How secure is your password?

While catching up on a bit of reading, I came across Judy O'Connell's blog "Hey Jude" and the post Pass the [password] test.
Needless to say I went and had a play and my results were much the same as Judy found (only much worse!).
My banking password was cracked in one second, and a password that I call my 'generic' password and use for everything that I don't think needs to be secure came back with a result of 237 years.
The one thing which this test does not take into account however, is the use of personally identifiable information such as names, kids names, DOB etc that a person may find out about you in order to crack your password.
Be all means go have a play, but remember to have a password that is also not easily guessed!

Oh yeah, I have chosen a new password...

7 billion years? Much better :)

Student engagement and standards

I have been spending some time catching up on the feeds in Google reader and I have come across this interesting post on the use of blogs in science classrooms by Chris Ludwig. I have even looked through the blogs of his students to get an idea of what is possible in the science classroom. The post by Chris Ludwig on blogs in the classroom is found here. It s also through this blog that I came across xtranormal which featured in my last post.

Movie making

Ah, I have found a new time waster! The clip says it all...
My first  movie using xtranormal, 'Saved by the bell'.

Interactive Periodic table

Wow, how great is this! An interactive periodic table that even shows the orbitals of each element.

Bullying? No way.

A great song by Kate Miller-Heidke on school bullying with a video clip made by Year 9 drama students.
Official video clip can be found here

My son's Blabbermouth

Here is my Mii son

Blabberize: alternative to Voki

I have just had a play around with Blabberize and sent a digital Mii with a personal message to my daughter at school. It was quick and easy to sign up, it took a little fiddling to get the mouth looking sort of normal, but no more than five minutes and I read no instructions. I am quite happy with the results and it gives a different feel than a Voki as you can make any picture you upload 'talk'.
I can say that I will be using this again and showing to my students...gee I wish I taught e-learning, I could discover and play with different sites more often.
With out further ado, I give you my digital Mii...

Twitter chat widget

While trolling through my twitterverse I was reminded to check out the education ning community that I joined awhile ago but have neglected through lack of time to participate in actively.
I am glad that I finally found the time tonight to have a look as some smart cookie, Nathan Grimm, in my Personal Learning Network (PLN) has made a widget that follows educational twitter chats where ever you care to embed it. And here it is...in the sidebar, after a bit of updating and rearranging of my blog layout. Great new layouts available just in time to accommodate this twitter feed :-)

The sounds of nature

I found a great site today that allows you to create your own sounds of nature for free, Nature Sounds.
I added a sound track I created to a picture from National Geographic and this is what I ended up with.

Ideally I would love to use Nature Sounds to add a track to play in the background of my webquest.The uses for this type of application are as varied as your imagination. Enjoy :)

Embedding Google docs into blogs etc

While cruising through my Twitterverse tonight I came across this wiki page, Porchester Curriculum Resource Bank  with the following information...

Q) How do I put my Google Docs work into my Learning Space?

- Open a NEW Internet browser window and log into your learning space.

- Copy this code; (which you will have to go to the afore mentioned blog to see as when I put the text in it is just not happening..).

- Change the red writing to the location of your work

- In your learning space, compose a new post and click on the "HTML" tab. Now paste the code into the box.

- Return to your Google Docs work. Now go to publish it.Copy the URL (the address in the whitebar at the top of the screen)

- Replace the Red text in the code with the URL of your work.- Give your work a title, choose a category, then save it. Done!


So, of course I had to give it a go and I have managed to embed the survey results from my previous post. Check them out!






A great way to lets the kids see the results on their class wiki/web page/blog or what ever.