Edubeacon

• Gulf Oil Spill Information Center – Library Guides at University of South Florida Libraries

  This is a comprehensive guide to some of the information and data concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the clean-up efforts. Includes links to resources on the incident, economic, environmental and social aspects as well as background to oil industry in the region.

  tags: Gulf_oil_spill oil disasters pathfinder USA maz onmyradar oilspill BP

• Incompetech – Royalty Free Music

  Good range of royalty free music for use in student multimedia projects.

  tags: music royaltyfree free open_source maz onmyradar

• Beyond Social: Read/Write in The Era of Internet of Things

  An excellent blog post tracing the transition of the Internet from its social identity into the semantic web. Emerging trends are the growth of data being uploaded by governments and business and the ‘Internet of Things” involving all the devices and applications interacting online.

  tags: future Internet semantic web emerging_technologies ReadWriteWeb onmyradar

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

School Library Association of Victoria is holding a one day conference Make, share do: active online learning in Melbourne on Friday 30th July and featuring acclaimed US school library professional, Joyce Valenza.

Although this is Joyce’s first visit to Australia, she is well known within the school library network and a member of many of our Personal Learning Networks.   She is internationally renowned within the education and library communities for her innovative and practical approach to learning and the changing nature of schooling, the delivery of learning resources and development of a digitally literate community.

I don’t normally promote events via my blog but is this is going to be a fabulous day for all educators interested in the integration of Web 2.0 resources into learning and for library staff seeking to guide students in today’s rich online environment.  Use this registration brochure or visit the SLAV website.

• elementarylibraryroutines – home

  Where Elementary (Primary) Librarians share their knowledge! This wiki is a collaborative space for the sharing of best practice in K-6 school libraries. It includes an extensive range of valuable advice.

  tags: libraries school_library primary best_practice procedures onmyradar

• Farr-Out Links to Learning » Blog Archive » More Flickr Fun Apps

  A list of tools to use with Flickr. Loads of fun and creativity.

  tags: Flickr images mashups pictures maz onmyradar

• Educators’ Guide to Innovation – Connecting educators interested in innovation

  This Dept of Education intiative is a Ning network that brings together teachers interested in innovative classroom practice. It links to the Vict Educ Dept’s Virtual Conference Centre which conducts regular video conference professional learning activities via Elluminate.

  tags: education Victoria innovation learning webconferencing maz onmyradar

• Evidence of Learning 2.0

  Collection of tools and applications relevant to teaching in today’s classroom.

  tags: tools learning tutorials web2.0 maz onmyradar

• Aviary

  Aviary is a free suite of powerful online creation tools. Includes photo-editing, logos, web templates, filters, color palettes, screen capture & more. Can capture Flash web sites with no problem.

  tags: tools editing screen_capture Aviary maz onmyradar Flash

• There Are No Rules – Four Ways E-Books Will Change Your World

  This article includes a list of 10 positive features of ebooks. Good overview.

  tags: ebooks publishing libraries ereaders maz onmyradar

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Daniel Pink is well known for his book Whole new mind which has become one of the hallmarks in the discussion of thinking and creativity.  In this video he is referring to motivation in the workforce but his message applies equally to schools and the classroom.

To achieve engagement and therefore motivation, says Pink, the research is there to prove that three vital elements are required:

• Autonomy – the desire to be self directed
• Mastery – the urge to get better at what we’re doing
• Purpose – to be engaged in tasks that have purpose and meaning

• ISTE Unplugged – home

  Presentations from ISTE Unplugged at the recent ISTE (NECC) conference. Valuable assortment from the non-official component of conference .

  tags: ISTE conferences unplugged presentations onmyradar

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

They say “A picture’s worth a thousand words” and I’d have to agree having recently purchased the book Information is beautiful by David McCandless. It’s a fascinating 250 pages filled with infographs that can absorb hours of your time and lead to some fascinating conversations. Infographics are visual representations of data and information that are assembled into charts and pictorial representations.  They are a very engaging teaching support for use in the classroom with today’s visual generation.

Infographics have long been the realm of the mainstream media but are becoming more accessible to the amateur.  They were the topic of a recent Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast featuring Michael, from Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City who spoke about his blog called Graph the Info. I’d recommend listening to this podcast to get an understanding of the value of infographics from a student perspective. Michael also explains the construction process with detailed instructions to his Ski Utah project.

It’s possible to make your own with the online infographics tools such as  Many Eyes, Creately and many of the concept mapping applications.  Or keeping it simple, use some of the Fun & Games applications listed on Mashable’s 100+ Tools for Flickr addicts.

Some examples of stunning infographics are:
FIFA Cup 2010: Representation of the continents

Kennedy to Obama: Space exploration

Global Warming

The Conversation Prism – how we communicate online

The Spilled Disaster

For other infographics resources see:
A periodic table of visualization methods
Visual Complexity
The Infographics Showcase
10 revealing infographics about the web

A couple of good Flickr Groups are: Cool Data Visualization or Info Graphics

This clip has been loaded onto SchoolTube by Deans Mill Elementary School.  Excitement over the 2010 FIFA World Cup is really boiling up with our students. 

We’re tapping into the opportunity for literacy activities and have a good range of associated fiction, non-fiction and magazines for reading classes along with a 50 word writing competition and quiz.  I don’t know the story behind this video but it’s a great example of what can be done with such a beautifully moving song.

Makebeliefscomix is most definitely my favourite online comic strip creator suitable for K-12.  Bill Zimmerman has had this site on line for quite some time but has recently added objects and each of the characters has emotions which make it easier to get more depth into the story.  Teachers notes on this site provide excellent advice for applying this to the classroom.  Comic strips are a good tool for expressing opinions or discussing issues such as bullying.  Added advantage of this site is that you’re able to use it with a number of different languages and no login is required.  Email the finished product or print it off.  If you want to save the image you could always use Jing or the part screen capture if you have a Mac, and save it as an image.

ReadWriteThink Comic Creator - also requires no login.  It has less options than MakeBeliefsComix but is simple to use and has enough options to make it very worthwhile.

Bubblr - no login required.  I like this.  It’s different to the two previous tools in that it uses Creative Commons images from Flickr.   This will be an ideal tool for our Year 9 students to use to create a visual interpretation of John Marsden’s Tomorrow when the war began.  The completed Bubblr project can be emailed or printed but also provides the code to embed the finished product in a website.  This will be ideal for embedding it in the wiki that the students will develop in conjunction with reading the novel. and should all work well.

Online comic strip makers are great for school use but I really prefer to be free of the hassles of logging in, hence my preference for these three.  It would be good to know of any that are similar i.e. no login.

Edutopia has republished its 1997 interview with Howard Gardner, best known for his theory of multiple intelligences.  It’s very appropriate to be reminded of Gardner’s ground breaking work at a time when leaders such as Sir Ken Robinson, Stephen Heppell, George Siemens and  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, to mention just a few, are encouraging us to approach each student as an individual with individual skills and abilities.

Within the interview, Gardner speaks of the characteristics of student ownership of learning and the value of context:

If … somebody has carried out an experiment himself or herself, analyzed the data, made a prediction, and saw whether it came out correctly, if somebody is doing history and actually does some interviewing himself or herself — oral histories — then reads the documents, listens to it, goes back and asks further questions, writes up a paper. That’s the kind of thing that’s going to adhere, whereas if you simply memorize a bunch of names and a bunch of facts, even a bunch of definitions, there’s nothing to hold on to.

Edutopia provides a transcript of the interview, making it easier to capture the depth of this enlightening video.  Give yourself 7 minutes and view it.

Sir Ken Robinson’s most recent presentation at TED – Bring on the Learning Revolution! is, as always, thought provoking and entertaining. Discussing the reform of education is hardly a light-hearted matter, however, Sir Ken has applied his humour to deliver some serious ideas in a very engaging manner.

In speaking of the need for schools to cater for individual abilities and passions, he says:

Human communities depend upon diversity of talent, not a single perception of ability.  At the heart of the challenge is to reconstitute our concept of ability and of intelligence.

Furthermore, he says, we must create the conditions under which students will flourish and customise their education according to their needs.

In reflecting on the enormity of the task of changing our model of education in this time of such change, Sir Ken refers to a quote from President Abraham Lincoln’s Annual Address to Congress in 1862.  This was in the midst of the American Civil War and one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation which gave slaves their freedom.

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

What’s your opinion of Sir Ken’s words.  I like it!

See also, Sir Ken Robinson’s interview in Australia with Kerrie O’Brien on ABC TV, 16 June 2009.