Microsoft Photosynth

You have viewed Sir Ken Robinson‘s inspirational TED talk and here is another ‘WOW- look at this‘ from TED Talks. The idea is that the collective images from Flickr or wherever are compiled into high resolution images that enable a three dimensional model. I liken it to Google Earth for photos. You can zoom in in high definition. An absolutely awesome idea. You can zoom in on images, e-magazines etc and see fine detail without pixelation. Watch the six minute video and see it for yourself.Image

Photosynth creates breathtaking multi-dimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectations. Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a high resolution image. Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.”

Way cool!

Time4OnLine Conference

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Our Time4Online NZ conference is now up and running for real and the power of Web2 technologies have been brought home to me in a number of rather spectacular ways.

Firstly, in that we can have a conference like this at all. Teachers from all over New Zealand can learn and connect at their own pace, in their own time and from any location as long as they have an internet connection and a bit of patience. I wonder how many will join in over time?

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Secondly, that I can contribute from Nelson through a collaboration with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach for her keynote in Elluminate and my video presentation, uploaded to Teacher-Tube. At last look it has had 4,400 views in one week. This surprises me as I didn’t think that that many people would be that interested. Thank you Sheryl for your enthusiasm and encouragement for me to showcase some of my classroom practice.
Through these links a number of others from a variety of English speaking countries have linked to this blog or my presentation and I tip my hat to them.

And thanks to Technorati for the ability to find and link to others. And to James Farmer founder of Edublogs who helped get things going again after some downtime in the weekend.

Across the ditch

I was Skyping with Jane Nicholls tonight and she asked if I had heard of an Aussie blogger, John Pearce who teaches at a primary school in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, who had dropped my name on his blog. He has got good taste- maybe a blog to follow! Thanks mate!

Via Paul Harrington comes a link to some more great work from the redoubtable Kiwi Allanah King just across the ditch, (that spot of ocean between we Aussies and NZ). This time Allanah has produced a great video relating her experiences with her children in blogging and podcasting as well as skyping with Paul and others. An easy view Allanah’s presentation is part of what looks likely to be an interesting conference, the No Time4 Online Conference which will be running for 2 weeks from 28 May to 8 June 2007. The pre-conference review contains some familiar and some less familiar introductory contributions to whet the appetite of the numerous kiwis and a couple of others who already signed up. Hmmm maybe we should invite a five or sux of our colleagues from the Shaky Isles over here to Oz to give us a hand???? ;).

The Kiwis Are In Time4Online Too « My Other Blog

Blogging With Parents

It’s late Sunday afternoon and I just got home Imagefrom a blustery autumn afternoon in my classroom where nine parents from school and one student helper set about creating a blog site for themselves using Blogger. I set up the data projector and big screen up and were away after a six minute viewing of my movie presentation for the Time4OnLine New Zealand web conference that starts May 28th. What a hoot! I prefer to be behind the lens but it was fun making it!

Thank goodness our internet access held up and we were all able to go on-line at the same time. Usually I have half of the pod of twelve me Image laptops on the internet and the other half doing something non-web based as it can be tricky. By the end of the session they had all made a blog post, added a photograph, customised it to their liking, hid the problematic navigation bar and changed the settings to reflect personal preferences. Hopefully that is nine more blogs to add the blogosphere.

It is great that they were keen enough to come back on the weekend. That makes twice back to school this weekend. The other was on Friday night for a live Skype call to one of the boys in my class who has gone back to the UK for a time and called in at Cefn Fforest School in Wales that our class has been linking to for some time.

Naturally it and two other exciting Skype calls have been turned into a podcast on our Podomatic site.

Why do we blog?

We have been developing our Moturoa Class Blogmeister blog for three weeks now and the kids are loving it. David Warlick asked in the Blogmeister forum for some quotes about how blogging has affected our classroom dynamic, student attitudes, and, of course, student performance for an upcoming Tech Forum he is doing in Long Beach, CA. this week. I took the liberty of scalping some of the replies…Image

My response is that…

Blogging has given my class and myself a window out to the world from the South Island of New Zealand and our parent community an opportunity to participate in the classroom activities.We have an authentic global audience for the events that happen in our school. By blogging we know that people outside our classroom walls are interested and involved in what we do. We have a real purpose for writing to inform, to educate, to connect.

Through blogging we have built real friendships with children in different timezones, with different accents and beliefs. These links help bring the children across the globe closer together.

And here other people respond..

Blogging:
– celebrates thinking
– supports and reflects growth and thoughtfulness
– encourages self reflection and creativity
– invites a variety of perspectives
– widens understandings
– encourages decision making
– affirms and challenges viewpoints
– exposes our perceptions
– develops networks
– links people through thinking and learning
Lorraine Watchorn

Blogs can engage students in a purposeful practice of writing that can promote deeper learning. Blogging can foster classroom conversations that matter. My having a weblog shows them that I make writing a priority. My having a blog lets me share my writing and learning with my students who have blogs. We’re in this together and we learn with
and from each other. I use it as a tool in the classroom to ensure that the students and I are talking, reading and writing about how and what we are learning and thinking. We interact through comments. We have others outside our classroom enter the conversations. We work at building a community who respect and encourage each other. We learn to disagree agreeably. We write to learn. We blog to learn.
Anne Davis

Blogging has given my six and seven-year olds a window to the world. They see themselves as part of a global community–a community that shares things about their lives and feelings, reads what others have written and gives and recieves comments. This international audience gives my students a purpose and they are motivated to do their best writing on their blog.
Kathy Cassidy
Kathy is a keen follower of our podcasts as well. It is interesting that we link with other like minded Web2.0 enthusiasts around the world.

Reporting to parents

Fifty years ago today a dear sweet thing was born in Nelson 50 metres from where I am sitting now. I haven’t come very far in the world!!! Image

While looking through some old photographs to show Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach a photo of myself and Queen Elizabeth I came across these old school reports of mine.

This one is my first school report as a five year old reporting my first year’s progress at school. It is interesting just how full and rich the reporting was in those days and how much time and effort must have gone in to making sure the parents were fully cognisant of their child’s progress and learning goals for future progress. Also of note is the rich curriculum that was reported on- reading, number, expression and printing.

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The second school report is the best they could muster after six years of primary schooling. The first thing that struck me was that after six full years at the same school they still couldn’t spell my name correctly! I must have felt thrilled that I didn’t have any problems in reading and I should continue to make progress. Being a ‘good average’ must have made my parents proud. Nothing like standing out from the crowd. No tall poppies here!

What occupations were we being educated for? Not ICT, Web2.0, global communication and collaboration for sure. I wonder how our children will look back on the school reports we give them?