Monthly Archives: April 2011

Apr 12 2011

OTR Links for 04/12/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apr 11 2011

The True Power of a PLN

We talk about Personal Learning Networks all over the place.  They’re groupings that help us learn together.  I learned this morning that they can also help cover your butt.

This wasn’t supposed to be the post for this morning.  I had another already cued up and go to go for auto-posting at 5am.  It wasn’t a serious post; just one of those goofy things that I put together last night while watching The Apprentice.  Because it wasn’t serious, I relied on one sole source.

Well, it turns out that source wasn’t credible.  Thankfully, my friend @aforgrave read it and did spend some time poking around and let me know about the link.  Consequently, I’ve pulled the post.

Thanks, Andy.  I owe you.

Apr 11 2011

OTR Links for 04/11/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apr 10 2011

New Ways to Read Blogger

When I posted earlier about how WordPress now presents a very attractive front end for users visiting with iPads, I had a couple of comments from people who lamented choosing to use Blogger as a blogging platform.  They were taken with the innovation that was shown in WordPress blogs.

Never fear … Google provides its own bit of innovation to spice up the viewing of Blogger blogs.  In fact, there are five new ways to see these blogs on your screen.  I’ve taken pictures of my favourite Blogger blog and shown them below.  The blog?  Paul Cornies’ Quoteflections Blog.  It’s a great blog, filed under Alltop’s “Good” Category and I can’t recommend highly enough that it’s worth a daily visit.  Paul has the blogging habit and there’s something different every day.

Now, with the new functionality from Blogger, you can enjoy his works in five different ways.

TimeSlide – http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/view/timeslide

Snapshot – http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/view/snapshot

Sidebar – http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/view/sidebar

Mosaic – http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/view/mosaic

Flipcard – http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/view/flipcard

The only things that you’re missing via these previews are the animations and great content from Paul’s blog.

You’ll notice that the links to each of the blogs start with the base URL and then add a “/view/” to the end of it.  I would suggest that bloggers decide which of the layouts they think best suits their content and then grab a custom bit.ly or moourl.com or other shortener and advertise the link to their blog using that.

What a great addition to the Blogger family!  I wish that WordPress had this.  <grin>

The real winners in this is the visitor to the blogs where a new interesting looking graphical interface awaits.  I like it when competing platforms try to outdo each other.  It makes it so good for the rest of us.

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Apr 10 2011

OTR Links for 04/10/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apr 8 2011

Ontario Edublogs Scooped

When I originally started the concept of putting all of the Ontario Edubloggers together in one spot, I thought that ScoopIt! would be the tool to provide a solution to this task.  The promise and descriptor sounded so good.  ScoopIt! would wander the web and report back to me links that it found.  So, I asked it to find me Ontario Edubloggers, bloggers, education, Ontario, Ontario bloggers, and a bunch of other things.  ScoopIt! returns links to me daily but they’re not what I’m looking for.  I guess Ontario Edubloggers aren’t tagging in the manner that I thought.  It does support a thought that I had that we need to be teaching students how to tag so that their content can be found by others.  Anyway, that’s not the point today.  ScoopIt! does return great stories for me but just not what I was looking for.  So, instead, I created the Ontario EduBlogger LiveBinder instead.  That works out nicely and with the incorporation of the Google Form, I have been adding to the collection as new blogs are created and shared.

I still wanted to do something with ScoopIt! though.  At the same time, I wanted to dig into QR (Quick Response) codes more.  I’ve heard speakers and certainly read from others about how QR Codes are going to revolutionize everything but have seen very few examples that really turn my crank.  I’m not sure this is a crank turner yet but I did create a QR version of the Ontario Edublogger list that is fully accessible by your Smartphone camera with the appropriate software.  I use something called Barcode Scanner and Google Goggles (thanks, @pbeens) on my Android and it works nicely.  If nothing else, you can do a demonstration of the website with your camera for others to show how the concept of QR works.  And, just for the record, the old fashioned mouse clicking on the link works too…

So, here’s the deal.  Go to the website http://www.scoop.it/t/ontario-edublogs or scan here.

chart

Each of the blogs has its own unique QR Code.  Just scan the code for the blog that you want and away you go to read it.  As I was doing this, I was reminded of being with my friend Johanna as students checked out books from her library.  She would flip in her binder to the student’s name to scan their info as she checked their books out.

I must admit that it took a bit of time to put this together.  However, those that know me know that I can be a little obsessive and compulsive and so I did stick to it until I was complete.  Here are the steps in case you ever want to do something like this.

0) Install the QR-Code tag for Google Chrome and open the Original LiveBinder.  Create a new ScoopIt! page.

1) Click on a link to open it in the LiveBinder and then right click to open the original blog.

2) Click the QR-Code tag to generate the QR-Code in a new window.  Save the code to your hard drive.

3) Go back and copy the URL to the blog.

4) In ScoopIt!, create a new post.

5) Paste the URL into the appropriate field.  ScoopIt! is neat now as it visits the URL and harvests info about the blog including an image to identify the blog.

6) Override the image that ScoopIt! provided above and upload the QR-Code in its place.

editor

7) Save the entry.

8) Repeat a ga-zillion times.  It was only after creating about 5 of these that the concept of ga-zillion kicked in but I really liked the look and so decided that it was worth continuing.

9) Test the images to make sure that you haven’t missed one and that they all go to the desired resource.  If there are people watching while you’re doing this, be prepared for all kinds of comments as you hold your Smartphone up to the screen.

Eventually, you hit ga-zillion and you’re done.

So, the ScoopIt! page is now created and I can use it (and you can too) should the time and place be necessary to demonstrate QR codes.

The process wasn’t actually painful.  Putting together the original LiveBinder took longer and it served nicely as source material for this page.  With this page, viewers can subscribe to an RSS feed and even suggest other content to be added.  These suggestions go to the curator (me) and I add them when notified.

So, if you have a Smartphone, give it a shot.  Any suggestions or corrections should be sent to the curator!

Apr 8 2011

OTR Links for 04/08/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apr 7 2011

Having it All

If there was a big world event happening, what would you do to bring that resource into your classroom?

  • probably search for that term on Google or some other search engine?  Check.
  • read a blog or two on the topic?  Check.
  • check out Twitter to see what’s happening in real time?  Check.
  • check out Facebook to see what your friends are saying?  Check.

What if you were able to do all of this in one spot?  You can with IceRocket.

Touted as a real-time search engine, IceRocket brings all of the above together in one spot.  (and more…)

Head over to the site and type a search term and check out the results.  They will look familiar.  There’s the title of the article, a descriptor, the link to the article of course, but look at the other content.  There’s a link to indicate authority or credibility of the resource by identifying the author.  That’s nice.  But, even more powerfully, you’ll see a calendar reference for the links.  Because the focus of this resource is “real-time”, it’s important to get a date stamp on the results and they’re up front.

So, from a single point of search, head off to look for blogs, the web, Twitter, … or for them all in one spot, opt for the “Big Buzz”.

Like any good search engine, IceRocket features advanced search.  Each area whether it be blog or web or whatever has a custom set of items that can be set for each search.  One of the tips of internet presence is to look for incoming links.  So, ego pops up when I do a search under Web for link:dougpete.wordpress.com to see what web sites have links to my blog.  It was particularly interesting to try that search under blogs to see just what blogs link here.  I guess people actually do read this thing.

So, give IceRocket a shot.  It may not become your daily use search engine but when you’re looking for an easily customizable approach to searching, its design may well yield answers quicker and more relevantly than any other.

 

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Apr 7 2011

OTR Links for 04/07/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Apr 5 2011

Getting it Right … Financially

One of the best inspirational things that I do for myself is subscribe to The Daily Papert.  In this mailing list, I get a daily bit of inspiration from one of the greatest minds  in educational technology as curated by Gary Stager.  Every day, there’s a quotation related to education and usually with a technology overture.  I would encourage you to enter your email address for a daily shot of inspiration yourself.

I don’t think that there are too many naysayers about the use of technology in education these days.  But, for all of the enthusiasts and for those remaining naysayers, the conversation almost inevitably turns to money and how we can’t afford the technology.  For years, we’ve tinkered and tried pilot projects (how many times do we have to prove that technology can motivate students?)  We’ve talked about Maine and other 1:1 projects and lusted after the opportunity to replicate but it always comes back to money.  In Monday’s Daily Papert, it was addressed.

From The Daily Papert, April 4, 2011

Now, what’s really interesting is that the prices in Mr. Papert’s quotations are from 1983.  It isn’t a huge leap to imagine what the dollar figures are today, almost 30 years later.  Now, we’re not about to sink dollars into Apple II computers, but there are current technologies that would be equivalent in terms of today’s functionalities.

We do have to be financially responsible.  Of that, there is no question.  That’s why another article that appeared has so much interest.  Ewan McIntosh’s entry “Why the cloud’s important for education: saving $199,995 on one test” will make you stand up and think.  Look at the issues that Mr. McIntosh identifies.  School boards spending all kinds of money providing internal services when there are free and/or better services readily available on the web.  Of real interest to me is that amount reportedly saved on the administration of just one test.  Imagine the possibility of removing all of the administrative costs and paper booklets and all the costs that go into offering these things.

However, a computer is just a computer until you load it up with the necessary software.  In Ontario, we are fortunate to have a program like the OESS which licenses software recommended by OSAPAC for publically funded schools.  We are also lucky to have resources like those provided by eLearning Ontario.  Despite the successes of these programs, they don’t provide all that is required for a well-rounded suite of software for students.  Fortunately, there are other great alternatives.  If we delve into the concept of appropriate FLOSS, the opportunities get better.  If we expand our definition of just what software is, web services can fill the job nicely.

Web services remain an emphasized question.  Some districts have policies that are restrictive while others less so.  These policies are undoubtely created by well meaning internal structures.  However, a thoughtful, structured approach identifying just what is needed would send a set of guidelines to districts throughout the province.  After all, we have an Ontario Curriculum loaded with references.  Getting serious about all of this would enable a suite consistent throughout the province.  And, if a web service proves to be not needed on a particular date, the provincially licensed Net Support School software lets the teacher turn it off at the class level.

In this link, I would encourage you to add your favourite software (however you elect to define it).  I’ll collate all of the responses and report back in a later post.

Are we ready for more pilots and more tinkering or is it time to get at it?  If we take the finances out of the discussion, does it make a difference?