Artefacts of Assination & Tweet Preservation*

At ISTE10 I targetted a number of breakouts focussing on the use of primary sources. Fascinating to spend time exploring "the raw materials of history" and considering potential to guide students towards higher-order thinking.

Identified a number of resources and strategies with possibilities to support the effective use of digital content relevant to the development of Digistore. Rocky and I will share further on the Digistore wiki in the coming months.

Until then here are a few primary source taonga (treasures) worthwhile exploring. Most of these sites also include useful guidelines for teaching with primary sources:

• The Library of Congress: A variety of useful resources for teachers. I have highlighted and saved to my Delicious Links with descriptions.
  
• DocsTeach an educational tool from the US National Archives Experience that includes support for using primary source documents.
• NASA eClips short, relevant educational video segments.
• C-SPAN Classroom Free primary source materials covering government proceedings and public affairs programming.
• Digital Vaults: Explore the US National Archives collection, using the media rich version of this site browse through hundreds of photographs, documents, and film clips. Register and create your own collection of records, create pathway challenges, posters and films to share. Also see example Creating Student Sleuths: Primary Source Investigation
• World Digital Library Home primary materials from countries and cultures around the world in multilingual format.

What are primary sources? Check out these two extremes...

Artefacts of Assassination and Tweet Preservation*

Math Snacks...yum!

We had a great conversation with some of the Math Snacks team on Wednesday, Debbie Michels and Milos Savic. Math Snacks are short animations and mini–games, each presenting a mathematical concept and designed to help learners "get it".

Each snack can be used and integrated much the same way as we use Digistore content and can be saved on mobile devices (from iTunesU) for students to revisit. They are also supported by both student and teacher guides, available for download.

Debbie shared examples of student outcomes from the use of Math Snacks and very kindly agreed to an on the spot, impromptu, reflection on the benefits of integrating Math Snacks in combination with other relevant digital content and learning experiences. The following was filmed on my iPhone in a very busy open space @ ISTE 2010 (~3:30min). Debbie makes useful connections to the key messages about when digital content is most effective.




Debbie on the purpose of Mathsnacks..."can students develop enough of a conceptual understanding to give greater meaning to their learning?"

Day in Denver

Took a few hours to engage my "travelling mindset" on Thursday, after 5 valuable days of ISTE10 conversations, challenges and new ideas. We were lucky enough to be guided by a home grown Denverite. He must have told his stories many times over in the past however his first hand historical knowledge of the area and its people added much depth and colour to the experience.

"Can't you see...life's easy...if you consider things from another point of view" (DB Boulevard)

"Dream big and be brave..."

The title of this post comes from The Third Teacher, referenced today at the ISTE Leadership Symposium: Innovation--Design for Learning. I valued the conversations and time to explore the connect between design principles and our values and beliefs about effective teaching and its impact on student learning.

I love to dream and I want to be brave. Yes... this has definitely contributed to my thinking, and...I need to explore these ideas further through the links below and supporting similar conversations.

One strategy that I will certainly follow up on is to add a photo to the Learning Space Blog. This is smart...if we see a space or environment that resonates with us we are invited to email a photo to seems99level2blog@flickr.com to contribute.

...in the meantime sharing my ISTE10 photo set on flickr.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

EducampNZ Recce

Participating at EduBloggercon2010 this morning was in part a reconnaissance (recce) for ideas to share at EducampNZ.

Enjoyed the "Smackdown" speed demos session where participants are invited to take a couple of minutes only to share a cool Web 2.0 tool. Thinking this could work well for EducampNZ as ideas are shared quickly and very little preparation time is needed.

Shared links from this afternoon's smackdown, with my notes, on Delicious .
For more links and resources search #EBC10 in Twitter

Thanks to participants for sharing and organiser Steve Hargadon ...excellent kick off to ISTE10

Kiwi Educators Heart Wikispaces

As a warm up to ISTE10 had organised to meet up with Adam Frey & James Byers co-founders of Wikispaces at EduboggerCon2010 this morning. We simply wanted to say thanks and share briefly some of the innovative ways Wikispaces have been used by Kiwi educators.

Very excited to hear from them that Wikispaces editing is undergoing a major rebuild and will include many new and updated features ironing out those little glitches ;-) James shared a few of these today (see Rocky's blog for more details)

An invitation to all Wikispaces users - please let them know if you have feedback, need support or notice any glitches or anomalies - http://help.wikispaces.com or http://twitter.com/wikispaces 'coz we know kiwis heart wikispaces