CMIS Evaluation Technology Focus

Gary Hayes [PersonalizeMedia blog] created this embeddable Flash app which demonstrates how active & dynamic the Social Web is. Watching the numbers scroll ever-upward reinforces the rapid growth and change happening in online social communication.

Use the links for ’social media’, ‘mobile’ and ‘games’ at the top of the application window to view the number of new social media counts recorded since you clicked on the link.

And speaking (or should that be blogging…?) about social media… the CMIS Fiction Focus twitter account @cmisevalff now has over 100 followers?  Readers of this blog may like to participate in some simple social networking via two new CMIS twitter accounts: CMIS Primary Focus @cmisevalpf and CMIS Technology Focus @cmisevaltf.

Want to know more ?

The Professional Learning Institute and Leadership Centre is offering a great opportunity for educational leaders to lean more about ‘Effective Leadership through Technology’.
Internationally recognised educators  Sheryl-Nussbaum-Beach and Steve Hargadon will be in Perth for a one day event on the 20 November 2009. The day will start with a dual breakfast presentation; Steve Hargadon   ‘School 2.0: Where We’re Headed and What to Do About It’ and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach – ‘Effective School Leadership through Technology: The 21st Century Administrator’. A breakfast presentation will be followed by your choice of workshop with either Steve or Sheryl.

To download the promotional flyer, click here.

Mashup Australia

The Government 2.0 Taskforce invites you to MashupAustralia.

from Wikipedia:

Mashup (web application hybrid), a web application that combines data and/or functionality from more than one source

Read more about the competition rules and what  Open Access means and why it is so important.

To be eligible for the Student’s Prize [$2,000 for the best entry] you must be enrolled in a recognised secondary schooling or tertiary institution (e.g. TAFE, Uni) in Australia.

Even if you don’t create an entry yourself drop by the Categories page to check out the entries which currently include:

• Victorian Schools Locator
• Broadband Locator
• Geocoded List of Medicare Locations
• Postcode Finder

The MashupAustralia Contest is open for entries until 4PM Friday, 13th November 2009.

Horizon Report 2009

The 2009 Horizon Report for Australia and New Zealand was released on September 25th, 2009 at the National Broadband Network Symposium at Griffith University.

The report is part of ongoing research by the  New Media Consortium and aims to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry  within education around the globe over a five-year time period

The report is available in web format and as a downloadable pdf [1.29MB]



The report describes six areas of emerging technologies that will impact eduction in Australia and New Zealand over the next one to  five years.

These technologies are expected to have a penetration rate greater than 16-20% within:

• The next year
  • Moblie Internet devices
  • Private Clouds
• Two to three years
  • Open content
  • Virtual and alternate realities
• Four to five years
  • Location-based learning
  • Smart objects

Permission is granted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license to replicate and distribute this report freely for non-commercial purposes provided that it is distributed only in its entirety.

This post from the Bright Ideas blog summarizes the salient points of the 102 page document.

Those who were unable to attend the ASLA Conference this week may like to check this twitterfountain for the tweets and photos posted to flicker.

An archive of tweets from the conference attendees is also available via twapperkeeper

Thanks to Libsmatter and Pru

Update: This morning’s post was put up in haste – before I left for the unconference. Thanks to Kathryn Greenhill (libsmatter) for this great example integrating technology at libcampperth09

Unfortunately only one java script will run on this blog so I have deleted the twitterfountain for the LibCampPerth2009 [It can still be viewed on The LibrariansMatter blog and a number of other places on the web]

Enjoy the show – wherever you are.

Visit Librariansmatter for Kathryn’s CoverIt Live window or the LibraryCampPerth2009 wiki where session notes, photos and videos will be uploaded as they become available.

Take five minutes to consider the pace of change…It’s happening now.

Thanks to Kathryn Greenhill for the heads-up.

Our recent posts I’ve seen that book and What will yours look like? focussed on the blending of digital and print formats in the field of young adult publishing. You may also have noticed our updated VodPod widgets featuring a selection of YA booktrailers.

Pursuing this theme of the blurring of lines between the two formats here is a further example of the use of electronic/digital media to enhance and support print resources.

The latest digital offering from Scott Westerfeld’s blog: a Leviathan countdown timer.

Visit Scott Westerfeld’s website!

Note from Scott’s blog: Small warning, this is an American countdown timer, which is only accurate for North America. I’m trying to get exact dates for the Oz and UK editions, and will then make adjustments. But don’t fret, Aussies and Brits, it looks like your edition will come out the same week as the US one—maybe even earlier!

Also of note is the Simon & Schuster offer of the FREE book download of Uglies.

The Feature Article in the latest issue of Fiction Focus: The Book 2.0 – Why eBooks are eLectric! looks at how technology is changing the way people read, interact with and access information. Please use this blog’s comments function let us know about your favourite digital/web-based resources used to  supplement or extend your students’ print reading experiences.
The CMIS Resource Bank contains reviews of  Scott Westerfeld’s books.

Book Trailers are digital multimedia productions designed to promote an interest in reading.

Sites to check out include:

• Digital Booktalk

This information-rich site which was developed by Drs. Robert Kenny and Glenda Gunter at the the University of Central Florida includes video book trailers produced by both K-12 students and students of the Uniuversity. Free registration will give users access to contributors blogs and help forums. The UB Director link provides curricula and plans to help teachers implement a Booktalk project in their classroom. This site is highly recommended as a starting point for teachers beginning to explore digital booktalking.

• Reading – Active-and-Engaging

Rhonda Powling, Head of Library at Whitefriars College and Information Services and School Library Association of Victoria President has created a wiki –  which outlines her rationale for creating booktrailers, records her experiences involving students in the process and provides access to student generated content. The Storyboarding page outlines a lesson plan used to prepare students to create their own booktrailers. The assessment rubric measures student achievement against nine criteria.

• Tech & Learning blogpost: December 1st 2007

According to Mark Greary ‘making a Book Trailer is fairly simple. Just follow these steps.’ His simple explanation to creating a book trailer using Microsoft’s free Photo Story 3 leads users through a step-by-step process complete with clear screen shots and jargon-free instructions. More detailed instructions for using Photo Story 3 are available online.

Youtube provides access to online booktrailers from a variety of sources. A collection of links to booktrailers targeting Young Adult readers is available via the CMIS Evaluation del.icio.us account. Included are links to booktrailers  for the following titles reviewed in this issue of Fiction Focus:

• Graceling by Kristen Cashore
• Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan
• 3 Willows: A sisterhood grows by Ann Brashares
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

YouTube videos of these book trailers can also be viewed using the CMIS VodPod widget in the sidebar of this blog or by visiting the CMIS Tech Focus VodPod page.

The National Library of Australia’s Digital Collections gives users access to more than 130 000 images including books, journals, maps, music, pictures, manuscripts and oral histories.

The SBDS prototype will be a new discovery service focussed on Australia, Australians, and items found in Australian collecting institutions. It will provide a single point of access to resources currently discoverable via the Library’s multiple discovery services, and to digitised material freely available online anywhere in the world.

This prototype is an exploration of ideas and techniques aimed at making information easier to find and showing it within a useful context. This development of this prototype will be strongly influenced by user feedback.  Please give your comments and suggestions on how to improve it.

from the SBDS website.

Educators will find useful Internet Gateways on the CMIS website.

This is a repeat of today’s post on the CMIS Eval blog (for the benefit of those readers who do not subscribe to that blog)

WolframAlpha was announced in March 2009 by British physicist Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009. Unlike Google, which searches for web resources to match a query, WolframAlpha generates answers to factual queries by computing the answer from available data.

Watch Part 2 of of the video.

Related CMIS blog posts include:

• Maybe AND/OR/NOT isn’t so hard
• Seek and you shall find…a list of Search engines (other than Google!)

Take a look at the CMIS webpages on Search Tools