April 2005 Archives
Am slow in finding this, but this post in Michael Hanscom's eclecticism has listed 3 very useful addition to the MT collection templates.
Templates are for generating RSS feeds that gives:
1. Enhanced Feed: Full posts with comments
2. Short Feed: Excerpts Only
3. Comments only feed
Have archived the codes here for future reference.
Wow! This afternoon at Ai Tong School, we have a lab full of excited students led by their teachers. This is the first edublog workshop where teachers and students are blogging happily away together. Everyone had created a Blogger.com blog, and they were given a demo on how to upload pictures using Hello! and how to create a group blog.
If only we have more time, I would have been able to show them how to use the MS Image Resizer Powertoy to reduce BIG picture files into _small_ files that would be perfect for their blogs.
The slides used for the day is here.
The previous post gives you the theory, this website gives you immediate visual. Try moving the mouse over the color wheel and see the hexadecimal representation change. The colors are given web-safe, web-smart, unsafe classification. ANd there are keyboard shortcuts to change the hue (use the j,k,l keys)
The author has kindly allowed the codes to be freely used. I have kept an archive here for future reference.
Cool site shared by John, if you always have problem with color combinations, or your are trying to figure out color schemes for your new blog templates, make sure you try out the "colour wizard" and spin the colour wheel"
Wow! A special section for videos in eSchool News and a good long list of sites on video in education! Will need some time to go through them ...
[source: eSN]
A podcast article by W.Richardson, making some observations that more and more pple and education embracing audiocasting. Looking at some of these files, the file size are very big! The greatest obstacle is to find storage (read reliable storage) now.
[source: eSchoolNews]
Read this article and now that we have one IS school going into video and media literacy, perhaps there's something in here that we can think about, especially:
So many people today get vital information in video format that an educator must also be a trainer in media savvy.
- if learners learn thru watching video, how can we go abt assessing the level of learners' understanding by allowing them to create their own video
Unless viewers make the effort to pose critical questions while they watch - and also make time to reflect on what they're seeing ...
- reflection ... critical questions ... blogs !
programming that shows young people a possibility, such as a child doing a skilled activity, has proven to help unsure watchers "to believe they could do it."
- can video creation by students themselves bring about similar effect?
[source : the christian science monitor]
Yup, finished another round of blogvangelism! Thanks to John for the invitation for the STEP 2005 sharing. And hopefully our fellow friends from Thailand have learnt something useful today. Check out more pictures below:
3 cheers for R&D !
for i = 1 to 3
begin
SHOUT *hip hip hurray* (x3)
next i
end
It's in the midst of the sharing at Vista Lab (MOE Building Level 18), we have 3 distinguished delegates from Thailand! Check out some pictures below, and more updates coming up later :-)
Want to learn more about OO? Found this article at edugadget, check it out.
One greatest problem with audio/video blog is storage space. Reading this post off Bee's blog, obviously, there are more and more servers that allow people to upload and "share your legal videos and audio files"
Just to name a few to explore:
Ourmedia, BlogMatrix, OliveLink
Got to spend some time to explore, if we can host our sound/video file on this server(s) and the postings can still reside in Blogger.com. How exciting!
Initial exploration here.
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1. ??????? (PPT, 219kb)
2. MSN Spaces ???? Ver 1.5 (???? EXE, 4.0MB)
3. Bloglines ???? Ver 1.0 (zip)
4. Blogger.com ???? Ver 1.0 (zip)
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Yeh! Another round of blogvangelism completed yesterday. Thanks once again to all cikgus for taking time off to join us in the workshop. Thanks also to Cikgu Naim, Master Teacher (ML) for cluster E3 to render support and to give the welcome address to the N4 teachers.
As promised, pls find the softcopy of the douments below:
1. Presentation Slide
2. MSN Spaces HOWTO ver 1.5 (Compressed EXE, 4.0MB)
3. Bloglines HOWTO ver 1.0 (zip)
4. Blogger.com HOWOTO ver 1.0 (zip)
Check out the 'in the midst' posting for the comments to the workshop. Truly, thanks for the encouragement :-)
Here are some pictures taken during the workshop, see if you can spot yourself in there. Cheers!
This is the break time, fellow Malay Language teachers are now taking a 20 minutes break. Oh btw, in case you are wondering, we are all at Nan Chiau High School now, and cluster N4 ML teachers are here with us. What we have done for the first part of the workshop so far is to get an overview of (edu)blogs, as well as a hands-on on MSN Spaces.
If only I can upload some of the photos taken *hmm*
Ok, shall update the posting later, time to go for a break too :-)
This software by Stardock is a good to have. To maximise the usable space on the (relatively) smaller TPC screen, squeezing more than 2 shortcuts in the Quick Lanuch area is not feasbile.
ObjectDock virtually gives you another quick launch bar on top of the screen for your favourite software. Try it if you have face the same small-screen problem like me :)
Smaller than the current TPCs, bigger than the current PDAs, not sure how you'll like this, but I believe the weight is definitely an attraction for on-the-road traveller.
Take a look here :-)
Wanted the most results through ONE single search? Here's a hybrid combining Yahoo and Google!
http://yagoohoogle.com/
Read this post via edugadget, Apple has hosted some lesson plans for iPod.
Like what Steve Brooks says, "You don�t need an iPod to do any of these things. A simple mp3 player with a microphone will do." Perhaps we can port some of these ideas with our Creative MuVo player *hmm*
Steve has also put together some tools to start audiocasting. Just to recap, Audacity is a great opensource tool that can be used too.
If you are into using video as a form of self-expression, or simply to use video to record bits and pieces of your life, check out this website which gives you the steps required, including the acquiring of much-needed server space.
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The user guide has been updated with a section on how to create and itemise "Lists". This is especially useful for teachers who would like to link their students' blogs from his/her own blog, and classify the URLs according to the respective classes.
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1. ??????? (PPT, 221kb)
2. MSN Spaces ???? Ver 1.5 (???? EXE, 4.0MB)
3. Bloglines ???? Ver 1.0 (zip)
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Finally finished putting this together. Waiting to use it for the workshop on Wednesday.
Download it here. (3.8MB EXE file, RAR self-extractable)
About MSN Spaces:
1. Hosted by Microsoft
2. Juz promoted from beta to 'stable' version last week.
3. Each 'space' has 30MB.
4. Very sleek and clean look and feel. Nice templates readily available
5. Able to set viewers permissions, can tie in with MSN messenger
6. Integration with MSN messenger --> easy adoption
Here's an example :)
Greatest Drawback:
Can only create ONE space per .NET passport account.
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If writers write and painters paint and riders ride, then why don't fingers fing?
If the plural of tooth is teeth and the plural of goose is geese, then shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth and the plural of moose be meese? Maybe they should be, but they aren't.
If the teacher taught, why didn't the preacher praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what do you think a humanitarian eats?
How can a house that is burning up finally end in being burned down?
At a bank or loan office, how can you fill in the necessary information as you fill out the forms?
Why is it that when the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible?
Why do people recite at a play, yet play at a recital?
Why do people park on driveways but drive on parkways?
Answer: I simply don't know.
[source: http://www.say-it-in-english.com/englishfun.html]
Click on the image for the FULL size version in a new window.
This is absolutely useful if you would like to find simple backgrounds that you can use for your blog. Featuring 5759 seamlessly tiling backgrounds! Check it out now.
Wow! Excellent attendance today at the briefing session, teachers filled up most of the chairs setup in the Meeting room at Level 5 of SG Post Office Centre.
Details such as objectives, timelines, rules, prizes were shared. The judging criteria brought about most questions from the teachers. One of most discussed was that of "No. of Unique visits". All the concerns are valid and we'll have to bring offline to look into, especially some concerns server setup.
Looks like we'll have a tough competition ahead, but happy blogging nevertheless. Hope more teachers will be aware of blogging and its potential with/after this championship. *yup*
The standard FAQs are located here.
Registration can be done via fax or online! (online is always preferred ;) Deadline is on 28th Apr (Thu)
Oh btw, the next highlight will be the Lanuch of the event, which will be on 20th May (Fri). Do check back for more updates :)
World first interschool event ever? Not very sure until more research is done to confirm it :)
Anyway, MOE and SingTel are jointly organsing the above event for secondary schools, JCs and CI. We will be using SingTel's moblog platform for this coThere will be a briefing session for school teachers to learn more about moblogging and details on the competition.
Details of briefing:
Date: 6th Apr 2005
Time: 1500 - 1630 hr
Venue: Singapore Post Centre Level 5 Theatrette, next to Paya Lebar MRT
Will be posting more details after the 6th.
