Free paint software

If you want another free paint program it is worth having a look at Paint.net

Its not photoshop, but we rarely need all the power of that and its a much better price.

It can handle multiple documents at once, layers and undo history.

There are a number of plugins available and a lot of online help.

This is a download link for paint.net

There is also information about the plugins and documentation.

A New Way to Search

Another just released item that has a lot of implications for us is Wolfram Alpha, a new search engine that has just recently been released.

Instead of giving a list of web sites as a result it can format and present an answer to your query. This is only working on a subset of the Internet that the wolfram people have turned into a database.

What it does have data on works very well and there are a number of examples on the site to give you an idea of what it can do.

It looks like it will be very good for Maths, Science and Geography at least.

Have a look, try it out and let me know what you think.

The New Wave

Everyone uses email and instant messaging on the web now, but imagine if you could tie those two forms of communication together and add a load of functionality on top of it. At its most fundamental form, that’s essentially what Wave is. Developed by brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen and Stephanie Hannon out of Google’s Sydney, Australia offices.

This was announced last week at the Google developers IO conference. Have a look at the complete article from the TechCrunch web site. It includes links to a video of the conference presentation and the google site that will become wave eventually.

This looks like being an excellent tool for group communication and collaboration (just what we do at school, or should)

iPhone and iTouch

As well as looking at wiimotes and cheap white boards we have started looking at using iPhones and itouchs at school
This post is being done with a wordpress package on my iPhone. It is quick using my wireless at home but not sure about uploading with 3g link yet. Also not very impressed with the education offerings on iTunes yet, but am starting to look into it a lot more.
Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Education and Creativity

Is education killing creativity?

British reporter Riz Khan put together a nice 20 minute interview last week with Sir Ken Robinson, our favorite creativity and education expert (and famous TED presenter). Even if you’ve seen Sir Ken’s 2006 TED presentation, you’ll find this interview an entertaining and thought-provoking refresher. Rizwan Khan is a veteran of the BBC and CNN; he currently hosts the Riz Khan Show on Al Jazeera English.

Part 1

This is the next section

Part 2

So you think laptops are the answer

 

Here is another article from Zdnet about computing in education. It is another development of the microsoft surface computing devices that I showed in my vod pod. Just have a look at the video links on the right.

 

September 17th, 2008

Multi-touch smart desks in the classroom

Posted by Roland Piquepaille @ 9:57 am

Categories: Computers & Internet, Social Sciences

Multi-touch screens are very fashionable these days, but there are not many practical applications for them. Now, researchers at Durham University in the UK are using them to develop the world’s first interactive classroom. The new learning environments are using ‘interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.’ Their initiative, called SynergyNet, has several goals, including the development of learning by sharing. So far, the research team has linked up with manufacturers to design software and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop. But read more…

You can see above one of these multi-touch smart desks in a classroom. “Schoolchildren were given a glimpse of the desks of the future yesterday (September 16, 2008) as researchers at Durham University unveiled the world’s first interactive classroom.” (Credit: Durham University) Here is a link to a much larger version of this photo.

You also can see children enjoying these smart desks here and there. You can even buy printed copies of these photos from North News, a company based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. You also can watch a short video (1 minute and 15 seconds) — also available from the Multitouch project page— to see how these screens are used for teaching.

The SynergyNet solution — whose motto is ‘Supporting Collaborative Learning in an Immersive Environment’ — “will integrate Information Communications technology (ICT) into the fabric of the classroom. The new desk with a ‘multi-touch’ surface will be the central component; the desks will be networked and linked to a main smartboard offering new opportunities for teaching and collaboration. Several students will be able to work together at a desk as the desks allow simultaneous screen contact by multiple users using fingers or pens. Durham researchers want to create a ‘natural way’ for students to use computers in class. The system encourages collaboration between students and teachers, and a move away from teacher-centric learning.”

Here are some quotes from Dr Liz Burd, Senior Lecturer and Deputy Dean in the Department of Computer Science at Durham University. “Our vision is that every desk in school in 10 years time will be interactive. IT in schools is an exciting prospect — our system is very similar to the type of interface shown as a vision of the future in the TV series Star Trek! We can now by-pass the ‘move-to-use’ whiteboard. The new desk can be both a screen and a keyboard, it can act like a multi-touch whiteboard and several students can use it at once. It offers fantastic scope for more participative teaching and learning. The system will also boost equal access in school. In IT, we have found that males have been the dominant actors — interactive classrooms will encourage more females to take part in lessons. It will also enable more disabled students to participate in lessons and allow more personalized learning.”

Another researcher involved in the project, Dr Andrew Hatch, Teaching Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, added: “It changes the move-to-use principle; instead the computer becomes part of the desk. It’s a practical change that will provide a creative interface for life-long learning for all students!”

The team doesn’t know when their system becomes available. But they said that “the software will be available to schools for free as open source code.”

Sources: Durham University news release, September 16, 2008; and various websites

Laptops for All

I think this has a lot of relevance for us as well.

“In the beginning, [with any new technology] we usually just reproduce what we were doing with the prior generation of technology. It’s only after some time you start to see what’s different or what you can do differently and that changes both the earlier technology as well as what you’re doing with the new technology,”

This is from an interesting article that sheds some more light on the impact of laptops in education and the One Laptop Per Child program.

By Natasha Lomas ZDNet China
Posted on ZDNet News: Sep 17, 2008 12:28:12 PM

When the One Laptop per Child organization first mooted the idea of a super low-cost laptop aimed at schoolchildren in the developing world some years ago, it was arguably on its own in the market.

Since the not-for-profit organization first unveiled its coveted wind-up PCs, however, it’s seen the number of commercial interests hungry for a piece of the same pie grow and grow.

David Cavallo, chief learning architect for the OLPC, who gave the keynote at the Association for Learning Technology’s annual conference earlier this month, is upbeat about the new entrants into the low-cost educational laptop market that his organization arguably kick-started.

Cavallo told ZDNet’s sister site, silicon.com: “It’s great. We take that as a huge success. Some years from now we may not be making laptops at all and that’s fine because we’re not a for-profit company, we’re not going to be a laptop company and we really are focused on the mission and the belief–it’s a humanitarian project… to really provide education everywhere particularly for the most marginalized, so the fact that there are a lot of devices coming into being everywhere we think that’s great. There’s more than a billion kids in the developing world so there’s room for everybody.”

However, he described the response of some commercial laptop makers to the OLPC project as “unfortunate”.

“What I think has been surprising and somewhat unfortunate is that some of the companies have taken this as just a market to compete in — and compete in a very vicious way and that’s unfortunate, because we’re not trying to take market share and make profit or knock anybody else out,” he said.

Cavallo said the OLPC project is going to continue to keep pushing to reduce the cost of the hardware “to really make it accessible”, adding: “We hope to keep moving the market and if others come in and keep filling in the space that’s created fantastic, all the better.”

Giving laptops to schoolchildren in developing countries has had some unlikely effects, according to the OLPC exec. While skeptics claimed the laptops would be sold or stolen by their young owners, it seems they have been converting truants into school-lovers and encouraging kids to brush up their reading and writing skills by turning to blogging.

The laptops are also having an impact on children’s career choices, according to Cavallo. “If you talk to a kid in Brazil the girls want to become fashion models and the boys want to become football players. This changed,” he said.

“They do much more reading and writing. It [laptop technology] lets in other ways of thinking about teaching and learning away from rote and gives support to do that. So we’ve seen just in the basic kind of work that also has really improved. It’s laying the basis for a much more dramatic improvement over time. It doesn’t happen immediately.”

The hardware has also had a positive impact beyond the children–engaging parents and teachers in furthering their own education and skill level, according to Cavallo.

“The very first thing is that, almost everywhere we went, if it was in a remote place, the people would say the kids only show up for school half the time. And that just changes. Now you have basically… more than 100 percent attendance. Because they come on weekends, they come early to school and they stay late,” he said.

“We had one place in Cambodia where the enrolment doubled. There were more kids, they just weren’t coming to school. So from one year to the next we had twice as many kids and didn’t know it. So we had to get more laptops there,” he added.

Cavallo added: “Kids in the developing world who’re really disenfranchised, they know the value of a computer. They know it’s such a strong statement of inclusion–of their value. And these I think are really measurable. The families start to take education seriously. One of our students — when OLPC was just getting started–did a project in rural Costa Rica, and 70 percent of the parents entered vocational education using the computer at night after the kids…

“In Uruguay the parents wait for the kids to go to bed so they can use the laptops. So you saw people move to rural communities… so their kids could take advantage of [the laptops]. In Rwanda the families brought electricity to the schools so that the kids could keep using the laptops.

Everybody’s fear was that ‘oh the families will sell it, the kids will lose it, it’ll get stolen’ and we just haven’t seen that.”

However, Cavallo believes giving laptops to schoolchildren in the developing world is just the first step in a process to better education itself. “It isn’t just computers and it isn’t just computers and connectivity because you’re really trying to bring with it the ideas about teaching and learning,” he said. Much of the energy of the OLPC project is therefore focused on developing learning strategies to boost education locally–appointing a co-coordinator and a team of locals to ensure the laptops become part of a new way of learning, rather than just a tool to perform outdated practices.

“In the beginning, [with any new technology] we usually just reproduce what we were doing with the prior generation of technology. It’s only after some time you start to see what’s different or what you can do differently and that changes both the earlier technology as well as what you’re doing with the new technology,” Cavallo said.

The laptop itself, however, has had a few issues too–specifically, the mesh network connectivity has delivered less than was hoped.

Cavallo said: “This is the first large-scale deployment of this type of mesh. And we hit some stumbling blocks and in some ways we might have bitten off too much in the very beginning and that I think slowed us a little bit…

“With about 20 kids under a tree that’s working actually quite nicely so we’re doing really quite well in the smaller schools. In the very large schools–in Rwanda one of the schools we work in has 3,000 kids–and then you just have certain kinds of problems because of the number. Theoretically you’d say that’s actually where the mesh really should work so those are the things that we still have to work out.”

Why use Blogs in Class ?

I recently came across some interesting discussions on the use of blogs within class. We are starting to make more use of these at McAuley and you might like to have a look at these sites if you were thinking about doing the same yourself.

The first one is a general discussion about the rational for edublogging. The second link is from a school that is starting to use them for assignments. It is a year 10 commerce class blog, there are comments from both the teacher and students. See who can work out first where the class is, it might be interesting…

Its worth while mentioning again “don’t think this is unworkable because we don’t have the resources”

Yes it is less effective without easy anytime access to technology but we are much closer to achieving that and we need to consider how to be ready for that time (we should be adding over a hundred new laptops to the student pool by next year)

If you have any thoughts or ideas about using them remember to ask for help if you are unsure.

Further Taking it Global

To add to the previous post here is some information about global art from young people.

Country Collections aim to promote cross-cultural understanding through visual reflections of or about specific countries.

There is a wide range of material from young artists around the world

How to engage the net generation

Exposure to IT begins at very young ages. Children age six or younger spend an average of two hours each day using screen media (TV, videos, computers, video games), which nearly equals the amount of time they spend playing outside (1:58 hours versus 2:01 hours). Both significantly exceed the amount of reading time (39 minutes). Half of the children in this age group have used a computer; among 4-to-6-year-olds, 27 percent spend over an hour a day (1:04) at the keyboard. “It’s not just teenagers who are wired up and tuned in, it’s babies in diapers as well.” While earlier generations were introduced to information through print, this generation takes a digital path.3
Home digital media use (computer, games, Internet) is approaching the amount of time spent watching TV. Thirteen-to-17-year-olds average 3.1 hours a day watching TV and 3.5 hours with digital media. Note that students may use more than one medium at a time.

from Educating the Net Generation
Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger, Editors

 

Today I spent some time at an ACEL conference in Parramatta. I don’t always approach these with many expectations, but this was an excellent day (not just because it involved IT)

We listened to a Canadian called Michael Furdyk. He is one of our NET generation, having been born in 1982.

Much of what he spoke about revolved around engagement of our modern students in a not so modern education system.

 

How can you give meaning and relevance to what they do?

As a 19 year old he was one of the founders of www.takingITglobal.org

TakingITGlobal.org is an online community that connects youth, to find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action in their local and global communities. It’s the world’s most popular online community for young people interested in making a difference, with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month.

He wasn’t your typical IT Nerd his work and ideas can be easily used by us in social justice issues, equity and understanding. He enables connectedness and the process seems to provide meaning to many people.

Have a look at this game that has been developed for school use. 

Working with youth leaders at South Shore High School, Global Kids and Gamelab have developed Ayiti, a role-playing video game in which the player assumes the roles of family members living in rural Haiti.

We need to be aware of these issues, it wont be long before laptops are a fact of life for all students, they have these resources at home and they will expect relevant use at school.

What If Every Child Had a Laptop – and Nothing Changed?

Have a look at this article from the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation

Watch this space for more…..