I teach in a relatively small p12 school at Hawkesdale. This small rural town is 30 minutes drive to the nearest large shopping centre of Warrnambool, so at times we work very independently and to a certain degree, in isolation as it is expensive now to drive to Melbourne (3 hours away) for PD activities and meetings that so many of our city peers take for granted.

However, blogging has opened up a whole new world for us. Our students have talked about their backyards, eagerly gone home and taken digital images or else scanned them and converted them to jpg files. Their blogs have been published. Kind people have actually made comments on their blogs which means that students have a real and authentic audience. These young digital natives are then encouraged to write and express themselves and explore further some of the comments made.

So, it is with a bit of fun that we have added a widget to our sites from clustrmaps. Once a user name and password is registered, together with an email address, a code is issued that is unique to that url or blogsite that you wish to use the world map on. So, once your email is activated, you goto clustrmaps again, obtain the code and paste it into one of your text widgets. Each time someone hits your blog site a red flag comes up in the reader’s country of origin. Our students love that because they can see that people in an increasing number of countries are actually looking at our backyard site.

Another fun widget might be a clock. An updated clock of your own choice at www.clocklink.com will keep your time and allow international guests know what the time is in your country. A code is again copied and pasted into another text widget and hey presto, you have a clock. I have only just got to experiment with widgets and will continue to do so. They are fun and add extra information or pizzaz to your site.

Anne Mirtschin

At school, we are using voicethread to share our interests, acitivities and other project materials with some schools in USA. The grade 3 and 4 class have been working on this project. Year 8 students have produced a photo album of our school to share with schools in other countries. It is relatively easy to use and there are great tutorials, examples and resources on the website.

Voicethread is like a photo album but it can capture and hold the voices and stories of an entire group forever. It is then stored online. It can be made public or private. Many identities can be created so that each class member will have a separate identity under the umbrella of the teacher. Each identity chooses an image for themselves and records their voiceover. Steps in using voicethread are as follows:-

Goto www.voicethread.com >upload and insert the required photo under browse (or flickr or photobucket) Give a title to your slide. Make sure you give yourself a digital image – photo or otherwise.

Goto comment and record your introduction or voiceover, add an image. Goto the top RHS corner where your photo or image sits>my account>add identity and follow the prompts.

Once in the voicethread, identities can also be added. Follow the prompts until completed. New slides, with different images, can be added etc. Ensure that the microphone settings are correct for the computer that you are using. Choose record and the person records their message. If you need to re-record the voice click on the rubbish bin which appears when selecting the image. See below.

To switch identities, click on your image in lower left hand corner, and choose the one you now want to work with. New identities can be added here as well.

These voicethreads can be shared with other classes, schools and globally. So they are a great collaborative tool.