There is more to GAFE than Drive

Google DriveTuesday 7th October 2014

Google announced last week that all 30+ million Google Apps for Education accounts around the world will have their Drive capacity increased from 30 Gb to ‘unlimited’ capacity.

This is great news, and will make GAFE even more attractive for schools. There have been similar announcements recently from other providers of online file storage services.

However, when considering the options for cloud-based apps and storage services for schools, there is more to ponder than storage capacity, or the provision of ‘office’ apps.

Microsoft announces Windows 10

windows10Wednesday 1st October 2014

Microsoft has announced its Windows 10 operating system to replace the largely unpopular Windows 8, skipping ‘version 9’ to mark a leap toward a new system designed to unify desktop and mobile devices.

The next version of Microsoft’s flagship product is aimed at recapturing the lucrative business market, which generally ignored the new-look Windows 8.

Read more about the Microsoft announcements at SMH >>>

Free Interactive Whiteboard Software

Open-SankoreWednesday 24th September 2014

Are you tired of your school being locked into one proprietary IWB application?

Try Open-Sankoré – apps available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Sancoré features include…

  • commenting, drawing and highlighting tools;
  • importing flash animations, images, audio;
  • importing pdf or ppt documents;
  • embedding dynamic content into your course: apps from widgets, Wikipedia, or Google Maps;
  • dynamic screen management, infinite zoom, etc;
  • sharing your resources by publishing them as PDFs, podcasts, or on the web.

I haven’t had a chance to try this software, but those that have speak highly of it. Might be worth a test run!

New connectors in Google Drawings & Slides

Friday 19th September 2014

Google continues to quietly rollout updates and new features for Google Apps.

The most recent addition, shown in the Gooru video below, brings elbow connectors and curved connectors to Drawings and Slides, and can be used to build flowchart displays, organisational diagrams, etc, in either app….

BYOD Planning for Principals

BYOD PlanningThursday 18th September 2014

Schools leaders are faced with two key challenges in the new world of BYOD.

One is selecting the right device or devices for students to bring to school.

The second is ensuring that their teaching staff are designing creative, engaging and purposeful digital learning activities to which students bring their devices.

Scott Barnham and Nerida McCredie from Think3 have helped Principals and executive in schools across NSW with these two challenges.

Scott and Nerida are presenting the ‘BYOD to What?’ workshop at ASTD 2014, to be held in Kiama on Tuesday 28th October.

Does your school support mobile learning?

Wednesday 17th September 2014

I recently stumbled upon the presentation below, titled Mobile is Eating the World, created by Benedict Evans.

The presentation below (it is definitely worth a scroll through the 24 slides) uses sales charts to highlight the massive shift in the kind of technology that is being consumed throughout the developed world.

People aren’t buying desktop PCs – they are buying mobile technologies, and that’s not just hardware, but software too. The community is being consumed by the ‘app ecosystems’ of Apple and Google.

As an education community, can we afford to ignore these trends? Can our education programs maintain relevance when they are reliant on ‘integrating technology’ that is housed in a computer room on the other side of the school, using software that may only have any realistic application inside large commercial corporations?

How can we harness these omnipresent mobile technologies to support our learning environments?

Have a think about this while you flip through the slide show below….

Google Apps – Arthur Phillip HS Case Study

Arthur Phillip HS LogoTuesday 16th September 2014

Arthur Phillip High School is a public secondary school in Parramatta, Australia serving 1,500 students in grades 7-12.

Students at Arthur Phillip hail from 65 different countries and 90% speak a language other than English at home.

Five years ago, Arthur Phillip began exploring options to embrace digital education. At the time, the Australian Government’s Digital Education Revolution (DER) provided all high school students in Year 9 – 12 with a laptop.

The staff at Arthur Phillip built upon this initiative by creating an online, interactive digital learning environment for their teachers and students. In 2014, Arthur Phillip partnered with Google to provide Chromebooks and Apps to every student, moving its entire digital learning platform to the cloud.

Budget shortfall looming for NSW Public Schools

funding-shortfall-500Friday 12th September 2014

The NSW public school system is facing a $7 billion shortfall and declining standards unless the government doubles its spending over the next two decades to meet the state’s growing population, a leaked report reveals.

The report from the Department of Education warns that without a new approach to funding and planning schools, the government will no longer be able to “ensure that every child receives an education of the highest quality”. 

Google-proof questioning with Bloom

Bloom WheelThursday 11th September 2014

What is a “Google-proof question?”

It is a question (or research task)  that can not be directly answered via Google (or any other search engine) because it requires analysis, interpretation, and investigation. Writing such questions, or designing such research tasks, can be challenging.

A helpful tool to consider when designing student research tasks is Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Read more about Google-proof questioning >>>

ASTD 2014

ASTD 2014Monday 8th September 2014

It’s on a again – bigger and better than ever!

One of the most practical, classroom-oriented technology conferences in Australia, the annual All Schools Technology Day will be held on Tuesday 28th October 2014, at Kiama Pavilion.

The 2014 conference theme is ‘Learning in the Mobile Era’.

Choose from a variety of hands-on workshops to explore practical ideas for integrating new and innovative technologies within your classroom activities.

Principals and school leaders can choose to attend just the morning ‘BYOT to What’ workshop, which will focus on how your school can successfully implement a BYO program.

Google Forms Updated

Friday 5th September 2014

Google Forms has received a major makeover.

Google has added a brand new collection of themes from which to choose, and these themes can be customised to fit your specific needs. Alternatively, you can start from scratch and create your own Form theme using your own images.

Ad well as adding custom images, you can also change the form colour, background colour, font, font size / colour and more, as detailed in the Google Gooru video below….

Neutral Bay PS – Open Day

Neutral Bay PSThursday 4th September 2014

Neutral Bay PS are holding an open day on Friday 12th September.

You can visit the school to see how their 1:1 technology programs engage all students….

  • Learn how the technology infrastructure supports innovation in teaching and learning;
  • Hear from members of the school community and visit classrooms to discover the possibilities offered by mobile learning. 

Who Should Attend?

Principals, teachers and curriculum leaders interested in implementing a one-to-one program in their school.

The school has been doing some great stuff – including CBL, iTunes U and now Casper deployment – all within the NSW DEC environment!

Minnesota rolls out iPads to 40,000 students

Minnesota iPadsMonday 1st September 2014

Minnesota’s St. Paul School District is preparing to deploy tens of thousands of iPads to students in 37 schools around the city.

Rather than purchasing the tablets outright, the school district will lease them from Apple. The cost of the program – which also appears to include more than 1,000 MacBooks – will begin at $5.7 million per year for the initial rollout and rise to around $8 million once all 61 schools in the district are outfitted.

Dropbox drops prices

DropboxFriday 29th August 2014

Google and Microsoft have recently become very aggressive with pricing for their Drive and OneDrive file storage services, undercutting Dropbox, the longtime leader in the online file storage domain.

Apple also recently announced similar pricing to Google and MS for their soon-to-be-released integrated iCloud Drive service.

After much speculation Dropbox has finally responded, rationalising its pricing plans to offer just 2 options:

  • Free – 2Gb, or up to 18Gb with referrals;
  • AU $109 pa – Dropbox Pro with 1Tb online space.

Apple are expected to announce full details of their upcoming iCloud Drive service in September.

iOS apps for Google Docs, Sheets – and now Slides

Google DriveWednesday 27th August 2014

Google have announced the launch of their Slides app for iOS, along with updates to their Docs and Sheets apps.

It is now possible to work on any file, on any device, at any time. The iOS apps save edits locally, syncing when you next have WiFi network access.

School bells (and announcements) on an iPod

School PA SystemTuesday 26th August 2014

This might be worth checking out for your school – an iOS app that can use your school’s existing PA system to:

  • Schedule bells (hourly, daily, weekly) that are fully customisable (time of day, etc);
  • Select from a library of school bell sounds;
  • Add your own music selection directly from iTunes;
  • Select different themes / music / or bells for different times of the day for different school events;
  • Pre-record your own public announcements using the built in voice recorder;
  • Access commonly used public announcements from the public address soundboard;
  • Create emergency signals and other messages that can be reused in specific situations.

All for free!

Escaping Education’s Death Valley

Monday 25th August 2014

Sir Ken Robinson outlines 3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish – and how current education culture works against them.

In an entertaining presentation Sir Ken considers some options to escape the educational “death valley” we now face, and discusses (without a slideshow!) how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility….

Goodbye Powerpoint – Education conferences

Goodbye PowerpointFriday 22nd August 2014

No one moves. A room full of people have traveled long distances to this conference of superintendents, and no one wants to ask the person speaking before them a question.

Some people are probably afraid to ask a question because they weren’t paying attention; at least a few attendees have spent the morning on their phones, checking Twitter and Instagram.

As a presenter, how do you engage your audience? Or, as a delegate, how do you choose which sessions to attend at a conference?

National Science Week

National Science WeekThursday 21st August 2014

Has your school been involved in 2014 Australian National Science Week activities?

Shows, talks, festivals and more!

There are still plenty of local and online activities in which you can participate with your class this week. (Just a pity that it clashes with Book Week!)

Skaffl – 1:1 iPad classroom workflow

Skaffl

Tuesday 19th August 2014

Skaffl allows teachers to distribute and collect assignments electronically from students using iPads. Skaffl is free until the end of the year.

With Skaffl….
Teachers can:
– Create activities for students to complete;
– Plan ahead and save activities for distribution when you need them;
– Collect student work;
– Annotate and grade student assignments.

Students can:
– Receive their assignments and keep track of due dates;
– Hand in their assignments from other apps;
– Annotate and complete written assignments.

NAPLAN test too confusing for students

NAPLAN examMonday 18th August 2014

The NAPLAN writing test was so hard this year that students’ marks have slipped across the country and in NSW there has been a “substantial increase” in the number of students who will receive zero because the question was too confusing.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), which runs NAPLAN, is investigating problems with the writing question but also suggested the reason students across all years scored lower in writing compared to 2011 may have been because schools over-prepared for the test.