Personal Identity & Your Online Persona (or – Don’t get pwn’d)

July 18, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 1 Comment

“This post was written by Di Bedard”

On Thursday, July 16th I had the pleasure of chatting with my Edublog colleagues and lead a discussion about “Personal Identity and Your Online Persona”

While I’ve blogged about this topic in the past, I’ll post the up-to-date version of my comments here, along with the links to all the tools I use….

If you have tools and ideas to add to this discussion, you can catch me on Twitter : windsordi

Enjoy!
Di

——————–

I’m starting with some basic assumptions…

  • you *are* online
  • you have an email account
  • you *may* use online conveniences [banking, income tax, savings bonds, passport]
  • you *may* use online services [paypal, ebay, iTunes]
  • you *may* engage socially [twitter, facebook, skype, chat, wiki, blog]
  • someone you associate with owns a digital camera [you've been tagged - did you know??]
  • someone you know uses twitter, facebook, skype … and mentions you.

So… even if you *think* you are not known virtually… you are.

Social networking and photo sites make it easy to find someone’s image online, even if it was meant to be kept private. Public comments on blogs, discussion groups, and listservs are also archived and searchable.

Research done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in back in 2007 (when social media was just starting to catch on) noted that:

  • Many companies, agencies and organizations keep online databases that lists names, addresses, and phone numbers.These are the data points uploaded to the internet as a matter of course, along with other public records like home sales, court records, and newspaper accounts.
  • Layered on top of these publicly available sources are proprietary databases containing information such as cell phone numbers and political affiliations.
  • And did you know that the five most popular search engines routinely archive your search terms, your computer’s address, and the unique identifier for your Web browser for up to 18 months? This information is intended for marketing and statistical research, and is not intended to be publicly accessible… but it is not secure.

[ BTW - The Canadian Privacy Commissioner has cited four problems with the way Facebook manages users' personal data. ]

PEW identifies this as your …
Passive Digital Footprint: this is Personal data made accessible online with no deliberate
intent or intervention from an individual.

So let’s talk about your digital identity….

I used to try to avoid a digital trail, to lurk and go unnoticed… so a lot of my accounts used aliases and avatars.I never posted any pictures, commented on others blogs…. but eventually I realized I had no control over others (and cameras are everywhere now), and other people and organizations were posting and blogging about me……
So now I selectively post the kinds information and images I hope will fairly represent me… (though a small .PNG file of my windsordi avatar is still most likely how you’ll see me as it’s well known and easily reusable file)

As an educator, I have embraced the concept of Open Sharing and Learning thanks to solid teaching and modelling by fine folk in my PLN. Instead of trying to *hide my assets*, I have learned to *share but be digitally aware*. I track my digital footprint, I take care with passwords and I regularly review my digital reputation and identity.

First stop on the journey…

Can you avoid all this digital identity stuff?

The short answer is NO. … no more than you can avoid using the internet. Services and business are now online, … my provincial government expects to serve me online through web services, and indeed it is almost impossible to not be offered virtual contact as the primary point of contact, with some secondary, grudging possible options for a *real life* person.

How fast is this moving? An excellent brief review of the current Forrester research in this area is provided by Jeremiah Owyang in his business blog

So.. you have to function here… can you be private about it?

MAYBE… but remember – others won’t be;
Using twitterfriends -

  • anyone can see who you talk to
  • and, of course, who they talk with… and “share” you with

Using twittersheep -

  • even the reputations of company you keep is public
  • and I’m not even going to start on photo sharing and Facebook – that’s another entire session!

Remember – the social tools expect that you have “connectedness”. – once you start to participate in the social media it is *amazing* sphere of influence and interaction you can add to you teaching and learning strategies.

So:
Just like you carefully built and nurtured your financial and credit rating during your teen and early adult years; Just like you built your professional accreditation and reputation; Now it’s time to build your online reputation and social credibility.

Nothing to be afraid of – just some practical steps.

People’s screen names have become like a secondary identification… thus I am as well known (or even more so) as “windsordi” as I am as Diane Bédard. Both these identities need regular checks…

PEW identifies this as your …
Active Digital Footprint:

  • This is Personal data made accessible online through deliberate posting or sharing of information by the user.

There are tools that know who you are (HINT: use them yourself!)

Let’s talk tech for a moment… how do these tools work?
How do sites know about you?… the key words *microformats*, *RDF* and *FOAF*

Microformats are the unseen bits and pieces that any site provides to enrich the content being presented. RDF and RDFa are ways of repurposing the visible content on screen… and FOAF – which stands for friend of a friend, is the way your connections get tracked and linked.

All this information may not even be visible to you on the site… but it is there, it can be scraped, and there are tools to view it and collect it. Don’t be afraid of it – be aware of it. Use it yourself.

There are browser add-ons or toolbars that allow you to easily see the microformat data on the page – and to see how quickly the information can be collected and shared.

So lets see how it works…
If you go to my Twitter profile – (https://twitter.com/windsordi)
and have the OPERATOR toolbar active (a semantic web toolbar) the Contacts tab will light up and reveal the contact names of everyone I chat with…

Another great semantic tool is IDENTIFY ( an RDFa plugin) -
The information and directions are at: Identify: Google People With Two Keystrokes -
The actual IDENTIFY browser plugin is at:
http://lab.madgex.com/identify/

Google makes good use of the microformat data and is very efficient at aggregating it into a user profile. Here’s my google identity.

Why it matters – your Online Reputation and YOUR Credibility

Not a horror story approach, but rather an awareness that digital hijacking is possible.. be aware that your reputation can be pwn’d.

  1. Why, When & How to Protect Your Brand Online – This article summarizes what can happen when your online identity get taken… remember… this is your reputation… you are your own “brand…”
  2. A Guide to Protecting Your Online Identity – This site provides a clear, simple to follow list of steps to Protecting Your Online Identity
  3. KnowEm checking service – There are several good services to assist you with digital identity checking – here’s one

You can easily check your user name and see who *else* is presenting as *you* -

  1. Site Connectivity - to see how your sites are connected… and which sites claim to be you (bottom section) but can’t be validated (these are the ones you likely want to check out) http://socialgraph-resources.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/findyours.htmlFriends Call Me – (free) Call Me offers the ability to check usernames across more than 150 sites.
  2. namechk – (free) Namechk checks username availability across 122 sites.

… and the most basic of all – Google yourself or Bing yourself!

You may be surprised at the pages of information about you… and see some things unexpected. I have found my Flick’r pictures in use a number of other sites!

The Wrong Way – The Right Way

  • too many logons and passwords to remember?
  • letting the browser or computer *remember me*?
  • use the same password EVERYWHERE?
  • have stickie notes stuck to your monitor?
  • using Obvious security questions?
  • actually told the truth about your birthday?
  • flagged or pinned your home location on a map?

let’s talk password management and levels of logon…

the concept of having an identity management system is not new…companies have been trying to own this space:
1999 Microsoft “passport” (now Windows Live ID)
2008 “Facebook Connect”
2009 “Sign in with Twitter”

[Note: see a comparison of these last two.]
You need to understand how these services operate and then use something that fits your online style.

What is OpenID? -

OpenID is a way of identifying yourself no matter which web site you visit – an account creation tool and a logon option where you choose how much web sites get to know about you. You do NOT have to provide all the personal detail some sites think they have the right to ask. Two great, easy-to-read sites explain the concept…

How to get an OpenID?

Surprise! You may already have one. If you use any of the following services, you already have your own OpenID… http://openid.net/get/

I’d highly recommend using a PIP – Personal Identity Portal
Many of the sites which have morphed their logon into an OpenID authentication, but I prefer to work with a third party site which is concerned for the authenticity . Verisign – one of the trusted names on the net for server certification now offers a personal certificated OpenID service
https://pip.verisignlabs.com/1click_howtouse.do

Where can you use your openID?

http://openiddirectory.com/ Many sites now offer this as a logon alternative. If your social media site doesn’t, use their “contact us” link and ask why not! Remember – have different levels of *you* – you can have different openIDs for different levels of risk. One for your open sharing social media sites… another one for serious interactions or purely professional logons. Remember that this virtual persona will accumulate all the microformats bits of data into a viewable ID, so separate your life into private/family VS professional compartments.

I’ve been asked how to replace the current crop of sloppy passwords at existing sites, with the new, clean OpenID. There is no easy answer here – yet. Some sites will let you reset completely, but most just allow new passwords, not new user logons unless you are willing to lose all your accumulated data and start fresh. You’ll have to decide for yourself where to cut loose. But trust me – you will be joining new sites and signing on for new online services… from now on, vow to stay clean with one OpenID.

Is this OpenID any safer than a strong password? No – if you are casual with the logon to the site you use as your OpenID and stick it to your monitor, then you are at as much risk as before. You still have to be responsible with your data. You still have to start with one STRONG password. There’s just a lot less to have to remember.

[HINT: a STRONG password is a minimum of eight characters, contains upper and lower case characters and numbers, and is not in the dictionary]

Shaping the Public *You*

You do have the power to correct and shape the microformat data that accumulates in your online ID. You can selectively emphasis the friends you are proud to associate with!

FOAF-a-matic is a simple online form approach which lets you describe yourself in RDF ( not all that difficult – honest!) and gives you a simple line of code to embed into your wiki, blog… etc.
http://www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic

And there are FOAF tools to let you see the result…
FOAF.Vix – FOAF Visualizer and Relation Explorer
http://foaf-visualizer.org/

If you just want to simply edit the information already collected, and not be bothered with embedding any code then follow these helpful hints – “Now You Can Change What Google Says About You” (even easier to do !) http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/now_you_can_change_what_google_says_about_you.php

If you create a valid ID for yourself, populate it well, and update it regularly – then it becomes much harder for someone else to be you virtually. Real identity theft is always an ongoing problem, but reputational theft becomes much harder. Online sources and data accumulators rank the data they collect… if you shape the bulk of it and populate it with the “good stuff” about you, the bad and misleading will still appear… but much lower down the list.

Earlier we visited my google ID… now you can see why it is as rich as it is. It is shaped with the good stuff… and I can alter it at will.

Sharing time….

Now that you know… teach your students…and your fellow colleagues… don’t *assume* they get it!

As students join social media sites or build class wikis, they should start with one secure OpenID.
As they start out into the co-op and work world, they should learn to shape the public persona they present.

QUIZZES
As a summary - Take a moment to check out the results of the online polls. How do you rate yourself?

Enjoy!

Recording (60 mins):

  1. Elluminate recording

Avoiding the Edtech Burnout by Shelly Terrell (Edublogs Webinar Recap)

June 30, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Edublogs Webinar Screen Shot

Recently, a good friend and Edublogs webinar moderator, Phil Hart, shared with me a recent Elluminate presentation I unfortunately missed. Edublogs webinars provide a free online gathering of educators or others interested in transforming the educational arena. Through the Elluminate platform, people are able to chat, talk aloud, share screens, answer polls, and so forth to problem-solve or learn information. If you have limited time for professional development, then I suggest attending these webinars, because you meet many people from various fields who really help you and communicate with you. Plus, these events are quite fun and offer people a convenient way to attend “workshops” and build their Personal Learning Network (PLN).

What are the Solutions?

Although several topics were covered in the recent webinar, I thought two were quite relevant for educators.

  • How do we keep up with all the new technology and avoid burn-out?
  • Which technologies should we recommend?

Several suggestions were offered if you would like to view the archive of the event. You will have to download the Java file. I think these are definitely topics to continue to discuss. When we find real solutions to these problems, we will be able to entice more educators and our schools to implement educational technologies!

My Top Tech Management Tools!

Several of the participants in the webinar event recommended these tools and more! What are your top management tools? Feel free to check out some more ideas on my Teacher Bootcamp Edublog by clicking here.

Go Wild With Wikis: Part III

June 26, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 7 Comments

“This post was written by Sue Waters”

This third session from “Go Wild With Wikis” series (Classroom 2.0 beginners series) started with a discussion of reasons why students may be reluctant to participate online and then was a ‘hand-on’ interactive session where participants worked in teams to learn more about using wikis for collaboration.

A common assumption of using technology with students is they want to be using it.  That isn’t the case; you’ll have a few students who won’t be happy to use and others that are reluctant online participators.  Here’s a couple of the reasons why:

Impact of change

Some people automatic response to any type of activity that involves change is always This is Crap!  I don’t want to do this!

Getting students to use technology as part of the learning, when used effectively, changes to how they learn.  Those that don’t like change frequently respond negatively.  It’s important not to be offended by the few students with this instinctive response.  They will respond this way regardless of what activity you were asking of them if it involves change.

Remember familiar is known, comfortable and secure. Change is uncharted water; many people’s natural and rational response is resistance. Emotionally change can simultaneously bring joy and sorrow, gain and loss, satisfaction and disappointment.

The key to coping with this type of response is make the effort to learn more about the impact of change on people because helps manage resistance to change better!

Online Participation Rule

Sure it would be nice to believe that everyone participates equally online. But that isn’t the reality. Being aware that individuals can be reluctant online participators means you are more likely to:

  • Monitor the extent at which each student is participating
  • Actively focus on techniques for increasing students online participation

As a rule of thumb online communities user participation more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule (Jakob Nielsen):

  • 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute)
  • 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time
  • 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs

Wikispaces wiki sandpit activity

For the rest of the session the participants were broken into teams to create content on any aspect of chocolate on a different page of the Edublogs Live wiki.

The screenshot below shows their instructions and each team’s wiki page on the wiki included these instructions plus links to resources to help them use wikis (see this wiki page as an example).

While each team worked I used application sharing so they can see how they might approach their activity.

The reasoning behind the activity was give them a taste of what it is like to collaborate with others on a wiki so they have a better understanding of the challenges and how to address these challenges.

You can check out the work each team did on these pages of the wiki:

  1. A-B: Chocolate recipes
  2. C-D: Chocolate history
  3. E-F: Favorite chocolate
  4. K-L: chocolate Story
  5. M-N: chocolate photo and video
  6. O-P: chocolate obesity
  7. S-T: Fair Trade Chocolate

When checking these pages make sure you look closely at how teams interacted in discussion and the content they created. Also remember they had limited time (30 minutes) to work on the task, entirely remotely and many were new to using wikis.

Thanks to Paula Naugle for inspiring the idea of chocolate theme for the session!

Recording (60 mins):

  1. Elluminate recording

Blog posts and discussion forum

Pimp My Facebook!

June 6, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 0 Comments

“This post was written by Sue Waters”

Regardless of your personal feelings towards Facebook it is the preferred method of social networking for many people. But are you using Facebook to your advantage?

This session was designed to help both people new to using Facebook and more experienced users get more out of using Facebook.

It was based on taking participants on a tour of Larry Ferlazzo’s relatively new Facebook account to demonstrate the different ways educators and bloggers can use the power of Facebook to connect with others.

The following is just a summary of the points covered in the session. To learn more watch the Elluminate recording.

Steps Involved

Setting up Facebook is no different from setting up your account on any other social networking site. Below is a simple diagram to remind you of these steps.

Organising your avatar and profile information

Always start by uploading an avatar (photo of yourself). I try to use the same avatar across all social network sites so that people can easily recognise it’s my account (there are a few Sue Waters in the World :) ).

Profile information, like on other sites, is really important. People check your profile really quickly so you only have limited time to give them the right feel for who you are.

Make the message on your profile consistent with all your other social networking sites, be short while telling them enough information to know what you are about.

Changing your settings

On twitter you can decide if your tweets are:

  1. Public – anyone can see your tweets
  2. Private – only your friends can see your tweets

Facebook is similar. You have the option to decide how much of your profile others can see depending on your comfort level.

For example you can limit viewing of your profile to:

  • mostly friends – only those who you have added to your Facebook account
  • Anyone – this means anyone who looks at your public profile can see what you are allowing them to see

This is my public Facebook profile which is set to everyone can see most of my profile.

Connecting with friends

There are numerous ways you can connect with friends on Facebook from searching for them, to importing from your email account to checking your friend’s friends. Like any social networking site they can be very lonely places without friends to connect with.

An easy way for others to find your account is to add a link to your social networking sites to your blogs. I use MyBlogLog widget on my blogs.

Getting the most out of tools

Each of us has our own favorite, and important Facebook tools. For me, these tools are chat, inbox, notes (for importing blog post feeds) and links for sharing links to Edublogs live sessions. Other people enjoy using applications and build great connections/relationships with others while using the applications.

Recording (60 mins):

Blog posts

Go Wild With Wikis: Part II

June 5, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 5 Comments

“This post was written by Sue Waters”

This second session from “Go Wild With Wikis” series (Classroom 2.0 beginners series) focused on the reasons why wikis are used for collaborative projects, tips for collaborating using wikis and showcased examples of global collaborative projects that use wikis.

Experience of participants who attended the session in terms of using wikis for collaboration is shown in the table below.

Using Web 2.0 tools with students

Web 2.0 provides us with tools that allow us to easily create, participate, share, communicate information and collaborate in ways that previously we couldn’t. These tools mean our students can work with students in other parts of the World; and even content experts, to connect and/or collaborate on projects to gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding on topics that interest them.

A common trap for new people to using Web 2.0 tools is to choose a tool they want to use and then try to make it achieve the outcomes they want to achieve. A key message was to always remember what outcome you are trying to achieve with your students then consider which tool is the best.

For example, if you want students to work on a project together to produce a final product you might choose a wiki or Google Documents. Whereas if you wanted students to reflect on what they are learning, or interact, connect and ask questions of others than blogs or Ning communities are better suited to the task.

Collaboration using Wikis

During the session we brainstormed the reasons why educators use wikis to collaborate (as shown below in the screenshot – 58 people). Skills students gain from using Web 2.0 tools effectively to collaborate assist their current learning and provide skills that aid their future careers.

Tips for Collaborating

A common trap for educators is the assumption that people know how to collaborate. The reality is most people don’t have good collaboration skills.

For example, take a group of 5 educators and ask them to create a presentation in Google Presentations. Unless you provide strong guidance of what is collaboration your most likely outcome will be 5 slides, one slide per person, prepared independently of each other with no collaboration or exchange of ideas. That isn’t collaboration!

When you move students online good collaboration skills become even more important; without these guidelines you can end up with extremely bad results. Below are brainstorming ideas from the participants on tips for collaborating.

Examples of Global Projects

The Flat Classroom projects (set up by Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay in 2006) were used examples of collaborative projects using the wikis. The idea was not for the participants to think they had to become involved in these types of large scaled projects but to get ideas of how to use wikis from educators with extensive experience using them.

These projects involved students from different locations in the World collaborating to create information and content on topics based chapters from the books “The World is Flat”, “Grown up Digital” and “The Horizon report”.

Check out:

  1. Net Gen Ning – for students/educators to connect and communicate with each other and Don Tapscott (author of “Grown up Digital”).
  2. Net Gen Wiki – for students to create their information and content on their topic

Recording (60 mins):

  1. Elluminate recording
  2. mp3 recording
  3. Video recording (mp4)
  4. Chat log

Blog posts and discussion forum

Authenticity vs. editing student work: a peaceful middle ground for your class blog

May 26, 2009 in Using Blogs With Students with 1 Comment

You’ve started your blog(s) with students, and they are writing, when is their work “ready” to publish and share with the world? If you haven’t thought about it yet, you should. Watch as we discuss how to figure out your philosophy about publishing student work, and how to make sure that you are having students show their best work, while still supporting learning.

Points covered included:

  • Considerations, including potential “critics” who may read the blog;
  • Building comfort and fluency in students;
  • Avoiding embarrassing students;
  • Revising and editing comments after they are published;
  • Identify draft vs. final versions of work.

Sue Wyatt (taz teacher) and Jan Smith shared their experiences with student blogs which were very illuminating!

You can see the archive of the Elluminate session here

Links

Other

A note about the writing on this blog…

This blog includes writing from elementary students, and shows work at all stages from first to final drafts
Work with this logo:

has been edited once.

Work with this logo:

is in a final form.

We do this to show the whole writing process, and hope you enjoy seeing how we learn.

the image link is here:
Edited: http://oakridgefourthgrade.edublogs.org/files/2009/05/cooltext421028791.png
Final: http://oakridgefourthgrade.edublogs.org/files/2009/05/cooltext421029122.png

I did both on cooltext: http://cooltext.com/Buttons

Go Wild With Wikis: Part I

May 17, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 2 Comments

Wikis are a great place to start for people new to the online world because they are relatively easy to use, feel similar to using MS Word and their appearance is more like traditional web sites.

This first session from this three part “Go Wild With Wikis” series facilitated by Sue Waters, from the Classroom 2.0 beginners series, covered Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0, what are wikis, basic features of Wikispaces wikis and how educators are using wikis.

Skills level of participants who attended the session is shown in the table below (Yes= has their own or uses with their students; No = doesn’t have own or use with students; No response = they didn’t respond to the question).

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 was first used in December 2003. Nowadays people use the terms Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 to highlight how features of the World Wide Web has changed.

During the session we brainstormed the main difference between Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0 (as shown below – 71 people). The mobile phone was to emphasize that the modern mobile phone has more computing power than the computers in the early 1990’s.

In very simplistic terms Web 2.0 has changed the Web from where we read/consumed information written by programmers (i.e. able to write HTML, design web sites) to enabling anyone to create, participate, share, communicate information without ever needing any programming skills.

Introduction to Wikis

The term wiki comes from the Wikiwikiweb site developed by Ward Cunningham in 1994. Visiting Hawaii he was looking for a bus from the airport and was told to take the ‘wikiwiki’ (Hawaiian for quick) bus. Wikis = quick website.

Wikipedia is hosted on a wiki (MediaWiki) demonstrates how people can globally collaborate to produce and share information. There are numerous examples of educators using Wikipedia for school and universities projects to demonstrate how open content works.

The most common wikis used by educators are:

Wikispaces, WetPaint and PBWorks wikis are all free hosted wiki solutions (i.e. you can sign up for a free wiki and the company hosts the wiki for you) where as MediaWiki is a wiki solution that you host yourself on your own server or with a hosting company. Each type of wiki uses wikitext but has different features. Participants were taken on a tour of the edit, discussion and history features of wikispaces.

During the session we also brainstormed the different ways educators can use wikis (as shown below – 95 people).

Recording (60 mins):

Blog posts and discussion forums:

Personal Learning Networks Adoption Within Schools: Impact on Learning & Challenges Faced

May 1, 2009 in Working with Web 2.0 tools with 5 Comments

Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) when used effectively extend our learning, increases our reflection while enabling us to learn together as part of a global community.  Unfortunately it’s hard to make people new to social networking appreciate the importance of developing a PLN because they need to experience its impact themselves.

During this unconference type session Sue Waters facilitated a discussion on:

  1. What are PLNs
  2. What are the five top tools people in the session use to build their PLN
  3. How does a PLN change the learning dynamic from the traditionally modeled/supported school
  4. Our students need to be globally connected with a PLN but many of the tools are blocked.  How do we deal with this?
  5. Getting students and teachers to use social bookmarking is easy but everything else is hard sell.  What can we do about this?
  6. How can we make PLNs valid in the eyes of managers and administrators?

What Is A PLN?

As expected there was a wide range of differing opinions on what is a PLN (as shown below).

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) vs Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)

The discussion on what is a PLN also lead to an interesting quick debate about:

  1. What are Personal Learning Environments (PLE)?
  2. What’s the difference between PLNs and PLEs?

As a follow up to this debate here some background on both the terms and a clarification of their history.

According to Wikipedia’s “Personal Learning Environments are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning” and the term was first used in November 2004.  Whereas Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are more about using web tools such as blogs, wiki, twitter, facebook to create connects with others which extend our learning, increases our reflection while enabling us to learn together as part of a global community.

A common misconception is the belief that the term PLN evolved from PLE.  But Personal Learning Network was first used by George Siemens in October 13, 2003 when he described “A network, in the context of an ecology and communities, is how we organize our learning communities…resulting in a personal learning network.”

Reality is most people use the term PLN in preference to PLE.  Shall we now debate Virtual Learning Environments?

Top Five Tools

As always the top 5 tools used to build a PLN were very personal as shown below:

To find out the rest of the debate on how PLNs change learning and challenges faced when using them with others you will need to listen to the recording.

Recording (60 mins):

https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-04-30.1807.D.4C3548A84E624FA254CD6511B7CA09.vcr

Helpful Resources:

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s impossible to summarise everything that was covered in this session — if you attended can you please leave a comment to say what were the main point(s) that you took away from being part of it.  Or alternatively if you write a post please let me know so I can add your links to this post!

Imagine Your Image

April 25, 2009 in All about using Images with 0 Comments

Uploading photos directly from your digital camera directly into your blog posts or sending them in emails isn’t a good idea! This is because the photo size our digital cameras produce are:

  • Very large. For example, 8.0 mega pixel camera takes photos that are about 3264 x 2448 and 2.4 MB in size
  • Designed for printing good quality photos not for uploading directly to the web or being sent by email

During this interactive session Jo Hart and Phil Hart explained how to use image editing software to resize and adjust the features of photos. During the session they covered:

  • Intro to some very basic image editing strategies for educators and their students
  • Some of the reasons why we (and students) need to be able to carry out basic editing
  • How to use PhotoFiltre, a free basic image editor, and benefits of using it
  • How to re-size, crop, adjust and filter images – some before and after examples of image edits. Participants in this session had an opportunity to try some edits using PhotoFiltre through application share
  • Intro to some of the features GIMP, a more complex free image editor, and benefits of using this application
  • Using GIMP to add text, adjust colour curves, transpose colours, rotate images, layers – before and after examples.

Recording (60 mins):

https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2009-04-23.1628.D.4C3548A84E624FA254CD6511B7CA09.vcr

Blog posts:

Make a quick movie with Photopeach

April 17, 2009 in All about using Images with 0 Comments

Digital story telling is where you use digital images or a combination of images and videos to create movies.  Digital stories can be used for a wide range of tasks including capture ideas of a group of people, to tell a story, to demonstrate how to do a task or record assessments.

Common desktop software used to create digital stories are MovieMaker, PhotoStory, iMovie and Garageband. There are also a wide range of online tools that can be used to create digital stories (check out Alan Levine’s 50 Ways to Tell A Story)

During this session Jenny Wood and and Carole McCulloch demonstrated and stepped people through the process of making and editing a video with Photopeach, an online video creator. This program is simple to use; just upload your photos, grab some music from YouTube, add captions and you are done! They also discussed the opportunities for learning and student interactivity with this tool.

Recording (60 mins):

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2009-04-16.1918.D.4C3548A84E624FA254CD6511B7CA09.vcr

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