MyBrainshark is a useful way of hosting online presentations. Free to use, presentations such as powerpoints can be uploaded, narrated, saved, shared and embedded. Documents can be uploaded and narrated and photo albums can be made. Here is a quick tour of MyBrainshark that shows and explains how it can be used.
Sendible says it is “the complete messaging platform”. What Sendible does is
Connect with all your email, mobile and social network contacts even when you’re away from the computer
- Schedule email, sms and social network messages ahead of time
- Access all your email and social network contacts from one place
- Remind yourself and others of upcoming tasks and events
- Post status updates to your blogging and social network accounts
Sendible has a range of free and paid accounts to select from.
Castlemaine Secondary College teacher librarian Judith Hansen and her colleagues have developed a wide ranging wiki to use with students. Judith explains the evolution of the wiki:
We, the Library Team at Castlemaine Secondary College comprise 6 folks over 2 Campuses ( Junior and Senior): Andrea (Teacher Librarian), Junior Campus FT: Russell (Library Technician) Junior Campus 0.9: Kathryn (Teacher Librarian) across campuses 0.3: Elizabeth (Teacher Librarian), Senior Campus 0.4: Debra (Library Technician) Senior Campus 0.9 and myself (Teacher Librarian) Junior Campus 0.2 and Senior Campus 0.6. Andrea, Russell, Debra and I completed the SLAV Web 2 in 2008.
Castlemaine Secondary College Library Team embraced the SLAV Web 2.0 PD in 2008. Web 2.0….the words and number had been scratching around in our team subconscious for some time. Each of us had some knowledge. The online PD enabled us to explore the realm together. We met every Tuesday after school and worked solidly for an hour or so. It was fun! It was Team bonding! It led to further experiences eg. a travel blog by Debra, a wiki by Judith and a demo blog from Andrea, Kathryn, Debra (back) Judith, Russell, Andrea. We have another Team member Elizabeth, who has always had a handle on IT stuff. She came back from leave and works on the Library Intranet which will begin operating across the 2 Castlemaine Secondary College campuses in 2010.
We work very well as a team and whatever emerges from the Library has been a Team effort in that we ensure that we encourage each other in our tasks and endeavours, our focus being the school community and its educational needs and aspirations.
Homepage
Our wiki came about as our school has a special time for students to explore subjects of interest: teachers offer activities, I offered a Library Club. So a page has been created for this group with full edit rights. Apart from the Word Doc.Plan the page has been created by the students.
The Ultranet Looms: An Ultranet Coach Approaches: http://csclibrary.wikispaces.com Appears!
- First thought: a blog
- Second thought: after conferring with Rob the Ultranet coach was that a wiki would best suit the aims of the endeavour.
- The endeavour: to create: a space where the library, it’s activities and resources could be showcased: provide opportunities eg. editing online, adding images etc. for staff and students to develop confidence in skills via a safe space eg. the wiki’s page save component allows for editing mistakes that can be easily rectified, and to build on the emerging Web 2.0 skills of the Library Team.
Pride, Respect, Responsibility and Post-it-notes.
- The core values of Castlemaine Secondary College are Pride, Respect, Responsibility. Together they form the value core of the wiki.
- A disclaimer was also included.
- Ideas formed as the potential for communication via the wiki became understood.. ideas bubbled up at odd times so the pad of post-it-notes became a handy tool for quick jottings that were then slapped into the log book. The Library team worked on some skills together eg. developing the original competition page where we each had to develop and upload a voki. We needed to develop the confidence to play and to nut out knew skills.
Marketing the site…it takes time and commitment.
- Email out to all staff with a blurb about the wiki and a the link to the site,(not just once.)This resulted in 1 new page, Nick from Music Industry saw the potential for his subject, developed the Music Industry page which excitingly has a class course component. Hopefully the wiki will develop as a forum for the delivery of the curriculum.
- Screen shots of the Home Page on display in the Library.
- Campaign! Verbal face to face communication from Library Team to staff and students. Talk about it at every opportunity.
- Wiki showcased at every opportunity eg. Library orientation lessons, Community/Teacher Interviews (interviews were held in the Senior Library), when the Library computers were set at the Wiki Home page and visitors waiting for interviews were encouraged to explore the wiki, this also happened when the Senior Library hosted staff morning teas and attended English DLG meetings.
- Redirection! The Library Request Book was moved from the Front Desk of the Library to the Request Page on the wiki. Individuals and groups were encouraged with help to make requests via the wiki.
- Have a competition page, which links to the front work desk i.e. the answer box is placed there advertising the competition, so students ask for directions to the wiki and enter the competition and hopefully explore the site a bit more.
- Share the exciting bits..like the number of different countries that have visited the site, student input, such as the Library Club and of course that other educators have expressed interest and encouragement.
- See our vokis on the Library Competition Page.
Library Club
I must say it was wonderful one Friday to have our School Principal show me the white board in her office where brainstorming had been taking place: some of the great things that are happening in our school and to have her point to the Library Wiki!!
Giving things up….all those items you’ve worked so hard to create..but they have to go…the wiki evolves!
- The Request Page was originally created as a table that was filled in by the requester but it was a bit unwieldy so a much simpler form of logging the request is now in place. It also allows for some play in the editing whilst continuing to communicate the information to the Library Team.
- A group of Year 12’s were very interested in having a Year 12 page but it didn’t get past the heading and a couple of sites.. not enough time, it closed.
- I originally created a monthly audio introduction to the wiki on the Home Page. As the wiki evolved and chores increased eg. uploading the monthly new acquisitions the audio introductions were discontinued. However I have had fun using the skill to create audios of poems for eg. a guess the poet competition.
What next?
- Have students and staff take on more responsibilities eg. Library Club to record Library news, and have eg. English staff utilise the site as a place to submit assessment tasks such as text reviews, a component of the task being to successfully upload the piece of work onto the wiki.
- To create a Studies of Asia page, with a travel blog and links and space for the school community to share queries and knowledge of our neighbours.
Cherio and feedback
So far we haven’t had any notes left on the pages, so this is an area that we haven’t really explored yet…maybe you would like to leave something for us to play with!
Castlemaine Secondary College Library Team.
Well done to the Castlemaine SC library team! It’s great to know that students are really getting involved with the development of the wiki and that the Principal has acknowledged your great work on it.
Family connections is an application where users can set up their own private website, for the purpose of secure communication and sharing with family and friends.
Sharing with only selected family and friends means that photos, documents and messages are secure and only those you have selected can view them. Ideal for anyone with family and friends interstate or overseas.
Masher “lets you easily create a video by mixing together video clips, music tracks, and photos all for FREE!” Masher also has a large library of videos you can select from, or you can use your own.
There a three steps to Masher:
Masher is similar to animoto, but still a fun and easy way to develop your own funky video.
Thanks to Krystie Alleaume, the Senior Project Officer for the Innovation and Next Practice Division of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development for the following information:
The DEECD is running an Innovative Learning Environments Design Conference for educators and architects at Docklands on Monday 19 October. Six of the face-to-face presentations will be streamed online simultaneously via Elluminate.
The conference features educators who have successfully incorporated innovative practice into new learning environments. Architectural experts team up with educators to present a program featuring innovative learning environments, successful change stories and new approaches to teaching and learning.
The online sessions are outlined below. There is no cost to attend the online sessions, however you need to sign up first. Registered participants will be sent the link to the Elluminate room for their session(s). To register, visit:
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/lpd/forum.htmKeynotes
9.05am – 10.05am Futurevation: Looking to the future
2.25pm – 3.25pm Designing for purpose but which purpose? OECD 21C innovative learning environmentsSession 1: Panel Successful change stories: what worked and why?
11.05am – 11.50am Dandenong High School
11.05am – 11.50am Bentleigh West Primary SchoolSession 2 Innovative Learning adopting a student centred approach
12.00pm – 12.45pm Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College
12.00pm – 12.45pm Point Lonsdale Primary SchoolSession 3 Learning Environment Designs
1.30pm – 2.15pm Internal learning spaces
1.30pm – 2.15pm Creating effective age and stage appropriate external learning environments
Hamish Curry, the Library & Online Learning Manager, Learning Services at the State Library of Victoria has kindly sent the following information:
I’d like to bring to your attention the programs we’re delivering for the International Digital Entertainment Festival (iDEF).
The full list of programs we’re delivering is available here, but highlights include –
- Friday Oct 30 – two schools programs featuring speakers Vincent Trundle from ACMI, and Dr Joanne O’Mara from Deakin Uni highlighting her research into ‘Literacy in the digital world of the 21st century: learning from computer games’
- Friday Oct 30 – a free screening of the gaming doco Second Skin, which will be its first screening in Australia, andintroduced by the Director Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza.
- Saturday Oct 31 – a presentation about game development from the organisers of Freeplay
- Saturday Oct 31 – SYN and FReeZa present their 1Up Youth Gaming Tournament.
- Sunday Nov 1 – a forum ‘I’m a gamer and proud of it!‘ featuring James Dominguez from Screenplay, and Anna Dunne from Australian Gamer and Channel 31 show Level 3.
Certainly seems like lots of relevant and interesting sessions! Thanks Hamish for passing on the information.
This article was recently published in The Age’s Green Guide. Anyone remotely interested in gaming (or who have children who are) and are/or will be in Melbourne some time should consider visiting the exhibition mentioned. It is permanent and free.
JASON HILL
October 8, 2009
Part of the Screen Worlds exhibition.
From Pong to PlayStations, this exhibition covers the console evolution. By Jason Hill.
After a year-long renovation, the “new” Australian Centre for the Moving Image has opened its doors to the public with a free exhibition that prominently features video games.
The new permanent Screen Worlds exhibition charts the history of screen-based entertainment, from cinema’s early beginnings to the rise of television, games, the internet, new media and the digital age.
ACMI has been exploring games culture since 2002 and enjoyed great success last year with the Game On exhibition, which attracted more than 150,000 visitors.
The head of exhibitions, Conrad Bodman, says games are “really embedded in what we do at ACMI. It is accepted that it is part of the creative practice that we’re looking at.”
He believes institutions such as ACMI can help legitimise games as an art form and a cultural force. “I kind of feel that games have already got a certain legitimacy at ACMI having done shows like Game On, which have underpinned the enthusiasm that games have cultural value,” Bodman says.
In the “Emergence” section of the new exhibition, visitors can get hands-on with the first ever console, the Magnavox Odyssey, as well as classic games such as Space Invaders, Tempest, Super Mario Bros 3, Tomb Raider and the pioneering Melbourne-made fighting game, The Way of the Exploding Fist.
The new Games Lab situated within the Screen Worlds exhibition also includes 14 computers and a selection of playable games for solo or multiplayer action, including Quake, Tetris, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer, Pro Evolution Soccer, Civilization, Spore, Project Gotham Racing, LittleBigPlanet, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Kart. Bodman says choosing the featured games was a significant challenge.
“That’s been quite tough because we’ve had to be very selective,” he says. “Part of it is about the development of the genre, looking at past and present, and part of that is a technology story about how the technology has improved.
“We felt that it was important to add historical dimensions so people can understand where games have come from and also specifically look within the Games Lab at the game genre and how they have developed over a period of time.”
Games are presented on their original hardware wherever possible, despite the technical challenges of keeping 30-year-old machines running every day.
ACMI has also assembled a “significant collection” of Australian games, Bodman says. “Although that material is not going to be available to everyone who comes in, if you are a researcher and you are doing some specific work and looking at Australian games, you can borrow that material and view it within our research area that is part of the Mediatheque. There aren’t many repositories around for Australian games [and] it can be really difficult to find games in their original format. It’s important that ACMI represents that area.”
Another highlight is the Pong v Tennis game commissioned for the exhibition. One player uses a retro-style paddle and the other a modern wireless controller in a single game that Bodman hopes can showcase the “historical trajectory” of gaming.
Attendees should also look for the spotlight on Australia’s Krome Studios, one of the world’s largest independent video game developers.
Free eLearning content by and for teachers is being developed at the WikiEducator wiki.
What is it and who developed it? The website states:
Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning was the founding patron of WikiEducator. The project has adopted a community governance model which is coordinated by WikiEducator’s Open Community Council, building on the work of the Interim International Advisory Board. Ambassadors for WikiEducator promote the project around the globe, and our technology roadmap helps us make the future happen.
WikiEducator’s technical infrastructure is supported by a financial contribution by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to the Open Education Resource Foundation an independent international non-profit head quartered at Otago Polytechnic New Zealand. The servers are hosted by Athabasca University, Canada.
There are ways for interested teachers to get involved with WikiEducator. The website explains how:
Get Involved ~ There are so many ways…
Thanks to @wizdommy for the information on WikiEducator!
This article was published in today’s Age newspaper and the results of the summit seem to be a step in the right direction regarding the problem of cyber bullying.
Stemming the tide of cyber bullying
FARRAH TOMAZIN
October 13, 2009
Korumburra Secondary College classmates William Crawford and Courtney Graue were among 240 students at the state’s first cyber bullying summit. Photo: Pat Scala
A year ago, Korumburra Secondary College student Courtney Graue became the victim of a sustained campaign of cyber bullying. What started off as schoolyard taunts and social exclusion soon transcended into the online world: derogatory messages posted on her MySpace page, claims that she didn’t have any female friends, even comments about her appearance.
”I guess girls can get jealous of different things and one girl in particular would tell me I was ugly and that I only hung out with guys because no girls would want to talk to me,” said the year 10 student.
”In the end I talked to my teachers, and even to my parents, and they sorted it out. I got over it eventually, but at the time I got fairly upset by it all, and it certainly does impact your life.”
Courtney’s story is emblematic of a much broader trend: the latest research from Edith Cowan University suggests that on any given day, about 100,000 Australian children will be bullied at school. And between 10-15 per cent are cyber bullied through social networking websites, instant online messaging, mobile phones or other forms of digital technology.
Yesterday, Courtney and classmates William Crawford and Daniel Whittingham were among 240 year 10 students who took part in the state’s first cyber bullying summit.
The conference, involving 60 public and private schools, was convened by the Brumby Government after it became so concerned by the extent of cyber bullying that it decided to seek the advice of young people on the best ways to tackle it.
While the Government has tried to crack down on the problem by updating bullying guidelines and blocking access to video-sharing websites such as YouTube and MySpace through a filter system, experts agree that past policies have not done enough.
Appearing at the conference yesterday, Premier John Brumby admitted that the ever-changing nature of digital technology had serious consequences.
”The openness and ease of online communication comes with a downside,” he said.
The summit comes only months after the death of 14-year-old Geelong schoolgirl Chanelle Rae who, according to her mother Karen, took her own life after reading something posted about her on the internet.
Edith Cowan researcher Donna Cross said it was hard to quantify how many youth suicides had been caused by cyber bullying, but there was little doubt it was a contributing factor in some cases.
The message
