Module 8- RSS feeds -Bright Light City - Adventures of the Hills kind!

'Bright light city 'gonna' set my soul, 'gonna' set my soul on fire!!
My thoughts as I travelled into the neon lights of the suburb of salvation! The sun set, the street lights came on and I was mesmerised by the highlighted arrows pointing to an array of options - The Hillsong Convention Centre this way, The Adventist Church/Hospital turn right, The Christian School turn left, Destiny Church up ahead, The Hills Community Christian Church this way- I was on the righteous path - (a.k.a. visiting friends in their new home in the hills district)

So I wondered - what brought the church going masses out this way?
Was it the bright lights, the social interaction, the happy sing-song carefree worship all round family entertainment on a Saturday night/Sunday morning or was it really the food and the wine that drew the crowds?

I decided to compare Saturday night options via RSS feeds. The righteous path - Brian and Bobbie Houston from Hillsong vs The Barmans' righteous Saturday night.

A 'Hills Saturday night' according to Brain and Bobbie 'Hillsong Conference planning meeting: So much new innovation, holy moments, powerful elements.. People coming from all corners!' (edited) and 'Hillsong Music has always been an expression from the heart and soul of this House. The songs that have come from this church and been sung all over the world are a testimony to God’s grace in our church'
vs the Barman's music review site reviewing the Saturday night Hitmen 30th Birthday Bash at the Sandringham Hotel -' There was singing in the crowd (JK doing his walk amongst the masses and true believers (edit)), dancing on tables (JK again, although not as spectacularly tonight as when he was carried on tabletop through a teary-eyed audience at a packed Annandale Hotel), and the obligatory Elvis cover (“Suspicious Minds”, performed with now not so little brother Sammy Kannis) while the band powered on.'

Lets look at the common links: paying punters, true believers, singing from the crowds, dancing, tears, celebration, food, wine (?)......and I know where I was on that particular Saturday night!

Back in the classroom and RSS reviewing, I can see some good uses for both teachers (like Dr O'Shea and his Cardinal Pell update) and student use especially feeds for current affairs and economic and business news. It would be good to review the use or continued need for a RSS subscription after teaching a particular unit as a delicious tag to the site might suffice.
For teaching staff- lets review staff development- wouldn't it be good if online newsletters provided a RSS subscription (e.g. e-teaching newsletter) so that only interested/ relevant parties need subscribe and be notified when new posts are published.

So now the question? What RSS feeds do you subscribe to?

Module 7 - Delicious - The great souvlaki tag!

When I first saw the title 'delicious' I wondered about the great merger between Web 2.0 and food? Similarly I too pondered a similar thought about great mergers the last time I went to Church. Let me elaborate.

It was a compulsory Sunday Liturgy for my son's school. The church holding around 600 was standing room only and the cast overflowed down the stairs and into the streets - to listen to the dolcit tones of the grecian chants through the loudspeakers- just so you wouldn't miss anything. (The neighbours must just love Sundays- that and the parking issues..)

Now for the great merger....as the loudspeaker chanting commenced prior to 9am, and the congregation filtered up the main steps and 'muscled' their way into prime positions near windows and doors, there were papou's 'muscling' in to set up their souvlaki stands complete with barbeques alongside of the church to cater for the hungry church-going masses- and further up the street there were stands with home-made yia yia's kourumbethes, sweets and of course bread.

By 11am the crowds flocked - and rightly so - who wouldn't go to church when you can purchase lunch at the same time - the queues both in the church for communion rivaled that for the souvlaki stands outside. I'm not just talking buy one souvlaki to eat now as a reward for good Sunday behaviour, instead church folk were buying enough to take home and feed the whole family complete with bread rolls/ packets of pita to match!!
And now wait for it - the priests came outside with the collection plates, down the stairs, (yes the crowd parted) through the queues and up the souvlaki line - 'if you've got money for souvlaki- you've certainly got money for the church plate-and who's going to argue with the serious bearded men in black? The great merger- win, win for everyone!

Imagine the delicious tags for the barbeque kings and their sharing of favourite sites - any computer, any time? the best way to cook souvlaki? the use of homegrown lemons and oregano from the garden vs supermarket- check out my similar interests - greek dancing, bazooki music, ERT greek channel and best tips for growing tomatoes in the front garden...priceless....

In the classroom, delicious (it's a bookmarking site) would be great for students to use to share favourite sites especially when researching. We all know it takes time to trawl and find student friendly sites using appropriate language and if the teacher can start this off using specific tags and the students can then share with each other- a great collaborative way to research and share resources. The students still have to synthesize the information and structure their writing to match requested criteria.

Similarly from a teaching perspective, we share ideas, books, DVD's, workshop notes etc so now with the increased use of internet sites to assist in lesson preparation to engage and challenge students- this is another way to share resources with colleagues and vise versa and save time doing it!

Don't forget you can always tag a few 'fav' recipe sites- remember the great merger- who can work on an empty stomach?

Module 5 - Podcasts/Vodcasts-The Virtual Teacher (and student?)

I've had a hard night of family drama's - changing bed linen at 10-30 pm as a result of an ongoing stomach virus that reared it's ugly vomiting head across the doona of my 6 year old certainly was not on my list of things to do this evening. It seemed my two year old never wanting to miss out on all the fun decided to join in and suddenly the 'quiet' household was a pumping nightclub of activity. I just needed yia-yia and papaou to join in with the podcast download of bazooki music and a few ' hopah's and away we go!!
The hustle and bed time bustle resulted in a no-show for work the next day- however- if I was forward planning ahead (other then the emails and 7am telephone calls outlining my textbook task for year 9 as opposed to their database activity in pre-booked computer labs) I would have indicated to them to go to SOLE and upload the podcast for that lesson.

'Good Morning year 9' - (can you imagine their faces? they look around- look at each other quizzically) 'That's right boys- I'm not here, but Geography can always prevail in difficult times- now for that database procedure...'
I could have (and I say 'could have' because only after reading and exploring podcasts and vodcasts do these ideas come to mind) recorded the task using mp3 mics and then uploaded the podcast to the school's intranet.
Imagine their faces - initial (insert big smile) 'great- she's away- bludge time! to 'oh no....she's away but not really away..... or would they even notice?
Add in a video and edit (audacity / movie maker) and the question arises..'do I really need to be at school at all?' Could I not pre-plan all my lessons, video edit them and upload them and the students just download them to access each task - Perhaps the students do not need to attend at all if they can do this from their own home- a bit like virtual school of the air or online uni- studies?
So many questions and possibilities.

Anyway my next task is to try out the podcasting with my year 6 ICT class. They are completing research on a famous world leader as part of their HSIE studies. One option for research delivery is to conduct an interview in pairs with their world leader.
I plan on them recording the interview (MP3) and then editing their work using movie maker. We have edited clips using movie maker prior in the junior school (and the boys have loved it) but not with the boys doing their own voice-over recordings. I think they would enjoy both the recording and the subsequent editing.
If we can video their interviews (as opposed to editing stills), insert background music, add transitions it would make a fantastic and engaging end result. I'll keep you posted!

Don't you love you-tube! - Year 9 Geography Community Studies

Flickr - Module 4- The Bingle Bungle!

So now we all know what happened to poor Lara Bingle....she needn't have employed Max Fevola to scout out women's mags to download THAT photo...she should have saved herself the hassle and the agent's fee (obviously recouped in story cash for splash) and just downloaded it herself in a public photostream like flickr.
I must say though if you weren't inclined to play around with the application and wade through the FAQ's then do employ an agent-or send a message to your friendly helpdesk- it might just save the hour or three to link it to your blog!
The application may have some uses for linking photos to school's websites to show the interested community facets of school life they they may not ordinarily see or be able to attend first hand. It could be used to showcase a range of activities from sporting, to performing arts, to the progress on new building projects.
Would I use it in the classroom personally? - I don't think so- however I think the students themselves would enjoy sharing their photos and adding them to their own blogs or journals which would generate interest. Additionally, photos diaries would be good to view progress over time.
In regards to copyright, I suggest if you don't want it in a public forum then simply don't post it!

see my house? its way up there!

see my house? its way up there!
Originally uploaded by jtzakos

I wish.....

Check out my boat....no the OTHER one!

Check out my boat....no the OTHER one!
Originally uploaded by jtzakos

So we can link photos to blogs...it took a bit of playing around but finally we have it...Now anyone for a day out?

bubbl.us or 'boggl.us?' Module 6

Ok - lets make this quite clear in the intro - yes- I skipped over modules 4 and 5 so I could use bubbl.us application sooner rather then later with my trusty year 9 recipients aka year 9 guinea pigs. (and yes, I do intend to go back and complete the modules so I can continue to share my e-learning adventures with you - my followers.... )

Well, I gave bubbl.us a go at home. ( it's a mind-mapping application) I thought I might map out all the options for my morning prior to 8am. With this in mind I signed in, created my parent bubble and wow the number of child offspring was truly amazing. I am still awaiting the 'New Idea' editors phone call because really I should be more in demand then 'octo-mum'.

My 'child' bubbl. increased from 2 to 'way too many'. My options included - coffee, wake children and/or stop them from fighting and/ or watching t.v.(more sibling bubbl's here), organise breakfast, get them dressed, me too, make various lunches with (insert sibling bubbl.here- range of snack foods appropriate to the healthy food pyramid - quick there's protest- insert new child bubbl., pack school bags, library bags, sports bags, my bag, quickly throw in a load of washing, discuss with yia-yia what is for dinner tonight, tomorrow night, next week, next name day (if you have greek parents insert bubbl. for smile and head nodding)...phew...all this before 8am? So far bubbl.us = chaos

With another coffee and a clearer head I thought I would try it out on my year 9 geography class. The task: to bubbl.us a mind map on factors affecting community change. We started and they did great. They brainstormed many ideas and linked them to their community study. They were keen and made many bubbl's and loved blowing up the unnecessary ones - that little animation is truly attention grabbing. The boys were after email addresses to share their work with others and they loved the visual organisation of ideas. The downside comments from the boys was that they couldn't change font style and organise text as freely as in other applications. There was also a time-lag in saving work.

I would love to continue to say that the task was hiccup free but alas....
In the second lesson (yes we did need two) the boys attempted to upload their sheet and unfortunately this took 20 minutes - so much time the gloss wore off the new application and they demonstrated an obvious preference for 'flight simulator' then 'bubbl.us'.
So obviously new applications are great to use however remote servers and connectivity remains an issue for reliability and lesson coherence.

At this stage we changed tact and opened up a microsoft word document and inserted an organisational chart. The same result without the headache.
Stay tuned for comments on glogster!