A year and a bit ago, I had to move from my computer lab into a new classroom space. While my first visions were of a variation on the same theme, desks and desktops, I was given an option for laptops instead of desktops and this changed every thing. The classroom I had been presented with was a high ceiling (A frame style) rectangular box. In reality a normal classroom. However I was given the opportunity to design it to suit my needs and I wanted and needed a agile and flexible learning environment that is students centric. It need to be able to change quickly (agile) and fit into a variety of setting (flexible) with students workspaces. So with this in mind, here is the design I came up with: around the outside of the room is a 60cm deep continuous bench with power and networking. The bench is at the same level as the other furniture. In hind sight I would have made the corners at stool height rather than chair height to allow students to stand and when focusing at the front see over the other students. Instead of desks I had 4 1.2m wide x 2.0m long tables with a semi-circular return that can be folded up or down made. The tables are on lockable wheels and are at the same hieght as the side bench. All the chairs are on wheels and are adjustable hieght, I also has 75cm & 85cm Swiss balls for students to sit on. At 4 stations around the outside of the room are whiteboards for the students to use. There is no teacher whiteboard but there is a IWB with a short throw projector Across the front of the room and around the room are individually switched spot lights (I used a 100w mini parcan) which illuminate the front of the classroom or the areas adjacent to each of the whiteboards. The windows have a full black out blind allowing the room to be blacked out when required. The blinds roll up and down easily for natural light. There is NO teachers desk only a podium (a platform large enough for a laptop on a single metal pole and again on wheels) for the laptop to sit on and an umbilical for audio and visual send and also network connection for video conferencing. The classroom is designed to work in a number of different "mode" and switch bewteen modes takes about 2 minutes. Here are some of the different learning modes: This is project mode- the tables are lit by the spotlights. Each table has its own whiteboard to work on. The tables are butted hard against the bench with the returns up so the students can sit around the end of the table. Boardroom mode - returns folded down, all four tables in together to make the board room table. Students work at the table with discussions, presentations and debates, then move out to the side benches for individual work or working in small groups at the whiteboards. Then move back to present and discuss. I am experimenting with the arrangement of the tables, but these two are the one  I use the most. the classroom is great, and I regularly rearrange the room between classes, the students never know what the room will be like and as a result never know what to expect or what is going to happen this time in the class.

Well no not really, but this is a great alternative and its free. Its called Growly Notes and is made by Growly Bird Software - http://growlybird.com/GrowlyBird/Notes.html source: http://growlybird.com/GrowlyBird/Notes_files/small_logo.jpg Growly Notes is an organisational note taking tool that allows you to create and organise your notes, containing text, images, web links, and video clips. You have the ability to insert , images, movies, audio clips, PDF files, tables, lists, web and file links, and drawings you create in Notes. Notebooks, thats what they called the folders are organized into sections (the larger tabs on the left in the image above), each contains pages (unlimited number). This is potentially a great tool for the student who is using their mac for school work. They are able to keep all of their notes, resources and materials in one easy location, just like one note, but for free. Seriously cool. A site worth visiting is Alternativeto.net This site give you alternative software options for the propriotory versions. A good site and useful.

This on the wire post has a single theme and is examining the Language translation technologies. These resources will suit IT students and particularly ITGS students, but of course the Language students will also find this useful to. Google Translate This is a great place to start. As the video suggests this is a free online translation application. I would watch the video its useful as a starting point. Then explore the different google resources including: Start here  - http://translate.google.com/# This is the translate starting page Google translate toolkits basic - http://translate.google.com/support/toolkit/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=147809 Google translate help - http://www.google.com/support/translate/?hl=en Google translate toolkit http://translate.google.com/toolkit Video introduction - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7W2NJFdoIg (embedded below) Video How to Google translate - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FijOWfO3Frk (embedded below) A second more detailed video showing specific features including non roman letter languages and web pages - How to video. Lingenio A second approach is demonstrated by LINGENIO. This is a proprietary application that does language translation. The website provides interesting insights into how translation software operates. Have a  look at these resources: Technology link page  - http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/language-technology.htm How machine translation works - http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/machine-translation.htm The technology behind translate - http://www.lingenio.de/English/Language-Technology/translate-technology.htm Facebook Facebook also offers a translation tool, but this uses people instead of machines. This is a useful comparison tool, but also raises issues of accuracy, reliability, privacy, integrity etc. These issues are also raised by machine translation tools as well but from a slightly different aspect. Facebook translation tool - http://www.facebook.com/translations/ Iphone, IPad etc Also worth looking at (if you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad 2) is Word lens. This is a purchase application that has considerable potential Word Lens Application on iTunes - http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/word-lens/id383463868?mt=8 introductory video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs

This week has been an great one as Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and the educational origami wiki have both had positive write ups. The first was from the guru of technology Richard Byrne in his Free technology for teachers Blog (a blog I subscribe to and thoroughly enjoy) - http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/04/hotts-higher-order-thinkingtechnology.html Richard is amazing, the quantity of high quality resources he finds and shares is brilliant. So I am very pleased by the write up. The second mention is Educational Origami - edorigami.wikispaces.com as the featured wiki for the week on wikispaces’s blog  - http://blog.wikispaces.com/2011/04/featured-wiki-educational-origami.html I am pleased with this interview style write up, and deeply honoured to have my wiki picked from the hundreds of thousands of wikis hosted by these guys. I love wikispaces its a great tool and one I make huge use of.

Its an interesting thought and one worth considering? There is obviously a direct power cost that we see each and every time we use our personal digital devices, be they connected directly to mains electricity or using store energy, charged from the mains. But there are also hidden energy cost that we should consider. The cost of searching, spam and alike This infographic is food for thought: source: http://9.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/earth-day-infographic-sm.jpg

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of doing a podcast with Chris Betcher, Deon Scanlon, Allanah King and Amanda Marrinan. The topic of conversation was iOs applications  and Education. It was a great deal of fun and I got some great applications to try out. Chris has done a great write up of the podcast and conversations and the podcast is fun as well. Here are the URL’s: Chris’s podcasts the virtual classroom - http://virtualstaffroom.net/ Podcast write up - http://virtualstaffroom.net/2011/04/vsr42-ios-app-smackdown/#more-374 The podcast - iOS Smackdown podcast Looking forward to working with Chris in Whangarei at the end of the May.

This is an interesting infographic - Is social media ruining students?. It addresses social media and education posing as it does some interesting challenges for us as educator. If you have a look at the stats for facebook it adds weigh to the comments expressed in the image. Consider these as you read below: (source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics ) More than 500 million active users 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day Average user has 130 friends People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook Also read the facebook fact sheet - http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?factsheet source: http://images.onlineeducation.net.s3.amazonaws.com/Social-Media-and-Students.jpg So is Social Media good or bad? Or is it just a medium which we as teachers can use (exploit)?

I have been sent two article recently that have caught my attention. The first called Some startling statistics by Robyn Jackson - http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html looks at some statistics fro reading and they are worth considering: 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. 57 percent of new books are not read to completion. 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance. 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit. (Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com) There are more check the rest of the article out - http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html Many would ask what has caused this and I would suspect as probably most people would the availability and ease of access to other forms of media. In fact the article continues stating - Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines. (Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates investment banker) This does not paint a pretty picture for the publishing industry and books. So what is going to happen. Enter article number two This one from the Huffington Post discussing Al Gore’s App/Book on the ipad called Our Choice - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/28/al-gore-our-choice-app-push-pop-press_n_854783.html One of the opening comments in the article is "Al Gore’s ‘Our Choice’ App Reinvents Books, Reading" It does, seemlessly embedding text, imagery, video, interactive elements, audio into an ebook. I bought the book, not only because it is interesting, but also because this is a blue print of what books will be. When we consider the traits we seen in the Millennial generation - preference for media, viewing images first then text, predominantly visual (this is a human trait rather than just a millennial one), liking non linear approach to reading and learning (hyperlinking), speed of access (and impatience) portability, and convergence of entertainment and learning. This style of publishing has obvious value and merit. Al Gore\’s Our Choice Guided tour Al Gore’s Our Choice Guided Tour from Push Pop Press on Vimeo.

Its hard to imagine a sports team taking to the field or court dressed in anything other than a uniform. The officials and referees wouldn’t allow it. Uniforms in sports team build a sense of unity and identity. To wear a uniform is a privilege that is earned and uniforms are worn with pride. Uniforms are also a way of showing everyone in the team has the same value and worth, its not a contest for who has the best looking clothes. Wearing a uniform means everyone is working towards the same goal, they are united in purpose and are identifable. Each person may have a different role, but each of these different roles and tasks is focused towards the same outcome. In a sports team the value of a uniform is evident, so evident it is seldom if ever discussed. All of this is given for a sports team, but when it comes to schools and school uniforms the same concepts of unity, purpose, pride, team work and identity which are enhanced by a uniform are not applied. I struggle to think of a school that would not want teamwork, share purpose, focus and unity, but many schools elect not to take the uniform option or take a uniform so lacks that it becomes irrelevant. The clothes, we wear are a reflection of ourselves or who we would like to be. Judgements are often made at that first moment and a re heavily influenced by body language and of course appearance. The selection of clothes and personal appearance are driven by internal factors and also those external influencing force like peer pressure and group expectation. The way we dress reflects on the way we work and interact. Pride in one’s appearance usually reflect pride in oneself. The effect of uniform and appearance can easily been seen in the classroom. Classes where the expectation of neat appearance and uniform worn correctly usually run smoothly. Students know that the expectations of behaviour are set before they are able to walk in the classroom. The discussions comparing dress styles, values and labels are removed. The distractions of skirt length, buttons undone and torn clothing are gone. The student entering the classroom knows from the onset that they are focused on the task at hand and that task is learning. Businesses tried for a while, and some still do, having casual clothing days and studies indicated conclusively that on casual days productivity fell. How are schools different? The advantages of the discipline of uniform, I believe, outwiegh the freedom of expression that maybe lost. Wearing a uniform does not stifle expression, the best sports stars still shine even though they are wearing a uniform. The same applied to schools. Wearing a uniform doesn’t stop a student shining, rather it means to shine they do it by their actions and outcomes rather than the superficial focus on clothing.

At the innovate conference in Sydney in march I did a casual interview where I was asked a couple of questions and videoed as I replied. It was a little daunting, but quite fun http://www.schooltube.com/video/8340ef6e57b934375208/Inspire-Innovate-Vox-Pops-Andrew-Churches