QuadBlogging and Blogging the Leap Year projects
A quick post to make my readers aware of an excellent project set up by Deputy Headteacher David Mitchell. He’s developed an excellent model for school collaboration called Quadblogging which sets up groups of schools to talk, share ideas, information and comment on each others’ work. At present there are more than 1000 classes in 27 countries working together creating some incredible moments of learning as well as fellowship. It’s an excellent idea, and the project is open to any school around the world, so get in touch with David if you want your class to get involved.
An exciting extension of this is the Feb29th.net project. Feb29th.net is a global blogging project that will cross all age groups and continents. As soon as Feb 29th 2012 begins in Tonga, the Feb29th.net website will open up to collect posts for a single day.
The Feb29th blog will capture posts from all over the world on this rare day until midnight in the Western Pacific. The result will not only be a celebration of technology, but a celebration of audience and purpose, who will be the youngest author? Who will be the oldest? Which country will top the most posts?
The aim is to allow any visitor on 29th Feb to post; these will be moderated on the day, as this will also be open to pupils in educational establishments across the globe.
To find out how your school can take part in the Feb 29 project visit : http://feb29th.net/
For more information about QuadBlogging, visit: http://quadblogging.net/
Read MoreGet the Whiteboard Blog in a handy book format
“The Best of the Whiteboard Blog” contains the very best articles from over three years of this blog collated and put together into one handy document. Running to over 200 A4 pages it is chock full of ideas and useful links to help you to make the best use of your interactive whiteboard.
As well as interactive whiteboards it also covers other educational technologies that would be of interest to teachers such as digital storytelling and other “web 2.0” tools.
You can obtain an ebook version, or an A4 printed version.
Buy The Best of The Whiteboard Blog here. (electronic book / printed version)
Read More16 Avatar Generators for Profile Pictures and more
If you are blogging with students – it’s recommended that you don’t use real photographs of the students. A fun alternative is to create a cartoon avatar instead. This lets the students have a visual representation of themselves, but without using their real image.
You could also use these as characters in your lesson resources – add them to your interactive whiteboard presentations with speech bubbles to give lesson objectvies or to ask questions.
Here are 16 websites that you can use to create fun avatars. Some allow you to save the finished creation as a jpg for free. If not, then use the print screen button to copy the screen, paste into a paint program, crop and save as a jpg. You could also use the Smart or Promethean camera tools to capture these images to your IWB files.
1. WeeMee -Create a mini version of yourself, add accessories. There’s plenty of scope for customisation of your avatar.
2. South park studio – turn yourself into a South Park character
3. HeroMachine 2.5 – Turn yourself into a super hero character. This would also be great as a part of a digital storytelling resource or story starter.
4. Avatarizeyourself - turn yourself into a Na’vi from the movie Avatar
5. Ultimate Flash Face v0.42b a bit like a police photofit.
6. Make yourself in lego – Produce a lego character that looks like you. Or turn yourself into a Stormtrooper wizard. Is up to you 
7. Simpsons Movie – Ever wanted to be a Simpsons character? Now you can create your own yellow-skinned doppleganger in the style of the Simpsons.
8. Mr. Picassohead – become an abstract piece of work in the style of Picasso. Put your eyes and ears wherever you want!
9. BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF – Create an avatar out of bits and pieces of humans and other animals – head, arms, legs, clothes, eyes, mouth, tail, wings, shells … just pick the parts you like and assemble them together
10.Mii Avatar Generator – create a Mii in the style of the characters found on the Wii computer console.
11. Clay Yourself - Clay Yourself lets you create a version of yourself in modelling clay. Lots of choice. (Thanks Lara for the link!)
12. ArtisanCam - A quick way of producing a sketch version of yourself. Limited choice of options.
13. Become an M and M – This lets you recreate yourself as an M and M sweet from the adverts. Probably going against the school’s healthy eating agenda…
14. Lloyds TSB Me – This lets you recreate yourself in the style of the characters from the Lloyds TSB banking adverts.
15. Grabba Beast – Grabba Beast lets you build your own monster from a large library of body parts, some scary, some cute. Plenty of weird and strange designs. This would also be great for creating characters for digital storytelling.
16. Mad Men Yourself - this is one for the teachers more than the students. Fans of the TV show Mad Men can creates a sharp dressed 60s avatar of themselves.
If you want more of these sites, the full list can be found on my Delicious list here: http://delicious.com/dannynic/avatar
Got any others you’d like to add? Let me know in the comments!
Don’t forget you can also follow the Whiteboard Blog on Facebook here : https://www.facebook.com/whiteboardblog
Also don’t forget: For SMARTboard Training and Promethean ActivInspire Training, check out my Think Bank website.
Read MoreTracking Blogs with RSS in Google Reader
There are some excellent blogs out there with a wealth of information for teachers. The biggest problem is keeping track of them. It can be very time consuming to go from blog to blog to see if there’s any new content. A much better way is to get the blogs to come to you. And you can do that very easily using a Blog reader and RSS.
RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to. Using RSS readers you can monitor lots of blogs from one place and be informed when they have new content. For more about RSS, here’s a guide to RSS in plain english
One of the simplest ways to do this is to use Google Reader, which comes free as part of a Google account. If you have Google Mail or Google Docs, you already have access to Google Reader. If you don’t already have an account, sign up for one. It’s totally free.
Add blogs to your reader
First, visit a blog that you’d like to follow. Then all you need to do is click and copy its web address / URL. Switch to Google Reader and click the “Add a subscription” button. Then paste the URL in the box. Google Reader should automatically find the RSS feed of the blog and add it to your list of blogs.
If not- take a look on the blog for an RSS icon – usually it will link to the address of the feed for that blog. It should look something like this:
For this blog – its towards the top right of the page (it’s grey not orange). Click it to see my feed page. Then copy and paste the URL address for the feed into Google Reader as before.
List blogs
Whenever you visit your Google Reader page, it will list all the blogs that you have subscribed t0 that have unread posts. As you click on them you’ll see the latest updates and can read it right there in the feed reader. Typically it will show the titles of the blog posts. Simply click on a title to open up the post.
You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item – marking the last one as ‘read’.
If you want to visit the actual blog site – to add a comment or to pass on the URL, then click on the title of the blog post and a new window should open up. Some blogs are set up so you only get a small part of the post, to read the whole thing you would then need to click on the title and go to the original site.
For more help, here’s a short guide on getting started from the Google Reader blog:
and here’s the official help page.
By using Google Reader I can follow lots of blogs, and read them all by going to just one website. It does make following blogs a lot easier.If you use an iPad you can also access Google Reader via the browser, or via many different RSS apps that will connect to your Google Reader account and display your blogs in a handy format. I use an app called Reeder which makes the blog reading experience so much nicer.
If you’ve never tried Google Reader do check it out: http://www.google.com/reader/
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The Inaugral Ed Tech Blog Carnival
So here goes. Welcome to the first Ed Tech Blog carnival I’ve ever run or organised!
The idea is that anyone with an interest in technology and education could write a blog post as part of the carnival and then let me have the URL. Those posts are all linked within this article. There are posts of all different types here, all addressing different areas of Educational Technology. Hopefully you will discover some new blogs that you haven’t seen before and add them to your reader list.
So, without further ado – here’s the Ed Tech Blog Carnival:
I’ll kick proceedings off with a special blog post from a few days ago about using the 5 basic tools in all Interactive Whiteboard software to produce some very interactive resources. The motto – Keep it Simple!
Want a Visualiser, but can’t stretch the budget? Glen Gilchrist has written an excellent guide to building your own visualiser for about £40. Complete with step by step images. With a webcam and a few accessories you can make something quite cool!
Rober Drummond has written a post describing a way of children creating their own maths problems for their peers to solve using websites such as WallWisher. http://www.robertfdrummond.com/maths/using-wallwisher-for-problem-solving/
Terry Freedman gives his reflections on BETT 2011 and the fringe events.
Doug Dickinson writes a little about Ictopus which, if you haven’t seen it, is an excellent resource for Primary teachers.
Paula White at Cooperative Catalyst has written a post about hiring ICT staff called What Do Vanguards Have To Do With Hiring? How do we look for school leaders who will move us forward into the future in realistic and successful ways?
Kevin Mulryne has written a series of How To guides for different ICT activities including the rather excellent idea of How to Make the Longest Sentence in the World. It’s a great idea!
Lisa Butler has written a very interesting blog post reflecting on how students really feel about frequent use of technology in the classroom. Their responses and her reflection make for some interesting reading.
All the way from Brazil, Bruno Andrade has written about his experiences of using Xtranormal with 7 year old kids, with some excellent results!
Pam Shoemaker has written about the use of Wolfram Alpha in her classroom and having an expert assistant at her fignertips.
Eve Dickson is a student teacher who has posted a few thoughts about what makes a 21st Century Education.
Zoe Elder over at Full-on Learning has written about nurturing our real and digital selves, and digital identity v. digital footprint with an interesting presentation from Alec Courous.
Anne Morris gives a really cool idea for making spreadsheets a little more fun!
IanH over at Teaching Science has written a really great blog post which discusses why teachers should consider using blogs such as Bad Science and others with their students.
And finally, Dan Roberts – the amazing Chickenman, has written about a fantastic web 2.0 tool called Fuzzwich. It’s a really simple way to make animated videos. Well worth a look.
So that’s the first carnival done. Hopefully you’ve found something new you didn’t know before. And maybe been inspired to take part next time.
If all the writers above could put a link back to this post within their blogpost it would be appreciated. This would help their readers discover the other blogs that have contributed to the carnival.
Like this idea? If someone else would like to take up the mantle of organising the next one we could make this a regular event. How about bi-monthly with the next one at the start of April? Who’s up for it?
Image credit : Sammy0716
Read MoreA UK Ed Tech Blog Carnival?
At BETT I attended a talk about blogging, and mention was made of blog carnivals. It was something I had seen previously, but had forgotten all about. I’d seen a few science ones and skeptic ones, such as this: Carnival of Evolution, which kind of gives you the idea I think.
It’s not that kind of carnival…..
A blog carnival is where people write a blog posts on their own blogs with a common theme (i.e. technology in education) within a certain timescale (by end of month), and then each author sends the URL of blog posts and a short description to one person who then “hosts” the carnival for that month/quarter. They write a blog post which links to all the posts involved in the carnival. Next time, someone else hosts it, and links to posts.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about blog carnivals.
It got me thinking about whether there were any Education Technology carnivals. I found an general education one, but was thinking that a UK Education Chat (#ukedchat) Carnival would be a good thing to try. I’d be happy to host the first one here, and then others can take it on if they like the idea.
If people are interested – let me know in the comments below or contact me on twitter. If enough people express an interest, we could kickstart the first one. Give everyone two weeks to get a post written and a link sent to me (danny at think-bank dot com)
Or we could broaden it out into an Ed Tech blog carnival and include overseas bloggers too? Thoughts?
Update - OK let’s try this out. Full details here : Ed Tech Blog Carnival. Closing date 30th Jan.
Image credit. Green Mask by Calca.
Read MoreTop Blogposts of 2010
It’s that time of year again. Where we sum up , take stock and start making plans for 2011. All those “review of the year” television shows and articles in the newspapers. And this blog will be no exception.
So here are a selection of the most read blog posts written this year, in case you missed some of them.
10 avatar generators for profile pictures : 10 ideas for producing pictures to use as an avatar image instead of using your own image. Including Simpsons, Avatar, Lego and South Park.
12 Art Resources for your IWB : ideas for using your interactive whiteboard to support Art.
Lesson Starter Ideas for your Whiteboard : A quickfire demonstration of some lesson starter ideas that can be used in your lessons, with links to Smart and Promethean files.
iBoard – Free interactive KS1 resources : a great resource for Key Stage 1 / Elementary teachers.
10 More Cool Teaching Resources for Your Whiteboard : A general round up of a few great resources to use on your IWB.
Icelandic Volcano Links : It all seems so long ago now, but relive the fun of the Icelandic Volcano and the resulting travel chaos with these links.
Smart Notebook Express : A quick way to access Smart Notebook files if you don’t have the software. Access them via your browser and Smart Notebook Express.
IWB Guides from Becta – get them before they go : They are still there for now.. so get in before our new leaders decide to scrap yet another website. These are handy guides to using your IWB in the classroom for all NC Subjects.
Tagxedo – Another Word Cloud Maker : An alternative to Wordle. Worth a look if you ever have problems accessing Wordle due to Java being blocked.
Read MoreBlog the World Cup
If you are looking for good examples of pupil-created blogs then go take a look at the Blog the World Cup project.
The idea is brilliantly simple: there are 32 nations in the FIFA World Cup and there will be 32 blogs on the site, one for each competing nation. Each blog will be managed by a different class (or school) with each one allocated a country at random.
You can get a list of all the different blogs here. Take a look and see if you could do something similar with your pupils.
Kudos to John Sutton for setting up and organising the project, and well done to the classes involved for their work so far!
idea is simple: there are 32 nations in the FIFA World Cup and there will be 32 blogs on this site, one for each competing nation. Each blog will be managed by a class (or school) and a live online draw will take place to allocate classes/schools to the different country blogs.
Promethean Guest Post – Science Resources
I’m quite chuffed to have been asked to produce a guest post for the Promethean Planet website. I’ve written about my favourite 10 science websites.
To see the Blog Post go here.
This updated blog is part of a big redesign of the Promethean Planet website and community area. If you are a Promethean user then it’s well worth registering with the site and taking a look at the resources that you can download.
I’m looking forward to writing more blog posts for them in the future.. watch this space!
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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