Updating the blog

[Sheli]

The digital leader network blog and #DLchat have gone from strength to strength this year thanks to the enthusiastic community of teachers and student digital leaders who contribute. The blog will be a year old in February and it would be nice to update it. I would like to have more digital leaders involved in this - it needs fresh ideas and fresh eyes and who better to do this than our young leaders. There are many exciting things happening next year - notably Bett 13 and a Badgeathon at Mozilla which has been organised by Tim Riches and Tony Parkin. Chris (@gr8ICT) rightly suggested that these need to be represented on the blog with more than a post. They are important developments. If you have an idea, please share it! If you are an ICT whizz and would like to be more involved in the techy bits, please get in touch!

Another hugely positive thing for the collaborative blog is that I received three nominations for a Naace award, for the DLN. I regret that my initial reaction may have been ungracious as I was horrified. The blog is collaborative and I believed that one person shouldn't be given credit for it. I see now that it doesn't really matter who got the nomination - there are many ambassadors and any one of them should accept recognition for the hard work that has gone into making the network a success. 

2012 has been a great year, but 2013 looks like it will be even better!

[Andy Knill]

I agree a fantastic year and yes you deserve nominating for your drive and input Sheli. BETT 13 and DLN input is looking very promising I am so glad I joined this initiative and have had the chance to tell others about it.

@aknill

[Thomas (Tad(dle)]

How about a weekly, collaborative talkshow running for about 15-30 mins between all of the digital leaders from every school employing digital leaders who update the network. It would be a great way to share ideas with other digital leaders, and if made as a podcast uploaded to the DLN, they could make a nice way to learn the latest DL stories without reading all the posts.

Sort of like quad blogging, but slightly upscaled and instead of blogs, podcasts. The schools would be more cross cut into each other than it would be in a blogging situation.

Any opinions?

Sent from my iPad
Tom Farrow
JHNCC DL

[sheli blackburn]

Sounds like a brilliant idea Thomas! What resources are you thinking about using for the collaborative talk show?

Sheli

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[Thomas (Tad(dle)]

Hmm. Haven't thought about that. For good enough quality, we'd need a new system,mor a very well written protocol connector due to network protocol issues.
Have you heard of the digitalED portal? I can fit it into the project, when we get some hosting.
Hosting has been offered to us by Leo McArdle, who organises the Mozilla UK community. Ill try and catch him later. I think Mozilla has a resource for things like this too, so I'll check with IT, and if we have it, I'll speak to the legal team about implementing it to a page.

There are services such as Skype and Hangouts etc, however these come with some major issues. For example, Skype works on non standard ports and most schools have these blocked at LEA level. Hangouts has a very lossy sound system on most highend hardware firewalls that to would find in a lot of school data server rooms.

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[Tony Parkin]

I was wondering about whether the more recent additions to Google+ Communities might mean a Community would fit the bill? Seems to have everything that you are discussing built-in, which would save a fair bit of tech hassle? And has quite a degree of fine control and moderation flexibility to get right balance of security and admin requirements. 

I haven't encountered the Hangouts sound system problems that you mention, though to be fair I haven't tried Hangouts with many teachers when they are at school - but may be interesting to see how many experience a problem? Most mentions appear to be about problems getting a port opened, always a challenge with school/LA systems? But true for whatever system you choose?

Tony Parkin

[Daniel Stucke]

That would probably work. Only issue would be the 13+ age limit if you envisage student involvement (realise this is similar issue on other platforms). Sounds a great idea. 

Dan

PS: great work folks and congratulations on the nominations - well deserved - so pleased to see this continuing to grow :)

[Tony Parkin]

Hi Dan...

Yes, I was assuming that for esafety /logistics issues any public SDL Community would operate at a school level, under teacher control, rather than a personal one. Though older students that were SDLs could be granted individual access if required.

Perhaps it would be better to hold off till the badging plans with Mozilla on the Makewav.es platform are clarified - getting close now. Makewav.es communities can also do multimedia postings - in fact that's what it was designed for! So it might make more sense to do everything SDL there, rather than keep replicating functionality in lots of different systems and places? And of course Makewav.es does allow primary students to be directly involved!

Tony

[sheli blackburn]

I thought of google hangouts, but they would only be possible under a teacher account in primary schools. That's fine for me - and I'm sure I can access google+ at school - but others may not be able to. Sounds like a good idea to discuss this further at the Mozilla badgeathon. Would be really great to see if I can get the blog hosted elsewhere too as it needs developing and there are a few problems that need addressing. My skills and time are limited! I would love to get Edmodo linked to it too. Be good to discuss this in a group. 

Thanks for all your input! 

Sheli 

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[Bob Harrison]

Thanks for this...I will be at the Mozilla event on 17th January so happy to contribute to discussion and support..

Bob Harrison

Education Adviser,Toshiba Information Systems(UK)

www.setuk.co.uk

" we can't change policy but we can change practice"

Follow me on twitter @bobharrisonset

[Mark Anderson]

This all sounds fab. Perhaps, as we look to develop the DLN site further, we should be looking to move away from the Wordpress option? Something that allows more expansion, easier collaboration, integration with Edmodo, badges, so forth and so on. Does anyone know of anything that would facilitate this?

Mark

www.ictevangelist.com www.youtube.com/ictevangelist http://about.me/ictevangelist See my vizify bio!

[Thomas (Tad(dle)]

Im currently working on programming a system called the digitalED portal.

It's a suite of open source applications all linked in to eachother with maximum teacher control over what happens on their site.

It will include tools such as open badges, Wordpress, podcasting, popcorn maker, X-ray goggles and quite a few more.

Im not including commercially available tools due to legal issues. Also, as a Mozillan, I make all of my projects in a way that they comply with the Mozilla Manifesto which when in place will encourage young web makers such as me to create open products.

Im expecting an initial release to be developed to a distributable standard in the next 2 weeks.

The first version will possibly be hosted by Mozilla UK community VPS thanks to Leo McArdle, who I met 4 years ago when I was a 9 year old moderator in the old live chat, which is now shutdown.

Fully working login. Hard part over :D

You can read more about my project on my GitHub repo

GitHub.com/thomasfarrow/digitalED-portal

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Tom Farrow

JHNCC DL