K12 Online 2008

Over the past 2 years the K12 Online conference has been variously described, but one of the most telling ways is when teachers say .... "Getting involved in K12 Online has been the best Professional Development I have had since I started teaching" You may ask how do I know this to be true? It's really quite simple, it's my own quote.

It is true for anyone who may be slightly unsure as to whether using new technology in their classroom and teaching listening/ viewing the inspirational presentations by teaching colleagues will surely give many the courage to take those first few tentative steps into global connectivity.

There is also the opportunity to take part, get involved in live synchronous discussions and fireside chats where you can ask what may seem the 'dumb question', which is actually more often than not the question which gets to the sharp point of the issue.

K12Online08- Call for Proposals-Amplifying Possibilies

We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for the third annual “K12 Online Conference” for educators around the world interested in the use of web 2.0 tools in classrooms and professional practice. This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-24 and October 27-31 of 2008, and will include a pre-conference keynote during the week of October 13. The conference theme for 2008 is “Amplifying Possibilities.” Participation in the conference (as in the past) is entirely free. Conference materials are published in English and available for worldwide distribution and use under a Creative Commons license. Some changes in the requirements for presentations are being made this year and are detailed below. The deadline for proposal submission is June 23, 2008. Selected presentations will be announced at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, Texas, USA on July 2.

OVERVIEW:

As in past years, K12 Online 2008 will feature four “conference strands,” two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday through Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two weeks. Including the pre-conference keynote, a total of 41 presentations will be published. Each twenty minute (or less) presentation will be shared online in a downloadable format and released simultaneously via the conference blog (www.k12onlineconference.org,) the conference Twitter account, and the conference audio and video podcast channels. All presentations will be archived online for posterity. A total of 82 past presentations are currently available from K12 Online 2006 and K12 Online 2007. If you are planning to submit a proposal, please review archived presentations from past years to determine what you might offer that is new and builds on previous work. A variety of live events will also be planned during and following the weeks of the conference.

FOUR STRANDS:

Week 1

Strand A: Getting Started

Everything you wanted to know about getting started with web 2.0 technologies for learning but were afraid to ask. The presentations in this strand will focus on specific, free tools for newcomers. Whether you have one classroom computer or a laptop for every student, digital technologies can provide new opportunities to connect with other learners, create new and exciting knowledge products, and engage students in an expanded learning process beyond the traditional “boundaries of the bell.” Teachers first introduced to Web 2.0 tools are often unaware of the new possibilities for teaching and learning afforded by the Read/Write Web. Presentations in this strand will amplify and model what is possible in terms of pedagogy, student creation of content, and collaboration. Practical classroom implementation ideas will be emphasized. Presentations will focus more on the ways new tools can be used to engage students in learning, rather than focusing exclusively on how specific tools are used. If you’ve ever felt like everyone else knows more than you about teaching with technology and you need help getting started, this is the strand for you.

Strand B: Kicking It Up a Notch

You’ve been using blogs, wikis and other technologies for awhile but perhaps haven’t seen them transform your classroom and the learning environment for your students in the ways you think they can. This strand amplifies ways new technologies can be used to transform classroom and personal learning. Rather than merely replicating traditional, analog-based learning tasks, how can digital technologies permit teacher-leaders to “infomate” learning to add greater interactivity, personal differentiation, and multi-modal exploration of curriculum topics? Fresh new approaches to using Web 2.0 tools for learning and authentic assessment will be highlighted. Presentations will explore innovative ways Web 2.0 tools can be blended together to help students create, collaborate, and share the knowledge safely on the global stage of the Internet. Maybe it’s time to share your insights and experiences with your teaching community. Join these sessions to gain insights on amplifying the possibilities of learning in your classroom and/or your professional practice.

Week 2

Strand A: Prove it

Although some teachers are excited to “amplify possibilities” using computer technologies, Web 2.0 tools, and 21st Century learning strategies in their classrooms, how do we know if these innovative instructional strategies are really working? Since information technologies and emerging brain research continue to rapidly evolve and change, it is challenging as well as vital to find current, meaningful research to undergird the learning initiatives we are using in our classrooms. What are “best practices” for teaching and learning with the new participatory media? This strand will share research results from the field that support students in using knowledge to communicate, collaborate, analyze, create, innovate, build community and solve problems. In addition, successful methods for developing and/or delivery of action research projects or research-based instruction in today’s digital world will be explored. In some cases, participants may be invited to participate in ongoing or beginning research on Web 2.0 tool use, constructivist pedagogy, or other 21st Century research issues. Educational research about emerging professional development strategies, contemporary learning theory, systemic school reform, and other current themes of educational change are also appropriate for inclusion in this strand.

Help us to examine such research questions as:

• What does research in learning science, instructional design, informal learning, and other fields tell us about today’s learner and their success?
• What design features must teachers incorporate into their instructional activities to support meaningful learning?
• What is the role of assessment in today’s changing classroom? How should assessment be structured to meaningfully assess student achievement in the context of the modern classroom?

Strand B: Leading the Change

Innovative approaches to teaching and learning using web 2.0 tools are often utilized by a limited number of “early adopter” teachers in our schools. This strand seeks to amplify ways educators in a variety of contexts are serving as constructive catalysts for broad-based pedagogic change using Web 2.0 technologies as well as student-centered, project-based approaches to learning. Presentations in this strand will both showcase successful strategies as well as amplify critical issues which must be addressed for innovative learning methods to be adopted by teachers, librarians, and administrators on a more widespread basis. These issues may include (but are not limited to) issues of copyright, fair use and intellectual property, Internet content filtering, student privacy and safety issues, administrator expectations for teacher utilization of Web 2.0 tools, pilot initiatives utilizing key Web 2.0 technologies in different content areas, and innovative ways students and teachers are providing just-in-time support as well as formal learning opportunities for each other focusing on Web 2.0 tools. Successful approaches for both large and small schools, in rural as well as urban settings, will be included. This strand will explore and amplify a menu of practical ideas for educators in diverse contexts who want to continue amplifying possibilities in our schools.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS:

This call encourages all educators, both experienced and novice with respect to Web 2.0 learning tools, to submit proposals to present at this conference via this link. Take this opportunity to share your successes, strategies, and tips in “amplifying the possibilities” of web 2.0 powered learning in one of the four conference strands.

The deadline for proposal submissions is June 23, 2008 at midnight GMT. You will be contacted no later than July 2, 2008 regarding your proposal’s status. The conveners reserve to right to reposition a presentation in another strand if they believe it is best placed elsewhere. As in past years, conveners will utilize blind review committees to evaluate all submissions.

Presentations for K12Online08 must conform to the following requirements:

1. Presentations must be a single media file of twenty minutes or less in length.
2. Presentations must be submitted in a downloadable and convertable file format (mp3, mov, WMV, FLV, m4a, or m4v.) Presenters wanting to use an alternative format should contact their respective strand convener in advance.
3. Presentations are due two weeks prior to the week the relevant strand begins. (Week 1 presentations are due Monday, October 6, Week 2 presentations are due Monday, October 13.)
4. Presentations must be submitted only one time and on time. Early submissions are welcomed! Repeat submissions (with changes and additional edits) will not be accepted. Presenters should proof carefully before submitting!
5. All presentations will be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

The following are optional but encouraged presentation elements:

1. Prior to September 13th, presenters are invited to submit a “teaser” (maximum video or audio file length: 3 minutes) about their presentation. This can be any type of online artifact and does not have to be downloadable. Examples may include videos, animations, posters, audio interviews, etc.
2. In addition to marketing the presentation, teasers can be designed to encourage and solicit community input related to the presentation topic in advance of the presentation submission deadline.
3. View teaser examples from 2007 at http://k12online07.wikispaces.com/Teasers
4. Supplementary materials supporting presentations are welcomed. These can be wikis with supporting material links, linked examples of student projects, school district exemplary initiatives, social bookmarking collections, and/or other related content.
5. Follow-up projects and/or live interaction opportunities for conference presentations which further amplify the possiblities of the presentation topic may be included. (This can include sharing and building of content prior to, during and after the conference.)

As you draft your proposal, you may wish to consider the presentation topics listed below which were suggested in the comments on the K-12 Online Conference Blog:

• Special needs education
• Creative Commons, Intellectual Property, Copyright and Fair Use
• Student voices
• Community involvement
• Games in education
• Specific ideas, tips, mini lessons centered on pedagogical use of web 2.0 tools
• Overcoming institutional inertia and resistance
• Aligning Web 2.0 and other projects to national standards
• Getting your message across
• How web 2.0 can assist those with disabilities
• ePortfolios
• Classroom 2.0 activities at the elementary level
• Teacher/peer collaboration
• Authentic assessment
• Overcoming content filtering issues
• Navigating “open web” versus “closed web” publishing of student work

Prospective presenters are reminded that the audience of the K12 Online Conference is global in nature and diverse in their educational context. For this reason presentations and presentation materials which address issues from a variety of perspectives are welcomed.

EVALUATION

Acceptance decisions will be made based on RELEVANCE, SIGNIFICANCE, ORIGINALITY, QUALITY, and CLARITY. Borrowing from the COSL 2008 call for proposals:

A submission is RELEVANT when

• it directly addresses the conference and strand themes

A submission is SIGNIFICANT when

• it raises and discusses issues important to improving the effectiveness and/or sustainability of 21st Century teaching and learning efforts, and
• its contents can be broadly (globally) disseminated and understood

A submission is ORIGINAL when

• it addresses a new problem or one that hasn’t been studied in depth,
• it has a novel combination of existing research results which promise new insights, and / or
• it provides a perspective on problems different from those explored before

A submission is of HIGH QUALITY when

• existing literature is drawn upon, and / or
• claims are supported by sufficient data, and / or
• an appropriate methodology is selected and properly implemented, and / or
• limitations are described honestly

A submission is CLEARLY WRITTEN when

• it is organized effectively, and / or
• the English is clear and unambiguous, and / or
• it follows standard conventions of punctuation, mechanics, and citation, and / or
• the readability is good

KEYNOTES:

The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who is distinguished and knowledgeable in the context of their strand. Keynoters will be announced shortly.

CONVENERS:

• Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice. Darren’s professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com). He will convene Getting Started.
• Dean Shareski is a Digital Learning Consultant for Prairie South School Division in Saskatchewan, Canada. Dean is an advocate for the use of social media in the classroom. To that end he works with teachers and students in exploring ways to make learning relevant, authentic and engaging. He also is a part time sessional lecturer for the University of Regina. He is celebrating his 20th year as an educator. Dean blogs at (http://ideasandthoughts.org). Dean will convene Kicking It Up A Notch.
• Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach, a 20-year educator, has been a classroom teacher, charter school principal, district administrator, and digital learning consultant. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty member teaching preservice teachers at The College of William and Mary (Virginia, USA), where she is in the dissertation phase of completing her doctorate in educational planning, policy and leadership. As the cofounder of the Powerful Learning Practice Network she helps schools and teachers from around the world use community as a powerful tool for systemic change. You can find out more on her website at www.21stcenturycollaborative.com. She will convene Prove It.
• Wesley Fryer is an educator, author, digital storyteller and change agent. He summarizes his ongoing work with educators and students in social media environments with the statement, “I’m here for the learning revolution.” His blog, “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” was selected as the 2006 “Best Learning Theory Blog” by eSchoolnews and Discovery Education. Social media sites to which Wes contributes are listed on http://claimid.com/wfryer. Wes will convene Leading the Change.

QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions about any part of this call for proposals, please contact one of us:

• Darren Kuropatwa: dkuropatwa {at} gmail {dot} com
• Dean Shareski: shareski{at} gmail{dot} com
• Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach: snbeach {at} cox {dot} net
• Wesley Fryer: wesfryer {at} pobox {dot} com

Invasion of the Weblin's!!!!

Down at the bottom of the Firefox browser window you can see a collection of weblin avatars, in fact my avatar is strangley still there with a 'friend' called master as I type this message. They appear to be a little like the screen 'Petz' that kids were encouraged to download onto their PC's about 10 years ago ( they had to feed tham and look after them a little like the Tamagotchi's of around the same vintage).
These avatars can communicate via speech bubble and actions, and there are a number of different rooms that you can visit.... if you feel brave enough. It is a bit like having the avatars from Second Life walk out of the programme onto the bottom of your browser and have a converstaion. The site appears to have originated in Germany but is now translated into 8 languages from its main home page.
It appears to be the kind of application which could become a very weird place late in the evening!!! It is like Second Life in that when you first arrive you have to find someone to talk to, it appears that some web addresses are more populated than others - as I type there are just 2 of us still here whereas over at the weblin site there appears to be some kind of party going on - now this would make more popular sites an interesting place to meet..... I guess that once you have an idea on who your friends are, you could invite them to meet say at a particular website for a discussion on the latest posts in real time - which could be cool for those of us whose machines are too old to allow us into Second Life itself.

Not sure how distracting it will be to have this going on..... all I can say is download your avatar and have a go..... it might be something useful or just a passing fad, I am off to see where the party is going on see you later.... now where did my avatar get to - come on pj23harry we're off to a party, it's Saturday night :-)

EdTech Bookmarks - Saturday 10th May

• Assess Online Learning Assess Online Learning. learning online elearning
  

  tags: learning, online

  
  


• Infinite Thinking Machine GTA is open to ANY TEACHER.
  

  tags: gta, google, education, educator, ITM

  
  


• Rubrics for Assessment - Online Professional Development for K-12 Teachers - University of Wisconsin - Stout
  

  tags: learning, online

  
  


• http://johnjohnston.name/flickrCC Reader of JohnJonston created a simple cc flickr search engine that puts out a thumbnail image as well as a citation and linkback information
  

  tags: flickr, creativecommons

  
  


• The Connected Classroom: Copyright Confusion My take on the copyright / fairuse conversation at Temple Media Lab.
  



• elearnspace. everything elearning.
  

  tags: education, elearning

  
  


• Excellence in Online Teaching and Learning
  

  tags: learning, online

  
  


• Rubric for Online Instruction
  

  tags: learning, online

  
  


• Elearning A collection of helpful sites and nifty tools that help with e-learning.
  

  
  tags: edu2.0, education, elearning, internet

  
  


• 10 Big Myths about copyright explained Article by Brad Templeton about copyright...mentions of fair use. Would be interesting to include when working with students
  

  tags: copyright

  
  

Diigo V3 Social Bookmarking and more

My guess is that most people reading this blog have been using an online bookmarking system such as Del.icio.us for quite a while now. It is a great way to organise sites you visit and categorise them with tags. You can also find friends tags and share bookmarks.
I would like you to consider a newcomer ( well sort of - it has open to the general publicquite recently, but was around in 2007) - it's DiigoV3.
Diigo V3 gives an extra dimension to social bookmarking by enabling communities to grow around topics.

In other words the bookmarking is the same, but you have the added dimension of a social networking facility built into the Diigo environment.
Diigo themselves on their blog have got a bit worried about whether Diigo is will become too much like other social networks where it simply becomes a way to find your friends online and continue the conversation. Diigo seems to come at things from the completely opposite angle, in fact you find groups through what you are reading ( blogs etc) and bookmarking, the chance is then to discuss the issues that are relevant to you.

The other major advantage among many is that it is not the type of instant hit that some social networking addicts are craving, as a result it appears to be developing some interesting communities around educational themes.
It also means that you can have your social bookmarking and your networking group in one place on the web cutting down the searching around.... definitely worth considering, as usual the sign up takes seconds.
Another site which is useful and slanted more towards business networking however it also has a large edtech community would be LinkedIn. Within the LinkedIn site you start off by building your profile, which involves describing the things that interest you or work related areas. Once you have done this your profile becomes a little like your calling card, you can also find current friends/colleagues in the LinkedIn education community and join in the discussions.Others to consider ( for balance ) would be something like Pownce Where you can form communities, chat and share files.
There is also Jaiku, which has just joined the Google stable, I guess we will be hearing more about Jaiku soon! However the group here get away a little from the notion that I began with, that of using bookmarking as a means of forming communities online.

One very important thing to do and one that in my haste I often forget, is to tag your 'stuff' in some way. There was a parallel discussion going on within online communities about developing rubrics for tagging, I don't know if the issue was ever resolved, perhaps if someone who was involved would like to let me know I can add the results of the discussions to this post.

Social Networking -The truth??

This link came courtesy of Desertjul ( Twitter ) and is to be found at the Current.com site which is where you should look if the video fails to play.I watched it with my web aware 17 year old daughter and 2 generations got it!!!! How cool is that??
Great video from Super Josh - Creator / Director of SuperNews. Enjoy- I think you'll like it :-)



** you will need to re code the video using a YouTube model in order to play it in Blogger **

The entry was posted on an Asus 701 4G

Happy 15th Birthday to the World Wide Web

On 3oth April 1993 CERN signed off on the World Wide Web - and the www . A group of scientists including Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau(Mr Cailliau helped draw up one of the early technical proposals for the web and later helped convince the directors at CERN to "give the web away".) gave the internet to the world - for free.
The 'for free' part was important as they saw the web as mainly for academics at that early stage, and if it had been commercialised at that time many would have been put off.

Interviewed ahead of the anniversary ( by the BBC )Sir Tim is still optimistic about where the web will go in the future he even says that the world wide web is "still in its infancy" and he predicted that the web's ability to engender collaboration could one day see the web being used to help manage the planet.
Sir Tim believes the future of Semantic Web holds immense potential for how machines will collaborate in the coming days. In an interview with an Indian publication, he shared his views as:"It is evolving at the moment. The data Web is in small stages, but it is a reality, for instance there is a Web of data about all kinds of things, like there is a Web of data about proteins, it is in very early stages. When it comes to publicly accessible data, there is an explosion of data Web in the life sciences community. When you look about data for proteins and genes, and cell biology and biological pathways, lots of companies are very excited. We have a healthcare and life sciences interest group at the Consortium, which is coordinating lot of interest out there."( c Wikepedia)
Collaboration amongst educationalists in projects such as The Horizon Project and many others has just begun to make inroads into mainstream educational thinking who knows where we will be in another 15 years?
Things have moved a huge way forward - from my first dabbling in the www with a Compaq PC and Compuserve on dial up in 1994-5 when having an email adddress was fine, however nobody else I knew actually had one!!! so nobody to send messages to! Also waiting for over 30 mins for a single small bmp image to load from a website ( there weren't many around in 1995 either!). To now when with wireless on a small linux driven notebook I can be speaking to friends around the world in under a minute with full webcam and web searching at the same time..... who knows what 15 years from now will be like ( I for one will be coming up to retirement and joining officially the 'Sliver surfers!' watch out for the most connected group of OAP's the world has known - cyber grandad :-)

HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY to WWW.

Ddraig-Goch not 100 % Welsh!!!!

Quite possibly not very Welsh! My paternal family ( the Fallows) are all from Cheshire, around Hazel Grove, Manchester, where they worked for the Christie Hatting Company ( now a museum of the Hatters Trade) - we have a few of their tools in the family including some natty scissors which are curved - for cutting out felt. The Harrington side of the family were railway people, in fact a relative one Elvidge Harrington was killed in a rail accident around the turn of the 20th Century. So an English paternal family pretty well 100%, with my father brought up in Manchester and Oxford before coming to Wales when his father moved with the Post Office (telecom side) to Cardiff just before the 2nd World War.
My maternal side the Grindle's also have a fascinating history having moved from the Somerset coalfield around Radstock, to the Forest of Dean mines around the 1930's, before moving again to the South Wales coalfield, which was sucking in hundreds of miners at the time. But I always knew that my maternal grandfather was born in the USA. I can just about remember him - he died when I was around 5 years old ( a long time ago!), a typical flat capped( Welsh) miner of the time. We knew that he was originally from somewhere in Ohio but never really where, until now. My uncle has had for years a copy of the probate certificate with Grandfather's birth details on, and here they are :

John Grindle ( John being my middle name!)
Born - Washingtonville, Columbiana County Ohio
April 5th 1884
To - Thomas Grindle and Eliza Cooper

There you have it - I don't really know if it makes me - English (uggh!), or American? (50:50) The only way that I can truly tell is when the Rugby 5 nations and World Cup come around - then.... definitely Welsh...... I wonder if I could go for triple nationality by parentage?

I absolutely love finding out about where we have come from, and how families are affected to a greater or lesser degree by larger socio economic pressures in their lives......

Asus Eeepc 900 - A price too far?

Is the soon to be released Asus Eeepc 900 ( pictured above from Tech Radar review) a step too far - read this excellent review from Tech Radar, now these guys like me and many others ( including a host of teachers and ed techies at BETT08 in January) love the Asus Eeepc 701 ( the 4GB webcam gizmo) and as they say at a price point of around GBP£200 it is a no brainer - since I bought mine for my daughter - Mrs H has found it great for her web shopping while watching the TV astounded by its smallness yet 'bigness', if you know what I mean? Laura who it was bought for has found it great for her AS Level work in school - and managed to convince her schoolmates that it was a pc and not a kids toy! I try to sneakily use it whenever I can find it - which is not very often!
I and everyone have been thoroughly impressed by the machine... so what's new, well admittedly the new 900 has a much improved resolution 9 inch screen, a 20GB flash drive and 1GB of RAM ( with a slower speed than the 701 processor though!) and is slightly thicker than its predecessor - it will now be available in its original Linux format (good) or in Windows format ( greedy on memory - bad!) .... but the clincher for many including their target market - teenagers and schools is the PRICE! With a price point of £330 it has immediatley priced itself with the big boys - Dell Inspirons with larger hard drives, screens and the same, if not better RAM. You can pick up end of line and reconditioned machines for less...... if only they had stayed true to the original models promise and tried to keep the price at around £250 they would have a true winner which would make other manufacturers sit up and really take notice.
I want to buy another of the 701's as I have been without my Dell Inspiron for a month now as daughter 1 has taken it to University for the last 2 months of her degree ( after killing off my Toshiba Satellite in March!) - My big hope Asus is that with the advent of the 900 - your 701's will actually drop in price making them as the Tech Radar reviewers say - even more of a 'no brainer'

who's. amung .us - a blog stats widget for your side bar

Who's.amung.us is a great little stats widget which allows you to place a little button in your side bar which tells you how many people are on your blog at one time. The display is neat and not too showy. The stats you get are a bit limited but the thing that I like shown below is the world map which as you scroll over it tells you where your viewers are from - a great little widget - go get it from who's.amung.us

* yes I did deliberately choose Nelson, New Zealand *

Investigating web conferencing applications (updated 8th May)

This morning I got to test out live the dimdim web conferencing application which went live earlier this month, following a long period of beta testing. The reason for the test is that currently in our online professional development environment which is a Moodle Virtual Learning Environment. We currently use a 'wimba' tool called 'Virtual Live Classroom' for synchronous online teacher training. Wimba tools are built to fit into the Moodle environment, and Live Classroom enables the online mentor to their share their desktop environment and files with participants.

However the past year has seen the growth and development in this area, dimdim is an open source application ( runs from browser either standalone or from within a VLE) which allows :

• video conferencing
• desk top sharing
• File sharing - powerpoint and pdf
• an interactive whiteboard ( which can be locked)

The dimdim environment is very easy on the eye and non threatening to participants, it appears to work smoothly with file transfer note being too delayed. There is a limit of 20 people per room which is probably enough for most general uses. We were very impressed with the look of the interface, the only problem that we hit was that pdf files were re sized to the landscape rectangular main window which made the pdf's very difficult to read - especially as we use pupils assessment material which is often handwritten.

Other applications that are of merit are :

The Gong Project from Hong Kong University of science and Technology - they have an additional snazzy tool that I might try out called 'nanogong!'

Unfortunately in the literature the Gong Project does own up to the fact that there is a lag in audio due to all audio routing through their servers in Hong Kong however you can run it from your own servers ( at a price I guess)...

WiZIQ which allows quite a range of file and flash sharing, it allows more people in a room, it is a free application as well and is being developed, having changed technology from Adobe Flash to Adobe Flex recently.Another web conferencing application that I have used before, as part of the 'When Night Falls again' session of K12Online 07 is of course Elluminate.

Elluminate has great application sharing capabilities, including desktop sharing and breakout rooms- of course it is not free ( the V Room for 3 participants is however if you wan to give it a go) but again has Moodle integration as do the others above. It requires a download which some of the others do not - but is much more powerful with more features ( it depends how many of them you actually use!)
I have long been a fan and advocate of Flashmeeting a UK based web conferencing application as many people will know.


Flashmeeting is good as a standalone web conferencing application again requiring no download - it is limited to either a whiteboard session or web cam session but you cannot toggle between each as far as I am aware with ease - it is easy to use and uses a small amount of bandwidth as only 1 person can talk at a time. Unfortunately Flashmeeting doesn't stack up against the newer and more capable competition quite as well as expected - it scores on its simplicity which going back to the beginning dimdim seems to have matched to some extent.
It all comes down to looking at your priorities, how do you plan to run your online classroom, what tools are essential to the environment and for us and others how are they integrated into VLE's - you pay your money ( unless its a free open source of course!) and make your choice, one thing is for sure the applications here are only a step along the way and this year there are undoubtedly others out there waiting to give us greater scope in online learning.

Following a comment from Andrew at Mikogo, which you will find here I was pointed towards another open source application called Mikogo It looks cool though as yet I have not tried it out - will do over the weekend - Wow how many more will appear??
One more to make a late appearance following a comment left today (8th May) is Batipi which is a paid for hosted service.
" We help you to plan, and host online presentations and training. Whether you need to schedule a video conference with the management team, plan for your next upcoming webinar, or create memorable sales presentations, our event consultants are standing by 24/7. Experience the difference, experience Batipi."

The Podfather returns !!!

After too long away from the microphone The Podfather returns with a short roundup of some EdTech news...... it is really good to be back as an educational podcaster.


Click here to get your own player.

Jo McLeay and family visit Wales

Wow!! now this is a first, Jo McLeay, hubsand Bob and son Kieran ( with iRiver) who are currently touring the UK, have come to a slightly damp Wales today for some Welsh hospitality ( you will have to ask Jo about the man from the B&B !!! sorry Jo not quite what we meant by local hospitality!).
It was on Thursday of last week that Jo Twittered, that she and the family were in the UK, in London at the time and heading towards Stratford Upon Avon for Friday and Saturday. A suggestion was made about it being an idea to meet up for a meal or coffee as they were so close to us here in Abergavenny, and that is just what happened. We met up in Abergavenny at around 1.45pm and headed off for lunch. Jo received a gift of a rare mini Dylan ( a Welsh dragon - the other one is in Nelson New Zealand with Allanah King), and a Welsh flag..... It was also very interesting for the spouses of online junkies to meet, Bob and Debbie having quite a lot in common with their nocturnal spouses!!!
Of course there was wireless broadband at the lunch venue and also at the Hotel where Bob, Jo and Kieran are staying on Sunday evening, so it didn't take Jo long to break out the Asus Eeepc for a spot of Twittering ( unfortunately much of Oz was asleep as it was 1.20 in the morning!!) - above you can see Jo, Bob in the background and mini Dylan sitting on the table.Cuddly Kiwi also came along for the meal - he seemed to enjoy the drinks more though!!!! But he did get to meet Jo and her family :-)
I hope that again the extended family members did not find the Web 2.0 chat a bit obscure, after all Jo and I had much to catch up on from Web 2.0 to discussion about IB online learning and blogs

Tomorrow ( Monday) the McLeay's will be doing some sightseeing around South Wales before heading north to Edinburgh prior to heading back to Melbourne.
We wish them well, it is always great to meet people that you have only previously met virtually and meeting the McLeay's was certainly a pleasure - we thank them for their company today.
Thanks also to Sue Tapp, Judy O'Connell and Allanah King and many others for their best wishes on the day - as first as an Aussie blogger visited Abergavenny (yes there was a song in the late 60's by Marty Wilde about Abergavenny - is this our only claim to fame?)
Now the Harrington's simply must visit New Zealand and Australia to meet up with all of our antipodean friends :-)

Yes Mr Sutton (@HGJohn) I have used Ping. In fact this post from Ping.fm has been posted to Twitter, Blogger, Facebook and Pownce -lazy way!

Hey try out Ping.fm - a way to post to all of your sites from one place - a beta app (beta code - techcrunch )

Paul is trying out Ping.fm - a beta app which will publish directly to all of your web applications from the one place - cool app :-)

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Our Personal Learning Network Journeys....

Check out Jeff Utecht's article from 3rd April regarding how we develop/grow our personal learning networks. Jeff's blog post sprung from David Warlick's article ( My Personal Learning Network needs a ########! )....both of the guys are suffering as many of us are from information overload. How many times have you stayed up those extra few hours past midnight ( wherever you are) in order not to miss a conversation? I know for certain that I have, to listen to Ed Tech Talk chats which don't start until 2amGMT!!! and even to the extent of getting up at 5am to join in a Ustream discussion from Bangkok International School and the list goes on.....
There certainly comes a point which Jeff says in his article when something ( usually your family commitments!!) takes you away from your network for a period, this is a good thing as it allows you the time to reflect on the networks that you are involved in.... and is bad as in my case friends and colleagues thought I had dropped off the edge of the world!!!! It even got to the point were Allanah King in NZ left a message on my answering machine at home in Wales wondering where I was!
I can relate directly to Jeff's graph above ( from Flickr - Creative Commons licence) where I guess I have entered Stage 5 where I don't strive to be involved online all of the time, I make time for the family ( when you have grandchildren you have to - they don't understand unless they are at the centre of the universe - and who would deny them that?).
I think that you have to strike a balance otherwise a bit like I found around the start of the year 'bloggers block' can set in and then you might actually find that you switch off from your PLN for a period in order to re-adjust your body clock ( it helps to know which time zone you are in - let alone everyone else!)
I realise as well that a change of role also has an effect on your PLN, I feel a little on the outside looking in these days as I am not in the classroom anymore, it affects the way I interact in the online community as it is bound to do..... so in closing I apologise to those who missed my rather boring Welsh accent for a few months but I am in Stage 5 and am gradually getting back into the networks that I find most valuable and thought provoking.
Incidentally if you want to see how we have grown into the use of online applications which is also a driver of our PLN's check out the top 100 apps here ( thanks to John Sutton from Creative ICT)

The Asus EeePC Mini notebook

Having seen the Asus Eeepc in action at BETT08 in January, I have finally ( a bit late as James Forbes-Keir here at the IB had on a delivered a few days later!)taken the plunge and bought the Eeepc for my daughter to use at home and in school- it actually has now appeared on the shelves of our local IT store ( Curry's Digital) at a fairly reasonable price for the 4G version of £249.00.
Laura uses Google Docs/Spreadsheets to save work at school and at home and now has her own small laptop to keep updated on ( important in her AS year in school), in addition of course to the obligatory social networking that all teenagers are involved in ( at least this old foggey has some idea of what his kids are up to!!!).
See an excellent down to earth ( and British) review of the mini-notebook below.

First impressions are very encouraging - I have managed to borrow it on a few occasions and found it fast and efficient ( the Linux operating system fires up really quickly) and it manages easily to find our wirelss network even though it's 2 floors up from the router. The new addition has its first day in school today when Laura returns after the Easter break to continue her 6th Form studies...... more news to follow.

Thanks also for support in the cause of the Asus and its Linux Kernel from my colleague and well known tech genius James FK .

Related posts updated on 3rd May 2010:

• OLED transparent screens for new breed of laptops (link).
• New slate/pad computers (link).
• The swivel screen laptop battle (link).
• Asus 900 meets OLPC (link).

Another Hockey Season closes!

Abergavenny Chronicle Thursday 20th March 2008

I must admit to a certain amount of relief that this hockey season has finished. It has been a frustrating season with me as 2nd XI captain having to cancel too many matches due to a lack of players ( thanks largely to us having to provide players for our promotion chasing 1st XI). Ultimately it left my side floundering at the bottom of our division, however our 1st's did get their promotion, so for the club I guess a good result in the end.

The report above form the Abergavenny Chronicle is a fair reflection on the match, however I am still not sure whether to take paragraph 6 as a compliment or not???

Flu! and Radio 2

There must be a law which states that when you take a few days off you fall victim to a cold ( Mrs H calls it man flu!!!) When I was teaching this didn't really matter as everyone is on vacation anyway or would be as it is the Easter Break still here..... however when I now have to take annual leave to get the days off, and have to look after the 27 1/2 of them very carefully, it is reallllly reallly annoying to spend 3 out of the 4 this week, in bed taking paracetamol and keeping up my fluids!!!
There was me thinking that I would be immune from colds now I was out of the classroom, another myth broken!
BBC Radio 2 and the Steve Wright in the Afternoon has kept me amused over the past few days in bed with nothing much else to do. Do take a listen to the podcast of their hilarious interview with Donald Sutherland from this afternoon.... however all of this is not what I wanted to post. Listening to Miles Mendoza's website of the week feature today he mentioned a new site Adobe Photoshop ExpressThis site from Adobe will allow you to upload your photos and use a full range of photoshop tools to enhance you images, you can also store up to 2GB of images on the site - looks good especially for those of us loathed to pay for Photoshop!

Questionaut from BBC Bitesize

Thanks to John Suttion at Creative ICT for this new addition to the BBC Bitesize revision material, which looks to me suspiciously like an excellent link up between the BBC and those people from Samorost!, as the BBC describe it :
"Journey through strange worlds and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend’s hat."

Tiny Ted is going to Arizona, USA

An old friend resurfaced recently( thanks to Moturoa School), Tiny Ted who began life at Cefn Fforest Primary School on a damp October back in 2006( thanks to Miss Watson - a great geocacher) and has travelled the world visiting classrooms and pupils on his way ( from New Zealand to the USA).... he now appears to be graduating and is going to Arizona State University to work with Dr Alice Christie, no doubt giving her his insights on how a geocaching toy can be used bring pupils from different continents together to discuss their lives and experiences. I know that everyone involved with Tiny Ted wishes that they could have travelled along with him...... We look forward to the continuing story of Tiny Ted's Big Adventure and will conitinue to keep you posted.

Below is the post from Moturoa :

Tiny Ted is going to Arizona, USA

We haven't heard from Tiny Ted in a while but he is now off on a new adventure to Arizona, USA He is going to have a visit with the Post Master in Trussville before beginning the journey to Dr. Alice Christie at Arizona State University. She teaches geocaching to teachers around the US and has volunteered to help Tiny Ted find a good home in Arizona.

Thank you for letting Tiny Ted visit Alabama. We will miss him greatly!

Mrs C, Birmingham, Alabama, USA

CoverItLive.com

Thanks to John Sutton of creative ict for the invitation to try out the CoverItLive live blogging trial on Thursday evening.

Environmentally friendly learning

Learning online can save the planet? Is there any evidence to prove that in addition to being a new and interesting way to learn, that by taking part in learning online we can save energy, acording to WorldWideLearn.com, a directory of online learning, there is a significant saving
made by online learning.
"Their assertion is backed up by a study by the UK’s Open University Design Innovation Group (PDF) which found that distance learning courses produced 85% fewer CO2 emissions and consumed almost 90% less energy than taking a conventional campus course. The majority of the energy and carbon savings comes from the absence of output on things like travel, heating, facilities and the like for online education. Interestingly, they also found that part time campus study, as opposed to being a full time on-campus student, cut carbon emissions by nearly two thirds." Celsias February 4, 2008 · Filed under Education by Leslie Berliant

When we look at this from the perspective of training teachers in an online environment, where the teachers are based in their schools around the world ( perhaps 13 countries represented by 20 participants in on online workshop) - the economy of scale for the presenting organisation plus the global energy savings are a huge driver of this form of education in the fututre.

"Online learning, which grew by 10% in the US last year and now accounts for 3.5 million students, has also had the added benefit of bringing education opportunities to populations that ordinarily can’t afford it, financially or in terms of the time commitment."Celsias February 4, 2008 · Filed under Education by Leslie Berliant

Twitter by CommonCraft

Many thanks to Miguel Guhlin for showing the way to this latest offering from Lee LeFever and the CommonCraft gang to explain Twitter to the masses!
Check it out online or at Youtube

Bottom Up does it work ?

Part of the frustration that I believe has persuaded myself and others to either leave the education sphere or radically change their roles within it is linked to the nature of the bottom up/ top down issue of the use of web 2.0 technology in schools in England and Wales..... I exclude Scotland as I believe that in Scotland the movers and shakers 'get it'.
Pretty well all of the developments in using web 2.0 tools to assist in global collaborative projects have come from teachers not administrators. There has been some stirling work done by a growing group of teachers right across the country( Sharon Toner's voices of the world, Linda Hartley's Flickr Group on Classroom displays, and many school podcasts across the country) and indeed some teachers are being recognised by the developers of the applications that they have been using and asked to contribute to the knowledge base of these organisations. The spin off of this is that these teachers have shown new ways that the technology can be made relevant to the classroom, however this is still isolated teachers acting on their own initiative to develop an approach to teaching and learning.
Until we have the ear of those who shape the curriculum we are whispering in the dark( a clean version!), and even risk believing that the group who appear to be inside the goldfish bowl are representative of the majority of teachers, when we know that this is certainly not the case.
So, how do we break out of this and reach a tipping point for the use of the technology in England and Wales? An interesting question the answer to some of which we have in our own hands, leading practitioners such as Joe Dale who has developed his reputation firmly in the area of Second Language teaching, Tom Barrett in the use of web 2.0 tools in the Primary Sector and Doug Belshaw in the use of technology in the Secondary sector would be ideal as advocates of the technology to the QCA et al - but how do you achieve this without taking those teachers away from their first love, which is of course teaching children?
It is difficult, and actually what seems to be happening is that some of the early adopters of the technology in the classroom become frustrated with the painfully slow process of change and actively seek an alternative, be it becoming an independent supplier of web 2.0 solutions to schools or switching professions..... we in the rest of the UK need to adopt a system akin to the Scottish model where the use of collaborative applications is actively encouraged from above. If you want to read more about community building from top down or bottom up take a look at a recent post on the topic from Ewan McIntosh.
My firm hope is that all of the effort that has been put into projects using an array of excellent 'free' tools will some day become the norm rather than the interesting oddity that it appears to be at the moment.
I am speaking now from a position where this style of communication and use of tools is seen as vital to the development of teachers and pupils in our schools, where the international/collaborative ethic is a key component of all of the programmes, which is why I opted into this as a system which is working top down, rather than opting out of the state system!
I would like to hear if this view is only my contorted wrangling or if it is felt in similar ways in education systems in other parts of the world..... or as Terry Wogan would say....'Is it me?'

The Blogging world does care!!!

Yes it is me, after a long time offline I have suddenly realised that it is the community of fellow bloggers that I have missed over the past 2 months...... to put things into context, I have now moved into what may loosely be called a 'proper job'.
I have joined a small keen group of web 2.0 savvy colleagues in the PDRD ( Professional Development and Research Division) at the International Baccalaureate. I find myself amongst people who understand aggregators and the use of web 2.0 techniques such as blogs and podcasts.... it is like suddenly visiting a new planet where they understand the language you speak perfectly and indeed even talk back to you and ask advice. In this environment, my new role has been to develop and promote online workshops for IB teachers and this is what I have been doing - all day every day ( an interesting change from teaching where in a day I might never actually achieve what I had planned to do - now I DO!!!!).
There is another strange spin off from the change ...... weekends actually exist as do evenings when one does not have to take out huge files and fill them full of writing that no one will ever read.
Obviously there are the things that one misses such as the inspiration that pupils can be, also I am not involved in global projects with other classes which is a big miss. I do not miss the fact that as a teacher one feels pretty beleaguered on occasions, knocked as I was by changing policies and the seemingly low esteem that we were held in by some parents.......those I do not miss at all

However I am in my element all day being online viewing material that teachers are producing and getting involved in planning new online opportunities for IB teachers. However one spin off of the new job is that spending all day online means that the burning need to be online at home in the evenings has receded, over the past month I would be more likely to turn a computer off at home rather than turn it on....... my email in box actually got to 600 unread emails, which tells its own story!!!!
However as this blog title states the blog community does care, When I got home from work on Thursday evening this week our answering machine was blinking its red eye, and on pushing the play button, I heard Allanah King from New Zealand checking up on how I was!!!! I have found out since that that wasn't the first time Allanah had tried to ring me, following concern from Lisa Durff. Now for someone to ring from New Zealand on a pay call is something and has shaken me from my blogging wilderness..... I actually posted on my Skype page a question ....Can one suffer from Bloggers Block? I now believe that you can, it happens if you change your outlook and lose regularl contact with your circle of friends...... I hadn't realised how much it had happened to me!

I feel bad as I have had a hazy view on what friends have been up to such, as the ULearn conference in New Zealand and other projects...... so if you will forgive me for forgetting my friends or seeming to Ddraig Goch would like to announce that he is back, and you never know The Podfather may well be roused into podcasting again.... perhaps with more thought to production values! Or perhaps not!

Ddraig Goch Returns

Facebook woes

The social networking site Facebook has had a difficult couple of weeks in 2008. Firstly there was the fact that of course Facebook is a business and as such attracts businesses and others trying to 'make a buck' from the millions of individuals on Facebook.... some of us in the education field tend to disregard this fact, but again it is a business and is there to generate money. To be fair the originators of Facebook have never denied this fact.... it just requires more vigilance on the users of the site, particularly in the information that you put on your profile page.... remember this is viewable to some extent by any other Facebook user, and as the discussion later in this post, is very difficult to hide or delete from the site.
The second piece of news which I found disappointing was the news on Wednesday that Scrabulous, a great little application in Facebook has had to be removed, another business decision as reported on the BBC Technology News page.

"Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble.

The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users.

Lawyers for toy makers Hasbro and Mattel say Scrabulous infringes their copyright on the board-based word game.
The move has sparked protests by regular fans of Scrabulous keen to keep the add-on running."

I first found my way to scrabulous when invited to play by Dean Shareski over the Christmas break, it was great fun to play a game between me here in Wales and Dean in Moose Jaw, Canada. It was great fun to play the parlour game while around 5,000 miles apart. The battle is between Hasbro and Mattel and is of course driven by money as much as rights. I tend to agree with Karl Savage who was interviewed by Radio 5 Live in the UK
"A lot of people are saying shame on Hasbro, shame on Mattel, if you wouldn't be so short-sighted about this then you have an opportunity to actually make some money from this rather than alienate your existing customers. I'd say find some common ground. Look at licensing," added Mr Savage. "Perhaps sit down together and say look, these guys have created this fantastic piece of software that lots of people use why not employ them or have a similar product on there that is licensed but use that to advertise your other products?"
Apparently again as rumours abound at a time like this, there are suggestions that the 2 companies are in talks to bring out their own Scrabulous style game..... business, money again!
The most recent Facebook related questions appeared on Friday when I was listening to the radio and heard of the problems some users have had when they wanted to remove their details from Facebook.
Again form the BBC Technology feed,

" Facebook is to be quizzed about its data protection policies by the Information Commissioner's Office.

The investigation follows a complaint by a user of the social network who was unable to fully delete their profile even after terminating their account."

"At present, Facebook users who wish to remove their profile from the site are given the opportunity to deactivate their account. But once deactivated the information, though no longer accessible, remains on Facebook's computers.This is useful if you might reactivate your account later, but not the same as full deletion."

All of these issues just reinforce in my mind the vigilance that we all need to exercise when using any of these web based applications..... I hope that those in charge don't use these issues as scaremongering to put in additional blocking of sites. Just again as with other posts of mine lately, it seems to be a bit of a theme, to use the opportunity to make a learning/teaching opportunity for online citizenship..... I hope so.

Networks enable Discussion

It was sometime yesterday while following my Twitter network ( for those who have been living under a stone for the past few months ) - (Twitter a 140 word instant messaging system that enables people to create their own personal learning group).

I was following the chat between friends in the US and Australia when I picked up on a discussion about the Future Learning in a Networked World travelling Conference ( which runs from 16th to 28th January), in particular that an online friend Kim Cofino and her colleagues at the International School Bangkok were hosting a live Ustream'ed discussion from the school this morning ( 5am UK!).
This is interesting for me, because not only have I been following Kim and her colleagues work for quite a long time, but for me now they are a highly motivated Online connected IB school.
The discussion today was largely lead around reading acquisition...
In the room at ISB were staff from ISB including foreground right Justin Medved and left Kim herself. To Justin's side is Michael Coghlan and John Eyles, to Kim's side is Webhead Vance Stevens, further down the table are staff from Bangkok.
In the discussion area were up to 20 educators again from around the globe. The discussion was very much a dialogue -
Vance talked us through his presentation

| View | Upload your own

While the discussion ranged around how children acquire reading skills in the modern world, whether technology is always the panacea, or that technology has to be part of a balanced approach to educating our pupils.
Again the discussion came up to a well known hurdle - how many teachers are actually switched on to using these new technologies ...... even such obvious ones to those 'in the loop' such as Delicious and Twitter.
I will leave you to listen to the discussion here - also if you want to see what things looked like from the other end of the conversation look out for Flickr photographs tagged flnw08 - this will grow I am sure as things progress..... thanks to all in the real and virtual room for a lively and interesting discussion .... special thanks to nzchrissy for acting as a link between real and virtual rooms :-) and of course to Kim, Justin and the staff from ISB.
It also shows The power of personal networking in the 21st Century.

Was this the 'Star of the Show' ?

The ASUS Eee PC 701 ( or the mini mac )

This cool little machine the Asus EeePC 701, it certainly made all of those who saw it sit up and take notice - my fellow IB staff and I certainly gave it a thorough check out and found it quick enough to pick up a wireless network and also it handled a web page pretty well, just cutting extreme edges.The Asus runs the Linux operating system with 4 GB solid state memory( with SD card slot for some expansion) and a good suite of pre-installed software :-
Google Docs ( allowing for online storage of text and spreadsheets)
OpenOffice Suite
Skype
Mozilla Firefox Browser
and all in a package which charges with a mobile phone style charger ( giving about 3 1/2 hour battery life), and a very small desktop footprint :

Dimensions / Weight

Dimensions (W x H x D)	225x35x165mm
Weight	0.92 kg
Available colours	White

It would certainly for the price from RM of £169 +VAT make a great deal of sense for classroom use and help towards One Laptop per Child.
in the UK Education sphere the Asus is being distributed by RM ... read the full CNET.co.uk report here.

** Keep your eyes open for reductions in prices as a new ASUS Eeepc is due out in June 2008**

First Impressions of BETT 2008

( Mr McIntosh the photographer caught at BETT 08)
The previous post may seem a bit odd!!! however it was a challenge laid down by that lovely Mr McIntosh at the TeachMeet that he would give 7 £1 drink vouchers to the first person to blog about what BETT would look like in 2035....... Draig Goch can never miss the challenge of something for free ( Welsh !!!!).
BETT was its usual self and I will probably post over the next few days on the 'wow' objects of 2008. But for now I want to praise the organisers for giving Prof Stephen Heppell a 'Learners of the Future' ( Stephen Heppell, Alex Savage (back to camera) and Ewan McIntosh in the background)
space in the middle of the main floor. Here among the 'SALESMEN' :-( from all of the heavyweight educational suppliers, was a haven of good practice.
There were children actually showing visitors how they used an interactive whiteboard. Prof Heppell had also arranged for a group of Advanced Skills Teachers to show how they actually approach the curriculum using new technology.... of course as we already know, ( but need to let our colleagues now!) most of these are FREE and OPEN SOURCE.
The talk that I caught with a good audience was Alex Savage from Notre Dame High School in Norfolk.Alex and his pupils have used a range of applications from wiki's to blogs and podcasts to develop the set curriculum in ways which are meaningful to pupils and again mostly not with proprietary stuff but with freely available applications ( it was quite good that Alex was talking alongside Softease and the PODIUM podcasting product ..... actually mentioning Audacity ... well done Alex).
Looking at Ewan's later question on what BETT will look like in the future, I realise that big money companies pay towards the show, but wouldn't it be better to have a slightly smaller show where pupils and teachers actually show how relevant products, not those bored staff from big providers.

All of the best stuff that I saw on Friday was being delivered by teachers!(no bias honest!!!)
Flashmeeting of Teachmeet08 (watch from 1hour on....)
This was exemplified by those who waited until the witching hour of 6pm for the great Teachmeet 08, (as Mr McIntosh said, the first time TeacMeet has left Scotland), it was a room full of the great and the good of the Edublogosphere and web 2.0 world in the UK..... a list would be bound to leave people out, but here goes :
Doug Belshaw ( formerly Teaching Mr Belshaw now Doug Belshaw) EdTechRoundup
Dave Stacey ( Olchfa Secondary School, Swansea)
Anthony Evans ( Skinny Boy Evans and Redbridge ICT)
Terry Freedman ( Coming of Age and ICT in Education)
Linda Hartley (Acting to Improve: Informal Learning)
Karyn Romeis (Karyn's Erratic Journey)
Lisa Steven ( Lisibo and ¡Vámonos!)
Jo Rhys Jones ( Primary MFL Ning Community)
Jeff Howson ( E2BN - Flashmeeting and Making the News - IT Consultant)
Drew Buddie ( Moodle King)
John Warwick ( E2BN - Flashmeeting, Deputy Head of St Luke's School)
Lee Davis ( IBO OLPS Blog)
Joe Dale ( MFL in my Classroom)
Mr Doug Dickenson (Dougmuses)
Alex Savage ( Notre Dame High School)
Leon Cych ( Learn4Life)
Mark Pentleton ( Coffee Break Spanish et al )... on the flashmeeting catch Drew Buddie's excellent presentation ( at 3 hours 1 minute and 6 seconds)..... Monster Presentation Drew :-) .
Apologies if anyone has been missed from the list.... it had been a long day, it was a shame really that the best bit was at the end ...... a great big thank you to the wee man Mr Ewan McIntosh for getting the whole thing going ...... thanks from Mr H.... more on BETT later :-)

Teachmeet 2035!!!

Virtually no one in the room ...... but everyone in the virtual room ........ what will the suppliers do??? no bags..... no sweets...... no goodies!!!! Just the people who actually want to be there :-)

It will save many teachers and presenters from becoming exhausted by spending 4 days of their lives trudging around a large hall full of other exhausted people !!!!

Google Presentations are now Embeddable

Thanks to Twitterpal - Alex Couros ( courosa) for this tip off from WebWare ( Cool Web 2.0 Apps for Everyone).
"The Google Docs team, has posted on their blog about the availability of a few new features for Google Presentations to start off the new year. The most significant of the new features is the ability to embed slide shows in web pages. It's not a surprise that Google decided to go this route, given the huge success of embeddable video with YouTube and other embeddable content around the web." Harrison Hoffman

Here is the collaborative Google Presentation that was amended by a whole host of teachers last year.



To find this go to the Publish option in Google Presentations and you will now see the embedding code which can be copied across into your blog. As you can see below:

I have to agree with Harrison in his article, that to truly move the game on Google need to work on adding to Google Presentations a wider range of add ons which will give a more professional aspect to people's work - however if 12 months ago someone had said, that we would be able to save presentations on the web which could be amended/ added to by colleagues anywhere around the world, I for one would have been sceptical ..... these days we sometimes expect too much :-)

Once again thanks to Alex for the heads up on this one....

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Heard on the radio.......

I should be concentrating on my reading ( blogs and bloglines.....), but I just heard these and they tickled my odd sense of humour -
BBC Radio 2 - question from Mark in Carlisle :-
Why is the word abbreviation so long?
Why is there only one word for a Thesuarus ?
I know, it takes all sorts, but I was just in the right mood for it too really make me giggle !!!
It is a little like the Uxbridge English Dictionary Terms, from BBC Radio 4's - I'm Sorry I haven't a clue!
( Warning UK humour)
lavish -(def) a little like a toilet.
gravy - (def) cemetery like.
pantry - a place to hang your underwear.
ladish - a chinese vegetable.

Time now to go and lie down - I can't read now! :-)

Passionately Curious!

I have tried edublogs out a few times before, and have never found it as user friendly as Blogger, but with a new year and new role/responsibilities I thought that the time was right to try again - if it takes off 'Passionately Curious' ( part of an Einstein quote) may well take over from Ddraig-Goch, time and Edublogs permitting, we will see - I tried it out with the live issue of the banning or not of new tech gadgets in schools ..... let me know what you think !
"Thanks to Allanah King who has commented on Twitter before the virtual ink is dry on the post!" I still don't know how that lady manages to be the first to read and comment on blogs - I don't think she sleeps :-).