PYP Exhibition Resources

Using start pages

2008-02-14T20:36:00.002+01:00

Odysen Blog: Using a Start Page to Track an Endangered Species, the Leatherback Turtle

Here's an Odysen start page for the endangered Leatherback Turtle, a species that has been swimming through the oceans for the last 100 million years but is now down to ~5,000. The big recent news is the tracking of one of the turtles that showed how it swam from Indonesia to Oregon and back to Hawaii.

The Odysen start page, Leatherback Turtle, includes a news search widget, a website bookmarker widget, Flickr photos, an Amazon book search, and YouTube videos.

Like iGoogle - an easily created, interesting "webpage" to draw attention to a subject of inquiry.

Photo sharing sites - Flickr

2007-11-03T04:02:00.000+01:00

A place on the internet where students can store, share and access any photos of their exhibition process can be very useful in telling their stories. There are many photos sharing sites - Read How the big photo-sharing sites stack up at All Things Digital for an overview of several sites. (There is no reason to limit yourself to one site, as different features are available at each site.)

This video looks at the features in Flickr and how they can be using in an educational setting.

There are many other video tutorials on YoutTube about how to use other aspects of Flickr. This one is on how to geotag your pictures.

Search "flickr" on TeacherTube for tutorials on some more specialized things to do through Flickr.

Tumblr

2007-10-27T17:59:00.000+02:00

Tumblr joyfully describes itself like this:

"To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. You can also look at tumblelogs as slightly more structured blogs that make it easier, faster, and more fun to post and share stuff you find or create. "

Screen shot of my tumblr dashboard

"Is Tumblr better/worse than Blogger, TypePad, FaceBook, etc.? It's totally different. That's why we built it, and why we love it so much. Blogs are great, but they can be a lot of work. And they're really built to handle longer-form text posts. Tumblelogs, on the other hand, let you easily and quickly post and share anything you find or create. "

Tumblr will display anything with an rss feed: blogs, bookmarks/favorites (like del.icio.us), podcasts, wiki posts, live bookmarks, photos from photo sharing sites (like Flickr), videos (from YoutTube or Google Videos, etc) etc, as well as items you post directly.

And then, of course, you can subscribe to a Tumblr feed in any rss feed reader. This would be an interesting way to collect all the work of a class, or group, or a teacher's collection of resources for a particular subject area, because it is so graphic.

Using online bookmarks/favorites

2007-10-27T11:04:00.000+02:00

Social Bookmarking (del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon) are described at Wikipedia like this:

"Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, but depending on the service's features, may be saved privately, shared only with specific people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, via a search engine, or even randomly."

Screen shot of a del.icio.us account page

The trick to using a site that uses tags rather than filing bookmarks into folders, is consistency in tagging or labeling. If a group were using one account, it would be good to work together on keyword definitions. (In itself, this is a good tool to practice determining and defining keywords.)

A "tag cloud" can be configured, and added to the side bar of a blog, or to a web page. The tag cloud at left is from the "PYPCDN" del.icio.us account. Anyone can tag a bookmark "for:pypcdn", and the administrator of the account then has the choice to accept and save the bookmark, or delete it.

Read this post (and watch the video from TeacherTube) on the 28 August blog that I wrote for another tech-day gathering.

This page at Mahalo, "How to use del.icio.us like a Pro", will show you everything you need to know about starting a del.icio.us account.

What a useful tool for an Exhibition group!

Copyright - who has it, how to use it

2007-10-26T10:07:00.000+02:00

This video from Creative Commons explains the concept of copyright.

Att: There is a short add at the end of this video

Copyright law varies from country to country, but in general, these guidelines apply:
Copyright owners have the following rights to their work

Reproduction
Adaptation
Distribution
Performance
Display

"Fair Use Exemptions" generally are

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Copyright

You can read about copyright at Wikipedia: "Copyright is a set of exclusive rights that regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. At its most general, it is literally "the rights to copy" an original creation. In most cases, these rights are of limited duration. The symbol for copyright is "©", and in some jurisdictions may alternatively be written as either (c) or (C)....Copyright laws are standardized through international conventions such as the Berne Convention in some countries and are required by international organizations such as European Union or World Trade Organization from their member states." Read more here.

Creative Commons (CC)
"Creative Commons helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what
they can and can't do with your work."

You can read about Creative Commons on Wikipedia: "The Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others legally to build upon and share. The organization has released several copyright licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses, depending on the one chosen, restrict only certain rights (or none) of the work." Read more here.

Read more about the concept here. You can license your work with a Creative Commons license here.
A comic (online) explains how Creative Commons works "How it Works"

Suggested student guide lines

Suggested student guide lines for work using only original and copyrighted (c) "all rights reserved works" (based on this page):

On the opening screen and any print materials, if you have included copyrighted materials, you must put a notice that "certain materials are included under the fair use exemption".
Acknowledge ALL your sources with a bibliographic citation
Use only lawfully acquired copyrighted works or self-created works. Be very sure that any pictures, files or text you take off the Internet says that you may use it, or write the webmaster/author for permission.
Follow the 10% rule of thumb. Ask the librarian or teacher if you have questions about how much of a song, video, picture or poem you can use. You may not modify scanned images.
Use your project only for class work and show it only to the students in your class.
Only 2 copies can be produced for use. One copy can be saved in a portfolio.

Suggested student guide lines for work using only original and Creative Commons (cc) works

Acknowledge ALL your sources with a bibliographic citation
If you use works licensed with an Attribution license, be sure to site the creator.
If you use works licensed with a Share-Alike license, be sure to license your own work with the same license.

Added 9.12.07: "Crossing the Copyright Boundary in the Digital Age" presented by Karen Richardson during the K12 Online Technology Conference gives a good overview of issues in copyright, and many link and resources for correct and legal use of materials.

VoiceThread

2007-10-23T14:15:00.000+02:00

VoiceThread is a tool with endless possibilities. Here is a thumbnail-size version of a thread I made as a sample, to show you how it works, with material from the Class 2i blog. Go here to see it full-screen.

You can work with video and photos, text and audio. There is also a drawing tool, which appears as an animation overlay. VoiceThread is a very young site, and it is a bit clumsy to search.

Here is a VoiceThread about using multiple "voices" or identities in one account (for example, a class, or a work group), and here is a page of "how-to" links.

This thread is a book, written by a teacher for her class to read; this one is a conversation about Renaissance painting , created as part of a University online art history course.

There are free accounts, whcih are limited to 3 VoiceThreads, and pro accounts, which cost about $29.95 a year. If you are a teacher, you may apply for a free pro account, which allows unlimited storage, 500 pages per thread, etc. The details are here.

Combining maps, photos, and hyperlinks

2007-10-22T16:51:00.000+02:00

This is a screen shot of the map that Class 2i made last spring. The Domaine de Penthes is very near one of our sites, and the classes go there regularly. On the Google Map page, click on one of the place markers to view a photo, and the children's comments.

Google Maps and Google Earth are easy tools to show information that includes a geographical component.

Toondoo.com

2007-10-21T12:58:00.000+02:00

I found this site at the K12 Online Technology Conference 2007 among the supporting links for Wendy Wolfe's presentation, “If All My Classes Did This”, so I tested it - results below (it took about 5 minutes, including registration on the site). The site describes itself like this:

"ToonDoo is a wacky way to get creative with comics. You can now create your own comic strips, share them or insert them in your blogs with just a few clicks and drag-n-drops!"

add sound....

2007-10-21T12:30:00.000+02:00

At Gcast students (or teachers!) can upload an MP3 sound file they've made, and embed a player in their blog or web page so that visitors can listen without ever leaving the page. Imagine a sound tour of a field trip, an interview with a mentor, an expert, a discussion, debate, or reflection with their exhibition group, etc. There is some customization of color, size and format of the player allowed. Here is our audio file at Gcast:

Twango is another site that will host media and embed players in web sites or blogs. One must be 13 years old to sign up for an account, and there is a 250 MB per month bandwith limit. Some customization of style of player is allowed.

Here is our audio file on Twango:

Both these sites are social-networksites,which implies all sorts of media are available. Use with supervision if students are going to be accessing the sites directly.

Trailfire

2007-10-21T09:59:00.000+02:00

Trailfire describes itself as "a community of people helping each other cut through the clutter on the web. By empowering individuals to distill the web, drawing on their knowledge and adding their opinions, Trailfire creates a web of meaning. The basic building block of Trailfire is the trail - a collection of web pages on a subject or concept, hand built and annotated by a trail creator (we call them "guides") on each page."

A good introduction to Trailfire is April Chamberlain's presentation at the K12 Online Technology Conference 2007:
"Have you ever been sent to a list of websites to find information, evaluate a tool, etc. but lose your path once you get there? Trailfire is the tool for you and those you work with. Trailfire is a free tool in which the “guide” leaves “marks” on specific websites that when combined create a trail relating to a specific topic. Trails can be public or private. Viewers can leave comments and also collaborate on the trail if created as a wiki trail. Not only can teachers use this tool to direct learning with students but also when working with other teachers to share knowledge. Students are also able to create trails to share their knowledge in place of the traditional report, poster, etc. Come join the trail with other educators!"

Among my trails are St Maurice (created as preparation for a Year 8 Medieval Studies field trip), The Nile River and The Arctic and the Antartic (created for a Year 5 geography unit), Volcanos (created for a friend's Year 3 class studying "Natural Disasters"), and How many satelites are there? (Created for Year 6 UI into Space).

I like using Trailfire when I need to organize and share my website trolling while preparing a new unit, and as a focused way of sharing what I've chosen with our own students and unknown others. The St. Maurice trail has had 100 views! and Volcanos 111! (that's way more than the number of students who were directed to the trail!)

Presentation tools

2007-10-21T09:30:00.000+02:00

Spresent is a free Web-based alternative to PowerPoint. Create and edit high-quality Flash presentations online. You can send presentations via e-mail or publish on your web site or blog.

This page shows a Spresent show giving directions for embeding an Spresent show in an Edublogs blog post.

Spresent - Demo 1 (on YouTube)

There are several other videos describing other features of Spresent on YouTube, and samples at the Spresent site.

SlideShare is a similar site - ("YouTube for slide shows") "What is SlideShare? SlideShare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations on the web. And it's free."
Their blog is here.

Introducing Web 2.0 concepts (below) "was delivered at an Emerging Web Technologies and Trends conference in Auckland, New Zealand. The deck was used as "In Person Presentation Support" and was 40 mins long, allowing for 5 minutes of audience questions at the end"

| View | Upload your own

This slide show, Creative Web 2.0 Learning, was made to "Explore, discover, learn, dream and believe that Web 2.0 can help transform your learning and teaching to engage students in 21st century learning."

| View | Upload your own

Zoho online tools

2007-10-20T17:28:00.000+02:00

Zoho.com offers a set of 14 production and creation apps on the web which keeps getting better and better. (You work on the web, not on your computer - you don't have to buy software to do the job).

You can try out the apps without registering,

Zoho Writer (online word processor), Zoho Sheet (online spreadsheets), Zoho Show (online presentation tool). Zoho Notebook (online notebook), Zoho Planner (online organizer), Zoho Creator (online data base), Zoho Wiki (online wiki writer)

If you think they would be useful to you for your school work, sign up for an account.

Tutorial videos on the Zoho site are on this page. They are also on YouTube:
Zoho Creator for creating databases
Zoho Viewer to view and share documents as web pages.
Zoho Notebook

(Re-posted from PYP ICT Class Resources)

Internet Safety and a Google Account

2007-10-20T17:23:00.000+02:00

(re-posted from PYP ICT Class Resources)

In all the Year 6 classes, students will be opening a Google Account, specifically to be used as a tool in the classroom, in connection with their school work. Many (most) students already have at least one email address. Besides using email for "traditional" email purposes (sending messages), we are interested in the digital toolbox which a Google account provides. This is a free learning resource, available to everyone, and we will be working with our Year 6 students, learning how to take advantage particularly of email, the online Notebook, Blogger, Google Docs (word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools), iGoogle homepage, Reader, Google Page Creator, and Calendar.

This video explains how online collaboration works:

This is also the opportunity for "good practice" in internet use - personal safety, netiquette, and digital citizenship. We will continually emphasize acceptable use guidelines. These accounts are to be treated as virtual classroom spaces - essential agreements for the classroom apply also when using these tools.

We will be using information and activities at these web sites:

http://pbskids.org/license/

http://www.staysafe.org/parents/kids/activities/internet_safety_quiz.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/help/safesurfing/

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/

http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/pledge.htm