e-wot?

Here’s a great tutorial for finding duplicates in an Excel spreadsheet column.

I used it to find duplicate URLs from a list of 750. It worked a treat.

My Tweetdeck broke. Here’s the fix I tried that worked on my Mac.

1. Uninstall Adobe Air: Finder>Applications>Utilities>Click uninstall Adobe Air.
2. Uninstall Tweetdeck: Applications folder>delete/trash Tweetdeck
3. Remove other Tweetdeck files: Library>Preferences> delete Tweetdeck folder
4. Go to Tweetdeck, click download – it will ask to install Adobe Air, so install it – this will also install Tweetdeck.
5. Launch Tweetdeck.
6. Enter your Twitter login details.

Tweetdeck is essential (for me) for using Twitter. IMO Twitter is tough without it. I had two months without Tweetdeck = two months without Twitter. This fix got me back into the game.

Here’s a list of online apps (games, chat, forums, social networks, blogs) with the age restrictions as seen in the sites’ terms of service/use. I made this list because I needed a list to show some teachers what they could/could not use with their students depending on age. This list is by no means complete, just a few online apps I’ve heard about.

This is purely informational. I haven’t tried them all, so I can’t say how well they safeguard minors. It’s best to be thorough and try them out properly yourself. YMMV

Ones I’ve tried and I think are good, though not with age restrictions in mind: Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, Ning, Club Penguin, FreeRealms, Writeboard, 21Classes, PBwiki & Delicious.

RPG = Role Playing Game

Must be at least 16

• Friendster social network

Must be at least 13 and in high school

• Facebook social network

Must be over 13

• Bebo social network
• Blogger weblog publishing tool
• Chamber of Chat Harry Potter multiplayer RPG (no private chat, moderators)
• Gaia Online community with games, message boards etc…
• Hi 5 social networking site
• IMVU chat with friends in 3D
• Jaiku microblogging
• MySpace social network
• Ning social network created around an area of interest (can be open or private)
• Runescape multiplayer game
• Tokbox video chat (works with Twitter & others)
• Twitter microblogging Twitter is now for over-18s. See comments to this post.
• Vox weblog publishing tool
• Weebly website creation tool (includes blogs, forums)
• Wetoku video interview tool (requires parents’ approval)
• Wordpress.com weblog publishing tool
• Writeboard single wiki pages for writing activities
• Xanga weblog community
• 12Seconds video microblogging
• 43 Things microblogging site based around personal goals

Download & install application required

• There virtual world
• Teen Second Life virtual world (13-17 yo)
• vSide virtual world

No Age minimum specified, but require parental approval

• Awol chat, games, diary, friends, & cribs
• Boom Bang chat, make friends and explore a virtual world (moderated)
• Club Penguin virtual world for kids populated by penguins (moderated, ’safe’ chat)
• Endless Online multiplayer RPG
• Graal Online multiplayer RPG
• Marapets virtual pet site with games and chat community
• Neopets Virtual world for pets
• Millsberry Home building community (pre-scripted chat, monitored)
• Sanriotown Hello Kitty games, blogs and forums
• Shining Stars Chatting, naming stars, star worlds (’safe’ pre-constructed chat)
• Typepad weblog publishing tool
• Webkinz virtual pet community (’safe’ chat)

Download & install application required

• Dofus multiplayer RPG
• Eternal Lands multiplayer RPG
• Furcadia multiplayer RPG
• FreeRealms multiplayer RPG (restricted chat, moderated)

I couldn’t find anything definitive about age restrictions on Wikispaces, EduBlogs or 21Classes, but considering that they’re aimed at teachers and learners, I’m guessing that they must be OK for all ages?? I couldn’t find anything in PBworks’ (PBwiki), or Delicious‘ Terms of Service mentioning age either.

As a rule of thumb, when checking out an online tool that you might want to use with younger learners, check the Terms of Service (sometimes called Terms of Use) and their privacy policy. This should be somewhere on the homepage (usually at the bottom). Then do an inline search (hit Ctrl+F) for ‘years’ or ‘guardian’ or ‘13′ or something like that to jump to the bit about age restrictions, and then read the small print.

By the way, blogging tool tumblr. requires subscribers to be over 18.

And thanks to Denis for helping me with the list.

This is my post-earth-hour contribution. Only a link, but a good one: http://www.dothegreenthing.com/

It’s been a year, and I’ve decided to process-map how I set up a private Ning network for our teachers to use for their personal development. It’s been quite a success. The Google Analytics show good stats and senior teachers are asking me for info about the sites to add to their presentations, or to do more – and better. All good. So I think it’s time for me to outline how we got to where we are.

I’m going to start this next week. I think I’ll be using OmniGraffle to build the flow charts.

Google has been quite patchy these past few days. Even my wife’s been complaining. So it must be bad. Cos she just uses Google Search.

Well, I’ve just spent three hours trying to sort out a Google Sites account for a community of practice that I’m in using Google Sites, and it’s been really painful. Server error is the message I get. I’d prefer a nicely crafted Google message. Oh well.

This is a great one-stop-shop for all your adult learning needs. click for Adult Learning wiki

A thought provoking post on Classroom 2.0 by Christine Southard who highlights one aspect of an upcoming World War II history special. The producers have asked the YouTube generation to record oral histories (frome their grandparents in other words) before we lose them forever.

Great potential. Great educational project.

Ewan McIntosh nails it when he writes about Ken Robinson’s new book The Element. It’s a great blog post. Ewan reminds us

It’s not curriculum, class sizes (though smaller class sizes make the teacher’s life easier) or even assessment. This is something I’ve been reporting back from research for two years (and which I’ve been blown out on more times than I can count). It’s not about letting students lead the way with technology and “show us teachers” how it’s done. Students are generally quite narrow in their knowledge of how to harness technology or creative venture.

No, it’s how teachers and parents teach that is important. It is, to use a piece of edu-jargon, pedagogy, both at school and at home.

Great stuff. One of those blog posts that really hits the spot.

A great article from Maish Nichani. Click for How to design good educational apps for the iPhone

To sum up:

Good educational apps have the following qualities:

• Clear goals
• Useful & engaging start up screen
• Interesting gameplay
• Meaningful interactions
• Appropriate feedback

Read the article.