Plakboek

The countdown has started towards the launch of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. The excitement is starting to bubble over at Parkes around the radio telescope. You can follow what is happening at these websites.

http://www.wechoosethemoon.com
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au

I wish the CSIRO Parkes team all the very best for their open days over this weekened.

I'll be following this space science event with my twitter account by tracking the following two NASA twitter posters.

AP11_SPACECRAFT
Apollo 11 - Preparation for first lunar landing still on schedule. 8:54 AM Jun 28th

AP11_CAPCOM
Houston Control - official Apollo 11 countdown begins 1:10 AM Jul 11th

I think I will celebrate the event over this weekend by inviting some friends for some dinner to watch the video clip of The Dish. :-)

Current Mood: excited

Chicken Stock

Chicken Stock by plakboek

I have had fun over the last six months, cooking different recipes with a slow cooker that was a Christmas gift. Here I am making some chicken soup stock.

It is easy to make, just fill up the cooker with all the ingredients including a chicken carcass, chopped carrots, celery, onion and a bay leaf. Switching the cooker on, I leave it to bubble and cook overnight. In the morning I filter out all the remaining vegetables and bones. After chilling the liquid stock in the fridge, the fat can be easily skimmed off, leaving behind a chicken stock that I can use for other recipes.

You can view a slideshow of this cooker in action here.

Counting on the Netbook Abacus

Abacus by allspice1

Bryn Jones noted on the eChalk list that if you are a student in NSW DET you have to use a Netbook - no choice and that if you are a WA DET student you are not allowed to use a Netbook - no choice. In VIC DEECD, things are more muddled. Not a criticism of anyone but it doesn't bode well for National Curriculum how states can come to totally different Netbook conclusions from the same starting information.

I wonder if some are scared that schools might do something different with their technology funding for eLearning? .. hmm, I that has already happened. Suppose this was about the introduction of calculators:

We would have a state group digging in around a contract signed to deliver commercial electronic cash tills to every student, a state group importing millions of oddly circular shaped slide rulers that use a novel calculation system based on natural logarithms supplied in a booklet of tables, a state group insisting that we should only use ergonomic built devices with non-interchangeable AAA batteries and volatile memory, poor school teachers making their own abacus with beads and wire, confused parents scratching their heads whilst wondering what happened to pencil and paper whilst smart students sneak into school, cheap solar powered models they bought from the local supermarket.

We loose so much when we are just focused on what students and schools should not do .. rather than engaging with research to help determine what can help work best, provide seed grants to stimulate innovation and unbiased training to help educators make well informed and practical choices. Perhaps some state bodies have lost the plot and are digging in to enforce a centralist control model that suits their needs, not the flexible learning spaces many of us are now building for our students. Whilst it is hard to predict any technology trend, it is foolish to pretend that schools not well placed to make good decisions about how to spend money to meet their local needs.

Nobody has a monopoly on a good idea.

Current Mood: accomplished

Obama on Twitter

Obama on Twitter by plakboek

It has been interesting to watch the recent growth of interest by our government and politicians in the role and value of online social networks.

Last night whilst driving home I heard that the state government is going to give serious consideration to the use of Twitter and Facebook to communicate bushfire alerts. Earlier this week I was following a fascinating series of discussions about Government2.0 and the Public Sphere headed by Senator Kate Lundy in Canberra. For both, this is not just about broadcasting news. It is about engaging with the wider public in the issues that matter.

A bit earlier and I recieved an e-mail about President Obama joining my twitter followers. Of course I know that this is very probably an automatic reply to counter-subscribe ..

Just that it caught my eye and made me suddenly realize again, how small the world has become.

Current Mood: cheerful

Smiley Fritz

Smiley Fritz by plakboek

I forgot to publish this astrophotograph, taken soon after sunset on 1 December 2008

Ow well, better late than never.

It is a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter with a crescent moon nearby. The two planets are about two degrees apart in the Western Sky. All three objects will lie within the borders of Sagittarius.

This conjunction quickly acquired the nick name "Smiley Fritz" because of the happy face that briefly appeared one evening.

Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines by plakboek

Today I worked on my Apple Macbook OSX desktop with some virtual machines I made with Sun Virtual Box so I can access Windows XP to write reports and Ubuntu to have some fun.

I programmed an Apple Script application to launch these virtual machines and added icons, following some instructions I found on the web. Yes, I know that this is very small fry but it is my first ever Apple Script program and was easy to start with. :-)

I can select options to make these machines full screen, suspend a session or evem make it become seamless with the OSX desktop. This image here is of the Icons I located on the docking bar to launch the virtual machines. Just one click to start. Cute!

You can view a slideshow of my desktop screenshots of this exercise.

Current Mood: cheerful

Morning triangle of Moon, Venus and Mars

moon, venus and mars by plakboek

View showing the Moon, Venus and Mars, a planetary convergence that formed a triangle in the North Eastern, morning Melbourne sky on the 21 May 2009. In another hour the sun would rise and the pale red dot of Mars would fade from view.

This photograph was a long exposure taken over one second. The camera braced against a pole at about 6:00 am in the morning. It is the best of several images that I took.

You can view some of my other astrophotographs here.

Technology pollution

Bushfire smoke by plakboek

Just thinking about technology pollution of the electrical and noise varieties.

T7, T8 and T9 are the numbers on the huge, high voltage transmission pylons positioned on the corners of our school. Even just standing about on yard duty looking up at the overhead power lines is enough to swell our chests with pride in "Man's ability to generate electricity" (apologies to Darryl and The Castle circa 1997)

Seriously though, new staff sometimes ask me about the hazards of living under power lines. My principal just points out relevant research literature and to date it indicates that this is probably more of an eye-sore than a brain-sore.

"On balance, the scientific evidence does not indicate that exposure to 50 Hz EMFs found around the home, the office or near power lines is a hazard to human health." ARPANSA

" .. these major reviews have reported that the body of data, as large as it is, does not demonstrate that exposure to power-frequency magnetic fields causes cancer or other health risks, although the possibility cannot be dismissed." SDGE

There is an interesting point about the background white noise that can fill our technology spaces. The server room is now unbearable from the din generated by the rack mounted beasts we installed. By contrasts, the lab packed with Apple iMacs next door is practically silent. I have some good Delicious links about the topic and an excellent white noise generator that teachers can demonstrate to students.

There are probably more important things for us to worry about such as vaccination refusal, mysterious increase in allergies, UV solar radiation, occupational stress from disruptive technologies and a sedentary lifestyle behind the keyboard.

Speaking of which ..

Current Mood: anxious

MoodleCommons.org

MoodleCommons.org
Originally uploaded by plakboek

An interesting place worth exploring if you want to share information and resources is the learning commons built into MoodleCommons.org.

http://moodlecommons.org

This online space is built up of courses that have been created and shared by other Moodle users. Why not become part of the Moodle revolution and upload your course or help improve those posted by others. :-)

Broken glass on the wall

Flass walls by plakboek

The first rule of censorship is to ban all talk about it. The last thing that censors will tolerate is free and open discussion about censorship. Is there room in this world to question oppression? What trust should we place in electronic filters to preserve the news we should be reading?

I am reflecting on the mandatory Internet filter scheme that was nearly considered for all Australians.

Whilst we are sleeping, most of the proxy based filtering in Australia is compiled from sets of links purchased / available from groups based overseas. This rather tedious work is done with bots. Think of these bots as mindless electronic sheep that graze upon the content on the web, chewing over the words until they taste something strange, doing most of the work of an official censor. For some reason I think of them wearing a pocket protector brimming with red pencils.

Whilst we can pretend that somethings never existed and must never be discussed, an online censorship system can easily move beyond a border protection role. Over time it will adjust our memories by altering the landscape as records are eliminated from our gaze. It will become a furnace that consumes online content in its effort to create an innocent and pure world with purged archives, no nasty words, no images of offensive people, no history.

A world where we could not just block from our social network contact list any of the less desirable friends, with just a few more clicks we could permanently erase them from our lives.

That kind of world is still fresh in the memories of some. It still scares the hell out of me.

“Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there.” - Clare Boothe Luce

EDIT: Tonight I watched a TED video about how Twitter made history. It describes some of the online tools such as Twitter and Facebook are changing the political landscape to help citizens in repressive regimes report on real news and briefly bypass censors. The very nature of politics as we know it is changing as we see the end of traditional top-down control of the news. I also had the chance to glance over this Education.AU report about Web2.0 filtering that discusses some of the issues and recommends publishing and sharing best practice and knowledge in regard to incorporating Web 2.0 in teaching and learning.

It is exciting to see this gain traction and start to make a difference.

Current Mood: cold

Sharp edges

This Sign has Sharp Edges by guspim

A couple of questions have been raised amongst some online colleagues about how teachers should view Web2.0 technologies, Internet filtering and censorship. What are the real, anticipated and perceived threats? What risk management role should teachers play to minimize the harm to students? What is the legal perspective and our duty of care?

My principal is undertaking some post-graduate research on a legal topic about the Internet and crime in schools. I asked her these questions as she handed me a draft thesis chapter to read this weekend. After being reminded me that she is not authorized to give legal advice I did note an important reflection that we should not just dwell on what is potentially illegal, we should also explore any precedent by investigating case law.

I guess that working online is always going to be a two edged sword. When a student is set a task we need to balance the anticipated benefits with any potential for harm. If harm elimination was our goal, there would be no materials technology, no physical education, no canteen, no excursions, no school visitors and certainly no violin classes.

Work by tertiary colleagues provide me with valuable research evidence that I can use to help justify my practice of teaching and learning. In addition, the online discussions I am having with my colleagues are an excellent sounding board and reference point to help determine what a reasonable educator should do.

Many of us are practicing experts in pedagogy or the science of teaching and learning. We read professional journals, undertake research projects, attend national conferences and debate the finer points of good classroom practice.

Sure we have a duty of care. I also have an obligation to teach. :-)

Current Mood: cheerful

Fishing for a new wave

Google Wave by marketingfacts

There has been some concerns posted online about where applications such as Google Wave would fit into schools and if they should be blocked.

Trying to control this new technology is akin to crossing the Internet river by holding your arms out wider and no, it doesn't work if you just turn your back. You will get left behind waiting for it to freeze over in order to walk across. Learning how to swim is a good start but isn't done by splashing in the wading pool, teaching others how to swim is better.

When I ran this analogy past a friend who works at Vic Roads he added with a grin "So the smart ones are those who build their own boat and go fishing." He does have a point.

Stephen and I recall a Victorian principal (now retired) who thought in the mid 1990's to deal with the issue of school e-mail by mandating that all electronic messages typed at school be read by the principal to check that no spelling mistakes could be even accidentally posted. Whilst we can laugh now, the idea was given serious consideration to help deal with the unforeseen but anticipated disaster of Unsolicited Bulk Spelling Mistakes originating from school.

I am not arguing for an open season as there is still a critical role for educators. As has been mentioned here before, we will need to give this disruptive technology time to adjust, find its feet then explore a space for it in our schools.

Current Mood: awake

Open Education workshop in Sydney

Open Education OZ-Teachers by plakboek

An Open Education workshop was held at Macquarie University MELCOE, Sydney during November 2008. A key activity of the workshop were the facilitated discussions to contribute to an open education strategy for cross sector collaboration, and to build skills and document best practice for the future. I particularly enjoyed the lighting talks.

You can listen to a recording of my lighting talk and slideshow here. Don't just listen to mine, have a squiz at the other great speakers.

This picture is of some fellow educators on the oz-teachers mailing list. They are a great bunch and I was glad to be able to meet and greet them. You can view a slideshow of photographs that I took at this workshop.

All up, a great chance to think about the direction we are heading and some of the exciting things on the horizon. Well done to the team that worked hard in the background to bring this all together.

Current Mood: content

Melbourne with air

Melbourne with air by plakboek

Last November I took some photographs during an evening flight from Sydney to Melbourne. At the time I was heading home following the November 2008 Open Education workshops in Sydney.

It is practically impossible to hold the camera still no matter how carefully I braced it on the windows. For this image I just added some of my own extra movements during the time lapse period. Most of the images that I took ended up in the rubbish bin but a couple are worth sharing

You can view a small slideshow of my three pictures here.

Power to the people

Auto electrical fuses by plakboek

During the last interstate road trip, we purchased a 300W electrical power inverter and installed it in the car. It enabled us to recharge our laptop and a swag of electrical equipment using the 12V car electrical system. At the end of the trip a fuse blew so I took some photographs of the auto fuse system, the repair and the inverter and the power point that we used. You can view a slideshow I made for my science students.

Talking about power points .. one of the great ways to make e-friends when traveling overseas with the ACCE 2008 study tour crew was to carry a power board. We would walk about airport terminals looking for power wall points to jointly plug in our laptops to charge etc. I am getting better at spotting them near cafes, pylons or behind vending machines.

Only once I have been asked to move on in Federation Square when somebody accused me of stealing electricity from under a table in their courtyard. I apologised, and took my patronage elsewhere. I wonder what I would be taking if I was to use a solar panel to recharge from their indoor lighting. Probably an urban myth but I did hear of one farmer that was able to tap electricity from the Km of overhead power cables spanning his property by the current induced in his fencing wires.

The day might come when student lockers come with a power point, unless of course the thoughts of students hand-cranking their own electricity has more appeal. Then again, with enough twists and a good induction system, they could be cranking their way into the school grid to generate enough electricity and energy to pay off their lunch. Certainly sounds more productive than making them jog around the school oval to warm up. Imagine issuing a 103 Kilo Joule energy debit to be filled instead of a one hour after-school detention?

Current Mood: geeky

Windows Mobile 2001 - A Space Odessey

A Space Odessey by digitalsean

Over time, the MS Windows registry gets clogged up with obsolete chunks of information or loaded with errors that degrade the stability of your computer. Cleaning out this rotting compost is no easy task and for the novice, directly editing the registry file is quite dangerous.

Whilst nothing beats a core operating system that is robust enough that it doesn't need a registry, I have been looking out for a free tools buff up and polish the registry on my Windows XP virtual machines, especially after installing / removing heaps of applications and certainly before it decides to go belly up.

Tonight I stumbled across this open source windows utility that does the necessary registry housekeeping. After a quick search, I found some blog posts that give this software a a favorable review so I will need to try it out myself.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/littlecleaner/

"Little Registry Cleaner is an open source program designed for Microsoft's Windows Registry. Its purpose is to remove obsolete or unwanted items that build up in the registry over time in order to improve the stability and performance of your computer. These items may include un-needed or inaccurate entries left behind by incomplete uninstall routines (known as "Software Rot"), application program errors, and even misapplied registry hacks. Problems also come up when users transfer or delete files without realizing that dozens of Registry entries aim to the old location."

Current Mood: chipper

Kaguya impact on Moon

Earth Set Nov 7 2007 by TailspinT

The Japanese Spacecraft Kaguya is predicted to impact on the lunar surface at 4:30 am Melbourne time. I will be poking my head outside with a telescope and battle the cold to see if I can spot anything. If you are reading this on Thursday morning, the collision has already happened and you can probably view the pictures (if any).

http://spaceweather.com for details.

From my copy of the open source software Stellarium, from Melbourne the Moon will be to the NE and about 80 degrees high (just look up .. no need to use the sofware like I just did!) .. albeit probably behind a sea of clouds.

As my wife points out, the last time she looked at space junk was an inbound NASA Skylab space station in Western Australia with no space repellent to keep the debris away. Kaguya here is a massive 2,900 kg and it will hit the Moon at an oblique angle, traveling at 6,000 km/hr and no atmosphere to slow it down. Something is bound to happen.

"Whether it tumbles and bounces along the lunar surface or runs headlong into some towering crater wall, no one can say. Clues to the end of Kaguya will come on June 10th in the form of an explosive flash (or lack thereof) and high-res images of the crash site taken by future lunar orbiters."

So I don't expect any debris clouds spiraling back to Earth or blinding flash... just a vague chance of spotting something through binoculars or largish telescope. We lost ours with the Gippsland bush fires that ran through our school camp back in February so I am relying on one that a friend loaned. Fingers crossed ..

If nothing happens, I'll just wave my fist at the moon and get back to dreams of writing reports.

Current Mood: bouncy

Not just for turtles

FishiPod by denn

Somebody raised the question today, how should we deal with iPods in the classroom or if they should be banned.

At our college we expect all earbuds out, speakers off, screens closed or turned over when the class is working together or if the teacher is talking. I usually only need to clap my hands twice and silently stare at offenders to get them to comply. Neighboring friends usually help with a friendly poke in the ribs.

As we see it, playing or watching an iPod is akin to distracting your focus during a lesson by talking when the teacher or class needs the full attention of everybody. Really, it is nothing special and normal classroom code of conduct applies.

The real lesson is to teach them to promptly modify their behaviour when needed. As one person nicely put it this helps to "stop students from retreating into their shell and behaving like a turtle".

The iPods can stay, the students just have to learn.

Current Mood: bouncy

Ocean Bottom

Ocean Bottom by ~deiby

NOAA have an undersea topographical data that is being compiled for inclusion in Google Earth Oceans. Would it be interesting with ocean data to create your own gallery of aquatic photographs? There is potential for some to geotag fishing photographs, although will truth prevail amongst fishermen? (grin)

I have been working over the past few months with my year 9 research science students on a GLOBE pilot project called FLEXE (From Local to Extreme Environments). Amongst the many cool things we get to do at school and in the field, one is to decorate a polystyrene cup that is taken deep into a undersea trench and crushed into an interesting bit of tiny artwork.

From what I can see, it has considerable potential for learning with report templates to develop scientific writing and even an online system for students to peer review reports by other students.

Considering the scope from this exciting International project, it is sad that my year 9 Research Science class has so few students and those that joined are struggling. Just another thing to tackle. I am curious how many will choose this in the second half of the year.

Current Mood: sick

Google tonic for shared whiteboards

Google master plan for science by niallkennedy

Here is a fascinating bit of news from my Twitter friends in the United States. Google Docs now includes a whiteboard and it is built on SVG. Some of you probably read about the interesting work by Bill Kerr with SVG and that with Inkscape, a cool and free open source SVG drawing program we have used in our classrooms. This is going to lend some weight behind the standard.

I have been involved with some fascinating collaboration using Google Docs with different teams editing the same page, at the same time. I am now interested to try it out with this new function.

The team and technology behind Insert Drawing originally came from the startup Tonic Systems, which Google acquired in 2007. The drawing feature that we've built relies heavily on a relatively new capability in browsers: the ability to render vector graphics. We use the SVG (scalable vector graphics) standard to accomplish this in most browsers and VML (vector markup language) where SVG is not available.

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2009/03/drawing-on-your-creativity-in-docs.html

Current Mood: cheerful

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