Online Presence

One of the perils of having an online presence is that you can be looked up by anybody with access to the internet. This can include prospective/current employers and, in the case of teachers, pupils and their parents.

Here is a cautionary tale from the Washington Post. Again it outlines the dangers of having your personal life on show for all to see. Thanks to John Sutton on the Creative ICT blog for the link.

I'm on Facebook, but have avoided some of the other sites like Bebo and MySpace. I try and keep my profile slightly work-related, and just use it to keep in touch with friends and colleagues. I'm also going for the world record for the number of application invitations I am currently ignoring!

Many new teachers are making the transition from student to teacher and in September there will be another cohort starting their first teaching posts. Most of them have Facebook accounts and so can be found by pupils and parents. It's another level of complexity from having your profile read by your boss for those in an office job.

Setting your Facebook profile to limited access is one way to stop unwelcome visitors finding out what's on your wall, or some of your personal details. But it's going to be harder to stop friends and colleagues posting material that contains you - such as the xmas party photographs etc etc.

It's a shame you can't set up private and professional versions of your profile - one only viewable by friends and one for colleagues. A kind of TwoFaced Book.

Of my group of 21 Primary PGCE students that I teach, 19 have Facebook profilesand only two of those have a viewable profile. The rest have them set to friends only - so at least the message is getting out there to protect your online identity.

Here's a nice parody of Facebook, that really rings true. If it's not acceptible in real life, why is it OK on Facebook?

Read all about it!

Here's a fun little tool that could liven up the way you present information - or make a class writing task a little more fun.

The newspaper generator lets you put your own text into a few boxes, and then generates an authentic looking newspaper article containing your text.

The finished product is very authentic, and quite impressive.

You have to save your image and host it elsewhere if you want to use it online, but it is a very quick process to host it on Flickr or similar.

IWBs and Interactivity

One thing that a lot of people get wrong is that they believe that the IWB is inherently Interactive. That just by using it, they are making their lessons interactive. This is something I try and get across in my training sessions - that you need to work a little to put the Interactive into Interactive Whiteboard.

From a posting on Classroom2.0 I came across this fantastic presentation that challenges teachers to think about how they are using this great piece of technology. I'm reposting it here, but please go to the original post to show your appreciation.

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Senteo

I've recently got my hands on a set of Smart's new Senteo voting kits. They look really nice and I can't wait to try them out with a class soon.

Smart is moving into a quite crowded market, against products like Activote, TurningPoint, Quizdom etc but this is a pretty nice product.

Once the software is installed you get a Senteo option on your Smart Notebook toolbar (and also in Powerpoint, but I've not investigated that yet). Adding questions for the students to answer couldn't be easier and I've made a short video to show how to do it.

Take a look at the video here.

The handsets are quite chunky, and less "nickable" than the TurningPoint ones. They come in a very nice padded bag with a carry strap for ease of transport. The receiver was installed pretty quickly and it was really simple to import a class list into the Senteo Manager. I'll do some more tutorials soon to show how to do this.

First impressions are very positive. I set up a test, logged in some handsets and ran the quiz very quickly. Output to Excel was also simple. I don't know how good the data mining is yet, that's something else I need to investigate.

Will post more on here once I've had more of a play.

Search and Mobile

A while back I added a Search feature to the sidebar of the blog. Or at least I thought I had, but it seemed to stop working not long after I added it.

Anyway, I've been playing again and have tweaked the search tool and this time I think it is working. You can search by clicking on the link in the sidebar on the right, or go here.

I've also followed this idea from Creative ICT and used MoFuse to make a mobile version of my blog. You can find it by pointing your mobile phone to whiteboardblog.mofuse.mobi

Smart 10 and Tables

Smart Notebook 10 now comes with a tool that a lot of Smartboard users have been wanting for a long time - the ability to make tables. It was always such a pain messing about with lines to draw a table, and it never lined up as easily. The new tables tool makes this so much easier!

The "Insert Table" icon is on the toolbar, next to the Select arrow. Click on it and choose the size of table you wish to add. It's no different to adding a table into Word.

What's nice about the tables is that you can drag images into cells - and the images will automatically resize to fit the cell.

You can merge cells by dragging to select them, then clicking the right mouse button and choosing "Merge Cells". You can also right click in a cell and choose Split - to split one cell into more.

Another interesting tool is the Cell Shade. Right click on a cell and choose "Add Cell Shade". This will add a mini version of the screen shade that just covers one cell. Click on the shade to remove it. This would be good for hiding answers or additional help. You can see the cell shade on a few cells in the image below:



I have produced a quick video about the Smart 10 tables tool. You can view the video here.

Doctor Who Trailer Maker

Doctor Who has been a part of my life since I was a kid, hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks came on the screen. The "new" series is now on Season 4 and I've been really enjoying it so far, even if it does have that awful Tate lady (TATL) as an assistant.

The BBC have embraced a lot of the interactive features of the Internet, and their Doctor Who website is no exception.

The Comic Maker was pretty cool but I really like their Trailer Maker.

It allows you to make a 30 second trailer using clips, music and sound effects and then save your effort to share with others. It's great fun and has great potential for using with a class.

You can see my quick effort here. It's not much, but gives you an idea of what you can do with it.

I have a feeling the site won't be accessible outside the UK I'm afraid. But for UK teachers - get your class creating!