Virtual
Teacher Newsletter No. 99 6th November 2004 IMPOSSIBLE NEVER
THE
FREE ONLINE FORTNIGHTLY IT TEACHERS' NEWSLETTER
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CONTENTS
1.
Welcome
2.
Mind Candy
3.
WWWinfo WEB SERVICES
5.
Technical Stuff APPLE CONFERENCE, EDSOFT INSERVICE
6.
Web Site Focus LEARNING FEDERATION
7.
ROBOTICS
8.
Great Sites
9. Readers' Requests/Comments
10
Next Issue
11.
Code of 'Netizens'
12.
Tips
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1.
WELCOME EVERYONE. 1. WELCOME EVERYONE. Another Knock out conference from the
University of Wollongong and Apple is to be held at the beginning of December
donıt miss it. Marco Torres will
be a knock-out , check his online line links below. Also the extended workshop sessions will really proof
beneficial to attendees, 15 hours of technology skilling across a wide range of
areas including OS x Server configuring, WOW. And every conference delegate
will be provided with a wireless computer. Hands on right on. These new initiatives by Technology
suppliers to hold conferences such as this are to be applauded and encouraged.
Also check out the Edsoft seminars, Linda does a great job, and they are so
much better than your stand departmental run inservice. Go to as many as you can, go on, your
principals have been given extra T&D funding, and this is just the sort of
experience you should have.
Correction
the website for the fantastic Logger is http://www.ozintell.com
go
there and check it out.
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2.
MIND CANDY
It is
not as important to know what is possible as it is to know
that
what is impossible is temporary.
Cathy
Brown Virtual Teacher
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"We have schools because we hope that some day when children
have left schools
that they will still be able to use what it is that
they've
learned." --Howard Gardner
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3.
WWWinfo WEB SERVICES
Students
in NSW are finally getting their promised email accounts
and
the new Web Services seems wonderful. Check it out at
http://www.state.office.education.nsw.gov.au/index.htm
If
you havenıt already books in for the training and you are in NSW-
do it
now.
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4.
NEW PRINTABLES/Searchables
TIP I
have had a number of questions over the last few
weeks
asking for specific info on certain topics. The Virtual
Teacher
is filled with vast resources on a huge range of topics.
The
best way to search the site is to use the Google search
engine
on the directory page for the Virtual Teacher site, just
type
in you words and all will be revealed.
http://www.virtualteacher.com.au/directory.html
near
the top in the centre.
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5. TECHNICAL
STUFF
INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS CONFERENCE
The University of
Wollongong Faculty of Education and Apple
Computer
Australia will hold the 16th Annual Innovative
Technology
Schools Conference (ITSC) from 1-3 December
at the University
of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia.
ITSC is a unique
professional development opportunity for
educators from
around the Asia-Pacific region. Working with
experienced
facilitators in a variety of areas, you can select
workshops that
relate to your passion, and that fit your schedule.
You choose
between seven one-day workshops that quickly
boost your skill
level in a particular area, or eleven three-day
workshops, which
allow more in-depth understanding of the
areas covered.
Both choices offer focused learning and real
skills to use
immediately in your education environment.
Why ITSC?
Time. As well as
learning new skills, you get time to reflect,
discuss and
explore. Youıll spend 15 hours in the workshop
of your choice,
making sure you acquire the technology
skills that are
important to you.
Access. Every ITSC
delegate is provided with a wireless
computer and
relevant peripheral resources such as DV cameras.
Leadership. ITSC
workshop leaders are some of the best
international and
local educational experts in their field.
Their leadership
and communication skills will make your
conference
experience a memorable and valuable one.
Two Conferences
in One
You select which
program is right for your needs. Both
programs offer
the keynote speech, birds of a feather sessions,
technology
partner expo and conference dinner.
3-Day Program
Attendees to the
3-day program work in a small group with
fellow educators
on a selected project. The workshops are
designed to cater
for a variety of skill levels, from novice to
³guru² and will
give you 15 hours of invaluable hands-on experience.
1-Day Program
For
more time-constrained delegates, the 1-day workshops on
Thursday,
2 Dec offer the perfect blend of intense study in a
quick
1-day format.
INTERNATIONAL
GUESTS
MARCO TORRES is a
social studies teacher, media coach, and
education
technology director at San Fernando High School.
He has received numerous honors and
awards for his work helping students empower themselves through the mastery of
multimedia. He serves as one of Appleıs Distinguished Educators and is an
advisory board member of The George Lucas Educational Foundation.
http://glef.org/php/people.php?id=C517568
Professor STEPHEN
HEPPELL is director of Ultralab, Anglia Polytechnic
University's
learning technology research centre in Chelmsford.
Stephen has been
described as "the man who is single handedly
doing more than
any other to enlighten government thinking on
the use of computers
in schools.' by the Times Education Supplement
THE PROGRAM
http://www.itsc.uow.edu.au/programme.html
REGISTRATION
http://www.itsc.uow.edu.au/registration.html
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From
Linda
EXPAND
YOUR READING PROGRAM A FREE two-hour
professional
development seminar
Thursday
11th November 2004 from 4pm - 6pm Cranbrook
School
Junior Library 5 Victoria Rd, Bellevue Hill, Sydney NSW
Thursday
18th November 2004 from 1pm - 3pm
The
Hills Grammar Library 43 Kenthurst Rd, Kenthurst NSW
This
professional development seminar will focus on 3 key areas:
1.
The Skill of Reading
2.
Assessment
3.
Motivation and Instruction
By
attending this seminar, participants will discover a new
classroom
reading resource that will save time and provide
techniques
to efficiently manage your reading program.
The
target audience for this workshop is Curriculum Coordinators,
Librarians,
K-12 Classroom Teachers, Literacy Coordinators and Special Education Teachers.
This
workshop will be presented by Bill Norris, the Implementation
Services
Manager at Renaissance Learning Australia.
Throughout
his career Bill has undertaken many educator
positions
including classroom teacher of English and SOSE
and
various roles with the Victorian Department of Education
and
Training. Most recently he has
worked as an independent
consultant
on a number of education and training projects.
Linda@edsoft.com.au
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Edsoft
invites you to a talk by Ann Crick from Crick software.
³Crick
Software promotes the inclusion of children of all abilities
by
creating flexible products that can be tailored by teachers to
the
needs of individuals. Their most popular program, Clicker,
is a
powerful yet easy-to-use writing support and multimedia t
ool
that enables children to write with whole words, phrases
or pictures.
When:- 4.00 6.00 pm Tuesday 16th November
Where:- Australian Catholic University
Main
Auditorium
25A
Barker Road
Strathfield
RSVP
before 11th November, including your name, school and
contact
details to Linda
Email: linda@edsoft.com.au
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These
are 2 great sounding seminars from Edsoft and Linda,
the seminars are free, this is a fantastic
way to update on
software
and understand its uses before purchase. they are in
fact
FREE tutorials professionally presented by companies that
are
actually spending money to inservice teachers in the use of
effective
technology in the classroom. I support this initiative by
Edsoft
and other companies such as Adobe and Apple, who
provide
education specific inservicing.,
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6.
WEBSITE FOCUS LEARNING FEDERATION
http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/tlf/newcms/d2.asp
The
Le@rning Federation is an initiative designed to create
online
curriculum content and infrastructure to ensure that
teachers
and students benefit from using these materials to
widen and enhance their learning
experiences in the classroom.
TLF
is an initiative of the governments of Australia and the States,
Territories
and the government of New Zealand. TLF is project
managed
as part of a joint venture between Curriculum
Corporation
and education.au ltd. Both these companies
are
owned by all Ministers at a Commonwealth, State and
Territory
level.
==============================================
7.
Robotics
Carnegie
Melon University ~ Robotics Institute
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/kits.html
English
Robotics Curriculum units outlined, step by step lessons.
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/roboticscurriculum/index_to_robotics.htm
Core
Concepts
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/core.shtml
Lego
Engineering http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/legoengin.shtml
Math
& Science
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/math.shtml
Sensors
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/sensors.shtml
Programming
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/prog.shtml
Building
Tips
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/multimedia/tips.shtml
NASA
Robotics Education Project
http://robotics.nasa.gov/edu/6-8.htm
Rover
Ranch
Lego
Robotics Resources on the Web
The
Centre for Engineering Educational Outreach
http://www.ceeo.tufts.edu/curriculum/index.asp
Tankbot
building Instructions
http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/teachertraining/tankbotbldginstr.pdf
This
next link is to a cool animation of the instructions
above
you see how to build it.
http://www.baumfamily.org/lego/books/render.html
Robotics
Prototypes, development, solving problems
http://www.galileo.org/robotics/design.html
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8.
GREAT SITES
HOT
SITES
Dinosphere:
Now You're in THEIR World
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/dinosphere/index.html
Using
actual specimens from the Dinosphere: Now You're in Their World
exhibit,
The Children's Museum staff along with local educators and
university
professionals collaborated to create engaging, K-8
standards-based
online activities and WebQuests. There are eight
activities
for K - 2, divided into nonreader, early reader, and reader
categories.
There is also a WebQuest for grades 3 -5, as well as one for
grades
6 - 8. Each activity has a teacher's guide including activity
overview,
standards and suggestions for variations, when applicable. All
activities
and WebQuests have been translated into Spanish for ESL
students.
From the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
K-12
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9.
READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS
Hi
Cathy
We have two sites - one is www.vernier.com.au
which
is now active. We intend to build this site up with information and resources
for users.
The
sales site http://www.ozintell.com will
be active next week. This is
basically
our sales site from which we distribute the probes and other
things.
That is why the password came up.
Glad
you found them useful. I will
prepare a proper price list in the next
couple
of days and send you this. I have been more concerned with getting
the
sites working properly and organising a few of the end of year
conferences.
Just wish there was 48 hours in the day!
------------------------------------------
Thanks
Ed. The temperature probes from Ed are splendid check
them
out at his site, more on using them next newsletter.
------------------------------------------
Hi
there. I just recently subscribed to Virtual Teacher and was looking
for
website evaluation rubrics. I couldn't find them on the site, but
was wondering
if you knew of any? I look forward to hearing from you.
Kristy
Leuck
P.S.
I
love Virtual Teacher. There are so many useful things on here.
------------------------------------------
If
you goto the Virtual Teacher Directory Page in the type Rubric
in
there you will get about 7 results.
A
great site for this is http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
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Hi
Cathy,
I just
wanted to write and say a BIG BOFFO THANK YOU for
your
wonderful newsletter. It was filled with fascinating information
and
was a great read. Loved reading about the EcoLog
which
is wonderful. Loved the T&D you arranged for us at
Crown
Street. And I enjoyed reading the feedback/comments
from
other readers and the links you provided.
YOU
ARE BRILLIANT. TOTALLY BOFFO !!! Don't know how
you
find the time to do everything ... but all l know is that everything
you
do is filled with heart, passion and integrity.
Shanti
------------------------------------------
Cathy
I
have been registered for newsletters for quite a while now but even
though
the site says I'm registered, the newsletters are not coming
through.
Others on staff are receiving theirs without problem. Any
suggestions?
Keep up the good work. You provide a great service. Ted
Langford
------------------------------------------
Yes
you are already subscribed to VT
Unfortunately
the great protecting spam police of the CEO
sometimes
determine that VT is SPAM.
Try
writing to the parra.catholic.edu.au webmaster and letting him/her
know
VT is NOT SPAM - otherwise you may have to subscribe
using
a different email address.
------------------------------------------
Hi!
I
don't want to unsubscribe at all - I love reading Virtual Teacher
and
find it most useful. All I would like to
do is
change my email address, but the unsubscribe option
does
not allow this.
thanks,
Natalie
Purdy
------------------------------------------
Hi
Natalie,
Just
unsubscribe the old email address then re-subscribe with
the
new email address
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10. NEXT ISSUE Next Issue Christmas
and Pyramids.
And
Web Services. AND THE 100TH NEWSLETTER. WOW
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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