PBL Learning Centre – Completed!

With a couple of days to spare, our latest ‘lab’ is up and running. Designed entirely to facilitate ‘project based learning’ in year 9 (160 students), with ‘almost’ 1 to 1 computing.

The wireless network was completed today and tested. The facility is running off Moodle/Server 2003. It has some neat features designed to ensure it needs very low network engineering and most of all is shamelessly CLASSROOM 2.0 focused.

The wireless allows anyone to access the network as a guest. We took that from the methods used in hotels. Anyone hooking onto it is assigned a temporary guest pass. We ran it on XP/Vista and OSX with no problems. Students can use just about any WiFi enabled device. I am keen to hook up some PSPs and Nintendos next year.

Guests to the school can do the same – so we have done away with the hassles of having to get a technician to enable computers and configure the connection manually. Guest access is via a proxy, so we maintain the usual levels of security.

One benefit is that the wireless will run Second Life! in a transparent mode. This will allow groups of students to use the wireless laptops in Skoolaborate. SL also runs on any desktop. Students log-in using their Skoolaborator username and password to Windows and the ‘magic’ happens to shut down other applications and allow SL to run direct to the sim through the proxy with no problems. This solves the problem of having an open proxy during SL sessions.

We will be able to do this for video-conferencing and other ‘rich’ applications too in the future. Our iMacs show up tommorrow for their installation, and so we have a mix of 60% Desktop, 30%PC Laptop and 10% Apple Desktop. All machines run Open Office – not Microsoft Office – and the browser is loaded with plenty of Web2.0 tools, grouped into genre.

We offer students a range of blogs – we want them to select the one they prefer, and so on with a number of other Web2.0 services. We can manage the Favourites in all browsers remotely, so we can add new ones.

We have created del.icio.us accounts for the various courses, embedded into Moodle, so teachers can collectively tag content that may be of use to the students. Students will have their own blog space and collective Wiki spaces for projects.

I guess the ‘upgrade’ from the original Napa model is that we are doing PBL via Web2.0 applications. Napa was running the usual – Office, Paintshop Pro and other similar apps, hung of Lotus Notes (yes you remember notes!).

So while I thought the PBL message was strong and relevant to us, the technology they hung it off was not 21st Century to me, and the method of delivery that students used for presentations and building digital folios was very 90s in its thinking.

No one is quite sure how PBL will go in the first weeks, I have a suspicion that the whole place will run more like an internet cafe or gamer lounge than it will a classroom.

Behaviour management is though bandwidth allocation. Mess about and enjoy life at 56k. Dump games in your share folder and see it reduced to 1meg! I am going to attempt to rotate students in PBL though some low end system admin. I want them to audit their own groups use of technology. So if a group decides to waste time, then it will be a member of that group that will do the usage audit and then report back. Good behaviour means group access to high bandwidth and Laptops, poor usuage the other way. This will create self-managed students whom will be motivated. This again is a work in progress – but I am keen to develop methods of ’student control’ that are not founded in BANNING students.

After a long term and a lot of late nights … I look forward to seeing the facility running … and as I’ve said before, will focus my ‘blogging’ on the development of the facility in terms of Classroom 2.0 learning in 2008. I hope that other schools and teachers will find it of interest and might be interested in working with us in the future.

Merry Christmas one and all – Im off to hack a Wii remote and build an interactive wipeboard for my kids … for about $50

2007 – Staff Development Presentation

Presentation given to Staff (1 hour) to encourage them to look at the idea of Classroom 2.0

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Digital Natives Graduate

We had or 07 school presentation night on Wednesday. A fitting celebration of accademic achivement in years 7-11. Places and certificates for 1/2/3 and effort. A packed house, and proud students and parents. The achivement of the students in their School Certificate was impressive, and as retiring Parramatta Marist Year 7 Co-Ordinator, Terry Nobin said “I believe this school is the best value added school in Sydney”. Given his 23 odd years of dedicated service, he has the credentials to back this up.

It made me think as I listened to him talk about ‘esteem’ in students. I was please to see a student in my class get a 1st in my subject, he had worked hard all year and well deserved. But I really felt that many students had done so well too. A collegue told me about a system of assessment where you judge your end point in relation to you start point, and though we don’t use that, it does seem particularly valid to the 25 students that this year ‘threw out’ the traditional Classroom and undertook Classroom 2.0 with such enthusiam.

So I went home and thought, perhaps, in all my enthusiasm for Classroom2.0, I have not actually let them know just how much they are changing the way students learn. I have a lot to thank them for. Its one thing for a teacher to get carried away in cyber-enthusiasm, but quite another when the students participate to the extent they have.

So I knocked out a presentation in which I attempted to show them just how far they had come. They don’t see any of this as special – I think they just like the fact that my class is different to many – but in terms of self esteem, value adding – these boys have a lot to be proud of. I also wanted to press upon them that I, as the teacher working is a system that is not designed for Classroom 2.0 (yet), cannot be an effective force of change.

I hope that at least a few will become advocates for their future learning. They have significant Digital Portfolios to show other educators that they are capable of doing more, in less time, better. I don’t dispute that teachers are pushed for time (all the time) and that the expodential growth of technology make it harder and harder to keep pace. There is a huge need to rethink PD – and the PD of support staff. What I hope this boys will feel confident to do, is to negotiate with other teachers, to allow them to demonstrate their learning in alternative (to Teacher 1.0) ways.

Here is the presentation … interestingly, when it asks them what activities they had done in other subjects this year, only PDHPE and Creative Arts was cited as using non MS Office technology as a platform for demonstrating learning.

Go on survey your year 7-9s, see what we ask them to do (over and over and over) … no wonder they are bored.

Classroom 2.0 @ PMHS for 2008

I’ve decided in 2008 to focus my ‘blog’ by reporting on how our school is re-thinking digital classrooms. This has begun with the first installation, which is designed to provide teachers and students with not just quick hardware, but puts the emphasis on student centered learning, using Web2.0.

We talk about Classroom 2.0, but I hope that the journey in 2008 will show how I am facilitating teaching and learning by facilitating and encouraging Web2.0 tools are the classroom standard.

Background

Some 165 Year 9 students are about to start Project Based Learning. Information Software Technology is now a compulsory subject choice. Subjects are twinned and taught at the same time. For example IST and RE. Two facilitators (teachers) and 50 students per room. PBL is based on social contructivism. We are adopting the structures of Napa’s New Technology High School – which is a showcase for Bill Gate’s theories about 21st Century Learning. There is so much written about PBL, that I make no attempt to judge it. My role is to facilitate it.

Essentially students are given a ‘driving question’ and work for 5 weeks in teams to give a ‘presentation’. They are marked on content, skill, communication, work efforts etc., so there is an ongoing need for each student to productive.

PMHS is unique in adopting and extending this in Australia.

Current use of digital classrooms

I have several PC labs with some 400 or so PCs in a school population of just under 1000. So generally speaking, students have excellent access to the internet and PC/Macs. I also connect student laptops to the WiFi network (if they have them).

I looked at the assessment tasks given in year 7 & 8 closely in designing the Class 2.0 network. Like most schools we offer XP and Office as the primary production tools. It is no suprise then, that the majority of tasks require students to produce work using these tools – Powerpoints, Leaflets, Brochures and Word Docs. We have specialist software applications – but the over arching use of our labs is to work in MS Office.

Students hit Wikipedia and Google, chop and paste, throw in a few images and Bobs your uncle. I know this for a fact, as I spend a lot of time watching their use of the technology.

In year 7/8 students have about 1 in 5 lessons in a PC lab. In addition to this Design and Technology, Music and Creative Arts have their own labs, as do Science – so students I would say spend about a third of their time using computers.

Classroom 2.0

Following my Learnscope work this year, I have been working with my classes to use Web2.0 tools to demonstrate learning and facilitate it. (Check the link My Web2.0 World) – that has a link to my resources and my students’ blogs/shares.

The new rooms take into account the limitations offered in the existing classrooms on teaching and learning. I am attempting to encourage students and staff NOT to default to activities that revolve around MS Office. The challenge was to deliver a network and environment that: Supports the PBL model; assumes users are ‘digital natives’; requires low – proxy policy; encourages student/staff social networking and publishing; and gives high speed access to Web2.0 solutions.

I am not anti MS Office. I am anti-status quo. Given that this is a huge shift for our school from teacher centric to student centric, I am concious that staff are by and large Teacher 1.0, and the safe, comfortable option is to stick with what you know. MS Office type activities.

We are using Moodle as our courseware. However, I want the students to learn to find, evaluate, select and use a range of solutions to solve the project problems. Of course Wikis, Blogs are on the agenda … but I want to encourage students and staff to try a range of them or indeed challenge the use of them for their solution.

My concern is that we default to our old ways. So at launch, there is no MS Office in the new labs. The browser is loaded with a range of Web2.0 tools … Zoho for example does the same thing, Google Docs does the same thing. By encouraging the use of these … and limiting the temptation to ‘default’ … I hope that part of the IST learning outcomes ’select appropriate software’ will mean much more. It will encourage exploration, professional developement and creative thinking.

Use Management

The new labs are running Mircrosoft Server 2003, and not Novell. Auditing and getting meaningful data from Novell is impossible in our environment. Students simply hit ‘workstation only’ and do what they like. I have no idea who they are, so lost the proxy-war early on in 2007. In PBL the solution is to put students into groups, based on their use of the technology. If students want to cruise YouTube to pass their time, then they will find they do it at dial-up speed. Students who want to create VoiceThreads will have access to WiFi laptops and given bandwidth priority.

This I hope will encourage students to do the right thing – as we are preparing them for life – I still believe the internet is good for 2 things – save time or waste time – so I am encouraging positive behaviour through bandwidth and access to hardware and technology. I have found that attempting to do this using a proxy ban list is not effective. Since dropping the proxy to all but obviously in-appropriate content – but allowing YouTube and Social Networking – has seen far less ‘behaviour’ management needed. Initially, kids went nuts, but it settles down … trust me.

The best firewall a school has is organic … its called a teacher. If teachers are delivering interesting activities and pro-active (movement and position) in the room – then it delivers a much better result for all.

Brave new network

So my new network is geared to Web2.0. It will challenge staff and students. I am expecting ‘pitch forks and burning lanterns’ from the staff – taking away Word is just stupid! – and some confusion from students who have been conditioned to MS Office – select template, search Google, paste. Paul Curtis (Napa) said “ask them questions they can’t Google”, in relation to PBL methods. I have taken this out of context and have delivered a solution that allows students to explore and use the tools that they choose as part of their lives outside school – in school.

Use the Force Luke … time for us to let go and believe in students abilities

I’ve seen how students evolve in my own classes this year, and after a year … they no longer expect or default to MS Office. They do use it when they need to, for example write a script. But they then select other tools to deliver their ‘product’. And that to me is the key … to encourage them to select tools to support creativity, and so let them learn in way that they like to learn. Be that Second Life, Wikis, Blogs, Google Docs, Flakes, Slideshare, VoiceThread etc.,

I believe then, that this is the first High School Network that is designed as Web2.0 as it’s default operation. What I am going to blog about in 2008 is how I’ve built it, the technology, processes and mechanisms used and most of all the experience of the staff and students in working in a High School Classroom 2.0 environment.

The second theme I will blog about is integrating Skoolaborate (Second Life) into VET and IST, from a very hands on perspective … so others might use the same resources and ideas.

Let me know what you think!