It’s taken a while, but Google have finally integrated wikis into the Google Apps suite. So far it looks as if it’s only for those who have Google Apps for Domains or Google Apps for Education, but that’s what I’m going to be using it for mainly so that’s fine.
Google bought JotSpot, an enterprise-focused wiki solution 16 months ago and, presumably, have been working since then to get it integrated. The result is simple, although some have criticised it as being too simplistic. I’m not going into huge amount of detail in this post, but suffice to say you need to login as admin to your Google Apps for Domains/Education account and enable it before it goes ‘live’. You have the option of restricting access to users within your domain or making it accessible to the wider world.
What follows are some screenshots whilst I’m getting used to the setup. I’m almost certainly going to be using this with at least one class next week!
You can now add a Google Talk widget to your blog to enable visitors to see when you’re signed in and available to chat. To see when I’m online just have a look in the sidebar. For those reading this via RSS it looks a whole lot like this:
I reorganized my classroom today. It went from this:
to this:
The reason? It’s temporary as I needed a cinema-like arrangement of chairs and tables for two lessons; my Year 11s are making copious notes on a rather important video on Vietnam for their coursework. The reaction of the students and, more tellingly, colleagues, said it all.
They were flabbergasted that I would countenance such an arrangement. And I suppose I can see why. Although I’m not a fan of the phrases ’sage on stage’ as opposed to being the ‘guide on the side’ it does capture an important aspect of my pedagogical style and approach.
I think that one’s classroom organization both reflects and dictates the interactions we have with students. I felt somehow today that the students looked younger and behaved more immaturely when in rows as opposed to ‘islands’ or groups. Perhaps that was just because I allowed them to sit next to who they liked for just these lessons. I don’t know. I can’t help but feel, however, that I was more of a ‘control-freak’ and the dynamics of the classroom were fundamentally different because of the change in layout.
Perhaps changing your classroom round and mixing things up a bit is worth a try? I know I’m definitely going back to ‘islands’ ASAP!
Sometimes there’s some articles on the BBC News Education pages that make you wonder who’s paying for the research they’re based upon. Here’s 3 just from yesterday:
71% of pupils admit being a bully – and the other 29% are liars if, as I suspect, ‘bullying’ has been very widely defined. Real bullying can blight lives and should not be condoned under any circumstances. Minor name-calling and fallings-out, on the other hand (although some will no doubt disagree), are all part of growing up. It’s the human equivalent of play-fighting in animals.
Some exams ‘harder than others’ – really? My goodness! Groundbreaking news. And surprise, surprise, they found History GCSE is harder than Geography GCSE. Perhaps historians’ jibes that Geographers do nothing but colour things in have some credence after all…
Unions ‘protecting poor teachers’ – this is something I feel strongly about. There’s a lot of talented people out there who should be in our schools rather than some of the no-hopers I’ve come across in previous schools. I haven’t (thankfully) come across any in my current school, but that’s why we’re a high-achieving specialist school. Having recently received the latest issue of my union’s magazine it’s clear that a great deal of the time they ‘protect’ whinging teachers who really need to get out of the profession and do something to which they’re more suited. That’s not to say that unions don’t do a good job some of the time – both my Dad and myself have had positive experiences – but they really do need to face up to the fact that some teachers aren’t up to the job. There’s only so much ‘professional development’ people can do!
Not only does he, rather surprisingly, have a passion for all things geek-like (see this post on Linux and the Asus eee for example) but he’s now doing podcasts – or Podgrams as he calls them…
It’s not often that I recommend Microsoft products, but here’s one at which you should definitely have a closer look. Windows Live SkyDrive allows you to store up to 5GB of files remotely. In this respect it’s similar to box.net, but the latter has only 1GB of storage and an individual filesize limit of 10MB. Windows Live SkyDrive on the other hand has a 50MB inidividual filesize limit which is much more realistic!
Anybody can get a SkyDrive, as it’s free – just sign up for it using your Windows Live/Passport ID, and you too can have 5GB of file storage online, with file storage areas for private, shared and public files. Gone are the days of moving files between home and work with a USB drive (which inevitably got lost somewhere between the two places).
Given that one of my higher-ability Year 10 ICT pupils lost the entirity of their work yesterday because they hadn’t backed up their memory stick, it could be a great idea to get pupils used to using something like this. Not only can separate folders be created, but you can create ‘public folders’ accessible by anyone on the Internet.
Great stuff!
Posted: February 23rd, 2008
Categories: Education
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I can remember last year seeing a prototype of an alpha of a proposal for something at a university in the US. It was showcasing live 2-dimensional ‘real’ physics simulations. It was amazing, but not available for us mere mortals to play with.
I’m delighted to say that today, via the wonder of popurls, I came across a video showcasing a freely-downloadable piece of software called Phun that allows you to do the same! Have a look at it, a thousand words of mine wouldn’t do justice to the simplicity, elegance and intuitiveness of it:
It’s currently available for Windows and Linux with a Mac version coming soon. You can grab it as a free download here!
As Dave Stacey has already said, I think by now every educator worth his or her salt has seen the excellent TED Talks video where Sir Ken Robinson talks about creativity. If not, click here post haste and watch it!
Sir Ken recently agreed to be interviewed by the pupil-powered Radiowaves about creativity in education. It’s certainly worth watching/listening to:
Further to an earlier post, mobile phone projectors are now beyond prototype stage. Gizmodo reports that Texas Instruments are putting into production the necessary chip to allow handset manufacturers to start incorporating mini-projectors by 2009. There’s a video of it in action here:
As I’ve already stated, there’s a multitude of possibilities here, not least student presentations. Coupled with a Nokia N96 (which has a built-in TV receiver) you’ve even got a mobile big-screen TV!
Posted: February 14th, 2008
Categories: Education
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Because it’s all about The Conversation (apparently)
You can now be automatically notified if someone posts a follow-up comment to what you’ve said on a blog post at dougbelshaw.com. Just tick the ‘Notify me of followup comments via email’ box underneath the comment area. You know it makes sense.
Sometimes there’s some articles on the 
If you haven’t come across 
