Blog Feed: Di's blog - ICT in Education

Google Knowledge Graph

Published on 2012-05-24 23:35:00

Google Knowledge Graph is being launched to enable you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about, for example landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art to instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This will mean that students and teachers will find information more quickly as well as giving better results and information. > read more

Thomas Suarez: A 12-year-old app developer

Published on 2012-04-28 23:59:00

I have been watching a young boy (aged 12) talking about developing an app. > read more

Dvolver Moviemaker

Published on 2012-04-03 21:42:00

A fun little web 2 tool is Dvolver Moviemaker where the user creates a small movie in the matter of minutes.The user selects a background and a sky, then selecting characters, adding the conversation (comic book balloons), music and titles. You are then able to email the link to others. This could be used to teach about direct speech with English grammar as well as many other ways.I did make a movie and used the embed html to add to this web site and although it shows in the editing view it does [..] > read more

Windows 8 preview

Published on 2012-03-29 22:31:00

I have just been watching a preview of Windows 8. It certainly is different.Have a look at the opening screen - does it remind you of anything? Here is the video from Atomic Learning: <p>It  certainly is <br></p> > read more

Redefining research

Published on 2012-03-26 00:36:00

I was interested to read in our local newspaper (hard copy!!) about Encyclopedia Britannica stopping printing their books and focusing on an online service. Many years ago I remember some research where three groups of children were asked to find the answers to some research questions.Group one used the Encyclopedia Britannica booksGroup two used any site on the InternetGroup three used the Encyclopedia Britannica CD Rom > read more

Kidblog

Published on 2012-03-24 23:37:00

I am very keen on having the children in the classroom using blogs. Kidblog is a great site to use where each child can have their own blog with the teacher moderating it. This is all free, it has been set up by teachers for teachers. A great web 2 tool for the classroom. Kidblog is safe:Teachers have administrative control over all student blogs and student accounts.Your students' blogs are private by default - viewable only by classmates and the teacher.For "semi-public" blogs, set up guest (e [..] > read more

Interactions in an elearning course

Published on 2012-03-13 03:12:00

Carrying on from my previous post where I was musing about Doug's thoughts, the findings of my study about an online course included the importance the participants placed on the interactions. These findings may give those who are using elearning an understanding of the perceptions of the participants. Email interactions with the teacherRegular contact with the teacherwas seen as important by participants. Weekly emails were valued to maintaincontact between the teacher and the course members. H [..] > read more

E-learning

Published on 2012-03-12 01:48:00

I have just been reading Doug Woods' article on elearning and why it doesn't work. I am fascinated by this and by the comments others have made. I have been involved in e-learning for over a decade and found it pretty successful but I feel that it is so important that the teacher develops a relationship with each of their students. Unfortunately I have found that many teachers (often pushed into placing a course into an online environment) put up files and then rarely make themselves available [..] > read more

50 sites

Published on 2012-03-03 15:33:00

Davide Kapuler has recently uploaded version 3 of his collection of sites that are very useful to an educator. 50sites ver3 View more presentations from David Kapuler > read more

Blabberize

Published on 2012-02-25 11:14:00

A fun Web 2 tool is Blabberize.You need to register (free).You upload your own picture to the web site and are then able to crop to use just part of the picture if you want to.You then place the mouth area on the graphic - you can use as many of these as you want to i.e. you can have more than one person in the graphic.You then record the sound and your video is made. These can be embedded into the class wiki, blog etc. Students will love making these as part of a presentation about a research [..] > read more

PresentationTube

Published on 2012-02-23 13:57:00

A very useful tool for educators is PresentationTube. You need to register (free) and download a recorder to your computer (Windows).You are then able to use the recorder to record your PowerPoint presentation. It records your animations, transitions, as well as embedded video and audio. The presenter is also able to annotate their slides which will also be part of the recording. Once you have completed this you can then upload the file ready to share it with your students or other viewers.This [..] > read more

Free videos for the classroom

Published on 2012-02-22 12:21:00

WatchKnowLearn is a site where you will find videos to use in the classroom. This site is has videos and presentations which are in the different categories making it easier for teachers and students to find what they are looking for.The videos and presentations are embedded from other sites or have links to other sites. Of course there are other sites such as TeacherTube which are great but the real advantage here is that it is one huge directory. In order to so this they invite educators to su [..] > read more

Jig saw

Published on 2012-02-13 14:52:00

Using Jigzone you can upload a graphic to the site and it will automatically make a jigsaw from it. sandcastle2 Jigsaw PuzzleThis would be great for a teacher to use and embed the graphic into a wiki or a blog to create interest. Students could use it to embed as part of a presentation.You can nominate the number of pieces in your puzzle and the shape of the pieces in the puzzle. > read more

Social media

Published on 2012-02-09 13:51:00

Steve Wheeler has just put up a slide show about researching social media in education and what we, as teachers, can learn.Researching Social Media in Education: What can we learn? View more PowerPoint from Steve WheelerThis slide show is really interesting and discusses social media and the case for using these in education.In addition he discusses researching, researchers, and publishing research. I found this very interesting as here our universities are 'rated' on the research 'outputs' of [..] > read more

Skills we need to develop in our students

Published on 2012-02-05 14:13:00

I frequently think about the ICT skills students need to develop while at school. I have found that at tertiary level it is assumed that the students already have these skills but the fact is that a lot do not - it is like reading secondary schools assume that students will have developed reading skills during their primary schooling but sometimes this does not happen. These are some of the skills I think are important in today's world. Typing skills: so many students are at a disadvantage as th [..] > read more

Integration of ICT in the classroom

Published on 2012-02-01 14:11:00

I have just been reading an article by Grace Rubinstein in Eutopia - Technology Integration for elementary schools. It has some really great ideas. She starts by saying that teachers should use the technology when it is going to enhance the lesson, not the technology for its own sake; this is so true and so many teachers still use technology once a week in a lab which they feel is all they need to do!Another point she makes which I have been saying for ages relates to the use of Interactive Whit [..] > read more