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.

I got the edublogs "voting is open" email yesterday for the 2010 edublogs awards and thought to myself, time to support my peers and share some votes around. Its great to see Dean groom is recognised as is Doug Johnson (Life time achievements award), Cool cat teacher - Vicki Davis, Larry Ferlazzo, The Ed TEch talks boys, Kim Cofino, Chris and so many more. I also have 2 nominations for educational Origami wiki -  Best Educational  Wiki and educational Origami Blog -  individual blog Tagged under Shameless Self Promotion

In this installment we have a number of interesting sites to look at including some brilliant resources for building applications for Apple iOS 1. Developing apps for iOS - http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/developing-apps-for-ios-sd/id395631522 This is a series of 23 podcasts that cover the basics of developing applications for iOS the operating system for the iPad, iPhone etc. They are a free download/subscribe from iTunes. Nice. 2. MammalsRus - http://mammalsrus.com/index.html The name isn’t the best and does make it sound like a shoe or toy store, but its a nice clean straight forward site that is a good reference for science and biology. A good selection of video are posted/linked to the site too. I would also recommend my favourite camera site  - http://africam.com for live video of waterholes etc. 3. NuVu Studio - Innovation Center for Young MInds - http://nuvustudio.org/ This is a site to watch, its a joint project between MIT and Harvard, students work on a theme or as they describe it a specific studio and work in small teams with access to professors, experts, practitioners etc. Each of the studios is about 2 weeks long and has a review process and exhibition. worth looking into and would be great fun to play in. This reminds me a lot of the excellent work done by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis in the Flat classroom project- http://www.flatclassroomproject.org/ and the exciting flat classroom conference next year in Beijing - http://www.flatclassroomconference.com/ 4.Real time collaboration tools - text editing - http://open-tube.com/real-time-collaborative-text-editing-software this is an interesting post which details a series of collaborative text editing tools. Some like etherpad I have seen before but other are quite new to me. Here is the ones reviewed here: Etherpad - Browser  based Doing text - browser based SynchroEdit - Browser based Collabedit - Browser based and finally I would like to end with a quote from American educator Derek Bok If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance.

On this on the wire update we are looking at a couple of videos that worth watching. Here is the first: 1. Next is Now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvad4B0lCdk in the same vein as the famous almost cult (well in educational circles) video Shift happens this is an excellent video with a catchy sound track too. 2.The commoncraft Show - project based learning explained - http://www.commoncraft.com/project-based-learning-explained-custom-video-project-bie This is a great overview to PBL or project based learning. This video was commissioned by the Buck Institute, a leader in PBL. Also by the commoncraft show are: Social media and the workplace - http://www.commoncraft.com/social-media-workplace-video Augmented reality in plain english - http://www.commoncraft.com/augmented-reality-video 3. Hans Rosling - 200 years in 4 minutes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo This is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Health vs wealth. this video looks at the last 200 years of statistics in a brilliant and awe inspiring animation. 4. RSA Animate - Changing education paradigms - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U This is a brilliant video based on a Sir Ken Robinson talk given to the RSA. And finally Infowhelm and Information Fluency - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ECAVxbfsfc About 1/2 an hour of video that will change your world.

I enjoyed the edublog awards ceremony on elluminate the other afternoon (well it was afternoon for me). The ceremony lacked formality, lacked rehearsed speeches but was filled with passion for education, passion for teaching and learning and passion for life. I was nominated in two categories, an honor I am immensely proud of. I did not place in either, but that was not a suprize for me as the people who won it were outstanding. In the best individual blog award, the winner was Richard from Free technology for teachers, with Larry Ferlazzo’s websites of the day also placing. These are both stunning bloggers who I follow and have contributed to my teaching and my students learning. http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ The other category I was nominated in was the best educational wiki - the winner is a very worthy global project - http://greetingsfromtheworld.wikispaces.com/ an outstanding effort and well deserved. I was very pleased to see the lad s from the ed tech crew get some of the recognition they deserved. I love their work. http://www.edtechcrew.net/ Educational podcast 2nd runner up. It was also very pleasing to see classroom 2.0 recognised for its ongoing efforts - http://www.classroom20.com/ Thanks Sue and the team at edublogs. Great effort

Twitter is one of those polarising tools. I love twitter, for me its a brilliant way to communicate, ask questions and get answers. The number of times I have been stuck and asked my PLN (Personal Learning Network) for support is huge. But its more than that, its a way of sharing, I use twitter in synch with Delicious (but not for much longer apparently) to publish my bookmarks and share these with anyone who is interested. I also use it to publicise blog or wiki updates. I also find it invaluable for staying in contact with my friend and colleagues. Whether the communication is one way - reading their updates or two way as we chat back and forth, its a powerful tool. Its also a very popular one too. Here is an infographic about Twitter and its amazing when you look at some of the number involved in this. Have a look at these two videos from the commoncraft show if you would like some more information - http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter and http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter-search . Also here is a starter sheet on using Twitter - http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Starter+Sheets.

Well its more than just knowing stuff. For me education is holistic and encompassing. It is about learning in all aspects of life. I have to admit that I struggle with the concept of academic schools, where the other equally important parts of a person life are ignored - culture, sport and service. I find it very pleasing to see that some school are adopting and recognising the value of a holistic approach. They run programs that to bring into the school community the other aspects of life that are equally critical to the education of your young people, and I believe will have huge benefits going forward for us all. My childrens school has a program it calls the "Shine Challenge" SHINE stands for Strength and Heart In New Endeavours. Depending on the age of the child they have a number of challenges to complete through out the year and these are not one off 10 minute tricks, rather they are enduring and committing. For the shine challenge the students choose from a number of categories: Academic excellence Physical activity and the outdoors Service to school and community Excellence in the arts Living the Gospel Values They are required to complete atleast one challenge (out of 9 or 10 for my 9 year old) in each section. Other local school are adopting similar programs. Another school has the PEAKS Challenge. PEAKS stands for Participation, Environment, Action, Knowledge and Skills - again the students are expected to select and complete a series of challenges with atleast one from each section. So what are the challenges? Improve swimming swim atleast 400m Cycle challenge cycle 60Km in a 4 week period or run 20Km in the same time frame Explore the outdoors  - complete with your family at least 2 tramps (hikes) participate in a multisport event like tryathlon join surf life saving, cubs, scout, or girl guide for a year complete a technology challenge join a walking bus be a reporter give of your time visit an elderly relative atleast 4 times a term give to families in need give of your time through service - within the local church or community be involved in a musical or play join a choir visit an art exhibition and review it The list of options is endless, and while this require some extra work for the teachers who administer it and the buy in of the community and parents, the benefits outweight the time cost immensely. These two examples are of primary age projects, but this is a concept that has been successfully applied to the secondary environment for many years. I refer to the International baccalaureate program where at the core of the diploma are Creativity, Action, Service, Philosophy and personal challenge. All IB students MUST undertake and complete the following to gain their Diploma: CAS - Creativity, Action & Service - As the name suggests CAS requires the students to undertake Action and service beyond what they already do - i.e. the student who has always played hockey must extend beyond this into other areas. The Community service trips I have the pleasure of being involved with in Nepal and India fit within the CAS umbrella Theory of Knowledge - Indepth discussions and debate about what is knowledge, ethics, values, opinions and accuracy. Students present arguments consider issues and challenge there assumptions and beliefs. the Extended Essay - a 2 year research assignment presented as a 4000 word essay as part of the culmination of the  diploma program. This is what education should be about, so WHAT IS EDUCATION? Well its more than learning facts and reciting the answer the examiner seeks, Education is holistic and involves all parts of the students life. It reaches beyond the boundaries of the classroom, the district or country. It involves challenge, commitment and personal sacrifice. Sometimes its not comfortable and it can even be unpleasant, but then so is life.

In this update we have a range of sites that are well worth visiting. Stuff for science, Mathematics, IWB’s, Global Project and video resources. 1. Body Browser - http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/ This is an iteresting site, that used HTML 5 and WebGL to allow the visitor to manipulate and explore a human body. Other than the limitation of a very current browser, this has huge potential for the sciences, PE and health 2. National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html -  interactive activities great for IWB’s this is a library of interactive activities that cover a range of mathematics disciplines and age groups. Well worth visiting. 3. The model United nations - THIMUN - Singapore - http://thimunsingapore.org/ This is a global project which see students from round the planet involved and collaborating in a model United nations. This is a great project and well worth looking at. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who visited THIMUN in 2002, stated: "The fact that THIMUN exists to uphold the values of the United Nations among the young is particularly important, since it is from the young that we should draw our energy and inspiration as we strive to make the United Nations effective and responsive to the needs of the people worldwide." 4. Snag Learning Films - http://learning.snagfilms.com/ this is a useful site with a wide range of videos for various ages. searchable by subject and grade. For those of us who love TED talks - this is a very useful spreadsheet https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?utm_campaign=ted&hl=en&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=blog.ted.com&key=0AsKzpC8gYBmTcGpHbFlILThBSzhmZkRhNm8yYllsWGc&utm_content=site-basic#gid=0 and finally the institute for the future - http://www.iftf.org/ this is packed full of interesting and stimulating material that could be sued for a range of subjects. However the one that leaps out at me is the wikileaks and the power of the internet - http://www.iftf.org/node/3676 its topical and a great stimulus article for the ITGS curriculum and perhaps even paper 2. Here is one last image that I liked source: http://www.cafepress.com/+concept_development_yellow_tshirt,151142970

This on the wire update is looking at the iPad. One of the project I am currently working on is a book about the use of the iPad and the iphone and touch in the classrooms. There are an amazing number of applications available for the iPad with particular application to the classroom. So here are some of my favourites 1. Pages - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id361309726?mt=8 this is a powerful and well featured word processor. Its not a fully featured word processor as many of the high end functions like indexing etc are not present. Having said that for the student user this is a great tool - an addition to this is "templates for Pages" which gives you 24 further templates to add to 16 that are already in pages. 2. Keynote - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keynote/id361285480?mt=8 This is another useful tool as it allows you to create and present from your iPad. you will need a dongle to connect to a projector. It like Pages has a number of templates (12) that you can use to develop the presentation. Its easy to useand has a large number of features, but just like pages this is a limited version and misses many of the higher end functions of keynote for mac. 3. Goodreader - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goodreader-for-ipad/id363448914?mt=8 the more I use this tool the more i like it, creating folders, renaming files, sending stuff, uploading stuff organising materials. Yes for me this is a stunning application. 4. iThoughts HD - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ithoughtshd-mindmapping/id369020033?mt=8 Got to love it - its a great mind mapping tool that exports in so many flavours, is ease to use and yeah its a good product. 5. BBC News - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bbc-news/id364147881?mt=8 There are so many news sites available to us, but the BBC site is a quality product and in a rare stand for news agencies is pretty much neutral in its reporting. Nice applications (particularly in landscape) easy to navigate and customise. 6. AudioNote - Notepad and voice recorder - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/audionote-notepad-voice-recorder/id369820957?mt=8 this is my favourite tool in a meeting lecture or keynote. It allows you to take notes, draw diagrams and record the audio at the same time. The play back allows you to click on the notes and it jumps the audio to the same point. 7. Adobe Photoshop Express - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-photoshop-express/id331975235?mt=8 This ia free image editing tool that is brilliant. Simple to use, a nice set of common features like crop, rotate, flip, straigthten and some nice effects for colour, filters borders. 8. Comic Strip - CS - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/comicstrip-cs/id392197108?mt=8 Nice clean single page 1-5 pane comics. Good bubbles and captions, some nice stickers and saves as an image. Over all good product 9. Dictionary.Com- http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dictionary-com-dictionary/id308750436?mt=8 Good useful reference and resource.

In this update I have a great instructional video for the ipad and Mathematics, Digital Citizenship, free stock images and some interesting research on internet use. 1. ipad’s Hidden Keyboard Functions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPDLDG-UD5c - this is a great little instructional video which will show you how to get special charactors and hidden keys on the iPad. If you have  an ipad this is worth watching. Also worth looking at  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBr2k1vLojA - connecting stuff to your iPad using the USB connector. 2. R - Project http://www.r-project.org/ - this is some serious open source statistics and analysis software that does a mean visualisation. The recent facebook post  - Visualising friendship was created using this . Very cool and I love the fact that its FOSS - Free or open source. 3. Childnet Safer Internet Day - http://www.childnet-int.org/safety/sid.aspx - This is a UK organization planning and facilitating Safer Internet Day on the 8th of Feb. They have a couple of age specific sets of resources that are useful - Primary - http://www.childnet-int.org/safety/sid_pri.aspx Secondary - http://www.childnet-int.org/safety/sid_sec.aspx 4. Free Stock images - http://www.freeimages.co.uk/ - Some good material here, they require you to cite the sources, that’s not to big an ask really. And finally this is a review from PEW internet Project Generation 2010 - http://www.pewinternet.org - This one looks at the use of the internet against the age groupings of the users - http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Generations_and_Tech10_final.pdf The results are interesting. There are no major surprizes except perhaps that the use of the internet is quite widely spread across all age groups though some things are more the domain of the young. Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Generations-2010/Overview.aspx

Merry Christmas. I hope you are all having a great time with your family and enjoying the festive season. I am. I have a video to share with you, its been doing the rounds, but I thought I would save it for a special day, the most appropriate day. Please enjoy the digital story of the nativity. A clever and thoroughly web 2.0 version of the christmas story. URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA Enjoy, share and have fun. - Andrew

There’s Facebook, facebook and more facebook. Between the movie about facebook - The social Network - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network and times man of the year http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html Facebook and its Developer/creator Mark Zuckerberg are getting huge publicity. Not that it really needs it with over 1/2 a billion people on the network - http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics I love facebook and I know I am not alone on that. It never ceases to amaze me how encompassing and enveloping facebook is. My friend and colleague Doug just posted (on facebook) this brilliant article on facebook making connections - called visualizing friendships and with it this stunning image. The bright spots are the key areas of use and the lines show the linkages between them. source: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919 So is the world larger or smaller?

In this installmentof on the wire we have some neat sites and applications for you. We have…….. 1. Image grab - http://paul.glagla.free.fr/imagegrab_en.htm - This is a tool that allows you to grab images from video streams. It will do most formats except encrypted DVD’s. A useful tool for lesson preparation where the students are view video material and required to comment and evaluate. 2. Cheatsheet - http://devcheatsheet.com/ This is a useful site for those with a more technical focus. The site provides a variety of "cheatsheets" for programming languages, Software etc. Useful - particularly for ITGS projects 3. A quickstart guide to iMovie09 - http://www.scribd.com/doc/35390885/Quickstart-Guide-to-iMovie-09 This was originally posted by Wes Fryer (Great blog worth following - http://www.speedofcreativity.org/) Great resource for Mac users who of course get iMovie Free. It is fair to say that I am struggling a bit with Movie maker at the moment, but as a development alternative (it is not great at capture, but good for editing) is Avid Videospin- http://www.videospin.com/redesign/default.asp - Its free and stable 4. Sound bible - http://soundbible.com/ - is a free music source - great for teaching students about ethical use of music etc as well a good source of clips - also worth a look - http://freemusicarchive.org/ 5. Lovely Charts - http://lovelycharts.com/ This is a online tool for developing charts - a good tool for wireframing as well 6. Kerpoof - http://www.kerpoof.com/ This is a mac and Pc - Its a website owned by Disney that allows you to create artworks. Here is what they say about: Make artwork (even if you aren’t good at drawing!) Make an animated movie (really! it’s easy!) Earn Koins which you can trade for fun things in the Kerpoof Store Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug Tell a story Make a drawing Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made

I love my iPad and one of the current projects that we have on is writing a book about the iPad and education. My focus is the middle and senior school end of the education spectrum. What make sit more challenging is writing the book about the iPad on the iPad. When I first set it up I installed keynote and pages. I thought that Numbers, the spreadsheet tool would be a poor investment and of limited value.  Pages, I have made a great deal of use of. The little word processor may lack the full spectrum of functions that its big brother on the mac has, or that Open Office writer and Microsoft Word have, but for simple text entry, image placement, formatting and alike … its great. A very good and complete tool for most users. http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/pages.html "Pages - the most beautiful word processor ever designed for a mobile device." - Apple I have to say I do agree with that comment Keynote, on the other hand I have not used. Its got some great parts but if I am doing a presentation I do actually need a little more. In some ways the layout and interface is better than the big brother, but it is missing hyperlinks and video embedding (well so it seems to me). For small groups, mobile development of presentations etc, its good - http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/keynote.html Numbers was the one tool I shunned. I thought, incorrectly, that this would be of limited worth. I was wrong. Its great, it hassome much potential. If you are doing a huge spreadsheet this is NOT the tool for you, but for everything else this is a amazing little piece of software. Its full of surprises, neat tricks and good planning. Its easy to use, presentable and FUN, yes FUN. http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/numbers.html If I was to rate the products on a 1-5 scale (you can do this on numbers using a star system) with 1 as poor, 3 as I expected and 5 exceptional, my ratings would go as follows Keynote - rating 2-3 a little disappointing Pages - rating - 3 Solid, reliable but nothing extra ordinary Numbers - rating - 5 - exceeded expectations and has the extra ordinary.

In this on the wire update we are looking at a range of interesting websites for Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy - digital citizenship and creativity, professional developments and twitter 1. Sixty Symbols - http://www.sixtysymbols.com/index.html this is a physics and astronomy, plus a little bit of mathematics site. In the site are a collection of videos that explain the symbols of of physics etc. Here is an example video - Pi - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-pS7Is4P8&feature=player_embedded 2. Fotopedia - http://www.fotopedia.com/ Fotopedia is a collaborative photo encyclopedia. This is an interesting site with some brilliant photography. You are asked to (as a member) vote on images. The materials uploaded and placed on the site is licienced according to the owners wishes, so please check out if its in creative commons or all rights reserved, and respect this. http://www.fotopedia.com/help/guidelines 3. Ask Sir Ken Robinson - This is a sereis of short video clips from Sir ken Robinson in responce to a series of questions posed to him via twitter. Introduction - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zeQbzRFSMM Question 1 the value of degrees and diplomas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWrjIStHgo Question 2 Assessing creativity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pHXH5fmCCs 4. The complete list of iPad Tips, Tricks and tutorials - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/14529/the-complete-list-of-ipad-tips-tricks-and-tutorials This is a good post and well worth reading, given that you have an iPad. 5. Teacher training Videos - http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/twitter1/index.html this is a training guide for that ubiquitous tool twitter. Developed using camtasia (this is a great tool - http:/www.techsmith.com) this is a useful and appropriate training resource for teachers and students alike. and finally from my Friend Doug Johnson - A dozen ways to teach ethical and safe technology use - http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2010/12/26/a-dozen-ways-to-teach-ethical-and-safe-technology-use.html I am looking forward to the Book Doug. 1. Articulate personal values when using technology. 2. Stress the consideration and application of principles rather than relying on a detailed set of rules. 3. Model ethical behaviors. 4. Build student trust. 5. Encourage discussion of ethical issues. 6. Accept the fact students will make mistakes. 7. Allow students personal use of the Internet. 8. Reinforce ethical behaviors and react to the misuse of technology. 9. Create environments that help students avoid temptations. 10. Assess children’s understanding of ethical concepts. 11. Educate our students and ourselves. 12. Educate your parents about ethical technology use. source: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/12/25-funny-t-shirts-for-designers-and-developers/

Well I have had a great start to the new year, and its been a virtually technology free one too. The family spent a week camping at Waipu Cottages and we had a great time. In this update of on the wire there are resources for the arts, Audio Books, Biology, Science & physics 1. Books Should be Free - http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/ I have long been a fan of Audio books, whether as a family traveling for long distances or for students going to and from school on a bus, audio books are a great opportunity to listen and be entertained. Almost every student I know has a MP3 player of some shape and form, and providing them with an auditory version of a text book is an excellent learning process for the dow time they have on buses. It also appeals to the Auditory learner. Also worth looking at http://www.librivox.org 2. eSkeletons - http://www.eskeletons.org/ This is from the University of Texas Department of Anthropology. This is a useful biology site that compares the skeletal structure of 13 different primate species, looks at their comparative anatomy and the taxonomic tree. Good science and senior biology resources. from the same department are the following sites: eLucy - http://www.elucy.org/ eFossils - http://www.efossils.org/ 3. Exploratorium - Science of Music - http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/index.html This is a online music resource funded by the national Science Foundation that allows you to create, compose, play listen and experiment with music. What a great way to bring science and the arts together. A resource for the arts, science and physics. Another site worth looking at is the online drum machine - Monkey Machine - http://www.rinki.net/pekka/monkey/# 4. Online Museums for the arts - Almost every museum is gaining an online presence, it makes them more accessable and more relevant. Here are three to look at: MoMA - Museum of Modern Art - New York - http://www.moma.org/ IMA Indianapolis Museum of Art - http://www.imamuseum.org/ SmartHistory - Art History Conversation - http://smarthistory.org/ and finally a series of interactives from the council on foreign relationships - http://www.cfr.org/publication/interactives.html - this is a powerful series of resources for the social sciences. Have a look at the following crisis guides: The Korean Peninsula - http://www.cfr.org/publication/11954/crisis_guide.html Darfur - http://www.cfr.org/publication/13129/crisis_guide.html Israeli - Palestinian Conflict - http://www.cfr.org/publication/13850/crisis_guide.html Pakistan - http://www.cfr.org/publication/23111/crisis_guide.html

In this update of on the wire we have a number of useful sites for you viewing pleasure - these include sites for science, the environment, videos, chemistry, health & biology, mathematics and humanities 1. ChemEd DL - Chemistry Education Digital Library - http://www.chemeddl.org/ This is a digital repository for chemistry education resources. This is another site funded in part by the National Science Foundation. A useful resource for science and particularly chemistry. 360 Models- http://www.chemeddl.org/resources/models360/index.php Periodic table - http://www.chemeddl.org/resources/ptl/index.html 2. Medical Animation Library - http://www.pennmedicine.org/health_info/animationplayer/ This site has a wealth of medical animations that are very useful to the biology and health classes. Most are suited to the senior end of the school given the depth of information and the topics covered. 3. Yummy Maths - http://www.yummymath.com/index.php This site is about making Mathematics relevant. It has resources for Algebra, Geometry, probability and much more. 4. Conceptua Math - http://www.conceptuamath.com/fractions.html - this site has some useful resources for teaching fractions. Also worth looking at is http://algebra.mrmeyer.com/ dy/dan - Algebra supplement - this is brilliant. 5. When the water ends - http://www.mediastorm.com/clients/when-the-water-ends-for-yale360 A media storm production for Yale Environment 360. A powerful video on climate change in East Africa and finally  another from MediaStorm http://www.mediastorm.com/ a 12 minute video - UNDESIRED -  that examines and discusses the cultural pressure to have a son in India - moving, scary and frightening - http://www.mediastorm.com/publication/undesired In India, all women must confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequences of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/undesired