The Educated Kiwi
collaboration
Ultra Fast Broadband and NZ Education
Aug 16th
After attending the Learning without Limits roadshow hosted by Marg McLeod (Change Manager, Broadband In Schools, Ministry of Education) and Douglas Harre (Senior ICT Consultant, Ministry of Education) a few points struck me…….
Why strive to provide Ultra Fast Broadband in NZ Schools? While I totally agree with the following points made at the meeting:
•Online world now integral to students’ lives
•Increasing evidence that learning in online environments can significantly enhance engagement + lift achievement.
•Particularly effective for students who don’t respond to traditional teaching methods.
•Students can collaborate and learn anytime, anywhere and from anyone.
•In other words – learning without limits
I do believe we need to carefully identify how we are intending to use this resource and, just as importantly, how we are going to pay for it!!
The issue is that since ‘Tomorrows schools’ was introduced in the 1980′s we have all become ‘self managing’ and while that has allowed each community and school to make its own decision on how they do their “Core business”, I am increasingly concerned on how that is impacting ICT costs and ICT for Learning in schools.
While all schools understand their own community best, often there is nobody in the school that understands ICT infrastructures and how they relate to the successful implementation of learning in the school. Consequently, this job is left to the IT Technician or some classroom teacher with an interest or some ‘spare’ time. This often results in schools spending large amounts of $$$ to the vendor with the flashiest solution rather than the one that is best fit for both the school and the staff who will need to use it. Talking to schools, they are continually pelted with sales promotions for IWB’s, Software solutions, LMs’s, E-Portfolio solution, Phone solutions, wireless access etc etc etc ….and now its all the companies trying to sign schools up to fibre as fast as possible before the overall fibre Tender is announced in October.
I believe the most important aspect of the meeting last week was the Ministry basically asking for a mandate from schools to look at tendering for the ongoing cost of Fibre access to the school PLUS the data used. While this would come out of our bulk grants, the pricing they would be able to get for 2300+ schools would have to be better than we can get individually!! Our meeting unanimously ‘passed’ for this to happen so if we are willing to do this then perhaps the climate is right to put back into place some Educational IT specialists with geographic ‘regions of responsibility’ who are not advisors but individuals employed by the Ministry (maybe from ‘tagged staffing’) with the responsibility for liaising between the schools and vendors and who have the responsibility of ‘ticking off’ major IT purchases for ALL schools in the area. This would allow them to organise regional tenders for all the items that schools are presently trying to buy ….and due to ‘economy of scale’ the deals the schools would get would be a major financial win.
Then the next trick would be to set up the same sort of regional positions to provide ongoing IT professional development leadership ……but that’s a whole other post in the making!!
Just for those of you who were wondering what’s available presently via the National Education Network …if you are lucky enough to be on it :
Teach Tech
Aug 13th
I recently received a request for information on how ICT is used in a Hard Materials Technology class so I decided to start a new blog. I bought teachtech.co.nz back in January intending it to be a wiki for New Zealand Technology teachers but I realised that the Tech Teacher community was probably not ready for it. So when Toni Twiss the ICT facilitator at Matamata College asked me for information about how ICT can be used in a Hard Materials workshop it seemed logical to create a blog which Technology teachers can visit and get ideas. I realise it is very much a niche audience, but that is what the internet is about, and hopefully it will help Technology teachers, new and old.
If you are a Hard Materials teacher and have some great ways to use ICT in our subject you are more than welcome to become a contributor on Teach Tech, or if you know a Hard Materials teacher who is using ICT as a teaching and learning tool please let me know.
mark@tek.net.nz
Will it Stick?
Jan 21st
One of the things we all like to do here at TEK is throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks and I have to say that most times in education you have to run up to the wall and push it on extra hard to make it stay. This can get exhausting as between us we only have a limited number of arms and every now and then something new and shiny distracts us and we forget to hold up the old stuff. As we have probably mentioned before the key is getting buy in from the staff and/or students so that it stays stuck by itself.
I have set myself two ‘ICT’ related goals to achieve before I head back to work next week. The first is to create a blogging site for Mt. Maunganui College, the second is to create a wiki for Technology Teachers to submit relief work so that none of us have to come up with relief lessons on the morning when we feel the worst.
Both these things are reasonably straightforward to setup but they require a reasonable investment of my own time, not only installing the systems but also generating awareness and then supporting users (all without financial reward).
The second goal is the easier of the two. Go to Teach Tech and you will find a basic mediawiki install where teachers can share content. Contacting those likely to contribute will be done through the BOP GTTA (Graphics and Technology Teachers Association). After that it is just a case of waiting for the emails to come flooding in, I hope.
The first goal is a little harder as it has been requested from senior management after seeing what happens in other schools with blogging. Having set up a blog server at Katikati College I am aware that only a couple of keen teachers have really used it so far although it is growing in popularity. The thing I am most scared of is that I put this thing in place and then have to tell the whole staff that they have to use it, or I am only given half an hour in staff meeting to sell it. In short I will have to do it well to avoid a backlash.
I have decided to go with WordPress mu again but this time using the Buddypress plugins. This makes WPMU look and feel like Facebook or Bebo which enables users to add friends, create groups, post their status etc. The idea is to get users to use the platform to generate content without it feeling like work and once they are used to the interface then the transition to blogging will be smoother. One of my problems is that in my head the target audience are the most cynical teachers (you know the ones I mean), if I can sell it to them then I should get everyone else. I am probably being too hard on myself, I will be happy if a handful of people use it, blogging isn’t for everyone but we shall see if it sticks.
Arthur Philip High School
Nov 23rd
Last Monday was the first of our school visits in Australia where we were hosted by APHS. I took the photo below from the second story balcony.
We went back after visiting here in 2006 and to be honest we stole their great idea of school owned laptops. It is nice to see the contrast between the Australia and NZ education systems and Lynne, the principal at APHS certainly gave us the grand tour, in fact we went back on the Tuesday to have a look at their new literacy programme as this is something we will be looking at Implementing in 2008 but more on that in the next post. We even got to show off the wiimote boards which was to be the only time in Australia that anyone was interested. I guess that when all your students have laptops the need for teacher directed learning is somewhat lessened.
A Lesson in Social Networking
Jun 22nd
The June 20th episode of Buzz Out Loud quoted this post from Webware explaining how social networking helps bridge the digital divide and equips young people with relevant skills.
Ironic that nearly all schools block these sites. Someone said to me last week that there is no evidence that technology (ICT) improves learning. It wasn’t until later that I thought that there is probably no evidence that school improves learning.
The point of school is to provide a safe learning environment. If we are really so afraid we could set up “walled garden” social networks, but generally most young people in NZ have a profile with bebo and don’t want to change, so why not let them use it to collaborate at school?
Disqus
May 22nd
It is probably best to visit disqus.com to understand it properly but it is essentially turning blog comments into forum style posts. I have just added the disqus plugin to this blog to see how it works for us but I can see it being a valuable discussion tool for subject blogs on our school wpmu site.
Sometimes you just gotta throw things against the wall to see if they stick.
drop.io
Mar 9th
has been around since November last year and is a very convenient file sharing web 2.0 app. No signup or e-mail address is needed, just create a URL and drop your file with password protection if you wish, it couldn’t be more simple. The creators of drop.io feel that your privacy is paramount and do not snoop at your files, your files automatically become RSS feeds and they give you a number of ways to upload files including a wordpress plugin. I find the wordpress plugin particularly interesting as a way for students to hand work in. In case you are wondering .io is an Indian Ocean domain.
Ideas for Graphics Classrooms & Visit to Kristin
Nov 30th
At the Cluster visit to Kristin School yesterday we saw a number of ideas that would be neat to implement. I was not only impressed by their grounds and cultural facilities but also the work their students appeared to be creating. Thanks must go to Andrew Churches for showing us around, I particularly enjoyed seeing his class working on gamemaker where they were all working and sharing ideas with little encouragement neat to see on a simple tool and again freeware.
Uploaded with Skitch!
Also interested in this Camera setup for subjects like graphics. You can vaguely see the picture on the board behind but I can see the use in Science for experiments and other subjects. With the price of cameras coming down so much it is a real opportunity for bang for your buck.
Blogged with Flock
Edu2.0?
Aug 27th
When I open my browser my homepage displays iGoogle. The content on the page is customised with various tabs describing the content. When you add a tab Google will happily fill it up with feeds relative to the name of the tab, go ahead and call a tab ‘education’ and see what you get. That is how I came across Edu 2.0, it was staring at me from a random feed.
I read the article and followed the link to the site and at first glance it looks fairly promising. As I started to dig a little deeper I discovered that it was started in 2006 by a self proclaimed serial entrepreneur and alarm bells start ringing.
The site was started in 2006 by Graham Glass who has never taught in a school and does not seem to have partnered with anyone who has. He claims that his site will remain free but I don’t see why he would sustain something that is not making him any money, unless he is using it as a means to market something else. Call me paranoid but I would not invest my time into putting content on this site and from the quick look I had most of the lessons are private, so not much collaboration going on.
Maybe it’s just me and the fact that I don’t like the idea of this ‘businessman’ providing ‘free education’. I know that it is another resource but I can’t help wondering about the motivation. I would like to stand corrected on this one and would love the feedback.
Blogging for kids
Jun 1st
Quite important to share this information from David Warlick about blogging and while the statistics are from teachers who use blogging so they will be reasonably positive, I enjoyed the statistics regarding the care they take with their writing on a blog. I guess for our two colleges we have to get over the students initial issues with writing rubbish on wikis and blogs (eg the attack on the katikati college wikipedia entry) but this will pass and then we should hopefully see similar results to those quoted in these statistics. Also for a great blog site for students check out the schol site from ncowie.
What we can give
May 10th
Just had to blog about this, Dan Meyer, a high school math teacher in the States has created this lesson for introducing graphing to high school students. He then has offered it for download as a full 755mb disk image or in smaller packages. I know Microsoft is behind a teachers collaborative area in NZ “the innovative teachers network” and it would be neat to think that we could be sharing across the country for a start and then the world.
The Googling of School
Apr 13th
In the last week of school I made some comments about computers not really being about the programs on them rather the read/write web as being the future. The implications of the upcoming Microsoft deal with schools, whereby $33 Million will be spent on software over the next three years does get me thinking. Why do we as schools have to pay all this money, not just for Microsoft but also other companies when we are the ones who introduce students to the programs, effectively being the gateway for software companies.
With options such as Google Docs and open office there is no barrier to people having access to these programs for free. I am reminded of this when I see students with laptops doing their homework in word pad or Microsoft works because they cannot afford the upgrade to Office. As Teachers I believe we need to understand the tools available and use them as best we can.
Recently I have been using Freemind. This is Open Source (read Free) software for concept mapping. It also has the added bonus of integrating with Mindmeister which allows anyone with an account to edit the concept map live online.
The following video I came across thanks to and is simply more food for Teachers looking for reasons to get Technology involved in their classroom.
[youtube]aEFKfXiCbLw[/youtube]
When I see these changes in students lives I’m reminded by how different my 7 month old daughter views the world of technology. A normal phone call for her is through the computer using iChat or Skype. What will school be like for her? Hopefully not exactly the same as it was for me.
Separating the wheat from the chaff
Mar 30th
So which web 2.0 tools are any good? and what is web 2.0 anyway? According to wikipedia web 2.0 is a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, it refers to a perceived second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis and communication tools —that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O’Reilly Media used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and it has since become widely adopted.
This cartoon comes from toondoo a site which is free to register on like most web 2.0 sites and allows you to drag and drop cartoon characters, really quite simple especially for people such as myself who are artistically challenged. Some of the other sites I use and are worth having a look at are:
Flickr: A photo sharing site. Very handy for field trips and putting multiple photos on moodle as you can select a bunch at once. There are a lot of options on how you want to share the photos as well. The site is also usable as a resource with many of the photos being copyright free and you can download them in any size you wish.
Webnote: This is a tool for taking notes on your computer. It allows you to quickly write something down during a meeting, class, or any other time that you have a web browser available. You start by creating a workspace and creating notes in the workspace. You can save your workspace at any time and return to them from the same computer or any other computer. You can also share your notes with others by providing the workspace name (or url) to a friend.
(The reason why this is indented and in italics is because it is a direct quote from webnote)
The other really useful feature is the web 2.0 homepage. Netvibes, myyahoo, googlehome, Pageflakes and Favoor etc. what these do is allow you to have all of your important information in one place. Emails, news , weather, search, bookmarks, to do lists and Calendars, in fact the list continues. The only downfall of this is the speed of the internet here in NZ which means on some connections it is a bit slow loading up but give it a try and see if it works for you.
Not really web 2.0 but very much about professional learning and collaboration is Slideshare. Slideshare allows you to view any one of several thousand slideshows and get ideas to use in your own Powerpoints.
One week of school to go so here is a link to another teacher video, Animal School.
Let the Sharing Begin
Mar 23rd
One of the most difficult things I find about being a Teacher is the constant demand for new things. So I hope by now a few more people in the cluster have set up their Del.icio.us accounts. It was really great to see teachers sharing their bookmarks and being able to find resources, like the maths powerpoints page which has now been added by several maths teachers across the two colleges.
The next major step for us to do is get the teachers moodle site up and running. I have given the Katmat site a bit of a tidy up and given all users teacher rights to it. All staff members have been added as users and for Katikati the passwords are the same as email, for Matamata they will need to be changed from the default.
In order to get the most out of moodle the following links give you both grapics and text on what to do
How to create a course , How to add an activity and how to upload files and just to finish with a flurry the following video from Sir Ken Robinson is quite inspiring.
[googlevideo]-4964296663335083307&q=ken+robinson[/googlevideo]
And for those of you contemplating the school balls later in the year here is a link to some great dance tips.
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