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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

How can a teacher integrate Web 2.0 technologies into the curriculum?

Who do you teach? Primary school aged students? Secondary school students? Tertiary students? I teach secondary schools students. I teach history. I have also taught a number of other subjects. How can you integrate Web 2.0 technologies into a teaching and learning programme? How can you weave Web 2.0 tools into your lessons. I have some ideas I would like to share.

Recently I developed a teaching programme that I would like to call an Integrated Teaching and Learning Unit. It is incomplete. A work in progress.

It covers three different key learning areas (KLA) of the syllabus taught in secondary schools in NSW, Australia. The three KLAs are History, Geography and Technology & Applied Science (TAS). A number of Web 2.0 technologies are incorporated into the teaching unit. They include:

Wikis
Blogs
Twitter
Jaiku
Podcasting
Google Reader
Google Maps
Swickis

Additional tools include Excel, Photoshop and Comic Life for example. The ITLU is designed for a unit entirely conducted in a school with a One To One computing environment.

I am yet to develop assessment tools for the project. The teaching programme is designed to cover five weeks with 2 hours devoted to the project each school day.

Feel free to explore the sample ITLU which I have also linked to my Web 2.0 web page. I would like to hear what you do in your schools to embed Web 2.0 technologies in your curriculum. Feel free to provide feedback on the programme.

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Setting up blogs for my students ~ how was it done?

I wished to set up some blogs for my middle secondary History students. I did some investigation. I considered some of the educational blogging services but discovered, for example, that once I had exceeded 50 student blogs, that fees kicked in for the school. In other cases there was a lack of control. How could one set up about 60 student blogs? Well this is how I did it. This time. I will do it a little differently next time but this project has not yet completed.

I wished to assert a measure of control over what was published and how. Some readers may disagree with that. I am not referring to some form of political censorship. I have good reasons to justify the level of control I seek. Several years ago a case came to light in a nearby school in which students had utilised a blog to publish inappropriate images and comments. The term 'blog' became an unsavoury word in local education circles so I put the idea of establishing student blogs to one side and focused on projects using tools such as Photoshop, Comic Life and Audacity. As well, some students can simply not help themselves. They lack an understanding of the responsibilities involved with publishing. I needed to maintain close supervision over those students and their work.

Well, a couple of years have passed and last term I felt that it was time to set up the blogging idea again. I wanted my middle secondary students to compose online diaries as if they were living through the Great Depression and/or the Second World War. I explored some blogging possibilities and I went with Blogger.

I set up the Blogger accounts for each student. There were 54 in all. That took two separate evenings. I created a simple initial welcome post in each blog. I created a sample blog that illustrated the sort of product that I would like to see the students begin with as they started blogging. I was then hoping that they would become more creative as they proceeded with the blog.

The next day in class I asked the students to list their student email accounts in turn in a spreadsheet. I showed them the sample blog and how they would need to post a blog entry. I invited each student to pick a template for their blog as well.

That night I invited each student to be an author of their blog. i would be the administrator. The following day I had booked the students (two separate classes) into two separate computer labs at school to begin blogging. There were some technical problems but all of that has since been sorted and a subsequent visit was more fruitful. The holidays then intervened. I was away as well and now that the fourth term has commenced I shall encourage the students to start blogging again. I have a role to play there.

As a measure of control each blog is published to my own server. I am notified of each blog post via a RSS newsreader. Comments will come to me via email for vetting. Finally, I eliminated that problematical menu bar and Next Blog button. The Next Blog button had the potential to browse to a distasteful blog. I use the following code just before the default code and after the name of the template creator to block the Blogger Navigation bar:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

The exact detail regarding how to achieve this is described at this web site.

I added an additional level of protection by publishing the blogs in a directory that cannot be accessed by googlebots and the like due to the inclusion of a 'robots.txt' file with the appropriate code. The blogs cannot be found in a search engine. When the project is over the blogs will be published. This sounds like a lot of control and overkill and probably is but the unfortunate episodes in the past in our district called for this degree of oversight. The blogs will eventually be published and the school community will get to see them. Just for now I just wish to see the students enjoying the process of creatively writing via a different medium. They understand why I have set up these safeguards.

The students have started blogging and about a dozen have really sunk their teeth into the project. many of the students have only made one post. Others have not posted anything at all. I shall chase them up and seek out the reasons. That is my job. And an enjoyable job I might add. Squeezing this project within the normal programming of the subject is challenging but I am getting there, gradually. I have added some screen shots below.








From a historical perspective it is interesting as the blog entries are sprinkled with dating errors, anachronisms and other anomalies which will certainly provide a source of fruitful analysis when the students share their blogs in class. I hope that additional graphics and media such as audio and video are added to the blogs in future. I shall keep ypu posted on developments. I seek your comments on this process.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Annoying feature in Leopard ~ screen shots include a border

I have taken a few screen shots in Leopard this weekend and I notice that when you do a screen grab of a window by pressing the space bar during the capture process it creates a border around the window.



As a png it is transparent but once you convert it to jpg you will see the border. This is annoying as I create a lot of screen grabs that I then copy and paste into word documents. This is a curious move by Apple. The border becomes apparent when you directly paste the image from the clipboard into another application.

With reference to the image above the app that must have crashed was Quick Look as I was previewing an image taken in PhotoBooth.

Blogged with Flock

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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Leopard update glitches

Well, I managed to install Leopard on the Mac last night. I updated the apps this morning. I reinstalled most of the applications, not all. Time to rationalise. The installation was painless. Some of the applications have not behaved well. iMovie would not launch at all. I performed a software update and installed the latest versions of most of the iLife apps. iMovie performed well after that.

Another nice little application that I use to manage audio input and output from Rogue Amoeba called Sound Source is not functioning at all.




LastFM is also exhibiting an interesting reaction to the update. It launches fine yet it seems to open twice. You can quit the application yet the the 'phantom' copy will not quit. In fact one cannot even force it to quit. It finally gives up the ghost a few moments after an attempt at force quit. Will keep an eye on updates. Kevin Lim blogged on Leopard yesterday and elicited a range of interesting responses.

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Friday, October 26, 2007

Leopard launched in Wollongong at Mac1

Attended the launch of Leopard, the latest version of Apple's OS. It was held at Mac1, Wollongong, this evening. I had pre-ordered a copy. Receieved a free T-shirt as well. All of the usual suspects were there.

leopard_launch_3.JPG


David, Ken and David.

leopard_launch_1.JPG

Bernadette, myself and Julie

leopard_launch_4.JPG

Ken and myself

leopard_launch_2.JPG

Ken and I posing for the camera... pathetic.

leopard_launch_5.JPG

The T-shirt and the packaging.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The "Digital Natives" Debate Continues...

Back in September I wrote a post concerning the premise that adults, including teachers, are "Digital Immigrants" and that the students that we teach are "Digital Natives". This terminology was coined by Marc Prensky some time back. I have used the terminology on a number of occasions myself. During the last couple of years, having worked closely with secondary school students, I have begun questioning the premise that underlies the terminology. In my original post I concluded that "perhaps they are not Digital Natives at all but simply Digital Dilettantes... they are, and I quote from a dictionary, an amateur or dabbler; especially, one who follows an art or a branch of knowledge sporadically, superficially, or for amusement only."

Last Saturday David Thornburg wrote a post where he expresses regret that he had utilised the terms in the past. He also wrote that the terms were demeaning to educators. As he points out it is true that today's students have grown up in a world where computers are reasonably ubiquitous but one cannot assume that this fact makes the students any more tech savvy than their teachers, or parents, for that matter.

The author of the Connectivism Blog has written an article critical of Marc Prensky's position. He picks up on David Thornburg's apology regarding the terminology as well. I cannot do it justice here. I strongly recommend that all interested parties read his views. He concludes "...aside from insulting an entire generation and coddling to the needs of younger learners, Prensky doesn't provide us with a compelling model forward (other than "use digital games")."

The author also makes a reference to "technology weariness" and "resistance to technology" among educators. He adds that hyped-up educational technology that fails the promise to deliver will only hurt future applications of these processes in teaching and learning.

I am now going to read Jamie McKenzie's critique of Marc Prensky's position in his article, "Digital Nativism, Digital Delusions and Digital Deprivation." Jamie sets out, point by point, his views regarding Marc Prensky's position.

Readers may think it curious that a teacher that readily incorporates technologies in the teaching and learning curriculum should post articles that seemingly go against the grain. Many major speakers and evangelists preach the premise that our students are the "digital natives". I do not believe that we can make this blanket assertion for all students. I am a not alone in this belief.

I believe in a pragmatic and commonsense approach to educational technologies. [This is beginning to sound like a creed]. I have seen hundred of thousands of dollars pumped into multimedia and eLearning projects that are now idle. I have seen revenues in excess of six figures devoted to eLearning projects that are now obsolete (in under five years). I feel that is such a waste. I am yet to crystallise my approach but I essentially believe that educational technologies must only be incorporated into the teaching and learning curriuclum when it is appropriate and not simply "becasue it was there". The application of the technology should
  • exactly match the specific knowledge, skill and attitudinal outcomes
  • complement, and not exclude, other tactics and strategies, traditional and otherwise
Perhaps I have achieved success with my recurring educational technology workshops in Sinagpore due to my pragmatic approach. I approach each workshop from the perspective of a down-to-earth and busy teacher. A realistic approach should be taken with the tool that is educational technology. Practical considerations should be weighed up above all else.

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Monday, October 22, 2007

Flock

Installed Flock on the weekend. It is a cross between a browser and a feed manager. Kevin Lim had posted about the latest version and I thought it was wise to have another look at the tool

One neat trick. It allows you to save images to a temporary clip browser. I took a screen shot of the Flock window and in moments it was posted on Flickr and embedded in a blog post. I am even posting to this blog via Flock. That is quite handy.


As Kevin pointed out the latest version of Flock can be downloaded here.

Blogged with Flock

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Record Collector Article about David Bowie Published

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to collaborate on an article about David Bowie. He turned 60 this year and the article focused on 60 rare and intriguing recordings released during his career from 1964 through to the present. The article was published a couple of weeks ago in the Record Collector magazine.


I worked with Ruud Altenburg and Maarten Kwant, both of the Netherlands. We all had a great time writing the article and gathering together the images used throughout. Quite an experience and a further demonstration of the power of the Internet. The three of us have never actually met in person. We met via the web due to our interest in collecting records. Ruud is the creator of the excellent Illustrated db Discography. The article rated a couple of mentions on Bowie's web site as well.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Vodcasting in a few easy steps

During the last couple of years I have been conducting a variety of podcasting and vodcasting workshops. There was always two elements that proved challenging for the particpants. One was the process of ftp and the other was vodcasting on a Windows platform. There is a nice solution to both of these dilemmas. In a nutshell it is as follows:

1. Record your video using a digital video camera and process the digital video using iMovie (Mac), Windows Movie Maker (Win), Adobe Premiere and so on. Yoiu could also record the video directly using a web cam or iSight (Mac).
2. Upload the video to a Blogger blog within a typical post.
3. Obtain the RSS feed address for the blog and subscribe to it using the "Subscribe To Podcast" menu item in iTunes. The video feed within the blog will be accessed by iTunes and the embedded videos will be downloaded.

You can set up a blog following these instructions and then create a vodcast by reading these instructions.

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Blogrolls generated via Google Reader

I use Google Reader to scan through a variety of education blogs. Tonight I set up two blogrolls on this page using the instructions on this Google blog. The interface is not brilliant but I managed to add "tags" to the relevant feeds. They became folders which I could then use as the basis for each blogroll. The fact that an OPML file is created as well is quite useful.

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LifeHack ~ Ten Videos to Change How You View the World

Well, I am on the bandwagon now. Promoting videos left, right and centre. TedTalks presentations are always good. Lifehack.org has gone to the trouble of selecting ten videos that could change how you view the world.

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A Vision Of Students Today... part two.

Further to my post below. Two other edubloggers have praised the video created by Michael Wesch and his students. Take in the alternative views of Steve Hargadon and Bud Hunt. Steve's post has a link to another video by Michael Wesch. This was one of the videos that peppered a variety of presentations and workshops at the NavCon Conference. I cannot help but feel that I am doing the same thing in promoting each video yet via a different medium.

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Kathy Schrock's ~ iPod touch online applications for education

Kathy Schrock has evaluated a number of tools that can be utilised with the iPod touch in an educational setting. Her blog post, iPod touch online applications for education lists and describes 18 online sites that could be uitlised with the iPod Touch. A number are straightforward sites such as "This Day In History" while others, such as Listingly, can allow for more practical uses of the iPod Touch. Can you suggest any others?

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Future of the Human Computer Interface Now

I have been interested in the human-computer interface since the early 90s when I was undertaking my postgraduate studies in educational technology at the University of Wollongong. I read books by Tognazzini, Donald Norman and Brenda Laurel. I was reading articles by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. I was working with HyperCard on the Mac designing interactive apps for use in the teaching of history. The design of useful and intuitive interfaces was interesting. The advent of html seemed such a backward step. Anyway, I digress.

Earlier this year I was browsing through the TED Talks web site and came across two presentations that demonstrate innovative human computer interfaces. I thought back to the interfaces of the eighties and nineties and it is true that not much has changed. Each demonstration speaks for itself. The first is by Jeff Han. The second is by Anand Agarawala. After viewing the demonstrations you cannot but help but desire to be working with each of those interfaces now.


Jeff Han


Anand Agarawala

Each presentation is enjoyable, informative and inspiring. Anand's web site is here. Jeff Han's new company is called Perceptive Pixel.

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Monday, October 15, 2007

Blog Action Day ~ The Environment

Today is Blog Action Day and the theme is the environment. Today, bloggers "around the web are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment". I felt that I would like to share some photographs I took of the mangroves on Brisbane Waters on the NSW Central Coast. They were adjacent to St Edward's Catholic College where I was attending a conference. The mangroves were in good condition although there were the remains of an old brick structure in one section on the shore. Mangroves are key to the survival of our fisheries as many fish species use the mangroves for breeding. Seeing the mangroves reminded me of the excellent work of the International Coastal Cleanup group in Singapore.

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A Vision Of Students Today... some thoughts on the video

This video was posted online by Prof Michael Wesch and his 200 students that are enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. Prof Wesch indicates that the video was inspired by "Marshall McLuhan’s ideas as they apply to education, especially as they have been used by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in Teaching as a Subversive Activity."


The message is sound and the collaborative effort involved in its creation is impressive. Yet, I grow tired of these videos. Perhaps it is the incidental background music, or the kitsch use of slogans and messages. They seem to state the same thing.... "The world is changing, students are changing, we need to change, we are rich, they are poor, and so on." I am a little cynical, perhaps not.

I disagree with two of the comments raised by the students. One stated "I did not create the problems". Students in developed western nations are part of the problem. They are significant consumers and are contributing to an economic model that generates inequity on a global scale. That's one of the reasons why one billion people make less than $1.00 dollar a day, a figure held up by another student.

Secondly another student held a statement that iterated "When I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn't exist today." I disagree. Perhaps, not probably. Many of today's university graduates face a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure a meaningful career upon graduation. For some their first job will probably be flipping hamburgers in a fast food outlet or serving drinks in a bar so they can repay the debt that they incurred during their study. Many graduates immediately roll over into postgraduate studies. I feel that all education should be free.

Recently at the NavCon2K7 conference a number of presenters and workshop facilitators sprinkled their presentations with a range of YouTube styled videos, each with a message designed to change the world in one form or another. I was dismayed to view one keynote sprinkled with quite a few YouTube styled videos only to see two of the sampled videos resurface during an unrelated workshop later during the day.

At the commencement of my Comic Life workshop on the last day of the conference I promised the participants that there would be no PowerPoints and no YouTube videos. I received a round of applause.

Sure, show a video during a break but not during a keynote, unless of course you were the author of the production.

This post is expressing two messages. Enough of the "world changing" five minute videos and please do not pad out your presentations with one video after another during a keynote at a conference unless you were the author of the included video(s).

Production of these world changing videos is fine. I should not make judgement calls. I do feel happier, however, when I see students and teachers actively involved in projects such as cleaning up the local environment, raising money for worthwhile causes or directly assisting the underprivileged. That's what I understand life changing to be.

Despite all of my criticisms of sharing videos during a presentation I intend to post a blog regarding two videos on TED Talks in the near future. Is that okay?

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St Joseph's Catholic High School Podcast Workshop

I updated the podcasting workshop web page to reflect the needs of the participants scheduled to attend the podcast workshop today as part of the St Joseph's Catholic High School Staff Development Day.



Two education licenses for the deluxe version of Comic Life will be given away as well during the day. The licenses are courtesy of Mark Pearson at plasq software sofware.

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Galleries Updated

Added five new galleries last night. The new galleries feature photographs taken at the NavCon2K7 Conference, Central Coast ~ NSW, places around Singapore, gatherings in Singapore and the Web 2.0 workshops at Nanyang Technological University.

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Saturday, October 13, 2007

Tanjong Pagar MRT

The rush hour at the end of the day is approaching. This moment was captured outside Tanjong Pagar MRT. It is located within Singapore's CBD. I often used this station when I worked with Knowledge Village. The office was in South Bridge Road, Chinatown. The camera is perched on a park bench. I am perched alongside with some other people.



Looking at the video just now there is a gender imbalance. Do more men drive in Singapore? Do they work longer hours and are not yet a part of the rush hour mix? When I worked at NTU I noticed that there were fewer men than women on the buses that brought the staff to and from the campus.

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Bugis MRT Singapore

Singapore has an excellent rail network. A new train comes along every few minutes during peak hours and are still frequent at other times. Some of the stations are busier than others. I wonder what the stats are for all the stations. Anyway, one of the busier stations is Bugis. I set the camera up on a bench and let it run and this is the result as the patrons came and went.

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A walk with the throng in Bugis Village

I walked with the crowds in Bugis Village, Singapore. I held my digital still camera above my head. It created an AVI at 640 x 480 pixels and 25fps. It suffered a little from the shakes. I compressed the video down to a 320 x 240 pixels at 15fps. Gives you an idea of the tourists and locals that flock through this part of Singapore.

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Friday, October 12, 2007

Didgeridoo in Bugis Junction

Captured this gent busking in Bugis Junction. A mix of media and cultures.

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Victoria Street ~ Bugis Junction

One of the more busy pedestrian crossings in Singapore. One that my wife Shao Ping and I crossed many times. People often take a chance as the lights turn to green.

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Journey from Tiong Bahru to Red Hill MRT

I experimented with my small Casio digital camera to capture a few movies that I could use during my vodcasting workshop today. I wandered a little around Singapore and simply caught people going from one place to the other.



I resized each movie to 320 x 240 at 15fps using Quicktime on an Apple Macintosh. In a way these movies are a homage to Kevin Lim who is a source of great inspiration.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Social and Education Networking Workshop

The education and social networking workshop at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) yesterday was quite enjoyable. There were particpants from NTU, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Polytechnic and the Ministry of Education. The participants worked very hard and were most studious. I was asked excellent questions and had a number of good problems to resolve. In a day the participants:

  • considered why they should set up a social~education network
  • how and why they could make a difference
  • looked at good examples
  • learnt how to locate good blogs
  • located useful blogs via technorati and bloglines,
  • bookmarked them in their new del.icio.us accounts,
  • created a blog
  • embedded images, movies, badges and Google maps in their blogs
  • added links to their blogs
  • tagged their posts
  • reviewed Picasa and/or Flickr accounts ~ some set them up
  • set up Google Reader and subscribed to blogs, podcasts, flikr and TedTalks
  • added Google Reader widget to their new iGoogle page
  • added “Blog this” and del.icio.us buttons to their browsers
  • set up a Twitter account and added it to their blog

Three issues came up:
  1. Could not add a del.icio.us feed to Google reader ~ why?
  2. Twitter home page design changed in the last few days ~ "difficult" to find badges now
  3. Jaiku bought by Google the night before so they could not set up a Jaiku ~ bad timing

It was an enjoyable workshop. We were busy all day and ended the day with a Twitter fest like birds coming home to roost as the sun sets.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Removing navigation bar from the top of blogger

I use the following code just before the default code and after the name of the template creator to block the Blogger Navigation bar:

#navbar-iframe {
display: none !important;
}

The detail on how to achieve this is described at this web site.

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Jaiku bought by Google!

I have just discovered that Jaiku has been bought by Google. My workshop participants were unable to open an account today! How is that for timing?

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Scenes around Nanyang Technological University

Having an excellent time in Singapore. The people are wonderful and I enjoy the time here with the team at the CED. had dinner with Alan in one of the canteens attached to a Hall of Residence. I had a Korean barbecue chicken meal with some very hot kim chee. Spotted an interesting little shrine on the campus walking back to my digs on the campus and took a photograph of the scenery that I used to pass each day. Quick photo of the morning as well from the top of the building in which I conduct the workshops.





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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Web 2.0 Workshop Underway

I am presently conducting a Web 2.0 workshop at NTU here in Singapore. I demonstrated the Blog tool in edveNTUre and the participants had a hands-on experience with the blooging software. We are now working with Blogger.

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NavCon ~ An evening on the Central coast

Shao Ping and I went for a drive north to The Entrance and Toukley at the end of the day. We walked around The Entrance and found another little Thai takeaway where we could sit outside and enjoy the view. The temperature had reached 35 degrees Celsius that day and it was nice to sit out in the open and enjoy the cool of the early evening.


John and Shao Ping enjoy a Thai meal.

Uncle John, myself and Aunty Pauline

Uncle John, Shao Ping and Aunty Pauline

Bateau Bay bush fire

After that we drove north to Toukley to visit my Aunt Pauline and Uncle John. John is 90 and still possesses all his faculties. We drank a nice bottle of red given to my by the NavCon team as thanks for the presentation. Uncle John and I talked about politics, recycling and town planning. Quite a deep and meaningful evening. We also chatted about family and what is happening among all the relatives. It was a lovely evening. On the way back we spotted a bushfire close to homes at Bateau Bay and I took a couple of photographs from about 1 kilometre away. It was as close as we could get.

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Web 2.0 at Navcon

I attended a number of workshops at NavCon but three stand out... workshops and spotlights given by Greg Gebhardt & Bettina Sho, Steven Harris and Tom March.

The Spotlight presentation given by Tom March on Web 2.0 was well attended. There were a quite a number of enlightening moments and items that provoked thought. Tom is an eloquent speaker and an enthusiastic educator. He spoke on his CEQ*ALL approach to teaching, learning and curriculum integration. He pointed us to his 2nd10 and its rich set of resources as well.

I attended an excellent workshop given by Steven Harris of St Bernard’s Catholic Primary School in Berowra. He demonstrated how Web 2.0 technologies can be integrated into the Year 2 classroom. His workshop was well documented and backed up with excellent data. His examples were excellent and overall he generated a great deal of interest among the participants. It is worthwhile to explore his Pageflakes site [click cancel when the log in window appears].

One of the best moment's of the conference was when I attended Greg Gebhardt's spotlight on Web 2.0. I have wanted to meet Greg and Bettina and although I missed the workshop given by Greg and Bettina on the first day I was determined to catch up with them both. During lunch on the second day I sat down with Steven Harris to talk about his work and the types of applications he was using in the classroom. While we sat there two other delegates took a seat and began talking. During our conversation it dawned on me that they were Greg and Bettina. We had a great chat and shared some productive ideas. We are all like-minded educators ~ there was a synergy if you like and in many ways was the highlight of the three days. Greg created a NavCon workshop page page specifically for the conference and it is rich with Web 2.0 resources and examples.


Greg, myself and Bettina

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NavCon Conference ~ Podcasting and other observations

Drove over to the NavCon Conference venue to prepare for my first workshop. It was podcasting and vodcasting. Now, to podcast you need ftp access. There was none available at the venue and I had to set up a server on my laptop and ftp to that. It was a little frustrating but the workshop went reasonably well. I demonstrated three methods for creating a podcast on the Macintosh.

GarageBand~iWeb combination
Quicktime~Podcast Maker combination
PowerPoint~ProfCast combination

Each method has its merits however I prefer the second and third options. You can produce a podcast/vodcast rapidly with the last two combinations. There are a number of Macintosh diehards that believe that one should always use the GarageBand and iWeb combination to produce podcasts. In fact there is a hard core group of Mac diehards that believe only Apple applications should be used when working on a Macintosh. That is a little extreme. I find that they are out of touch with reality.

Regarding the preference for using GarageBand~iWeb I tend to disagree as not many teachers have the time to work with such tools. There are two many variables to digest and if they do not possess a .Mac account they need to master additional elements of ftp as well. I have been a Mac user since February 1984. I also teach in the classroom. I am aware of the demands placed upon classroom teachers. Technology is a tool that can be used to facilitate learning. It should not get in the way. Sure, give the students a quick demo of GarageBand and iWeb and let them run with the apps. If you are a teacher that likes to publish then ProfCast is to the tool for you.

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Terrigal ~ Navcon2K7

Shao Ping and I drove to Terrigal last Tuesday to attend the NavCon2K7 Conference. The conference is being conducted at St Edward’s College in Gosford. It is an amazing school with magnificent grounds and extraordinary facilities. It is right on the Brisbane waters. My friend Siva woud love this school. If one walks across the school oval you will reach the shoreline of Brisbane waters. The shore is rich with mangroves.





After registering Shao Ping and I went back to the motel and then went down to Terrigal Beach. We went for a walk, took a few photographs of the beach and then strolled along the foreshore shops. We bought some groceries and then looked for a place to eat. We decided to eat a restaurant called Terrigal Thai. It was at the end of an arcade. There were three Thai restaurants on the foreshore. Two of them were called Terrigal Thai, metres away from each other. The dinner was quite nice.




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Monday, October 8, 2007

Sponsored advertising destroys Swickis potential

I sent this email to Eurekster, creators of the Swicki, a moment ago.

"This afternoon I gave a Web 2.0 Presentation to a group of teachers and academics in Singapore. I have flown from Australia to give this presentation. During the presentation of Swickis one of the sponsored links at the top of two search pages was: 'Your Porn Surfing Activity Has Been Traced. Click To Remove'. That advert unnerved me. That advert sabotaged the entire presentation and was the worst possible advert for your product. How could teachers and academics use a product that posts embarrassing adverts like that? Shame. Shame. Tell me now what are you going to do about it? That advert appears on every result. Why?"

It was an appalling moment. The sponsored advertising is a bad move. The advertisements are located at the top of the results. That particular advert is most annoying and since it is a tech advert relating to hard drive "cleaning" software it appears on results generated by the tech related Swickis on my site. I shall remove the Swickis that I have established. That is the end of the Swicki for me I feel. All that potential lost due to advertising. I felt that the Swicki was a great idea with potential. Not now.

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Never mix powerpoint and live web demonstration

I gave a presentation on Web 2.0 this afternoon. The session was recorded and the software combines the video of the presentation with the powerpoint live. I do not particularly like to use powerpoints and I felt constrained. I needed to flick over to Firefox to demonstate blogs, wikis, flickr and the like. It was disjointed somewhat. I was not too happy at the end. The feedback was okay. I guess my enthusiasm managed to help mask some of the perceived anomalies at my end.

One thing was particularly bad. Swicki results now have sponsored links and they are not intuitive like Googles adverts and some of the sponsored links were appalling. I am going to investigate this further.

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Web 2.0 Show and Share at NTU

Thirty minutes away from conducting a Web 2.0 Show and Share at Nanyang Technological University. I have updated the resources and uploaded a presentation file as well.

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Arrived in Singaore

Arrived in Singapore last night. Straight to NTU and the NEC where I am putting up. Prepared some additional materials for Tuesday's Web 2.0 workshops. The flight was fine.

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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Web 2.0 Workshop web page updated

I am conducting Web 2.0 and social networking workshops at the Centre for Educational Development within Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, next week and I have been updating my Web 2.0 Workshop pages. I created new documents for Google Reader, Twitter and Jaiku.



I am so looking forward to these workshops! Catching up with former colleagues and friends in Singapore. Brilliant!

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Vodcast video on a Mac via Quicktime

This evening I did some additional work updating my Podcast Workshop page. I created a new document that illustrates how easy it is to create vodcast video using Quicktime. That document, in tandem with this one concerned with Podcast Maker is all you need to create a podcast or vodcast on the Macintosh. Quicktime is just as effective as creating simple audio recordings 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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