Favourite Tools and Apps – Tech Talk Tuesdays in review

We had a number of people willing to share their favourite apps and tools and two wonderful ‘pop up’ presenters from the USA, @pgeorge (Peggy George) moderator of Classroom2.0 LIVE webinars and @glovely (Gail Lovely) author of Suddenly It Clicks – both of the USA. Answergarden It started with the demonstration one of my favourite tools (also an app) answergarden. Participants were shown how to create an answergarden with the question “What are your favourite apps and tools?”. The link was shared in the chat of blackboard collaborate. Participants clicked on the link and keyed in their favourite tools or apps. Padlet was a popular choice and was therefore the largest sized word. See the resultant garden Why I like answergarden

• simple but effective tool
• No need to register
• easy to share the resultant link
• can be moderated
• embed code provided so can be added to a blog or wiki and students or others can add to the garden from the blog post etc.

Uses – great for brainstorming, exit slips, collaborative writing, reflections etc Doodlemaths a  popular Maths tool app for the iPad (but requires a subscription) Peggy George, one of our ‘pop up’ presenters shared:

1. Tacck – digital portfolios with tacck See Avra Robinson’s Tackks and
2. Thinglink – resources for thinglink
3. photosforclass (personally love this one as it attributes the license to that actual photo. All photos are sourced from flickr.) Tips: search for the photos in photosforclass, open them in flickr and download them, the downloaded file comes complete with the attributions.
4. As Peggy had just been in a recent thinglink webinar, she shared what the group had done via a group padlet. or try this one.

Padlet Gail quickly showed us how to create a padlet and participants shared the last food we had eaten on her padlet wall. See the interactive padlet wall
Other:- TeleStory & Toontastic are now free from google. What are your favourite tools and apps? Add them as a comment here or put your answers into the garden by clicking on the appropriate link above.

What are your favourite apps and tools?

Listen to the recording of this webinar by clicking on this link.

Australia and New Zealand classes connect for Anzac Day

April 25th marks the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing in Turkey. Australian and New Zealand On the 25th of April 1915, Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula. April 25th is called ANZAC day – Australia and New Zealand  Army Corps and is celebrated every year, with a public holiday in Australia, special Dawn services and public marches by military veterans and personnel.

150 poppies made by the students

Each year, we hold a full school assembly to  commemorate this event. Students speak about what the day means. Everyone is encouraged to bring flowers from home to lay on our Australian flag which is draped over the stairway to our stadium stage. Students have  made 250 poppies, one for every member of our school community, and placed them at the entrance to our stadium.

Skype with New Zealand

Due to the nature of the special centenary, commemorations are even more special this year. Our grade 5/6 class linked up with a class from Auroa School, Taranaki where Myles Webb (our contact) is a deputy principal. The goal of the connection was  to compare traditions associated with Anzac Day.  Students in our school have been making poppies, diaramas, posters and more. These were shared over the webcamera. The NZ students told ours that although they have a special ceremony on Anzac Day, they do not really do much more than that. Our school will plant a lone Pine tree given to us by our Moyne Shire. Read the significance of the lone pine.

The lone pine tree

This led to discussions about why there are differences in commemorations, insired each other to further reseach the alliance, the history and what it means today. I wonder whether we could linkup with a school in Turkey and find out whether this day means anything to them? If so, how do they remember it and commemorate it?

Do you share special commemorations with other countries? If so, what and how?

Which tool for virtual tours?

Polly Woodside museum is in Melbourne in the beautiful Docklands are. Polly Woodside is a 1985 Tall Ship and is a reminder of Australia’s rich maritime history and of the importance of such ships to the settlement and development.

Polly Woodside intend to run a staff PD web conference session in October to promote the possible education and learning resources offered at the Polly Woodside.

However, following are the few logistical issues …

• they prefer an “outside broadcast” – “live” from the deck of the Polly Woodside and to then move around the deck to different locations and activities for the presentation.
• They would use a laptop computer for this with a good quality video camera (usb).
• Polly Woodside do not have any wi-fi. They were going to use a mobile wi-fi hotspot or  possibly access/utilise the wi-fi from the Melbourne Convention Centre immediately next door to their location.
• National (ie Australia wide broadcast) so would need to be an accessible tool for all to participate.
• Want to demonstrate a class of students working on activities there but may need to be asynchronous ie via shared videos

Questions:

• Which tool to use for conferencing?
• How to overcome the logistics etc?
• How to share pre-recorded  videos of students working on activities

My response:

Tools to be use Blackboard Collaborate (BbC) would be the top suggestion – can be used nationally through DET (Department of Education and Training, Victoria) license, can have up to 250 or more logged in. Allows a backchannel, video conferencing (participants would need to know how to grab the video module and drag it on to the whiteboard to make demonstrations more visible.) Can pull back the bandwidth if internet access is an issue. Best of all it has a recording function.

• MS Lync could be made to work  as DET has a license, but would be more fiddly with invitations for schools outside DET etc.
• Maybe zoom but I don’t know how many video logins you can have with this but it is a relatively stable platform.
• Skype would only allow 5-10 video logins
• Live streaming through ustream etc but bandwidth heavy and may cause lots of problems.

Polly Woodside’s wifi access –

• a mobile dongle may also allow them sufficient bandwidth to web conference out.
• Cabled access is always preferable when working with video etc.
• Or if they can tap into the Melbourne Convention centre, that would be ideal.

Sharing videos of students involved in activities will be problematic for whichever tool chosen, due to file size, sound, bandwidth. Links to the work online would be better so participants can look later.

Challenges:

Sound, may need a wind sock for the microphone or alternative (would a headset with mic prevent the ‘wind’ type sound often experienced if outside?)

A mobile device logged in would allow a virtual tour by a moderator. Allows them to walk around, use the back camera and take us on a virtual tour, whilst another moderator is on the laptop. This could be smart phone, ipad, surface tablet etc.

Backup Plans: I think back up dates would be the only option. However, could we run BbC and MS Lync or is that too complicated simultaneously. Would need several moderators so if one falls down the other would work? If Polly Woodside are on board they can always record and share the recording link. Testing is essential and maybe several tests prior. A backchannel in Todays Meet or similar would allow communication through most problems. They would need smart phones

Summarising: I think that BbC is the tool to use (MS Lync could be made to work too). Polly Woodside would need to test the set up before hand. (We would be happy to be a ‘test’ class) and work through any of the sound and video issues that might arise.) Ideally they should have a standby tool like ustream but I have seen that fall over many times when used on poor bandwidth or even ideal bandwidth.

What suggestions would you make? What tips could you give?