Journeys in Education
Ramblings on ICT, Education, Web 2.0, Christianity and Staff PD
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So call me crazy, call me a plebe but I don’t get all the fuss that is being made about Second Life! Don’t get me wrong I can see how it can be used as a good way to meet online and run professional development, I can see how could be used in education for some powerful learning activities (MaggieMarat’s presentation at NECC about students and body image was a great example) but I am not sure that I get why you would want to do more than that? Why do you want to spend your real life living in an online, virtual world? It is hard enough as a Christian to be not of this world, but in it John 17:14-16 but then to be not of this world but be in it in a virtual world, it does my head in! Also wonder about why it is exciting to ‘do’ things in world when really you are just sitting at a computer operating a keyboard and mouse. I think it is more exciting to do real things, see people and talk to them in the real world. I know, I know that makes me not a real ICT purist and with that I am very happy. I do like to meet (or at least see) people that I have an online relationship with. I think it enriches the online relationship greatly. I also wonder about the loss on inhibitions that can happen in a virtual environment. I have seen students gain incredible amounts of confidence when online and for some it gives them a voice that was previously unheard which is great, however when people feel like they can throw away normal moral boundaries, be a bit flirty, be a bit of a bully or generally behave in manner that they would never do in real life what happens then? Is that OK? Are you still answerable for your actions in Second Life or is it amoral because you don’t know the real person? I think as tools such as Second Life are embraced in education serious discussion needs to take place about educating students about appropriate online behaviors and moral consequences.
Enough confused ramblings now onto the task of Learning Management Systems and a ICT resource wiki!
How cool is this?? How many can you name??
After 6 months of waiting (I saw this on a website 6 Months ago and have been waiting ever since) I finally had the opportunity to find my first geocache today at Ballam Park in Frankston. After logging in the the Geocache website and typing in my postcode I found that there were several geocaches near my house with one of them being in a park that I have exercised in for 3 years!! We have some friends who are right into geocaching Eddie and Michelle and they came down with their portable GPS and off we set to find the loot. It was set up as a multi location find where you had to solve the (simple) puzzle to find the co-ordinates of the cache. We found the cache in a hollow of a tree very well hidden. In the cache was an assortment of toys (this cache was aimed at families) and a travel bug which you need to log that you have found and then you need to find another cache and add it into that for someone else to track and find.
It was great fun and of course my mind went to how could we use this at school? There are heaps of applications obviously for geography, outdoor and environmental studies and physical education. But also an easy way to start up some global conversations with people as you discuss travel bugs and other track-able items. Using literacy skills in creating and framing puzzles for your caches that you create and helping students collaborate by groups creating caches. All you need is handheld GPS unit which cost about $200 on ebay for a Garmin GPS60 which is a basic monochrome unit and access to the Internet to get the clues for the cache hunt.
Some random ideas are that this could be useful for extension students or hands on learners for engagement???
Well the Study Tour is done and dusted so where to from here? On the tour I found there were three main themes that stood out for me as important to my school. They are 21st Century Skills, Collaboration and Technology as an environment.
21st Century Skills
- Critical Thinking
- Creativity and Innovation
- Collaboration, Teamwork and Leadership
- Cross- Cultural Understanding
- Communication and media literacy
- Computing and ICT literacy
- Career and Learning self reliance
Bernie Trilling at Oracle spoke of these skills and te need for the education system to change as industry and they way people work has dramatically changed. Currently we are working in a system that has not changed since the 1940’s and was an excellent system for preparing students for the world of work and how it was carried out back then. Now work is all team based, project based, global and collaborative students need a different skill set. Major companies are not employing staff because of the knowledge that they have but because of the skill set that they hold.
What are the ramifications for education? The role of the teacher needs to change. We don’t have all of the information. We need to be changing the way that we teach and what we focus on in the curriculum. Literacy and numeracy are still incredibly important and must be taught. However perhaps we need a more student directed style in the other areas.
Collaboration and Project Based Learning
Jim Carleton and Mali Bickley spoke passionately about collaboration and project based learning how it revitalized their teaching careers and their students learning. The use the iearn network to run their collaborations. All through the tour we saw many examples of global collaborations and project based learning. Bernie Trilling from Oracle spoke of the absolute necessity of student to be able to work in this format as that is the main way that industry works in the 21st century. Ian Jukes in his session at NECC encouraged us that schools should be using mainly project based learning. Another speaker suggested that every year level from Prep to 12 should have some element of project based learning. It is a huge departure from the traditional classroom setting where the teacher is the source of all knowledge and puts learning firmly in the hands of the student.
Invisible Technology
In the schools that we visited and everywhere that we went we were strongly encouraged to make technology ‘invisible’ in the classroom just part of the learning environment, as much a part of the classroom as pens, pencils and books. The should be used not for the sake of using technology but as means to communicate and collaborate. We need to not be saying how can we use technology but how can technology help us learn and help us improve our pedagogy. I think from this tour that this can only be achieved by having computers in the classroom where the students are at not stuck away in labs where technology can be easily ignored and not built in as a normal part of the schools environment.
There were many other interesting areas on the study tour such as the value of Mac’s over PC’s, interesting web 2.0 apps that can be used, importance of pedagogy, PD models, Twitter, the connectedness of students, the different ways students learn now compared to 20 years ago, the emergence of digital students rather than digital natives, importance of networking, the value of Twitter, the value of Second Life, the potential for google apps and so much more.
I feel incredibly blessed that i got to go on this tour and hope that I can actually affect some change at my school as a result of this.
Well the last days of the study were an absolute whirlwind. We boarded a very small plane (compared to all the other we have flown on) to fly into LA. It was a very smooth flight and there was some interesting things to look at as we flew over the US. Once we landed in LA (what a huge, busy airport!!) we jumped on a spunky coach to have a cooks tour of LA. On the tour we went to Venice beach, Hollywood and down town LA. It was an incredibly interesting city with some beautiful areas and some areas that you wouldn’t want to walk around at night. I saw the famous Hollywood sign and found Judy Garland signature in front of Grumans Chinese Theatre. It was then back to LA airport, via Jack in a box for dinner ( I am convinced that there is no healthy food options in the US) for the 12 hour flight back to Auckland. I was so incredibly tired that pretty much fell asleep even before the plane took off (active noise canceling headphones are a godsend) and slept for about 9 hours!! All the people on the Melbourne flight waved a fond farewell to the Sydney, QLD and NT people and then it was then onto the flight from Auckland back to Melbourne which did not go anywhere near fast enough as by that stage I was desperate to get home to my boys! I got a great welcome at the airport from the boys and I am very glad to be home after this amazing experience.
Q: How do you provide the time, training, and resources to keep up with today’s education revolution. A: Multiple opportunities, multiple modes of engagement tailored goals, vision looking ahead. Key has been every teacher having a laptop. Virginia has a teacher blogging initiative with each teacher having a blog. They have just intro’d a Ning for collaboration.
What kinds of training do they provide? Classes, Power blogging courses, ethics and cyberspace (every teacher needs to go through this course), Moodle, Google Earth, Using Inspire data, Podcasting, Inspiration and kidspiration. Details of classes here…
What are the goals? Awaremness of new tools and opportunities, Increse comfort levels and familiarity with technology, provide rationale for change towrds developing 21st century skills, change classroom practises, enhanced with best-in-class technologies.
Time is one of the biggest challenges. “money does not change education, time does. Teacher new to the system start one week earlier than the normal start to undergo ICT training. Lots of PD done through Instant Messengering. Weekly email newsletter, Technology Times blog and a podcast are the ways that they communicate to their staff. 1:1 help with teachers for iinstruction purposes not for fixing computers, after school classes from 4-6pm. Every year he meets with all of his teachers to set two technology goals for the year and to set their after school class. Summer term institue which take 2-4 days over 12 hours, mini conference days. promethean user group meetings, online moodle courses.
Top 10 Tips
1. Provide access, ensure the experience can be implemented right away
2. Provide a context and a theme
3. Provide opportunities for anytime anywhere
4. Model Innovation
5. Foster Collaboration
6. Maintain a conversation
7. Make teacher accountable
8. Provide Incentives
9. Use a Gestalt approach approaching technology as a system
10. Look at the results
Great work!!
In the newsletter actually did lessons, showed cool things, interviews etc.
Tech Times blog here..
PowerPoint of presentation necc2008_handout
Predators and Cyberbullies: A reality check
Safety Issues: protecting students from predators, protecting students from each other, protect them from themselves. Easier to protect students in web1.0. How do we protect our students from online predators? Your chances are higher of being harassed by an 8th grade girl rather than an adult male.
If you don’t tell your children that you love then somebody online will. It is the students who are at risk who are more likely to have trouble on the Internet. www.cyberbully.org
Cyberbuyllying shouldn’t be treated too differently from how we treat normal bullying. Mankato district Cyberbullying guide.
One of the first things that we should ask teachers is what is on their myspace so if/when parents google them what would show up??
Students need to know the potential ramifications of what is on the Internet www.archive.org can use the wayback machine to get a snapshot of the Internet so things are never really removed from the Internet.
The dangers are probably mostly from the students themselves. Myspace unravelled A parents guide to Teen social networking
The danger of web2.0 is not from others online but from what they put out online.
We confuse content with format. We don’t ban magazines because of the inappropriate ones neither should we ban the web 2.0 tools.
Filers are not effective in protecting students. Can get up to 91% accuracy. Need other controls. Most students not getting i9nto trouble at school they are getting into trouble at home. Students can now bring in their own mobile devices with the Internet which we can’t control or block.
Schools need to be proactive they need to be educating students AND parents. Mankato has a resource page for parents on their website. Screen products carefully and keep away from fear based products as research has shown that they don’t work.
Schools should allow kids to make mistakes from which they can recover. We must show that we are practicing due diligence
Think b4ulink
3p’s protect your privcy, property, appropriatatly
Create low temptation environments eg layout of computer rooms, your activity maybe remotely monitored, filtering software.
Education can be enhanced with the internet.
Need to make educators responsible for blocking an unblocking the sites not the tech staff.
Great session valuable resources!!
Had a fabulous night last night at the Mexican market. It was a very colourful interesting place with an incredible amount of shops that have pretty much exactly the same content…cheap Mexican souvenirs. However it was very interesting as the cheap Mexican souvenirs were pretty cool!! We had a great dinner at a (surprise, surprise) Mexican restaurant with fabulously gaudy decor and a very impressive mural. We had a guitar trio come and play and sing for the group it was fun!
I have really been enjoying all the restaurants here and the atmosphere of the river-walk. It is very vibrant and dynamic, the people are friendly and the service is very good. Although some variety from tex-mex would be lovely!!
The drinks have been excellent especially the Fiery Red Leather a new drink invented by a good friend of mine.
Well today is the last day at NECC. This morning I have attended a special session with Mali Bickley and Jim Carleton the Canadian keynote speakers which was arranged just for the members of the ACCE study Tour. It was interesting to hear a bit more detail that they have given and they are really doing cool thing educationally. They have found with ICT integration it is a case of Ready, Fire Aim. In other words don’t wait until the circumstances are right and you have all the knowledge just jump in an have a go with what you have got! They gave us lots of info on global collaboration and how to do it rom really easy to really complcated and the benefits to the children of globally collaborating.
The next session I attended was a really productive session hosted by Chris Shamburg he used Audacity to show us how easy it is to create an audio story and give appropriate legal recognition. He sourced his files that are allowed be used from cdmixter. He hosts the podacasts on blip.tv. It was a very useful session.
