iCT@C

Guidance and help for teachers of  ’Other than by subject’, in using Twitter to build a personal teaching and learning network:

The “Rare Book Room” site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.

Over the last decade, a company called “Octavo” digitally photographed some of the world ’s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).

This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.

CLICK HERE to go to this resource.

A free, and easy to use picture collage creator. Simply select a template for your collage and then add your pictures. PhotoVisi will do the rest for you.

CLICK HERE to go to this resource.

This is a great mindmap representing a wide range of web 2.0 tools categorised by function. Some of the tools identified below are featured but not all. Unlike those below, we can’t claim to have used all of the tools referred to in the mindmap. However, it illustrates the growing number of online applications that can provide innovative ways of engaging young people in learning.

CLICK HERE to go to this resource.

Not everyone learns by reading books!

Often the best way is to watch someone else first.

Rather than having to put up your hand and wait for the teacher to show you how to do something, you can now find out for yourself.

Watch the recording, stop it, start it, rewind, fast forward. You can work at your own pace and see it as many times as you need.

Teach ICT.com provides a range of video tutorials which can be purchased, although many can be viewed online for free. A comprehensive set of scuh tutorials exist for MS Excel 2007.

CLICK HERE to go to this resource.

EuroCreator is an educational initiative designed to encourage students and teachers throughout Europe to create at least one piece of media. To support this initiative, the EuroCreator website has been developed to facilitate educators and recognise and reward the creativity of young people. EuroCreator offers a pan European platform for students and educators to get creative and share their work.

The website will be delivered in 10 European languages and offers certification from the EU Commissioner for Education, Youth & Culture, Ján Figel’

• Students: The students media is uploaded by the teacher, they then receive positive feedback about their submission from one of the EuroCreators team members. They also receive a signed certificate from the EU Commissioner Ján Figel’ congratulating them on their work.
• Teachers: Training will be offered through video exemplars and “how to” tutorials for teachers who have never before participated in media related activities. For the experienced media related teacher excellent exemplars are made available to guide them on their way.

CLICK HERE to find out more.

Tags: creative, elearning, euro creator, ict, iCT@C, media, multimedia, online, publish, publishing, share, video

A short while ago I became involved in a collaboration about the vision of ICT within education over the next five years. The document which was created by many fellow Tweeters has now been published by Stephen Lockyer. A worthwhile read for anyone within the education sector:

Where do you see ICT in Education in five years’ time?

The award winning elearning tool SAM Learning has undergone (long awaited) changes to its interface and functionality due largely to a recent change in management. Essentially it has merged its traditional learning environment ‘SAM Learning’ with ‘SAM Learning PLUS’. This means that as from September of this year, all schools subsribing to SAM Learning now get all the benefits that SAM PLUS schools gained.

SAM Learning GO! is the start of a new era. Growing and developing over the coming months, the service remains focused on encouraging the energy and enthusiasm of students, enabling them to learn online throughout the year, not just in the weeks before exams.

Teachers will be encouraged to become engaged as contributors to SAM Learning Go! By helping to form a worldwide community of exemplary classroom practice, we hope to become the biggest and best worldwide provider of online student-driven learning. Over the next two years we are committing £3,000,000.00 to a new product development and service improvements; we have already redeveloped our software platform.

ict@c Memo Sam Learning Go

For more info about the recent changes CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to go to the SAM Learning website.

I’m sure this is only one of many presentations now available from the recent HHL09 conference. This one seems to be a useful starting point for any school thinking of bringing in mobile devices as teaching and learning tools:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

The content on TED is very good, if you are looking for a worthy, inspirational talk or lecture for yourself and/ or to share with your students, you are likely to find it here.

As well as being able to watch TED Talks on the website itself, there is also a free iPhone App which allows you to access and watch latest TED talks on the go. The talks usually last between 10 – 30 mins so a good wifi connection is advised, although I have watched some talks through the standard 3G connection without any real problems. The TED app itself (free, App Store) allows you to view all the videos and audio available on Ted.com right on your iPhone, and doesn’t just link you to youtube videos either, opting for full quicktime movies. You can favourite videos, share them with your friends – all fairly standard stuff.

CLICK HERE to go to the website.