I’m really pleased to see this explanation of change at one of our universties here in Sydney. Listen closely, and adopt/adapt the vision for your school. Note the emphasis on innovation, research and support structures at enterprise level.
The Horizon Report 2009 K-12 is here! Naturally I’m thrilled to bits, for professional and personal reasons.
Firstly, because the Horizon reports, that have been released since 2004 and which have provided critical information for educators about emerging technologies and their impact on society and education – has now released its first report for K-12. Horizon.K12 focuses on emerging technologies for elementary and secondary learning institutions.
Secondly, I was so lucky to be included on the Advisory Panel of the K-12 Report. Just being part of the process was amazing – but seeing such a breadth of information, and engaging in the process of filtering was an education in itself. Much material was covered, as we read, filtered and sifted priorities – we’ve seen what didn’t make it into the report – so maybe we got to know what might come next 🙂
While there are many local factors affecting the practice of education, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries, questions we all face in K-12 education, and it was with these in mind that this K12 report was created. The hope is that the report is useful to educators worldwide, and the international composition of the Advisory Board reflects the care with which a global perspective was assembled.
Information on all the Horizon Reports may be found, and downloaded, at
http://www.nmc.org/horizon. The Horizon K-12 Report may be downloaded here.
Google Maps are always being used by our students for all sorts of ‘regular’ things, but also for things that teachers don’t necessarily think of. In a recent project I spotted boys grabbing images from Google Maps for their presentations “Introducing You” – what better way to have images from another boys hometown.
Now I look forward to seeing what the students do with Street View on Google Maps for great global locations, now that it has been enhanced with Panoramio picture browsing.Panoramio, which was acquired by Google in 2007, is a photo-sharing site that focuses on photographs of locations and points of interest around the world.
The more popular the place you’re looking at in Street View (think Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Coliseum), the more likely you are to browse a lot of photos from Panoramio.
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Is social media a new thing? No, not really – just an evolving use of media, an ecosystem of tools and a rich variety of opportunities. Now we are seeing great ways for students to collaborate. Listen to these two important innovators, and enjoy the conversation.
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The internet was up and running! History is captured in this neat summary – perhaps you can pinpoint your entry point into the revolution of communication!
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Love my Twitter collective!
Thanks to ChemEdLinks for a quick test drive of Webspiration. Interesting, considering how many teachers are familiar with Inspiration. It’s nice that you can upload from Inspiration 8. It’s even better to be able to use this online. And it’s certainly better to be able to collaborate – take turns in editing – and also chat about the things you are editing with it’s own built in IM function.
I think this is worth a drive. Feeback anyone?
Nintendo Wii Remote, sometimes nicknamed “Wiimote”, is the primary controller for Nintendo’s Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via movement and pointing. A familiar ‘toy’ in many families, the wii has now entered the classrooms at St Josephs College!
Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demonstrated his cool Wii Remote hacks at the prestigious TED Talks – the key global innovation forum in the world. In this he demonstrates how to turn a cheap video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. Teachers and students around the world have downloaded Johnny’s free software to create interactive tools for their classroom.
Recently Anthony, our e-learning integrator, took this idea and made an interface out of a simple IR pen and a Wiimote that is capable of turning any data projector into an interactive whiteboard irrespective of the surface that is used. Anthony claims that this simple setup costing less than $100 installed coupled with the free Smoothboard software has the potential to be one of the most exciting innovations for some time.
A number of staff have been trialling the Smoothboard with early results being very promising.
Students in Gary’s science classes have been running interactive lessons using learning objects developed by the Learning Federation. When Fergus, our Head of Social Sciences, saw the demo in Gary’s class, he requested a pen and wiimote immediately and now eagerly awaits delivery!
After hearing that we would be demonstrating this technology in the staff room, said
I’d better get mine organised quickly, before a rush from other staff. The flexibility makes this the perfect solution for my classrooms.
My mission is to keep an eye on this exciting experimentation – we’re grabbing video clips of the action. Meanwhile watch the TED talk about this Wiimote revolution.
Here's a pic from my phone. Oh, and we can't send stuff via SMS from OZ yet…unless we dial to the UK. Sometimes, just sometimes, it might be worth it. Otherwise via email is pretty cool.
So this is crossposting to my blog, twitter, and of course to Posterous. Nice 🙂
The current issue of Kairos online journal exploring the intersections of rhetoric, technology and pedagogy, has an article by Karl Stolley – The Lo-Fi Manifesto – which I particularly enjoyed, given our penchant for fancy and flexible web tools for connectivity.
Discourse posted on the open Web can hardly be considered free if access requires costly software or particular devices. Additionally, the literacies and language we develop through engaging in digital scholarship and knowledge-making should enable us to speak confidently, unambiguously, and critically with one another……And as teachers, we should actively work to provide students with sustainable, extensible production literacies through open, rhetorically grounded digital practices that emphasize the source in “free and open source.”
Jump over to The Lo-Fi Manifesto and also checkout the substantial explanations in the drop-down panes for each element. Some of these concepts are highly relevant to our discussions about 21st century learning or the digital and design environment within which such learning takes place or is supported.
“What program do you use?” is a question I often get about the slides I use to present my work. I have concluded that the proper answer to the question is to counter-suggest the asking of a different question, “What principle do you use?” John Maeda, The Laws of Simplicity
The ability to “read” a medium means you can access materials and tools created by others. The ability to “write” in a medium means you can generate materials and tools for others. You must have both to be literate. Alan Kay, “User Interface: A Personal View”
In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web
Don’t make me jump through hoops just because you don’t want to write a little bit of code. Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think, (2nd ed.)
This is progressive enhancement: it works for everyone, but users with modern browsers will see a more usable version. We are, in a way, rewarding them for choosing to use a good browser, without being rude to Lynx users or employees of companies with paranoid IT departments. Tommy Olsson, “Graceful Degradation & Progressive Enhancement”
Because they share a common parent and abide by the same house rules, all XML applications are compatible with each other, making it easier for developers to manipulate one set of XML data via another and to develop new XML applications as the need arises, without fear of incompatibility. Jeffrey Zeldman, Designing with Web Standards, (2nd ed.)
More on cloud computing…and an interesting one to watch for school, given the portability and price of the wee EeePC – especially for primary school.
Asus has just announced the latest addition to the Eee lineup, the in-the-cloud storage service appropriately named Eee Storage.
The newly launched service offers Eee users 20GB of online storage along with the Eee Download which currently features about 3,000 free software and game titles that users can download. Of course offering more items for download that need to be stored locally sounds a bit confusing for a cloud-based storage service, but I suppose now that all of your personal docs are in-the-cloud you may have a little room for more downloads. The Eee Storage service offers users a drag and drop interface, and can also be set up with a password and shared with friends or colleagues.
Initially the service will be available only to those in the Chinese market, however Asus has plans to eventually roll it out to the entire Eee user base.
Via Gadgetell August 9.
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