Wikispaces Classroom
Many schools have learning management systems & social learning platforms – both commercial and free. Edmodo has proved popular at our school, due to its ease of use (often thought of as “Facebook for schools”). Some teachers use it ahead of the departmentally supplied LMS. http://www.edmodo.com/
Wikispaces recently announced its new free platform for education: Wikispaces Classroom.
“Wikispaces Classroom is a social writing platform for education. We make it incredibly easy to create a classroom workspace where you and your students can communicate and work on writing projects alone or in teams. Rich assessment tools give you the power to measure student contribution and engagement in real-time. Wikispaces Classroom works great on modern browsers, tablets, and phones”. It also incorporates a social news feed feature so that teachers and students can see what is happening in the learning space. http://www.wikispaces.com/content/classroom/about
See examples: http://blog.wikispaces.com/2013/04/announcing-wikispaces-classroom.html
How to – videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hS8iJYnFFE
Google Glass
Lots of tech people have recently trialled Google Glass, which won’t be generally available till next year. Apps (which must be free with no ads) are currently being developed by various companies to make Google Glass an intriguing & useful item of wearable technology.
Google Glass eyewear is a small glass screen above the right eye and a right arm that contains a trackpad that you can tap. It has 16GB of storage, Bluetooth & a 5MB camera. Bone audio technology allows the wearer to hear audio with no headphones (soundwaves go through cheekbones into the inner ear). You can give voice commands eg. “OK, Glass, take a picture” or use the trackpad. You can view emails etc in front of your eyes on the screen or ask for directions. You wake the glasses up by tilting your head upwards. Apparently the screen doesn’t obscure the line of vision. But there are privacy issues – people may not know they are being filmed or spied on! Cost $1500 – that will reduce. Don’t get ready to barcode a class set for the library just yet
Excellent 3 min. video: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-glass-googles-wearable-gadget/story?id=19091948
Physics teacher uses Google Glass to take his online students on a virtual excursion to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRrdeFh5-io
YouTube to launch paid subscription channels
Free-to-air TV and the main channels are certainly facing more competition each year from online video sources & IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), both free & subscription. Netflix will probably be here within 2 years. YouTube will soon offer some paid premium content – users will be able to subscribe to 50 exclusive channels that will have TV shows & films.
http://www.digital-media.net.au/news/digital/youtube-to-launch-paid-subscription-channels
http://www.iptv.com.au/how-to-get-iptv/
YouTube vs TV? The battle is already over
YouTube: 1 billion unique visitors each month. YouTube means more engagement than TV – it is the future.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8625482/YouTube-says-battle-with-TV-is-already-over
10 top time-saving tech tips
10 simple tips for computer, web, smartphone and camera users.
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_pogue_10_top_time_saving_tech_tips.html