Scratch- imagine, program, share

Scratch is a program designed to make it easy to create your own animations. It is a visual programming system which allows users to import 'actors' (sprites) and program them by connecting a series of commands- much like pieces of a puzzle. Scratch also allows you to upload and share your creations with people all over the world.

After extensively researching Scratch my partner Kendall Hill (blog site: Scratcher2) and I found that we were extremely dissatisfied with Scratch. We found it to be time consuming, complex and to try to implement such a complex programming tool into the classroom would be a nightmare!

The only benefits we found with Scratch was the ability to download other people's animations (this includes an extensive range of classroom suitable games and tools) and the potential to use it as a 'reward' in the classroom.

Overall we were really disappointed with Scratch. We started off so enthusiastic about the program but slowly became frustrated with the complexity and lack of explicit instruction and support for the program. That said, those who enjoy programming will most definitely fall in love with this program!

Visit our Wiki page at http://curtineducation2009.wetpaint.com/page/Scratch for more information.

Twitter- to Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Twitter is an instant messaging, social network where people post short bursts of thoughts, information and their whereabouts. It is similar to Facebook whereby the people who are your 'followers' (or friends/contact list) are immediately updated with your posted information.

Twitter can be implemented into the classroom as a tool to update parents on what the students are learning or to send reminders for school photo money etc. However I feel that sending an email is just as effective and most parents already have and know how to use email.

I am a person who values face-to-face contact so Blackberries, Facebook, Twitter and alike are tools that I choose to avoid. What ever happened to having lunch together where we actually talk? No Blackberry, no Facebook, no Twitter zones? This does not mean I am ignorant of the new technologies that are available to us in this day and age, I just much prefer using mobile phones or meeting people face to face to have a chat. There are many new innovations out there that I enjoy, just not the ones that involve people making contact through text, I want to hear what people have to say not read about it!

I also feel that Twitter is really for self-serving reasons. I feel that Twitter fails to provide you with any useful information. I don't care if you are on your way to the shops or you just saw Jude Law walking down the street!

Jing- talk less, say more!

Jing was first launched in 2007 by TechSmith Corp. Jing enables users to share what they are seeing and/or doing on their computer screens.

Jing allows you to capture whole or certain parts of a screen which you are currently viewing and working with and create an instructional picture or video which can then be shared with others.

In the Classroom Jing can...

- Improve online conversations by adding visuals

- Allow teachers to observe the methods children use to solve maths problems through videos

- Aid in making instructions explicit

- Take screen shots of specific screen areas

- Allow teachers to give students tasks which can be completed and recorded

- Provide a visual aid for students

I think Jing is a fantastic innovation which (after watching the presentation in class today) is simple and easy to use! The possibilities for classroom integration are endless. However, I am not sure how the lower primary aged students would go using this software...

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free program that allows you to share and create word documents, spreadsheets and presentations collaboratively online. It is similar to creating a wiki.

In the past, creating collaborative documents with others involved sending thousands of messy email attachments back and forth for people to edit. Google Docs now lets you attach an email to a document rather than the conventional way of attaching a document to email. Google Docs allows you to turn offline documents into online documents.

You can invite up to 200 people to view a particular document and up to 10 people can be online editing the document at the same time!

In the classroom Google Docs can be used to:
-Promote group collaboration
-Facilitate writing as a process
-Monitor students work in progress
-Comment and aid students with their work as they go
-Share findings of experiments, class thoughts and discussions on topics and so on with other local, state, national and international schools
-Keep an online record keeping system that is accessible anywhere anytime,
-and much more!
An added bonus of this program is that it is free from viruses and you eliminate the risk having a program which will 'crash' due to an overload of information.

Google Docs is definitely the way to go as far as creating collaborative documents go. It is simple to use and available to anyone, and if you get stuck their website (which is almost the size of another world wide web!) will have ALL the answers!

An issue I am concerned with which arose in the class presentation (not by fault of the presenters themselves) was the fact that documents can become very hard to keep track of and edit when there are several people editing the same document at once. For instance, lines that I wrote were being 'edited' seconds after I had published them. This could become a huge problem not only in the classroom but also in the workplace. Being able to edit/update documents this quickly means that other team members could miss out on reading and evaluating what a particular individual wrote all because one person did not like what they read so they 'edited' that part of the document. Google Docs does however does keep a record of the document each time it is updated, so you can look back at what the document looked like before it was edited last.

Check out this awesome video which explains the benefits of using Google Docs over emails!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIgHmjKymlU

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