Playing Catch-up with my blog
Having a new member of the family isn't exactly conducive to blogging! I'm sitting here at 9 o'clock in the evening wondering whether I should be typing this, or catching up on sleep. Actually things have been pretty busy, and I'll us this post to summarise some of the good stuff I've picked up on recently via blogs and tweets (that's Twitter posts to non-twits).
From Twitter
Howies is my favourite clothing company but I hadn't spotted this amusing T from their website until alerted by DK at Mediasnackers via Twitter. I recently blogged about the aparent uselessness of Facebook from an educational point of view and since then a whole series of negative stories about the site have been published (nothing like a bit of success to generate a backlash) and the latest are the storm of articles about falling user numbers (they must have read my blog). More worrying is the difficulty users have experienced over terminating their Facebook accounts as the company appeared to be intent on retaining their data. Maybe Howies should release a new T shirt called "I don't want to be on Facebook".
Some great resources spotted via various tweets this month:
Quikmaps is a Google Maps mashup that is brilliantly simple to use and has applications for all age groups. You find the area you want using the normal Google Maps search and drag methods and once you've zoomed to the correct level you can add symbols, labels, lines, draw tracks etc. It works brilliantly on a whiteboard too. Some cool extras include being able to embed a photo from Flickr or Photobucket. So next time you are on a walk around your neighbourhood or on a school trip with your class, take your digi camera and embed the photos into a map of your trip/walk. It also allows you to embed Google Videos so you can video a bit of commentary at a location and embed it to the map too. Unfortunately, Google Video is blocked in most LAs. For a great blog post on Quikmaps, read Two Whizzy's blog. One thing I've noticed about Quikmaps, though, it's not happy in Internet Explorer 6. IE 7 and Firefox seem fine.
Xtimeline is another nice web 2.0 tool. There are already hundreds of pre-existing timelines that you can use, or better still, create your own, add pictures, text and links and embed the result in your website or blog. Being a web 2.0 tool it might be worth getting students to cross-check dates in timelines that you download.
On to a quick and easy podcasting tool: Cueprompter, picked up from Kiwi teacher and podcaster extraordinaire, Allanah K. Simply paste your script into Cueprompter and click "Go". Your PC turns into an instant autocue. Excellent for podcasting and video.
Experiences of an English Soldier is a remarkable blog as it is the actual correspondence of a Tommy in the trenches published 80 years to the day after they were written. The latest post is dated 22nd February 1918. Not only is it a great historical record, but we also have no idea of the outcome of the story as we haven't yet reached the end of the correspondance. Thanks to Russell Prue for that one.
And that's a wrap, except to say that at last the Year 5 podcasting project at Chorlton Park is taking shape and we now have some short podcasts online.
