Edmodo

1. Title. Edmodo

2. Description of technology. - Edmodo has been compared to other social networking platforms such as Twitter, Face Book. The important difference is this has been designed for use in classrooms and gives the teacher all the control both when setting up, and using their virtual classroom with Edmodo.

3. Some issues. - With such a well refined explicit teaching companion as this the issue of student access to computers is raised. I would imagine this will only be an issue for the current generation of teachers. With the rate our current technology gets outdated, there is a constant stream of perfectly good but not the latest and greatest computers being 'disguarded' by users of the latest technologies. I hope that the government and education department will see this as an opportunity to enrich the educational possibilities of our schools and enrich students lives who's families may not be able to afford a computer.
So with the vision that the computer will be a standard booklist item like a calculator is now, hopefully within the next decade the issue of computer access will be minimalised.
This will of course eliminate the 'my dog ate my homework' excuse but look forward to hearing future concoctions of excuses - maybe my dog ate my keyboard?!?!

4. Educational applications - Can set assignments or activities for completion during or after school and the student only needs an Internet connection and their password to access it. Larger files such as video / audio can be embeded to the page as well creating a rich environment for both teachers and students.
Another plus is that it is a safe environment for students via a teacher defined access code for anyone the teacher wishes to to access their space. All communication is open to the teacher- ie no private messages which eliviates the temptation of off task behaviour.

5. Other thoughts. - Communication is such a vital part of effective education. The best part of Edmodo is that it uses the greatest communication tool ever imagined (so far anyway) the Internet, and creates a safe controlled environment where a teacher has real control and can see exactly what is happening throughout the virtual classroom - yes, it really gives them eyes in the back of their head!

Web Quest

Where would the world be today if we hadn't paused for a moment and thought of ways to do things better?
I'm sure all pioneers of new innovations throughout history have faced a similar hurdle to our web quest problem - 'I could show them how much better things could be if everyone just give it a chance'. The hard bit is how to communicate the benefits louder the criticisms and to convert the sceptics into supporters.
Imagine if the pioneers of of aviation 'The Wright Brothers' had given up their 'crazy idea' of flight because flying was actually a bit harder than driving and decided to just pootle back home in their 'motor car' for a nice hot cup of 'normali-tea.'
Life would have gone on just fine as it was. However there is something about the mysterious unkown that is well... mysterious. In this case and in thousands more the human thirst to discover proved too much so the human spirit fought on to overcome obstacles and drove the famous brothers to new heights (pun intended).
This 'thirst for discovery has never been totally quenched and I hope it never will. It is what gives us the drive to think of new ways of doing things and at least in our own eyes improve our situation.

To create change in a society like ours I believe there has to be two things, firstly a need to change the current way of doing things, and secondly means to make this an effective change without unreasonable inconvenience to those who are willing to change.

It may be said that the time and effort spent learning something new is not worth the benefit a the tool can provide. However, one way we can bridge the cap between the "Digital divide" is to become that much more efficient at doing things, that conventional methods become unconventional. To me this is sounds entirely possible when we consider the amount of time and effort we can save when we use the available tools correctly.
It does happen the other way round however. You gives something new a go and get further behind because they had to stop and fix the problems that occured while trying the 'great new technology'. This is a reality but it can be lessened through education and training. Providing people with free, simple, enjoyable, manageable training on new technology would help to lower the rate of problems and increase the number of satisfied users spreading the word on their new found abilities.

The applications we have been introduced to during this it unit along with the ever evolving list of applications available to Web 2.0 users (anyone willing) is surely enough to improve the way we do things - at both the personal and professional level.

I have outlined rather direct measures to help clamp the fissure known as the digital divide as sometimes a friendly nudge goes a long way but there are other ways i can see the digital divide diminishing .

A common misconception about current and forthcoming technologies is that of cost. I think a lot of people are under the belief that if a computer of application is going to really help them it's going to cost an arm and a leg to buy and maintain.
Now while keeping up with current technologies is in no way a cheap hobby the beauty of many of the new innovative ideas out there will operate on an everyday computer/web connection and can still operate sufficiently without the latest super fast technology. The best part of these applications as far as these critics are concerned is that they all able to be used for free.

As I have mentioned in many of my posts I feel the government and Education Department have a lot of responsibility to provide the basic tools (basic computer and Internet) to those who cannot afford them. A viable way to do this would be to refurbish and distribute businesses older machines they have upgraded from. These machines may not fit the bill for latest technologies but for many fantastic educational benefits these machines would be an affordable and practical way to go. This kind of 'government help' may not only appeal to those who can afford them but don't really know how cheap and effective a simple set up can be. This will help reduce the digital divide aswell and make a morre effective teaching environment is our schools.

I hope that once the 'tech phobia' has been substituted for an sufficient dose of 'tech envy' the evolution of a greater percentage of our society will embrace technology in many more ways than present, and with more users becomes more demand, with more demand comes education, with more education greater innovation appears, and with greater innovation comes.... well we shall just have to wait and see.

Simon Wright
A person that likes Web 2.0

Second Life doesn't mean second best

1. Title Second Life
2. Description of technology. - Second Life is a virtual world that allows users to interact with each other in nearly every aspect of day to day life. Users create an 'avatar' to represent them in the virtual world and go about life in a community pretty much like we do here on our humble little planet. (except for the flying part)
3. Some issues. - The virtual world has grown with such speed and enthusiasm there are many people who have set up full time businesses to cater for the users every need (atcually I think want is a better word). This has created a sort of floating economy where people are parting with large sums of real money to buy Linden Dollars (the games currecy) to 'spruce up' their avatar and online environment.
It is reported that as much as $35 million USD changes hands through second life each month. Since this is all going on in 'cyberspace' and from 'all four corners of the globe' I'm sure taxmen from all over the world are wondering when and how they can get their slice of the virtual pie.
4. Educational applications - As far as primary school education goes don't think second life will play a huge role, at least for now however the possibility for training at a professional level is just mind boggling. This would be especially beneficial to specialist training in organisations such as medicine , search and rescue etc. I'm sure the demand for simulated disasters / situations which the trainee is immersed in the environment would be huge and be beneficial to the participants.

5. Other thoughts. The costs of initial and ongoing training is a huge slice out of any buisnesses budget having a virtual platform to all meet at and undergo online trining in a live environment will reduce the costs of such as venue hire/ accomodation and the big one tea coffee and tim tams!!!
As I've learnt in my stuudies there is no substitute for hands on or concrete learning and there still will be the need for real hands on training in certain fields but a large part of training could be completed in the virtual world meaning when it comes to the real world the trainees will have a real head start.

Glogster

Glogster

1. Title - Glogster

2. Description of technology. - Glogster is a fun, colourful and easy to operate program which is the web 2.0 equivalent for an old 'poster project'. The clear difference to this is that the online poster (or Glog) is an interactive medium which can contain any kind of multimedia you can think of.

3. Some issues. - This is more a controll issue on the part of the user but I found it was too easy to add different images, videos, music etc that the page I created beacme over crowded very quickly and lost some of the effectiveness. There were just so many neat objects to choose from I found it hard to stop, but that can be dealt with in the drafting / design stage of creating the poster next time.

4. Educational applications - Glogster has its own educational version for schools to use, 'Glogster EDU' this is designed just for students so security and privacy issues have been dealt with well. The teacher can distibute the shells of the glogs to the class for them to create any number of different pieces of work. I like how the teacher becomes the moderator of all the glogs created to give a great tool for engaging the class and assessment too.

5. Other thoughts. - I think Glogster should be used right through and beyond primary age. It is simple enough to create an effective poster by younger students, but also once the students get more advanced with its capabilities it could become the 'go to' tool for integrating all subject areas into effective and proffesional looking creations.

Scratch

1. Title - Scratch

2. Description of technology. - Scratch is a multimedia tool that allows the user to create music and animation with a very high level of detail. Scratch uses a control panel or a scratch pad, where the user can drag a series of commands ranging from simple to very complex in order to program games, music or animation - or both.

3. Some issues. - This program is not what I would call 'first time' user friendly but that's not to say that with practice and experience it cannot be mastered. The ability to create some very complicated work should be incentive enough to allow appropriately itchy students to be set free on the scratch environment.

4. Educational applications - The time and patience required to figure out smooth operations would be enough to leave many teachers scratching their head, so I think it's fair to say that Scratch doesn't belong in every classroom. However I think to cater for certain individuals and many levels of intelligence's this kind of application is a great outlet for creativity. If it was attempted as a main stream lesson or activity, I think the key would be to give the students clear and firm instructions to assist in the initial learning of Scratch and once more simple tasks have been completed the difficulty level of the tasks can be adjusted according to the teachers interpretation.

5. Other thoughts. - This program seemed to cop a fair beating from the 'critics' in our class for being a bit too complicated for using, but if you used explicit teaching and focused just on one aspect of the program I think the students these days would have little trouble understanding what to do and even learn a lot about very complicated art of media production. Personally my interests lie in music education and I feel that scratch has done a good job of creating an asthetically pleasing application that can be utilized to achieve user controlled creations in music or combined with other visual media.

Twitter

1. Title - Twitter

2. Description of technology I would best describe twitter as a communication channel. It has many similarities to 'social networking' applications like face book but but seem to have taken the bigger slice of the pie when it comes to commercial communication - ie celebrities, forums etc.

3. Some issues. - I found the presence of unwanted followers or pop ups overwhelming on twitter, 5 minutes after I signed up I had four different "people' asking me to follow their tweets, which turned out to be trying to get me to buy their photos!

4. Educational applications - If security is anything less than 100% the suitability for student use in a classroom would be asking for trouble, however on the plus side once the rubbish has been filtered though I think twitter is a very powerful and active site for teacher collaboration. I found this through Classroom 2.0 with delivers webinars conferences and all round good advice for teachers (and pre service) trying to using web2.0 in the classroom

5. Other thoughts. - There is a 'controlled' section of twitter which has been created to encourage users to safely communicate within a user determined group, however I feel this takes away the whole purpose of twitter - being such a vast community of people bought together by a similar interest or activity. If you only want a few people involved I would think it would be easier to set up your own Wiki.

Bling bling 'JING'

1. Title Jing

2. Description of technology. - This is the free version of Jing Pro. In essence Jing is program to make screen capture easy. It adds to the standard 'print screen' method of screen capture and adds the feature of capturing video.

3. Some issues. - The uploading of captured video is by no means speedy, and with the average internet connections it would be hard to justify using, but in terms of capturing images this would not be an issue. I found that the PC requirements for using this application have to be quite close to current which may effect how wide spread its use is adopted. Jing requires the computer to be running Net 3.0 and Adobe v10 or above - both of which were lacking on my home computer which is not all that old compared to most primary school computer stations.

4. Educational applications - Jing has made a complicated task a little bit less complicated but still needs some practice before real understanding is reached.
Jing would be used primarily as a teacher tool and for more advanced students, teacher applications such as an innovative way to mark and editing students work, creating tutorials on how to complete step by step processes and completing poems that need
a word rhyming with spring.

5. Other thoughts. - Just to show how easy this can be I used Jing to capture a video of some of my thoughts and embeded the saved file right here for you to view.
Link to flollow. http://blog.jingproject.com/

GOOGLE WEARING DOC MARTINS

1. Title. GOOGLE DOCS

2. Description of Technology. Google Docs is an online publishing tool that can allow multiple users to edit view and engage in documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Google Docs is an easy to use application that will accept a wide range of file formats if you wish to upload existing documents or it has a plethora of templates available to make impressive and professional work.

3. Some Issues. One issue which is common to web based sharing applications is an age disclaimer about people under the age of 13 need parental authority and suporvision to use this is a Google disclaimer and it applies to all of their applications that require a login to use .

"In order to comply with federal law and the Google Terms of Service, students need to be over 13 years of age to use any product which requires a Google Account.
Students may participate in product use if the account is owned by a parent or teacher and that parent or teacher is present when the product is being used."

4. Educational applications - Their are so many benefits to both students and teachers using Google Docs. Not only can Google Docs unlock the door of Microsoft's 'vault' and free the innocent subscribers to their 'ever improving but never perfect' office suite, it also embraces the true nature of learning to outside normal availabilities the collaborative edit mode/ Presentations are created with a very similar format to powerpoint so previous users will quickly adapt.

5. Other thoughts - To make the most of Google's fantastic application you need to open a G-mail account. This in itself can open up a user to the world of 2.0. The best thing that I have found about a Gmail account is that from one page I can control and view all my other Email accounts, my blogging accounts, my RSS feeds from various sites I wish to stay in touch with.
The thing I liked best about using Google Docs was the online storage, meaning where ever I went I could work without having to carry around my thumbdrive, HDD, CD,DVD, flashdrive etc. . . Google is certainly a leader in free 2.0 applications that all speak to each other!!! ( :

Bitstrips combo - would you like fries with that?

1. Title - Bitstrips
2. Description of technology - This is an online comic strip creating software with the added dimension of an online social network for the characters created by the public.
   
3. Some issues - The software itself runs seems to run smoothly however I found running with a slower internet connection there were some problems with creating my own characters after about the fifth or sixth option screen. This may have been just from my own internet troubles but the the variety of choices to individualise each character may have impacted on this problem too. With all the social networking sites now available I think this part of Bitstrips will be limited in participation. The amount of time one can spend checking up on facebook or twitter about "real life" happenings may have a higher draw card than checking up on your charactetrs interactions in cyberspace - in saying that some people may prefer this to real life!
   
4. Educational applications - Bright, inviting and though maybe a little complex for lower to middle primary this application could well find its way onto my (expanding) 2.0 teaching tool belt. I can see Bitstrips obvious T&E focus being well integrated into Literacy, Art, SOSE and Science, but used effectively could help to meet outcomes right through the curriculum, even our overarching values!
   
5. Other thoughts. - There is something in a comic that just appeals to me, whether it's a simple picture with a few toungue in cheek words about a current issue, or a weekly installment of an ongoing fiction saga, the presence of comics everyday in our most popular newspapers and magazines is proof that I'm not alone in appreciating the humble comic strip's simplicity and charm. Bitstrips is like any tool, it's designed to make a job easier and when thinking of all the hard work bitstrips takes out of the comicstrip creation process, it is an effective tool indeed. But to add to this the varying level of complexities in the uses of this software creates a tool that can create good results with a little understanding and great results at a higher level. Hopefully Bitstrips creators remain satisfied with the highly entertaining creations coming in to existance because of their program and they don't follow many other software developers footsteps into a facination in profits.
   
6. Overall I gave Bitstrips 1.4 out of 2.0!
   

Wiki Wonderland

During my weekly summaries of the educational innovations I will stick to the format of

1. Title
   
2. Description of technology
3. Some issues
   
4. Educational applications
5. Other thoughts.
   

1. Title: 'The Wiki"

2. Description:
A wiki is basically an easy way to share information on line that the readers can comment on, edit, or even start their own ideas.
It is a web based way of publishing work similar to a 'blog' but the key difference between a wiki and a blog is that the wiki can have many authors and is aimed as a collaborative tool.
It is a web based platform for discussion, sharing or even just demonstrating ideas.
It takes the idea of blogging one step further and allows much greater contribution for collaborators. While still being maintained and guided by one main entity ( this can be an individual or sometimes be a group of authorised hosts) the Wiki platform can be used to do as little or as much in allowing users to add their own threads posts and other ideas to the site.

3. Some issues:

• If any old Joe blow can edit the wiki, how accurate may the information on the posts be? While this is true the publishers accuracy is not questioned at the time if publication, being a public document untrue or unwanted information can be quickly and easily removed.
  
• With all Internet security concerns that are relevant to web based sharing platforms is it safe to use? The access is determined by the creator of the wiki, in other words if you only want authorised people writing or reading the wiki this is easy to control. The consideration needs to be made however that by putting shackles on the access of the wiki you are also limiting the potential of contribution and overall visitors to the site.

4. Educational benefits/ applications

• The wiki gives the students ( and the teachers) and boundary limited only by their imagination (and undersized classroom budgets) to create and publish work.
• The wiki's focus on reader input can give the students ownership of the work and adds to the engagement level of another 'same old' lesson.
• Collaboration with wiki's can mean within the classroom, school, community or even another country.

5. Other thoughts
I remember in the 1980's my parents conducting 'teleconferences' with other groups across Australia and I remember thinking that was a pretty impressive feat. Back then they used to limit the conferences to once a month for about 1 hour due to the large cost of conducting the teleconference.
How things have changed, looking at WEB 2.0 applications like wiki's that are freely available for use for the public that cost the same weather you use it once for 5 minutes or if you spent an entire week collaborating with another group online.
That price again.........freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Gotta Love it!

by Simon Wright

This is my first every blog to share with the world.
Thought I'd start with something really interesting.
So here it is