Here are the links from the Unconference held at Southwell School, last week, for those of you who didn't manage to get around all the tables or are not fortunate enough to be at Southwell.
If you don't know what an Unconference is, it's just an informal gathering, where people can show case their ICT initiatives/ideas. We had six tables/stations set up for the one hour staff meeting, on the last week of term 3. Everybody just moved around from table to table with their laptops, gathering ideas and discussing issues. I thought the Unconference was a great idea and a good success. I would definitely recommend it to any school who haven't tried it yet and hope we get to do another one next term so that more people can showcase their initiatives.
Table 1-TBa showed us dipity a web2 program for generating timelines. A great little program which links to googlemaps and gives you a flip book view too. Unfortunately this is another web2 program I've found which doesn't allow me to upload pictures from my linux EeePC so I won't be able to use it with my class but I recommend you give it a go with your class as it has lots of potential and is very easy to use.
Table 2-TBu showed us his class page on Moodle. TBu has worked hard on this to produce such a great design and you can too. Find instructions on how to do 'all things moodle' in the documentation section at moodle.org. You lucky Southwell people can also check out the moodle courses we did a couple of years ago under 'All about Moodle' in 'Teacherspace'
Table 3-GV showed you his excellent Year 8 Science exam he'd produced on Moodle. Well done Guy for daring to do this. GV won't mind me saying this but it was no mean feat. It took a lot of planning, preparation and trialing. The idea is that you design each question first (question type, image and audio) then work on putting the quiz together. 'Think big, start small and plan for early success'. moodle.org also has a good documentation section on setting up your own quizzes. You'll need to register first but it's worth the effort as this site is packed full of moodle know how.
Table 4-KW showed us Glogster - a site used to apparently 'poster yourself' it mixes graphics, video, music and text into slick glogs- A pretty flash program definitely worth a play with if you haven't done so already. It works on my Asus Eee PC's too so I can use it with my class.
Like all good web2 programs glogster provides you with the URL and the embedded code to add your finished glog into your favourite website/social network. Glogs can be easily linked to moodle and embedded into the blog and text widget on Elgg (our school's private social network) but you have to remember to go to the settings (top right of the screen) and switch off the visual editor (bottom of screen) before you can embed it into the mypages-eportfolio section in Elgg- a point worth noting when you are adding other web2 stuff like voicethread and animoto.
Table 5-PW let us have a look at his netvibes page. A startup page for your PC which lets you aggregate all your news and blog feeds into one area. I have a netvibes page but prefer to use use igoogle (just a personal thing). Startup pages are quite handy so if you don't have a netvibes or igoogle startup page I highly recommend you check out these two over the holidays and work out which one you prefer.
Table 6- And finally I discussed Elgg (0ur schools private social network) a bit like bebo and facebook but with a lot more learning potential (blogs, wiki, eportfolio, etc ). Even if you don't think you are ready to use these with your class yet, just be aware that the kids are using them. You might just want to join one or check out the activity in Elgg and see what they are up to, it might just inspire you. Here is a Pdf of a few other areas in Elgg you could check out too.
Happy holidays and see you next term.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
1st PSP on the Network
Is there no stopping them! Last week one of the boarders in my class noticed he could pick up southwellhost (our wifi connection) on his PSP and asked me if I could connect it for him. Well no sooner had I done one, when another one came out of the woodwork, then another, and another, and another making a total of six in three days. One boy even told me he had two and would be bringing in the other one tomorrow. Pretty amazing really! I wonder what the tally will be by the end of the week.Well, what can they do with them once they are connected, I hear you ask? Quite simply just about anything you can with a mobile phone browser. They connect to the internet using an Opera mini browser or so Mark tells me.
They can pick up our school webmail and we even managed to post a comment to a forum in Moodle this morning. We haven't tried to connect to Elgg (our private social network) on them yet, but I don't see any reason why not! I can do it on my mobile so I expect to see them blogging from their PSP's before long.
The PSP doesn't have a camera and you don't have a flash enabled browser but the screen size is pretty good and it fits nicely in your pocket. Not bad for a gaming device but then again wasn't that what the first computers were?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Where to from here.
It's coming to that time of year, when we are beginning to think about, whether or not, we roll out more class laptops to other parts of the school next year?
Well let's see, has the trial worked? Well of course 'YES'. Why wouldn't it. I really don't get this concept of a trial not working because surely you'd make it work wouldn't you? Especially if it was your initiative and you believed in it.
Why would you invest thousands of dollars in something you didn't think would work?
But that's not the real issue is it? Whether we like it or not the real issue is money, always is and always will be money. Let's be honest about this, the only reason every child at our school doesn't have a laptop is because it would costs too much?
Which leads to the 100 dollar question who's going to be paying for them?
Personally I believe it's an ownership issue, I think students should own and take responsibility for their own devices, whether that be laptops, phones or PSP's They should look after them, care for them and repair them if they are broken. It should be their tool and their responsibility. The school should concentrate on ensuring the infrastructure is capable of accepting all devices, ie ensuring we have a fat internet pipe and a wireless network that any machine can sit on. The Ict department shouldn't have to fix computers. The Food Technology Teachers don't have to fix the microwaves do they?
Which leads me to my dilemma, if they are going to belong to the students, can we really specify which make and model they have. Can I really answer that question from the ICT manager. 'Well Lesley what make and model of machine would you recommend next year'.
I know in the ideal world students should bring their own devices to school ibooks, PC's, mini laptops, phones etc and the school would have the power capabilities, wifi, storage and internet capacity to accommodate them but this isn't the real world, is it? This is a primary school with range of students and teachers with differing ICT skills and fears.
A primary school that needs to ensure the roll out is successful, not only for its students but its teachers too. Both teachers and students need to feel confident using the device (or devices as the case maybe). Our students need to be able to carry their device too and from school, back and forth from lessons and store them safely. As a school we need to ensure we have the infrastructure to support the devices (power/internet/wireless). Our teachers need to know that the machines are going to be reliable, charged and capable of been used for the lessons they plan. They also need to know that they are going to be supported in their use and integration.
So maybe we will have to accept that this isn't the ideal world (well not yet anyway). Maybe we do have to make that call and decide which model of machine we are going to recommend. It's just that there are too many other issues to consider at this moment in time, real estate/screen size, Microsoft vs Linux, software availability vs cloud computing, functionality vs features and last but not least cost vs memory size.
One thing for sure though, I will definitely be recommending a mini laptop. How every tiny the screen and small the memory you can't beat the form factor for primary school students. But which mini laptop that's another question, one that I'll need to do a little more research on before I'll commit myself to an answer.
Well let's see, has the trial worked? Well of course 'YES'. Why wouldn't it. I really don't get this concept of a trial not working because surely you'd make it work wouldn't you? Especially if it was your initiative and you believed in it.
Why would you invest thousands of dollars in something you didn't think would work?
But that's not the real issue is it? Whether we like it or not the real issue is money, always is and always will be money. Let's be honest about this, the only reason every child at our school doesn't have a laptop is because it would costs too much?
Which leads to the 100 dollar question who's going to be paying for them?
Personally I believe it's an ownership issue, I think students should own and take responsibility for their own devices, whether that be laptops, phones or PSP's They should look after them, care for them and repair them if they are broken. It should be their tool and their responsibility. The school should concentrate on ensuring the infrastructure is capable of accepting all devices, ie ensuring we have a fat internet pipe and a wireless network that any machine can sit on. The Ict department shouldn't have to fix computers. The Food Technology Teachers don't have to fix the microwaves do they?
Which leads me to my dilemma, if they are going to belong to the students, can we really specify which make and model they have. Can I really answer that question from the ICT manager. 'Well Lesley what make and model of machine would you recommend next year'.
I know in the ideal world students should bring their own devices to school ibooks, PC's, mini laptops, phones etc and the school would have the power capabilities, wifi, storage and internet capacity to accommodate them but this isn't the real world, is it? This is a primary school with range of students and teachers with differing ICT skills and fears.
A primary school that needs to ensure the roll out is successful, not only for its students but its teachers too. Both teachers and students need to feel confident using the device (or devices as the case maybe). Our students need to be able to carry their device too and from school, back and forth from lessons and store them safely. As a school we need to ensure we have the infrastructure to support the devices (power/internet/wireless). Our teachers need to know that the machines are going to be reliable, charged and capable of been used for the lessons they plan. They also need to know that they are going to be supported in their use and integration.
So maybe we will have to accept that this isn't the ideal world (well not yet anyway). Maybe we do have to make that call and decide which model of machine we are going to recommend. It's just that there are too many other issues to consider at this moment in time, real estate/screen size, Microsoft vs Linux, software availability vs cloud computing, functionality vs features and last but not least cost vs memory size.
One thing for sure though, I will definitely be recommending a mini laptop. How every tiny the screen and small the memory you can't beat the form factor for primary school students. But which mini laptop that's another question, one that I'll need to do a little more research on before I'll commit myself to an answer.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
1st in the Waikato
I feel so proud, one of my students came first in the Waikato, (Year 7, Girls, Speech Competition).
Now I'm not naive enough to think that it was all down to my teaching, and not in anyway related to the particular student, in questions own natural, innate ability but I can't help thinking that the increased access to Technology in the room this year did help. I believe that this access to Technology not only improved the winning speech but also contributed to improving the quality of all the speeches in my room. Last year not one of my students made the school final, this year 3 did and one well you already know about that.
Having access to 1:1 laptops, cellphones, video cameras, googledocs and Elgg (our private social network), ensured we had a successful learning programme from start to finish. Having the ability to prepare, practice, improve and assess class speeches really improved not only the outcome/finished product but the whole learning process.
We used our 1:1 EeePC's to research speech ideas on the internet via a Firefox browser.
Students own mobile phones to record initial ideas and gather thoughts.
Open Office documents to plan, design and write the speeches.
Open Office draw documents to produce cue cards.
Mobile phones/the microphone and web cam on their computer to record, practice and improve the delivery of speeches.
A digital camera to record students first attempt at their speech.
A blog on our schools social networking site (Elgg) to upload students first attempt of their speech from the class digital camera. These were then viewed by themselves and the rest of the class who then commented on each speech and gave guidelines for improvement (content and delivery) on the blog.
Finally we used googlespreadsheet to grade the final speeches during the class speech competition.
The class are presently in the process of using their mobile phones/class digital camera to record their final speech and place them in the eportfolio, Myfiles section on Elgg our social networking site to keep for prosperity and viewing by their family and friends.
Not all students want to place their final speech in their eportfolio. Not only do I believe this is how it should be 'their choice' but I'm really not worried if they chose not to. It was the learning that was important and that's all about the process not the outcome. Even though it's nice to be placed first in the Waikato it's even nicer to have access to Technology that can improve the learning for all the students in your room.
Now I'm not naive enough to think that it was all down to my teaching, and not in anyway related to the particular student, in questions own natural, innate ability but I can't help thinking that the increased access to Technology in the room this year did help. I believe that this access to Technology not only improved the winning speech but also contributed to improving the quality of all the speeches in my room. Last year not one of my students made the school final, this year 3 did and one well you already know about that.
Having access to 1:1 laptops, cellphones, video cameras, googledocs and Elgg (our private social network), ensured we had a successful learning programme from start to finish. Having the ability to prepare, practice, improve and assess class speeches really improved not only the outcome/finished product but the whole learning process.
We used our 1:1 EeePC's to research speech ideas on the internet via a Firefox browser.
Students own mobile phones to record initial ideas and gather thoughts.
Open Office documents to plan, design and write the speeches.
Open Office draw documents to produce cue cards.
Mobile phones/the microphone and web cam on their computer to record, practice and improve the delivery of speeches.
A digital camera to record students first attempt at their speech.
A blog on our schools social networking site (Elgg) to upload students first attempt of their speech from the class digital camera. These were then viewed by themselves and the rest of the class who then commented on each speech and gave guidelines for improvement (content and delivery) on the blog.
Finally we used googlespreadsheet to grade the final speeches during the class speech competition.
The class are presently in the process of using their mobile phones/class digital camera to record their final speech and place them in the eportfolio, Myfiles section on Elgg our social networking site to keep for prosperity and viewing by their family and friends.
Not all students want to place their final speech in their eportfolio. Not only do I believe this is how it should be 'their choice' but I'm really not worried if they chose not to. It was the learning that was important and that's all about the process not the outcome. Even though it's nice to be placed first in the Waikato it's even nicer to have access to Technology that can improve the learning for all the students in your room.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Mobile Phone Polices
I wonder if they had ball point pen policies in schools.
You know the type.
Ball point pens must be handled with care at all time. They must not be placed in your pocket just in case you are tempted to use them. On entering the school grounds all ball point pens must be flicked to the off position and their lids securely screwed on. Immediately on entering your homeroom all ball point pens must be placed in a tub on home room teachers desk. They may not be used unless specified by the teacher and only then strictly for the identified task as determined by the teacher. During this time period do not attempt to use them for any other writing activity or your ball point pen will be permanently removed. Leave your ball point pen in your homeroom at all times (You do not need to write in any other lessons). During break time all ball point pens must remain in the classroom to ensure they are not used inappropriately. Please ensure that when carrying your ball point pen too and from school, that it is flicked to the off position and kept out of sight until you have securely vacated the school grounds. Even then ensure it is used strictly for emergency purposes until you are safely within your home domain or it will be confiscated.
Unfortunately I'm going to have to step my classes mobile phone policy up to this level now after a couple of students used their mobiles inappropriately at break time but I have great issues with this and the other implied mobile phone rules above (substitute mobile for ball point pen, write/ing for learn/ing and lids for covers, above.)
My main concern besides the fact that I don't want to be responsible for a whole class of mobile phones getting lost, stolen and forgotten is that the mobile phone should be utilized as a tool. The mobile phone is a wonderful tool with many useful features that students can utilize in a whole array of learning contexts (calendar, calculator, internet, camera to name but a few) and our teachers are not the ones with the experience of when, where and how to use these tools.
Surely we should be teaching our students to use these tools appropriately, correct etiquette and appropriate usage should be the core curriculum not removal. Yes inevitably our student will make wrong choices and use them inappropriately but isn't this our greatest teaching moment.
How many of you never used your ball point pen to doodle in your workbook, when you were studying or had your mobile ring at an inappropriate time. How would you of liked it if you had your ball point pen and mobile removed.
Personally I'd rather my classes/school mobile policy read:-
Mobile phones must be used appropriately at all times. When in school you phone must be turned off and placed in your pocket until you require to use it to aid your learning. At which point you must request access to it's use from the specified teacher and identify it's purpose. Your phone must not be removed from your pocket and turned on until agreement is reached between you and the teacher taking the lesson. Once you have finished using the phone for your requested purpose it must be turned off again and placed securely back in your pocket. If you need to use your phone again a new request must be made. If your phone is used at anytime while on the school grounds without requesting permission from the supervising member of staff it will be confiscated.
Admittedly I'm not too sure about what to do with the mobile phones at break time as they don't really need them for learning but I for one don't want to be responsible for lost, stolen and forgotten mobile phones. It would just be my luck that one of my bus students forgets to take their mobile from the tub on my desk and misses an important call/pick up point.
But at least for a week or two I'll just have to enforce the above ball point pen policy until they learn to use their tools appropriately and are aware of the rules of correct etiquette and appropriate usage.
You know the type.
Ball point pens must be handled with care at all time. They must not be placed in your pocket just in case you are tempted to use them. On entering the school grounds all ball point pens must be flicked to the off position and their lids securely screwed on. Immediately on entering your homeroom all ball point pens must be placed in a tub on home room teachers desk. They may not be used unless specified by the teacher and only then strictly for the identified task as determined by the teacher. During this time period do not attempt to use them for any other writing activity or your ball point pen will be permanently removed. Leave your ball point pen in your homeroom at all times (You do not need to write in any other lessons). During break time all ball point pens must remain in the classroom to ensure they are not used inappropriately. Please ensure that when carrying your ball point pen too and from school, that it is flicked to the off position and kept out of sight until you have securely vacated the school grounds. Even then ensure it is used strictly for emergency purposes until you are safely within your home domain or it will be confiscated.
Unfortunately I'm going to have to step my classes mobile phone policy up to this level now after a couple of students used their mobiles inappropriately at break time but I have great issues with this and the other implied mobile phone rules above (substitute mobile for ball point pen, write/ing for learn/ing and lids for covers, above.)
My main concern besides the fact that I don't want to be responsible for a whole class of mobile phones getting lost, stolen and forgotten is that the mobile phone should be utilized as a tool. The mobile phone is a wonderful tool with many useful features that students can utilize in a whole array of learning contexts (calendar, calculator, internet, camera to name but a few) and our teachers are not the ones with the experience of when, where and how to use these tools.
Surely we should be teaching our students to use these tools appropriately, correct etiquette and appropriate usage should be the core curriculum not removal. Yes inevitably our student will make wrong choices and use them inappropriately but isn't this our greatest teaching moment.
How many of you never used your ball point pen to doodle in your workbook, when you were studying or had your mobile ring at an inappropriate time. How would you of liked it if you had your ball point pen and mobile removed.
Personally I'd rather my classes/school mobile policy read:-
Mobile phones must be used appropriately at all times. When in school you phone must be turned off and placed in your pocket until you require to use it to aid your learning. At which point you must request access to it's use from the specified teacher and identify it's purpose. Your phone must not be removed from your pocket and turned on until agreement is reached between you and the teacher taking the lesson. Once you have finished using the phone for your requested purpose it must be turned off again and placed securely back in your pocket. If you need to use your phone again a new request must be made. If your phone is used at anytime while on the school grounds without requesting permission from the supervising member of staff it will be confiscated.
Admittedly I'm not too sure about what to do with the mobile phones at break time as they don't really need them for learning but I for one don't want to be responsible for lost, stolen and forgotten mobile phones. It would just be my luck that one of my bus students forgets to take their mobile from the tub on my desk and misses an important call/pick up point.
But at least for a week or two I'll just have to enforce the above ball point pen policy until they learn to use their tools appropriately and are aware of the rules of correct etiquette and appropriate usage.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Term 2! What did we do?
I can't believe I've just posted a comment about term 3 and haven't discussed what we did in term 2 yet. Even worse I can't even remember. Well let's see, oh yes there was Alice(programming software). It worked very well actually only 250Mb. After downloading once it was easy to pop on the USB/phone and install on the EeePC's. It ran very well too and we were able to export the finished work as a web page. I have to admit we did find the screen view a bit small though, particularly the editors area and world view window when you were building the programme (okay for viewing though). We also had to keep moving the instruction boxes about on the screen to enable us to click the 'next' instruction button. Alice comes with excellent tutorials and if you haven't given it a go yet on your EeePC it's worth a play with.
Alanpt just sent me these links via a previous post to Scratch(programming) apparently it's available for linux now (I can't wait to try this out too -I hope it works on the EeePC). Thanx Alan.
notesmine
tcppodcast
scratch
We ran Alice from the file manager rather than placing a dedicated short cut, with its own icon, on the main page, as we found out that when you upgrade the machine you lose any icons and shortcuts you have placed on the machine.
Because of this I also made the decision not to place any of the other programmes I'd trialed on my machine (audacity, kino, winff etc) on the students machines. Besides wanting to keep the machines standard because it's so much easier to reset them to factory settings, if anything goes wrong, I'm still struggling with the concept of movie making on the computer as I really want to be able to do this via the web using mobile phones not video cameras as all the kids just don't have these. Plus I have to admit I've found my 4GB machine really does make video editing hard work.
Em now what else have we been doing? Oh I know our Super Hero Fiction stories. We used Openoffice for this opendocument to write the stories and opendraw to produce the comic pages (it's amazing how creative you can get with a webcam and a paint program - you can make normal everyday students into superheros and even make them fly). Good work from the kids but could someone please tell me why we didn't use Google documents to write the main story. I know I'm still not too confident about using the internet for too many web2 programs because of our slow internet bandwidth but Googledocs doesn't take up that much bandwidth -does it, besides if I have to send and receive another email I'll scream. Not to mention the confusion between which file is the latest version when sending drafts too and from students to be corrected.
In fact we used a lot of the proprietary software on the Asus this term(must of been the novelty). A whole range of the openoffice software for our Social Studies projects and Openpresentation for our assemblies too. Well I can definitely say I've been there done that time for web2 now, roll on that fast internet connection, time to get my head firmly stuck in the clouds.
Alanpt just sent me these links via a previous post to Scratch(programming) apparently it's available for linux now (I can't wait to try this out too -I hope it works on the EeePC). Thanx Alan.
notesmine
tcppodcast
scratch
We ran Alice from the file manager rather than placing a dedicated short cut, with its own icon, on the main page, as we found out that when you upgrade the machine you lose any icons and shortcuts you have placed on the machine.
Because of this I also made the decision not to place any of the other programmes I'd trialed on my machine (audacity, kino, winff etc) on the students machines. Besides wanting to keep the machines standard because it's so much easier to reset them to factory settings, if anything goes wrong, I'm still struggling with the concept of movie making on the computer as I really want to be able to do this via the web using mobile phones not video cameras as all the kids just don't have these. Plus I have to admit I've found my 4GB machine really does make video editing hard work.
Em now what else have we been doing? Oh I know our Super Hero Fiction stories. We used Openoffice for this opendocument to write the stories and opendraw to produce the comic pages (it's amazing how creative you can get with a webcam and a paint program - you can make normal everyday students into superheros and even make them fly). Good work from the kids but could someone please tell me why we didn't use Google documents to write the main story. I know I'm still not too confident about using the internet for too many web2 programs because of our slow internet bandwidth but Googledocs doesn't take up that much bandwidth -does it, besides if I have to send and receive another email I'll scream. Not to mention the confusion between which file is the latest version when sending drafts too and from students to be corrected.
In fact we used a lot of the proprietary software on the Asus this term(must of been the novelty). A whole range of the openoffice software for our Social Studies projects and Openpresentation for our assemblies too. Well I can definitely say I've been there done that time for web2 now, roll on that fast internet connection, time to get my head firmly stuck in the clouds.
Google Docs
I used Google Docs for the first time with my class last week. Nothing new I know but I just hadn't got round to using it with my students. I've used it personally on several occasions collaborating on documents with 2 or 3 other people but have to admit, I was still a bit skeptical in terms of how truly scalable it would be, in particular I wasn't sure it would accommodate a whole class entering data at once. But I'd no need to worry had I! It was wonderful. To see all the different coloured tabs as students simultaneously entered their data really put a smile on my face.
I'd previously searched high and low to find the killer collaborative tool, which could be used for assessment purposes, but I just couldn't find what I was looking for. Well now I've found it I don't think I'll be going back.
It was actually a Google Spreadsheet that I'd set up to grade and comment on our class speeches. I set up an individual sheet for each member of the class/speech with the marking criteria on the top and class names (including mine) down the side. Then as we listened to the speeches we entered our marks/comment for each student next to our names on each students individual sheet. I had to laugh at the students who'd already given themselves full marks even before they'd delivered their speech. And those coloured tabs also caught a few out as they tried to alter my marks (good try kids). Collectively all together the information was very informative and allowed me to pick the top three speeches to go forward to the syndicate final based not only on my opinion but the classes too.
Google Docs really is that killer assessment app I've been looking for.
I'd previously searched high and low to find the killer collaborative tool, which could be used for assessment purposes, but I just couldn't find what I was looking for. Well now I've found it I don't think I'll be going back.
It was actually a Google Spreadsheet that I'd set up to grade and comment on our class speeches. I set up an individual sheet for each member of the class/speech with the marking criteria on the top and class names (including mine) down the side. Then as we listened to the speeches we entered our marks/comment for each student next to our names on each students individual sheet. I had to laugh at the students who'd already given themselves full marks even before they'd delivered their speech. And those coloured tabs also caught a few out as they tried to alter my marks (good try kids). Collectively all together the information was very informative and allowed me to pick the top three speeches to go forward to the syndicate final based not only on my opinion but the classes too.
Google Docs really is that killer assessment app I've been looking for.
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