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Category Archives: Technology and Software
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing – the latest handle attached to the idea of hosted Web services used by people and businesses – is beginning to get considerable traction now that there are more companies offering services online. Elizabeth covers some good ideas in her post What is Cloud computing. This is a topic I am exploring for a PD session I’m presenting for the Computing Studies Teachers group.
But meanwhile, remember when we talked about ‘Web 2.0 as platform’?
Now its more and more what we are about, in schools, in libraries, in companies, in fact anywhere. Now we live on line, work online, store personal files online, and more. It’s not about locking to a single IT platform – its about releasing us from platform dependence.
With platforms getting a hold on the marketplace (and hopefully in education eventually) like the iTouch, iPhone, eeePC and more, cloud computing makes a lot of sense for schools – kids can access anything anywhere, and IT doesn’t have to be all centrally run from the school.
Is it really happening? eBay has a full time position open in San Jose for a Director, Cloud Computing Engineering.That’s a bit telling don’t you think? Cloud computing is what Google Apps are all about – and a good example of a major company making a play in this emerging field.
Is Cloud Computing Actually for Real?
The Editor of Grid Today reporting on Gartner’s Symposium ITXpo says that Gartner’s answer to this question is “Yes.” Among the myriad statistics thrown out at the conference was Gartner’s prediction that by 2012, 80 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will pay for some cloud computing service, and 30 percent of them will pay for cloud computing infrastructure. Pretty impressive if it comes true.
I really like where this is all going 🙂 The guys in this video clip are not all sure yet, but listen to their ideas, get the big picture and move with the times!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
more about “What is Cloud Computing“, posted with vodpod
Bring tacit knowledge to the fore
Google ’s answer to the Wikipedia encyclopedia, Google Knol (short for Knowledge), launched earlier this week.
Knol is a unit of knowledge! or so the logo proclaims. In fact, Knol is a collection of authoritative articles, written by a community of experts and as such Google Knol is positioning itself in direct competition to Wikipedia.
Knol is looking for authors (either singularly or in groups) willing to put their names behind their content on a wide of range of topics, “from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions.” Google will not edit the content in any way, but, like Wikipedia, readers will have access to community tools that will allow them to submit comments, questions, edits, and additional content — in addition to being able to rate or write a review of a knol.
In addition, Knol authors can share in the revenue generated from the Google Adsense ads on their subject pages.
I’ve read quite a few reviews, reports and comments about Knol.
It’s still in its infancy as a project, so issues about content and quality are still being fixed. However, my favourite take on Knol comes from Richard Gale, who (after giving Knol a drubbing) discusses some positive thoughts about Knol.
In particular he brings into play a discussion about tacit and explicit knowledge.
Huge amounts of information are collected inside a person’s head or on their computer. And it is not accessible to anyone else. Getting this tacit information out, making it explicit so that others can use it, is an important goal of many Web 2.0 tools.
By providing singular authorship, knols allow a more ego-driven approach for making the information explicit than Wikipedia does.
That is, Wikipedia also provides a means for moving tacit information into the explicit realm. But, there is no real sense of authorship, nothing to really plant a flag and say I did this, I am providing this to the world.
Finding ways to transform tacit information into explicit are crucial in today’s world. Wikis can do this. Blogs can do this. And so can knols. Knols will not replace other approaches. They provide a new path for the transformation to occur.
A danger point? – Knols can move us away from an open-source environment to a digital form of the ‘authoritative’ texts that we bought so frantically to support 20th century learning. Knols are about digitizing our global knowledge base and adding value to their interpretation and delivery of knowledge – by paying out some money. That’s publishing – online!
George Seimens (f Knowing Knowledge fame) says:
Google is essentially stating that individual ownership of articles is important. How will knols be listed in Google searches? Will they receive better search returns than Wikipedia articles? A part of me would like to dislike this service (how much more of our soul must we give up to Google?). But the idea is well conceived.
Digital Inspiration provides a Quick Start Guide.
Resources on the site are quite scarce now, as to be expected. But I am watching this development because I see furture e-texts staring me in the face. The anonimity of wikipeidia is its strength and its weakness. I’m tipping that plenty of teachers will love Knol as the content expands.
Knols are citizen reporting. Knols are democratising information access. Knols are here to stay – aren’t thet?
Wetpaint wiki – my patience is totally shot! (with happy end!)
Setting ourselves up for some new things this term (I’ll blog about that next) I did a bit of a ‘will I, won’t I’ excercise with three wiki tools. I like Wikispaces a lot – but the basic interface looks so basic that I wasn’t willing to make the choice to use that tool until I learnt more about customization. For me the exisiting templates are just too ‘home-made’ looking.
My other choice was PBwiki – but I have not used that yet, and in the time I had set aside, I decided not to use that either as it was a totally new wiki platform for me. I will be going back to PBwiki too!
MY BIG MISTAKE
I started a new wiki with both those good wiki companies approved my request for ad-free spaces within 36 hours at the outside, one of them even quicker than that!
What’s my problem? Well as I have said in my tweets – Wetpaint support sucks!
Nice 🙂
Until you as a teacher decide to jump in there and take advantace of the Ad-Free Education Wikis. 48 hours to have the request processed? Try more than a week and a half and still counting!!! Expect automated replies. Even worse, when you have sent in the requested information in the ‘How To Apply section’, expect to get an email requesting the age of the students! Yes, it’s mentioned in the promotion but not in the information that is needed to apply.
Righto I think..we’re getting close when the email comes asking for the age of the students. Next? another automated reply.
Still no ads removed. We have started teaching with our wiki, which is against my policy entirely.
We even held off for the first lesson waiting for the magic to happen.
I am sure that Jeff Utecht, Wetpaint’s Education Ambassador, (and pro-blogger at The Thinking Stick) is as embarrassed as I am about this whole debacle. Talking to Wetpaint education services is like dealing with call centres – you never know who you are talking to, and when you call back they don’t know you rang before). I’m also wondering – is the company based exclusively in the States? Do they not factor in the fact that we go to school at different times in the Southern Hemisphere?
I had to laugh because my husband’s take on the mess was to ask – Does Jeff get paid to promote Wetpaint? This is a question derived from a business response. He assumes that Jeff would believe in the services he is promoting and would expect it to be efficient – unless of course he is being paid to promote which makes it all a bit more rubbery. I explained that Jeff wouldn’t promote something he didn’t believe in. Must be a business management issue at the moment.
So – Wetpaint take note – if you want to build your business, it would be fabulous if you could be responsive to educators. If we love your platform we will buy into it.
Congratulations to PBWiki and Wikispaces for their extremely prompt response to.
Wetpaint, I very much hope to hear from you soon. As an education consultant I used to promote your product too. I’m embarrased to think that I might have been giving teachers poor advice. I would much prefer to dig into the product and push it to the limits for good use than have to give it up.
Come on Wetpaint – on behalf of all educators let me ask you to speed up your response times.
UPDATE: Less than an hour after this post, Michael Bolognino from Wetpaint has been in touch. See his comment to this post. Thanks Michael. If this problem can be resolved, and if my experience can help streamline things for other educators then it’s a win all around! Perhaps we educators could also help Michael and his team continue to develop a great wiki product for our students to use.
UPDATE TWO: Congratulations and thanks for Michael’s support of educators by resolving this problem less than half a day after I posted this story. The wiki looks fabulous now! I know that things can go wrong But the fact that a blog post reached you Michael and you were kind enough to jump right in and resolve the problem is fabulous. Michael also said that he saw my forlorn tweets of frustration, replied (which I missed being in a different timezone) and assumed the problem had been resolved. A message there too for ed companies. Watch the tweeters 🙂 and don’t forget to send a Direct Message if you need to make contact. I purposefully tweeted the issue early, then vigorously in the last 24 hours before writing this post of frustration. To blog IS to communicate.
UPDATE THREE: Michael remains in contact and is going to do a thorough review of the scripts that they currently use to make sure that they are as accurate and friendly as possible in supporting educators requests. He may also try work with his developers to try to come up with a way to make the ad removal process automated.
A happy and successful solution.
Photo: Elaine’s photostream
Lively Google (second) life – don’t miss this!
Have been saying for some time now that our online experiences are going to become more and more 3D. Yes, we need to explore all the options – which is why we are looking at Teen Second life as a co-curricular learning experience for our students ‘in world’ at Skoolaborate. Another option for our Year 7 students will be Quest Atlantis. But kids will get into anything that is going, so I am going to watch this closely!
Like the beginnings of the web, when we first learnt about ‘www’ searching, and visual interfaces, it is time for us now to turn our educators thoughts towards emerging 3D environments. No, we can’t put it off any longer! There are many options of course, but the most recent entry into this from Google Labs (for PC only at this stage) is Google Lively.
Second Life requires users to download and install a separate “client” software package that taps into the online world. Lively also requires a download and installation–Windows only for now–but then people can use Internet Explorer or Firefox to enter the virtual world.
Integration with the ordinary Internet takes several forms. For one thing, you can pipe in content hosted elsewhere on the Internet, including photos or videos. For another, you can embed your Lively area into your blog or, using widgets Google has written, on MySpace and Facebook Web pages. And you can e-mail your friends a normal Web address to get them to join. You can set up you own online spaces–rooms, grassy meadows, desert islands, and you can change the clothing or form of your avatar. And of course you can chat, do backflips, or whatever takes your fancy. Check out the rooms, apparel and accessories at the product catalogue. Read more about it from Ars Technicha (the art of technology).
Guardian Tech says:
At the moment, Lively doesn’t support user-generated content, so you’re stuck with whatever is available in the Google catalogue (click the “Shop for more” button),,,,,it’s another step in Google’s plan to achieve world domination…..
There are already a couple of systems like this around, such as Pelican Crossing, SceneCaster, Imvu, Meez and RocketOn (still in a closed alpha). But Google, like Microsoft, can use its market power to get Lively in front of a lot more eyeballs.
So, is this an important part of Google’s mission to “organize the world’s information”? Or is it just a cheap knock-off that will be binned by Christmas?
This is definitley another 3D thing to check out. Truth is, if it is a Google product, students will grab it and play with it, as they did with Sketch-up and Maps. Watch out world!
LibX Library Toolbar at NECC08
Here is a video explaining LibX – a great tool that I promoted at NECC in San Antonio.
The LibX Murdoch University Toolbar is a Firefox Browser extension that lets you search the library holdings straight from a toolbar in your browser.
It also embeds little symbols next to the titles of books and journal articles in pages you view on the web. Clicking on these symbols lets you check whether the library has it.
This is awesome and a cool Web 2.0 enhancement for libraries. Enjoy!
NECC begins to hot up!
Saturday saw the enthusiastic Web 2.0 bloggers all gathered together at the EdubloggerCon, prior to the official launch of NECC the following day. It’s impossible to cover what we learned that day, but it is certain that the whole experience of this unconference was amazing. The first thing was seeing so many bloggers in one place at one time ‘in the flesh’.
Everyone had their wow moment – but for me the opportunity to say ‘hello’ to Ewan McIntosh was very cool, as was the chance to catch up with Will Richardson, meet up with Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davies. The list was long, and consequently the value of the sessions during the day were equally interesting. Catch the reports and feedback at the wiki.
These people can all be found at some time or another at the Bloggers’ Cafe – hub of all things fantastic and innovative. The Cafe features a live feed via Summarize of twitter feeds – just totally amazing to see the activity going on throughout the conference, and the concurrent reporting unavailable as as a result….and this before the actual launch of the conference! You can pick up the feed yourself at the Summize NECC.
As part of our Study Tour we have the opportunity to take part in a number of briefings. This morning we met with Kieth Kruger from CosN. Keith mentioned some of the following:
People who advocate for investment in technology have over-promised. That transformational uses of technology happens when leadership is inspired. Technology stages have three cycles. First wave – technology infrastructure. Second wave is really around applications and professional development. Third is about standing back and asking what it is we can do with technology that will change what it is we are doing. We need to focus on teachers, but what COsn focuses on what it is that needs to be done to transform leadership. Do policy makers ‘get it’! The biggest challenge for integrators of technology is the lack of vision of those in leadership positions. 90% of superintendents ‘run away’ from technology. The trick is to capture the leadership by exploring the big educational problems – and exploration of whether or not technology has something to offer in this area. Technology has changed the role of superintendents to communicate with their community. And we need new pedagogy and assessment – to reflect on the lives of students outside of school. We need new ways of delivering professional development. In all these contexts school districts need to change in the way the work and operate within education.
ISTE Leadership Forum
Now on Sunday and we have had the opportunity to take part in the ISTE Leadership symposium. Again, much to learn and very interesting to see the leadership of this organisation. At this morning’s session (after a sumptuous breakfast) we spent time exploring ISTE’s Educational Technology Standards for Students (ISTE NETS) – the next generation.
These standards are created under the following headings:
- Creativity and Innovation
- Communication and Collaboration
- Research and Information Fluency
- Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision-making
- Digital citizenship
- Technology Operations and Concepts
We had the opportunity to listen to key thought leaders, and four super-star teachers, amongst whom is Julie Lindsay, well known in the blogosphere for her work in the Horizon Project.
We broke into groups to look at some great practice in action. The aussies were very pleased to support and learn more from Roland Gesthuizen about use of drama and hand puppet theatre as a way of teaching technology values.
We were also delighted to meet Peggy Sheehy from Ramapo! Man, was it exciting to hear somebody talking about the same thing that we have been talking about in terms of the vital role that Second Life can place in our mainstream curriculum. Frankly, this conference is way cool!
Back in the bloggers cafe, and we just kept on meeting with more and
more wonderful folks!
Dean and I chatted with Paul Harrington.
After that we went off and had lunch with Ewan McIntosh. Terrific, four different accents around one food table in San Antonio. Everyone is here, and the twitter feed keeps us up to date with ‘breaking news’ at ISTE!
Stuff in the big smoke!
Oh yeh, San Franciso was covered in a haze of smoke the whole time that we were there, and our asthma played up! and we all got sick with some kind of virus leading to much swapping of lozenges, tablets and more. One of our party had to head for the doctor by the time we got to San Antonio. Why am I telling you this? Because we are soooo busy, and having such a great time, that I just haven’t kept up with all the blogging.
So since others are reporting on our tour I thought I would throw in a plug for ACCE – who through Tony Brandenburg as our tour leader, is
hosting this first Study tour to NECC. The Australian Council for Computers in Education is our national peak body representing technology educators in schools here in Australia. It is not a group I personally have had any involvement with so far. But this tour has given me the opportunity to meet many of the key people active in the group – and for me I am wondering why I didn’t know such a fantastic and inspirational group of people? I have mentioned before how I believe we should have stronger relationships between groups – if only to draw on the strength and knowledge of the ‘best’ between them. If Australians are going to promote education more effectively, we have to work with and through the amazing talents of people such as those I have been touring with on the road to NECC.
Bottom line? This Study tour and the opportunities it is presenting are awesome, and the best professional learning experience I have had in my teaching career! Thank you ACCE.
Actually, there is too much to report, and not time to report it! However, I have to note that the opportunity to visit Orace, Apple and Google was just fantastic. Yes, there are many tours that visit these places, but it was a first for ACCE and we are the inaugural group to see how worthwhile (or not) it is to include these in a tour. It was particuarly interesting to hear the story from each of these companies. Oracle delivered a particularly interactive session engaging us in a discussion about education futures, as well as showing us what Oracle is doing through the Oracle foundation. Good news for us is that there is likely to be an Australian/New Zealand version of the ThinkQuest competition – making this a fantastic addition for our schools. I am hopeful that ACCE will partner with Oracle to deliver this opportunity.
The Apple briefing included a little of the Apple dream – and their version of how to change education.
Awesom stuff again, though if you are not already an Apple user or familiar with Apple products, then an opportunity missed to do an expose of the innovative capacities of Apple products. No access to an Applie iPhone for us yet either! It’s worth noting that some of the tour group are using Applie iPhoto devices. They are just amazing the way they connect to the Internet and allow regular twitter updates. I felt like a dinosaur without one!
Finally, the Google plex was totally different – just the way we have all read about it. The presentation about Google appls wasn’t particularly inspiring, but we did learn a few useful things about implementation of Google tools in schools, particularly the flexibility of the education pack and it’s solution for productivity tools. We learnt of the Department of Education’s decision to migrate email to Google services for the State system of schools – and cheered at that decision!
This day of the tour was a highlight for sure. Oracle was awesome; Apple was amazing; and Google was sensational. The food at Google was amazing too – and stationed everywhere. The decore was …. well sooooo Google. If you are following along some of the pics of the tour, you will notice the little animal friend that freatures in so many pics. That is for the mini-legends, as our famous Al Upton is on tour with us too!
How do we support teachers? – Symposium response
Digital Education Revolution – provide your feedback!
In Australia we have the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program (AGQTP), which includes teacher quality and their impact on student outcomes. Considerable funding has been directed towards this. Rolling out a range of workshops in regional areas, as well as activities with professional associations. Also considering subject-specific standards and on-line professional learning resources.
Suggestions from the floor:
Portfolio of examplars at the national level. Podcasts as resource tools. Fund technology coaches for schools. Consideration for remote areas of Australia – and how to transfer information to regional and remote areas. Collaboration between various sectors. Use technology to assess literacy standards in national testing programs.
Responses to questions from the sessions:
If teachers don’t have time to do it all! Yet we are re-tooling our whole processes of education – the exploration is going to take time – and will make us more efficient and integrated in the end. Any organisation that is going through the process of transformation, will required us to commit. Our pedagogical knowledge has to change – technology can solve the pedagogical issues if we want it to. So bottom line – buy time to learn!
The key issue remains the need to establish collaborative environments. We have more knowledge than we can share with old technologies. Sessions like this symposium should be streamed, so that educators can talk in the ‘back channell’ promoting the conversation.
Assessment should be a trust relationship between the educator and the student. It’s a true social network in the making – information should be exposed and developed, and made transparent. We need to focus on the social networking of education.
The 21st century classroom is a state of mind. It’s a set of relationships between someone who wants to learn and someone who wants to teach. The relationship is around the transfer of learning. Education is dead: long live learning!
Photo: Listening to the Stars
What is powerful about teaching with technology?
Gary Putland, General Manager Education.au
Understaning the paradigm shifts: what is powerful about learning with technology?What are the challenges and opportunities? What tools can assist us and what are the characteristics of success.
Lawrence Lessig – Creative Commons – and a visit to the Ted Talk – helps us to focus on the significant paradigm shifts – and the spirit of mashup and the tools of creativity.
- Understanidng the paradigm shifts begins with a few key points that are challenging our daily practice:
- Mobile, portable, connected
- 24/7, access incresing
- Transformative nature (e.g. banking, travel planning)
- Social networking phenomena – connect, capture, store, share.
Students are producers and creators of knowledge – kids are information rich outside of school and knowledge poor in school. The locus of control is shifting to anywhere outside the formal education environment. Part of education is to ensure that we are information rich AND knowledge rich.
“Control” is moving out to the masses. Kids want access, and ed departments want control. Let’s work with this and create something positive from this healthy tension. Give students the opportunity to learn how to learn. Risk needs to be shared. Kids can bring a whole lot more to the learning process, and the options for personalization are becoming the priority focus. Rubrics for collaborative learning need to be developed and extended. Immediacy and currency are critical ways for students to keep up-to-date. The “C” in ICT is the vital component – its about connectedness and communication.
The Literacy continuum is so critical – their search, selection and synthesis skills need developing. [Its about knowledge and working with knowledge.] Multiple literacies are also critical and must encompass a range of media as well as promote new literacies for thinking and knowledge creation.
The Numeracy continuum is also critical. Are their things we should stop doing, and add new things to the learning process? Gary demonstrated “Gap Minder” which collects information and you can see the interactions between the data (trends analysis, forcasting). Other programs to use include Scratch (from MIT), Google Earth Community, Alice (3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video etc.
Just how do we help students to understand themselves? That’s what should be the driving force in developing digital pedagogies. Opportunities to explore also include ‘truth, trust and authority’. What is truth? becomes Who do you trust? We have a critical responsibility to help kids understand the implications of a ‘digital footprint’. Finally, we need to help students understand intellectual property in the era of Mashup and democratization of information. Creative Commons concepts need to be explored and extrapolated into the world of our students as produces and consumers of information.
Web 2.0 tools enable storing and sharing of content. Edna is going to launch Edna TV as an alternative collaboration and sharing space
Emerging technologies are important to follow and integrate into our thinking. The blend between blogger, researchers, IT industry players, education organisations and more are working to create new thinking. The critical thing is to connect with other experts.
Digital Education – Making Change Happen – The MCEETYA ICT in Schools Taskforce (ICTST) was responsible for providing strategic advice to all Australian Education Ministers on issues related to the use of technologies in schools, including innovation and emerging technologies.
Characteristics of succes? Leadership; An educational plan; Champions and Mentors; Teaching techniques and strategies; Good infrastructure; Recognition and reward
judyoconnell.com 