Google Wave

Google Wave is a new communication platform developed by Google.

It combines features of email, chats and social networking in a single application that can be embedded or draw on data from other communication tools or websites.

For a detailed summary and explanation of features, click here.

Making Great Presentations

Prezi is a new web-based  application that can generate dynamic presentations that integrate images, video and text with a built in slide movement feature that offers something beyond your typical powerpoint.

Have a look at this presentation created by Will Kirkwood for a student presentation.

For more resources and examples have a look at my RSS feeds on Presentations.

Facebook Manners

At a recent student assembly, we discussed the potential impact of social networking on your life by examining the real life situations involving Jon Favreau and Corey Delaney in the context of these themes:

Privacy

• What information are you displaying?
• Are you comfortable with people having access to it?

Interaction

• Who are you connected to?
• Do you know them?
• Do you trust them?

Consequences

• Reputation
• Education
• Job
• Health
• Life

For detailed information on how to adjust your privacy settings, you can check out the link below:

Facebook Settings Explained

Teaching for Tomorrow

ACOT2 (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow – Today) published in April of 2008 is a great resource for 21st Century learning.

“The goal of ACOT² is more targeted: to help high schools get closer to creating the kind of learning environment this generation of students needs, wants, and expects so they will stay in school.”

The study is organized around 6 Design Principles and is strongly referenced to additional articles and resources, most of which can be found on the web.

The Horizon Report 2009

“seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education.”

They have also published the Horizon  Report K-12 Edition that focuses on the impact of these emerging technologies on K-12 education.

It is published by the New Media Consortium, a non-profit organization grouping of organizations committed to developing and using new technologies, and Educause, a non-profit organization that promotes intelligent use of technology in higher education.

Two of the most important findings of this edition are the 6 Technologies to Watch and the 5 key trends.

6 Technologies

1. Collaborative Environments
2. Online Communication Tools
3. Mobiles
4. Cloud Computing
5. Smart Objects
6. The Personal Web

5 Key Trends

1. Technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed.
2. Technology is increasingly a means for empowering students, a method for communication and socializing, and a ubiquitous, transparent part of their lives.
3. The web is an increasingly personal experience.
4. The way we think of learning environments is changing.
5. The perceived value of innovation and creativity is increasing.

Sharing & Collaborating on Google Docs

Google Docs includes Google Docs, Spreadsheets & presentations. They have some features in common and other features that are unique to each file type.

Sharing – allows you the option to share or publish the doc in multiple formats including:

When you publish, you put the file online where people can view it (but not edit it).

Email as attachment with several choices (.doc, .pdf, .rtf, .odt)

Please note, at this time you can only share PDFs from the Docs list, not the PDF itself. Sharing PDFs with mailing lists is not available at this time. Publishing a PDF so that anyone can view has not yet been implemented.

Publish as a webpage – this format will generate a url where the document can be viewed, there is also an option to secure it for ZIS users only

Viewers must sign in with a Zurich International School account to view the published document

Embed on a webpage – Can only be done with Google Spreadsheets and Presentations

You can access and view a document without a Google Account, but you’ll need to have a Google Account to continue accessing and to edit the document.

Collaboration – allows you to have multiple users editing a document at the same time, you must be signed into a Google account to collaborate.

	Docs	Spreadsheets	Presentation
Collaboration Limit	10	50	10
Sharing Limit	200	200	200
Upload File Formats	.doc .rtf .html .txt .odt	.xls .csv .txt .ods	.ppt .pps
Share	√	√	√
Publish as Webpage	√	√	√
Embed Feature	X	√ (with forms)	√