Hackasaurus x-ray goggles

I had learned about hackasaurus x-ray goggles at the google academy in April, but like many things never got round to playing with it. I was reminded of this free tool at the Naace Hothouse by Doug (@dajbelshaw) so decided then and there that I should make time to play during this holiday. I was further inspired by Ant's (@skinnyboyevans) great blog post and his thoughts about using this tool in KS2. 

I intend to use this tool with my digital leaders. I like the idea that they will be learning about what 'hacking' means and I know that it will generate discussions that will help them understand more fully about copyright, privacy and internet safety issues. It is very easy to use and you really don't need to understand much coding to be able to play with this.

So, I had a quick go today, starting with grand ideas that were inspired by some of the photos that I have. My first hurdle was getting my photos to replace the existing ones, as I kept getting the 'broken photo' icon. I failed to get photos from dropbox or flickr to work (so failed to become an Olympic gold medal winner), but managed to use an old photo from facebook. The photo then dictated the kind of website that I wanted to alter. I am not sure why the other urls did not work, but will endeavour to find out. It shouldn't be a problem for my digital leaders though as they can use blog photos. 

The thing I like about this is the thinking that the digital leaders will have to do. They need a photo. They may have to stage this. They also need a story to accompany the photo, then they need to find a website that lends itself to their photo and what they want to say. I will encourage them to consider themselves as Olympic winners, famous inventors, scientists, historical figures, actors or singers etc. What a great way to get them writing!

So here is my tongue in cheek effort!

Click to enlarge

Update on 24/02/12

I have had another play before a recent enrichment morning and became the new Emile Sande as well as joining Dick and Dom in the bungalow. My digital leaders wrote a post on the digital leader network, although their work is not shown on it unfortunately.