RED is the New colour of CYBERBULLYING

Doug Sadler says RED is the new colour of Cyberbullying!  

Actually this blog post is a
complete bogus post.  I am using it as an example for a presentation of the core of most of the Cyberbullying we deal with. We are all now Publishers on the WEB.
 We can say whatever we want.  Our children get that part.  They will say whatever is on their minds and have instant access to a medium to share it with the world.  However, what gets lost on them is the responsibility portion where there is accountability for what is said. Our children have a fundamental difference from their parents and that is the filter between their ears. I am not qualifying that statement to say better or worse but clearly different. They are willing to share just about anything.  Now they are Publishers on the web and with that comes power, vulnerability, and most of responsibility.

E-Books Get A Boost! Exciting new opportunities!

Windsor Star

The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board was in the news in Saturday's Windsor Star and other local media Monday when they discussed their plans to use electronic textbooks as way to support student learning with technology.  St.Christopher Catholic Grade School was the site selected to demonstrate the new iBooks 2 app among others.  Grade 6 students were working in the school's 21st Century Learning Environment and helped demonstrate how they use iPads in there school. There are many pilot projects like this one all over the board with new ones starting all the time.

These new E-Books offer improved learning opportunities by bundling interactive components as well as text.  Students can interact with E-Books through audio, video, and physical actions such as moving the ipad in different directions or even blowing into it to make wind.

 Coupled with the board's WiFi installations across the board these opportunities and projects have become a reality.



Cross Post from the WECDSBIT Blog

The Perfect iPad Case

The Perfect iPad Case depends on how you want to use the iPad and what you want to spend.   Below is a short video where I showcase 3 possibilities for the iPad2.

Careful  consideration needs to be done before you purchase a case.  You need to weigh the following factors:

1. How much weight will the case will add? ( especially if used for reading books)
2. Protection ( will the kids be using it, do you drop things? )
3. Can I remove the iPad from the case easily?
4. Do I want to carry around or integrate a keyboard into the case?
5. How much money do I want to spend?

Consider:

1)  The Apple Smart Cover

2) A simple sleeve

3)  The Zagg Case

Please view the video below for more information and have fun!

Give the video a moment to load after hitting play.

Balancing Technological and Traditional Methods in the Classroom

I had the pleasure of visiting one of our Elementary Schools as a guest reader for a grade 2 class.  I wouldn't want to miss out on a chance to get involved with some of the great activities going on in our schools.  My 3 kids are all in the age range of grade 2 students so it wasn't hard to locate a book that should be engaging.  After a quick poll of the kids I had my books selected "How I Became a Pirate".  I decided to go with the pirate theme so I brought a Jolly Roger flag and some other props.

For those of you who are familiar with the book it it lends it's self to some fun and exciting audience participation with some good old fashioned pirate speak!

I felt compelled to introduce some technology into the field trip so I decided to incorporate the ipad into the second part of my hour with the kids.  I took out my iPad which is in a case that looks more like an organizer than anything.  Immediately the group was inquiring whether the organizer was in fact an iPad.  They know.

I used the free Toy Story app which is really quite impressive.  The app reads the story using music and the characters real voices.  As the story is read the words are highlighted.

The students were captivated with a story they have seen on TV a number of times.  Was it the device that was making the difference?

The novelty will diminish as time goes on but we did make a great find.  One of the neat features of the app is it allows the student to read the story and the ipad will record the student's voice.  Every student in the class wanted to participate so they could see the animation, hear the music and most importantly hear there voice.

iPad have many uses in the classroom and this is just one of them.  This could be used as a fantastic station however the price tag can be a slight deterrent.  The classroom teacher decided to use a tape recorder and stories in the classroom as a replacement for the iPad which worked like a charm.

Leverage the technology to build the skills.  Do we need iPods, iPads, and other technology to get students to read?  Some studies say this is how we will be able to get boys to read.  I think the answer is in the middle.  Balance is what we need.  Technology will be quite effective as long as it is applied to meet specific learning goals in conjunction with traditional methods.  For more information on the application of learning goals and the use of ipods visit Kelly Powers Blog.

Inserting Google Spreadsheets and Drawings into Google Docs

The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has there own education version of Google Docs which is virtually the same.  So whatever applies to Google Docs applies to what we call Tools2Go

Our teachers would like to add some cross application assignments using Google Drawings and Google Spreadsheets.  The task today is to insert a Google Drawing and Spreadsheet into a Google Doc.  This is not an easy task because it is not a simple point and click operation. There is no argument it should be but there are some options for you to consider.  I recommend teachers consider using Google Sites ( Wiki Tool) to merge the Spreadsheet and Drawing.    Every student has access to Google Sites.  Sites will allow for easy merging of most Google tools.  Check out the video below for instructions. 

Small Size, Big Sound, Small Price

From time to time I come across some exciting technology and I am going to star sharing here on my blog. I have been looking for a good ipod doc but just didn't want to fork out the money required for a good one.  There are many great ipod docs out there ranging from $50 to $600.

However, you want to get a great portable speaker from ANY mp3 player you may want to consider the iHome speaker portable speaker ( iHM60LC - Portable Multimedia Speaker )

The speaker is about 2/3 the size of an itouch.  The comparison above is close.  (Dimensions: 2.36" W x 2.29" H x 2.12" D)

 The speaker comes with a built-in li-ion rechargeable battery.  The battery lasts for over 6 six hours and can be recharged by plugging it into the usb port of your computer.  

Obviously the most important part of any speaker is how it sounds.  This speaker can easily fill a class room with excellent quality sound.  I was amazed at how good the sound was from such a small portable speaker.  The speaker will plug into ANY mp3 player through the headphone jack.  For even more impressive sound you can twist the top and bottom of the speaker and it expands to give you a richer sound with added base.  ihome describes this as "Vacuum bass design for enhanced low frequency response and sound beyond size"

 

I was able to find this speaker at WalMart for aproximately $18.96 plus HST.  The speaker comes with a storage bag and a cord that is used to connect to the mp3 and to charge.  If you search iHM60LC on the net you will find it all over the web.  You even have a choice in colour (Red, Blue,Grey)

If you have any comments about this gadget or another please feel free to comment below.

A Great Citation Tool For Your Schools

Citing your work is very important. Citing your work properly is even more important. Thanks to my colleague Karen Kasic,  I found out about this great website that can assist students to cite properly in either MLA or APA format.

The site can be located at the following link:  OERB  The OERB or Ontario Educational Resource Bank is available to Ministry of Ontario Students and Teachers.

The site will give you the option of wether you would like the details about citing read to you or not.

Once the site demonstrates why you should cite materials and how you can build your own citations using MLA and APA for different media:

Students can easily fill out the online forms:

and then copy and paste the citation into their work.

Google Celebrates Pac Man's Birthday Today

If you visited Google.com or Google.ca today you would have seen this:

Google integrated a PacMan game into their logo to celebrate Pac Man's 30th birthday.  The game is playable as you can see here:

Apparently there is also a hidden joke included in the game.  The app will run on the iphone as well as as Macs and PCs.  This could be a subtle shot at Apple considering the app runs on iphones but was not purchased through the itunes store and was of course not written in the EVIL Flash.  For more on this click here.

A Few New Tips for Smartboard Notebook 10

One of our resident DI Specialists (David Petro) attended the OAME math conference and shared some really interesting  Smartboard tips with me so I wanted to pass them on to you.

Smartboard Calibration:

1. When calibrating, rather than tapping the targets on the screen, tap anywhere around the target and then drag to the centre of the target. Then only let go when you are dead centre. Do this for each calibration target. This way you get a far more accurate calibration.

Transparency Tool:

2. If you have updated to the latest version of Notebook, you now have what is called the transparency tool. It should be on your top toolbar and look like this:

What this does is make Notebook disappear with the exception of the tools. In this mode you have all the Smartboard tools (dynamic and static) which you can now use in any other application. So you could pull up a picture on  a web page and then take the dynamic protractor and measure angles. Very cool.

Try it out to get a real feel for what it can do!

Thanks Dave for these great tips.

SnowLeopard Will Will Not Update: continued part 2

Continued from SnowLeopard Quickview won't work:

My move to Mac over a year ago has not been exactly an easy one.  I enjoy the challenge of learning a new OS and actually prefer to use the Mac these days although I still use both.  I have had my problems though....
My first MacBook Pro had a hard drive crash and my Time Machine backup was also corrupted.  Lukily I received help and support from my Twitter PLN and our Board's Mac expert (Trini) who managed to save my Time Machine Backup and all the data contained.  The permissions were all mixed up.  The reason I mention this is I believe this has caused me problems even to this day.

I purchased a new Macbook Pro in June of last year and imported my account over from the old Mac.  This Migration tool was tool was incredible.  I was impressed when I was able to restore my computer from the Time Machine Backup but, this can easily be done on a PC too.  However, moving an account with all my exact setup, software, and data was incredible!  I am not aware of anything that does this so easily on the PC side.  The time savings was immense.  The MBP worked wonderfully until the OS x v10.6.2 Combo Update came out.  My MBP would download and begin installing the update but would fail to install it.  The error message suggested I contact Apple.  I combed through discussion forums and then I contacted Apple who I have found are very helpful.  Unfortunately they were unable to offer a solution that would solve this problem. 

Eventually I did get an idea from @mwalkinshaw to transfer my information over to another MBP and then send mine in to get checked out  (still have applecare).  I decided rather than send my MBP in I would transfer my information over to another MAC and then reinstalled OS 10 with all the latest updates to get it to 10.6.3 on my original MBP.  I used the Migration Assistant to bring over my account (and all software and data) to the original MBP and now everything seems to be working fine.

The best way to proceed would be to format my drive and install everything from scratch. A reinstall would require ton of time to document and reinstall all my software then move the data.  Hopefully this works but somehow I believe their will be another chapter in this post.

SnowLeopard Quickview Issue Solved

Working with my new Macbook Pro has been an adventure but, I don't see myself turning back. I am a career PC user but I can confidently say I use both with relative proficiency. I am a PLN tweet away from any expert help anyway.

Time Machine has proved to be batting .500 for me. My first MacBook Pro was adopted from a colleague that was nice enough to let me try it out! The unit was a couple years old but unfortunately for me the hard drive crashed. I had a time machine backup so I was not concerned. However, whatever killed my hard drive scrambled the time machine as well. Thanks to the work of one of Techs the drive was recovered from ruin. I restored the OS on a new drive and I was off and running again.

A year later I now have a new Macbook Pro which required an install from the time machine. Everything was fine this time but I lost the use of Quickview. This allows you to preview images, movies and other media as shown in the picture to the left:

I searched the web and found a couple of solutions for this peculiar problem that seems to crop up when restoring from Time Machine.

1. Reinstall Mac OS X 6.2
   http://support.apple.com/kb/DL959
   -this method was not going to work as whatever was causing my Quickview to disappear also prohibited the OS upgrade from working.
2. Suggestion 2 had me erase the quickview library files so they would be recreated and possibly correct the problem: "/library/quicklook and /system/library/quicklook" I spent some time removing files and copy files from other computers that worked but no luck.
   
3. The third option was given to me by our Mac Rep @mwalkinshaw, to install a fresh copy of the Mac OS while maintaining your software and data. This is called a "archive and install"
   

I was surprised to find there is very little documentation to do this with SnowLeopard. However I did find out SnowLeopard has incorporated this procedure into the Installation Routines. By default if you reinstall Mac 10.6 it will automatically archive your software and install a new version of the OS. I did this and all my problems were solved. The install was easy and even my Parallels 5 OS's were maintained. Thanks to @aforgrave who gave me a link http://bit.ly/aDE9kd to a couple of ways to back up your Parallels 5 files. The process is not that difficult but a big time saver.

I was very pleased with the ease it was to install a fresh copy of the OS. I am now up and running without any problems.

#educhat

What the heck is #Educhat?

Basically this is a way for Twitter users to get together and discuss topics based on predetermine themes in real time. One of the major advantages Twitter has is the ability for a quick exchange of information. By adding a code or "#" hash tag such as #educhat to your tweets they can be cataloged in one place which is easy for viewing. This would be similar to one really large CHAT session using Twitter. Rodd Lucier founded the #educhat stream.

"Educhat is one example of the potential of twitter-based synchronous events. Modeled after #journchat discussions, which are ongoing conversations among journalists, the educhat format/context has the potential to create a specific framework within twitter for having education-related discussions and tracking those discussions using the hashtag #educhat."

As Stated on the Twitter for Teachers WIKI

Users can access the TWEETS or comments related to #educhat by using their browsers to visit a site such as Twitter Search. This site will list all of the TWEETS or comments made by the participants. Just search #educhat.

The pace is very very fast but you will get used to it. The key is to have some topics you would like to discuss ready so you can through it out there and see what comes back.

Why would I do this?

This is a great question! I believe you can:

1. reach may different educators from all over the world and get their input in a relatively short period of time.
2. make contacts from all over the world
3. make you voice known on issue concerning others
4. Get involved with web 2.0 technology! Your students live here...
   
5. free, self directed PD!
   

I grabbed all the tweets and filtered all the extra stuff out of there to create this Wordle Word Cloud to show some of the themes of the 1st #educhat

Click the Wordle for a bigger view.

How do I get Involved?

In order to get involved you need to understand what twitter is. This is an online service that allows you let people know what you are doing in 140 characters or less. Essentially it is a micro blog. "Why would anyone care what I have to say?" is a question new twitter users may be asking. The best way to use twitter is to find other users who have the same interests as you. Once you find someone on twitter with the same interests you can "follow" them. There "tweets" or 140 character comments will then show up on your twitter page for you to view. Eventually people will find you and follow your updates.

Twitter allows you to form a Personal Learning Network. You can ask questions, answer questions or look for feedback. If you are interested there are links below to help you get started.

STEP ONE:

Get a TWITTER ACCOUNT!

Click the links below to create your own twitter account and then find out when the next #educhat is going to occur. Go ahead get your feet wet!

This is all well and good but what is Twitter? Click Here.

If you are interested in participating in the #educhat synchronous discussions, please click on this link "The Launch of Educhat".

Virus Protection Software for ONTARIO Teachers

For those educators in Ontario here is a great deal on virus protection for you!

Eset's Nod32 Provides Effective protection against :

Virus Worms
Trojan Phising
Adwares Spywares

NOD32 Antivirus System is a single, highly optimized engine that works as a unified Anti-Threat system to protect against a broad spectrum of malware. Viruses, worms, spyware, and other malicious attacks, which are constantly evolving. Eset NOD32 Antivirus system utilizes patent-pending ThreatSense Technology to detect tomorrow's threats in real-time, by analyzing code execution for malicious intent - keeping you ahead of the malware-writers. There are hundreds of malicious software objects released into the 'wild' every day! Are you protected?

Eset NOD 32 Antivirus system is a Proactive Real-Time Detection

The best security is proactive. Malware protection must be real-time at the point of impact. Every minute one waits for a virus signature update creates a window of vulnerability that could have devastating consequences. Eset NOD32's Technology closes the window of vulnerability left open by other reactive, signature-based antivirus vendors.

Additional Information on NOD32 antivirus system

Anti-Virus Reviews

Information on all OSAPAC (Ministry Software) can be found HERE!

Teacher Home Purchase of NOD 32 Details

From SHI Canada:

For the price of $19.99 Canadian we will send a copy of NOD32 via email to the any teacher or staff within the Ministry of Ontario's jurisdiction (as per the contract). If the employee sends a request to the following email address with the information below we will process their order within 5 business days and send them a link to download the software as well as a license number to their e-mail address. Attached is information with respect to NOD32 teacher purchase.

The $19.99 includes one year of support for the product.

The email address to send orders to is going to be:

Patsy Swanson
Account Executive
Phone: 877-858-2008
Email: Patsy_Swanson@shi.com

What SHI Canada needs to process your order is:

Name:
Address:
City :
Postal code:
Phone number:
What school district you belong to:
What School:
Your role at the organization:
Credit card number (if you do not want to give your CC number, they can call you back to get this information)
Exp date:
Credit Card ID number (on the back of credit card 3 digits long)
E-mail address:

http://www.canada.shi.com/

Always Check Your Children's Homework...

I did some checking on this and as far as I can tell the story originated in November 2008. I can 't verify if it actually occured but there is a lesson here and the story is amusing.

The following picture was submitted to a teacher that drew some attention!


The picture was subject to interpretation and the teacher contacted the parent to be aware of what their child submitted.




The Parent Response.....




Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.

From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith


A crazy story and I can't verify for sure the source but the message is still valuable...

• Not everything is as it appears

• Don't jump to conclusions

• and may God help us when our children talk about their parents at school!
  

The Wonderful Word of Wordle!

What the heck is a Wordle? Well, I took the explanation from the Wordle website and put it into Wordle and this is what I got!From the look of things above it is about clouds, text and the frequency a word appears.

Wordle in the words of Wordle:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

How will this apply to Educators?

The possibilities are limitless.

Here is how it works.

I asked myself the question: What do you think of when I say "Christmas"?

I went to Wordle and typed in my answer:

Click on "Go" and this appeared:

This is a neat little Word Cloud that can be customized by the user. Click on the RANDOMIZE button and you get something completely different:
I asked a colleague to take a look at the wordle above and tell me what the question it answed. She answered "What Christmas means to me?".

If I typed the word Christmas 5 times and the other words just once I produced the Wordle below:

Obviously Christmas is the dominant word. Try it out yourself at Wordle.

This is what our new Secondary Assessment and Evaluation Document produced:


I made my Wordle so now what?

The word clouds you create are yours. Feel free to save them and use them later. Use SCREENHUNTER to capture your new Wordle and save it as a graphic.

Education Applications:

• Wordle is about the love of words. You can give a wordle to your class and ask students to write about what it means to them. Pefect for a thought starter, unit intro, or ice breaker.

• Include a number of words that are motivational to you and create your own motivational poster.
  

• Encourage student's to copy and paste an essay previously completed into Wordle. The main idea should be prevalent in the word cloud created. If it isn't maybe the writer can explain why? Maybe the word cloud should have been obvious or not but either way a discussion will ensue!

• Students can experiment and learn on their own how Wordle works. The greater the frequency a word appears in a document the more prominence the word is given in the cloud. This could be a fantastic literacy/numeracy experiment that could be very enjoyable.

• Insert a poem or story to get a visual representation.

• An Advanced Wordle site exists where you can build more robust Wordles at Wordle Advanced.

• Check out the Wordle Blog for more ideas.

If you did find this Blog useful or you came up with some better uses of Wordle please use the COMMENT feature on the Blog and post your thoughts! We can all benefit.

Google, Not Just A Search Engine!

The New York Times reported Google's release of a new website designed to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The website is called Google Flu Trends. The site uses aggregate Google search data to estimate flu activity in each state. They believe they can estimate flu activity up to two weeks faster than goverment flu survellance systems. This is not available for Canada as of yet.

The graph below has shows past flu outbreaks from last year. Flu Trends:
"Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Trends. But can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena?"

I am sure this will open up a whole new science where Google uses user searches as suggested above but to what end and what accuracy?

This site can be used in a number of grade levels in a numeracy or literacy exercise to analyze trends and data. If you can come up with some specific practical uses please share with others and comment here! Don't forget to do your own trend searches at Google Trends!

Stay Current with Newseum!

Today I will be talking about a neat resource for a World Issues topic, literacy exercise, or even just a current events discussion.

The big news last night was the Election of a new U.S. president Barack Obama. A neat way to look at the effect of this event or any other current event for that matter is a site called Newseum. Newseum displays daily newspaper front pages from around the world in their original, unedited form. The papers can be sorted according to region, country and more. Take a look at todays Newseum .

There is an archive of front pages from past events but the events are major American and world issues. For example I could not locate the Canadian Election on October 12th, 2008.

The front pages are not edited or altered so consider your audience when sharing this site.
Each front page will give you a link to the source paper. You can usually find additional information on a topic without logging in.

Don't forget the WINDSOR STAR resource located in the board's student portal. Students and teachers have access to 10 Canadian Regional papers. Click Here to visit the student portal.


Thanks:

This site came to my attention from Rodd Lucier (E-Learning RELC) who picked it up from Will Richardson.

Do NOT Call Part 2

---

Registry swamped
BY SARAH SCHMIDT CANWEST NEWS SERVICE OTTAWA
The Windsor Star
01 Oct 2008

Consumers eager to add their phone numbers to the newly launched national Do Not Call list to block telemarketers ran into trouble on Tuesday when the website crashed on its first day and the telephone sign-up number was not accessible. The online...read more...

The website crashed multiple times Tuesday and only allowed for 157,000 people to register. The phone line allowed for 74,445 to register. Don't give up just keep trying.

Remember you can add any number to the list and Telemarketers get 31 days to take you off their lists!



To Register:

Website: https://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca/

Phone: 1-866-580-3625

Registrant rush takes down do-not-call site

Tech Tags: The Windsor Star newspaper Canada

DO NOT CALL!!

I don't know about you, but enjoy being interrupted 4 to 6 times an evening with telemarketers trying to turn my phone into their business! No, not really...

The good news is relief is here! According to the Windsor Star article "REGISTER TODAY FOR DO NOT CALL LIST" you can call a number or visit a website and 31 days later you can have your phone back to yourself without telemarketers.

Bell Canada won the contract to operate the list for 5 years based on the authority of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

This will not stop all of the calls however, charities, political parties, polling companies, newspapers selling subscriptions and organizations with which the consumer has an existing business relationship can still contact you.

Here is the contact information:

To register call 1-866-580-3625 or visit HERE.


I would guess this is popular because when I visited the website I received this message:


The site is down temporarily. My guess is everyone in the country is trying to log on at once, including the telemarketers. I would like to say more but I think the phone is ringing...

Do You Believe?

The reason we are all in this together...

I found this from one of the blogs I like to read. I hope you liked it...