Is it me or can Radio 2 be really LOUD in the morning?

I followed my own thread last night and actually chose Radio 2 as my wake up channel this morning and... it worked..... almost. I woke up to the sound, turned the sound back down and spent 20 minutes thinking about getting up.... dohh!

Wednesday 29th July 2009

I attempted to get to work quickly following the awful forecast of a deluge at around 9 am this morning - I missed it it did arrive and to some extent is still with us.

I have been looking forward to today for a while now as Mrs H, myself and friends are off to The Hardwick near Abergavenny this evening for a sort of birthday/wedding anniversary meal ...Mmmmm looks good - check out the menu it looks very good!

Work tech news - there has been a thorough tidy up of our media lab today - see the obligatory video of the result ( from an iphone of course)-

I think that you would agree that the lab is looking pretty cool ( apologies for the slightly fast panning!) and talking of Cool -
Related to my blog from yesterday that little tyke Charlieissocoollike from Youtube is at Comic Con in San Diego ( lucky young pup) and in his you tube vodcast he mentions amongst other things the Tron Legacy ( you see you too can appear trendy!)

Other tech news ..... I thought that this had happened ages ago - the BBC announcement of the merger - Sorry an agreement- between the successful Microsoft and the less than shiny Yahoo which will allow Yahoo's search engine to use Microsoft Bing, with both sides talking up the deal you just know that something is going on behind the scenes - having read Planet Google by Randall Stross I would always be suspicious!

It also sounds as if the long running saga between the BBC and Spinvox over the supposed use of humans in Spinvox's voicemail to text service is still rumbling on - of course it helps that the BBC has one of the most read sites in the world at its disposal to fight this story!!! - be fair BBC!

p.s. To Charlie, Any friend of Mr. S. Fry is a friend of mine :-)

Note to self !

Choose a music channel for the clock radio for the 6.05 am wake up call. Radio 4 and The Today Programme does not work........the comfy RP Radiio 4 voices and their measured tones just send me back to sleep again.....apologies to Evan Davis, Ed Sturton et al but it doesn't get me jumping out of bed in the morning. Another reason for being sure of its lack of fitness for purpose........ no requests from Mrs H who rises at 7.30 to TURN IT DOWN! Once again Goodnight dear reader, sleep well whichever time zone you presently occupy.

Another day... another.... oooh a new website

Tuesday 28th July

Following the link to Courselab yesterday today we looked at LAMS International's ( Learning And Management Systems) tool for coding our online workshops in order to give them an interesting and easily navigable UI. This exercise will continue with a comparison test over the coming days... if anyone out there knows of anything else ( preferably opensource and free!) do let me know.

The rest of the day went into putting live our new look PD website, web designer Will and edtech expert James having been working on this over the past 3 months ( theming takes so long!) while I worked on finalising our online workshop calendar ( more or less ) for 2010. Here dear reader is a first look at the final product of our labour - it is built within our Moodle installation and should be fully functional including a language switch facility which should allow the linguists amongst you to have the site work in Spanish and French.

http://tripleaworkshops.ibo.org/index.php?lang=en_utf8

http://tripleaworkshops.ibo.org/index.php?lang=fr_utf8

Admittedly there is an issue with the translation of the header panel within our Moodle theme .... ideas to assist with this to ......!

http://tripleaworkshops.ibo.org/index.php?lang=es_utf8

It felt good to finally be showing the IB world and beyond our revised site for the first time, this of course is not the end of the story.... we plan a further development which should give us quite a few additional capabilities....and the ability to act as a PD portal before the end of 2009 ( and certainly way ahead of Moodle 2.0!).

Tomorrow all of our school based coordinators will receive an email giving them page and 2010 calendar details.

We are not always working on these groundbreaking events, today for example the 80's ( yes it was 1982! for those not quite old enough there is a link here to a trailer for the 1982 original) hit ( hit perhaps too strong a word!!) film TRON and the possibility of it re emerging as TRON2 ( in 3D) The Tron Legacy in 2010 complete with Mr Jeff Bridges reprising Kevin Flynn as only he could.

Another piece of news which caught my eye this morning while enjoying my cereal prior to the 30 mile run to Cardiff Gate, was news that -

' The BBC has struck a landmark deal with four national newspaper groups to share video news on their websites for the first time.

The deal with Daily Mail & General Trust, Guardian News & Media – which publishes MediaGuardian.co.uk – Telegraph Media Group and Independent News & Media has been described as the latest step in the BBC's partnership plans, in which it will share content, expertise and technology in the name of public service.'

As reported in the guardian online today Tuesday 28th July. This could give a lifeline to those poor struggling online newspaper outlets..... or is it just the dear old Beeb considering its public service remit.... only time will tell.

As they say that ends the news.... good night

Time for a change of emphasis?

I guess that throughout the lifespan of a blog, its direction alters, at first subtly meaning that over time the end point is far away from where it began. This blog began way back in 2006 as an outlet for my thoughts, at that time as a classroom practitioner.
However over the past few months as my memory of being that, 'a classroom practitioner' using new web tools when they appeared and trying them out on my pupils has been fading fast. I now find myself in the cut and thrust of a educational business but not 'at the whiteboard face' somewhat removed, and as such I have lost the raison d'etre that I began with, and believe that it is time for a change of purpose to this blog.
That is not to say that I will not return to the classroom, as I find myself increasingly missing the collaborations that I was previously making with classes and teachers all over the world. It is a distinct possibility - all I need is to find schools or LEA's which recognise a 21st century technologist as a teaching position ( if there is anyone out there listening..... there may be a recruit waiting ), until then things go on following the new path.
'You can take the boy out of school.... but not school out of the boy!!!'

The new direction will be to make this blog much more of a daily journal of thoughts/projects and tech ideas that occur naturally throughout the day.

Monday 27th July 2009
Today was a good case in point, Monday morning following a long weekend I was in work at 7.50am and spent the morning registering teachers onto our online workshops that are coming up from August to October this year.
Mid morning myself and colleagues were looking for a few viable images for our new look online PD page which will hopefully appear here tomorrow. In the afternoon I suggested to a colleague that we investigate software that will enable us to build courses which can then be uploaded to Moodle we came up with a few - free downloadable courselab being one of these. Having downloaded the software we will have a play to see how well it might suit our needs.

More tomorrow.

The need to change the DNA of teaching

Teachers need to create a new pedagogical DNA in order to prepare their pupils for the world yet to come.....? Discuss.
This very much follows the Daniel Pink's opening keynote of the IB America's Conference in Quebec last week 'A New Mind for a New World'

In his excellent and inspiring presentation Dan extolled the teaching profession not to attempt to prepare today's youth for the jobs of the past, and to encourage our pupils to become 'multi's' able to cope with the choices and challenges that will face them throughout their working lives.

Even as a pretty hard-boiled web head I believe that we need to ensure most of all that what we teach our pupils is relevant and that more tech is not always the answer, rigour and academic endeavour will enable us to help produce those multi's, the addition of well used i.e. technically invisible tech will enable us to add a dimension which will help to equip our pupils for the 21st Century.
As teachers and educators our need to is subtly allow our teaching DNA to embrace the 'brave new world'. However I still firmly believe that to do this the technology must become invisible in the classroom, allowing it to just be the way you work - in the DNA.
I know that towards the end of my time in the classroom the technology we used in the classroom became the way we worked blogs ( Classblogmeister and blogger) and podcasting as far as I was concerned were just additional tools to enable my pupils to write and present their work orally.... the tech (laptop, camera's, video, audio etc)I hope just became invisible.

There is another issue which also arises from Dan Pink's presentation, we still appear to think that we teachers are in the best position to advise pupils about the world of work.... however if you ask many entrepreneurs such as Sir Richard Branson, Sergey Brin or Steve Jobs, my guess would be that they trod their own 'new' path and while I realise of course that this can't be true for the rest of us however a quick look at Karl Fisch's seminal work 'Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age'from 2007 would surely show us that we cannot possibly know now the skill set that the coming generations will need .... apart from the ability to be multi's.

Vimeo does it again! (wow!)

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - shot on 5dmk2 from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

The video sharing site Vimeo has done it again, and have had posted this spectacular video of The World's 2nd largest deep sea tank in Okinawa, Japan ( be warned you will need a pretty high spec machine to do this video true justice in HD!)
YOU MUST VIEW IT FULL SCREEN - it will blow your mind :-)

Podcasting/podcatching for the beginner NECC 2009

Check out ISTE Vision for a whole host of goodies from ISTE.

Podcasting! Everybody seems to be doing it. If you've been afraid to jump into the podcasting waters, join us and learn how! - Larry Anderson, National Center for Technology Planning with Anna Adam, Lucy Gray, Helen Mowers, Craig Nansen and Julene Reed Monday, 6/29/2009, 8:30am 9:30am WWCC Ballroom C

Educating the Mobile Learner ( NECC 2009)

(irst it was one pencil per child. Then it was one book per child. Now, one mobile computer per child. Learn how to leverage this fundamental, global change in K-12. - Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan with Cathleen Norris Tuesday, 6/30/2009, 12:30pm 1:30pm WWCC Ballroom B)
Thank you to Julie Lindsay (@julielindsay) for the heads up on this fantastic presentation from NECC in Washington DC 30/06/09

Diigo Tags 06/11/2009

Apology for the Diigo tags posted in error on 11th June 2009. I must put this down to a rogue link from a search on my Google G1. I will endeavour to avoid this in the future.

Vimeo.com for high quality HD videos

It was one of those Friday's and while doing some follow up reading and video research of Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis's 21st Century Learners - namely the HD video snippets posted to Vimeo . wiki. I began to wander as one does around the product at Vimeo.com. I alighted on this time lapse piece by Ross Ching and wow, you have to watch it as full screen HD, I must admit it hit the spot at 1.30 on a Friday afternoon - I now invite you to do the same full screen HD with the audio turned up ( I hope that your bandwidth holds up as it will be worth it.

Death Cab for Cutie - Little Bribes from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

The next and totally unrelated vimeo video is a speech made by Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner on 9th May, this shows a relaxed intelligent President making jokes at his own - and it must be said GeorgeW and Dick Cheney's expense!..... definitely worth a watch.

The President Gets Laughs at the White House Correspondents' Dinner from White House on Vimeo.

Dragging myself back to academic pursuits it was Ray Jones's video below which deflected me to the Vimeo

21st Century Learners Workshop - Qatar Academy-Part I from Ray Jones on Vimeo.

Prior to this I had been following the excellent YouTube videos of the Flat Classroom Conference from back in January they are fascinating, showing cross cultural collaboration in action.

What it shows is how pupils respond to being introduced to their peers in other countries and cultures..... they can certainly show the older generation the meaning of being a global citizen ( Thank you Julie and Vicki)

Royalty Free music for podcasting

As I look at returning to podcasting in the near future I have been looking around again for free music- The feeling of a need to return to podcasting has been fuelled in large part by an experience about a week ago when my boss was trying out firstly Garageband on his MacBook as means of recording an audio history project for his family. As I have found in the past considering Apple's usual wonderful user interfaces, Garageband does not have the user appeal for some of us - and an alternative was needed, a program which looks easy to use!
I suggested downloading trusty Audacity ( well of course, what did you expect me to suggest?)
Having downloaded Audacity I began to show how easy it was to use it. Importing tracks and editing began the creative juices flowing again..... the upshot is that I am intent on returning The Podfather to the airwaves ( obviously now in search of a new audience!)
The next issue for me is to look for royalty free music loops ( darn Garageband!) to jazz up the new project. Having in the past used royalty free music loops possibly in an incorrect way ( the maverick side of me I am afraid!) I am determined not to follow this track this time around this is where the following two suggested sites may come in handy for me -
Firstly - Partners in Rhyme - the site below only asks for the inclusion of a code snippet in your blog or podcast notes, following which they will send downloading instructions

Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects Download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia project today at Partners In Rhyme.

Secondly we have Templatewise

Free Music Loops - TemplatesWise.com

Again you have a code snippet to add giving the link back to the site and the artist. With Templatewise you can download a zip file containing the track plus a licence file which includes the code which then must be added to your blog or podcast notes.

I feel sure that there will be others that you folks out there will know of.... I wait in anticipation for some other suggestions

** Additional note on Audacity - try out Audacity Extra (audacity-extra provides diverse GUI plug ins to customize the open source sound editor Audacity. It includes a vowel-sound target-practice display for language learners and an analog waveform data logger for embedded systems.)**

Podcast episode ( in production!) - the use of Voki ( Voki still lives!) and Voicethread ( not exactly alphabetical!)

Get a Voki now!

Diigo Tags 05/16/2009

• drupal themes art site design at theartlab.net

  6 hrs of drupal videos drupal seo and database backup click here

  tags: drupal

• Blended learning at Penn State University

  Blended Learning Initiative
  The Blended Learning Initiative is a University-wide effort funded by the Provost to enhance the undergraduate experience by creating both online and hybrid versions of key Penn State courses. These re-designed courses will improve instructional effectiveness and increase flexibility of course offerings for both students and faculty.

  tags: blended learning

• Penn State University Blended learning

  List of resources including conferences from professional organizations, training events, and scholarly articles.

  tags: blended learning

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diigo Tags 05/15/2009

• Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century Skills - Melbourne University

  The purposes of the project are set out in the Call to Action issued by Cisco, Intel and Microsoft at the Learning and Technology World Forum in London on 13 January 2009. A briefer statement is provided in the Policy Brief. The purposes of the project are to:
  
  Mobilize international educational, political and business communities to make the transformation of educational assessment and, hence, instructional practice a global priority.
  Specify in measurable terms high-priority understanding and skills needed by productive and creative workers and citizens of the 21st Century.
  Identify methodological and technological barriers to ICT-based assessment.
  Develop and pilot new assessment methodologies.
  Examine and recommend innovative ICT-enabled, classroom-based learning environments and formative assessments that support the development of 21st Century skills.

  tags: 21st Century skills

• ReactionGrid - 3D Collaboration for Educators and Business

  An open sim version of Second Life - you may call it Second Life 'lite'

  tags: virtual worlds

• The Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Home

  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

  tags: 21st century skills

• untitled

  We are always looking for what next especially in the computing and ICT area. There is a minefield still to be sorted out around who teaches young people and adults the basic skill set they need to be digital citizens.

  tags: Joe Wilson

• education2020 - Skills

  What are the skills that will be required for 2020?

  tags: Joe Wilson

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Paul's random Diigo bookmarks

• Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century Skills - Melbourne University

  The purposes of the project are set out in the Call to Action issued by Cisco, Intel and Microsoft at the Learning and Technology World Forum in London on 13 January 2009. A briefer statement is provided in the Policy Brief. The purposes of the project are to:Mobilize international educational, political and business communities to make the transformation of educational assessment and, hence, instructional practice a global priority.Specify in measurable terms high-priority understanding and skills needed by productive and creative workers and citizens of the 21st Century.Identify methodological and technological barriers to ICT-based assessment.Develop and pilot new assessment methodologies.Examine and recommend innovative ICT-enabled, classroom-based learning environments and formative assessments that support the development of 21st Century skills.

  tags: 21st Century skills

• ReactionGrid - 3D Collaboration for Educators and Business

  An open sim version of Second Life - you may call it Second Life 'lite'

  tags: virtual worlds

• untitled

  We are always looking for what next especially in the computing and ICT area. There is a minefield still to be sorted out around who teaches young people and adults the basic skill set they need to be digital citizens.

  tags: Joe Wilson

• education2020 - Skills

  What are the skills that will be required for 2020?

  tags: Joe Wilson

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Yay Android 1.5 released for the G1

My software upgrade to Android 1.5 duly arrived this morning - however it took a while for the G1 to get used to its new toys.... some apps are now decidedly flaky still at present however I expect this to change as the apps get their Android 1.5 upgrades also. Many of the new features put the G1 ahead of the iphone at least until version 3.0 of the iphone software appears later in 2009. Here from PC World and the Android Developers forum is the run down on the punch that the G1 now has under the bonnet

Android 1.5 Platform Highlights (PC World.com )
April 2009

Based on a branch of the Android Open Source Project code-named "cupcake," version 1.5 aims to smooth many of the rough edges in Android's inaugural release. The update not only polishes existing functionality, but also includes major additions like support for stereo Bluetooth using the A2DP profile, an on-screen software keyboard, and video recording and playback.

The Android 1.5 update clearly positions the platform as a solid competitor to Apple's iPhone. Though some of the new features--video playback and an on-screen keyboard, for example--are capabilities the iPhone has sported since launch, others, such as stereo Bluetooth, are due to arrive on Apple's platform in the 3.0 upgrade due in the summer of 2009. But some, such as video recording ( with the ability to upload to Youtube or send as an email attachment( see below including my rather basic date error! - also apologies for the unshaven look - I have been on leave this week!)
and the ability for users to add third-party keyboards, are capabilities that Apple has made no mention of adding to its device.

In addition to beefing up what Android can do, it appears that Google has spent some time correcting many of Android 1.0's niggling deficiencies. For example, Android now supports rotating the screen into landscape mode using an accelerometer (the G1 only flipped its screen into landscape when you slid the screen out to reveal the device's physical keyboard). Google also says it has added a layer of polish to many of the included applications and has fixed some performance issues, such as the atrociously slow camera load-time and slow scrolling in the Web browser. There are also under-the-hood improvements, like the latest versions of WebKit and JavaScript engine Squirrelfish, and an updated Linux kernel at the heart of the OS.

Google warns that the SDK is not yet finalized and that APIs could still be subject to change, so developers shouldn't release applications for distribution on 1.5 as of yet; the company says that the final release is due in May 2009 in the UK  ( it arrived Friday 8th May in the UK)

The increased functionality and polish offered by Android 1.5 could turn it into a serious competitor for the iPhone, especially if it ends up being released prior to the iPhone OS 3.0 update, which is expected sometime this summer. The release of another major iPhone competitor, the Palm Pre, is also due sometime in the next few months, suggesting that this summer could be a very contentious time for the smart phone market, indeed.

Here is the stuff that matters ( courtesy of Android developers)

Android 1.5 Platform Highlights

April 2009

The Android 1.5 platform introduces many new features for users and developers. The list below provides an overview of the changes.

• User Interface Refinements
• Performance Improvements
• New Features
• New APIs and Manifest Elements

User Interface Refinements

• System-wide:
  • Refinement of all core UI elements
  • Animated window transitions (off by default)
  • Accelerometer-based application rotations
• UI polish for:
  • In-call experience
  • Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
  • SMS & MMS
  • Browser
  • Gmail
  • Calendar
  • Email
  • Camera & Gallery
  • Application management

Performance Improvements

• Faster Camera start-up and image capture
• Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
• Smoother page scrolling in Browser
• Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling

New Features

• On-screen soft keyboard
  • Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
  • Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
  • User dictionary for custom words
• Home screen
  • Widgets
    • Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
  • Live folders
• Camera & Gallery
  • Video recording
  • Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)
• Bluetooth 
  • Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
  • Auto-pairing
  • Improved handsfree experience
• Browser
  • Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
  • Copy 'n paste in browser
  • Search within a page
  • User-selectable text-encoding
  • UI changes include:
    • Unified Go and Search box
    • Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen
• Contacts
  • Shows user picture for Favorites
  • Specific date/time stamp for events in call log
  • One-touch access to a contact card from call log event
• System
  • New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
  • SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
  • SIM Application Toolkit 1.0
• Google applications (not available in the Android 1.5 System Image that is included in the Android SDK)
  • View Google Talk friends' status in Contacts, SMS, MMS, GMail, and Email applications
  • Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages
  • Upload videos to Youtube
  • Upload photos on Picasa

New APIs and Manifest Elements

• UI framework
  • Framework for easier background/UI thread interaction
  • New SlidingDrawer widget
  • New HorizontalScrollview widget
• AppWidget framework
  • APIs for creating secure home screen AppWidgets. For information about how to use AppWidgets, see the Developer's Guide AppWidgets documentation. Also see Introducing home screen widgets and the AppWidget framework on the Android Developer's Blog.
  • APIs for populating Live Folders with custom content.
• Media framework
  • Raw audio recording and playback APIs
  • Interactive MIDI playback engine
  • Video Recording APIs for developers (3GP format).
  • Video and photo sharing Intents
  • Media search Intent
• Input Method framework
  • Input Method Service framework
  • Text-prediction engine
  • Ability to provide downloadable IMEs to users
• Application-defined hardware requirements

  Applications can now use a new element in their manifest files,  to indicate to the Android system what hardware features they require in order to function properly. For example, an application might use the element to specify that it requires a physical keyboard or a particular navigation device, such as a trackball. Prior to installing the application, the Android system checks the attributes defined for the  element and allows the installation to continue only if the required hardware is present.

• Speech recognition framework
  • Support for using speech recognition libraries via Intent. See RecognizerIntent.
• Miscellaneous API additions
  • LocationManager - Applications can get location change updates via Intent
  • WebView - Touch start/end/move/cancel DOM event support
  • Redesigned Sensor Manager APIs
  • GLSurfaceView - convenience framework for creating OpenGL applications
  • Broadcast Intent for app update install succeeded - for smoother app upgrade experience.
  
  
  
  

It looks as if at last the G1 may now have the armoury it needs to make a stronger case aginst the current iphone. For me though there is still one more brick to put in place and that is a Flash player for the G1 - Engadget reports that a compnay called BSquare has a Flash Player which may eventually bring me the BBC iplayer on the G1 ( it's all I ask!)

The world's first email or twitter user circa 1536?

                                                 The @ Book

Post from The New York Times news blog 4th May 2009

'Internet star @ least 473 years old'

It would appear from the New York Times 'TheLede' Blog that the first time that the now ubiquitous @ sign appeared in writing was in a letter written written on 4th May 1536 by a Florentine merchant by the name of Francesco Lapi. Francesco used the @ as a symbol for the ancient measure of weight or volume 'the amphora'. The Spanish word for amphora is arroba and the @ sign is still known as the arroba on a Spanish keyboard.

The @ stayed relatively little used on keyboards until 1971 when Ray Tomlinson decided to use it in the first ever email address his reasoning being:

'I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user’s (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was “at” some other host rather than being local.'