Thursday 13th November 2014 K-6 Teacher Professional Learning Workshop Think3 presents iPads in Action: Apps and Activities for Creative Classrooms – at Berry PS on Friday 21st November 2014. With so many educational apps available, many primary teachers are asking for guidance about which Apps to purchase and how to best facilitate their use. This workshop will showcase and review … Read More
eCarnival free for schools
Monday 27th October 2014 eCarnival is an iPad app, developed by a local Illawarra teacher, for recording results at school sports carnivals. And it is now available for schools for free! Use eCarnival to record your sports carnival results, and the app will generate sports house points automatically. With eCarnival you can:– Record results for Athletics, Swimming, Cross Country or any other … Read More
HSC 2014: Why are we still handwriting?
Tuesday 14th October 2014 As this year’s HSC examinations get underway, a plethora of teenagers, who have spent their entire lives surrounded by digital information, will wonder why they are still required to handwrite their HSC responses. Why do a generation of young adults who have never had to write a letter, unless it was to Santa in the North … Read More
Parents, put down the cell phones
Social media has a place and a purpose, but too many parents are creating unnecessary stress by trying to be in two places at once, while modelling to their children that online relationships take precedence over real ones. In an era of constant distraction, we must decide what’s more important: heeding the constant ping of our devices, or telling our … Read More
There is more to GAFE than Drive
Tuesday 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 … Read More
Intel Chromebook resources
Monday 22nd September 2014 Intel have gathered some useful information, case studies and resources for teachers who are implementing Chromebooks in K-12 schools. Visit the Intel Chromebook site >>>
iPhone 6 Plus – Camera review in Iceland
Friday 19th September 2014 Photographer Austin Mann compares the iPhone 6 Plus camera with the iPhone 5s camera on a photography expedition in Iceland. Check out the results >>>
How to support BYOD without really trying
Monday 15th September 2014 Following the end of a government sponsored netbook program, Yass HS is working towards BYOD. BYOD poses particular challenges for schools that are used to working with school-owned computers installed with ‘standard’ software. Yass HS thinks they may have found an answer >>>
ASTD 2014
Monday 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 … Read More
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 … Read More
Dropbox drops prices
Friday 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 – … Read More
Firefox YouTube Video Downloader
Thursday 14th August 2014 Ever had a lesson prepared, needed to display a YouTube video, and right at the crucial moment you discover that the Internet is down? Fear no more! Use the Firefox YouTube Video Downloader to save the video as an MP4 file so it is ready to go, right when you need it. Install the Video Downloader Firefox … Read More
BYOD at East Hills Girls THS
Tuesday 12th August 2014 All students in Years 7 – 9 at East Hills Girls Technology High School now use their own iPads across all Faculties in the school. The teachers in each Faculty have contributed to an iBook, outlining ideas for integrating the iPad within their Faculty’s curriculum activities. To access the iBook you will need to enrol in the school’s related iTunes U course….. … Read More
Is your email address portable?
Wednesday 6th August 2014 If you use Dropbox, Tripit, Skype, PayPal, eBay, Facebook, Edmodo, WordPress, etc, etc, or bank online, or pay your phone, road-toll, ISP, or other regular bills online, you need an e-mail address. And if you want to preserve some long-term sanity, this address needs to be a constant. In particular, if you use an e-mail address provided by … Read More
11 things to know about the new Google Drive
Friday 25th July 2014 Google Drive has a brand-new look and there are a lot of changes to discover. While many of theses changes are design and user-experience improvements, Google also added some new functions. Check out the video along with a list of some of Google Gooru’s favorite changes >>>
Have new technologies brought new learning opportunities?
Monday 14th July 2014 Today is a ‘student free day’ in local schools, with many teachers involved in professional learning activities focussed on the use of new technologies to support the curriculum. But are these new technologies bringing new learning opportunities to classrooms, or simply providing students with a new typewriter interface? The SAMR model provides a framework to define the impact of technology in the … Read More
School budgets provide insight into ICT transition
Remember back in the day when your school ICT budget discussions centred around what type of desktop computers to purchase, how many computers to purchase, and how these computers would be allocated around the school? And if your server needed an upgrade? And maybe some networking to a previously unconnected building? Times have certainly changed – and school ICT budgets … Read More
32,000 Chromebooks: Virginia school system adopts Chrome OS
Tuesday 24th June 2014 Milwaukee Public Schools rolled out 11,400 devices, Edmonton Public Schools rolled out 13,000 devices, and Chicago Public Schools topped them both at 16,000 devices. Now Virginia’s Chesterfield County Public Schools (CCPS), one of the largest school systems in the US, announced that it will be switching to Chromebooks in some of its schools. The rollout will begin … Read More
Un-Googleable questions in the classroom
Friday 20th June 2014 Creating class projects that develop higher order thinking skills, by focussing on un-Googleable questions….. Teacher: What are we learning about this week? Class: EGYPT!! Teacher: Wrong. We’re learning about how to make and answer better questions, remember? We’re just using Egypt as an example when we do it. Class: *Nervous shufflings.* Can’t we just do a project … Read More
Google Classroom – first look
Tuesday 17th June 2014 Classroom is a new Learning Management System (LMS) environment being developed by Google to operate in conjunction with Google Apps for Education (GAFE). Classroom is currently available for trial schools, and will be available for all schools using GAFE in September 2014. Classroom will be free for schools. Classroom builds on GAFE to create and organize assignments, provide grades … Read More
K-12: GAFE v OneDrive v iCloud Drive
Monday 16th June 2014 With collaborative cloud apps rapidly becoming an accepted ‘norm’ for file creation and storage, ICT discussion in schools often turns to which of the popular online file-editing and file-sharing packages is the most suitable for use in a K-12 environment. Microsoft, Apple and Google all offer a combination of remote ‘cloud’ file storage, and the usual suite of online, browser-editable ‘office’ applications, as well … Read More
Merrylands HS – BYOD
Friday 13th June 2014 This site provides a comprehensive overview of the BYOD program at Merrylands HS, in the western suburbs of Sydney. Includes an overview of the BYOD program, information for students and families, student agreement documents, frequently asked questions, and evaluation information from the school’s trials of BYOD. Check out the Merrylands BYOD site for more info >>>
iPads in Action K-6: Literacy and Mathematics
Thursday 12th June 2014 Think3 will present a workshop on integrating iPads in the Curriculum, at Helensburgh PS on Tuesday 24th June 2014. Participants will be introduced to a wide variety of apps throughout the day to showcase the number of ways iPads can be used to successfully support and engage students in their learning. This workshop will involve a … Read More
Transitioning school technology to the new era
Wednesday 11th June 2014 Rather than spending limited school budgets on computers and software licenses, which need to be renewed every few years, savvy schools are now focusing their technology planning on the deployment of infrastructure that can support student-owned and teacher-owned devices, leaving the cost of device renewal to the owners of those devices. The key technology planning considerations for schools in the … Read More
Apple unveils new features at 2014 WWDC
Tuesday 3rd June 2014 Overnight, Apple have announced a stack of new features at their annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held in San Francisco. Check out the new OS X Yosemite, iOS8, iCloud Drive, MailDrop, HealthKit, and increased connectivity and sharing options between all your mobile devices and family members. Check out the Keynote address video >>>
Kathy Schrock’s Bloomin’ Apps
Monday 2nd June 2014 Would you like to focus on the use of new technologies in your classroom to support higher order thinking skills and creative learning activities? Kathy Schrock has published a page suggesting suitable iPad, Google, Android and web apps to support each level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. These apps are also linked to the SAMR model of the use of … Read More
Chromebook and Google Apps Showcase
Wednesday 28th May 2014 Arthur Phillip High School invites Principals and Technology Coordinators to a showcase of digital learning. This event is an opportunity to hear the story of the school’s journey from DER to BYOD with Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education. Following morning tea in the Governor’s Room, school principal Lynne Goodwin will lead a presentation describing the circumstances and … Read More
Transitioning your school to the new ICT era
Monday 26th may 2014 A key goal of teachers using technology to support the curriculum has always been the integration of new and innovative technologies in day-to-day classroom activities. Unfortunately, the cost of new technologies has always been a hurdle to achieving this goal. When ‘technology access’ is located in a secure ‘lab’ in another building in the school – accessible once a week … Read More
Showbie Pro Update
Wednesday 21st May 2014 Have you checked out Showbie yet? The video below demos the latest release of Showbie Pro, and gives a concise overview of the features of the app. There is also a free version for classes of up to 35 students, with similar features. Definitely worth checking out. Visit the Showbie site >>>
Environment report provides sneek peek into iCloud data centre
Tuesday 20th May 2014 Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes when you send that email, or connect for a Facetime chat? This NBC report about Apple’s solar power initiatives give a rare sneak peek inside their iCloud data centre. Go to original NBC video >>>