The Virtual Staffroom - Latest Comments

Re: VSR38: Student Voice

Deccansoft — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:29:01 -0000

It is an Excellent to get an award "student blogging".Awards are wonderful. I've been nominated many times
and I've won many awards. But my journey is not towards that. If it
happens it will be a blast. If it doesn't, it's still been a blast.

Re: VSR46: This is Personal

Pauline Quealy — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:17:37 -0000

Brilliant topic, very relevant to my current teaching needs, thanks. Just about to read through the Personalised Learning site.

Re: VSR38: Student Voice

Georgie Collins — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:56:14 -0000

Thank you, this is so helpful! Just got my first NQT teaching post with a Year 1 class and am really keen to start blogging with them...but was filled with worries as so many people said they would be too young. You have given me confidence, ideas and inspiration so thank you all!! x

Re: VSR21: Teaching Tech

Ben Robson — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:11:11 -0000

Really informative and insightful info. A must listen to if you are starting out with ICT integration

Re: VSR42: iOS App Smackdown!

Marita Thomson — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:05:13 -0000

Fabulous podcast, Chris. I was just going to ask if there was an app for taking podcast notes whilst driving, so very impressed with the link list above :-)

Re: VSR42: iOS App Smackdown!

Stephen Lethbridge — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:17:50 -0000

Nice list I am busily adding to my itunes wish list! We are thrashing Dropbox and I really like DropVox - great for capturing teacher student conferences. Saves direct to Dropbox so that children can use the files as learning artifacts in their KnowledgeNET (Learning Management System).

cheers
Stephen
@stephen_tpk

Re: VSR42: iOS App Smackdown!

Allanah King — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 06:57:56 -0000

Thanks for collating such a great list of apps.

I am going to go through a download a heap of great new apps.

Cheers

Allanah

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Ellen — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:57:00 -0000

http://tinyurl.com/4c62jmb
Interesting video from US school district. Not what I wuld call exciting/engaging apps but.....

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Chris — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:21:27 -0000

THanks Stephen and Ben. It's great that you found it useful. Makes the production effort all worthwhile! :-)

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Ben Grundy — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 04:29:16 -0000

Nice podcast... thanks. Have passed it on to our admin as we think ahead to next school year.

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Stephen Loosley — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:14:39 -0000

Chris says, "I think this episode is one of the better ones"

Difficult to tell, Chris .. all the episodes are excellent.

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Chris — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:28:55 -0000

Thanks mate, I've updated the notes. I originally had a look for it, but couldn't find the link easily. Since it was 1:30am I thought I'd leave it and you'd eventually let me know. Which you did. :-)

Thanks again for the chat... I think this episode is one of the better ones.

Re: VSR40: There’s an App for That

Brett — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:16:53 -0000

Great chat guys... Here is the link to our school app
http://itunes.apple.com/app...

Re: VSR38: Student Voice

Linda Yollis — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 11:26:48 -0000

Jenny,

Glad to hear that you found our tips useful. I hope you do kickstart your own class blog. :-) It's a great way to document and share the learning going on in your classroom as well as learn from blogging buddies all over the world.

Let us know if you need any help!

Re: VSR38: Student Voice

Jenny Lewis — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:41:09 -0000

Fantastic podcast! I have been following Kathleen's class blog for the last 12 months and have just recently subscribed to Linda's, so it was so great to hear both of them speaking about their blogging experiences. Thank you for all the great tips, especially about effective commenting, and also how to inform and include parents. I am sure I will listen to it again and again, and hopefully kickstart my own class blog this year. Many thanks!

Re: VSR31: The Culture Shift

Jenni Fewtrell — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 04:49:15 -0000

Many thanks once again for this podcast Chris and Pamela, Ben & Wendy.

While we are not a 1:1 school and this is not a likely prospect in the forseeable future, the issue of leadership discussed in this issue is relevant to all schools in this time of change. Your presenters make some very good recommendations that all schools need to look at in terms of leadership to support educators and students in adopting digital technologies in the curriculum.

With this in mind, I'm aiming for a new and refreshed start to 2011 within my own school.

Re: VSR36: Connected

Pauline Quealy — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:23:27 -0000

Brilliant Chris, thanks very much. When I win the lottery I'll attend the conference in Philadelphia. I'm finding being a teacher in this day and age incredibly exciting and expensive. It's difficult keeping up financially with all the mod cons required to teach the 21st century learner in the manner they should be taught. Santa didn't bring me an iPad! I'm just about to listen to your next podcast. Thanks again, you're a great help.

Re: VSR36: Connected

Chris Betcher — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 03:43:18 -0000

Thanks Pauline. ISTE stands for the International Society for Technology Education. They are a US-based body that does a lot of work in the area of educational technology and they have some great resources (although their definition of "international" differs somewhat to mine, as they are very US centric)

They run a large edtech conference every year known as the ISTE Conference, or simply "ISTE". Until a couple of years ago it was known as NECC (the National Educational Computing Conference). Next year it will be in Philadelphia I believe.

Thanks for the kind words about the podcast. It's much appreciated.

Re: VSR36: Connected

Pauline Quealy — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 05:35:43 -0000

Hi Chris, wow,I loved the podcast and have learnt quite a bit. I'd love to skype in the classroom and shall give it a go when school goes back next year. I've had a class blog for two years now and we all loved it but never thought of skype or twitter in the classroom - exciting. Excuse my ignorance, but what is "isti"? Brilliant podcast, thanks again
Pauline Quealy

Re: VSR36: Connected

Jenni Fewtrell — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 02:50:55 -0000

I know Chris, but it pains me that all the 'good' people have to be within the state system within Queensland as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm a great advocate and trained facilitator within our EQ PD framework but I'm chomping at the bit to be able to connect with all the other wonderful educators out there for the sake of our students' and our teachers'learning. It is tricky but we'll be following it up in the new year.

Happy Christmas Chris!

Re: VSR36: Connected

Chris — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:59:14 -0000

Thank Jenni. Yes it's an interesting situation up there in Queensland. On the one hand you've got a progressive education system that wants to hand you all the tools you need to work digitally and provides a wonderful (from what I hear) environment with The Learning Place, and on the other hand makes a blanket assumption that you would never want to actually collaborate with anyone outside of Queensland. It's a bit of a tricky one.

I guess their thinking is aimed at keeping children safe by managing who they come into contact with. Good thing that all Queenslanders are nice people, and all the really bad people are outside of Queensland! whew! What a relief it must be to know that! ;-)

Thanks for the kind words about the podcast!

Chris

Re: VSR36: Connected

Jenni Fewtrell — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 20:35:30 -0000

I really enjoyed this episode Chris, I also miss having a class to 'connect' with others and it's got me thinking about ways around this. I ran a project along with a colleague (another twitterer @MrsBanjer) within EdQld called Beyond Your Back Door! this year and it frustrates us that we don't have the ready tools to connect outside EQ. Amanda was going to participate but it all got a bit hard. We're planning to do it again next semester, would love to work out how to connect with classes both within EQ and further afield than last time.

Keep the great podcasts coming, I've been a fan of them since you started! (@jeni_wren)

Re: VSR35: Free As In Speech

Peter Ruwoldt — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:25:46 -0000

The sequence of events around the making of this podcast was like the planets aligning, the dominoes falling. It inspired me to make a blog post, the first in a long time, to share how the planets were aligning. It has also led me to make public my questions about the future of professional organisations with access to things like The Virtual Staffroom. http://waraku.blogspot.com/...

Maybe the future of professional organisations could be thrashed around in another Virtual Staffroom podcst?

Re: VSR34: Short Notice

Hi Chris — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:54:10 -0000

Thanks heaps Chris. This site is a fantastic resource for those of us in the ICT in education game. Credit to you for bringing together such knowledgeable people to discuss these fascinating topics. I just love listening to them at my leisure on my mp3 player.
Cheers, Mark

Re: VSR34: Short Notice

Chris — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 09:31:35 -0000

G'day Mark,
Thanks for the note. The site here has just been totally rebuilt after a major SQL server screwup at my hosting service, so I'm still piecing things back together. On the whole, I think this new website is more useful than the old one and it offers a better user experience (or at least a more functional one). I thought I enabled the ability to download the episodes as MP3s but after looking, it appears I hadn't.

I had a quick poke about in the PowerPress settings and have enabled that ability now. At the end of each episode you will now see a link to download them as MP3s.

Thanks for prodding me to get that fixed!

Chris