Monthly Archives: June 2011

Jun 11 2011

OTR Links for 06/11/2011

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

Jun 10 2011

Yeah, I’ll Get Right on That

Dear Subscriber,

TERMINATION OF YOUR e-mail ACCOUNT

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Jun 10 2011

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

Ontario Edubloggers produce some of the best content on the web.  This week was no exception with some riveting posts by this awesome group.  I’ve tucked some away to share today.

From Consultants and SATs
Puppet Pals, plastecene, and photos were the inspiration to create some bug stories is Techieang’s class.  Read about the process on her regular blog

and then head over to her Posterous blog to see the results.

From K-12 Teachers
It’s impressive that, with end of the year activities, hot weather, EQAO, and report cards that K-12 teachers keep momentum in their blogs.  Heather Durnin‘s class’ collaborative project came a conclusion as they published their final project.  It’s such an interesting read and hopefully inspiration for others.

From Principals, VPs, and Administrators
Shannon Smith asks the question that so many schools are afraid to ask “How Stale is Your Digital Presence” in a recent entry that she entitled “The Millenials are Googling Us”.  I took her quiz and scored an 84 in the How Millennial Are You?  Interesting questions and I could have been higher had I some piercings and a tattoo but alas, not.

It is worth a read and a ponder.  How relevant is your school?  What can you do to reach out to be more inclusive.  I’m thinking as I read it – it would be interesting to pull in a group of students and teachers to go through and evaluate the school’s digital footprint for the last school year.  What were your highlights?  Where do you need improvement?  Does your digital presence even have an impact on the school population?  Hmmmm.  I think I’ve already roughed out a blog post here – thanks, Shannon.  Even our generation gives you a leg up on piercings but I need to see your tattoo sometime.

From Trustees and Higher Education
Alana Callan recently attended a conference for colleges in Sarnia recently focussed on Advanced Learning Concepts.  Michael Wesch was a keynote speaker – he seems to be making a sweep through Ontario recently as I heard him at the OSLA Conference.  In her posting, Alana shares her reflections about the conference.  Very interesting.  Interestingly, I was in Sarnia at the same time but never realized that there might have been a connection opportunity at the time.

She does make reference to some awesome works from Wesch including “The Machine is Us/ing Us”.  I remember using that video to introduce Will Richardson at the Western Regional Computer Advisory’s Symposium a few years ago.  The message from the video is just as important today as it was then.  The blog post is very comprehensive and includes a number of excellent links to terrific content.

Once again, there were terrific things shared by Ontario Edubloggers.  You can check them all out at the Livebinder or Scoop.it sites.  And, if you’re an Ontario Edublogger and want to be added to the list, please fill out the form at the Livebinder site.

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Jun 10 2011

OTR Links for 06/10/2011

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

Jun 9 2011

Google Chrome 12 Out

It may well be that you didn’t even know it but you Google Chrome just updated itself to version 12.  Google has promised more frequent updates and they’re being good to their word so far.

You can read all about the new release and some of the new features here.  You can’t complain about the new features!  I really like the concept of enhanced malware checking.  I’d really like to know how they do it without them tracking the sites that you’re visiting.  Anyway, it’s good reading and we’re the beneficiaries of the new upgrades.  Undoubtedly, other browsers will be pushed to keep up.

There are still three things that nag me constantly.

1)    The Flash player has difficulties with some objects.  If you scroll up and down while the objects are visible on the screen, you notice a white band across the content.

2)    Some objects float.  Where I really notice this is occasionally when I go to bookmark a website using Diigo, the bookmark window will appear but often hides behind objects embedded on the webpage.

3)   This problem actually appears on the local newspaper, WindsorStar which is part of the Canada.com network.  Every now and again when text is in the same location as an image in a news column, the first couple of paragraphs are not readable.  It’s like the picture sits on top of the text.

When I run into the above issues and they become annoying, I’ll use another browser (typically Firefox or Opera) both of which render the results perfectly.  I’ve been tempted to switch browsers but I really like the way that Chrome typically handles Flash and PDF files.

I’ve reported these issues and hope that they’re fixed in a future release.  I’ve checked with a couple of Google Chrome users and they report the same issues.  If you’re reading this and know of a fix just with settings, I’d appreciate knowing. 

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Jun 9 2011

OTR Links for 06/09/2011

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

Jun 8 2011

A Well Connected Classroom

“You can see a lot just by looking” This quote, attributed to Yogi Berra is one that I think that I’ve used in virtually every interview that I’ve had.  I firmly believe that there is so much to see in any situation if you take the chance to look.  I had yet another chance to do that at Ryerson Public School yesterday.

I met @Gill_Ville last summer at the OTF Wikis and Web 2.0 institute in Hamilton.  She was there to learn like so many and took away a great deal.  At the CATC Camp later that summer, she was a clear leader within the cadre of Waterloo Region educators and was sharing her thoughts and ideas with her colleagues.  It’s quite one thing to share ideas but it’s a completely different game to actually put it into action.  I got to see the fruits of her actions yesterday during my visit.

Ryerson Public School is a new rebuild of an existing school and I had been bugging my friend @Ron_Mill for a tour ever since he had told me about the new facilities.  I’ve had a keen interest in learning spaces and how technology fits for some time now.  I’ve worked with a couple of superintendents with new school construction and school boundary design in the past.  I have a total respect for urban planners and architects as a result.  While new thoughts about learning spaces can certainly be build into legacy buildings, new designs can have the ability to make it non-negotiable, particularly with the proper leadership within the building.

So, off I went to see what this was all about and to hopefully do some brainstorming with Kim about what she’s done.  Essentially, I was there to steal ideas!  I typed the address to the school incorrectly into my GPS and headed east.  When I arrived in Cambridge, I was only off about 500 addresses and as I reached a dead end to turn around and look up the proper address on my phone, I found the school.  Phew!

Ryerson is a K-6 school and there was evidence of that just in the organization of the parking lot, visitor spaces, and student drop off lane.  Upon entry to the school, I reflected upon design.  Unlike the old buildings that so many of us attended, modern architects take great pains to make at least the entry ways open and inviting with natural lighting.  Mandatory, of course, is to have the school office up front to welcome visitors.  I pulled up to the counter – you have to have a counter – and the friendly secretary phoned Kim’s room to let me know that  I was there.

Check out their virtual tour:  http://voicethread.com/share/1412412/

As we headed out to Kim’s room to drop off my backpack, we did pass the library.  Through the class walls, you could hear the message “this is a place to learn” and no “this is a place for books”.  Well weeded, the stacks took second place to the spacious areas and up front a computer lab with iMacs bootable to either a Macintosh or Windows environment.  These students would have the best of both worlds.

Just past the library was Kim’s room.  As with most special education rooms, it is smaller than a regular classroom but there were learning activities everywhere you looked.  There were aides in place, helping students, who were spread throughout the room working on computers, iPads, manipulatives, and reading a book.  As we entered the room, there was also the smell of chocolate chip cookies as the class was also baking for a fund raiser.  I’ve visited a lot of classrooms before and typically everything stops as the “new guy” is checked out either as an intruder to the learning or as a welcome break to the lesson.  Here, I clearly felt like an intruder.  In fact, within the first two minutes, I was elbowed aside as one of the students needed an assist with one of the words to a story.  In great teacher style, Kim didn’t give an answer but provided a couple of alternatives to the student so that she could find a solution by herself.

After dropping off my bag, we took a tour of the school.  You can see evidence of working within funding guidelines.  In order to maximize classroom space, storage is at a premium.  The hallways were friendly and the classrooms were organized by pods with outer learning areas with a couple of computer.  The classrooms themselves were outfitted with SMART Board technology (the school is recognized as a SMART Showcase School) and a Macbook Pro connected.  That was it for computers in the classroom.  Kim indicated that the school had opted for the bookable computer lab and was also part of an iPod project for portable computing.  The entire school had wireless network access so it was a natural.  I pulled out my phone and, sure enough, could see the network but couldn’t attach without credentials but that’s OK – and good.

Charging iPod Touches for projects like this is so important.  There’s nothing worse than a good lesson gone bad because of the lack of a charge.  Your home solution of a charging connection to a computer just doesn’t fit.  Charging bays are the order of the day here to keep things up and running.  The other challenge which Kim indicated is a time consuming challenge is making sure that you have the right applications installed plus dealing with the logistics of the App Store in Canada for purchased products.  Hopefully, this gets resolved so that it’s easy for schools to replicate this.  Quite frankly, I don’t know how many people would put the time and effort into this that Kim did.

After a quick tour and a chance to renew some acquaintances like @NickyTwirp, it was time for the morning nutritional break.  Kim and I took a break from the school and continued our conversation at Starbucks before returning.  Upon return, we would dig deeper into some of the current projects.  With the use of Web 2.0 technologies, the students in the classroom were truly connected to the outer world for parts of their learning.

There was a map outlining the travels of Gill the Goldfish as four of them were shared with classrooms worldwide, travelling and bring back stories from these travels.  The technology that was readily available for student use really facilitated these sorts of projects.  As an adult, I couldn’t help but feel envious for these students.  I never had these opportunities.  They were currently doing research about their community, collecting information about what the various businesses do, websites, email addresses, pictures, etc. and were building an application with the assistance of @ianchia in Australia.  What an opportunity for the students.

There was a real focus on the digital footprint that these students were developing.  Whether it was through their Twitter account, their blog, the iPod Project wiki, or the class wiki, or just the summary of everything, it was quite evident that these students were enjoying the benefits of being so well connected.

Our final event for the day was the trip to the computer lab where the students entered their findings into their blogs for the iPod Community project.  The students hopped on the computers and were off and running while Kim and I interviewed the students individually about their use of the portable technology.  I really like it when students can articulate what it is that they’re doing and more importantly, why they’re doing it.  I experience a student led conversation about the best educational application, their favourite application, and how to work their iPad device.  You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to stay abreast of a lesson on iPad orientation, pinching and swiping as they showed off their skills!

The one area where student and teacher diverge is on their choice of device.  When I asked, to a student, they preferred the iPad mostly because it is easier to read.  (I got a dizzying lesson about how to pinch and zoom on an iPod Touch).  The teacher perspective recognized the reality of costs and would prefer to have the numbers that an affordable iPod Touch would provide.

Whew!  It was a light speed visit.  It almost took as long to write this post as I had to enjoy my four hour visit to Ryerson.  At the end, my head was just exploding but it was a good exploding.  You really can learn so much from students who know their stuff and are willing to demonstrate it.  It was a thoroughly enjoying visit – I could have used a nap at the end but that wasn’t about to happen.  With all of the connections, these students were engaged and motivated so nicely.  What a great environment for them to enjoy.

Jun 8 2011

OTR Links for 06/08/2011

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

Jun 7 2011

The Rest of the Story

What is Twitter about?  You send messages; you read messages; you retweet messages.  Pretty much it, right?  Using most Twitter clients or the web interface gives you great access to this.  But, there is so much more.  Someone might make your message a favourite.  Or, you might pick up a new user.  You might get added to a list or removed from a list.  The list goes on.

Until now, you may not be able to find this information explicitly.  Your client might support that sort of information.  I know that Seesmic Desktop does.  You just activate the “Activities” column and you get a chance to find out the rest of what’s going on with and around your account.

Recently, Twitter made many of these items discoverable from their web interface.  The implementation is that you’ll get an email message whenever something happens.  This is a quick and immediate jog if you need that sort of information.  Here’s how you can do it.  (or how to turn it off)

Log into your Twitter account on the web.  Click on the pulldown menu under your name in the top right corner of the screen and select Settings.  You’ll get a chance to configure many things about your account.  In this case, you want the Notifications tab.  Now, you can pick and choose what sorts of activities that you want an email notification for.

It may seem like overkill and there have been complainers about this but there are legitimate times that you’ll want these.  You may be in a position where you have email access but no Twitter access.  You’ll find out immediately what’s going on around you.  Or, like me, you may wish to know where you get a new follower.  I like to check them out and, if they’re an educator or somehow else interests me, I’ll follow them back.  If it’s a spammer, you may want to immediately block them from your account and report them to Twitter.

There are a myriad of good reasons to select any of the above.  The only caveat is that each action generates an email message to you.  If you’re very active, the message flow may be too much to handle.  It’s really no problem; just go back and uncheck that activity.

For my personal needs, I do want the email when I get a new follower.  At this time, I’m going to opt out of the rest and just continue to use Seesmic Desktop’s Activity column for the others.  What you choose to do is obviously completely up to you.  But, it’s a nice feature to know that you can use.

By the way, while you’re at your configuration screen, you might want to check out the Applications tab.  There, you’ll find all of the websites and applications that you’ve authorized to use your Twitter account.  You might find a few that you no longer need and wish to revoke access to.

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Jun 7 2011

OTR Links for 06/07/2011

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