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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Firefox Download Helper

The other day I posted about the Cosmopod plug-in for Safari that allowed you to easily download and convert embedded video files in a web page. There is a similar solution for Firefox although the video files are downloaded as is, for example, .flv files. It is a Firefox add-on called Download Helper. It will allow you to easily download video files from YouTube.

Now, if you would like to view the files using Quicktime Player I suggest that you download and install the Perian Quicktime plug-in. As their opening screen states... "Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats".

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Sunday, August 26, 2007

The Illawarra

I live on the Illawarra coastline, south of Sydney, NSW. The Illawarra is flanked by the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Great Dividing Range to the west. You can gain a feel for the area by consulting the Google Map below.

Photographs taken around the region can be explored in the Illawarra Galleries.

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Creating learning experiences...

Konrad Glogowski has written this amazing post concerning the creation of learning experiences in his blog of proximal development. He describes developing an environment where learning can take place via the appropriate use of technology and the nurturing of a conducive environment. The aim is to immerse the student in the learning so that they have an opportunity to become experts and contributors. He describes the five stages that sets out his emerging approach based on his classroom practice and the work of his students. The steps involved discover, define, immerse, build and contribute. Read his full account here as my own brief description fails to adequately describe the richness of Konrad's post.

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Information technology in the real world at school

Blogs, wikis and similar web based apps are handy tools for teachers and students to employ as part of the teaching and learning experience. Blogs are reasonably easy to set up and publish. Wikis are easy to get going as well. What preceded all of this?

Back in 1993 I was working with Apple HyperCard and developing stacks for use by my students in both History and Computing Studies. My students began building them as well. The HyperCard stacks were always satisfying to produce and to share however they reached their use by date by the end of the 1990s. Apple stopped supporting HyperCard and other tools like Oracle Media Objects also bit the dust. HyperStudio seems to have run its course. Does it still exist? I have transferred the contents of some stacks to the web, in particular Prisoner of War.

In the past I also worked on the development of multimedia CD-ROMs. They were excellent products. They all sit in my filing cabinet now. None of them work on Macintosh OSX. I think they will function with Windows XP. They just seem too "big" now. Cumbersome. Like encyclopaedias.

The web came along and I started producing web sites using Claris Home Page and, later, Dreamweaver. Finding the time to develop web sites to support my own immediate needs and interest seemed quite difficult. I found myself building web sites and eLearning materials for clients and the boss. I also found that I was devoting a great deal of time teaching others to do the same. I rarely had the chance to practise what I preached.

Learning Objects became the “in” thing back in 2001 or so. The idea goes back to 1992 with Wayne Hodgins at AutoDesk. I attended conferences, workshops and the like however the hype never seemed to match the reality.

I began to devote time to teaching educators how to employ tools such as digital photography, digital videography, blended learning, and the like as part of their suite of teaching and learning strategies. I recently returned to the secondary school classroom to work with students at the coal face and see if I could employ some of the techniques and tools I had worked with in the tertiary and corporate worlds. Teaching at school affords additional time in which to research and experiment.

Working with tools like iMovie and Photoshop proved relatively easy in the classroom setting but building reasonably decent web sites with the students did not seem realistic. By and large there are limited opportunities to really sink one’s teeth into worthwhile information technology projects with students. The day to day life of a teacher is taken up with a diverse range of commitments and distractions.

The information technology projects developed by teachers and students seemed to be haphazard and lacking a life of their own. The projects would just end up on a backup server or CD-ROM. I would observe students work on a digital video project for weeks on end and then there would be a flurry of excitement as the end product is shared with the class or even the entire school. And that would be the end of it. The video project would be burnt to DVD, stored on a hard drive and seemingly forgotten.

Thinking on this it is apparent that if one is to work with the students to develop an information technology project and thus contribute to developing their own understanding of the subject, as well as the understanding of the others, then a number of criteria need to met. The process should allow students to develop a product that meets the following criteria...

  • The application of the technology should match the desired, specific
    curriculum outcomes
  • The tool’s learning curve should be short or non-existant
  • Development should be seamless for the students
  • The projects created by the students should be easily customisable
  • The projects should be interoperable
  • The projects should be re-usable
  • Subsequent cohorts should be able to pick up the projects and run with them

Creation of the project should be seamless for the students. It is the understanding that is important. The tool should not get in the way of the process. The last few years have seen the advent of several tools that can actually assist teachers and students to met the criteria listed above…

They include Comic Life, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Flickr. These tools are easy to use and readily implemented. Some of these tools are a subset of Web 2.0. Perhaps Web 2.0 can provide a platform for the realisation of the promise made by Learning Objects?

The projects that can be developed through the use of these tools can be shared with future cohorts and redeveloped. Products developed in any of the tools listed above can be linked to or embedded within any of the others. Numerous possibilities exist. I shall store this idea in my brain for the moment and blog on this later.

During the last 14 or so years I have found myself teaching other educators how to employ these tools in the classroom. Sharing these tools with other educators have served to crystallise a range of ideas that I would like to experiment with in my own school.

I have begun sharing the tools with students in Years 8, 9 and 11. The projects are underway and I hope to see some results by the end of the term… stay tuned for part 2 of these thoughts…

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Macademia ~ perfect for Mac educators!

Macademia is an informative blog for educators wishing to get the most out of their Apple Macs in the teaching and learning environment. My old mates from Singapore, Adrian and Junior, together with Paviter, have set up this rather elegant web site with teachers in mind. There are some great tips and excellent software recommendations for teachers across all fields and disciplines! Highly recommended!


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Cosmopod plug-in for Safari

CosmoPod is handy plug-in for the Safari web browser that allows you to easily download and save various video files embedded in web pages. For example, you may locate a choice video clip on YouTube or TeacherTube. Simply click on the button that appears alongside the address bar on Safari and the video will download and be converted to mp4 format on the fly. Brilliant!


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Google Earth explores the Sky

You can now explore the heavens with Google Earth. This app is even better, allowing astronomy buffs to explore the heavens and even to observe planetary motion. A great tool for teachers of Science.


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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Carnegie Mellon Podcasting White Paper

Carnegie Mellon University recently published a white paper on Podcasting. It examines the technology, its applications in educational settings and the pros and cons regarding its use in teaching and learning. Download the white paper here and then read Ken Ronkowitz's critique here.

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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Twitter ~ observations, clones and applications ~ part 2

Was doing some additional research on Web 2.0 applications and I consulted some more articles focused upon the social networking app Twitter. This blog post endeavours to explain the purpose of Twiiter. This post reveals how a novel is being published, less than 140 characters at a time, using Twitter.

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The Future of Teaching

Steve Hargadon and Will Richardson have just blogged about the future of teaching. Their posts reflect on the evolution of students and the needs that they will generate in the future in terms of learning and teaching. "If we want students to be learners, the teachers and schools must be learners". Steve's account of the workshop on the future of teaching can be read at his blog. Will Richardson began his thoughts on the topic and he is yet to finish them.

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Twitter ~ observations, clones and applications

While doing some research on Web 2.0 applications I came across a series of articles focused upon the social networking app Twitter. It is like a mini-blogging app. It allows you to deliver micro-chunks of data to users who have subscribed to your Twitter account. It allows you to post a maximum of 140 characters.

For those of you new to Twitter you might like to catch up with this Wikipedia article. A review of Twitter with an emphasis upon its possible uses and application can be read at the Infocult site. One can view the location of "Twitterers" live via this visual interface.

Educators are considering ways to use Twitter in teaching and learning settings. David Lee King puts forward some ideas here. Christopher D. Sessums has written a nice article and provided a set of useful links with his look at Twitter in education. David Warlick has posted some ideas as well. Alan Lew's post is rich with some good ideas for educators. Finally Educause has published an article Seven Things You Should Know About Twitter that is well worth downloading as a pdf and reading.

There are a significant number of web based apps similar to Twitter and they can be explored via this link. One of the more significant of these apps is Jaiku. It is quite a powerful tool however I have found it slow to update the published feed. This article compares and contrasts Twitter and Jaiku. Two of the more interesting clones of Twitter include Yappd and MoodMill.

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Sunday, August 19, 2007

Twenty five dollar television

Last week the television set in our living room came to an end. See the blog entry earlier "Sootie is a hero". Anyway, the television set was less than fours year old. A bit disappointing that it did not last longer. I was not thinking of a new plasma or lcd TV at this point of time. I would rather spend that money on renovating the house.

Well, after the bush walk on Saturday morning I arrived home and there was a replacement TV set in the living room. The damaged set was on the floor. The new set is smaller, less intrusive and fits in better with the furniture. It is a Sony with a trinitron screen. Shao Ping had bought it while I was out. She picked it up at a garage sale for twenty five dollars! Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

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NavCon2K7 ~ Podcasting and Web 2.0 Workshops

The NavCon2K7 conference is coming up in about 5 weeks. The Navcon2K7 Conference is a collaborative professional learning opportunity established by Australian Navigator Schools Consortium (Navcon) and hosted this year by the Catholic Schools Office (CSO) - Diocese of Broken Bay on the Central Coast of NSW.

I am perusing the eLearning strand workshops and as far as Web 2.0 and podcasting workshops go here is the breakdown... Six of the workshops feature a Web 2.0 aspect and three are focused upon podcasting and iPods. Some of the spotlights explore wWeb 2.0 and podcasting as well. Which should I attend is the question I must now consider?

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Why are we all blogging less?

Hugh Macleod on why we are blogging less together with his regular cartoon.

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Nicholas Carr on Web 3.0

Nicholas Carr digests Eric Schmidt's account of Web 3.0 and provides a very nice analysis of Google's take on 3.0, the Semantic Web and his own definition of Web 3.0.

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Web 3.0 described by Google CEO

The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, recently defined Web 3.0 when probed by a journalist at the Seoul Digital Forum. Here is his reply. Channy Yun of Korean Crunch posted the initial movie via YouTube.


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Web 2.0 Explained

Dion Hinchcliffe provides a series of definitions or explanations of the Web 2.0 phenomenom in his blog. His entry, Review of the Year's Best Web 2.0 Explanations includes definitions from Richard McManus and Tim O'Reilly. It is an old post but useful nevertheless.

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Sootie is a hero!

Tonight my cat Sootie did something quite remarkable! I was in one part of the house near the bedrooms and Sootie came in looking alarmed and frightened. He miaowed loudly and was looking down the hallway. I thought that perhaps there was a burglar in the house and I gingerly went to investigate. When I reached the living room at the other end of our home there was smoke gathering around the ceiling! There was a fire! I looked for the seat of the blaze but could not find any. There was just smoke thinly accumulating near the ceiling. Perhaps a "down" light in the ceiling had shorted.

I called my neighbour Dale. He switched off the power. He had a look in the roof but found nothing. We went back to the living room and came to the conclusion that the TV had shorted based on the smell of the smoke. We restored power and the TV is indeed dead. Perhaps it had made a loud noise when it shorted. Anyway, Sootie is a legend and perhaps he saved the day!

Our smoke alarm is further away, nearer the bedrooms. I think the smoke would have eventually set it off if I had not opened the windows and the door. Sootie was uneasy for quite a while afterwards. He hid in our bed during the drama.



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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Similpedia ~ Finding Similar Content

This is an interesting tool that teachers and students may find useful when commencing some research...Similpedia - Finding Similar Content. I do not advocate the use of wikipedia as a primary vehicle for research due to its inherent problems rleating to the veracity of the content however it does come in handy when obtaining an initial grasp of a subject and the links at the foot of an article can often prove to be a valuable launch pad for more concrete source material.

Similpedia also has a few tools and plug-ins that developers may find useful for embedding in thier blog or web site.

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Ethnography and web design

Fred Oliveira, founder of the Web 2.0 Workgroup, recently wrote a nice piece on ethnography and designing for the web. He has followed up that article with a posting yesterday regarding how several high profile companies implement these ideas in their own organisations.

These principles can be applied to the design of web based apps or implementations for teaching & learning. Teachers and students can collaborate on the design. Observe how the students achieve their goals and figure out how they make a difference. What is the nature of the transformative process. Take note of what the students are actually doing. How do they make that journey from point 'a' to point 'b' in terms of the transformative process. It is not always easy to distill that process and impossible to bottle yet if the essential ingredients can be identified perhaps a web based translation of these moments could be chartered and developed to act as a scaffold for those students who experience difficulties in successfully completing that journey from point 'a' to point 'b'.

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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Elvis Costello live at the Shellharbour Worker's Club

This afternoon I digitised an old live recording of an Elvis Costello performance at the Shellharbour Workers' Club in Shellharbour, NSW. He played with a band called the Confederates. The band consisted of Austin De Lone, Jim Keltner, Elvis Costello, Jerry Scheff and James Burton if I remember correctly. It also included Nick Lowe this night. It was the 5th December, 1987.

The performance was brilliant and the crowd went wild. They yelled and bellowed for more and the band played several encores. They ran out of tunes and they played "That's How You Got Killed Before" once more with different solos. You can hear me putting the cassette recorder away at the end after the house lights went up. My friends encircled me as I hid the recorder before we made our exit. Getting tape decks past security was always a worry. Anyway, have a listen...


That's How You Got Killed Before

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Sootie's blog has gone live

Well, even Sootie has a blog now. He has made two entries so far and you can subscribe to his blog with this link.


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Web 2.0 ~ Inefficient characteristics

Thoughtful article from Information Architects Japan about inefficient aspects of Web 2.0. I tend to agree with the author. One can Twitter, Blog and Jaiku their contacts to distraction. I personally think Jaiku is neat as it broadcasts updates made to my blogs and Flickr pages. I have the Jaiku badge on my home page and acts like a "What's new" column for visitors to my web site. Twitter is neat however I tend to think that Jaiku may render Twitter redundant. Jaiku, however, can be slow to update. Twitter is immediate. Explore each of the aforementioned platforms here.

Blogger
Flickr
Twitter
Jaiku

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Web Trends Map 2007

This map came up in Stumbler. A visual overview of the Internet 2007. It was created by Information Architects Japan. Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, eBay and all of the usual supsects dominate. Interesting to see Baidu from China up there as well. Facebook and Technorati are key hubs.


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Thursday, August 9, 2007

Back to school with the class of Web 2.0

A nice page about Web 2.0 technologies in education from Solution Watch. This is a well written article with worthwhile links and advice for educators from all fields.

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Web 2.0 and Learning

Staff at the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in the US have established a blog and a list of activities focused upon the application of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis in education. They have compiled a list of 23 activities that one can complete, in any sequence and at any pace, in order to gain an insight into Web 2.0 technologies and their relationship to education. Well worth a closer look, particularly by teachers who are keen to learn more about Web 2.0.

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Sticky Windows ~ Mac App

A neat Mac app that will suit many users who are looking for alternative ways to handle and manage frequently accessed folders and apps. Give Sticky Windows a try.

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Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X

An excellent annotated list of great Mac programs are presented at this site...Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X.

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Technology pages updated

Updated the Podcasting and Web 2.0 workshop pages. Added some data to the Information Sharing page. Rationalised links and added some images.

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Sydney Morning Herald web site revised

The Sydney Morning Herald web site has undergone a significant revision. The entire page is centre justified within the browser window. The headings are a serif font and the body text is sans serif. There is additional white space. The ever intrusive advertising is still present. The large photograph component upper left is intrusive. It is a little Web 2.0 in style.

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Monday, August 6, 2007

Dock Fun ~ Mac App

I have just come across this neat software that allows you to have multiple docks, each customised by you for a specific suite of apps to meet your needs. Why not have a look at DockFun!

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Sunday, August 5, 2007

How to Change the World: The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

Guy Kawasaki, has written a nice article concerned with the art of creating a decent powerpoint presentation...How to Change the World: The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. His article is written with the business community in mind however I feel his 10/20/30 rule is just as applicable to educators as well.

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Name: John Larkin
Occupation: Educator
Hometown: Wollongong, NSW.
Favorite Quotes:
"To get what you want you must learn to give up wanting".
Now Reading:

Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton.
The Early Asimov by Isaac Asimov.


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