The School Library Association of Victoria hosted a conference on 4 May 2009 entitled ‘Shared Perspectives’. Here are links to some of the conference presentations:
Sandy Phillips’s (DEECD) presentation on Global Connections, Shared Perspectives.
Renate Beilharz’s (Box Hill TAFE) presentation on Creative Commons and other tools.
Are you looking for a totally safe way to use YouTube and other videos with your students but worried about them accessing stuff that’s inappropriate? Vodspot can help.
Student can add comments about their favourite videos and teachers are able to access statistics to see which are the most watched videos. Quite a useful tool for anyone who uses or is thinking about using the incredible video resources that are freely available on the internet.
Thanks to Rhonda Powling for the link to Vodspot.
The Digital Research Tools wiki is a collection of tools that is arranged by task, preceded by a definition of that task.
Wiki homepage
Definition: A screencast is a recording of actions taken on a computer screen, often with accompanying narration. It is essentially a movie of what is happening on a monitor. Screencasts are often used as tutorials or instructions of how to perform certain actions or operate certain programs on a computer.
Tools:
- Adobe Captivate: Windows-based software that “enables anyone to rapidly create powerful and engaging simulations, scenario-based training, and robust quizzes without programming knowledge or multimedia skills” (commercial)
- CamStudio: Open source Windows software records your computer’s screen and audio activity into AVI format. Can save into Flash format (swf) (free, GPL)
- Camtasia: Windows-based screen recording software (commercial)
- iShowU: Mac-based software for recording audio & video on a computer screen (commercial)
- Jing: Available for Windows or Mac, Jing is “the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere” (commercial)
- ScreenFlick: “features high performance screen capturing for smooth, fluid motion up to 60 fps” (Mac, commercial)
- ScreenFlow: well-reviewed screencapture/screencast software for the Mac (commercial)
- SnapZProX: make quicktime movie or screen shot (Mac, $)
- uTIPu: Download the uTIPu TipCam, record a video of your computer screen, share online publicly or privately, and even embed into a web site (commercial)
- WebSlides: Turn Diigo bookmarks and feeds into slide shows. Add background music or voiceover. (Free, web-based)
- Wink: Wink is a freeware screen recording and editing software to create software tutorials (Windows/Linux, freeware).
DiRT is licenced under creative commons. The contributors include librarians and researchers. Well worth a look!
Say goodbye to boring old slideshows with Animoto. Animoto takes your images, adds music and turns them all into a slick professional style video.
Animoto home
You can upload images from your computer, or select those already stored on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug and Facebook. You can add text and then you can select music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own from your computer. Images can be reordered at any time and text can be edited. Selected pictures can be ‘spotlighted’. When uploading music from your own source, you are reminded to check that you have the right to do so. If you decide to use a song from Animoto’s collection, the songs are arranged by genres and you can listen to a sample before you decide to select it or not. Before you know it, your images are presented in an engaging way, set to a rocking track.
Educational case studies
Animoto has a special ‘Education’ section, where educators can sign up and give students an access code. This enables students to upload videos to Animoto, purely for the class (or whoever is given the code) to see.
As per most Web 2.0 tools, Animoto basic is free, but there are upgrade options for people who want to make longer videos, burn videos to DVD and so on. For most of us, the basic package will suffice as it enables the user to get an embed or copy code for embedding into blogs and wikis or copying to a multitude of sites. The best thing about Animoto is that is is very easy to use. The site is extremely well designed and intuitive, making it a pleasure to use.
Have a look at this video, which was literally produced in ten minutes. Finalised videos can be uploaded to YouTube, as well as embedded in blogs and other websites.
Bibme is an online tool that helps students (and teachers, in fact anyone who needs to) compile a bibliography.
There are two ways to enter the data needed for Bibme to automatically create your bibliography:
Once this has been done, click “Add to my bibliography”. Bibliographies can be saved to your Bibme account or downloaded directly into Microsoft Word. MLA, APA, Chicago, & Turabian styles are supported by Bibme.
Books, magazines, films, newspapers, website and journals are all supported, although some Australian publications are not catered for. In this instance, simply use the manual fill mode explained in step two above.
Bibme has a citation guide, so that if appropriate, students can learn how to write their own bibliographies without Bibme’s help.
Citation guide
We all know how difficult it can be to get students to complete a bibliography (correctly or even at all), so Bibme may be a useful resource for teachers who require a bibliography to be submitted with schoolwork. Please note that users must be over 13 years of age.
Chatzy is a site that allows users to quickly and easily start their own free and private chat rooms.
All you need to do is fill out a few boxes with your nickname and the email address of the person/people you are inviting. Your friends receive an email with a clickable link. Then you join the chat and away you go.
From Chatzy’s website comes the following details:
Chatzy is a good, no frills way to reflect with colleagues and friends via a back channel when at conferences, professional development and so on.
Thanks to Jenny Luca for the heads up on Chatzy.
Bright Ideas recently came across this gaming program for students in years 9 -11 developed by Swinburne University of Technology. From their website comes the following information:
VBugs – Games Programming using VB.Net and SwinGame
Click here to access the online form.
- What is VBugs
- What is in the resource
- Who is it suitable for
- How much does it cost
- How long does it take to complete
- How to request the VBug resources
What is VBugs?
VBugs is a resource for creating a game using the SwinGame Software Development Kit (SDK) and VB.NET. Its aim is to teach students the steps involved in programming in a fun but non-superficial manner.
What is in the resource?
The downloaded resource has a teacher and a student folder. The student resource consists of self paced tutorials with exercise sheets for the student to fill in by hand as they progress. The exercise sheets have been designed as a way of assessing student knowledge and understanding of the topic as they progress. The teacher folder contains solutions to both the worksheets and the project chapter by chapter as well as lesson plans for using VBugs in class.
Who is it suitable for?
The resource is suitable for students from Year 9 – 11. The resource takes students through the very basics of games programming through to the development of a fully interactive game with levels, scores, music, sound effects, keyboard and mouse input and animated sprites. Students who are keen and progress well, can go on to develop another SwinGame and can enter in the SwinGame 09 competition. This competition is to open to all secondary school students in Australia. Visit the SwinGame 09 website for more details.
How much does it cost?
No charge. As part of Swinburne’s effort to support secondary schools and enhance the profile of ICT, this resource has been developed for all secondary schools to use for free. Simply register (see below) and we will send you the password and the link to download the resource in full. Along with this link we can send out a hard copy of the book for the teacher’s reference.
How long does it take to complete?
This will depend on your class to some extent. VBugs has 9 chapters. Some chapters would take approximately 1 period to complete and others about 3. The final chapter is open ended so if some students finish faster than others they can keep working on improving their game for as long as you like. We recommend allowing about 16 classes. A run down of the chapters can be found below:
- Chapter 1 – Hello World
- Chapter 2 – Images, Fonts and Colours
- Chapter 3 – Movement
- Chapter 4 – Sound and Keyboard
- Chapter 5 – Mouse input and Animation
- Chapter 6 – Methods in VB.NET
- Chapter 7 – Objects and Classes
- Chapter 8 – Level and Score
- Chapter 9 – Extensions and Additions
How to request the VBug resources?
After filling out the form, you will be emailed a username and password to access VBugs.
AudioBoo is an audio blogging site that uses mobile phones as a recording device. At present only iPhones and iPod touch can access AudioBoo as an app. Recorded Boos can be accessed via the AudioBoo website or links from sites like Twitter .
AudioBoo homepage
Although in the initial stages on development, and as such the website is a bit messy, interested people can subscribe to Boos through RSS. Boos can also be embedded into blogs and wikis via an embed code similar to YouTube embed codes.
Here is a Boo by Stephen Fry:
AudioBoo could have as many different learning applications as podcasts, but with the ease of uploading quickly and easily via mobile phone. It seems that the Boos on the website are all fairly short at present and so seem to be a Twitter style ‘microaudioblog’ or is that ‘audiomicroblog’?
And isn’t is so nice to hear a lovely voice like Stephen Fry’s?
AudioBoo people are currently in the development stage of users being able to record via any mobile or landline phone. Here’s hoping for the ability to record directly from a computer!
Looking for a fantastic free animation development site? Scratch just might be what you are after! Developed by a team at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Scratch is designed to be used by educators.
According to the Scratch website
Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. Scratch is available free of charge: go to Download.
As Scratch is aimed primarily at children (8-16 years), there is a raft of information for educators:
Scratch is designed with learning and education in mind.
As young people create projects in Scratch, they learn many of the 21st century skills that will be critical to success in the future: thinking creatively, communicating clearly, analyzing systematically, using technologies fluently, collaborating effectively, designing iteratively, learning continuously.
Scratch can used in many different settings: schools, museums, community centers, and homes. It is intended especially for 8- to 16-year-olds, but younger children can work on Scratch projects with their parents or older siblings, and college students use Scratch in some introductory computer science classes.
There are a variety of resources that can be helpful in introducing Scratch.
See Scratch Videos for videos on how to use and to introduce Scratch
The Getting Started Guide offers a step-by-step introduction to Scratch
Scratch Cards offer a fun way to learn Scratch code you can use in projects
The Scratch 1.3 Reference Guide is a manual that explains the Scratch software
The Translation page lists resources in Spanish and many other languagesDifferent people get started with Scratch in different ways. Some like to tinker with various blocks to see what they do. Others like to experiment with the sample projects that come with Scratch, and then make changes to the scripts. As an initial activity, we often encourage people to create a project using the letters in their name.
To learn more about the educational ideas underlying Scratch, please see:
One-Page Handouts
Learning with Scratch | Creating with Scratch | Programming with ScratchProgramming Concepts in Scratch 1.3
Scratch education case study from the National Center for Women and Information Technology
Scratch and 21st Century Skills
Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society
Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age
Scratch Educator Online Forums
Visit the Educators forum to discuss ideas with other educators using Scratch
New! Visit the Scratch Classroom 2.0 wiki
As you can see, Scratch has excellent resources for educators and as Scratch is available in many languages, LOTE classes are well catered for. The terms and conditions of Scratch explain that the site is open to any age and users are encouraged to flag inappropriate content.
The best part about Scratch is that you and your students can download the program for free, without even registering on the Scratch website. That means that your students can keep all animations completely private if you wish and only upload the animations to the Scratch website if they really want to share their work with the world.
Stay tuned for another animation tool shortly.
ViaPost is a brilliant idea. Users who download the ViaPost driver can send letters to anywhere in the United Kingdom by simply pressing ‘print’ on their computer.
Currently only for deliveries to the UK, ViaPost could still be used by all of us wanting to send letters to the UK as it is cheaper and quicker than International mail. Once you have clicked ‘print’ it takes three working days for your letter to be printed, placed in an envelope and delivered to its destination by Royal Mail. ViaPost have committed to shortening this time frame as soon as the size of their business allows them to.
There are some technical steps that users have to take to ensure that letters confirm to certain standards, but there are easy to follow step-by-step instructions given by ViaPost.
Hopefully a service like ViaPost will hit the shores of Australia soon, but we can still use it for mail from Australia to the UK.