It is the September ‘holidays’ … well two weeks without kids at school anyway….. I spent the first two days last week at the ILT Conference in Invercargill with 4 of our teachers from school. A very good two days and only one workshop I didn’t come away from thinking YES!! Having spent last year with CORE and attending ‘quite a few’ conferences , seminar and celebration days over the 12 months I am pretty hard to impress these days. I will post some of my ideas in detail soon when I have had a chance to re-read my notes - no wireless in sessions so no blogging on the go ….argh!!!!

Tony Ryan, Jeni Wilson, Eric Jensen, and Geoff Hampton (keynote NOT seminar which was nothing more than an advert for Promethian boards-HA!!!) were highlights. Great to catch up with Tony and Jeni again.

The DP from here was presenting and I’m sorry I missed her one! …. discussions with another teacher who had been to the session prompted a lot of thinking for me and I have re-worked my thinking about physical spaces at school as part of our development plan since then. The value of the serendipitous stuff and conversations over coffee!

Bed time now and getting my thinking together is tomorrows task…
btw - our cluster application for ICT PD has been successful so I will be a Project Director from next year. Also have a new teacher position because of roll growth/changed NE ratios, to begin next year and another classroom to build (small floor area at less than 60m2, and not enough $$ to do it well, but focusing on the positive at the moment. The battles can begin next term) as a result of our staffing notification in the last week of the term.

A post from Allanah prompted the thought about what software and apps I use all the time. This screen shot is from my user applications folder. I have had a big cull recently so all the things here are things I use. Mostly they are free downloads.
There is also the stuff in the system applications like Office, iWork etc.
I would love to see what stuff you use …. post on your blog and post a link here int eh comments.

“I’m not interesting in banking information in the heads of kids”
source

This looks very cool!
Maybe even something for the children at the senior primary level who are learning a language?
source

From Stuff:

Gordon Moore, the unassuming billionaire co-founder of chip giant Intel, says the end of the technology maxim bearing his name is drawing to a close, perhaps as soon as 10 years from now.

Moore’s Law - based on his observation in 1965 that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles roughly every two years - has for more than 40 years dictated the pace of change in the technology industry.

To be sure, many, including Moore himself, have predicted the law’s demise numerous times before.

But, now, as Intel and the rest of the industry have made features on chips so small, they’re running out of space to cram in more transistors and bumping against the laws of physics.

“Another decade, a decade and a half, I think we’ll hit something fairly fundamental” that would render the continuing pace of Moore’s law untenable, Moore said at Intel’s twice-annual technical conference, now in its 10th year.

Transistors are the tiny switches that process the ones and zeros that are the foundation of digital computing, and now number in the hundreds of millions on modern microprocessors.

Intel in January announced what it hailed as the biggest breakthrough in the basic building blocks of semiconductors in more than 40 years. The world’s biggest chipmaker is now using an element called hafnium and metal gates in its chipmaking processes, which will let Moore’s Law continue for now.

As Moore, 78, who founded Intel in 1968, made his way on stage to chat with radio talkshow host Moira Gunn, the crowd bestowed on him a standing ovation.

Current Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini, also a San Francisco native, laughed and applauded in the front row as the affable Moore recounted some of Intel’s early days.

“What’s not to like?” Otellini said after Moore’s comments to a packed hall of thousands at Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Moore cited hard work and a good bit of luck for Intel’s successes over the years.

He and Bob Noyce, both part of the “traitorous eight” who split away from chip pioneer William Shockley’s company to found Fairchild Semiconductor, eventually helped spawn what came to be known as Silicon Valley.

Moore served as executive vice-president of Intel until 1975, when he became president and chief executive. He was elected chairman in 1979 and remained CEO until 1987. He was named chairman emeritus in 1997.

Asked what he would do if he were a youngster in college again, Moore paused before saying, “I’d probably look at something more in the biology mold. The interface between computers and biology now is a very interesting area.”

“It’s an exciting time,” Moore, an avid deep sea fisherman, said later in the discussion. “I’d love to come back in 100 years and see what happened in the meantime.”

I blame it on the new iTunes upgrade …. for the last couple of weeks if I go to the iTunes store for anything all I get is this:

Am I the only one? Is it just me?
The discussion boards are full of it but no solution - has anyone found something I have missed?

this is a great wee plugin for iCal.
It is a real pain to have to keep adding alarms to iCal. This does it for you….
very cool!!!
Why is this not built in?

I had a quick play tis afternoon with an unlocked iPhone. Much and all as I am reluctant to buy into the hype (as I see Apple have sold a million of these things in a few weeks!!) it was very nice! Google Earth worked well accessing a local Wifi network and the screen was very clear and sharp.
I would love to see these with 80gb of flash memory …. now that would be a toy REALLY worth having. I have nearly 50gb of podcasts, music, video, photos, etc on my laptop so a 16gb anything is not really much use - however cool and nice it may be.
oh well …. sigh ….. I guess I’ll wait a bit longer. Still a VERY nice device!!
I am told the price point for these puppies will be around $700. This competes very well with smartphones like my Treo. Man this looks like a brick now - lol

Love this from Blue Skunk Blog:

Librarians Are From Venus; Technologists Are From Mars
Head for the Edge, Technology Connection, May 1998

While it has not quite reached the proportions of the famous feuds between the cattle ranchers and sheepherders, there is definitely tension in many schools between the librarians and the technologists. In case you need help, I’ve developed a short field guide to help you tell the difference between the species:

I expect you can add to this brief (facetious) list. The folks I’ve known on whom these descriptions are based are rapidly disappearing from schools. In some schools, their places aren’t be refilled. Classroom teachers, clerks, technicians, or contracted services are doing the daily work that they once did just to keep libraries open and computers working. These are usually cold, benighted places where small children sit in stock still straight lines, waiting in quiet desperation for the next set of worksheets or computer drill. There is little progress being made toward making these schools places where more children are being taught more important skills in more effective ways.

But in other more enlightened schools, a new professional has arisen. Education has not yet established a commonly agreed upon name for this hybrid breed which has taken the best, most professional tasks from the practices of library science and technology. But I’ve these folks in action. For the sake of this little piece, let’s use the name “Educator X.” A field guide for this rare bird might read:

These folks bring to the educational table critical knowledge of the issues of copyright, intellectual freedom, and information literacy. They contribute an understanding of the use and potential uses of networks, educational software, and computerized productivity tools. Educator X has a “whole school” view and works to see that information technologies are integrated into all curricular areas.

Our school is very lucky to have a fabulous library and a great team that develops and supports the programme that evolves and emanates from it. This year a wiki has been developed to support this programme - www.allencentre.wikispaces.com. Check it out

There is a bit of a stouch going on at the moment between Gary Stager and David Warlick. Stephen Downes and others are even wading in.

It has always struck me as ironic that people like Warlick can have 500-600 visits a day to their blogs, laud the value of the tool for ‘conversation’ and then only get a handful of comments. Is this not the epitome of the ’sage on the stage’, one way, top down information transfer … just in a Web2.0 form?
It seems to me there is more self grandisement and rhetoric written in edublogs than about wine, or which car to buy. I am over hearing about which city someone is in or which conference they are presenting at …. etc, etc in their blog. What I do enjoy is the engagement with the ideas and finding new ways of combining old ideas, or even better new ideas and world views. For me this is the value of Web2.0 tools - my professional learning community is expanded. I get to bounce ideas around with people irrespective of time zones and geographic distances. Isn’t this the point?

Blogs and Wikis are often simply very sophisticated ways of presenting a school newsletter or class newspaper. There is nothing wrong with this! Horses for courses …
There are ways of doing things with Web2.0 tools and technology in general that can be VERY time consuming …. we HAVE to ask our selves questions about this:
* is the learning improved to a greater degree than the time spent simply on the tool/presentation method? If the answer is no then how can this be educationally justifiable?
* does the tool effect engagement? Is the effect positive? Who for …all the children? As I have argued before I see much of ICT integration as a learning style issue. ICT/technology is a learning style - hooks some and switches others off (children and adults!)

Don’t get me wrong I certainly believe in the value of these tools but they are certainly NOT a panacea for schools, education or classroom programmes. Just because a class programme includes technology, web2.0 tools etc does not make it inherently of higher quality than one that does not.
It is the quality of things like:
* the engagement of the kids
* the relationships between the teacher and the kids; between the kids themselves
* level of individualisation and personalisation of the learning in the classroom
* who the learners are in the class and school - is it just the children or the adults as well?
* the knowledge the children have about the learning in the classroom? Are they clear about the purpose? The learning intentions? The success criteria?
* the teachers pedagogical and professional content knowledge. Is the teacher able to identify the next small steps for the children’s learning?
* the assessment and feedback process ….

the list goes on…

anyway …. rant over.

I do want one of the new 160gb iPods! ….particularly if the ipodTouch comes out with decent storage.