Group items tagged

In the world of  tablet technology the warring dividing lines very quickly became the choice between Apple and Android mobile devices. The research began. The comparisons between apps and general capacity for varied uses were central (see my earlier blog posts), but also crucial was the cost. The question, 'why pay for the premium Apple iPad product in a time of fiscal austerity in education?' is obvious. Is the capacity so much better to justify paying extra, or is the iPad a triumph of advertising hype?

"Create free timelines. Follow interesting stories, get updates and notifications with "Today in history". myHistro is an interactive diary and a story-flow generator for bloggers. Unlimited space, unlimited number of photos! Create as many stories as you want and export these into Google Earth (KML) or spreadsheet format (CSV)! See the story on map and timeline, read more by "manually" turning pages or see the story summary as a simple chronological list of events. Try them all! My Histro also has an app.

"As I lamented in my last post, many of the fabulous Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. This limits what Elementary/Primary schools students can access online to create content to collaborate. To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available. Please note that generally the sites that allow for under 13s still ask for parental permission ( even Edmodo if you haven't read the Terms of Use) so a solid school user agreement is needed to use these tools. Some of the sites are not US based so are not bound by COPPA and CIPA regulations. It still requires schools to carefully check out what can be viewed on these sites to ensure they are appropriate to access."

'Compound Interest' is a blog run by a graduate chemist & teacher in the UK that aims to take a look at the chemistry and chemical reactions we come across on a day-to-day basis. As well as highlighting these facets of chemistry, it is also the site's objective to provide interesting & educational infographics on a variety of chemistry topics, both for use in the classroom and for more general consumption.""

"What excited me about the Digital Technologies curriculum in particular is the way that it has embraced the Digital Technologies as a way of thinking and a tool for creativity. The problem I've always had with the teaching of ICT in schools is that it has largely been seen as a tool that should be integrated to assist the teaching of other subjects - that's fine, but that's captured in the ICT General Capability in the Australian Curriculum and is very different to the study of ICT as a discipline, sometimes branded as Computer Science, Informatics, Computing or similar. Given the ubiquitous nature of ICT in our world today, it has always struck me as odd that we've relegated the understanding of ICT to being all about its use, rather than how it manages to achieve the "magic" that many people mistake it to be."

"Zebedee is a handheld, three-dimensional mapping device that has a vast array of applications, and has already been being picked up by the Queensland police for crime scene investigations. Zebedee is able to generate 3D recreations of spatial environments in the time it takes to walk through them. The portable laser scanner is one of the latest whiz-bang inventions from the scientists at CSIRO."

"Found this fantastic infographic touting the success of infographics. Reading it ( or more correctly, viewing it) immediately focused my thoughts on the use of visual texts in classrooms today. Click on the screenshot above to view the animated, interactive info graphic that presents  13 reasons why we should use infographics ( or visual texts in general). Unlike other infographics I link to on Mr G Online, I'm not going to discuss the specific points presented - that would be contradictory to the message of the infographic. I'll let you get your own meaning from it. However, I am going to reflect on how it made me consider the use of visual texts in education."

Research paper - "... at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice." [PDF]

Epubbud is another way students can have their work published. It allows you to convert any existing document into an e-book or create the book on the site itself. It converts the book to the epub format which is compatible with various readers and tablets. It is a fairly easy and efficient way to generate an epub format book even if the user interface is not as refined as some of the other publishing tools.

"LETTERBOX has been looking into the effects that the digital age is having on younger minds and has generated the fascinating infographic below that's teeming with interesting details. For example, did you know that there are more than 5 million users below the age of ten on Facebook, despite the minimum age requirement being 13? Of these users, over 200,000 of them are aged six or younger. These statistics and others listed below all point to the incredible fact that the average age for a child to start regularly consuming online media is now only 8-years-old."

"I want the people who will help shape our society in the future to understand the technology that will help shape out society in the future. If this is going to happen, then we need to reverse the trend that is seeing digital illiteracy exponentially increase. We need to act together, as parents, as teachers, as policy makers. Lets build a generation of hackers. Who's with me?"

A very thought provoking and insightful interview about the efforts of governments to gain control over technology and how they justify it.

"Creative Commons worked for more than two years to develop the next generation of CC licenses - the version 4.0 CC license suite. The new licenses are more user-friendly and more internationally robust than ever before. We made dozens of improvements to the licenses. Most will go unnoticed by many CC licensors and licensees, but some of them deserve particular attention. "

"Today, we're excited to announce the public beta of Google Web Designer, a new professional-quality design tool that makes HTML5 creative accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler. Google Web Designer enables you to: Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools. View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically.  Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose. Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application. Access all of this entirely for free."

"Wikipedia can be a nightmare for a teacher, or it can be their best friend. For those teachers that have papers handed to them by students that are clearly copied from another source, Wikipedia tends to turn up early in the search and show that the students have indeed, been checking out what Wikipedia has to say. It's no wonder that teachers often have questions about what is good about the tool and how it might benefit their students. Today, we're taking a look at some more general facts and figures about one of the world's largest free, collaboratively written encyclopedia. Which is a pretty awesome concept, if you ask us. The handy infographic below will let you in on some interesting facts that you probably weren't privy to - and some of the numbers are pretty staggering! Keep reading to learn more!"

ideacity is a three-day gathering of minds held each June in Toronto. It's produced and presented by the Canadian media innovator and pioneer, Moses Znaimer. IDEAS features highlights from the conference. This episode deals with the deluge of digital data in our lives with: Don Tapscott, Canadian cyber guru, on generational change;

"Copyright has been firmly back on the agenda in recent months. We've seen the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) release its report on copyright which recommended that Australia adopt a "fair use" exception to copyright infringement. Yet we've also seen the Attorney General, George Brandis, get more exercised about copyright piracy this month, and pledge to do something to address it:"

"Taylor Bousfield is practicing her teaching skills by leading a seventh-grade science class. She asks the students to give examples of a "solid," and gets a gamut of responses: the boy in the front row answers immediately; students in the back don't participate or fool around. Ms Bousfield draws the students out in turn and affirms their responses. All in all, a typical day of teacher training - except that the students are computer-generated avatars."

"NORIGINALS #POETASTR is an automated, rule-based poetry creation tool. Sourcing content from the twitter stream, it allows users to specify lyrical forms. Based on the criteria, poems are generated and streamed to the user as they are created."