Courtesy of Google’s April 1 Offerings
Old Amherstburg – Google Maps “Quest” – Just in time for the 1812 Celebrations
Multi-Multi-Tasking with Google Chrome
Day: April 1, 2012
#edcampWR
Today was edcampWR. As promised, it was a terrific day for learning and to meet new people. In the new people department, I had the opportunity to meet face to face with the likes of @erinpaynter, @Stephen_Hurley, @max_cooke, @DavidSpencer, @Michelle_Horst. Add that to the multitude of people that I already knew and it was a great day for conversations.
At lunch, @Gill_Ville, at my request, did a quick poll of the group and I swear that everyone put up their hand in response to the question “How many of you have a Twitter account?” Let’s hope that those in attendance work at continuing the conversations. The day was just ripe to create an immediate PLN.
For me, I walked away so inspired. I attended a number of sessions.
Gaming in the Classroom
We had a good discussion that results in this list of applications that people identified as using in their classrooms.
- Halo
- Minecraft
- Pioneer Land
- First person shooter games
- Scratch / Alice
- Smurf Village
- Find the Animals / Talking / Pocket Pond
- Crisis
- Call of Duty
- Words / Scramble / Hanging with Friends
- Draw Something
- Angry Birds
- Must
- Webkins
- Lego Mindstorms
- Civilisations
It was interesting to hear how people described how they were using the games and what they saw in each. I couldn’t help but think of the oldie classic – http://www.hammurabigame.com/hammurabi-game.php
Challenges in the Classroom
- What to do when you don’t have enough school technology – BYOD
- What do you do when not all students have their device
The Gill_Villeans
When there are students involved, they steal the show and today was no different. The Gill_Villeans had spent yesterday practicing for today and now it was time for them to go live and show their stuff. Some of the were a little shy but it was worth the time to go around to each of the stations and see what they were demonstrating. They did a terrific job and I hope that they left satisfied with the loud round of appreciation given to them at lunch.
Solving the Problems of the Province
After lunch, it was time for a little impromptu meeting. We had some interesting planning about how to raise the importance and visibility of technology in the Ontario educational system. I’m hoping to see some things fall out of this.
As I was sitting in the gymnasium, I noticed that there were a couple of empty slots ont he bulleting board and I decided to take a chance and get a session on a topic that I’ve always wondered about. With @aforgrave and @Stephen_Hurley in the crowd, it made sense to ask if they’d talk about their ds106 experiences. I grabbed Andy who immediately started working on a presentation! Despite ds106 being blocked by the board firewall, he figured that he could still do the job by tethering his telephone. This lead to the final session…
DS106
- Digital storytelling 106 course University of Mary Washington
- Streaming radio station to stream audio from course
- Auto DJ plays uploaded files but you can interrupt at any time to broadcast your own show
- Fstream application to listen to the station in your portable
- To broadcast from your phone use Papaya
- People go online and create to broadcast their content
- Linphone allows multiple people to have an online conference call via 1-800 number
- There is a Protocol over who gets access to the service
- Discussion surrounding copyright issues and creative commons
That really was the icing on the cake. And, speaking of icing, there was cake!
And, a bonus picture – who’s the guy behind the classic iPad photo?
If you don’t know, you’ve got to be new to Ontario ITC Education.
OTR Links 04/01/2012
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Amidst a Mobile Revolution in Schools, Will Old Teaching Tactics Work? | MindShift
Just a few years ago, the idea of using a mobile phone as a legitimate learning tool in school seemed far-fetched, if not downright blasphemous. Kids were either prohibited from bringing their phones to school, or at the very least told to shut it off during school hours.
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51% of households in the US own something made by Apple | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog
According to a new survey put together by CNET, over half of all households in America now contain something made by our favorite company in Cupertino.
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fruux | Contacts. Calendars. Tasks – Always in sync.
Contacts. Calendars. Tasks.
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All you need to know about Canada’s penny withdrawal – Canada – CBC News
The government announced in the budget that it is eliminating the penny from Canada’s coinage system. In about six months the Royal Canadian Mint will stop distributing Canadian coppers
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Cult of Mac has a great write-up of an app for iOS called Girls Around Me, which essentially displays the public check-ins and profiles of girls around you. With a little shift in context it could easily be confused for a hot new startup (discoverability meets speed dating!), but no, it really is just a way for guys to creep on nearby girls who have failed to lock down their info.
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Educator Suspended When She Refused to Show Her Facebook Profile
A former teacher’s aide in Michigan says she’s been fired after refusing to give her Facebook password to her supervisors.
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Top Five Best Smartphone Mobile Apps for Students | Creativeoverflow
When beginning or returning to college, many individuals face the startling reality that they are solely responsible for staying organized and prepared for their classes. For college students who aren’t too keen on the idea of falling behind due to lack of organization, there’s always the availability of student-specific smartphone apps to stay on top of items and facilitate better academic performance. If you’re a student who wants to enhance your learning environment, consider the following top five smartphone apps to help you make a more effective transition and stay focused until graduation
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Alternatives to Moodle | Mindflash
Moodle has emerged as one of the most visible brands for creating and managing e-learning content online. As one of the few packages built on open-source software, it also enjoys a certain cachet among the digerati.
But as with all open-source software, there are trade-offs to using Moodle — the main one being the amount of programming work required to adapt it to your needs and maintain it over time. Every time you want to add a new feature to your lesson, you add that much more complexity and need for programmers. For small organizations, this alone can make Moodle cost-prohibitive.
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HTML5 Resources for the Learning Community | onehundredfortywords
This page is intended to help professionals in the learning design and development community make sense out of the HTML5 craziness. It is maintained on a regular basis.
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Microsoft quietly teams with Apple in backing OpenStreetMap | Electronista
Some extra sleuthing has confirmed that OpenStreetMap is getting more support from major companies than Apple. Microsoft not only hired OpenStreetMap’s founder Steve Coast as its main designer for Bing Mobile but has been in a two-way supply of content deal. Bing provides some map data for the project but also draws on OpenStreetMap to fill out its map content.
doug --- off the record 
