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Happy 2009 and welcome to our GE wiki! I will be using this wiki as a platform for helping us learn how to harness the power and potential of the "read/write web" for meaningful, purposeful, engaging and powerful teaching and learning.

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=**26-3-09**=

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=**3-3-09**= media type="custom" key="3333412"

20-1-09

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2-1-09

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2-11-08

=**[|WRITING FUN]**=

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How NOT to use PowerPoint!

A series of presentations from EDtalks by Canadian educator Sharon Freisen.

media type="custom" key="2490215" Sharon talks about inquiry being a disposition cultivated during teaching and learning, rather than a process that “gets done” by students. She talks about successful inquiry leading to deep understanding, giving examples from her own experiences.

media type="custom" key="2490225" Sharon talks about changes needed in education, focusing on the work students are asked to do. She suggests we need to prepare a thinking generation who ask questions of the world, requiring teachers to be guides, mentors, facilitators and designers.

media type="custom" key="2490233" Schooling in the 21st century needs to create students who know how to create knowledge, who continue to learn and challenge themselves. Sharon Friesen discusses how this might be done, and talks about ways schools have taken up this challenge

media type="custom" key="2490241" Sharon addresses a number of misconceptions about 21st century teaching, and discusses the instructional practices and expertise required of a teacher in today’s classrooms.

27-10-08

Dam Meyers is a young American high school maths teacher who is passionate and innovative, and a reflective and thoughtfull educator.

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=**25-10-08**= I have an earlier presentation made by Proff. Wesch. He bears listening again.

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19-10-08

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5-10-08

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28-9-08

Some interesting presentations. Some food for thought with reference to our school Vision. media type="custom" key="2063510"

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30-8-08

In view of the recommendations of :The Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society" released yesterday.Read especially the impact on education. (The link for a downloadable pdf document is [|here].) These are essential viewing.

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What we do not need to do when planning, thinking through the processes etc.

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23-8-08

Learning Styles? Truth or Fiction? Hmmm.

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Another video on brain based education

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16-8-08

Science and Humanities. Science starts with noticing. Not naming.

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5-8-08

Professor Michael Wesch’s brilliant presentation to the Library of Congress, June 23, 2008. The video is 55 minutes long, but is an excellent backgrounder to social media, user-generated content, and online communities through the lens of anthropology.

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3-7-08

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29-6-08

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21-6-08

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15-6-08

Let the children teach us. Something from 1992!

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9-6-08

The geometry of sound! media type="youtube" key="s9GBf8y0lY0&hl=en" height="344" width="425"

and ...

What do natural magnetic fields look like? This extraordinary footage from NASA’s Space Sciences Laboratory (UC Berkeley) gives you a glimpse and reveals their “chaotic, ever-changing geometries.”

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7-6-08

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3-6-08

Some videos from an educationist/thinker I respect very much, Prof. Stephen Heppell

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24-5-08

Food for thought

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21-5-08

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20-4-08

Laughter is the best medicine!

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17-4-08

Whatever we make of wikis or any applications with ICT or Web2, we can only progress and learn if we do it together, with one another, and,especially, with our pupils.



16-4-08

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Here are two awesome, inspiring and helpful websites on [|WebQuests] and [|learning effectively and in engaging, powerful ways] with ICT, by 2 pioneers in the field of online learning, Bernie Dodge and Tom March.

12-4-08

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21-3-08

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 * 14-3-08**

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Here is a 60 Minutes [|episode] on a savant known as Daniel Tammet.
 * 12-3-08**

You can find 5 connected videos on him that were part of a documentary called "The Amazing Brain" on Central.

Trying to neaten the page. For many of the YouTube videos. Go here.
 * 10-3-08**


 * 9-3-08**

Found some interesting sites for Science from the Children's University of Manchester on [|Energy and the Environment], the [|Body and Medicin,] [|Micro-Organisms.]and the [|Brain and Senses.]

=**8-3-08**=



Download Firefox [|here]. Its the best!


 * 7-3-08**

Go [|here] to get an add free wikispace; or click on the 100k free school wikis image on the right!

From the blog 21st Century Collborative, where they have [|this superb interactive tool from Microsoft] that is much food for thought when it comes to developing and sustaining innovation and innovative practices. As you develop projects in your schools do you plan for scale? > Transformation change requires you to think deeply and base your design on research in order to understand what causes effectiveness and the change in practice to take hold. > Ongoing assessment and retooling based on need and adapting to negative shifts in context. > Deciding how you will modify to retain effectiveness while reducing resources and expertise required is the hardest part of shift for me. I simply do not want to create "light" versions in the name of helping more and more folks "get it". I want to keep optimality even though it jeopardizes spread. > This is the most exciting aspect of scale. Watching as the community becomes co-evaluators, co-designers, and co-learners. It is exciting to see how users remix your design into powerful aspects you never thought of during the design phase.
 * Dimensions on scale**
 * //Deep and consequential changes in practice (depth)//
 * //Maintaining these changes in practice over substantial periods of time (sustainability)//
 * //Diffusion of the innovation to large numbers of users (spread)//
 * //Ownership of the innovation assumed by users, who deepen and sustain via adaptation (shift)//
 * //The innovation as revised by its adapters is influential in reshaping the thinking of its designers (evolution)// This phase involves relearning from users’ adaptations about how to rethink the model.


 * 6-3-08**

[|Science Interactive Body website] from the BBC

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This year’s Horizon Report is now out and it’s an absolute belter. The report is produced through collaboration of the New Media Consortium (NMC), which is an international not-for-profit consortium of nearly 250 learning-focused organizations “dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies.”, and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, which is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The report lists the key emerging e-learning technologies. Conveniently it groups the technologies in terms of their arrival within the education arena using three categories: less one year, two to three years and four to five years. Six emergent technologies are listed together with the critical challenges currently facing educational institutions. Briefly the technologies are: Each technology is covered in detail including an overview, the relevance to learning and teaching, examples and further reading. The critical challenges facing education include: The report covers all of these are covered in greater detail. Finally a number of key trends are identified: Good reading and great glimpse of what’s may lie ahead in terms of the changing learning environment (user is king) and of how practice will need to change. (from the blog e-Learning Now)
 * Grassroots video**: anyone can capture, edit, and share video clips, using commonly available equipment such as a mobile phones. Specialised knowledge or servers are no longer required. The outcome is that learners are increasingly empowered in terms of being able to create their own content.
 * Collaboration webs**: as with video, collaboration no longer requires expensive equipment or services. Web users simply open their browsers and edit group documents, hold online meetings, swap information and data, and collaborate in any number of ways without ever leaving their desks. Not only that but increasingly many programming interfaces are allowing users to create their own plug in applications and so further tailor the environment to their needs.
 * Mobile broadband:**. Each year, more than a billion new mobile devices are manufactured1 pushing forward innovation at an unprecedented pace. Capabilities are increasing as prices fall. Social networking on the go is already happening and is looking to be endemic in the near future as learners will be equipped to send, receive and interact with content as part of a fluid, connected, peer-based, mobile network.
 * Data mashups**: the concept is not new. Mashups are combinations of data from different sources “mashed up” to create a new interpretation of that data (usually a website whose information is based on data from multiple separate sources. Nevertheless this convergence of data is occurring at the same time as open programming increasingly allows users to deign and create their own mashups. As the report points out this “will transform the way we understand and represent information”.
 * Collective intelligence**: This my favourite. Again not new as we have seen this already with wikis, group blogs, community tagged resource sites and blog comments. Horizon speculates however that new sites will also include data based on people patterns such as search patterns, cell phone locations over time, geocoded digital photographs, and other data that are passively obtained. This combination of active and passive derived data will enrich and expand current knowledge pools.
 * Social operating systems**: Another fundamental change in concept and one that will influence future MLE development. Basically the next generation social networking systems will be based around people rather than around content. We’re talking the development of systems in which the leaner is not only connected with content but with the person that created that content.
 * Significant shifts in scholarship, research, creative expression, and learning have created a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy. Higher education is facing a growing expectation to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices.
 * The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment.
 * The academy is faced with a need to provide formal instruction in information, visual, and technological literacy as well as in how to create meaningful content with today’s tools.
 * The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship.
 * The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases.
 * Access to and portability of content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are introduced.
 * The gap between students’ perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen.


 * 1-3-08**

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Google has experts from different fields come in regularly to gives its employees talks/lectures to help them develop multiple perspectives/understandings to help them grow and be enriched. Watch this presentation by an eminent economist on teaching for dept vs breadth. Watch the video from the 3 min. to 8 min. mark.
 * 28-2-08**

Check out the wikis done by some of us Rosyth GE teachers. Feel free to ask questions or comment using the discussion tab at the top.

A [|video] on autism and how technology helps us listen to voices we need to hear and respect and value.

23-2-08

Want to find out the state of our planet earth. Go [|here] and be aware!

Some 'lectures' on using wikis as opposed to CMS (Content management systems).

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A slideshow on e-learning from one of the 'gurus'. media type="custom" key="529685"


 * 20-2-08**

A blogger whose writings I regularly follow has this idea for a wiki. Its quite interesting food for thought. https://brokenworld.wikispaces.com/A+Broken+World

Take a look at the chatroom I created. http://www.chatmaker.net/chatap/rooms/gift4all2008/

More food for thought.


 * 13-2-08**

Music for the pupils to listen to as they do their work or for you to base comprehension or listening comprehension exercises on!

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Go [|here] for some senses challenge and [|here] to see if you are a wordmaster.

Something I very easily created from http://www.classtools.net/

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 * 24-1-08**

From http://www.thethinkingstick.com, a blog I subscribe to. Something to ponder and think about.

Questions that an evaluator could use during the evaluation process of ICT use? This could be a simple list that any evaluator can use to decipher how the technology is being used in a particular lesson.
 * 1) Is the technology being used “Just because it’s there”?
 * 2) Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in Old ways?
 * 3) Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in New ways?
 * 4) Is the technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students?

This would be the use of edutainment software, the use of a particular piece of technology because it happens to be in the room. The teacher dabbles with technology, not having a real focus on its use within the lesson but uses it as an add-on or at a very basic level (no real impact on the learning process).
 * Is the technology being used “Just because it’s there”?**

Publishing a piece of writing in Word rather than hand writing it would be an example of this. Also, using an LCD projector instead of a white/black board for a lesson. Another example would be researching on the Internet rather than in an Encyclopedia. These are all great things, and great ways to use technology, but they are only replacing the way we have always done things with something that might be faster, easier, and more accurate. In the end however, they are still the same old things we have been doing for years in education.
 * Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in Old ways?**

Examples would be: watching Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech or listening to a recording of Stalin. Old things in New ways could also be reading and evaluation an original piece of writing or visiting a battle site via Google Earth. These are not new things…just new ways of doing old things. We used to read Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech to the class, now we can watch him give his speech in Washington D.C. We used to read the words of Stalin, now we can hear him speak them. We used to read from a book, now we can read and look at the original document. Instead of talking about a battle site, we can now visit that site virtually. These are not new things; they just enhance the old ways of doing things.
 * Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in New ways?**

Does the technology allow students to learn from people they never would have been able to without it? Does the technology allow students to interact with information in a way that is meaningful and could not have happened otherwise? Does the technology allow students to create and share their knowledge with an audience they never would have had access to without technology? Many of our teachers are not at this level yet and many might never get here because this level of technology use requires a new way of looking at learning. One in which many of our schools are not yet prepared to look deeply into. Prensky puts it this way:
 * Is the technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students?**

For the digital age, we need new curricula, new organization, new architecture, new teaching, new student assessments, new parental connections, new administration procedures, and many other elements. Some people suggest using emerging models from business — but these, for the most part, don’t apply. Others suggest trying to change school size — but this will not help much if we are still doing the wrong things, only in smaller spaces.

As you evaluate a teacher, you should be looking for answers to the above mentioned questions. I am not advocating that every lesson should use technology or that every lesson should try to answer “New things in New ways”. However, it is good to know just how the technology is being used. There is nothing wrong with only using an LCD projector, or Google Earth to visit a battle site. I get excited when I see both of those things happening in a classroom. I just think it is good to put it into perspective just what impact the technology is having on teaching and learning. If a teacher is only ever ‘dabbling’ or doing ‘Old things in Old ways’ then a conversation can start about how to move the use of technology to a deeper more meaningful level within the classroom. It is great to see teachers using technology in their lessons during an evaluation. It is even more informative if you can evaluate at what level that technology is effecting learning. Is it a replacement for the way we do things or is it something completely new and pushes both the students and teacher to new heights, new learning, and new knowledge?

Something to inspire and move!

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 * 23-1-08**

Have included a new page in the navigation space on the left, "Rosyth Wikis" where I will include links to wikis created by Rosyth GE teachers. Theresa's is the first one!


 * 20-1-08**

This is one science teacher's attempt to influence the way we talk about the issue of climate change. Pass it on. How we can use videos to spark discussion, learning and...


 * 17-1-08**

We have $15 000 to spend. Need to talk about what is worthwhile to spend money on. Can be resources, training etc. Thinking of buying UbD textbooks and Workbooks for everyone. Its what schools in the US do. RGS and Xin Min Sec have done it too!

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 * EVEN LATER 8.55 pm.**

Added some notes in UbD


 * LATEST 8.25 pm**

Go to IGNITE 2008 for some latest developments.


 * 16-1-08**

One of the best ways we can help our pupils learn about oral presentations is to let them listen to great speeches. Enjoy two which some people consider to be epitomes of wonderful communicative events.

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Here's a bit of the contents from Obama's speech. Notice the refrain: Yes, we can.
 * Partial transcript**


 * For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.**
 * It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.**
 * It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.**
 * It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.**
 * It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.**
 * Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.**


 * How we can teach them the power of rhetoric!**

14-1- 08

Check out these sites for the Kampong Glam trip. Something we can work on or work with the pupils. Think pedagogically!

http://www.communitywalk.com/

http://www.mapwing.com/

http://www.wayfaring.com/

http://www.mapskip.com/index.php

http://www.mymapsplus.com/

__**"WORK SCHEDULE"****/ TRAINING**__ 2/1/08 - 1 1/2 hour intro to Web 2 applications 3/1/08 - 2 hr continuation of web 2 applications - focus on wikis Consolidation of White Space for UbD and SEM White Space online - what we are doing on this wiki now!

Checkout my sketchcast!

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Tagging I have extracted a blog article as an intro to web 2 and more specifically the idea of tagging. I am also demonstrating the ease of embedding media into a wiki for us to work with.

Ways of using Blogs This gives you some ideas for using blogs in your teaching. Let's begin the discussion and trying out!


 * Wiki Urls** (Type in the urls of the wikis you are developing for us to look at and comment on!)

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**__Resources for us to comment on__**
Use the discussion button above to start discussing. Feel free to add in your own youTube videos, etc here.

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