An apple a day…

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The latest model of Apple’s iPad is now on sale in Australia, with several stores opening at midnight for the launch. Much has been written about the improved display, faster processor and better camera. However for the education sector the greater impact may be on the pricing of the older model.

The iPad 2 has now been reduced in price, with the base model starting at $429. This places it much closer to the price of a netbook or low powered laptop computer. With educational discounting available, along with the recent announcement of Apple’s move into digital textbooks, it seems that Apple are making an even more concerted push into the education market.

The difficulty of managing multiple devices has been seen as one of the barriers for the introduction of iPads in a classroom setting. Apple look to be addressing this concern with the launch of a free utility for Mac called Configurator, which allows administrators to manage a class set of iPads. You can read CNet’s early impressions of the Configurator utility here.

For educators considering the introduction of iPads in the classroom, there are a number of useful resources available. The iPads for Learning website features details of the Victorian iPad trial. The trial details the implementation of iPads in ten educational settings throughout Victoria. You might also like to watch a video reflection by teachers and students at Epsom Primary School, one of the schools involved in the trial. The Slide2Learn website also has some great resources for educators looking to use Apple devices in the classroom.

Lastly, for anyone who is lucky enough to have picked up a new (or older) iPad you’ll probably want to buy some apps. Make sure you visit Gift Cards on Sale which keeps track of discounted Itunes cards.

Closing the book on the printed encyclopaedia

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The New York Times has reported the the Encyclopaedia Britannica will no longer produce a printed edition as content will now only be available digitally. The decision ends a 244 year tradition and signals a significant shift by the encyclopaedia’s Chicago publisher.

While many have predicted that the rise of easily updatable websites like Wikipedia would see the end of the printed encyclopaedia, this might not mean the end of the printed book as others are touting. The encyclopaedia may well have been the form of printed book most threatened by the increasing reliance on digital content. The relatively slow process of editing and publishing means that many entries can be out of date before the volume hits the shelves.

Is this need for constantly updated information- with an emphasis placed on the speed of updating rather than rigour- a worrying trend? Surely it just further emphasises the importance of being able to critically analyse a source for reliability and accuracy. Maybe it will lead to an even savvier generation of readers who constantly question the reliability of information and evaluate their sources.

Perhaps the greater concern for many (apart from any door-to-door encyclopaedia sellers still out there) may be that we may no longer have printed copies that document the prevailing knowledge of our time. Older encyclopaedias like the Nuremberg Chronicle provide an insight into the accepted beliefs of a time period, or at least the accepted beliefs of the writers and editors. Surely this move to digital content raises even more issues surrounding digital archiving and preservation. Maybe people will be visiting libraries and museums in a hundred years to pore over archived copies of Wikipedia.

Should we be concerned about this shift to digital, or is it time to accept that the printed encyclopaedia can’t compete with the wealth of constantly updated content available?

Love and Devotion education resources

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Cam Hocking

Today sees the opening of the Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond exhibition at the State Library of Victoria. The exhibition features a number of rare Persian manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford. The State Library of Victoria education team has produced a resource for teachers that examine the manuscripts and the stories told within.

The resource includes several inquiry units and activities that can be used to explore the famous tales. Templates have been provided which feature characters from the manuscripts, so your students can create puppets or make their own comic. There are a number of picture files including characters and backgrounds that can be downloaded and used to create digital comics in programs such as Comic Life.

The exhibition is free and is open until July the 1st, 2012. Information about bringing school groups can be found here. Teachers are also invited to a special evening viewing of the exhibition on March 20th from 5.30-7.00pm.

Library guides at the State Library

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Kelly Gardiner

Librarians from the State Library of Victoria have been putting together Library guides on various subject areas to help people with their research tasks.

It’s essentially a cheat sheet that guide you through the research process by wading through the array of resources available to you.

Here’s a sample of what’s been created:
1. Aboriginal people & the law
2. Adoption & forgotten Australians
3. Bushfires
4. Companies in Australia
5. Court cases in Australia
6. Early Australian census records
7. Finding Australian legislation
8. Finding book reviews
9. Finding music scores & popular songs
10. Finding poetry

There are 28 more guides on a range of topics but you can see the entire list here.

It’s commonplace for universities to have library guides, so do check them out for other subject areas, especially for senior students. Or you can create your own easily and quickly, in LibGuides.

Let us know if you’ve already created some LibGuides – we’d love to hear about them.

If this then that

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Cam Hocking

Many of us rely on a variety of web tools to stay in touch with new posts, keep track of links and then share valuable resources. While some of the more popular services allow you to link your accounts together and share with one click, what can you do if two of your favourite tools don’t work together at all?

If this then that (IFTTT) allows users to create rules that link online accounts together. Using a simple trigger (if this) and action (then that) format, you can automate an action based on an event. For example, you could automate a task so that whenever you favourite a tweet then the link will be automatically added to your Delicious bookmarks. You might want any links you post on Facebook to automatically be added as a new note in your Evernote account, or have any photographs you upload to Instagram appear in a new Tumblr post. There is a full list of supported tools on the IFTTT website and developers have indicated that more tools will be added over time.

Any rules you create can be shared as ‘recipes’ for other people to use, and there are a number of pre-made recipes that you can add to your own account.

Here’s the way you can get started and make your first automated task.

Create an account at If this then that
Visit the channels page and activate the accounts you want to use. You will need to provide your username and password for each service.
Visit the tasks page and click Create new task. Click on IF THIS and then select the account that will be the trigger.
Choose a trigger related to the account. For example, a trigger from Twitter could be if you send a new tweet, or you retweet, or you send a tweet with a particular hashtag. Choose your trigger and click create trigger.
Now choose THEN THAT and choose the account that the event will be created in. Then choose the action that should occur.
Depending on the account you are using, you may also be given further options to customise the action. Once you are happy with the action click Create action.
The task should now be active, and If This Then That will check for new activity every fifteen minutes. If you’d like to share the rule you’ve created then click on the mortar and pestle icon to create a recipe that can be used by other IFTTT users.

Does it all sound a bit complicated? The video below runs through an example of creating an automated task.

Pinterest: beyond the buzz

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Kelly Gardiner

You may have heard of Pinterest, the new social media platform that is taking the web by storm. Pinterest is like a virtual pinboard, where you share images you like either gathered from the web (like a shared bookmark) or uploaded from your own collection. Users can create boards on any theme and these are also tagged in categories, so you can browse through History or Technology, for example, and re-pin other people’s favourites to your own pin boards. You can follow other people’s boards and you can also integrate it with your facebook or Twitter accounts.

A Pin it! bookmarklet to add to your browser makes it easy to grab web content.

The joy of Pinterest is its visual nature – you can’t save text-only content, only material with images attached (even if it’s a web page with lots of text and only one image). That makes it perfect for gathering items together like a scrapbook.

Interestingly, most data so far indicates that the vast majority of its users are women. That’s not surprising, as many of the early users did use it as a scrapbook, so that some of the most glorious image collections are in themes like historical fashion and home decor – including drool-worthy bookshelves and libraries (there are also a lot of recipes).

But dig a little deeper – if you can – and you’ll soon recognise Pinterest’s value as an image repository, link sharing community, and easy-to-use site for students or classes to quickly assemble project materials on a huge range of topics.

Under the Education category you’ll find teaching materials and classroom activities gathered together by educators all over the world, and in other categories you and your students can find everything from historic photos of Victorian London or World War 1, to images of shoes worn in 1770 or wildlife or botanical drawings.

These “pins” can be shared on social media or embedded in blogs or websites.

Pinterest is deceptively simple and dangerously addictive. Beware.

Meeting of the Minds 2012

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Cam Hocking

The inaugural Meeting of the Minds Unconference (#MOTM12) was held over the weekend of February 25-26 at the Quantum Victoria facility. Educators came together from all over Victoria and from interstate to discuss the role of technology in learning.

The guiding motto of #MOTM12 was “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” Participants were invited to create their own digital story before the event and then to share them on the Meeting of the Minds website. This was just one of the interesting ways that participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and meet each other. Attendees were even tasked with making lunch for their partner!

The organisers of the event had obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about how to have attendees collaborate and guide the content of sessions. A shared display area and sticky notes were used to collect ideas and suggestions, which were then grouped into sessions that were then run by participants. Shared notes were collected in Google Docs and sessions were streamed live with many people joining in the discussion on Twitter using the #MOTM12 hashtag.

There were lively discussions about using technology in the classroom and the importance of self directed learning, not just for students but also for educators. Many participants discussed the way professional learning might be improved and encouraged within their schools. One great idea was to gather for a coffee at the start of each day for a 5 minute sharing session.

Have a look at a Storify of the event, produced by online attendee Roland Gesthuizen, to see how it all unfolded. You can also visit the #MOTM12 website to find out more. Shared notes from each session can be found in the Spaces menu.

Congratulations to the event organisers Jess McCulloch, Tony Richards and Andrew Williamson for putting together an event that allowed educators to get together and collaborate in such an interesting way.

The Victorian PLN is almost here

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Kelly Gardiner

The next round of the Victorian Personal Learning Network is now less than two weeks away, so get ready for a new influx of blogs to read and educators to meet when the course kicks off on March the 5th. The course aims to help educators build their own PLN and learn about some of the great tools available on the web.

As with previous years we are sure that the Bright Ideas community will get together to support these new participants. Many of you would have completed the Victorian PLN in the past, so hopefully you’ll be able to help people along as they build their own network. It might even be time for you to brush up on your own skills by doing the course again. You might like to form a PLN group at your school to take the course together.

So why should you or your colleagues do the course? Here’s a participant’s reflection on the 2011 program.

“Doing the PLN was a decision to ensure that I was keeping up with the world. I learnt a lot of new things from doing it, and it gave me opportunities to explore tools that I’d heard about but never really had the interest to pursue any further – like Twitter for example. This forced play, and the space set aside to investigate things was useful for my learning.”

Please encourage your colleagues to take part in this great course. Enquiries can be sent to learning@slv.vic.gov.au and course details are available at the State Library of Victoria website.

Privacy in networked publics

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Cam Hocking

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.

School Library Association of Victoria

Yearly Archives: 2012