TED has a new platform for sharing ideas: Conversations. It is a space where, once registered, you can join or start a conversation that will belong to the category of ‘ideas’, ‘questions’, or ‘debates’. This platform provides students with access to a global community. A student could question this global community on how they deal with bullies, or receive feedback on an idea, or start a debate with hundreds of people from around the world on whether women should be on the frontline. Registration is free. 

Tomorrow Sport is a competition by Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association (VITTA), for primary schools (grades five and six) and secondary schools (years seven and eight). It is a team-based competition with sport as the inspiration and source material. The teams complete the challenge over a six week period (approximately one class per week), developing numeracy, literacy, social and personal development, citizenship, and collaborative and cooperative learning skills along the way. Each challenge involves collecting data from the activity and uploading a response to the Tomorrow Sport website. The first version is based on AFL, and the material you would be provided with includes links to curriculum standards and rubrics. If you are interested in being part of the competition, contact VITTA Project Officer Paul Wright (Paulw@vitta.org.au), and pass this information on to any teachers who may be interested, such as the PE staff. 

Making History: Research, Create and Share is a resource that has been developed by Museum Victoria. The site provides teachers and students with the resources they need to research, plan, create and share community digital histories. This is a fantastic resource for a local history project or a family history assignment. As part of the resources and tools, you are given access to videos offering advice from experts such as historians and curators, and you have access to the forum. If you are not sure what to base an assignment on, there are a list of themes, which allow you to explore resources by topic, such as ‘Living with natural disasters’, ‘World events, local impacts’, and ‘Migration and cultural identity’.

FUSE is the DEECD’s (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) centralised portal of online teaching and learning resources for Victorian schools. Teachers and students can search, share, and create learning experiences that use web 2.0 technologies.

All content on the site has been checked for unsuitable material, and is quality assured. The portal has search pages for Early Childhood, Primary Students, Secondary Students, and Teachers. They are appealing to their intended audience and are easy to navigate, such as the Early Childhood page below:

FUSE can be looked at and searched by anyone. However, if you are a Victorian teacher you can login to FUSE. Below is a video created by FUSE that explains the benefits of this:

By logging in, FUSE becomes a workspace where educators can create resource packages that their class, or anyone, can view 24/7. A resource package created for a particular assignment would have the assignment sheet, an assessment rubric, subject weblinks, and any other relevant material in it. Below is a video by FUSE that explains how to share the packages:

Selected organisations have created learning resources that are shared on FUSE. They are designed to connect students, teachers, and educational communities. The features of the new 2010-2011 resources include:

• ‘intuitive web based graphic interfaces
• blog and wiki spaces
• gaming and simulation scenarios
• social networking opportunities
• interactivity
• mobile and phone applicaitons
• virtual worlds’. 

These resources are fantastic, and next week Bright ideas will be looking at some of the best of them.