Virtual
Teacher Newsletter No. 94 7th August 2004 FUTUROLOGY
THE
FREE ONLINE FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1.
Welcome
2.
Mind Candy
3.
WWWinfo
4.
New Printables - Text Types
5.
Technical Stuff - G4 & Netscape 6.1 & Blender
6.
Web Site Focus - Outer Space
7.
Better Bookweek Links
8.
Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10
Next Issue
11.
Code of 'Netizens'
12.
Tips
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1.
WELCOME EVERYONE. The tyranny of the pencil and paper
has
limited curriculum development for long enough. Letıs say
the 2
Pıs, letıs say the 3Pıs, pencil, paper and photocopy have
led
to a curriculum that lends itself to right and wrong answers,
answers
that can be represented with little black marks on
paper
entirely devastating to mathematical and scientific learning.
We
need something more dynamic, where you do things, see things,
and
manipulate things. Technology offers unparalleled
opportunities
for kids to do
things, to manipulate things, computers themselves
offer children an
elementary model for how their own minds work.
The benefits of
working with computers could also include a simple
and liberating
new view of mistakes. "They're just bugs,"
Seymour Papert.
Computers rather than papers and pencils need to
become
the dominant tools for education.
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2.
MIND CANDY
³Whatıs
the problem? .. dyslexia, the
problem is that we
never
evolved to read. Reading is an entirely artificial, new
skill
and it is only in this century that most Westerners have
even
had it. To read, we have to use a brain that was designed
for
other things, to translate an arbitrary visual code into sounds,
co-ordinate
eye movements and a whole lot more. The skill
employs
all three major modalities vision, audition and movement
and
also involves speech areas. And this is why dyslexia is so p
revalent
because reading greatly taxes almost all our skills base.²
A Brief History of Tomorrow Jonathan
Margolis
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"New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It
can't be done.
2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
3) I knew it was a good idea all along!"
- Arthur C. Clarke
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I care a lot about the future. After all, it's where
I'll be spending
the rest of my life.
- Unknown
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The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot
read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn,
and relearn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount
of ignorance
it accumulates in the form of inert facts. Henry B.
Adams
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In times of
change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned
find themselves
beautifully equipped to deal with a world that
no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer
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3.
WWWinfo
Official
Athens Olympics Site
More
Olympics sites below..
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4.
NEW PRINTABLES THE FUTURE
What
do we want education to look like in 2020, 2010.
We
need to plan it now.
"
The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
-
Alan Kay
³Conclusions
There is
no question that we are experiencing a fierce
pace of
change in an increasingly global economy. The
challenge
for schools was stated quite clearly by Jack
Welch,
the CEO of General Electric when he said, "If the
rate of
change inside an institution is less than the rate of
change
outside, the end is in sight."
Schools
that ignore the trends shaping tomorrow will cease
to be
relevant in the lives of their students, and will quickly
disappear.
We must transform all formal institutions of
learning,
from pre-K through college, to insure that we are
preparing
students for their future, not for our past.²
http://www.tcpd.org/thornburg/handouts/2020visions.html
Print
this out and put it on the staffroom wall for discussion.
Email
me and let me know what you are thinking.
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5.
TECHNICAL STUFF
Jack
Davis Live,
Author
of the Award winning Photoshop WOW Book and the
soon
to be released How to WOW Book on Photoshop for
Photography.
http://www.ultratraining.com.au/camps.html
Another
great Adobe Free seminar, this oneıs in September.
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Check
out the past Adobe roadshows and
notes at
http://www.adobe.com.au/events/roadshows/pastroadshows.html
The
Russell Brown Video Conference is particularly good.
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6.
WEBSITE FOCUS NEUROFEEDBACK
I
have been delving into the world of neurofeedback. I would
love
to look at using these types of programs in schools with
Autistic
and ADD, ADHD students. It sounds
like it offers great
potential. I have started a links site
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/neurofeed.html
I am
keen to hear form anyone who is currently working in this
area,
I am particularly interested in the sort of hardware and
software
used as well as information on how these devices
work
and results achieved.
Please
give me some EMAILFEEDBACK on this one, I think
this
could be a hugely important areas to investigate.
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7.
Athens Olympics Sites
IOC
Olympics Site
ESPNıs
Olympic Effort
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/index
BBC
provides clear and comprehensive coverage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004
The
³Sydney Morning Heraldıs Website
Around
the Rings Independent news
http://www.aroundtherings.com/
ABC
Olympics site
http://abc.net.au/olympics/default.htm
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8.
GREAT SITES
Great
Maths Sites Thanks everyone for sending in the sites
Some
great stuff here. There is a
selection of my favourites at:-
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/maths.html
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Hi
Cathy,
This
is an excellent math site! Students can practise addition,
subtraction
and multiplication as either one or two player(s)
and
it even has the options of either 'three in a row' (easier)
or
'five in a row' (harder). My
students
from Grades 3 to 10 all love it!
http://weequest.info/science.htm
and click on 1. Play a math game.
Cheers
Alison
James
Computer
Specialist Teacher (1-10)
Toowoomba
Christian College
Queensland
------------------------------------------
The
Maths Game is Fantastic, and the other links to Science and
maths
are well worth exploring, go there use this site.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi
Cathy,
Just
read your info about MathsPOWER on your web site.
Don't
know if you know but the team at MathsPOWER have
now
put together K-6 programs. Just as brilliant, if not better...
kids
get gifts posted to them for half year completion and full
year
completion to add to motivation, same format as High
school.
ie. short lesson & a worksheet but also has a few
added
features specifically designed for Infants/Primary-getting
fantastic
reviews. Thought you might want to add this info to
what's
there. Keep up the Great work!
Regards,
Felicity
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear
Cathy,
Suggestion
for pre-school lessons.The very first K-2
MathsPOWER
program has about 25-30 lessons that are
great
for 3-4yr olds.They have lessons and worksheets
and
the program then continues on through the infants
grades.
My 3 and a half year old is loving it and thriving.
Regards,
Felicity
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi
Cathy,
Here
are some maths sites that I use. I
have others
but I
think they originally came from your own site!
They
are all great by the way!
An
idea that works well is to build the sites into your school
Intranet
(if you are lucky enough to have one) or make yourself
a
little website to use in your own classroom. That way the
children
have easy access to each site and it is easy to
remember
what each offers. I split up the
games from
certain
sites to make a link to particular games.
This works
particularly
if you make sure each opens in a new window
so
children are able to exit out of a site and get back to the
school
site. Microsoft FrontPage lets you
do this when you
make
a hyperlink.
http://www.oswego.org/staff/cchamber/techno/games.htm
This
site has heaps (about 25) different games for all primary
grade levels
http://www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=EarlyMathWorkbench
http://www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=L2_Math
http://www.stpaulsmtl.wa.edu.au/teachers/games.html
This
includes a list of good web links
Cheers,
Cheryl Wells
PS Congratulations on your great
newsletter. I think I use ideas
and
links from every one !
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HOT
SITES
Integrating
ICT is now online, from the Government of
Western
Australia
http://www.eddept.wa.edu.au/cmis/eval/tfo/
With
itıs links to notable websites, fact sheets, learning area
websites
etc youıll take a month to properly explore it.
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9.
READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Dear
Cathy
I
would like to say thank you very much for your newsletter. I really
appreciate
it existing and the effort that must go into producing it.
By
way of a little feedback...I almost feel inappropriate mentioning it;
it,
however, is something that I think teachers need to model...
correct
spelling. I acknowledge that the only real use for accurate
spelling
is the written language and that effective communication
still
occurs in the face of variations - however as teachers we
teach
correct spelling as an element of our literacy programs/needs.
While
I understand that you have written it in accessible and
occasionally
colloquial language, in number one of your core
values
you wrote:
Core
Value number 1 - "We tell the truth." It's an absolute
core
value, we are just not interested in slimeballs, politicians
and
liars, if your into this your outa here, you are immediately
persona
non grata.
It should
read: if you're into this you're outa here.
It
seems in keeping with your core values of quality and continual
improvement
to mention this.
Keep
up the fabulous job with the newsletter - it really is not
only
appreciated but also actively used.
Regards,
Lisa
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Yes
Lisa I need a better editor. You're absolutely right.
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Hi
Cathy,
Thanks
for the great newsletter. The stuff by Mark Treadwell
from
NZ was
very
interesting.
I was
happy to hear you related to the great benefit that
dataloggers
have to offer science education, but you omitted
the
contact details to the best
system
available in Australia; Fourier Systems:
I am
the Education Manager for OZIntell, www.ozintell.com
and I
spend my life going around to primary and secondary
schools
showing teachers the great way that the instant feedback
provided
by dataloggers can really engage students and get
them
asking questions and designing their own investigations
to
test their own hypotheses. While ever a science teacher
says
to a student, "Science is in this book, and if you learn
this
book you will know Science." we will continue to have
one
of the world's lowest retention rates and lowest satisfaction
rates
for science.
In International TIMSS study
"Australian students' attitude
toward
science declined markedly between primary and
secondary
education"
..in data collected from 13 & 14
year
olds, Australia was ranked 19 out of 23 countries
for a
positive attitude towards Science, lowest of all
English
speaking countries....
(Imagine
the public outcry if we were doing this poorly in
the
Rugby or cricket!)
When
students see that by changing one aspect of their
investigation
they get an instant change in the graph,
it
leads them to ask "What would happen if..." questions,
then
they can work out a way to find answers
to their OWN
questions.
This is when they become engaged in science.
This
is when we start to produce scientists. Dataloggers are
wonderful
for this.
The
American datalogger companies you gave links to in
your
last newsletter are OK, but there are two big reasons
why
Fourier is clearly the best choice for Australian schools.
1)Ease
of use/user friendly. The Fourier loggers and software are
unquestionably
the easiest to use of any system. Their primary
EcoLogXL
logger is so simple that even year 1-2's are using
them
with great results, but so powerful that senior biology and
environmental
science students use them for field work.
2)Personal
support and training. I am now the only full time person
available
in NSW to train teachers at their schools free of charge. All
teachers
have to do is call me on my mobile number 0408 298 018
and
arrange a free datalogging workshop for their school.
I
also give workshops in all the other states as well.
Fourier
have been "the best kept secret in school datalogging
in
Australia" for too long. It is time that teacher started to take
advantage
of this fantastic resource.
Peter
Niass
email:
peter@ozintell.com
Ph:
0408 298 018
Fax:
02 9475 0894
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Hi
Cathy,
A
free resource which is great for primary level and up to Stage 4
is
Compute-a-graph which is now available from Curriculum
Support
Directorate at http://www.curriculumsupport.nsw.edu.au/LearningTechnologies
Click
on the Resources menu and scroll down to the
compute-a-graph
link.
There
are also some lesson ideas on the site - click on
Teaching
Ideas then Mathematics. Many of these are from
the
curriculum support documents called 'Computer-based
technologies
in the KLAs' which came out in 1997.
Thanks
again for the informative newsletter,
Regards
Rose Mahar
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When
I went to this site it said under constructionı .
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10. NEXT ISSUE Thanks everyone for the
great maths
sites some real
gems amongst them. I am very
interested
to hear your
ideas on 2020 education visions as well as
neurofeedback
options Keep emailing. ciao Cathy
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11.
Code of the 'Netizens'
This
Newsletter is not free, despite the misleading advertising
above.
The Fee is now due. Each week you must help one
colleague
on the Internet who has less knowledge than you.
Help
that person even if you have to visit their classroom or
do a
little research and get back to them. Trust me, this will
help
a lot of people get their computer classrooms running better.
OK
I'm trusting you!!!
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12.
TIPS
1.
Double click on highlighted URLS to open in browser.
2.
Send in your Questions, Questions will be published with
Answers,
send in your Answers, if you have expertise to share.
3.
Nominate a brilliant site for review and inclusion in this
newsletter.
4.
Nominate a fantastic school site for review and inclusion in
this
newsletter.
5.
Make contact with other schools using fantastic programs.
6.
Prepare and innovative article for this newsletter.
7.
Tell 2 colleagues about this newsletter.
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The
opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor,
Cathy
Brown. All other small print clauses apply. Such as:
Use
at your own risk. Nothing in life
is guaranteed. If it doesn't
work
for you send me an email.
Editor:
cathy brown mailto:cathy@virtualteacher.com.au
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