I recently came across this video from the New Brunswick School District in Canada that really captures the shifts that ‘should be‘ happening in education and the shifts that are happening in society at large. It reminded me a little bit of the ‘Did You Know‘ videos. I particularly liked the quote that “Today’s pen and paper has changed” and so should the ways in which we teach! Enjoy

From the user who submitted the video ….

“This video was created to serve as a discussion generator in New Brunswick – and generate is has. We have received inquiries from all over the world. Feel free to use it in whatever way that you find helpful.”

Many educators use the multimedia media programming language Scratch with students to promote creativity, programming and ICT skills. In the past, you could always view the thousands of community projects online but if you wanted to play with them, see the code and change things, you had to download them and open them up in the Scratch programming environment. While not this is not difficult, things have just become a whole lot more interesting. Scratch now has an experimental viewer that allows you to interact with code online. The ease of interacting directly with a project in your web browser is simply awesome. You can:

• Run the program online as usual
• View individual sprites, their properties and their code
• View used code by coloured blocks
• Interact by changing code and running the program

Click on the image to view in full size.  To opt into the experimental viewer just go to http://scratch.mit.edu/experimental.

I have recently discovered a great WordPress plugin called Anthologize. It was built as part of the One Week One Tool project. It essentially allows you to create electronic texts from blog posts. You can create texts in ePub, pdf, TIE, or RTF formats. It also allows you to create chapters to organise your content.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the thousands of educational sites currently using WordPress. It allow students and teachers to export their best content as an ebook or pdf at the end of semester, a project, or learning period. I know of a number of schools who use WordPress Mu as their student digital portfolio platform. This will allow them to easily create an electronic book/portfolio of their best work. The plugin is in ‘Alpha’ at the moment but I have managed to get it up and working relatively easily. A short three minute screencast is below. This is a very promising development effort for the web and education. Well done to the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University for creating this software.

You can download the screencast here or on Vimeo.

Update: More possible educational uses have been outlined by Hope Greenberg. A good post plus another screencast.

In the last few weeks there have been some really interesting tools emerge for creating games and applications on mobile devices. These software tools will make it easier for the non programmer to create.

GameSalad

The first one I came across was GameSalad for developing games on the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. It is Mac only but has a very easy to use interface. The software is free to use but has a subscription model of $99 per year if you want to publish your games to itunes (which you need to do to get them on your device). There is also the option of publishing them to the web and using a web browser plugin to play them.

App Inventor

The second one I came across is App Inventor for Android which is not quite in beta but you can still sign up to access it in the coming weeks. It is a free, web-based software tool for creating Android applications.

As the video above shows, it has a very low entry point which is great for students starting to learn about programming and ICT. It is very interesting to note the style of the App Inventor application. It borrows heavily from other environments that students have loved using such as Scratch and to a lesser extent Star Logo. The App Inventor team acknowledge this stating that the “Open Blocks visual programming is closely related to the Scratch programming language.”

What I am really interested to see, is what students can do with these tools. What a great motivation – make an app for your phone or ipod (I know not all kids have Smart Phones but there are a quite a few with iPod touches!)

I’ve been using scratch versions 1 through 1.4 with students to create multimedia and interactive projects for at least a few years. It’s programmable multimedia and it is a great piece of constructivist software. Students love using it and it has a low entry point but high ceiling. Well now we get a peak at what version 2 may offer. Watch the 3 minute youtube video below for an introduction and check out the new features at about the 2 minute mark. They include:
1. Sharing on mobiles (Are you listening Apple)
2. Connecting with social media (eg facebook and others)
3. Create and remix within a web browser (Now that would be to too kewl )
4. Join together in collaborative teams (Multi-authored team projects. Not sure how it would work but it sounds great!)

And make sure you follow the developments on twitter: @scratchteam

One of the things that annoys me most is when I have to use technology that should be based on open standards but isn’t! A case in point – Microsoft’s Share Point. It’s a web based CMS very tightly tied to the Microsoft browser and Microsoft office products. It’s hard to get anything done unless you are using a PC and Internet Explorer (especially if it’s tied to Active Directory as well). You’d think a web based product would work well with different browsers and different OS’s – well, no it doesn’t!

After being told that our regional workgroup had to report fortnightly via a sharepoint wiki. I decided to to try a variety of different browsers on the Mac (No IE available). All browsers I tried didn’t know what to do with Microsoft’s proprietary text editor (see image below).

Fortunately, there are free, open source browsers like Firefox that allow developers to innovate. And the Firefox extension that came to my rescue was Xihna. It’s FireFox plugin that will allow you to use a portable rich text editor on ‘any’ web form.

The following image shows the Xihna editor in action. You can also choose to pop out the editor into it’s own window!

All of last year I was working with teachers and students to help implement a 1:1 computing environment with netbooks.

Given all of the press around the ‘iPad announcement‘, I’m wondering what are the pro’s and con’s for this device in education? And how does it compare with other portable devices such as netbooks?

Is it a netbook killer? Is it a kindle killer? Is it just a distraction? Is it only a media device with iphone apps and a web browser (is that all we need?) Is it something that would be useful in your classroom?

Obviously, for those schools making good use of mobile devices like ipods, this will be a natural extension as the device has the same operating system as the iPod touch and iPhone. The larger screen will allow for better input – inclucing note taking and a better browsing experience at the very least.  And while I’m sure there will be a number of schools that will jump all over this device, I still think it comes up short in a number of areas.  I’ll be the first to admit that I wanted a cut down Mac OS X rather than an appliance! I just can’t imagine not being able to multitask with applications. The issue of multitasking can be fixed in software but if the iPhone’s anything to go by, it won’t be happening anytime soon.

Here’s some of my thoughts …

Pro’s

• Awesome interface, ipod/iphone users will immediately recognise
• Great industrial design
• Great ebook reader and media device
• Most people who have actually used the iPad rave about it – may be I need to see it and use it!
• Very responsive OS with 10 hours battery life

Con’s

• no multitasking – one application at a time
• no USB port – no memory sticks
• no camera
• no flash support for websites (come on Apple and Adobe!)
• no SD card slot, HDMI port, or video out – without buying adapters
• more DRM content

Will I buy one? Probably! Will this be a good device for education. Certainly, as education software will follow this device! But the lack of multitasking and a USB port is a show stopper for me. This product could have been revolutionary. It could have decimated the netbook market. But it still falls short as far as I am concerned. Perhaps I should wait for version 2.0 or 3.0? May be then I can get access to the things that would make this device simply awesome.

Some more thoughts on the iPad can be found here:
10 things Netbooks still do better than an iPad
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10443246-1.html?tag=twitter2
Is it fair to compare Apple’s iPad to a netbook?
http://blogs.smh.com.au/digital-life/gadgetsonthego/2010/02/01/isit…

Let us know what you think in the comments! And if you have time why not fill in this short survey for the Ed Tech Crew http://bit.ly/bc3Ms8

For some time I have been meaning to finish my Moodle course about Scratch. It has been on the back burner for at least a year! The course itself is mostly finished but has a few areas which desperately need some attention. I was hoping to finish it and put it on Moodle Commons like I did with the Web2.0 course. But I don’t think that will happen anytime soon

So here it is – unfinished and unpolished – but it may be of some use if you have access to a Moodle server and want to do some learning about Scratch with your students.

Download it here: moodle_scratch_course.zip

The  ’1 to 1′ netbook project journey continues! This week we are looking at the free and open source mind mapping tool called FreeMind. You can download FreeMind for Mac, Windows and Linux. In this video I give a brief introduction to some of the features available when using FreeMind.
You can also download the video here if you are not subscribed via the podcast.

Introduction to FreeMind from Darrel Branson on Vimeo.

As part of the ’1 to 1′ netbook project, I have been working with a number of schools to look at how Google SketchUp can be used in the classrooom. And while there are plenty of good videos to show how to get started with the tools, I wanted to try out a new screencasting program so I created my own short tutorial. I hope it’s useful to someone! You can download it here if you are not subscribed via the podcast.

Introduction to Google Sketchup from Darrel Branson on Vimeo.

I’ve also found a new website dedicated to resources around screencasting. Check it out here: http://scrast.net It looks like it is a great place for all of your screencasting needs.

Podcast number 3 March 22nd, 2009.
[ICTGUY0903.mp3 Running time: 24:52 mins, size: 11.5 MB]

Download it here!

Links
Rob Sbaglia: http://lmultranet.wikispaces.com

Rob’s Twittering: http://twitter.com/sbaglia

1 to 1 project: http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ictsupportservices/netbooks/

DEECD wiki: http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com

Loddon Mallee Region Ning: http://one2onelaptops.ning.com