iWard

This week I am inviting my year 10 Science class to publish their class project as a blog. Hopefully they will find this an engaging learning process both in ICT and chemistry.

This is a new approach for me but maybe not for all of the students. Hopefully they can teach me something as well.

In this week’s PD we will quickly recap on RSS Feeds and and point you to out ESC Web 2.0 Online Training Modules. Week 3 looks at RSS Feeds and you can work through this module at your own pace.

I would also like to look more closely at Blogs and how we might introduce them into your classes as a learning tool. We have two methods of attack here:

1. Our ESC Web 2.0 Online Training covers Blogs in the first module.

2. Download a PDF (6.7 Mb) from the Technology Toolkit from our school server: ‘Chapter08′

Here is the path to find it

Both are good options but a different approach.

Finally here is a document to help you register with Edublogs
edublog3

Recently I read a timely article by Garry Barker from the Age (Sydney Morning Herald) Green Guide. He featured a book called ‘Technology Toolkit‘ – Introducing you to Web 2.0 by Gary Bass and John Pearson. I believe Garry Barker’s story mirrors much of what is happening at Euroa Secondary College and probably many other schools like ours.

It appears the changes occurring in the online world are leaving many of us behind.  The book clearly highlights the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies and compares these with the more familiar Web 1.0 functionality.

As ePotential Coordinator, it will be my task to assist and encourage teachers in my school to learn more about Web 2.0 and keep pace with online world. As educators it is essential that we have an understanding of the ICT that will dominate and control the lives of future generations.

I am conducting the first of two professional development sessions on Web 2.0 on Monday 25th of May. I am using the Technology Toolkit as a basis for this work. It is an excellent book and I fully recommend it. It also comes with a CD and has an associated web site. See my Web 2.0 Links Page above.

Despite asking staff to complete the ePotential Survey, I have only had about a 10% return. My keen Web 2.0 seem to have fallen off already as I am not hearing much from them at all. Problem is we are nearing the end of Term, have Family Interviews and much assessment to attend to. Oh well keep plugging away. Looks like I might have to provide some incentives next Term

I spoke to our Ultranet Coach this week and she has been busy working with teachers from the Hume Region that signed up for some extra ICT PD. Apparently a company is about to be selected to take up the contact to supply the Ultranet services. To me it seems we might be waiting some time before all this becomes reality in schools. However we remain hopeful. I will keep you posted if news breaks.

Had the opportunity to visit Mt Stirling (Australia) with a school group this week and also got a chance to try out a new camera, the Canon 5D MkII. The photo above came from a short walk I took on dusk, just when the dishes needed washing! I think I was forgiven. The Australian landscape in the Victorian highlands has been ravaged by bush fires (2 years ago) and generally is experiencing very dry conditions. Cattle grazing has stopped and the fires have burnt all the cow dung which had accumulated over a number of years. Despite the tough conditions, nature has fought back and the place had a pristine feel to it. The subtle colours of the Australia alps at dusk are amazing. Prime time for photographers.

The photo above is a view from Mt Stirling over Mt Cobbler with the Buffalo Plateau many kilometres away in the background.

Just a short post to begin this Blog. I hope my colleagues at Euroa Secondary College will drop in here from time to time to get some useful information about our online Web 2.0 training. By the way the picture above is a nice fishing spot on Lake Tyers called the Trident. You may wonder what this has to do with Web 2.0 training.

One of the common tasks, when working on blogs, wikis and the like is art of uploading photos. Well, this does not always go smoothly. One reason may be that the pixel dimension of the your image may be incorrect. Often people try to upload images that are far too large for the system. I use Photoshop and Aperture to crop the images to the required pixel dimensions. Generally you will need some form of software to do it. If you are unsure about this, get some help, because you will be surprised how often it helps in any computer work to be able to control the size and shape of your images.

For the photographers out there, the image was cropped to 736 x 200 pixels from a 3328 x 904 pixel image captured with a Canon 30D on 31/12/07. (Thanks Rob, the bream were tasty.)