Author Archive for sinclairmackenzie

EdTechRoundUp celebrate our 1st birthday with weekly show #6

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sinclairmackenzie
on November 9, 2008
in Podcasts
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We celebrated our 1st birthday this week with a gorgeous chocolate cake that Lisa Stevens baked for our flashmeeting.

Dai Barnes did a great job keeping us on task.  In this week’s show, Lisa spoke about her trip to an eTwinning conference in Madrid and we discussed the use of audio (Voki, podcasting and Voicethread) in the classroom.

Theo Kuechel joined us to tell us about a project called Edutube that he is working on with European partners.  We discussed how video material could be made avaiable to teachers and the things that would enhance the usability of digital media in the classroom.

Tom Barrett described a lesson he had planned for using Woices in the classroom involving geotagged audio to create a digital narrative - creating a story with text and audio within a map using Google Earth.

Dai Barnes recommended itweet.net - a web client for twitter.

Tom Barrett spoke about having a Tweet Meet - a proposal for a preChristmas meet up for people using Twitter, possibly in Nottingham.

Lisa Stevens blew out the Candles on our 1st Birthday cake to a musical accompaniment from Theo.

Joe Rowing explained why he is moving his student blogs over to Wordpress MultiUser from Moodle.

Links discussed in the show can be found on our del.icio.us page.

 
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ETR Weekly #5 - Interactive Whiteboards, Isle of Wight Conference, Organising ICT CPD

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sinclairmackenzie
on October 27, 2008
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This week, several of our regular participants were still travelling home from the  2008 Isle of Wight Conference when we recorded the show.  Dai Barnes did a great job standing in for regular host Doug Belshaw.  We spoke briefly about interactive whiteboards before Joe Dale, organiser of the Isle of Wight Conference, joined us to reflect on this year’s event.  The IoW Conference FlashMeeting mentioned by Joe was recorded and can be viewed here .

Dan Needlestone led a discussion on CPD issues and the issues surrounding ICT training for teachers.

You can listen to the player below to listen to the show or, better still, get them delivered to your computer’s iTunes folder by clicking on the iTunes subscription button in the sidebar.

 
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del.icio.us

The multitasking Dai Barnes has collated the links discussed in the show.  You can find them all on our del.icio.us pages.


Louise Jones wears the wiki pixie shoes - see the notes she made for us on the ETR wiki here.

 

The music in this show is Silver from Mobygratis.com

15 days of Google answers - day 15

Published
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sinclairmackenzie
on March 18, 2008
in google education apps
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We’ve reached the last of our questions put to Google. In our final question, Sinclair Mackenzie, a Physics Teacher from Thurso High School, asks about the internet safety aspects of using Google Education Apps in schools.

A recent BBC Panorama programme highlighted children’s lack of awareness regarding safe use of the internet. I have also found that school management are reluctant to give permission for online collaboration activities such as Google Apps or wikis. This was echoed in discussions over a recent GTCS consultation document. What actions are Google taking to allay the fears of parents and educators with respect to internet safety? - Sinclair Mackenzie

Google replied:

Google takes internet safety issues very seriously – after all the internet is at the core of everything we do. In general, hosted software is extremely reliable, safe, and secure and we have multiple and extensive safeguards in place to protect our users’ data.

We understand that each school needs to make its own decision about the systems that it makes available to its students but we have found that most schools take a very pragmatic approach to providing their pupils with this kind of technology. The overwhelming feedback has been that using online communication and collaboration tools has been extremely useful in improving communication and working practices both amongst students and teachers and parents and teachers.