The Swivel Chair

Tom Kelley delivered an exciting keynote on innovation. Tom began by explaining to us that looking at the way content is presented and using the Anthropologists approach to work will benefit you and your audience….. Actually sit down and look at the problem at hand . Investigate and question if there is a better way to address the problem at hand.

So once you have looked at the problem in another way, start experimenting….become the experimenter, and think, shape and deliver ideas and tools that can be used.

But the most important part of the process is having “cross-pollinators”. People that will share, people that collaborate and will happily look at others ideas and translate and build on what has already been developed. Use other industries and ways of doing things and adapt to your workplace.

Taking these 3 learning roles, Tom believes this will nurture and build a social culture unparalleled. A fantastic start to the day and one that I am sure will motivate all of us in attendance.

The grade 2 team here at school are an amazing bunch…..come to think of it all grade levels are amazing here….but after a quick conversation with Jackie Speece over lunch one day and her enthusiasm at sharing her students work with her 2nd grade buddy class back in the US, we were able to add that extra dimension to the monster project developed by Mike Romard. Using Powerpoint and the Jeopardy Powerpoint layout around on the internet I set about planning out how we could show the great pictures designed by the kids and the writing describing the picture……..what a lesson for the students exploring if their description actually looked like their picture…..Fun was sure to be had!

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by spower

And by all reports it’s been great. But how to do it? Hyperlinks!!!!!!! Setting up a template slide for all of the stories and only having one “Correct” slide and one “Oops try again” slide.

Once you have a picture you want students to click on, simply right click on the picutre and select “hyperlink” and tell it where you want to jump to…..Powerpoint is so well set up that it pretty much asks which slide you would like it to jump to.

The key to this picture layout was to make one slide with all the pictures hyperlinked as “Oops try again”…..copy and paste this slide as many times as you need then you only need to select the one slide that is correct and change it to “Correct”

But the possibilities seem to be endless with powerpoint and the games we could create……………

Just saw this over at Valerie Maltoni’s blog and had to replay it here……Hannah loved it and has been trying to get her eyebrows in time ever since!!

NOTE: LOOKYBOOK HAS COLLAPSED!!! THIS WEBSITE HAS JUST UP AND GONE………… A WONDERFUL TOOL FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS…….I WAS SAD TO SEE IT GO

My daughter is discovering the internet in a big way. Thanks to an amazing bunch of teachers at Shanghai American School, but also due to Webkinz.
Jackie Speece Hannah’s teacher, continues to post and develop links to the wide world, something that was a savior over our last break when the rainy, cold days hit. Posting links the family can enjoy together was a savior……with all of us fighting to explore and play the learning games.Next came Webkinz that is ruling the    roost at the moment with Hannah having to budget, and understand that to get money you must earn it. The biggest part is the social atmosphere it creates, with some huge concepts graspped in terms of her having an online space and her friends also having one. Again the games and ways to earn “kinz” (money) has had me enthralled for an hour or two as well!!!! Having been through the adoption process though we had to laugh at the ease at which it was possible to adopt your toy.
One further way to engage students, introduced to me today from Amy Hossack was Lookybook what a powerful tool for teachers and families to engage….. from individual students exploring a teachers “bookshelf” to a class studying a book together at school and home…….WOW!

This introduction to GE is simply that, an introduction. This resource sits idle at times in the classroom and using it regularly will build your skill base and the lessons we can share, to life. Use the following resources to help build your knowledge of the program.

Starting at the very beginning is always the best so make sure to bookmark GE User guide

GElessons is a resource worth visiting. With a ton of KMZ files ready and waiting for you.

Google UK Schools is another worthwhile place to start.

Now that you understand what kmz and kml files are take a look at these babies…….just a few that are out there for people to use…….

grapes-of-wrath_1

macbeth

night_2

sanjose

This list has in no way been exhausted! Please if you have any others that work well for you, leave a comment.

Netvibes add feeds and share links. A nice fast way to add to your Netvibes page.

All-in-One Sidebar. This is a great one to control all of your settings in one place. Nice and handy with lots of options to tweak.

Answers. What does that word mean? Right click on the word, click look up anwers.com and bang you’re there!

Autopager. Loads the next page for you automatically. No more clicking next page.

ColorfulTabs. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.

Cooliris. Transforms your browser into a visually stunning, lightning fast way to search and enjoy online photos, videos and more.

Delicious Bookmarks. The official Firefox add-on for Delicious, the world’s leading social bookmarking service (formerly del.icio.us). It integrates your bookmarks and tags with Firefox and keeps them in sync for easy, convenient access.

Downloadhelper. The easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries.

Downthemall! The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!This baby proclaims to be able to speed downloads up to400%.

Facebook toolbar. For the facebook junkie requiring immediate updates all day long. Stay connected.

Forecastfox. Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable and unobtrusive add-on.

Foxclocks. Lets you keep an eye on the time around the world - or just your local time - by putting small clocks in your statusbar.

GCal Popup. Google Calendar in a nice overlay so that your calendar can be updated without ever leaving the web page.

Gmail manager. Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

Google Reader Watcher. Checks your Google Reader for unread news.

GooglePreview. Inserts preview images (thumbnails) and popularity ranks of web sites into the Google and Yahoo search results pages.

IE Tab. Enables you to use the embeded IE engine within Mozilla firefox. Great for groupwise!

Instaclick. Right-click on links to open them in new tabs. Firefox does this by default with middle-clicks, but many laptop mice (touchpads) don’t have middle buttons.

Morning Coffee. Keeps track of daily routine websites and opens them in tabs.

Mouse Gestures. Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.

Screen grab! It will save what you can see in the window, the entire page, just a selection, a particular frame… basically it saves webpages as images.

Scribefire. A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

Session Manager.  Session Manager saves and restores the state of all windows - either when you want it or automatically at startup and after crashes. Additionally it offers you to reopen (accidentally) closed windows and tabs.

Sxipper. Forget your passwords! Sxipper accurately fills in forms, manages passwords and your OpenIDs.

Tab Catalog. This shows contents of all of tabs as a thumbnail-style list.

Thumbstrips. Find what you seek — visually.

UrlbarExt. Extends the Location Bar with set of commands to (Make Tiny URL,Copy URL,Search site,Go up,Tag pages easily ,Navigate through sequential URL’s,View page cached version,Unblock filtered websites and Surf anonymously using online phproxy servers)

Over the past month, fantastic learning with technology has happened throughout 4th grade. A project that began as introduction to imovie culminated in 4TD completing their own movies on a book they had been studying. The Sideways stories had their premiere in our theatre last week to an audience of parents and friends. The atmosphere was electric!
It began with students armed with a digital camera in pairs visiting the Pearl Tower Museum and photographed away, documenting their trip and the artifacts.
I then uploaded all the photos to my picasa account which allowed the students to access all the photos and simply drap and drop straight into imovie….you’ve got to love imovie…even on a mini mac!!!
Using Picasa allowed the students to visit the albums on several occassions returning to find a better shot to document their experience.
Once 12-20 slides were chosen students added their voice describing the trip. We had made sure that a selection of chinese songs were available on itunes and whammo!!!! A fantastic photostory comparing old and new Shanghai. The slideshows are on Mr Dentons blog.
What happened next was the big change in how technology is being delivered at Shanghai American School. Todd Denton learnt imovie with the students and realized the endless possibilities………..filmed a selection of short stories students had been studying. Editing wasn’t a problem, as the editing skills had been established through the slideshows, and having the students work in groups of 4 - 5 meant the creative juices and technical ability was all there. Becoming a consultant and offering suggestions and work arounds meant students, teacher and Tech integrationalist all learnt the possibilities are endless when a committed team approaches a task.
The sideways films will be posted in the coming days.
Well done 4TD!

With Macworld beginning it was interesting to hear that itunes is finally going free DRM. Not that this will affect me at all but it is finally good to see that end users will be able to control the music they have bought. It is probably one of the biggest and important strangle holds on music by the big record companies that has finally been released. It is interesting to see that for you to unlock a song you bought on itunes you will have to pay a further 30 cents, for a song you have already bought!!!!….mmmmmm…..how many people will be doing this?
So as music begins to be freed up, to see in the news that China is cracking down on the big search engines and what is appropriate for us to see, takes us a step backwards…..or sideways if you live in China and used to it already. Students and staff have become quite adept at working their way around the Great firewall, but why should this have to be the norm? Living and working in China allows me the opportunity to understand censorship. Yes it is bad, and I know I am not as nearly affected by it as some citizens around the world but being aware of it and understanding how to deal with it is the most important step if you are living with it already. Australians……….let’s hope internet censorship doesn’t head down that slippery slope. And lastly…. facebook? Breastfeeding pics banned? Come on guys…..I had to check my reader to make sure I didn’t read this on The Onion!

Artist I am listening to this week…

“Down on the assembly line, they keep puttin’ the same thing out. But the people today, they just aint buying’. Nobody can figure it out. Well they try like hell to build a quality end, they’re working hard without a doubt. They’re ordinary people. And the dollar’s what it’s all about. Hard workin’ people. But the customers are walkin’ out.”

As I listen to this epic 18 minute song from Chrome dreams 2, I can’t help but think of the state of the world and the problems financially and more recently Gaza. Once again Neil delivers with a thought provoking and timely reminder (for me anyway….Chrome dreams 2 came out last year!) about who we are…….ordinary people.

Neil Young - Ordinary People (Part 1)

I have been grappling for weeks now as to my use of online space, and how and what I want it to be. And now I am quite comfortable with changing what it’s going to be used for……ramblings, tech tips, social media etc.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.