Here are some more "on the wire" updates . This is a pretty general focus starting with some excellent professional learning materials 1. Seven things you should know - http://www.educause.edu/ELI7Things - This is an ongoing educationally focused series of reces that each month examine a different emerging technology or process. The latest two are 7 things you should know about….. online media editing - http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutOnlin/214611 privacy in web 2 environments - http://www.educause.edu/Resources/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutPriva/213085 2. Project 2000 - http://www.tuaw.com/2010/09/09/found-footage-project-2000-from-1988-on-the-direction-of-comput/ - this is a 1998 video looking at  the year 2000 and computing. It features some well known players in the educational and futurist world including: Apple’s Steve Wozniak Alvin Toffler Alan kay Worth a look  - here is the Youtube URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEkX4ipKeas 3. Mappingworlds - Show World - http://show.mappingworlds.com/world/ This is a great visualisation site that mapps the world by taking the aspects being examined and increasing the size of the country to match the proportion of spending, expendature, level of conflict etc. Very Powerful and exciting. Information from a very wide array of sources. 4. MEdiaStorm - http://www.mediastorm.com/pub/projects.html - Mediastorm is one of my favourite video sites. They produce videos that are challenging, current and reflective but often uncomfortable. I am frequently stunned and moved by them. The latest "UNDESIRED" by Wlater Ashrada looks at the cultural pressure to have sons in India. Its 12 minutes long but… IT WILL MOVE YOU. http://mediastorm.com/publication/undesired Another recent product from this group is the video Airsick - http://www.mediastorm.com/publication/airsick - which using 20,000 pictures looks at our addiction to fossil fuels. and finally - http://sparklab.si.edu/spark-experiments.html this is a science resource site with a series of experiments and labs that students can investigate and explore. The students are challenged to: Identify a problem or need (Think it) Conduct research (Explore it) Make sketches  (Sketch it) Build prototypes (Create it) Test the invention (Try it) Refine it (Tweak it) Market the invention (Sell it) This is the process of invention.

In this one the wire update I have found some great tools and tool sites to look at 1. Directory of e-learning tools - http://c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/Tools/instructional.html - This list comes from the scenter for learning and performance technologies - Well structured, detailed and very useful. 2. Encyclo-MEDIA http://www.encyclomedia.com/ This is a free online reference encyclopedia for media. This is a great site for media studies, english, film studies, performing & language arts and more. Well worth a visit. Try this one - "I have a dream" http://www.encyclomedia.com/video-i_have_a_dream.html 3. Create your own comic -  Superhero Squad - http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comic - This is another useful free site. This one from Marvel, allows you to create your own superhero comic strip. Anotehr option well worth considering is Comic life by plasq - http://plasq.com Once a mac only product its been available for Windows for quite a while - very economical on a school wide basis. 4. Changing Paradigms Video - http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/archive/sir-ken-robinson - This is a Video from a lecture given by Sir Ken Robinson to the RSA - Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) Worth watching. This is the RSA’s video blog - http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/ 5. Clam Anti-virus for Mac - http://www.clamxav.com/index.php?page=v2beta Don’t say mac’s don’t get viruses, they can and do, just not with the same frequency as a PC. Here is a solution. Still in Beta, but worth a look and finally - http://prezi.com/gb4mbz9vg7hg/blooms/ - This is a great presentation put together by Joshua Coupal about Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy - very cool and great use of prezi

I have to ask what is a classroom? I know that sounds a little strange but its a reflection on the world we live in. The other day I had a year 11 study class period one. For the first day in I don’t know how long the sun was out and it was a nice comfortable warm day. The students asked if they could sit outside and work. After a minute or two’s reflection I agreed and the students and their laptops moved out into the courtyard area and settled into to work. A couple of groups were doing french and german oral comprehension, a pair of students were quizzing each other on physics, another couple were listen to music while working on their art portfolios. Prayer Flags - Nepal - Andrew Churches All of the students were engaged and working. They all were working effectively and efficently outside of the classroom while still having all of the facilities of the schools network via wireless. I had my year 13 for the final time yesterday, they are on study leave for their IB ITGS examinations. The students and I went across the road to the local cafe, as both a celebration of two years of work, but also to sit and discuss the information systems embedded in the cafe. While there was a fair amount of hilarity, there was also a good discussion which had relevance and significence on IT systems and business Again I have to ask what is a classroom? So what is a classroom?  I feel that all to often we as teachers are tied up with the concept of the physical space as the place of learning. That to teach we must have tables or desks, chairs whiteboards etc. And I guess that for "Teaching" this might actually be true, but are we about teaching or learning? LEarning can and does occur anywhere. Teachable moments are not restricted to classrooms, learning isn’t limited to the desk and seat in the room with 4 walls and a whiteboard. Every 2 years we take students on a community service trip to either Nepal or India, as I saw in the Year 13’s leavers book, this years trip to Nepal was the highlight of many of the students time at school. They learnt so much, they experienced more than they could possibly have from a classroom. They savoured the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch and texture, highs and lows of a very poor country struggling at the lower end on the third world.  I don’t know if anyone has coined this term, but I am going to do that now - this was ADVENTURE BASED EDUCATION. There was learning, there was teaching, there were revelations and epiphanies. There was engagement, context and relevance. I love the definition of adventure that OPC uses: "Any undertaking where the outcome is uncertain". We had uncertainty, and that helps with engagement and focus. And there wasn’t a whiteboard in sight. So what is a classroom? The world is my classroom

Part of the IB ITGS course is the case study. Its a critical element of the external assessment the students undertake at higher level for the ITGS course. The students are presented with the case study during the first year of the course and are examined on it in the external examination (paper 3). This gives the students the opportunity to do secondary and primary research, develop their understanding and to start their analysis and evaluation of the situation/event/focus. The approach we take to this is to create a wiki and scaffold a framework which the students use to develop their understanding and content and to faciliate analysis and evaluation. My students have started by beginning the technology pages - where they create a resource about the specific technology. Once they have had 2-3 days to make the page we stop development and go into reflection/moderation mode. Each student has to go to atleast 3 different pages and offer constructive critique and feedback. They then go back and consider the feedback about their page and reflect on it, actioning the feedback as required. The next stage is open up the pages for more general editting with each student required to make 3-4 additions to pages and justify their addition in the discussion forum. And in this vein the resource grows and develops. At the moment I have one other school interested in participating in the project

I recently read a blog post talking about Bloom’s Digital taxonomy. The person describe it as a step ladder, which I felt was in some ways an apt description but in others a little limited. The limitation with it is that you must start from the bottom rung and progress up. This isn’t correct You do not need to start on the bottom rung, at remembering or understanding. In fact, its often better to start with a higher order entry point, that then challenges the students to discover the lower order aspects as part of analysing, evaluating or creating. You don't have to start on the bottom level and work linearly through the stages. For example: a student is presented with an inflamatory news paper article like this one - A mother of four who was fined US$1.5 million for 24 counts of piracy - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10686247 - they are to analyse and evaluate this article. To analyse and evaluate, one must first understand the background - they must describe the issue and its background: What is issue? Who does it or is effected? (stakeholders) When and where does it happen? Then they must start on the analysis of the issue How does/did it happen? (process, sequence, events, mechanisms, actions etc) Why does it happen? (legal, social, ethical, moral, economic, ergonomic, financial etc) Then evaluate it, asking about its: importance, relationships, effectiveness and impact. Once they have done all of this they must offer an opinion and be prepared to defend it. To do this they, our students have progressed well beyond remember and understand. As a teacher you don’t have to teach the lower order elements, rather just scaffold the learning so the students do this as part of the process. And consider the technology they use to research this. Advanced searches, boolean searches, Mind mapping tools to brainstorm. Online tools like Bibme to develop suitable bibliographies. potentially they could present it as a report or a presentation using Keynote, or powerpoint or perhaps voicethread; a word processor like word, pages, writer or perhaps Google documents; it could be collaborative or individual This works as well for SOLO taxonomy Uni structural - making simple connections Multistructural - linking ideas, combine and describe Relational - linking and relating the concepts to the wider picture - analyze, compare, explain Extended abstract - link beyond the area of investigation - evaluate, theorise, hypothesise, reflect

This update is focusing on online dictionaries. 1. Article  -The end of printed dictionaries - http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/30/is-this-the-end-of-printed-dictionaries/ This is an interesting article from the Times about the future of printed, paper based dictionaries. It raises some interesting questions and is worth reading, particularly when you see the plethora of dictionaries available on line. 2. Oxford Dictionary - http://oxforddictionaries.com This is the original dictionary and a classic. Most of us have at some stage owned an oxford dictionary, usually the pocket oxford. I wonder where it is now? Interesting the Oxford dictionary is available as an iPhone app with audio too 3. Webster’s online dictionary - http://www.webster-dictionary.org/ This is another well respected and used dictionary. This site is also a thesaurus, medical and legal dictionary too. 4. Cambridge Dictionary - http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ this is yet another of the big dictionary compaies thats online. They too are offering apps for mobile devices like iphone and android 5. Dictionary.com - http://dictionary.reference.com/ This is a popular one with the students and is available as an ipad and iphone/touch application too. 6. Wordnik - http://www.wordnik.com/ this is one of the recent online dictionaries and thesaurus. Worth a look. 7. Ninjawords - http://ninjawords.com/ this dictionary, which claims to be fast, infact NINJA fast is also available as a iphone application. 8. Definr - http://www.definr.com/ another fast online dictionary and finally, this is one of my favourite as its a different approach to dictionaries and one I like. Visuwords This dictionary particularly appeals to the visual learner - http://www.visuwords.com

This update covers a number of flavors but has some of my favorites in the science and environment section. Plus some stuff for ITGS and IT as well 1. Thinkfinity - http://www.thinkfinity.org/ This is the Thinkfinity portal page - crammed full of resources, lesson plans etc. Good stuff covering current news, articles, lessons etc.. Sponsored by verizon 2. State library of Victoria - research skills page - http://slv.vic.gov.au/ergo/research_skills This is a useful page and resource for students and teachers alike from the state Library of Victoria, Australia. Looking at the Middle school or younger audience, but still relevant for the older students too. 3. the British national Archives site http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ This is a brilliant site for the humanities classes from social studies to history to geography, well worth a visit and bookmarking. Great stuff and a very reliable information source. 4. 20 things I have learnt about web browsers - http://www.20thingsilearned.com/ - this is an interesting site if only for the cool book approach to navigating the different pages. The content is also useful and interesting too. Produced by the Google Chrome team and others, this is a good resource about the internet and browsers. ITGS, IT and general interest. 5. National Geographic magazine - Environment homepage - http://environment.nationalgeographic.com This is as the title suggests the home page for the national Geographic magazines environment home page. This has a series of subpages on global warming, natural disasters, habitats etc. A useful resource for numanities and science as well as general interest. 6. NASA’s student portal page - http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html - the entry page for students into the NASA resources - access to multimedia resources, current stories and developments as well as careers information. Check out too the educators page - http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html and finally - http://www.fieldtripearth.org/ field trip earth. This is a global project with a focus on wild life preservation and conservation. Well worth looking at for science, environmental studies, humanities and geography. For a more hands on feeling I love africam - http://www.africam.com/wildlife/index.php which has a number of live web cameras set up on various waterholes in a number of parks in southern Africa. Check out the teacher resources on Field trip earth - http://www.fieldtripearth.org/educator.xml

Again this year, I have been privilaged to be part of the advisory board for the Australian and New Zealand Edition of the Horizon Report. This report looks at short term (1-2 YEARS) and long term trends (out to 5 YEARS) in information and communications technologies that will effect education. So the trends that we feel will have the most effect on education are: One Year or less eBooks Mobiles Two to Three Years Augmented Reality Open Content Four to five Years Gesture-Based Computing Visual Data Analysis Key URLs: The Report - 2010 Horizon Report: Australia-New Zealand Edition The Wiki - Horizon Wiki Background: The 32 members of this year’s Advisory Board were purposely chosen to represent a broad spectrum of Australian and New Zealand education; key writers and thinkers from business and industry rounded out the group. They engaged in a comprehensive review and analysis of research, articles, papers, blogs, and interviews; discussed existing applications, and brainstormed new ones; and ultimately ranked the items on the list of candidate technologies for their potential relevance to teaching, learning, and creative enquiry. This work took place entirely online and may be reviewed on the project wiki at http://anz.wiki.nmc.org.

For the last 5 days, I have watched the unfolding events at Pike River, as indeed has the country and the world.  During the week, we have seen the full gambit of emotions and grief - shock, hope, fear, pain, denial, blame, bargining and acceptance. It is said that times of trial are the making or breaking of a person, and there have been a number of people who have shown their worth. The CE of the company, Peter Whittal is one person who has been a rock as has the police commander Gary Knowles and Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn. My thoughts and prayers are with all  - Kia Kaha - Stand Strong

1. Educause - 7 things you should know about QR codes - http://www.educause.edu/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutQRCod/163728 This is another excellent resource from the educause team. This looks at QR codes - what are QR codes, they are an information rich form of barcodes. The QR codes can be text, URLs, email etc. You use a genrator to create them  - try this one - http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ or http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/ 2. Verbs-online - http://www.verbs-online.com/index.htm This is a language resource site for French, German, English, Spanish, Portugeuse and Italian. Also worth looking at is http://www.vocabulix.com/framer.html another Language learning site. For those with iPads try this iTranslate - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itranslate-plus-universal/id294929700?mt=8 3. ChemEd DL - http://www.chemeddl.org/ this is a collaborative project sharing science and chemistry resources. Very cool . 4. Open maths resources -  http://www.mathopenref.com/index.html - this is a neat site for Maths teachers and learners particularly if you are after geometry resources. Will suit the senior students. 5. UNESCO ICT in Education Portal - http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/portal-for-teachers/ This is a useful resource page for teachers developed by UNESCO. It containsa  wide range of resources that will help in the understanding of how, when and where to integrate ICTs into teaching and learning. I. The Role of ICT in Education II. Guidelines and Policies III. Teachers’ Roles IV. Training Strategies, Standards & Online Courses V. Ideas, Lessons and Curriculum VI. Using Internet Resources VII. Electronic Collaboration VIII. Distance and Online Learning IX. Evaluation Tools & Indicators and finally for the iPad - Bookster Storytelling application - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bookster/id395395617?mt=8# Bookster is a free read-along storytelling application that reads to students, records and plays their voices, and teaches vocabulary.