This week’s meeting was led by Dai Barnes. In this week’s meeting we look at taking homework out of the classroom, using video to set cover (including an audio clip from Dai), screencast tools, Pro tools versus simple tools, suggested reading for students on the history of the internet, and a discussion on using mobile devices connected to the internet with the possibilities and difficulties it brings including eSafety.
ETRUWeekly39 [47:19m]:
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Dai Barnes has collated the links from this week’s meeting here.
Here’s a link to the relevant ETRU wiki page for this week’s meeting.
The music sample in the podcast is taken from Alice Russell’s ‘What We Want’
This week’s meeting was led by Doug Belshaw. There were plenty of educators willing to share their thoughts and experience about data management applications, barriers to educational change, and the potential for Virtual Learning Environments, or VLEs, in schools.
Many thanks to Tony Sheppard for grabbing the audio from the FlashMeeting!
Dai Barnes has collated all the links from the meeting.
Louise Jones has kindly tidied up the ETR wiki page for this week’s meeting, whilst Dave Stacey has done a sterling job in making the ETR wiki homepage look fabulous!
The music sample in the podcast is taken from Alice Russell’s ‘What We Want’
“Best EdTechRoundup so far!”, “You guys are awesome!”, “I really enjoyed that discussion!” – just some of the comments by participants after last Sunday’s special on students blogging and using WordPress Multi-User (WPMU).
We had a number of participants who are experts on WPMU, including Jim Groom from the US and Dave Gilmour from East Lothian (Scotland).
Many thanks to John Johnston for grabbing the audio from the FlashMeeting!
EdTechRoundup Special - Student blogging and WPMU [79:03m]:
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Dai Barnes has collated the links from the show on Diigo here.
The ETR wiki page for this special meeting was, appropriately, very much a team affair! 
The music sample in the podcast is taken from Alice Russell’s ‘What We Want’
This week’s EdTechRoundup Weekly followed a week where a lot of people had been busy and therefore not had chance to attend. As a result there was some confusion as to whether it was a ‘blogging special’ or not. In the end, we did mention blogs and issues to do with them, along with:
- Feedback from the MirandaMod2 (un?)conference
- Internet filtering and Louise Jones’ Twitter poll
- A collaborative Google Docs-powered presentation on how to use Netbooks effectively in the classroom
- A discussion about online calendars, integration with Moodle, and possible ‘homework-casting’ via iTunes!
Dai Barnes is now a firm fan of Diigo for the ETR links. You can access the relevant ones from this week’s meeting here.
Lisa Stevens, a.k.a. wiki pixie herself, is in the process of updating the ETR wiki here to include the notes from the meeting.
The music sample in the podcast is taken from Alice Russell’s ‘What We Want’
This week, several of our regular participants were still travelling home from the 2008 Isle of Wight Conference when we recorded the show. Dai Barnes did a great job standing in for regular host Doug Belshaw. We spoke briefly about interactive whiteboards before Joe Dale, organiser of the Isle of Wight Conference, joined us to reflect on this year’s event. The IoW Conference FlashMeeting mentioned by Joe was recorded and can be viewed here .
Dan Needlestone led a discussion on CPD issues and the issues surrounding ICT training for teachers.
You can listen to the player below to listen to the show or, better still, get them delivered to your computer’s iTunes folder by clicking on the iTunes subscription button in the sidebar.
The multitasking Dai Barnes has collated the links discussed in the show. You can find them all on our del.icio.us pages.
Louise Jones wears the wiki pixie shoes – see the notes she made for us on the ETR wiki here.
The music in this show is Silver from Mobygratis.com
On day 10 of our series of answers from the UK Google Education Apps team we feature a question asked by Dave Stacey who teaches History at Olchfa School. He asked “Are you considering creating two tiers of user as quite a few schools have requested, one for students and one for teachers?”
Google replied:
The flexibility of Google Apps means that both students and teachers alike can use the product in the way that most suits their individual requirements. So, for example, we’ve seen that Google Talk is used by both students and teachers to answer homework queries and Google Calendar is used by teachers to share inter-departmental meetings and for students to be able to find out what’s going on throughout their school term. Equally, Google Docs allows you to control who you invite to view and collaborate on a document or presentation so that teachers can keep documents confidential if they need to. In this way, students and teachers should be able to tailor their use of Apps to reflect their own needs.
Today a school can choose if they want to offer different services to students and teachers by registering two separate domains. It is our belief, however, that to truly capitalise on the collaborative aspects of Google Apps (eg. homework) teachers and students should both have access to the same services.
Doug Belshaw asked a question about Google Presentations. Doug teaches History at Ridgewood School in Doncaster.
“What do Google Presentations offer that Slideshare, etc. does not?” – Doug Belshaw
Google replied:
There are lots of great products out there on the web which ultimately means more choice – this can only be a good thing. Our aim with the presentation feature of Google Docs has been to take the functionality that people use most often and turn it into a product that is simple and easy to use. The main benefit is that you can create, edit and share presentations with a number of people simultaneously, which eliminates having to email the document backwards and forwards and losing track of which version you are working to. Equally, the size of some presentation files can be quite big so a simple link to access the document is much easier than trying (and failing) to email around a large file. We launched presentations in Google Docs in response to strong user demand for presentation-sharing but updates and improvements will continue to roll out over the coming months. Again we’re constantly looking for ways to improve our tools and we welcome your feedback.
We’ve reached the 5th day of our series featuring the answers we received from the UK Google Education Apps team. Our question today was submitted by Ian Stuart, Principal Teacher of Technology and Design and ICT Coordinator at Islay High School.
“Where do Google see education in 5 years time? What products do they predict will be important?” - Ian Stuart
Google replied:
Well we don’t have a crystal ball but we do think that working in groups and providing tools that support collaboration will be increasingly important. Pupils today are very tech-savvy and they will increasingly expect access to email and to work collaboratively in school or college in the same way that they share photos, participate in conversations on the web and make ideas available to others in their day-to-day interaction with the Internet. With the cost barrier now removed, schools and universities can provide the type of technology which may have a positive impact on the way pupils and teachers work and interact with each other. This could have an impact on everything from how lessons are taught to the way homework is set, marked and delivered. In short, we hope technology in education will become a lot easier and user-friendly in the coming years.
It’s the fourth day in our series of Q&A from the Google Education Apps team in the UK. Question 4 was posed by Richard Millwood, Reader in Distributed Learning at the Institute for Educational Cybernetics, University of Bolton.
“Have you considered an option to mark text with a colour background or text colour to show which user contributed? For me, revving up the collaborative aspects of Google Apps is number one – far preferable to trying to match desktop software’s functionality.” - Richard Millwood
Google replied:
“We absolutely agree with you – Google Apps was always devised with collaboration in mind rather than to mimick the functionality of traditional desktop solutions. Our aim is to provide an alternative way of working by focusing on collaboration to help people work together more efficiently and more effectively. We’re constantly working on improving how easy and useful it is for users to interact with documents, spreadsheets and presentations so watch this space….”
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