Tom March is working with Gifted and Talented educators from the Victorian department schools. The day will focus on two main points: CEQ-ALL and the 1,2,3 Strategies for Meaningful Learning.
Here’s a handout of links and resources
TubePrompter
Carrying on in the theme of “Builder” Tools and scaffolding higher order thinking, this month’s new addition is the TubePrompter, an interactive page to facilitate “Learning 2 Look” activities using the wild richness of YouTube. Besides eliminating all the distractions inherent in the YouTube site, TubePrompter also offers ten different scaffolds to help groups of students learn through close looking. Simply copy the “embed” code for a YouTube video and paste it into TubePrompter, then click the “Learn 2 Look” button to open a new window with your chosen video embedded and a raft of prompts designed to inspire student thinking.
See the newly updated Web site: 
Easily embed videos from sites like these into a clean Webpage frame with 10 Looking Prompts only a button-click away (see the Prompts frame).
Contemporary Teaching Skills
Hello! Above is an emerging vision of how to define and support teachers as they develop their “Contemporary Teaching” (and Learning!) skills. The term comes from MCEETYA, which does a good job of describing what others have called “21st Century” or “ICT” teaching skills. Please provide feedback on a draft Skills Checklist.
Indie Film Winner shot with phones
This could be a great example of a new kind of knowledge. Over 1000 words captured from signs in Sydney and New York were combined with poignant music to great effect. This was both the Critics’ and People’s Choice winner.
Learning to Look Prompt: See – Feel – Do
- See – what do you see?
- Feel – what is the main feeling you had after watching the video?
- Do – what does this make you want to do?
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Also take a look at the New TubePrompter for embedding YouTube videos combined with Thinking Routines from Tom’s ThesisBuilders.
For Real, Rich and Relevant resources other than YouTube, try this updated list of great sites.
Google InQuotes & Nov 4
One cool Google App that it would be a shame to miss over the next couple weeks is “InQuotes.” You may have noticed a new band of quotations when searching in Google News for a person in the media buzz. For example:
Notice that the quotation is current and you can access more quotes from the same person by clicking on their name. In this case, 272 quotes are in the database and the first ten are listed.
Also, don’t miss the “search these quotes” field so you can narrow the collection based upon a key word:
If all this doesn’t inspire creative teachers to set their students to a critical reading / thinking exploration, take a look at the first mentioned “InQuotes” app from Google Labs.
Many of the features just highlighted are present as well as links in popular categories which shift to the top of the paired quotes with the click of a mouse. Also note that you can “spin” or toggle through the content for each category.
The default duo is, of course, Obama and McCain, but their names are actually dropdown menus so you can compare quotations from other significant American leaders like Biden and Palin or Rice and Cheney:
Finally, as we might well forget leading up to November 4th, the US is not the only country with dueling leaders. The “Edition” dropdown at the top-right corner presents similar match-ups for Canada, India and the UK.
What interesting uses can you think of for this neat interface?
Working with Loreto Kirribilli
At sessions today, I’m working with the teachers of Loreto Kirribilli to consider CEQ-ALL as a unifying process to contextualise their outstanding learning framework which is designed to help students “develop as intelligent, confident, wise and lovable young women, with a strong sense of social responsibility.”
Through the course of the day, I’ll be sharing my latest views on the Immutable Trends and the related Challenges for Education, followed by hands-on workshops where teachers will set up their own Web 2 learning space. We’ll use WordPress.com and Pageflakes (tutorial) and perhaps get into Clipmarks and Diigo.
Loreto Kirribilli has a fantastic mission which says in part: “… to provide an education which liberates, empowers and motivates students to use their individual gifts with confidence, creativity and generosity…” This is exactly the kind of focus a school needs to traverse the challenges and opportunities of our digital era in education.
- Here’s a handout with useful links for the sessions
AIS-NSW ICT Integrators Conference
September 22-23 is the IT Integration Conference in Sydney – one I’ve come to look forward to. Doing the keynote last year introduced me to this group of talented people working to integrate ICTs in independent schools throughout the greater Sydney region. Because a lot of my work in Australia is with independent schools, it’s a fantastic network of people pulling the same levers of cool tech tools, professional development, curriculum design and systemic change.
I’m doing 2-3 eSpots on Pageflakes (my Pageflakes and a How-to) and Diigo & its new educator accounts.
There’s also a workshop on “Leveraging Blogs for Authentic Learning.”
Examples from OxleyLearning.org
- Stage 5 D & T – Cardboard Chairs
- Year 9 English – Sort Of Dunno Nothin
- Year 10 English – MacBeth X 3
- Languages – Podcasts & Slow News
- A Vision for 2013
Here’s a handout.
Readers: the latest mashup?
Many would be familiar with Nicholas Carr’s recent article in The Atlantic Monthly. Although Is Google Making Us Stoopid? really isn’t about Google, Carr bravely admits to the negative impact his many years of working on the Web have had on his attention span. I’ve often reflected on similar shifts in my work patterns and cautioned against the lure of “intriguing ourselves to death.” But the point of this post isn’t to debate Carr’s article. What’s really cool is that as I surfed to the online version before my international edition arrived in Australia, I was greeted by the DiigoTraces of previous readers.
I had been a Clipmarks evangelist this past year, but coming across other Diigoists’ comments on Carr’s article hooked me on Diigo. As the community grows, it will be interesting to see if it develops as a thoughtful network.
AIS – New South Wales
Tom has the pleasure of working with Kindergarten – Year 2 teachers today. The Association of Independent Schools is holding its Fostering Learning in a Digital Era Conference. Tom has prepared a keynote and this supporting page of resources for the day. Let me know what you thought!
Dipity
In case you haven’t tried Dipity, it’s a really cool Web 2 timelining tool. I’ve been waiting for one for a long time, but until now, the interfaces required scripting. Dipity allows for embedding images, links, movies, comments… Heaps! It also has this really slick “Flipbook” interface that imitates Apple’s Coverflow. Check it out.
Also, if you use a blog (or just about any other time-based Web 2 tool) you can easily mash it up with Dipity. Look what the crew did: flickr = Tickr, YouTube = TimeTube, Digg = Archaeologist, etc.). You can get Dipity to import your details and create a timeline from your other data.
Below is a timeline of technology milestones in the lives of our students.