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Webspiration

ICT for Visualising thinking is part of VELS curriculum planning in Victoria. 
ICT tools that facilitate visual thinking are ones that allow ideas and information for all areas of learning to be easily and quickly drafted , filtered, reorganised, refined and systematically assessed in order to make meaning for students. Students use text and image representations, such as graphic organisers, ICT-generated simulations and models to help structure their thinking processes and assist in constructing knowledge. 

 Inspiration is one such tool which allows students build graphic organizers, including concept maps, webs and idea maps to plan and organise, research and evaluate, comprehend and communicate. There are Inspiration trainer resources  to give you ideas on how to use Inspiration in the classroom. Inspiration is often loaded onto school networks and students can use it whilst at school.

Unfortunately, not many students have Inspiration installed on their PC’s at home. Help is at hand! A web version of Inspiration is now available. Webspiration is an online visual thinking tool with diagram and outline views that help you to think visually, structure your work effectively and express your ideas.

To sign up for your free account,  go to http://mywebspiration.com/. Be quick before these free registrations close.

 What makes Webinspiration very attractive is the ability to collaborate and share documents by simply sending an invite. Everyone works on the same document, contributing, posting comments, and viewing changes. Webspiration is ideal for team projects, study groups, reviewing and commenting on documents and co-authoring materials.

I’m using Inspiration with my Year 7 English class in their planning for Narrative writing. It is difficult to get computer time to properly finish their mindmaps and to discuss them as a group. Now, they can complete their planning online. As we progress onto oral presentations and persuasive writing, I can create an Argument Development template to which the class can contribute until they are ready to start their own.

Visual thinking resources

• Visualising thinking within the ICT domain of VELS - Paula Christopherson’s presentation from the ICTEV conference in 2006
• Graphic Organisers – from Teachervision
• More on mind maps and  online collaborative mind maps, see this post: Mind maps: a better way to collaborate

Tag Crowd

TagCrowd is a web application for visualizing word frequencies in any user-supplied text by creating what is popularly known as a tag cloud  or word cloud. You can upload a file, type in a URL of a website, paste your own text, type in words. If you want to omit some words, you can create a stoplist which might filter out words like, a, the, an; anything you want to include in it. TagCrowds can be embedded or printed. TagCrowd is similar to Wordle  however, TagCrowd does not have the same tools for “tweaking” your tag cloud.

Possible uses:

• as topic summaries for speeches and written works
• as blog tool or website analysis
• for visual analysis of quotes in a text
• as brand clouds that let companies see how they are perceived by the world
• for helping writers and students reflect on their work
• as name tags for conferences, cocktail parties or wherever new collaborations start
• as resumes in a single glance
• as visual poetry

Here are some ideas for using Wordle in the classroom. You could easily transplant these into TagCrowd.

Example

100 incredibly inspiring blogposts for educators

• on teaching
• working with students
• ideas, tips and resources for the classroom
• educational issues and the future of education
• classroom management
• using technology
• preparing students for life after secondary school
• links to resources

The most popular blogs that might be useful to educators

•  History, Art, Economics, Maths, Science, Technology, gadgets, leadership

Engaging education using Web 2.0 tools

• Covers 41 Web 2.0 tools including: Slideshare, Writeboard, dimdim (web conferencing), Jing, Pixton (online comics), GoAnimate, Keybr (practice keyboarding online), my brochure maker, TagCrowd.

100 free online lectures that will make you a better teacher

• creative learning environments
• new technology
• information for new teachers
• information for all teachers
• teaching specific subjects
• the Arts
• Physical Education and Health Education

100 Best Youtube videos for teachers and education

• History
• Science
• Language
• Arts
• Inspirational videos
• classroom management
• How to;s and guides
• Technology
• humour

180 Technology tips

15 hours of free computer training in 180 easy to follow 5 minute lessons. You can subscribe and get a tip emailed to you each day or just browse all tips and download the ones you want.  This is the kind of relevant and uncomplicated computer training everyone needs. Remember: a geek is a good thing!

Chartle

Chartle. Create a pie charts, graphs, bar graphs( bar and column charts) , maps, interactive maps (uses googe maps data to produce maps), plots and diagrams (Venn diagrams, scatter plots, radar charts), interactive motion chart (explores indicators over time), timelines and organisational charts. 

The images and interactive charts you create with chartle.net are yours to use in any way you choose. You may use them in your blog, annual business reports, print them in brochures.

Very easy to use. Enter your data and click publish. Click here  for a 1minute video on how to use Chartle.

In this pie chart, click on a label and it will animate that “slice” of the pie Hover your mouse over  the slice for more details of the data.

Visual search – multimedia search engine

http://www.searchme.com

Searchme is a fun new way to search the web for information, videos, music, news and more… and the only search engine blending the most relevant multimedia results together for you.

Search for  a topic, filter that topic, share the  results. You can search for web pages, images in web pages and it presents the results in a stack – like album art in iTunes. A stack is a convenient way of  presenting your search results; saves time flipping back and forth through bookmarks. Even better, you can see the actual page rather than a link. Download a searchme toolbar  to integrate it into your browser.

How to use Search Me

What is a stack?

 A collection of pages sorted into a neat pile – a “stack”. Th is Homework helpers: a stack that gathers all the best study and research sites in one place.

Other examples of stacks

News headlines World headline stack.

Tech News The technology news stack gathers all the top technology news and blog sites in one place, so you can quickly scan them for the latest trend in technology.

 How to create a stack

Students need to become proficient at 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, use of technology, self-direction, and communication.  Intel’sAssessing Projects helps teachers create assessments that address 21st century skills and provides strategies to make assessment an integral part of your teaching and help students understand content more deeply, think at higher levels, and become self-directed learners.

Register as a user to Intel Education. You will then be eligible to use the  Assessing Projects tool. There is a large collection of rubrics in a number of areas:

Thinking: creativity, problem solving, critical thinking.

Processes: collaboration/teamwork, reading, research, writing, self-direction, speaking, communication.

Performance: persuasive presentations, lab processes, multimedia presentations.

Rubrics are written in  language a student can understand  and you can edit the rubrics to personalise thewm to your task. Export them to Word or email and save them inyour personal library.

 Planning a unit and its assessment

 The site also provides information on Assessment strategies . If you’re planning a unit of work, think about the whole spectrum of assessment. The key is to understand its different purposes, how assessment can be structured, and finally, what to do with the results.

• Strategies for Gauging Student Needs 
  Use these strategies prior to instruction to help determine a student’s background experiences, skills, attitudes, and misconceptions.
• Strategies for Encouraging Self-Direction and Collaboration 
  Use these strategies to assess the ability of students to take ownership of their learning, demonstrate interpersonal skills, produce higher-quality work, understand feedback, and assess classmates’ work. 
• Strategies for Monitoring Progress
  Use these strategies to help students stay on-track during a project. These strategies also assist in determining when and where students need extra help or additional instruction.
• Strategies for Checking for Understanding and Encouraging Metacognition 
  Use these strategies to check for student understanding as they progress through the project. Students also use these strategies to think about their own learning.
• Strategies for Demonstrating Understanding and Skill 
  Use these strategies to assess student understanding and skill at the end of the project.

Brainstorm ideas collaboratively

A mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts. It is a visual thinking tool that helps structuring information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas.

In a mind map, as opposed to traditional note taking or a linear text, information is structured in a way that resembles much more closely how your brain actually works. By laying out ideas in a linear way (i.e., arranging concepts in a structured method) our minds are limited to left-brain thinking (logical, ordered, detail oriented). Mind mapping ostensibly encourages right-brain thinking (stream-of-consciousness, symbolic, ‘big picture’ oriented). For a video on how to create a basic mindmap, click here.  For a more definitive selection of resources on mindmapping, visit the Tony Buzan website.

Mindmap example: time Management

Click for larger mindmap image

You can produce a mindmap individually but its true power lies in many people collaborating on the same mind map. Share the mindmap so that others can add their thoughts and “brain storms”. There are many examples of online mind map tools; here is a  List of mind mapping software – a collection of free and paid online mind mapping software.  Mindmeister and Mind42 are two tools where you can invite other people to collaborate, edit and share the same mindmap.

MindMeister is a basic online tool. It stands out because of the clean and crispy interface, the excellent sharing options and the user centric and personal service. You can create a mindmap and invite others to share and edit it with you. The collaborative nature of Mindmeister makes it useful for use in meetings, in classes where all students could contribute to ideas.

Mind42

Mind42 is a browser based online mindmappiung tool. You can also collaborate on mindmaps and can include images as part of the mindmap

Bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is an example of an online mindmapping tool. No collaboration but good if you want to brainstorm online. You begin with a parent bubble. Pressing Tab creates another bubble in the same color and level of hierarchy as the bubble you tabbed from. Pressing Enter in a bubble will create a new level of hierarchy with a different colored bubble. Naturally, levels of the bubble tree are connected with lines and are movable around the workspace while remaining connected to each other. Each bubble also has an “Unpin” function. This resets all bubbles that you might have moved back under its appropriate parent.

If you fancy creating some content, why not  start your own TV channel and produce live streams or save content and view on demand. Procaster provides free software which allows you to produce video live or save it to view later on-demand. You set up your own channel and your broadcasts are available to view in a player on your channels web page or you can embed your channel into your blog or website. There is also a television studio  where you can produce your own clips, mixing them and producing playlists.

All you need is a laptop,desktop computer, webcam or other camera and an internet connection.

Uses in the classroom

• Produce video podcasts of your lessons.
• Film student presentations
• Instead of Powerpoint presentations, students could script and produce a video presentation.
• Produce how-to videos.
• Hardware required. You can attach a video camera or it will use  a webcam.

Procaster.com

• Broadcast your camera. Use any camera or webcam connected to your computer. Support for Firewire, USB and video input cards.
• Broadcast your screen. If it’s on your screen it can be a live stream. Powerpoint, web browsing, even video and audio!
• Broadcast your game. Hook directly into DirectX and OpenGL to reproduce your 3D gaming experience online.
• Promote and grow your audience by sending a tweet when you’re live. Your channel is easy to share with your viewers. Just point them to your free channel page on mogulus.com, or copy and paste the embed code to insert your channel on any website or social network.
• Link to your channel page on mogulus.com or embed your player anywhere on the internet.

Getting Started

Download the Procaster software. It’s free. After installing, you’ll find a Procaster icon on your desktop. Double-click!

Create a channel. You’ll be guided through a simple wizard to create an account and name for your channel. Once that’s finished, your channel will be available from within Procaster.

Start broadcasting. Select between Screen and Game modes, then click “Go Live” to begin broadcasting. Now you can chat with your audience or promote your channel via Twitter. You’ll find links to watch or embed your channel in the ‘Player’ tab. If you need any help, visit the support centre for user guides, FAQ, and Forum.

Your channel can be embedded into a webpage and viewers can view your programs either live or by selecting a previously recorded program in on-demand.  Search for channels on mogulus.com to get some ideas of what you can do with streaming.

Example channel: ICT Skills training

Various videos and tutorials demonstrating how to use various educational software tools. to select a previously recorded program, select the on-demand button.

My own Edtech channel

I downloaded procaster, registered and signed in to Mogulus and created my own edtech channel. It was easy to record something, the software turned on my webcam and I could record myself (in all my sunday scruffy clothes glory ) or record the screen.  This is something definitely worth playing with!

You can find the channel here. Not much to see yet but revisit.  http://www.mogulus.com/myedtechchannel

It’s no longer enough for students to get an education if they want a great job; they also need the technology know-how that employers have come to expect. It is never too early to assist students in developing  their communication skills in the use of technology. Here are 10 things a students needs to know once they leave school; to survive in higher education, to get a job and to communicate and contribute in the global world.

How many can you do?  How many of these skills can you incorporate into your classroom? You, as the  teacher,  have a role to play.

Typing
The keyboard is the tool that drives all other technology. There is no more important skill than being to type well. Many students have laptops, mobile phones, desktop computers. Whilst we don’t teach keyboarding, the ability to type quickly – not  hunt-and-peck typing – should be encouraged.

Word processing
Every student should be able to produce work using a program like Microsoft Word. This means being able to properly format a document. Such skills as Table of Contents, page numbering, and footnotes, tables.  Also, teach students not to depend on spell-check or grammar-check as the computer is not human and cannot distinguish between email and e-male.  More importantly, can you format a word processing document?

Spreadsheets
A student should understand how to keep track of data in a spreadsheet, and be able to use basic formula and graphing functions. This is one of the most important skills valued by business. Look for ways to get students to prepare and format data in a spreadsheet.

PowerPoint
PowerPoint presentations have become a standard tool for group meetings. Students should know how to make a compelling presentation which provides a succint summary of their topic. Teach students how to create slides as visual aids, not just chunks of text that have been copied and pasted. It is also an opportunity for students to practice their grammar, because no technology can replace good writing skills.

E-Mail “netiquette”
E-mail has become essential to communication. A student should know the etiquette for writing a proper business email. This includes brevity, proper use of “reply all,” and knowing that all e-mail has the potential to be forwarded. The practice of texting reinforces brevity but is a very casual form of communication. Students who email using  a “texting language” are poor communicators. Teach formal and informal ways to communicate. Allow your students to correspond with you via email (set up a specific Gmail account if you’re worried about privacy). A useful tool to communicate with your students and not just for the English teacher.

Electronic calendar
Most businesses now revolve around online calendars.Students need to learn how to manage time on an electronic calendar, and be accommodating of other people’s schedules. The ability to manage your time, to track a project, update events, make and manage deadlines is essential in a classroom context.  We have a college calendar, but how many of us use it?  Students have a diary; they write what work is due in this diary but diaries are not useful in forward planning. So consider an online class calendar. for example, you could use Google Calendar to set up a class calendar that syncs to a student’s personal calendar or if you have a class-site on Scholaris, use a calendar web part.

Social networking sites

A student needs to develop an online digital footprint; one that shows them in a postitive light. Online communities have become an important method of communication. A student should be familiar with how to navigate these sites. Facebook, MySpace might be social networks that you consider a waste of time but they can also be excellent networking tools. Whilst you can’t use them in schools, consider joining an educational online community to develop your own professional learning network. check out Edna,  Classroom 2.0 and Twitter for teachers pb wiki, Twitter for teachers wetpaint wiki. Most importantly, students should  be aware that companies use these sites to check on prospective employees. A student’s best defense is to put their own information in cyberspace the way they want to be presented.

Basic computer knowledge

Not many teachers and students are familiar with basic computer functions. Technology inexorably rolls on, updating itself, rebuilding itself. New ways to produce information and the devices to produce it on appear daily. As teachers and students, you need to understand how the computer communicates with the world around it, whether it’s plugged into a network or using a wireless network. You should be able to take care of a computer by knowing how to update software, check for viruses, and replace parts.

Using Internet searches properly for research
Teach your students to be careful consumers of web information. It’s important to be able to use a search engine like Yahoo or Google to find information, but it’s even more important to learn which sites to trust. Your student should be discerning about what information they cite to support a claim. For instance, if they use Wikipedia, they should go one step further and check the reference articles.

Photo and file management
Teach students how to manage photos and files. Use sites like Flickr or Picasa to develop logical file naming conventions to enable retrieval of photos, sharing of photos, attributing sources of photos, and the sharing of photos. Again, these sites are examples of social networking that will allow students to make connections.

If you’re looking for online tools to make timelines of historical events or  personal milestones, here are three programs available online.

Some planning  before tackling your timeline would be beneficial. For example, make a list of all the events in chronological order, adding date/year, collect images you can add to each event, videos can be embedded in events. Either use Youtube videos or dowwnload and upload to Teachertube, if Youtube is blocked.

Each timeline can be shared in a number of ways: embed into web page, wiki or blog, share the URL and link to the timeline.

Dipity.com

Dipity lets you upload photos and link to videos, and also geocode your timeline so that it has a map interface built in. You can also view events as a “flipbook,” a la iTunes’ music browsing feature.  Timelines can be an excellent way to add features to a multimedia story, as long as there’s an interesting time element and can force students to think chronologically about a story outside the narrative writing process.

Example of a dipity timeline: The History of MAC

Video using Dipity

Timerime.com

A free service that lets you create cool-looking flash-based timelines online! It’s a timeline maker! You can create very interactive and multimedia rich timelines. Each timeline can include text, images, YouTube videos, and more! So instead of creating a simple and boring timeline with just text and dates, you can create full-fledged timeline presentation to engage viewers. Once you create your timeline, you can easily share it with others via email or embed it on your website or blog. Since it is flash-based, there are controls to navigate the timeline, such as zooming in and out and extending the size up or down. You can also search TimeRime for other publicly shared timelines and learn about various subjects.

Example of a timerime timeline:  The history of CocaCola

Video on how to use TimeRime

Timetoast.com

Timetoast itself is relatively simple – after you sign up, you can create a timeline by adding a title and a picture. After that, it’s all about adding events – pick the day and add images, links, and content. Create timelines to outline key happenings at a conference or use it to flesh out an essay on Shakespeare. A great tool for recording memories and history via timelines.

Example of a timetoast timeline: World War 1

Teaching for the 21st century involves the use of a range of new digital tools.  There are wikis, blogs, podcasts,  web 2.0, social bookmarking, video sharing, collaboration, online virtual teams and interactive whiteboards.  Our students use digital tools daily and have fully embraced them as social tools; not necessarily how to learn using these tools. That’s our job as teachers – to shift their learning.

At RSC, we appear to have embraced the use of the interactive whiteboard but how many are using it beyond just an LCD projector. The following comment appeared in the Ning site,  The Interactive Whiteboard Revolution. Is this how you use the IWB in your classroom?

Teachers using IWBs well were the ones that challenged students to think more deeply about ideas, to engage in spirited debate about concepts, or to defend their ideas in the face of criticism by others. The depth of thinking, and the intellectual quality that come from that thinking, is the real hallmark of great teaching. What great “IWB teachers” seem to be able to do better than most, is to use the inherent abilities of the IWB – the ability to manipulate, sort, match, compare ideas, present points of view using rich multimedia resources, successfully divert lessons into unexpected areas by finding resources on the fly – THESE are the things that IWBs seem to enable far more easily, and the real benefit of the technology is NOT in using it as a technical solution for adding physical interactivity, but rather, in using them as a pedagogical solution to stimulating intellectual activity.  From post, How do you know when you’re using it well?

What’s my point?

This term, we have to make some decisions about where we spend our government grant. There have been lots of suggestions -  a room of desktops, some laptops – MAC and PC that can be moved around to classes when required; pods of computers, more whiteboards.  The decision may well be based on the results of our epotential survey as this indicates the areas of need.  What we don’t want is to purchase  hundreds of laptops, for example, only to have them damaged because teachers don’t look after them, underused or simply used as word processing tools. If you wish to be involved in the decision making process, you need some ideas on how you see the technology used in learning and perhaps be prepared to take on a new ICT tool yourself.

So teachers of RSC, you need to set yourself a challenge this term: Learn one new ICT tool and use that tool in one class.

ICT can be overwhelming so start with baby steps. Start a class blog, use a WIKI to organise student revision, create a podcast, use a web 2.0 tool such as Animoto, Voicethread to produce a digital story; using mobile phones to enhance learning. The ICT tip of the day will provide you with some new ICT tools, programs, web sites that may get you inspired. Pick one and explore it.

PLT meetings – Term 2

During the PLT meetings this term, there will be an opportuntity to take on a project; so take on an ICT project – something other than the interactive whiteboard. Try something new, something that can change the way you teach a topic and that will change the way a student learns that topic. 

Seeing no progress, some schools drop laptops. This article from the New York Times is about one New York school that has decided to drop laptops from its program because they were not achieving any change in student learning. Why? Because teachers had not changed the way they taught; the technology was there but the pedagogy remained the same.  Whilst this article is two years old, the lessons are still the same.

As a school we can:

• Provide the Technology (Hardware/Software)
• Provide PD to assist with the skills (The teacher ability to confidently and competently use the technology)
• Provide the tools (The objects and resources the teachers uses with the technology, can be as simple as a online video or webpage or as detailed as a high level Interactive White Board learning object)

What you need to provide is the pedagogy (the heart and soul of the top three elements).

Youtube has over 200,000 videos uploaded daily. There is so much educational content, tutorials and reviews that could be used in schools.  Whilst Youtube is blocked in most schools, its educational value can still be utilised with a bit of planning. It’s an inefficient process as it generally involves downloading the video from youtube only to upload it again to Teachertube so it is not blocked by the school’s filter. Yes, you can get past the filters by using alternative proxy servers to access blocked sites but that would be naughty.

What do you want to do with these videos?

1. Download them, store them on your computer, show them to students, play them  through an LCD projector
2. Download them and upload to the network where they can be downloaded by others
3. Upload them to Teachertube, edublogs.tv where they can be embedded into a blog or wiki, powerpoint presentations

Downloading Youtube videos to your hard drive, external drive, USB drive

There are a number of software tools to assist you to download videos from Youtube. These downloaded files need to be converted to an appropriate file format, depending on where you want to play them. For example, you may simply want to show the video whilst you are using an LCD projector or make it available by uploading to the Scholaris portal for students to download to their computers. Or you might want to burn them to a DVD to distribute to students to play on their PC or DVD player. Either way, you need to know  some basics about video file formats and video codecs.

• For basic information on file formats and video codecs.
• If you want to produce your own videos and upload them to Youtube, see the article, How to encode h.264/mpeg-4 videos for video sharing. Go on, become a content producer not just a user!

 Common video formats

• .avi - will play on windows, burn to DVD and plays in DVD player with Divx support; plays in windows media player on your PC
• .mp4 – use for Iphone/Ipod Touch, AppleTV, will work with iTunes; plays in Quicktime
• .mov – for Quicktime
• .wmv – Windows media player
• .3gp – use for mobile phones
• .mp2 – used to create DVDs

Video player: the free VLC player by Videolan plays all formats and a wide range of video codecs.

How do you download videos?

Using Firefox browser. Tools, Add-ons, Search for new Add-ons. Enter search term – video downloader and you will find many of them. The one I use is called Media converter. It will download youtube videos and you can convert on the fly to whatever format you want. The problem with MediaConverter is that it is limited to 10 conversions in one session; after that you need an account.

Free software – Downloads video from youtube and converts the file at the same time

Any DVD Converter – free version
To have your favorite clips how you want them, whether that’s on your DVR, iPod, PSP or desktop, you need the right utility to convert them into the format that works for you. Puts DVDs on your iPod, YouTube videos on DVD, or convert any video file with Any Video Converter Freeware. The professional version ($39.95) has more file formats to select from).

Tooble
Downloads any video from YouTube. All you need to do is check the videos you want, hit the download button, and tooble takes care of the rest. Immediately after download, tooble will convert the videos to the .mp4 format. Tooble will allow you to control how your video is converted, with options to control the size and quality of your converted video.

Uploading video to Teachertube or Edublogs.tv

You have a video file that you have downloaded from Youtube and want to embed it in a blog, Wiki, web page 

Sign up for an account at Teachertube , teachersTV or edublogs.tv. You can then upload  your video files and use the embed code or url to share this video. Embedding a video into a blog post, a WIKI page or a page on Scholaris is as simple as pasting the html code into your page.

Copy the embed code

This is what the embedded video looks like.

 A group of educators go over what a wiki actually is. They cover how PBwiki can help students and teachers collaborate online. Get your free wiki at: http://www.pbwiki.com

You can create videos using flip cameras, using tools like Moviemaker and Photostory and you need some skill and techie know how to make something that looks reasonably good.

Animoto will create a video using your images and your selection of music,  match your music to your images and render your video for you.  No technical skills required. There are also education Animoto accounts where students can create  their own video masterpieces. With an education account, you can download the finished video and you can also share the video in a number of ways – email, embed, post to Youtube, save for an Iphone, download and save to your PC, upgrade it to DVD quality.

Educational uses are limitless.

To sign up for an education account. Click here. Learn more about the features of Animoto.

Example video. some images of RSC from 2009. The hardest part about creating this video was selecting some music; all this stuff sounds the same to me. Give Animoto a try.

There are so many tools on the internet to help you  become more productive and innovative as a teacher. Here are ten tools you should know how to use, not only for your own professional teaching development, but which could also assist you in the classroom. Each tutorial has a video that can be downloaded for viewing off line.
Twitter for beginners. These tutorials walk you through the steps with this introduction. Twitter. In this series you’ll sign up, learn to Twitter using your cell phones and computer, follow fellow Twitterers and gain some followers of your own.

Firefox A ten-part series on the Firefox browser gets in-depth, up close and personal with Mozilla’s browser. This browser is available on Windows and Mac platforms as well as Linux and has gained significant market share in the past couple of years. Download Firefox.

Introduction to Flickr.  Flickr is arguably the best way to store, share and see your photos online. If you already have a Yahoo! account, you already have a space reserved on Flickr. If not, it’s easy to get one and start sharing your photos and viewing your friends pics online.

Finding your way with Google Maps. A 10-part series which shows you how to get more out of Google Maps. Apart from the usual things you can find, with Google Maps “mashups,” there’s a user community creating special mapplications designed specifically for Google Maps.

Editing your images with Irfanview.  A 10-part tutorial series for  the complete beginner’s guide to working with free image editing utility IrfanView. Looks at everything from working with images in batches and setting up a slideshow to enhancing and altering images. Irfanview is on our network, is simple to use and  useful for classes.

GMAIL for beginners. Gmail is Google ’s free email service. In this series of tutorials, you’ll learn all about Gmail Chat, sending and receiving messages, adding contacts and getting the day’s news before delving into some of Gmail’s more powerful advanced features. A Gmail account is a must for teachers. You

can have multiple accounts and leave your edumail account pristine for school use.

Beginners guide to Youtube. This guide unlocks the power of this online video sharing phenom. Follow along with these tutorials as some of the more advanced features that the typical YouTuber may never see are revealed. Yes, Youtube is blocked at school for now, however, it has immense educational value. To access this, we will need to  amend our Acceptable Use Policy.

Google Reader and RSS. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Using RSS feeds, you can catch all of the news that matters to you in one place. In this demo, see Google Reader  demonstrated in  how to add, manage, find and subscribe to feeds.

Beginners guide to safe surfing. Learn about the finer points of online safety and security for teachers, parents, ki

ds or just about anyone who wants a better understanding online safety, how to protect against online theft, phishing scams, spyware, viruses and more. If you use the internet or use it with your students,  do this tutorial.

Making the move to MAC. They say that once you go Mac, you never go back.  Making the move from the Windows world to the land of the Mac means making some adjustments in the way you work.  This 10-part series talks you through the finer points of making the move to Mac.

Office Live Workspaces

We all have Microsoft Office on our laptops or on computers at home. Files need to be saved to your hard drive, backed up to a USB flash drive or external hard drive whatever application in Office you are using. You may have multiple computers – a laptop for school use, A PC at home; you may want to share a file with others in your team or access an important document when you are away from your computer.

Microsoft Office live allows you to save your files to an online workspace where you can share them collaborate with others, edit files, set up meeting workspaces, personalised workspaces. Each workspace has some templates whichg assist in managing those spaces. Yes, we have Scholaris (Sharepoint) which also does some of this but this looks so much easier both in terms of access to your documents, setting it up and sharing it.

Getting started
Sign up for an Office Live account – here – this is all free.

To access Office Live from within Microsoft Office on your computer, you need to download the Office Live update. If you are regularly updating your computer with weekly updates, you may already have this update. It not, you can access it here.

The Office Live Add-in adds new menu options in the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite and a toolbar in Microsoft Office XP and Office 2003. You will be able to open documents located in Office Live Workspace directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You will also be able to save files directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to Office Live Workspace.

Creating a Workspace

Office Live Workspace is a private site where you can store, access, and share documents for an activity or project. A workspace allows you to access your documents from any computer, and easily collaborate with others.

Adding documents to your Workspace

The power of your workspace is the content within it, but it can be a hassle to add multiple documents to your workspace manually. To make it easier, Office Live Workspace enables you to upload multiple documents with a few clicks of your mouse.

Share your workspace

Once you set up a workspace, it’s easy to invite others to share it with you. This will enable you to collaborate on the same copy of an online document, or to share project plans and schedules.

Demo videos

There are a number of videos in the Office Live website to assist you in setting up, managing and sharing your workspaces. Access them here.

An example of how someone uses Office Live

Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is an idea processor, a notebook, an information organizer
OneNote can help if you need to:

• Make sure you don’t lose any information that you think is important
• Organize scraps of information that don’t fit well into e-mail, calendar, or formal documents
• Gather and refer back to notes from meetings or lectures
• Collect research from the Web or other sources and annotate it for yourself or others
• Keep track of what you need to do next and not miss anything
• Work closely with other people on a project sharing notes and files
• Capture ideas and gather information

You can quickly capture meeting notes, brainstorming notes, ideas and thoughts, audio from discussions, video from interviews, diagrams, and so on using the keyboard, pen or the recording capabilities in OneNote. You can also gather clippings from the Web, e-mail, miscellaneous materials for projects and classes, files, pictures, and so on using convenient integration with your Web browser and the Office system.

With OneNote, all this information stays in one place. It is easy to organize it, or pile it together  (if that’s your preference), and then search and find it again — even words in pictures and audio or video recordings! Since OneNote uses the familiar concept of notebooks divided into sections with pages, you can get going right away.

Having all this information at your fingertips will keep you always prepared: for the next meeting, for writing a final document or e-mail message, for doing a task, for going on a trip, and so on. You can flag items in your notebooks as Important or To Do and then quickly gather summaries of information you have flagged this way. OneNote is fully customizable so you can adapt it to your work style.

You can also work with your whole team — in a shared notebook that everybody can edit at the same time and view even while not connected to the network. OneNote seamlessly merges the changes each time anyone updates the notebook. A shared notebook is a great way to see what information the team has gathered, what files and notes are available as sources, even what action items remain for the team to work on.
 

 
OneNote: Demo 

 Training for One Note

Remember, the DEECD provides online tutorials for Microsoft products. See the post Training in Vista and Office 2007 for more details on accessing this training.

The training for One Note is:

What is New in Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Getting Started with Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Taking Notes with Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Performing Web-based Research using Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Sharing Information with Other Users and Applications using Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Tips to get started with SMARTBOARD IWB

For those who have not yet taken the first steps in using the interactive whiteboard, here are some steps to get you started.

I have some links to interactive whiteboard resources here. Bookmark it and revisit as the list grows.

Let’s Get Connected

Hooking up Smartboard

• Connect the power to the SMARTBoard (if needed)
• Connect the USB from the SMARTBoard to the computer

Get the Data projector set up

• Make sure the Data Projector’s image is just within the borders of the SMARTBoard frame
• Make sure the Data Projector cable is plugged into the back of your computer

Use the Smartboard like a Whiteboard

Open Smartboard

• Turn on your computer and turn on the Data Projector
• Go to the Smartboard Notebook Software and open it.
• Orient the board
• On the Smartboard click on the two buttons that are on the pen tray at the same time
• Click the spots consecutively until they are all gone (Usually nine spots)

Write/Erase on the Board

• Pick up a pen and write as if you were using a whiteboard
• Use the eraser as you would on a whiteboard
• Become familiar with the Smartboard Toolbar
• Right click anywhere on the toolbar to know the names of all the toolbar option.
• Become especially familiar with the new page button, as well as the undo and redo buttons.

Get a pre-made lesson shell at the Lesson Activity Toolkit

• In Smartboard, find the tabs on the left or right of the screen.
• Find the Gallery Tab and click on it (picture frame).
• Now click on the plus sign for the Lesson Activity Toolkit.
• Now click on the plus sign for Activities.
• Now click on examples.
• Lastly click on “notebook files and pages”. Drag one out and take look at it.
• There are a lot of excellent examples, so spend some time looking at some of the things you can do with a smartboard.

Fill it in with your own material

• Once you have chosen one you like, fill it in with your own material.
• Click on edit and then change it as you please.
• Once you have edited this make sure you save your file as you would a Word Document.

Use the Activity to get your students to the board

• Show the slide to your students. Have the students talk with each other about what they might do if they were called.
• Pick a student at random to come to the board and answer the question.Have them give reasoning for why they did what they did. Continue this with other random students until the slide is solved.
• As always, if a student does not know what to do, they can ask another student to help walk them through the answer.

Make your own Lesson Structure

• Search for some premade lessons. Google “Smartboard Lessons Math” or any subject area you want
• Download a variety of lessons.
• Google “Smartboard Lesson Podcast” or “Teaching with Smartboard” to get some lesson ideas
• Google “Teachers Love Smartboards”to subscribe to this blog and get a great Smartboard resource
• Remember to look for lessons that will get the students up to the board.Not just fancy things that the teacher can do.

Modify a lesson to fit your needs

• Find a lesson that looks interesting to you and modify it.
• Once you have seen a number of lessons, it will better prepare you to make a lesson on your own.

Change your written lesson plans to Smartboard Shell Lessons

• Plan out your lesson slide by slide for your classes
• Make your whole lesson from beginning to end using the slides on your SMARTBOARD
• Print Capture any handout given in class.
• Put in reminders and directions.
• Put in any interactive lesson slides.

Save lessons each day as a record of your class

• “SAVE AS” at the end of any lesson. This way you can save it as a different name and have a record of what you did in class that day.
• Keeping a record of all that you do is a great way to keep absent students up to date by sending them a PDF of the lesson.
• Since you have a record of what you are doing in class you can go back and look again at some material from a previous day.

Source: The Busy Educator – Marjan Glavac

Today I attended a Web 2.0 professional development workshop with Will Richardson. It was held at Koonung Secondary College for Eastern Metropolitan Region teachers.

Will demonstrated Twitter, RSS feeds, screencasting, podcasting, blogs, wikis and discussed the need for education to shift along with the students and prepare them for the world of tomorrow.

I had my Pulse smart pen by Livescribe  with me which records your notes and aligns the audio with the notes. I then dock the pen to my computer and transfer the notes and audio to my PC.

I took  alot of notes and basically recorded the whole day. I have uploaded all my notes from the day to my online Livescribe directory and made them available  to share. It was an excellent day!

The quality is quite good considering I was a few metres away. The notes can also be downloaded as a pdf file

You can download the notes from here:

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

The power of Twitter

During the day, I had some queries about the Pulse pen. Livescribe is on Twitter so I tweeted my question. Within 10 minutes, Livescribe had replied and assisted me  after a few messages back and forth- somewhat. The point is – twitter gets you better support than contacting online support.

A demo of the Pulse pen from Livescribe

What is a Voki?

Voki enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking character. You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters… animals, monsters, anime etc. Your Voki can speak with your own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone. Voki can be emailed, saved, embedded onto a wiki page, blog page.

What’s with the name?
Voki is a combination of “vox”, which is Latin for voice, and “Loki“, which, is a prankster character in Norse Mythology.

How you might use it in a class

Extracts fromThe Innovative Educator

“…using a voki to improve writing especially for ELL students who need to hear the patterns of the spoken word to help with fluency and to improve comprehension”.

A series of three lessons where a teacher describes how he used a voki and blog.

You can add voice to your voki – the simplest way is to plug a microphone into your computer and record up to 60 secs, then attach it your Voki.

This is a voki I created for my Year 7 English class blog.  Students are in the process of creating their own voki, recording a welcome message and embedding it onto their blog. Voki.com is in the education channel – free to use inside the school network.

http://7eenglish.globalstudent.org.au to see the voki in context.

Get a Voki now!

How to create a Voki

Another  Voki screencast

http://amazon.sjsu.edu/html-df246a8/voki2/voki2.html

Microsoft Office and VISTA training for all DEECD staff

If you have a new laptop, you have Office 2007 and you have the Vista operating system. The familiar Office 2003 interface has gone to be replaced with a ribbon interface.  This year,  all PC’s in all labs will be upgraded to Office 2007; those staff with older laptops can also  upgrade to Office 2007. There are a number of e-learning tutorials offered via Eduweb to assist you in learning  all Office 2007/2003 programs and the new Windows operating system- VISTA. All programs in the Office 2007/2003 suite have tutorials including some programs you may never have used.  For tutorials on  Vista or XP operating systems, select the Microsoft Operating systems link.

You can work through tutorials at your own pace and they include activities, games, exercises and an assignment  to test your skills.The modules can be accessed at work or at home

To access the tutorials:

Edugate:  https://onlinetraining.eduweb.vic.gov.au/CookieAuth.dll?GetLogon?curl=Z2F&reason=0&formdir=3

You need your edumail username and password details to log on to the site. There are a range of tutorials in Office 2007/2003: Access, Powerpoint, OneNote, Groove, Word, Outlook, Visio, Project, Powerpoint and Sharepoint (Scholaris). Visit the site regualry as new tutorials are added.

ePotential ICT Capabilities Survey

To be completed during the PD&C meeting – March 16 – 19

The Teacher ICT Capabilities Survey is a key component of the ePotential: ICT Capabilities Resources for Teachers. The Survey facilitates self-assessment of your current ICT capabilities in the teaching and learning context.

The following eLearning key areas are covered in the survey:

• Learning & Teaching
• Assessment & Reporting
• Classroom Organisation
• ICT Ethics
• Resources
• Professional Learning
• ICT Leadership

Download User Guide to taking the survey

Taking the Survey and Next Steps

1. The survey allows you to assess your current capability in the different dimensions, then analyse your results to see where you are on the ePotential Continuum.
2. Based on your results, you will be guided to the bank of resources. Use these resources to help you set one or more Professional Learning Goals to increase your ICT capabilities.
3. Implement your Professional Learning Goals – again, you can use the resources to help you gain ideas – then use the Journal tool to monitor and record your progress in using ICT to improve student learning.
4. Celebrate your achievements! Share your progress with your colleagues and learn from them as well.
5. Revisit and set yourself new Professional Learning Goals. You can re-take the survey annually to see your progress!

You will need to allow 10-20 minutes to take the survey however, you can save and exit the survey at any time and come back and complete it at a later date. To take the survey you need to log in to the ePotential Survey Tool using your edumail username and password.

Navigate to the ePotential URL: http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au

• Click on the Access the ePotential Survey button on the ePotential home page.
• Log in using your Edumail account details
• Click the My Surveys tab

Using your results

After you have taken the survey you can view your answers. You can view your response question by question or you can view your responses against the state average. You can return to the ePotential Survey Tool at any time to view your results by clicking on the Access the ePotential Survey button on the ePotential homepage.

View your response

To view your response,

• Click the My Surveys tab
• Click the View link under the View Response column.

View Continuum of Resources

Click the View link under the View Continuum of Resources column. The ePotential Continuum of Resources page will open. Your results are highlighted within the continuum in blue. To view a full description of where you sit in the continuum, roll the cursor over the blue continuum bubbles. To access resources that are relevant to you, click on the blue continuum bubbles.

Interactive continuum of Resources:

Download Resources User Guide

The ePotential resource is a tool for Teachers, Principals and Professional Learning Leaders to assess and develop the ICT Capabilities of Teachers:

ePotential provides access to:

• The ICT Capabilities Survey
• A bank of Resources
• The interactive ePotential Continuum
• The dynamic ePotential Journal
• The ePotential Planning Tools

Epotential resources

The ePotential Resources have been collected to support teachers in making the most of their current ICT Capabilities and to support them in increasing their effective integration of ICT in their classroom.

As you move through ePotential, take the survey and browse the resources, you will find ideas to inform your use of ICT. To help you plan your integration of ICT into your learning and teaching and to reach your ePotential, you can use the ePotential Planning Tool.

The Planning Tool is an online tool that will take you step by step through the planning process as you:

• Define your goals
• Set your action plans
• Reflect on your progress

To help you assess the success of your personal plan and how it has helped in your Professional Development, you can fill in the Summary Reflection form.

Glogster

Glogster is a revolutionary way of expressing your mood, feelings and ideas, and it goes miles beyond text or video! Creating a Glog lets you express all those things you haven’t been able to describe by words. It opens the door to a whole new world of communication – just choose a background, throw in some shapes and characters from the galleries, add text, your own videos or photos and perhaps some music and there it is! In just a few minutes, you can make a digital poster, a colorful medley of ideas, reflecting your own special style.

You can also set up a glogster education account as a teacher and setup virtual glogster accounts for  your students. When you sign for an educator account, nominate how many student accounts you want and you will receive account names and passwords with your activation email. No student email accounts are required. These accounts are private which keeps out the ‘nasties’ from trying to make friends with your students.

Example of a glogster which incorporates youtube video, links to Web 2.0 tools and ways for you to reflect on the direction your teaching should be moving.

NB: you can’t watch youtube video from inside RSC.
Web 2.0 – Develop your professional learning network

Direct link: view fullscreen

Using a glog in your classes

If you visit the glogster site, you can find many examples of subject based glogs done by other people; use them for inspiration.

Example: A students exploration of water

This glog has embedded video, text and images. View fullscreen

View full screen

How to share my Glog?

Sharing your Glog is easy – there are several ways of sharing it online.

• The easiest way to promote your Glog is using the +SHARE GLOG function. It lets you send the Glog to your profile at any of the major social websites, like MySpace or Facebook
• Click “Embed into your page” below the Glog to show it on your website – the size of the Glog is preserved.
• You can embed the glog into a page you create on Scholaris – in a subject site
• Click the “Send to friends” button below the Glog. Preview of the Glog will be included.
• If a Glog is Private, only its creator can share it.
• Print it.

How to print a Glog or view it Full Screen?

• Right-click the Glog and select Print or Full Screen.

Glogster – so easy a kid can do it.

Here is a screencast on how to use Glogster

John Cleese does it, Barack Obama does it, I do it, Kevin Rudd does it, Britney Spears does it ( or one of her handlers), Mark Parker does it.

What am I talking about? Twitter.

What is Twitter?

I use Twitter as part of my professional learning network. I follow people with similar interests – those in ICT, education, computer networking , a smattering of celebrities, gadgets, news, bushfires. It’s where I learn about new ICT tools, web 2.0 tools and web sites. I can ask questions, ask for help and give help to others. It’s not all about technology; you could find twitterers on anything that interests you.

When the earth tremor hit last week, I logged onto Twitter within 5 secs of the tremor and had a seismic picture, a map of the epicentre, tweets from all around Melbourne and a link to a seimologist all within 30 minutes.  By the time, SkyNews was broadcasting it, it was old news to me.

If you want to try Twitter, here are the most useful links about starting and explanations about anything you’d want to know. Gr8t links to explore about Twitter.  In her post, Getting started with Twitter , Liz Davis has provided a useful screencast which covers ”how to set up your account, how to find followers and how to download applications that will help make Twitter more useful to you.” Highly recommended!

Who should I follow?

1. Follow me on Twitter:  michele_berner
   
2. Who Should I Follow http://whoshouldifollow.com/
   Looks at your network and provides recommendations for new people you should follow. Includes user statistics to assist in decision-making.
3. MrTweet http://mrtweet.net/
   Helps build a meaningful network by examining both your network AND your tweets.
4. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pM_ZE5BS0SgqDabnhl8Z2aA. Find other educators on Twitter
   Add yourself to the list

What technology do you need to twitter

Online from any PC connected to the internet – Twitter.com

Download a client and twitter from your PC.  Twhirl

Twitterfox - a firefox extension

Twitterific - for IPod Touch and Iphone

The definitive list of Twitter clients

Become a twit today. You will develop  your professional network exponentially, it’s highly addictive  and  fun – texting for grownups.

What is Web 2.0 and why should I bother?

Every conference or PD session you go to these days has something on using Web 2.0 tools in your classroom.  The traditional methods of teaching and presenting information leave our students cold.  For the networked student, learning is acquiring, managing, creating, discussing, challenging critiquing, sharing and creating information.  The web is all around us and as teachers, we need to harness that information in our classes to create a better learning environment. Our students  are comfortable with technology. They have a Facebook page, text interminably, watch countless hours of video on Youtube, create their own videos and upload to Youtube – they entertain themselves. Our job is to teach students how to use Web 2.0 to learn, have critical thoughts and make something new; all within the boundaries of a course or curriculum.

So what is Web 2.0?  Web 2.0 is social, it’s open, it’s letting go of control over your data, it’s mixing the global with the local. Web 2.0 is about new interfaces – new ways of searching and accessing Web content. And last but not least, Web 2.0 is a platform  to build on for educators, media, politics, community, for virtually everyone in fact!

What are teachers doing with Web 2.0?  We are not only starting to use the tools of Web 2.0 – blogs, wikis, podcasts, but we’re also adapting to a new generation of kids who are growing up on the Web, the so-called ‘Digital Natives’. The challenge for educators now and for the future is to learn and teach Internet literacy, converse and collaborate with their students using Web tools, and help our students make sense of the huge amounts of information and media that surround us.

How many Web 2.0 tools can you name?

Even as a geek, I’m having trouble with some of them. The point is, actively seek out new ways of collaborating and learning.

Go and play in the Web 2.0 sandpit

For the definitive list of web 2.0 sites and applications, Go2Web20.net. Select a tag – something you’re interested in and explore new technologies. They will provide rich user experiences for you, your students and your teaching. So go and play in the web 2.0 sandpit. More importantly, share what you found with your colleagues, twitter it, write a post on your blog,  talk about it at your Discipline meetings, leave a comment on this post. Collaborate – get networked!

Want more on Web 2.0 ?  The machine is us/ing us

Blogs in Scholaris

You can set up a blog in Scholaris (Sharepoint)  and link it to a subject site. This is not just for English students; a class blog is useful for any subject.  The problem in using Scholaris as a blogging platform is that it is internal to RSC. Yes, you can access the RSC portal from outside the school but it is a little more tricky than it should be. More importantly, a blog publishes student work. It needs to be read with the ability for feedback and comment fron a wider audience than the student and the teacher.  Scholaris blogs will also not allow you to embed multimedia and widgets within the blog post; something that is important if you are using an ICT tool like Toondoo  or Wordle and want to link it a blog post. This is also the fun part for students – widgets.

How to blog in a global context  (you want the world to read you)

You can sign up to either Edublogs or Global Teacher for your own blog, a class blog or individual student blogs. These are educational blogging platforms that were set up by the Victorian Education Channel and the School Library Association of Victoria to allow teachers to explore and celebrate the educational value of blogging. They are free to join and open to all Victorian schools. There are other blogging platforms like Blogger and Wordpress but they are not really suitable for students. To get started in blogging with edublogs,  visit the Edublogger – tips, tutorials, permission letters and more and the excellent post, Tips on setting up a classroom blog.

Blogs set up with edublogs or global teacher can be added to Connect so access remains free when students access their blog from school. To organise this, email the URL of each student’s blog to Connect. Send the URL of each student blog to put into Connect.  If you have created multiple student blogs, send the complete list to connect@edumail.vic.gov.au.

Examples of blogs

Examples of class blogs that may give you ideas for your own class blog.

Techno7 – a year 7 class blog. Homework tasks and activities from all subjects are part of this blog and it provides the direction for the individual students blogs.

RSC 7E English class blog. It’s just started but bookmark it and keep visiting; make a comment on one of the student’s blogs.

How I’m using blogs

I was a beginner to blogs until quite recently. I’ve never used them with a class nor blogged myself. However, it can get quite addictive particularly if you blog on a topic of great interest to you and you start getting visitors to your site who offer comments. It is also a great professional learning tool for teachers and a way to extend your professional learning network (PLN) – go on, get global!

With my Year 7 English class (they are my guinea pigs this year), I have:

Created individual student blogs on Scholaris as part of  the Info Tech class. The idea was to introduce web 2.0 technologies and mobile technologies as an extension to their English course and use a class web as the main vehicle for assigning tasks.

First task was to create a series of 5 posts on their first week at RowvilleSC

• With their mobile phones, students took photos and videos, made audio recordings of locations, rooms, people around the school.
• Created posts – this involved teaching the skills of posts, managing and editing posts, proofreading and editing (all good English skills)
• We learnt how to comment on another person’s blog; what makes a good comment and a poor comment. Their first attempts at comments were things like “cool post, Kev”. Receiving more considered and constructive feedback from their peers as well as from me was an important reflective skill the students needed to learn.
• Teaching the skills of image  storage, filenames, resize and cropping an image before uploading it to a photo library and then inserting it into a post. Irfanview is the software of choice for image manipulation. Free to download and install and available on our network.
• Created an avatar for their new blog using befunky. They took a headshot of themselves with my laptop webcam, saved ito their USB drive, ready to upload.
• Recorded a welcome message for their new blog using a voice recorder which will be used for their Voki.

And before you say ‘I have no idea how to do that stuff’,  watch this video.

A vision of K-12 Students Today

Our world is changing because of social web technologies. Our students are using them. They are blogging, texting, making their own video and uploading to Youtube, collaborating in Facebook, using mobile phones. No one is teaching them how to use these tools to their full learning potential, and ultimately, as teachers and learners, that’s our responsibility. To do that, we need to be able to learn in these contexts for ourselves.

Baby steps.

There many ways you can blog in and out of the classroom:

• 1 blog for the whole class, where the teacher does the posts and students read and comment on it.
• 1 class blog where the teacher and students share the blog posting responsibility.
• Each student has their own blog.
• The teacher has their own blog to reflect on their personal learning journey in an area of interest

Blogs for classroom use is an insight into the journey of a teacher – new to blogging and how it has helped her track her professional reading and development  as well as the  advantages provided for her students.

What is a Blog?

Blogging  is often thought of as an activity for people who like to keep diaries or who want to share photos of their holiday with family. These days students of all ages are blogging on a daily basis in a variety of exciting ways. Blogging is an online diary or journal. Take a look at any blog and you’ll immediately see the connection between it and a traditional diary. Often arranged in calendar format with the most recent post first, blogs contain rantings, wishes, commentary, and anything else a writer thinks about – often with graphics and audio and video elements.

A Blog is an online thinking space where students can write their thoughts. A blog can be a private space or a place where readers can respond. “However, blogs have far more potential than this. They can be an online journal/diary, collaborative space, memoir, eportfolio, reflections, an outlet for commentaries and opinions, a collection of resources with appropriate hyperlinks, Instructions and lesson plans

Blogs in plain English

What can students put on a blog and how does this promote learning?

• Develop rich content by introducing various web2.0 tools such as toondoo, wordle, animoto, voicethread  and adding/linking multimedia content including podcasts, digital stories, movies and music
• Teach cybersafety by using avatars and vokis.
• How to add hyperlinks, images, draft and edit posts
• Adding widgets for effect eg clustr maps, shelfari to promote books they’ve read, RSS feeds and how to embed web2.0 tools and widgets  by using  html code
• Work that  reflects their own personal identity and learning styles showing what they have done in class
• Keeping parents and family informed  about what their children are doing in a subject. – They can be encouraged to make comments on their children’s blog posts.
• Pride, improved self esteem, increased confidence as their posts are read by a global audience who provide comment. The blog’s audience can be demonstrated by showing dots on a clustr map  

 Adapted from From an e journey with generation Y

Next post: how to create a class blog

If you are looking for alternative ways for students to present information, a concept, a summary, a definition, try Toondoo. Toondoo is an online comic creator. Totally free, available via Connect (so it’s free to use at school), G rated.

ToonDoo takes a few seconds to sign up, is easy to use and very addictive. You can create one, two or three panel comics. There are lots of great characters to choose from, lots of great scenery and props you can add. Creating a comic is really easy with ToonDoo and if you think about it, could be used in any subject and combined with thinking organisers. The hardest task was coming up with an idea to put into a comic.  Give it a try – have some fun being creative!

 How to use Toondoo in the classroom

I’m going to use it with my Year 7 English class. In studying the text, Boy Overboard, I want to teach the skill of summarising. After doing some practice summaries, each student will be allocated a chapter in the text which they need to summarise – on paper. Using a thinking organiser,  plan a three pane comic that depicts the essence of the chapter. They will need to decide on a background, characters, the setting and what speech to put in the speech bubble in each of the panes. The  chapters can be printed, saved to the public gallery, embedded into a blog or added to a toonbook.

We will create the 7E cartoon version of BoyOverboard in the form of a toonbook whilst each student will embed their chapter into their individual blog via a widget.

My toondoo widget

Something technical today. It concerns me when I hear teachers say they have no backup of their data or their backup is months old.

You have a laptop. You use it daily. It has your worksheets, assessment tasks, photos, music, video, Markbook comments, email, possibly years worth of data – important data!!!

Have you backed up your data lately or are you a disaster waiting to happen? As a rule, you should backup your data at least once a week. In addition, if you have more than one computer, you should be synchronising your files across all your computers so all your PC’s have the same version of a file. If your hard drive crashes, you can reinstall your applications, but you can’t replace your data.  Everything from viruses and worms to natural disaster and theft can obliterate years of hard work or cherished memories. And if you travel with your laptop, your data is even more vulnerable.

Although backing up to CD or DVD is definitely an option, it is not ideal, since the cost of discs can add up, organizing and cataloging what is on each disc is time-consuming, and discs are prone to damage and degradation over time. The best option is to use an external hard drive. What you’ll need in an external hard drive depends on a few factors. What type and size of files do you need to back up?  If you have a lot of photo, video, and other large graphics files or ITunes music libraries,  and you don’t need to access them on the road, go with a high-capacity, less portable drive (probably 100GB or more), or to carry your backup with you, a portable drive like the Western Digital Passport drives. And if you have a home network and want to access media files from anywhere in the house, look for a NAS (network-attached storage) device. (This is a hard drive attached via an ethernet port to your wireless router)

A USB flash key is incredibly handy for transferring files from home to work, for example, or doing quick backups on the road and comes in capacities from 128MB to 8GB. Many of the current generation of flash drives are also compatible with U3, a software platform that lets you download and run certain apps (such as e-mail clients, antivirus scanners, word processors, and Web browsers) directly from the flash drive—without loading them on your system or writing them to the Windows Registry. However, they are easy to lose and have a limited lifespan.

How to backup and restore data from an external hard drive

Cloud computing – Saving your data online

What happens if your backup fails? The USB flash drive went through the wash, the DVD is scratched and only good as a coaster and the external hard drive fried in the heat.  The answer is online storage. Upload your data to an online server.  If you want to pay $50 per year, try Carbonite. A flat fee, unlimited file storage, easy retrieval of your files and it synchronises your files.

For something free, try Windows Skydrive.  From Microsoft, all you need is a Windows Live account – free which gives you access to 25 gb of on line storage – also free. Upload your important data to store “in the cloud”. Skydrive also allows to share files with anyone. Pretty useful if you want students to have files that are too big to email. Upload these files to a public folder in your Skydrive.

Windows Skydrive

My backup strategy

I have three laptops – two I use at school and one at home and an IMAC.  I also have a wirelesss router as I have cable broadband. This router has 4 wired ports. Two of those ports have Network Attached Storage drives – Maxtor 500 gb and Western Digital 1 terabyte. All files from my main laptop are backed up to one of the NAS drives once a week. The other NAS drive is for the music and video collection. I then use Synctoy- free tool from Microsoft to synchronise all the files to all the other PC’s. I have started using Windows Skydrive for uploading files for sharing but I also have a Carbonite account which has all my data. It took a week to upload all of it the first time I used it, but once uploaded, Carbonite knows any change made to a file and synchronises that file so it is always current.

Developing revison and study skills are important elements of success, particularly for senior students. Wikis are excellent for encouraging collaborative learning. You can use your wikis with students for:

1. Collaborative essays
2. Group study guides
3. Online lesson plans
4. Classroom notice boards
5. Sharing information and ideas
6. Group based learning assignments
7. Revision notes

Wikis are more flexible with their content and allow people to upload their own material or modify existing material. They also have the ability to create threads of discussion. The really powerful component of a wiki is the ability to embed multimedia within your sites. Wikis can be set up on Scholaris and can be accessed at home by students. You don’t need to be in a computer room to make effective use of Wikis.

What is a wiki ?  Wikis in plain English

As an example, I am using a WIKI with my senior Cisco class. For every chapter of the course, students are required to produce summary notes, define key concepts and locate and embed a suitable graphic which illustrates the concepts of that chapter. To assist with the structure of the Wiki page, I provide an outline of  what the student needs to include for that chapter which they copy to their page. Each student has been provided with a WIKI site that sits beneath the main Cisco site. They have been granted ‘Full control’ to their own Wiki site so they can change the theme and “tweak” it, upload documents and embed widgets. I also have full permissions for their site – just in case!. Students can also access the cisco site from home and continue to update their notes.  You could also set up a WIKI with a number of pages and allocate responsibility for each page to a student or group of students.

Links to my Cisco wiki pages (internal RSC link)

Main Wiki page – provides intructions to the students

Links to student Wikis

Setting up a WIKI for your class: Tutorials.

• Create a Wiki
• Edit a Wiki
• Manage a Wiki

Boosting teamwork using a Wiki – using a WIKI collaboratively

 (Video difficult to see?  Click the video which will open the teachertube site
and you can view the video in full screen)

At the moment, our school policy bans mobile phones from any use in the classroom. This policy will be reviewed this year given the changes in technology and  the exciting opportunities for learning the phone provides. Phones can do audio recording, take images and video, have a calendar, ‘to do’ lists. Any media taken on the phone can be sent via Bluetooth technology to another phone or computer. Almost all students have a modern phone capable of doing all of the above - it’s attached to them. The phone can take away the problem of booking into a computer room as all you need is carried by the student. For those who don’t have a phone, the library has cameras and audio recorders you can borrow.

Look for opportuniities to use the mobile phone for learning. If you’re stuck for ideas, here’s 35 interesting ways to use mobile phones for learning.

Of course, you need to  discuss protocols and rules for using the phone in class; better still, let the class come up with the rules themselves.  I’m using the phone in Year 7 English. Students have taken photos around the school for a project, completed audio recordings and interviewed each other using the video camera in the phone. They have downloaded images at home and saved it to a USB drive or sent photos and video via Bluetooth to my laptop and then stored them on a USB drive.

Look at what others are doing

Many teachers are actively using mobile phones in their classes.  Mr Robbo, the PE Geek is doing some amazing things with phones – some of which I am going to try. Take a look, and to be sure that you keep getting the updates, subscribe to his blog.

If you are interested in trying mobile technologies in your class, listen to the podcast; Computer in my pocket. This is a podcast put out by the VirtualStaffroom who chat to two teachers with a great deal of experience with cellphones for education – Liz Kolb from Ann Arbor, USA and Toni Twiss from Hamilton, New Zealand.  Liz and Toni have been doing research into this area and have some great insights to share. You can access Toni Twiss’ research report here: Ubiquitous Information: a report on the use of mobile technologies to enhance literacy and learning.

To keep up with what’s happening in this area, why not subscribe to Toni’s blog: tonitwiss.com/mobile or Liz’s blog www.cellphonesinlearning.com

There are lots of links on this emerging area of ICT.

Take some time and check them out. (Links sourced from the VirtualStaffroom episode)

• www.mobilestudy.org
• www.gabcast.com
• www.gcast.com
• www.chacha.com
• www.kwiry.com
• www.mymiamia.com
• www.polleverywhere.com
• www.smspoll.net
• wwww.wiffiti.com
• www.qipit.com
• www.opera.com/products/mobile
• www.qik.com
• www.shozu.com
• reader.kaywa.com
• qrcode.kaywa.com
• www.twitpic.com
• www.utterli.com
• www.lexy.com

The GeoHistorian Project

The Geo-Historian project investigates mobile phones as educational tools inside and outside of the classroom. It uses mobile phones with video capturing capabilities, built-in GPS, and wireless Internet access, and Internet-based media sharing sites, and give students the opportunity to create digital resources for their community. The project utilizes wireless mobile technologies to link classrooms with local historical landmarks.

Given the interest in interactive whiteboards at the moment, here are some resources that may help you in your planning and use of the IWB.

Smartboard Lessons podcast. This is a central repository for a podcast series giving an overview of the contents of each episode. At the moment, there are 35 podcasts on different aspects of using the Whiteboard. Subscribe to these podcasts via ITunes. The advantage of Itunes is that each podcast is delivered automatically to your desktop where you can play it on any mp3 player. You can also subscribe by email.

Need ITunes?

Interactive whiteboard resources.   A UK based site. Tons of resources and information for IWBs’ Smartboard. Includes videos, audio, images, case studies, lesson ideas

The virtual staffroom. A series of podcasts on teachers talking about technology in the classroom. One of the episodes is on interactive whiteboards.  Whiteboards everywhere podcast This episode comes to you directly from the Fourth National Interactive Whiteboard Conference held at Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast.  Organised by IWBnet, the conference assembled many presenters to share a huge variety of ideas, techniques, tips and advice with their colleagues.  In this podcast the virtual staffroom wanders around the conference doing on-the-spot interviews with delegates, as well as bringing you part of a Skype videoconference session with Ben Hazzard from the SmartBoard Lesson podcast.

Whiteboard resources on Edna. This page presents a collection of information and research on the use of interactive whiteboards in the classroom, as well as links to interactive curriculum resources.

Professional reading on interactive whiteboards. Research, guides and discussions of the use of interactive whiteboards in education.

Smartboards in Action

Video showing the basic features of a SMARTboard.

Teaching with the SMARTboard

A collection of podcasts on using the SMARTboard to engage students in learning. You can also subscribe via ITunes.

This is the first lesson in the podcast series.

Wordle is a free ‘word art’ tool that crunches any chunk of text in the production of a visual representation of the content. The resulting graphic emphasizes the most common words by amplifying their size based on frequency. Originally designed to give pleasure, Wordle is being used in interesting ways to provide compelling summaries of political speeches, blog posts, twitter feeds, news articles and more, but there are additional educational uses worth considering.

A Wordle example.  An introduction to a unit or course, combine key words; themes and curriculum expectations to provide learners with a visual overview of content.

Some possible uses for Wordle in teaching:

A few ideas:

1. Convert a sonnet or Shakespearean play; or children’s book (Dr. Seuss anyone?);
2. Paste the contents of an online discussion to coalesce the main ideas;
3. Combine student ‘Who Are You?’ introductions, or ‘Superhero Traits‘ to develop a class composite;
4. Condense survey data by dumping content of questionnaire responses into the Wordle engine;
5. Combine news articles or RSS feeds on a given topic;
6. Turn an essay into a poster;
7. Combine blog posts over time into a simplified representation or use it to compare the ideas of competing ideas;
8. Use font, colour and arrangement strategies to appropriately represent content;
9. Automate the creation of word poetry;
10. Convert nutritional content of one’s weekly diet or of a group’s menu preferences;
11. Condense a Wikipedia article into it’s essence;
12. Paste the results of a Google search (Can you guess the keywords I used?);
13. Convert social bookmark tags;
14. Enter keywords from weekly weather reports to obtain a seasonal picture;
15. Distill song lyrics like “Stairway to Heaven“;
16. Find out what you’ve been up to by summarizing To-Do lists;
17. Represent the results of a brainstorming session or the minutes of a meeting visually;
18. Show “Today in History” stories in a new way;
19. Convert past or current email messages into a composite of your correspondence;
20. Wordle as a pre-reading strategy

(Source. the Clever sheep and The Polliwog Journal)

How to use Wordle. This video  is a screencast I created using Jing.

Jing is free – all you need is a microphone and you can create how-to videos. for more on Jing, see this post.