ICT in the classroom

Once again I am putting the College eLearning update on my blog, and hope to get some feedback about what everyone is doing. It was great to hear the beginnings of some wonderful conversations about how we are each developing our ability to use technology in the classroom.

For those of you who were not at the whole staff meeting last week  here is a snippet

My presentation was created with prezi, and can be found here

Using Technology in the classroom is not a passing fad, which, if you wait long enough, will blow over. It is an integral part of 21stC life, and now is a good time to jump on board and prepare your skills and your own confidence for using a range of these in the classroom, and in your day to day life. I am here to support you in that, expose you to a range of tools, let you know what has worked for me, and others, and work with you to find what works best for you. The fact that we don’t have the infrastructure and technology to do these things in every classroom right now should not be stopping you from developing your own skills and understanding of the potential of these 21stC tools.

I mentioned Moodle, and we are hoping to have external access to this shortly.

Moodle is a Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment – which means it is an online space where you can create dynamic learning for your students, and teams you may work in. You can put links, files, quizzes, games, digital learning resources, forums, assignments, chats rooms, etc for your students to add to and create with.

Domain teams can have spaces where they share resources across the college – no reinventing the wheel. Cross campusing can be made easier less need for having to get there the share resources. Teams across the college or across a campus can have a space to share and reflect, which is private.

The other project I discussed was the Redback Project

This project can help you to develop your understanding and capacity to use a range of Web 2.0 tools. It is self paced, and can take from a couple of weeks to complete to a year or more, working at your own pace.

Starting with finding your starting point by using the ePotential tools and track your eLearning journey with reflections in a blog. Those of you who are power users may already be beyond blogging( ahh my working title for the next project) and may just choose areas to focus on. Regardless of whether you work through the Redback Project or not, we would like all staff to complete the ePotential survey, as they informs the leadership team on areas we need to focus on with PD etc.

There will also be some Redback support on Moodle

How are you using ICT/eLearning/technology/21stC tools in YOUR classroom? Reply to my post here, and share with the rest of us. (If you would rather keep your links private – this is an open blog, please post them on the Redback Forum in Moodle (this link will only work at school)

My Textiles classes both have blogs, and the Year 11s are beginning to work on their own blogs you will find them here

Year 11 Design and Technology – Textiles

Year 12 Design and Technology Textiles

My year 10 Media Production class

I also have a Ning group for my textiles classes, and Moodle course for my Media class.

Are there other tools you use in your class? Please feel free to add your comments

Awesome, we have a bunch of funding coming to us to buy new equipment to provide students with better access to eLearning opportunities. The government is aiming for us to have a 1:1 ratio of students:computers in years 9 – 12 by 2011. Fantastic. What an incredible opportunity for our students to truly be prepared for life outside of school in this digital world.
The big question we have to ask, before we rush out to buy the goodies is “Are we ready?”
Do we have the infrastructure to support so many computers accessing the network, will the wireless coverage be able to cope? What do we have to do to make sure it does? We all know that any flakiness of the system will often lead to students and staff not willing to trust they can use them, and we end up with all of these computers either not being used, or being damaged when students get frustrated when they don’t work.
We are working to improve and strengthen the infrastructure, but that will take time and money.
The other huge question is are teachers ready to have students in their classes with access to a computer? Will it mean there are just more word documents, powerpoint presentations and internet searches? For some it will be a huge and fearful learning curve, away from the security of how you have always taught, into this new digital world. This is not a passing fad, which you can ignore, and hope it will just go away. This is the world we are preparing our students for, a digital world, and we need to be providing exciting learning opportunities for them, as you have always done, but now we have the world at the click of a button, and the most amazing opportunities to inspire and teach our students.
What are some ways you can think of which will be different, better or worse, teaching students who each have a computer? What are some of the pitfalls you will need to be aware of in order to be best prepared to use the technology yourself, and in your class?
I know you have heard of blogs, wikis, web 2.0, nings, but how do you see these being useful in your classroom. Would you use twitter or facebook? Learning Management systems like Moodle, and in the future Ultranet are tools you can use as a starting point. How will you make sure your students are safe, and yet ethical users of the technology? How will we work towards developing a cohort of digital citizens?
Feel free to add your comments to this blog post, I would love to know your thoughts.

This semester has been huge for me – new school, new position, new responsibilities, new classes – some of which I have not taught for ages. I think I am starting to find my feet, hopefully anyway. First lot of end of semester reports nearly under my belt…. yes I am procrastinating here, multi tasking while I think up some good comments. Anyway, time to start reflecting on what I have done and achieved so far, and start planning the way forward.

When I got the new position I was given a book to read by my sister-in-law – “The First 90 Days, Critical Success strategies for new leaders at all levels,” by Michael Watkins. (Harvard Business School Press). It had a range of strategies, although aimed at the business world, quite easy to put into any leadership role, to help new leaders find their feet and make a positive difference in their new positions. It gave strategies for promoting yourself to new colleagues, maximising your strengths, coming to grips with the new workplace and developing teams to implement your leadership goals. It was interesting as I stepped into my new position that my new boss was reflecting many of these same strategies and ideas, to promote me and my new role to the staff. A great situation to be in, feeling very supported by my upline.

Continuing on with the book reviews, the boss suggested the leadership team read (as a part of our leadership professional learning time with Perspectives Coaching)  “Leadership and Self Deception – Getting out of the box”  The Arbinger Institute. Great read for putting a lot of relational issues into perspective, and rerflecting on issues and relations in past work places, and how to change your own attitude, to be more positive with peers and those you want to lead. You know how there are always some people who you would do anything for, and others who have a different approach which doesn’t support a team wanting to get things happening. Very positive read, for both work and personal relationships.

Throughout this past 6 months I have been lucky enough to be supported by my principal and able to attend a number of very relevant and inspiring professional learning opportunities, many of which I have covered live in this blog, using the wonderful Coveritlive tools. It has been very handy having a mobile broadband dongle to keep me connected anywhere, regardless of local internet availability.

Over the term 1 break I had the opportunity to see a presentation by Stephen Downes, an inspiring speaker talking about connectivism and how this will reflect on how we teach our kids, and how we learn ourselves. It was my first Coveritlive session, and I was pleasantly suprised at how well it worked. Linking in with other Twitter users who used the same hastags made my coverage of the presentation far more powerful, as it wasn’t just me reporting, others were adding tweets, which were added directly to my session. My personal/professional learning network exploded as I met quite a few of my twitter colleagues for the first time that day, and added more.

Stephen made some great points, helped me to clarify that balance between online work and play.
One of the points he made, which I think many of us working with online and mobile technologies are guilty of, is along the lines of….
“of course log in and connect to work from home, but feel free to sleep at work”.
How many of us feel guilty about logging in to personal sites at work, or researching stuff for home? or checking work mail from home? where is the line drawn? Is there a line any more??? perhaps a little tongue in cheek, but I know in my online networks I often think to myself… wow this or that person must be connected and focussed on work the whole time. Now I also know it’s so easy these days to be surfing and playing online, when you come across a handy site, click a button and you have tweeted it to the PLN. I think as technology becomes more and more easily accessible we really need to make sure we have that healthy balance. I know my family keeps me on the straight and narrow in that regard

My kids showed me the wonderful power of connectivity when we recently got wireless broadband at home. After setting up the laptops, we had to set up all of the DSs, WII, PSP. They logged in to the wii wifi, connected with a cousin on the otherside of town, and spent an afternoon playing, laughing, sharing with their cousin via phone while all playing Mario Kart on the Wii. They also connect with friends on the DS, while surfing the net and chatting online. They don’t just “get” connectivism, they expect it.

I attended a “Master class” presented by Teaching Australia on Leading a Digital School (my coveritlive session). We were also given the book “Leading Schools in the Digital Age” by Michael Gaffney and Mal Lee, who along with Allan Shaw presented the session – slides here. It was good to see how schools have achieved success with integrating digital technologies, and become aware of some of the pitfalls, and develop strategies to avoid them. The book is becoming my well used resource for developing strategies to develop a really positive (hopefully) uptake of digital technologies across the college. Of course step one is to have a hardy infrastructure to support digital learning, and that is the challenge we are working through at the moment. The session was interesting, as the people attending were mostly in leadership positions, not eLearning positions, unlike the Stephen Downes presentation, and there was much less movement in the Twittersphere, with most people taking hand written notes.

On the 6th May I attended Greg Whitby’s “Enabling Learning in Today’s world“.  It was a slightly different slant, and once again I “covered it live”. Interesting presentation, embedding the reasons behind why we are wanting to move into a digital approach to teaching and learning. The hall was packed, interestingly enough not many laptops or mobile devices…. I started to reflect on whether I am still one of the early adopters with covering these sessions on my blog ( I like to write, it’s how I learn best, and take it in, but often lose or never refer back to my notes on paper. I can honestly say I have gone over my coveritlive sessions a few times now, and I always know where to find them ) There are still many out there who need to be shown how to jump on the digital bandwagon, I guess that is part of my role, both in my local community and the extended one.

There is still a bit to cover, so I will do this in a couple of parts… stay tuned

Welcome to this week’s eLearning news and update.

I thought I would spend a few minutes talking about the WHY of eLearning.
Yes, teaching and learning in the 21st Century needs to be different, as is the world we live in is different. It is connected, and collaborative.

Do we need to change the way we have always done things??? Surely the way I have taught for the past 5, 10 20 or more years is still good enough??? Not so any more.

Our purpose as educators is not only to impart knowledge into the minds of our charges, but to prepare them for the world outside the school gates. Whether they are heading into a career as a doctor, lawyer, trades person or a job that hasn’t yet been created, the way they will be working is different.

Learning in the 21st Century is different – You have all seen by now the Karl Fisch – Shift happens video, and there are a heap of other videos out there which showcase how much things have changed and will change. Are we doing our students justice by teaching them the same way?

The following points are from Andrew Churches post on “Eight Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers”. Looking at the characteristics of what effective teaching should look like.
Teachers are the embodiment of lifelong learners, we know it is not a thing that stops once you leave school – so taking up the learning of new technologies is just another step for us on our journey of lifelong learning.

1. Adapting
We don’t need to rewrite the curriculum to create effective eLearning opportunities, you just need to adapt what you already have. You also need to adapt when the technology fails you and show resilience, which the kids will also learn from.

2. Being visionary
Look at a range of technologies and approaches to eLearning, see what works for you and your classes. Look beyond powerpoint and internet searches

3. Collaborating
Blogs, Wikis, MSN, Ning, Second life, Twitter, RSS – we need to be able to use these tools to collaborate, not only with our students, but to put us in touch

4. Taking risks
Using the technology is all about risk taking. If you are not confident using the technology have a goal in mind, and work towards it, finding help where you can. Take the risk and use the students to guide you – they get such a positive experience from sharing their knowledge, you empower them to really deeply learn.

5. Learning
We expect our students to be life-long learners. Teachers, must continue to absorb experiences and knowledge, as well. as the learning environment is changing, so must our teaching style

6. Communicating
To have anywhere, anytime learning, the teacher must be anywhere and anytime. Although it may seem like a huge jump, we have to become users of the technology and communicate effectively with our peers, our leaders and our students.

7. Modelling behaviour
They show students the appropriate way to use technologies, effectively and ethically – a vital part of life in the 21stC as we have seen too often in the media – kids will get it wrong The use of reflective practice, whether reflecting on their learning and teaching, or sharing ideas with the global community

8. Leading
Whether they are a champion intergrating eLearning at all levels of their teaching, or taking small steps – t

Andrew Churches is Head of IT at Kristin School in Auckland. He has also revisited Bloom’s Taxonomy for a digital world.

Technology itself won’t make you a great teacher, but it can make great teachers even more effective in connecting with our students.