered much valued insight over the years.

US teacher librarian Joyce Valenza also spoke passionately about the issue in her January blog post Seth Godin, Mike Eisenbery and me on the future of the library which was a response to Seth Godin’s post about the irrelevance of library services in the future.  The conversations are raging but they must move into the school library workrooms where all, yes ALL, current daily practices must be scrutinised for relevance.  SLAV in conjunction with the State Library of Vic will soon offer the Web 2.0 training program for a second time.  Time spent on this program as a library team working and learning together will be time well spent and be of benefit to both school library staff and their role within the school community.

This video provides an interesting perspective on the approach to a print resource by a ‘digital native’.  I really dislike that term but found it most thought provoking to look at a book through this student’s eyes.

Thirteen days into the new year and the updates on this blog look like I’ve dropped off the planet.  Not so.  It’s simply been that recharge time when, like many others in Australia,  we lift the foot a little and focus on the fun of Christmas and family after the end of year windup.  This ability to increase and reduce the momentum is important to sustainability as a blogger as I discussed with Judith Way for SLAV Bright Ideas recently but now, it’s back to business.

A major recent disturbance that set up the ranting on Twitter was the flip on Facebook privacy settings by founder, Mark Zukerberg.  Having maintained a love/hate affair with FB for 5 years,  this video by Larry Magid from ConnectSafely which clearly explains Configuring Facebooks new privacy settings assists my comfort with commitment.  I believe it’s a ‘must sendout’ on every school newsletter in the first weeks back.  Happy New Year everybody.

Have you checked out the ACEC2010 Conference coming up in Melbourne 6-9 April?

The VITTA 2009 Conference Slide to Open has been a busy place for the past three days.  Keynote Speakers Larry Johnson of the Horizon Report and Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 were inspiring, presenting a vision for educational change.   Choice of workshops was varied and provided a balance of ICT integration topics.

The session I presented was entitled: The Long Tail of your Personal Learning Network. (Resources are linked to the title).  By coincidence, Steve Hargadon spoke about the ‘long tail’ of social networking in his keynote.  He emphasised the Internet as a place of conversations and laid out strategies for schools to cope with the change.

The ‘Long Tail’ of your Personal Learning Network refers to the fact that, although we have peer leaders such as these two gentlemen, the Internet has provided immense opportunities for us to learn.  Support and learning can come from the least, to the most significant person in our network.  What is important, is that we get on board and begin building our networks.  Lack of time can no longer be an excuse when we have RSS and platforms such as iGoogle to help us stay organised.   Furthermore, we have an obligation to our students to be informed.  Twitter doesn’t suit everybody, however, it is only one of a vast array of resources that can contribute to our knowledge.  How valuable is your personal learning network?

The K12 Online Conference is almost here again.  This conference,  now in its 4th year,  offers a wonderful opportunity for engagement in professional learning for educators.  It’s FREE, online, available in your time and presented by your peers.  Sessions are approx 20 minutes each.  Download them as podcasts.     Enter the conversation hub via the k12 Online Ning.   Follow on Twitter – k12Online. Also Facebook.

This conference can be revisited time and time again throughout the year.  Don’t miss it.  Some details from the site:

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2009 conference theme is “Bridging the Divide.” This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote by classroom teacher and international educator Kim Cofino the week of November 30, 2009. The following two weeks, December 7-11 and December 14-17, over fifty presentations will be posted online to our conference blog and our conference Ning for participants to view, download, and discuss. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” are listed on the events page of our conference Ning and Facebook fan page, and live events will continue in 2010 through twice-monthly “K-12 Online Echo” webcasts on EdTechTalk. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during and after the conference as well as asynchronous conversations.  Over 122 presentations from 2008, 2007, and 2006 are available, along with archived live events. Follow the K12 Online Conference on Twitter and Facebook!

This week, Jane Hart’s Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies has announced the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009.  278 worldwide learning professionals contributed to the voting including Australian education leaders Glenn McMahon and Elaine Talbot.

Twitter is top of the list as one would expect.  It’s knocked Delicious from the top of the list.  Diigo is at position 22 but its familiarity and functionality has grown so much, one can guarantee that it will be further up next year.  Delicious is still the best starting point with social bookmarking but Diigo is so useful.

YouTube at number three, Google Reader in fourth place and Ning eleventh.  How many of these tools are accessible at your learning organisation?

It’s interesting to compare this list which indicates actual use against the Horizon Report which proposes trends.  The majority are open source and online applications and right in line with the trends.   No distinction is made between their application for in-school or post-school learning which is quite appropriate in this day and age when we must all be learners – equally.

Last Friday I presented a session at the SLAV Seeing Things Differently Conference on using Google Earth in the classroom, with a particular emphasis on the Google LitTrips of Jerome Burge.  A wiki containing links and video resources assembled for the session is on my Linking for Learning wiki.   With so many resources available for Google Earth,  a bit of sorting is required.   This collection of specific resources will help anyone getting started.

Google LitTrips uses the Google Earth application to bring a story to life.  It facilitates a level of interactivity with the text that suits the visual learner particularly but also enables a team approach that provides shared opportunities for learning.  Jerome Burg has put an immense amount of work into Google LitTrips since I first blogged about it in August 2007.  Under Google LitTrips Tips he has  added comprehensive instructions for use in the classroom that can be applied to any use of Google Earth across geography, history, science …. it’s endless.

On the resources wiki is a link to Tom Barrett’s 24 interesting ways to use Google Earth in the Classroom slide presentation which is full of ideas.   Thomas Cooper is also there taking a social justice perspective with his Expeditions LitTrips site which is part of his Outdoor Culture and Technology course.  So many different ways of using and engaging tool to learn and create perspective.

Jerome Burg needs a word of thanks for putting his years of experience as an English teacher into this project.  The instructions and lesson support he offers makes all the difference to the use of Google Earth in the classroom.   Use the free version of GE or purchase Google Pro with added features and flexibility for using on a school network.

I’ve decided to blog about No Strings Attached to ensure I can get back to it.  Ease of access and the opportunity for reflection, are the main purpose of this blog.  I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of coming across a really useful website and then not being able to recall the details to get back to it at a later date.  Throwing it in this blog works for me even though I also bookmark in Diigo and Delicious.

This site from the Florida Center for Instructional Technology is an excellent resource for teachers as we move into one-to-one computing through the federal government’s Education Revolution.  It contains a series of over 100 video taped lessons from across Florida recorded as exemplary models of technology integration.  They range from Years K-12 and are organised under the various domains.  While generally prepared for Apple classrooms, they

The VCAA also has a number of sample units for integration of Information and Communications Technology across the curriculum with details of assessment and progression points attached.

In 2008, the Skowhegan Area Middle School in Maine, USA was named as an Apple Distinguished School for its outstanding integration of technology in providing a rich learning environment for all students.  They have a number of useful resources including examples of the use of podcasting in a history classroom, interviewing skills for local history essays.

These are just a couple more stories from the  ‘The Naked City’ of technology integration.  (To quote that famous voiceover of the popular TV series of the 1960’s ‘There are hundreds of stories in the Naked City and this has been just one of them!)