DIA-CONNECT

Shidonni - highly creative Web 2.0

2009-06-07T07:20:00.004+04:00

In Shidonni, children are able to draw their own imaginary animals and worlds and play with them as they come to life through animation.

“Shidonni is an innovative website, developing the next generation of creative ‘virtual’ worlds for kids. Shidonni provides a safe environment where kids and their parents can create imaginary worlds and animals, play games and interact with friends. It is an amazing way for kids to express themselves creatively. They will LOVE the interaction that this site provides. The site is simple enough for kindergarten students to use but will keep even 6th grade students intrigued.”

Bing - is it a Google killer?

2009-06-03T11:12:00.003+04:00

The site this week (well actually new search engine) is called Bing, which has been developed by Microsoft in an attempt to compete with Google.
www.bing.com

Bing has some really nice features, I especially like the layout of the image and video search functions, as well as the ability to change the default country to any I wish. This eliminates some of the problems you have faced with Google, that will sometimes display information in Arabic, as it uses the computers location via IP to set the ‘home country’.

You can additionally select the ‘extras’ on the top right-hand side and change preferences such as preferred search language and location as well as blogs and media advertising. The key feature I believe that makes Bing better than Google is under the ‘more’ link called “xRank” which allows you to look at site and search rankings, essentially what people using Bing are searching for.

Bing certainly, whilst in development (Beta) mode at the moment, looks the most promising challenger to Google since Google arrived.

Mind-Mapping Online

2009-02-23T08:34:00.003+04:00

There is some wonderful software in the forms of Inspiration and Kidspiration for creating 'mind-maps'. These are extremely useful when beginning a Unit of Inquiry, for creating visual maps of students pre-existing ideas or thoughts about topics, and can be used to help identify the ever elusive 'Student Questions'.

There are a number of online products as well that can allow adults and children alike to create mind-maps on any topic of their choice.

Here are my top 4;

MindMeister
The free account allows you to create up to six mind-maps.
DIA Staff have a two week access trial (ending 10/3/09)
Username: dia Password: diadubai

bubbl.us
A brilliant (and free) brainstorming tool that allows users to create colorful mind maps online that can be shared, printed, imbeded in a blog and saved as an image.

Mindomo
"Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, that acts like desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser."

Mind42.com
Allows you to "Manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world - collaborative, browser-based and for free."

Importing Favourites into Internet Explorer

2009-02-23T07:15:00.007+04:00

The DIATECH team are now able to import lists of ‘favourite’ websites into Internet Explorer that you have compiled for your students. This list of sites can be accessed anywhere at DIA - from the laptops, the labs, the library and your classroom computers.

This process involves;
1. teachers creating a list of websites that you want your year level to use. This could be changed for each Unit of Inquiry or other areas of the curriculum
2. suggest a name for the list and send the list to DIATECH
3. get your students to open up Internet Explorer, and access the list of bookmarked ‘favourites’ that you have set for your year level.

I see this as a great way to guide students to websites you want them to use rather than wasting a bunch of time browsing site that are partially or totally irrelevant.

Blogging

2009-02-15T12:26:00.011+04:00

Blogging (creating a web log) is more than just writing an online journal, it is a way to communicate to other net-users, information which might be in the form of a commentary, specific news items or can be even a personal diary. Many blogs can include music, podcasts, photographs, artwork and multimedia.

Many are just like this blog, which I use as a newsletter. I find it much easier to add posts when they come to mind rather than scrambling for 'end-of-the-month' items for a newsletter.

Technorati is a great internet search-engine for searching and viewing blogs, has been indexing blogs since 2002, and currently claims to have over 112 million blogs indexed.

Some of the more popular blogs creating sites include;

Google's Blogger (my recommendation)
Edublogs (great for educators)
Xanga
Wordpress
Typepad

To create your own blog, check out the 'How Stuff Works' tutorial here.

Plagiarism - more than just a dirty word.

2009-01-29T11:41:00.011+04:00

Plagiarism is something that affects our teaching lives at the moment, and with the advent of the Internet in our classrooms and within the grasp of our students, breach of copyright is prevalent. As authors, there is nothing worse than having someone take your work and pass it off as their own.

There are a number of practical solutions to this problem, and a number of online tools available to us to help identify offending students. I believe it is important to then counsel them and to positively reinforce that taking the works of another person is more than just inappropriate, it is just plain wrong.

Here are some sites that can evaluate the work of students and let teachers know who are plagiarising and who are not;

Plagiarism Checker

The Plagiarism Checker

Article Checker

inspired by the work of Solar Sailor

Alternatives to Google Images

2009-01-22T07:48:00.010+04:00

Many students are faced with the dilemma of finding an appropriate image for use in a document - and many choose to go where I do - Google Images.

The problem with this is, despite the Google 'Moderate Safesearch' filter, occasionally inappropriate images slip through Google's filters.

The other problem with students using Google Images is that many of the images are protected by copyright, which presents a very real and ethical issue.

To prevent coming across undesirable or copyrighted content, there a number of sites available that are student friendly and have a wealth of good-quality images, below are my top three choices;

Pics4learning
Topic sorted images

Getty Images
Requires free registration

Classroom Clipart
A good range of searchable clipart but lots of popup ads.

Image Resizing Online

2009-01-12T13:59:00.010+04:00

I had an inquiry from a colleague, who was attempting to email a large number of images. With camera technology and the number of mega pixels on cameras, many email providers will only allow attachments of a certain size.

I use a program called Irfanview to do all of my resizing, which has suited my needs for a number of years now, but I have found a number of online sites that easily do the same. Here are a few that also offer a 'wizard' to do all of the work for you and are pretty self-explanatory.

Resize2mail
Shrink Pictures
Photosize.com
Free Resizer
ResizR

The Battle That We All Face

2008-11-22T19:29:00.003+04:00

5 YouTube Alternatives for Education

2008-11-15T16:19:00.014+04:00

YouTube is a great site for educational content, but it's also plagued with a lot of rubbish that, although tagged to a topic you may be searching for, can be inappropriate for students to use. Here is a collection of resources that are classroom-worthy for both teachers and students.

TeacherTube
Teacher Tube is a great teacher resource for educational video content that is safe for students to search also. Content is rated by 'apples' so you can see the total number of times videos have been view and their rating by users.

Teachers.tv
A brilliant resource of thousands of clips that could be best utilised for any aspect of the Elementary curriculum, and in particular, the Units of Inquiry. There is the ability to search for exactly what you are looking for or to just browse the categories that are available ranging from Art and Design through to Science.

MathaTube
A very new resource that is steadily improving week-by-week. With a math-only focus, MathaTube has some very-well explained math principles from kingergarden through to year six. Content is arranged into subjects of maths and although it may take a little while to find what you need and screen through some questionable movies, there are some real gems hidden as well.

Kids-Know-It-Network
There are a huge collection of games and activities here, but also some explanitory movies as well. Each movie finishes with a quiz for viewers, and new movies are updated each month.

CNN Student News
CNN Student News uses CNN's worldwide resources to bring each day's top news stories to Upper Elementary classrooms. The 10-minute, commercial-free program encourages student participation and provides classes with context for understanding current events.

Thanks to Richard Byrne from FTFT

Wikispaces

2008-11-12T19:15:00.009+04:00

Wikispaces is a place where teachers can create a wiki, which is a simple to use collaborative website especially designed for classrooms and schools.

Wikispaces lets you create simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together. This is a perfect way of integrating technology into the classroom, with any Unit of Inquiry being the main focus, and students then work together to creating a 'wiki' (A wiki is a page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or change content) based on the core focus of the unit.

Wikispaces is currently offering free, private K-12 Plus wikis! All the features and benefits that normally cost $50/year are for free.

To setup your own Wikispace for your class, follow the link, or go to; http://www.wikispaces.com/site/for/teachers

Emailing of Office 2007 Documents

2008-11-12T09:33:00.013+04:00

Microsoft created headaches world-wide when they introduced Office 2007, by altering the extension of the files created when saved.

When Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint save a file, they save the documents in a different format to Office 2003, with either .docx .xlsx and .pptx extension.

This causes problems when you email these files to someone who doesn't have Office 2007, as Office 2003 programs can only read files that are saved as .doc, .xls and .ppt

To avoid this you can save files as Acrobat Reader (*.pdf) documents, or by selecting 'Save As' and changing the extension to the older Office 2003 format. This is highly recommended when emailing any documents.

For further information check out the Microsoft link.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA100444731033.aspx

Ning - Social Network Creator

2008-11-09T13:43:00.009+04:00

Ning is an unusually named website that allows for plain online, social-network creation. In plain-speak, you can invite anyone to be a member of your network via their email address. This Facebook-like website is fully customisable, with the creator deciding which components will be used by members and the option of keeping the information on your network private.

This looks like a fantastic way for a teacher to create a student only social network for their class. Any member can post their own blog, add their own discussion points and add comments on what other users have added to the site. A good example is Elementary Tech Teachers where technology educators from all over the work meet to share their ideas, pictures, frustrations and expertise.

APWeb

2008-11-06T07:34:00.004+04:00

APWeb is an excellent report-writing application, and the highlight of using it is that it is web-based, allowing for the entering of report grades and comments from either home or work. the link for access at both home and school is;
http://apweb.diadubai.com/apwebteacher/.

If you wish to download a guide to assist you, select the link to download the document.
APWeb Changing Password, APWeb Entering Student Attendance and APWeb Entering Grades.

DIA Help Desk

2008-11-03T15:40:00.017+04:00

For questions and queries relating to Edline, APWeb or just a general IT-related inquiries, the DIA Help Desk should be your first port of call. The email address is helpdesk@diadubai.com and your dilemma will be quickly answered, resolved or logged for the IT support team to attend to.

This is also the contact address for any parents that require assistance in their access of the Edline website in particular.

Internet Resources

2008-10-30T11:51:00.005+04:00

Please feel free to explore the resources included to the right of this post. Thanks must go to Luke Sinclair for showing me '5min' which is a great place to find short video solutions for practical questions and a place for people to share their knowledge.

I can see huge potential for Shelfari as a resource to encourage the reading and sharing of literature in classrooms. This is a web-based social network that allows users to share, compare and discuss books that they have read. Users can create a virtual shelf of all of their books and see what their friends have been reading. A great way to promote technology and reading in your classroom.

Finally, if you're interested in creating a blog for your classroom, where all students can share their ideas and questions, I highly reccomend Blogger. Many colleagues attended the recent workshop provided by MSU relating to creating a classroom weblog. This is a very intuitive web-application that allows users to create their own weblog to share with the whole world, or just selected members - just like I'm doing here!

DIA-CONNECT online!

2008-10-29T11:55:00.010+04:00

Welcome to the second and revised look of DIA-CONNECT. Thanks for all of the positive feedback, your comments have been inspirational.

DIA-CONNECT will now be published as a weblog format, and ideas such as a podcast and RSS feed are being looked into as a better way of technologically delivering this to you in the future.

Technical Woes?

2008-10-29T11:54:00.001+04:00

For all its shortcomings, Google is an outstandingly-excellent resource for finding and answer to your small ‘can I ask a stupid question?’ problems, and it loves being asked a question.

You can type things like “How do I insert a drop-down boxes in my Microsoft Word document?” and it will trawl the internet to find pages containing your words. Voila hey JC?

Using PDF Files on Edline

2008-10-29T11:53:00.006+04:00

To ensure documents are uploaded quickly and easily to Edline without hassles of file-sizes being too big, why not save any document as .pdf? By doing this, any pictures included in the document are compressed in size, resulting in an overall reduction in file size. It’s as easy as ‘Save As’ and selecting ‘.pdf’.

For further information click the link to the Microsoft explanation of this.

Easier Report Writing

2008-10-29T11:36:00.003+04:00

Yvonne Barry pointed out a free software-resource that can be invaluable in helping to generate report comments and that a number of staff at DIA are currently using. Teachers can create a bank of comments that can be tailored to the IBO curriculum language, and then automatically alter the comments depending on the gender of the child.

The learning curve is moderate initially. After after some trial and error this software can save a large amount of time, reduce grammatical and typing errors and enable the teacher to create high-quality report comments. For further information, it check out it out at Ray's Learning.