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from Anne-Marie Scott @ education
The PressEd Twitter conference took place again yesterday, thanks once more to the tireless efforts of Pat Lockley and Natalie Lafferty. This year I flew solo and did the hard work myself. EGads! I had to make some gifs and everything and they were rubbish. … Continue reading Tweeting solo: #PressEdConf19
from Ollie Bray
I'm a big fan of the Raspberry Pi and we have invested in a class set (with potable monitors) at Kingussie. We are using the Raspberry Pi's for various computing / maker projects at the moment. I am also enthusiastic about other similar devices such at the Intel Galileo and the new BBC MicroBit.
"The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that plugs into a computer monitor or TV, and uses a standard keyboard and mouse. It is a capable little device that enables people of all ages to explore computing, and to learn how to program in languages like Scratch and Python. It’s capable of doing everything you’d expect a desktop computer to do, from browsing the internet and playing high-definition video, to making spreadsheets, word-processing, and playing games."
"What’s more, the Raspberry Pi has the ability to interact with the outside world, and has been used in a wide array of digital maker projects, from music machines and parent detectors to weather stations and tweeting birdhouses with infra-red cameras. We want to see the Raspberry Pi being used by kids all over the world to learn to program and understand how computers work."
You can make lots of cool stuff with a Raspberry Pi and I recently discovered that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has a Pinterest Board where that showcase some of the coolest Pi Projects. My favourite is the board on Games and Gaming but I also like the one on Wearables, Textiles and Fibres.
from Ollie Bray
Nice little video here on Open Education. Funny to think we are not pushing this more in Scottish Schools or that it doesn't seem to be part of any overall strategy (colleges and Universities are a lot further ahead of course).
We missed such a big opportunity at the start of the roll out of CfE – a real lack of vision and leadership from the top and perhaps a lack of understanding from those on the ground?
As Local Authorities (normally in their individual silos) across Scotland continue to invest in resource development and increasingly open and distance learning courses, perhaps the 'open' part needs to be the priority? At least insist that any money spent on resource development is done on the condition that the authors use a 'Creative Commons' Licence?
I strongly believe there is place for both Open and Commercial Education Products (in fact even commercial can be open!).
Unfortunately, we still live in a society where so many good education tools get suppressed by their commercial rivals. Maybe BBC Jam isn't exactly a great (or particularly pure) example of an Open Education but its a good example of how the learner lots out in the long run and the public purse suffered as a result.
As we move into a position this year in Kingussie where we can start really thinking about how we digitise our curriculum to the maximum benefit of our leaners we will also aim to do this by opening up the resources we develop to the eider education community.
from Ollie Bray
Did you know that the National Library of Scotland our 'Map images' resource allows you to access and view over 120,000 maps as high-resolution, colour, zoomable images. The maps date between 1560 and 1964 and relate primarily to Scotland. But there are also maps from other parts of the UK and Europe.
The easiest way of finding material relating to any particular location is to find by place. Search using a map of Scotland, by place name, or by county and parish name.
The easiest way of finding general groups of maps is to browse by category. The maps vary in the amount of detail they show:
The site contains a comprehensive set of Ordnance Survey maps covering Scotland .
This includes:
Definitely worth having a poke around the site if you teach social subjects?
from Ollie Bray
Ian Stuarts Tweet asking “Scottish Teachers – Who is up for developing the use of wikipedia and other wikimedia products in schools? #eduwiki” reminded me that I really must get round to writing up my “7 things you didn’t know about Wikipedia Talk”. It also reminded me I must start to get out and about to conferences and education events a little more often – I’ve become increasing conscious that I’ve been ‘off the grid’ in the last 12 months.
I’ve been a Wikipedia fan since the start and also a fan of the wider Wikimedia family. I even delivered the keynote at the Wikimedia UK Annual Conference in Bristol back in 2011. The keynote resulted from a couple of digital scrapes in cyberspace / the blogosphere where I was trying to defend Wikipedia as a valuable source much to the anger (but ultimately confusion – due to a lack of understanding) of a few traditionalists (mainly journalists!). Who, quite frankly couldn’t see the woods from the trees.
Anyway, the recent #eduwiki conference in Edinburgh seems to have built a bit of momentum again for the real value of Wikimedia (including Wikipedia) in Scottish Schools. So, I’ll send the next week posting a few ideas and tips to help teachers become more familiar with Wikipedia. There really is nothing new here – but perhaps the time is right to re-visit the agenda?
At the end of the series I’ll also post a few recommendations for Scottish Education.
from Ollie Bray
Ian Stuarts Tweet asking “Scottish Teachers – Who is up for developing the use of wikipedia and other wikimedia products in schools? #eduwiki” reminded me that I really must get round to writing up my “7 things you didn’t know about Wikipedia Talk”. It also reminded me I must start to get out and about to conferences and education events a little more often – I’ve become increasing conscious that I’ve been ‘off the grid’ in the last 12 months.
I’ve been a Wikipedia fan since the start and also a fan of the wider Wikimedia family. I even delivered the keynote at the Wikimedia UK Annual Conference in Bristol back in 2011. The keynote resulted from a couple of digital scrapes in cyberspace / the blogosphere where I was trying to defend Wikipedia as a valuable source much to the anger (but ultimately confusion – due to a lack of understanding) of a few traditionalists (mainly journalists!). Who, quite frankly couldn’t see the woods from the trees.
Anyway, the recent #eduwiki conference in Edinburgh seems to have built a bit of momentum again for the real value of Wikimedia (including Wikipedia) in Scottish Schools. So, I’ll send the next week posting a few ideas and tips to help teachers become more familiar with Wikipedia. There really is nothing new here – but perhaps the time is right to re-visit the agenda?
At the end of the series I’ll also post a few recommendations for Scottish Education.
from Ollie Bray
Following yesterdays post on the Open Content Toolkit I discovered that NASA has posted a massive library of ‘Space Sounds’ on SoundCloud. You are free to use all of these sounds as you wish, because NASA’s own audio isn’t copyrighted. It is meant to be a public service to the American people of their taxpayer-funded government program, but this ‘fair-use’ extends to everyone globally. They do ask you to list NASA as source, but that’s only reasonable. Read their content guidelines for full details.
My favourite are the Apollo Sounds which include the classics ‘Eagle Has Landed, ‘Houston, We've Had a Problem and ‘We Have a Lift-Off’. But here are lots of other great sounds as well including rocket sounds, the chirps of satellites and equipment, lightning on Jupiter and interstellar plasma.
In short a great resource library for anyone interested in space, sound and film editing.
Oh, if you like Space Sounds this TED Talk (from 2011) by Artist-technologist Honor Harger is worth a watch (and a listen) as well…
from Ollie Bray
Information technology can help to equalise the distribution of high quality educational opportunities throughout the world. In particular, having learning materials freely available for adaptation and re-purposing can expand access to learning of better quality at lower cost. A campaign to make freely adaptable content known as Open Educational Resources (OER) widely available has gathered momentum. A global community of OER producers has emerged and institutions are incorporating these resources into their teaching and learning strategies”
[Unesco 2012]
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Theo Kuechel is one of life’s good guys (and pretty talented on the Guitar as well!). Theo has championed Open Content and the use of Open Content for the many years that I have known him.
His latest (open) project is the Open Content Toolkit. The purpose of the toolkit (built as a Wiki) is to provide a gateway to contemporary and historical open digital media content from media archives and collections around the world.
The aim of the Open Content Toolkit is to develop strategies that will identify or kickstart potential projects and workshop formats that can help schools, teachers and students; engage with, and take advantage of the growing wealth of open digital content and resources available online. Help them discover resources that can be used freely and safely in all curriculum areas. Actively involve teachers and students in developing such resources and to provide a framework for them to promote the use of open content and media archives.
Although the Open Content Toolkit remains a work in progress the is already a must read for educators as Theo and his team of volunteers have started to curate lists organisation hosting open content and curated links to sources of open content in order make them easy to find and access.
So, if you didn’t know about the Getty Trust Open Content Program, Flickr Commons (Flickr Commons host photographic collections from major cultural institutions, with 'no known copyright restrictions), Project Gutenberg (46,000 free ebooks or online, many illustrated) and Comic Book Plus (a historically significant archive, of well known and not so well known comic characters – free and legal to use) plus all the other great links then do check out the sources page.
Definitely a project to watch as it continues to develop over time.