Friday, March 20, 2009

Game based learning on twitter

follow games based learning on twitter #gbl09 #gamebl being used by tweeters . conference twitter feed is gambl.

conference website is

http://www.gamebasedlearning2009.com

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Slideshare goes mobile

Slideshare has gone mobile view presentation on your mobile device hurrah another good "M" tool . http://m.slideshare.com excellent News thanks to Thomas Cochrane in New Zealand for this.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Linden Red Nose Day Jokes

Animated by Linden using extranormal cool eh





find more about xtranormal at http://www.xtranormal.com

smple tool you type a script choose characters and scene and off you go !!

Red Nose Day jokes by Linden



My eldest Linden that him wearing a red Nose and dressed in Pyjama's and off to school . Is telling Jokes at School to raise Money for Comic relief well he suggested I put the file up on Google docs and allowed the rest of the world to have a laugh too. Download jokes here

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning

This work produced by two giants of the ed tech world has got to be worth a read

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning George Siemens Peter Tittenberger March, 2009

A huge resource that I urge you to take time to read and digest.


Web presence at http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wikis/etl/index.php/Handbook_of_Emerging_Technologies_for_Learning


PDF download at http://umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/cetl/HETL.pdf

following COSN conference in Austin Texas via twitter

Well I know Vanessa Pittard presented our web 2.00 work commissioned in UK schools by Becta at the Consortium fro School Networking Schools conference in the USA but other presentations are there as well .

http://www.k12schoolnetworking.org/2009/index.cfm they are also running a twitter feed http://twitter.com/CoSN

Worth following you can find conference programme here
Full conference programme can be downloaded here

some UK flavoured ones


Stephen Lucey of Becta presented on
TH501: UK Leadership: Home Connection and
Innovation Strategies


Another UK prsentation by
W306: Integrating SMS for education – the
European experience
MR412
Steve Sidaway, Sales & Marketing Director, txttools.co.uk,
Leeds, UK
Mobile phones are now universally available and accepted.
They are transforming how students interact and with each
other, with organizations and with ideas, and this is only the
beginning. The technology is there but each university, college
and school must explore and experiment with what it can do
for them and their students. This presentation will draw case
examples from one of the largest education message
communities in Europe.

Long way away but whats distance with technology anyhow.

Ahead by a red nose Gamesbased Learning 2009

Hi all

Due to change of circumstance I am now able to attend Gamesbased Learning 2009 with is the 19th-20th March at the Brewery in London .

The organisers have done great things for red Nose day (thats tomorrow) if you register tomorrow they will donate £50.00 to the red nose day charity youve got to use the code rednose when booking. Good on you Graham ;-)

The two day conference the first day having loads of good practice from real people in show ! The second day has some real industry heavyweights and the God Derek (DS) Robertson form learning and teaching scotland .

Download the programme here

Register
here

View confirmed speakers
here

what made my heart leap was this phrase encouraging young people (maybe the real experts). Please note we are also keen to include young people at the event and registered delegates are welcome to bring a student 16 years or younger with them. School parties are also welcome by arrangement. Please contact us here.

Looking forward to it Ive also added link to the conference website on my blogroll on the left.


Thursday, March 05, 2009

thinking allowed on IPR

Thanks for Robot Rob for pointing this radio four programme out http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/

is copyright killing creatvity is copyright even relevant and if it is how to we teach people the rules the skills to protect it !

Pockets of potential !!!

Joan Ganz Cooney center at sesame workshop

in the The report Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children’s Learning, by
Cooney Center Industry Fellow Carly Shuler, makes the case that our nation’s leaders should not overlook the role mobile technologies can play, if well deployed, in building human capital and in helping to stimulate valuable innovation. As Sesame Street has proven over four decades of remarkable work, exposure to research-tested educational media starting early in life can accelerate children’s skills, while producing enduring economic benefits to society.

the report makes five major points

1. Encourage “anywhere, anytime” learning
Mobile devices allow students to gather, access,
and process information outside the classroom.
They can encourage learning in a real-world
context, and help bridge school, afterschool,
and home environments.

2. Reach underserved children

Because of their relatively low cost and accessibility
in low-income communities, handheld devices
can help advance digital equity, reaching and
inspiring populations “at the edges” — children
from economically disadvantaged communities
and those from developing countries.

3. Improve 21st-century social interactions

Mobile technologies have the power to promote
and foster collaboration and communication,
which are deemed essential for 21st-century
success.

4. Fit with learning environments

Mobile devices can help overcome many of the
challenges associated with larger technologies,
as they fit more naturally within various learning
environments.

5. Enable a personalized learning experience

Not all children are alike; instruction should be
adaptable to individual and diverse learners.
There are signifi cant opportunities for genuinely
supporting differentiated, autonomous, and
individualized learning through mobile devices.

http://joanganzcooneycenter.org/pdf/pockets_of_potential.pdf


Learners - Should We Leave Them To Their Own Devices?

Interesting thought provoking article by John  Traxler of Wolverhampton Universities Learning Lab .

http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=etr&catcode=ETRE_0001&rid=14148

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Freezeframe Historic Polar Images, 1845-1982 from the Scott Polar Research Institute

Well as Ernest Shackleton is one of my hero's got to blog this great resource The Scot Polar Research Institute based in Cambridge England has put 20000 images on the web . This is what the web is for

Historic Polar Images, 1845-1982 from the Scott Polar Research Institute

read below
Today, 4th March 2009, sees more than 20,000 photos from 150 years of polar expeditions available online. These images have been made accessible by the Scott Polar Research Institute, thanks to a digitisation programme funded by JISC.

As part of the preservation programme, negatives, daguerreotypes and lantern slides, which form part of a rich but fragile archive held by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, are now available to scientists, researchers, scholars and members of the public.

As well as being able to view a range of images, including Herbert Ponting’s glass plate negatives from the 1910-13 British Antarctic Expedition, that are so fragile they will never be on public display, visitors to the website will also be able to read extracts from diaries, expedition reports, letters and other personal papers of expedition members.

Polar Explorer Pen Hadow, who is currently leading the Catlin Arctic Survey which will determine the likely meltdown date of the ice cap, said: “The Freeze Frame archive is invaluable in charting changes in the polar regions.
Making the material available to all will help with further research into scientific studies around global warming and climate change.”

Heather Lane, Librarian and Keeper of Collections at the Scott Polar Research Institute, said: “The digitisation of these historic photographs allows the Scott Polar Research Institute’s resources to reach a wider learning community than ever before. Without this JISC-funded project we risked losing some of the most fragile of items forever and certainly wouldn’t be able to give so many people access to otherwise hidden collections that can further the study of polar environments.”

Alistair Dunning, Digitisation Programme Manager at JISC, added: “This is one of over a dozen JISC-funded projects which aim to take valuable content that is not easily accessible by scholars or other interested parties and make it available to all. Freeze Frame will provide an unparalleled record of the living conditions and scientific findings of the explorers which can be used by learners today studying everything from photography and nutrition to global warming and glaciology.”

A new exhibition, Face to Face, featuring some of the historic photographic portraits discovered during the Freeze Frame project, is currently on a UK tour and opens at Discovery Point, Dundee on 7th March.

For additional information visit the Freeze Frame archive www.freezeframe.ac.uk

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Mobile accessibility site

A huge heads up to Steve Lee and Adrian H for letting me know about this site . Looks really interesting http://mobileaccessibility.info/

Adrian though not as loud as me I reckon out geeks me in the nicest possible way .

futurelab publication

A really interesting series of think pieces co produced by Toshiba and FutureLab featuring the following contributors

  • Dr Tim Rudd Redesigning education: modelling transformation through
    co-design around BSF
  • Nick Page, Development Manager, EdisonLearning Transforming education – can we get there through BSF?
  • Professor Rosemary  Lucking of London Knowledge Lab :The school in context: new models for learning
  • Bob  Harrison : What’s learning got to do with it?
Download the report here

http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/other_research_reports/Transforming_Schools_for_the_Future.pdf

Gurdian on how mobiles are transforming the world.

This great piece looks at places from the Gambia to Nepal and the global  growth of of mobile

the statistic from Africa is "Africa is the continent with the fastest growth, where penetration has soared from just one in 50 people at the turn of the century to 28%."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/03/mobile-phones1

have a read and reflect on how you use your mobile and how in some parts of the world it is transforming lives.

Mlearning for the goal keeper

Now my son use video of his team playing rugby to improve performance it seems he is in good company great crossover story from the Guardian sent to me by a well known reader/contributor who has the double penance of being a Rochdale and a Man City fan .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/mar/01/carling-cup-final-manchester-united-foster

The Netbook effect just what do you use your PC for ?

Really interesting article on wired. Mentioning the pioneering work of Mary Lou Jespersen (and I might add her colleagues) on the OLPC project who I by serendipity spent a very pleasant breakfast whit before her Keynote at Mlearn2006 ( I didn't know who she was ). Many say the OLPC hasnt yet delivered on its primary promise but they did certainly focus the mind of mainstream laptop manufacturers . The article suggest as I have been saying for a while that the project drove the development of netbooks drove price down and made people think what do you use your PC/latop for.
I like my asus eeePC but its not my primary machine but it works well at what it does its isnt a machine for rich media. The other netbook Ive used is the Tosh NB100 is a different beast kinetic harddrive 10 times bigger than the asus much more ram . The keyboard is small for really hard regular use (unless your a young user ) but it will support full size screen and keyboard and is a rich media machine . Now Ive used Ubuntu windows XP netbooks I dont care but with the OLPC and many of its features that will come into "mainstream machines" they wouldnt have occurred at such attractive prices . For browsing word processing etc the simplest netbook does the job . Now reflect on how you use your PC/Mac today .

read the article at

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks?currentPage=all



Monday, March 02, 2009

Simple guide to using twitter . Useful ?

http://www.sportsmediachallenge.com/twitter%20101.pdf