Using ICTs @ ISOCS

We're moving!

2013-07-01T09:25:00.001+02:00

cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo shared by Lalit Shahane via Compfight cc

This blog is retiring from the active ISOCS blog collection. I'm moving my web work to http://keepps.blogspot.ch/ and OSC IB Blogs.

Interactive Storytelling Using Twine

2013-05-17T10:32:00.004+02:00

The Middle School students have been writing "Alternative Ending" or "Choose your own adventure" stories.
I recently read about Twine, on Ruben R. Puentedura's Weblog. Twine is free software for Mac and Windows, which "lets you organize your story graphically with a map that you can re-arrange as you work. Links automatically appear on the map as you add them to your passages, and passages with broken links are apparent at a glance."

On the Twine web page, there are several intro videos, which I've embedded here, so you can get an idea of how it works, and decide whether or not you would like to add this software tool to your computer.

Creating A Simple Story from Chris Klimas on Vimeo.
A quick intro to creating a simple, nonlinear story using the free application Twine.

Formatting a Story from Chris Klimas on Vimeo.
How to customize your story's appearance in Twine.

Finishing Touches from Chris Klimas on Vimeo.
Wrapping up work on a story in Twine.

The links below are on Dr. Puentedura's page:

"The slides for my presentation at the 10th Annual MLTI Student Conference are now online: Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave: Interactive Storytelling Using Twine
The Twine tutorial game described in the slides can be played here, and downloaded here."

Maybe one of our Middle Schoolers will spend this rainy holiday weekend transferring a story into Twine :-)

There and Back Again: A Packet’s Tale

2013-05-12T10:38:00.000+02:00

From the World Science Festival web page:

"The video lets you ride shotgun with a packet of data—one of trillions involved in the trillions of Internet interactions that happen every second. Look deep beneath the surface of the most basic Internet transaction, and follow the packet as it flows from your fingertips, through circuits, wires, and cables, to a host server, and then back again, all in less than a second."(link)

This video explains the Internet in very easy to grasp illustrations, with great analogies and metaphors.

Relevance With Problem-Solving Challenges

2013-05-10T08:45:00.002+02:00

Bob Sprankle shared this video with us:

Published on May 6, 2013

"Special correspondent John Tulenko of Leaning Matters reports on a public middle school in Portland, Maine that is taking a different approach to teaching students. Teachers have swapped traditional curriculum for an unusually comprehensive science curriculum that emphasizes problem-solving, with a little help from some robots."

You can "see inside" the King Middle School in Portland Maine at its web site. Click on the Expedition link in the left side bar, to read about other projects, or "Expeditions", like the one featured in the video above.

Changing habits is a game

2013-05-07T12:45:00.000+02:00

Interesting post this morning at the BigFish Games blog. A look at the headers will give you an idea of what it's about:

Gamers are experts at making and breaking habits: "You enjoy playing games, right? It can be effortless to pick up a game and get addicted. If you play games, you’re already good at what it takes to change a habit."
Crash course on game mechanics: "Think about your favorite game. What keeps you going back? Which game mechanics are at play to keep you returning?"
How habits are formed: "Habits – both good and bad – are the product of repetition and reinforcement. We do something, we see and like the results (a rush of dopamine), and we do it again. We do this over and over, forming deep pathways in our brain that become harder to change as time goes on."
Changing habits is a game: "Behavior = Motivation + Trigger + Ability"
One tooth a night: "... it’s easy to think about flossing one tooth. But you can’t floss just one tooth when you start!"
Changing the worst habits: "Start by removing at least one of the variables. "
Let’s go on a quest: Random Rewards: "Set reasonable goals:"
More ways to break a bad habit

Read the whole post to get the full pictures of how to analyze the game mechanics in your life.

And while you're there, admire the way the writer has used CC images from Flickr with proper attribution. She had help from a site called Comflight (http://compfight.com/) which helps you search the Creative Commons licensed photos on Flickr, and gives you the attribution text to use with the image. (Watch out for the NOT free images which will appear at the top of the screen.)

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Jonathan_W

Note to Self: Artist Chuck Close

2013-05-05T11:01:00.001+02:00

A blog post by the always inspirational David Gran (The Carrot Revolution) introduced me to a video I hadn't seen before.

Note to Self: Artist Chuck Close from grant doug on Vimeo.
Chuck Close gives advice to his 14-year old self.

You will, I hope, want to know more about Chuck Close. Check out the WIkipedia page about him, and this page at ArtsNet about his painting.

Chuck Close on Creativity (link):

"Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art ida.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you didid today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.

and from a page at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

"Some people wonder whether what I do is inspired by a computer and whether or not that kind of imaging is a part of what makes this work contemporary. I absolutely hate technology, and I'm computer illiterate, and I never use any labor-saving devices although I'm not convinced that a computer is a labor-saving device."

Visiting CERN (with a hard-hat and Glass)

2013-05-05T10:08:00.001+02:00

On Andrew Vanden Heuvel's blog, you can read about his visit to CERN.

"I’m the first person who has ever taught a science class from inside the LHC tunnel. Seeing just a small portion of the whole loop, I was overwhelmed by the size of it all. The fact that I was able to share this experience with students, even answering their questions in real-time, is simply mind-blowing."

Watch the video to see what Google Glass can do, and to see inside CERN, and to read about a very interesting Physics teacher.

And if you haven't been to CERN, be sure to visit before you leave Switzerland - it's only a few hours train ride or drive from ISOCS:

View Larger Map

David Pogue's 10 Timesaving Tech Tips

2013-04-28T10:53:00.000+02:00

10 Tech tips from David Pogue, who is a savvy columnist and author for the New York Times (and who, several years ago, showed me Zattoo - if you're in Switzerland, and not familiar with that site, go look). Pogues' blog is a good one to subscribe to for tech ideas, hints, opinions, outlook, etc.

Published on Apr 26, 2013

Tech columnist David Pogue shares 10 simple, clever tips for computer, web, smartphone and camera users. And yes, you may know a few of these already -- but there's probably at least one you don't.

A few of these 10 tips are only work inside the USA, but most are general "good things to know" for any computer user.

Speculative Sea Level Explorer

2013-04-10T12:32:00.000+02:00

Global Warming, sea levels rising...what would that look like? A post this morning on the Information Aesthetics blog can help us see the possibilities.

"While the simulation, captured as a series of animations, is roughly accurate, it actually shows the consequence of more "dramatic" changes in sea level than what is currently expected by climate change models." (link)

And dramatic it is! Here is the simulation for Zurich. Here is the Legend (meters above sea level) to help you understand what you see in the simulation.

Zürich (+/-1000m / 5m steps) – Speculative Sea Level Explorer from Benedikt Groß on Vimeo.
http://benedikt-gross.de/log/2013/04/speculative-sea-level-explorer/

Click through to Gross' web page to see other videos for other areas of the world. He writes about the simulation on his page:

"When I showed the animations to others, I was asked quite a few times whether this simulation is accurate? Short answer is “yes” in a rough way, especially for the large scale changes like the ones I am showing in the animations. The simulation is based on an elevation data set called “SRTM30 Plus” by the Scripps Institution Of Oceanography, which is an extended version of the original NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission(often abbreviated SRTM, land elevation only) enhanced with bathymetry (underwater evaluation). But there are also many limitations e.g. the cost region of the Netherlands is obviously wrong (it is on a rise of “+0″ already coloured blue). Altogether it is just a very basic and rough simulation based on the raw elevation, anything else in not put into consideration." (link)

We know that the sea level has risen and fallen though geological time. That's why we can see sea-creature fossils at the top of Swiss mountains. If you want more background information, visit the British Geological Survey web site.

Form, value, validation, trust in a video

2013-04-08T10:03:00.000+02:00

Another brilliant video from Vihart, creator of many other videos I've shared here.

Presenting

2013-04-06T12:45:00.000+02:00

ISOCS' Class 4,5,6 is in their Exhibition unit. Here's a video from John Cleese to help them prepare for public speaking:

Uploaded on Sep 10, 2008

Don't be an April Fool - Participate in World Backup Day!

2013-03-30T16:47:00.003+01:00

Can't see anything below this text? Click here.

World Back Up Day

Keywords and Operators

2013-03-30T09:29:00.000+01:00

Not long ago, the ISOCS Middle School investigated digital fluency with an on-line mini course, and within that, good Internet search strategies.

Those wishing to brush up their skills should have a look at this 21st Century Information Fluency blog post.

Screen shot of http://21cif.blogspot.ch/2013/03/21cif-operator-search-challenge.html

Clicking on their link will take you to the game page, which requires Adobe Flash Player in your browser.

It's April Fools day because...

2013-03-29T17:57:00.000+01:00

April Fools' Day is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year. It's not normally a holiday, but this year if falls on Easter Monday, which is a holiday in Switzerland. So, alas, there is no school, and no opportunity to practice your April Fools' skills. I hope this small collection of videos and pictures will make up for the lack of opportunity.

You can read about the history of April 1 and Fools at Wikipedia in English , or Wikipedia in German (two very different articles!)

From Wikimedia. 2001 in Copenhagen

From http://bit.ly/13E64Tl

From http://bit.ly/14BEu8V

From http://lolpranks.com/tag/april-fools-day-pranks/

Expensive games

2013-03-26T09:58:00.000+01:00

There have been several stories in the news recently about children running up huge phone bills, and/or iTunes store bills because they have a device in their hands which enables "in-app" purchases.

This morning's story from the Daily Mail is another, but this one has an interesting twist.

"When he discovered he had run up a £3,700 bill on his father’s credit card playing games on his iPad, Cameron Crossan expected a very stern telling off at least.

The 13-year-old was mortified by what he had done – but worse was to come. For instead of punishing him, his father filed an official police complaint effectively accusing him of fraud...."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298771/Policeman-Doug-Crossan-reports-13-year-old-son-Cameron-FRAUD-running-3-700-iPad.html#ixzz2OdF67u3u
The father doesn't really want his son arrested, but he does "want to embarrass Apple as much as possible."

You may have read about this case recently, where a 5 year old spent $2,500 in a game.

It has always been possible to block these purchases on your phone or iPad. There are very good directions for setting restrictions at arstechnica. Apple has very recently made a small but significant change to iOS app listings on its App Store, adding a prominent "Offers In-App Purchases" line for freemium apps on its store.

Google Play gives directions for blocking in-app purchases at this page.

Here's a screen shot of a free app on the iTunes app store, and possible purchase clearly listed:

Screen shot

Parents and schools have been very careful about the settings on a computer used by children, but somehow mobile devices have not been looked on as being so "dangerous", although when connected to the Internet, they have many of the same capabilities as a computer.

Enabling Parental Control settings often gets forgotten, or the possibilities ignored. Common Sense Media offers 4 pointers for controlling purchases:

Turn off the possibility
Turn off the grace period
Keep your password secret
Use gift cards

Click here to read the whole post.

93 Android Apps to Try

2013-03-18T09:35:00.000+01:00

Have you seen this book by Richard Byrne, who writes the Android 4 Schools blog (as well as the invaluable Free Tech 4 Teachers blog)? You don't have to be a teacher to test out the apps!

A Summer of Android by richardbyrne

Snow Byte and the Seven Formats

2013-03-16T10:00:00.000+01:00

Click through to the Library of Congress blog, and read all of Snow Byte and the Seven Formats - a cautionary tale for us all!

Screen shot of http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2013/03/snow-byte-and-the-seven-formats-a-digital-preservation-fairy-tale/

Goodbye Google Reader

2013-03-14T15:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's news from Google that they are closing down Google Reader has produced a series of outcries on the web, and lists of alternatives, along with reflections about the nature of Google as a company. Apparently, efforts to monetize RSS feeds has turned out to be difficult.

We are reminded, once again, that Google is a company, which makes money (link), and is not a free social service agency we have come to depend on.

"We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites," the company said. "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months." (link)

Richard Byrne, at Free Technology for Teachers, described the situation very well:
"Google Reader may have had a bigger influence on my life in the ed tech world than any other single app or service. Since the day I started using it in 2006 to now it has reliably served me fresh content from all of my favorite sites and blogs."

Chris Betcher points to Google Reader's place in education: "...I’m just disappointed that Google would even consider doing this. As an enthusiastic Google user, Google Certified Teacher, and Google Apps Certified Trainer, it makes me annoyed and embarrassed that Google would kill off a product that so many people clearly care deeply about. Reader may not be sexy and shiny like Google+ but it’s hugely powerful and has an huge following.... "

You might be interested in reading Chris Wetherell's reflection, on Google+ written in 2011, as Reader's eventual end started to become clear. He was the man responsible for Google Reader, and no longer works at Google.

Here's a list of some alternative RSS readers:
Newsblur

Feedly

Pulse

HiveMined

The Old Reader

taptu.com

Update: Stephen Abram offers a fine "review of the literature" offering alternatives, opinions and ideas of how to manage your RSS feeds without Google Reader.

You can use Google Takeout to export your feeds, ready to be imported into another service. While you're on the site, download an archive from all your other Google sites, too, as backup. It's good to do this regularly, in any case.

On a personal note, I will add that this is my 3rd recent experience with Google distancing itself from me. The first was the termination of iGoogle as a start page product. The next was the decision no longer to support the Chrome browser on "older" Apple OS (I have a Mac running on OS 10.5.8, on which Firefox has now become my main browser). I will find new ways to read my 455 subscriptions, and take one step further away from (what was) the fine package of apps and services accessible with my Google password.

How much do you know about Sea Urchins?

2013-03-12T10:07:00.001+01:00

As I was reading my news feeds this morning, my attention was caught by this video:

Sea Urchins - Planktonic Origins from Parafilms on Vimeo.

Barely visible to the naked eye, sea urchin larvae grow and transform into bottom-dwelling urchins.
Plankton Chronicles Project by Christian Sardet, CNRS / Noe Sardet and Sharif Mirshak, Parafilms
See Plankton Chronicles interactive site: planktonchronicles.org
Watch the full video with related content here: http://www.richannel.org/the-plankton-chronicles--sea-urchins

This video is on a page from The Ri Channel "The Smart Place for Science". The Sea Urchin video is part of the Plankton Chronicles, every one of which is as weird and wonderful as the Sea Urchin story. (The plankton videos are also housed at Vimeo, by their producer.)

The Ri Channel
"The Ri Channel is an online project by the Royal Institution of Great Briatin showcasing the very best science videos from the Ri and around the web."

You might want to read the posts on the Ri Channel blog: I highly recomment The Best Science Videos of 2012 - all 10 of these videos are fascinating! (The original article is at The Guardian.)

Learning to code

2013-03-10T21:01:00.002+01:00

I receive the ECIS ICT Committee eNews which recently featured this video from Code.org

This is a particularly good video for our ISOCS Middle School students to watch, because they visited the Zurich offices of Google last week, and learned a little about what sort of jobs, talents, experience, and education most Google employees have.

ISOCS Middle School arrives at Google in Zurich

If you're just getting started with the idea of learning coding, I recommend the Learn page of code.org. You can experiment with 4 (easy) ways to learn: Scratch, Codecademy, Khan Academy, and CodeHS.

Neurocomic

2013-03-02T10:28:00.000+01:00

"What are our brains made of? What happens in our brains when we think, feel, see, hear or touch?"

Those are the questions behind Neurocomic. This morning I added resources about the project to our Tech News for ISOCS Scoop.it page. It's so interesting, I thought I would post about it here, too.

Here's a video from the Guardian:

Source: Newton Length: 14min 04sec Friday 1 March 2013
Artist Matteo Farinella and neuroscientist Hana Ros of University College London collaborated to create a graphic novel called Neurocomic about a hapless character who is sucked into a human brain where he encounters bizarre creatures and famous neuroscientists. The objective is to introduce the neurochemical workings of the brain to a wider audience, so entertainment, storytelling and clever metaphors are just as important to the enterprise as the science

Read about the project at its webpage, and follow it on its Twitter page,

Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun

2013-02-23T11:32:00.000+01:00

This video is new from NASA

Published on Feb 20, 2013

"Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain.

Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface.

The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012.
Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist.

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at:http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11168"

---------

Coincidentally, I found this video at Wonderpolis:

SOLAR STORMS from Aaron Pickering on Vimeo.

"Story I did with National Solar Observatory about the Sun. Several observations are taken right in Southern Arizona. The sun is currently heading into an active part of it's cycle and when that happens solar storms are more likely. These could effect us on Earth."

______

All this Sun information reminded me of one of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs:

PYP Exhibition Guidelines

2013-02-19T10:09:00.000+01:00

These are the main points of the PYP Exhibition Guidelines document as analyzed and synthesized by Sonya Wild on 7 December 2011
It's almost time for Mr. Harris' class at ISOCS to begin thinking about their Exhibition. I'm sharing this Prezi by Sony Wild as a way to get our imaginations working, and also because it's an excellent example of how to use Prezi well.

If you are unfamiliar with the site, Prezi is a sort of non-linear, navigable presentation tool. There are very interesting possibilities in it's power of zoom and retreat, pathways or random selection of topics, inclusion of image, text, video and hyperlinks.

There are many tutorials for how to use Prezi. Start with Prezi's own Learn page

by Sonya Wild on 7 December 2011

If you're thinking of using a Prezi to tell your story, I strongly suggest you browse through the Prezi YouTube Channel, for basic information about how to use the tool, for examples of well-built Prezi's, and for a closer look at how to use the tools effectively. A good Prezi can be so much more than twisting-turning PowerPoint or Keynote slides!

Across Three Continents: A Tale of Tumblr, Copyright, and Excellent Posters

2013-02-18T10:40:00.000+01:00

Craig Roland, he of the brilliant art education blog Art Junction, and teacher at the University of Florida, posted this video on the Art 2.0 Ning:

Tracking back the links and quotes, I came to this page on the School Library Journal, with a commentary about this video written by Kathy Ishizuka
"Copyright law is complex enough—throw in an instance of international remixing by young nerdfighters, and you have a real mess. But in the hands of author John Green, it’s the basis for a pretty cool video.

In the three-minute clip..., Green recounts his attempt to discern the provenance of a poster (pictured) based on characters from his novel The Fault in Our Stars, revealing the complexities of copyright in the digital age along the way."

This is the poster Green talks about in the video:

from http://www.thedigitalshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/John_Green_poster242.jpg

Changing Materials

2013-02-13T11:06:00.000+01:00

Mr. Harris' Class 4,5 has been looking at changing materials. Here are some websites and videos which they will find useful as they inquire into the nature of change, and the concept of material.

The Periodic Table of Videos

The Periodic Table of Videos is "Your ultimate channel for all things chemistry. A video about each element on the periodic table. And we upload new videos every week about science news, interesting molecules and other stuff from the world of chemistry." It is produced by the University of Nottingham, in the UK.

This is their latest video:

and this is the playlist for all the elements in order:

The Royal Institution

The Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution are famous for bringing science to the public in an entertaining, understandable, visible way.

"The Ri is an independent charity dedicated to connecting people with the world of science. We're about discovery, innovation, inspiration and imagination. You can explore over 200 years of history-making science in our Faraday Museum as well as engage with the latest research, ideas and debates in our public science events." (Read more on the RI webpage)

The 2012 Lectures were titled The Modern Alchemist. The videos can't be embedded here - so I stronly urge you to click on the link to Lecture Three: Earth - The Philosopher's Stone, and watch them on the RI website. Other videos from the series dealing with Materials are on this page.

"By understanding the properties of materials, such as the silicon present in computers, or the rare earth magnets generating our electricity in wind turbines, we are entering a new era of chemistry in which we can engineer electrons in new configurations for future technologies. We can now put together the unique cluster of protons, neutrons and electrons that form each of the 80 elements in exciting new ways. If the ancient alchemists were alive today they'd be dazzled by the wonders created by the Modern Alchemist." (link)

UPDATE 15 Feb 2013: See this page at Pad Gadget for a list of "iPad apps that teach the periodic table to a number of age ranges. Whether a student is learning about the periodic table for the first time or is on her way to becoming a dedicated student of chemistry, these apps will help her learn about the difference between Hydrogen and Ununoctium, and every element in between."