So here it is – unfinished and unpolished – but it may be of some use if you have access to a Moodle server and want to do some learning about Scratch with your students.

Download it here: moodle_scratch_course.zip

Introduction to FreeMind from Darrel Branson on Vimeo.

Introduction to Google Sketchup from Darrel Branson on Vimeo.

I’ve also found a new website dedicated to resources around screencasting. Check it out here: http://scrast.net It looks like it is a great place for all of your screencasting needs.

Download it here!

Links
Rob Sbaglia: http://lmultranet.wikispaces.com

Rob’s Twittering: http://twitter.com/sbaglia

1 to 1 project: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ictsupportservices/netbooks/

DEECD wiki: http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com

Loddon Mallee Region Ning: http://one2onelaptops.ning.com

Download it here!

Links
John Pearce: http://johnp.wordpress.com

Tom Barrett’s Blog: http://tbarrett.edublogs.org
1oo ideas: http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/2009/01/26/100-interesting-ways/
Tom’s presentations:
Google Earth
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_175fp5qg9d3
Interactive Whiteboards
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_106c9fm8j
Google Docs
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_8323t58h3ft
Pocket Video
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_6tv55j7g9

Netbook links
http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com
http://one2onelaptops.ning.com

Local Events – Podcasting Session
http://www.vitta.org.au/trainingevents/id/49/title/

1. Blogging
2. Social bookmarking
3. RSS and personal homepage tools
4. Collaborative document creation including wikis
5. Digital story telling online

In addition we had weekly meetings using the Elluminate conferencing software.

Having benefitted greatly from the opensource community I am offering the course as a download, as a very small way of giving something back. You will need your own Moodle installation, or you can always get a free one at ninehub.com.

You can take a look and download it on Moodlecommons.org or download it directly from here.

Download it here!

Team Building
http://www.teampedia.net

BBC News article on  BETT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7830431.stm

Skype in Schools
http://skypeinschools.pbwiki.com

How to embed
http://www.labnol.org/internet/how-to-embed-in-html-webpages/6365/

WOW’s
http://mrsleung.edublogs.org/2008/12/18/wow-website-of-the-week-posters

World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others – Will Richardson
http://www.edutopia.org/collaboration-age-technology-will-richardson

iPod touches / iPhone Apps
http://www.iphoneandkids.com

50 iphone Apps for education
http://oedb.org/library/features/top_50_iphones_for_educators

This blog runs Wordpress, as does a whole lot of the educational blogoshpere – Edublogs, Globalteacher, Globalstudent etc. I have been using it for a number of years on many local school websites – Koorlong PS, Irymple South PS, Cardross PS and others.

This ‘point‘ upgrade should really have been Wordpress 3.0, the changes in the interface and usability are absolutely brilliant. Check out the two minute video introduction below.

I am continually amazed at the quality of opensource software efforts. Well done Wordpress.org!

Two of the opening keynotes presentations were focused on the role and impact games can have on education. Derek Robertson from Scotland gave a excellent keynote on day two titled ‘The Future of Gaming’. He discussed the ways in which he is investigating and researching the use of COTS or ‘commercial off the shelf games’ in education. In Scotland, they believe this area to be so important they actually have what they call a ‘consolarium’ to investigate game use in education. Derek’s blog is one I’ll be following in the future. Some of the work and a 48 page research paper can be found here.
Some the games Derek used were:

• NintenDogs
• Endless Oceans
• Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training
• Moshi monsters
• Guitar Hero
• And another one suggested by the attendees Quest Atlantis

What was most interesting about his work, was the way the teachers he worked with used ‘games as a contextual hub’ for the learning. So the games were not an ‘add on’, or a reward, but were integral to the learning. More on this later, when we hope to get Derek to discuss this on the Ed Tech Crew.

Andrew Owen did the keynote on the third day and continued the theme of using games in the classroom. His keynote was titled ‘Games: Not the Educational Tool of Tomorrow, the Educational Tool of Today‘. He did an excellent job explaining how he used games to engage students in their learning. Many of the games he used were new to me. They included:

• Age of Empires
• Bridget It
• Future Pinball

He also discussed the ‘Step It Up‘ program that he runs for work experience students. This is where students come into the workplace and work in teams all week to produce a game. The focus is on learning new skills, teamwork and producing something of value (not your usual making the coffee and getting the smoko type of work experience!)

Now all I need to do is to find some time to play some of these games – for research purposes of course!

The most useful part about ‘Cover It Live’ is the all of the ideas, links, comments and resources you receive from other participants contributing to the conversation. More on the conference later …

Some interesting features include the ability to collaborate with others in real time and uploading and downloading of Inspiration 8.5 files. One interesting omission in the product is the ability to upload an image

So for all those teachers that have wanted to use Inspiration but couldn’t get it past their school’s IT budget, go and sign up while it lasts. I couldn’t find any details of future pricing or premium services. This is oviously a response from the large number of other web2.0 services that offer free visual thinking tools – bubbl.us, mindmeister.com, mind42.com, gliffy.com and others.

This is a very interesting format that would be interesting to use with students. The combination of clear oral communication, some precise limited text, and visuals, makes this a good medium for students to communicate an idea(s), be persuasive, or make a stand on an issue in a passionate way.

While going through my delicious network tonight, I came across a link from Hey Jude that lead to me a page of educational videos where I found Chris Lehmann’s pecha kucha presentation on School 2.0. I have actually read some Chris’ blogposts on this podcast. This is a great short video of Chris in action!

For quite some time now I have been using Virtual Box, a free opensource alternative to virtualisation from Sun Microsystems who also contribute heavily to Open Office. Virtual box is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

I am also the owner of some other virtualisation software solutions for the Mac. I have paid for copies of both Parallels and VM Ware. However, I have found myself increasingly using the open source solution. It may not be quite as a polished or integrated as the other solutions, but coupled with open source operating systems (Ubuntu, Gos, OLPC and others) it gives you the flexibity to try different OS’s and software services, and also to pass them on to others. What’s even better is that you can try out open source alternatives for free, on your windows machines without having to partion disks, dual boot etc … just before you make the switch BTW it also runs Windows XP at very, very acceptable speeds!

Download it here!

Today’s Links!

Math screencasts
http://mathtrain.tv

Alan November and the BLC conference
http://www.novemberlearning.com/

Well, Uuorld turns out to be a great application for visualising data with students and adults. Once downloaded, you can choose from a variety of ‘data sets’ and then choose which countries (or the world) and the time frame for visualising the data.  There are a large variety of ‘data sets’ made available through the application. At this stage you can’t import data but the future for these sorts of tools, in encouraging higher order thinking, looks good!

In additional to taking a still image of your data, you can also export your visualisation in a number of different video formats. They have versions for Mac, Windows & Linux.

Download it here!

Today’s Links!

Create PowerPoint for the web with 280slides – http://280slides.com
Also mentioned http://www.sliderocket.com

Mashable – 30+ Presentation services for the web
http://mashable.com/2007/08/12/online-presentations

Gone Google: Integrating project-based lessons with Google tools by Cheryl Davis
http://picasaweb.google.com/cheryl.davismhs/GoneGoogle
And the Google Educator
http://www.google.com.au/educators/activities.html

Persistent ‘tag’ search for video from feedKey
http://www.feedky.com/
Example with the Moodle tag
http://www.feedky.com/w.php?c=0862732001213692646

Free virtualisation software for Windows, Linux & Mac
http://virtualbox.org

NECC 2008 podcasts
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/collection.php?collection=2956

NECC 2008 Webcasts
http://www.kzowebcasting.com/necc/

I don’t often mention my other podcast ‘The Ed Tech Crew” on this blog. However, in the past week Tony and I have been fortunate enough to have interviewed Will Richardson from weblogg-ed.com. Will is one of the earliest educational bloggers that I know of, and has been pioneering learning in online spaces. He is very articulate and passionate about working with students online. If you have the time, I strongly recommend a listen. Also check out his ‘Powerful Learning Practice‘ network site. Enjoy!

Which leads me to one of my flickr favourites flickr-storm. ‘Flickr storm‘ is a simple tool that allows you to search flickr based on a keyword, select the pictures from the results, and then save those results as a web page that your students or friends can access. In addition, it also adds a link to the flickr user as well as the licensing terms. My short bridge example is here.

In actual fact, I hardly ever use Clipart for presentations anymore, preferring to use pictures that are in the public domain or licensed under a creative commons license and making sure that I give attribution to the author. For creative common searches on flickr try http://flickr.com/creativecommons You could even add it as a keyword search in firefox!

Download it here!

Today’s Links!

Cyber Safety via Anne Bubnic
http://www.ctap4.org/cybersafety

Seeqpod – Playable search
http://seeqpod.com

Author Stream – Share your Powerpoint
http://www.authorstream.com

Chris Betcher’s Blog and post on getting teachers to commit to online PD:
http://betch.edublogs.org/2008/05/21/a-letter-to-teachers-about-learning

Searching for content within podcasts and videos has always been difficult given the nature of any audio or video file. While text is easy to search, audio and video is not! So the next best thing is to able to search by topics and/or related content. I’ve just discovered this new search engine for audio and and other rich media called ‘seeqpod‘. It appears that it uses a combination of topics, keyword and other data for determining results.

… instant playable search results. Clips, tracks, and presentations can be played, embedded, or shared immediately …. From video to audio, slideshows, and Adobe Flash, the vast multitude of rich media files …

The best part about this search engine is that you can play and preview the material without having to downoad it. Particularly useful given the size of rich media files! I’ll definitely be investigating further the possible uses of this search engine.

Download it here!

Today’s Links!

Digital Chalkies:
http://www.digitalchalkie.com

ICTEV conference
http://ictev.vic.edu.au/event/conference.htm

Margaret Meijers & Mindtools
http://www.mindtools.tased.edu.au/

Make Mp3’s from text and more ..
http://readthewords.com

Hey Jude’s Blog – http://heyjude.wordpress.com/
And the Mark Pesce post:
http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/wackykids/

“When students create Scratch projects, they learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.” http://scratch.mit.edu/about

What makes Scratch so successful is that it has a low entry point and high ceiling for learners, it is constructivist and constructionist by nature – students learn by doing, building, playing, constructing, modifying and debugging. With Scratch students create interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art.

I am very much looking forward to working with teachers who are considering using Scratch in their classroom. My presentation notes for “Scratch in the Classroom” are below.

| View | Upload your own

Download it here!

Today’s Links!
Helen Otway’s blog – http://helenotway.edublogs.org
Google Posters – http://www.google.com/educators/posters.html
Matrix of Technology Integration – http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/index.html
Maths Screencasts - A website by Eric Marcos – http://www.mathtrain.tv/
David Warlick blog’s – http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/
School AUP 2.0 – http://landmark-project.com/aup20/pmwiki.php
K12 Online Conference – http://k12onlineconference.org/

Many educators and students are discovering the enormous value of using Google Docs for creating online documents (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations). Wherever you have an Internet connection you have access to your work. Add to this the ability to do ‘real time’ collaboration, export and import different formats, and save your documents offline – you have a real killer app!

But it just gets better because with Google spreadsheets you can create online forms to collect data via email or via the web, the data goes straight into your online spreadsheet. This is can be an awesome way to collect student data and student responses (and I know there are some great free survey tools out there but they don’t always allow you to get the raw data) A recent upgrade to Google Spreadsheets now allows you to embed the online form in your blog or wiki. Have a try at the one below and go sign up today. Students can sign up using their school email account, they don’t need a gmail account.