How cool is this?

Check this out:

I created this cartoon in less than 5 minutes on Toondoo (I know, I know, it's not the most earth shatteringly wonderful cartoon, but hey...). I insist you check it out!

All the stuff you never knew..

Hi. Well it's been a very busy few weeks for me (I know, what's new about that you ask?). Have spent today presenting the wonders of multimedia to some beginning teachers, despite being one of them myself...oh well, I don't think I upset the apple cart too much! ;o)
Unfortunately it's hard to properly showcase Audacity, Photostory and MovieMaker in 1.5 hours while also giving enough playtime (which I think is super-important in an ICT PD session), but I think it went OK. Hopefully at least one person will go away and try one of them in the classroom. Of course I don't actually use any of them much, seeing as how I have crossed over to Mac, but it's good to know there are some pretty good open source multimedia programs out there. Another message I got from today's discussions was that the Canberra government school system has so many different schools with so many different situations and resources (from a big, top-of-the range school with NO IWBs and NO infrastructure to install them, to a school with up-to-date, quality ICT gear available for all students and staff all of the time). And finally, I was again to hear how hard it is for ALL teachers (not just beginning) to do the great job they're all capable of. If only we all has some more time...

The Conference
Anyway, I guess it's not worth dwelling on. Because I had another, even more exciting experience this last week. I spent the weekend in Melbourne attending the 5th Annual Interactive Whiteboard Conference, which was an amazing experience and very eye opening! (thanks ACTDET and IWBnet!) I thought I was doing OK with ICT in the classroom, but let me tell you, I haven't even begun to scratch the surface! Luckily I was able to sit in with some truly innovative and high-quality educators. Hopefully some of it will rub off! So here are some of the highlights:

John Short was a very engaging speaker who had the whole group talking and interacting. He has created a heap of really cool powerpoint games based on classics such as "Who wants to be a millionaire" and "Memory". I know, I know, it's not that hard, but who has the time? (apart from John of course!). He has a soon-to-be-opened website which will be launched in October. I will share more details about this soon.

Chris Betcher is a well-known ICT educator with lots of great ideas. Check out his blog. The workshop I attended saw Chris showing us a bunch of really cool stuff. So I thought I'd put it up here (thanks Chris - hope you don't mind me passing it along!)

Phun is just about the coolest thing I have seen in a while! It is a free, 2D physics simulator. YOu just put objects on and apply all sorts of physics concepts, such as force, gravity and friction, to them. There are 40+ videos on youtube by people who have created some fun (or should I say Phun) stuff. Here is one:




Google Sketchup is also a great 3Ddrawing and manipulating tool. A little like a CAD program but from what I can see, much more user-friendly. And it's free. Check it out.

And I'd suggest keeping an eye on Chris's blog. There's bound to be much more eye-popping stuff to come.

Wow, that was tiring. I'm gonna have to come back to it because there's so much more to share!

Stay tooned...

I'm such a great blogger!

Well it's back to school tomorrow, so I won't be posting as often. Ha ha. I'm pretty hopeless, aren't I?? Well, I'm a busy lady. Did I mention I have two kids, one of whom is a pre-pubescent young lad full of attitude and the beginnings of testosterone overload; the other being a energetic four year old (we call him Hurricane Oliver) who goes non-stop from dawn until well after dusk.
If I had that kind of energy I'm sure I'd be posting five times a day (as well as cooking 7 course meals every night, marking all my kid's work before I left school, being up to date with all my planning, and of course exercising regularly!)...but I guess some things have to give from time to time (if you think I'm a hit-and-miss blogger, you should see my house!).
Well I was looking for a funny cartoon to sign off with, but they're all copyrighted and blaugh isn't oving me tonight. So I'll depart with a picture of me as a man....

Yes. I know. Scary.

IWBnet

I've just joined IWBnet, which looks to be the 'Facebook'/'Myspace' of interactive whiteboard users. Why not join up and help make it a community!

View my page on IWBNet

I've got a golden ticket...

Well I'm very excited.

I should be writing my reports right now, but I thought I'd pop in and share my news. 

I have been selected as one of four ACT teachers who will travel to Melbourne in August (all expenses paid!) to present at the IWB conference. It's a very cool honour to have bestowed on lil ol' me, so I thought I'd share my excitement. 

Of course, it also means that I will have lots of stuff to post about, as I'm sure there will be some cutting edge stuff going on down there.

More soon, but I must get back to my reports...

I'm sure you're got nothing better to do than look at MORE websites...

Yeah, I know, my posts have dropped off, but it's not like there's lots to write about. Plus the term has started again, so I'm busy busy busy!!

A couple of interesting sites before I drop off the face of the earth again...

Teachers TV is a website chock-full of videos and other stuff. Some good educational programs that you can show on your IWB. And from what I can tell, most videos can be downloaded. A possible downside might be that it's all British, but there are some worthwhile things in there. Have a look!

Oh, and the other day during my course, we looked at Kahootz. I've gotta say that as a first timer, I wasn't as excited as perhaps I could have been. I found it very difficult to position things (spatial awareness is probably not my strongest suit, but more than that, I found it really limiting in terms of what I could do. However, I'd be interested to see how the kids go at it. Mind you, I have enough trouble getting the kids through a lesson using word - with all the different abilities (or lack of them) - Kahootz almost seems like it will be too hard. 

But we also heard about gamemaker, which I have just downloaded, but haven't really tried out yet. Will keep you posted...

Cheers, big ears!

MIA

Yes, I know I am!

Sorry-things have been busy, and I'm not inclined to blog just for the sake of blogging. One shouldn't talk just because one can, after all!

I got my smartboard (kinda) back again. There's no sound or internet (which is seriously crippling some days!), but at least I can do some stuff. Now I know teachers have been teaching without them for centuries, but they're just soooooo great!! I'm amazed at how much more relaxed and confident I am with my IWB. Maybe it's something to do with my disgraceful board writing...

I'm trying to find some time to do more podcasty things. Hopefully another big post soon.

Byeeeeeee

The Learning Federation

Well I guess my last post was a little unlike sunny ol' me - but geez, it's Tuesday and I have absolutely no money left from my last pay! Why is life so expensive????

Anyway, I thought I might do a little word-spreading about 'The Learning Federation". These wonderful people spend all their time collecting resources for us to use in our classrooms. Anything from interactive flash animations to photos to video, they have something for most subjects we're teaching. Available free to all schools, they are well worth a look. There are catalogues available on the website, but in Canberra we generally get a hold of them through myclasses.

I've made a little podcast (my first ever!) about doing an object search, so if you're unfamiliar with the process, please have a look:

By the way, this was my first go at imovie - what an amazingly easy program to use! One thing I think I'll have to work on is file size; 3Mb is probably too big for some. I might look at posting podcasts onto my wiki too (must get back there some time!).

While I'm on the subject - podcasting - WOW!

I saw one a colleague had created using a digital camera (hmm...must get my school to buy one!), smart notebook software and imovie. It was amazing, with kids speaking about values etc. Very nice work! It got me inspired, but I'll have to think of a good topic. 

But podcasting has many possible applications - tech support stuff such as I've attempted here -or SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) as another colleague calls them; subject tutorials to be posted onto myclasses pages (e.g. homework/lab help); showcase of kid's work (email to parents?) etc etc. Lots of potential, now to find the time...

On a teacher's salary??

Enough said. 

Block??

Howdy strangers!

No, I didn't get scared and run away with less than 10 posts under my belt! 

There are a few reasons I haven't been in for a while: end-of-term-itis, family and home life (I have spent the past couple of days painting), and the dismal fact of not having an awful lot to contribute.

Oh, and I've been playing with my new toy a little bit. One of the programs I'm particularly fond of is photo booth. Is it any wonder when it can make me look like this?

What a great program! A simple in-built camera that does the most bizarre things with your image! What fun! Can't wait to show the class!
Haven't touched garageband or itunes yet though. Hopefully soon. I'm still organising all my music (I have about 4500 songs on there), which is always my priority.

What else is new?
My last PD was smartboards, which I did last year, but it was nice to see what others are doing. One of the fantastic teachers I did the course with last year had made a fantastic podcast - very inspiring!
And I'd been kind of bitter about smartboards of late - not having had daily access to one for the entire term. That's finally been rectified (on the second-last day of term mind you), so I'm itching to get back to it. No network access mind you, so we're running from the hard drive. A bit tricky, but better than nothing.

Where do we find good smartboard stuff? Well, if you don't have the 'essentials for educators' gallery (sorry activboard users), it's a good place to start. It's on the CD, and you can also click "check for updates" in your gallery.
Another place to go is the SmartTechnologies website, which has forums, resources, lesson plans, and other things to try. Elsewhere on the site there are short tutorials on a variety of smartboard tasks.

And...? A real blog!
A friend sent me a link to this blog, which is written by a "teacher teacher" from what I can gather. Some good stuff about new technologies and learning.

And before I go, another great photo booth creation:

Tech support?

Check out this video - pretty funny!

OK, so this ad has nothing to do with computers, but we saw it during one of our training days, and it's a great analogy for how tech support works in schools. The school-based people usually have really good skills in a couple of ICTs, but if they're faced with a new problem, they might get 'stuck'. Then they have to log a job, wait for the tech people to come out, and hope it won't happen again.
So I think there's a good argument for having lots of different people in the school who have some ICT skills. One might be good with a smartboard, one might be great with software and internet stuff, one might know a little bit about networking etc..
That way, they can handle almost everything, keep the wheels turning.
But even better - they could all 'train' each other! Then all of them would have the same skills. And if one or two of them left the school, there would still be someone there to handle things. And, bonus! The people who leave might even go to a new school and pass their skills on again!
OK, I know we don't live in that wonderful utopia (where teachers have an assistant to hang displays and tidy their desks; where we have the time and resources to plan the perfect lesson for each individual child; where our schools are so fantastically resourced that everything we need to create outstanding lessons is there for us), but surely there are ways we can help each other!
What's the point of having awesome ICT gear if only half the people use it? Not because they don't want to, but because maybe they don't know how to, or have time to create stuff, or their gear doesn't work properly and they're not sure how to fix it.....
We spend all this money on gear, and then we don't invest the time or money to train people, or give people time to learn how to use it properly. Even if it was just a group sharing session twice a term, or a school PD day, instead of some pointless course selling us something that none of us will ever use. (oops! Did I say that??)
One of the teachers at my IT PD told us about their school, where at least once a term they have a 'roving' staff meeting, where everybody walks from classroom to classroom, and people share the exciting stuff they've been doing. How cool!
Anyway, bit of a whine and a moan (you've gotta do it sometimes). I know - schools have so many different priorities and goals and budget considerations...blah blah blah....But it makes me feel better to complain!

The First IT Pro

It's in Danish (or something), but stick with it, I think it paints a pretty clear picture of how we all feel when faced with new technologies...

Crossing over to the dark side....

I've bought a Mac. Well, technically I'm renting it, but still, I'm going to consider it mine. 

It's very cute, small and light and compact - although I stopped short of paying an extra $1000 to have it wafer-thin and able to be slipped into envelopes....

I've wanted a Mac for a while. I've always liked using iTunes (I've heard it's more user-friendly on a Mac, but haven't got around to trying it out yet), and I'm excited about all the media stuff I can do: Garage Band, iMovie, iPhoto...

Mind you, I've got to learn how to use it properly first! I've got the basics down, but it's gonna take a while for me to figure it out. Lucky the holidays are coming up (or maybe unlucky - is this going to take me away from important holiday business?).

PCs and Macs are a bit like Holdens and Fords I think. People viciously defend their chosen tool, putting down the opposition wherever possible (I guess the computer companies are probably guilty of that, too). Me, I think both have admirable qualities. Macs have that wonderful media thing going on, but PCs are much easier to get software (or support - as I found out after calling my ISP help desk) for. 

So I'm passing my PC on to my son. First year of high school, I think he's ready. He's stoked of course, but so am I, because it means it's not that far away...

Fun stuff - or adventures in html...

Free sketch at dumpr.net

Sooooo many cool websites and programs!
In fact there are probably too many! I know I spend far too long playing when I should be doing other things.

Social/networking
Facebook, myspace, msn messenger and bebo are all popular. Possibly some privacy or security issues there, plus they're all blocked anyway, so we can't use them at school, but heaps of kids (especially the techy ones) will use at least one of them!

Games
Personally, I'm hooked on Scrabulous, which I discovered through Facebook. It's basically scrabble, but you can play it with anyone around the world. Very cool, but careful - it's addictive!
Bored.com is right up my 12 year old son's alley. Games, videos, jokes etc...
And funtrivia is good for people who like a bit of the old trivia.
And there are thousands more for filling those idle moments. Will post more later.

Media
You tube is extraordinarily popular with all young people, but as you probably know, it's blocked on school networks. But there are some really great videos out there that can be used in class. Luckily there's Teacher Tube, which so far is clean and hasn't been blocked. Some good stuff on there if you're prepared to search.
And if you like playing with digital photos, Dumpr is one of my favourites. My profile photo and the beautiful cow above are both created on Dumpr. Some very cool stuff on there...
If sound is more your thing, download Audacity. You can record sounds, as well as edit audio files. Play them faster, slower, backwards or loop them continuously, then save to use on your smartboard.

And what about the educational stuff?
Oh yeah, that's what we're here for, isn't it? Well of course the stuff I've mentioned is very useful in educational contexts, but there are also some great bits and pieces you might find useful.
Jenny Eather has created some excellent sites which we use quite a bit. Her maths dictionary is very cool, with an A-Z listing of maths concepts and interactive examples. And you've probably used Rainforest Maths too. She has also created Writing fun, which outlines each text type, has examples of each spanning all of the primary grades and demonstrates the language features in each text. A very useful resource.
While you're at it, check out the learning objects that are currently only available through myclasses. There are thousands to choose from, and most of the time you can find one that suits what you're teaching. More of them soon through the wiki.

I could go on and on. But you've probably got enough to look at now...

PS - Please forgive the weird sized font - I'm still figuring out html!

Education Today and Tomorrow

Check out this video. One of many I'll put up which try to sell the 'let's teach digitally' argument...

Yay! Not just me and my mum!

Hiya! Nice to see I have a reader or two! Thanks for the support you lovely people.

Today I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing. I walked out of work tired and cranky and resenting all the time I put in. But I've had my swim now and I'm feeling much better thank you very much!

But this teaching thing is an awful lot of work, isn't it? So what's the point of adding more work (i.e figuring out how to use this program or that hardware)? Sometimes I wonder.

Yes, we do have these digital natives coming up through the system, but there are also a heap of kids who don't have regular access to computers. Although - these kids usually watch a fair bit of TV, have an xbox or PS2, and are pretty familiar with other technologies.
But if they don't have access at home, shouldn't we be giving them as many experiences as possible while they're at school? If we don't, it might affect their options for the future. Mightn't it?

Anyway, even if we don't want to do the work, it's going to keep coming at us. So I guess in a way we're stuck with it.

More later when I'm in a less rambly state of mind. Sorry to those of you who actually read this post!!

Are you a native or an immigrant?

Did you grow up with technology? Could you type your name before you could write it?
Nah, neither did I.

The Family Way
But I had different experiences to many people my age. My grandfather was an avid electronics buff, typed about a million words per minute and had a pretty good handle on computers. He used to create cute little computer programs and send them to us on cassette tapes for our old 'sharp' PC. My mum was also pretty handy; she eventually became one of the early website designers.

"Basic"ally
So even though almost nobody had computers in their homes when I was a kid, I had one around from about 9 years of age. Mind you, they were a little different then. I even managed the odd program myself - basic was pretty much that - basic. Mum'd buy little books full of basic programs and we'd tinker away...

Skilled Migrant
But I'm getting off track. I guess the point I'm trying to make...well actually I'm not sure of the point I'm trying to make.
But apparently there's a new breed of people coming up through the educational ranks. They're called the 'digital natives'. They're called that because they have grown up with technology. They could type before they could write, they have spent up to 6 hours a day watching a screen since they were tiny, they are wired up in so many ways (phones, iPods, PS2s, xboxes etc etc). And because their before-school experiences to ours (the digital immigrants), they are probably going about their learning in different ways too.

But I'm not really doing the concept justice. Marc Prensky explains it pretty well:

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Have a read and see what you think. He has a website if you want to go further (there are actually whole communities out there devoted to digital natives. If you're interested, start at MarcPrensky and go from there (there are also a couple of Facebook groups).

And what about wikis?

I'm sure everyone knows wikipedia, but have you ever edited it?
I have - it's a strangely exciting feeling! (OK so I'm sad and have absolutely no life!)
Wikis are also very easy to create and another potential tool for the classroom.

I thinking about what would be some good ways to use wikis in the classroom. What about interactive glossaries, where kids added words they'd found on the internet and included definitions etc.
Or what about a place to put mistakes found in the media and online?
Or perhaps a group-created story or a written history of the suburb?

Limitless potential - once you get the hang of it!

What's blog got to do, got to do with it?

Blogging. For those of us who are - shall we say - unfamiliar, there's a whole world of it out there. There are currently around 100 million blogs out there (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21013), with another 100 million now abandoned into the ether (including, I'm sure at least one that I started a couple of years ago!).
So obviously we're not going to go out there and read all of them, but it is possible to find a blog (or two) that have something to do with our interests.
And that's where teaching comes in. There are lots of educational themed blogs out there, but we can go a little further. Teachers are starting to use them with their students, with lots of opportunities available for online collaboration and discussion.

Check out these examples:
http://marykreul.teacherhosting.com/blog/
http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337

Mr. Sumner's page is pretty cool:
http://mrsumner.edublogs.org/

This one's Australian:
http://mrpbps.learnerblogs.org/


Food for thought.

Me blogging? No way!

So we're learning all about blogging and wikis and what-not and I thought well hey, if I have to blog, perhaps I can make it helpful to someone!
So the intention is to dump everything I learn here, so you, dear reader, can find all the bits in one convenient location.
Stay tuned..