Bright ideas

RMIT’s School of Media and Communication recently hosted a talk by Dr. danah boyd, an influential researcher into the way young people make use of social media and technology. The talk, which is available for download,  was a fascinating insight into danah’s work with young people. danah explored the ways teens make use of social media and their attitudes to privacy in what are essentially public spaces.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of danah’s talk was the concept of teens ‘hiding in plain sight’. Teens used to socialise at shopping centres and malls, but now much of their socialising and ‘social grooming’ happens online. To many teens sharing is an important aspect of staying connected with their friends and danah’s interviews expose the very different attitudes that teens can have to privacy.

Interestingly, danah has found that although teenagers may share publicly on sites such as Facebook, this doesn’t always mean they expect this information to be viewed or commented on by everyone (particularly their parents or teachers). Several of danah’s interview subjects revealed ingenious ways of using both structural tricks or codes to protect their privacy whilst still sharing with their friends.  If we think back to our own childhoods, many of us probably used similar tricks to communicate with our friends when older people were around. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

To find out more about danah’s work (including the reason for her lower case name) visit her website, or follow her blog. In a time where the media often resort to scaremongering when exploring how young people use social media, danah’s research provides some balance to this very important discussion.

It’s always great to show students online bibliography generators when they’re starting research projects at the start of the year. They’re a quick, easy way to record resources as you go and encourage good research practice.

Here are a few generators to help students start the new year on the right foot.

Harvard generator

This site is one of the few bibliography generators that gives you the option of Harvard/Author-date formatting, a system commonly used in schools. Tabs across the top of the page let you choose either print or electronic as the source type.

Harvard generator doesn’t however export references or allow you to save your list so you need to fill in the details and then copy and paste the formatted references into another document.

BibMe

This well known website quickly and easily creates reference lists in MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian styles. It also lets you search for books and other sources by title, author etc., retrieving catalogue records and using them to auto-generate references for you.

By creating a personal login you can also save your bibliographies online and export them as Rich Text Files (.rtf).

EasyBib

EasyBib allows you to create bibliographies using the MLA system free of charge and like BibMe, uses existing online catalogues to retrieve source information.

You can save your bibliographies by signing up using a Google, Yahoo or even Facebook account and can export your bibliography as a Word document or Google doc.

Zotero

Zotero isn’t strictly a bibliography generator – it’s a complete online referencing system. It lets you store, catalogue, annotate, file and tag references to name just a few of the things it can do.

References can be drawn from Amazon and library catalogues etc. and you can export bibliographies in a broad range of styles and document types. You do however, have to use Zotero in the web browser, Firefox.

By creating a login, you can access your research at any computer with access to the web. Signing up also lets you connect with a community of people using Zotero and share research.

Zotero is a powerful tool and probably only worth introducing to older students or even having a look at whether it would suit your own research.

Some note taking applications like Evernote are now powerful enough to be used in a similar way to Zotero. It’s worth thinking about how some of  these tools can empower educators and students to become more effective researchers.

The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory has piloted a number of projects looking at how their collections are accessed online. One of the most interesting is the Shelflife/LibraryCloud project.

LibraryCloud  aggregates collection and usage metadata from a number of different libraries and feed them into Shelflife, a sample front end for how this kind of information might be viewed and used by library patrons.

Main features of the interface include:

• use of the visual metaphor of a book shelf (Stackview) to help people browse popular titles trending at libraries across America
• all books appear in context and have their own page with recommendations and tags

At this stage Shelflife is a testing environment which is best introduced by taking the online tutorial, although you can also explore the site independently.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international community of experts on technology in education who produce an annual report known as The Horizon Report.

Horizon reports highlight key trends in technology and education for the year to come, with an emphasis on innovation and adoption of new devices into schools and higher education.

In commemoration of the tenth year of the project, the NMC will issue a report highlighting key meta-trends in technology and education. The top ten trends have been released:

1. The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative.
2. People expect to work, learn, socialize, and play whenever and wherever they want to.
3. The Internet is becoming a global mobile network — and already is at its edges.
4. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based and delivered over utility networks, facilitating the rapid growth of online videos and rich media.
5. Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information — is moving from a trend to a value for much of the world.
6. Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices common in society.
7. Real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are redefining what we mean by quality and success.
8. The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning and education, while refining our notion of literacy.
9. There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are redefining schools, universities and training.
10. Business models across the education ecosystem are changing.

The Centre for Youth Literature has come of age this year, reaching the ripe old age of 21.

In celebration, the Centre is hosting two events, one for library professionals and another for students on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd February respectively.

Authors involved in both days’ events include Melina Marchetta, David Levithan, Michael Pryor, Alison Goodman and Simmone Howell.

For more information, visit the Centre’s blog Read Alert.

Welcome back to a new year of Bright Ideas. Hopefully you’ve had a relaxing and restorative break and a chance to sort through your email!

At the start of the year when everything is beginning, it’s often worth taking time to be inspired by the great ideas that transform how we work, live and see the world.

RSAnimate is a wonderful source of videos to get you thinking. Some stand out talks include:

• Sir Ken Robinson on changing the education paradigm
• Steven Johnson on where good ideas come from and the power of collaboration
• Philip Zimbardo on the secret powers of time and their impact on education, day to day life and personal well being.

The RSA channel on You Tube also includes other RSAnimate videos, talks and presentations.

We look forward to another year of sharing, inspiration and bright ideas.

As the year draws to a close we come to the last Bright Ideas post for 2011. It’s been a wonderful year of sharing and collaboration and a big thank you goes out to all of our guest bloggers and contributors who worked with us this year. Thanks especially to Rachel, who did such a fantastic job with the blog early in the year.

Most importantly, thanks to all of our readers who make our community vibrant and exciting. We’ve welcomed many new followers through programs like the VicPLN and the work of SLAV, who do such an amazing job in supporting educators everywhere. The strength of Bright Ideas is the wonderful sense of sharing and community that exists amongst our readers, who constantly inspire us with their willingness to help each other.

From all of us at the Bright Ideas, we wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season. Enjoy your break, recharge those batteries and we’ll see you back here in 2012.

With Christmas and the holidays fast approaching, there’s a chance that many of you may be unwrapping a shiny new phone or tablet this weekend. So after the obligatory first step (downloading Angry Birds) what apps should you download next?

Here’s our list of some of the great apps to download so you can make the most of your new toy. The list includes apps for Apple (IOS), Android, Windows mobile and Blackberry devices. Let us know your about your own favourites on Twitter or in the comments section.

Feedly (IOS, Android):  Feedly integrates with your Google Reader account and presents your feeds in a clean, attractive interface. You don’t need to create an account as you can just login with your Google account, and any changes you make to your feeds and folders in Feedly are also updated in Google Reader.

Tune In Radio (IOS, Blackberry, Android, Windows mobile):  Tune In Radio allows you to listen to thousands of internet radio feeds from across the world. There is a free version but the paid version adds the ability to record and save content for later.

Hootsuite (IOS, Blackberry, Android): The official Twitter app has come in for quite a bit of criticism, so we recommend Hootsuite as a great Twitter alternative for mobile devices. It’s reliable, allows you to  access multiple accounts and also allows you to add columns which monitor hashtags. Tweetdeck is another good option and offers similar features.

Flipboard (IOS): Considered by many to be the IPad’s flagship app, Flipboard takes your RSS feeds, social network accounts and curated content to create a beautifully presented, personalised magazine. Flip through your articles, tap on content to browse and pinch to close. It’s a great example of why tablets are so good for consuming content. Zite is another good option for IOS, while Google is also testing out the newsreader market with its upcoming Google Currents app.

Evernote (IOS, Blackberry, Android, Windows mobile):  If you haven’t signed up for Evernote yet, then prepare to be more organised than ever before. Evernote allows you to store notes on multiple devices, including your computer, and keep them all synced and updated. The mobile app lets you record voice memos and take pictures. All notes can be tagged and text is fully searchable, making this one of the most powerful organisational tools available.

Read It Later (IOS, Blackberry, Android) or Instapaper (IOS): Both of these apps allow you to save articles on your computer and then read the text version on your mobile device. The articles are presented in a clean, simple interface and are stored on your mobile device so you can read them even when you don’t have an internet connection.

Dropbox (IOS, Blackberry, Android): Dropbox gives you 2 gigabytes of online storage for free, and the mobile apps allow you to access your files on the go. This can also be a good way to get files to your IOS device without having to sync your device with a computer. Another powerful tool for transferring many types of files to your IOS device is GoodReader, which removes much of the hassle of trying to get documents from your computer to your IPad or IPhone.

Strip Designer (IOS): A powerful yet straightforward comic design tool, Strip Designer allows you to use your photographs and pictures to create comic strips. Add text, export directly to Facebook and make the most of your photographs.

Star Walk (IOS): Inevitably when you are showing off your new tablet someone will say “Well it doesn’t do anything a computer can’t do.” This is the app for putting these people in their place. Star Walk is a paid app, but it’s worth it for the wow factor when you hold your Ipad up to the night sky and see a full, interactive map of the stars and planets. Search for constellations, learn about the universe and more importantly get envious glances from your non tablet-toting friends.

Whether we like it or not, for many students (and adults) the first step in any research task is to visit Google. There are many great resources that can be used to teach students about creating more specific, powerful searches, such as Google Inside Search which guides you through some advanced search functions.

Once students read these tips, they need some way to apply their knowledge to specific tasks. The website A Google a Day provides a question each day which can be solved using a search engine.  A timer runs while you search for the solution, and you can also click on a series of clues which will step you through the search process. For those who are completely stumped, the answer can be provided along with an explanation of how to find it online. The questions can vary in quality, but there are enough good ones in the archive to test out your searching skills.  Click the arrows at the bottom of the frame to see previous questions.

Interestingly, one of the problems with the site comes due to its popularity. You’ll often find that when you search for older answers the top results will be pages linking to blogs about A Google a Day. This might lead to a discussion about how search engines like Google actually index the web.  One possible solution might be to develop your own questions for students to solve. Have a read through the archive to get some ideas about what works and which questions are less effective.

Hamish Curry, Education Manager at the State Library of Victoria, explores his feelings about the film Connected:

It was back in early September at a Gathering ‘11 event organised by David Hood that I first watched ‘Connected’, a film about “love, death and technology” by Tiffany Shlain. The film stimulated a whole bunch of complex thoughts and ideas I’d been having around the ways in which we relate to one another, and the tools of technology we’re using to help improve these relations. A tweet response from Tiffany afterwards, along with some email networking led me to organise the State Library’s own screening of the film on November 23. I’ve seen Connected four times since September, and each time something new resonates. I love the shock value of Albert Einstein who said that “if honeybees were to disappear, humankind would be gone in four years.”

Connected weaves a myriad of personal, historical, and global issues and challenges together, showing us that patterns are emerging amongst these random pieces. From the evolution of language, to our reliance on machines and the demands we’re placing on the hemispheres of the brain, humans are making more and more rapid decisions, connections, and discoveries. The film’s premise is that while technology is changing the way we communicate, relate, work and consume, it is having unintended impacts on our well-being and that of the planet around us.

I think all of us familiar with technology sense this, and no doubt all those who have been involved with the VicPLN program experienced various levels of anxiety and excitement around the tools of the web as well. Yet the film also highlights how technology is enabling us to make better and faster connections to issues confronting us and to the people who share our passions. Technology has helped us visualise data, trends, thoughts, and images in new ways. As such, the film promotes deeper thinking and reflection. There have been some great posts from people like Judith Way and Jenny Luca. Some see Tiffany’s story being quite self-indulgent, others see her experiences as being symptomatic of our struggle to connect.

For me it has stirred up a passion around a radical rethink of how we approach education. The traditional system broke learning down into disconnected but measurable chunks and pieces, which mirrored our thinking around literacy, numeracy, and sciences. Now more and more educators are realising that we’ve reached a point where we need to put these back together, creating an integrated, blended, and connected education system, where the school is simply a node in a much bigger community, both locally and internationally.

Another big node is libraries. They are at cross-roads too. Their ability to be hubs of information and community connections is beginning to be leveraged in new and exciting ways. It’s a nice time to be part of libraries and education; change is an expectation. So in closing, I’ll leave you with a Connected thought for 2012 from John Muir, who said “when you tug at a single thing in the universe, you find it’s attached to everything else.”