The 2008 Edublog Awards!

Thanks to a post from Elizabeth Clark, I’m excited to say that I agree with her that 280 slides has wonderful potential for teachers and students alike. In fact, this will become a key teaching tool for me in 2009, as I get my students away from desktop applications and into collaborative online tools.

This is a great place to start. Kids are all too familiar with powerpoint, youtube, and …..uh,oh , google images. How do we make the use of these tools more organic?

For my own presentations, and theirs – this is the go! Why?

Because 280 Slides is a free web-based service where you can “[c]reate beautiful presentations, access them from anywhere, and share them with the world.” It allows you to

import existing PowerPoint presentations
access your presentations from any computer with an internet connection
use media from services like Flickr and YouTube
use built-in themes
automatically save and recover your presentations
download your presentation to PowerPoint
publish your presentation on SlideShare, e-mail it, or embed it in a website
create your presentations on the web in your browser without downloading any software

I totally love that it works basically the same way as blogs, wikis and nings – use a url or upload an image to put it into your presentation. You can search YouTube or Vimeo to add some multimedia, as well as uploading something.

So students can make their movies, store their images – all online – then embedd them into their presentation – and download, upload, share and …… so the online conversation continues with the power of cloud computing.

Good one!

Search engine optimization

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide is a document that first began as an effort to help teams within Google, but we thought it’d be just as useful to webmasters that are new to the topic of search engine optimization and wish to improve their sites’ interaction with both users and search engines.

Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When
viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined
with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results. If you are a webmaster, you’re likely already familiar with many of the topics in this guide, because they’re essential ingredients for any webpage, but you may not be making the most out of them.

From teachers or an information professionals point of view, understanding this guide is also important. It’s a level of understanding that can be used by us to help guide our own student’s interaction with the online world. They need to know about search optimization – because the world is often more about marketing than it is about altruistic sharing of information!

Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education — Publications — Center for Social Media at American University.

This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Download the full report from the Centre for Social Media.

Media literacy is the capacity to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms. This expanded conceptualization of literacy responds to the demands of cultural participation in the twenty-first century. Like literacy in general, media literacy includes both receptive and productive dimensions, encompassing critical analysis and communication skills, particularly in relationship to mass media, popular culture, and digital media. Like literacy in general, media literacy is applied in a wide variety of contexts—when watching television or reading newspapers, for example, or when posting commentary to a blog. Indeed, media literacy is implicated everywhere one encounters information and entertainment content. And like literacy in general, media literacy can be taught and learned.

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The New Media Literacies

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

Members of the research team at Project New Media Literacies discuss the social skills and cultural competencies needed to fully engage with today’s participatory culture.

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Social media makeover

Posted on November 15, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

Yesterday I wrote a reply to a question about my blog – BUT my answer should have been more thorough!

Jacinta, a post-graduate student, and learning about Web 2.0, wrote to ask me who the webmaster of this website is. I wrote a quick email reply, that was basic, therefore totally inadequate!

The answers are easy. A blog is just that – something written by the blog owner. It is not a website that has a webmaster. So Heyjude is my blog, written by me. Same with all the blogs that are linked in my blogroll. That is what Web 2.0 is all about!! Anybody can do anything!!

Yes, I am actually the webmaster of my own blog – using an online hosted platform called WordPress! Good for me!

What I also should have explained is that WordPress can be deployed in a number of different ways for self hosting and multi-user platforms for blogging and website content management systems. Edublogs is an excellent example of a entrepreneurial deployment of WordPress in multiuser format by Australian guru James Farmer, who serves the education blogging community with his excellent services as well as creating an income stream for himself. We are lucky to have this service available to us all.

But WordPress itself is a powerful product. I chose WordPress.com for this blog just because it is robust, secure, and because the support services and forum are excellent. There is no downtime, and none of the little glitches that we have experienced in our Edublogs blogs.

But a fast growing trend is the adoption of WordPress for “CMS projects” where WordPress is being leveraged in building-out entire sites that are not necessarily blog-centric. I did that in a very small way for Judy’s Web 2.0 Notes, and Simply Books.

So I am particularly chuffed that I did that, especially when I found out that Gordon Brown’s No.10 Downing Street website was re-launched using the WordPress platform. So while WordPress is primarily a blogging application, No. 10 shows it is versatile enough to be used in many different ways. Another example in this trend is the recent launch of the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ. Magazine. Other sites include AllThingsD.com, and the Small Business How-To Guide.

There has also been a burst of writing about other social media being used for mainstream communication. It seems that Obama is going to address the nation each week via YouTube. The Obama campaign was marked by a variety of social media usage, including the tiny info pushes that kept the Twitter world informed.

President Bush had been doing podcasts for a long time. Gordon Brown is also utilising Youtube for communication with his constituents! supported by the WordPress driven interactive website at No. 10.

There are lots more examples you can find. What’s of interest to me is the notion that social media is ours! and theirs! – its in the hands of everyone to be used for whatever we like.

Are we teaching our students this? Teaching them how to use this media effectively? How to use this media to know more about our world? to contribute to the debate? to develop our own knowledge and understanding or political, social, cultural, ethical, religious, artistic, historical information and ideas?

Going beyond

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Judy O'Connell

Congrats to my pal Dean Groom, who is going beyond school into a future filled with more teaching and learning design.

It’s his last week at school before he takes up his new post. We’re all looking forward to see what magic he create as the Head of Teaching and Learning Design at Maquarie Uni. Here’s his excellent presentation Beyond Text Books which he presented at ISTE island. Great graphic work don’t you think? and great ideas too 🙂