Category Archives: Digital Media

Did you know what’s happening to the Internet?

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This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new September 2009 version includes facts and statistics focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.

Thanks to Wes Fryer for the tip-off in his post Can you Imagine So Much Global Sharing?  My answer is – I never could, even though I’m an avid reader of SciFi. Dreaming and doing are quite different things!

Also in the same post – a peek at the state of the Internet. 

2010 is one amazing year!

more about “JESS3 / The State of The Internet“, posted with vodpod

Flat Classroom Project: Fresh start in a new world

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The brilliant work by Julie Lindsay (Beijing, China) and Vicki Davis (Westwood Schools, Georgia, USA) continues in The Flat Classroom Project 2010-1 which is now is well under way for 2010.

The Flat Classroom™ Project is a global collaborative project that joins together middle and senior high school students. This project is part of the emerging tend in internationally-aware schools to embrace a holistic and constructivist educational approach to work collaboratively with others around the world.

One of the main goals of the project is to ‘flatten’ or lower the classroom walls so that instead of each class working isolated and alone, 2 or more classes are joined virtually to become one large classroom. This is done through the Internet using Web 2.0 tools such as Wikispaces and Ning.

The Project uses Web 2.0 tools to make communication and interaction between students and teachers from all participating classrooms easier. The topics studied and discussed are real-world scenarios based on ‘The World is Flat‘ by Thomas Friedman.

I was honoured to be invited to present the Keynote, ‘Pandora’s Box: Fresh Start in a New World’ for FCP10-1. This time there are  over 200 students from 10 classrooms across 6 different countries.

Here are some guiding questions to get them thinking about how to respond and start a discussion or foster an existing discussion:

  1. Is global collaboration using emerging technologies a pandora’s box? Why?
  2. How can we best prepare the ’17 year old Internet/connected world’ to mature and grow into ‘adulthood’?
  3. How has the flat world impacted on you as a teenager? as a teacher?
  4. What place do immersive worlds and virtual realities have in education?

Safe online – fact or fantasy

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http://www.danpink.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hogwarts-e1264722646117.jpgI came  across two things this week that can help teachers with supporting good use of online spaces.  For some teachers  effective understanding of online spaces and places in terms of good information practice is still a bit of a fantasy tale – like finding Platform 9 3/4 for Hogwarts!

So the following guide is well worthwhile distributing to your school community.

Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online,  gives adults practical tips to help kids navigate the online world.  Net Cetera covers what parents and teachers need to know, and issues to raise with kids about living their lives online.

What about the big student magnet  – Google?

Google published its five privacy principles for International Data Privacy Day on the 28th January.  OK, I admit that this is the other side of the coin.

However, it is important to understand exactly what our major online tools consider as important to their product – driven by business forces – as the fact that online tools are extensions of our kids brains means educators have a responsibility to keep in touch and activate the right options for online spaces and places.

Google’s Privacy Principles are:

  1. Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services. Search history informs personalized search, but users can opt-out.
  2. Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices. For example, you can chat on Google Talk “off the record” so the conversation isn’t saved.
  3. Make the collection of personal information transparent. Last year, the Google Dashboard was launched to show you what info Google is collecting on you.
  4. Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy. You can report privacy issues related to Street View. Google often blurs faces, for example.
  5. Be a responsible steward of the information we hold. Google doesn’t sell data to other companies.

You can view the published web document on Google’s privacy principles here.

(via Google  Search Engine Watch)

Timelines: Sources from history

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A new interactive history timeline developed by British Library allows students and teachers to explore collection items chronologically for the first time. www.bl.uk/timeline

Comparing the Peasants’ Revolt with the Punk Revolution or medieval astrology with the Apollo moon landings might appear unconnected at first, but the British Library’s new interactive timeline will allow students to get a sense of change, continuity and chronology when studying historical events.

Bringing together material from the Library’s vast collections and using cutting-edge technology, users will now be able to discover historical connections and create links in an exciting multimedia experience.

(via British Library)

Understanding games education – an open (re)source

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ETC Press is a publishing imprint with a twist, being interested in the participatory future of content creation across multiple media.

Great credibility and open source  adds up to a great way to transform learning!

ETC Press  is an academic, open source, multimedia, publishing imprint affiliated with the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and in partnership with Lulu.com.  ETC Press has an affiliation with the Institute for the Future of the Book and MediaCommons, sharing in the exploration of the evolution of discourse.

ETC Press also has an agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to place ETC Press publications in the ACM Digital Portal, and another with Feedbooks to place ETC Press texts in their e-reading platform. Also, ETC Press publications will be in the ThoughtMesh.

ETC Press publications focus on issues revolving around entertainment technologies as they are applied across a variety of fields.

Thanks to a tweet from @lernys I’ve now happily downloaded a copy of Ludoliteracy: Defining, Understanding, and Supporting Games Education, by José P. Zagal.

[cover thumbnail]This is free and looks like a very worthwhile read. Grab yourself a copy.

Book Description:

It seems like teaching about games should be easy. After all, students enjoy engaging with course content and have extensive experience with videogames. However, games education can be surprisingly complex.

This book explores ludoliteracy, or the question of what it means to understand games, by looking at the challenges and problems faced by students taking games-related classes. In response to these challenges, this book then describes how online learning environments can be used to support learning about games by helping students get more from their experiences with games, and helping students use what they know to establish deeper understanding.

Based on the findings from a series of research studies, Ludoliteracy examines the broader implications for supporting games education.

Check out more Current Titles on games, media, design, communications and social networks.

Get your horizons boxed in!

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Ever collected boxed sets of your favourite authors, movies and the like ~ to keep and remember?

I’m predicting that 2010 will be a year of amazing shifts, consolidating the innovations that Web 2.0 introduced. Educators always like to study how, what, where, when and why…so go on over now and collect your boxed sets of the Horizon Project Reports put out since 2004 by NMC.

Your  own ‘boxed set’ of Horizon Reports as a single pf:
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/horizon-reports-set.pdf (2.5 Mb PDF)

Collectors Edition which also includes the 2008 and 2009 Australia-New Zealand Editions, the 2009 K12 Edition, and the 2009 Economic Development Edition!
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/horizon-reports-all.pdf (4.6 Mb PDF)

Look for the news on January 19, 2010 when they will add to both collections, the newest edition– the 2010 Horizon Report– which will be released at the EDUCAUSE ELI Annual Conference in Austin, Texas.

Grab the Wordle for the reports too if you like!

Wordle: Horizon Reports 2004-2009

Real and imagined ~ are the same!

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Each school, each leadership team, each school library team and each teacher needs to learn how to restructure the core business of schooling in order to embrace learning in our changing online world.

We say this often and slowly the ship of state is turning ~ but fast enough for our students?

I came across two things today which brought a smile to my face. What we imagine is possible ~ is real these days!

Take a look at TechXav -  seems to be as professional a website as any you might come across….. by 11-15 year old students?

TechXav is a technology blog written by a group of young and zealous teens, ranging from the age of 11-15.

Wait – they’re even located around the world!!

Right – and imagine what they think of being shown a powerpoint! or opening a text book!

I also read a post by Will Richardson about phones and about the disruption they are already creating for most schools (high schools at least) and about the huge brain shift we’re going to have to through collectively to capture the potential for learning in our kids’ pockets. I love the video he shared as well!

Yes, we’re facing a huge challenge ~ much bigger than just the roll-out of laptops in our schools in NSW. It’s a fundamental, seismic shift that likely will swallow some education institutions.

So this little promo video shared by Will also bought a smile to my face.

Mobile Visual Search

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Mobile visual search signals a very interesting shift in product marketing. Perhaps this is also a introducing a significant shift in information search  for students too?

Right now we can ask:  What is the object? Where can I get it? What it is useful for?  What do others say about it? Does it help me understand (something I’m learning about )  a little better?

In the future?

more about “Mobile Visual Search“, posted with vodpod