Skitch

Skitch is a great little app. that can help you communicate with others or take snapshots of things that you want to remember. The fun part is that you interact with your snapshots being able to add your own touch to it with drawing or words. Then it can be sent by email, uploaded to the internet or just saved on your computer. Its a sweet little idea that’s made in Australia.

I’m back in the classroom. . .

I’ve been working with another teacher to organize a virtual classroom for their class novel study to help me get my ICT Pedagogical Licence.  It’s all ready to go and now it looks like I’ll have to go it alone for a while, because he’s had an accident damaging his hand and may need surgery.  This means I’m back in the classroom on my own.  A little daunting, it’s been a number of years now.  I’m one of the few full time Teacher-Librarians around, in my area at least!  I have the marvelous luxury of not having to worry about assessment etc. which gives me time to explore and find the good stuff to help my teaching colleagues.  Don’t get me wrong, I am busy helping kids and getting new material ready for the library and every other department too.

The exercise of redesigning the novel unit was a good one though.  Because I had no ownership over the original assignment I have been able to look at it quite critically and see how little it really does to advance the students. I have tried to build a much richer experience that will enable the students to collaborate fully and build their bank of ideas and knowledge more fully.  We’re going to use blogs and wikis to get our info together first then embark on an imaginative writing piece based on the work they have done about the characters.  They have to be one of the characters and write with their voice. Hopefully they can bring some of their online skills to the fore to make it more exciting and teach each other in the process.

I am looking forward to it and it extends the students at bit more.  Anyway I guess we’ll see. . .

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Tags: education

Do you get Second Life?

I’m hoping someone out there can really explain to me why anyone would want to use Second Life! I’ve had a couple of looks but can’t get up any enthusiasm. I saw it in action (or something like it) on CSI NY and that hasn’t made me understand it any better. I like living a real life, why do I need a second life? I saw a short doco about a married couple here in Australia that spent as much of their free time as possible on the site. Their avatars were gorgeous and sexy and were getting together online. Believe me, they were neither gorgeous or sexy in real life, but they really could make each other feel that way if they actually spent time loving each other and getting down and dirty. Surely this is not healthy to want to live in an imaginary world. Shouldn’t we be making the best of the reality we are in rather than create an idealised netherworld.

Maybe I just don’t possess enough imagination or maybe not enough self loathing! I can’t get away from the thought that its really just another way to get money out of us, similar to those ring in phone polls and voting that are constantly on tv.  I guess I’m just jaded or perhaps just too old.  I’d love someone to tell me  the worth of SL!

Got new stuff. . .

Bought the Mac Heist apps pack and am please with the value received. DEVONthink is worth the price alone and my son loves the games. I haven’t played with all the apps yet but I’m sure I will get good use from them. Its definitely worth checking out if you have a Mac. I’m keeping my eye on the MacUpdate Promo its got Parallels as one of it offerings as well as some other great stuff.

Speaking of great Mac apps, I can’t recommend too highly Notebook by Circus Ponies it is just so simple to use. I’ve found the web clipping service to be fantastic. I’ve actually bought one or two other programs of this type and am beta testing Evernote. I’ve found different ones are good for different tasks I have. For me Yojimbo is great for archiving webpapges, collecting images, storing serial numbers and recipes. DEVONthink I am using to store receipts and I will put all my scanned stuff there. I use Notebook for all manner of note keeping and for clipping bits of webpages I need for reference. I use Evernote for all my work stuff because I can synch from my Mac to the web and loads of other cool stuff. There is just so many interesting and useful apps out there.

Another new tool. . .

The www is such a great place. Checking out some email today lead me to a new tool to use on the Mac – a screen capture tool called Skitch . And I think it may be Australian as well, which is very cool. It allows you to capture whatever you are interested in, highlight parts, add text etc., then it helps you to put the image where you would like it, eg. you can add to Twitter or blogpost etc. When I learn to use it properly I will put up an image in a post.

Starting to learn. . .

Its taken a few goes to get to get the hang of this but I think I’m starting to get a handle on it. I would like to share some of my favourite sites to get info that help me with my life and work. One thing I really enjoy is checking out the various lifehack sites. Here’s my favs:

Instructables

LifeHacker Australian site

It is truly amazing to see what people can do using their imagination, ingenuity and intelligence to help make things simpler, better, cheaper in their lives and ours. I will share some of my other finds in future posts.

What’s happening. . .

My school hols are just about up, back to school Monday. During my break of one week I have attended some Professional Development and completed part of my assignment which required me to explore my beliefs and practices in education and ICT. I had to look deep into my my beliefs of knowledge and learning and what theories underpin my own practice. It certainly is proving challenging. Found a great article on the net that I believe sums up much of beliefs and practices – Constructivism Computers and Information Literacy / by Don E. Tinkler.

I joined Twitter yesterday!

In at the deep end. . .

I think I have bitten off more than I can chew. My school was looking to get someone to do something called the ICT Pedagogical License here is Queensland. They could find no takers so I put up my hand. It is a bit daunting. I have to produce a digital portfolio that shows that I am using ICT to enhance and improve learning. It requires me to look at my beliefs in regards to learning and then look at what I do and how well I do it. We are doing a course online, there 150 of us divided into 10 groups.

Free at last-well for 5 weeks anyway. . .

Ok, I’ll try again now. I have time now the holidays are here. Let me explain. I’m a busy Teacher-Librarian in an Australian high school in gorgeous, sunny Queensland, and my summer holidays have begun. I’ve been flatout like a lizard drinking these past few weeks, stocktake of course and the dreaded return of the hire texts. We have to check, clean and repair 3 to 4000 text books (approx. sometimes its more!) that we loan to our students each year.
This year I managed to lure 5 parent volunteers to help us with the task. Despite outright bribery with lollies and treats they only lasted 1 or 2 days of the first week of work.

Nevertheless, with nose to the grindstone and the able help of my 2 part time assistants, we got the job done. Brilliant, and now I can concentrate on fun stuff for a while.

The reason I am looking at blogs right now is to learn how they work and how they might help me get info to students and teachers alike. In some ways technology has taken a few backward steps at work and the once thriving and useful intranet site we had would no longer function, due to system upgrades and no alternative had been produced. I’m looking to this blog to give me some inspiration to get something happening again, at least for my library. Any and all suggestions, help etc. is appreciated.

Hello world!

I spent about 10 minutes editing my first post, pressed the save button and then promptly lost it.  I had said the things I wanted to say in my in initial post and it went straight to the great nowhere.  I am pissed off and give up for now.  I will try again when I am not so tired and peeved.