EdTech Toolbox

10 Tools for Getting the Most from Dropbox

2011-12-05T16:40:00.001+11:00

This simple application adds the copy button within your right click menu option letting you transfer files to dropbox and also copies the URL in your clipboard so that you can share faster.

2. DropItToMe

Is a secure online application created to help you set up a upload process protected with password known by you and someone who wishes to send you a large document or file.

Is a photo sharing application available for iPhone and Android users. Picplz let’s you manage photos with style and create interesting galleries which can be shared with ease. Now the service provides features to let you create your own photo streaming through Dropbox.

4. Dropbox Forms

A service hosted by Jotforms. It allows you to create online forms where people come, create documents or leave impressions, write for you and then Dropbox forms automatically synchronizes the content with your Dropbox account.

5. DropVox

If you’re a big fan of the audio note-to-self but you’d like more flexibility than the iPhone’s default Voice Memos app, DropVox may be for you. It’s a simple audio-recording app that links with and uploads M4A recordings directly to your Dropbox account. By default recordings go in a DropVox folder in the root of your Dropbox account, but you can set this to any folder you prefer in the app’s preferences. (You can also set the app to record immediately on launch.)

6. MailDrop

It is an advanced backup tool designed to help you save your important emails and conversations from your email account. MailDrop can even choose which folder of your email you want to backup.

7. FileStork

An easy and very secure way for Dropbox users around the world to request files from each other. All you have to do is to register, send a request and then the file will be uploaded to Dropbox and you will have full access.

8. Send To Dropbox

This application will collect all attachments you receive on your email account and automatically synchronize them with your Dropbox.

9. URL Droplet

If someone sends you a file which is hosted on a server and you are not comfortable with downloading it on the computer your using, then URL Droplet will download the file to your Dropbox just by entering the URL in the box.

10. ePubBooks

Is a marketplace where you can download eBooks and synchronize them automatically on your Dropbox account.

Tools.

British Newspaper Archive - Great History Resource

2011-12-01T11:35:00.000+11:00

The British Newspaper Archive has scanned millions of pages of historical newspapers and made them available online for the first time ever. Search millions of articles by keyword, name, location, date or title and watch your results appear in an instant. Compare this with hours of painstaking manual searching through hard copies or microfilm often requiring a visit to the British Library in North London and it is easy to appreciate the ground breaking nature of this project.

You can search;

News Articles - read about national events, as well as issues of local and regional importance. News articles are your window into daily life in historical Britain.

Family Notices - search for your family's birth, marriage and death notices plus related announcements including engagements, anniversaries, birthdays and congratulations.

Letters - read letters to the editor written by the newspaper's readers, including illuminating contemporary debates, aspirations and anxieties.

Obituaries view contemporary information on the lives of notable individuals and ancestors.

Advertisements - these include classifieds, shipping notices and appointments..Illustrations - see photographs, engravings, graphics, maps and editorial cartoons.

Small excerpt- first hand account of the Battle of Waterloo

Friday 10 November 1815

This is an excellent resource for Modern History. Access newspaper reports and stories from the days immediately after the event you are studying. This is an opportunity to view the Primary Source within it’s original context - a newspaper.

What other articles were in the newspaper that day?
What were the letters to the editors about?
What local or national issues were also being discussed?
What advertisements were displayed?
What was the bias of the newspaper in question?
How were the incidents reported on over the following days?
Locate great quotes from historical figure involved.

Classroom Activities:

There is a wealth of information, facts, figures and images all located in a verifiable primary source. The activities that this resource suggests is mind blowing. Imagine creating a series of research quests that your students have to complete in order to complete the course. Students could;

Map out articles about a particular issue over time
Gauge public opinion about international incidents
Document the action and words of public figure, politician or monarchs
Collect attributable dialogue for role plays or re-enactments
Ceate a snapshot of everyday life in a particular era through the study of advertisements
Publish there own textbook based on articles collected from a specific era
Collect political cartoons of the day

http://www1.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

Smyface - Know Exactly How Your Students Are Feeling

2011-11-30T12:49:00.005+11:00

At first Smyface looks like a cute little toy but this is an excellent tool for gauging the mood and feelings of your students in a safe non-threatening way. Smyface is an excellent example of how technology can assist in the pastoral care of your students. It gives a very real voice to a shy or quiet kid but more importantly it gives a voice to those kids that we would consider to be “at risk.”

For many of the students that we teach Smyface may be irrelevant most of the time but for those students who are struggling with their work or do not understand a maths problem this is a safe and easy way for them to let you know how much it is effecting them. All they need to do is pick a face, write how they feel and email it to you. Very simple!

I might run this as a three minute reflection at the beginning of the day and then repeat it again at the end of the day. The beauty of Smyface is the second half of the idea;

Because……

Your students can actually tell you what is wrong without having that conversation that many may not have because they find it embarrassing. This might be even more important for a student that is suffering from bullying, has a really sick parent or grandparent or is in a situation that requires intervention.

This is a fun and engaging tool that might encourage students to open up to a significant adult. It could even be used as a way of introducing the concept of emotions, feelings and empathy - especially with boys. What a good way to illustrate how our actions have an impact on how other people feel. This cute little toy could be the catalyst for a real learning moment.

http://smyface.com/

Great Web 2.0 Multimedia History Project

2011-11-28T11:14:00.000+11:00

This post has also been posted at Appsineducation.

The Mountain Lakes School District invited students and residents to archive their homes’ history. Together they commemoratde their town’s centennial by creating a digital archive of their community’s unique architectural style and revealed the stories behind their Hapgood homes.

Perhaps you have heard the old phrase, “If these wall could talk.” Well, now by using QR Codes, smartphone apps, and websites such as HistoryPin, they will be able to make their walls talk!

Read the full article here to see the full pages and watch the video tutorials.

http://blogs.mtlakes.org/centennialwalk/

Education Eye

2011-11-26T12:49:00.000+11:00

Education Eye allows the user to discover, explore and share new ideas. It maps hundreds of top educational websites, blogs, forums and case studies to provide up to date information about innovative ideas being explored in the education community. The information is then present in a visual format that is itself interactive. Type in your search term and let it find the relevant articles, websites or links. This is a innovative tool from Futurelab and well worth a visit.

How Education Eye works
As an internet and social network mapper, the Eye collects and indexes content from hundreds of websites, blogs, news sites and others. It gives you fast search results to find content relevant to education. We've trained it to filter masses of content to find the stuff that is relevant (so you don't have to). We then index it really cleverly. We contextualise the results and map links between articles to help you discover innovations that you also might be interested in. We check social networks like Delicious and Twitter to see what people are saying about these items to help reinforce how they are indexed, and we even cross-reference every article against each other to help provide context and make sure you find the best quality and relevance. It's complicated, it's really robust and it's doing a lot in the background, but the end result is simple and hopefully really useful.

http://www.educationeye.org.uk/

Catchfree: Compare and Find the Best Web Tools Solutions

2011-11-24T19:01:00.000+11:00

This is a very cool website. It asks you what type of tool you are looking for and then present you with five options. These are ranked in user popularity. What I like about this tool is the options. Often someone recommends a Web Tool to me and I find it clumsy or hard to use. The beauty of this website is that I have 4 other options on offer. Surely I can find one that suits the way I work or the way my students learn.

The image above is from the home page. This is sort of cool too because there are tasks here I do everyday day and alway use the same tools for. I am going to make an effort to investigate some of these other tools - if not for me than at least as another option for my students.

Just check out the options available. This is a very useful tool to add to your arsenal.

http://catchfree.com/

Massively Minecraft

2011-11-23T18:50:00.004+11:00

I have been introduced to Minecraft on a number of fronts this month. I have been watching the work of Dean Groom on twitter and on his blog about Massively Minecraft. Dean is a lecturer of Human Development Design at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. He and a small group of intrepid educators - Bianca Hewes, Jo Kay, Judy O’Connell and Kerry Johnson have created a safe and monitored network for students to play in, discover and learn using the Minecraft platform. By coincidence I also had a 4th year university prac student who was also interested in including the notion of Minecraft into lessons. I have now built some basic structures in Minecraft but am nothing but a novice. I might let the experts explain.

Massively Minecraft is a Guild based learning community for kids aged 4-16 who are interested in developing digital media skills, exploring their creativity and developing online social skills using the video game Minecraft.

Our guild is a social-enterprise, founded in mid 2011 for parents, teachers, schools and researchers as players in an open world to learn together, using game-theory and our experience of developing process networks in virtual worlds.

To add your kid to the game, we require them to be accompanied by a parent, care giver or teacher. These do not have to play at the same time (all the time), however as a Guild they are expected to support their own children in undertaking the awards and to help other kids in the game when they ask for it. The main skill an adult needs is empathy with kids and their creativity. Generally speaking, all the players want is support and interest. To this end, the game-space is not a babysitting service. If you are not prepared to spend a few hours a week playing with your own and other children towards them achieving success, then this Guild is not for you.

If however, you do want your kids to be involved in a growing supporting game-community which is focused on social inclusion, diversity, creativity and celebrating the hard work and skills kids are developing around digital-space - or want to know how game's improve learning, then join the Guild.

This is an interesting experiment in the use of Game Based Learning to foster some real love of learning from very young students. I would be interested to see the long term effects of this collaborative exercise and the learning of collaborative skills by the students. I love the notion of accomplishment and motivation in this concept. Drop in and have a look at what they are attempting to achieve.

http://massivelyminecraft.org/

All of this is especially relevant with the announcement of mobile Minecraft in the last couple of days. This new Minecraft Pocket edition will mean lot more students can be assessing this platform on their mobile devices.

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79qYTToOcL8&feature=player_embedded.

130 Tools in 160 minutes

2011-11-22T18:26:00.000+11:00

This is an excellent collection of Web 2.0 Tools. Collated by Steven M. Cohen, this a library weblog dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development. He has a list here of 130 fantastic tools that he believes all librarians and teachers need to know about. Check out his site at Library Stuff

http://www.librarystuff.net/

Top 100 Tools For Learning 2011

2011-11-21T16:16:00.000+11:00

Great list produced every year from C4LPT - Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies.

Here are the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2011. This the 5th Annual Survey of Learning Tools finalised on 13 November 2011. This year’s list is compiled from the Top 10 Tools lists of 531 learning professionals worldwide – from education, training and workplace learning.

KEY:
Previous years rankings shown in grey | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007
F = free, P = paid for, D = download, O = online

Top 30

Twitter - micro-sharing site | 1 | 1 | 11 | 43= F O
YouTube - video-sharing tool | 2 | 3 | 18 | 22= F O
Google Docs – collaboration suite (incl Google Forms) | 3 | 5 | 7 | 14 F O
Skype - instant messaging/VoIP tool | 6 | 11= | 4 | 3= F/P D
WordPress - blogging tool | 8 | 6 | 5 | 6=6= F O/D
Dropbox - file synching software | 13 | 71= | – | - F/P O/D
Prezi - presentation software | 12 | 28 | - | - F O
Moodle - course management system | 10 | 14= | 9 | 12= F/D
Slideshare - presentation sharing site | 5 | 7 | 20 | 31 F O
(Edu)Glogster - interactive poster tool | 25 | 55= | – | - F O
Wikipedia - collaborative encyclopaedia | 16 | 17 | 13 | 26= F O
Blogger/Blogspot - blogging tool | 14 | 14= | 10 | 9 F O
diigo - social annotation tool | 15 | 22= | 35= | 72= F O
Facebook - social network | 9 | 31= | 24 | 17= F O
Google Search - search engine | 11 | 8 | 6 | 3 F O
Google Reader - RSS reader | 7 | 4 | 3 | 7= F O
Evernote - note-taking tool | 23 | 27 | – | 16= F D
Jing - screen capture tool | 17 | 20 | 26= | - F D
PowerPoint - presentation software | 21 | 13 | 8 | 5 P D
Gmail - web-based email service | 31 | 21 | 14 | 7= F O
LinkedIn - prof social network | 30 | 38= | 30= | 31= F O
Edmodo - edu social networking site | 46 | 88 | – | - F O
Wikispaces - wiki tool | 17 | 29 | 19 | 15 F/P O
Delicious - social bookmarking tool | 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 F O
Voicethread - collaborative slideshows | 19 | 19 | 23 | – F/P O
Google+ - social network - F O Highest placed new tool
Animoto - videos from images | 28 | 31= | - | - F O
Camtasia- screencasting tool | 27 | 26 | 26= | 50= P D
Audacity - sound editor/recorder | 24 | 9= | 12 | 11 F D
TED Talks - inspirational videos F O New

31- 65

Yammer - private microsharing platform | 68 | 71= | – | - F/P O
Google Earth - virtual globe | 41 | 43= | 40=| 40= F D
Scoopit - curation software – F O New
PBWorks - wiki tool | 33 | 34 | 35= | 43= F/P O
Google Apps - branded app suite | 34 | 38= | 68= | - F/P O
flickr - photo sharing site | 20 | 18 | 15 | 16 F O
Tweetdeck - Twitter client | 37 | 43= | - | - F D
Google Maps - online maps | 58 | 67 | 34 | 36= F O
Wordle - word cloud generator | 22 | 30 | - | – F O
Voki- speaking avatar creator | 75 | - | – | - F O
Symbaloo - Internet portal/dashboard F O New
Word - word processing software | 60 | 36= | 22 | 10 P D
Google Sites - wiki/website tool | 39= | 71= | 59= | - F O
iPad and apps - New
Google Chrome - web browser | 44 | 55= | – | - F D
Articulate – e-learning software | 43 | 24 | 25 | 22= P D
Snagit - screen capture tool | 42 | 25 | 21 | 26= P D
Adobe Captivate - demo/scenario tools | 38 | 22= | 30= | 17= P D
Vimeo - video sharing site | 70 | – | - | - F O
Geogebra - maths software for schools – F D New
Screenr - screencasting tool | 58 | 55= | – | – F O
Mindmeister - mindmapping software | 73= | 55= | 42= | - P D
Picasa - photo organiser | 46 | 63 | - | 57= F D
Wallwisher - online noticeboard | - 26 | - | - | - F O
iPhone/iPod Touch and apps | 39 | 31= | 50= | 43=
Scribd - document sharing tool | 54 | 71=| 83= | 50= F O
Ning - private social networking plat form | 31 | 11= | 16 | 31= P O
eFront - course management system F/P D/O New
Adobe Connect - web conferencing tool | 61 | 41= | 66= | 72= P O
Elluminate/Blackboard Collaborate - web conferencing | 35 | 43= | 50= | 50= P O
OpenOffice - office suite | 61 | 71= | 41= | 31= F D
Storybird - collaborative storytelling | 71 | – | – | - F O
Knol - share what you think - F O New
LiveBinders - 3-ring binder for the web | 61 | – | – | – F O
Sharepoint - intranet platform | 75= | 50= | – | - P D

66-100

In this the bottom 1/3rd of the list, there are a lot of tied places.

iTunes and iTunesU - music/podcast player/site | 51 | 41= | 28 | 26= F/P D
Mahara - e-portfolio platform F D New
lino - online stickies F O New
Outlook - email client | 95 | 67= | 38= | 17= P D
Posterous - blogging software | 36 | 55= | – | - F O
Storify - makes stories using social media F O New
Udutu - collaborative course authoring tool | 95 | 64= | – | - F/P O
Hootsuite - social media dashboard | 74= | – | – | – F D
BigBlueButton - web conferencing F O New
Edublogs - educational blogging tool | 48 | 49 | 59= | 72= F O
Etherpad + clones - real-time text collab | 50 | 71= | – | - F O
iGoogle - personalised start page | 44 | 16 | 17 | 17= F O
iMovie - Video editing software | 95 | 88= | 66= | - P D
Khan Academy - learning platform F O New
SurveyMonkey - survey tool | 48= | 88= | 54= | - F/P O
Excel - spreadsheet software | – | 50= | 27 P D
Google Calendar - online calendar | 53 | 50= | 29 | 36= F O
Kindle - ebook reader New
Poll Everywhere - instant audience feedback F/P O/D New
Quizlet - flash card and study games website F O New
Screencast-0-matic - online screen recorder F O New
TeacherTube - edu video sharing site | 90 | 64= | 80= | 57= F O
Zotero - collect/manage research | 57 | – | 66= | 72= F O
Blackboard - course management system | 68 | – | – | - P D
Android phones and apps | 85 | - | - | -
bubblus - collaborative mind mapping tool | 89 | 55= | 83= | - F O
Buddypress - social networking software F D New
Composica - social e-learning authoring system P D New
Adobe Flash - animation authoring | 81= | 38= | 38= | 43= P D
Fuze meeting - web conferencing P O New
Netvibes - personal start page | 61 | 55= | 37 | 26= F O
Paper.li - daily digest of tweets F O New
ReadItLater - save pages for later F O New
Weebly - website/blog software F O New
OneNote - personal information manager | 85= | – | 66= | - P D

http://c4lpt.co.uk/top-100-tools-for-learning-2011/

Interactive Tour of the Sistine Chapel

2011-11-20T11:04:00.000+11:00

If you are studying the Sistine Chapel with your students than you will find no better 360 degree Virtual Interactive Tour than this one. It is a beautifully made high definition fly around one of the most world's most famous Chapels. Built by Villanova at the request of the Vatican this is a quick and easy way to give your students a sense of the size, scale and beauty of the paintings. It is spectacular!

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html

For some great educational information about the different panels, walls and ceiling go to;

http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/CSN/CSN_Main.html

Using iDevices in the Science Lab

2011-11-19T12:32:00.001+11:00

Can you record what you see in a microscope using an iDevice. This post has been cross-posted at AppsinEducation. One of the Science teachers came into the staff room very excited yesterday. She had been working with her senior science class with the normal light microscope looking at red and white blood cells at 400X. They were discussing how they could document their experiment. One of her students just grabbed his iPhone, placed it on the eyepiece of the microscope and took a photograph. Here are the resulting images.

The pink dot in the top left corner is a white blood cell

These images where use to grid up and count the cells before drawing the diagram.

This was so good because the NSW Biology Stage 6 Syllabus states that students must:

use a technique using prepared slides and
measure the field of view

Module 9.2 includes a section on Maintaining a Balance. In Section 2 the second practical bullet point is

performs a first hand investigation using the light microscope and prepared slides to gather information to estimate the size of red and white blood cells and draw scale diagrams of each

The beauty of this is not the use of technology itself but that the technology increased motivation and the subsequent task became easier to perform. The drawing and documentation became a real learning experience and the students were able to contribute to their own learning by discovering new ways of documenting their own experiments.

It would be easy to take this further again. Looking at hormones under an electron microscope would give you beautiful images of crystalline structures. This opens up some great links between art and science. This is itself a discussion that has gained attention lately and one area where a cross curricula project could be beneficial to develop.

Progesterone, Estradial, Estrone, Methhotrexate, Testosterone,and Diethylstilbeshol

These are images of hormones as seen under a microscope, from the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University.

I would love to hear how you have used iDevices in your science lessons. Include them in the comments section so we can share these ideas with others. Science teachers do get to do some pretty cool stuff.

To see what is possible check out Princeton University's 2011 Art of Science winners.

http://www.princeton.edu/artofscience/gallery2011/index.php%3Fp=1.html

Biggest List of Design Tools

2011-11-16T15:31:00.000+11:00

http://www.proofhq.com/html/blog/the-biggest-ever-list-of-design-resources-00415/

Free Stock Music - Royalty Free License

2011-11-15T16:59:00.000+11:00

FreeStockMusic offers a wide variety of 100% free production music in eight genres: cinematic scores, corporate, easy listening, electronic, hip-hop, international, pop and rock.

FreeStockMusic are committed to helping find the perfect song for your video, movie, film, video game, or media project. Their music comes with a royalty-free license allowing you to use the music in all types of productions for worldwide distribution, forever. There are never any fees.

http://www.freestockmusic.com/

ThingLink - Image Linking Tool

2011-10-29T10:00:00.002+11:00

This is a fantatsic Web 2 tool that allows you to create links within your website or blog using your images. It turns you images into an interactive wall or a single image into an interactive image full of tagged information. Roll your cursor over the button and up pops the info, video or sound. I can see so many uses for this in a classroom - and it could be so much fun.

This is well worth a look from an educational point of view. Not only could teachers make some amazing resources but the students could present their own information in a pretty cool way. Check out the ThingLink site and watch the video to see how it works.

http://www.thinglink.com/

Small Group Types

2011-10-21T22:56:00.001+11:00

The Centre for Teaching Excellence is about fostering teaching and learning of the highest quality. This is an excellent discussion on the different types of group work with students. There is a very good explanation of the different types of group work and then a series of instructions for setting up and getting the most out of it.

http://cte.uwaterloo.ca/teaching_resources/tips/group_work_types_of_small_groups.html

The Differentiator

2011-10-19T17:37:00.001+11:00

I love this tool! This is a great tool for teachers to be continually asking themselves how they are differentiating the tasks that they set their students. Developed by Ian Byrdseed at Byrdseed Gifted it is an exceptionally simple idea executed beautifully. It is just so easy to use. Even if you do not use this all the time it is a reminder that we should be using all of Bloom's Taxonomies and not just the few that we are comfortable with. Make sure that you visit Byrdseed Gifted where you will also find lots of resources, tools and ideas for teaching in a gifted classroom or with gifted students. Enjoy!

http://www.byrdseed.com/differentiator/

ASLA Conference Resources Roundup

2011-10-09T12:05:00.008+11:00

I was lucky enough to be invited to present a session at the ASLA Conference last week at Riverview. I was amazed at the energy and enthusiasm around both professional development and the notion of integrating technology in education.

Because of other commitments I was unable to attend the full conference however I was an eager follower on twitter for those sessions I missed and I wanted to make sure I missed nothing of the online resources being discussed.

Tweeter of the Conference - Gold Star goes to @stacyt for 154 tweets, and who I was lucky enough to have sit in on my session and a close second goes to @craftylibrarian for a plucky 108 tweets. Congratulations to all who attended and to those on the committee - this is a conference all educators would benefit from. So after 1171 tweets from 146 different twitters who tweeted a total of 70 separate hashtags and 286 urls here is the breakdown.

Presentations:

http://delicious.com/tag/asla2011

http://www.slideshare.net/ASLAonline/profession-at-tipping-point

http://www.slideshare.net/ASLAonline/mobile-technologies-in-libraries

http://prezi.com/r6i_85jtjnfq/productivity-through-e-books-and-e-readers/

http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/pmhs/asla-2011-9548311

http://deangroom.wordpress.com/ - gaming in education

Blogs:

Marita Thomson Reader's Advisory for Secondary Schools

Jean Anning QR codes in K-12 education, Weird and Wonderful, Steampunk in K-12 education

Tania Sheko Apps for learning, What is a teacher librarian?

Sue Krust Teacher librarians and transliteracy

Di Laycock Graphic novels in the classroom

Judith Way Are you game?

Carmel Galvin Librarycurrants

Jenny Luca Lucacept - intercepting the web

Tania Sheko Brave new world Her other blogs are listed from this site

Stacey Taylor Librarians are go Making Metacognition Mainstream

Marita Thomson Developing readers one of various blogs

Karen Powers Big Bookcase

Leanne Windsor Learning to learn

Judith Way The Way forward previously the power behind SLAV's Bright ideas

Audrey Nay Teacher Talk and other blogs

Tech Blogs:

Greg Swanson - Appsineducation

Silvia Tolisano - Langwitches

Andrew Churches Edorigami

Mobiletechlearning

https://slavwee.wikispaces.com/

Greg Swanson - Edtechtoolbox

Greg Swanson - Artygames

Australian k-12 LibGuides:

These TLs are curating content and providing lessons for their students via LibGuides. You can see their sites here.

Leanne Windsor, Petra Pollum and Alison Rout at the Illawarra Grammar School

Cathy Oxley and colleagues at Brisbane Grammar School

Tania Sheko and colleagues at Melbourne High School

Stacey Taylor and Jenny Uther at Monte Sant' Angelo

as well as my valued colleague at Trinity Grammar School, Alison Klein at our site The Arthur Holt Library.

iPad:

Article - www.edutopia.org/blog/transitioning-digital-textbook-organizing-andrew-marcinek

Flipboard - http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flipboard/id358801284?mt=8

Zite - http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/zite-personalized-magazine/id419752338?mt=8

Love Lace App http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/love-lace/id447292338?mt=8

Kings College App - http://www.kingscollege.qld.edu.au/iphone/index.shtml

China Heart - http://www.chinaheart.org.au/

Osfoora - rss reader for iPad

QRSet - http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/qrset/id440442360?mt=8

QR Reader - http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/qr-reader-for-iphone/id368494609?mt=8

Feedler - http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/feeddler-rss-reader-for-ipad/id364873582?mt=8

Aurasma - Augmented Reality for iPad - http://www.aurasma.com/

Resources:

Livebinders http://livebinders.com/play/play_or_edit?id=77617

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXCuGvsThEw - People stuck on an elevator

Web2 Tools:

libguides.com/

www.scholar.google.com/

academic.research.microsoft.com/

www.google.translate.comm

www.Pho.to `

www.sciencebuddies.org/

www.tineye.com/

www.pandia.com/powersearch/

bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/

www.tweetdeck.com/

twapperkeeper.com

summarizr.labs.

http://www.scribd.com/

http://hootsuite.com/

http://www.smashwords.com/

www.zooburst.com

Articles:

http://twittertoolsbook.com/10-awesome-twitter-analytics-visualization-tools/

http://traffikd.com/social-media-websites/

http://edte.ch/blog/2011/07/26/10-steps-to-kick-start-your-twitter-network/

http://www.classroomchronicles.net/2011/10/02/asla11-using-blogging-and-edmodo-in-the-classroom-and-library/

http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2011/10/five-funky-flickr-tools-for-teachers/

http://dailyiphoneblog.com/2011/01/20/video-what-is-being-creative-phone-design-concept/

http://www2.curriculum.edu.au/scis/connections/seven_strategies_to_develop_your_advocacy_toolkit.html

http://edtechtoolbox.blogspot.com/2010/09/voki-talking-to-your-students.html

http://www.ecuad.ca/about/news/163186 - Using Zotero

http://mashable.com/2011/04/18/qr-code-design-tips/

http://edtechtoolbox.blogspot.com/2011/07/40-interesting-ways-to-use-qr-codes-in.html

Website Builders:

www.sites.google.com/site/

www.webs.com

www.weebly.com

www.wix.com

Interesting Websites:

http://otherworlds.yolasite.com/

http://aso.gov.au/education/ - screen australia with teachers notes

http://www.naa.gov.au

http://www.insideadog.com.au/

http://countdowntocrunchtime.webs.com/

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lovelace/

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/electronicswatchbook/

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

http://www.australiandressregister.org/

http://www.chinaheart.org.au/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/powerhouse-museum-collection-image-grid/

Student Built Resources:

http://www.kingscollege.qld.edu.au/iphone/index.shtml

http://prezi.com/d1ulogzsxul0/va-jason-hackenwerth/

http://prezi.com/vhnonqrurvs1/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-architect/

http://issuu.com/gregswanson/docs/jason_heckenwerth_case_study

http://issuu.com/gregswanson/docs/van_gogh_digital_resources

http://issuu.com/gregswanson/docs/artistic_practice_digital_text

http://issuu.com/gregswanson/docs/ezine_issue__1.0

Gaming for Learning:

http://gamesalad.com/

http://www.stencyl.com/

http://www.thinkingworlds.com

http://scratch.mit.edu

http://www.sploder.com

http://www.challengeyou.com

http://gamesined.wikispaces.com

Books for Gaming in Education

Reality is Broken

Grand Theft Childhood

Don’t bother me Mum, I’m learning.

Please add to these by emailing to me names of resources for all those sessions I did not see. Alternatively, direct people to a more comprehensive list of resources for the ASLA Conference in the comments section. Enjoy

100+ Google Tricks for Teachers

2011-10-05T14:02:00.000+11:00

Thanks to Amber Johnson a contributor over at TeachHUB for putting this list together. Be sure to check out their site as it is a great place for news, recommendations and resources by Teachers, for Teachers. We do have a page on the main blog with 100+ google tools but they push out about 20 updates a month so a more up to date version might be needed. Anyway enjoy the fruit of Amber's hard work.

http://www.teachhub.com/100-google-tricks-teachers

IdiomDictionary

2011-07-24T21:37:00.001+10:00

This is a great Idiom Dictionary. Type in your word or phrase and the dictionary will give you all the options it has for those words. If you can not remember the exactly phrase you can also search alphabetically.

This is a fantastic tool for your students to explore the weird and wonderful idioms that existing within the English language. This could even be used as the basis for a 4 quiz to see which of your students has the best handle on the use of idioms in everyday language.

I like the way that you not only get a definition it also gives you an example of the idiom's use within a context.

http://www.idiomdictionary.com/

Online Publishing: Create Your Own Content

2011-07-20T17:18:00.084+10:00

Issuu:
Issuu is a Web 2 tools that allows you to publish PDFs. You can produce the documents in any program that you like - I prefer PAGES on the Mac. Once you have created a stunning document to impress the world, simply log on to Issuu and upload your PDF. The whole process takes about 2 minutes and you now have a digital magazine style document. This can be embedded into a blog or onto your website.

http://www.issuu.com

FlipSnack:
FlipSnack is an online flipping book software that allows you to convert PDF documents into Flash page flip digital publications. It's the ideal solution for those who wish to embed a book, magazine, catalog, newspaper, portfolio or any other kind of document into a website or blog.

Once created, you can embed your flipping book collection, download them or share them on social networking websites such as Facebook.

P.S. With FlipSnack you can upload several documents at once, allowing you to embed not only one, but multiple page flip publications in the same Flash widget.

http://www.flipsnack.com/

Wobook:
Wobook is an online solution for people who want to publish on the web through an interactive, 3D book. Any document can be turned into a wobook and made available to read online instantly. Wobooks can also be formatted and printed on-the-fly in a PDF format. A digital magazine powered by wobook is attractive, interactive and all sorts of rich media can be embedded in it! There, they can create or effortlessly turn their publications into a web oriented ebook or wobook. Develop your web communication! Create and publish all types of syndication: newspapers, digital magazines, brochures, e-catalogs, or e-books.

http://www.wobook.com/

Surfboard: Websites turned into E-zine
Surfboard is a very cool service (similar to Flipboard on the iPad) that displays any website in a flippable newspaper-like display. All your different blog entries or pages are displayed and all the links stay alive. This makes the web reading experience a much more enjoyable one. This is a great Web 2 tool for everyone!
To use Surfboard all you have to do is enter the url of your favorite website and click "get surfing." That site will then be displayed in a manner that allows you to flip through the site's content without seeing the sidebar widgets and or advertisements.

For proper flippable display Surfboard requires the use of the latest versions of Chrome or Safari.

http://ridesurfboard.com/

OnSwipe:
And if you have access to an iPad you could even try OnSwipe. Onswipe lets you provide a beautiful app like experience for your website on tablet and phone browsers. Onswipe is not an app and works in the browser with your existing content. You simply link the site and away you go. This is a quick and easy way to get your blog or website accessible by a iPad.

http://onswipe.com/#

Prezi Update - Add Diagrams

2011-07-19T20:45:00.002+10:00

I have been a fan of Prezi for some time now. I like the way that it enables the author to pull out to look at the big picture and then to zoom in to investigate detail. We do need to be careful not to abuse it like we did with powerpoint. I have a discussion with my students that it should only be used when looking at both the big picture and detail is necessary for the presentation, otherwise just use a linear presentation tool.

Anyway Prezi recently released an upgrade that allows users up to insert up to 12 different diagrams.

http://www.prezi.com

50 Ways to Integrate Technology in your Classroom Tomorrow

2011-07-16T12:34:00.002+10:00

This site is via Jeff Thomas over at Tech the Plunge.

Using Free Websites as Learning & Teaching Tools

1. Have students use Spelling City to learn their spelling words, vocabulary words, or site words through games, practice, and quizzes. Spelling City is a free resource for teachers.

www.spellingcity.com

2. Use Brain POP to show short, animated videos as a lesson opener. Brain POP is available in its original version (appropriatefor grades 3-8), Brain POP Jr. (appropriate for grades K-3), Brain POP Español, and Brain POP ESL. There is a 30-day free trialavailable.

www.brainpop.com

3. Use Dove Whisper as a computer center in your classroom. This site contains Internet games for all subjects.

www.dovewhisper.com

4. Create flashcards for math facts, science vocabulary words, and more. Plus, you are able to find flashcards created by others.

www.flashcardexchange.com

5. Create a game show for your students to participate in as a review for an upcoming assessment. This site offers free templates.

people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/ppt_games.html

6. Students can track visitors to their blog, wiki, or website through Clustrmap. This tool can be used for an ongoing geography lesson.

www.clustrmap.com

7. Have students create a daily or weekly live broadcast on Ustream about school news, new concepts or original ideas.

www.ustream.tv

8. Enhance your predictions and inferencing lessons by having students create sequels/prequels to movies and books on Fanfiction. This may be more appropriate for secondary students.

www.fanfiction.net

9. Let students add free, copyright-free music to their presentations and movies through ccMixter.

www.ccmixter.org

10. Create custom game boards, customized dice, and many other printables to use in a variety of lessons.

www.toolsforeducators.com

11. Create videos that bring your lessons to life! Share your ideas for integration on Animoto.

www.animoto.com/education

12. Have students create a comic strip using Make Beliefs Comix. Students can use this tool to show main idea, sequencing, predictions, and more!

www.makebeliefscomix.com

13. Introduce a new unit in reading with a vocabulary word cloud. Have the students guess what the unit/story will be about. Set a purpose for learning.

www.wordle.net

14. Find out what your students know before a unit or how much they've learned after a unit through an online survey. Surveys give students a way to give feedback quickly.

www.surveymonkey.com

15. Have students create a time line to have a visual representation.

www.readwritethink.org/materials/timeline

16. User KerPoof to allow your students to illustrate their writing, create a movie, and more!

www.kerpoof.com

17. Use Class Tools to randomly generate names, to show a countdown timer, to find graphic organizers, to create timelines, play puzzles and access other neat tools.

classtools.net

18. Have students create their "Wild Self". Use their creations for an intro into animal adaptations and habitats in science, or use them as a creative writing prompt.

www.buildyourwildself.com

19. Have an advanced student who is always done early? Let him or her get on Free Rice and practice challenging vocabulary!

www.freerice.com

20. Students can create animated videos at Flux Time Studio. They are able to save their videos and share them with others!

www.fluxtime.com

Read the full article:
http://sites.google.com/site/anchortechnologytomorrow/home/50-ways-to-anchor-technology

Visual.ly the Infographic Creator: Create beautiful data

2011-07-14T10:35:00.000+10:00

Visual.ly is open to the public in beta. You no longer need expensive software, extensive design skills, or number crunching ability. Visualizations are powerful, but they’ve required time and hard work to create -- until now. Visual.ly has built a tool that will allow everyone to quickly and easily create professional quality designs with their own data.

They also have an extensive library of Infographics from magazines and publications from around the world. So if you are just exploring data visualisation or want somewhere to show off your new creation Visual.ly is perfect. This will be a big hit for both teachers and students. I cant wait to show this to my classes.

Here is one I create this morning in 1 minute. Not a great deal of info but I think you get the picture.

http://visual.ly/

The Power of Education: A Young Girl in Poverty

2011-07-13T17:49:00.000+10:00

This video was shown to me by one of my Yr 12 students. He was impressed with the message and the simple example of how one action or decision can have a ripple effect around the world.

He was also aware that girleffect.org is an organisation funded by Nike and therefore questioned the reasons why they might be funding this sort of action. It made for an interesting discussion around corporate morality and the benefits of charity for large corporations both financially and from a public relations point of view.

It was an exceptional but unplanned learning moment for the group of students present.

I also love the nature of this video. It is a video infographic. Very clever animation indeed.

http://www.girleffect.org/video

Digital Storytelling: JellyCam - A Super Simple Stop-Motion Animator

2011-07-13T11:08:00.001+10:00

This is a great Stop-Motion App called Jelly Cam. I know I posted an animation tool yesterday as well but this is really good. JellyCam is the creation of English programmer Chris Dennett. Chris was interested in playing around with stop motion video but not so interested in the tedious mucking around that came with some of the applications he tried out. Watch the video to see how easy this would be for your students to use.

This is via a great website called How to Geek. The information on this site tends to be very technical but they also have excellent how-to posts on a variety of tools that can be used in the classroom. Check it out when you have a problem that you just can not fix. It has a pretty comprehensive list of tech issues with solutions.

If you’re looking for a super simple way to create stop motion video Adobe Air-based JellyCam is a free and easy to use solution.

With JellyCam you can easily take pictures using a web cam (or import pictures from your digital camera), adjust frame duration, drag and drop frames to adjust them, set a timer for capturing frames at a set interval, and more. One of the most interesting features is the ability to ghost the previous frame so you can line up your subject more accurately and create a more fluid sense of movement. Watch the video above to see this particular feature in action.

JellyCam is a free application and requires Adobe Air.

Original Article:
Jellycam is a Super Simple Stop Motion Animator

Automatoon - Create Animation for the Web

2011-07-12T10:04:00.001+10:00

Automatoon is a Web Animation Tool that Richard Byrne has blogged about on his site Free Tech 4 Teachers. Make the time to visit this mega-resource site. It is an amazing website where Richard posts insightful reviews of Web 2 tools. I think one of the really helpful things that Richard does is he places the tool within an educational context.

Sometimes it is easy to see how much fun a Web tool might be in the classroom but not as easy to recognise the educational benefits. Richard tends to write up how he would use it in the classroom. This is great because it allows us to see HOW it can be used and then we can contextualise this into our own situations. Enjoy!!!

Automatoon is a free service for creating simple to complex animations that you can reuse anywhere on the web. There are three basic steps to using Automatoon. First, you draw and color your images. Second, you break apart each element of your drawing. And third, you specify the animation action for each part of your drawing. For example, when I made a simple animation of a face I started by drawing the face then separating the elements and finally specified the sequence in which I wanted the face to be reassembled as an animation.

You can add as many parts to your Automatoon animations as you like. There are three basic animation actions that you can specify; bend, change, and move. Each part of your drawing can have one, two, or all three of those actions. The tricky part is putting together the correct sequence of actions.

To read the full article:
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/automatoon-create-animations-for-web.html

40 Interesting Ways to use QR Codes in the Classroom

2011-07-11T10:24:00.000+10:00

QR codes are having a mini resurgence lately. We started to use them in class last year as another way of creating self portraits. One of my students took this new found tool to a new level and used it as a way of creating graffiti. It was wheatpasted on so he felt it was a legal form of protest. The poster came off with water and a scrubbing brush.

I was at a conference last term and all the sessions and speaker's details were placed up on a wall in the foyer using QR Codes. It was a great way of distributing the information but it also worked as a conversation starter for many of the participants.

How to make your QR Codes more Beautiful was one of our most popular post in the last month and the ITSC in Philadelphia had multiple sessions on the use of QR codes in the classroom so I thought it might be worthwhile reposting this.

This presentation has been around for quite a while but it is worth revisiting.

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzY1aHNkdzV4Y3I&hl=en_GB&authkey=COX05IsF&pli=1

Dumpr - Students Having Fun with their Photos

2011-07-10T14:51:00.000+10:00

Here is another site similar to Big Huge Labs. These two sites are great to get kids manipulating their photographs or photographs of their works. They are sites that allow you to make different items or effects on images. They are lots of fun and can be used as an end of unit activity or even as a fun activity in between research tasks. I have used them as a reward task for those students who go above and beyond.

http://www.dumpr.net/

Google Tools to Support Bloom's revised Taxonomy

2011-07-09T19:41:00.001+10:00

This is a fantastic tool put together by Kathy Schrock. Kathy has numerous websites and blogs including a fabulous site on the use of Infographics in education. She has made a major contribution to the idea of sharing on the net and we thank her for her continued commitment and dedication to enhancing the learning of students. Make sure you take the time to visit her sites for up to date Web tools and fantastic resources to improving the learning of your students.

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/

This graphic is a link that takes you to her clickable image map.

http://kathyschrock.net/googleblooms/

Photoshop Elements: From Line Drawing to Coloured Artwork

2011-07-08T13:19:00.000+10:00

This is a Starter Sheet that we use with our Year 8 art students. The students are to complete a Printmaking Body of Work based on the theme 'Just for Fun'. Our students are really motivated about this unit because they get to combine their love of theme parks with art.

Photoshop Elements Starter Sheet

Tumblr Dashboard and Archive in the Classroom

2011-07-07T16:41:00.002+10:00

I have posted before about how we use Tumblr in the senior classroom. Tumblr updated their dashboard last month and this microblogging tool has also been getting a bit of coverage on different twitter PLN's lately so I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit this tool. The new dashboard makes it easy to manage multiple blogs and to post quickly and easily. The best feature is the ability the upload a multitude of file types. Here is how we have used it previously;

Previously Post: This is a blog site that my seniors put me onto. I personally prefer Blogger but my students are happier with Tumblr. We are currently using it as a virtual Visual Arts Process Diary. I know some people will sneer at this, but it is the only way that we can get boys to really reflect on images, artworks and their own process. I have got more from my current Yr 11s in the last 5 weeks than I got from my Yr 12s all year.

The students seems to enjoy the fact that we are using blogging tools as opposed to pencil and paper. They are still drawing but are now photographing their work and then posting it along with reflections on their tumblr. They are all following each other and are starting to comment on each other ideas and work - offering suggestion, other websites, artists and resources that they think would be of assistance.

My students showed me another feature today that I was really impressed with. It is the archive function in some of the themes. It allows you to visually scan all posts and then to select the ones that you wish to investigate further.

Because we use them as Visual Arts Process Diaries in Art this feature makes it very easy for teachers to scan posts quickly to ensure that all students are posting and reflecting on their processes to the level of detail that is required at a senior level.

Our Visual Arts Process Dairies need to document all aspects of the creative process from idea formation, to media experiments, including details of the finished artworks right through to actual construction of mounts and frames. This is an easy process if the students photographically record each step on a regular basis. Many just use their laptop camera to do this each lesson.

Here is an example of the Archive feature. I hope this illustrates my point. This student reflected comprehensively and although you do not get to read the whole entry it quickly becomes apparent when he has failed to post. This facility also gives you an impression of how extensive his Visual Diary will be when we are ready to use Blog Booker to print out his blog in book format.

http://www.tumblr.com/

29 Ways to Stay Creative

2011-07-06T10:49:00.000+10:00

I like this video because it reminds us of all the things we are trying to do, and many of the things we should be doing. I don't know how many times I have had the conversation with both new teachers and colleagues alike that it is important to have a balance in our lives. If we have nothing outside of school what is it that we bring to the classroom. What is it that we offer our students?

I know I want my students to be passionate, to embrace new situations and relish the idea of being a life long learning.

This video is not just about staying creative, it is also a check list for being a good teacher. How can we expect our students to be creative, innovative, experimental and open to new experiences if we ourselves do not model this exact behaviour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1E4aeCTg7s

AASL: Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning 2011

2011-07-05T11:01:00.000+10:00

The America Association of School Librarians have put together the Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning 2011 - a series of sites that they have chosen for both their educational value and the use of sound pedagogy. The Web tools have been categoried into task based subsets linked to Standards for the 21st Century; Another document produced by the AASL that is a must read. Well worth the look, as is the site itself which is full of resources.

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/guidelinesandstandards/bestlist/bestwebsitestop25.cfm

Tildee: Online Tutorial Tool

2011-07-04T15:33:00.000+10:00

Tildee is a Web 2 tool that easily allows you to create online tutorials. The best thing about this tool is the way that you can present the screen images or any image with the instructions. This is exactly how you would set out a worksheet for your students. I just like the way this is designed - simple yet effective.

Not only will I find this tool really handy for Staff Professinal Development but I can't wait to make some of these for my Art classes. This is especially true for PhotoShop and Pixlr Tutorials but also with a series about Self-Portraits coupled with some photos documenting the process for the students. The beauty of this is that the students can re-visit the tutorial whenever they need to without feeling as if they are asking the same questions over and over. They can re-read the instructions at their own pace. They have access to the tutorials 24/7.

I also want to get my students to use this as a way of instructing their peers. What better way of illustrating their own understanding of a task or procedure than to get them to teach it to others. This would be a great task to conclude a unit of work with or even to extend your more motivated students. The possibilities are endless.

I know you could do this in Word or Pages and get the students to download the document but I like the fact that we can share these resources. I like the fact that other people can comment on the tutorials made by your students. Whenever we have uploaded our publications to Issuu or Scribd the students get a real kick out of the positive comments that other people always leave.

Lets me show you what I mean. This is a sample tutorial created by matterandrew. See what you think!
How could you use this in your classroom?

And it continues.......see full tutorial at

http://www.tildee.com/hVvJpd

or visit the Website at

http://www.tildee.com/

Great New Google Tool: What Do You Love

2011-07-03T12:34:00.007+10:00

This is not a complicated tool. It is a simple format that locates resources from a number of google sites and put them all in one place. It is however beautifully simple and beautifully simple to use.

It is this simplicity that makes it so usable from the students point of view. This will be a great tool for research assignments or even projects. You type in the term or name you would like to search and the WDYL tool locates information about the search term in the following categories;

It then present the information in a series of links on the page. This is not the only tool that your students will need to complete a research task but it is a good start to model the type of information you might looks for and the variety of tools one might use. Have a look I thought it was a nice little idea to use as a starter when introducing a new topic.

http://www.wdyl.com/#

40 Ways to use Google Apps in the Classrooom

2011-07-02T23:19:00.000+10:00

Google has been working hard to continually update their suite of tools recently. Different tools have been released on a regular basis over the last couple of months.

Google Apps is actually a suite of Google applications that brings together a series of services to help an organisation like a school. It is a service that lets schools, and institutions use a variety of Google products -- including Email, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Talk -- on a unique domain name (e.g.,www.yourschool.com).

For instance, if you own the domain yourschool.com and you sign up for Google Apps services, everyone at your organization will get:

A custom email address (user@yourschool.com)
Tools for word processing
Spreadsheets and presentations
A shared calendaring system
Tools for creating web pages and sites for your business
Access to a flexible intranet system
And much, much more!

To give you a idea of how useful this service could be in your school the following GoogleDoc was put together. It is a GoogleDoc on "40 ways to use Google Apps in your classroom". Enjoy!!!

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AcYeaW6goYpnZGRoazV2Y2hfNjFmZjdjM2hncQ&hl=en_US&pli=1

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/

Celebrating Our Challenge Based Learning Project

2011-06-30T22:05:00.012+10:00

As part of our ‘Edge’ (Educating the Digital Generation) Challenge Based Learning program we wanted to celebrate the first major Project submitted. We discussed the different ways that we could showcase the student's work. We wanted to highlight the successes of the program but we also wanted to acknowledge the great work that the students had created as part of their project. So we staged the Edgie's Award Ceremony.

In a way we wanted to lift expectations for the following project. We wanted to not only showcase the work of the students but also show them the quality and standard of work that was required. We sourced some props; bollards and red carpet, posters and some trophies. We issued the students with invitations and invited them to dress up in a funky hat or silly tie.

The day was a huge success. The students approached the whole event with an attitude of celebration and affirmation. We had comperes interviewing students on the red carpet, groups had their photos taken in front of the paparazzi -flashes blazing. On the back of the invitations was a voting form with a whole range of different categories for peer voting; Best use of Technology, Best use of Storytelling, Best use of Humour, Most Educational, Most Informative etc. The final award presented was the ‘Edgie’ - Best overall presentation.

It was amazing to see the effect of the Edgies on the students. The boys were full of energy for the sessions after the Edgies. We presented the next challenge and many used their time to start their research straight away. I think it had something to do with the fact that they had been made aware of the standards expected as well as using the really good presentations as a springboard for their own ideas. It is amazing what effect a $2.80 trophy can have.

Building Online Games as an Educational Tool

2011-06-29T22:48:00.006+10:00

More and more people are exploring the idea of making games within an educational setting. The design, construction and planning of the outcomes is an excellent problem solving exercise. It makes for a fantastic collaborative project as well.

I had a student approach me today with a game that he has based around the unit of work that we are studying. Each of the students negotiate their own research based on their understanding of the concepts covered by the unit.

He has used Game Salad as a way of building a game where the player must safely transport a 19th poster to the print factory. The concept of the game is that the player must learn about the effect of technology on late 19th century art movements and how it changed artistic practice.

When I mentioned this to a couple of teachers over lunch they related that a couple of kids from the same cohort had created a synopsis of scenes from Othello using different gaming platforms for each new scene. Apparently it went down very well with their peers in the English class.

So what are some of the Web Tools your students could use to construct their own online games:

Stencyl.com:

StencylWorks isn't your average game creation software; it's a gorgeous, intuitive toolset that integrates seamlessly with the Stencyl ecosystem. Exclusive collaboration and sharing features will have you making Flash games in a flash. For free. iOS support is on its way, too.

http://www.stencyl.com/

Game Salad.com:

GameSalad aims to open the doors of game design to anyone who wants to create. With GameSalad's complete set of tools and editors, bring your game to market faster and easier than with any other development platform; and without coding a single line. That's development in days and weeks - not months. That's the democratization of game creation.

http://gamesalad.com/

Thinking Worlds:

Thinking Worlds is a 3D sims & games engine and authoring tool. It enables novice and advanced developers alike to create and publish highly immersive simulations – rapidly. It has been designed from the start around the needs of designers and enables quick development of 3D sims & games. When you’re finished creating and building your sims, Thinking Worlds enables you to publish your project as either a standalone sim. Web-delivered sim or a mobile sim for iPad and iPhone requires a product purchase.

http://www.thinkingworlds.com/

Scratch:

Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web. As young people create and share Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

ttp://scratch.mit.edu/

Sploder.com:

Want to make your own online games for free? Sploder makes it super easy for you to make your own free games online and share them with your friends. Make your own platformer games, spaceship shooters, space adventure games, and now, our fantastic new physics game maker has been launched for creating original minigames!

http://www.sploder.com/

ChallengeYou.com:

ChallengeYou.com is a fun and safe online community of really creative kids. We give you the tools you need to quickly create fun, online, multiplayer games that you can play with your friends, family, and other ChallengeYou members.

http://www.challengeyou.com/

There are many many websites, blogs and wikis that explore this educational concept. I was lucky enough to participate in a workshop last year at Ulearn 2010 where Adrian Camm had put together a fantastic resource.

http://gamesined.wikispaces.com/

Challenged Based Learning

2011-06-28T22:01:00.000+10:00

We have been using a CBL model to base our Yr 7 Learning Project on. I have posted about it once before - we are using the Al Gore multimedia iPad book as our inspiration. This video is a great explanation of the scaffold.

The basic Challenged Based Learning process.

1. The Big Idea

Every challenge starts with the selection of a big idea — a broad topic that has importance to students and their community. Topics like democracy, the environment, or sustainability.

2. Essential Questions

Students explore their big idea by asking questions that reflect their individual interests and community’s needs. How does food impact our health? How do our diets impact the environment? What are the benefits of organic farming?

3. The Challenge

From the essential questions a challenge is developed to guide students toward a real-world solution. Like, let’s improve what we eat.

4. Guiding Questions and Activities

To meet their challenge, students need to ask guiding questions. What exactly do we eat? What nutrients do we need? What foods can we grow locally? To find answers, teachers work with students to identify guiding activities they can do at school and in their community. Students can interview people about their diets and analyze nutritional data etc.

5. Guiding Resources

Students take advantage of websites, podcasts, apps, audiobooks, and other resources to help answer guiding questions and develop solutions.

6. Solutions and Presentations

With their research complete, students choose one solution to develop. In this example, creating a school garden. To showcase their thinking, they can build an engaging presentation. Once the solution is approved, students implement it in the real world.

http://ali.apple.com/cbl/components.html

Can you really use Twitter in your Classroom?

2011-06-26T10:04:00.003+10:00

Twitter was one of those things that I just ignored. I thought it was a little bit indulgent and frivolous, that was until I got shown how teachers are using it for Professional Development. It is interesting how often it is now my first port of call if I am looking for a new Web 2 tool or an App that does a specific task. So how can you use twitter in the classroom. This has been cross-posted at Appsineducation

1. Make your own Textbook

We have used twitter in our class as a way of creating our own textbook. It was really a book for those students who wanted to complete some further reading around the subject we were studying. The class was studying a unit of work on Picasso and the Development of Cubism.

We created a class twitter account and then each time any of us found another online resource we retweeted it back to the school account. We then configured our Flipboard to feed from this account on to one of the content pages. The students had access to all of the resources in a format that easily resembled a magazine.

We actually found out about an exhibition that we were unaware was on and the gallery had these fantastic education kits that accompanied the exhibition. That alone made this a great activity.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/flipboard/id358801284?mt=8

2. Develop a whole Book with Chapters

Zite is similar to Flipboard. They both provide content that is provided by your twitter feeds. I like Zite because also like Flipboard you can set up different chapters or areas of interest. This would be ideal if you were doing a collaborative project. Each group could produce a chapter within your book by retweeting the relevant tweets they identify around a specific concept or issue. It is a great way to quickly produce an e-book that is specifically designed for your unit of work.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/zite-personalized-magazine/id419752338?mt=8

3. Crowd Source a Solution.

Wouldn't it be good to Crowd Source a real problem in your class, school or community. The students could start with brainstorming possible solution themselves and then they could ask the question of other classes who are also using twitter or even the classes of other teachers that are in your PLN. We all have some parents in our classes that are experts in their fields, we could rope them in as well.

4. Create a Class Newspaper.

Use your a class twitter account in the same way you did with Flipboard or Zite to create a class newspaper. This can be on a whole range of topics that you are studying or on a specific area that you are focusing on. Paper.li is an easy to use and visually appealing solution for creating these. You can have text sites, photos or even videos in your digital newspaper. These can be updated daily, weekly or whenever you change topics. Your Newspaper can be accessed by students in your class, your school or around the world. It is also a great way to let parents know about the topics you are studying in your classroom. I use them for Professional Development as well. There are a number of good ones around like Edtech and Web 2 tools.

http://paper.li/

5. Create a real or online Scavenger Hunt with clues distribute via twitter.

I normally like to use QR codes for the clues in a Scavenger Hunt but just to mix things up I sometimes use Twitter. These Scavenger Hunts can be online like a WebQuest or a series of clues stashed around the school that lead the students to a series of pieces of information that lets them decode the artwork or artist we might be studying that term.

6. Crowd Source a Story in Class.

This is an activity that you could do with paper and pen but it would be so much more fun doing it on your iPad or Laptop. Each student has 140 characters to add their part to a story. When they have finished they send a tweet to the next person. This is a great way to develop creative writing skills as well as making writing a fun activity for those who might normally struggle with a task like this. This would be even better if you then had the students who had already completed their 140 characters to animate it or drawing illustrations for it using Puppets Pals or Toontastic.

7. Create Autobiographies.

Wouldn't it be an interesting exercise to get your students to write a 140 character autobiography. What would they say. How do you cut everything down to 140 characters. Talk about practicing writing a concise piece. This would also be a lovely insight into how your students see themselves. As you know yourself sometime it is harder to put everything into a set word limit than what it is to ramble on. Great way to get to the core of person.

8. Create a 140 Character Biography.

If you are doing a research task about artists, explorers or figures from history wouldn't it be great to get your students to complete a biography of that person or people within the 140 character limit. Again this is about writing in a concise manner - no room for waffle. This is another great opportunity to match up your activity with a drawing or sketch of the person made on an online drawing tool. Couple this exercise with a Voki avatar to then bring your character to life.

9. Summarise Your Work.

How many times do we need students to summarise a paragraph, a concept or a newspaper article so we know that they have an understanding of the issues discussed. Can they do it in 140 characters. This would be a great way to motivate a group of students to complete this task. Maybe they could do it in a series of tweets. You could even peer assess which are the best for each section and then publish a class set of study notes for an end of chapter review or before a end of unit exam paper.

10. Conduct a twitter debate

Now this is a favourite of mine. I love the fact that the students have to be very clear about what they want to say before they start to tap away. With only 140 characters at a time the arguments necessarily need to be lean. This makes for a more lively debate. I also find that the students who do not always vocalise well within the larger group are often happy to participate in these debates. This debating format has been a confidence booster for more than one of our students.

11. Follow a Topic or Issue:

Use Tweetdeck to follow specific # hashtags. Tweetdeck will filter the world's tweets and only send those back to your Tweetdeck that contain the # hashtags that you have chosen.

This is a great way for students to follow the public opinion of an issue or event. It is also a great way for them to ascertain what are the concerns of those people who are for or against an issue. You can add or delete columns for # hashtags as many times as you like. This would work perfectly in conjunction with a tool like Archivist - which we profiled in a previous post.

The added advantage of a tool like this is you as the teacher can set up your own columns to keep abreast of new Web 2 tool, new Apps for Education or Edtech talk.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetdeck/id429654148?mt=8

Twitter: Analyse the Stats of a # Hashtag

2011-06-25T10:01:00.004+10:00

This is a great use of Twitter in education. This web tool allows you to type in any #hashtag and receive a bundle of stats of the tweets that used the tag. This is excellent for collecting information around a specific topic or issue. Your students can see the top words, top url's that are feeding the tweets and even which users are using the tag the most. Click on any of the boxes and a detailed pop-up appears with a comprehsive break down of all the statistics for that category - very cool!

Wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of these users had agendas or even a political bias around the issue.

These stats would also be good to use in conjunction with a study of issues from traditional media sources.

Who gets the scoop first?
Who has the bigger reach?
Who generates the most traffic?

The added bonus is that it also shows you all the most recent tweet traffic below the stats. Not only is this a great tool but it is beautifully presented as an inforgraphic. The information is easily read, deciphered and therefore understood by your students. Have a play with your faviourite #hashtags.

http://archivist.visitmix.com/

The use of Google Forms in the Classroom

2011-06-24T15:47:00.000+10:00

Google Forms are an excellent way to collect, collate and interpret large sets of data. Many of the existing templates in Google Forms have already been set up to report the results the second they are finished. We have used them at our school as multiple choice tests and within seconds the students have been sent a copy of their results with averages, means and standard deviations. You can use them to collect names as a sign on sheets, parent teacher night interviews and so on. Have a look at the great google doc below for some other interesting ways of using them in your classroom.

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzc5Y25zc201Zzc&hl=en_GB&authkey=CIns-dQF

Can Students be Curators of their own Information?

2011-06-23T17:10:00.005+10:00

In a continuing pedagogical experiment we have had our students design and then construct their own textbooks. We collaboratively design and construct the e-texts for each group that comes through. We find it is the discussions, decisions and sense of ownership that working with the concepts and ideas brings that is the most important thing. We have two groups working on them at the moment, both Yr 11 and Yr 12. The Yr 12 students have just started constructing an e-book on Architecture.

This particular situation has been set up so that each page of the publication will be up for grabs. The pages on the individual topics decided on will be peer assessed. The group will decided which of the pages is actually presented in the e-book.

We are a boys school and the element of friendly competition seems to work constructively for us. The boys also love the fact that other people get to view, critique and even use our textbooks. One of our existing e-textbooks can be seen at issuu.com. The students are allocated three (3) lessons for each of the activities that will make up one page in our e-textbook. Enjoy!!!

Open publication - Free publishing - More postmodernism (Flash)

I thought it might be good to put out some examples of the publication we are currently working on.

The first lot are from Fabian (Embedit - Flash)

These are from Daniel

A Day in the Life of an Architect on Prezi (Flash)

These are screen shot from another Prezi from Daniel

One from Jarrad - I initially struggled with this concept as I didn't think that it fitted in with the e-book concept, however Jarrad was able to negotiate it with me. He convinced me that this was as valid as any other form of presentation - I so glad I am such a push over.

We also have a number of students who are designing their own Art Gallery in Google Sketchup. We thought it would be worthwhile for them to actually design a structure that has certain constraints. The idea is that they experience the artistic practice of an architect. We will also try to put some of these up when we work out how to upload them as working images.

We will let you know when we have published our finished Architectural Digest.

Top 100 Tools of 2011 - Voting

2011-06-22T15:01:00.000+10:00

The C4LPT site was set up by Jane Hart as a free resource site on the use of new technologies for learning and performance. There are some great list of Web 2 tools as well as resources for the classroom teacher. Each year they create a list of most useful Web 2 tools for the classroom teacher. Voting has started for this years list.

Not only do I like to vote but I always use the list to see if there are new tools that I have not yet tried in the classroom. This is a great resource for teachers to evaluate their own practice and to get a insight into what others are doing in their class. Have a look at the list and then vote for your favourite learning tool.

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/2011.html

HOW TO: Make Your QR Codes More Beautiful

2011-06-20T16:37:00.000+10:00

I have written before about using QR codes in my classroom and how much fun they can be. Whether it is a treasure hunt, information gathering exercise or even clever graffiti QR codes area great way to get your students communicating. This is a great article on making your QR codes a little different, a bit more user friendly in a way. Have a read and see what you think. Enjoy!

The QR code: A thing of beauty or an eyesore? The magical barcodes that can be scanned by a smartphone to launch an offline-to-online experience are often criticized for their black and white checkerbox appearance. Those who doubt that QR codes will go mainstream are quick to point out that the look of QR codes will deter marketers and advertisers from using them.

Fortunately, QR codes are malleable and can be redesigned in truly extraordinary ways, while still maintaining their scanability. The truth is, QR codes no longer have to be checkerbox in appearance. We’ve entered a new phase of “designer codes” that can be integrated into marketing campaigns in an attractive way that isn’t an eyesore.

QR codes have so much potential from a design perspective, so let’s take a look at a few tricks and techniques you should keep in mind when designing a code to enhance your brand and appeal to your audience.

Add a colour Palette
Soften Hard Edges with Round Corners
Incorporate Dimensionality for 3D Impact
Use QR Codes with 30% Error Correction
Apply a Trial and Error Process

Full Article:
http://mashable.com/2011/04/18/qr-code-design-tips/

Related Articles:
http://edtechtoolbox.blogspot.com/2010/11/qr-code-matrix-barcode-two-dimensional.html

10 Best and Shortest URL Shorteners

2011-06-18T22:06:00.001+10:00

This is an article put together by SIETSE over at All you need is lists.com. It is an interesting site with multiple lists. This is a list of really useful URL shortening sites.

Shortening your URLs is fundamental these days, for sharing links on Twitter without having it clog up your entire 140 character span for example. Other than a better appearance, most proper URL shortener services also offer click-tracking and some even support custom URLs.

IS.GD

SU.PR

BU.TT

BIT.LY

GOO.GL

CLI.GS

TINY.CC

SN.IM

TINYURL.COM

MOOURL.COM

http://allyouneedislists.com/technology/internet/10-best-and-shortest-url-shorteners/

FramebyFrame Stop Motion Freeware

2011-06-17T18:09:00.000+10:00

FrameByFrame lets you create stop-motion animation videos using any webcam/video camera connected to your Mac, including iSight. Just take some pictures and in a matter of seconds you‘ve got your very own stop-motion QuickTime movie!

http://web.mac.com/philipp.brendel/Software/FrameByFrame.html

Using Track Changes in Pages

2011-06-15T22:13:00.001+10:00

Many of my students send drafts of their writing tasks for advice and assistance. Instead of printing them out and me writing all over them, I ask them to email me their draft. Because we use Pages on our Mac I then use Track Changes to offer suggestions for improving their writing. I often see staff doing this with pen and paper so offered this as a 5 minute PD at our last staff meeting.

Embedded document produced using Embed.it (Flash-based software)

1000 Tips and Tricks for Your PC

2011-06-14T15:47:00.001+10:00

This is a great resource for teachers kindly put together by the guys at Technobuzz. There are over 1000 cool tips and tricks for your PC computer here. It takes a while to go through this list but is well worth it. I have put it in my bookmark bar and check a couple each day. There is something for everyone. Enjoy!

www.technobuzz.net/1000-cool-apps-tools-and-tips-for-your-pc/