Easy to set up and run. Just need to refresh often so you can see the posts.

To use SideWiki you need to install the browser toolbar, at least this is the easiest way.  Plus you need a google profile so if you have a Gmail, Google Reader aor Google Calendar then you are already in their system.  SideWiki also sports highlighting tools that work similar to tools in Diigo.  This service has the potential for use in my practice as it would eliminate my learner’s needs for one online account.  They already have google accounts for Calendar and Reader, so this functionality of SideWiki would neagte the need for a Diigo account.  Unfortunate for Diigo.

When I installed the browser toolbar, I noticed a button titled “Bookmarks.”  Never even knew they existed, but the bookmarking is private and therefore of no use to me.  So I will keep my Diigo account, which automatically exports to Delicious where students (or anyone) can search my bookmarks and I can generate RSS feeds fro import into learner Google Reader accounts or my BlackBoard virtual classrooms.

One thing that does worry me about SideWiki is the potential mess of comments and annotations for a web page.  When you load the sidewiki for a page you’ll see what Google determines is the most relevant comments.  However there is function to search comments so if I want learner’s to respond to my comments they will search for my username.  But this means sidewiki may not be the place for my learners’ to post a response.  A great tool though to assist in organisation of their research.

So at this early stage I believe Google SideWiki will become part of my teaching toolkit.  I look forward to further exploration of its potential.

Communication, conversation and collaboration (3Cs):

As messy as this looks, any attempt to describe it in one go would be even messier, but here is an attempt.  Essentially my students receive and transmit information with a range of media.  I spend significant time teaching them how to gather the information in a manageable manner so they can sort and select as they desire.  This wouldn’t be possible without tags.  As a group we bookmark resources and assign pre-determined tags.  I have previously developed the RSS feeds of searches that retrieve any updated or new bookmarks with that tag.  There are RSS feeds that I add to in a Learning Place Project Room, they set up their RSS catchers (I encourage Google Reader) to retrieve these feeds.  Typically I compile a separate feed for each unit of work. Conversations (asynchronous) occur using media devices, mobile phones, posting or emailing to transmit and transfer.  Chat rooms and discussion forums are used intermittently as the need arises.

In the next unit of work with my year 12s I will be facilitating them searching for and retrieving RSS feeds of relevant information.  I will purposely not search for these beforehand, instead relying on my students ability to judge the validity of information.  What I have not done at this point, is show them RSS for audio or video.  All of them use iTunes, so one suspects it would be a simple process.

In this next unit, my students will be required to consistently blog.  I have not had this focused attention on blogging before – allowing students to choose their method of information flow.  However I have a plan in mind.  I’m not yet sure of the finer details, but definitely think it is a workable possibility.  As the exam, I want my students to blog a response.  This response would then be accessed by invited guests who will comment and question as they see appropriate.  I’m thinking I’d like the responses to include links to further information (potentially oppositional viewpoints).  The students would then need to submit a subsequent blogpost that addressed the comments and questions with reference to the original post.

Is this a suitable examination proceudre?  I think so, just need to nut out the details.

Firstly, I set my students up with portable FireFox on their USB memory stick or in a folder on their network storage.  Portable FireFox allows me to install two essential addons for research; Zotero and FoxIt Toolbar.  I have blogged about Zotero previously, and have recorded podcasts on both of these tools also.

I will gather a range of resources for research.  Using the FoxIt toolbar in FireFox, I can annotate and highlight PDF files.  If I then choose to “Save As”, all markups will be maintained.  I use this to add in bookmarks and highlights for important information.  When students open the file, they can quickly navigate to what I consider important information within the document.

As an extension to this concept, when students are working on group projects, they can markup their research individually or collaboratively.  If it is a web page they wish to markup, they simply print using PDF Creator and save the page as a PDF file.  Then they open the file in FireFox and markup.

Zotero allows them to create collections of resources, which can include webpages and PDF files.  This ensures wherever they are using Portable FireFox they can access their research.

If I build a collection in Zotero, I can export it as a file with attachments, and then distribute that to my students.  They simply import the collection into their Zotero and they have my collection ready to go.  This is also useful when they share research with each other.  Simply export the collection and share.

Zotero can also publish a bibliography.  Users need to ensure the information is recorded in the Zotero reference section, but this function enables accurate bibliographies.

And best of all, these tools are free.

Enable student research, and you can enable student achievement.

If you would rather watch this as a screencast, please refer to my wiki.

This post will focus on the iPod Touch.  I own one, and this is the one I use in class.  This will be a very different context to those teachers who are fortunate enough to have multiple items, however I believe the applications and their utilisation could translate.  Please be aware as you read, these are the applications I use and they may be alternate applications in existence.  All the apps I use are free (or at least I installed them on a promotional offer), which means there may be more functional applications in the repository.  Also, I generally use this in the absence of a wireless internet connection.  Where functionality requires wireless internet I swill mention it in the review.

One obvious use is access to podcasts relevant to the learning context within the class.  Access to these is a repetitive searching process to ensure a stream of media, however there are podcasts that can deliver a constant stream of useful media.  For me, one such podcast is the TED talks.  They are fantastic for inspiration, motivation and discussion.  Due to the range of topics that are presented in the TED talks, I believe a teacher could find at least one relevant to their context.  Alternatively, teachers (or students) could produce media that is exported to the iPod Touch as alternate learning.  I have successfully done this with tutorial videos and videos as stimulus for a response.

If stimuli is placed on the iPod Touch, I like to have a method for student response to be directly input to the device.  There are a number of applications available to enable this.  Firstly, there is the standard pre-installed “Notes” application.  Students could create a new note and type their response to the stimulus in.  If writing input is preferred, “Writepad” allows this.  Writepad can even convert handwriting to typed text.  Alternatively, voice input can be achieved with Griffin iTalk among others.  You will need to have a microphone to utilise this in the iPod Touch.  If you install the iTalk Sync program on your computer, you can move recordings from the iPod Touch to the computer over a wireless connection.

Sometimes, written or verbal responses don’t encourage the artistic or createive desires in our students.  For this purpose they could build a response in “Flipbook Lite” which is a stick animation program.  Alternatively, students could create a concept map in SimpleMindX.

For general reference and retrieval, I’ve installed “Dictionaire” – a simple dictionary.  I’m unsure of the extent of its database but I am yet to ask it a word it does not have a definition for.  I’ve also installed “TouchCalc” – an enhanced calculator and “GraphCalc” – a graphing calculator.  “MultiConvert” performs conversions in a range of categories, and “The Chemical Touch Lite” provides a range of information for the elements in the periodic table.  The standard pre-installed “Clock” and the enhanced “LabTimer” cater for all my time calculation needs.  “iTrain” contains an extensive database of exercises, including instructional animations – especially useful for us HPE teachers.

A couple of applications, using the concept of flashcards, are great for memory testing.  Where possible, I direct the students to create the flashcards as revision or quizzes for each other. “iFlipr Lite” has a bank of flashcard sets in its online storage – these can be downloaded over a wireless connection.  “gFlash+” uses Google Spreadsheets as an input for its card sets, therefore they can be created by anyone.  Often the creation of the flashcard set is a much greater pedagogical exercise than using the flashcard set.

The two most often used applications for me are “Calendar” and “Evernote”.  I sync Calendar to my Google calendars, which is where I do my planning for class.  It will automatically sync over my wireless when I am at home, however the details are available even when offline.  Evernote will also automatically sync when a wireless connection is available.  I use evernote on the iPod Touch primarily for input, which can be typed, voice or photo.  I am starting to enjoy using evernote in combinatio with SimpleMindX.  Create a mindmap in SimpleMindX, save it to the camera roll, then import into evernote.

Each of these applications allow me to use the iPod Touch in class to enable learning outside of a wireless connection.  The inclusion of this device in my class has certainly increased the engagement of some students who prefer to use it.  I have also downloaded some games that require thinking, and these are permitted to be used outside of class time or in a designated “your learning” time in class.  These games are “Scramble” – a word find game, “BrainTuner Lite” – a braintraining game, and “Tiki Lite” – a problem solving game.

I hope this breif overview of a number of apps provides some insight into their pedagogical application.

1. Laptops
1a. Lenovo R400 – Employer provided. This laptop has the managed operating environment installed and includes organisation wide software installations. This software includes MS Office, Paint.net, Irfanview. and Audacity.  It is built to connect to the corporate network (either wired or wireless).

I have installed further software that I use. My software of choice is all open source, to demonstrate accessibility to learners. My list of must have software includes; VLC media player (plays anything), FireFox (the web browser IMO), Filezilla (FTP), Kompozer (web authoring), ZScreen & Camstudio (screen capture).

1b. HP Compaq – MOE environment installed, plus every tool I’m likely to use to process learning objects, images, video and sound.  This is generally what I refer to as my processing workhorse – it does all the hard work I need.  As it has the MOE environment, I also take it to class to be used as another computer.

1c. Asus EeePC with Linux OS. I use this to increase awareness of learners to options other than what my employing organisation decides to expose them to. I’ve trialled a few distros (Xandros, EeeXubuntu, gOS, Easy Peasy) however the programs installed remain the same – OpenOffice, Audacity.

1d – 1f. 3 other laptops with MOE installed (1 x HP Compaq, 1 x Acer Aspire, 1 x Acer Travelmate).  Used for general access.

2. iPod Touch. I use this more as a standalone device in class – iTalkr for voice recording, Evernote for note taking, Notes for students to leave me notes, cable for video output, dictionaries and calculators.

3. Mobile phone (currently Nokia 6120). Even a low end phone such as this can be used for image, video and voice capture. I utilise Bluetooth to transfer files to and from learners.

4. Digital camera to record/capture learning moments. I don’t know the model off hand at the moment but it is a 6 megapixel job that cost less than $100.  Uses an SD card which all my laptops can read.

5. Digital voice recorder for capturing audio. Specifically I wanted one that had easy transfer via USB. Many cheaper ones require line in recording to transfer the file to a computer. This is a Sony ICD-P620.

6. Range of memory storage, including the portable office blogged about previously. Cables to enable data transfer from variety of tools.

Except for the 3 extra laptops (1d – 1f), I carry all of this in a backpack (yes, its a little heavy), which allows me to work anywhere in the school.  When needed I carry the extra 3 laptops in a laptop briefcase.  None of these items require connection to power during lesson time so I am truly portable.  What I have witnessed with students acceptnace and use of these can be summed in by two old sayings:

1) You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

2) If you build it, they will come.

If I simply take these to class, students still don’t access them or engage with them.  However if I create the learning environment where they see opportunity for access through choice, they respond and access the technology readily.  This reinforces to me something I have long believed in – it is the pedagogy that matters, not the tools.  Knowing this, I can create and manage the environment that results in student engagement with all of these tools to enable and encourage learning.

I recently conducted a professional development session where mobile phones was a focus of mLearning.  I blogged about this here. To encourage particpants to explore the possibilities further I created a Web jog (using Jog The Web).  In my original post I did not provide a link to this, with apologies I post it here now.

Possible uses of mobile phones in education.

First, some context.  Within my organisation students are restricted to the standardised computer image, where only IE is installed.  Within IE, students cannot bookmark a favourite (who made that decision!).  However, portable applications can be run.  I will use this functionality to have students set up a browsing system that will enable their research instead of hinder it.

Barrier #1 – students will need to provide a USB.  Won’t need to be big, but still a purchase if they don’t have one already.

The personal research assistant looks like this:

1. Portable Mozilla Firefox – Firefox allows extensions to be installed, and the extensions provide the assistance I am blogging about.
2. Zotero – this add on is an essential for me.  It allows the user to create collections of resources, and then tag any number of sites within.  You can store additional notes, pics, text.  Where available, Zotero will automatically read and store bibliographical information.
3. Google notebook – there are other more effective note taking options out there, but Google Notebook add on within FireFox is more than satisfactory for my learners.  They can always research others and include them later if they so desire.
4. Diigo Toolbar – As I’ve posted previously, Diigo is awesome for research, and the sharing of research.  The toolbar allows it to be done easily from withi the browser.
5. Essential bookmark #1 Bib Me – build a bibliography, formatted and ready to go.
6. Essential bookmark #2 Class Portal – this is essentially the public netvibes space I’ve set up for the class.  This is the starting point / launch pad for all our internet activity.

Barrier #2 – Browsing the add-ons section of the mozilla firefox site is filtered at the school level, therefore relying on students following instructions at home or on an unfiltered machine. Zotero and Diigo can be installed from the linked sites, external to the FireFox add on centre.

I believe this will establish an enabled research experience for my learners, with the added bonus of portability.

I was pleasantly surprised when contacted by the developer who raced off to create an edublog then proceed to configure lifecast. Less than 10 minutes later and I am blogging this from my iPod Touch!

This opens up a whole range of teaching and learning ideas for me. Yay lifecast.

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