Learning - Thinking - Playing

Coming Soon - ScratchEd

During his Keynote at ACEC Mitch Resnick indicated that later this year/early next year there will be a new site created for teachers to share and develop resources/links around using scratch in education. It will be called ScratchEd.

Mitch indicated that any teachers using scratch or interested in scratch and want to be involved and kept up-to-date about this new development then they can send an email to the following emails address, people will be updated as developments occur.

Email: scratch-ed@media.mit.edu

Basic web details: http://web.media.mit.edu/~kbrennan/scratched.html

Software to try - Aviary and Magiq

In the last few days a few software programs have been released that are worth having a look at. The first is Aviary:

This is actually not one piece of software more a website that will provide a range of online tools to undertake image creation and manipulation. A few months I found the site and was immediately struck but the visuals and the name links with various types of birds (the feathered kind). In the past few days it has opened up beta test opportunities which they call "Early Bird invitations" the obvious pun is one that permeates the whole site with each and every tool that will become available named after birds also the created files have the extension .egg Hmmmm.

The two tools currently available are Phoenix - an image editor tool that allows you to edit and create images. The second tool Peacock - a computer algorithm-based pattern generator. If that is a little out there and hard to grasp - watch the peacock-in-action video on the site to get a better idea.

The site is free and the tools look really interesting, the visuals and presentation of the site speak volumes and these tools in the right teacher and students hands will allow them to do great things; even basic users like me can make something interesting. For IWBs and LSTs these tools provide an interesting shared application that will not cost schools money.

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The second piece of software which was released today is from Plasq, the makers of ComicLife. They have released a demo version of a software called Magiq. Basically magiq is an extended version of ComicLife aimed at a wider market than just students and schools. Magiq comes packed with templates and props and all sorts of tools to make manipulating and presenting your images easier and more fun. Unfortunatley the software is only for Mac OSX 10.5.2 - sorry.

Down load the software and have a play - see what you think and let me know.

To my brother - happy birthday mate - I love you.

Google Earth Free for Educators - Update

Recently I posted about Educators being able to get access to Google Earth Pro for free. I have had confirmation from listeners to a podcast I do with Darrel Branson called the EdTechCrew, where listeners have indicated that they have recieved accounts that enables free use of the program.

As a summary:

To get access, please send email application with the details listed below to GEEC@google.com (it might even bee the lovely Anna). Should your organization qualify you will receive notification via email with detailed instructions on how to set up your account and register for Google online support.

Information required:

1. Your name (key contact person)
2. Organization / Institution
3. A brief description of the Institution / Organization
4. Full mailing address
5. Telephone number
6. User name (complete email address that will be assigned to the license key)
7. Institution’s web address
8. Your Institution’s Tax ID (if applicable)
9. Your Institution’s 501©3 number (US only, if applicable)
10. A description of the intended application including grade level(s), discipline(s) or subject.
11. What features in Google Earth Pro are important to you and how do you wish to use them in your classroom.
12. Number of computers you are requesting to download this software on.
13. Prior license key information.

PLEASE NOTE: Applicants are required to download the free, 7-day trial version of Google Earth Pro at http://earth.google.com/ before applying. Please be sure to include your Google Earth trial account user name and license key above.

For this google will expect the following:

In return (for the free license), we ask for your yearly contribution to a forum of educators facilitated by the Google Earth Community at http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0 or http://groups.google.com/group/google-for-educators. There, you will be joined by other educators seeking collaborative opportunities with their peers for the benefit of students. Whether it be information in the form of a lesson plan or in a detailed testimony outlining your successes, these contributions will foster incentives for creativity and innovation which that can ultimately evolve into Google Earth enhancements geared specifically toward curriculum development.

Thanks to Tammy Maginity for following up with further details and thanks to Darren and Sartz. Cheers 

Google Earth - Free for educators

I thought I would post this one on my blog simply to try and ensure that all schools and educators are aware that Google Earth Pro can be accessed by educators for free. I picked this news up from my friend and fellow podcaster Darrel the ICTGuy - who spoke about the development on our podcast the EdTechCrew. If you would like to get access to Google Earth Pro to use in your classroom then visit the following blog post to get started - http://www.ncs-tech.org/?p=783.

Updated Google Earth

Just a quick post for the start of the week, this one came out a few days ago. Google has updated their Google Earth Software to version 4.3. The clip below gives a quick overview of the new features, it is US centric but you get the idea.

In the classroom, for presentations and for business intelligence and planning; Google Earth and Google Maps offer a great resource that allows us to see our planet in a vastly different way. If you have the time check out the site Wayfaring.com, this site takes the Google maps plotting idea and makes it a lot simpler for children and adults to plot locations, create routes and mark points of interest.

iBand, WorldWide Telescope and Vyew

It has been a while since my last post and I have been working on a number of projects that have been keeping me busy - sad to say these projects have tended to be more infrastructure and connections rather then exploring, developing and working with students and teachers. All that is about to change, I am back in my home town to do a bit of work and in preparation I have been exploring a whole range of tools available online and to download that offer a world of collaboration and creativity (more on these later).

I have also been very excited about the developments around the iPod Touch and iPhone, with the developments by Apple to allow third party developers to build apps for these devices. In the lead up to this recent news there have been a lot of people working on jailbroken devices to enable them to offer an amazing range applications - one I really liked was the iBand development. This is where a group of people have used their iPhones/Touch to create a band using the touch interface to create music. It is simply easier for you to watch the following video:

As a big fan of Ted I recently came across an announcement about a new development that is soon to be available to us all. To celebrate the up coming Astronomical anniversary Roy Gould from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics and Microsoft Research are launching a tool called the WorldWide Telescope that will enable computer users the world over to explore, tour and experience the amazing place called space. The clips shown at the Ted event look amazing. I have always loved the idea of exploring space and if I had the money I would want to take a trip on the Virgin Galactic - it would only be a taste but what a taste.

In the mean time lets just explore the WWT, imagine where our students will be able to go.

Finally I have been playing with a tool called Vyew - a collaborative real time sharing and communication tool. Apart from the push to talk option and the not so crash hot video (could not get mine working) - it has some very nice sharing and drawing features that would work well in school environments where real time collaboration is required. If you wanted you could use Skype to carry the voice/video components and then use Vyew to chat and collaborate. It is worth having a look.

If you are from Australia you will get a kick out of registration process, especially when you get to check your time zone - the only options Australians have is to select Sidney thats right good old 'Sidney'.

Cosmic Blobs - something to design with

A good friend sent me the following link to a TeacherTube video on a software product I had never heard of called Cosmic Blobs. The software looks fantastic and easy to use, best of all it works on both Macs and PC's. I have only just downloaded my copy to play with my children so not sure how and where it fits in education but looks to have lots of potential. Check it out - just for something different to do with your children and students in the lead up to Christmas. Thanks Matt.

Recovering Digital Camera Images

The mighty Geelong Cats won the AFL premiership on the weekend, defeating Port Adelaide by a record margin of 119 points. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to attend my first grand final to see my team win its first premiership in 44 years - as an avid photographer I had taken my camera along to capture the memories.

The next day I loaded my images from my camera onto my MacBook Pro through iPhoto, like a lot of photo management programs you are given the option either prior too or after importing your images to delete the photo's from your camera. Like most times I selected the 'delete' option (I guess you can see where this is going). As I was viewing my images in iPhoto and changing the orientation of some I hit a small snag - the program stopped and started to think, and think, and think, and think. Not wanting to sit around and wait I forced the program to quit, I then opened up iPhoto again and to my shock and horror the last imported images were not listed, nor could be found on the mac or digital camera. I was mortified and a little p###ed off - how could this happen.

After ranting and raving for a little while I sat down and started to apply some logical thinking processes to the situation I was in - firstly the memory card in the camera is a little like a hard drive in the way information is stored and that when photos are deleted they are not actually deleted but just the information that shows that the photo's existed was deleted. A little like removing your letter box - you are still living in the street, people just do not have a simple and easy way to find you.

I then set about looking for digital image recovery software to help me with my situation, amazingly there is a lot of software out there that can help. I came across the following program that was very basic, free and easy to use: http://www.download.com/PC-Inspector-Smart-Recovery/3000-2242_4-10261986.html

I recovered all my files and was again happy and in alignment with the world. So what did I learn from this whole situation:

1. When transferring images from your camera to the computer do not auto delete until images are safely stored on my computer.
2. Make sure I back up my images regularly (I really do not want to lose any again)

We should all know these steps and they are very simple, yet how many times do we forget them.

Go Cats...

Top Online Tools

The other day I recently came across the following site that has tried to pull together a list of the top 10 and top 100 online tools for 2007. The site which is part of the "Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies" a UK based organisation has pulled together the list.

Spending the time looking at the list I have to say it was very interesting and intriguing - I was not totally sold on the top 10 or the order of the larger top 100, but what the list did provide was a great discussion point and starting point to consider the tools I use every day and what order I would put mine in - if at all possible. I really like the idea of having a top 10/100 list, however the number of survey respondents that participated was extremely small (being only 109), although on the website there is a comprehensive list of all participants, backgrounds, personal top 10's and their images (in most cases).

If you were going to develop this top 10/100 idea further as a way for teachers/students to keep abreast of online developments, access online resources and to get an understanding of the depth and breadth of software tools available I would look to have a much broader survey that was continually open. This would enable people to modify and change their selections over time as their skills/knowledge developed as well as allowing those that stumble across the survey the ability to participate as and when they find it - sort of an ongoing poll as it were.

Take the time to consider what you would put down as your top ten  online tools?

The site is available here where you can download a pdf with the top 100 and resources listed.

Just for the record the following were the top 10:
1. Firefox
2. Del.icio.us
3. Skype
4. Google Search
5. PowerPoint
6. Wordpress
7. Gmail
8. Google Reader
9. Blogger
10. Word

Free software - check this out

Just had to post this link to a good friend's Blog: ICT GUY - Darrel has posted information about free software available to students and teachers - well anybody in fact. Check out the posting and the software and sites discussed, visit the post here...

 

Remember you can always join Darrel and myself on our podcast - EdTechCrew or visit our website for links www.edtechcrew.net.