QR Codes

Have you ever wondered what those strange new bar codes are that are popping up in newspapers, on posters, on the web?

They are QR codes (2 dimensional bar codes) and they offer one of the easiest methods by far  of loading web content on a Smart phone. To give it a try, using the scan option on your phone. What page does this code link to?

If you are interested in using QR codes in your daily work, post them on a website, a blog, a social network, sign up at bit.ly, shorten a link and generate one of your very own.

Just consider the implications this may have for the role of mobile devices in education!

Phones in My Classroom By Choice!

Telephones don't have to be a curse. No, I don't like answering them or yacking away for hours on them, never did, even as a child. There is a difference however, today's telephones are so much more intriguing than those that existed when I was a child. For the longest time, I have been reading and chatting to others about the phones our students carry around, telling myself that I can make good use of these devices in my classes, but that's all it was...talk.

Today's mobile phones are not only phones, but so much more. They are Smart Phones! A good majority of our students own BlackBerries or other phones that hook up to a 3G network or our school wifi. Some of these devices may not even be phones at all, some of them are iPods!

Yesterday I decided I was jumping in with both feet and eyes wide open. It was no longer going to be about the talk. Yesterday I decided it was time for action.

I created an account at PollEverywhere which is a great site that enables users to create polls, share them online with links or as embedded features on blogs and wikis, and provides a variety of ways for those being polled to respond. I didn't want this to cost my kids any money so I decided against text and opted for Tweet and  Web voting.

During the lesson we were working on micro-blogging research with Twitter (plan A)and/or Today's Meet (Plan B). (We had trouble creating Twitter accounts from school.) At the end of the lesson I asked the kids to go get their phones and other devices capable of connecting to the school wifi or a 3G network. Other teachers in the building gave me a few strange looks (Generally speaking, cell phones are to be turned off and packed away during the school day.)

I emailed the link to the kids and they got on task and answered the poll, while we watched with excitement as their responses appeared on the screen. I have asked them to bring their devices in again next week and thanked them for being a part of my little experiment. I am pretty sure that this is going to become a part of my weekly starters and/or plenaries all because my kids already own Smart Phones or other Smart devices.

When a Lesson Explodes in New Directions

One of my 7th grade classes was settling down to work on their collaborative presentations, which they share with a school in Colorado, when all of a sudden there was great excitement! Okay there was an explosion of excitement.  The other class was also online and working on the presentations. To say that my kids were thrilled is an understatement. Immediately Google Apps group chat windows began popping up and student exclamations could be heard all around the LRC. These students were no longer separated by thousands of miles.

We very quickly shifted the entire class into a seminar room, got Skype up and running at both ends and within minutes were video conferencing with our partner school, as the excitement began to crescendo. We had not prepared in advance for this. It was a bit of a surprise, so there was no script, just kids engaging in discussions about each other, face to face with their partners in another country. Hobbies, favourite books, musicians and the weather were the main topics of discussion.

It's interesting how many of us find it easier to engage in text chats, where ideas flow easier than in video chats, where all of a sudden the most outgoing child might find themselves at a loss for words.

Anyway we just managed to get through all the groups, and with five minutes remaining in the lesson, the kids returned to their computers to finish up working on their presentations and texting with their partners. The kids at our end were very reluctant to log off of their chat sessions to pack up to go home. That's powerful!

You know when a lesson has surpassed your expectations,  and become something even greater.This was one of those moments.

The Latest Shift Happens

Have you seen the latest shift happens? If these figures are accurate, the amount of activity both social and financial happening by way of social networks is astounding.

 It is certainly updated and worth watching.
Check it out at our new ABCICT Blog!

United Nations Projects-Millennium Goals and Awareness

The LRC Celebrated United Nations with a fantastic display of artifacts from around the world. Most of these items were loaned to the LRC by members of staff. Tours were run for students across the school and special bookmarks were made available to the community.
In ICt lessons students in KS3 worked on various cross curricular projects, with a global emphasis. Take a look at the descriptions below.

Scratch


The 8th Grade students have finished working on their Scratch projects. This year they were asked to choose a Millennium Goal to focus on and develop a project around it. Most of these projects have been uploaded to the ABCICT Scratch Gallery and there is quite a variety to browse through and enjoy. You can even download, run and check out the programming used, via the Scratch Website.

 Reaction Grid
The student Art Gallery in the ABC El Salvador Region is now up to date. Students used original art work created by KS3 Students to construct framed canvases and create 3 dimensional art for the region. If you have a Reaction Grid Account you can log in and teleport to ABC El Salvador to view the work in person. If not the picture above will give you an idea of what the gallery currently looks like.
http://learningresourcescentre.pbworks.com/

Google Maps and Earth
The 6th grade students have completed their virtual tours of France using Google Maps and Google Earth. The students included important place marks, pictures and descriptions in these tours, as well as a spoken introduction to the regions they were focusing on, using Voki avatars. These projects are viewable from the Gallery at ABCICT. You must have Google Earth installed on your computer to view them.

Related articles

• 'Millennium Development Goals Summit' Comes To A Close (Live Stream) (huffingtonpost.com)

Tagxedo

We were looking at ways of promoting language in classrooms recently and this caused me to revisit some of my favourite tag and word cloud generators. In doing so I had a play with Tagxedo once again and wasn't disappointed. Not only can you create a great variety of word clouds, but you can create them in different shapes with plenty of different colours and fonts. This in itself is cool, but the best is yet to come. Apparently you can actually embed the cloud  and it becomes interactive, with words zooming in as you hover over them.  You can't do that with Wordle (my favourite tag and word cloud generator of all times).
Check out my latest Tagxedo.

(This is not the embedded version as I have had little success with this feature, but would love to hear from someone who has gotten it to work.)

Trying out Nota

I came across Nota today on the iLearn Technology Blog. After reading the description of it, I had to have a play. Especially since we have been looking for alternatives for wiki and site home pages.

Nota is an easy to use collaborative work space which is Glog like and more.
With Nota it is easy to import pictures from your various online accounts, including Flickr and Picasa, as well as add message boards, links, shapes and text. It is quite simple to figure out, and can also be accessed through PhotoPeach accounts. If you don't have a PhotoPeach account there is also an option for creating one on the the  Nota site.

Notas embed easily into Google Sites and Wikispaces so the potential for interactive walls (Invite participants) as well as home pages is definitely there.



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