Group items tagged

A fantastic article worth reading that explores teacher vs student expertise in ICLT and it's implications with teaching an learning. The interview at the bottom is also worth a listen, it is an interview with Edith, a student in England speaking about ICLT in her learning. She recently spoke at a TeachMeet, and in the interview, explores many aspects of ICLT in the classroom, including wether ICLT should be treated as an integrated, or separate subject.

ThinkB4U is a new series of web safety videos and tutorials from Google and its partners. Using the "choose your own adventure" aspect of YouTube video editing, ThinkB4U offers interactive videos to educate viewers about things like protecting online reputations, avoiding scams, research and critical thinking, and responsible text messaging. ThinkB4U is divided into three basic sections; students, parents, and educators. Each section addresses nine different topics related to safe and responsible use of the Internet and cell phones. The sections include short videos about the topics, a short written lesson, and some interactive games on the topics of responsible use of the Internet and of cell phones.

This is a very cool website which compares various measures of quality of life and standard of living compared to Australia. You just select the countries at the bottom of the page, then it will display various facts compared to Australia eg. use of electricity/oil, life expectancy, birth rates etc. 

Nice find Sam, that would be a great tool in many HSIE classrooms or when studying social justice.

What it is: Me On the Web is a new tool from Google.  Announced just today, Me On the Web is part of the Google Dashboard that allows you to set up custom Google Alerts for your name in news articles.  This was always possible with Google Alerts but now those alerts are coupled with tips and resources for helping students manage their online identities.  Now everything can be tracked from one central location instead of scattered around in different places.  Me On the Web is easy to set up, just visit your Google Dashboard to get started. How to integrate Me on the Web into the classroom: There was a day when you could get away with not knowing and following your digital identity, that day is no more.  We all carry digital footprints, and now more than ever it is vital for us (and our students) to know how to manage those digital footprints.  Teaching students about their digital identity is the first step, Google's Me on the Web takes that a step further by helping students manage their online identities through Google Alerts and helpful tips.  Students must have an account with Google to fully utilize the Me on the Web features.  After students have their account set up, they can create a set of Google Alerts related to them.  This could be their name, email address, a sports team that they play on, the name of the school they attend, etc.  Students will quickly see just how big a memory the Internet has and get a first hand look at their digital footprint and learn some strategies to take care of it.

Apps in Education One of the hardest things with using the iPad in the classroom is finding the time to go through all of the apps in the iTunes Store listed under the education banner. We have started to list some of the apps we've found under each of the Key Learning Areas.  Very Good!

Many of the Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. To save others at school some time,John Pearce has 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."

Another creative commons search engine, goes one step further than FlickrCC in that A great feature of Behold is that it also helps you to pinpoint the type of image that you require.  For example, when searching for "beetles" you may get images of insects or cars.  But Behold's interface allows you to use a drop-down menu to choose the category of images that best meets your needs.   

How many of the movies in this list have you shared with a class? I haven't seen all of them yet, but it seems to be a pretty good list (geared toward high school classes) of movies worth watching with your classes...

A handy spreadsheet for people starting to look at ipod apps for education like me.

None yet. We are in the process of planning the spending of a large IT loan we are taking out at the moment. The ipods will be part of the mix which will include laptops, ipods and perhaps ipads as well.

spreadsheet of tried apps with detailed descriptions. May be of help for schools looking for a starting point

 APPitic is a directory of apps a collection of 1,300 + apps for learning.for education by Apple Distinguished Educators (ADEs) These apps have been tested in a variety of different grade levels, instructional strategies and classroom settings

this site offers a wide variety of 100% free production music in eight genres: cinematic scores, corporate, easy listening, electronic, hip-hop, international, pop and rock. We're committed to helping you find the perfect song for your video, movie, film, video game, or media project. Our music comes with a royalty-free license allowing you to use the music in all types of productions for worldwide distribution, forever. There are never any fees. If you're new here, sign up for a free account and join a community of over 3,000 users.

A blog sharing the progress of the Diocese Of Paramatta's experience with iPads. Several contributors to the site with lots of useful information & app recommendations. 

One of the best collections of SMARTBoard Notebook Files for Education i have come across. Has 100s of notebook lessons broken up into grade levels and target area, an excellent resource for anyone using a SMARTBoard/Notebook

This is an Xtranormal movie created by a primary TL at SJV - this is a fantastic example of how to motivate and involve students in support the implementation of leaning technologies. This type of approach also builds teacher's confidence offering teachers support within classrooms as they introduce new tools to their students. This is also a great move towards generating enthusiasm and creating momentum within your school.

A network of teachers committed the purposeful use of learning technologies to enhance learning and teaching. We plan to build a rich community of learners who will work to develop their professional currency and relevance.

Some high schools in Denmark are beginning to allow students access to the internet during exams. Exciting stuff, and fantastic to see countries looking into more open forms of assessment. I will be interested to see how quickly other nations follow Denmark's lead in this regard. Tools like Diigo would be a fantastic method of preparation for student's sitting these exams.

This is a FREE conference open to ANYONE by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference (among several) is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape.

If you want to take part in a google wave about the K-12 Conference email me or Mark Woolley and we will setup an invite for you. You could also visit http://thebigquestion.edublogs.org/ for more info.

"SMART Technologies, producers of the SMART board and the SMART Table, offer you user-generated and SMART-created videos of SMART's products in a variety of learning environments. " If you use smartboards this would be a great channel to subscribe to.

Any stage 3 teachers interested in a gaming  approach to learning. This would be very interesting.  The project aimed to trial the efficacy of student-developed games in stage 3 classrooms. This wiki features the results and impact of the project on learning from the perspective of students and teachers from the two primary schools involved.

This is a great series that students will love which breaks history down into nice little bitse sized chunks you can flesh out in the classroom.  I really hope you enjoy going through this with your students.  A word of warning is that some of the language and content may not be totally appropriate to younger students.