The Education Blog Awards were launched nearly two weeks ago at the Education Show, new blogs are being nominated every day, and an incredible amount of votes cast! So to the stats:
p> This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics graphics have a look here.
Today's infographic is on what happens if you loose your mobile phone. A nice little infographic resource from McAfee useful for Internet Safety and Responsible Use Lessons - what do you think?
I’m a big fan of Hans Rosling - he is only of the only people that I know who can make statistics interesting and we could learn a lot from the way he presents and simplified complicated data when trying to get these key messages across to children.
Alan Parkinson (over at the Living Geography Blog) pointed me in the direction of Han’s latest TED talk where he focuses on washing machines! Unlike his previous talks this is the first talk I have seen Hands do where he does not use Gapminder - I’m pretty sure he is using PowerPoint in Office 2010, which demonstrates how this presentation software can be if its used in the right way.
I’ve embedded his 10 minute talk below - a must watch for geography teachers (and anyone else with 10 minutes spare!)
p> This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics graphics have a look here.
Today's infographic is on Facebook Vs Twitter (source)
One has over 500 million users, the other just over 100 million. But who are they and what’s their behavior? What’s their value to a brand? How old are they? What’s their education? How much do they make? Just exactly what does the Facebook vs. Twitter landscape look like? Good questions.
One of the things that we created was a really good conference website that contains an archive of all of the keynote and workshop presentations. But the other thing that we produced was a set of conference cartoons that show the main discussion points from the conference.
They were drawn by Graham Ogilvie (from Ogilvie Design) and they provided a great stimulus for discussion on the day. The twenty most popular designs were then re-drawn and inked.
We think the cartoons are fantastic and a great way to communicate some of the key messages regarding Internet Safety and Responsible Use to staff and parents.
This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics graphics have a look here.
Today I've posted two infographics both looking at QR Codes. I've been playing with QR Codes since 2008 (which even made an entry in the 2009 Horizon Report!). Anyway, the first infographic looks at what are QR Codes (source) and the second (keep scolling down!) looks at who is really scanning all those QR codes (source).
UK youth communications company Dubit has completed a country wide survey on teenage QR Code awareness. 72% of 11-18 year olds did not have or were unaware of QR Code scanning apps. When shown an image of a QR code only 43% correctly identified that it could be read by a mobile phone while 19% admitted they didn’t know what it was. 33% of those questioned correctly identified the image as a QR code, with 22% believing it was called an RFID tag and 12% labeling it as an infograph. Of the 19% of teens that had scanned QR Codes 74% said it was worth doing so.
Last week I was on the introductory panel at a Learning and Teaching Scotland and Creative Scotland Conference where the purpose was to discuss Moving Image Education and Digital Media in CfE.
Now as I said in my opening statement to the conference I don’t pretend to know very much about moving image education. I do know a little more about digital media and its use in education.
The task I was in 5-10 minutes give an answer to the question:
“What do moving image education, multimodal learning and digital media literacy mean in the 21st Century?”
Here are the sides I used to illustrate my ten-minute introductory ramble:
I started off by challenging stereotypes of moving image education (MIE). Explaining that in my experience many teachers do not really know what MIE is. Common confusions include the history of film, the history of animation and just showing children films.
I mentioned that although these common steriotypes are an important aspect of moving image education we can’t afford to get stuck in the past. MIE should also not just be about film – I used the development of Nintendo’s Mario Character to help illustrate this.
I mentioned that perhaps we get far to tied down arguing the definition of MIE and not enough time promoting it in the classroom. I don’t see the point of arguing a definition – we will probably never agree and I would prefer just to call many aspects of MIE good learning and teaching. If that’s is what it really is.
I explained that we need to make sure that the MIE agenda is tied into wider policy developments both in Scotland and the rest of the UK. For example, if we are serious about MIE contribution to a future Scottish knowledge (or other) economy then we need to challenge why schools were not mentions in the Digital Economy chapter of the recent Scotland’s Digital Future Report.
Elsewhere in the UK the Hope and Livingstone Review (titled: Next Gen.) talks about transforming the UK into the worlds leading talent hub for the video games and visual effects industry.
MIE needs to linked to all of this wider policy rather than trying to carve its own path and re-invent itself.
We also need to make sure that practitioners have a better understanding of how digital literacy fits into a Curriculum for Excellence (Scotland’s new curriculum).
I am learning to assess and manage risk, to protect myself and others, and to reduce the potential for harm when possible.
...is the most important outcome in the CfE Experiences and Outcomes. Why? because it is the only outcome that reminds practitioners that keeping children safe on-line is everyone’s responsibility.
However, one big issue presented by an experience based curriculum is that it is open to interpretation. What do we do about the practisoners that look at the above outcome and don’t see that this means ‘digital word’?
To help me develop an informed view, I am exploring the techniques used to influence my opinion. I can recognise persuasion and assess the reliability of information and credibility and value of my resources.
... again, we need to make sure that practitioners understand that this DOES NOT just mean traditional text. It means all forms of media including traditional text, digital text, images and moving images.
Being able to assess the reliability of all forms of media is an important skill for young people because they need to apply the same skills and techniques to assess the credibility of people them meet online.
Everything needs to be more joined up. Aspects of MIE and digital literacy need to be an invisible in a classroom and a key part of a teachers pedagogical pencil case.
I also stated that although young people being able to use, understand and interpret digital content was important. We also needed to ask some bigger questions regarding access. Currently and in the future most young people will access moving image digitally. BUT all over the UK there are still schools where the playing of digital videos (downloaded and streaming) is blocked due to firewalls and/or bandwidth.
Finally, I stated that MIE needs to be forward looking and forward thinking. I finished my presentation by showing four videos that I had spiced together of different types of moving image education.
1) The first was from Kahn Academy – over 1 million views a week of people wanting to learn maths. Some people would say that this is not moving image education – of course it is! It moves and you can learn from it! Just because it does not fit into your personal definition of what MIE is does not mean you should dismiss it. Kahn Academy is accessed via YouTube.
More information about Kahn Academy below:
2) The second video demonstrated how YouTube Videos are now also interactive. You can add hot spots to the video that allows learners to change the direction of the story and interact with the characters and plot.
I showed part of the example below:
3) The third video takes things a stage further where you are no longer interacting with the click of a mouse. The Microsoft xbox Kinect allows you to interact with the images and characters without the need of a peripheral controller. It is heavily immersive and the technology opens up all sorts of new possibilities.
I showed a short clip from Kinectimals:
4) Lastly, a showed a video of how game play is likely to evolve. Again using the Microsoft xbox Kinect where the camera on the games console recognises your facial expressions and then is able to able to respond to your mood.
I illustrated this with a clip from Microsoft Research Project Milo:
Finally, I concluded, that perhaps the biggest danger and threat to MIE in schools is getting stuck in the past and the term MIE itself?
Cross posted on LTS Technologies for Learning Blog
This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics have a look here.
Today’s infographic looks at YouTube Facts and Figures (source):
An infographic is a visual representation of a set of data, facts, statistics, and images that often support a point of view. In lots of ways they are not dissimilar to large classroom posters that you often see in classrooms and school corridors.
Jen Deyenberg wrote a post on using inforgraphics that is worth a read and Neil Winton offers some alternative advice on the use and point of inforgraphics over on his blog.
What ever you think – I think they do have a place in schools and we certainly need to be working with children to make sure that they understand how to decode and interpret inforgraphics. I find some of them quite interesting and they certainly get you thinking about things!
I’m going to post five that I have bookmarked recently over the next week.
Go Figure is an interesting video (in the same format as Shift Happens) which has been produced by the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI).
The video highlights teenage Internet use by illustrating a series of statistics. The video was up-loaded in November 2010 so some of the data will be out of date. The figures also come from North America.
Still worth a watch and good to get a discussion started…
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