Learning with 'e's: Mobile content curation

Learning with 'e's: Mobile content curation

Tech Chats

There will be three tech chats for interested parents. The topics and times are as follows:

1. Online Security: How to help your child, family and friends stay safe while using information technology. This chat will primarily be focused on middle school age students but should be useful for anyone who uses information technology. We will be using information from a previous post found here.
1. Time: Oct 16, 12:20 to 1:00
2. Location: Same location as PSA meeting
2. Veracross: A look at our school's School Information System and Web Portal.
1. Time: Nov. 15,  8:30 to 9:00
2. Location: Same location as PSA meeting
3. Social Bookmarking: What it's about and how you and your child can benefit from it. Overview video here. Diigo social bookmarking service is available here. Delicious social bookmarking service is available here.
1. Time: Dec. 4, 8:30 to 9:00
2. Location: Same location as PSA meeting

What type of teaching tool/resource could the various Social Networks be used for in classroom setting?

www.edudemic.com/2013/08/8-questions-answered-by-popular-social-networks 
Posted by Paul

Blogging Ideas.......

Annotated List of Classroom Blogs to Explore
docs.google.com/document/d/1h9-8jTvAl5vAccey7Es9v0W4OHB3ekaVgXA2KKqY10g/mobilebasic?pli=1 

Tech Thursday May 16 - Learning with YouTube

Big Idea:

YouTube is a great resource for consuming, creating, sharing and publishing media. All MS students and staff already have a YouTube account through the AISB Google system.

YouTube is a great place for students to upload their own video footage for several reasons: reliability, web access, easy sharing and publishing of videos, unlimited storage of media (which can be private); the ability to share videos without having to make them public (unlisted links). YouTube also has a basic but usable video editor: http://www.youtube.com/editor  Advantages of this editor: Web-based, no special software required; students can work on a video project from any web-connected computer (or several); any footage that has been uploaded to a YouTube channel is available for any video project within the YT editor. CC licensed video is directly available to insert into videos as well.

YouTube videos are easily sharable. There are three privacy settings: private, unlisted and public. Once in YouTube, videos are easily embeddable in a variety of web resources like blogs, sites, Prezis, Google Presentations, etc.

Video is a fantastic teaching tool, as I'm sure you all know. The trick is finding the best content available. Developing and growing your PLN is one of the best ways to come into contact with great content (e.g. Twitter, Diigo, blogs, YT channels, etc.)  You might want to subscribe to YouTube channels that seem to produce the kind of content your students might benefit from. Below are some examples of channels I subscribe to:

PBS Off Book
VSauce
PBS Digital Studios It's OK to Be Smart
TED ed
DubSpot
YouTube EDU  - Curated videos by category

Vimeo Video School: Great resources to help you learn to produce better videos.

Demos:
Uploading video to YT
Publishing settings
How to embed YouTube video
Basic overview of the YouTube editor
Discuss: Embedding video into blog or site for more private commenting away from YouTube.com comments

Tech Thursday May 9 - Google Drive Basics and Backups

Big idea: Google Drive is a couple things:

1. It's an online (cloud) based storage solution that integrates with your Google Docs as well as allowing storage and sharing of non-Google files. It can be accessed via a web browser and dedicated apps for Android and iOS. This solution allows you to access, share and collaborate on documents easily. By contrast, a Word file on your computer does not allow for easy access of file (e.g. from home) nor is it easily sharable. Collaboration on this file is very difficult. Version control becomes necessary as copies get created in attachments, etc.
2. It's a desktop application that lives on your computer, allowing you to work from your computer's hard drive instead of Google's cloud. These files are then synced automatically (if desired) to the Drive's cloud storage area where they can be accessed through a browser or Drive app on portable device. This solution does not require any version control of files as would be the case with the Word file example above.

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Times:  (8:00-8:20 a.m., 12:05-12:25 p.m., 3:40-4:00 p.m.)

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Details:

Finding Docs
Sharing Docs

Uploading / Storing different file types

Sharing Folders

Linking to Shared Folders

How to efficiently manage the collection of student work created in Google Docs

Using Forms

Using Discussions in Veracross

What is Google Drive the desktop application you can install on your computer all about?

Help Link from Google - How to Install Google Desktop Application, backups

Using Google Takeout as a backup

Tech Thursdays for May 2 - Using Smart-phones and Tablets as Recorders, Scanners, Cameras

Big Idea: Most students are walking around with very capable audio recorders, scanners, video and still cameras in their pockets. (As are many teachers.) It makes sense to leverage these devices' potential for quick and easy recording. We'll look at ways to get these images, videos, and audio off the device and into the cloud (e.g. Google Drive, etc.).

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Times:  (8:00-8:20 a.m., 12:05-12:25 p.m., 3:40-4:00 p.m.)

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App Links

Android

• Voice Recorder App
• Drive App (Images, Video)
• Evernote (Audio, Images, Video)
  MaharaDroid (Allows uploading images, audio, video, to eFolio folder)

iOS

• Built in voice recorder (allows emailing of audio files; only available on iPhone, iPod)
• Evernote App (audio, video, images; only upload to Evernote)
• Drive App (video, images)
• Audio Memos App (allows emailing; uploading audio files to Drive)
• PortfolioUp App (allows sending images and video directly to eFolio folder)

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Safety Resources for Parents

Below you'll find high-quality links to a variety of resources about technology safety from a parent's perspective. Keeping young people safe with technology requires many different approaches, using a variety of tools and techniques. There is no one approach or prescription that will work for everyone. There are simply too many variables. People own different devices which operate on a variety of systems. Each child is unique, having different needs and proclivities. Each child's environment is unique, shaping each child in a different way.

It is important to take several approaches when it comes to helping young people learn how to be safe online.  A technology-only approach using parental controls is not sufficient. It's important for parents to talk to their children, develop trust, coach, and provide reasonable oversight. The links below will help parents deal with the many complicated challenges involved in raising kids in a connected world.

If you will be installing safety software on your child's machine(s), it's important that you become the administrator of the machine.  

Admin Help - MAC: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10802  WIN: http://bit.ly/11lL4QQ

Links:

Apple

Mac

Parental Controls for Mac OS X Leopard: http://macmost.com/parental-controls.html

Parental Control with DNS: http://macmost.com/beyond-parental-controls-with-dns.html

Open DNS Service- Web Filters: http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/

Avast Anti-Virus:  http://www.avast.com/index

Understanding Administrator accounts MAC OS

iOS: Understanding Parental Controls from Apple

Parental Controls in iOS: http://macmost.com/ios-parental-controls.html

iTunes: Parental Controls

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PC

Protect your PC from Microsoft

Keep your Family Safer from Microsoft

Open DNS Service - Web Filters: http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions/

Avast Anti-Virus: http://www.avast.com/index
AVG Anti-Virus: http://free.avg.com/eu-en/free-downloads

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Android

AVG for Android (Antivirus and Tracking)

Mobile Security App

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Web Services

Google: Safety Tools from Google

Facebook:  Family Safety Center from Facebook

Twitter: Safety Tips for Parents from Twitter

YouTube: Safety Center from YouTube

Instagram: Tips for Parents from Instagram

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General

Internet Safety Site: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Internet Safety by Common Sense Media (Filter age range at top, left)

Online Safety for Parents Info from US Gov

Tech Thursday April 25 Using Sheets

Topics:  How to use Google spreadsheets (basics). How to create charts from spreadsheet data.

Specifics:

• Using simple formulas
• Freezing rows/columns (View...Freeze...)
• Sorting
• Using filters
• Inserting comments
• Inserting charts
• Customizing charts
• Placing charts into Docs

Official help documents from Google

Tech Thursday April 18 - Evaluating Information

Evaluating Information Found Online

Most of the information we access today comes to us via the Web. Being that almost anyone can publish through this medium, how do we evaluate the quality of what we find?

Wikipedia is the sixth most visited site on the Web and one which students frequent for school related work, therefore, it's worth asking some questions about it.

• How does Wikipedia fit in, if at all, into what happens in schools?
• Should we be recommending its use?
• Should we be recommending it be used in certain ways?
• Is it reliable?
• What are its strengths, if any?
• What are its weaknesses, if any?

We'll look at some resources that can help us and our students evaluate the quality of information we find online.

Resource Links

Evaluating Information Checklist (pdf) from the University of Leeds
New Media Literacies Assessment Tool (pdf) from Bill
Tutorial for evaluating information from The University of Leeds (requires Flash)
Obama's left-handed salute (image)
http://www.truthorfiction.com/
http://snopes.com/
http://factcheck.org/


Fake or Real?

Five Simple Discussion Tools in your Google Toolbox

One of the great things about information technology is how it can help expand understanding through the use of different tools for discussion. No longer does the conversation have to be limited by time (the bell) or place (your class's four walls). These tools give people more time to think deeply about something in order to generate a thoughtful idea or response, allow the more quiet students a chance to have their ideas heard, and can enlarge the pool of participants (e.g. all four of your classes can have one discussion vs. each class having a separate one).

Image source: Wikimedia CC BY

Below are five ideas/tools to help with discussions.

1) Google Moderator  A nice little tool from Google. View a video on how you can use it in class here. An example of Moderator being used in real life here. (Click on View Questions to see items.)

2) Comment on YouTube Videos Without Having to Use YouTube Comments You can insert a YouTube video into a Google Presentation. Share the Presentation with students, giving them comment privileges. Now students can comment on the video using Presentation's comment feature without having to sift through the sludge that is YouTube comments. Participants can also respond to each other using comment threads.

3) Blog Posts If you are using Blogger, students can easily comment on posts using the commenting tool available at the bottom of each post. Comments can be moderated by teacher before they go public.

4) Commenting on Images from Drive You can comment on images you're uploaded to Google Drive. These can be images found online, photos you've taken, scans of artwork... which you've  uploaded to your Google Drive. Share the image with students giving them comment privileges. This commenting method allows you to comment or discuss a particular part of the image. Here's an older blog post of how this can be done.

5) Comment on Images Using PicasaWeb. You can have participants comment on images using the comment box at the bottom of each image in a PicasaWeb album.

Week 5 - March 28 - Sharing / Borrowing / Remixing: Copyright in the 21st Century

Copyright in the 21st Century

Please watch the following three videos so we can discuss them together and so that I can answer any questions you may have.

Introduction to Creative Commons (CC Video A Shared Culture)

CC video Get Creative

Wanna Work Together?

we will look at ways to find different Creative Commons Media and how to give proper attribution.

Tech Thursdays March 21 - Google Forms

Using Google Forms

Google forms can be used for a variety of purposes. They can be used for surveys, to collect documents (via links), for quizzes, to signup for events...

Google forms can be embedded into Google Sites. Here's an example.

How to create Google Forms.

Overview Video



You can use the Flubaroo script to auto-grade quizzes. Watch the video below to learn how.

Tech Thursdays - Social Bookmarking

Techniques and tools to easily capture, store, organize and share information you find online and offline.

Big Ideas: 

• In order to produce good ideas and to be creative, it’s important to capture information and organize it in a way that allows the collected information to collide and create new knowledge. 
• Being able to easily collect and organize information will help you and your students learn.

The idea in the first bullet point above is explained in the following video:
“Chance favors the connected mind.” by Steven Johnson

Please watch the video below before you come to the lab.

Connected ideas:
Distributed Cognition
Social Bookmarking (Explanation video; same as above)

Connecting of your own ideas as well as the connecting the ideas of others. Delicious example of someone I follow.

Tool: Diigo: Bookmarking, Annotation, Highlighting, Sharing and More

(Diigo Tools)

Diigolet, Various Diigo Plugins
Diigo on iOS , Web highlighter for iPad Safari
Diigo on Android  is called PowerNote
Sharing linkrolls

Tool: Delicious: (Social Bookmarking; delicious.com)

Tool: Evernote (Link)
Web Clipper

Platform: Kindle (kindle.amazon.com)
Highlighting, Annotating, Social Reading

Tool: bookmarks.google.com

Tool: Twitter  #hashtags What Are Hashtags?

Tech Thursdays - Week 2: March 7 - Using an Electronic Portfolio

Using An E-folio

Reasons you might want to use an electronic portfolio system:

• Allows for more feedback (from teachers, peers, parents...), increasing learning
• Summative assessments in a portfolio show student performance; they are not a proxy of student performance (grades)
• Provides students with a place for self-reflection
• Creates a place where people can see growth over time (possibly years)
• Allows for better conversations to happen around learning/performance, as opposed to the limiting conversations about grades
• Allows for easy sharing of various media (audio, video, text, images...), organized into pages, by need. Each portfolio page can be created and shared independently, tailored to meet specific needs. (For example a student might want to share their acting portfolio page in order to apply for a summer theater institute.)
• Helps students take ownership of their learning. They are in charge of building their portfolio pages; they are in control of their pages and they decide when and with whom to share these pages.

About the Mahara efolio system (the system we're using):

Students have one portfolio. This portfolio is made up of student-created pages. They can create as many pages as they need. These can be organized and searched with the use of tags. Pages can be shared with people in and out of the efolio system. Students are in full control of their portfolio which means they control the sharing of pages. A student does not necessarily share a whole portfolio, but instead, shares pages.

Pages can contain external content, like a YouTube video, Prezi or VoiceThread, for example. They can also contain content that is in the students’ Files section of the portfolio, such as an image or audio file.

You can log into the system at https://aisb.lunsvle.co.uk/ or from start.aisbudapest.org (last link above second video). Ask Bill if you need an account.

Help videos can be found on the MS Tech Site Home Page, in the Resources area (bottom, center) where it says E-folio Help Videos. (You need to be logged into the Google system to view these videos).

Tech Thursdays for Feb 28

Tech Thursday Session 1 - Networks

Times: Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 8:00-8:20, 12:05-12:25 and 3:40-4:00
Location: MS Tech Lab B111

In this first session of Tech Thursdays, we will look at how networks are indispensable for powerful learning in today's connected world.

Please spend some time watching the videos below before attending on Feb 28 so we can discuss them.

Discussion: Developing a personal learning network; practical tools for developing a PLN. (An older post about PLNs can be found here.)

Big Ideas:

• "The network is the learning."
• "Chance favors the connected mind"
• What networks (virtual or IRL) are you currently using to learn?
• Which tools could you use to improve or develop your learning network?