WEB 2.0 ... What is it?

Well... We hear this term, WEB 2.0, used allot these days but what is it really? Is it a thing, something tangible? mmm... Not really but guess what? Your experiencing it right now.

Wikipedia's short and skinny version reads:

"It is a trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to facilitate creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users."

10 years ago, the world wide web was a static holding tank of information. The content was updated only by webmasters who controlled those sites. Today's web has evolved into something much more dynamic.

A comment from someone on YouTube in response to a video explaining Web 2.0 wrote:

"Web 2.0 is a buzzword that no one has the same definition for, even experts. It's is more of an abstract than concrete. It's about the way the web is evolving and changing toward providing more interaction with users, making users the content generators - but then, it's also about design. So web 2.0 encompasses not only the interactive content but also that sleek, minimalist shiny design you all see."

Here is a video that helped me learn more about Web 2.0. It's a bit fast, and slightly hard to follow, but it's the best one I could dig up (today).



Now imagine what the web will be like for our children and students 10 years from now. It begs questions to me like: "Are we doing everything we can to prepare our children for the web of tomorrow, or the web we know today?" and "How do we prepare our children for something that doesn't exist yet?" or "How can we teach or help create content generators?"

I don't know or have the answers for either of these questions but it does make me think of the last seven words of any dying organization: "We have always done it that way."

Just a thought! I would love to hear your comments and I hope you found this informative, and thought provoking as well.

Google Earth: A Joystick for Learning

OK.... Just a quick post about a website I learned about today from TechLearning. The folks over at Apple Learning Interchange (Yes... Apple)have a great site to show you how to integrate Google Earth (the incredible free resource) seamlessly into daily lessons.

Click the link and enjoy!

Google Earth: Small World, Your World, Our World -
A Teacher's Guide to Google Earth for the 21st Century Classroom

Great Stuff! I hope you find this as useful as I have.

SoftChalk Lessons are now ALIVE!

A few years back, we created an intranet (not internet) of sorts for Beauvoir and called it BVRWEB. It was supposed to be used as a place to get and share information with other teachers and or staff. There was some professional development and references for Global Studies as well as quotes of the day and standard operating procedures for Technology. Well... it never really took off, and was kind of swept under the rug.

Soooo, it is being introduced once again. This time as a portal to the Tech Blog, (hey that's this site :) HelpDesk, and best of all, (drumroll please)... all of those SoftChalk lessons that everyone has been working so hard on.

Please remember that because this is an intranet, it cannot be accessed while away from Beauvoir, (just like the helpDesk) unless you are connected through the VPN.

If you can think of any other creative ways that we may be able to use BVRWEB, please don't hesitate to send us your suggestions, and we will see what we can do to help make them happen.

Coming Soon To A Surface Near YOU!

OK , so I have been following the progress of this project for over a year now, and it seems like it's finally turning into a reality. Not exactly how I would have hoped, but for now, it's a start.

Later this month, 12 AT&T Wireless stores in 4 US cities will be the starting point for a new computing platform called Surface Computing, developed by Microsoft.

If you are unfamiliar with it, take a few minutes to watch this video. You might be amazed. :) (please ignore the wierd "mushroom music" in the beginning and end of the video. It is about 5 min long in total but worth it!)


After watching the video, you can see that the possibilities of this platform are endless. I am sad to see it make it's debut as a marketing tool however, I can only assume that it will begin to surface (pun intended) in homes and schools in the near future.

Can you imagine having a few friends over the house and sharing photos from your recent trip to [insert your favorite vacation spot here], literally on the coffee table? All of you sifting through and manipulating the media simultaneously, without a mouse or keyboard or stylus for that matter.

Even better, imagine this in a classroom... of any kind. I could not even speculate what the imagination of a child, native born in the age of technology, could do with this.

So... I will let you speculate, go to The Beauvoir Tech Blog and leave a comment to this post, how you think this could be used in a classroom. C'mon and get those creative juices flowing, I wanna hear some off the wall ideas! please don't reply to the email that this post automatically generates. Visit the Blog and Comment... Please.

Thanks!

Are you looking for Technology Professional Development? Look no further!

Do you know the way to San Jose... um... I mean... San Antonio?

I just wanted to take a minute to share this opportunity with those of you who are seeking Technology Professional Development for this summer. The 29th annual National Educational Computing Conference put on by ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) is the largest "EdTech" conference in the USA. It is attended by over 18,000 educators from all over the US and some international visitors too.

Last year, the conference was held in Atlanta. Roya, Andrea, Atanas, and I all attended, and it was amazing. They have some of the best Keynote speakers and the best sessions and workshops of any conferences that I have been to. You may just run into some folks like Alan November, or Daniel Pink, or Kathy Schrock, or David Warlick, or David Thornburg, or my favorite Mitch Resnick just to name a few.

I hope that some of you can have a chance to attend this conference, It is as much fun as it is inspiring! You can click on the logo above to find out more information.

Thanks, and keep those comments coming!

11 Year Old Student in Charge of IT at Arkansas School

You have got to love a story like this!

The Victory Baptist School in Sherwood, Arkansas has made 11 year old Jon Penn, the Network Administrator of the schools 60 computer network. Jon has been at it for nearly a year, since the previous IT person just up and quit one day, leaving the network and all of it's hardware a complete mess for someone else to clean up.

Not only has this kid stepped up to the challenge and cleaned up their network and it's hardware but he has also implemented a firewall for security and SPAM and Virus protection. This may just be the geek in me talking but this kid ROCKS, however, does make me feel slightly insecure :) Move over Billy G... Jon Penn is moving on up!

I would definitely love to hear your comments about this, so remember... Visit http://beauvoirtech.blogspot.com/ and click on the comments at the end of the post!

I hope you enjoyed this little post :)

You can click on his picture to get to the original post from Engadget.

Call for Volunteers!

Calling all volunteers.... Calling all volunteers....

Spring break will soon be here, and dare I say that it will be over sooner than we think. (hopefully it won't seem to go by too quickly)

When we all return in April, the Tech Team is looking for some volunteers to test 3 new experimental Tablet PCs with their class. Ideally we would like for each grade level to have a turn in 1 or 2 different classes for a week or two. Being that we have 10 weeks left after spring break, It should be just enough time to make the rounds.

What we would like to know is just how usable these tablets are with the kids. How well they adjust to the size, basic use, portability, and anything else regarding how they differ from the laptops we use now.

This coming week, we will be making a "checklist" of sorts with some specific things that we hope to find out about these tablets. We are hoping that we can all ignore how "cute" they are or how small they may be for us to use on a daily basis for work functions, but rather see how well the kids take to them.

Please remember that if you comment anonymously on the Blog ( www.beauvoirtech.blogspot.com) to volunteer, please leave at least your first name. I know that sounds weird... but, If you just want to comment anonymously without volunteering, it could be kept anonymous, however, if you are volunteering it would be helpful to know who you are. :) You could also just email a member of the Tech Team to volunteer as well.

Thanks and we hope to hear from many of you.

And...... Let the volunteering BEGIN!

It's Been A While...

OK... OK... So it's been a while since my last post. Well... about a year actually.


Anyhow, I just returned from a great conference called The Education Show in Birmingham, UK and I wanted to share a few things that I found interesting. I thought that this would be a great venue to do this, so hope to hear your comments as I continue to post new findings or interesting things.






I thought this little microphone was just the coolest and I hope you agree.

Here's what it does:

-Record voices, sounds or music on the move directly into MP3 or WAV files
-Play back MP3 or WAV files using the built-in speaker or headphone socket
-Connects to your PC like a thumb drive to manage the MP3 files that were created

-It's a great way for children to do role-play interviewing, drama, note-taking and pod-casting. Kids can be the roving reporter or singing star, without being tethered to a PC.

It Features:

-Built-in Rechargeable battery
-Great audio quality for record and playback
-64MB memory for 2 hours of high-quality recording
-USB connector for direct connection to PC or MAC
-Audacity Software included (which we already use)
-Neck-strap included ( harder to lose :)
-Intuitive interface

You have to admit.... this thing is great, and I can't think of one kid who wouldn't have fun with it.

OK.... Let's hear it

Updated: The date on this post is wrong, Im not sure why but it was really written around or about 3/6/08.
Oh and I ordered 2 of these and they are on backorder for a while. I will be sure to share them when they arrive.

Alan November Podcast

It's finally here! The Alan November Podcast. We have created a podcast of Alan Novembers talk at The National Cathedral, so if you missed it, you can hear it here first!

Click Here to open iTunes and go to the Apple store location that it can be downloaded from for free.

It can Also be downloaded at http://slapcast.com/users/mcastanera .

The RSS Feed URL is http://slapcast.com/rss/mcastanera/index.xml .

Please be patient when downloading this podcast as it is quite a large download (but well worth the wait).

Enjoy! And as always, don't be shy, we love to hear your comments!

Podcasting, What is it? How can I use it in my classroom?

In the wake of Alan November's Leading Voices talk at the Cathedral, some people have asked the question " What exactly is a podcast?". Well its nothing more than an audio file (and video is possible now too) that can be downloaded to your computer, portable Digital Audio Player (DAP) or Portable Multimedia Player (PMP). These digital audio and video players don't necessarily need to be an oh so popular and trendy Apple iPod, though the name "podcast" seems to suggest compatibility with only iPods. However, the iPod and its ease of integration with iTunes, makes it very easy to subscribe to podcasts and synchronize them with your ipod with minimal user interaction.
Creating a podcast is much easier than one might think. There is some free software that we have available to use to record audio. It is about as easy as using a tape recorder. Creating a video podcast is a bit more difficult but can still be created with ease using just a video camera and some video capture/conversion software that we also have available.
I think that I can speak for the Tech Team and say that we would love to hear your ideas for creating podcasts with your kids. We are sure that they would enjoy the activity and be able to share the finished product with others.

Here are some links to podcasting sites that can give you an idea how to begin your podcasting journey.

http://edtech.typepad.com/podcasting_introduction.mp3 - A podcast you can listen to in your browser.

http://edtech.typepad.com/ed_tech_using_technology_/

http://coverpage.pcs.k12.mi.us/geeked/

Please... Let's hear your Comments!

Blogging at Beauvoir!

Welcome to the first Technology Blog for Beauvoir. Tell us your thoughts and ideas about technology at Beauvoir.