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