Friday post: The future and other ramblings

It is the end of the week and I have begun a number of posts that are still drafts. The topics include my thoughts on Twitter and also Cloud computing and what they offer, if anything, to the world of education and libraries.
I have been considering the use I make of the different digital and social media in general. I [...]

Looking for inspiration

 My 201st post and it seems along time since my first one.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
‘Ideas to Inspire’ is a collection of Google Docs presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities in a range of curriculum areas.The presentations are a collaboration between lots of fantastic teachers around the world.
Mark Warner created the site that [...]

Pool & collaboration and the ABC

The photo is from Antarctic Photo Library on Wikimedia Commons
Another great resource becoming available to us. From a post on the Creative Commons Australia site about the Pool site. 
If you haven’t seen it, ABC Radio National developed the Pool, just under 6 months ago, as a social media project. It is a collaborative space set up to share [...]

Digital identity – what are we teaching?

We have been back at school for a few weeks now and all the students have their re-imaged notebook computers back. The year 7 students have had their first “technology immersion days”, where they learnt the basics about their new tool and one of the software tools (photostory) that is available to them. Maybe it is [...]

The Human clock and calendar

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I have been trying to think interesting themes that students could be given for their photographs. I had seen a few references to the HumanClock.com and the HumanCalendar so I though I would have a look.  The February example of the calendar is above. A little of the Brady Bunch being channelled in this one. [...]

Useful Links (weekly)

ARKive – A unique collection of thousands of videos, images and fact-files illustrating the world’s species This offers still and moving images as well as fact sheets about the world’s endangered species. Freely downloadable.

How We Learn | Video channel on TED.com Ted themes: how we learn. Teachers of all kinds can find fresh resources – and [...]

Tabbloid- bridging the gap to Web2.0

I have been occassionally emailing teachers FYI messages about important information on various blogs. I don’t do it regularily because I don’t always have the time to put things together and many individual emails can  be overwhelming or too much for the staff.
So I have been looking at the tool called Tabbloid. I am considering [...]

Keeping your profiles in Sync. – AtomKeep

 
 
 
 
I, like a lot of people, am now joining/using quite a number of social sites.
Today I read about AtomKeep,which is a tool that attempts to rectify the problem of keeping all your profiles up-to-date. It supports a large number of sites (Twitter, Technorati, Facebook, Digg, Ning, Flickr, WordPress, Blogger, YouTube and more) and they are adding [...]

Crime fiction

I have been enjoying talking to the students about crime fiction. Many of our staff are avid fans and we have a very good collection in our library. Instead of the whole year level studying the one class novel, the boys may choose any crime novel that interests them. This has meant that there is a [...]

Siftables: Inspiration from the February TED

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I try to keep up with what is on the TED talks site. I like the idea and potentialities of the items/ideas that are discussed. Many of the presentations open your mind to the wider world, the one outside your own school or even the field of education. A fellow staff member told me about [...]