Well, with my funky new Android phone that uses all things Google, I've decided to start using my Gmail account a lot more. To that end, I've been moving stuff all over the place from one account to another, and finally this blog. Not that I expect any of y'all to come a visiting any more, or anything. But if you do, I've exported and imported this blog to a new address, which is linked to the title of this blog.
I do hope I'll publish more entries, but that resolution could go the way of all resolutions
"I promise myself this year I'll call my friends every week"
"I promise myself this year I'll write letters"
"What, it's October already, and I haven't done any of that??? I'm sooo baaad"
That's how it usually goes.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Interesting, very interesting.
It was my birthday yesterday, and my big pressie from my husband was a Kindle. I was pretty excited to receive it, and did jump up and down a little bit.
I admit that I actually will have to read the rather lengthy instructions that come with it, as some of it isn't particularly intuitive, but meh, that's okay. I did however use it's web browsing capabilities with our wi-fi to go to Project Gutenberg and download a bunch of classics so I've at least got something to read on it, before I go buying stuff from Amazon.
When my husband gave it to me yesterday, he jokingly said to me that 'I can now hold my head up high amongst the other librarians'. This is because I've been moaning about my lack of smart phone primarily (which I now have - an Android phone) and how all the cool librarians have got an iPhone. But it did get me thinking about diverse topics.
1. The Kindle is awesome, the display is fantastically clear and crisp. I've been told that publishers are very unwilling to make text books into e-books, which I see as a really shortsighted strategy. E-book readers are becoming quite reasonably priced now, and I (probably naively) see it as good economic and ecological sense to sell text books more cheaply as e-books. Could rant a lot more on this, but I won't.
2. When I showed it to my Mum, (and brought it into work) she (and other colleagues) had not heard of an e-book reader before. Coincidentally, one of my RSS'ed bloggers wrote an entry in response to a study on technological uptake in Boomers, Gen X & Gen Y. Looking through it, there are only two things on the survey results I don't do, and that is all to do with our crummy Internet connection *grumble grumble living in the country grumble*
So go and have a look at that blog entry and its accompanying graphic to see what you're doing versus what everyone else is doing.
I admit that I actually will have to read the rather lengthy instructions that come with it, as some of it isn't particularly intuitive, but meh, that's okay. I did however use it's web browsing capabilities with our wi-fi to go to Project Gutenberg and download a bunch of classics so I've at least got something to read on it, before I go buying stuff from Amazon.
When my husband gave it to me yesterday, he jokingly said to me that 'I can now hold my head up high amongst the other librarians'. This is because I've been moaning about my lack of smart phone primarily (which I now have - an Android phone) and how all the cool librarians have got an iPhone. But it did get me thinking about diverse topics.
1. The Kindle is awesome, the display is fantastically clear and crisp. I've been told that publishers are very unwilling to make text books into e-books, which I see as a really shortsighted strategy. E-book readers are becoming quite reasonably priced now, and I (probably naively) see it as good economic and ecological sense to sell text books more cheaply as e-books. Could rant a lot more on this, but I won't.
2. When I showed it to my Mum, (and brought it into work) she (and other colleagues) had not heard of an e-book reader before. Coincidentally, one of my RSS'ed bloggers wrote an entry in response to a study on technological uptake in Boomers, Gen X & Gen Y. Looking through it, there are only two things on the survey results I don't do, and that is all to do with our crummy Internet connection *grumble grumble living in the country grumble*
So go and have a look at that blog entry and its accompanying graphic to see what you're doing versus what everyone else is doing.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Link dump
The following links you might find useful. They are things I'm planning to use/read, or have skimmed.
Online animation programs
Online animation programs
- Scratch
- Xtranormal - actually have an account and have quickly used this. Quite powerful.
- Aniboom
- Avatar Photo - make animated avatars
- Online Convert - convert files from one type to another
- PowerPoint templates - since we mostly agree PPT still has a limited place.
- 29 Social Media Resources - link to more links
- 5 tips for getting the most out of Google Reader
Thursday, September 23, 2010
VoiceThread
VoiceThread - what a cool application.
It is a collaborative site in which you can upload documents, video and images. Others can make voice comments, 'doodle' on document/image, and pause video for comment.
Unfortunately for me, it is such a new and cool idea, I wasn't sure how to implement it. I thought about what I could do with it for days - hence why it is the 'ultimate' entry in this blog.
I mean, one of the videos in which family talked about a picture was great and inspiring, a really awesome thing to do for a family member, it was not really the sort of thing I thought was adequate for my area.
For other people in the course I thought you could do something cool like upload a video, pause it at certain moments to discuss an implication or event of an action etc. However, I eventually decided to make use of it in a Wiki like way, in which students could discuss what they see wrong with a reference list.
It is still a work in progress (at time of this post), but I have nonetheless embedded it.
It is a collaborative site in which you can upload documents, video and images. Others can make voice comments, 'doodle' on document/image, and pause video for comment.
Unfortunately for me, it is such a new and cool idea, I wasn't sure how to implement it. I thought about what I could do with it for days - hence why it is the 'ultimate' entry in this blog.
I mean, one of the videos in which family talked about a picture was great and inspiring, a really awesome thing to do for a family member, it was not really the sort of thing I thought was adequate for my area.
For other people in the course I thought you could do something cool like upload a video, pause it at certain moments to discuss an implication or event of an action etc. However, I eventually decided to make use of it in a Wiki like way, in which students could discuss what they see wrong with a reference list.
It is still a work in progress (at time of this post), but I have nonetheless embedded it.
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Penultimate blog entry - A reflective synopsis
I find myself in a slightly different position to my fellow students in the course I am undertaking on education technology. I think they are all lecturers or teachers with a full time workload of teaching for an entire semester, whereas I am a librarian whose teaching load is considerably different. I teach as part of a team, presenting free information literacy classes to students, classes requested by individual lecturers and 6 weeks of information literacy to a bridging class.
Therefore, I rarely have the same students twice to get the most benefit from many of the technologies used during the course.
However, that being said, I’m always on the lookout for new technologies that can be utilised in the course I teach and in general for the dissemination of information literacy to the wider student community.
Blogs are an obvious candidate, and the library does have a blog that is updated regularly by a rotating roster of staff. It contains information about database outages or updates, announcements, and entries that are of a generally informative nature, such as a recent one about Banned Books Week, or librarians throughout the ages, or resources on the subject of chocolate. The only problem I see with a blog is that it could be difficult for a newcomer to the blog to read previous entries for a specific topic e.g. how to find journal articles, since the information could be quite far back or have become outdated since first posting. There is also the issue of regular posting to keep the content fresh and up to date, as so many blogs become abandoned after a while.
I have harboured an idea for using Wikis as a general library tool. Something students could post their tips and tricks to, updating when something new is identified of use. In my mind, I would start off with staff posting our instructions, and then open to student contribution, perhaps moderating or addressing some student entries. In my dreams this Wiki would become an evolving tool that students would find easy to follow and understand.
Learning Management Systems such as Moodle are a real boon to the educator and student. The amount of information and resources that can be made available through them is almost limitless. As a student, having all of the course requirements, readings and resources is so handy. As an educator, being able to provide aforementioned information, as well as spur of the moment information is invaluable.
I also found online quizzes to be equal parts delightful and a trial. The time it takes to learn how to create a quiz online almost makes up for the amount of time you might spend marking a quiz offline. However, the knowledge and skills are an investment that won’t necessarily diminish over time. I would like to be able to upskill my abilities with PowerPoint to be able to write the code to incorporate Visual Basic and create a self marking quiz, however, I fear that being a code monkey is beyond my abilities, and hopefully I will just be able to rip off *ahem* I mean, modify some one else’s code to incorporate into my own quizzes.
Of the other technologies investigated, Podcasts, Google Earth, online image editors, Flickr, file hosting and slide sharing, I feel they have a place, but I’m not sure where in my particular circumstances. I see something like Flickr as being useful for a web presence promoting the library. Podcasts I see similarly, a way of promoting the library. I can’t see voice only podcast as being useful for instructing people on how to construct a reference or search databases as in many ways they are visually dependent.
It has been enlightening to see how others in this course would be able to use many of these technologies, and I have found myself considering that ‘technology A’ might have a use for ‘Person Z’.
I had rather hoped to have a more robust experience ‘conversing’ with my fellow students, but few of them found their way to my blog and left comments. Either that is an indictment on my writing, or there wasn’t much to say *shrug*. I did however enjoy leaving comments on my fellow students’ blogs, either encouragement or (hopefully) helpful comments. It did make me realise though, that having a comment left made one realise that others were reading, and it made me want to check for more comments, and write more entries.
Just in closing, there is so much out there on the Internet that keeping up is difficult, let alone being able to use it and utilise it. I wonder if I would have been able to keep up if I wasn’t already interested in this area, and had some small experience – which is kind of funny, because back in the day (high school that is) computers and I didn’t like each other very much, but maybe that was me and Basic. Nowadays I’m fascinated and want to explore and be on top of the newest lastest thing. Maybe that isn’t all you need, but surely the willingness to be told and then go play goes a long way to figuring out how to use it for teaching and learning.
Therefore, I rarely have the same students twice to get the most benefit from many of the technologies used during the course.
However, that being said, I’m always on the lookout for new technologies that can be utilised in the course I teach and in general for the dissemination of information literacy to the wider student community.
Blogs are an obvious candidate, and the library does have a blog that is updated regularly by a rotating roster of staff. It contains information about database outages or updates, announcements, and entries that are of a generally informative nature, such as a recent one about Banned Books Week, or librarians throughout the ages, or resources on the subject of chocolate. The only problem I see with a blog is that it could be difficult for a newcomer to the blog to read previous entries for a specific topic e.g. how to find journal articles, since the information could be quite far back or have become outdated since first posting. There is also the issue of regular posting to keep the content fresh and up to date, as so many blogs become abandoned after a while.
I have harboured an idea for using Wikis as a general library tool. Something students could post their tips and tricks to, updating when something new is identified of use. In my mind, I would start off with staff posting our instructions, and then open to student contribution, perhaps moderating or addressing some student entries. In my dreams this Wiki would become an evolving tool that students would find easy to follow and understand.
Learning Management Systems such as Moodle are a real boon to the educator and student. The amount of information and resources that can be made available through them is almost limitless. As a student, having all of the course requirements, readings and resources is so handy. As an educator, being able to provide aforementioned information, as well as spur of the moment information is invaluable.
I also found online quizzes to be equal parts delightful and a trial. The time it takes to learn how to create a quiz online almost makes up for the amount of time you might spend marking a quiz offline. However, the knowledge and skills are an investment that won’t necessarily diminish over time. I would like to be able to upskill my abilities with PowerPoint to be able to write the code to incorporate Visual Basic and create a self marking quiz, however, I fear that being a code monkey is beyond my abilities, and hopefully I will just be able to rip off *ahem* I mean, modify some one else’s code to incorporate into my own quizzes.
Of the other technologies investigated, Podcasts, Google Earth, online image editors, Flickr, file hosting and slide sharing, I feel they have a place, but I’m not sure where in my particular circumstances. I see something like Flickr as being useful for a web presence promoting the library. Podcasts I see similarly, a way of promoting the library. I can’t see voice only podcast as being useful for instructing people on how to construct a reference or search databases as in many ways they are visually dependent.
It has been enlightening to see how others in this course would be able to use many of these technologies, and I have found myself considering that ‘technology A’ might have a use for ‘Person Z’.
I had rather hoped to have a more robust experience ‘conversing’ with my fellow students, but few of them found their way to my blog and left comments. Either that is an indictment on my writing, or there wasn’t much to say *shrug*. I did however enjoy leaving comments on my fellow students’ blogs, either encouragement or (hopefully) helpful comments. It did make me realise though, that having a comment left made one realise that others were reading, and it made me want to check for more comments, and write more entries.
Just in closing, there is so much out there on the Internet that keeping up is difficult, let alone being able to use it and utilise it. I wonder if I would have been able to keep up if I wasn’t already interested in this area, and had some small experience – which is kind of funny, because back in the day (high school that is) computers and I didn’t like each other very much, but maybe that was me and Basic. Nowadays I’m fascinated and want to explore and be on top of the newest lastest thing. Maybe that isn’t all you need, but surely the willingness to be told and then go play goes a long way to figuring out how to use it for teaching and learning.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
WebQuests
WebQuests have been around since 1995 and involve student activity and inquiry into (preferably) a meaningful and authentic task or issue by integrating technology and the internet into the unit of work.
Susan Brooks-Young in her book 'Critical technology: Issues for school leaders' (2008), outlines the six elements of a WebQuest:
It has been quite some time since I completed my Grad. Dip. Ed. and those were the days when the Internet was starting to become widely used at home, but before it was widely used at school. So none of my instruction involved the integration of technology into the curriculum to engage students. I observe that the availability of technology and computers remains a hot-button topic in the news and current affairs shows, but it remains unknown just how much technology is integrated into the daily life of secondary school students to me.
My child is at a school where we are obliged to purchase notebooks for them to use on a daily basis, and they do have those nifty interactive whiteboards in many of their classrooms, so I'm confident that there is a high use of technology in that school. But just how well is it used I am not sure. Are they given projects like WebQuests to stimulate and sharpen their use of the available technologies? Are the teacher's competent and confident in their use of the technologies? These questions apply to both private and public schools.
My thoughts are that in general, no on both counts.
Given the skills of undergraduate students coming through the library for instruction or asking questions, so many of them seem to only skim the surface in terms of searching abilities and strategies, use of alternate sources of information, and ability to use technologies. It's like they got shown how to do one thing, and that's all they have bothered to do since.
As for instruction, I'm not even sure if my university has an interactive whiteboard for the ed students to practice on. One thing I am sure of though, is that many of the disciplines are at uni are using videos, blogs and podcasts, as well as PowerPoint presentations to promote assessment.
The point of that little rant was that I'm not entirely sure how well many such units of work would be put together by older teachers with little skill or confidence in technology, and how well they would be put together by younger teachers with limited skills in using the technology.
Susan Brooks-Young in her book 'Critical technology: Issues for school leaders' (2008), outlines the six elements of a WebQuest:
- Introduction - explanation or background of the WebQuest.
- Task - what will be accomplished by completing the WebQuest.
- Information sources - list of resources; Internet sites, print materials, classroom resources, she even suggests content area experts who may be available by email or a scheduled video conference.
- Process - the steps taken to complete the activity.
- Guidance - FAQ's and direction for completing specific steps.
- Conclusion - closure for the activity
- What an exciting unit for students (if it is something that interests them - after all, not everyone is necessarily interested by the same issues/topics, however real world they are)
- What a lot of work to create, and keep up to date, a really good one.
- Are they being done in Australian schools (namely my kid's school)?
It has been quite some time since I completed my Grad. Dip. Ed. and those were the days when the Internet was starting to become widely used at home, but before it was widely used at school. So none of my instruction involved the integration of technology into the curriculum to engage students. I observe that the availability of technology and computers remains a hot-button topic in the news and current affairs shows, but it remains unknown just how much technology is integrated into the daily life of secondary school students to me.
My child is at a school where we are obliged to purchase notebooks for them to use on a daily basis, and they do have those nifty interactive whiteboards in many of their classrooms, so I'm confident that there is a high use of technology in that school. But just how well is it used I am not sure. Are they given projects like WebQuests to stimulate and sharpen their use of the available technologies? Are the teacher's competent and confident in their use of the technologies? These questions apply to both private and public schools.
My thoughts are that in general, no on both counts.
Given the skills of undergraduate students coming through the library for instruction or asking questions, so many of them seem to only skim the surface in terms of searching abilities and strategies, use of alternate sources of information, and ability to use technologies. It's like they got shown how to do one thing, and that's all they have bothered to do since.
As for instruction, I'm not even sure if my university has an interactive whiteboard for the ed students to practice on. One thing I am sure of though, is that many of the disciplines are at uni are using videos, blogs and podcasts, as well as PowerPoint presentations to promote assessment.
The point of that little rant was that I'm not entirely sure how well many such units of work would be put together by older teachers with little skill or confidence in technology, and how well they would be put together by younger teachers with limited skills in using the technology.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Wooooot
After much messing around with a different app (which I have since uninstalled) I have finally been able to post a blog entry from my phone.
I got a new phone over the weekend which is an Android. For anyone not sure what that is, it is a competitor to Apple's iPhone. I did download a different app to let me post to Blogger, but spent 2 days trying to log on.
I also had this awesome post, but it wouldn't load.
I got a new phone over the weekend which is an Android. For anyone not sure what that is, it is a competitor to Apple's iPhone. I did download a different app to let me post to Blogger, but spent 2 days trying to log on.
I also had this awesome post, but it wouldn't load.
Images
This is a blog post I have just posted for work about public domain images.
Of course there is the good old standby of Google Image Search or the image search with Bing but you do get a number of results that are either off topic, inappropriate in size (or content), or watermarked with a logo.
So how then to obtain images that are Royalty Free?
Here are a few sites you can try.
Picture Australia through the National Library of Australia searches through the archives of many Australian libraries, universities and museums.
The Library of Congress in the US has recently made their collection available via Flickr as has NASA.
One final link I would point you towards is the Duke University subject guide for medical images. This has an extraordinary number of links for medical images.
The old adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words” might not cut you any slack with your lecturers with the word counts of your assignments, but a well placed picture can certainly enliven the look of your work and any presentations.
Of course there is the good old standby of Google Image Search or the image search with Bing but you do get a number of results that are either off topic, inappropriate in size (or content), or watermarked with a logo.
So how then to obtain images that are Royalty Free?
Here are a few sites you can try.
Picture Australia through the National Library of Australia searches through the archives of many Australian libraries, universities and museums.
The Library of Congress in the US has recently made their collection available via Flickr as has NASA.
I mentioned Flickr before, which along with Photobucket are useful sites to search for contemporary images that may have creative commons licences.
This About.com site on Genealogy has a great set of links to various archives around the world. I could link you to numerous sites that have great sets of links, in the end I think this Wikipedia entry on public domain image resources is probably the best set of links available.
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