Links for 2010-07-26 [del.icio.us]

• TechTeacher: Confessions of a Burned Out Teacher
  Top five things school leaders can do to stop teachers burning out

Links for 2010-08-06 [del.icio.us]

• Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
  Some of the many constraints and opportunities afforded to us if we can teach "real time" courses, that move with current affairs and exploit what's going on around us
• Ocean Portal by The Smithsonian Institution | Find Your Blue
  Our Ocean Portal Educators’ Corner provides you with activities, lessons and educational resources to bring the ocean to life for your students. We have collected top resources from our collaborators to provide you with teacher-tested, ocean science materials for your classroom. We hope these resources, along with the rich experience of the Ocean Portal, will help you inspire the next generation of ocean stewards.
• Your Life Your Money | PBS
  Great site for helping learn about finance, from personal finance to starting your own company
• Path Profile in Google Earth
  Guide to demonstrating the topography of a Google Map and finding out the true distances and ascents/descents of a map

HistoryPin shows students how much things have (sometimes) changed

HistoryPin lets users see historical photos placed up against current day street views, revealing how much their local area - or historical places - have changed over time.

The online service brings to normal Joes like you and me the power that we've seen demonstrated in the exclusive confines of TED talks in the past. Now, anyone can take advantage of this superb technology, which matches the topography of the photograph with the real world topography from Google Streetview.

I was amused to take a peak at my local area, seeing that the roadworks we've had lengthen our commutes for the past few years were experienced 150 years ago, for exactly the same reasons: building tram lines. (See the pic above, or explore it in HistoryPin).

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• Create a digital history with History Pin (heyjude.wordpress.com)
• Google Maps Session at #GTAUK (edte.ch)

Links for 2010-08-04 [del.icio.us]

• Al Casin dei Nobili, Venice - Restaurant Reviews - TripAdvisor
  Excellent, good value trattoria
• Hotel Taverna San Lio Venice hotel - Official Site - Venice Inns Italy
  Salizzada San Lio is in the heart of Venice at its most characteristic. With its picturesque lanes and squares lined with historic palaces, craftsmen's shops, and elegant boutiques, where a three-minute walk will bring you to the Rialto Bridge and another five will lead you to St. Mark's Square, you'll find the charming Taverna San Lio, a perfect place to share a pleasant stay dedicated to discovering the beauty and fine dining of Venice.
• 21st Century Literacies
  Twenty-first century readers and writers need to
  
  * Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
  * Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
  * Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
  * Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
  * Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
  * Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments
• Osteria Ae Sconte - Home
  Lovely place in Venice
• Project Zero
  Project Zero is an educational research group at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.
• Hotel Pausania Venice - Official Web Site
  Nice location in a quiet area of Venice - for future reference
• Why I think Blogs Should be Open ~ Stephen's Web
  "It my opinion," argues Kathleen McGeady, "it is more harmful to "protect" students through a closed blog than it is to open their eyes to the real world of online technologies through open blogs. To me, having a closed blog feels like 'pretending to use technology' and the full benefits of blogging cannot experienced." Some good discussion in the comments follows her post. And it makes me want to question the whole idea of whether blogging in a closed environment is "safe". I wonder whether students who are bullied, privately and discretely, with the teacher's compliance, feel "safe" in such closed environments. Or whether they just feel there's no way out.
• School of Everything | What we believe at School of Everything
  I like the last three in particular:
  
  # All subjects are important. Learning is learning, and learning is good. Knowing how to rewire a plug is just as valuable as understanding inverse trigonometric functions.
  # Qualifications are overrated. A good education is about the things you learn along the way, not a fancy bit of paper.
  # The real world is better than the internet. Step away from your computer please. Getting out and trying new things is better than being sat at a desk all day.
• School of Everything | Back to basics: our values
  # Learning is personal: People tend to learn best when they can choose what, when and how they learn - and when they can find the right people to learn with.
  # Learning starts with what you're interested in: It doesn't matter how long you're shut in a classroom, you won't learn anything unless you want to
  # We like face-to-face: The internet's a marvellous thing, but spending your life glued to a screen does strange things to the brain. So our focus is on helping people find real-time, offline, face-to-face learning.
  # We're open-minded: We don't mind whether you use the School of Everything to organise a public course or a private lesson, a book group or a game of Hide and Seek. And whether or not you charge money, that's cool with us.
  # Everyone has something to teach, and everyone has something to learn: This is the most important bit. Expertise, experience and excellence are to be admired, but there's knowledge and wisdom all over the place. We want to help everyone unlock it."
• Proper Tea is Theft | Global Grid For Learning
  Enter then the video recorder. How could it be illegal to copy videos when high street stores sold the technology to do so? I remember the somewhat bizarre conflicting messages around ‘yes you can record TV programmes but you can’t show them to anyone.’
• Bloomsbury Academic | Innovative Content and Delivery
  Bloomsbury Academic will combine breadth and depth of content with ease of searching and access, to provide a product that aims to connect readers with that content as smoothly and as efficiently as possible. A website ahead of its time, Bloomsbury Academic will select the best of the web's features and functionality to make users' journeys to, around and from its content efficient and effective.
  
  Under Creative Commons licences, leading-edge research-based titles will be freely available to read, and the site will provide a range of options for users to get the best out of the books that they find, whether in print or electronic form.

Kill The Meeting

I've got a pretty long-term fascination with the way Ideo work, simply because their outputs are so fascinating, and the means of getting there more so. I've worked in enough organisations that call themselves creative to know that few match the pace and flow of Ideo.

The Week In Two Minutes clip above shows a key reason why. Look at the variance of team work - people working alone, in pairs, in threes or fours; spot the different members by their t-shirt colours, showing how the makeup of the team changes over the course of a day.

What we do not see is any form of 'routine' meeting, some kind of default everyone-in-one-room, one-hour-on-Outlook, meeting-for-the-sake-of-meeting meeting. Take two minutes out to see it, and then email the video to a friend or colleagues to spread the lesson.

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• How IDEO prototyped their Monster Maker iPhone app (metacool.typepad.com)
• John Tropea: What is Design Thinking, Really? " emergent by design (emergentbydesign.com)
• You: David Kelley of IDEO: Reinventing Innovation (newsweek.com)
• IDEO and Steelcase update the classroom desk (core77.com)

Links for 2010-07-27 [del.icio.us]

• Polaroid | Prints | Keep Calm Gallery
  Don't take on a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
  
  Edwin Land was the genius inventor of the Polaroid camera. This quote explains his philosophy and inspires us all to take on challenges worth taking on.
• Midsummer Madness « Bill Boyd – The Literacy Adviser
  Bill on why we should expect so much more from our learners (and our teachers):
  
  A few weeks into the term I was reflecting smugly on my ability to engage my fourth year class (15-16 year-olds) in the delights of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and happened to express this satisfaction at a departmental meeting. Sitting back to receive the accolades of my fellow teachers, I was met by a few seconds of silence, before the head of department asked with a mixture of shock and revulsion, ‘Don’t you know that Macbeth is a fifth-year play?’
• | Computerworld NZ
  The basis for a MUSH network in Canada is simple: find an anchor tenant, such as a school, university or hospital, and offer to build a fibre optic network centred on their campus. Once they've signed up the MUSH network is built connecting to local peering exchanges, if they exist, or to the incumbent telco's network at an exchange. The school is typically given two or three strands of fibre in the pipe and the rest, six or seven or more depending on how many are laid in the first place, are sold to commercial users. Once the company has reached a pre-determined income level, the school will typically receive a rebate on their network costs.
  
  "That's the most difficult part for schools to understand. They're getting broadband access at rates much faster than they've ever been offered by an incumbent and then they're offered money on top of that. Nobody offers schools money — they just don't understand it."
• Bit by Bit Podcast: 67 — bit by bit
  Ewan McIntosh’s Keynote at BLC08
  “Not All Native Wit: From Creativity to Ingenuity”
• Digital: Study Says Most Marketers Should Forgo Foursquare - Advertising Age - Digital
  The report could also be a wake-up call for social media on mobile phones, especially when comparing the location services to the last social-media darling, Twitter. The micro-blogging service reports 35% of its 125 million registered users are in the U.S. and only a fraction of that number accesses Twitter via mobile. In April, Twitter said 37% of its usage comes via mobile clients. Apply that percentage to U.S. tweeters -- we must extrapolate because the company does not break out U.S. users via mobile specifically -- and the 16 million Americans using Twitter via mobile is about comparable to the location-apps audience in total.
  
  Almost 80% of location-based service users are male. Close to 70% of them are between the ages of 19 and 35, and 70% have college degrees or higher.
• Why Publish Student Work to the Web? | open thinking
  Just got word from Stevie Nicks tour manager that she was completely blown away by the PS22 Chorus rendition of her song “Landslide!” He said she asked him to replay 2 times afterwards, crying each time she watched! Talk about humbling!! And the kicker?? She invited the PS22 Chorus to sing the song at Madison Square Garden for the upcoming June 11th Fleetwood Mac show!! Holy cow!!!
• PS22 Chorus: Stevie IS Happy! And We're ECSTATIC!!
  Just got word from Stevie Nicks tour manager that she was completely blown away by the PS22 Chorus rendition of her song "Landslide!" He said she asked him to replay 2 times afterwards, crying each time she watched! Talk about humbling....
• Roland Paris -- How to Read Critically
  C-L-E-A-R
  
  1. Claims: What are the main claims or arguments in the text? What is the author’s main point?
  
  2. Logic: How does the author reach these conclusions? What are the steps in the author’s reasoning or logic? Is this logic sound?
  
  3. Evidence: What evidence does the author present to support the argument(s)? Does the author offer enough evidence? Is this evidence convincing? Can you think of any counter-evidence that would challenge the author’s claims?
  
  4. Assumptions: Does the author rely on hidden assumptions? If so, are these assumptions correct?
  
  5. alternative arguments: Can you think of alternative arguments that the author has not considered?
  
  That’s it. Once you get into the habit of critical reading, you will automatically ask yourself these questions – and you’ll be better off for it.
• Bookstash on Facebook
  A place for young people to talk about books they like rather than the ones they're meant to like.
• Six Impossible Things « Coherence of the inchoate
  “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
  
  Alice Through the Looking Glass
• BBC News - Shops into schools in five months
  Empty shops could be converted into schools within five months, says a multinational building consultancy.
  
  The EC Harris building group says it is already in discussion with parents' groups about providing premises for free schools.
  
  The firm estimates it would cost about £13m to £17m to create a school using an existing shell - saving about a third on starting a new building.

edinburghmsc: via @sbayne: Playful learning symposium: London 14 September 2010 http://bit.ly/atYzmn

edinburghmsc: via @sbayne: Playful learning symposium: London 14 September 2010 http://bit.ly/atYzmn

GETinsight | Clearing the decks for the year ahead: Productivity for Creativity

I've just posted a new piece at GETideas on how we can all prepare for the year ahead, and make sure that we keep on top of things, so that we have more time and energy for more creative practice throughout the year. You can read the full piece on the GETideas.org site and join me for a live phone or web chat this Tuesday to share your own tips.

Where Do Good Ideas Come From? Using Quiet Times to Prepare for the Year Ahead

For teachers, the summer vacation is often seen as the quiet time of year that they might find a moment, after the sand, sea and switching off, to start preparing for the year ahead. We can head off potential problems, the rest brings some of our most creative ideas to light, and we have that rare commodity – time – to think about how we could best teach particular areas of work.

School leaders don’t have that same stretch of time, but with fewer fire-fights to tackle in our classrooms and schools there is a chance to block out some thinking time of our own.   However, as some of Jim Spillane’s research on principals’ and Head Teachers’ working habits shows, we can in education spend too much time working alone on the wrong things.

Here are the headings of my top eight ‘mind hacks’ that some of the most inspirational and creative leaders I know have drawn out of their work:

1.    Clear your decks for the next year (GTD)

2.    One must-do activity a day

3.    Set aside "Desk Time"

4.    Don't Procrastinate

5.    Getting rid of "Extraneous Pillars"

6.    Kill assumptions: Only do stuff you want to do

7.    Do, don't think

8.    Abandon the quest for perfection

You can read the full piece on the GETideas.org site and join me for a live phone or web chat this Tuesday to share your own tips.

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: final call for presentations for E-Learn (in Florida, Oct 18-22) http://aace.org/conf/elearn/call.htm

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: final call for presentations for E-Learn (in Florida, Oct 18-22) http://aace.org/conf/elearn/call.htm

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: Abandon Normal Devices festival in Manchester on 4th October - http://www.andfestival.org.uk/and-manchester-2010.htm

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: Abandon Normal Devices festival in Manchester on 4th October - http://www.andfestival.org.uk/and-manchester-2010.htm

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: Collaborating Across Boundaries - online tools for Business and Community Engagement, FE and HE - http://tiny.cc/f4xcn

edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: Collaborating Across Boundaries - online tools for Business and Community Engagement, FE and HE - http://tiny.cc/f4xcn

Links for 2010-07-17 [del.icio.us]

• Be Curious About Digital Media » Spotlight
• First images from atoms to the universe
  The history of photography starts at the human scale, with the first picture of a face in 1838 and moves in both directions, culminating in the WMAP cosmic background radiation image in 2003 and the first complete image of a molecule in 2009.
• WatchKnow - Videos for kids to learn from. Organized.
• The Strength of Weak Ties: Ewan McIntosh-Is Your Public Body Public?
  Feedback from this public-private presentation
• Gamasutra - Press Releases - New research shows that children who play video games are more likely to practice sport in real life
  According to the study, 38 per cent of boys under the age of 21 who play sports games on active video game consoles practice their favorite virtual sport in real life and 75 per cent of video gamers participate in some kind of real sport. The more they play active video sports games, the more likely adolescents are to practice sports.

edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: RT @bbctech: Video gamers could be controlling on-screen action via brain power http://bit.ly/bEKBIa

edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: RT @bbctech: Video gamers could be controlling on-screen action via brain power http://bit.ly/bEKBIa

edinburghmsc: via @jar: open education resources showcase in London, 23 July, JISC & HEA. http://bit.ly/cSZpcL

edinburghmsc: via @jar: open education resources showcase in London, 23 July, JISC & HEA. http://bit.ly/cSZpcL

Links for 2010-07-04 [del.icio.us]

• A few more Avatar makers |

Links for 2010-07-06 [del.icio.us]

• Hopeful Monsters and the Trough Of Disillusionment – Blog – BERG
  The title was “Mining the Trough of Disillusionment”, referring to the place in the Gartner “Hype Cycle” that we find inspiration in – where technologies languish that have become recently mundane, cheap and widely-available but are no longer seen as exciting ‘bullet-points’ on the side of products.
• Softpress : Freeway Pro
  Freeway's unique approach to web design means that you can concentrate on design and leave the code writing, graphics optimization and link maintenance to the application.
• PADILICIOUS

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: Annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) 14-16 December, Newport, Wales http://tinyurl.com

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: Annual conference of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) 14-16 December, Newport, Wales http://tinyurl.com

edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: News article on Virtual Graduation, July 2nd 2010 - thanks to all that attended and helped organise: http://bit.ly/9KRi8S #

edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: News article on Virtual Graduation, July 2nd 2010 - thanks to all that attended and helped organise: http://bit.ly/9KRi8S #

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: E-Learn 2010 Conference; Orlando, Florida. October 18-22. http://tinyurl.com/ydfajlf

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: E-Learn 2010 Conference; Orlando, Florida. October 18-22. http://tinyurl.com/ydfajlf

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: 4th European Conference on Game-Based Learning in Copenhagen 21-22 October http://tinyurl.com/32h9dqm

edinburghmsc: via @hamacleod: 4th European Conference on Game-Based Learning in Copenhagen 21-22 October http://tinyurl.com/32h9dqm

edinburghmsc: via @speedysnail: Digital Demands: The Challenges of Constant Connectivity http://icio.us/arcz45 (via @timbuckteeth)

edinburghmsc: via @speedysnail: Digital Demands: The Challenges of Constant Connectivity http://icio.us/arcz45 (via @timbuckteeth)

edinburghmsc: via @speedysnail: RT @aknock The MSc E-Learning graduates #edslgrad http://twitpic.com/21rzaz

edinburghmsc: via @speedysnail: RT @aknock The MSc E-Learning graduates #edslgrad http://twitpic.com/21rzaz

Links for 2010-07-01 [del.icio.us]

• Choose Your Own Adventure: Touching Stories Brings Interactive Film To The iPad - PSFK
  Touching Stories is a hybrid video game and form of immersive entertainment that uses the capabilities of the iPad to allow viewers some level of interaction with, and control over, the outcome of the live-action video. Developed by production company Tool of North America, the interactive experience is available today as a free, downloadable app, where viewers can experience four interactive films.

Links for 2010-06-30 [del.icio.us]

• About QAA Quality Assurance Authority for Education & Training
  The main objectives of the QAAET are to:
  
  * Develop indicators, processes, mechanisms and guidelines for measuring and reviewing the quality of performance of education and training institutions
  * Develop and carry out national examinations to assess performance levels for key stages of primary intermediate and secondary education stages
  * Review the quality of the performance of education and training institutions in light of the guiding indicators developed by the Authority
  * Emphasize transparency and accountability by publishing reports on the general status of the education and training system in the Kingdom and the performance and outcomes of the individual institutions
  * Issue an annual report containing the Authority’s view of the Bahrain education system
  * Review and update indicators and standards together with review and assessment mechanisms
  * Collaborate with other quality assurance agencies in the region and internationally
• nebusiness.co.uk - News - Science & Technology - The pitching pitfalls of media firms
  AS the first Commissioner at Channel 4's digital media investment team, 4iP, I was knocking back nearly 100 ideas a month from digital media companies around the country.
  
  The same reasons, without fail, would prevent us from moving on an idea.
  
  I’ve since started my own company to help people take their ideas from the back of the envelope to the market, trying to help them avoid the same old dead ends in product development.
  
  What are the main pitching pitfalls you can avoid? Here are the top challenges most start-ups or digital media companies face:

What Bouncers At Nightclubs Teach Us About Teaching Social Networking Skill

A professor from the Kellogg School of Management wondered: what rules do the bouncers at exclusive night clubs use to filter some clientele into the club and leave others out in the cold?

Bouncers weighed each cue differently. Social network mattered most, gender followed. For example, a young woman in jeans stood a higher chance of entrance than a well-dressed man. And an elegantly dressed black man stood little chance of getting in unless he knew someone special.

From Kottke.org

It's another reason that we need to raise an expectation that social networks' ins and outs need taught rather than caught. All amateurs get their appearance wrong at some time - we all get refused entry to the club. But  some of us get refused less often than others since we learned, or were told, how to dress, behave and hang out to get the things we want in life.

Trust me. I used to work in showbiz.

Bouncer pic is from Lomokev

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• Harvard-trained sociologist studies secrets of nightclubs (hermenaut.org)