Friday 29 May 2009

Laptops for Learning - Teach to Maximise Learning

How are teachers of Year 9 feeling about this "paradigm shifting" initiative?

enthusiastic? nervous? ready? fearful? All of these and more, I am sure.

We have taught through IT, ICT and lots of combinations of the same. Have we seen much impact on learning outcomes? At this time, I am inclined to reply: mmmmmmm

The world has seen OLPC, 1:1 laptops and again many other combinations and variations.
In Australia, most states are conducting some laptop trials. We are hearing about laptops, netbooks, notebooks in a market where many companies are looking to get the big $$$.

Graham Wegner has made some observations about laptop roll-outs.

In the USA, some edubloggers have been keeping us up to date:

Miguel Guhlin has made a number of contributions about learning with netbooks.
Netbooks for students
Usability for netbooks
Netbooks go viral

Wesley Fryer has written about creativity and netbooks and getting attention in a laptop classroom.

Scott McLeod has also penned a relevant post on using the ipod touch in the classroom.

Smaller, yes and at the same time related. Laptops, ipods, iphones etc. it's all about mlearning. The students will be the winners here.

Jeff Utecht in Bangkok has also written about the laptop's impact on learning.

There are also some sources of thinking on laptop pedagogy. We need to have the debate about what that means exactly?

The "Learning in Hand" blog identifies some possibly suitable web applications for netbook computers.

The countdown is on in the State's public high schools, it is just a few weeks before teachers become the proud users of their own laptop for learning.

That day cannot come fast enough! The possibilities and potential are yet to be fully explored.



Monday 25 May 2009

Social Technographics Ladder � Lucacept – intercepting the Web

Social Technographics Ladder � Lucacept – intercepting the Web

Jenny Luca has posted about a really useful infographic.

My comments:

I think this is one of the top infographics around at the moment.
The Brian Solis "Conversation Prism" is still Number 1 in my mind.
I have seen some nice slide decks on SlideShare by Charlene Li. She is worth a follow on Twitter too.

It is worthwhile reading all the posts of those who have picked up on this graphic through blogs, Twitter or other social media connections.

Sunday 24 May 2009

Laptops for Learning: NSW Public Education Leading the Way

The Laptops for Learning Project is moving forward. You can catch up with all the developments in Bulletins on the Department's intranet.

In addition, sign up to follow the blogs or tweets of a number of informed teachers who are either involved in L4L projects or as important keen to map, monitor and generally "build the field" for the successful implementation of laptops for Year 9-12 across the state and in their particular schools.

Darcy Moore's blog
Kelli McGraw's blog
Melissa Giddins's blog
Simon Job's blog
Anne-Marie Moore's blog

Head of EdTech at the Learning and Teaching Centre, Macquarie University, Dean Groom in his "Design 4 Learning" blog, has some interesting points to make.

In the past, others have contributed with experiences across the world:

Pamela Livingston writes a very useful blog, entitled Helping Laptop Programs.

More to come as teachers' work becomes available.

Saturday 23 May 2009

Are you building community through SlideShare? � Online Community Strategist

Are you building community through SlideShare? � Online Community Strategist

My comments on this post:

It is great that SlideShare picked up your post. I ♥ SlideShare too and use its functionality almost every day.
I have a search on various terms running through Google Reader, so I get an ongoing feed of shows that match my learning needs (education, technology, social media and ...) and I find many others that are of peripheral interest too.
I started groups that I post other people's slide shows to and I follow those who post decks that match my topics of interest.
I join other groups that match my interests and I post useful decks I find to those groups as well.
I always tag shows using my top search terms, when I favourite and when I check them out through google reader.
I comment very briefly on great decks as often as I can.
Now, I also post the best ones to Twitter and I try to add the creator's Twitter name, in the tweet.
I always look at my home page to see if there are shows that I have missed, since SlideShare throws up the shows of those that you follow as they are posted.

If you aren't following SlideShare, go now and have a quick look. It's more for the knowledge than the presentation style. Although, in that regard, you can pick up many nifty ideas.

Tuesday 12 May 2009

What Is A Good Parental Control Software Good For A 12 Yr Old That Is Going To Singles Sites And Chat Rooms.? | YourWebsiteSolutions.COM

What Is A Good Parental Control Software Good For A 12 Yr Old That Is Going To Singles Sites And Chat Rooms.? | YourWebsiteSolutions.COM:
"K9 Web Protection is the best free parental control and monitoring software.

K9 Web Protection is easy-to-use Parental Control and Internet filtering software that helps parents protect their children online. K9 Web Protection has the ability to block adult, porn and other offensive content, prevent spyware infections, and monitor visited sites on any Internet access connection (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Earthlink). Based on commercial-grade Web filtering controls from Blue Coat Systems, K9 Web Protection is unique among content filters and it is free for home use. K9 can be configured as a porn blocker, a spyware stopper, a gambling filter or various other configurations based on our over 55 Web categories."

Here are some links to explore this tool.

http://www1.k9webprotection.com/support/check-site-rating.php
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/index.php
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/support/faq.php
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/aboutk9/index.php
http://www.bluecoat.com/news/pr/53
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/aboutk9/product-features.php
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/resources/online-safety.php
http://www.internetsafetypodcast.com/
http://wiki.internetsafetypodcast.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

More about online safety to follow ...

Saturday 9 May 2009

April 2009 Web Server Survey - Netcraft

April 2009 Web Server Survey - Netcraft:

"In the April 2009 survey we received responses from 231,510,169 sites. This represents an increase of over 6 million sites when compared with last month, with Google and nginx accounting for almost all of the changes. Apache remains in the lead, as it has since 1996, with a total of over 106 million sites, followed by Microsoft-IIS with over 67 million and QQ with almost 29 million."


The internet is BIG, dynamic, constantly enlarging ... endless!

Keep an eye on this site for updates!