Bright Ideas

Russell Blackie from the Victorian DEECD’s eLearning Unit presented the following information to the recent SLAV conference; Skills for School Libraries V2.0.

There are some familiar tools there for readers of Bright Ideas and some nice new ones you may not have tried yet. Did you notice that Russell used Edublogs.tv to host his presentation?
Thanks to [...]

If your students can’t wait for Twilight: New Moon to be released, some of these quizzes and activities might help:

How well do you know Twilight? quiz
New Moon video quiz
Twilight puzzles
Hopefully they’re not blocked in your school. Enjoy!

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If you have YouTube blocked in your school, you might like to take advantage of edublogs.tv; the site dedicated to educational videos. The edublogs.tv website states that users can:
Upload your own videos or simply grab them from YouTube (it only takes a few clicks!) to avoid school filters. 
Edublogs.tv is free and you should be easily [...]

So we all know that Google has practically taken over the world. Some of their applications like maps and earth are fabulous and others such as Sidewiki and Google Apps for Schools have been quite controversial. We’ve all been hearing about Google Wave  for months now and how it is going to revolutionise communication.
A little over a month [...]

Screenr is a website that allows users to create screencasts for Twitter.
Here is a brief video that explains more:

Screenr is free and easy to use.

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One new resource that has caused a stir in the last few days is Google’s Sidewiki.  
Once Sidewiki is downloaded by a user, it lets them comment on any webpage, with the comments available for anyone to view. Here’s what was published on Google’s Official blog about Sidewiki:

As you browse the web, it’s easy to forget [...]

Google Apps for Education provide a number of free tools for educational institutions.
Here is an article by David Nagel of  The Journal  which explains more: 

Google Quadruples Students Using Apps for Education
By David Nagel
09/09/09
Google reported this week that the number of students using its Google Apps for Education Edition productivity and collaboration tools on campus has just [...]

BookRix is a free site that lets you create and publish your own books online. You can upload, e-publish and share your work as well as have it read, reviewed and critiqued.
How does BookRix work? This video answers all of the questions you thought of, and some you probably didn’t.
 
Do be careful of some content, however, [...]

 Clipmarks is a social bookmarking site that is quick and easy to use. The website explains:
On Clipmarks.com, you can see clips of text, images or video about all sorts of topics that other people find while surfing the web.
The idea is that through each other, we can learn more, know more and enjoy more than [...]

Joe Murphy (@libraryfuture) is an innovative librarian at the prestigeous Yale University. He recently gave a presentation to the Handheld Librarian Online Conference on the use of SMS in libraries. The presentation is well worth viewing and is certainly one worth considering.
hhlib_sending out an sms
View more presentations from Joe Murphy.
Joe’s presentation was amongst the most highly rated [...]

If you have access to YouTube in your school, you might like to show this brief video to the students (and teachers) during Book Week or Literacy Week.


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addthis_title = 'Video+for+Book+Week';
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Margaret Simkin, the Head of Information Services and Head of History at the Hamilton and Alexandra College is happy to share the development of her wiki  with Bright Ideas readers.
Margaret explains:
 This wiki is the result of several years of deliberation about what to do and how to do it in the most sustainable way, while [...]

Whitefriars College Head of Library and Information Services (and School Library Association of Victoria President) Rhonda Powling has created an incredible wiki. Entitled “Reading - active and engaging”, Rhonda’s wiki focusses on strategies for engaging students with reading, particularly for boys (as Whitefriars is a boys’ school).



Homepage


Rhonda has introduced her students to ‘Book trailers’ This  is where [...]

VocabSushi is a free website that helps students develop their vocabulary by playing games.



Homepage


As the website explains:
With VocabSushi, flash cards are a thing of the past. The best way to build your vocabulary is not rote memorization. It’s seeing how words are used in everyday language. VocabSushi helps you prepare for the ISEE, SAT, ACT, [...]

Archivd is a collaborative research tool that enables users to “automatically extract images, videos, phone numbers, emails, mailing addresses, prices. Group pages by project and subject. Search the full text of every page and custom field. Research with and get feedback from your coworkers.”



Homepage


It provides a central space for people with common interests, be they [...]

BookGlutton is a website for the book glutton in all of us. It provides a number of online book clubs where readers can select which type of group/s they’d like to join whether it be by book or by friendship group.



Homepage


Full text books can be read online without the need for a specialised e-book reader. BookGlutton also [...]

View Docs Online certainly is a quick and simple alternative to GoogleDocs.



View Docs Online homepage


Simply browse your computer for the document you want to upload, click ‘View Docs Online’ and voila, your document is ready to be embedded into blogs, shared via email, Twitter, Delicious, Diigo, LinkedIn, Tumblr (and many more) or even exported as a [...]

Flowgram is a total online multimedia presentation tool. 



Flowgram homepage


Think Powerpoint with voiceover, interactive webpages, photos and more. Ideal for online conferences and even better for archiving conference sessions, Flowgram is almost as good as being there.
Here is a Flowgram on Web 2.0 by mseifman:

 Although it can be a little clunky to use, the benefits of Flowgram far [...]

If you are looking for a networking platform with all of the benefits of Facebook and the added security of introductions to contacts, then LinkedIn may be the site for you.



What is LinkedIn?


The LinkedIn website offers more details:

What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and [...]