Technology for Learning Blog

Sal Flint asked me a long time ago to present at the Library Knowledge & Sharing Workshop on Digital Hygiene. I think it went well....

#106: Turn an old smartphone into a security camera

Do you remember the baby shark eggs we had in the lounge area? Last term in the foundation stage we set up a GoPro camera to take photos of the turtles laying their eggs. Like many families I’m sure you have one or two old mobile phones sitting in the ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind’ drawer. I do and when the boys found a new nest in the garden before the summer we set up an old iPhone to watch the weaver bird feed it’s chicks without disturbing them. Sadly I don’t have any photos or video from the even; the memories are good enough. The free app I used to live-stream from an old phone to my new one is one of the tips in the 4Ts today.

Yesterday we set up the Digital Citizenship area for the Librarians' Knowledge & Sharing Workshop and I had forgotten how much fun it was to use the 360 camera. We will invite attendees at the workshop to take 360 photos of themselves and play around with them using VR goggles. We will then take their details and email them the 360 photo. Just a bit of fun, but when you add the ability to hotspot the 360 photo (or video) (using ThingLink for example) then you can amplify the learning. Here are some examples the staff have made previously (tip: use your mouse or touchscreen to navigate the photo and click on a link):

A couple of summers ago Sean O'Conner and I embarked on a summer day trip up to York for a spot of CPD (now CPL) at Huntington School. The packed agenda (see below) had a few well-known names, some, in particular, I've been following on twitter for some time and wanted to see in person.

In the welcome address at the 1-day ReseachEd conference they mentioned that some colleagues had come from as far as Thailand to attend. Sean and I looked at each other in disbelief - I had not told them where we had come from - it turns out that a Patana alumni, Roo Stenning, was there in the audience too! It was good to catch up with him during the lunch break. Anyway, the link to today's post is that Alex Quigley is now working at The Education Endowment Foundation and their first podcast (the new) has just been released. I think it is a good start to the series with the first episode on metacognition. So far, on the way home in the car, I've listened to the first 27 minutes in which Alex unpicks metacognition in a teacher-friendly way, giving useful examples and the common misconceptions around the topic. Catch the episode on the link below:

When I get home from work it's playtime with the children - I don't have the desire to write a blog post after spending a lot of the day in front of a screen, in and out of meetings or teaching. It's family time - time to switch off the devices and go analogue. So, at present, I'm sort of writing this post a day behind in the morning, if that makes sense.

Digital travels.....

1) This guy has a lot to say about the design of technology - I cannot believe his talk was four years ago, he predicted the future with all of the big tech companies now focusing on the 'time spent' on their platform. Watch the talk by Tristan Harris given in December 2014 (it was published on YouTube in 2016).