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This is an ancient aerial photograph taken just before the final stages of the historic Battle of Thermopylae between the Greeks and the Persians in 480BC. The image was taken by Anna Chronism. The Greek forces were courageously led by Leonidas. The troops are camped by one of the ancient walls of the pass. To the right the traitor Ephialtes can be seen.

How was this post created? The original photograph was taken using a digital camera. Mt Faber, Singapore, 2003. The ants were building a wall of sorts prior to a storm on a step on a path. Were they intending to funnel water towards or away from their nest I wonder? Why were they building a wall? Was the impending storm their version of an invading Persian force? I imported the photograph into Comic Life. The cartoon elements were added. I exported the project as an image. Opened it in Photoshop Elements and saved the image for the web. Large and small.

Wednesday morning, Sydney. Arrived last night. Workshop is on today. Innovative Technology in Schools Conference at the University of Technology in Sydney. Printed the resources (grab your own copy here) and updated the links for today’s participants. Added a number of Second Life related links to the Web 2.0 Workshop page. These include links to the ISTE Second Life site, Terra Incognita site and Skoolabarate.

I also updated the Web 2.0 workshop page with some additional resources and links, particularly with respect to that most enigmatic of all technology tools, Twitter. See you there.

This week I received a telephone call from Westley Field. He is the Diretor of Online Learning at Methodist Ladies College in Sydney as well as the force behind Skoolabarate.

Westley asked if I could help him out of a bind. He is scheduled to give a two day workshop on Emerging Technologies at the forthcoming Innovative Technologies in Schools Conference at the University of Technology, Sydney. Westley can not make it to the first day of the workshop due to a pressing commitment so he asked if I could replace him on the first day. I secured approval from my boss and I will be heading up to Sydney for the conference on that day.

This is a description of the workshop as it appears on the ITSC web site…

“Technology changes the way we work and live. And the types of technologies that are emerging have tremendous implications for the future of education. Schools will need to adopt new practices and new skills for teachers, if they are to remain competitive. In this presentation we will explore new technical directions as well as learn the strategies that worked in establishing a successful global collaborative initiative in teen second life. From beginning to end. Participants will learn of practical strategies and administrative considerations that make these projects work, viewing video footage of student experiences as well as interacting with students and partners during the presentation. With a focus on international collaboration this session will look at the incredibly successful Skoolaborate project (www.skoolaborate.com) and have you teleporting within days.”

Westley and I have been friends for years. We met back in the 1990s when we were undertaking postgraduate study at the University of Wollongong and working on projects with the Interactive Multimedia Learning Laboratory. We have both had the chance to work in Singapore as well this year. I managed to get Westley a gig at the Good To Great Teaching Conference at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore earlier this year. That was a great conference. Tom Reeves presented as well. The three of us had a great time. What a fantastic week that was!

Westley and I worked in Singapore together once more later in the year. I did some work with NTU, the Hwa Chong Institution and Singapore Airlines. Not bad for a school teacher. It has been a good year indeed. I am most fortunate. I am proud of my achievements.

I suspect the ITSC will be just as excellent. Stay posted for related materials and contributions.

This evening in Australia there were many people who were fortunate enough to witness an alignment of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus. For a few hours they resembled a smiley emoticon.

It was cloudy here. The best I could do was to climb into my spacesuit and fire up Google Sky, part of Google Earth. I located the planets and the alignment is visible. One can simulate the motions of the planets and the moon quite easily. I grabbed a screen shot of the visible sky for the 1st December, 2008.

The Moon. Venus and Jupiter. December 1st, 2008. View large image. Source: Google Earth.

Did you get to see it? Did you manage to capture a photograph?

This evening I checked through my feedreader, I use NetNewsWire. As I scan through the blog posts and the various news feeds I select those items that I would like to explore further. I prefer to read the full post in a browser. Clicking on the feed title opens each post in a browser with a new tab. I then quit NetNewsWire and begin reading the relevant posts in Firefox or Safari for example.

Tonight I earmarked about 50 items. There is a variety of content. Book reviews, inspiration, video, links, resources, technical tips, sites I feel that may benefit my colleagues and so on.

Fifty great ideas. Tap twice to begin, tap once to stop.

I will read through a number of the items this evening, comment here and there, and continue with the rest during the week. I may even add a few to Diigo (and Delicious by default).

At other times I may note 60, 70, 80 or more posts or items to read. It is overwhelming at times. There is so much great stuff out there. So many great ideas, so little time…