Sunday 28 June 2009

Under construction: Posts on DER-NSW Laptops for Learning

Over the mast month, I have been collecting links and formulating posts on DER-NSW.

I finally spent some time today finishing them. Nothing too adventurous or innovative. Just some information about what is happening and who is posting and tweeting about it.

When you save posts as drafts, they keep that date. As a result, my posts go back in time from 10 June 2009.

A future goal will be to get posts to publish stage a lot faster.

It's good to dream ...

Wednesday 24 June 2009

Social networking booms as Twitter grows by 1448% | Blogs about Broadband, Technology, Telecoms and the Internet

Social networking booms as Twitter grows by 1448% | Blogs about Broadband, Technology, Telecoms and the Internet:

"Social networking is growing at a considerable pace. In May 2009, Nielsen Online –an internationally known online statistics measurement company, reported that it identified an 82% increase in total minutes spent on social media and blog websites year on year.

The average time spent per person on social media websites also increased by 67% year on year.

Twitter.com, the micro blogging platform where users are able to post ‘tweets’ of no more than 140 characters, was the fastest growing web brand in May 2009, increasing 1448% from 1.2 million unique users in May 2008 to 18.2 million in May 2009.

The average time spent on Twitter has also increased from 6 minutes and 19 seconds per session in May 2008 to 17 minutes and 21 seconds in May 2009."

Are we surprised?
Read about the rest ... or maybe not.

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Laptops for Learning-Building the Best Lessons

Here are some links to resources that may be of use.

Intel® Teach Elements: Project-Based Approaches

Free Teaching Tools and Resources

K–12 Teaching Resources
Free resources for educators support collaborative student-centered learning. Our 21st century teaching and learning resources help teachers play a critical role in facilitating learning activities and posing questions that take student thinking deeper.

skoool.com
A new concept in e-learning solutions another valuable intel Education product. This is the main site with links to the specially developed sites of individual continents and countries.

skoool science and mathematics resources
A collaboration between Intel and NSW DET has delivered more than 200 high-quality interactive learning resources for science and maths to NSW schools through the Teaching and Learning exchange (TaLe).

The Le@rning Federation develops digital curriculum content for all Australian and New Zealand schools. The project is a collaborative initiative of all Australian and New Zealand governments. Since 2001 our high-quality, innovative content has seeded and supported schools' moves into 21st-century education, and has begun the digital education revolution.
http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/for_teachers_intro.html
http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/teacher_ideas/secondary_english_ideas.html

Hot Twitterati for Data Visualisation, Infographics and Interactives

You can google for the blogs of these super surfers and set up an RSS feed to tap all their gems.

You can also follow them on Twitter. This is a very easy, timely way to share their top finds.

@russeltarr
@Larryferlazzo

These are some of the latest tweets:


http://www.eyeplorer.com/eyePlorer/


http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/

http://scimaps.org/maps/browse/

http://scimaps.org/maps/map/visual_elements_peri_77/

http://scimaps.org/maps/map/the_millennium_devel_90/

http://scimaps.org/maps/map/impact_of_air_travel_24/

http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/relation-browser/

http://marumushi.com/projects/newsmap

http://newsmap.jp/

http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/23/little-red-riding-hood-the-animated-infographic-story/

http://coolinfographics.blogspot.com/

http://universe.daylife.com/

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

Laptops, Notebooks, Netbooks - Local and Global Views and Action

Views from NSW public school teachers

http://simonborgert.edublogs.org/2009/05/31/chhs-maths-department-towards-l4l-part-2-some-key-issues/

Simon writes: "Lets hope that the teacher rollout is before the school holidays start on 10 July as this would allow staff to “play” with their machines over the holidays and for the staff day at the commencement of Term 3 to be dedicated to Professional Learning on the Laptop."

NSW Curriculum Directorate has launched
Digital Education Revolution NSW. Welcome to the world of teaching mathematics with laptops. Looking like a valuable resource collection in the making.

Hunter Region is very active with professional learning. Here is a link to Pip Howell's blog.
and another with a school leader focus.

This post from an Australian teacher looks at the good and not so good things teachers need to know about laptop learning.

On the international stage, the USA has lots happening with these tiny, technotools
This a is a lead-up to NECC 2009 post by Wes Fryer. It has links to other articles and posts on netbook classroom experiences.





National eSafety Week in Australia


http://wazzup-web.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-protect-kids-from-entering-bad.html

http://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/693900

An Australian Government initiative.

Lots of countries have their own cybersafety and online safety programs.

Use my cybersafety and online safety bookmarks on delicious.

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Laptops for Teachers across Australia

Across Australia, may states are using Federal Digital Education Revolution funds to purchase laptops for students.

Many states have already used their own money to fund laptop programs for teachers.

What's happening in Queensland?
Computers for Teachers-Online Community
Thinking Digitally
Delivering Content
SMART Classrooms
SMART Classrooms planning
SMART Classrooms ICT Leaders

What's happening in Victoria?

ICT support services for netbooks

1-to-1 Learning

Netbook Trial wikispace posted by Helen Otway

What's happening in Western Australia

Notebooks

Related Programs

Cybersafety in WA








About Telstra - Media Centre - Announcement - Productivity concerns trigger crackdown on social networking sites

About Telstra - Media Centre - Announcement - Productivity concerns trigger crackdown on social networking sites:

"Australian businesses are cracking down on their employees accessing social networking sites in the midst of a tightening economy as managements aggressively seek productivity gains.

New figures released by Telstra Business and managed internet security specialists MessageLabs, now part of Symanetc, show a four-fold spike in the number of times employers have blocked worker access to social networking sites between June 2008 and April 2009.

Telstra Business has now released a range of security tools to allow employers to block or restrict the use of social networking sites during office hours, provided through MessageLabs services."

Make sure you click to read the full article. It is aninteresting read for all

Edutopia article-some useful social learning links

A Digital-Literacy Maven's Favorite Web Links

Excerpted from Edutopia Magazine:
As a professor of education, Michele Knobel uses the sites referenced in the website below. She believes that teachers-to-be must be savvy users of online technologies in order to be effective classroom teachers. She gives her students ample opportunity to create and collaborate through Web-based tools.

http://www.edutopia.org/dg-resources