Next WOW2 show – now that’s WOW!!

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Thanks to a post by Chrissy (Teaching Sagittarian) I have been prompted to mention the next WOW2.0 broadcasting through Worldbridges and EdTechTalk, which takes placeTuesday nights at 9 p.m. EST. (Which is Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. Sydney time).

WOW2 is for all who are using the tools of the internet whether it be in a classroom setting, leading seminars, authoring books, maintaining blogs or wikis, or just enjoying the tools of the internet in an educational and exciting way.

This week’s show features four Australian educators:
Graham Wegner – Teaching Generation Z – Judy O’Connell (me!)- Jo McLeay – The Open Classroom – and Jason Hando – Clever Learning. Vicki Davis, fantastic ‘coolcatteacher’, writes a little more about it, while Jo McLeay does some preliminary thinking getting ready for the exciting event! We also get pulled in on the NECC2007 blogs feed – now that is something!

We will be talking about Education 2.0 in Australia – things that are happening, tools that are being used, integration and more – and especially what needs to change to make things keep moving right along!

Women of Web 2.0 (WOW2) is brought to you by Cheryl Oakes, Jennifer Wagner, Sharon Peters, & Vicki Davis, four women who not only love using the tools of the Internet but also love sharing the tools with others.

Their mission is to provide a professional voice in educational Web 2.0 discussions. Conversations coming from the WOW2 network will move across gender, race, and country lines and display the beautiful diversity of the internet kaleidoscope. WOW2 are advocates for professional ethics, emerging technologies, collaborative projects, quality best practices research, and teaching students critical thinking skills.

Join WOW2 some time soon 🙂

Web 2.0 stuff I’ve used

Posted on June 30, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Doug Belshaw has a great post on Web 2.0 stuff he’s used, or plans to use, in his role as a teacher of History and ICT.

I’d like to see what YOU would consider your required list for teaching YOUR particular curriculum areas.

Tell me, or write your own post, and link it back here. 🙂

There are so many possibilities that I think it is important to create your own favourite ‘Web 2.0 toolkit’ – no gimmickry allowed!

You use Youtube? so you’re cool?

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

Working with a group of teachers the other day, I was inspired to reflect upon just how much things have changed in just 6 months!

Of course the workshop was about Web 2.0, and we had some attendees who were at the ‘big toe in the water’ stage, as well as Bob, Martin and super enthusiastic Deputy Principal John. What a great school to have such a passion to move on through Web 2.0. Bob at McAuley runs a blog to support their ‘Focus on Learning’ project (which is about Web 2.0) and which will represent money well invested by the State in this school! Bob has joined me on FaceBook, and we had some interesting discussions after the workshop about the value (or otherwise) of Facebook for teachers. The answer? Not much value right now, but we will keep our eye on it 🙂

Bob & Martin, along with some teachers from a number of our other schools, are also involved in a Learnscope project – once again around the use of Web 2.0. My young geek friend Melinda says:

The focus in this project is to acquire sound evidence on which to base future organisational decisions about communication and networking processes.

This will be done through investigating the use of web 2.0 tools:

to support VET teachers and students as learners

to facilitate workplace communication about VET teaching and learning issues

in supporting industry and TAFE networking opportunities.

What’s different then you ask? Well, not just the fact that it has become ‘mainstream’ to undertake specific projects to investigate and integrate the best possible use of Web 2.0, but that through Web 2.0 we can reclaima teachers prime role of mentoring, nurturing, modelling or even teaching! students with technology that is online, intuitive, and embedded into the framework of learning and teaching.

The difference now is the existence of Web 2.0 as a framework for social networking and social communication; and Web 2.0 as a state-of-the art technology that is more and more intuitive rather being an ‘add-on’ to the core business of learning.

I’ve hear someone at work say a few weeks ago: “Web 2.0 is out there – we don’t need to do anything special to incorporate it into learning.”

Oh dear! – of course those of us ‘on the road’ and working with teachers know that the story is very different. . and that we are lucky to have so many projects to help people make the transition to Web 2.0 learning and teaching!!!!

So what WAS so different yesterday?

Not the workshop, but what happened afterwards. The staff attending the workshop didn’t all just pack their bags and run. A bunch of us gathered around and watched some videos that Bob has collected in his EventHorizon VodPod!! Were you doing that 6 months ago? A year ago?

We watched the amazing TED talk about Photosynth. We topped it off with some comedy! before driving home on a cold winter’s afternoon.

Create + Learn + Broadcast = L3RN

Posted on June 25, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

A very impressive Web 2.0 presence from Seattle Public Schools who have clearly got a great lead on integration of social networking into their learning frameworks!

Know as L3RN – Learning equals creating, learning and broadcasting, A visit to their fantastic portal is a must. School libraries have their own area for News, tips, resources, and help from Seattle Schools’ libraries.

The portal has browse, video, audio, docs and channels in its suite. Fantastic.

Thanks to Awapuni for ‘links for you’ through Del.ici.ous!

[Cross-posted from: iLibrarian because it is too important to only post in one place!]

JumpCut for video-editing

Posted on June 22, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

If your school can’t afford to invest in video-editing software, Jumpcut offers a low-cost alternative to getting students and staff up and running on innovative projects that incorporate digital video.

Students actually make online videos directly in Jumpcut’s browser—editing, mixing, and adding music on-site. They can then post them, YouTube-style, for parents to view.

If you have used this, have you got any feedback?

Bloglines – it’s not just the image wall that sucks!

Posted on June 19, 2007 by Judy O'Connell

The blogosphere before your eyes?

Bloglines Image Wall is considered by some to be pretty interesting.

Here’s the deal. Bloglines indexes zillions of pages every hour — and just as many images. The Bloglines Image Wall picks up these images as they come in and places them into a constantly updated grid.

You’ll never see the Wall the same way twice – in fact, it changes right before your eyes. Curious, funny, challenging, good, bad, and ugly – it’s all there. The variety alone is fascinating.

Much has been written about this since the release, and adjustments have been made by Bloglines in response to concerns from educators and librarians. Yes, we can now block the image wall URL.

But here’s the rub – that’s not all there is to worry about!

One of the factors in social networking is being able to share! Somehow this was touted as a fair reason to have an Image Wall. There are some things I never want to share – and the complaints to Bloglines makes it clear that I am not alone in this.

Bloglines, as you know, allows you to have a public profile – others can see what you have in your RSS feeds. As an educator I thought this yet another good example of professional collaboration. In fact, at times I have checked other’s feeds to see what I have missed and what I should subscribe too – a function that Bloglines allows you to do easily.

Here I was happily checking out everything in a subscriber’s folders – his school, his lovel family, concerts, professional readings etc – and then I struck the smut – big time! Should an educator have this stuff in a public place where teachers and students can access it. NEVER. (Fortunately I have been able to block this subscriber from view in my public bloglines account).

What concerned me was that I had a subscriber with that sort of content – porn is considered inappropriate to be housed in the folders of a teacher’s computer – shouldn’t the same guidelines apply online?

So in relation to management strategies in school with Image Wall, Barry Schwartz said is already:

To be fair, you have to agree before entering to “The Image Wall is comprised of dynamically generated images from user feeds and may contain material of an explicit sexual nature or other adult content.” And you must say you are over 18. OK, now what elementary or high school student using bloglines won’t click the agree button?

Like everyone else, I will have to think of moving soon.

In the meantime, please, if you are an educator who’s also into porn, DO NOT make your bloglines subscription public.