WOW! It’s hard to believe that the end of the semester is just a week away. I can’t get over it. Back in August I thought that this would never come, but BAM November has come and gone and it’s already December 4th. Looking back at the semester, from where I started in August and where I am now, I have learned sooo much. Not just in my EDTS 523 educational technology class, but in all my classes, I feel as though I have gotten my moneys worth. I would though like to take this time and highlight some of the things that I am thankful for learning in EDTS 523.

My blog. I’m not sure if I will have the time to keep up with it, but I’m glad that I started and tried it. Now I know what it’s all about. Thanks for introducing me to GoogleDocs! It is AMAZING! I will never feel like I can not start a project, because I’m not on my own computer. How about web sites! I have to say that I can’t wait to start one for my own classroom! I can’t forget about Podcasts! This was one of my favorite projects! I love doing voices, so that was right up my alley, along with showing me how to work GarageBand. Now I can actually use the program on my computer.

Some other favorites include, the group non-liner PowerPoint, along with creating our own web site, and Dr. Ransom presenting educational and fun web sites to check out at the beginning of every class. With everything that I have learned in EDTS 523 I feel ready to start my own classroom using 21st Century technology. I’m ready to embrace what else is out there, instead of being unwilling and scared. So thank you Dr. Ransom. And just so you know (until I break down and sign up for Twitter), I will be keeping your e-mail address in my book. I’m sure that I will be wanting to ask more technology questions sometime in the future.

I have been trying to think of the best way t share the googledocs notes form my classes. I note that it is possible to publish these as a webpage that will regularly update. I have done this  for each class and put a link onto the class pages for people to access.

If I have got this right, anyone can view this, but not edit it.

I should let some people know to test this.

On another matter, delicious keeps me notified of some links which work well. It would be good to selectively expand this network. I wonder how.

If you’re like me, then the holidays are the only time you have to dig out the neurons covered in dust that have been on sabbatical while you:

-         Herd cats

-         Deal with other mammals in your life

-         Follow your own grandiose visions

So, I am using this post to share some of my favorite “get your act together” tools I use for “dealing” on a daily basis. Keep in mind, I am a busy, quasi-stressed out mom, entrepreneur, and colossal nerd.

THINGS I USE TO DEAL ON A DAILY BASIS

1. www.Mint.com – A free finance tool
2. www.Doodle.com – Easy group scheduling tool (see “cat herding” above)
3. www.GoogleDocs.com – I use an excel sheet in Google Docs to manage my team, some of whom are virtual. Love it.
4. www.PollDaddy.com – Polls are a great. I really like them. The fact that they are free makes them even better. You can use Google Forms as well.
5. www.EventBrite.com – This was introduced to me by the guys at iStrategyLabs. Use it for your real life events or virtual seminars. You will see why.
6. 1888PressRelease.com – Good stuff. I always like things that give you reach you don’t deserve because you have no money. But, we can’t let that stop us!
7. www.TwitterAnalyzer.com – Gives me good stats I can share with the guys in my department and let them know I’m not TOTALLY wasting time.
8. www.SlimTimer.com – It’s like you’re back in high school with your mom telling you to get your homework done. Love it.
9. Six O’Clock Scramble – Healthy meals in 30 minutes. I’m sure I would use this if I cooked. Okay, also, this is not business. But, you gotta cook, right? And if you spend 30 less minutes on cooking, then that’s 30 more minutes for your business.
10. www.FitDay.com – While we’re on the health topic, my favorite free health tool. Most entrepreneurs I know in EO (Entrepreneurs Oranization where you’re under 40 and have sales of $1 million or more) have some major hobby, including working out, etc.

What tools are you thankful for (more like the above, and less like – uh – a jack hammer). Or, as my aunt and dad and other erudite folks might correct me, “For what tools are you thankful?”

THINGS THAT ARE HIGHLY ANNOYING.

I have just read this blog, and am feeling quite snarky now. I am less thankful for the following:

• Trump Network on Twitter– How did Trump let this happen to his name?
• The “make cash at home” people
• The “make money on Google” people
• The “you can earn money on Twitter” people
• When I am looking for a document on my computer and click through like six windows, and then do that every time I need to find a document, several times a day, for years.

IF YOU DON’T LAUGH, YOU’LL CRY

It is important to laugh, because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. Here are some of my favorite sites right now. These are only for people with sick senses of humor. If you are “normal,” don’t bother.

1. @darthvader – That’s right, you heard me.
2. Does this Blog Make Us Look Fat?
3. The Bloggess
4. The Onion

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and don’t forget to nominate the dynamic women in your life (over 18) as a role model for the Hot Mommas Project 2010 case competition. We make everyday women’s stories teachable to help the next generation. Email us with your nomination including name, contact, and reason for nomination.

Related links:

Why Mentoring Matters for Girls and Women – and How to Be Part of the Solution

My Interview on Washington Business Tonight on “Hibernating for Business” (Windows Media Player Needed)

Having prepared a presentation for BTG, it would be useful to spend some time sharing this in a useful way.

Options for this are:

• posting the ppt in googledocs – easy and includes presenter notes, but doesn’t play vids
• posting the .doc in googledocs – easy and retains enough of the formatting
• posting the ppt in slideshare – easy to do but loose the video elements and the presenter notes. This allows a soundtrack mp3 file to be added, and presumably then synced. This would be nice to try as it might have further application. How easy is the mp3 recording? This would make the lack of presenter notes redundant.
• putting it in keynote and adding commentary – not sure I want to embark on this as there would need to be a few steps after that before sharing
• Putting into voicethread and commenting – videos wouldn’t translate and the audio might be messy
• videoing – more trouble than it is worth. This would require someone else to do this during the show
• Adding to blog – this would be an addition to other steps

From this list it looks like the audio commentary for slideshare would be best as I would like to learn how this works – seems to have potential for student use. Will put in a tech request for this.

Can also publish the paper on docs and link both in this blog

Nesta semana tive a oportunidade de trabalhar colaborativamente via internet utilizando as ferramentas Google Docs e Google Wave. No começo, as funcionalidades e trabalho simultâneo pareceram um pouco confusos, alternando-se dentro e fora das ferramentas. Aos poucos o que parecia uma grande confusão foi tornando-se uma irresistível brincadeira de criar conhecimento.

Foi uma experiência incrível poder trabalhar a quilômetros de distância e poder ver instantaneamente as alterações que meu colega de trabalho fazia em uma apresentação e em uma planilha do Excel. Fantástico, simplesmente fantástico.

Esta experiência me mostrou um novo leque de possibilidades de colaboração e de geração de conhecimento. Poder editar um arquivo ao mesmo com várias pessoas.

Cada vez mais a colaboração e o compartilhamento de informações serão essencias para a criação e difusão do conhecimento. Não devido apenas a Geração Y que está tomando conta do mercado, mas também por um novo modelo de pensamento que vem surgindo, as ferramentas de coloboração se tornarão essenciais ao desenvolvimento de novas capacidades e de uma nova forma de retenção do conhecimento estrategico das companhias.

Cari ragazzi e blogghisti 3T!

Con la nostra insegnante Barbara stiamo anche noi studiando il corpo umano.
Ci siamo soffermati sull’apparato respiratorio, approfondendone diversi aspetti.
E’ molto interessante conoscere tutti i suoi organi, anche se per nulla semplici!
Con le giuste spiegazioni della nostra insegnante, le immagini del libro e gli approfondimenti che abbiamo curato, siamo però riusciti a comprendere bene l’argomento, che ci ha stupito molto, perchè un respiro sembra velocissimo e invece compie un viaggio lunghissimo all’interno del nostro corpo! 

Il percorso di studio è stato scritto al computer da me (Giacomo), assieme ai miei compagni Davide e Jetmir, mentre Sarah, Katrin, Valentina ed io (Vittoria) lo abbiamo sintetizzato in una mappa molto reticolata, costruita usando il programma CMap:

La mappa di Valentina e Vittoria

La mappa di Sarah e Katrin

Valentina ed io ( Katrin) ci siamo divertite a disegnare con TuxPaint l’apparato respiratorio, che poi, anche con il mio aiuto (Guglielmo)  , abbiamo reso interattivo, grazie a un nuovo programma, Flickr, molto bello, divertente ed utile. Infatti ci ha permesso di inserire sul disegno delle etichette che riportano i nomi degli organi e le loro definizioni, che si evidenziano al passaggio del mouse. E’ un modo per facilitare il nostro studio!
Provare per credere!

Laura e Thania si sono occupate  di ricostruire le fasi della respirazione (inspirazione ed espirazione), disegnate in maniera splendida dagli amici di 5^B!

Jetmir e Davide hanno predisposto un quiz con HotPotatoes che potete provare per scoprire se siete degli esperti conoscitori di… voi stessi!

Il quiz sulla respirazione creato da Davide e Jetmir

E’ stato interessante, poi, approfondire le malattie dell’apparato respiratorio: dalla pericolosa tubercolosi   al semplice raffreddore! :-|

Fortissimo è stato anche andare alla ricerca di alcune curiosità, con cui siamo riusciti a dare una risposta ad alcuni “perchè” che ci eravamo posti:

• Perchè sbadigliamo
• Cos’è il singhiozzo
• E la tosse: perchè ci viene
• E, ancora, quando  starnutiamo

Tutta quest’ultima parte di lavori è stata curata da Monica, Giulia e Veronica, in collaborazione con gli amici della 5^B, che hanno splendidamente illustrato le varie situazioni!

Soddisfatti del nostro gran lavoro     vi salutiamo suggerendovi un consiglio per una salutare respirazione!

Ricordatevi di inspirare per il naso, perchè nelle narici si trova una mucosa che riscalda l’aria e la depura dal pulviscolo atmosferico!

Vi aspettiamo, impazienti di leggere le vostre impressioni e i vostri commenti!

Vittoria, Guglielmo, Giacomo, Katrin e gli amici di classe 5^A e 5^B di San Bortolo

Ciao a tutti i “blogghisti” 3T!

Noi ragazzi delle classi quinte di San Bortolo quest’anno abbiamo iniziato a conoscere il corpo umano.
In particolare stiamo studiando il viaggio dell’aria attraverso l’apparato respiratorio.

Insieme alla nostra maestra abbiamo realizzato una magnifica registrazione, usando la LIM.

Prima alcuni di noi – Federica, Sofia Caterina ed io (Sofia) -  hanno scritto al computer le informazioni raccolte e documentate anche nel quaderno di scienze, evidenziando le parole-chiave.

Gianluca ed io (Leonardo) abbiamo scelto di disegnare con TuxPaint l’apparato respiratorio:

Da L’apparato respiratorio

Abbiamo riportato questi materiali sulla LIM, ricostruendo “dal vivo”  il percorso dell’aria nel nostro corpo: è stato davvero emozionante!
Ci siamo divertiti molto, anche se non è stato affatto facile, ma alla fine ci siamo riusciti. Eravamo tutti elettrizzati! 

E non è finita qui! 
Alessia, Isabella, Mirco, Nicola, Giulia e Valentina sono stati bravissimi a costruire con C-MAP una mappa colorata e “intricata” che rappresenta le nostre conoscenze, molto utile da utilizzare nello studio!

La mappa di Alessia e Isabella

La mappa di Mirco e Nicola

La mappa di Giulia e Valentina

Filippo e Nicola hanno disegnato con molta precisione i movimenti del diaframma e dei muscoli intercostali durante le fasi di inspirazione ed espirazione:

::::::Cliccate sulle immagini!

Altri di noi hanno illustrato alcune curiosità che riguardano l’apparato respiratorio e che vi saranno descritte dagli amici di 5^A:

• Perchè tossiamo? (Disegni di Andrea, Enrico)
• Perchè starnutiamo? (Disegni di Alice Spa., Mirco, Valentina, Sofia)
• E lo sbadiglio da cosa deriva? (Disegni di Alice Sco., Sofia Caterina, Alessia, Federica, Isabella, Francesca)
• E cosa è mai il singhiozzo?!? (Disegni di Gianluca, Giulia, Leonardo)

Curiosità dell’apparato respiratorio

Inoltre per farvi divertire gli amici di 5^A hanno creato anche un quiz con HotPotatoes che pubblicheranno presto!

E’ stata un’ esperienza indimenticabile!!!!!!  

Leonardo e Sofia e gli amici di classe 5^B e 5^A di San Bortolo

ATKINS ADVICE TO POLYTECHS/UNIVERSITIES

Collaboration is key to making

virtual education work in NZ

Nurse educators  ‘convinced’ of value -

the question is, how best to use it.

NZ nurse educators at the Wellington SLENZ meeting.

Collaboration between tertiary educational institutions in the implementation  of  virtual world education scenarios is the key to making them economic, effective and successful in a country as small as New Zealand.

This is the view of  of the joint leader of the SLENZ Project, Dr Clare Atkins,  who has worked for 16 months on three education pilot education projects funded by the Tertiary Education Commission of New Zealand to determine the benefits or otherwise of education in virtual worlds and how the benefits, if any, can be harnessed successfully by New Zealand educators.

Dr Atkins expressed her view at a meeting attended by eight leading nurse educators from a number of polytechs  in Wellington last week.

“It makes sense  to collaborate,” Atkins said. “It would be crazy to try to do things separately when you can share  and collaborate.”

She suggested that New Zealand’s Polytechs and/or Universities could band together inexpensively to increase New Zealand’s educational usage of  and presence in Second Life, around the  virtual island “archipelago” already created by the Nelson-Marlborough Insitute of Technology (NMIT), the SLENZ Project, and The University of Auckland. Virtual land for education could be made available economically within this hub area, she said.

Atkins noted  that whereas a Second Life build from scratch, such as that of  the SLENZ Project’s midwifery pilot could cost up to NZ$30,000, collaboration by institutions both in New Zealand and overseas – and the sharing of already created facilities – could reduce on-ground, virtual world costs for individual collaborating  institutions to several hundred dollars a year, if enough were involved.

“There is no point to reinventing the wheel,” she said. “Second Life is  notable for the way educators share and collaborate.”

The one-day meeting,   sponsored by the SLENZ Project followed expressions of  interest from nurse educators who had viewed or attended presentations on the SLENZ Project’s Midwifery and Foundation Learning pilot programmes.  The nurse educators attending represented  among others, UCOL, Manukau Institute of Technology, NMIT and Whitireia Community Polytechnic. The  national co-ordinator of  nursing education in the tertiary sector, Kathryn Holloway, also attended.

Besides Atkins, the meeting also included presenations by other SLENZ Project members,  and a Second Life nursing training presentation by Second Life’s Gladys Wybrow, of  The University of Auckland.

The meeting, less than a week later,  has led to the establishment of a  “collaborative” New Zealand Polytech nurse educator project to explore and develop the potential of Second Life in Nurse Education.

The project,  Nurse Education in Second Life NZ,  based on a ning created by Jean Jacoby (pictured), an instructional designer, at the UCOL School of Nursing Palmerston North, already has  20 members.

Jacoby, who has taken on a co-ordinating role, said in a dispatch after the meeting,  “It seemed to me that none of us needs to be convinced of the value of exploring Second Life; rather we are looking for practical ways to do so.

Two main approaches

“There seemed to be two main approaches identified at the meeting,” she added. “Looking for existing builds that we can adapt or use as they are”  and/or “Identifying a small, practical project to build from scratch, for which we could potentially get funding.”

The nursing group is currently in the early stages of discussing a proposal to set up a verbal health assessment scenario, with the nurse getting the information from the patient.

According to Susie le Page, also of UCOL,  this suggested Second Life application could be applied across a number of nursing areas, including midwifery, mental health and the medical/ surgical community.

Meanwhile commenting on the meeting the SLENZ Project’s lead educator for Otago Polytech’s Midwifery pilot on Kowhai in Second Life, Sarah Stewart (SL: Petal Stransky) offered advice, based on her Second Life experience, to the  nurse educators.

Stewart said nurse educators contemplating using Second Life should:  find a Second Life mentor and learn as much as you can about how Second Life works; network with other nurse and health professionals using SL using online communication tools such as blogs, YouTube, Slideshare and of course, Second Life; develop learning activities in Second Life that require little or no development to keep things as inexpensive and easy as possible; work alongside your educational institution to ensure you have full access to Second Life; collaborate with each other using virtual tools such as wiki, Google Docs, Skype and Second Life.

At the same time as the nurse educator meeting SLENZ Project joint leader Terry Neal (SL: Tere Tinkel) and  Foundation Learning pilot lead educator, MIT’s Merle Lemon (SL: Briarmelle Quintessa) briefed representatives of the Open Polytechnic, UCOL, CPIT and Wairakei Polytech at another venue, delivering  a similar message to that of Atkins.

EVENT -Kiwi educators

Sunday 8 November 7 pm (NZ Time) – meet on Koru shortly before  7pm: This week Kiwi Educators have been invited to tour the University of Western Australia sim. Our guide will be Jayjay Zifanwe, owner of the UWA sim. Highlights of the tour will be the main landing area, Sunken Gardens, Sky Theatre, Square Kilometer Array, Visualisation Research & the 3D Art & Design Challenge. This amazing SL campus is a pefect combination of realism and fantasy and well worth a visit. – Briarmelle Quintessa.

It’s only a start, i think, but i’ve made another Googledoc to keep a record of what tasks we need to do and their timescales.  Imaginatively titled ‘list of tasks with dates’.  How we will manage our project is another matter i’m concerned about because i don’t think we have been doing so very effectively.  I’ll bring this up either when we are all together or by e-mail if i must, or maybe i’ll set up a mailing list.

Unfortunately i somehow allowed ongoing ill health, personal difficulties and an essay deadline for the other module get in the way of work on this blog and even the project.  Now at least one of those is out of the way i fully intend to get back on track right away.

So far i’ve added four of the user surveys which i received back, into our Googledoc, because we only had one already entered.  I then looked at patterns.  Here are just a few examples, which i’ve entered onto the spreadsheet:

• Our users are likely to not earn much and therefore want good deals
• They like books already
• They may be willing to pay more if it’s a specialist item or something they badly want
• Definition of cheap varies, but tends to be around half normal price
• They like libraries but may not know/use all there is on offer – no mention of e-resources for example

It’s interesting to see what people say, such as about what they consider to be a good website, what features they’d find useful and what they just aren’t interested in.  Some things are obvious, like ease of navigation and annoying adverts; but who’d have thought a black background would be objectionable?  I like the way the survey has brought back ideas we might not have thought about ourselves.

I’ve also completed the two competitor web-site reviews allocated to me: readitswapit and googlebooks.  Although this means there are only three competitor reviews up in that Googledoc, now, i’ve been looking for patterns nonetheless and have put a little bit of detail into the relevant column.

This was a bit less interesting, i thought.  I’ve got less out of it so far.  The sites looked at so far by Rhianna and me, which are Amazon, Readitswapit and Googlebooks, are for example:

• easy to browse and search
• appeal to a wide range of users though not everyone
• could improve on their appearance

I’m a bit concerned about the project at the moment to be honest.  We are really quite behind with our work: there is a fair bit of data missing from the user surveys and competitor reviews Googledocs.  We haven’t yet created any personas, scenarios, user journeys, nor a site map (which were the things we learnt about in our last tutorial).  I realise we were only supposed to create the personas over this past week but i wanted to have a look at and a think about the rest of it, so i’m pretty angry with myself for not having been more organised with regard to the other work i’ve had to do.

In fact there still seem to be disagreements within our team about the scope of the project.  One person in particular is reluctant to accept ideas i put forward, such as the suggestions of zines and comics, online blogs and columnists, and other things people might enjoy reading; or ideas for the site itself, or an additional feature.  Even the ‘very cheap’ aspect remains a sore point.  Everything is seen as too much and making it too much work to complete.  It’s pretty disheartening really: i just want it to be fun, a web-site that people will remember and come back to.

I don’t want to dictate what we do or overrule anyone.  I do understand that what we need is further discussion and maybe this person just needs to be reassured that our list of priorities will decide what gets done and what drops off the bottom anyway.  After all, although i think the other two want similar things to me, it hasn’t been discussed in any great depth so who am i to say?  I suspect this is precisely the problem because project management is all about the communication; the trouble has been that whenever i try to start a discussion about these issues, my ideas get rained on again and i feel guilty as if i’m trying to bulldoze other people into doing what i want, which isn’t my intention.

Grrr, project management is as difficult as real life!  We’re having another meeting tomorrow morning before class anyway.

Last Friday we learnt about site mapping, numbering conventions, user research and competitor review.

We had a go at mapping a site, plus numbering conventions, which i found really difficult.  This was because there were so many pages to look at and see how many times they occurred, so many boxes to draw with lines going everywhere, over each other, making sure you didn’t repeat anything, that i ended up losing track and getting quite cross.

My eventual solution was to draw a spider diagram instead of the square boxes and straight lines, because this meant the lines didn’t have to cross over each other which made it a little easier to understand.

I’m still not really happy with it so i’m going to have another go and ask our tutor again next time, to make sure i’m on the right track.  Something i noted down during the class to have a look at which i hope will help with, is this web-site:

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_lazy_ia_s_guide_to_making_sitemaps

I’ve set up two Googledocs for our group project’s criteria and user questions.  I’ve sent invitations  to the others, so that we can all put our answers in.  This way we can see each others’ work as we go along despite being in different places during most of the week.

These documents are here:

Competitor review:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjqwIzv2lYNLdGhYLUtJUlNPbjdtMXR5a2RSYnZtRVE&hl=en

User survey:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tuxpW1sbAKe8u0j166Uk3Pw

Instead of having your students write their answers on the board for the class to review and critique (grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, etc.), why not use Google Docs?  Using a spreadsheet format, students can write their answers simultaneously.  No waiting for markers, no waiting for a space at the board, no problem with poor handwriting, etc.  The students’ answers can still be reviewed by the class as a whole by projecting the document on a screen. Or, another option for correcting the work would be to have the class edit each other’s responses on the computer using a different colored font.  What a fun way for students to collaborate, learn to use new technologies, and accomplish content goals!

Using Google Docs to Correct Student Responses

Voor mij brengt ding #8 niets nieuws. Bij het Streekarchivariaat Noordwest-Veluwe werkte ik voornamelijk in Google Docs.

Vanaf het moment dat deze applicaties gelanceerd werden, maakten we er dankbaar gebruik van. Eén organisatie op vijf locaties zonder centraal netwerk; om dat zonder budget een beetje efficiënt te laten werken moet je creatief zijn. Dankzij onze webmaster Peter Baars kregen we altijd direct een seintje wanneer Google weer eens met nieuwe snufjes aan kwam, dus toen gmail alleen op uitnodiging beschikbaar was, werkten wij al met gmail en toen analytics en docs kwamen, begonnen we direct.

Fijn om eens snel langs een ding te schieten Ik vind de cursus erg leuk en zeer leerzaam maar had niet verwacht er zoveel tijd aan kwijt te zijn.

Every time I turn around they’ve added a new feature to Google Docs. It’s tough to keep up, I know. I subscribe to the Google Docs Blog, which is quite helpful.

Allow me to bring you up to speed on some of the latest additions/improvements:

Friday, October 9, 2009

Have you seen what they’ve added to the Drawing features in Google since it first came out? You need to take a look! There is so much more flexibility and so many more shapes to pick from. You can also now create your own custom filled shapes.

Image Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com

Thursday, October 12, 2009

You can now share an entire folder. Apparently this was the most requested new feature. Just put all the documents you want to share into the folder and then share it with your Collaborators.

Image Source: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/

Also on this same day, Google announced that you could upload more than one document at a time. I thought this was great. Especially when bringing new teachers into Google Docs. So you want to convert all your science PowerPoints to Google Presentations?? You can now do it all in one batch. Simply click on Upload –> Select files to upload –> Select destination folder –> Start Upload. It’s that simple.

Monday, October 26, 2009

I guess after making it so simple to upload all your documents, Google decided it was time to make it simple to download your documents as well. I was excited when I read about this as I needed to remove some of my older Google Docs, yet wasn’t quite ready to part with them. This option really works for me.

You can now download your Google Docs in MS Office or Open Office Formats or as PDFs (up to 500mb at a time) in a zipped file. Follow these steps:

1. Select the files you want to download by checking them
2. Click on More Actions (on the right of the Google Docs screen)
3. Click on Export
4. If you are exporting a lot, you can select the option to have Google e-mail you when the export is done. Otherwise, you can just wait and then either Save or Open the Zipped file.

Some other features you may consider checking out:

• The Equation Editor –> Click on Insert – Equation
• Language Tools –> Tools – Translate document
• Formatting –> Insert – Page break

Tom Barrett has been sharing his class ideas and tips about using various tools in GoogleDocs presentations for quite a while and I have been collecting them in my bookmarks. He has now put all of them together in his blog. The presentations are in easy to use in their Google docs format and he invites others to share ideas. They are worth looking at/using and, if you have some tips that have not been mentioned, think about contributing.

The latest one I found was Ten Interesting Ways* to Use Audio in your Classroom. We have been doing some work with audio and I recently listened to a discussion on music in the novel, so I am interested in exploring this area some more.

 The other presentations are listed below but don’t be surprised if the numbers have changed.

•  10 Interesting Ways To Use a Wiki in the Classroom
• 13 Interesting Ways To Use a Visualizer in the Classroom
• 27 Interesting Ways To Use Twitter in the Classroom
• 40 Interesting Ways To Use Wordle in the Classroom
• 40 Interesting Ways To Use Your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom
• 21 Interesting Ways To Use Google Docs in the Classroom
• 24 Interesting Ways To Use Google Earth in the Classroom
• 23 Interesting Ways To Use a Nintendo DS in the Classroom
• 34 Interesting Ways To Use Search Engines in the Classroom
• 42 Interesting Ways To Use Your Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom
• 5 Interesting Ways to Use Prezi in the Classroom
• 17 Interesting Ways to Use Voicethread in the Classroom

Still in the early stages are:

• 4 interesting ways to use Wallwisher in the classroom
• 3 interesting ways to support writing in the classroom
• 5 interesting ways to use an iPod touch in the classroom
• 4 interesting ways to use Nintendo Wii in the classroom
• and so far Zero interesting ways to use Google Wave in the classroom

“Technology needs to be like oxygen. Ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.”

Chris Lehmann, Principal, Science Leadership Academy, Philadelphia.

Chris was the Keynote Speaker at Tech Forum yesterday in Palisades, NY and set the tone for a fantastic day. The day from my perspective was really all about how to push ourselves and our colleagues for change. The day was not about tools or technology. The technology was in the background.

Building School 2.0: Creating The Schools We Need was the title of Chris’s Keynote presentation. He spoke not about the 1 to 1 laptop initiative in his school, but the driving questions that the teachers used. He spoke about how the teachers worked as a community and that the students ultimately did to. He also stressed the idea that our students learn best when it mattered to them and that they needed to be  engaged and empowered.

As I was listening to Chris speak, looking at the images that he projected, and typing some notes, I also was Tweeting a few things. I opened up a column in Tweetdeck for  #TFNY09 and there were quite a few folks in the room that were also Tweeting. It was great to see what was catching their attention and participating in that backchannel.

Next I went to the Walking the Walk panel discussion with Kim Carter, Mary Moss, Alissa Berger and Chris Lehmann. Each panelist spoke on how they started schools from scratch.  My biggest take-away was when the last panelist, Kim, said “You can’t empower kids if you don’t empower adults. We must have PLCs in schools.” It was good to hear not of assessment and tangible needs.

From there I headed to the Roundtable discussion I was co-hosting. Dana Lawit, Robin Newman and I spoke with a room of about 30 educators on the topic of Social/Academic/Professional networks for students and teachers. We had a Plan A, B and C going in to the room not knowing our participants, but in the end, it turned out that the group really wanted to talk about using social networks with students. Here’s a link to the Google doc we put together.

The last full session of the day for me was Making it Happen: How Our Imaginations Can Give Us The Schools We Want with Patrick Higgins.
He divided the group by the question we chose to answer:

1. Who are the students you want leaving your classroom every day?
2. What do you hope they know how to do with what they’ve learned?
3. What do you hope they care about?

Ultimately, each of the formed groups was challenged to answer the following question:

What does it mean to be well-educated in today’s world?

http://wallwisher.com/wall/techforum09

• To be flexible and agile
• Be able to collaborate and communicate with other
• have a foundation of math and reading literacy along with cultural and global awareness
• Collaborative. To know certain things, and to be able to find out certain things.
• To be able to navigate information to create your own knowledge.
• Have a broad knowledge base, knowing how we learn, adaptable, flexible

This was the best place for me to have ended my day. Patrick defined “literacy” as what you need to know to do the things that matter to you. So simple. Yet such a great definition.

Remember, change begins with you.

I’ve been meaning to collect these awesome Google Presentations all in one place. I actually was talking about it with the group of teachers I was working with yesterday as I shared the Google Docs presentation with them. Then, this morning, I saw this Tweet from a new follower.

I new immediately what Miss Brownsword was referring to and went right to Tom Barrett’s blog where he had posted all 12 of his Interesting Ways To Use series. I had contributed to a few of them in their early stages, but I was not aware of some of the newer ones, or how lengthy some of them had gotten.

Though you can visit Tom’s blog to see these fabulous resources, you can Google them, find them in my Delicious and Diigo bookmarks, I’ve also decided to list them here. Take a look. Perhaps even contribute. (Thanks, Tom, for setting up these collaborative resources.)

21 Interesting Ways To Use Google Docs in the Classroom

42 Interesting Ways To Use Your Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom

24 Interesting Ways To Use Google Earth in the Classroom

40 Interesting Ways To Use Your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom

40 Interesting Ways To Use Wordle in the Classroom

27 Interesting Ways To Use Twitter in the Classroom

10 Interesting Ways To Use a Wiki in the Classroom

13 Interesting Ways To Use a Visualizer in the Classroom

23 Interesting Ways To Use a Nintendo DS in the Classroom

34 Interesting Ways To Use Search Engines in the Classroom

17 Interesting Ways to Use Voicethread in the Classroom

5 Interesting Ways to Use Prezi in the Classroom

Our group project is looking really very exciting, as after further discussion we now have a far clearer business statement: a guide to free and very cheap books in the UK.  Finding them, reviewing them, getting rid of the print ones once you’ve read them so that others can enjoy them.

We also want to include links to related resources that we don’t necessarily cover, such as libraries and local events, bookswaps and sites where you can review things and which will recommend your next read on the strength of what you’ve enjoyed so far.  We’ll also include book-related networking sites in this, such as librarything.com and readernaut.com

The main part of the site will be about finding the free stuff.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

• Your local library (well, of course) – such as a rough guide to finding out about it and using it, especially for those who may never have been in before or went once but found it too daunting
• Other libraries you’re entitled to use and reasons you may be interested in them
• Schemes such as Bookstart – http://www.bookstart.co.uk/
• E-books, such as Project Gutenberg and Google Books

I hope we can include the following:

• Self-published material such as zines and comics, for example http://www.zinebook.com/ and http://www.unshelved.com/
• Interesting newspaper columnists and blogs to follow - as this is so subjective, we’ll need to see what each of us likes and see how this could fit into the site

I definitely think we should have another page suggesting other places to go where not everything is free, but where there may be both free and cheap items available.  Once people have become hooked on books (as they surely will!) they may feel able to spend a little bit of money, so it would be good to give them that option.  We can ask around to find out what people consider to be cheap.  Places like:

• Book shops – high street and online – which we know personally are good for second-hand, remainders and other sales
• Second hand, independent and radical book shops, for example those which stock cheap and possibly free publications (such as zines)
• Perhaps a brief introduction to book shops on the Charing Cross Road and other well-known shops or markets
• Local and country-wide events, e.g. book sales, book fairs

As i said before in a previous entry, i really want to include independent retailers.  I hope to include zines and comics for a similar reason.  These are made by people rather than organisations, usually sold at cost-price, are sometimes completely free (like mine) or can be found online.  I haven’t consulted the others properly about this yet so need to see what they think.  Do these count as books?

This plan is brilliant because it could quickly become a really nice community web-site, aimed at people who think books (and even reading at all) isn’t something available to them, because they don’t have the money, don’t know where to start looking, or like reading and/or know a little about it all but would like to read more.

We came up with a few attempts at catchy, self-explanatory names but so far we’ve been unsuccessful.  (My suggestion of Bookdog was vetoed – sad.)

Since the group last talked about it, i’ve come up with a few: bumblebooks, which is brilliant but taken (although maybe a variation can be found), booktrooper (in the vein of readernaut), bookcrash (in the sense of price crash - but it sounds horribly tacky to me, somehow) and my favourite so far: Books For The People!  If the others like this, our logo could be a fist in the air… holding a book, ha ha.

As for project management, we’ve signed up to Ning to see what it does.  Before we meet up again on Wednesday morning (before the other module’s class) i’m going to mess around with Googledocs, then e-mail the others to get them to join in.

Next we must of course draw up our list of priorities!

Then: who will do what, how will we communicate… and that all important name.

Last Friday’s class was mostly about Project Management, a term which has always meant almost nothing to me and has even struck mild dread into my soul – till now!

Since then i’ve been reading the suggested parts of the 37signals e-book and some other links. This evening i’ll start on the GTD and Lifehacker links provided in the tutorial handout. I’ve been looking around at other web-sites, both those suggested in the tutorial handout and others i’ve found, such as these:

http://www.dhsspsni.gov.uk/guidance_on_register.pdf
I got the idea because the NHS is all over the news at the moment. Page 15’s spider diagram is particularly interesting because i hadn’t thought about doing it like that, though i’m not sure how relevant it is to our project – yet!

http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/50212.aspx
Questioning the budget-scope-time triangle. I do think there are no absolutes and there will be changes throughout the duration of the project.

Traditionally bound books:

I’m part way through the Steve Krug book which is easy to read. I also got a book out of the library i used to work in which actually turned out to be of no use in this case as it turned out to relate to a different kind of project. Never mind. I’ve got Kelly Goto’s ‘Web Redesign’ from Brighton university’s library and i’ll start on that later when internet-blindness sets in.

Wish i lived here

Some of the things that didn’t surprise me at all about good project management include:

• Excellent communication is required
• Prioritising tasks is essential
• Contingency planning is essential
• Different things motivate different people
• Chasing ‘assets’ (images, text) from the client is a major source of delay – sigh.

Some things that didn’t occur to me but on reflection are obvious, actually, include:

• The client is part of the team which manages and completes the project
• ‘Resources’ mostly means people (though of course includes money, technology etc)
• Some tasks might have to be de-prioritised to the point where they fall off the bottom of the list and never actually get done
• Drawing up a risk register

Completely new to me:

• Waterfall, iterative and spiral approaches
• ‘Critical paths’
• Drawing up a list of assumptions
• Project management tools, such as Basecamp and Microsoft Project

from hiphopsideproject.com

What i found really interesting was the iterative approach, where you smash the project up like cinder toffee into what is basically a list of tiny pieces, each one with its own ranking: none may have equal importance.

That means major overlap between team members’ tasks, so each one really needs to be a good team player, not precious about their own area, unafraid of criticism and protentially having their work trampled. There is no room for control freaks!

I’m both delighted and fascinated by this – although i’m not at all competitive and could handle this quite happily, i’m not sure i know anyone else like this. I really want to seek out ’good’ teams which take this approach to see if they actually work like this.

I was very interested to hear about Googlewave (which was also mentioned as a possibility for a future project management tool) although i didn’t manage to watch the entire 1 hour 20 minute video on their site! From what i can gather, it’ll be a combination of Googledocs and real-time chat – to the extent that users may also be able to see each other type (and delete) pretty much character-by-character. Some people’s comments indicated they weren’t happy with this! I imagine there’s considerably more to it but i’m hoping to get a proper look at it at some point.

En el mercado encontramos una amplia gama de procesadores de texto, unos más simples que otros, algunos gratis, otros de pago, y todos con funcionalidades muy parecidas. Acá tenés un link de DonationCoder.com que puede resultarte muy interesante si preferís analizar tus opciones antes de apostar por alguno de ellos. Entre los principales encontramos a OpenOffice (gratuito), Microsoft Word 2007 y WordPerfect X3. Luego disponemos de otros programas como TextMaker, Atlantis, Papyrus WORD, AbiWord, Ability Write, EIOffice, PolyEdit y procesadores “vía web”: GoogleDocs, ThinkFree Office Write y Zoho Write.

Procesadores de texto: Descargas

I just came across this article from Lifehacker.com, discussing the simple distraction free qualities of GoogleDocs. It’s nice to note that it’s not just educators who value writing without distractions and it’s good for our students to understand that these tools are being used in the professional world.

And, on a hey that’s cool note, GoogleDocs now has a template that can go full screen to make your computer resemble the old school minimalism of the first personal computer documents. Think back to those blue/ green/ black screen with one font in either black or white. I doubt our students will remember computers like that but I think it’s fun for those of us who do.

I have to start this by saying I love Google Docs now. I never heard of them before this class and now that I know about it, i think I am going to use it all the time. Also, now that I know about it, I hear it all the time. I listen to a lot of podcast on my hour long drive to school every day and I never noticed before but the hosts mention  Google Docs in the podcasts from time to time. I must have tuned them out before since I just didn’t know what it was.

Basically Google Docs is a free web based word processer, spreadsheet, and presentation program that is offered by Google. With Google Docs you can both create and edit documents online while working with other people online, using the same document. This eliminates emailing the same document back and forth through email (or other means) and allows you to do it all online and in one place.

The nice thing about it, for me, is that I don’t have to worry about remembering a disk or a flash drive if I need to save a paper that I am writing. I can just do it on Google Docs, then retrieve it from any computer I want (as long as there is internet access).

Here is a video to help you understand Google Docs more.