open the door…

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

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.

Graphic novels seem to be ‘flavour of the month’.

I have just finished reading a very impressive review of ‘Alice in Sunderland’ by Bryan Talbot – Thanks to Joy Lawn

As part of my background research I found a Google book about Bryan. I usually restrict myself to Full View books but even though this one was Limited View (ie the ENTIRE book is not available on-line) this one was so good I added it to my library anyway.

And here it is embedded in this post…

Now I just need to figure out how to stop the script embedding books I have previously featured !

Any suggestions?
Note Added 11/4/09 - this site http://code.google.com/apis/books/docs/preview-wizard.html provides more customized scripts

This is a test posting of my delicious tag cloud.

Ol’ Chumbucket and Cap’n Slappy invite you to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th.

Teachers may like to check out the resources listed on the ‘work blog’ – To Err is human… to Aaarrr! is Pirate

And just for a bit of fun here is my ITLPD DoppleMe avatar.

(Thanks Skipz)

I came across the Immersive Media site at work today and wanted to make sure that I could embed the code into edublogs. (Edublogs has been a bit touchy about embedding code recently)

As you can see below, the embed code works – now all I have to do is persuade the ‘powers that be’ at work that it is a suitable topic to write about on the work blog. Wish me luck!

Instructions: Click the Play button. Wait for the splash screen to play then use your mouse to click and drag to look in any direction in the video.

This first video is

New Guinea
Immerse yourself in the native traditional song and dance**

and this is

Fiji Coral Reef
Underwater and on deck in the South Pacific.**

There are more demonstration videos and  a city tours GeoImmersive Database. Love the use of Google Maps

Makes you wonder how these could be used in an education setting…

The amung.us project was created to bring you innovative web stats. We are not traditional. Page views are too easy to count. Instead, we tell you how many users are on your website or blog at once, where they are, how many of them there has been in the past and where they come from – live!

Check the widget in my sidebar

Since 1996 the Webby Awards have celebrated achievement in the field of interactive multimedia. Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees. The 2008 Webby Award Winners [announced May 6th] View the Winners’ Flash Gallery or the Static List

While all the nominated sites could be used to explore the techniques of effective multimedia communication the following selection could be useful general classroom resources. Teachers are advised to preview sites to ensure the content is suitable for students in their classrooms.

	Eyes on Darfur - Amnesty International’s unprecedented Eyes On Darfur project leverages the power of high-resolution satellite imagery to provide unimpeachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur – enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts. Eyes On Darfur also breaks new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally “watch over” and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery. [Some images may not be suited to use with younger students]
	Invisible Children:Displace Me – People’s Voice Winner In the spring of 2003, three young filmmakers traveled to Africa in search of a story. What started out as a filmmaking adventure transformed into much more when these boys from Southern California discovered a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them, a tragedy where children are both the weapons and the victims.After returning to the States, they created the documentary “Invisible Children: Rough Cut,” a film that exposes the tragic realities of northern Uganda’s night commuters and child soldiers.
	Skills One – Webby Award Winner The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence promotes and advances learning, teaching and training in Australian trades education and elevates the status of traditional trades and trades education as a career choice.
	Smithsonain Education Peoples’ Voice Winner – The gateway to Smithsonian education resources. [including lesson plans]
	Design for the Other 90% Webby Award Winner – Encompassing a broad set of modern social and economic concerns, these design innovations often support responsible, sustainable economic policy.Design for the Other 90% demonstrates how design can be a dynamic force in saving and transforming lives, at home and around the world.
	World Without Oil – In May 2007, over 1,800 people combined imagination with insight to create World Without Oil (WWO), a realistic simulation of the first 32 weeks of a global oil shortage chronicled in 1,500 personal blog posts, videos, images and voicemails. Via these lesson plans, high school teachers can use this collaborative grassroots simulation to engage students with questions about energy use, sustainability, the role energy plays in our economy, culture, worldview and history, and many others.
	NASA Earth Observatory Peoples’ Voice Winner – The purpose of NASA’s Earth Observatory is to provide a freely-accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth’s climate and environmental change. In particular, we hope our site is useful to public media and educators. Also nominated NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
	Paper Critters – an online application for creating and sharing digital paper toys.

More resources suited to classroom use can be found in the Webby Awards Honorees section – start by checking out the Official Honoree sites for Activism, Art, Education, Health, Science and Youth.

All blogs take a time to maintain and having two to work on is sometimes too much… but today I really appreciate having access to more than one blog – it means I can test stuff and make sure it works before I muck up the (semi) official work blog. It has taken a long time to get the approprite permissions to trial blogging at work so I am keen to make sure that all goes smoothly there. I am also pleased that edublogs has decided to allow embedding of javascripts – it will make including all sorts of multimedia possible. So here is my first attempt to embed the World Vision Flash file I want to feature on the CMIS Technology Focus blog.

© Copyright World Vision Australia ABN 28 004 779 081. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
http://www.worldvision.com.au/
To replay the animation refresh your browser page.

Note added 1/5/08: Having read Sue Waters instructions about embedding flash (Thanks Sue) I now know that I MUST embed the code and then immediately publish. This won’t be possible at work as I have to get all draft posts approved before publishing. A work around is to insert a one cell table and embed the code into the table cell. This stops the embed code breaking the blog layout when you save the draft post.

Note added 13/5/08: I have replaced the swf file with an image that links to the originating website. I am happier about this for copyright reasons… and also because it stops the autoplay function that I couldn’t get rid off

It’s so easy to pick up gems when you hang around with the right people on twitter. A passing mention by Anne Murcha in a conversation she was having with MrKp sent me off to look at Issuu. What a great little discovery. I have already registered and made this cool little guide to the website where I work. I will definitely be spending more time exploring this application – it has lots of potential. Thanks MrKp and the rest of the twitterverse.