The wiki was initiated in January 2007, intended as a venue for Digital Chalkies to post links related to the various categories associated with the group blog. But with time and devotion missing, a change of direction was made in August 2007. The wiki has now became a repository for “web2.0 in education” related videos. Click on the web2.0 video wiki tab above to access. Please free to recommend any videos by editing the wiki and adding recommendations. There is a lot of interest in the question of how web2.0 tools can add value to the knowledge generated by students and teachers in class.  The issues and technology at hand are complex - video is often an effective way of communicating understanding and ideas.

Anyone can edit the wiki pages. Contributions are welcome. Follow the how-to video tutorials mentioned in the previous post or here. Notifications of your edit will be sent to Digital Chalkie moderators.

A quick tip for anyone making use of the handy tool Picasa.
Now you can download Picasa2flickr from SourceForge, and you will be allowed to (you guessed it!) upload your photos straight from picasa to flickr!

This is a very handy enhancement for busy teachers. Since picasa is so easy to use (and can do so many simple image editing things ‘on the fly’), being able to hit the button and upload to flickr is a nice enhancement!

I’m not sure if this might make things better or worse for those of use who have a huge list of feeds that we try to keep up with but it seems worthwhile checking out. There are a few screencasts that give a good overview of this apps capabilities, unfortunately seems to be Windows only
http://www.particls.com/

If you are planning to integrate climate change / sustainability into your learning programme in Term 2, the WA made enviro reality TV show EcoHouse Challenge may be of interest. The website contains some engaging activities and with a strong online collaborative angle on tackling the issue of living sustainably. In conjunction with Australian Teachers Of Media (ATOM), Eco House Challenge has developed a comprehensive study guide for use in secondary schools throughout Australia. The Ecological Footprint Calculator for example calculates how much space on earth you need to continue living your current lifestyle.

Here’s the premise:

Can we save the planet? To find out two ordinary Perth suburban households have been wired to monitor their every eco move.

The challenge starts with a bang. Without warning four environmental hotspots, energy, water, transport and waste removal are shut down until further notice. Over several weeks, while still living their normal lives, the families must radically reduce consumption and learn to live sustainably.

I watched a preview of the first couple of episodes at Scitech the other week and the show will most definitely be engaging on many levels for teachers and students alike. It is also impressive because it is the possibly the first mainstream reality TV show to be based around an environmental issue. The reactions, both positive and negative, of the Perth teenagers to the eco-challenges they face, are something I believe all students will associate with. Watching the kids and parents having to use wind-up chargers for their mobile phones was a highlight.

The EcoHouse Challenge runs for 6 weeks on Wednesdays starting April 11th at 7.30pm on SBS. According to The Age, as well as Eco house Challenge there will be a series from ABC TV called “Carbon Cops”.

PS: Using the carbon emissions widget at http://www.greeninternet.org/ this post would have cost 0.0634lbs of carbon to produce, but I’m on Synergy’s Green Power at an extra 3c per unit, so apparently my power comes from genuine, government approved renewable energy sources.

Is this a piece of mischief? I don’t know, but another Digital Chalkie might!

But for now I recommend you try the Very Useful Tips to speedup your Firefox from Ubantu Geek.

Since I use three different browsers I was game enough to experiment with this to see if I could improve my browsing speeds.

How does this compare with Firefox 2? I don’t know! So far I am happy with the result.

Anyway……. maybe you would like to try one or other of these options…and provide some feedback.