Group items tagged

This 2009 report from Education.au looks at the current state of play regarding the use of Web 2.0 services across each of the education authorities in Australia. It aims to identify and suggest ways to overcome barriers associated with current site blocking practices in schools with regards to Web 2.0 services. The report draws on a range of survey and other investigations as well as consultation with key stakeholders. It then sets out a number of recommendations aimed at addressing issues related to current site blocking practices in schools place on teachers looking to use Web 2.0 to improve teaching and learning.

There has to be a way for people to organize and share freely and openly through a series of trust networks that aren't necessarily mediated by institutions. But given so many of the demands of accreditation, and the current expectations for the system as it currently operates, given the choice between grief (a public, subsidized higher ed option) and nothing (the rise of privatized workforce factories), I'll take grief every time. But all the while continuing to work towards the idea that there can and will be another way outside of this debilitating binary we are working through right now.

The purpose of the Video Standards Report - 2011 is to provide information to help  e-learning content developers make informed decisions about the use of video formats, codecs and delivery systems for e-learning video content. The report is intended to be used in conjunction with the current VET standards, which are available at: http://e-standards.flexiblelearning.net.au/topics/formats.htmWhere possible, this report aims to ensure that VET video standards support current and future needs of VET e-learning practitioners, particularly given the fast-changing digital media landscape. It acknowledges that content items need to:  have a long life span   operate across a broad range of potential platforms and applications   run on a wide range of devices, including portable media-browsing devices. 

A really well made cautionary YouTube tale about how Twitter can be used in facile ways. It opens up the topic of addictive use, though it does ignore completely the positive aspects of its use. Info says; A young man struggles against the pressure to Twitter his life away. From: "SuperNews!" An animated sketch comedy series airing on Current TV. Every Friday night at 10 PM ET/PT. For more SuperNews! go to www.current.com/supernews."

Weather Spark is a new site that offers weather data from more than 4,000 weather stations around the world. Not only is there data from more than 4,000 stations, there is also data going back more than fifty years. All of this data can be used to create comparisons of current weather conditions around the world, comparisons of current and past weather conditions, and to view global climate trends.

I am currently reading "Thank you for being late: An optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations" and have found in this the answer to these questions. In essence we are confronting two types of change, one that we have always faced and one that is unique to our current times. 

Reading Australia has been developed by the Copyright Agency and aims to make significant Australian literary works more readily available for teaching in schools and universities. These works are supplemented with online teacher resources and essays by popular authors about the enduring relevance of the works. There is a list of titles (download as a PDF). These titles have been selected by the Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) Council. They were asked to select works they thought students and others should encounter, to give a view of Australia's rich cultural identity: works that would tell Australia's history and also how we are currently developing as a nation. The ASA Council are adamant that this list should be merely the beginning, and it should be built upon with other works that have already been published, as well as the great new works that continue to be published in Australia. There is a wide range of teacher resources available (PDF) for Primary and Secondary school teachers and all of these teacher resources include classroom activities, assessments and links to the Australian Curriculum. In addition, many of the Secondary resources include an introductory essay on the text written by high profile writers. The Primary level resources have been commissioned by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association, and the resources for Secondary level have been jointly commissioned by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the English Teachers Association NSW."

Reading Australia has been developed by the Copyright Agency and aims to make significant Australian literary works more readily available for teaching in schools and universities. These works are supplemented with online teacher resources and essays by popular authors about the enduring relevance of the works. There is a list of titles (download as a PDF). These titles have been selected by the Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) Council. They were asked to select works they thought students and others should encounter, to give a view of Australia's rich cultural identity: works that would tell Australia's history and also how we are currently developing as a nation. The ASA Council are adamant that this list should be merely the beginning, and it should be built upon with other works that have already been published, as well as the great new works that continue to be published in Australia. There is a wide range of teacher resources available (PDF) for Primary and Secondary school teachers and all of these teacher resources include classroom activities, assessments and links to the Australian Curriculum. In addition, many of the Secondary resources include an introductory essay on the text written by high profile writers. The Primary level resources have been commissioned by the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia and the Australian Literacy Educators' Association, and the resources for Secondary level have been jointly commissioned by the Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the English Teachers Association NSW."

Ray & Coulter (2010) supports this stating that currently, teachers as a collective, do not see the potential for technologies to aid in the development of new knowledge, active engagement and linkage of knowledge to a real-world setting.

Lots of lesson ideas based on current news items intended for esl but useful for everyone

"For Australia, La Niña typically means above-average rains, and the current La Niña is no exception. Heavy rains that began in late December 2010 led to the continent's worst flooding in nearly a half century, at its peak inundating an area the size of Germany and France combined. "

Good NASA satellite image of the current flooding in QLD.

Crash Course World History is increasing numbers all the time. Currently has 37 videos including videos on topics in U.S. History.

"The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has confirmed that year 9 to year 12 students in 2013 will be the last to receive laptops under the current scheme."

A interesting interpretation of where we are heading with the current technology available to us.

"The Victorian Department of Education recognises the importance of flexible work options and family friendly work practices in maintaining a diverse, adaptive and high performing workforce able to meet current  and future needs."

"You don't have to abandon the idea of book reports. You do need to be willing to go beyond the traditional and begin using current tools and ideas. What works for you?"

After two days of talking about curriculum, integration, STEM, STEAM and HASS I am left with more questions than I started with. In some respects, the concept of curriculum integration is simple. It is after all something that Primary teachers almost take for granted. But for Senior and Tertiary educators the question of curriculum integration is inherently complex. At all levels questions emerge of what curriculum integration might achieve, what purposes it serves, what it could and should look like and how it should be supported by curriculum planners. In the current climate, with its debate around the role of education within an innovation economy, shaped by technology and confronting demands for a STEAM enabled workforce the shape of our curriculum is under pressure. 

What purposes does education serve? What needs of humanity does education serve? What might the product of our labours be like and how might our efforts contribute to the greater good? These are questions we have long struggled with but with but it seems that in the current times we might need to rethink how we answer these questions.

Twitter has become so much more than the "I'm hungry" kind of service. It contains 140's of what we are. This content is hidden somewhere behind the small avatar and last tweets in a user's timeline. We are here to make it visible.  We take a bag of tweets, analyze them, and create a profile page which show-casts the person behind them. Currently we focus on behavior patterns, Famous words, Top Followers, Links, Replies, Songs, Pictures and Check-ins. 

Numberphile is n interesting YouTube channel about fun number facts. There are currently thirty-three videos in the Numberphile collection. The videos cover things like 998,001 and its Mysterious Recurring Decimals, Pi and Bouncing Balls, and 1 and Prime Numbers.