Education.au Blog

WWI Sim in Second Life

KerryJ — Mon, 9 Nov 2009 02:36:39 CST

A colleague and I explored a Second Life destination dedicated to sharing the poetry and history of WWI. It included various stops along the way to listen to audio and watch slide shows. It was very well done. My colleague observed that as an observer, it didn’t feel immersive to her and that she was doubtful [...]

A wake up call : Internet piracy

Putland Garry — Sun, 8 Nov 2009 03:11:31 CST

This is an interesting and important perspective from Europe on their policies to encourage a Digital Europe by their Media Chief, Vivienne Reding. I also noted on the same page another link that makes a strong and important statement on Internet Piracy. Whilst we have had some good reports (eg the Cutler Review) on Innovation [...]

e-Books - Is the Kindle relevant?

Kerrie Smith — Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:54:07 CST

This week I acquired a Kindle and have begun to read my first e-book on it, and so I’m venturing into thinking about how an e-book reader might be used in education. I do not want to get into arguments about whether I have chosen the right e-book reader, or about the fact that Kindle is [...]

How different is your world?

Kerrie Smith — Wed, 4 Nov 2009 09:24:07 CST

This YouTube video talks about the world in 2025. The link if you can’t play the video in screen. It asks some pertinent questions that affect all of us in the education business: will there be classrooms? will there be libraries? will there be teachers? - even virtual ones or will students collaborate to teach each other? through social [...]

From the Coal Face - iPod Touch 2

Kerrie Smith — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:26:58 CST

Last week I wrote about iPods in education in Australia with a number of examples of how teachers are using them. As Lorraine Cairns from Dookie Primary School in Victoria says, the key factor is the way students engage with the technology. Here is what Lorraine sent to me: I have 6 iPod touches in a class [...]

HAPPY WORLD TEACHERS DAY

Greg Black — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:06:57 CST

Talking with a few former colleagues recently who were musing about the ‘good ol’ days ‘when teachers were more valued’. I think they were referring to the 60’s and early 70’s but I can’t be sure and don’t remember myself!!. What we do know from the much quoted McKinsey report on successful education systems is that [...]

University helps us fight our sedentary lifestyle

Kerrie Smith — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:58:44 CST

How far do you walk each day? Could you walk from Darwin to Melbourne? That’s a touch over 6,000 km if you walk mainly around the edge. On August 18th, 2000, at 9:00 am, Jean Béliveau left Montreal, Canada. His goal is to walk around the planet to promote “Peace and non-violence for the profit [...]

A Picture= 1,000 words +

Kerrie Smith — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:27:31 CST

Many thanks to my colleague Nelly who pointed these prints out to me yesterday. The images were created by Chris Jordan in 2007 and 2008 in a project called Running the Numbers. The one I have chosen to display was created in 2007 depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five [...]

my first posterous post

Jerry Leeson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:08:20 CST

ok, I have set up an account at posterous , imported a blog there and now I am going to try the autopost service. If this works, this blog post should appear on my work blog, my personal blog, and there should also be a tweet sent to twitter. I am not overly confident in [...]

From the Coal Face: iPod Touch in the Classroom

Kerrie Smith — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:35 CST

Today’s post features a number of Australian schools using iPods and iPod Touches in the classroom. Tania Hunt, ICT Coordinator at Baden Powell College, Derrimut Heath (Victoria), describes how her school has been using iPod Touches with literacy and numeracy groups and for problem solving. Prep-6 classes have used them on a weekly roster. The tub [...]

Searching the past and the present

Jerry Leeson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:37:56 CST

Google’s great as a search engine when it comes to the past but what about the present? I’m not simply talking about what you might find on Google News as they trawl through traditional media (eg newspaper) sites and link to articles that have appeared on those sites (quite recently) but more about what [...]

Assessing Learning with Web 2.0: Twitter

Kerrie Smith — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:10:08 CST

This headline popped out at me last week: Griffiths University journalism students to be marked on Tweets. “BRISBANE university students are the first in the country to be assessed on the social networking site Twitter.” In justification for the move (which not all students were happy with) the lecturer who is requiring students to tweet as part [...]

Pandora v 3.0

KerryJ — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:31:48 CST

I think she's getting fairly close now. Posted via email from kerryj’s neotenous posterous

Pandora with new skin and eyes

KerryJ — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:52:35 CST

Created a new skin for Pandora from a great template and added in some eyes imported from Second Life (full permission). The girl is starting to look better, still some tweaking to do. IMPORTANT: This e-mail, including any attachments, may contain private or confidential information. If you think you may not be the intended [...]

GLOBE meeting - OER and its growing importance

Putland Garry — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:45:52 CST

Last week we held our GLOBE meeting in Tokyo, thanks to Prof Yamada of the Open University, Japan. Whilst GLOBE is an international…yes its getting close to truly international with members from nearly every continent (eg MERLOT, OER Commons, CoSL (US), LORNET (Canada), ARIADNE, EUN (Europe), DEI (Taiwan), TCU (Thailand), KERIS(South Korea), NIME(Japan), edna(Australia), LACLO (South [...]