As we look at the new curriculum some learning needs to be involved, that is what this blog has been all about:
As I look around the internet a website fostered my interest www.learnerblogs.org
One site has a number of thinking tools
http://www.intel.com/education/tools/index.htm?iid=teach+tools
"With the help of technology, teachers will be leaders in the transformation of education around the world." – Craig R. Barrett – Chairman, Intel Corporation
Free tools and resources for educators support collaborative student-centered learning. Online thinking tools are active learning places where students engage in robust discussions, pursue investigations, analyze complex information, and solve problems.
Key Stage 4 handbook for teachers
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/downloads/ws_lil_sup_ks4_hbk.pdf
Key Stage 4 school training manual
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/downloads/ws_lil_sup.pdf
Leading in Learning: developing thinking skills at Key Stage 3
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/secondary/keystage3/downloads/ws_lil_ts_exemp006105re.pdf
Also found a video on Thinking Skills
http://www.teachers.tv/video/3473
one of the other things found is netsafe information, although it doesn't go with this title it could help with the US 2781
http://www.e-learning-computing.com/netsafe/page_01.htm
I am now thinking of get a del. account :(
Monday, 29 October 2007
Sunday, 28 October 2007
New Curriculum
By the end of this week, New Zealand Schools will have a new curriculum that will be released by the New Zealand government that is to be taught in all schools by 2009. I look forward to seeing how the key competencies have been written and how the technology curriculum has been presented. Also I wonder what aspects of ICT have been included.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
k12online conference - classroom 2.0
I am watching a keynote for classroom 2.0. this relates to how teachers teach. It is not about the tools it is about the pedagogy, look at our teaching and how we teach.
Collaboration, the idea is about learning
Information is vital,we are not rote learning anymore, we need to promote information,
The relationship between the kids in the classroom, they need to see themselves as legimate creators of information, who are questionnaires of information, see if things are real, truth from fiction, bias, viewpoint...
to be a good citizen, a good thinker, no matter where you live..
Curriculum, we have a mandated curriculum, our relationship to the curriculum and what is in the curriculum, looking at the curriculum constantly and trying to decide what is important, what do they students need.
This is the first part of the video.
Tools in the classroom, blogging, RSS feeds, talk about information, collection of information, flickr, podcasting, voice threads, its about the tools. Classroom concerned with information, relationships, local and international. Internet based tools, These are free for teachers, students, they are what is helping to make learning interesting for students.
Relationships, factors, change in a classroom, change in power... they change the relationships between people. Changes the relationship between students and information.
Why technology assessments suck, they focus on the skills, its about connections, learn from each other and see new things.
Collaboration, the idea is about learning
Information is vital,we are not rote learning anymore, we need to promote information,
The relationship between the kids in the classroom, they need to see themselves as legimate creators of information, who are questionnaires of information, see if things are real, truth from fiction, bias, viewpoint...
to be a good citizen, a good thinker, no matter where you live..
Curriculum, we have a mandated curriculum, our relationship to the curriculum and what is in the curriculum, looking at the curriculum constantly and trying to decide what is important, what do they students need.
This is the first part of the video.
Tools in the classroom, blogging, RSS feeds, talk about information, collection of information, flickr, podcasting, voice threads, its about the tools. Classroom concerned with information, relationships, local and international. Internet based tools, These are free for teachers, students, they are what is helping to make learning interesting for students.
Relationships, factors, change in a classroom, change in power... they change the relationships between people. Changes the relationship between students and information.
Internet safety is important.
Tone set from the beginning of the year.
Change in classrooms
attitude, changing attitude towards classrooms and education. Not just us, but society, they have an idea on what classrooms should look like, and what happens, 20 years out of date.
redefining what happens in the classrooms.
thinking of classrooms as studios - lots of different things going on, some extra noise, could happen late at night. Vibrant spaces, lots of energy, both from the students and the teachers. A master, who is in charge of the space, not a typical teacher
Every classroom should be a global communications centre.
Learning is something we do together.
Will Richardson's blog... teaching today is a collective effort not an individual accomplishment, learning to is a collective effort not an individual accomplishment.
Why technology assessments suck, they focus on the skills, its about connections, learn from each other and see new things.
Education informatics....
We need a way to track kids activities in classes, what blogs they keep going back to?
Adjust our practices in our classrooms.
Cybersafety, curriculum matrix released
Netsafe have released a matrix of what they would like to develop as an education curriculum to help educate students on the the safety of the internet.
It does however appear that netsafe website is unavailable at 11:20pm
however through google and the use of the View as HTML I can copy and write
Attached is a draft release of the NetSafe Cyber Citizenship Education Matrix. The purpose of this document will be to provide teachers and schools with a framework for developing good cybercitizens. It is intended that the document will be referred to when planning for the integration of cybersafety into school curriculum delivery.
A good cybercitizen is a person who uses ICT confidently, safely and responsibly to participate and collaborate online.
As NetSafe publishes our own cybersafety learning material, or becomes aware of other cybersafety material available, we plan to provide advice as to how such resources could be used to promote the competencies outlined in the Cyber citizenship Matrix.
The Matrix is a fairly high level document and at first glance may not seem to provide too much specific advice on the skills required by modern cybercitizens. This is intentional as the document is intended to allow cybersafety education to be integrated throughout the official New Zealand Curriculum, while also allowing educators scope to focus on particular areas of interest or relevance. It is also necessary to future proof the framework as much as practicable and not therefore become bogged down with specific technologies. As the technologies and the issues that cybercitizens face come and go, schools and educators will be able to flesh out the matrix with more specific and relevant learning objectives.
The layout of the document will be recognisable to anyone who is familiar with New Zealand curriculum statements. Down the left are the three ‘Attributes’ (or strands) as referred to in the definition of a good cybercitizen. Across the top are a sequence of year levels beginning with early childhood education, and moving through to year 13.
Unlike the New Zealand Curriculum which is arranged in levels and recognises that students in the same class may be performing at different levels, the cyber citizenship matrix is divided into distinct year bands. This is because the matrix is intended as much to provide a framework for linking in cybersafety learning materials from around the country and around the globe, as it is to provide a suggested learning progression.
Once complete, the document will be published on the NetSafe website.
NetSafe would like your feedback on any aspect of the NetSafe Cyber citizenship Education Matrix (including the title). Some suggested areas you might like to comment on may include:
• The attributes
• The breakdown of the bands
• The progression within each attribute in terms of developmental appropriateness
• How the language could or should help link through to the key competencies as outlined in the New Zealand Curriculum
• The overall complexity or simplicity of the document
• The practicality of providing such a framework
• The perceived usefulness for educators…
Ideally I would like to gather all feedback by 31 October
I thank you in advance for any time at all you may be able to spend providing feedback. Your feedback is valuable. Please email it to: richardb@netsafe.org.nz
There are three sections
Confident - Understand the impacts and potential of use for individuals and society.
Safe - Apply sound cybersafety strategies which promote personal safety
Responsible - Understand, follow and promote cybersafety guidelines which support community safety and wellbeing
There are two sections for secondary schools, Year 9-10 and 11-13, these will have some comment on tomorrow after I get some sleep and my laptop's battery gets charged.
Right to carry on,
Year 9-10
Confident - Investigate and compare how cyber-technologies are used by individuals, groups or organisation to achieve various objectives both positive and negative.
Safe - Display appropriate methods of dealing with specific cybersafety incidents, and explain how the risk of such incidents occurring could be minimised.
Responsible - Contribute to the formation, review or promotion of cybersafety guidelines for a community.
Year 11-13
Confident - In the context of cybersafety, analyse and critically evaluate the impact of cyber technologies on themselves and society both in the present day and historically.
Safe - Is able to proactively identify and appropriately respond to a range of potentially risky incidents when using cyber-technologies.
Responsible - Demonstrate a commitment to interacting within the online environment in an ethical and socially responsible manner.
These have a great amount of interest to me, as we are using more and more web technologies in the classroom, however, it is how they are being used outside the classroom. The way they are being used at home by various students to inflict pain and hummilation on some students, and the other adage of one you put it up it will never disappear. Students and parents have never had to deal with these forms of electronic bullying and problems before. A photo you could tear up, paper could be burnt. But once you put something online, it will be there forever.
my response
having a look at the draft matrix I like the idea of it. Though there are some things I would like to comment on.
The attributes, I agree with safe and responsible, though I feel confident isn't the right word when it comes to understand the impacts and potential of ict use for individuals and society.
The breakdown of the bands, these are clearly defined at the lower levels, however I feel there does need to be a change at the senior end 9-10 and 11-13, I would probably look more at 9-11 and 12-13. the reason for this is 9-11 are still grasping with the ICT and internet use. 12-13 would be able to have the life skills and the reasoning to be able to pro actively identify and appropriately respond to a range of potential risky incidents when they are using cyber-technoloiges, as well as being able to demonstrate a commitment to interacting within the online environment in an ethical and responsible manner, I know at our school we make more use of the LMS and other web 2.0 technologies at years 12-13 and this would be a way to be able to monitor them against the attributes.
I would like to see more details or achievement objectives before I comment on the key competencies, or at least wait till after the new curriculum has been announced and have some time to digest it.
It is a overally simple document that will help with early childhood and primary education, though I think it needs some more complexity when it comes to the secondary schools. more details may help with this.
I look forward to providing this framework to my year 9 and 10 students. As well as looking at the challenges I could pose to my year 12-13 students. I don't think I have the space to be able to fit it into my year 11 scheme though. The Health subject in the school may be able to focus on this, health will be able to catch those students that miss the ICT modules throughout years 9-10 and help the students to meet the bands. Although some development may need to be associated with this for those non-ICT teachers. I also am interested in educating the students through the netsafe network use agreement that we are busily trying to get together for the start of next year as we make more use of web 2.0 technologies and mobile devices as well as research in the classroom.
This will be able to help all teachers met the set of guidelines to help our students with internet access and to be able to educate parents and caregivers on the use of ICT and the internet through schools. This has already started through the use of hectors world in the primary schools and has been missing in the secondary schools where teachers are making more and more use of ICT without knowing what students are accessing. I remember a couple of years ago when students asked if they could access bebo in class time, and now dealing with the issues that bebo has throughout the school. Students are great adapters of ICT and teachers need to be able deal with those issues in a more confident and collaborative manner. this document may be able to help get some Professional Development to educate teachers about how to use the internet in a collaborative and safe manner.
I look forward to seeing the next stage of this matrix and I believe it has been a long time coming, I remember going to a netsafe meeting a couple of years ago where this question was asked. Since then I have been wondering how it was going to be incorporated into a already fill curriculum.
response back
Thank you for your honest and detailed feedback regarding the cybercitizenship matrix. Your comments will be most helpful as we develop his document further. I appreciate the pressure on your time, especially at this stage of the year.
To briefly respond to a couple of your comments:
The term 'confident' comes from the government's digital strategy. Within the strategy, the NetSafe programme is designated a major contributor to the confidence strand. At NetSafe we think of cybersafety as a learning enabler - giving individuals confidence to realise the benefits ICT can bring. I have tried to incorporate this into the 'attributes'. Perhaps it is more about awareness than understanding of the impacts of the use of ICT?
We could provide more detail in the upper year levels. In fact in the original document there were two further 'stands. I am also hoping that the detail will actually come as the matrix is populated by example lessons and resources either from NetSafe, overseas, or teachers themselves. We are still developing this process.
Thanks again for your input.
It does however appear that netsafe website is unavailable at 11:20pm
however through google and the use of the View as HTML I can copy and write
Attached is a draft release of the NetSafe Cyber Citizenship Education Matrix. The purpose of this document will be to provide teachers and schools with a framework for developing good cybercitizens. It is intended that the document will be referred to when planning for the integration of cybersafety into school curriculum delivery.
A good cybercitizen is a person who uses ICT confidently, safely and responsibly to participate and collaborate online.
As NetSafe publishes our own cybersafety learning material, or becomes aware of other cybersafety material available, we plan to provide advice as to how such resources could be used to promote the competencies outlined in the Cyber citizenship Matrix.
The Matrix is a fairly high level document and at first glance may not seem to provide too much specific advice on the skills required by modern cybercitizens. This is intentional as the document is intended to allow cybersafety education to be integrated throughout the official New Zealand Curriculum, while also allowing educators scope to focus on particular areas of interest or relevance. It is also necessary to future proof the framework as much as practicable and not therefore become bogged down with specific technologies. As the technologies and the issues that cybercitizens face come and go, schools and educators will be able to flesh out the matrix with more specific and relevant learning objectives.
The layout of the document will be recognisable to anyone who is familiar with New Zealand curriculum statements. Down the left are the three ‘Attributes’ (or strands) as referred to in the definition of a good cybercitizen. Across the top are a sequence of year levels beginning with early childhood education, and moving through to year 13.
Unlike the New Zealand Curriculum which is arranged in levels and recognises that students in the same class may be performing at different levels, the cyber citizenship matrix is divided into distinct year bands. This is because the matrix is intended as much to provide a framework for linking in cybersafety learning materials from around the country and around the globe, as it is to provide a suggested learning progression.
Once complete, the document will be published on the NetSafe website.
NetSafe would like your feedback on any aspect of the NetSafe Cyber citizenship Education Matrix (including the title). Some suggested areas you might like to comment on may include:
• The attributes
• The breakdown of the bands
• The progression within each attribute in terms of developmental appropriateness
• How the language could or should help link through to the key competencies as outlined in the New Zealand Curriculum
• The overall complexity or simplicity of the document
• The practicality of providing such a framework
• The perceived usefulness for educators…
Ideally I would like to gather all feedback by 31 October
I thank you in advance for any time at all you may be able to spend providing feedback. Your feedback is valuable. Please email it to: richardb@netsafe.org.nz
There are three sections
Confident - Understand the impacts and potential of use for individuals and society.
Safe - Apply sound cybersafety strategies which promote personal safety
Responsible - Understand, follow and promote cybersafety guidelines which support community safety and wellbeing
There are two sections for secondary schools, Year 9-10 and 11-13, these will have some comment on tomorrow after I get some sleep and my laptop's battery gets charged.
Right to carry on,
Year 9-10
Confident - Investigate and compare how cyber-technologies are used by individuals, groups or organisation to achieve various objectives both positive and negative.
Safe - Display appropriate methods of dealing with specific cybersafety incidents, and explain how the risk of such incidents occurring could be minimised.
Responsible - Contribute to the formation, review or promotion of cybersafety guidelines for a community.
Year 11-13
Confident - In the context of cybersafety, analyse and critically evaluate the impact of cyber technologies on themselves and society both in the present day and historically.
Safe - Is able to proactively identify and appropriately respond to a range of potentially risky incidents when using cyber-technologies.
Responsible - Demonstrate a commitment to interacting within the online environment in an ethical and socially responsible manner.
These have a great amount of interest to me, as we are using more and more web technologies in the classroom, however, it is how they are being used outside the classroom. The way they are being used at home by various students to inflict pain and hummilation on some students, and the other adage of one you put it up it will never disappear. Students and parents have never had to deal with these forms of electronic bullying and problems before. A photo you could tear up, paper could be burnt. But once you put something online, it will be there forever.
my response
having a look at the draft matrix I like the idea of it. Though there are some things I would like to comment on.
The attributes, I agree with safe and responsible, though I feel confident isn't the right word when it comes to understand the impacts and potential of ict use for individuals and society.
The breakdown of the bands, these are clearly defined at the lower levels, however I feel there does need to be a change at the senior end 9-10 and 11-13, I would probably look more at 9-11 and 12-13. the reason for this is 9-11 are still grasping with the ICT and internet use. 12-13 would be able to have the life skills and the reasoning to be able to pro actively identify and appropriately respond to a range of potential risky incidents when they are using cyber-technoloiges, as well as being able to demonstrate a commitment to interacting within the online environment in an ethical and responsible manner, I know at our school we make more use of the LMS and other web 2.0 technologies at years 12-13 and this would be a way to be able to monitor them against the attributes.
I would like to see more details or achievement objectives before I comment on the key competencies, or at least wait till after the new curriculum has been announced and have some time to digest it.
It is a overally simple document that will help with early childhood and primary education, though I think it needs some more complexity when it comes to the secondary schools. more details may help with this.
I look forward to providing this framework to my year 9 and 10 students. As well as looking at the challenges I could pose to my year 12-13 students. I don't think I have the space to be able to fit it into my year 11 scheme though. The Health subject in the school may be able to focus on this, health will be able to catch those students that miss the ICT modules throughout years 9-10 and help the students to meet the bands. Although some development may need to be associated with this for those non-ICT teachers. I also am interested in educating the students through the netsafe network use agreement that we are busily trying to get together for the start of next year as we make more use of web 2.0 technologies and mobile devices as well as research in the classroom.
This will be able to help all teachers met the set of guidelines to help our students with internet access and to be able to educate parents and caregivers on the use of ICT and the internet through schools. This has already started through the use of hectors world in the primary schools and has been missing in the secondary schools where teachers are making more and more use of ICT without knowing what students are accessing. I remember a couple of years ago when students asked if they could access bebo in class time, and now dealing with the issues that bebo has throughout the school. Students are great adapters of ICT and teachers need to be able deal with those issues in a more confident and collaborative manner. this document may be able to help get some Professional Development to educate teachers about how to use the internet in a collaborative and safe manner.
I look forward to seeing the next stage of this matrix and I believe it has been a long time coming, I remember going to a netsafe meeting a couple of years ago where this question was asked. Since then I have been wondering how it was going to be incorporated into a already fill curriculum.
response back
Thank you for your honest and detailed feedback regarding the cybercitizenship matrix. Your comments will be most helpful as we develop his document further. I appreciate the pressure on your time, especially at this stage of the year.
To briefly respond to a couple of your comments:
The term 'confident' comes from the government's digital strategy. Within the strategy, the NetSafe programme is designated a major contributor to the confidence strand. At NetSafe we think of cybersafety as a learning enabler - giving individuals confidence to realise the benefits ICT can bring. I have tried to incorporate this into the 'attributes'. Perhaps it is more about awareness than understanding of the impacts of the use of ICT?
We could provide more detail in the upper year levels. In fact in the original document there were two further 'stands. I am also hoping that the detail will actually come as the matrix is populated by example lessons and resources either from NetSafe, overseas, or teachers themselves. We are still developing this process.
Thanks again for your input.
House Name Change
More grief over the name changes today, the reason for this is that they have been released to staff. Anything that is released to staff is almost instantly said to students by form teachers.
The feedback from the staff is that the Pohutakawa House name is too long, why are there two K's (Kauri and Kowhai) and that if we are to continue to use the Red, Green, Gold, and Blue that the name change is just a farce.
It needs some more thinking.
If we are to use the trees as the identify of the houses then we need need to change the systems in the school to the new system. Instead of R10, G10, B10, and O10, it gets changes to R10, P10, K10 and T10. the T could be changed to Totara House instead of Kauri House.
Identity of the houses and providing values to the students was what pushed the changes in the first place, it has been killed with the current solution.
The feedback from the staff is that the Pohutakawa House name is too long, why are there two K's (Kauri and Kowhai) and that if we are to continue to use the Red, Green, Gold, and Blue that the name change is just a farce.
It needs some more thinking.
If we are to use the trees as the identify of the houses then we need need to change the systems in the school to the new system. Instead of R10, G10, B10, and O10, it gets changes to R10, P10, K10 and T10. the T could be changed to Totara House instead of Kauri House.
Identity of the houses and providing values to the students was what pushed the changes in the first place, it has been killed with the current solution.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Hacker High School Movies
Facts behind screen hacks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7029540.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7029540.stm
We see a lot of impressive hacking in the movies, not just taking over individual PCs but whole traffic systems and top security databases.
Waterloo Station formed the back drop for The Bourne Ultimatum, one of the biggest movies of the year, in which Americans take over all of the CCTV cameras. But just how realistic is that scenario and worse, what about a hostile takeover?
According to Sarb Sembhi, IT systems analyst at ISACA, local authorities and the police use network TV because they can take advantage of the technology that allows them to view cameras on any system.
"Unfortunately not only does it enable them to view any camera on their system from anywhere, it also means that other people who shouldn't have access to the system may end up having access to the system.
"Anyone can do this if they know what they're doing," he said. "It may not be friendly governments, it could be any government anywhere, it could be criminals, it could be terrorists, they can use the system for their own advantage."
Paul Docherty of Portcullis Security is paid by governments and blue-chip companies to hack into their systems. He has been doing it for 20 years and believes hijacking Waterloo's cameras would be a difficult feat
"The Waterloo scenario is a wired system, whereby they're wired back to a central control station. You would need access to the control station in order to gain access to the data.
"In a wireless network the camera has to broadcast whatever it's picking up across a wide area in order for it to be picked up by another system and then relayed to whoever is looking at the data. In those instances anyone can sit nearby and intercept the data.
"Potentially they could inject [data] packets in that so they could control the camera and point it in the direction they wanted it to go."
'Drastic attacks'
What about our critical infrastructure. Could undercover hackers take down a power plant or bring transport to a standstill?
An Associated Press report was posted on the internet last month showing an internal test by Homeland Security in the US to see if hackers could tap into the power network and shut down a turbine. The test succeeded.
"If you know something about SCADA technologies you can introduce yourself inside the network of power plants, nuclear plants, pipelines, hospitals, traffic lights in the city, airports and so on," said security evangelist Alessio Pennasilico. "Once you are inside the network you can do whatever you want."
SCADA is an older system that is still very common today. It allows you to acquire data from multiple systems.
Mr Docherty said: "In terms of how realistic the attacks are, personally I think it's somewhat over dramatised, the stuff of James Bond movies.
"However, what we're seeing is a convergence of technologies, and many SCADA systems are now connected to other systems which are connected to the internet via the IP protocol.
"So potentially the theory of the attacks is true. I think the realism of them is not so true. Someone would very much have to understand many, many proprietary systems in order to make such drastic attacks happen."
Personal safety
Hackers can also target individual mobile phone users if they are using a Bluetooth headset or a handset with Bluetooth switched on.
Bluetooth headsets rely on the phone to transmit radio waves to the earpiece. But they are vulnerable. That two way connection can also be a gateway into your handset.
"If there is a specific flaw in the Bluetooth implementation in the model of the phone you won't even know that a hacker is getting into that specific phone," said Dino Covotsos of Telspace Systems.
"A lot of different techniques include bluesnarfing and bluebugging. You can actually do something called STP tooling."
STP tooling is a method for establishing the services that are supported by the phone.
Mr Docherty showed BBC Click how easy it was to pull off all the contacts from a phone placed 10 metres away from him. Using a laptop and a free computer program available on the internet it took him about a minute. The target's phone did not make a sound.
He could also have lifted calendar and diary entries and even have made a call without the phone owner's knowledge.
Fortunately, newer Bluetooth phones now warn the user.
Portcullis Security also hacked into the programme's wi-fi system in 10 minutes. It was "protected" by a 128-bit WEP encrypted password. Again the programme they used is free and it is available on the internet.
You still need a degree of expertise to pull off a movie-style spying attack but it does seem that wireless systems in particular, while convenient for us, have made the hackers' lives a little easier, and those spy scenarios just a little more realistic.
House name changes
This has been going on for a while now, and this week the new house names are announced at our school.
Blue House becomes Kauri House
Green House becomes Rimu House
Red House becomes Pohutakawa House
Gold House becomes Kowhai House
This will still cause some of the headaches for us in the ICT department, we have had problems with Green and Gold house because these are included in a students login, now we have the same with Kauri and Kowhai.
Why could one of these not have been named Totara!!!
Blue House becomes Kauri House
Green House becomes Rimu House
Red House becomes Pohutakawa House
Gold House becomes Kowhai HouseThis will still cause some of the headaches for us in the ICT department, we have had problems with Green and Gold house because these are included in a students login, now we have the same with Kauri and Kowhai.
Why could one of these not have been named Totara!!!
Microsoft XNA: A Primer
Trying to find some more information on teacher microsoft XNA development to year 13 students. Using slashdot.org and the search term homebrew I came across this article
"Over at the education site Game Career Guide, they've got an in-depth primer of Microsoft's XNA, including interviews with Julie Ellen and Joe Nalewabau of Microsoft about the PC and Xbox 360 indie/student homebrew construction tool, as well as chats with two developers (Benjamin Nitschke and Alex Okafor) who have worked with XNA to some notable effect. Microsoft's Ellie claims of the efforts: 'Homebrew and independent developers are often very talented and have lots of creative ideas. Being able to officially write games directly for a retail console right at home is a first and could be very empowering for them. For the homebrew and indie scene to succeed we need to provide two things: great tools and access to a large audience. We're working on both.'"
Some of the sites that are listed are
XNATutorial.com also offers video tutorials - there's an amazingly comprehensive set there too, with everything from installation, right through to information on physics engines, and an immense number of topics in between.
XNADevelopment.com hosts a number of interesting written tutorials on subjects like installation and how to find the first tutorial within the XNA download, as well as source code and instructions for developing a Tetris clone, and a simple controllable 2D sprite.
XNAResources.com also hosts a variety of tutorials, with a well put together series on map tile engine creation, plus they offer links to more advanced subjects like 3D engine solutions and stroke based text rendering.
Last, but certainly not least, is Xbox360Homebrew.com, which hosts tutorials, news, a gallery of user uploaded XNA titles, forums and developer blogs, and provides and excellent hub for the XNA community.
"Over at the education site Game Career Guide, they've got an in-depth primer of Microsoft's XNA, including interviews with Julie Ellen and Joe Nalewabau of Microsoft about the PC and Xbox 360 indie/student homebrew construction tool, as well as chats with two developers (Benjamin Nitschke and Alex Okafor) who have worked with XNA to some notable effect. Microsoft's Ellie claims of the efforts: 'Homebrew and independent developers are often very talented and have lots of creative ideas. Being able to officially write games directly for a retail console right at home is a first and could be very empowering for them. For the homebrew and indie scene to succeed we need to provide two things: great tools and access to a large audience. We're working on both.'"
Some of the sites that are listed are
XNATutorial.com also offers video tutorials - there's an amazingly comprehensive set there too, with everything from installation, right through to information on physics engines, and an immense number of topics in between.
XNADevelopment.com hosts a number of interesting written tutorials on subjects like installation and how to find the first tutorial within the XNA download, as well as source code and instructions for developing a Tetris clone, and a simple controllable 2D sprite.
XNAResources.com also hosts a variety of tutorials, with a well put together series on map tile engine creation, plus they offer links to more advanced subjects like 3D engine solutions and stroke based text rendering.
Last, but certainly not least, is Xbox360Homebrew.com, which hosts tutorials, news, a gallery of user uploaded XNA titles, forums and developer blogs, and provides and excellent hub for the XNA community.
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Wizard Of Woz Keeps Casting His Spells
What would you do after founding a technology giant? Steve wozniak Uses those resources to keep innovating and following his creative impulses.
http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=17186
For many, "Vice President in charge of R&D" sounds like a good job - reputable, good pay, and maybe even exciting. But tack the words "at Apple Inc." to the end of that title, and you have, well, a whole different barrel of apples.
Steve Wozniak didn't earn this job with a good resume. He forged it, inventing the first single-circuit motherboard with embedded ROM in 1975. He and Steve Jobs had to sell their most valuable possessions to assemble a product line of Apple Is. Some people can't put a price on fame and fortune, but they can. About $1300 and a few IOUs later, they kinda made their money back.
Follow the Silicon Road
Wozniak didn't want to become an entrepreneur or take the world by storm. He was content with his job at Hewlett-Packard and even more content as a hobbyist. Wozniak worked at a bench from 1973 to 1976, optimizing designs for calculators other EEs developed.
"I wanted to be an engineer in a lab," says Wozniak. "The spirit of engineers was most important. I loved the engineers, loved the project, loved the company!" He spent his days at the plant and his nights batting around design ideas and inventions with the Homebrew Computer Club. "I'd be off in 'computer design world' and Steve [Jobs] would ask where it could go," he says.
This dynamic led to the sale of a wood-cased CPU comprising roughly 30 chips for $500 (then $666.66 after a markup) and the beginning of a revolution. "After Apple I, every computer used a keyboard," Wozniak says. "Before, they used geeky switches. It was a trading transition in history." The Apple I was a quantum leap in the available technology. Before Wozniak threw his hat into the ring, the Altair 8800 was the closest thing to a personal computer.
"You could turn it into a computer, but it was basically an Intel processor," Wozniak says. "A computer to me has to have the ability to program. Altair couldn't. You had to buy extra cards. I was well past that point. Sure, it used ones and zeros, but I wanted a real computer my whole life. I would've sold my house for a computer, but it had to run a program."
He created a motherboard and compatible components, but the product was more for a hobbyist or engineer than a consumer because users would have to add input sources, a keyboard, casing, and a display themselves. He wanted to bring it all together so anybody and everybody could operate an Apple right out of the box.
Playing Games
Born in 1950, he didn't have much technology available to him as a child, but he would stumble onto information about technology here and there. Picking up little scraps wherever he could, these bits of info would be like "little secrets" to him and his young mind - information he would keep that other people would flat-out ignore.
When he was 10, a book about a ham radio operator inspired him to not only earn a ham radio license, but build a transmitter and receiver by hand as well. He also conjured a game where he would experiment with adding and subtracting transistors to his gadgets. "It helped me very much. You sit down, think, plan, and make sure what you build is efficient. It's good practice for what engineering involves," he says.
Wozniak left HP in 1976 and formed Apple Computer with Jobs, asking himself how he could put these things in his head into the smallest number of chips. As a result, he would write his own Basic, even though he never programmed in Basic in his life. But that wasn't the only thing he would have to do on the fly. "Everything was created from scratch," he says. "Everything I did had to be made up for the first time."
Wozniak abandoned the wooden frame for plastic, added dynamic memory, had tape interfaces, and added color graphics and sound. "The Apple II connected everything. [It] was a 'Woz' from the ground up," Wozniak says. Users could also plug in cards to add floppy-disk or printer functions - or as Wozniak calls it, a true "plug-and-play" device.
Seeking Alternative Routes
Because of Wozniak's work with Apple, he had to bury other projects. You would think such a computing mind wouldn't drift toward other desires, but an urge to impart knowledge hibernated in his mind. After he left Apple in 1985, he formed his own company, CL-9 (Cloud 9). But after two years, he moved on from that to other endeavors, including teaching kindergarten.
"I wanted to be a teacher my whole life," he says. "Secretly, I wished it. I can't tell you how much fun it was when they learned something." Though he doesn't believe it would work for other people, discovering how much you can smile over how much you can frown is a lifestyle. "I was just doing what was fun for me," Wozniak says. "I would be doing this at home if there was no money."
He misses his time with the Homebrew Computer Club and Apple, though today you can find him playing polo on a Segway, working at Jazz Semiconductor, or off promoting his autobiography. "I miss the technical camaraderie," Wozniak says. "The whole feeling of being on a revolution, on the edge. I miss the intuitive philosophies."
http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=17186
For many, "Vice President in charge of R&D" sounds like a good job - reputable, good pay, and maybe even exciting. But tack the words "at Apple Inc." to the end of that title, and you have, well, a whole different barrel of apples.
Steve Wozniak didn't earn this job with a good resume. He forged it, inventing the first single-circuit motherboard with embedded ROM in 1975. He and Steve Jobs had to sell their most valuable possessions to assemble a product line of Apple Is. Some people can't put a price on fame and fortune, but they can. About $1300 and a few IOUs later, they kinda made their money back.
Follow the Silicon Road
Wozniak didn't want to become an entrepreneur or take the world by storm. He was content with his job at Hewlett-Packard and even more content as a hobbyist. Wozniak worked at a bench from 1973 to 1976, optimizing designs for calculators other EEs developed.
"I wanted to be an engineer in a lab," says Wozniak. "The spirit of engineers was most important. I loved the engineers, loved the project, loved the company!" He spent his days at the plant and his nights batting around design ideas and inventions with the Homebrew Computer Club. "I'd be off in 'computer design world' and Steve [Jobs] would ask where it could go," he says.
This dynamic led to the sale of a wood-cased CPU comprising roughly 30 chips for $500 (then $666.66 after a markup) and the beginning of a revolution. "After Apple I, every computer used a keyboard," Wozniak says. "Before, they used geeky switches. It was a trading transition in history." The Apple I was a quantum leap in the available technology. Before Wozniak threw his hat into the ring, the Altair 8800 was the closest thing to a personal computer.
"You could turn it into a computer, but it was basically an Intel processor," Wozniak says. "A computer to me has to have the ability to program. Altair couldn't. You had to buy extra cards. I was well past that point. Sure, it used ones and zeros, but I wanted a real computer my whole life. I would've sold my house for a computer, but it had to run a program."
He created a motherboard and compatible components, but the product was more for a hobbyist or engineer than a consumer because users would have to add input sources, a keyboard, casing, and a display themselves. He wanted to bring it all together so anybody and everybody could operate an Apple right out of the box.
Playing Games
Born in 1950, he didn't have much technology available to him as a child, but he would stumble onto information about technology here and there. Picking up little scraps wherever he could, these bits of info would be like "little secrets" to him and his young mind - information he would keep that other people would flat-out ignore.
When he was 10, a book about a ham radio operator inspired him to not only earn a ham radio license, but build a transmitter and receiver by hand as well. He also conjured a game where he would experiment with adding and subtracting transistors to his gadgets. "It helped me very much. You sit down, think, plan, and make sure what you build is efficient. It's good practice for what engineering involves," he says.
Wozniak left HP in 1976 and formed Apple Computer with Jobs, asking himself how he could put these things in his head into the smallest number of chips. As a result, he would write his own Basic, even though he never programmed in Basic in his life. But that wasn't the only thing he would have to do on the fly. "Everything was created from scratch," he says. "Everything I did had to be made up for the first time."
Wozniak abandoned the wooden frame for plastic, added dynamic memory, had tape interfaces, and added color graphics and sound. "The Apple II connected everything. [It] was a 'Woz' from the ground up," Wozniak says. Users could also plug in cards to add floppy-disk or printer functions - or as Wozniak calls it, a true "plug-and-play" device.
Seeking Alternative Routes
Because of Wozniak's work with Apple, he had to bury other projects. You would think such a computing mind wouldn't drift toward other desires, but an urge to impart knowledge hibernated in his mind. After he left Apple in 1985, he formed his own company, CL-9 (Cloud 9). But after two years, he moved on from that to other endeavors, including teaching kindergarten.
"I wanted to be a teacher my whole life," he says. "Secretly, I wished it. I can't tell you how much fun it was when they learned something." Though he doesn't believe it would work for other people, discovering how much you can smile over how much you can frown is a lifestyle. "I was just doing what was fun for me," Wozniak says. "I would be doing this at home if there was no money."
He misses his time with the Homebrew Computer Club and Apple, though today you can find him playing polo on a Segway, working at Jazz Semiconductor, or off promoting his autobiography. "I miss the technical camaraderie," Wozniak says. "The whole feeling of being on a revolution, on the edge. I miss the intuitive philosophies."
Saturday, 20 October 2007
KnowledgeNET meeting
At a cluster meeting discussing many of the new features that will be coming out in January.
Review of how changes that the group came up with in previous meetings have been demonstrated and fine tuning asked for. I start to wonder why these changes don't come in sooner, and the answer is that they are still in "Alpha" or "Beta" stages and need to go out to "beta" schools.
Looking at SCORM compliance and how these could be incorported into KN. Looked at exelearning.org
A website was demonstrated during the break called www.scrapblog.com
Review of the Interoperability project, musac and knowledgenet were the joint SMS<->LMS operators chosen.
These have been mostly primary schools and one secondary school, so some features that should have been added for secondary schools haven't been yet.
Now this leads to a common problem, Professional Development. We are undertaking this at school with the KnowledgeNET product. Now if everything datview have said today the PD that we do this year will be out of date in January as knowledgeNET will be undergoing some major development changes, in the way it looks and by what it provides for teachers and students. Do we do the development now or hold off?
Review of how changes that the group came up with in previous meetings have been demonstrated and fine tuning asked for. I start to wonder why these changes don't come in sooner, and the answer is that they are still in "Alpha" or "Beta" stages and need to go out to "beta" schools.
Looking at SCORM compliance and how these could be incorported into KN. Looked at exelearning.org
A website was demonstrated during the break called www.scrapblog.com
Review of the Interoperability project, musac and knowledgenet were the joint SMS<->LMS operators chosen.
These have been mostly primary schools and one secondary school, so some features that should have been added for secondary schools haven't been yet.
Now this leads to a common problem, Professional Development. We are undertaking this at school with the KnowledgeNET product. Now if everything datview have said today the PD that we do this year will be out of date in January as knowledgeNET will be undergoing some major development changes, in the way it looks and by what it provides for teachers and students. Do we do the development now or hold off?
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
The Pohutukawa Tree
As I sit here waiting for the Year 12 Production of the Pohutukawa Tree I found myself looking up reviews of the play by Bruce Mason.
It is strange sitting here surfing the Internet before the play starts in the audience reading about what the play is about.
It is set in the small town of Te Parenga just after the Second World War. Aroha Mataira struggles to keep her family together in the face of new challenges and Johnny's alcoholism. The play shows the struggles of Maori people to keep their land and culture intact in the face of change and how actions in the past continue to have consequences for later generations.
It is strange sitting here surfing the Internet before the play starts in the audience reading about what the play is about.
It is set in the small town of Te Parenga just after the Second World War. Aroha Mataira struggles to keep her family together in the face of new challenges and Johnny's alcoholism. The play shows the struggles of Maori people to keep their land and culture intact in the face of change and how actions in the past continue to have consequences for later generations.
Saturday, 13 October 2007
Reports
It has come to that time of year again, just seems like I just finished the last set of reports not so long ago. Senior Reports are due tuesday. Just as another online conference comes along. It seems to be deja-vu again. The last time this happened it was the time4online conference in New Zealand. As I watch the pre conference key note speaker in the k12onlineconference I look at the airport in the background of his video and think, maybe I need a holiday.
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Hacker High School Movies
There were several scenes in The Italian Job (2003)
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740/) where Seth Green plays a hacker. The most memorable scene for me is where he hacks into the city's traffic control system to create traffic jams so that the thiefs have a clear get away path, and the cops can't get to them due to the backed up cars. This scene is closer to the end of the movie. I think Seth even mentions a popular exploit in order to get into the system.
My students and I were talking about this as they were trying to talk me into playing more movies for them.
Their favorite was Office Space (1999)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/. There is a scene where they're planning to insert some code in the company's code that will take the fractions of a penny, and instead of rounding it off, it will take that fraction and deposit them into a secret account. The idea being that tens of thousands of transactions a day will add up very quickly. The funny part of this is where they're sitting around a kitchen table discussing the idea and trying to get the third person involved. At some point they say "This doesn't go anywhere beyond the three of us.", and you hear the neighbor from next door shout "Don't worry man, I won't tell anyone".
Finally, if you would like more accurate portrayal of how hackers are portrayed, there's the movie Freedom Downtime (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309614/), which is an excellent documentary.
Many interviews with and about hackers. I showed this movie to my class, and this is what got them attempting to talk me into showing more movies.
I'm sure there's many more, but I'll give others a chance. I would also be happy to assist with this project should there be need.
This may need some translation
* Terminator III: Rise of the Machines
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/)
En la mitad de la pelcula aparece un virus incontrolable que parece infectar todos los servidores importantes en el mundo, sin ninguna atencin al tipo de servidor. Luego, el general a cargo de la construccin de Skynet "activa" a Skynet, para darse cuenta segundos despus que en realidad era la misma Skynet la que estaba simulando un virus a escala mundial (What?!?).
* El imperio contraataca
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/
R2D2 abriendo las puertas de la ciudad BESPIN, ahi, ademas de abrir las puertas, el computador de la ciudad le "cuenta" que han deshabilitado el hiperimpulsor.
* Juegos de guerra:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
al comienzo, cuando el protagonista entra al computador del colegio y cambia sus notas ...
Otra ... el protagonista busca la forma de entrar al computador que le ofrece juegos y encuentra que el nombre del hijo del creador de la maquina es Joshua ... que resulta ser un password back door
* Matrix III
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/
Triniti debe hackear un edificio y se conecta a una consola para hacer "ssh -l" a un terminal y luego utiliza nmap para hacer un port scanning
Otra ... caminar por los pasillos ocultos al operador que son las backdoors de las maquinas
* Star trek la Ira de Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
Kirk enva un codigo de deshabilitacin a la nave que habia raptado khan para hacerse del control remopoto (un backdoor)
* El da de la independencia
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/
Cuando insertan con un mac un virus en el sistema extraterrestre que lo inutiliza (aunque la pelicula es super debil en lo tecnico, esta escena es representativa).
* Mission Impossible
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117060/
dos escenas al entrar al cuartel de la CIA, activan las alarmas de incendio para violar la seguridad fisica del edificio. Se saltan las barreras de proteccin
Otra, cuando utilizan un bloqueador de seales de celulares.
Translation Spanish to English
In half of pelcula it appears an uncontrollable virus that it seems to infect all the important servants in world, without none atencin to the type of servant. Soon, general in charge of construccin of “active” Skynet a Skynet, to occur to account seconds despus that in reality was the same Skynet the one that was simulating virus on world-wide scale (What).
* The contraataca empire
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/
R2D2 opening the doors of city BESPIN, there, besides to open the doors, the computer of the city him “it tells” that they have deshabilitado the hyperimpeller.
* Games military:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
in the beginning, when the protagonist enters the computerof the school and she changes his notes…
Another one… the protagonist looks for the form to enter computer that offers games to him and finds that name of the son of the creator of the machine is Joshua… that back turns out to be password door
* Matrix III
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/
Triniti must hackear a building and it is connected to a console in order to do “ssh - l” to a terminal and soon uses nmap stops to do port scanning
Another one… to walk by the hidden corridors to the operator whom they are backdoors of the machines
* Star trek the Wrath of Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
Kirk enva a code of deshabilitacin to the ship that habia raptado they khan to become of the control remopoto (backdoor)
* It gives of independence
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/
When they insert with mac a virus in the system extraterrestrial that makes unusable it (although the film is super weak in the technician, this scene is representative).
* Mission Impossible
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117060/
two scenes when entering the quarter of the company, activate fire alarms to violate the physical security of building. The barriers of proteccin skip
Another one, when they use a blocking one of seales of cellular.
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740/) where Seth Green plays a hacker. The most memorable scene for me is where he hacks into the city's traffic control system to create traffic jams so that the thiefs have a clear get away path, and the cops can't get to them due to the backed up cars. This scene is closer to the end of the movie. I think Seth even mentions a popular exploit in order to get into the system.
My students and I were talking about this as they were trying to talk me into playing more movies for them.
Their favorite was Office Space (1999)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/. There is a scene where they're planning to insert some code in the company's code that will take the fractions of a penny, and instead of rounding it off, it will take that fraction and deposit them into a secret account. The idea being that tens of thousands of transactions a day will add up very quickly. The funny part of this is where they're sitting around a kitchen table discussing the idea and trying to get the third person involved. At some point they say "This doesn't go anywhere beyond the three of us.", and you hear the neighbor from next door shout "Don't worry man, I won't tell anyone".
Finally, if you would like more accurate portrayal of how hackers are portrayed, there's the movie Freedom Downtime (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309614/), which is an excellent documentary.
Many interviews with and about hackers. I showed this movie to my class, and this is what got them attempting to talk me into showing more movies.
I'm sure there's many more, but I'll give others a chance. I would also be happy to assist with this project should there be need.
This may need some translation
* Terminator III: Rise of the Machines
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/)
En la mitad de la pelcula aparece un virus incontrolable que parece infectar todos los servidores importantes en el mundo, sin ninguna atencin al tipo de servidor. Luego, el general a cargo de la construccin de Skynet "activa" a Skynet, para darse cuenta segundos despus que en realidad era la misma Skynet la que estaba simulando un virus a escala mundial (What?!?).
* El imperio contraataca
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/
R2D2 abriendo las puertas de la ciudad BESPIN, ahi, ademas de abrir las puertas, el computador de la ciudad le "cuenta" que han deshabilitado el hiperimpulsor.
* Juegos de guerra:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
al comienzo, cuando el protagonista entra al computador del colegio y cambia sus notas ...
Otra ... el protagonista busca la forma de entrar al computador que le ofrece juegos y encuentra que el nombre del hijo del creador de la maquina es Joshua ... que resulta ser un password back door
* Matrix III
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/
Triniti debe hackear un edificio y se conecta a una consola para hacer "ssh -l" a un terminal y luego utiliza nmap para hacer un port scanning
Otra ... caminar por los pasillos ocultos al operador que son las backdoors de las maquinas
* Star trek la Ira de Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
Kirk enva un codigo de deshabilitacin a la nave que habia raptado khan para hacerse del control remopoto (un backdoor)
* El da de la independencia
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/
Cuando insertan con un mac un virus en el sistema extraterrestre que lo inutiliza (aunque la pelicula es super debil en lo tecnico, esta escena es representativa).
* Mission Impossible
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117060/
dos escenas al entrar al cuartel de la CIA, activan las alarmas de incendio para violar la seguridad fisica del edificio. Se saltan las barreras de proteccin
Otra, cuando utilizan un bloqueador de seales de celulares.
Translation Spanish to English
In half of pelcula it appears an uncontrollable virus that it seems to infect all the important servants in world, without none atencin to the type of servant. Soon, general in charge of construccin of “active” Skynet a Skynet, to occur to account seconds despus that in reality was the same Skynet the one that was simulating virus on world-wide scale (What).
* The contraataca empire
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080684/
R2D2 opening the doors of city BESPIN, there, besides to open the doors, the computer of the city him “it tells” that they have deshabilitado the hyperimpeller.
* Games military:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
in the beginning, when the protagonist enters the computerof the school and she changes his notes…
Another one… the protagonist looks for the form to enter computer that offers games to him and finds that name of the son of the creator of the machine is Joshua… that back turns out to be password door
* Matrix III
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242653/
Triniti must hackear a building and it is connected to a console in order to do “ssh - l” to a terminal and soon uses nmap stops to do port scanning
Another one… to walk by the hidden corridors to the operator whom they are backdoors of the machines
* Star trek the Wrath of Khan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/
Kirk enva a code of deshabilitacin to the ship that habia raptado they khan to become of the control remopoto (backdoor)
* It gives of independence
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/
When they insert with mac a virus in the system extraterrestrial that makes unusable it (although the film is super weak in the technician, this scene is representative).
* Mission Impossible
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117060/
two scenes when entering the quarter of the company, activate fire alarms to violate the physical security of building. The barriers of proteccin skip
Another one, when they use a blocking one of seales of cellular.
Monday, 8 October 2007
Problems with the network
We have been having issues with our school network, and today the problems surfaced so they were right in the face.
We use a managed network solution and it runs pretty much excellent however we have been having issues since the 18th September. that is when I emailed through one of the problems.
Not being able to access learning resources, this comes with a 507 null exception error.
We had a number of updates carried out throughout the holidays, IE7 and Adobe acrobat 8 and DST update. Now some students have managed to login without any problems, other have had a box that appears saying setting up personalized settings, and after setting up IE7 setting it just hangs. Now we have been waiting for the IT department to solve this issue and a number of classes have had to do very little until this issue is solved. At 2pm I got sick of this and worked through a solution that gets teh account working, not to sure how much it stuffs up the system however, but hey, they are able to get in and work.
When it hangs... User press CTRL + ALT + DEL
User selects Logoff. This will then cause a error in the personalized settings dialog box and make it crash.
Then the user logs in and the personalized setting are applied again, this time working.
Now this works and has been emailed through... I really do hate showing up the IT department but it has to done sometimes.
Now one of the issues that the IT came back with is that the programs are now not appearing in the Start Menu, hello, we stated this back on the 18th September. Someone has managed to break the management console and it probably needs a damn good health check to fix it. Am awaiting this to see if it works, I asked for this back on the 18th September...
His solution is a windows profile fix, however we are on a managed network!!! This is what I am getting annoyed with, the management console will do most of the repairs, send him on some training for the managed network.
Contents of email.
Bug Report Program sets are not loading up on computers Microsoft Office has not been appearing for a while now, Now I have the Programming set not appearing
Also we have a Tui Ad competition at the moment. He has it running, yeah right. This realates to some CD Software we have within the school. The department has been waiting for months for this software to be installed and running, every time we see the IT technician, he says, yes I have it running. But we have to prove to him that it doesn't run. I got in contact with eth makers of the program and they say that they will send out the network capable version of teh program. So how can he get teh single machine copy running. You can't.
So to the IT Technication, get this man a Tui!
We use a managed network solution and it runs pretty much excellent however we have been having issues since the 18th September. that is when I emailed through one of the problems.
Not being able to access learning resources, this comes with a 507 null exception error.
We had a number of updates carried out throughout the holidays, IE7 and Adobe acrobat 8 and DST update. Now some students have managed to login without any problems, other have had a box that appears saying setting up personalized settings, and after setting up IE7 setting it just hangs. Now we have been waiting for the IT department to solve this issue and a number of classes have had to do very little until this issue is solved. At 2pm I got sick of this and worked through a solution that gets teh account working, not to sure how much it stuffs up the system however, but hey, they are able to get in and work.
When it hangs... User press CTRL + ALT + DEL
User selects Logoff. This will then cause a error in the personalized settings dialog box and make it crash.
Then the user logs in and the personalized setting are applied again, this time working.
Now this works and has been emailed through... I really do hate showing up the IT department but it has to done sometimes.
Now one of the issues that the IT came back with is that the programs are now not appearing in the Start Menu, hello, we stated this back on the 18th September. Someone has managed to break the management console and it probably needs a damn good health check to fix it. Am awaiting this to see if it works, I asked for this back on the 18th September...
His solution is a windows profile fix, however we are on a managed network!!! This is what I am getting annoyed with, the management console will do most of the repairs, send him on some training for the managed network.
Contents of email.
Bug Report Program sets are not loading up on computers Microsoft Office has not been appearing for a while now, Now I have the Programming set not appearing
Also we have a Tui Ad competition at the moment. He has it running, yeah right. This realates to some CD Software we have within the school. The department has been waiting for months for this software to be installed and running, every time we see the IT technician, he says, yes I have it running. But we have to prove to him that it doesn't run. I got in contact with eth makers of the program and they say that they will send out the network capable version of teh program. So how can he get teh single machine copy running. You can't.
So to the IT Technication, get this man a Tui!
First Aid
We have been offered First Aid training at school, however this was during the holidays and I have been busy with other things like the ULearn conference. So when this came up in one of my emails from woodhill, I jumped at the chance and emailed the Deputy Principal straight away...
--- Email below ---
I was wondering if the school could pay for me to attend one of these first aid courses, it does meet a more specific need rather than the general first aid courses that have been on offer this year as I look after Mountain Biking, and it might be useful for me as the injures I have had this year are Mountain Bike specific (2 cracked ribs, a 3 inch gash on the left arm, and a fractured right shoulder).
14 October, $55 at Woodhill Forest, Hellensville.
http://www.peakrisk.co.nz/courses/firstAid/FirstAidMTB
I hope I get to go... three hours of training instead of 8 hours, sweet!
Extra Information
Well I get to go, early morning rise on Sunday morning, not too sure if I will take my bike though, still got a sore shoulder and haven't started physio yet on it.
--- Email below ---
I was wondering if the school could pay for me to attend one of these first aid courses, it does meet a more specific need rather than the general first aid courses that have been on offer this year as I look after Mountain Biking, and it might be useful for me as the injures I have had this year are Mountain Bike specific (2 cracked ribs, a 3 inch gash on the left arm, and a fractured right shoulder).
14 October, $55 at Woodhill Forest, Hellensville.
http://www.peakrisk.co.nz/courses/firstAid/FirstAidMTB
I hope I get to go... three hours of training instead of 8 hours, sweet!
Extra Information
Well I get to go, early morning rise on Sunday morning, not too sure if I will take my bike though, still got a sore shoulder and haven't started physio yet on it.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Problem with my macbook
there has been no updates to fix the daylight savings problem. My PC has had the fix applied, but the mac doesn't have an update. Not very good.
One conference finishes, another one starts
Just getting over the last conference, ULearn07 and I notice on my calender that the next one is due to start. K12 Online Conference, Just a pity that it is getting to be a busy time of year. Guess I will just have to make time for it.
Just a comment on the ULearn Conference, it only seems to be in Auckland that people walk out of things before they have finished. I noticed this when I went to a warriors game last year that people walk out when they are losing, this happened also at the end keynote Tony Ryan sitting at the back near the door I noticed lots of people leaving during the keynote. Pity they missed a wonderful and thought provoking keynote speaker.
And I will be going back to school monday and asking why noone from school attended the conference, considering it was in Auckland. We are supposed to a be lead ICT School, and staff didn't attend. I don't think anyone from the ICTPD cluster went. I was lucky that I managed to get in as a presenter and also on someone elses ticket as they couldn't make the ther two days. Though I would like to see Ewans keynote address, I heard people rave about it for two days. The reason why I didn't ask to go was that I have been to an Navcon Conference before and also to TENZ conference earlier this year. Let someone else go. I will however be attending the one in Christchurch between the 8-10 October next year.
Just a comment on the ULearn Conference, it only seems to be in Auckland that people walk out of things before they have finished. I noticed this when I went to a warriors game last year that people walk out when they are losing, this happened also at the end keynote Tony Ryan sitting at the back near the door I noticed lots of people leaving during the keynote. Pity they missed a wonderful and thought provoking keynote speaker.
And I will be going back to school monday and asking why noone from school attended the conference, considering it was in Auckland. We are supposed to a be lead ICT School, and staff didn't attend. I don't think anyone from the ICTPD cluster went. I was lucky that I managed to get in as a presenter and also on someone elses ticket as they couldn't make the ther two days. Though I would like to see Ewans keynote address, I heard people rave about it for two days. The reason why I didn't ask to go was that I have been to an Navcon Conference before and also to TENZ conference earlier this year. Let someone else go. I will however be attending the one in Christchurch between the 8-10 October next year.
Friday, 5 October 2007
ULearn07 Day Three
BreakOut - Renaissance - Not Change - Jeremy Kedian, University of Waikato
We are at the beginning,
Final Outcome, how will we know that the education system has succeeded?
Caring, capable, articulate, reflective, contributing, gracious citizens, answer from Year 8 Students.
Secondary school format, certain number of teaching spaces, certain number of teachers(specialist), certain number of students, certain number of curriculum areas. Subject packages. You get a monster thing of a tyrant of a timetable.
Core function of a school is learning.
What influences Learning?
Social (40%)
Personal(40%)
School (20%)
13% of a students year is spent at school, taking in the hours each day.
Thinking Thursday, David Hargresly?
iNET organsation...
project must be at leat 6 months...
I will be honest, I fell asleep, too much drinking and a late night at the conference dinner last night.
Though I did wake up when he started talking about how teachers teach, and how teachers learn, there is a link between them
End Note Tony Ryan
We are at the beginning,
Final Outcome, how will we know that the education system has succeeded?
Caring, capable, articulate, reflective, contributing, gracious citizens, answer from Year 8 Students.
Secondary school format, certain number of teaching spaces, certain number of teachers(specialist), certain number of students, certain number of curriculum areas. Subject packages. You get a monster thing of a tyrant of a timetable.
Core function of a school is learning.
What influences Learning?
Social (40%)
Personal(40%)
School (20%)
13% of a students year is spent at school, taking in the hours each day.
Thinking Thursday, David Hargresly?
iNET organsation...
project must be at leat 6 months...
I will be honest, I fell asleep, too much drinking and a late night at the conference dinner last night.
Though I did wake up when he started talking about how teachers teach, and how teachers learn, there is a link between them
End Note Tony Ryan
Excuse spelling and grammar etc…live blogging this as I go….My notes…
Inspiring Classrooms
Saying exact words - for this stage of the conference you’re looking sensational
What is a “Keynote”?
SOngline - series of songs and chants from Aboriginal culture? What is our global songline in education?.. Pathway to be inspiring in classrooms.
“Exercise your Goosebumps” in terms of inspiring our classrooms
What will I implement from this conference?
What 3 main comcepts/processes/ideas are you most likely to take further?
Will they measurably enhance your students’ learning?
Will they support your present great practises?
Can you pay respect to your Self while implementing them?
How to I put it into practise?
What could you do?
what will you do?
How and when will you do this?
HOw will you maintain??
Other follow up options
De-brief by next Wednesday - go back to my blogs and write a reflection of the conference and what I have got from it.
Build the conference material into your professional dialogue
Find a life coach - find someone who can challenge me to be the best I can be!!!
How can I stay inspired throughout this ongoing learning
Systems and schools; Classrooms; YOU
What is inspriation/: Enthusiasm, passion, purpose, spirit
Systems and Schools
Practise ‘abandonment’ - drop things that aren’t working
Understand that you ARE the system - one teacher can change to whole school for the positive or negative - we all count
Develop sustainable practises -
Create Green Light environments - red light vs green light thinking - I can do environments
Classroom
Promote intellectual rigour
Encourage IBL
Be EXPLICIT - tick off the learning for the lesson with the kids
Help students to create solutions
Personally, locally and globally
Students Against Landmines, Schoolaid, global ideas bank
Own Inspiration
Second life, Third life, Fourth life
Who do you know who is truly inspiring?
Why is that person so inspiring?
What’s your score for ATTITUDE?
Maintain high energy levels
It’s not hard work
Fuel body so works as good as possible
Focus on the positive and meditative practises
Having depth, substance in life - give everything to life
Is it possible to be inspiring most (all) of the time?
Put a pen between your teeth and move your lips away from the pen so that they aren’t touching.
Young monk approaches the wise old monk…why do we have bto be celibate?,,,,two days later….It says celebrate……
Tell people the good things in life and education.
Be a mexican sky dancer…..
“Be the change you wish to see in the world”…Ghandi
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Classmate PC
Maybe the future of computing in education,
http://www.classmatepc.com/index.html
The Intel Classmate
- Designed for education
- Durable rugged design for children's day-to-day use
- Small, kid friendly, form factor for classroom use
- Easy to carry and light-weight
- Education-specific features
- Integrated software and hardware solution
- Learning through fun, collaboration and interaction
- Easy to deploy
- IA-based, runs on already available content, applications and operating systems with full compatibility to standard PC ecosystem
ULearn07 Day Two
Right I am off with my swapped ticket to the conference, it should be interesting to see what breakouts I am registered for because they were done by someone else. Time for some different thinking.
First off an interesting presentation by Helen, Keynote speakers, using mind mapping software to present her presentation. Although there was nothing really new in it, it was a different way of presenting.
Next is a breakout for Space supporting Pedagogy.
factors that impact on teaching and learning, design features, trends, space, start with the students, not the building.
Students want to work with each other, online, in their time, in their place, doing things that matter, and to work with technology.
Learning styles, speed of change in the world, curriculum developments, changes to technology.
demand to cater for large number of learning modalities. Mostly design for lecture style and some individual.
Now we need to look at team collaboration, project based learning, story telling, independent study, peer tutoring.
Current spaces in classes/Boxes prevent sharing of best practice.
struggle to accommodate a range of learning configurations
cannot support different sized learning
not support efficient use of eLearning resources
Promote isolation, not collaboration.
Design features for the 21st century.
Space of the future
Flexible, visible, linked, cane be combined, display for traditional and digital work, real work spaces.
Learning Studios rather than classroom.
Mobile technology
Fat L Classroom, provides more opportunities, rearragne the classroom in such a way that you can provide individual learning opportunities.
Learning Street, maximise the use of space.
Pods/connections/vistas
Furniture - flexible,
Mobile Technology
Sustainability
"The future doesn't exist, we create it"
Question to ask the principal...
What is in the school 5 year property plan, how does our department fit into this?
Ten Trends for 2007 Derek Wenmoth
http://home.core-ed.net/features/core-education-top-ten-trends-for-2007
2. The role of ICTs in personalising learning
3. Focus on technical interoperability
4. The rise of ICTs in Early Childhood
5. ePortfolios – fad or future-focused?
6. The challenge of Cyber-bullying
7. The challenge of social networking software and informal learning
8. Educational use of Online Games and Simulations
9. Developing 21st Century Skills
10. Alternative approaches to managing and maintaining ICT systems
Networks and Infrastructure
The different levels of IT infrastructure
Application Level
IP Level, (Internet)
Transfer Level
Cable Level
Trunking Level
Regional Loops (MUSH) - North Shore, Nelson
Advanced Networks, there is only one connection to the world advanced networks
Personalising learning
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/personalisedlearning/
www.futurelab.org.uk/research/personalisation.htm
Interoperability
Learning Management System
Library System
Student Management System
These need to coexist.
Content versus Presentation
exelearning (open source product) , see previous blog
you need to have a SCORM/IMS to be able to use some features. blackboard, moodle, interact
ICT in ECE
Early Childhood centres using ICT
ECE ICT Strategy
Digital Stories - Manaia Kindergarten Blog
Iris and the Microscope - photo story of a 15 month using a digital microscope
ePortfolios – fad or future-focused?
mahara Puts ePortfolio Owners in Contol
www.cjlt.ca/content/vol31.3/tosh.html
where does all the stuff you create get developed, these are now no longer created on written pages, it is moving towards a digital nature.
Storage repository, search able, tagged, private
http://electronicportfolios.org
The challenge of Cyber-bullying
www.cbc.ca/news/background/bullying/cyber_bullying.html
The challenge of social networking software and informal learning
Struggling to stay focussed with this speaker, keeps going down tangents....
Educational use of Online Games and Simulations
missionmaker (cost)
scratch scratch.mit.edu
Alice Carnegie Mellon university http://www.alice.org/
Developing 21st Century Skills
New curriculum development, inform yourself
Key competencies
Literacy Development - see the core ed page for teh link to teh book, might be good to add to the knowledgenet usergroup.
Alternative approaches to managing and maintaining ICT systems
Keynote Helen Baxter - Renaissance 2.0
First off an interesting presentation by Helen, Keynote speakers, using mind mapping software to present her presentation. Although there was nothing really new in it, it was a different way of presenting.
Next is a breakout for Space supporting Pedagogy.
factors that impact on teaching and learning, design features, trends, space, start with the students, not the building.
Students want to work with each other, online, in their time, in their place, doing things that matter, and to work with technology.
Learning styles, speed of change in the world, curriculum developments, changes to technology.
demand to cater for large number of learning modalities. Mostly design for lecture style and some individual.
Now we need to look at team collaboration, project based learning, story telling, independent study, peer tutoring.
Current spaces in classes/Boxes prevent sharing of best practice.
struggle to accommodate a range of learning configurations
cannot support different sized learning
not support efficient use of eLearning resources
Promote isolation, not collaboration.
Design features for the 21st century.
- Welcoming entry,
- Students Display Space, problems displaying digitial work?
- Home base and Indidivual Storage.
- Science Labs, Arts, etc.
- Music and performace
- Physical Fitness
- Casual eating Areas
- Transparency - Learning should be visible and Celebrated, High levels in visibility in formal and informal areas.
- Interior and Exterior Vistas
- Dispersed Technology, an integral part of our lives,
- Indoor - Outdoor connection
- Furniture - variety suitable for different learning spaces
- Flexible Spaces -
- Campire Spaces, space to learn from experts or story tellers, we need, rasised areas, moveabe seating...
- Waterhole spaces - area for students to gather
- Cave space, spaces for indivisual study, reflection...
- Design for Multiple Intelligences
- Daylight and Solar Energy
- Natural Ventilation
- Full Spectrum Lighting
- Sustainable Elements
- Local Signature
- Connected to Community, way it is to be designed to be a welcoming place...
- Learning Spaces
Space of the future
Flexible, visible, linked, cane be combined, display for traditional and digital work, real work spaces.
Learning Studios rather than classroom.
Mobile technology
- Bringing it all together
Fat L Classroom, provides more opportunities, rearragne the classroom in such a way that you can provide individual learning opportunities.
Learning Street, maximise the use of space.
Pods/connections/vistas
Furniture - flexible,
Mobile Technology
Sustainability
"The future doesn't exist, we create it"
Question to ask the principal...
What is in the school 5 year property plan, how does our department fit into this?
Ten Trends for 2007 Derek Wenmoth
http://home.core-ed.net/features/core-education-top-ten-trends-for-2007
Ten trends to watch for regarding the use of ICTs in the NZ education scene in 2007
1. Focus on networks and infrastructure2. The role of ICTs in personalising learning
3. Focus on technical interoperability
4. The rise of ICTs in Early Childhood
5. ePortfolios – fad or future-focused?
6. The challenge of Cyber-bullying
7. The challenge of social networking software and informal learning
8. Educational use of Online Games and Simulations
9. Developing 21st Century Skills
10. Alternative approaches to managing and maintaining ICT systems
Networks and Infrastructure
The different levels of IT infrastructure
Application Level
IP Level, (Internet)
Transfer Level
Cable Level
Trunking Level
Regional Loops (MUSH) - North Shore, Nelson
Advanced Networks, there is only one connection to the world advanced networks
Personalising learning
www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/personalisedlearning/
www.futurelab.org.uk/research/personalisation.htm
Interoperability
Learning Management System
Library System
Student Management System
These need to coexist.
Content versus Presentation
exelearning (open source product) , see previous blog
you need to have a SCORM/IMS to be able to use some features. blackboard, moodle, interact
ICT in ECE
Early Childhood centres using ICT
ECE ICT Strategy
Digital Stories - Manaia Kindergarten Blog
Iris and the Microscope - photo story of a 15 month using a digital microscope
ePortfolios – fad or future-focused?
mahara Puts ePortfolio Owners in Contol
www.cjlt.ca/content/vol31.3/tosh.html
where does all the stuff you create get developed, these are now no longer created on written pages, it is moving towards a digital nature.
Storage repository, search able, tagged, private
http://electronicportfolios.org
The challenge of Cyber-bullying
www.cbc.ca/news/background/bullying/cyber_bullying.html
The challenge of social networking software and informal learning
Struggling to stay focussed with this speaker, keeps going down tangents....
Educational use of Online Games and Simulations
- Challenge
- Feedback
- Claer Goals
- Exploration/action
- Consequences
- Problem Solving
- Collaboration
missionmaker (cost)
scratch scratch.mit.edu
Alice Carnegie Mellon university http://www.alice.org/
Developing 21st Century Skills
New curriculum development, inform yourself
Key competencies
Literacy Development - see the core ed page for teh link to teh book, might be good to add to the knowledgenet usergroup.
Alternative approaches to managing and maintaining ICT systems
Keynote Helen Baxter - Renaissance 2.0
Learning Pathways - clear pathways and steps so that you can map your own learning. Showed a Mind Meister of her own learning pathway.
Knowledge Mangaement - knowledge walking out in peoples heads…needed to make it available to all (early 90’s).
Provide pathways of potential but not clear cut any more.
Educating New Leonardos
Now is the time to move into the future. Need more creative thinkers…NZ is full of them. History of backyard tinkering - #8 wire tradition.
Coined by NY times journalist - concept of multi disciplinary studies.
NESTA UK - amazing projects coming from it.
Big attitude shift towards life long learning - not just our kids but also for ourselves because we don’t know what we need to now. Need to implant the joy of learning - playful, engaging. Need more auto-didacts (people who go and just learn what they want to learn when they want it).
Western vs Eastern learning philosophies - eastern = learning over earning….continue to learn gives the opportunity to earn over a longer time. Not deliverers but rather facilitators. “What have you learnt today?”
Need to bridge gap of the two generations - Let generation Y teach you.
What will the campuses f the futures look like? Googleplexes – hybrid of work and play.
NZ curriculum shift from what to How style from 2009 – Mary Chamberlain quote – no need for knowledge banks on legs…got computers for that…people got to get used to this!!!
Machines supporting us.
LEARNING 2.0
1. Learn how you learn
2. Core foundations
a. Context is important
b. Avoid early specialism
c. Theoritical, practical, social
3. Provide pathways to open source knowledge
a. Intellectual property is holding back invention and innovation in some areas – should be secondary to public good. Paten law being abused now (?)
4. Life ling learning – develop skills around needs and interests – why do I need to learn this..when will I ever use it? Teach where the knowledge is not what the knowledge is? Einstein had his ph number and address in suit pocket on paper as opposed to in his head
5. More Montessori styles and practises - google founders
6.Physical space and time
Teaching and using the same kind of practises they will be using in their future work environments. Centres for academic excellences being used in the UK – community centres for learning. Schools of ambition and design schools 2.0. Virtual Rome
TEDucation - technology, entertainment, design; ideas worth sharing. TED under 30’s Eva Verte = age 14 came up with a breakthrough in Alzheimers
Cafescribe -online text books. Open Wikis.
Screen generation taking in huge amounts of information being taking on board through the reading of online media.
Able to re-use media over and over - podacasts and blogs able to leave comments in the future.
Careers 2.0
Projects vs jobs - jobs for life not around anymore - even BBC has everyone on temp contracts. Shift of perspective.
Powersearching- how to find information quickly and efficient.
Gaming - is important - training for future careers eg Robot Surgeons. Strategy an teamwork.
Manage knowledge not the process
Self Publishing for $$
How do we educate our leonardos?
You cant but you can instill the right attitudes !!!!
Something Fun!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SO5JY1KKYZo
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
A busy day
Today has been a busy day. Went to the ULearn conference held here in Auckland. I was one of the helpers with a group of students for a breakout. The breakout was KUTE, Kids Using Computers in Education. Five schools were involved in this and the quality of the presentation was fantastic. Much to the students and teachers making this an enjoyable and fantastic learning experience. I was interviewed by Marina View, who do a three days a week live TV Show for their school. I saw students learning gamemaker and using knowledgeNET. Others were using edtech's UltraNet. Microsoft Photo Story and developing a movie of still images. I must say that next year I will try and get some of what my students are doing shown as I think this would be a great way to do some testing. That was only one day and many beers, I now have a ticket to the rest of th e conference due to someone that cannot make it, and a ticket to the conference dinner, score.
ULearn07 Day One
Information from yesterdays keynote
The following is my recording of notes during Steve Maharey and Ewan MacIntosh’s keynotes this morning….will update the links later.
Excuse grammar spelling and general lack of any sense making….these are my notes
RU Blogging this…..davidleeking.com
Steve Maharey - Personalising learning in a digital age How do we make use of the new technology in our schools.
A changing world Maurice Williams - parliament ICT guru. Do you know you will be able to walk into your fridge to be a certain temp in a certain time?
Nano Technology - science of extremely small things. The future of our world. How do we prepare our kids for this? Sir Ken Robertson - genetics, information communication coming together. Science exists for us to have information entirely on hand and in day to day minute to minute.
Our educations aren’t what our kids need to know. Very content based PASSIVE LEARNING - changing to finding the content - access, compile, create, reflect - ACTIVE LEARNING How do you personalise learning? Effective teaching Assessment for learning - form up the learnings, constant feedback
Flexible Curriculum - No need for a prescriptive curriculum, where they are to the outcome , suits the context of the learners
Engaged families - Professional leadership model- not just from principals but from throughout the school
ICT- Is the tool to achieve the last five points. not just adopting it for the sake of learning but using ICT as a tool to be more engaging for the learner. Technological competencies - one of the eight new learning areas for the new curriculum. Use it as everyday practise. Critical about it, why they use it, how they use it rather than just that they can use it. Implications socially, environmentally, mentally. Ethics come into it. Children like to use it. “I know I can do it myself” Networked learning for teachers and students: useful and easy for digital immigrants. Nelson Loop. replicate it nationwide ($$) Assessment for learning - radio stations, sophistication of the kids doing the media. Podcasting/television stations. the APPLICATION of the information as opposed to the regurgitation of the information. ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO LEARN!!! Student management and learning management systems becoming connected. E mentoring - able to pull the distance together. Professional discussions without having to be there.
Trying to find equity of access. BEING DIGITAL IN THE FUTURE
Keynote #1 Ewan MacIntosh Leading Edge
HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY ON AN EVER CHANGING WORLD What is private? WHo am I? Public face - teacher Identity 2.0 - Secret spaces (sms, IM, mobile) Group Spaces - Bebo, Facebook, Tagged, etc Publishing Spaces - LiveJournal, Blogger, Flickr, Performing spaces - second life, world of warcraft, home etc participation space - marches, meeting, markets, event Watching spaces - tv, gigs, theatre, All of these spaces going on in the classroom??
FEAR: Always loathing? As soon as social networking is mentioned, FEAR sets in. Can find out what the kids are doing.
The Bass Player;s Blog
overplaning - teachers who don’t teach ICT set out to plan and follow t through to the end. Happy accidents aren’t allowed to happen. Getting off subject can help with the understanding. Are we allowed to fail???
The Pepsi Challenge
Thin Slicing - Blink Malcolm Gladwell. Going to see technology for a thin amount of time. Will go No or Yes!!
Digital Holiday Makers - Maggie Irving. Moved away from the natives vs immigrants. Holidaymakers can be at any age. People come along and try something new for awhile but then go back to their old styles/
WHY BOTHER? 1991 www released - has education changed since then to reflect the changing technology? 2001 - Blogging and sharing became normal SOMETHING HAS CHANGED SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE Scotland and NZ two of the best places to see the change.
compkid.co.nr - stupid? waste of time? useless? Placed on youtube and near to 841,498 views, 8041 comments, 9102 ratings - PEEr ASSESSMENT Cup stacking - how long do kids spend learning this new phenomena compared to school?
ICT -emerging technologies make the biggest impact.. Emerging practises make the biggest impact - uncertainty, not knowing what they are, role of students, role of teachers.
1. Audience is critical.
2 new blogs every second. Max audience in school is 30 - 19th century classroom. 21st century classroom - 300,000 readers of Ewan’s blog
2. Creativity has to have an audience. Flickr - stories in 5 frames. Lego vignettes. 6 word stories.
3. Differentiate nature of the task and allowing the kids to find their own niche in the task.
4. Authenticate goals: travel journal. blogs get away from officialdom. micro writing - social interaction can help it. 5. It’s not about the technology numeracy scores went up by 2% when they were playing computer games.
four challenges
Media literacy and the role of the teacher - what is my role? Do I believe in it? Knowing when to teach and when to stand back and learn from the kids.
Death by risk aversion - fear of not taking risks. Ban things that don’t understand. Care about the comments the kids are leaving. Inverse relationship between control and understanding.
Spreading the culture - turn the people around me into trainers. use the ideas of colleagues and students “ask the kids”. Learn to deliver the messages without making people afraid.
Make it sustainable - change your game when necessary. don’t become a holiday maker.
Open Source Authoring Software
http://exelearning.org
The eXe project is developing a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. eXe can export content as self-contained web pages or as SCORM 1.2 or IMS Content Packages.
This project has been funded by a grant from the New Zealand Government and led by the University of Auckland, The Auckland University of Technology, and Tairawhiti Polytechnic. It has also been greatly assisted by a global group of participants and contributors.
This could be my new addition to an old project that I found I just could not have the time to keep updating. If it can be run off a flash drive then I don't need dreamweaver on the machine to run it. Mind you one of the things that I am looking at is more online development tools, rather than using dreamweaver all the time. The exe learning environment is simple to use and it can incorporate quiz and other learning tools that knowledgeNET does not have in it.
The old project was to have as much education content on a website to get students used to using it for educational needs, not just play. It just becomes a mess with so many sites in dreamweaver, especially when your profile gets reset. 5 years ago I created a website called h2, only available internally, but it has a hell of a lot of information on it, though it does need some updating and to run on a faster server, its only a Pentium 120 with 32 meg of RAM.
Also looking at installing winXP on one of my servers, the reason for this is to install WAMP5 and then wordpress, why not install it on one of my linux boxes, because it needs PHP 4.2 or greater. Why wordpress you may be asking, the reason for this is so that the house leaders can run the whole house website next year. It was only a proof of concept this year and it worked like a charm, although updating four house websites does take up to 50 minutes each time I make changes, have been using dreamweaver. Though I do need to look at using some extra plugin's on the site to be able to host a gallery, as well as get some site stats.
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