Monthly Archives: July 2012

Leading the reinvention of learning

Posted on by
Reply

The SLAV Global eLiteracy conference was held last Friday, 27th of July.  The conference explored the changing face of learning in a digital age.

The event was significant as it saw the announcement by Judy O’Connell of oztlnet.com, a new site for the Australian Teacher Librarian Network. You can become involved with OZTL through  Facebook, Twitter or the Diigo group.
Global eliteracy conferences

The day involved a number of interesting presentations, but the highlight was the round table session. Delegates spent time in small groups learning from peer leaders about a range of technologies. There was a wonderful atmosphere of collegial support, exploration and sharing.

You can find notes from the event as they are added here and also see a summary, including highlights from a very active Twitter stream, at this Storify of the day.

Congratulations to all of the organisers for a very successful day of professional learning.

Bright Ideas user guides

Posted on by
2

While we’re always looking out for great new web tools here at Bright Ideas, we know that sometimes it can be difficult to have the time to learn how to get the most from a new tool or service. To help you along we’ve recently launched several user guides which will help you get started with some of our favourite tools.

You’ll be able to find all of the guides in the menu bar at the top of the site, or on our Guides page. All of the guides have been built using Storify and feature either screenshot or video tutorials to guide you along. We’ve aimed to keep the video tutorials to no more than 90 seconds each so you are able to quickly find the tips you need.

The first video guides are for Historypin and Twitter (both getting started and taking Twitter further). We’ll be adding more user guides over the coming months and would love to hear you feedback or requests for other guides that you’d like to see here.   Next we’ll be adding guides for Evernote, Diigo and  Twitter apps like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.

We’ll keep you posted about new or updated guides here and on our Facebook page, so follow us there to stay up to date. You can also keep track of any new video tutorials by subscribing to the Bright Ideas Youtube channel.

Feel free to let us know about any other guides you’d like to see here on Bright Ideas.

Archive tweets with Tweetdoc

Posted on by
1

Twitter has been adopted by many teachers as a professional learning tool, allowing access to an incredible network of educators through hashtags such as the Victorian PLN (#vicpln). One of the benefits of tagging tweets with hashtags is that it allows for conversations around particular areas of interest or at conferences. An example of this is at the School Library Association of Victoria conferences, where the #slavconf hashtag allows attendees (and those participating online) to join the conversation. But while this is an incredibly powerful feature of Twitter, it can be difficult to archive all of these tweets for future reference. This is where Tweetdoc comes in.

Tweetdoc allows you to create a document listing all of the tweets based around a particular search. The document also displays a grid of all of the users who tweeted using the hashtag. We’ve used it archive tweets from several events and while we’ve discovered a couple of drawbacks- such as occasional bugs and no ability to filter spam tweets- overall we have found Tweetdoc to be a very useful tool.

Here’s how to create a Twitter archive using Tweetdoc. You can see the sample document produced in this tutorial here.

2012 Victorian Personal Learning Network

Posted on by
2

The 2012 Victorian Personal Learning Network course has now come to a close. Participants explored a range of web tools throughout the twelve unit course, reflecting on their work in blog entries and working with each other in online conferences. Many of them are now using social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to connect with other members of the VicPLN community.

You can explore the course materials at the Victorian PLN blog. You can also read the blogs of the 2012 participants and find many of them on the #vicpln hashtag or in the VicPLN Facebook group which can be joined by anyone interested in education.

Congratulations to all of the participants who have worked through the course this year. For a great summary of the course check out this Storify of the 2012 Victorian PLN.

 

 

Cybersafety Summit 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Today’s post comes from regular contributor Catherine Hainstock of Vermont Secondary College. Catherine tells us about her experiences at the recent National Cybersafety Summit.

On June 12th, I attended the National Cybersafety Summit in Canberra with two students from the school.  They were select members from the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) who took part in online forum discussions to help inform the government on cyber safety initiatives. The purpose of the Summit was to bring students, parents and teachers together with relevant industries and government sectors to discuss “how to keep young Australians safe online”.

The summit was hosted by Project Rockit team members and formally opened by Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Students attended sessions on Managing Your Reputation Online led by Ruby Rose, MTV presenter and spokesperson for HeadSpace. They discussed strategies for protecting their reputations, and the social and legal consequences of harassment, cyberbullying and sexting with the Federal Police. Students  also shared some opinions including the inconsistencies in dealing with bullies at school and that many of the Cybersafety resources used in schools were either not interesting or age-appropriate.

They then attended a session with ABC’s Good Game hosts, Bajo and Hex on Digital Etiquette and Gaming. The culture and nature of gaming was discussed including bullies and online trolls. Teens shared that there is pressure to keep up with obligations to the team in online games. They also said that parents should take more of an interest in what’s going on in their kids’ gaming world.

Adults also attended a  Digital Etiquette and Gaming session. They were surprised to hear that the average age of a gamer was 37 years old. Parental discussion focused on the language and bullying in games. Bajo and Hex urged adults to take interest in their children’s gaming, to keep lines of communication open, set limits and discuss online friendships. Above all the room agreed that it was important to help kids understand that “it’s only a game!” and to not invest too much emotion in it. The adults also attended a presentation by the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation outlining their eSmart Schools program.

The afternoon panel discussion was the highlight for most participants. Some excellent questions and discussion developed:

    • Should teachers and students be friends on Facebook (or other social networks)?
    • Should we stop under 13s from going on Facebook?
    • Should kids be using technology as an emotional outlet?
    • What is the duty of care for teachers in cyberbullying incidents that happen outside of the school?

The show stopper of the day though came from one of my own students. Her question and comment was that not enough was being done to educate young Australians about the mental health consequences of cyberbullying. She wanted to know why we don’t teach people that all the negative online behaviour (and bullying in general) leads to depression, self harm and suicide. She felt the statistics and incidents should not be taboo topics. The entire room fell silent as she spoke.

I think all of us left the summit with much to reflect on and some excellent strategies and directions. I feel privileged to have been a part of the discussion and will be discussing ideas with my Principal for new initiatives.

Thanks to Catherine for sharing her reflection on the event. You can find out more about Catherine’s work on her blog TL Under Construction.

Make Lego creations in Build with Chrome

Posted on by
Reply

Many of our readers might be relaxing on school holidays and some of you could be looking for a great tool to keep the kids (or yourself) entertained. The Build with Chrome app allows you to stake out land on a map and then build your own virtual Lego creations. There have already been some fantastic creations built.

The app is only available in Google Chrome though you can view the map in other browsers. This may create some problems for work computers that are still limited to using Internet Explorer. It’s another great reason to lobby for the freedom to install other browsers on your computers.

Building does require logging in and at this stage the creation must be built and published in one session as you can’t save a work in progress. Buildings also require approval before they are published which hopefully means that innappropriate structures can’t be made.

But the best part of Build with Chrome? You can play with Lego to your heart’s content without having to experience the pain of stepping on a block with bare feet!

Build with Chrome