Recently my son came home from school all excited with a letter saying that his school was going to start an individual iPad program for the senior grades from next year.

This is great to see! Not only because his Dad is a IT Teacher but because….

Our children are growing up in the 21 Century, it’s a very different one in which you or I grew up in! I saw and used my first computer when I was in year 9 in High School. It was a Commodore Vic 20 – Remember those?

Commodore Vic20

Right from an early age our kids are exposed to all kinds of technological devices and technologies such as fridges that can tell you when you’re out of milk, microwaves that literally tell you how to cook a meal, televisions that you can surf the internet on, smartphones, GPS devices, digital cameras, voip phones you name it they are surrounded by it – TECHNOLOGY IS EVERYWHERE! (well almost everywhere!) Whether you like it or not this is the world that our kids are growing up in. And what’s more our kids are experts and intuitive at using all this technology!

Our kids are digital natives so what better way to keep them engaged and enthusiastic about the learning that they do at school, by giving them the tools or in this case, an iPad to use to enhance their learning.

In his recent article Sesh Kumar from Learning Solutions magazine said that…

“The iPad… enables a host of activities such as referencing, collaborating, and creating content. In an August 2010 Wired.com article, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet,” the transformation from open Web browsing to specialized apps was a change driven by the Apple model of mobile computing. The iPad leverages this trend by providing personalized choice of content, a big plus for student users…. …there’s no doubt that the iPad has taken personal computing to the next level. Considering computing devices began with a vision of revolutionizing education, it’s not surprising that many of the iPad’s features appeal to educational users.”

You can read the whole article by Sesh here – Why the iPad is a Learning Tool

Some other interesting articles you might want to read about iPads in Education

How the iPad 2 Will Revolutionize Education

Top 4 Advantages to using iPads in K-12 Schools

10 Big Benefits of Using iPads in Schools

You might also be interested in looking at the videos below

Year of the iPad in Education

iPad as an Educational Tool

Rather than re-invent the wheel I’ve put together a list of websites that provide links, review, guides and resources to some of the best iPad apps you can find on the net. Some are free apps and others you have to pay a small fee to download.

Victorian Government iPads for Learning website

Victorian Government iPads for Learning website Education Apps

iPad Curriculum

Learning and Teaching with iPads

40 Useful iPad Apps With Beautiful Interfaces

Apps in Education

Apple Education Apps

iPad Video Showcase

BloomsApps

5 Great Educational iPad Apps of Kids

Apps for parents: Best iPad apps for elementary school kids

Elementary (Primary) School iPad Apps

12 Great iPad Apps for Elementary School Kids

10 iPad Apps You Don’t Want To Go To School Without

Excellent iPad Apps for Education

Hi Everyone,
After a very long hiatus (over 24 months) I’m back writing here on my blog. My goal is to bring it back to its former glory, trying some new and interesting things and just see what happens with it. I’ve been out of the blogosphere for quite some time and hasn’t the landscape changed?
There are so many bloggers out there these days, so many people trying to get their voices heard on various subjects that interest them that it’s hard to really figure out which ones are the good ones and which aren’t really worth your time. My re-entry into blogging isn’t to try and please the masses or to strive to get the most hits in a single day…I’m back to reclaim my passion for writing about technology and about the stuff that interests ME the most.
I’m looking forward to getting back to writing on here, and if by some miracle my site starts getting popular again simply from what I like to write about, then that’s fantastic! It’s a great way for likeminded people to get together and discuss the topics that interest them the most, and to get people talking about how they are using technology in education; that is one of the great goals I hope I can reach.
Thanks.

Sumo Paint is a free online paint and image editing program (you can register to get more features – like saving your creations online) that looks similar in feel to those higher end photo imaging programs such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. Fun and easy to use, sumo paint provides a palette of tools that should be well-known to users of software based paint programs.
Some of the features and tools that you are offered are creating lines, special blending and opacity effects, cross-hatching, numerous brush types and variations,  adjusting shading, colour balance, saturation, tint, hue, texture, contrast, tone, rotation,  and the choice in picking colour schemes seem endless,  just to name a few.

From an educational perspective, what I find really cool about this program is that students who have used a computer have more than likely messed around with a paint program of some description in the past and because of that will find Sumo Paint intuitively easy to use, with little or no instruction before they are creating their masterpieces.

Recently I began using Sumo Paint with the year 2 and year 3 classes at the school where I work with great success. Prior to this they had only used Microsoft Paint or Tux Paint!  The students seem to be really enthusiastic in using and creating artwork with the web 2 application and will often tell me the next day that they used it when they got home from school or showed it to their parents.

They are able to save their work in either png or jpg format, and since the program is free and online, they can access it at home, in the library, basically from anywhere there is a computer and an internet connection. Plus any artwork they create can be instantly put up on to the classroom/school website/blog or sent, via email to friends and family if they wish to do so.

Sumo Paint is a fantastic tool to use with your students, and because it’s online and did I mention free, you don’t have to purchase or download any other software. Why not give Sumo Paint a go in your classroom and watch your student’s creativity flourish.

To get to Sumo Paint or learn more about this cool online paint program either click here or on the Sumo Paint icon above.

See what is possible with Sumo Paint in this four minute video.

Despite the name, this website has nothing to do with the trading of shares (not that such a premise would not be without its education merits!).  Stock.XCHNG is a website that instead deals with the trading of digital photos.  More often than not, the process is generally one-way (you, downloading the photos of your choice), but there is the option of uploading pictures of your own or even pictures that the students have taken.  Source the easy-to-use search engine at SXC and you can have dozens of copyright-free pictures on any topic within seconds.
Some of you might be reading this overview, wondering at its relevance.  Perhaps you, like many other teachers, simply tap into Google Images to quickly scour through thousands of websites to find a suitable picture or clip art for your presentation or newsletter.  What many teachers don’t realise is that, without proper referencing, this can be illegal.  And yet, because the quick search/paste method of digital photography is so painless, many teachers (and members of society at large) have become entirely too comfortable with infringing the creative rights of photographers and individuals the world over.  Perhaps now you are starting to see the merits of a website entirely comprised of copyright-free, easy to download images.
Stock.XCHNG has a pleasing variety of images for you to search through, more so than some other “free” websites.  It could and probably should therefore be one of the first places you start your search for digital images for integration in the classroom.
Teaching students the ethics associated with utilising technology, particularly web-based material, is one of the forefront issues in recent curriculum.  It is therefore vital that as educators, we model the same expectations we have for the students.

Stock.XCHNG is teacher and student friendly and its use should be considered by time and copyright conscious classrooms everywhere.

If you would like to learn more about using Stock.XCHNG in your classroom click here for your free guide.

Twitter’s seen a fair share of publicity of late, and rightly so.There’s something decidedly addictive about sending swift bursts of digital chatter across the far reaches of the globe, and receiving responses from those who may choose to follow your ventures is equally satisfying.

For the die-hards, Twitter can easily become a lifestyle, an effortless way to update family and friends with the mundane (this isn’t always a good thing!).  With mobile Twitter permeating further into our society, there will soon be nowhere to hide from the incessant tweeting of Twitterers the world over.

Having used Twitter in my Year 1 classroom, I can personally vouch for the website’s educational grandeur.   Every day becomes an obsessive update-athon, which children vying for the rights to articulate the next sentence.  The parents love it because they are hearing on-the-spot news, fresh from the proverbial horse’s mouth.

There are many other possible angles to using Twitter in the classroom, the number of which is limited only by your creativity.  Check out our original post about twitter in the “10 Websites” section for a printable guide and give it to other staff at your school that wish to join the juggernaught that is Twitter too.

If you want to follow the daily twitter musings of a fellow technology integration mentor, you can add Tim by clicking on his twitter icon below or you might like to follow me (David) by clicking on my twitter icon below too.

Tim
David

Happy Twittering!

During a recent interview with The Australian ABC 7:30 Report television program, Sir Ken Robinson spoke about developing creativity in our students.  Kerry O’Brien and Sir Ken talked at length about the “blight” of standardized testing and how schools could very well be killing the creativity of children.  Ken believes that curriculum is being driven to focus too specifically on “elite” subjects, such as Maths, Science and English and thus force a rigid cookie cutter approach to a child’s education, instead of encouraging them to develop in their own areas of strength and interest.  Ken quotes “I ran a big commission in the UK on creative education, and we had scientists on the group, we had Nobel Prize winners, we had economists, we had musicians, we had dancers, two comedians. And what was interesting was that when they came to talk about the process of creativity, it was the same in every discipline, and also that these things interact. You know, some of our greatest scientists have been inspired by the arts and some of our best artists work on deeply scientific principles.”  He is concerned that schools are producing a certain “cut” of student, rather than encouraging them to develop as unique individuals.

Is it any wonder that students are so unenthused when they stumble into a weary, teacher-directed classroom when online they can learn about anything at any given second?  Online, students have the power to pursue their interests, at school they are often restricted, usually by the crippling time constraints of curriculum-heavy learning.  ICT integration is perhaps the most potent weapon a teacher can wield if we want students to engage in their learning and develop a creative, positive enthusiasm for education.  Used effectively, technology can open the doors to a wide world web of experiences, a place far removed from a stifling classroom climate that can cripple and kill off the creative prowess these students should be developing day by day.  It is our role therefore, as Technology Integration Mentors to support teachers in this brave new world they find themselves.

One way that Tim and I have hoped to do this is through our “10 Websites posts”, which contains technology integration ideas and step-by-step instructions explaining how to use some of those exciting websites that others of us might take for granted.  If you would like some free downloads, goto the 10 Websites and scroll down in each of the posts to where it says – “click here for your free guide”.  Feel free to distribute any of these amongst the staff of your school; we hope that it makes your role as a T.I.M. that little bit easier.

You can find the full transcript and videos of the two part interview with Sir Ken at the ABC’s 7.30 Report Website.

ClassTools.net is worth its weight in educational gold. A virtual toolbox for teachers to use in the creation of digital activities, it not only allows you to customize interactive games and lessons in a couple of quick easy steps, but provides you with an exciting range of in-class resources that you can pull out to enhance the mundane routines your students may be accustomed to.
So just how easy are these tools to use? In all honesty, they couldn’t be much easier. Choose the type of activity you are looking to create from a massive selection of genres, including arcade games, word sorts, lucky picks (just to name a few), then enter the content you would like the students to revise/explore and your activity or game is ready to go. It really is that simple.
Needless to say, the classroom applications for such a website are limitless. You can create and save activities to revise content taught in class by embedding them into a blog. You can set up and run game show themed lessons as a way to engage student interest. You could make your own retro-themed video game for students to play as they match definitions to words. All of these possibilities can be set up and run in matter of minutes.
You are no doubt beginning to calculate the worth of this website. The especially adventurous may wish to allow students to utilise ClassTools for themselves, creating activities and lessons for presentation to their peers. Regardless of how it is used, ClassTools.net can and should be utilised by any educator seeking to effortlessly embed ICT into the ordinary things of the classroom.
ClassTools.net can be used to enhance any KLA or content, and can be used to foster higher-level thinking skills. The worth of this website and its contribution to quality learning in your students is only limited by the creativity and skill of the user.

If you would like to learn more about using classtools.net in your classroom click here for your free guide.

Have you ever Googled yourself?  Anyone familiar with the world’s biggest search engine has probably succumbed to the temptation at some point.  Google is renowned for finding information — a lot of information, and fast.  I remember the first time I used Google to conduct research for a university assignment and the resulting aneurism when confronted with the millions of matches to my particular topic.  Needless to say, it took me some time to sift through all those matches to my query. In time, I learnt how to search a bit more effectively.
Google is probably the most extensively used search engine that most teachers currently utilize in one way or another, but have you ever considered using it for the dozens of other applications and features it offers for educational and e-learning purposes?

A quick exploration of these features reveals a wealth of educational benefits.

• Google Maps can quickly and easily chart a journey between two destinations, complete with ETA.
• Google Alerts can tip you off when fresh news breaks by sending you an email with the details.
• Google Images can provide you with literally millions of stimulus pictures to inspire class discussions.
• Google Reader allows you to follow the latest up-to-date trends and information in education or on any topic you choose.
• Google Docs allows you to create, share, edit and collaborate with other users of your choosing on word-processing, spreadsheets etc online.

In addition to these, there are plenty of other products for you to test out and consider for you and your classroom (there isn’t enough space in this post to list them all!)

Google is the “swiss army knife” for any educator working within the digital age.  You could almost “live off Google alone”, given the sheer scope of options this website offers and the symbiotic relationship a lot of these applications share with learning.
Be sure to know your obligations as far as copyright is concerned, especially if you think it acceptable to start copying unreferenced images or text into your presentations (it’s actually illegal!).  Use Google effectively, reference the websites you learn from and vast amounts of information, images, videos, articles and resources will be under your command.  Use your power wisely.

If you would like to learn more about using google in your classroom click here for your free guide.

Here is a video by Common Craft that explains how to use a search engine like google more effectively.

If you already use google or any of it’s many applications in your day to day work as an educator, why not leave us a comment below and tell us how you use it?

One of the more techie things that I have been playing around with over the last 12 months has been the Wiimote Whiteboard. What precisely is a Wiimote Whiteboard I hear you say? Originally developed by Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon University, it’s a way to turn a simple data projector into an inexpensive yet very effective Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). Basically you connect a Nintendo Wiimote via Bluetooth to your computer (that’s hooked up to your data projector), point the Wiimote at whatever your going to use as your screen (it could be a blank wall, floor or normal whiteboard), use some free Wiimote Whiteboard configuration software, and use an IR-pen (you can either create your own or buy ready made IR-pens online) to access the screen. The Infrared Sensor in the Wiimote detects where you have positioned your IR-pen relative to the screen and translates that to the computer, just like a mouse.
On a side note, the original wiimote whitboard software created by Johnny Lee has been further refined by Boon Jin. Visit BoonJin.com to download Wiimote Smoothboard 1.0. This application is first-rate and has some nice features like floating toolbars, offscreen toggles for onscreen keyboards etc. N.B. It does require Net Framework 3.5 to work.

The real beauty of this setup is the cost!  It can all be done for $120-$140 AUD or less! The software is available free on the internet, a Wiimote costs $60-$70 AUD, a usb Bluetooth dongle for $40 AUD (if your computer or Laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth built-in), an IRpen $10 AUD (make yourself from parts bought at an electronics store) or buy online $8-$10 US (ready made), and a tripod $20 AUD.

There are a copious amount of sites devoted to providing advice and ideas on creating and using the Wiimote Whiteboard. Here are just a few to get you started.

http://www.wiimoteproject.com/

http://wiimoteproject.ning.com/

http://www.boonjin.com/wp/

http://www.smoothboard.net/

Johnny Lees Blog

Here are a few videos you might be interested in watching about Wiimote Whiteboards!

A video of me using a Wiimote Whiteboard

Johnny Chung Lee on TED

Wikipedia, the world’s free online encyclopedia, is a powerful resource to command in your classroom and after exploring its uses, you will wonder how you survived without it.  That sounds like a rather illustrious claim, but it is one that is proven to be true by many teachers.  Why?  Consider the following “classic” classroom scenario.
You are leading a well-prepared session of learning.  All is running smoothly, the students are participating and the topic is interesting, thus generating some good discussion.  A student raises their hand and, upon having their request validated, innocently asks a question that is beyond your ability to answer.  The normal response to this situation obviously varies with the teacher, but, sadly enough, some teachers would prefer to short-change their students with a hopelessly inaccurate, on-the-spot-I-hope-I’m-right cover up, than actually model a real, “professional” response to learning from an unfamiliar situation.
Enter Wikipedia.  The same scenario, with Wikipedia nearby can show students your willingness to learn along side them.  Wikipedia is quick and effortless to use.  Type in your topic and the definition (along with references, pronunciation and related topics, in most instances) will be at your fingertips within seconds.
Wikipedia’s name is derived from the word “wiki”, which is website that anyone can edit or modify.  Wikipedia has therefore been created through the collaborative efforts of the world-wide web community, a phenomenal concept in its own right and a tremendous example of learning together as a team.  Definitions are often referenced, and relevant hyperlinks provide further connections for you to explore.  A world of information is at your fingertips.  You’ll wonder what you did without it.

If you would like to learn more about Wikipedia or it’s alternatives click here for your free guide.