Chris Betcher recently blogged about another new Adobe tool- Buzzword- an online word processor written in Flash. Very cool. The features that I particularly like are that you can upload a Word document and it looks just like it does in Word. You can create documents in Buzzword and export as a pdf or a Word document onto your desktop. Ideal for those without the $$$ to spend on Microsoft products. You can insert tables and graphics and do all the usuals that a normal person would want a desktop publisher to do.
Then you can share that document with others just as you might do in Google Docs. But here’s the really cool thing you can do as well. On the far right hand side of the screen you can see the icon- MEET. Thought I would give it a try and find out who I might meet.
Turns out it takes you to Adobe ConnectNow- through which I can share my desktop with others. OK this looks fun but I need someone to share with. Enter Skype and Twitter. Raewyn from school was on Skype and I sent out a general Tweet asking if anyone wanted a little playtime! Colin Warren a educational tertiary level blogger from from Geelong, Australia, answered my call. Together we played and found out pretty much how to work the screen sharing application by talking about it with Skype and sharing the iSite video. The screen capture is of how it looked from my end as Colin opened up his desktop for us to look at. Through this medium we shared photos and movies directly from my desktop.
I liked the interface and it all worked smoothly after we had played about for a bit trying to get the sound working. We nearly had to resort to using the HELP tab but resisted the temptation.
It is great to have a PLN that is so wiling to try new things and learn with each other across the globe.
Here is how the screen looked in a screen grab from Raewyn’s computer. It shows her desktop visibe with my laptop screen viewable at the same time. It looks complicated but it really wasn’t.
I was struck by how relatively simple Adobe’s ConnectNow was and how useful it might be for teachers who are in need of a little online assistance.
By chance we were all Apple users- as it is web based I could see it as a great application to use across the platforms.
Again through my Twitter network via @Murcha from Aussie and @MrKp from the UK I found a link to a fun website, Feedjournal.com, that makes your most recent blog posts via the RSS feed into a newspaper
To see what it looks like click on the above link or the graphic. Great if you’re not fond of reading on line. A thought ran through my mind as I re-read the newspaper- without this blog I would not have the motivation to write at all- and I have written and shared quite a bit over time!
And then to finish off I uploaded it to Issuu an on line publisher to give a cool little page turny look to the whole thing. To see it in a better size click on OPEN PUBLICATION.
It’s not like I don’t have plenty to do but I keep getting sidetracked by new finds and interesting conversations. The school holidays are great.
The writing of my first cluster milestone is starting to weigh heavily on my mind. I suppose its a bit like writing school reports- a necessary evil.
I thought the cloud generated by my tweets was interesting. I highlighted some of the most often used words- they emit a sense of what I want my interactions with my on-line network to be like so I am quite pleased.
Thanks to Paul Harrington et al for this little quest. Questionaut is a fun quest as it attempts to get your brain to think logically and go exploring! At first play I found it rather frustrating until I realised that there was a rhyme and reason to it all. There are eight levels in the quest and at the end of each level you get asked a variety of science, maths or English questions.
For example in this level you have to put an icicle in the test tube, open the box of matches, open the LPG gas, strike the match, light the burner and turn the gas up to boil the melted icicle which forces steam onto the fan, which lifts the plug hole to let a wee man out to ask the five questions which you have to answer correctly to fill the fuel to get you on to the next challenge.
Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!
People have been asking me what this Twitter is all about? Today I was able to show them! I was at Tasman School showing them ‘Possibilities’- some of the incredible things you can do with a little imagination, a little skill and a little time- via the internet. We looked at blogging, wikis, podcasting, linking Skype, collaborations- the works.
I mentioned Twitter in conversation- not really meaning to go into it but got asked about it and found it hard to explain without a demonstration so put out a quick tweet asking for a hello. Within seconds I had received tweets from Brisbane, Sydney, Shanghai, Washington, Vancouver Island, Regina, Winnipeg and Wellington! Awesome stuff guys. Thank you.
On another Twitter related moment. Last night I got an iChat request- did I know how to get rid of the outside link you get when you upload a Powerpoint to Slideshare? No I didn’t!
I posted a Tweet asking for help. Simplyarun from Slideshare caught the tweet and gave me a hand to look good! He posted a fix for the problem within minutes. Awesome stuff, Slideshare. Well done.
Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch! Chrissy Hellyer tagged me for this Passion Quilt Meme through Miguel Guhlin- the idea is that you post a photo of something that you feel passionate about children’s learning. For me this is developing connections between children globally and sharing our learning with our global community.
This photo is a mash-up of our collaboration between Paul Harrington’s class in Wales and my own Moturoa class at Appleby. Over the year we had been building links between our classes- so much so that children felt a personal connection with Paul and his class. The children were familiar with each other via our blog posts, podcasts and Skype conversations. The connection became face to face when Dino and his family spent time in Paul’s class while on a family holiday in the UK. We came in to school late at night so we could talk to Dino and his Welsh buddies directly via Skype video. The virtual friendships become real.
The photo credit from the Welsh end of the conversation goes to the Times Educational Supplement that did an article on how classrooms use Skype to link up globally.
3 Simple Meme Rules:
Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter.
I am in a bit of a blogging frenzy at the moment but couldn’t resist sharing this great find from Andrew Churches of Educational Origami fame. The Historic Tale Construction Kit is an on line storytelling site that is just so easy to use and I could imagine it hooking some kids into wanting to write a whole series of slides, developing character and plot along the way. Cheers Andrew.
For the last six weeks or so I have been interacting with a myriad of educators, superintendents and teachers, in America as an ‘expert voice’ in a Ning administered by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson. The idea is that six ‘expert voices’ from around the globe are asked to contribute their voice and assist in the building of a Personal Learning Network for those educators.
I am most honoured and humbled to be invited into such an austere community and hope that my contributions have proved to be worthwhile. As the first round draws to a close I would hope that some of those connections made can continue from outside of that Ning.
Because our school holidays were on I was able to join in a couple of Elluminate sessions with the cohort. It was great to be able to participate live in rich conversations about harnessing the power of the connections made on the web to create a Personal Learning Network.
In this introductory video Will talks about how we might build these networks, how they might look, the transformative nature of a PLN and how we might help children navigate their own networks safely, ethically and effectively.
I am so looking forward to facilitating the 14 schools in the Discover IT Tasman ICT cluster throughout 2008 achieve just those sort of connections. In case you haven’t heard via Twitter I have taken leave from Appleby School for 2008 and will work as a roaming ICT facilitator based in Motueka.
What a wonderful opportunity for me learn and make a whole lot of new face to face connections and develop that sort of network with students and teachers so close to home.
Today was a slow day on the net- in all sorts of ways. Darren Kuropatwa tweeted about a Muxicall, a fun musical toy he was playing with and invited us to join in to make music in a collaborative Web2.0 sort of way.
The idea is that each user decides on an instrument- strings, drums or piano and we all get together to play on a large chord grid. You can chat while you are doing it and give each other prompts and maybe orchestrate your contributions. When I first toyed making music there were about eight of use all banging away- a cacophony!
I gave it a rest and came back later when only Assaf and I were playing. It was almost a conversation of music as we communicated only through the keyboard. Magic really.
Have a listen! For those interested I used Audio Hi-jacker to record the audio.
My first is of Tiny Ted the small geocache bear sent to us from Paul Harrington in Wales. I staged this photo down at Nelson’s Tahunanui Beach- so typical of the NZ summer. Paul and Tiny Ted were the springboard from which we forged links between our classes. Children could so relate to him and he became an integral part of our day. We miss him as he is now with April Chamberlain in USA.
My second photo is of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and I as she visited Nelson for the TUANZ conference. I am indebted to Sheryl for her friendship, openness and how she took me under wing to mentor my entrance in to the Web2.0 educators’ learning network.
My third photo was one I shared with Sheryl as Queen Elizabeth visited the College of William and Mary where Sheryl works. The photo tells the story of how I met Her Majesty when she visited Nelson when I was a ten year old. Sheryl posted it to her Flickr account and invited people to share in my 50th birthday celebrations. That photo garnered 36 global comments. Click on it to see the story in note form. I was in awe and it showed me the power of networking.
My fourth is of a group of children in my class collaborating on a wiki and learning together oblivious of the camera- the way learning in the 21st century should be.
My fifth is a photo taken by Jane Nicholls at ULearn07 with a group of New Zealand edubloggers and Ewan himself. It was a great learning experience when virtual friends became real life ones. Click on the photo to see who’s who!
My last is one of Mum and I taken recently. Mum and I have been through a difficult time with her diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease but I still appreciate the time we still manage to have together.
View my page on TechnospudProjects My on-line friend, Jen Wagner, has recently created a Ning for primary school teachers as a place to met up, share ideas and find other teachers around the world who want to collaborate on global projects and meet up with other like minded teachers. Joining this Ning would be a great way to join a PLN, Personal Learning Network, and move out of just sharing your learning with your class, school or parent community.
Lisa Parisi, from New York, and I have recently collaborated on a Hemispheres Wiki. Lisa’s class set a couple of questions that could best be answered by people living in the Southern Hemisphere and we set about answering them from our own experiences showing photos and videos of our findings. The seasonal differences were highlighted by our class photos on the ‘about page’. Lisa’s children were standing in their playground surrounded by snow and mine were on the beach.
This week’s highlight has been an impulse buy- Parallels for my TELA laptop. I was going to buy a new 17inch MacBook Pro but got the speed wobbles when I realised how much it was going to cost. This is my compromise. I may still buy a MacBook at a later date. The installation went smoothly and now I not only have a back-up of my PC on my TELA Apple laptop but I can access my books and other Publisher files from my Apple. I even got my new Polycom Communicator that only runs with Windows XP to work with a quick test Skype call to Lenva Shearing just to check. With the Communicator you can make Skype call with the speaker to a larger audience and not have to worry about feedback. Tino pai rawa!
I can’t wait till our next Skype collaboration- maybe with Lisa Parisi from New York as we learn together via our hemispheres wiki to find out about how things work in our different hemispheres.
After an all day Sunday session at school tidying up for move to another classroom and a new level of children. I felt in need of a little light relief as I had cleared my Bloglines and checked out the tweets and thought I would ‘Google‘ myself. I was amazed that this German blogger had found his/her way to my Teacher tube Video, One Woman’s Wanderings with Web2.o. These links are truly incredible.
Over the last so long I have become an avid follower of the conversations brought about through Twitter.
There is much talk about ‘getting’ or ‘not getting’ Twitter. At first I thought it a bit of a toy but realise now that it can be much more than than that.
I follow the ‘Tweets’ of these people and 115 people follow what I say. Through Twitter I have been able to share some of the things we have been doing, get the word out about events, happenings and new tools, find out more about the thoughts of others, link to new blog posts, share ideas and feel connected to other teachers globally.
You can tweet from your mobile phone and receive tweets even when you are away from your computer and you can privately direct message individuals within the 140 character limit.
The way to ‘get’ Twitter is to leap in- find some people that you want to share information and ideas with and ‘follow’ them and follow some of the people that they follow. From there the conversation spreads.
Here is my Aussie mate Chris Betcher’s video on how Twitter works if you are more of a visual learner…
Through Twitter we invited the world to join our “What have we learnt with ICT? Voicethread and Lisa Parisi from New York had her class add valuable input into it and make it so much more richer. We are about take part in the new collaboration with our Northern Hemisphere friends who want to find out more about life below the equator. Lisa has made this comparing hemispheres wiki and we are going to help her class find out some answers to a couple of questions that I have always wanted to know the answers to as well- like which way does water go down the plughole at latitude 43 degrees north- clockwise or anti-clockwise?
Today Tweeterboard was brought to my attention , via a tweet of course. With Tweeterboard you can gauge how influential and ‘clickable’ your tweets are based on your conversations with other Twitter users.
Chis Betcher skyped me last night to tell me that our podcast was nominated and is a finalist in the Edublog Awards 2007 in the best use of audio class. I am overawed to be a finalist.
Our podcast is only a little over a year old and I am very proud of its quality and variety of podcasts.
If you are a reader of this blog and haven’t done so already I urge you to click on the Edublog badge to take you to the voting page and vote for us before 6 December when the voting finishes.
The link will also take you to many other great educational websites that you may well enjoy reading, viewing or listening to.
Dean Shareski, Chris Harbeck, Darren Kuropatwa, and Clarence Fisher invited us for lunch via UStream this morning. I had an hour to spare over breakfast so thought I would join them. They were in Winnipeg and I am in Nelson, NZ but the geographical limits didn’t seem like something we couldn’t overcome!
The conversation was great- no-one was in lecture mode- just sharing our thoughts on blogging, networks and a sense of community.
About 20 of us from around the globe were able to join in the conversation, with good humour and a coffee.
While the conversation was happening I was thinking that my network is feeling more like a community to me- people who I have never met face-to-face but virtually through Twitter, Skype, Voicethread or blog make me feel welcome.
Chris, from Sydney, brought us all together via Skype for a bit of a chat about our practice. I encourage you to have a listen by clicking on Chris’ Virtual Staffroom logo. I hope you learn something from us and be entertained slightly as well.
Thanks Chris for bringing us together to discuss ULearn07, Twitter, blogging, podcasting, K12 OnLine, Second Life and more.
As our Waimea-South ICTPD cluster enters its final phase I thought I would construct a Voicethread to chronicle what we have learnt along the way with responses from all seven schools in our cluster.
I was really proud of the way my nine and ten year old students at Appleby School articulated what they felt their learning with computers had achieved this year.
I was also pleased that a number of teachers locally and around the globe were able to record their views. It would be great if you were able to add your own comments and grow the resource.
If you want a ‘how to’ to on using Voicethread go to my Bling4yrblog for help.
We thin sliced a lot at Ulearn- skimmed across a heap of new tools and techniques. I hope that some of that expensive, great learning has ’stuck’.
I was so busy Twittering and connecting during Ewan’s keynote that it is good to re-visit it in the comfort of home and reflect. Click on the photo to take you to the video.
The link I put here before needed a username and password but this new link is a Google Video so it is free to view. Thanks Ewan- an open educator and blogger.
It reminds of the purpose of using Web2.0 tools- to connect and to collaborate.
These last two weeks I have started back teaching at school and using Jane’s thinking moving classrooms activities and beginning a new collaboration with our friends in Binghamton, New York via Voicethread.
Our Web2.0 connections through our Moturoa class blog hopefully illustrate some of the reasons why we do what we do…
Audience- our blog is heading for 12,000 hits. We have an audience. Most of our posts have comments- we are having conversations among ourselves and with others around the globe.
Creativity unleashed- our class podcast opens our children to express themselves in new and creative ways.
Web2.0 allows differentiated learning- lots of small levels for children to gauge their progress. We have just begun the Lexia reading programme at school-children love the way they can see themselves move through the levels as they master reading skills.
Authenticated learning gives a real context in which children can thrive.
It’s not about the tech it’s about the teach.
Talking of gaming Derek Wenmouth showed us this little gem.
I have recovered from last night’s networking marathon. The first learning opportunity came through a Twitter from Jeff Utecht in Shanghai that he wanted to try out WiZiQ- an Elluminate like on-line application. A number of us from all over the globe had a bit of play as we worked out together how the application works and a number of others joined us for a bit while we were playing. Dave Warlick came along to put in his 2cents worth, Will Richardson got a bit webblogged by his lack of audio input!
Jeff archived the session if you are interested but be aware that Jeff is on his own for a bit at the beginning as he waits for us to turn up!
The second opportunity came through a Skype call from Chris Betcher. He was playing with Skype and seeing how many people could come and join him in a conference call. We got up to nine people from all over the globe- it was a lot of fun as we all had a good laugh and I ended up adding some more great educators to my bloglines and Twitter network. It was 2am NZ time by the we finished and my battery gave out.
It is amazing how these serendipitous opportunities come about and how we can learn from each other by participating from them. I wish I had been working on my computer as I had not yet downloaded Call Recorder for Skype on the TELA laptop so have no audio for you to follow.
Tomorrow I am going to go out and see if I can a T-shirt embroidered to wear to the Edubloggers’ Cafe at Ulearn07. I like Chris’ idea of “I’m Blogging This”! Any other suggestions???
