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!
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’s24 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!)
This evening I’ve been investigating EtherPad after hearing about it as a ‘Geek of the Week’ on Seedlings Podcast Show 73. This is a live note taking application that can be used alone or for shared team notetaking. Notes can be converted into a number of formats and best of all – no login! The basic version is free with professional and private network versions available on subscription.
This is one of those ‘on the fly’ applications that can be used to pull together group notetaking with everyone contributing to the one document. Like Google Docs without the need to sign up for an account. It would be ideal to use in the classroom with netbooks or in a brainstorming session with colleagues. I like the simplicity of these sites that don’t need a login – a couple of other favourites are Wordle (word clouds) and PicResize (image resizer).
Elluminate has certainly become the tool of choice for online training and it has my tick of approval. It’s an online platform that enables participants to communicate within the session, view a powerpoint presentation, share resources and engage in realtime chat. The School Library Assoc of Victoria has been conducting training sessions with branches under the guidance of Judith Way with the intention of using it to support branches with professional development without the need to travel and the loss of time involved. Fabulous.
This weekend I tapped into a live session on The New Features in Diigo 4.0 presented by Diigo co-founder Maggie Tsai. The value of Elluminate, apart from ease of use, is the fact that sessions can are recorded so can be accessed if you miss them at the initial session. Screening times can be quite horrific for this part of the world, so on the whole, I take these as recordings rather than participate live. This week I braved the obscene hour and logged in live. This introduction to Diigo 4.0 presented by Maggie Tsai is well worth a visit as she provided a clear explanation of features such as, how to set up an educators account, using annotations and the interaction between Delicious and Diigo plus more. Social bookmarking is a powerful learning tool that’s being used at all year levels with students. For teachers, it’s invaluable.
It’s worth checking out details of forthcoming sessions available on Classroom 2.0 Live. Sue Waters of Edublogs is presenting Connecting via Blogging beginner sessions which could be a good starting point for some teachers.
Dept of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) is also doing a fantastic job here in Victoria by providing access to professional learning through the Virtual Conference Centre. It runs on the Elluminate platform so offers the same options of participating live (my preference) or watching the recorded session at a later date. You need to have registered to gain access to the session as the link is sent to you via email. Using the RSS feed from the Calendar of Events is an easy way to keep abreast of what’s coming up. Subscribing to their mailing list is another option.
It’s so incredibly easy to participate in these professional learning opportunities. They are free and available to all educators. Check with colleagues and see who is tapping into this very desirable way of learning with local or international peers. Get on board with a group or get on board alone – it’s quality and it’s free.
An eBook with a difference. From Engadget, this electronic reader ‘Storyplay’ by Nokia caught my attention for the simply illustrating the possibilities. It’s designed to enable a collaborative reading activity between a child and distant ’significant other person’ who are able to participate as a live video chat.
Engadget suggest that the price will create limitations to the market. I’m just fascinated with the concept.
This competition caught my eye this evening. It’s an initiative of the Government 2.0 Taskforce and is an interesting example of community involvement in the production of government information.
It is open from 10am October 7 to 4pm November 13 2009 (AEST). Full information is on the website Mashup Australia but in a nutshell, it involves creating a web-based application by taking one or more of the Government datasets and combining them either with each other or with any number of publicly accessible web services and open datasets.
While this competition is an illustration of the benefits of providing open access to government information, it also highlights the amount of free official data available with a link to the vast array of Data Sources contestants could use. There’s a broad range of data from Australian Bureau of Statistics material through to Australian War Memorial resources on Flickr and more.
This would be an excellent exercise for Geography students in particular and a chance to try creating Mashups in the classroom. Global entries will be accepted but you have to be an Aussie, or have one in your team to collect the exceptionally generous prize money.
Last Friday I presented a session at the SLAV 
This evening I’ve been investigating 
An eBook with a difference. From 