Social media, schools, learning

Blogsy: a decent drag and drop blogging app for the iPad

2011-10-23T22:16:00.004+10:30

At last, a respectable and good value ($5.40) app for blogging. Just link it to your blogging app - Blogger, Wordpress, etc, and then some easy HTML text editing, and drag and drop images and video.There is a nice twin view - the edit view (write side) and publish (rich side) and the user swipes between them. Very cool. The edit page has complex looking HTML code on it but there are buttons to

iPad in the classroom... ScreenChomp

2011-09-17T21:43:00.001+09:30

ScreenChomp is a free little app that does one thing very well: provides for on screen drawing and voice recording and cloud sharing. It is free, from one of the big names in video capture. ScreenChomp allows for immediate finger drawing with or without a narration. This makes is a great tool for explaining and demonstrating. The finished image can then be published in another app, or published

Anyone for the internet delivering on moral purpose?

2011-06-16T21:44:00.002+09:30

I was inspired by yet another experience on the internet yesterday. I came across an article talking about a remarkable Harvard University political philosopher - Michael Sandel. He has one of the most popular coursed at Harvard called Justice, where he hones students' understanding of moral philosophy. He is also a strong exponent of open learning, and the Justice in moral reasoning web site is

Why are we really doing this stuff?

2011-06-16T21:36:00.001+09:30

The other day I was talking with a teacher with a leadership role in a large school to implement '21st Century Learning' with the aid of ICT and she is wrestling with the complexity of the issues involved. Learning beliefs, staff training, infrastructure building, student take home policies, parent information, student supervision and safety and a dozen other significant issues. It is easy to be

Cowboy doctors? Cowboy teachers - surely not!

2011-06-02T16:03:00.001+09:30

A delightful and interesting essay in the New Yorker, Cowboys and Pit Crews by Atul Gawende, who is a surgeon and staff member at Harvard among other amazing achievements, says that medicine is practised according to its cowboy roots in the 1930s and now in a much more medically complex environment should work more like a pit crew. A pit crew is a highly coordinated team working on a task rather

iPads take off in schools

2011-05-28T15:48:00.005+09:30

There can be little doubt at the potential success of iPads as a mainstream device in classrooms given the significant take-up in schools in less than a year from its launch. In Adelaide, for example, half a dozen schools introduced large-scale programs of iPads. St Peters College has one for each Year 11 and 12 student, with a main focus on using them as a text book reader. Rostrevor College for

School administrators: goodbye netbook, hello tablet

2011-02-17T14:55:00.004+10:30

Schools across Australia are buying thousands of netbooks (lower-capacity laptops) under their Digital Education Revolution money. This has been a logical step because the Netbooks do most tasks quite well and they are very cheap and portable. However, a interesting report in the New York Times says that while netbooks have had a rapid rise, it looks as though they will be overtaken in the near

What to talk about over Christmas: Australian schools doing very well

2010-12-15T14:44:00.010+10:30

The highly reputed Pisa tests for 2009 were published this week and despite what you hear in the media, Australia continues to do very well. The overall results for Reading, Mathematics and Science show the pattern. The chart results on the left are just the overall mark for Reading for the top 26 countries, and light blue indicates 'significantly above average performance' of the 60 or so

How school systems get better - Minister, please read!

2010-12-15T12:10:00.010+10:30

McKinsey have just released a follow up report for the OECD titled How the world's most improved school systems keep get better. Their 2007 report How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top was widely respected. In the new report they they did not just look at school systems at the highest levels, but good performers at each of the stages of development. For example, a school

Technology (video) rescues teacher improvement

2010-12-13T10:18:00.018+10:30

There is a very interesting story in the NY Times about a major initiative in the US, funded by the Gates Foundation, to use video extensively in observing and improving classroom teaching. Teacher Ratings Get New Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher There is a considerable likelihood that the initiative will be ruined by too much focus on policing and not enough on professionalism, but here's hoping

iPads and the business of reading

2010-12-01T15:36:00.015+10:30

I am a news nut and so have been waiting eagerly for the arrival of the great ipad newspaper apps that make news worth paying for. The experience has been interesting.In the beginning there was the New York Times with its standard web site. (All of the images are from an iPad.) A very good newspaper site. It looks a bit like a traditional newspaper, but each story has just a headline and a few

Wired for distraction

2010-11-22T11:03:00.006+10:30

There is a very good feature article in the New York Times title Wired for Distraction that reasonably - without hysteria, outlines problems some students are experiencing in balancing their online lives. It describes how some students are almost obsessed with maintaining frequent contacts with friends via Twitter and Facebook or games to the point that they cannot focus on other tasks that are

Google Apps in education: widespread, simple, powerful, cheap

2010-11-19T14:33:00.013+10:30

Some indications of the take-up of Google Apps and other cloud computing services in education."10 million Apps users in education" Oct 2010 [source]"New York City, today [1/11/10] announced that it's moving to "Google Apps for Education," providing cloud-based email and collaboration tools to the entire university community. This announcement comes just weeks after New York State created an

Why schools don't need ICT

2010-11-17T11:41:00.004+10:30

This is the title of a provocative, brief and, I think, sound argument here by Ian Yorston about the failure of ICT to improve learning. He says we are smothering the digital revolution with rules.In his own words:"If you had to spend a million pounds, you'd really hope to have something to show for it.""schools have finished up at the wrong end of the ICT revolution." "...no money has been

Computers in mathematics teaching = more math thinking

2010-11-17T10:58:00.009+10:30

There is a very good TED talk (17min) below by Conrad Wolfram who makes a very powerful argument about how Maths teaching can be enhanced with the aid of computers. But it is very sad to read the initial comments on the TED site from the quite smart people who use TED. Most of didn't hear much of what he said. If you view the video you find that Wolfram was at pains to say

One-to-one backup salvation

2010-11-08T10:26:00.011+10:30

A number of schools that are providing Apple notebooks for individual students are using automatic backups to make radical changes to how they manage one-to-one computing. The students are provided with a backup hard drive that stays at home. They are required to use the Time Machine software to automatically backup the entire computer on a regular basis - possibly daily. Time Machine saves

ICT planning: real goals from a cloudy vision

2010-07-23T15:53:00.021+09:30

Everyone agrees that school implementation of ICT into the curriculum is very complicated. And every one talks about goals and strategic planning. But there are dangerous distractions for school leaders taking their attention off what really matters. I think what matters is kids learning, and that we should focus most of our attention on this. But look at what gets in the way. Here are the four

Smartphones overtake PC and notebooks

2010-07-07T12:17:00.010+09:30

A remarkably detailed presentation Internet Trends by Morgan Stanley, just published, has some very striking things to say about the mobile world taking over the internet. They predict that sales of smartphones will overtake combined computer sales by 2011 (in Nth. On the graph, smartphones is the green bar. Also notice that desktops have leveled off and notebooks have been ahead since 2009. A

Strategic planning for school ICT - there be dragons there

2010-07-05T11:02:00.015+09:30

Strategic planning is a well meaning strategy for school to manage the very real complexity of change. It creates a nice logical structure, but hidden within the process are some very real dragons that can smite well intentioned school administrators setting out on this voyage of school improvement.Here are the typical stages for strategic planning for the use of ICT. First, the happy scenario

Planning for school improvement (and avoiding strategic planning)

2010-07-05T11:01:00.003+09:30

The short video (3min 30 sec) explains some of the limitations of strategic planning for ICT development in schools. Then it outlines an alternative approach - emergent planning.See the next post for more on strategic planning.

Godness gracious: the internet changed my brain!

2010-06-13T17:13:00.010+09:30

There have recently been some excellent articles about an issue that is fundamental to how schools think about the impact of technology on learning. On one side are the pessimists who see the changes being brought about by new technologies as a threat to the way we should learn and engage with information and ideas. On the other hand there are the optimists who believe that we adapt to make the

ACMA cyber safety one stop shop

2010-06-11T11:11:00.005+09:30

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has a comprehensive web site dealing with all levels of cyber safety for children, teachers and parents [click image]I provides useful material to look at with a view to using with students and parents. It is relatively conservative in its advice, naturally, but provides good material for students to react to and explore. It would be good

iPad for schools?

2010-06-10T17:18:00.003+09:30

It is early days to decide whether the iPad has a significant role in schools and education in general, but I think it will. It is quite a different type of computer and many will just focus on what the iPad cannot do, not giving due attention to the thing it does better.I have only been bonding with my iPad for a little over a week and I think its huge advantage is immediacy. It is quite

Ethics of a Walled Garden

2010-05-10T15:51:00.026+09:30

The concept of a walled garden has been in use for some time to describe an approach to school access to the wider world, and the internet in particular. A school with a walled garden approach to internet access only allows students to explore a limited part of the internet that is deemed to be safe and of educational value to students. The term is mainly used in a derisory manner by ICT in

Australian Curriculum site: finding your way around

2010-03-23T20:37:00.006+10:30

Here is a little video (4 min) I made based on a few hours exploring the site. It demonstrates the features and tricks to navigate the Australian Curriculum Consultation web site. The site is polished and encourages feedback..

eBooks and horses

2010-03-19T16:28:00.013+10:30

In returning to The Infernal ebook topic of January, I am reminded that I have been told over and over again by people sceptical about a future with ebooks that nothing can replace the book - the feel the smell etc. etc. Well people used to feel that way about horses. When horses were ubiquitous in the community, they were generally valued and even loved (the feel the smell etc. etc.) and few

Digital Natives myth debunked (again!)

2010-03-16T09:15:00.003+10:30

The Economist has a story on March 4th The net generation, unplugged which looks at the popular idea of modern students being 'digital natives' - a different kind of person to most of their 'digital immigrant' teachers. The term was coined by Mark Prensky, and is very popular among people trying to excite teachers about the need for an educational revolution. But it is being widely

Which school computer? Accessibility rules

2010-02-08T09:07:00.008+10:30

There must be some attraction for school leaders for the NSW department's approach to provision of computers for schools under the DER. There is one netbook computer for all Yr 9-12 students and teachers, with one set of software at one low price. Don't have to worry about that choice question for quite a while. The other state systems at are leaving the choice of type of computer to schools,

Social Bookmarking: an essential learning tool

2010-01-26T20:26:00.010+10:30

It is a bit bold to say that any tool is essential for learning, but I think the advantages this tool brings are clear and decisive. The major feature of social bookmarking is that one's bookmarks are stored on the internet and are available from any computer. This is a huge advantage. Few people work exclusively on one computer. The second feature is that bookmarks are categorised by tags and

A class Wiki: a do it yourself learning management system

2010-01-24T12:49:00.007+10:30

Wikis have come a long way and now some big players are providing free wiki sites they are becoming an attractive option for most teachers to consider. The video below is a getting started guide to using Google Sites which is the system I like. But there are many more like WetPait, WikiSpaces and EduBlogs.Most teachers seem to be introduced to technologies like this by first looking at what

Teaching outlining with thinklinkr

2010-01-16T21:18:00.004+10:30

The best educational software allows teachers to teach skills they have always taught but to do so in a much more effective way. Thinklinkr is the first online Outlining application and it has great promise for teachers. The video below shows a movie of an outline being built up. It takes about 10 minutes to become familiar with the controls. It does a simple task well.I suspect that outlining

Infernal technology 2: eBooks!

2010-01-09T20:50:00.008+10:30

In Sept 2007 I wrote a post in the form of a facetious letter to the editor in 1899 about the shortcomings of the automobile compared to horse transport and bicycles and walking. It was inspired by the constant dribble of complaints about new technology based on a similar argument: that everything old is necessarily superior to new ways of doing things.Over the last few years I have had numerous

Google Sites: a wiki with good sibling relations

2010-01-09T14:02:00.011+10:30

I have been presenting a group of workshops recently showcasing a number of Web 2.0 applications and have used Google Sites as the starting point. From the speed with which teachers were able to set up a site and make it look presentable and funcitonal it is like most wikis, very easy to use. As I explored Sites more I found that it has some very useful features. One is that

Names, children, internet identity and common sense

2010-01-09T13:57:00.007+10:30

Last year in a workshop on Web 2.0 applications we got into discussion about children's personal information and privacy and safety. Some teachers showed a deep-seated fear of children's identities being discovered on the internet and dreadful but unspecfied consequences occuring as a result. Obviously it is a good idea to be sensibly discrete about personal information, especially if

I'm a teacher, why blog!

2009-08-25T14:38:00.011+09:30

A blog is a journal that is published online. But very few people keep a journal, and even fewer publish it. So what's the attraction of a blog? Well, it is not for everyone. However, teachers have one or more captive audiences with which they are in constant communication. Secondly, blogs are immediately available to anyone with an internet connection. Thirdly, they allow comments by readers. So

Real learning, programming with Stratch

2009-08-09T13:53:00.001+09:30

This is an image of my first bit of programming using Scratch, and I am interested in using it as a tool to practice and learn down-to-earth curriculum skills. In this case, mid primary exploration of what the main plane figures consist of: like equilateral triangles. The glorious animated version can be seen here - 7 seconds of maths glory. Scratch is a

What did they learn? Not a bad question for schools.

2009-07-09T13:52:00.002+09:30

I have been working away for some months on researching a paper on professional learning, and some of my previous posts late last year reflect this. I have now published a fairly extensive report on what I discovered in this search and here it is: What did they learn? The title of the site suggest the main finding - that the focus of everything in a school

It's about student outcomes, stupid!

2009-06-15T16:12:00.011+09:30

The 'stupid' in question is me. The following 3 min video outlines some re-thinking I have done over the last 6 months. While I am changing my ideas about school professional learning and what we need to focus on - student outcomes, I can now see how we can resolve the contradictions that have be-deviled us for years - the tension between teacher freedom and external testing. See alsohttp://

The Digital Natives Myth

2009-03-09T13:50:00.001+10:30

One of the pervasive myths of the digital literacy landscape is that young people are generally 'in' the digital world and older people are generally struggling to engage with it. The catchiest term for this is that young people are Digital Natives (being born into the digital age) and the rest of us are Digital Immigrants (coming to in in later life). While this is literally true, the

The (relatively) simple formula for successful school systems

2009-01-09T13:49:00.001+10:30

The OECD commissioned a report from McKinsey & Company on successful school systems and the report was published in 2007: How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top . The report concludes that there are three unremarkable things that high performing systems do consistently:They get the right people to become teachers (the quality of an education system cannot

Professional standards trump 'loose coupling'

2008-12-20T13:43:00.001+10:30

I recently read an article written in 2000 by Richard Elmore that has severely dented a concept that was important to school education in the English speaking world during most of my career as a principal. He wrote Building a New Structure For School Leadership to explain why large-scale 'standards-based reform' is critical to the

Building your plane as you fliy into the classroom

2008-05-26T13:14:00.004+09:30

Gary Pultland used this wonderful video in his talk in Sydney today, illustrating the on the job learning and maybe the makeshift nature of using new technology. At least that's what I think about when watching it. EDS took a smart risk in using it to show how their staff are responsive, adabtable etc. Nasty people will say it illustrates last minute patchups done by programmers. Whatever: it

Travel grassroots video: better than slides?

2008-05-02T13:16:00.007+09:30

I have been experimenting with grassroots video making and the following is an attempt to provide an alternative to interminable slide shows. I used a simple digital still camera and took lots of short vids. Is it better than or complementary to snaps? I have just been on a holiday to Japan.The biggest breakthrough in making this is that I have recently acquired the latest mac with includes

Some Principles for Child Internet Safety

2008-05-02T13:12:00.001+09:30

Having been a school principal for much of my working life I have had plenty of time to observe how people cope with change, and to discover a few guiding principles. Here is a handful of these that seem to apply to the current lively issue in schools about child safety and the internet. learning involves risks but it is better than ignorancethere are few really new issues under the

Fun and games with grassroots video

2008-03-24T21:36:00.008+10:30

I have been experimenting with so called grassroots video, as in YouTube, heralded as the current big thing. Here is one of my efforts on my YouTube collection on the potential of smart phones in education - via the iPhone or iPod Touch.Quick, precise and to the point The experience of making a number of these little instrucitional videos has taught me that in using this medium, simplicity and

The Goldilocks effect: getting information JUST RIGHT

2008-01-25T10:52:00.000+10:30

The Goldilocks epic hinges around the struggle for humanity to get things 'just right' (and living with bears). Many of us are having this struggle with managing information. The internet is delivering better and better access to more precisely targeted information which presents us with the problem of processing all this great stuff. Our eyes are bigger than our ability to process it all.For a

Computer literacy/illiteracy Year 6, 10 National Test

2008-01-22T16:17:00.000+10:30

The national ICT Literacy Years 6 and 10, 2005 assessment was conducted by ACER and completed in July 2007, but was not published until Jan 2008. Media reports describe almost 50% of students being "computer illiterate", a term not actually used in the report. The full report can be downloaded from here.The assessment attempted to move beyond a simple measure of skills related to operating the

Do/will computers make a difference?

2007-12-24T14:34:00.000+10:30

Kevin Donnelly, The Australian’s curmudgeonly education commentator, is inspired by the government’s Digital Education Revolution to broadly dismiss yet another dastardly innovation in education - computers! He writes again [Dec 23] that there is little if any evidence that computers have any benefit in schooling. I must sadly point out that there is no evidence that fountain pens, ball point

Children, sex and safety on the internet

2007-12-07T14:26:00.002+10:30

There was an excellent program on Australia’s Radio National recently titled Sex on the Net about child safety. In the style of this program it is a very sensible and thoughtful perspective and in 45 minutes goes into considerable depth. The link allows you to listen or download the audio and there is a transcript. In short, the program says: there are serious issues at stake, there is no

Professional Networking with me.edu

2007-11-30T11:38:00.000+10:30

me.edu.au is now in testing mode in preparation for launch by the middle of December. The video below shows some of its features. If you would like to explore me.edu in its test form, visit http://me-uat.edna.edu.au and log in with your edna login, or register. Note, any content added to the test mode will not be retained after the launch.The initial service includes:Profile - who I am, what I

Multimedia Simplicity in VoiceThread

2007-10-31T09:19:00.000+10:30

The more I use VoiceThread the more I think it is a breakthrough application. It is so simple and clean and feature-packed - three attributes that are hard to combine. The following example shows one of its capabilities, as a quick and powerful instruction and information tool.An introduction to LibraryThingThis is a small embed to fit into the limited space on this blog. But it easily generates

R/evolution

2007-10-20T11:04:00.000+09:30

I have just been watching another fascinating video, Information R/evolution by Prof Michael Wesch from Kansas State University in which he tells another fast moving and engaging story about the revolution or evolution of information management that is taking place. It is a worthy follow up to his spectacularly popular The machine is Us/ing Us. With thousands of fast moving images it tells a

Infernal technology: the automobile

2007-09-29T10:46:00.001+09:30

The Editor,The Times29th September 1899Sir,I wish to express my dismay at the appearance of the automobile on the roads of England. This increasingly popular form of travel heralds a severe deterioration in the standards of transport of people. A good horse and light buggy provides a quiet, gentle, reflective and throughly pleasant mode of travel. The motor car on the other hand is noisy, smelly,

Sharing images smoothly

2007-09-22T15:36:00.000+09:30

This is not to show off my holiday pics (well, not entirely) but to demonstrate Picasa's nice slideshow feature as well. If you go to the web site (below) for this album you can access Goggle's integration of applications with Google Maps.Central Australia

The book dead? Long live the book!

2007-09-07T18:33:00.001+09:30

Books may be delivered in new forms, audio, digitised, purchased online, but their death has clearly been exaggerated. Google has embarked with some of the world's leading libraries on a project to digitise the world's books. These can be searched and for those under copyright, extracts can be read. For older books, they can be read in their entirety. Since they have been scanned, old books can

So what to do with your blog?

2007-09-06T14:21:00.000+09:30

So now that everyone has a blog, what to do with it? Well...think about...The blog format encourages thoughtful reflection. It is a good place to choose a theme, issue or topic that you want to say something about. It can be a little or a big issue. It should be forward looking, pointing in directions to go.The other characteristic of blogs is that they allow comments. If you provoke comments

'Disgusted': on social networking

2007-09-03T14:01:00.000+09:30

The Editor,The Times,London.September 3rd 1841Sir,While there has been much correspondence praising the introduction of the Penny Post last year across Great Britain, I am concerned at a danger that has emerged from this so-called advance in communication. I wish to express my dismay at the current fashion of young ladies indulging in the practice of letter writing for entirely frivolous reasons.

For voice messaging, try YackPack

2007-08-31T14:51:00.001+09:30

YackPack is yet another very interesting Web 2.0 applications. It is a very simple voice messaging application that is free, in basic version, and allows the emailing of voice messages or can be set up for a group of people to talk live to each other.A feature of the group conversations is that you can see images of the group and as a person is contacted or speaks their icon grows, giving visual

Google maps can be embeded

2007-08-22T15:19:00.000+09:30

A new feature form Google is the ability to embed a map in a blog or web site. It is very easy, and very useful.View Larger MapFor instructions on how to do it, see Here.

The del.icio.us in Delicious

2007-08-22T15:09:00.001+09:30

Here is a great little explanation of what social bookmarking is all about a-la delicious. Covers the main concepts very well, and on paper too! Click To Play

Matt's interesting story

2007-08-16T10:48:00.000+09:30

Matt Wohling's blog starts with an interesting and entertaining story about his pathway from school to this course. Others may have similar stories that tell us something about the apparent priorities of government and society.

Starting your wiki page

2007-08-08T18:37:00.000+09:30

A wiki is a very easy to use web authoring site. You each have your own page. If you have not used this wiki before it will be well worth your time to go to http://edflin.editme.com/2305Your login is your FAN as user name and also this is your temporary password as well. As soon as you log in go to Permissions on the Right menu and put your own password in. See Help Basic for some information on

Children, sex, safety on the internet

2007-07-27T09:31:00.000+09:30

There was an excellent Background Briefing on Ration National this week titled Sex on the Net. It is a very thoughtful and engaging summary of this important issue for child safety and independence.I have further comments on it on another blog I have HERE. It is an topic that you might find fruitful to focus on in this topic. I have added a link there to the site where you can listen to it (45min

About the course, assessment and all that

2007-07-27T08:51:00.000+09:30

This is all preliminary information because the course does not begin until Aug 21, but to allow many of you to get going on some activities now, the following will help.There are three assignments: 1. a practical task to produce a short movie (PhotoStory 3 for example) that tells a story (20%); 2. online activities using a blog, social bookmarking, wiki, web authoring, social networking, etc (

Starting your blog

2007-07-23T07:50:00.000+09:30

Some guidelines for getting started in Blogger. You need a Google account, then go to www.blogger.com and follow the instructions to build you blog. I am suggesting this free blog because it is a large and powerful and convenient, being part of the Google empire. If you already have a blog or two it is still desirable that you start this one just for the course. The following is advice, not

Lovely little boy?

2007-05-10T11:25:00.000+09:30

This is me at my most cute. Things have gone down hill ever since. I am with my two older brothers.Obviously I was born into a communications era quite different from the present. But be warned! I am not keen on generalisations about old people not being able to cope with computers.

A little history

2007-05-09T09:11:00.000+09:30

This is a little story about me. A few historical facts and a few pictures about my favourite subject.My father was a school headmaster and so we lived in quite a few country locations as he kept moving around, looking for the perfect place. In 1949 he took the bold step of applying to be Head of the new school at the Woomera Rocket Range in the far north of the state. So here I am with the whole