CMIS Evaluation Technology Focus

In case you missed it - there are a couple of items in the August 8th Eddymail of interest to DET schools.

1. There has been a modification to school bandwidth allocations which is effective immediately. Details of the allocation formula changes can be found on the Intranet Some schools may find their allocation decreased whilst others will have increased. Generally schools will have a “per student” mb increase.
2. Improvement in Anti-virus protection for the Department’s Network should result in safer Internet browsing for DET users.

 For further information, please contact the Customer Service Centre on 9264 5555, regional callers 1800 012 828 or via email.

Tag clouds are popular to both represent and navigate web content. Now students can build ‘word clouds’ from written text to help them visualize the main concepts in the text.

From the Wordle website:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

So what text was used to generate these Wordles? The image at the top of this post was created using the first section of the Classroom First Strategy: A shared understanding.

Below are Wordles created from the first two of the six key elements of the strategy:

1. A focus on student achievement: success for all

2. A classroom orientation: sound teaching

Have some fun and generate some Wordles of your own.

Please be aware that some clouds in the Wordle gallery include examples that might offend.

Imagine being able to select the information you want and have it delivered to your desktop … as soon as it is published on the web!

Add an online stopwatch timer, a To-Do list and a pet tree frog at the same time. You can even choose a theme to suit your mood.

RSS [Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary] combined with a Personalized Home Page will let you do all this … and it’s easier than you think:)

That’s the last of the technical jargon I’ll use in this post.

PLEASE NOTE: RSS feeds are not supported in Internet Explorer 6.

Sue Waters of The Edublogger has a simple guide to Making Your Life Easier Using RSS which will help readers using Internet Explorer 6 set up an RSS news reader.

Follow these 3 steps to create an iGoogle account with RSS feeds.

Click on the images to view more detailed versions.

Due to different computer configurations your computer screen may not look exactly like the images included here. Despite some minor differences the process should be the same.

Step 1: Create an iGoogle account:

• Go to Google and click on the Sign in link.

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• Click on Create an account now

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• Fill in the boxes and click on I accept. Create my account.

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• Check your email and click on the link in the new message from Google to confirm your account.

Congratulations - Step 1 done. (Easy wasn’t it!)

Step 2: Sign in and Add Stuff

• Go to Google and click on the Sign in link.

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• Enter the email address and password you just used to create your account to sign in.

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• Click on iGoogle (a new screen will appear)

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• You may have to click on iGoogle again (in a different spot this time)

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• Select the content you would like to appear on your personal iGoogle homepage by ticking or unticking the boxes. Click Save

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• Your page will look something like this - depending on which boxes you selected in the previous step. You can set iGoogle as your homepage and select a theme for your page.

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• Adding more tabs is easy. You can select different themes and gadgets for different tabs. Drag and drop the title bars to re-arrange the content.

Step 3: Add CMIS RSS feeds:

• Create a new tab called CMIS. Untick the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ box. Click OK.

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• Go to the CMIS Evaluation blog and click on ‘Subscribe by RSS’

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• Click on Subscribe

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• Click ‘Add to Google Homepage’

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• Congratulations! You have added the rss feed to your iGoogle homepage. Every time there is new information on the CMIS Evaluation blog your homepage will automatically update and show you the new content. You can even read the post without leaving your page by clicking on the +sign next to the post title.

• Now visit and add the feeds from the CMIS Fiction Focus, Primary Focus and Technology Focus blogs and you will always be up-to-date.

The 2008 Scitech Animation Film Festival is now open for entries. Students can win great prizes for their school and are invited to submit a two minute animation in either Flash, 3D or Stop Motion and enter Scitech’s annual Animation Film Festival before Friday, 1 August. To take part schools must register their interest by June 1
2007 Winning entries can be viewed at the 2007 Animation Film Festival website

A classroom activity assessment rubric is available for download along with the entry form.
The festival is open to students from Years 4-12. The most impressive creations will be viewed at Horizon - The Planetarium, one of the biggest screens in Australasia!

Britannica has made free access to the full content of Britannica Online available to registered bloggers and web publishers through Britannica WebShare. Once your free registration has been approved you can provide links to the full version of Britannica articles - users clicking on your link will be able to read the entire article but cannot read other parts of the Britannica site.

also from the Britannica WebShare site…

Britannica Widgets are here, and with them you can instantly post an entire cluster of related Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on your blog or Web site. Just follow the instructions and copy and paste the several lines of code associated with each widget as html into the appropriate place on your site. Any readers who click on a link will get the entire Britannica article on the subject, even if access to the article normally requires a subscription. Really. Try it.

Below is an example of the Britannica Greek Mythology widget embedded in a blog. A selection of widgets is available on the Britannica Assets & Widgets page with a promise of more to come.

The CMIS Encyclopaedias Online page contains links to free and subscription encyclopaedias available to schools online.

Readers interested in the impact on traditional publishing of free access to information via the internet will enjoy reading this post from Michael Arrington at TechCrunch.

There is no denying that a well constructed boolean search is the way to improve your search results.

Teaching students to use boolean search strategies has now been made easier. Boolify helps students understand their web search by visually demonstrating the logic of their search. As students add or remove the jigsaw piece qualifiers ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘not’ the changes in their search results appear at the bottom of the search screen. This dynamic display gives continuous feedback on the effectiveness of their chosen search strategy.

A short and simple expanation of boolean search logic is available on the Boolify Help page. The Boolify page notes that ‘Search results are presented through Google’s “Safe Search STRICT” technology. However, no filtering technology is 100% secure, as this blog posting astutely points out.’

The CMIS website has more information about Search Tools and Student Safety Online.

In an earlier blog post we looked at Search Engines other than Google.

Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum has joined The Commons project on flickr releasing many historical photographs for public access. This project is designed to open archived photographic collections for the public to view and perhaps contribute knowledge about the items to enrich the collections. The Powerhouse collection comprises over 7000 glass plate negatives which provide a snapshot of life in Australia at the turn of the 20th Century.
Teachers will find this a very useful addition to classroom resources for enhancing projects with primary source information.

Choosing the right tool for the job makes life easier. You may like to explore these search engines to help you find what you want on the WWW. To get the best from these sites it is worth taking the time to complete the virtual tours or read the help screens.

Welcome to a new way to search!

	Search Crystal - advanced search tool - suited to teachers and secondary students. Requires free registration. Users are advised to view the tutorial to get the most from this very nifty engine. from the website …’ SearchCrystal lets you search and compare multiple engines in one place. It is a search visualization tool that enables you to compare, remix and share results from the best web, image, video, blog, tagging, news engines, Flickr images or RSS feeds
	KartOO - a search engine particularly suited to visual learners, middle primary to secondary. Allows users to view interconnectedness of concepts and information. from the website… KartOO is a metasearch engine with visual display interfaces. When you click on OK, KartOO launches the query to a set of search engines, gathers the results, compiles them and represents them in a series of interactive maps.
Image unavailable for use	Kids Click - The day-to-day operations of KidsClick are currently maintained by the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. The site includes links to Search Lessons, Image and Sound seaches. Librarians - make sure you check out the through a Librarian’s Eyes link at the bottom of the page.
	Quintura for Kids - a visual directory and simple search most suited to primary students.from the website … Quintura for Kids is designed specifically for children and utilizes the Quintura cloud, an interactive tag cloud for easy navigation and search for kids-related information on the Web. The intuitive nature of the cloud allows kids to refine their search by mousing over or clicking on keywords and phrases that appear in the cloud. The interface also allows for predefined searches by clicking several graphical icons on the site.
	WebBrain - allows directory and simple searches. The interactive visual display encourages users to recognise the interconnectedness of information. Largely text based so more suited to upper primary and secondary students.from the website … WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through long lists of text. WebBrain lets you easily browse the Web and discover what’s out there. WebBrain uses TheBrain technology, which enables effective use of knowledge on the Web, the corporate intranet, and even your personal computer.
	Intute - use the customisable generic search or subject specific search. Make sure you check out the Virtual Training Suite for help in getting the most out of your searches. The Internet Detective tutorial helps identify the good, the bad and the ugly of Internet research.from the website … Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources. The database contains 120603 records.
	Bubl - BUBL uses the Dewey Decimal Classification system as the primary organisational structure for its catalogue of Internet resources. Users may also search the database using the Simple and Advanced Search options, the Alphabetical Directory or the Subject Terms directory. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.
	DMOZ - The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Most suited to teachers and secondary students.

Take a look at the CMIS webpages on Search Tools

RSS is the glue that holds Web 2 together. Using rss you can have information delivered to you … or you could set up your own rss feed and keep your students informed.

Here is a clear introduction to rss and how it works.