ICT Guy: Recent Episodes
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I recently came across this video from the New Brunswick School District in Canada that really captures the shifts that ‘should be‘ happening in education and the shifts that are happening in society at large. It reminded me a little bit of the ‘Did You Know‘ videos. I particularly liked the quote that “Today’s pen and paper [...]
Many educators use the multimedia media programming language Scratch with students to promote creativity, programming and ICT skills. In the past, you could always view the thousands of community projects online but if you wanted to play with them, see the code and change things, you had to download them and open them up in the [...]
I have recently discovered a great WordPress plugin called Anthologize. It was built as part of the One Week One Tool project. It essentially allows you to create electronic texts from blog posts. You can create texts in ePub, pdf, TIE, or RTF formats. It also allows you to create chapters to organise your content. This [...]
In the last few weeks there have been some really interesting tools emerge for creating games and applications on mobile devices. These software tools will make it easier for the non programmer to create. GameSalad The first one I came across was GameSalad for developing games on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. It is Mac only but [...]
I’ve been using scratch versions 1 through 1.4 with students to create multimedia and interactive projects for at least a few years. It’s programmable multimedia and it is a great piece of constructivist software. Students love using it and it has a low entry point but high ceiling. Well now we get a peak at what [...]
One of the things that annoys me most is when I have to use technology that should be based on open standards but isn’t! A case in point – Microsoft’s Share Point. It’s a web based CMS very tightly tied to the Microsoft browser and Microsoft office products. It’s hard to get anything done unless you [...]
All of last year I was working with teachers and students to help implement a 1:1 computing environment with netbooks. Given all of the press around the ‘iPad announcement‘, I’m wondering what are the pro’s and con’s for this device in education? And how does it compare with other portable devices such as netbooks? Is it [...]
For some time I have been meaning to finish my Moodle course about Scratch. It has been on the back burner for at least a year! The course itself is mostly finished but has a few areas which desperately need some attention. I was hoping to finish it and put it on Moodle Commons like [...]
The ’1 to 1′ netbook project journey continues! This week we are looking at the free and open source mind mapping tool called FreeMind. You can download FreeMind for Mac, Windows and Linux. In this video I give a brief introduction to some of the features available when using FreeMind. You can also download the [...]
As part of the ’1 to 1′ netbook project, I have been working with a number of schools to look at how Google SketchUp can be used in the classrooom. And while there are plenty of good videos to show how to get started with the tools, I wanted to try out a new screencasting [...]
Podcast number 3 March 22nd, 2009. [ICTGUY0903.mp3 Running time: 24:52 mins, size: 11.5 MB] Download it here! Links Rob Sbaglia: http://lmultranet.wikispaces.com Rob’s Twittering: http://twitter.com/sbaglia 1 to 1 project: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ictsupportservices/netbooks/ DEECD wiki: http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com Loddon Mallee Region Ning: http://one2onelaptops.ning.com
Podcast number 2 February 19th, 2009. [ICTGUY0902.mp3 Running time: 10:37 mins, size: 7.4 MB] Download it here! Links John Pearce: http://johnp.wordpress.com Tom Barrett’s Blog: http://tbarrett.edublogs.org 1oo ideas: http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/2009/01/26/100-interesting-ways/ Tom’s presentations: Google Earth http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_175fp5qg9d3 Interactive Whiteboards http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_106c9fm8j Google Docs http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_8323t58h3ft Pocket Video http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_6tv55j7g9 Netbook links http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com http://one2onelaptops.ning.com Local Events – Podcasting Session http://www.vitta.org.au/trainingevents/id/49/title/
In term four of 2008 we ran an online professional development course for teachers through Moodle. The aim was simply to be an introduction to the world of web2.0 and how it might impact on the classroom. The course was undertaken over five weeks with the following areas of focus each week. Blogging Social bookmarking [...]
Podcast number 1 February 3rd, 2009. [ICTGUY0901.mp3 Running time: 14:51 mins, size: 8.6 MB] Download it here! Team Building http://www.teampedia.net BBC News article on BETT http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7830431.stm Skype in Schools http://skypeinschools.pbwiki.com How to embed http://www.labnol.org/internet/how-to-embed-in-html-webpages/6365/ WOW’s http://mrsleung.edublogs.org/2008/12/18/wow-website-of-the-week-posters World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others – Will Richardson http://www.edutopia.org/collaboration-age-technology-will-richardson iPod touches / iPhone Apps http://www.iphoneandkids.com 50 iphone [...]
WordPress 2.7 has been released!!! This blog runs WordPress, as does a whole lot of the educational blogoshpere – Edublogs, Globalteacher, Globalstudent etc. I have been using it for a number of years on many local school websites – Koorlong PS, Irymple South PS, Cardross PS and others. This ‘point‘ upgrade should really have been [...]
I spent number of days at this year’s VITTA conference. The theme was “Shift Happens – Technology alone will not save us!” For those unaware of the Shift Happens viral video, you should look here. There are also lots of supporting materials on the shift happens wiki. Two of the opening keynotes presentations were focused [...]
I have been attending the 2008 VITTA conference this week and have been using “Cover It Live” to live blog the keynotes. If you are interested, check out the ‘live page’ here. The keynotes have been excellent! The most useful part about ‘Cover It Live’ is the all of the ideas, links, comments and resources [...]
If you are a big fan of Inspiration and Kidspiration the good news is that there is now an online version called webspiration. It is currently in beta but you can sign up to give it a run. The interface is pretty much the same as the inspiration product and behaves in pretty much the [...]
A week ago on the Ed Tech Crew Podcast we came across a presentation format called Pecha Kucha, which is basically 20 slides, times 20 seconds for each slide. So you end up doing a short, and hopefully impacting presentation, in around six minutes. This is a very interesting format that would be interesting to [...]
Virtualbox.org has just recently posted version 2.0 of it’s virtualisation software! For quite some time now I have been using Virtual Box, a free opensource alternative to virtualisation from Sun Microsystems who also contribute heavily to Open Office. Virtual box is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. I am also the owner of some other [...]
Podcast number 14 August 25th, 2008. [ICTGUY0814.mp3 Running time: 19:36 mins, size:18.1 MB] Download it here! Today’s Links! Math screencasts http://mathtrain.tv Alan November and the BLC conference http://www.novemberlearning.com/
A couple of days ago the MathTrain sent through a link about an application called Uuorld (don’t ask me how to pronounce it!) This application reminded me of one of my favourite Ted Talks by Hans Rosling where he brings vital global data to life through a series of visualisations. Well, Uuorld turns out to [...]
Podcast number 13 July 20th, 2008. [ICTGUY0813.mp3 Running time: 12:22mins, size: 5.8 MB] Download it here! Today’s Links! Create PowerPoint for the web with 280slides – http://280slides.com Also mentioned http://www.sliderocket.com Mashable – 30+ Presentation services for the web http://mashable.com/2007/08/12/online-presentations Gone Google: Integrating project-based lessons with Google tools by Cheryl Davis http://picasaweb.google.com/cheryl.davismhs/GoneGoogle And the Google Educator [...]
I don’t often mention my other podcast ‘The Ed Tech Crew” on this blog. However, in the past week Tony and I have been fortunate enough to have interviewed Will Richardson from weblogg-ed.com. Will is one of the earliest educational bloggers that I know of, and has been pioneering learning in online spaces. He is [...]
I’ve just finished reading Sartz’s blog where he has been discussing the usefulness of flickr in education (and making bad horse puns!) Flickr is a photo sharing site powered by Yahoo! that allows users to upload and share their photos. Sartz explains quite a few services based on flickr such Taggalaxy, Flickrcc, PhotoSoup, Bubblr and [...]