Category Archives: Technology and Software

We can solve this problem together!

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There are many ways we can create learning environments for our students that will help develop their thinking and problem-solving skills. While I spend a lot of time working with technology and Web 2.0, I am fortunate to hear from my colleague, Nicole, about another technology approach – that is beaut for young kids!!!

Welcome to the world of Freddie the Bee-Bot! It is worth reading and absorbing the developing story of Bee-Bots Downunder, as youngsters in our schools engage in collaborative thinking and co-operation about their learning while they program Bee-Bot action.

A Bee Bot is a visually attractive, audible easily handleable programmable floor robot which can be used to support the development of skills in a wide range of areas. It allows learners to give a range of instructions from simple to more complex. It can be used for the development of fine motor skills by using the directional buttons. It can support imaginative play through the use of commercial or school designed covers. It allows learners to demonstrate skills in ways that a traditional approach would not support.

Nicole created a blog to keep a record of the learning these kids are doing. Nicole explains:

The children work collaboratively, and through their own experiences develop and use positional language, problem posing and solving skills and the ability to work co-operatively to achieve a goal. It is important that the students use whatever strategies that are meaningful to them to solve the problem.

Keep an eye on the developing achievements of our Bee-Bot kids at Bee-Bots Downunder. Fantastic work Nicole and team!

Is the medium the message?

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Response to Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

This recent video on YouTube continues the dialogue about the “The Medium is the Message”. It’s important not to be swept up by the ‘hype’ and to continue to focus on the value of the read/write web. I also like the way this video points us towards the future that SecondLife is busy developing. The blend between our various realities is hard for us to grasp………so let’s continue a healthy dialogue around all the issues and possibilities! Will you make the next video? 🙂

Flash Photobucket

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I know that quite a few teachers use Photobucket …. so this information from Techcrunch wil be of interest.

We are expecting Photobucket and Adobe to jointly announce a new Flash based tool for Photobucket users within the next couple of weeks. The tool will allow users to mash up videos, photos and music clips into a timeline, and add titles, transitions and other effects, and then embedded into blogs, social networks like Myspace, and other sites.

Dr Who – and handheld technology

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I had reason to visit my friendly general practitioner (doctor) recently, and as usual we had a bit of ‘IT talk’ as part of the consultation. A multi-talented man, Dr W. writes software-programs for medical practitioners. Proud owner of a new Apple Mac at home, his latest project is putting case notes/diagnoses/treatment tutorials onto handheld devices, that trainee doctors will be able to consult as they learn on the rounds.

This put me in mind of the post from CIO blogger Ben Worthen, who wrote about mobile devices in the corporate work environment.

I have partnered with a new site http://www.urFlick.com that will soon launch to provide training material and instructional videos for our industry to people’s mobile devices.
We already allow our sales team to view inventory, place orders, check customer credit and history via their Blackberries. Next is to utilize urFlick.com and have our communication and sales pitches hand delivered to their device.

When I’m in this conversation/reading space, I am frustrated that we haven’t moved more quickly in education (in Australia) to explore just what we could be doing with handheld devices with our students.

Perhaps iPhones in education will push the agenda for us – eventually!

Ben Worthen thinks the iPhone is the single most important thing to happen to CIOs this year, and asks

if the work and the personal parts of your lives are no longer separate why should the devices that you use in those roles be?

I agree. Yes, I know you will tell me that podcasting has had a big push – but somehow this seems just one (almost gimicky) part of an overall need to refocus how we use our technology tools. But that’s a teacher thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that what kids really want is a pocket-sized combo gadget, and teachers had better start pushing the boundaries of our thinking.

In December 2006 FutureLab released a new Handbook , Learning with Handheld Technologies. The Handbook tells us that pedagogical approaches and teaching styles must accommodate a more autonomous learner role for good use of handheld devices. The trouble is the use of handheld technologies in the classroom may present difficulties for those teachers who do not fully understand their potential in a learning and teaching context.

We have much to learn in this area.

Getting back the start of this post…. TV shows like Doctor Who are expected to be available for download later this year after the BBC Trust gave initial approval to the BBC’s on-demand plans. Under the proposals, viewers will be able to watch popular programmes online or download them to a home computer up to a week after they are broadcast.

Speed up Firefox web-browser

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Someone will tell me if this is a piece of mischief…..

But for now I highly recommend the Very Useful Tips to speedup your Firefox from Ubantu Geek.

firefox2.jpgSince I use three different browsers I was game to experiment with this to see if I could improve my browsing speeds.

How does this compare with Firefox 2? I don’t know 🙂

Anyway…….  maybe you would like to try one or other of these options.

Dig that tiny URL!

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I thought I would do a little ‘refresher’ for those who are just getting into regular online ‘mischief’ and who haven’t heard about simple ways of managing loooooong URLs.

The problem: Long Web addresses (URLs) are difficult to remember and say, and become broken when sent by email.

The solution: Use an online tool that shortens the long address to overcome these problems.

DigBig

How does DigBig work?

 

Three simple steps:

  1. You paste a Web address into the DigBig box and click the button
  2. DigBig converts it into a much shorter version
  3. You copy the new short address and use it instead of the long one

digbig.jpgWhen someone visits the short address, DigBig converts it back to the original one, and sends the visitor to that original Web page.

TinyURL does the same job, and also allows you to add TinyURL to your IE browser toolbar – if you want.



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Flock Fever

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The Social Web Browser. Frustrated at work today by technology issues on my IBM computer (and too lazy to open my MacBook Pro) I decided to go back and give another run of Flock.

I wrote blogged about Flock (and more) back in July 2006 – but my Flock use has slipped away since then.
So I downloaded the update – and Bingo! I was a winner. I have blogged several posts since then, and love being able to blend my Delicious and Flickr accounts into Flock

What a great decision! I’m sold on the fantastic integration and functionality that Flock provides me. Cuts my blogging time in half!

Don’t just take my word for it. Read a comprehensive review of Flock written by Kathleen Gilroy at Library 2.0 back in July last year.

This will give you a good idea of the combined functionality of this excellent browser.

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The [library] world is flat – too!

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We have a central library catalogue (SirsiDynix Unicorn) serving 77 schools K-12 plus some specialist libraries, which allows for individualisation and sharing of information – we can search our own library or all libraries across all our schools as well as the specialised support libraries.

Unicorn’s architecture makes it easy to change databases and to implement new functionality. We have ‘content enrichment’ – book jackets, reviews, teacher notes and more also added to our basic catalogue. We could extend our services to include electronic packets (learning objects) and electronic files, provide federated searching of our resources, which includes an excellent range of subscription databases such as Britannica and EBSCO.

We could launch an enterprise portal solution, or implement any number of excellent options that SirsiDynix offers to revolutionise access to digital knowledge resources, as well as bibliographic resources.

At this stage, we have not rolled out the really effective enhancements that makes this system of delivery revolutionary…….. information anywhere, anytime.

We ‘stand out‘ in the school library sector in Australia for having implemented this system – yet we are hindered in making further developments because ………the potential of the innovation goes unrecognised! Urrrrggghhhh – so frustrating! Such Web 1.0 thinking. So yesterday!

The Information Network for Ohio Schools has done much of this, and is worth exploring to see some of the possible ways of supporting learning and teaching across schools.

I am delighted that at least a public library in Australia is leading the way in Web 2.0 using the same platform as our own (Unicorn), though obviously for a much smaller group of libraries.

The SirsiDynix WebSeminar “Hopping into Library 2.0: Experiencing Lifelong Learning” will be presented by Christine Mackenzie —Chief Executive Officer, Yarra Plenty Regional Library, in Melbourne, Australia. She will talk about why they decided to implement Learning 2.0 and how this has equipped them to get bold in their thinking about social networking. They’ll discuss 4 themes for their Library worker 2.0 staff development program in 2007 – getting information, enabling learning, creating content and celebrating culture; and how they are encouraging an environment of lifelong learning within the organization. Grab the podcast if you can’t join in the conversation. Of course there is also an excellent Yarra Plenty Library Blog, currently promoting great summer reading.

Singapore National Library shows an interesting MashUp with BookJetty. Some nice Web 2.0 enhancements, and a curious blend with Amazon. Can’t borrow the book? I guess you can buy it! My test searches provided pretty interesting results – in some cases, only providing Amazon information. Port the same search across to WorldCat – and get a very comprehensive result – all the information leads you could want for collection development, research sources, or unusual collections. Why not put the WorldCat search box on your site?

In terms of nice innovation, I love what MIT libraries have done! MIT Libraries now have RSS feeds for new additions to their catalogue.

Of course, they have lots of other nice things too, but RSS feeds for new resources is a cool Web 2.0 touch for keeping informed!

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Apple Conference – very boring leadership strand!

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I failed to mention that I had registered for the Leadership Strand of ITSC. The conference offers a range of quality strands, and having spoken to some of my colleagues, the overall impression seems to be that there is something worth learning in all the strands so far.

I did have a chat with some good leaders taking part in my strand – a quiet chat – because so far we have not really had anything worth dragging us away from our busy schedules. While I enjoyed Stephanie’s talk – I could just as easily have missed it, as the message was pitched at those who are still coming to understand the changes in our digital world.

Hopefully all those registered for the Leadership Strand are awake to this fact! Nice to see StudyWiz. Nice to meet with other colleagues. Nice to hear some things they are doing in diverse parts of Australia. Seen it before at other conferences. All nice. All good. But as far as ‘leadership’ goes – NOT INSPIRING. NOT CHALLENGING. JUST PLAIN BORING.

I dread boredom – thank goodness for wireless access and the opportunity to multi-thread my own actions and my own learning.

Tomorrow may be better as Greg Whitby will head off the leadership strand tomorrow. His message at the end of the day was to assure us that he will turn our thinking on its head. ……. Not mine – I work with Greg!!

But at least I might have some fun watching some other leaders squirm OR we will actually engage in some really searching dialogue in response to the challenges that he will put before us.

By the way, can you possibly explain to me how come there is no apparent co-ordination of live blogging of the event? How in a Web 2.0 world are there so many people at an Apple Conference taking notes on paper? How is it that there is not an agreed ‘tag’ to identify outputs from the 3-day conference? And tomorrow we are going to ‘discuss’  how to share information?? Why aren’t we bursting with ideas after one day?  Why aren’t we sharing our images as we go, by posting on Flickr and using the same shared tag? Why aren’t we sharing with the global network rather than deciding how WE are going to share with each other. Some of these things I would understand for a ‘normal’ conference – but would expect more from Apple.  These comments of course only apply to my strand. Perhaps it is the esoteric nature of ‘leadership’ discussions that is the issue.

This is just all ‘so yesterday’!  so far.  Tommorrow might be the direct opposite. I hope so 🙂

Apple Conference – StudyWiz

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Study Wiz is a virtual learning environment for schools, designed to make e-learning intuitive, and practical for students, teachers and parents.

Stephanie Hamilton asked: “How do I provide flexibility in learning – the sandbox of creativity – when I also want to provide managed secure spaces for our students, with managed and collaborative learning environments?”.

StudyWiz has just been released, and the interface offers a highly intuitive and ‘encouraging’ interface – coupled with a host of Web 2.0 tools for interactive learning. For example, a blogging tool, and a podcasting tool allows the best of e-learning. There is much more. This is an Australian product, being marketed to the world – and a current favourite of Apple.
Pick up a brochure outlining the features of StudyWiz. Even if you are not going to use the product, use the features of StudyWiz to evaluate the directions of your own learning management system.

Stephanie explained that today’s challenge is creating a 21st century learning environment that engages students…and prepares them for life and success in the 21st century. StudyWiz might be another step in the right direction for you. No matter whether you use a product such as this, or use Web 20 online products exculsively – the thing to remember is the multiple needs of the students and the total flexibilty needed.

Cost? Open source? International Standards? SCORM based? (You need to be able to share flexibly).

Can you track how long a student worked on an assignment? Can you track the conversation? Can you capture the dialogue happening? With real data, you have much more powerful ways of creating learning goals and engaging parents in the conversation. This is REAL formative assessment 24/7, in a multi-threaded learning world of our students.

The greatest power of products such as these is for promoting reflection by the teacher. We have to reflect on what it is we are doing, what it is we are asking, and what it is we are explaining!! Our minds all work differently, and until we acknowledge this, we will not make progress in 21st century learning.