Blogs - ECHALK

Ning in the classroom - week 10

So far my classroom ning has not been as successful as I had hoped. I really thought my students would take to it and write volumes about what they were doing and why they were doing it. But the reality is that they just didn't - and their output and reflections were much the same as when we just used notepad. They have now started on their first major project and so I am hoping they will be more inclined to diarise their progress. Of course, I will need to encourage them by providing some more… Continue

Added by Mike Leishman on April 17, 2008 at 3:59pm — No Comments

Where has the term gone????

Ok, so in two days the term ends! I have a question though, can someone tell me where it has gone? It only seems like yesterday that I walked into a room full of fresh eager faces and now I'm waving them off for a two week break. Not saying we don't deserve or need it!! Granted we've had swimming lessons, swimming carnivals, a few incursions etc, but where has the time gone? I sat today with colleagues to review our cycle one teaching programs and we all said the same thing, "You'll have to ex… Continue

Added by Simon Brodie on April 8, 2008 at 9:50pm — No Comments

A320 Project - All your base are belong to us

The base is now complete. We skinned it with 6mm MDF

And carpeted it with an old rug that was the right colour.

… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on March 27, 2008 at 10:02am — 1 Comment

School Summit 2020

You can be the Voice of the Future

Schools across Australia are invited to host a 2020 School Summit during the three weeks commencing March 17th 2008. Teachers are asked to encourage their students to articulate and communicate their feelings and ideas for the future of Australia. Interested students who are not at a participating school may… Continue

Added by Jean Anning on March 14, 2008 at 4:33pm — No Comments

A320 Project - Busy building

Several things have been happening, but none of them really exciting. 1. We have build the platform to stand the simulator on. We used pallets. Of course, one pallet wasn't wide enough and two was too wide so we ended up cutting and the base is 1 1/2 pallets wide by 2 pallets long. The pallets are rectangular so the base is 2.4m by 1.8m. We braced them all together and screwed everything tight. Then we discussed whether or not it should be be mobile. We ummed and ahhed and decided it should. It… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on March 13, 2008 at 3:00pm — No Comments

A320 Project - Construction Progress

Well .... it's been a busy weekend. I now have all the panels done in Illustrator and I'm very happy with them. I had to guess the colour, but it seems to be pretty close. The colour I ended up with is C - 30% M - 0% Y - 10% K - 60% I took a sample printed on paper to Bunnings and they matched it quite easily. It looks lighter in the photos, but I think it's the flash. I got all the panels cut to size from MDF at Bunnings. They could only cut them square, so I had to cut the offsets with a ta… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on February 18, 2008 at 12:43pm — No Comments

A320 Project - Still a man of letters

Bah!! I've been banished to the shed for construction work :o) The downside of this is that it has been too hot for construction .... so I've been concentrating on the instrument panels. The monitor side of things is sweet, thanks to echalk :o) I will probably run the following set up 19" 21" 21" 19" For the main view and scenery 17" 19"sideways 17" For the instruments I have been concentrating on the design phase for the MIP. I'll probably cut it from 3mm MDF and paint it. Whatever lettering… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on February 12, 2008 at 5:30pm — 1 Comment

A320 Project - a man of letters

Things are a bit quiet on the A320 front. I have some visitors who leave today, so that will free me up a bit. I now have the panels to build the support frame for the MIP - Main Instrument Panel. Construction on that will start next week. Once we've built that, I'll post some photos.

The most difficult part of the MIP will be making it look realistic. We'll go with MDF cut out according to the real thing. The monitors behind it should be impressive. The lettering is proving to be prob

… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on February 9, 2008 at 10:05am — No Comments

Ning in the classroom - Week 1

Hi

I eventually got all of my students onto my 12imedia ning site. One of my students said something like "Oh this is just like myspace only it is just ours".

Of course we had the filter for social networks on (cathednet myinternet filtering) so I put in an exclusion for "12imedia.ning.com" which worked well except when they went to join, the special non-machine readable set of characters came from another location so the students could not see the graphics file. So now "ning.co

… Continue

Added by Mike Leishman on February 8, 2008 at 6:37pm — 4 Comments

Something other than Google...

Don't get me wrong - I do use and appreciate Google search - I guess it's the librarian in me that makes me wish people would take the time to explore some alternatives. Depending on what you are looking for there are smarter ways to search.

Librarians are usually very busy at the start of the year trying to find the resources that teachers need to support their classroom programs. Finding that elusive site, document, learning object... can be made easier by using the right tool. Here a… Continue

Added by Jean Anning on February 8, 2008 at 9:00am — No Comments

A320 Simulation Project begins :o)

My son Joe is training to be a commercial pilot. I've always been interested in aviation and flying. We both enjoy Microsoft FSX. I thought the next step would be to make the setup a bit more realistic ... add rudder pedals, etc.
Then I started reading about the simpit community and realised that building a realistic looking (and functioning) cockpit was achievable. We chose the Airbus 320 for several reasons.

1. It uses a sidestick rather than a yoke-style control. This should be m… Continue

Added by Dr Jim Mullaney on February 6, 2008 at 2:57pm — 2 Comments

Ning in the classroom

This thing called Ning has got me thinking.

Last year I introduced my students in Interactive Media to Bloggs and used Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/) because it easily let my students add not only text but photos, quotes, links, chat, audio and video. As well I could follow them and they could follow me. I also used RSS feeds to my pageflakes account to aggregate this into one window. See my Tumbr blog here

… Continue

Added by Mike Leishman on January 31, 2008 at 10:42pm — 4 Comments

Echalk 2.0 going well

Well, this is a supprise. Last count there were 39 members already and we have only been here a few days. I am also impressed with the diversity of those who have joined. I would like to see all members have some sort of image or avatar of themselves even if it your pet dog. (Don't dogs often reflect their owner?)

I must admit that I am still having fun trying to get the site to do what I want it to but so far I am impressed. For example, I thought

… Continue

Added by Mike Leishman on January 31, 2008 at 10:05pm — No Comments

What am I up to?

Well currently I am making a PowerPoint on 'What is a Good Game', that is heavily based on the PDF of the same name by Mark Overmars. It will be used to introduce the topic to my classes that will be doing some game making using GameMaker and Flash Actionscript.
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Added by Michael Fabiankovits on January 24, 2008 at 10:57am — No Comments

Changing the mindset

Good idea this Ning but I will have to adapt to the way that I work with echalk posts as I am kind of used to the way I put them on my PDA whilst synching and read them on the train to and from work. I guess this might be one more reason why I need a data plan for the PDA.
Hmm... off to find out the Social Networking sites that discuss the Hong Kong data plans for mobiles.
Cheers

Paul
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Added by Paul McMahon on January 23, 2008 at 11:47pm — 2 Comments

At Last

...really pleased to see this ning :)

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Added by Jean Anning on January 23, 2008 at 9:23pm — No Comments

All Blog Posts (16)

Ning in the classroom - week 10

Where has the term gone????

A320 Project - All your base are belong to us

School Summit 2020

A320 Project - Busy building

A320 Project - Construction Progress

A320 Project - Still a man of letters

A320 Project - a man of letters

Ning in the classroom - Week 1

Something other than Google...

A320 Simulation Project begins :o)

Ning in the classroom

Echalk 2.0 going well

What am I up to?

Changing the mindset

At Last

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