Appy-Hour: Annotate Photos with Skitch

The week's Appy-Hour pick is an absolute essential for teachers and students.  Skitch belongs to Evernote's collection of handy tools and is a free photo annotation service available on iOS and Android mobile devices as well as Mac and PC computer platforms.  On mobile devices, you can capture and annotate photos, screenshots, maps and more with text, shapes, callout arrows, and labels.  You can then easily share these photos through your Evernote account or Camera Roll.

As mentioned above, it is also available for your computer too.  I often use it for student and teacher tutorials to call out certain icons, buttons, windows and more when explaining how different programs work (see below).  While you don't need an Evernote account to use Skitch, having one means you can save your Skitches and archive them using Evernote's awesome organisational tools.  Besides, Evernote is free and well worth having in your teacher's toolkit. 

  

Learning in Digital PYP Environments

Thanks to all parents who attended this morning's information morning about Digital Learning in the Primary School at VIS.  We had a great turn out with approximately 30-40 people in attendance all of whom were curious to know what their child/children are doing with digital technologies.  For those not in attendance, I broke up the session into three key sections:

• Integrated approached to ICT in the PYP
• Digital Citizenship at VIS
• Digital Citizenship at Home

You can view the presentation below at the end of the post.  

As mentioned in the presentation, this section of the blog aspires to be a place you can visit to find out more about technology for learning, the latest and greatest in apps and technology, reflections and discussions around issues regarding technology and much more.  Knowing about these things can help bring clarity to an often dizzying world where change is both rapid and ongoing.

Feel free to get in touch by commenting below or emailing me at bhacking@student.vis.ac.at.

GAFE-Powered Inquiry Environments: Google Apps in the PYP

Update:  Firstly, thanks to all those eager and enthusiastic educators who attended my first ever conference presentation at the Google Apps for Education Summit in Prague.  It was extremely flattering to myself and my students to hear and read the positive responses to Sunday's session.  Judging by the comments and, thanks to Glenn Lawler for his picture, my enthusiasm for Google Apps supporting inquiry learning really showed!

Apologies if I couldn't talk through the entire inquiry cycle.  I thought I had more time. That said, I've embedded the presentation below and I'd be more than happy to set-up some kind of webcast, podcast or school visit to explain the rest if there is enough interest.  Just let me know by commenting, emailing tweeting etc.

I've restricted some of the video content to protect the privacy of my students. Please get in touch if you'd like to see more. Special thanks to Kathy Short and Kath Murdoch for granting permission to use their images of inquiry frameworks.

Sunday, Oct 13:  I'm here at the Google Apps for Education Summit in Prague!  How exciting!  I'm about ready to give my presentation on how Google Apps for EDU can supercharge inquiry learning environments.  You can check out my presentation here.

Belonging with '7 billion Others'

In a world where you are one of 7 billion other humans of all stripes and sizes, imagining your own place within it can be quite an experience.  It's amazing to be reminded however that despite all of our differences (global, cultural, social, economic etc) we ultimately share the deeper feelings, values, and beliefs of a common humanity.  KarmaTube shows us just that in this brilliant video entitled 7 billion Others a project by the GoodPlanet Foundation.

A film by GoodPlanet Foundation. Video from KarmaTube

Integration in the Classroom:

This is an engaging video which is sure to tune students in to thinking about themselves and others. Digging below the surface to find these common bonds takes great questions, something our Grade 2 students have been looking at (click here to see 2LFvis) and this film does just that. Creators of the film interviewed thousands of people from around the world, recording their answers to questions like:

• What do you see? Why? Who are you? Where are you from?
• Where are you going?
• What scares you? What worries you?
• Am I someone you'd speak to? Would you like to sit with me and have a cup of tea or a beer? 
• Could we be friends? Could we get to know each other?  Forge alliances? Forge friendships?
• Could we together make a community an ensemble and this world a better place?
• What did you want to be when you grew up?
• What is love?  What is happiness?

The combination of questions and people who answer them make this a must see to get anyone to think about the question:  Who am I?  I came across this video while planning for our Grade 2s unit "People Like Us" but it hasn't been shown to them yet.  A good age range is probably around Grade 3 and up. 

This would also make a great video resource for International Peace Day (September 21st).

Let me know what you think by posting your comments below!  Cheers.