Plakboek

Tweet cloud distraction
After a hell of a day sorting out reporting issues for just everybody else at school, I had an interesting discussion with my junior IT class talking about the value of tagging and social networking. Some had never really noticed the value of the tags used with YouTube. We had fun examining the ABC news tag cloud and playing with Wordle http://www.wordle.net to farm and sort words that I used in my reports. Here is a tag cloud that I just made with http://tweetcloud.icodeforlove.com that analyses your twitter posts to determine the most popular burning topics and keywords. My technicians had a bit of fun playing about with it and here is my cloud for November:

Hmm, so it is packed with stuff that I can wrote into a single sentence. Here goes .. issues raised by VITTA09 conference keynotes, ACEC2010 Melbourne conference, free software ideas (software freedom day), a morning wish for more thinking and reflecting time bundled with thanks to you all for another great year online :-)

Current Mood: cheerful

Beyond the critical mass

web2.0 by ryyo

My suspicions were confirmed after talking to Amanda at QSITE09 in QLD. Thinking back to the changes I noticed at NECC2008, I can now confirm that whilst mailing lists are not dead, they are no longer the best way forward for all special interest groups such as teacher subject associations. Web2.0 tools such as YouTube, Twitter, Nings, Flickr, Delicious, EdNA, LinkedIN, Facebook, etc. now have a complex and important role to play.

it means we must increasingly rely on social networking to build bridges between different groups, not just find the biggest mailing list to dominate and post alerts. Whilst it may be we will get less e-mail, it does mean that it is more importan to keeping track of your interests and matching them to online groups.

Two decades ago I nicknamed the "Chandler critical mass" as a measure of how large a mailing list needs to be to become successful tool. I now realise that I had left out some important dimensions: the features and flexibility of the tool for collaboration, the enthusiasm and willingness for users to wield it to develop new ideas, bound together with the sense of community ownership, community and tradition .. features of the oz-teachers and eChalk mailing lists. Anything less and they would become just another a news list.

Whilst it is more work for us to now also network with people using web2.0 tools for social networking, there are rewards of new opportunities and connections.

That is a good thing :-)

Current Mood: bouncy

Google SVG whiteboard

Google Document Drawing by Wesley Fryer

Here is a fascinating bit of hot news. Google have built into GoogleDocs a whiteboard and it is has been built using SVG technology.

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." reference

Some of you probably read about the interesting work by Bill Kerr with SVG and that I have used it in the classroom with Inkscape, a cool and free open source SVG drawing program.

This is going to lend some weight behind this powerful open standard and is worth trying out ..

.. when collaboraitng online of course ;-)

Current Mood: cheerful

Reconnecting with educators

A quick blog post to acknowledge that I am at the VITTA conference. Great to meet up with old and new friends. It is good to follow the Twitter back channel for #vitta09 .. almost as much fun as the #qsite09 channel that I followed in Brisbane for the QSITE conference :-)

I am puzzled by the decision to turn off the free wireless Internet during the Monday morning although I hear that this was a late request by the VITTA keynote. Puzzling as those with G3 phones and laptops continued to tweet and grin from behind their technology tools. The wireless network this year has been good, for once I can use it from all the corners of the venue and it works so well done Xirrus! I hope that the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre has this all figured this out for 2010.

With the QSITE conference and again last night from the VITTA conference .. after lugging another satchel bag filled with paper fliers home, then emptying them into the recycling bin I do wonder what options there are to distribute promotional material to meet sponsorship goals. There has to be a better way.

So I am asking if anybody has any ideas for how we can better manage this for the next ACEC ICT national conference to be hosted in Melbourne next year? http://www.acec2010.info One chap has suggested to me that we should just copy all the sales information to a USB key or the Cloud then use social networking tools to better connect sales people with 'friends of' and 'bird of the feather' groups.

Quick, before more trees start falling!

Current Mood: cheerful

Learning amongst the shepherds

sheep by drgillybean

Some interesting discussions are around about the kind of environment we would like to have when schools move towards a 1:1 laptop program. It is curious to see how much interest that there is in tools to regulate and control exactly what students can do on their laptops and what they can see, in effect tightly shepherding their thinking and learning using technology tools to control what could be seen and done on the computer screen. Some research in Australia by Intel was cited that found that this restricted the ability of students to 'own' their learning. They were unable to naturally progress very far as they were being held back by the teacher.

This embraces the current debate that spans the development of self-directed learners and the vertical / horizontal scaffolding we need to put in place to enable this to happen. Already there is general agreement that it is going to be hard to achieve this when we shepherd students along the strictly narrow path of directed learning. A well intentioned and constructivist classroom environment build around 1:1 laptops can be easily subverted with the right technology, strategically placed barriers or rules to recreate just another traditional, chalkboard lesson.

When this happens, put me back next to the camp fire with a stick and some sand.

I think we should articulate our vision first and then do some background reading. I have the greatest confidence in grass root educators that ground their decisions in personal experience and hard research evidence and less in bean counters that crank out fancy websites, brochures, slick charts or slide shows.

Should the curriculum drive the management strategies?

Of open whiteboards

Wiimote Whiteboard IR Pen V2 by Adam Melancon

If a person creates an activity for an interactive whiteboard using a particular piece of software designed for a particular brand, they often cannot share it wiht someone using a different brand of interactive whiteboard. The question has been asked if there is a generic or open-source software to create learning activities.

It is called vendor lockin and it sucks. To a degree, all the big players are guilty of it and it is part of the reason why opensource software and open standards are so important. Worth reading up the related article on Wikipedia about this topic.

We use an Australian made IWB board called a 2Touch that doesn't require any software to drive .. even works with a netbook running Ubuntu remix as the operating system. Web based is the way to go in my mind so something like KindleLab is worth exploring. I have even had fun using MIT inspired program Scratch to make IWB activites and again, it can be readily used with any IWB system. In my mind it is important that teachers and students can adapt and reprogram the learning objects created.

On Friday, I was talking with a developer who was interested in projecting Apple iPhone applications onto a whiteboard. I didn't realize there were tools around for doing this for free or that they can automatically scale up for larger screen formats. His interest was in teachers sharing applications for free or even opting to sell them online for a couple of dollars and was sounding out my thoughts.

With the Google inspired Android only a couple of years down the track, things are going to look very interesting.

Powered by Drupal

Westall website by plakboek

I needed a fresh look for our college website and called upon Donna from Creative Contingencies to lend a hand. Compared to our old default themed school website, her new theme is a huge improvement. I am particularly delighted how she used Gimp to create a banner with the suspension bridge image from our Balook Camp in Gippsland.

I notice that we are not the only ones using the open source software Drupal to drive our online content, it is also being used by the Australian Prime Minister and the Whitehouse.

A year ago, Peter got our first open source powered website up and running running. Since then, Arran has done a great job with the upgrade to Version 6 and maintaining the engine that powers this website, today finishing an important upgrade. At this sage I need to shuffle the blocks about. do some housekeeping and rethink the entire site architecture.

Early days yet but at least it is looking much better.

Geocity closed

Yahoo changing geocities by plakboek

Back in June 1997, GeoCities was the fifth most popular site on the Web. I used it to set up a small personal website. On the 27th October, Yahoo closed down GeoCities and my website slips into the pages of history.

With the closure, Yahoo! no longer offers free webpage hosting and a raft of competitors have moved in to fill the void.

I was interested to read that the archive.org project has done a special sweep to archive the remaining projects. This will help counter the digital decay that can destroy some of the historical pages that are sprinkled through the website.

You can read up about some of this on the GeoCities Wikipedia page.

Critical path towards the exams

Exams :( [Day 12] by Alex France

Today I had another year 12 Information Technology revision class about project management whilst we work our way towards the end of year Victorian examinations.

I talked about the chap who cuts the grass with a junior apprentice. The boss rides the lawn mower (50 min) whilst the apprentice does the edging (30 min) and sweeps the path (10 min). There is only one mower, edger and broom. The broom can only be used after the lawn is cut and edging is done. The group had a good laugh when the remaining few finally understood that the apprentice was on the critical path (pun not intended).

I am enjoying going over the past exams. Students are now in awe at the work that is put in to assemble these when I walked them through an examiners report. My mind keeps turning to all the delicious discussions we have post examination time for particular questions.

Iwonder if any other subject deconstructs their assessment tasks with such energy and enthusiasm? It is worth noting at this point that QLD seems to do quite well without any formal state-wide exams. Hmmm :-)

Fast Fourier transforms

Windows wireless networking by plakboek

The CSIRO ought to get more recognition for their pioneering work in this field of developing the Fast Fourier Transformation chips that lead to the development of WLAN or Wi-Fi networks. It came out of the research they were conducting in radioastronomy and is a great example how blue sky research can often bring about commercial spin offs or advantages down the track that may not be imediately obvious or aparent.

The ABC Catalyst science show gave some good background to this work and their legal fight. It is a pity that this history is only given a brief mention on Wikipedia .. perhaps somebody could fill in the gap ;-)

Crikey, I recall all the fast Fourier transformation calculations that were crunched through slowly in Fortran on the mainframe that underpinned the mysterious workings of the NMR and IR machines I used back in the early 1980s when I worked at ICI Australia. To build a chip to come up with these calculations was a huge step forward.

Current Mood: chipper

Holding your breath for more Internet

a champ at holding his breath by Pfau

The Education Minister Bronwyn Pike today announced that Victorian government schools will enjoy free internet access from the first day of term one in 2010, "All Victorian government schools will have their internet charges covered by the Brumby Labor Government." Whilst this has some cost benefits for schools, schools still have a role to play rather than leave the Internet taps left open and running on full.

There is only so much you can shove down a pipe at once or to put it another way, inviting more people to eat your birthday cake means that the birthday party will take longer (lag) and there will be less for each to eat (bandwidth).

Our experience to date is that if we didn't have in place some mechanisms to monitor and gently cap the usage (ala bandwidth throttling controls for admin / staff / students) it can run out of control and everybody suffers. This has always been the dilemma of the virtual commons. There are some great commercial and open source tools that help us manage and track our usage.

I once used the rule of thumb that you should at least be able to click on a link and hold your breath until the page refreshes (30 seconds) although lately, I notice that people are less patient and get angry if there isn't a response after a few seconds.

QSITE09 Rocked

iPhone Home Screens by Lee Bennett

Every participant at the QSITE 09 conference "Beyond the Flashing Lights" was given an Apple iPod touch and the technology experiment really rocked. We will certainly be considering this for the ACEC2010 conference in Melbourne next year (April and the same time as our International Comedy Festival :-)

For those of you that are wondering what is an iPod touch, think Apple iPhone with wireless but no phone. I was amazed at their Unconference session with very close coupling with twitter with a back channel .. imagine a projection screen to the side of the keynote where conference participants and those outside can post questions, links and other thoughts. #qsite09

The unit is robust enough for classroom use and there has been some positive feedback from schools here that are using these as a class set etc. I am going to get one for myself as soon as I drop my Palm Pilot .. the damn thing keeps on going and going and going (sigh) ..

Here is a cute Teacher Tube video link that will put a smile on your faces of a 2 year old, navigating and posting an e-mail with this unit. Take a look at and tell me that kids can’t learn using mobile devices or what will happen when they are immersed into a traditional school system that frowns on using handheld technology. Here is a great list of links that surround the history of the elusive Apple tablet computer.

Fascinating stuff. I now really want to get our hands on a class set of these units and an phone for myself. :-)

Current Mood: energetic

Public music spaces and places

Birthday Cake - Candles by Jessica N. Diamond

It seems that every time your phone rings and you are in a public space, you could be contributing to a legal suit with your phone tune.

The exact copyright definition of what it means to perform arts in a public space seems to vary (as we would expect it to). From what I can read, virtually every auditorium, classroom, meeting room or staff lounge is a public auditorium. If the public can be excluded and every one there was your friend, the performance would most likely not be considered as public and you would be legal.

Whilst it seems as if any clear legal interpretation is going to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma, it would be prudent to ask all unfriendly, strange or new staff to leave the room when singing Happy Birthday (the song is owned by Time Warner). Anybody that joins in to sings this song and provides false witness or claims to friendship is not only dishonest and opening the entire group to legal action, they will probably hold their hand out for a slice of cake too.

For now I will stick to whistling open source music such as , threaten my students with an improvised jazz items on my clarinet or saxophone and wonder about the legal issues of a song loop that is stuck inside my head for half the day. Should I pay royalties or only if I admit this in public ;-)

Compared to some of the heavy copyright material we get to use in the classroom, this is great discussion fodder with some clear examples and range of views that students can debate, consider and reflect upon.

Technology behind the magic

Inside iPhone by lietus

A colleague circulated on the year 7-10 list, some great worksheets for students to guide their dissection and the examination of the inside workings of an old computer.

I did hear about a research project that asked different generations to draw what they thought the inside of a radio, iPhone or iPod could looked like. The school aged students had had trouble visualising a circuit board, describing a computer chip or understand some basic electronics. They had no idea and had trouble speculating what was inside these devices. Is this now a generation that treats consumer items as throw-away, black box electronics?

Arthur C. Clarke once remarked "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Perhaps because we are surrounded by so much equipment that cannot be serviced or opened. Perhaps this reflects the decline in school based technology activities that once provided some hands-on experiences. Compare them with a family in India that can service and repair their own mobile phones and consider where real innovation is going to happening.

The OLPC XO-1 computers can be repaired by a child with a screwdriver. Watch this cool video on YouTube for details. Try that with a Netbook ;-)

I would like my students to appropriate and embrace technology with reason and understanding, not cloak it in commercial mysticism then worship it with a misplaced awe.

Launching a new machine

An OLPC XO-1 in Melbourne by plakboek

The ISTE journal "Learning & Leading" current issue Vol 37.1 has a netbook article on page 14. You can download and read the free online PDF version from this link. http://tr.im/wjuI It is a good 4 page summary of the different options spanning thick, ultraportable and thin computers and gives good mention to the XO-1. I rather like the point made at the end that a cheap solution is not desirable if it is created through draconian measures to limit access to technology resources and services.

As a member of ISTE, I will declair an interest and if you scroll down http://tr.im/wjuW .. (blush) a profile about me with a photograph taken standing on "The Dish" radio telescope with blue hard hat and the hand puppets I use to teach with :-)

A really rough and sobering analysis of the Apollo missions estimates a 10% failure rate and a 1% failure rate for the space shuttle. They are hoping to do even better for the next craft. The safety imperative that they are working to resolve is to separate human passengers from the instrument / satellite cargo with two launches. The former is packed full of nice human safety stuff such as life support that can launch and return to earth, quite independent from the cargo and the huge fuel reserve that is needed to launch the cargo into orbit.

This is akin to selling the school truck and replacing it with a minibuss and huge trailer (and a huge remote contolled trailer at that) .. or separating passengers from their luggage in an aircraft. Though we might grumble when our baggage sometimes is separated from our bodies with various airport handling errors, we would all agree that our safe journey and return should be the main priority

Current Mood: chipper

Listening online to Apollo

Listening online to Apollo by plakboek

Last month I followed the NASA 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission whilst listening in to some old news recordings.I was particularly curious to track the webcast that reenacted the lunar landing using Twitter and some old broadcasts.

"Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again." - Capcom

You can watch here a slide-show of my twitter recordings of the web-casts collected during this event that span the lunar approach, landing and first moon walk.

It is interesting to see how groups have interpreted this old media in new ways. Whilst some might turn down their nose at this historical adaptation, it is a fascinating way to engage the interest of another generation.

Current Mood: chipper

Building ICT networks

Hard Hat by Beppie K

Spore moment

Spore moment by plakboek

Whilst playing the computer game Spore by EA games, I documented part of my 'evolutionary' journey with some screen shots. Last year I managed to assemble a nice collection whilst playing the computer game Oblivion. I wish I had thought of this earlier and taken more.

This is the space stage. The costume that I have built here seems clash of Roman Centurion with Buck Rogers influences. Good evolutionary advice from my son was to keep the eyes together and say away from eye stalks as it makes wearing hats and helmets a pain. Perhaps I should have also lost the tusks and wings.

Whilst some licence is taken with the relative sizes of the planets, it is really nice to see in this game how they depict the different habitation space orbits around a star with red, green and blue zones, how comet tails point away from the star and how the shadows and light change as planets slowly rotate and orbit the star. Landing on the surface of a planet, it was nice to see that they mirror this dance with the objects in the sky.

You are permitted to smile at the space ship that I built for myself to zoom around the universe and my jugging to get a good picture angle. It took a while to build this particular model inspired by the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. I even managed to include an set of flashing navigation lights by building the main saucer around an embedded police light bar.

Using a SETI tool and some huge star maps, I enjoyed looking around for intelligent life. At one point I was defending myself from some hostile ancient technology hiding in the remains of their ruined city. OK, I don't blame these little bots for their irritation as I try to position myself for a good screenshot angle whilst testing my small laser on them. This wasn't the only time I was distracted by camera angles. Took me ages to line up a shot of the sun rising in the front of my spaceship because the planet keep orbiting the sun and rotating (as they do).

You can view a slideshow of my Spore game pictures here.

Science and Language Centre

Iliad by magnuscanis

Our college has won a major grant for a science and language centre.

The college was awarded close to $2 million in 2009 from the Federal Government towards the construction of a new science and language centre to be completed in 2010.

For a school that has worked long and hard to secure funding, this is both an great addition to our college facilities and exciting development.

Bilingualism can give students great opportunities for future employment and has many other advantages. Our Bilingual program has operated since 1997 when it was an early pilot. Today, students gain subject literacy in two languages - Chinese/English Science and Greek/English Mathematics.

You can read more about this in the local NeosKosmos.COM newspaper.

Current Mood: cheerful

Souls for Sale

souls for sale by killthebird

Consider the amount of commercial software that is bulk purchased to be loaded onto each government computer, what it costs and what is actually productively used on each desktop. Much of this software is rarely used. Often is purchased or bundled, 'just in case' it is needed.

it is easier to deploy the same software onto all the computers in an organisation. This is sometimes called an SOE or Standard Operating Environment. This can reduce the deployment overhead for IT technicians and can help give a each desktop a familiar look and fee. The downside is the opportunity cost of what could otherwise have be done with the funds. Whilst the state can help provide support with software selection, validating training and encouraging innovation, it should not condone a state endorsed monopoly of any software product or act in a way that could stifle innovation by mandating conformity.

Schools should pay for all their commercial software licensing outright. If they are smart enough to make strategic spending decisions on good software products, then let them use their funds in the way that bests suits their local needs and save money not spent their global school budget. By illustration, schools seem to be able to select, purchase and deploy text books for individual classes without the state government negotiating purchase deals on their behalf or demanding a standard book reading environment.

It is a phony to compare state-wide purchase discounts as software pricing models are not built on traditional ideas of limited supply and demand. I groan when I hear the claim that "all educational department school software is free" as it miss-represents the revenue that is still spent on stitching up these bulk deals.

Whilst I welcome any increase school funding, please let us deliver it all to the school and thus to all students.

Current Mood: calm

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