Ian Radcliffe :: Feeds

August 15, 2010

Links for 2010-08-12 [del.icio.us]

Ewan McIntosh–How do we plan for & teach emerging literacies? — CORE Breakfast seminar in Christchurch
Ewan was inspirational and engaging in his presentation, and modeled well many of the practices he spoke about. Such was the impression he made, a large number of those attending remained to discuss with him or colleagues for a good while after the seminar—despite being busy teachers who need to get back to the classroom.
Does Gove know (or care) that the opposite of play is not work, but depression? : John Connell: The Blog
….the opposite of play is not work, it’s depression….

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

August 12, 2010

Links for 2010-08-09 [del.icio.us]

UK Digital Media Expert Lectures In NZ | Voxy.co.nz
Entitled "How do we plan for and teach emerging literacies?", the seminars start at 7.45am in Christchurch on Wednesday, 11 August; in Wellington on Wednesday, 18 August and Hamilton on Friday, 20 August.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

Links for 2010-08-10 [del.icio.us]

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

August 11, 2010

edinburghmsc: via @sbayne: AHRC highlight notice: Digital transormations in arts and humanities. Research networking/fellowships. http://bit.ly/ak2diF

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

August 10, 2010

edinburghmsc: via @sbayne: Gaming conference Vancouver August 2011: CFP http://bit.ly/cRU1OW

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

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

Download KTurtle 0.8 for Linux - A Logo programming language interpreter for KDE - Softpedia
KTurtle is a Logo programming language interpreter for KDE4. The Logo programming language is very easy and thus it can be used by young children. A unique quality of Logo is that the commands or instructions can be translated (please see the translation how to if you want to help in your own language), so the 'programmer' can program in his or her native language.
Squeak Smalltalk
Squeak is a modern, open source, full-featured implementation of the powerful Smalltalk programming language and environment. Squeak is highly-portable - even its virtual machine is written entirely in Smalltalk making it easy to debug, analyze, and change. Squeak is the vehicle for a wide range of projects from multimedia applications, educational platforms to commercial web application development.
Alice.org
Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.
Computational Thinking, Programming…and the Google App Inventor – SmartBean
Nice rundown on computational thinking and which programming tools are appropriate for younger children

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

August 08, 2010

Links for 2010-08-05 [del.icio.us]

Bridging Differences - Education Week
His bete noir: GDP

"Our statistics reflect...the values that we assign things...Treating these as objective data, as if they are external to us, beyond question or dispute, is undoubtedly reassuring, but it's dangerous because we get to the point where we stop asking ourselves about the purpose of what we are doing"

Two examples: "If our measuring systems overvalue the usefulness to society of speculation compared with work, entrepreneurship, and creative intelligence, then this dangerously reverses the value system underpinning our vision of progress." Or "We don't know the value of an asset because the market prices it every second. ...In the quest to increase GDP, we may end up with a society in which citizens are worse off."

That's precisely the point I think you and I have been making in so many different ways. In short: "In the quest to increase test scores, we may end up with a society in which citizens are less well educated."
Mobile Learning - Practical Theory
What if, for example, kids designed physics experiments around the exhibits of The Franklin Airshow and people could read a QR code that led to video explanations of the experiments and the math behind it? What if the QR codes led to a wiki with much more detailed information about what you were looking at than the museum write-ups are able to give? What if the QR codes led to a survey you could take or a way to take part in an on-going conversation about the exhibit?
JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Mar., 1998), pp. 447-458
Two studies investigated the extent to which heavy television viewing affects consumers' perceptions of social reality and the cognitive processes that underlie these effects. Both studies found evidence that heavy viewers' beliefs about social reality are more consistent with the content of television programming than are those of light viewers. The use of a priming methodology provided support for the notion that television is a causal factor in the formation of these beliefs and that a failure to discount television-based exemplars in forming these beliefs accounts for its influence. Implications of these results for a heuristic processing model of television effects are discussed.
Amazon.com: Television and the Quality of Life: How Viewing Shapes Everyday Experience (Routledge Communication Series) (9780805807080): Robert William Kubey, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Books
TV viewing was the most time-consuming activity engaged in at home, and TV viewing absorbed 40% of all leisure time, or another way to look at it, 25% of all time spent at home was spent watching TV. Ninety-three percent of TV viewing occurred in one's own home. Most viewing occurred between 7:30 and 10 PM on weekdays. Twenty percent of the time, people watched TV because they had nothing better to do, giving TV the highest nothing-better-to-do ranking of major home activities including reading, eating, cooking, chores, talking, and grooming.
Study: Young people watch less TV | Reuters
Put another way, the older you get, the more you watch, according to a report due out Thursday from Deloitte indicating that "millennials," the generation of ages 14-25, watch just 10.5 hours of TV a week.

That compares with 15.1 hours for those belonging to Generation X (ages 26-42), 19.2 hours for baby boomers (43-61) and 21.5 hours for matures (62-75).
Channel 4 - Pressure Comics - Alien Ink
Pressures of teen life through an online / offline graphic novel:

Trinity and Ryder arrive in Camden, London, curiously at the same time as UFO sightings on Primrose Hill. They open Alien Ink, a tattoo shop on Camden High Street, which quickly becomes a hangout for local teens, thanks to its unusually welcoming vibe.

Trinity and Ryder are fantastic tattoo artists and word quickly spreads about their beautiful designs. Eyebrows are raised – can two 19 year olds really run a successful own business? How did they get started – where did they come from?

Meet Trinity, Ryder and their network of friends at Alien Ink and experience their lives and the Pressures they face.
ICSGrid for Learning (ICSGRID) on Twitter
Bring a world of knowledge and inspiration into your classrooms.And infuse a collaborative culture throughout your entire school community.
Majestic Old Lion Apartments - Annex Overview
Set back from the road, these modern and spacious apartments offer an ideal location for the business or leisure traveller. Opened in February 2009, each of the 9 luxurious apartments are decorated with the finest of modern finishes; king size beds with crisp white linen, large LCD televisions with Foxtel and IPOD docking stations. To ensure your stay is as comfortable as possible, each Superior One Bedroom Apartment is equipped with modern kitchen and laundry facilities. Stay a night or stay a while.
What We Can Learn from Babies: Experimentation, Failure & Creative Genius :: Articles :: The 99 Percent
“Our mature brain seems to be programmed by our childhood experiences — we plan based on what we’ve learned as children. Very young children imagine and explore a vast array of possibilities. As they grow older and absorb more evidence, certain possibilities become much more likely and more useful. They then make decisions based on this selective information and become increasingly reluctant to give those ideas up and try something new. Computer scientists talk about the difference between exploring and exploiting — a system will learn more if it explores many possibilities, but it will be more effective if it simply acts on the most likely one. Babies explore; adults exploit.”
Can Creativity Be Taught? - PSFK
Citing examples from current research and from advances made at particular US schools, the article demonstrates that particular activities can indeed help cultivate creativity. What’s common about successful programs is they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages. When problem solving challenges (i.e., how can we reduce the noise level caused by external construction to a library?) are consistently applied to the everyday process of work or school, brain function improves.

Additionally, research has identified particular factors that can help further teach, cultivate and encourage creativity:
ManageFlitter - Fast & Easy Unfollowing for Twitter
For some Twitter pruning
- The Obvious? - Destructive Criticism
Tonight I attended a music competition at my daughter's school. We were truly blown away by the standard of all of the acts which had been organised, choreographed and written by the pupils themselves. Genuinely talented, nice kids lifting the spirit with their energy and commitment.

Then came the adjudication. One of the most inappropriate responses I have seen in years. Every comment on every item had to have the obligatory "could try harder" element which of course ended up being delivered with more relish than the rest of the feedback.

Goodness knows what motivated the woman but her behaviour struck me as a classic case of being given authority and assuming that that means keeping things in check and being in a position of knowing better - even if you don't. You can stack it up alongside the price of pomposity as one of those so, so damaging, and unnecessary, aspects of authority that we could well do without.
The Curfew
Civil liberties. In a game

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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).

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

July 26, 2010

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

July 25, 2010

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.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

July 22, 2010

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

July 21, 2010

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

July 19, 2010

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.

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

July 16, 2010

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

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

via Twitter / edinburghmsc

July 12, 2010

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

A few more Avatar makers |

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education

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

via Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Education