Educational Origami

This starter sheets is looking at the online service Crocodoc which allows the users to upload, share and annotate document. The documents can then be downloaded in the mark-up format or in the original format.

This service supports PDF and Microsoft office files. This is a useful way of collating student work sharing  exemplars and adding comments and drawing with out modifying the original document.

starter sheet – crocodoc formative assessment

Other Starter sheets are available at http://edorigami.wikispaces.com

Educational origami wiki

A colleague recently said to me, quite proudly “We are a moodle school” and another school recently announced that they were now a Google school. In both case I felt that they had let down their students. They forgotten what was important, they had forgotten about the learning of the students and focused on the technology.

I am always disappointed when teachers focus to the exclusion of all others on one technology, be it an online environment or solution; or a platform or operating system. As soon as this happens its the tail wagging the dog, technology is driving educational decisions.

I am not trying to detract from either Moodle or Goodle Applications, in fact I believe that they are each excellent tools within the framework of their features, but to focus on them to the exclusion of others is limiting the opportunities that education requires.

All products have strengths and weaknesses, they all present opportunities that can with the creative mind of a teacher be utilised to improve the learning outcomes of our students. While Google documents allows for synchronous editing of documents, mail and some web publishings (as well as other bits and pieces) it doesn’t allow structured testing, linier progression through tasks which Moodle does. While Moodle does provide some walled garden features of social networking, it doesn’t do it as well as Ning does. And Ning does, in the fuller subscription models, allow some hosting of media, its no where near as good as flickr or youtube. None of the previous product host wikis as well as wikispaces or wet paint wikis but these two do not do the features of the social media tools or the synchronous editing.

There are always strengths and weaknesses, the best policy (IMHO) is to be agile and responcive. Not to lock yourself into one product but consider a range of products that will fill a number of needs. Be agile enough to pick up new tools as they become available and similarly to be able to let them go when they reach their used by date. Organisations struggle with this, technical departments struggles with this too. Teachers invest time and energy and then do not want to see it changed, to see the materials lost.

Organisations develop inertia. They see the investment they have made and don’t want to change. Once the object is rolling its hard to change its course. Then more you invest in an system, the bigger its mass and the more it takes to change, to deviate the mass from its course. When you say you are a Moodle, Google or insert product name here school you are creating a Mass with HUGE INERTIA. You are no longer agile, you are no longer flexible and it is unlikely that you are going to be able to change to met the needs of the students.

A better approach is to use each tool on its merits, be open to new material, able to change, to accept common standards to allow interoperability between platforms and applications.

IMHO, that is………………..

This is an interesting article from the US about the effects of social networking on learning.

The paper finds that social networking helps the students. Here is one quote from the article

“When kids feel connected and have a strong sense of belonging to the school community, they do better in school,” said Greenhow, an education professor. “They persist in school at higher rates and achieve at higher rates. … It’s pretty promising that engaging in social networking sites could help them to develop and deepen their bonds over time.”

Essentially it relates to student engagement. A student who is engaged is a student who is learning. I have seen numerous examples of students using Social Networking for positively in the classroom. My own students have set up facebook groups for specific subject areas to discuss and support each other in their learning. These are powerful tools.

Obviously spocial networking is not without its pit falls – distraction and alike, but the paper also recognises this too.

“There is still considerable debate over whether teachers should use social-networking sites in the classroom. The dangers and abuses of social media – sexual predators, cyberbullying and harassment, and the posting of inappropriate photos and other material – have made some educators skittish. Many are not convinced that the sites improve communication, and some fear students simply use the sites to procrastinate and catch up with friends.”

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/social-networking-helps-students-perform-better-professor-says-12292#.ToASq-_flvc.email

Worth reading.

Source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2336/2197859476_eebb9aa79f_o.png

This update is a mixed bag with some interesting stuff for the iPad, video resources (ideal for media studies and English teachers) and some good stuff for IT students (and teachers) for developing web pages.

1. Best ads http://www.bestadsontv.com/ This website hosts examples of the best advertisements from a variety of medias. The advertisements range from Television, to radio and print to outdoors. A good resource for teachers of English and Media studies.

2. Idea Wallet Apps – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ideawallets-remember-every/id364240349?mt=8# iPad applications This is a series of applications that are essentially thinking tools. The reviews are mixed as they are apparently buggy, but the developers are working on this. However they are free, clean and quite simple to use. Here are the three I am playing with:

• SWOT – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swot-by-ideawallets/id390703853?mt=8
• Brainstorming – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brainstorming-by-ideawallets/id385752154?mt=8
• Free thinking – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-thinking-by-ideawallets/id385747141?mt=8

3. Veritasium http://www.veritasium.com/ (thanks @Simoncrook) Veritasium is a science blog that hosts some neat little science videos. This is a useful resource to troll through and find the videos for science classes. This is what they say about themselves : “Veritasium is a science video blog which aims to present topics in all areas of science from the simplest to the most complex. The goal is to make scientific ideas clear, accessible, and interesting. Veritas is Latin for truth, and the ending ‘ium’ makes it into an element – the element of truth.” Source: http://www.veritasium.com/p/about-veritasium.html They have their own YouTube channel as well – http://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium

source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HanXVwUBzxM/TV043W3AshI/AAAAAAAAACE/OKeOiw4KoU4/s1600/Veritasium2.jpg

4. Web Development resources – http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/07/massive-compilation-of-designer-tools/ – these are some of the sites that I have cherry picked from the web designer depot post:

• CSS property index - http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/propindex/all.htm
• CSS Shorthand guide – http://www.dustindiaz.com/css-shorthand/
• Colour scheme – http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/scripts/color-schemer/color-schemer.html
• Adobe Kuler – http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/rating?time=30

Source: http://www.spiderscribe.net/img/site/logo.png

Next an online mindmapping tool – http://www.spiderscribe.net/ I like mind mapping tools they are a great way to visualize the relationships within information. Here is another useful one that is worth examining and considering. The last word goes to this twitter info graphic – http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/twitter_history_0410.jpg?w=640

These two videos are quite thought provoking in different ways.

The first is project based learning explained, by the common cvraft show – http://youtu.be/LMCZvGesRz8.

Isn’t this how we should be teaching?

The second is from TED - Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book – http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_matas.html

Traditional publishing company will need to adapt if they are to remain competitive and viable. What will this mean for education?

This is an interesting infographic – Is social media ruining students?. It addresses social media and education posing as it does some interesting challenges for us as educator. If you have a look at the stats for facebook it adds weigh to the comments expressed in the image. Consider these as you read below: (source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics )

source: http://images.onlineeducation.net.s3.amazonaws.com/Social-Media-and-Students.jpg

So is Social Media good or bad? Or is it just a medium which we as teachers can use (exploit)?

In this update of on the wire resources we have materials for google earth in the classroom, visualisation, graphics and DTP,  SERC and more

1. How to teach with Google Earth – http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/google_earth/how.html – This is a useful resource for using Google earth in schools. Published by the Science Education resource Center at Carleton  College is a well resourced and structured resource. Havbe a look at these resources on the same site:

• http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html Teaching Methods a good resource on pedagogy
• http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/search.html?q1=sercvocabs__72%3A2 Learning resources search page

2. Many Eyes – http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/ - This is a data visualisation tool produced by the IBM. Visualising data is a powerful tool for analysis and evaluation. Its easier to see the trends when they are displayed as a graph rather than a field of numbers.

• create a visualization - http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/page/create_visualization.html
• Data Sets – http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/datasets

3. MyStudiyo – QuizRevolution – http://www.mystudiyo.com/ This is a web based quiz development tool that allows you to embed a test into your blog or website. While it is a lower order thinking based tool, its useful.

4. Cloud Canvas – http://www.cloud-canvas.com/index.php/ This is a web based tool that allows the user to develop Raster  and vector graphics as well as some basic desktop publishing features as well. Useful and adaptable

and finally the finnish school of the future. This is a blog post from Terry Freedman - http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2010/11/7/finnish-school-of-the-future.html Watch the video that goes with it.

Future School of Finland

Its been a while but with the impending demise or sale of Delicious by Yahoo! I have created another starter sheet, this one is for Diigo – another social networking tool.

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/starter+sheet+-+Diigo.pdf

This starter sheet has an overview of the use of the tool and some of the key features it has. It also examines how this tool may be used in the classroom. In this example its a brief examination of how it could be used in a humanities classroom.

Comments, suggestions and corrections are always appreciated

There’s Facebook, facebook and more facebook. Between the movie about facebook – The social Network – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Network and times man of the year http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html Facebook and its Developer/creator Mark Zuckerberg are getting huge publicity. Not that it really needs it with over 1/2 a billion people on the network – http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

I love facebook and I know I am not alone on that. It never ceases to amaze me how encompassing and enveloping facebook is.

My friend and colleague Doug just posted (on facebook) this brilliant article on facebook making connections – called visualizing friendships and with it this stunning image. The bright spots are the key areas of use and the lines show the linkages between them.

source: http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919

So is the world larger or smaller?

Merry Christmas. I hope you are all having a great time with your family and enjoying the festive season. I am.

I have a video to share with you, its been doing the rounds, but I thought I would save it for a special day, the most appropriate day. Please enjoy the digital story of the nativity. A clever and thoroughly web 2.0 version of the christmas story.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA

Enjoy, share and have fun. – Andrew