Journeys in Education
Ramblings on ICT, Education, Web 2.0, Christianity and Staff PD
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As I was unable to hook up to the internet today at the conference I could not blog my sessions as I went. But with great thanks to @LucyBarrow who has told me which network to log on to hopefully I will be able to improve on this tomorrow!
Excellent presentations today in a rabbit warren like venue and some unusual rooms! (Actual hotel rooms with the furniture cleaned out!) The first presentation was Travis Smith the AP from Frankston High School demonstrating the Tablet Laptop. I have seen these before but never actually played with one, which was fun. I could immediately see the advantages for senior students in particular especially if you were going to choose one of these over an IWB. Travis recommended buying a Tablet laptop with a wireless projector. Some of the software that we played with was free Microsoft software that can be used on non tablet PC’s as well as tablet PC’s but was particularly suited to the Tablet variety. They were the Microsoft Education Pack and the Microsoft Experience Pack. Must also check out www.schoolkit.com a website with heaps of technology rich lessons.
The next session that I went to was on Cybersafety presented by Greg???. He spoke about the Cybersaftey Outreach Program run by ACMA. They have created a PD module registed by VIT on Cybersafety in Schools. You can get accreditation to certify your school as a cybersafe school. He then presented some interesting statistics about teenagers being the major decision makers when choosing ICT equipment and Internet plans for households. That Gamer rooms are becoming more popular in new houses that home cinemas in new houses, homework is the number one reason that students use computers, primary students have on averagre 2-3 emails and secondary students have 3-4 emails on average. He then presented on emerging Issues that schools are having with students playing online games such as World of Warcraft such as
Conflicts with Parents
Food Habits
Problems with personal hygiene
Neglected school work
Late Nights
Addictions
Then Greg presented on Identity Theft and ways to avoid it, which was very intertesting sharing on such topics as Limewire, chain emails, Premier SMS services etc.
The last presentation I attended was Blended Learning by Westley Field from MLC Sydney. This was an I interesting presentation on how MLC defines and uses blended learning through their own in house learning management system. MLC have no blocks on their Internet other than for porn which I guess is OK if you have a large download limit and robust Internet connection at your school!
Overall it was a good day and I look forward to tomorrow and my sessions!
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!!
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.
Science Leadership Academy, small public high school in Philadelphia, 1:1 laptop school. We work best/learn best when it matters to us. Kids may not know what matters to them yet. There are some tenents of what school 2.0 should be: caring institutions, grammars matters, we teach kids not subjects, student centred (it’s not about us), Inquiry driven: what are the questions we can ask together? They need to be authentic questions, passionate and it has to matter, Metacognative -we need to think about thinking, technology infused – ubiquitous, necessary and invisible, understanding driven and Project based.
What is the road map and how do we get there – pedagodgy is everything, progressive teaching using 21st century tools, (Read John Dewy) technology Overload and how to prevent it,what’s good is better tan what’s new!!! The best tool is the one we all agree to use together! Technology needs to do 5 things in the classroom research, collaborate, create, network and present. Tools don’t teach but the do change the way that we teach. Can technology be the tail that waves the pedagodical dog? What are you goals what tools get you there? Teachers don’t ask I wnat to do a blog project? – The need to ask what they want to do and and what tools shoulds should I use.
Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe influenced strongly the schools curriculum design. Every teacher uses UBD, the teachers use project based learning as the ultimate form of assessment. Transperant learning!!
Focus on reading, maths and science. Two year sustained model to equip teachers to integrate ICT across the classroom with increasing apptitude. TRC Kansas Technology Rich Classrooms.
Great video e.g. of what a mentor should do. US National ANthem
Links
What an inspirational session with these two Canadian educators who have taken the risk to step out int iCT when they didn’t have the skills to help reinvigorate their teaching and help to engage students learning. They began to make a class website with the help of a friend. They then decided to adopt project based learning using iearn. The focussed on children in Sierra Leone and collaborating with them and getting understanding of child soldiers, they have also been focussing on an environmental project to help reduce our carbon footprint. This was great to see, especially as they were IT gurus to start off with they were just ordinary teachers learning along the way and doing extraordinary thing. They also weren’t a huge technology school, but what they had they used well. The MyHero project was very interesting. These projects were global, collaborative, social, child driven, trying to make a difference and using technology as an environment for learning.
UNESCO ICT Competency Framework
UNESCO have put together as framework for identifying skills for teachers in ICT from a global perspective. It gives a good guideline for where we as teachers need to be heading with our PD and skill level for 21st century learning skills. ISTE has their own NET.T standards but they have much overlap but UNESCO have more global perspective.
ustream.tv/channel/weblogg-ed-tv
Live streaming video
Can set up global synchronous video with chat interactive chat. Great resource for teaching and learning with real meaning.
You can create polls, and co-host can interview people and record the coversation and stream presnetations, embed into blogs, chat archives, send a notice to Twitter,
Schools have used the technology to perform plays and stream them out.
Mogulus.com can be transition between shots, multiple cameras, and can create storyboards. Can get a pro version which is almost like having a TV studio. Can set autopilot to have an auto image going when live TV is not happening.
How are schools using these technologies (this is very early in the use of this technology)
A system like this to purchase would cost about $15,000 but we get it for free online.
Students can create a visual report and stream it to the world, science project presentations, parents can connect with teachers.
Classroom walls can become more permeable
asynchronous v’s streaming Program called yeardot in the UK ww.myspace.com/yeardot when doing traditional video you have control of waht you want people to see. Live TV is very different. The chat is not reflective for the ustream, you can rewatch the video over and over but with live TV you can’t.
Motivating for students as student love TV
Disadvantages - time zone issues, do people want live live TV
Alisa Miller TED talk You Tube
Streaming Advantages – unscripted discussions, reskew the media (see the Alisa Miller talk), it’s fun!!
Students don’t quite understand that when things go on the web that it is going out to the world, we need to teach this to the students, how to be responsible
comet now, qik are websites for mobile phone streaming.
To use something like this you need to make sure your AUP is up to date
Bandwidth is an issue, best not to use wireless.
The documents for the presentation were created in google docs the two presenters worked on the documents in two different states and didn’t meet until half an hour before the presentation. Wikinomics can be downloaded from itunes. There is a website for wikinomics
Openess, hearing , sharing and acting gloablly are the four premises that wikinomics is based upon. Technology (always connected, interactive), the net generation (always connected to each other and others away from them)
Used to be amazed when things were on the net now annoyed if not there.
Net gen ethics ; playfulness, openness, freedom, speed, balance, authenticity, innovation are what the net-gen values most.
We assume that students a re digital natives but can be limited in their use as they are only used to using it for social reasons not for higher level critical thinking skills. That is what school need to teach.
The world is flat Thomas L Friedman
Students should be involved in an appropriate collaborative project at each grade level. Gives ‘Student Voice’ collaborating for authentic audiences
Rotten Tomatoes and Snoaks???
Textbooks don’t work any more, they are out of date by the time that they are printed, they are too generic. There are textbooks available in wiki format which keeps them up to date called flexbooks.
Blending learning will occur more and more.
Twitter is huge and being used extensively by educators to share PD info some other twitter apps are twittervision which allows you to see where tweets are coming from. One teacher tweets the first line of a book each day and then you need to work out which book it is.
