Unconference

Posted on July 20, 2008 by dskmag

Like NECC, but you don’t get the cough or the jetlag. BYO Firery Red Leather. Info here

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Diigo Update (weekly)

Posted on July 20, 2008 by dskmag

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Mobilize omg no!

Posted on July 18, 2008 by dskmag

I read a great post by fellow Nott’s lad Tom Barrett. About getting glue on your laptop. He was of course talking about his desire to see the ‘digital’ backpack in schools. On the one hand, I suspect that most of our kids do have ’secret’ technology in thier backpack. Schools of course like to ‘ban’ anything that isn’t made of paper.

The result is that kids cart about 15 kilos of text books each day. Why? Well ‘just in case’ they need them of course - be prepared for class sunshine!. A hallmark of the ‘just in case’ learning environment.

No teacher would of course, revert to the text book lesson just because they hadn’t got much else prepared before hand. We love our text books, they make teachers feel safe - cause we’ve got the teacher one with the answers and they don’t.

Time-warp time … lets go back 20 odd years …

As a kid I remember looking at the physics text book on a summers afternoon in a hot science lab. The room was silent - apart from the occasional ‘cough’ - or fake ‘cough’ of some other poor kid trying to relieve the boredom too. I had no clue what half of it meant. Day by day, week by week, we moved ever onward.

I knew every poster on the wall, I could tell you the colour of the curtains in every house you could see out the window. I knew every scratched name and comment on every one of the decades old furniture. I knew some of the stuff in the book, well I could recite some facts, but by and large they days turned to weeks and finally it was all over. I left school clutching my ‘O’ Level in Physics - grade ‘C’ - I passed, but really had no clue what it all meant and why I needed to remember it.

I do remember that the school got a ‘research machine’ Z80, and I do remember finding any excuse possible to use it. I’d risk detention, prefect floggings and parent phone calls to get my hands on that thing. I was a programmer - I could get the damn thing to do maths homework for me - another subject that I remember - not for a love of maths - but for the teachers never ending ability to write endless things on a board without ever moving off line, or need to rub out - that woman could measure the real estate of a black board to the inch. We never used the computer for ‘maths’, it was called a ‘research machine’ - no one knew where to put it I think, so it sat in a basement room, next to the staff room - the place where the teachers hid between classes. You knew if you were about to be busted, the smoke plume predicted the approach of the teacher as the door opened.

Tom also posted this photo of the bevvy of new laptops that arrived. Imagine how liberating these are seen by kids. Imagine that they could use them all the time. Imagine if the teacher could do more than get me to ‘google’ with it.

I also thought when I saw this photo that it initially looked like a stack of paper. Then I read ‘Toshiba’. Imagine how much less paper is needed in the classroom by having these. I’ve said before - if teachers quit the ‘photocopier’ habit (some teachers in my school come in during the holidays just to prepare a mountain of that stuff - they call it planning ahead) - then the money would be there to get every kid one of these things.

The point being, that things haven’t really changed in 30 years.

Computers are ’specialist’ tools in school, and the teacher MUST have PD to become a specialist before letting kids near them. Like 20 years of ICT in the classroom hasn’t been enough to master Power Point.

In the mean time we continue to demand that kids carry all manner of pens, rulers, glue and books - but not laptops, PSPs or Phones.

The joke is, when we do ICT - we actually ask kids to leave their backpack outside. How dumb is that! Its almost like bringing paper near a computer will somehow destroy it reverence. All hail paper.

This represents the disconnection that Tom is talking about to me. Go tell it to the scribes I say.

So what is in the backpack? what is so scary?
Schools seem to love to ‘ban’ anything that is not either made of paper - or a tool to write on paper. The utopia is obviously using ‘the book’ to find the words to write on the photocopied paper that we came in during the holidays for. That justifies us as ‘hard working, committed teachers’.

Let’s face it, kids have mobiles phones on them - yep it’s true! It’s just year 7 that hand them into the office each morning. Sorry to shock anyone there.

Touchy!

Remember in the 90s - Schools taught ‘Touch Typing’?

We used ICT to learn to use a QWERTY keyboard. Brilliant! We invented word processors to get rid of the typing pool and immediately decided to make our kids learn to type as it was now a computer science skill. It was a skill to Marion the typist on floor 7 in the 50s maybe. Who now allocates time to in ICT to ‘learning to type’? I can’t remember it for a few years now. We assume they can use it - they are digital natives (a term I am not comfortable with).

Next, we complain that kids use txt language and MyFace speak! They don’t use ‘proper’ English!

Well consider this. I suggest that it is NOT the desire to kill off the written, proper English that drives them. Its the fact that they use a phone keyboard, predictive text, and have learned to communicate using the least number of characters possible because that is the technology that they had personal access to. Access that doesnt require the teacher to ‘approve’ its use.

So in the 21C classroom, how bad is a mobile phone? Kids can negotiate txt in that faster than they can a QWERTY keyboard.

Next I’d like to take a cheap shot at the good old Scientific calculator! - how may key shift, funtion, tap f1 tap f7 does that take to actually access the function they want? That is a far more complex activity than using a mobile phone, PSP or DS. It also has limited use outside of science and maths. But these things are okay - as they don’t connect kids to their ecosystem.

I don’t see phones as dangerous. The reality is that kids have them, they bring them, they use them, they loose them. With our without school permission - mobile phones, DS and PSP are ubiquitous in high school backpacks.

But these are banned items - they cause problems in the classroom! They can do anything on them!

So true, they can do ANYTHING. As opposed to having their nose in a text book, memorising every knot in the wooden desk. I don’t believe that teachers are so un-creative as to deny that they can take advantage of what is already in their kids’ backpacks. Just like the proxy war, give it up! embrace what is possible! dont waste their time and yours trying to be the last guardian of a mentality thats hardly moved in 30 years.

Kids will live without you photocopying yet more text to go with the text that fades in and out of focus, day after day.

The mobile phone is a networked computing device. The PSP is a networked, bullet proof ‘google’ gadget, they have more power than a calculator, and take less effort for kids to use than a QWERTY keyboard.

Finally, I go back to the ‘writing’ of txt. Kids know what ‘formal’ writing is - they do, really, I kid you not. They also know there is a time and a place for that. (and if they don’t, spend 10 minutes to explain it). Just like they might ’swear’ when in their peer groups, but not in class - they already select the most appropriate language for the context.

As long as the tool is used for learning - whats the big deal if they do a bit of txting in comments on a blog. So what if they want to look up wikipedia on a wifi link to their PSP or N95. Why can’t they record their recount on their iPod or MP3 player? - Maybe they could show you how they could blue tooth it to your phone. Saves carrying around those floppy discs.

Don’t believe me? Ask your kids what they can do with a phone these days. Connect with what is in their backpacks. You might finds a whole new world of learning in there.

Thanks Tom for the original post.

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Reading Eggs

Posted on July 16, 2008 by dskmag

This is a site that my wife found called Reading Eggs. In the video, is my daughter who’s started using the site. Its a great post bath time - pre-bedtime activity.

Shes 5, so a pre-schooler. A friend bought me the ‘pig’, which is a great gadget, she loves it. It amplifies the audio and makes lots of flashing lights and movement as she interacts with the site. I really like that you have to sign up for the site. On the home page, there is plenty of clear, fast loading audio to welcome young learners.

A nice feature is that new ‘eggs’ hatch, so you can see who has joined the site as ‘hatchlings’. So from the off, there is a sense that there are lots of other kids doing it, so it cool. Sarah’s not new to a laptop, a veteran of Barbie Horse games and Dora the ‘annoying’ Explorer. She has no problem in figuring out what needs to be clicked and what needs to be dragged and dropped. Shes also happier using a track pad than a mouse right now. In the mean time, my 7 year old son is getting frustrated by World of Warcraft - it seems he has to ‘read the quests’ if he wants to get further than his level 6 he managed on day one.

I just figured after my last rant, that I should post something positive - a put back. Reading Eggs is of course a free online learning site.

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How’s you kid doing?

Posted on July 16, 2008 by dskmag

I was having a conversation today with a friend who’s kid is also in primary school, like mine. She was complaining that she only had five minutes with his teacher at the open day, and had a list of questions. Of course she didn’t get time to ask them all. My friend got the end of term report and had even more questions, so was trying to get to the school (she’s a working mum too), to talk to the teacher about the report.

What she really wanted to know, was not the polically correct stuff, that we put on reports, but answers to questions such as ‘how can I help him in his reading, writing’, ‘what does he need help with’, ‘is there anything I can do at home to help him’. Obviously the parent interview and report was not giving her the feedback she wanted.

I’ve just found out my kids teacher is going to be away all next term. This is an issue as my awesome kid does not do ‘new people’ too well. Despite phone calls to the teacher and letters, we didn’t get the end of term meeting we wanted, just a note to say she’s off for a term. This we know will cause him massive issues when he goes back. My son’s teacher did proudly claim that his reading is now level 18. We didn’t think that was so good, as that is where he was last year. How well does the teacher know the child? Obviously not too well.

How much better would it be if we could see our kids work on an ePortfolio? Don’t tell me it is hard. It isn’t, it is ridiculously easy these days.

How great would it be if we could see the comments the teacher is giving the student. How great would it be if our kids’ teachers were part of our social network, and we could ask questions in an informal yet timely manner?

My wife has done some ‘blogging’ for parents - using a blog as a platform for parents to find out what the kids are doing, and also giving links to resources and ideas around the work that is going on in her 1st grade classroom. She was amazed how many parents commented, or came and spoke to her, saying how cool it was that they could work with their kids at home too.

It went a long way to break down the ’stiffness’ that I think exisits between teachers and parents - a historically un-easy tenure.

I really want to help my kid out. But due to a few reasons, he is often completely whacked after a day at school. He has to work really hard at social situations as well as the content and learning, so when we all get home - both parent and kid are often not in the fresh frame of mind we’d like to be.

All the more frustrating is the pathetic worksheets - complete with errors - that he has as ‘homework’. Fill this blank in, draw a picture stuff … things that he sees as a chore at best. So the time we do have with him, is used up doing things that are of little benefit and low order skills anyway.

I guess this is why I think the work and advocacy that super star teachers like Al Upton is so important in primary school. If all we get is a 5 minute interview and a end of semester report - then all the time in between, when we want to be helping our kids is lost.

We want to add value to what is happening at school. Lets face it, if you’re reading this, chances are your household has access to technology - even if you kids classroom does not, so rather than send home the worksheet - how about giving them something we can use!

I’m getting tired of hearing ‘teachers are too busy’, ‘we don’t have the PD needed’, ‘my school does not have x,y,z’. Rubbish, you’ve been churning out the worksheets for long enough, time to make something new. A weekly blog post is not exactly time consuming.

If Al starts up an online course for kids - if by some mircale - then I’d enroll him in a heartbeat. How good would that be? Al Upton mentoring my kid.

So blogging as a parent, I think that a lot more can be done by teachers to make the teaching and learning accessible to parents - who are not there to ‘check up’ on teachers - but we really really want to ’see’ where our kids are at.

Even if you don’t want to post work or have the kids working online - you can at least blog on what the kids are doing, so we have some clue as to what the hell you are doing with my kid everyday.

Parents put a lot of trust in teachers, my friend today put it into focus - when she asked ‘how my kid was doing’ - it seemed honestly that neither of us was sure . I’m I way off the mark?

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Digital Portolios #1

Posted on July 8, 2008 by dskmag

I’ve decided to blog a series of articles on re-inventing a ‘digital portfolios‘ in the context of the NETs for technology and 21st Century High Schools. This follows a session I attended at NECC on Digital Portfolios.

I felt that the way in which students and teachers need to represent themselves during several years cannot be adequately achieved using this methodology alone. Though before read/write web - this was not possible at all.

A quick Google Search for ‘digital portfolios’ demonstrates that not much has changed in a decade. Again, it brings me back to the ideas that teachers have about ‘what is an ICT’. Going by Google alone, you’d be convinced that what you will find about ‘digital portfolios’ is indeed ’state of the art’. With more effort, you can find writings that look deeper into assessment.

So how do these two established discourses relate to the read/write web in Classroom2.0?

Students today are active in the read/write web, and posting images and text about themselves using the interwebs and mobile phones without giving a second thought to the long term representations that they are making. This activity is largely disconnected from their academic endeavors in digital publishing - for assessment.

In this first post, I want to explore the existing characteristics of what many educators call a ‘digital portfolio’.

Excluding Web2.0 - Digital or electronic portfolios were considered to be selective and purposeful collections of student work.

Portfolios were selective records of learning, growth and change on the part of the student. They provided meaningful documentation of students’ abilities (in a formal learning context). Portfolios provided information to students, parents, teachers, and members of the community about what students have learned or are able to do - as a result of largely classroom activities.

They represented a learning history of sorts. Portfolios bring together curriculum, instruction and assessment. Through the use of portfolios teachers and students could develop a shared understanding of what constitutes quality work. The ethos behind digital portfolios seems entirely valid when applied to the read/write classroom. So lets move onto the characteristics.

The main characteristics of a portfolio included:

*  Student-centered
* Active learning
* Student responsibility
* Available to the community (school, parents, etc.)
* Showcase of work
* Reflective

Typically, these portfolios selected work based on the context of who was going to look at them. For example, if the audience was a college admissions board, then then it may well contain elements that would not be used for a job application.

What they don’t do, is accurately reflect the students growth as a learner, as the assessments taken over time are not included in the end product - or are dis-jointed so do not give an accurate reflection of their academic and social development.

For example : A student is given a task to create a 10 page power point reflecting their work in Digital Photography over their 120 hour course in 9th and 10th grade. How does this reflect their learning?

To me it mearly demonstrates the ‘end’ or ‘peak’ of the student’s mastery of the subject - and has a prescribed - pathway that suits the teacher, standards and assessment tools.

Compare this to Joseph Saad - a student with an interest in 3D Digital production, though not studying it in his ’standards’. Joseph decided to blog about his progress. In this ‘portfolio’ reflective writing, self-assessment, end product, and mutli-literacies are abundent. How do we assess this work? Do we need to? and who is assessing it? - I suggest ‘everyone’ who Joseph ever connects with. Even after 3/4 years at University, he will be able to show that this was his ‘hello world’ moment. A moment he choose - not some requirement in order to graduate.

These portfolios, were largely a collection of MS Office type ‘products’, perhaps some work in Macromedia (Adobe) and perhaps some scans or digital photos.
The method of transmission was a CD-Rom, small (html) website or Adobe Acrobat document.

The portfolio was a very selective and targeted form of communication between the author and a very limited audience.

Assessment of a digital portfolio was a process by which teachers created a rubric that contained ‘outcomes’ or ’standards’. This was largely an off-line activity and like most teacher generated material - consisted of a mark and a comment. The on-going growth of the student was not viewable, like many assessments, it was all about the ‘end’ product. What did the student select as appropriate to meet the purpose and outcome/standard.

In some instances, online tools were created to allow teachers to cross reference student portfolios to standards - using rubrics. The intention is to allow teachers to ‘grade’ students using some rudimentary hyperlinked pages to things such as digital photos, scans and perhaps quicktime movies. The student however was not an integral part of this assessment and record keeping.

The work that went into the portfolio - samples of student work, information to put the work in context, a reflection on the work using a process - collect, select, reflect.

It was therefore a ’skill’ for the student to select an appropriate ’sub-set’ of work to any given future context. This portfolio is made from the following elements

* Expectations (Proficiencies) - What should a student be able to do, what purpose does the portfolio serve.
* Entries - what are the most appropriate elements to add to the portfolio
* Review Process - Who is the audience, how do we review individual entries, how do we review the portfolio as a whole
* School structures - how do we make this happen, when can we use technology (a subset of the question)

When adding 21st Century Learning skills, we try to apply a new set of ’skills’ to the evidence being created in the portfolio. To my mind, this application is prone to being subjective. How can element “A” display ‘collaboration’ for example. The student reflection was also subjective - and occurs at the end of the process.

Indeed, even ‘contructavist’ approaches to learning, still required the student to produce a selective set of artifacts that fit inside a rubric of not only ’standards or outcomes’ but meshed with the ’21st Century Skills’.

The portfolio was a result of ‘mastery’ skills - a student needed to master a set of publishing skills to represent themselves which in itself presents a problem, as it favours ‘visual thinkers’ - which is only one of the multiple intelligences.

Enter the read/write ubiquitous printing press where it is easy to publish and share information anytime, all the time.

This smashes the selective and targeted nature of ‘digital portfolios’ - as the personally generated stuff (MySpace, Bebo et al,) may well conflict or even be more substantial that the school generated stuff.

Surely, the school and the person should be one thing. As Will Richardson says, if no one is teaching our kids how to present themselves on MySpace, then we cannot be shocked by what they do”

So this leads me to think that the current notion of a ‘digital portfolio’ is fundamentally floored, as it assumes that students only create digital work in the walled garden of their school. There are some great examples that we can model to our students - even on, dare I say it, MySpace.

Already I have more questions that the ‘google’ searches answer;

  • What happens when the audience is everyone and the work in the portfolio is everything?
  • What happens when the students have MySpace, Facebook, Bebo accounts and students no longer distinguish between school and out of school digital representation of themselves - via Google?
  • What happens when colleges and employers can Google the student and the student can no longer be as ’selective’ about their content or their audience?
  • What happens when teachers comment on student’s work online, and everyone can read it?
  • What happens when students comment on each others work online?
  • What if the students chooses to represent themselves using an avatar in a virtual world?
  • How does a student who is a level 60 WoW player best illustrate their tenacity for co-operation, problem solving and communication online?
  • What if a student creates a blog about their passion which is not going to meet a ’standard’ - How do we support them, if indeed we support them at all?

The idea of a ‘digital portfolio’ being a static, selective and limited communication piece is a very limited idea to me - where the communication was predicated by an understanding of who sees what and when.

I used to be and Art Director, so endlessly carried around a portfolio of my latest ad campaigns and typographic renderings. This was a very targeted communication. I knew who would be looking at it, and what the goal was in doing so. I could be very selective in both the audience and the content.

Much of the information I’ve found online about ‘digital portfolios’ is mid 90’s to now, and still presents the development of a portfolio as I’ve outlined.

What I am going to try and explore in a series of posts is how we can best represent student development, when to share, when to assess, how to assess and what communication tools best illustrate that a student is a progressive learner over a sustained period of time.

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Take your IT guy out to lunch!

Posted on July 7, 2008 by dskmag

Head of Technology, Director of IT, IT Manager … many names for the same thing. When the beige computers began to appear in schools someone generally took control of them. Mostly this was a teacher, and more likely it was a computing teacher. Initially these boxes appeared in the library, after all they had CD-Roms, so held information - so logically this was where we held information. Eventually the beige boxes grew in number and found thier way into a computer ‘lab’.

A ‘lab’ infers some sort of science, and indeed, computer science was the lable we placed on ‘learning about computers’. They were technical things, and students needed to know how they worked. Given the history of ‘micro computing’ then teachers saw the beige boxes enter ‘labs’ or ‘libraries’ - but they were always a tool that required some ‘expert’ use. During the 90’s these boxes were hooked up to the ‘information super highway’ - usually a room full sharing some basic modem (squeek). For teachers, using the internet was a fairly painful experience. The 90’s saw teacher develop only a basic understanding of using technology in the classroom.

  • Publisher - yes! lets make a leaflet about some inquiry based lesson
  • Word - wow! now you can type up your essay or at least cut and paste
  • Power Point - a presentation, usually linear, paste in photos and text
  • CD-Roms - exploring information (multimedia) using a set of ’schoolie’ CD-Roms
  • The internet - Netscape, Yahoo and Alta Vista - search and locate information

So for a decade, we added an ‘ICT” component to our syllabus’ and using one or more of the above activities meant we hade met the outcomes. But ICT means information ‘communication’ technology - and we missed that part - the communication element was never really explored in any depth. We took ‘communication’ to mean how computers communicate - baud rate, modems, full duplex, half duplex etc., - we focused entirely on how we turned analog information into digital ‘bits’. Even today, the Australian syllabus still talks about modems and how we transmit and receive ‘data’ purely from the technical point of view.

At some point, we decided that allow students to store work on a ’server’, rather than the Floppy Disc. This meant that students became ‘connected’ to the system. We assumed this was a dangerous thing, largely due to the media hype talking about ‘hacking’ and of course the various movies in which kids gained access to nuclear weapon consoles.

So we decided it was best to have someone to police this risk, and at the same time look after all their beige boxes - enter the IT Manager. Historically, the IT Manager evolved in the commercial sector as the poor guy that every other department threw work at, largely to be able to claim that the reason that (x) has not been achieved is that IT hadn’t done (y). Every smart department manager knew how important it was to make massive demands of the IT department - it was like insurance against under performance. No one up the food chain really knew what IT did, so didn’t question why the department managers didn’t achieve some goal. IT Managers learned to protect their interest. They learned to narrow the angle and IT was largely conducted in a trench-war culture.

In schools the IT Manager locked as many software features down as possible. Standard operating procedure. Access to databases and servers was also restricted. This made the IT environment simpler to ‘manage’ - as long as kids had access to MS Office and some hard drive ’share’, then teachers we’re happy. At least with a server - you didn’t have to issue and collect floppy discs. That practice is still not dead! Today the collection of work is on a Flash Drive. We haven’t moved on at all.

A lot of voice at NECC was given to blaming ‘access’. The IT Manager has been hearing this for decades. But giving you access, means you will later complain that you didn’t get enough access, or access that is fast enough for the purpose you intended. So there is not real ‘win’ for the IT Manager to break down decades of standard practice, learned out of the trenches.

As Dean Shareski said in a recent NECC reflection

We have no idea how small we are. My guess is about 300 of the 17,000 attendees have any sense of what powerful online communities are all about. That would represent about 2% of an edtech community. These would be the teachers that you’d like have the best shot at building a network. Reading some of the teacher reflections in the last NECC daily made me shudder somewhat. The focus on buying stuff, teaching tools is missing the boat big time. It’s easy to understand why an average teacher would have no idea of how and why. While it’s been written about lots, when you see it in this context it’s quite amazing.

So how many of the Edubloggercon people were IT Managers or IT Directors? - from that 300? I’ll put my hand up. I get the shift and have seen what can happen if the barriers are removed. But, and it is a big BUT. Unless the teachers - on the WHOLE network - understand what this access means, then it poses a threat to the world of the IT Manager - who is predomenenty focused on ‘up time’ and ’security’ - and not learning outcomes. Many IT manager are not teachers in the first instance.

IT Managers are people. Just as a Web2.0 teacher gets frustrated by the ‘lack of access and opportunity’, at the same time, the teacher raised on MS Office and beige boxes is happy to know that the IT Manager is looking after everything for them, and has been doing so for at least a decade. Teachers all to often dismiss what IT Managers are doing - if you’re not on class, then it aint really working. IT these days is not about the beige boxes. Its about telephony, multiple databases, firewall security, AUPs, wireless control, course management software, IWBs, digital media and staff development.

Opening the firewall to read/write web is not hard. However getting teachers to appreciate that ‘the blocker’ is therefore removing site-security, and so places the ‘ownership’ of the risk with the teacher is difficult. I want it, but don’t ask us ‘all’ to take responsibility for it.

NECC illustrated how many teachers were doing amazing things in their classroom, and negotiating this with their district. I also talked to people who could not identify any ‘innovative IT managers’ in their district. The IT guy is not the problem folks. If you want more access, more funding etc., then you need to cite how ‘others’ are doing things - show them who is doing innovative things, get them to talk to these people and connect with thier IT manager to discuss the issues involved.

The IT Manager is resilient to people complaining. There is no benefit to allowing a more open network, if some teacher comes in and complains that a kids saw a bikini on YouTube today.

If you want a read/write classroom, then you have to INCLUDE the IT people as a valuble link in the learning process.

This to my mind creates IT people who are open to working towards change, as they can see through the conversations with the teacher - how the changes they can make - help the kids. Kids are the enemy remember - they break stuff!.

Show them what you are doing … you probably won’t get what you want on day one, but then if you’re the only teacher who is pushing for change … then it’s not that they don’t agree with you, it is that they need ammo to make the ‘push’ work. Enlist them in your advocacy as much as the teacher in the next room.

I think IT Managers need to spend more time in classrooms, more time at conferences such as NECC, more time getting connected via the web. They need to understand the ’shift’. They have the technical skills, but probably lack the context to know why it is important.

What is not acceptable is for the IT Manager to dismiss Web2.0 classrooms as being ‘un-safe’. This can also be because they have stopped being ‘progressive’ and trying new things. Locking down everything is safe. These are harder to convince to get out the trenches.

What? you want to put a MacBook on the ‘wireless’?. Give kids a router? what for?. Add another ADSL line just to watch videos? Second Life? that requires ports opened … etc.

Just my thoughts, I see both sides of the ‘line’. But if you’ve got a IT Manager, stuck in the trenches, then you need to find some common ground. If you enlist an army of teachers to complain that you want more access, then to an IT Manager - it’s nothing new and unlikely to draw them out into the open - that is if they don’t mow you down with in hail of network policy enhancements just to teach you a lesson - cause they know it’s safer in the trench than running the cross fire of administrators, supers and parents.

Go on, take your IT Manager out to lunch, or better still, take them to NECC or some other Edubloggercon. We know you only want to talk to us when you a) want something b) want something fixed - so perhaps by making them an important part of your overall teaching and learning strategies - we might even return the call.

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Here Comes Everybody

Posted on July 6, 2008 by dskmag

Amazing book, here’s the author talking about how the internet changes societies, and therefore changes the way in which out students (can) learn as they live out at least part of their lives - digitally.

Reading the book also challenges those who ‘allow’ or ‘provide’ information technology into our schools, to consider the impact of ‘firewalling’, ‘blocking’ or limiting access of teachers and students to the read/write technologies as powerful vectors to learning.

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Third ‘virtual’ Place

Posted on July 5, 2008 by dskmag

Konrad Glogowski’s great presentation at NECC talked about the idea of students having a ‘third place’.

The third place is a term used in the concept of community building to refer to social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace. In his influential book The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991) argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and establishing feelings of a sense of place.

Oldenburg calls one’s “first place” the home and those that one lives with. The “second place” is the workplace — where people may actually spend most of their time. Third places, then, are “anchors” of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction. All societies already have informal meeting places; what is new in modern times is the intentionality of seeking them out as vital to current societal needs. Oldenburg suggests these hallmarks of a true “third place”: free or inexpensive; food and drink, while not essential, are important; highly accessible: proximate for many (walking distance); involve regulars – those who habitually congregate there; welcoming and comfortable; both new friends and old should be found there.

One of the key ‘take aways’ from my NECC experience are photo’s such as this one from the Edublogger cafe. For many advocates of fundamental changes to the way schools are organised (or need de-organising), the way we engage learners, methods, tools we choose - the internet is the ‘third space’.

Teacherman79
Photo: Teacherman79 - Konrad live in Jokaydia (SL)

A series of communication tools - skype, gmail, twitter, second life etc., connect people globally in a third ‘virtual’ spaces, as it is impossible to do in a ‘real space’. When they get together in situaltions such as Edubloggercon (in a sub-culture of NECC itself), then the idea becomes more ‘explainable’.

All these people live hundreds if not thousands of miles from each other - but share common conversations through a variety of communication tools. These conversations sustain and promote their ideas, that may otherwise fade in a localised vacuum.

It is no wonder that students create ‘third spaces’ at school - using technology (mobile phones, IM). If we don’t create them for them, they will create their own - just as everyone does.

I will definitely be looking to create more of these spaces at school. I can now better see why the students at my school have been so successful with their ‘Gaming LAN’ room. Perhaps unconsciously, the third space has been created.

In Classroom 2.2 (the second build for 2009), I’ll be looking at how I can create ‘third places’ in the PBL environment. These were not included in the current build, but after seeing how well they worked at NECC, then I think that they will add value to the 2 new classrooms to accommodate 160 new students for 2009. Photo : Konrad Glogowski

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Chunk-It

Posted on July 3, 2008 by dskmag

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Saw this at NECC and is yet another effective alternative to ‘Googling’ in the classroom. It searches any web page or atricle, and then pulls out the passages with highlights on the left. The two panes work independently. Very slick stuff. Sign up for the beta - installs right onto your browser. I’ve been using it all day - speeds up all that clicking to see whats behind the front door. Working with Diigo … and in Flock … my printing press is indeed mighty.

Filed under: Web2.0 gizmos | Tagged: | No Comments »

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