Month: February 2008

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Wikis – We’re on our way

It’s 2am in the morning and I can’t sleep after my son woke me up. I’ve been lying in bed thinking about all manner of things. Do you remember ‘The Proclaimers’? They were two geeky looking Scottish guys with guitars who wrote a couple of catchy songs that were hits in the 80’s. (Still going strong according to their official site – they’ve even got a myspace page!) I was thinking about Wikis and their song, ‘I’m on my way’, came to mind. The title reflects how I feel about our adoption of Wikis in our School Library. We had pathfinders which were a static page of dewey numbers, keywords, and links that we devised for projects that teachers had set. They were great, but were limited because our Electonic Services Librarian was the only one who could make changes to these pages. They’re so much better now that we’ve started moving them over to Wikis. Now they’re a dynamic collaborative tool and everyone can have input – our Library staff, other teachers and students. Once again, the Lefevers at Commoncraft can explain a Wiki better than I!

I’m working with our Yr 11 Literature class on Monday morning to help them learn how to edit the Wiki our Library has set up for their class. The Wiki has pages for the texts they are studying and each student has their own page to chronicle their reading throughout the course of the year. I’m hoping the students are going to embrace this tool and that other teachers will see the benefits of this for their classes. We’re using PBwiki to create these online spaces and are making them password protected for privacy.

If we get time we may even lift our spirits watching this YouTube video featuring the song ‘I’m on my way’. Maggi137 has cleverly used the song to create a fanvid for the new Doctor Who, David Tennant.  

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School’s out Friday

End of another working week and I’m tired. I work in a wonderful environment with fantastic students, many of whom shared with me their delight over ImprovEverywhere‘s mission at Grand Central Station. So why not enjoy another of their efforts so that we can revel in the chaos and joy they create over our weekend – share it with a friend and double the enjoyment factor! This time they’re at a Home Improvement shop – it was done in August 2006 and you can see how their filming has become more sophisticated when you compare it to Frozen Grand Central.

Enjoy your weekend!  

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Silobreaker – new News Search Engine

Phil Bradley spends a lot of time checking out new offerings in the Web world, so when he starts a post by saying;

It’s not that often that I’ll just sit and work my way through a search engine these days and go ‘ohhh!’

you know that what he’s talking about has gotta be good! This was his reaction to Silobreaker, a news search engine that I think is going to be really useful for both teachers and students. Here’s what the team at Silobreaker say about what they offer;

Silobreaker provides relevance by looking at the data it finds like a person does. It recognises people, companies, topics, places and keywords; understands how they relate to each other in the news flow, and puts them in context for the user. The graphical search results enables users to quickly and easily understand connections, trends and topics or navigate deeper into the most relevant stories for them. No other news search service provides such an extensive suite of contextual tools in the industry today. 

I love the look of the page when you get a search result. It’s highly visual, with extensive use of graphs and maps and YouTube videos embedded in the page. This will appeal to our students who almost baulk at the appearance of copious amounts of text on a page with no pictorial detail which is what our current databases offer. YouTube is blocked at our school, but teachers have access and could use it in classes with data projectors and interactive whiteboards.  

Phil ends his post by saying, “In short, this is a magnificent news  search engine, and has, in a stroke, just blown away the competition.”

Give it a go – I’m going to be using it with my students this year.

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Frozen Grand Central – Brilliant!

I just love this! It’s the work of Improv Everywhere. This is what they have to say about themselves on their blog;

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City.

I love watching and hearing the reactions of bystanders unknowingly experiencing the event. My favourite part is the end, and the spontaneous reaction of the crowd. Ain’t humanity grand.

I can’t wait to find an opportunity to use this with a group of students and see their reactions. You could use it for drama, psychology, or as a writing prompt for a creative writing piece. Watching it reminded me of the Orson Welles radio play of Jules Vernes ‘War of  the Worlds’ in the 1930’s, when unsuspecting listeners who tuned in after the broadcast had begun thought that the Martians had landed and were invading Earth.

The video is posted on YouTube, but you can also find it on their improveverywhere site. It’s worth going there, because they provide background detail about how they set the improvisation up and how it was filmed and recorded. Now they’re going global – they’ve set up a ning – Improv Everywhere Global – where they are encouraging others to join with them around the world to create scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Can’t wait to see where they show up next!

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The empire strikes back!

  

Google has responded to Microsoft’s bid to takeover Yahoo. David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer for Google has posted a response on the Official Google Blog, and they’re not happy.

According to David, Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation. 

He goes on to to say;

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

Could it also be that Google sees the merging of these two companies as a threat to the dominance they now exert over the Web?

I don’t know if we’re seeing a Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader battle here, or if there are any bad guys at all. What will be interesting is what could possibly happen if Microsoft is successful. No doubt new tools to play with and a Google fightback. Interesting times we live in. Thanks to Download Squad and Phil Bradley for alerts to this post.   

*For those who read my previous post -pleased to report car keys found by kind citizen and returned to me today. To Lynne, who did the good deed and refused a reward for her kindness, my hope is that karma comes around and serves you well.

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Rules of Thumb

I was reading a blog recently (can’t remember which one) that referred to the website Rules of Thumb . The site claims you’ll find ‘Every Rule of Thumb on earth in one place.’ I was reminded of this site tonight after my idyllic walk down the beach with the kids and dog all went wrong!

First day of the working week, busy day, hot, humid weather. However, I had cleverly made dinner the night before so had time up my sleeve when I got home. We ate dinner and I suggested we take the dog down the beach for a run. Beautiful warm night, quality time with the kids, dog deliriously happy. What could possibly go wrong. You could lose your car keys on the beach, that’s what could go wrong!

We scanned the beach back and forth to no avail. Had to ring mother from local restaurant to take family and dog home and search for spare key. Thank goodness it was found. Back down to beach to retrieve car.  Writing this blog entry at 11.00pm as a result. Here’s my Rule of Thumb – whenever you think you have time up your sleeve something is going to happen to upset your applecart!

I like this one from the Rules of Thumb site;

Body Language thumb thumb thumb thumb thumb
WATCHING PEOPLE’S SHOULDERS
Genuine emotion is always expressed with the entire body. When uncertain of a person’s sincerity, watch their shoulders. You should doubt anyone who is speaking with strong emotion and relaxed shoulders.

This could be a good site to use with an English class. Students could read the examples and come up with their own – they could then contribute their own Rules of Thumb to the site and experience the thrill of seeing their creation on a webpage.

Off to bed for much needed sleep!

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Cluster maps are cool!

 

 

I’m new to this blogging game and don’t know everything I think I need to know in order to write this blog effectively. I’ve been looking at other people’s blogs and am really impressed with the Cluster Maps appearing on pages indicating where visitors to their blog are from. A cluster map is not one of the available widgets that you can select for your sidebar on a wordpress blog, so I typed ‘Cluster map widget’ into Google and found the site ClustrMaps. You register for a map and the site provides you with HTML code that you can put into your blog to enable the Cluster Map to appear. That’s all well and good, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where to put the code! Back to the Google drawing board.

I did a natural language search through Google by typing in ‘How do I embed a cluster map into a wordpress blog?’ (Google is getting so much better at finding what you need through a natural language search – no wonder they’re blitzing all other search engines) One of the results was Dianne Clancy’s Art Blog which contained very specific instructions about how to set it up. Here’s what Dianne had to say;

If you use widgets, login to your admin panel. Then go to “Presentation” to “Widgets.” Widgets will be on the line underneath Presentations after you choose Presentations.

Look to see if you have a “text” widget under “Available Widgets.” If you do not see a text widget that is there, go further down the page to “Text Widgets” and choose one or more text widgets. Then click “save.”

Grab one of the “text” widgets under “Widgets Available.” Drag it to the “Sidebar.” Double click the little icon on the top right with a blue bar and a couple of black lines underneath it. It will open into a box that you can put the info into. If you want, there is a place for a title – like “Cluster Map” or “Stats.” Then in the larger box underneath the title, paste the code for you Cluster Map. Then close the box with a click onto the “X” on the upper right.

To the right of the “Sidebar,” across the work space, there is Save Changes” – click on that. Alternatively, underneath “Available Widgets”, on the the right, is “Save Changes” – click on that.

Then … ta da!!! Go the “View Site” (next to the name of your blog) and see how gorgeous your map looks.  It will be empty for now, but soon your little red dots will start to show up as we all coming visiting you!!

I followed Dianne’s instructions and now have a natty little cluster map on my blog. I just need lots of visitors now to fill it up with little red dots! Thanks Dianne. Another wonderful thing about the world of blogging – the sharing nature of the network.

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Breaking news – Microsoft proposal to buy Yahoo!

Download Squad has just posted a report suggesting that Microsoft has proposed to purchase all Yahoo outstanding shares. Here’s what Microsoft have to say in their press release;

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) today announced that it has made a proposal to the Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion. Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

There’s been talk for a number of years now that Microsoft has been pumping millions into the development of a search engine that would tip Google off the top of the mount. Perhaps they’ve decided now to acquire the next best thing, Yahoo, and see what they can do with this platform that has the brand association they need.  If they are successful, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them infuse Yahoo with new tools they may have in development that would give Google a run for their money. Here’s what Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft has said;

 “The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.”

I think Google has Microsft running scared with the introduction of Google Docs and Spreadsheets etc. Interesting times we live in – can’t wait to see how things unfold.

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School’s out Friday

Here it is – the end of another working week. Time for another School’s out Friday post. This one is a bit of a blatant plug for my cousin’s son’s band White Summer.  They’re three young guys trying to cut a break in the Australian music industry. This is another of the things I love about YouTube – it gives aspiring young artists a platform to showcase what they can do. White Summer are the opening act at the Chillisland music festival this weekend where they will be supporting The John Butler Trio among others. Enjoy the weekend and chill out listening to ‘Ragdoll’. 

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Here’s Bella

Bella

I recently wrote a post about our new arrival, Bella. Here she is – I can’t capture her looking at her most adorable with her front legs crossed. Every time I see her looking like that and I approach with a camera, she jumps up to give me another enthusistic greeting!