Thunder

I have just completed the google Da Vinci Code webquest, which is now no longer available, so what can I waste my time on now….

After visiting the Insider Club I found a link to the MSN Conspiracy Game, this seems to be jumping on the Da Vinci Code bandwagon - but who cares I like a good game.

Your old friend Professor Adam Whitehead says he needs to see you. Urgently.

There’s just one problem: when you get to his house, he has vanished. All you can find is an old puzzle box and some cryptic manuscripts.

The challenge is clear. Can you reveal the sinister trail that leads to the professor?

You’ll have to solve riddles and open the puzzle box to find him and crack the conspiracy. At your disposal is Windows Live Search, which will prove invaluable as you probe more deeply into the mystery.

You’ll need to be smart. You’ll need to be cunning.

Have you got the wits to penetrate to the heart of Conspiracy?

I came across the concept of a ‘Google Jockey‘ a couple of days ago, and I am still pondering how/if we could use this idea in a school environment.

“A Google jockey is a participant in a presentation or class session who surfs the Internet for terms, ideas, or Web sites mentioned by the presenter or related to the topic at hand. A screen displays the jockey’s searches for all participants to see.“

It would be interesting to see what keywords the students would search for while the teacher, or other students were talking. Even though it is a google jockey there is no reason why this wouldn’t work with any search engine.

Would students have sufficient subject knowledge to be able to pick out the keywords?  Would it be a distraction to other students? Students could send requests either via IM or SMS.

At the end of the lesson you could grab a copy of the browser history and upload it to a blog or wiki for the rest of the class to browse later. This could be carried out in conjunction with another student taking notes directly into a wiki, which the whole class could edit later to produce a collaborative set of notes. How powerful these learning resources would be for revision etc at a later date.

Further details can be found here.

What do you think, is this something we should think about pursuing in schools - apart from the cost of a second projector. The jockey could always just search and record the results within a wiki to provide further references for the students to read after the lesson.

After reading Ewan’s blog posting about why he is leaving the NASUWT, I will also be contacting my local NASUWT representative to inform them that I will be leaving their union.

After all the work I have done lately with Shropshire headteachers to promote the use of mobile phones and mp3 players - even giving all delegates at our recent ‘Learning in the 21st Century’ conference a mp3 player, I would find it impossible to be part of a union that is proactively attempted to prevent students using these devices in school.  You can find further details about their stance in their latest news entitled ‘Support crackdown on mobile phones says NASUWT‘.

The following are some thoughts about a vision for ICT in schools:

1. Access to ICT:

a. Access to ICTs whenever learners feel appropriate- this could mean access to pc’s, laptops, pda’s, mobile phones, mp3 players etc
b. ICT should be TRANSPARENT, the days of saying lets go to the ICT suite should be in the past.
c. The focus should be on the learning not the technology
d. Using technology to extend horizons beyond the classroom – in time (e.g. home/school learning; learning clubs; extended projects); communities (e.g. linking with children across the county/country/world on specific projects); experiences (virtual tours, PDA tours, games and simulations), people (e.g. video conferencing, skype etc)

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Ewan is at it again - he obviously has too much time on his hand and is bored!  He is challenging educators to jump on the ‘Da Vinci Code’ bandwagon and produce learning resources based around the book, or anything remotely connected to the book.

More details about this can be found on Ewans blog and on the wiki set up for this challenge.

So what is web 2.0?

There is probably a whole collection of answers to this question but to me, at this moment in time, as far as I am concerned web2.0 is about using the web in 2 ways, in the past most use of the web was to read, listen or watch. Now we can contribute more easily allowing for two way communication. It’s also about the computers doing the work, making it easy to record the links between people and their interests. Social networking is an important aspect, building communities of interest. The computers do the work for you so that you can get busy making connections, reading and contributing to the discussion or learning of others.

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Taken from: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8172/image0019ib.gif

I came across a link to spelling with Flickr from Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day.

What is this? Spell with Flickr is a small program that lets you type in whatever you want, then goes to flickr and grabs pictures for each an every letter! It also allows you to change the images that you see, so you can find better images for your word or phrase!

I have just come across this cool website, the website details how to take your usb drive and personalise it.  I think I might have a go and making the duck one for my wife.  If anyone customises their stick can you post a link to it here.

Ok, my ibook G4 has arrived - what now?

Where do I start? The cool thing was I turned it on put in some basic details and I am accessing my home network and out onto the net.

My first job after getting web access was to install Firefox and Skype, but what next? I started up Skype and Ewan was there, an experienced Mac user. His first piece of advice was to download Homebrew Formulator 2.6.3 - I know see what Mac users priorities are

As I know nothing about mac’s, I would be grateful of any help people can give me. What should I do? What free apps are essential? Where can I find useful resources to support my adventures in Macland?