links for 2008-11-14

• by xtranormal
  If you can type, you can make movies. Text-to-Movie
  (tags: web2.0 xtranormal work web videos tools tool video)
• Visual Bookmarks
  Ever wanted to have all your favourite internet sites just one click away and displayed with cool images on your own personal webpage?
  (tags: bookmarks storage reference sharing)
• Type is Art : An Interactive Exploration of the Typographic Form
  Type is Art allos for experimentation of forms beyond the typical character set
  (tags: web typography typo type tipografia reference language interesting generator interactive)
• 10 Mistakes That Could Be Killing Your Blog | Write to Done
  Today, I’ll walk you through some common mistakes many blogs make that turn off new readers (and even regular readers oftentimes) … mistakes that could be killing your blog.
  (tags: web2.0 writting tips reference read online mistakes freelance writing design blog)
• Slandr Mobile Twitter | Login!
  m.slandr.net utilizes the Twitter API to the fullest to bring you a complete mobile Twitter service.
  (tags: webtool twitter tool web webapp webapplication webservice microblogging)

After ECOO

Well, it’s Friday night after the ECOO Conference and the shouting is all over. Had a nice supper with my wife, The Boy, and Deb Barrows. Nice chatting and now it’s back to the hotel room and time for a little reflection.

In general, I really liked the new location. The exhibit hall seems like an exhibit hall. It’s nice and big and you get a chance to see the vendor displays in a presentation mode and not squeezed into hallways. I saw a couple of interesting things in the exhibit hall to follow up when the dust settles and I get a chance. Really noticeably missing are the big hardware providers. It would have been nice to see the latest and greatest from Apple, Dell, IBM, or any of the other big vendors. It was good to see HP on display there and Recycled Computers. I’ve got to give credit to the software companies that have already provincially licensed their wares but want to support Ontario teachers and so are there.

The OSAPAC booth is always a centre for folks to collect and chat. Their knowledge of the OESS process range from former members, to people who actively use OESS software, to people who had no idea that the Ontario Ministry of Education licenses great software for all publically funded Ontario schools and most titles have Teacher takehome for lesson prep licensing. Even worse are the folks that don’t know about the OSAPAC Learning Object Repository.  So, it’s important that OSAPAC maintains a presence at this event.

Mitch Resnick finished the day with incredible eloquence.  He’s not ramming his opinions down your throat; he makes reference to Piaget and Papert but then gives practical examples of what it looks like.  No forcing the message; just the pleasant art of getting you onside by example.  It made me feel good as a Computer Science teacher as he relates the success stories of students using Scratch.  There is a special feeling that only a CS teacher has when your students finally “get it”.  Resnick would see all students enjoying that success.  You can’t argue with it.

I spent some time with Hall Davidson in his sessions today.  He was classic Hall and shared lots of interesting things about his work with Google today.  It was one of those sessions where you know 90% of the content but you enjoy the review and especially appreciate learning about the other 10%

I had the opportunity to co-present with DW about “Freshly Minted Software 2008″ and to share with the group the newest of the titles licensed by the Ministry.  We squeezed our full-day session into the obligatory 60 minutes and then chopped out things on the fly.  I felt bad for the audience as we were right next to a portable wall with someone playing student work and it went right through the walls.

I was disappointed in the lack of wireless internet access.  I’ve become accustomed to using Coveritlive to live blog sessions that I attend.  I even got a dig from TheCleverSheep today about my lack of blogging.  My apologies.  I did take paper notes, if that helps!

The true litmus of a conference is always watching to see if there is a change in practice as something new comes to mind.  I’ve got a few things that I want to try out and see if they work.  I also got some great ideas but I know that I can’t use them with our students because of content filtering.  The educational world needs to find a suitable compromise with YouTube because there are so many opportunties that are blocked from so many schools.  We need to find a way to use the good stuff.

It’s the last ECOO for now hosted by NM.  She went way out on a limb in her innovations to the conference format.  Big kudos have to be given for taking on this task.

I’m exhausted.  I throw everything that I can mentally into these things, soaking up new learning, and spinning on how to make old experiences more exciting.  I’m now worried because Hall pointed out that we have extra brain cycles available during existing thoughts.  I do think that I’m starting to use them.  Hope they make those who I touch as excited as I am with these things.

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