Wednesday 30th April 2014 If you have a Gmail account for personal use, and a Google Apps account for school, then you have probably already felt the pain of not being able to sync multiple Google Drive accounts to your computer. Insync is a utility that allows you to sync multiple Google Drive accounts to your computer, along with several other neat … Read More
NAPLAN online – is everybody ready?
Tuesday 29th April 2014 The Australian Government is planning to conduct NAPLAN online from 2016. While the Government is to be commended on the move to take advantage of the efficiencies and the opportunities opened by going digital and online, will all parties critical to the success of conducting NAPLAN online be ready for a 2016 test? Will all Australia’s … Read More
US bans junk food in school canteens
Monday 28th April 2014 The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a ban on junk food in schools in an effort to cut the level of obesity in young people. The ban will begin on July 1 and will be nationwide. According to the proposed ban, schools across the country will only be allowed to sell healthy foods such as fruit, … Read More
Finnish Lessons
Some holiday reading….. “Education policies in Finland concentrate more on school effectiveness than on teacher effectiveness. “This indicates that what schools are expected to do is an effort of everyone in a school, working together, rather than teachers working individually. “In many under-performing nations, I notice, three fallacies of teacher effectiveness prevail….” Read more at The Washington Post >>>
Google codifies crawling your email
On Monday, Google updated Gmail’s terms of service to spell out its relationship with users in no uncertain terms: “Our automated systems analyse your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customised search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.” … Read More
Configurator – Course update
Due to popular demand, an additional course has been added to Scott Barnham’s Configurator roadshow workshops…. at Bodalla PS on Friday 30th May. Maybe tack the Friday on to a long weekend away on the sunny NSW South Coast! Learn how to manage your school’s iPads using Apple Configurator, at this one-day hands-on workshop. You will learn about….. Apple Volume Purchase Program … Read More
Google Sheets – Convert old to new
If you are using Google Sheets to create your spreadsheets, you are probably already using the recently-released new version of Sheets. But what about your existing spreadsheets? How do you convert a spreadsheet created in the original version to the new format? While Google doesn’t provide a simple one-click conversion tool yet, there is a quick workaround… Open the a … Read More
Google-proof questions
Simple fact-regurgitation questions make it all too easy for students to type their research questions into the Google search bar to ‘find’ an answer? We can leverage the principles of Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop research tasks that promote analysis, interpretation, and investigation – and avoid simple ‘answers’ that require no higher-order thinking skills. Learn more >>>
School ICT Planning – Curriculum Focus?
All school planning should be undertaken with a clear vision of how the implementation of a particular initiative will improve learning outcomes. However, some school planning procedures – ICT planning in particular – seem to be structured around a debate centred on hardware platforms, budget allocations, and the knowledge and personal preferences of technical support staff with no pedagogical experience. How … Read More
Web Security in doubt
So, you thought that entering your username and password in a form on a website with an https address, and a little padlock in the status bar, was a secure process? Think again! “the little lock icon (HTTPS) we all trusted to keep our passwords, personal emails, and credit cards safe, was actually making all that private information accessible to … Read More
Science is fun!
Learning about the world around us has always been fun – Col. Chris Hadfield reminded us just how much fun it can be, with his series of videos from the International Space Station (ISS). Chris posted a series of videos about day-today life on the ISS – and they make great discussion-starters for science activities for all age groups. Below is … Read More
Mars & Earth move closer this month
Interesting events this month for Science classes…. Beginning April 9 (AEST) Mars will be aligned in a straight line with the Sun and the Earth. This year we’ll be closest to Mars on April 14, when we’ll be separated by 92 million kilometres – a lot closer than usual, but still well short of the 55 million kilometre absolute minimum. … Read More
Managing iPads with Configurator
Learn how to manage your school’s iPads using Apple Configurator, at this one-day hands-on workshop. You will learn about….. Apple Volume Purchase Program (VPP) for apps; Creating & Managing Apple IDs; Installing Apple Configurator; Using Configurator to prepare iPads with the latest iOS; Supervised Mode; Installing free apps, and paid apps purchased through VPP; Creating and installing Profiles to manage settings. Wollongong workshop … Read More
eduCanon – online lesson builder
Use eduCanon to build interactive online lessons around video clips from YouTube, TeacherTube, Vimeo, etc. Watch the video below, or learn more at educanon.com >>>
Office for iPad is free – but it will cost you!
Increasingly, large software vendors like Microsoft are making their iPad apps exclusive to subscribers of their main software package. It’s a troubling trend. Microsoft launched Office for iPad last week. The good news is that the new apps are free – the bad news is that they’re read-only runtimes unless you pony up for an Office 365 subscription. Read more … Read More
iPad Apps for your classroom
What do you want to do today? A list of popular iPad content-creation apps connected to every-day curriculum-related activities. Check out the apps >>>
Google Apps – New image editing tools
Google Drawings and Slides now have new image editing tools available. Check out the Google Gooru video below for the latest info about these new tools…