ICTeD Services

Tech Road Test: MacJournal 5

I have just bought MacJournal v5 from a promo on MacUpdate. I was interested in it as a tool in which I can throw in a variety of media [ text, documents, audio, video etc] to be better oragised. This could replace me scratching throw piles of papers, files on a messy desktop & and equally messy desktop. It syncs to Mobile me & IWeb. Sounds great. Will play with it more and maybe read the manual. It also supposedly lets you write your blogpost in it and then directly upload to your blog.
Well let’s see.  Will report back if this gets posted OK.
Hey it works, I'm impressed!I It was worth the money just for that!! 

[As with any software recommendations in my blog and websites, what I write about, is my opinion only and I take no responsibility for anything going wrong with your computer, server, network etc.. Please read the conditions and product disclosures and EULA for each application. Always exercise care and caution!]

The Biggest Reducer: Student Website Authoring about Food Miles

Kara and I have just finished our second day with students from years 5 - 7  [10  to 13 year olds] from three different schools, who were constructing websites on the environmental impact of Food Miles on the environment. See my blogposts for 29/3/2009 & 25/4/2009 on the background and preparation on this activity. As seems the case with these two day events, the first day is about content background, team building and ICT skill building and with not much website content. However, by lunchtime on the second day it all comes together amazingly! The 24 students we had were just great!

Background to curriculum planning for this event is at
http://www.ictedservices.info/biggest_reducer/index.htm

The completed school Food Miles websites are below
School One
School Two
School Three

Hope this of use to other teachers doing environmental activities on food miles!!

Student Website Authoring Activity - The Environmental Effect of Food Miles /2

 Gathering resources for this activity on "Food Miles" for this activity [see blogpost 29/3]. Have come across some great videos on You Tube These are the five I am using [some have been edited in length, so to enhance their use in the activity]. I hope the makers don't mind them being posted here. They are all great videos and will be a great stimulus for the start of the activity.

[QuickTime required - Don't have Quicktime? Click here]

Will write how the activity went in the next week or two.

Student Website Authoring Activity - The Environmental Effect of Food Miles

The final draft of the Environmental Neighbourhood Cluster's 2009 ICT Project is nearly complete.

It's called The Biggest Reducer

In this activity eight students from three schools will each make a website on the environmental impact of  food miles.

The focus questions are

• Why are “food miles” an environmental issue?
• How can we easily assess the “food miles” of a weekly shopping list?
• What are some strategies we can use to reduce the “food miles” of a weekly shopping list?

Activity will be held of May 4th & May 11th, 2009
Workshop Outline

Food Miles and the Environment: Ideas to Help Our Planet. An Action Based Internet Project by Students of The Environmental Neighbourhood Cluster

Monday May 4th 2009
9.00 Welcome – Overview of program, outline of expectations & housekeeping.
Introduction to the project, background data, group thinking, team protocols
and planning.
11.10 – Recess
11.40 – Workshop time 1
12.50 – Lunch break
1.50 – Workshop time 2
3.20 – Wrap up of program for Day 1

Monday May 11th 2009
9.00 – Where are we up to? What do we need to finish?
9:30 – Workshop time 3
11.10 – Recess
11.40 – Workshop time 4
12.50 – Lunch break
1.50 – Final session - Presentation of final products & student evaluation
3.25 – Wrap up of program

Multimedia Activities

Students will address the issue of food miles and the environment using the
multimedia forms below [students will be in school groups of 8 and working
with students from the two other local schools].
Website [iWeb]
Developing a website on food miles and the environment
Comic or posters [Comic Life]
Making a comic or poster food miles and the environment
Podcast [GarageBand]
Plan and conduct a podcast food miles and the environment [maybe a debate
with a moderator]
Movies [iMovie] Create a short movie on food miles and the environment  for
inclusion in a website.
Wiki [Wikispaces] Used as a tool to reflect
Publishing [Pages] poster about food miles and the environment

This is the fourth year we have run student constructed websites using iWeb workshops on Enviromental themes. Previous activities were Water Wise in Williamstown: A Student Website for the Environment & Sustainability [2006]
, Sustainable Housing: A Student Website for the Environment & Sustainability [2007]
 and Big Wrapper '08: Student Consumption & Packaging Websites for the Environment & Sustainability [2008]

More info at http://www.ictedservices.info/biggest_reducer/index.htm. I'll also write a blogpost on how the activity went.

mac IT happen: MacSchoolsNet Conference 2008 /4: iWeb Session Planning

Starting to plan out my session for mac IT happen. My session is Publishing with iWeb. [The promo says: iWeb is a powerful, yet simple to use web publishing tool. This session will explore how you can use iWeb with your students, as well as create blogs, podcasts and more.] I'm planning for the group that may contain a variety of skill levels, from "so what's iWeb?" to "I've had a Mac for years, but I've never really used iWeb".
I've got a lot of resources from my PD on iWeb [iLife '06] last year, including screencasts and links, as well as a lot of student work samples from activities I have taken. I need to enhance with a list of the added features of the latest version of iWeb [iLife'08] and some tutorial samples. I'm doing one for a digital portfolio & one for a website. The session will be repeated twice and last for 105 minutes. I'm getting ready a CD-ROM of media resources for participants. I've got a lot of images and dv footage I took at Sovereign Hill last year to select from to make up the CD. I need a list of print resources as well to show. I've recently bought both the Apple Training Series, iLife '08 and Taking Control of iWeb iLife '08 Edition. [No Missing Manual or Visual QuickStart iWeb books yet, that I can find.] Just finished copying all my Sovereign Hill files onto my G5, so will start sorting out the media resources.

Addendum: Sunday 19/10

Just completed two sample iWeb sites for the PD [the one using iWeb to construct Digital Portfolio & the other a sample website on Sovereign Hill]. See http://www.ictedservices.com/iWeb_PD_2.0_%5BiLife_08%5D.html for all the links.

MacSchoolsNet Meeting #6

Just home from the latest MacSchoolsNet meeting. It was at Moreland PS [a suburb of Melbourne, Australia]. A great meeting again, with about 20 participants. Good to see a number of new members attending, [the mailing list is out to 120!]. Find out more about the venue by looking at their website [apart from the homepage, it is constructed in iWeb and with lots of teacher and student content]. Great effort guys!
The school has gone through administrative change [i.e. a new principal] in the past 18 months and has developed a coherent ICT vision. The library has become central to this, being the resource centre for classroom programs. Linda, the librarian spoke about a recent unconference she attended. I'll admit until this afternoon, I had never heard of an unconference before. The Digital Web defines it this way. The unconference that Linda attended was one which dealt with the Web 2.0 activities of, or used, by libraries.
Here are some of Linda's best links from the Unconference.
• Flock: the Social web browser http://flock.com/
• Your del.icio.us bookmarks visualized http://favthumbs.com/
• Check out the Yarra Plenty Library's Web 2 resource page: http://www.yprl.vic.gov.au/ &  http://www.wikinorthia.net.au/ Register for the Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service "Web Weekly" for the latest finds on the web.
• Local wiki for Melbourne's North http://www.wikinorthia.net.au/
• Shelfari is fun  for your blog & could be great for encouraging reading  http://www.shelfari.com/
• For Visual Searching http://www.searchme.com/
• A local library blog http://mooneevalleylibraries.blogspot.com/
• Free Harvard style bibliography generator. Simple to use by just filling in the fields then hitting the generate bibliography button. http://library.scotch.vic.edu.au/research/biblios/ScotchBib/index.htm/
Some really great sites for all teachers [as well as librarians]. Full list here.
Download new_sites_to_explore.pdf  A school tour followed.

In the second part of the meeting Michal talked about the features on the new aluminium unibody MacBooks released on the 14.10.2008. A really great machine. Read more on the Apple site.
The Steve Jobs keynote is at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/specialevent1008/
The new MacBook video is at http://www.apple.com/macbook/the-new-macbook/ and also
The new Cinema Display info is at http://www.apple.com/displays/

mac IT happen: MacSchoolsNet Conference 2008 /3: Registration Form

It's finally happening! Saturday October 25th, 2008.
Coburg Senior Secondary College.
Cost $88 [incl GST]
Participants get to choose two workshops [from a choice of six] See below.

 

Download the poster and registration form here!

Download mac_it_happen_2008.pdf

mac IT happen: MacSchoolsNet Conference 2008 /2

Planning for the 2008
mac IT happen conference
is well underway.
Saturday 25.10.2008
Coburg Senior High School, Melbourne
9:30 Registration, Workshop 1 [10:00-11:45], Lunch [11:45-12:15]. Workshop 2 [12:15-2:00]

At this stage cost will be $75AUD for 2 x 105 minute workshops of your choice:

1.Macs for Switchers
2.Mac / Windows Integration
3.Introduction to iMovie'08 
4.Introduction to iPhoto '08
5. Introduction to Keynote
6. Publishing with iWeb.

Boxed lunch included.
Sessions taken by experienced Apple / MacSchoolsNet Presenters
More details, week one of term four, 2008
eMail me for more details at ictedservices@gmail.com

Big Wrapper '08 & Children's Book Week [The Completed Websites]

Today I finally completed assembling four websites made groups of students as special projects this term [not including the eTrain one finished last Friday]. These were three from Big Wrapper '08 - see earlier blogposts on this activity [one from each school involved] and the Children's Book Week 2008 website about the visit and writing workshops given by Andy Griffiths at my school. These were all constructed using iWeb and each showed a wide range of Multimedia content.

The Big Wrapper '08 Sites [all on inequalities of food consumption throughout the world an food packaging are at:

Click here for School One

Click here for School Two

Click here for School Three

Teacher notes for the activity are here.

The Andy Griffiths site is here,

Go and have a look!

eTrain 2008 Day Two

eTrain 2008 concluded last Friday. The second day was amazing, students walked in a 8:30 a.m. and picked up where they had left off! As is usual on two day events such as this, the content all comes together second day and in a rush. The amount of content this group of eight kids produced was stunning... it just kept coming in.

 

 

In the end they produced three comics using Comic Life, five movies using Flip cameras and edited in iMovie HD 6, two podcasts [GarageBand 3], composed music with Acid and took helps of still images. As a group, they were not only sensational in using and developing their ICT skills, but they also demonstrated great social skills and cooperation / collaboration.

 

The students' website is live at
http://www.ictedservices.info/etrain2008.htm [including my preparation]
http://www.ictedservices.info/eTrain2008/site/Home.html [the students' site itself]