TEK
The Educated Kiwi
iPads in Schools
Sep 2nd
If you are wondering if it is worth rolling out iPads in your school check out Fraser Speirs blog. Fraser has journalled his experiences in removing computer labs and replacing them with iPads.
Free Documentaries
Sep 2nd
One of the good things about doing break time duty is that you get to talk to staff that you would normally not get to know. You also find out things that you didn’t know and some of them turn out to be useful. Top Documentary Films is a site which catalogues a bunch of free documentaries found on various video sites on the web. I scanned a few and some were English with foreign subtitles, others vice-versa and regular English no subs. Using the VideoDownloadHelper plugin for Firefox I can transfer these videos to our internal PHP Motion server so that students can watch them without cranking through the bandwidth. Another great resource.
Google Search with Updates
Aug 29th
Often when something is going wrong or there is breaking news traditional sources can be a bit slow. Now Google Realtime search indexes Twitter, which might not always be a good thing but in the case of http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ it’s a handy addon and I’ll be interested to trial it in class during a major event like the upcoming Commonwealth Games.
This new service can be accessed from the left-hand side of Google’s main search results page under “Updates,” or directly through a different URL: google.com/landing/realtime
Google is currently running limited tests of the function, which is said to be one of “50-200 experiments” operating simultaneously on the search engine.
New Geography Standard for 2011 may kick off the use of GIS, finally
Aug 25th
Geography 1.8 Apply spatial analysis, with direction, to solve a geographic problem
For next year we are looking at adopting the new Geography standard 1.8 which will allow us to do amongst other things use data in ways such as:
• measuring
• layering
• changing the symbols used
• sorting and editing a table
• querying the map
• using coordinate systems
• displaying a graph based on the map.
I order to do this I have been looking at a few resources. Initially Arc Gis explorer, which is an awesome resource (here is a Link to the iLearn blog with more information) I am currently using this with my Junior classes to test the use of Silverlight from behind the proxy at school and how it goes bandwidth wise as opposed to Google Earth. I have also started looking at Open Street Map. Mark initially reminded me of this with the following TED video:
Having now created an account I have used Motion X GPS To start doing some edits. Would be interesting to see a Geography field trip where the students can actually contribute to a real Map. My only problem is the ease of using the basic Garmin Etrex I have and using the serial converter to get the data off, as opposed to my phone which simply emails the data in .gpx and .kml format already. Still some issues to look at but I am very keen to continue.
iPad Guitar Amp
Aug 23rd
Was just looking at guitar amp apps for the iPad and found a cool peripheral and app from ikmultimedia. If anyone has given this a go let me know before I drop NZ$95 + NZ$25 for the app but it does look very cool.
While I was looking around I also found this:
Google Sites Back Up
Aug 21st
Backing up a google site is reasonably easy within a domain. When you would like to have it backed up you can then use the Google sites liberation tool which you can download from here. Then you run the Java app filll in the fields as I have below and then Export your site. Once this is done you have a backup and you can also then reverse the process to a new site.
Google Wonder Wheel and Time line
Aug 20th
Having been introduced to Google Wonder Wheel I am again shown that despite something being right under my nose I had not seen it before. Introduced in May of last year as well. I’ve been using this with my History classes to guide their research on NZ History. We have also enjoyed using the Timeline tool where we can search by posts from a specific date which further increases the accuracy of the information to first hand accounts.
Ultra Fast Broadband and NZ Education
Aug 16th
After attending the Learning without Limits roadshow hosted by Marg McLeod (Change Manager, Broadband In Schools, Ministry of Education) and Douglas Harre (Senior ICT Consultant, Ministry of Education) a few points struck me…….
Why strive to provide Ultra Fast Broadband in NZ Schools? While I totally agree with the following points made at the meeting:
•Online world now integral to students’ lives
•Increasing evidence that learning in online environments can significantly enhance engagement + lift achievement.
•Particularly effective for students who don’t respond to traditional teaching methods.
•Students can collaborate and learn anytime, anywhere and from anyone.
•In other words – learning without limits
I do believe we need to carefully identify how we are intending to use this resource and, just as importantly, how we are going to pay for it!!
The issue is that since ‘Tomorrows schools’ was introduced in the 1980′s we have all become ‘self managing’ and while that has allowed each community and school to make its own decision on how they do their “Core business”, I am increasingly concerned on how that is impacting ICT costs and ICT for Learning in schools.
While all schools understand their own community best, often there is nobody in the school that understands ICT infrastructures and how they relate to the successful implementation of learning in the school. Consequently, this job is left to the IT Technician or some classroom teacher with an interest or some ‘spare’ time. This often results in schools spending large amounts of $$$ to the vendor with the flashiest solution rather than the one that is best fit for both the school and the staff who will need to use it. Talking to schools, they are continually pelted with sales promotions for IWB’s, Software solutions, LMs’s, E-Portfolio solution, Phone solutions, wireless access etc etc etc ….and now its all the companies trying to sign schools up to fibre as fast as possible before the overall fibre Tender is announced in October.
I believe the most important aspect of the meeting last week was the Ministry basically asking for a mandate from schools to look at tendering for the ongoing cost of Fibre access to the school PLUS the data used. While this would come out of our bulk grants, the pricing they would be able to get for 2300+ schools would have to be better than we can get individually!! Our meeting unanimously ‘passed’ for this to happen so if we are willing to do this then perhaps the climate is right to put back into place some Educational IT specialists with geographic ‘regions of responsibility’ who are not advisors but individuals employed by the Ministry (maybe from ‘tagged staffing’) with the responsibility for liaising between the schools and vendors and who have the responsibility of ‘ticking off’ major IT purchases for ALL schools in the area. This would allow them to organise regional tenders for all the items that schools are presently trying to buy ….and due to ‘economy of scale’ the deals the schools would get would be a major financial win.
Then the next trick would be to set up the same sort of regional positions to provide ongoing IT professional development leadership ……but that’s a whole other post in the making!!
Just for those of you who were wondering what’s available presently via the National Education Network …if you are lucky enough to be on it :
Extensions for Safari, Finally
Jul 29th
Hopefully this is the beginning of something useful. I’ve installed scribefire, which I am writing this in as well as little snapper. Maybe I’ll start using Safari again after having been on Chrome for a while although I will miss the unibar which allows you to type in the urlbar and have it search. But change is as good as a holiday for me and it might make things easier for teachers who are used to Safari to use some more powerful features
Time for some inspiration.
Jul 28th
There are times when I start to feel a little stale cocooned in my world and I have forgotten to look outside. Thanks to my new iPad I found this as I browsed video podcasts on iTunes.
Auckland War Museum Cenotaph Database Great for research
Jun 17th
On Monday we took our Year 11 students to Auckland to visit the War Museum as a part of our NCEA 1.1 and 1.2 assessments where they have to research a person from the 20th century and create a poster with a brief bio/timeline and the relevant historical ideas that apply to that person.
The Scars on the Heart Exhibit always gives them plenty to look at and I only wish we were able to spend more time there. For now we will make do with our local information.
While there I was kindly reminded about the Cenotaph database
The cornerstone of our military information system is Cenotaph, a biographical database of New Zealanders who have died in the 19th century, from the New Zealand Wars and South Africa, through the First and Second World Wars to Korea, Malaya and Vietnam.Cenotaph started primarily as a roll of honour of those who died as a result of war service. Now it includes many personnel who have died since war service. Virtually all those who served in World War One are included.
The database already consists of over 122600 records, many of which include a portrait taken from published sources or supplied by family members. We draw information from a range of published sources and from the Museum Library’s manuscripts collection and references to personal items on display in the Scars on the Heart galleries.
It’s an excellent resource and one I’ve been trying to get the students to look at to see their own family history.
Facebook Apology
Jun 17th
I have to say after watching this video I did feel a bit like the complaining about privacy is a bit rich considering that people pay nothing for Facebook. We all like privacy but then you can’t blame the company for wanting to make more money can you?
Byline-an iPhone app to get started reading blogs again
Jun 10th
A few days ago I downloaded and installed Byline which now has a free ad supported option. I don’t know why but it just seems nicer than google reader and has got me started reading through my education blogs again and finding out some new ideas which has to be a good thing. This from the website
Simply use your free Google Reader account to subscribe to websites you’d like to keep track of. Byline will automatically bring you new content, putting thousands of RSS and Atom feeds at your fingertips.
Reading your feeds has never been so fast and frictionless. When you’re ready for the next article there’s no need to scroll down or stab at tiny buttons — just swipe to move between pages in one fluid motion.
Browse offline
Even when you have no internet connection, Byline gives you instant access to complete web pages. Perfect for flights, subway journeys, and (if you’re an iPod Touch owner) those long dry spells between Wi-Fi zones.
Byline automatically analyses your feeds so that it can cache the ones with truncated content. This means all your news is there in full when you’re offline, and blazing fast to load when you’re online to boot. It’ll also cache your notes, so you can save any website you visit for offline browsing.
Four Chord Song
Jun 10th
A little light relief. Australian comedy group ‘Axis Of Awesome’ perform a sketch from the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Footage courtesy of Network Ten Australia.
See http://www.axisofawesome.net/ for more details of the comedy trio including Jordan Raskopoulos, Lee Naimo, & Benny Davis.
iPad first thoughts
Apr 15th
Well thanks to the Tauranga Apple Centre I had a brief play with an iPad today. I even got to take it home to see what Mrs van Dijk thought of it. My thoughts- I was really excited by the idea of the iPad largely for my daughter, at three she already uses the mouse and loves reading books and generally playing on the computer. The iPad seemed more natural for her as she is very happy with Dr Seuss on my iPhone. Alas apart from native iPad apps most of the sites my daughter like to use like starfall are flash based.
This is a huge minus for the iPad and would stop me getting one personally as i’m quite happy reading things on my phone and the lack of flash on a smaller device is not so noticeable. It makes me think that Apple is expecting people to spend the money on iPads and the app store. Now if only they released a model for schools that was flash enabled. Then I could see us getting a few as alternatives to laptops.
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