Month: March 2008

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25 learning tools you should know about!

Jane Hart writes a really handy little blog called Jane’s E learning Pick of the day that delivers little gems on a daily basis. I always learn something new when I go there. A few days ago she wrote a post called, 25 Tools every Learning Professional should have in their Toolbox – and all for FREE! which is due to be published in elearning age magazine in April.

It ‘s a great article with links to many tools I have discovered over the last six months or so. I’d highly recommend using it if you want to direct your colleagues to tools that are going to assist them with their teaching. They may be just the tools they need to move them into greater use of technology to support learning. I intend to use this article as the basis for some staff PD over the next term and explore such varied delights as Jing, del.icio.us, Google Docs, Slideshare, Flickr, Voicethread and whatever else may appear in this rapidly changing world!   
  

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Big Think – Web 3.0 in action?

Newsweek writer Tony Dokoupil wrote an article this week called ‘Revenge of the experts’.  In it, he asks the question ‘Is user generated content out?’ The byline of the article is;

“The individual user has been king on the Internet, but the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward edited information vetted by professionals.”

 The article champions the idea that we are moving into a new phase of the internet – internet 3.0, where the wisdom of crowds (web 2.0) is being supplemented by another layer “of truly talented, compensated people to make the product more trusted and refined.” (Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis) The article uses Google’s Knol (still in development), About.com, who employ guides to find relevant results for search terms, and Mahalo, a people powered search engine, as examples of the new direction the web may be heading in.

Another featured new entry into the market is BigThink.com,  “a self-styled “YouTube for ideas” backed by former Harvard president Larry Summers and others (It) debuted its cache of polished video interviews with public intellectuals.” I took a look and I liked what I saw. The videos are arranged into topics including History, Business and Economics, Science and Technology, Media and the Press, Truth and Justice as well as many others. Our Year 10 students have, ‘What makes us human’, as an overarching question for their study of English for a semester. Low and behold, there’s a video on this site dealing with exactly that question. I could see that this site would be an easy sell to the sceptics out there who doubt YouTube. (Personally, I love it!) Most of the videos on BigThink.com are less than seven minutes and offer the hook for stimulating class discussion. You can register into the site and contribute to the discussion surrounding ideas they are talking about. A great classroom activity and one I’d like to try with my students. Definitely worth a look.  

I really like the final quote from the article from Glenn Reynolds, author of ‘An Army of Davids’.

“There’s always a Big New Thing, but the old Big New Thing doesn’t really go away,” says Reynolds. “It becomes just another layer—like we’re building an onion from the inside out.”  

I certainly hope we don’t see the demise of user-generated content. It’s one of the things I love about the web  – its democratic nature allowing all to have input. Appeals to my upbringing.  

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Twitter made simple (or is it?)

This is all over the Web at the moment and plenty of people in the blogging world were heads up to it four days ago when Lee Lefever posted it on his Common Craft site and YouTube. One of the ways they found about it was from the topic of the video; twitter. Twitter is a means of social networking. You answer the question, ‘What are you doing?’, in 140 characters or less including spaces. You follow people in your network and are privy to both the mundane and useful answers to that question. I’m following people in the edublogging/education world and look at twitter throughout the day to see if there’s anything happening that I should make myself aware of.

I have to admit to having a few problems with Twitter. (I know – plenty of you out there are devotees and love it). Most of these relate to the need to achieve the right balance in our lives. I get worried about the addictive nature of feeling like you need to know everything instantaneously. I keep reading Will Richardson and his love of Twitter is obvious – he uses it as the supreme networking tool and it obviously has its advantages for someone whose working life is this Web 2.0 world. I’m a wife, mother of two relatively young children, hold down a full-time job managing a library as well as teaching English, try to keep a house in order and maintain connections with my extended family and friends. To top it off now I’m writing this blog in my spare time! Just discovering Twitter has further complicated the work/life balance I was already struggling to navigate. I know – I can already hear you out there saying, ‘No-one is twisting your arm to do this. If you don’t want to, just don’t look at it.’ And if you’re saying this you’re absolutely right. It’s up to me to find the balance I need to be comfortable doing what I’m doing without letting anything (or more importantly, anyone) drop off my radar. I almost feel like it’s the wrong time for me to be immersing myself in this world- eight years down the track and my kids would be pretty much self-sufficient (maybe!).  Can’t really do much about this now – I feel like I’m in deep and actually am loving learning again. I don’t feel stale when it comes to my working life and am excited about what education can (will?) look like in the future.

Wow. That was a fairly indulgent piece of self analysis. I don’t blame you if you switched off halfway through, but if you didn’t, thanks for listening. Needed to get that one off my chest.        

   

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Meme: Passion Quilt

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Open Doorway, originally uploaded by ThroughTheViewfinder.  Source: Flickr (accessed 9th March 2008)

Looking at my incoming links alerted me to the fact that I have been tagged to contribute to the Passion Quilt Meme. This is a project instigated by Dennis Richards. People involved in blogging about educational issues are tagged and asked to find a picture from a creative commons source that signifies what they are passionate about in their teaching. I feel rather honoured to be tagged, especially considering that I am in the illustrious company of Jeff Utecht, from Shanghai International School and someone who I read via his blog, The Thinking Stick. One of the others is Arthus Erea, the student from Vermont, Maine, who has done some remarkable things in terms of speaking out about education today from a student perspective as well as collaborating in classrooms around the world. 

I’ve chosen this picture, Open Doorways. I love how teaching allows you to do this – to introduce your students to possibilities they never imagined for themselves. Once you’ve opened a door for them, often they find that they are able to walk through many other doors that take them places they may never have considered.

It’s made me think about the doors that have opened for me since I started writing this blog. I began this a couple of months ago and I’m still staggered by the growth I have felt in myself as a result. I remember back to my first post and the initial supportive comments I received from Alec Couras, John Connell and Vicki Davis. I contemplate the last couple of weeks and think of the connections I have made with Lindsea, Clay Burell and now Chris Watson, who I suspect I’ll be talking to frequently in the coming weeks as we hit the ground running with Project Global Cooling.  How your life can change course once a door has opened.

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School’s out Friday

This week’s School’s out Friday post is dedicated to Clay Burell, who’ll be getting hitched tomorrow. Perhaps Clay and his fiance could practice quickly and Ustream a routine like this after the ceremony! All the best Clay, and thanks for some brilliant mentoring this week.

(For those interested in response to Project Global Cooling from our students. First meeting today – really good turn up – lots of enthusiasm. Keep you posted.)

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Skype to the rescue.

Launch day for Project Global Cooling.

Was I nervous?

Yes.

Did I fear a breakdown of Technology?

Yes.  

Was all the worry warranted?

No!

Pleased to report all was successful. Bill Farren’s video ‘Did you ever wonder?‘ set the scene and got our student’s thinking. Our Skype calls worked, a bit of break up but nothing drastic. Chris, a teacher from Lindsea’s school Skyped in as well on a webcam – the kids loved seeing him – you could see they were impressed with what was happening. Clay Burell joined us along with Patrick from his school. Lindsea then joined us with a webcam and you could sense the instant recognition from our students – they connected with her Skyping from her bedroom. Some students asked questions – Lindsea could see them thanks to my fantastic AV guy who went out of his way today to make all of this work. Thought we might be losing them towards the end but was surprised by the interest coming my way from the kids who can’t make our follow up meeting tomorrow. 

Left today feeling energised and positive about tomorrow. Can’t wait to see where the meeting will take us. Our kids were expressing their frustration today with adults who talk about making changes to improve sustainability but then nothing happens. Today we’ve given them an opportunity to make change – I hope they rise to the challenge. 

Just finished listening to and participating in the backchannel of Jeff Utecht’s SOS podcast (even if I couldn’t figure out how to change my Ustream number to my name, despite another listener trying to help me. I am still new to all this stuff!).  Really interesting discussion about how we connect. Recommend that you listen to the podcast when he posts it. 

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Project Global Cooling here we come (and I’m on YouTube!)

Tomorrow we launch Project Global Cooling with our students. This has come about as a result of this blog and having the ability to make connections with Clay Burell and Lindsea of Project Global Cooling. We have a very short time frame when it comes to the goal of staging a concert on April 19th. You never know, our students may very well pull it off – the energy and drive of young people can be quite awe inspiring when it kicks in. Hopefully the project’s goal of raising awareness about issues regarding sustainability and the future of our planet will resonate with our student population and we will be able to maintain global connections and build on the start we have made.

Tomorrow we are going to have a Skype conference call with Lindsea and Patrick (and maybe Clay??) from Project Global Cooling. Patrick is a student in Seoul and Lindsea ia 16 and at school in Hawaii. This call is scheduled to take place during our launch and how powerful is it going to be having students motivate students to get involved. I know the students at my school and am pretty sure they are going to want to run with this. I hope so anyway. I’ll keep you posted as to how we go.

Today we had a practice run with Lindsea via Skype in our Lecture Theatre to see how it all would go. It was great – hope we have no technical hitches tomorrow. Lindsea, nextgen specimen that she is, recorded the run through and posted it on YouTube. Never thought I’d see the day that I would be featured in a YouTube post. It’s pretty exciting from my perspective but it’s a given that it’s never going to gain viral video status! (Check out my Picasso look at the end of the video – very becoming!)

Looking forward to tomorrow and what it may bring. 

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Putting out the call – how do we break down the walled gardens?

Right. I need help.

There, I’ve said it. Today I have struggled with how I am going to go about creating a form for our parent community to sign regarding use of what we are calling ‘connective reading and writing’. (Thanks Clay Burell, we stole it from your document that you have available on Google Docs).  A supportive staff member put something together meshed from Clay’s document but we feel that it is going to create much more work for us if parents elect to select the provision that says teachers will moderate all comments.

So, I’m putting out the call. If anyone out there knows of a sensible permissions form that explains connective reading and writing in a manner that  a parent population will understand, please let me know. I’d really appreciate some guidance here.

George Siemens writes a great blog called elearnspace.  It’s well worth reading – it really is an e learning space. A recent post ‘The strength of walled gardens’, linked to an article called ‘The strength of garden walls’ from a blog called A Touch of Frost.  Peter Tittenberger writes the blog, and was commenting this day on the use of Wikis in his environment and the way they are set up with participants being invited to join. His comment is that people are comfortable with this set up as it is very similar to the way learning management systems operate. We’re finding the same thing here. Wikis set up using invite keys are a hit because people feel safe with them – the only chance of corruption comes from within the walled garden.

What he said next about the changing nature of our flat world resonated with me;

“Privacy and anonymity are still concerns, but here too, increasingly, many (especially the young) are willing to sacrifice these for the ability to publish, to access information and to connect to others. People are willing to make their lives transparent and give data miners open access to all their online activity, just as Google, Wikipedia, et al have given them open access to information.”

I think he’s right. My students happily contribute comments to this blog but people of an ‘older’ generation seem slightly paranoid about putting their name on something that is open for the world to see. I suppose I am less hung up about offering wikis and blogs on a public platform because I am writing this blog. It is empowering to receive feedback from the outside world and I truly believe that it has improved the quality of my writing. Let’s face it, I probably haven’t written this much since I left college!

I have no idea who may be reading this post, but if you can point me in the right direction so that we can effectively break down our walled gardens I’d appreciate the help.

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School Libraries in the digital age.

“Ross Dawson, a business consultant who tracks different customs, devices, and institutions on what he calls an Extinction Timeline, predicts that libraries will disappear in 2019. He’s probably right as far as the function of the library as a civic monument, or as a public repository for books, is concerned. On the other hand, in its mutating role as urban hangout, meeting place, and arbiter of information, the public library seems far from spent. This has less to do with the digital world—or the digital word—than with the age-old need for human contact.”

Slate, an online magazine, has an article about the future of Libraries in the digital age. I got to it via a post on The Shifted Librarian. The above is a quote from the article which comes with accompanying slides. I think it’s a really interesting quote because in large part I agree with it. I’m a Teacher- Librarian and I can see the dust forming on our non-fiction collection. Today’s students just don’t go there all that much. We’ve created a high interest non-fiction collection as a means  of highlighting the really interesting content that is around and this is working. Last Friday we had a new couch delivered which has created a cosy nook around this area with some comfy cushions which we purchased last year. The kids love it – I don’t think I’ve seen it unoccupied since it arrived. This is the second couch – the first one we purchased last year and it resides in the reading area along with countless other cushions. Our students really appreciate the fact that we are trying to create a friendly and inviting space for them. Ross is right- the need for human contact is innate – our students like to hang out, lounge around, talk, listen to their Ipods, read, laugh, eat, talk to us, use their laptops – they like to connect, in whatever form that may be. We’re getting an interactive whiteboard installed in the next holiday break. We hope to offer visual stimulas via this in the school lunch breaks – be it student requested viewing material or things we source ourselves – maybe we can highlight great blogs that they could be reading or teach them how to use new things on the Web! Libraries need to respond to this digital age – I think we are doing this and our students are appreciating it. There are lunchtimes when every seat in the place is occupied. I work with a great team of people who are committed to our vision of where libraries are going. Nothing would work without this kind of support.   

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Podcasting with Clay Burrel!

Wow – things can move really fast in this world. Last week I was writing about why I began writing this blog and why I think that blogging and making connections is an important tool for students’ learning. I did this for a staff PD session and thought no-one in the wider world would be interested. That post and the resultant interest led directly to a Skype conference call tonight with Clay Burrel, his Principal, my Principal, Lindsea (from the Global Cooling project and Students 2.0), and a student from my school. Clay recorded it as a podcast and is going to be posting it on his blog, Beyond School, in the near future.

The discussion ranged from the Global Cooling project to why we would want to encourage our students to use this medium to connect to how we can further our connections. Clay’s school is in Seoul, Korea and we are in Melbourne, Australia. Our time zones are complimentary (2 hours ahead in Aust.) and we could explore possibilities enabling our students to work together in the course of the school day.  

I’m wondering how the student from my school is feeling now – her head is spinning I bet and she’ll probably find it hard to get to sleep with the world that has just been opened up to her. She knew nothing of this until 8.00pm tonight when I knocked on her door (she lives quite close) and asked her if she would like to be involved in the conversation. I took her through some background re the project and Lindsea’s and Clay’s blogs. She’s a real go getter with a passion for the environment and I think she will want to run with things as a result of tonight.

Her head is probably spinning and I know mine is. I was thinking today of where this might be taking me and my school and I was reminded of the film Parenthood. At the end of the movie the Grandmother who everyone thinks has dementia talks to Steve Martin’s character about riding the rollercoaster. She’s making the analogy that life is a rollercoaster and you just have to ride it and enjoy it – there’s no point getting hung up and anxious about it.  Thinking about these connections and where it may take me and my students makes me excited but anxious too. There are times when I fear the rollercoaster and I get that knotted stomach worrying if I’m up to it – I’m going to have to leave that behind and enjoy the ride. I think it’s going to be a good one!