This is a new post

Just adding to my blog. Nothing really to say.

It's been awhile

A workshop I attended today has inspired me to continue this blog. The workshop was facilitated by Education Network Australia - edna. According to their website

"Education Network Australia (edna) supports and promotes the benefits of
technology for education and training in Australia. edna is a joint initiative
of the state and territory governments and the Australian Government, through
their education departments, to provide free news, resources, networks and
online tools for educators."

If you haven't investigated their website yet, I suggest you do, there are loads of resources, events and news relating to online education. You can find them at http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go

Thanks

Thanks everyone for making this subject so enjoyable. The Thursday night Elluminate/Skype sessions were fun and I have loved reading your blogs, your insights and knowledge sharing have been much appreciated.

I have become so addicted to social software, that I am worried that I won't be able to avoid the temptation of "2nd life" during the semester break - maybe I just need to get a 1st life to keep me away from my computer for a few weeks!



I have used google docs and spreadsheets to publish my report. You can find it at

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfv4zwrc_2ctfmkn

Totally Wired Teacher Awards

Anyone interested in entering the "Totally wired teacher" awards?

My Google alerts account has alerted me to this.

This July at the 2007 Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco, Yahoo! Teachers and the
George Lucas Educational Foundation will honor a teacher who has successfully
used social media (blogs, wikis, social networking, photo/video sharing or audio
groups) in the classroom.
The winner of the Totally Wired Teacher Award will
have successfully navigated their school ecosystem and overcome challenges from
parents and administrators in order to use technology, but because they
understand how students use social media outside of school, they have persevered
and worked collaboratively with students, ultimately sharing their insight and
knowledge with the larger teaching community.
If you, or a teacher you know
is Totally Wired, you can nominate them by sending and email along with why you
feel they are deserving to: Jim Daley at
Edutopia.

Go to http://mashup.ypulse.com/ for more details.

Instructional video

It has taken me some time to make my first "Instructional video". I spent quite some time trying to get "CamStudio" to work effectively on my computer, not sure if it is a problem with Vista but I couldn't find out how to get it to playback without static, so I used "Camtasia" instead. Camtasia is very similiar to CamStudio to operate the main difference is the price.


I also choose to upload my video How to TAFEVC onto Goggle video instead of YouTube because many staff at my workplace have "issues" with YouTube - although it is not yet outright banned (very difficult to do in a Tertiary Institute) it is highly discouraged. The finished product is still a bit rough in places but I am very proud of my first attempt.

Comments from the other side of the moon

I have just received a comment on my "Mash ups" posting from someone outside the course. (I received another one earlier on my "Cyber safety" posting and was thrilled but this time it has made me feel a bit creepy.) There is nothing particularly offensive or suggestive in the comment but because it is very general in nature, includes a photo and states that he will return, it actually makes me feel a tiny bit vulnerable and exposed. I now know first hand how easy it would be to make a "friend" online and how careful we need to be in educating our children/students about net safety.



I am aware that there is a function on Blogger to only accept comments from "real" friends and I am easily able to remove the comment but I will leave it there for you to look at.



Has anyone else received any unwanted comments on your Blogs?

Mashups

Due to a technical hitch I was unable to attend last week’s class on “mashups.”

To catch up on what I missed out on I went to wikipedia for a simple definition and found “A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.” It sounded exciting with many potential educational applications.

However, my search hasn’t progressed very far, using del.icio.us I was able to find these two promising sites http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2006/11/25-things-to-do-with-google-maps.html (25 things to do with google maps)

and

http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=187002846 (using google maps mashup in K-12 education).

Most of the other links posted to del.icio.us also involved google maps with some others referring to flickr. There were also numerous links to software to create mash ups. Can anyone enlighten me on more educational applications for mash ups?