I'm baaaaaaack (?)

I've had a little (OK, a gargantuan) break from this blog. I've been busy with other school based projects and have concentrated my bloggyness on a more personal one.

But every now and then, I feel the need to get back into my digi blog. Never more so than now, when we've reached such an exciting time in education. And when I'm lucky enough to be playing a big (if not brief) part in it.

For the past six weeks, I have been working in a position with the fairly exciting title of 'Learning Technologies Officer'. It pretty much means what it sounds like it means: I get to spend all day learning about and working with technology that will be used to enhance education.

When I first started this blog (waaaaay back in March 2008, I never dreamed I'd be lucky enough to work in the job I'm now working in. I'd been learning from Learning Technologies Officers, and thought their job was fairly cool. But it hadn't crossed my mind that I could actually do it.

I've come in during  a fairly exciting time in our education department. We are in the early stages of adopting a new VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), and I've been busy both learning how to use it and teaching other people how to use it. Challenging, but fun!

Attitudes are also changing, with many schools now buying netbooks and iPads, and configuring their spaces to make flexible learning a reality.

But until I get my blogging act together again, I thought the best thing I can do is start piling in here the readings and resources that I plan to read or use. That way, I can find them all quickly. I do have a delicious account, but I thought I'd use this to. Then I can share them with you too! (if anyone actually reads it!)


http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/ - This site has conveniently gathered the links to many awesome web 2.0 tools.

http://www.heppell.net/ - It's possible that too much Heppell could make me a little crazy, but he has some good things to say. I was lucky enough to meet him and hear him speak several times last month.

I'll add more later...
:)

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 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!

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:

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!

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.