"We need to teach using the tools our students use"
ICT for learning
Thought for the day
Jun 20th
Technology won’t replace teachers, but teachers who use technology in the classroom will replace those who don’t” – Higham (2007)
Fear is NOT an option….
Mar 7th
Ah Ewan, you’ve got to the point again….
Go read this post and watch the TED video of James (Titantic/Avatar) Cameron on learning and teaching – failure is an option fear is not. The new mantra for teachers trying to use IT and bring their kids into the 21st Century DESPITE the Luddites/Empire Builders who are full of fear…..
The main quote:
What I see with increasing regularity is that education leaders are gripped by the notion that failure is not an option (à la Nasa) and that fear will prevent that happening. Meanwhile, on the ground we see teachers prepared to take measured risk, putting their previous fears to one side, and accept, as they ask their students to do in learning, that there will be some degree of failure before we get to where we want to be.
I’m quite clear on who I think needs to change their game.
Quite! 
TESS Article on Local Authority website blocking/filtering
Mar 5th
The abridged for online version of the TESS article here Print version is ‘twice as long and not attacking GLOW as some thought’ (Douglas Blane the journalist).
Additional points I’m adding here are in green.
Main points:
“Given the importance of this issue, isn’t it time we had national guidelines?” asks Neil Winton, head of English at Perth Academy.
“I put the question to Fiona Hyslop (then education minister) at last year’s Scottish Learning Festival. She fobbed it off as an operational matter – the responsibility of local authorities. But it’s not. There should be a national policy … We have a mish-mash around the country. You can even get primary schools with access to YouTube, when the secondary school doesn’t.”
My points:
“Education authorities vary from highly restrictive to fairly flexible. “Our authority has one of the strictest web-filtering policies in Scotland,” says David Terron, who teaches English at Elgin Academy.
“They’ve even blocked their own Curriculum for Excellence resources site. Many teachers try to use ICT, as recommended by HMIE, but are continually frustrated and have to go through a long process to get sites unblocked. Even then they are often refused.”” (and they often give weak or downright ridiculous excuses that have no basis – ‘Twitter is banned because 1,000s of companies banned it and it spreads viruses’) Perhaps they should look at the bottom of the Scottish Government and Learning Teaching Scotland sites and see the wee blue bird in use by government agencies! The GTC(S) uses twitter as do many schools and educational authorities throughout the world.
and…
“The IT tail wagging the educational dog makes the student-centred Curriculum for Excellence harder, say the teachers. How can pupils become confident individuals and successful learners if their hands have to be held whenever they go near a computer? Where is the scope for spontaneity and creativity if the teacher has to say: “Go wherever your investigations take you – but only on these three websites that we’ve checked.”?
It’s not just pupil education that is being damaged, says David Terron. Continuing professional development is also adversely affected: “We can’t access sites such as the one written by Don Ledingham, director of education in East Lothian, who often posts provocative, interesting articles. In other authorities these have formed the basis of entire in service days.” We have no budget so ALL of our CPD is now online or via Personal Learning Networks and Teacher Learning Communities. No access equals no CPD – I refer you to my earlier post about 5 yearly inspections for teachers. They cannot be justified if you won’t let teachers have access to CPD. I expect legal challenges to be based on this simple fact.
Finally
“There is no sign of the culture clash between council IT departments and education being resolved in the latter’s favour any time soon, says Neil Winton. “It comes down to a lack of trust in the professional judgment of teachers.
“IT departments are not making decisions for pedagogical reasons; they are making them on the basis of what can’t get them into trouble. But teaching only what can’t get anyone into trouble is no basis for a 21st-century education system.”
I believe the aim of this article is to continue and push forward the debate. Let’s see if it does ! Our ‘leaders’ (government and local authorities etc) cannot keep banging on about ICT and kids getting taught how to use the web etc safely if (a) they don’t get any lnternet safety lessons in the first place and (b) they then access unsuitable sites at home because they want to know why it has been banned at school.
How are we meant to catch up with India and other Asian countries ? In China they allegedly tell their students to learn two things – English and Computing. They know the future lies with the countries that have these skills. So why do our local and national government claim that they’re pushing the IT skills agenda and then promptly either not provide enough funding for even minimal training or block access to sites the kids and their teachers can use to learn?
Out of the mouths of babes…Games Based Learning
Feb 27th
S2 discussion on motivational styles and learning on Friday during their personal reading/library period. ”We liked the Samorost Unit as we did lots of creative things and learned things but didn’t realise we were learning (because it was fun as well)”
Job done!
Background to this:
Games Based Learning works IF you plan it carefully AND ensure there are several Learning Objectives not just ‘Students will write a story’ We did descriptive writing, informative (a user’s guide to playing the game), creative (write a new version of the back story to the game), poster design for adverts or the game itself and finally had discussions about how to solve the puzzles/play the game and what they thought they had learned using critical/creative thinking. A very bright S2 class who exceeded all my expectations.
Samorost 1 is available here and the second in the series is here
Other games being used include Inanimate Alice and Machinarium
See The Literacy Adviser also known as Bill Boyd’s blog here for ideas on using these games/graphical adventures for literacy work. A detailed post on Samorost is here
Another world renowned expert and one on whom I based a lot of my stuff is Kim Pericles in Australia who has used De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats whilst playing Samorost 1 to really bring out the best in her kids. Further details here and all her blog posts about Samorost are here
Next step with S2 is to design and run our own game with learning objectives and success criteria inserted within the game. We’ll let you know how we get on.
GLOW Meet
Feb 18th
Did a GLOW Meet tonight on the subject of wikis, blogs and a quick look at ePortfolios. Started at 4pm after a day spent testing, testing on the mike…. people logged on from as far afield as the Islands, Glasgow and Edinburgh or even from the room next door (the Boss) 8-)I was also grateful for the support of two colleagues (Jane and Fiona) who lurked in the room watching me on the big screen.
The whole thing lasted around 30 mins with a couple of questions afterwards – all the various links and documents I referred to are in the library on the English teachers’ GLOW site. (Link to follow) I’ll add them here as well once I finish eating my birthday cake!The recording will be stuck up in the GLOW Group by Tina Stephens in due course.
Reflection: I thought I spoke too much and was a bit too fast paced on occasion. I had a script but was also trying to ensure people were kept interested so panicked a bit halfway through and started waffling. *Note to self: chill….*
The last time I did something similar was during a video conference in 1991 when it cost 1/2 million squid, took 23 Royal Signals guys to keep the satellite and video link going and all for a ten minute brief to/from troops in the UK/Middle East. How times change and how easy was this GLOW Meet to actually do. I was expecting a hive of chatter but obviously the bandwidth would have caused dropped audio etc. Other than that, I really enjoyed it and would encourage anyone to do one – not only do you do some effective CPD you gain insights into how to do similar things with your students. I have this idea for a GLOW Meet with Barry O in Washington discussing Hughes’s ‘I Too sing America’ ! I am also going to encourage the maddest Chemist in the world (who looks nothing like the mad chemist in The Muppet Show) to do a GLOW Meet showing how he mixes hard rock/heavy metal with the Periodic Table.
A good learning experience then which gave me much confidence for the future. Thanks to Tina Stephens for asking me on, Ross Watson and Allan Reid f(our GLOW Support Teachers) for helping me set up and test and to my S2 girls who drew a HUGE sign for the door saying ‘Quiet Please GLOWMeet in progress’. Thank you ladies.
How to get things done
Feb 14th
Without them
One of the most common things I hear is, “I’d like to do something remarkable like that, but my xyz won’t let me.” Where xyz = my boss, my publisher, my partner, my licensor, my franchisor, [Insert name of local authority Education Department who are stopping you teaching whilst they overspend their budget and steal your underspend here] etc. Well, you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later. In my experience, once it’s clear you’re willing (not just willing, but itching, moving, and yes, implementing) without them, things start to happen. People are rarely willing to step up and stop you, and often just waiting to follow someone crazy enough to actually do something. I’m going. Come along if you like.
More on filtering and social media
Nov 21st
Ollie Bray DHT at Musselburgh grammar, currently seconded to LTS as elearning guru has an article in the TESS. Ollie recently came second in the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Awards in Brazil. He is a UK winner as well.
Article here
He (as are many of us) is concerned about local authorities/network companies blocking sites.
He also has another article on social media in the same edition of TESS here
Do go read them !
Blogging and CPD
Nov 18th
Managed to sort 16 new blogs for my S5/6 Int 2 class today. I am asking for wordpress to be added to the whitelist. After all blogs based on wordpress multi-user (WPMU) as used by colleges and students worldwide will feature in GLOW shortly with a bit of luck. We really need a NATIONAL policy on web filtering.
This is something that is being discussed more widely of late; and not just on twitter or at teachmeets for example. It IS important and needs to be resolved NOW rather than two years down the line when GLOW is fully up and running nationwide. I, my students and their parents don’t want to see some sort of digital divide caused by differing ideas on access to the Internet or opportunities for reflection/ePortfolios etc from different areas. Let’s go with the East, West Lothians models – hundreds of blogging teachers as well as the Director and students by the school full! Look at Aberdeenshire who are allowing personal laptops to be added to their networks by students which ensures that far more kids can get fast and secure access during school hours. Clackmannanshire apparently don’t operate website blacklists they allow SCHOOLS to decide what they need and what they want banned.
HMIe released a document today about CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and they also say that IT can play a major role in both teacher development and student attainment. The document is here called Learning together: Improving teaching improving learning. Available in pdf for download (37 pages) or online.
An interesting read and with some good examples of good practice. They also give a mention to teachmeets as excellent examples of CPD!
Google Wave..so near and yet…..
Oct 17th
I’ve spent since last week and most of the weekend using Wave, trying different aspects and adding extensions/gadgets and generally trying to see where and how I might use it within a learning context, especially with students. I started a Macbeth Wave which had notes and maps and gadgets etc all linked to Act 1 Scene1. I was most impressed BUT it still doesn’t quite get it…
Problems:
Seeing people editing in real time as you try to add stuff or links is off putting and also distracts from the business at hand – getting the links on for example. There really needs to be an edit mode whereby one can write things such as this blog post offline or even online but hidden UNTIL you press ‘Done’.
Twice this weekend I lost all my Waves. My page came up, folders and contacts all there but not a Wave to be seen. Refreshing didn’t work, log in out was also no good. If the servers struggle with only the initial 100,000 plus their invitees (say around 1 million in total) then how do they expect to gain adherents when out of Beta and available to all. What’s twitter nowadays? 13 million tweets a day? And twitter struggles every other day to keep up. Think how much Wave must struggle with real time editing and all the other available ‘goodies’.
Security is a major problem. Anyone can basically join your wave or add you to Waves. I await the first case of some student adding his teacher to the ’14 year old girls are nice’ Wave or jumping into a Wave on Shakespeare and writing “Macbeth was a Scottish pouf” or suchlike. Such lack of control or access is going to cause all sorts of ructions and make teachers think twice. At least with a wiki you can either control access AND see who has edited what. Waves show what is happening with ‘Replay’ but the person editing may not actually be who you think they are. Profiles are surveyed by people on most sites such as Twitter and Facebook et al to at least enable them to have some idea of who is behind the avatar. Wave doesn’t let you do that which to my mind makes it not only unsafe for our students but teachers also.
The problem with all these people diving into a Wave then causes another problem; it is jolly albeit cheerfully chaotic. Anarchy on the web…hang on….
Add to that the VERY steep learning curve and you get people struggling for a long time to understand and then apply what they think Wave could be used for only to find that it won’t actually do that any more efficiently than say a blog or a wiki. The sheer number of Waves you get signed up for by well meaning friends is going to add to the sense of confused overload I experienced this weekend.
Whilst writing this list out I was pointed (Cheers John) to an article called 10 Complaints about Google Wave and I was amused/amazed to see how similar some of my points and those made by Rob Hill for example on myt test wave were. The link adds more about there being a need to have permissions at all levels to secure things AND that whilst we are all busy learning to use Wave and working out what it is for, then our productivity will suffer.It also makes a major point about Waves being in XML not HTML which makes it difficult to add gadgets etc.
We need to perhaps take a step back, wait for the problems to be resolved AND also have more people on board. I will go ahead and produce a Wave Guide for staff and students (nearly done) but methinks I’ll take that step back and wait until the problems have been resolved.
On the other hand there are potential uses within education and these should be grabbed ONCE Wave is out of Beta and available to all. One example list (shown below) I found had some other school implementations that could be possible but also I also think could be achieved with better sites or offline software
- Curriculum planning
- Departmental communications (Email IM)
- Intercampus (what?)
- Plan parent conferences with multiple teachers and multiple schedules (security problems will mean parental secrets won’t be so secret)
- Share links to web resources (delic.io.us etc do this much better)
- Campus improvement planning
- Schoolwide calendar/scheduling (Outlook, Google calendars already good enough etc)
- Faculty meeting follow-up
- Teacher appraisal sign-ups
- To-do lists
- Keep information current between work, cell, and home
- School newspaper/newsletter article development
- Local newspaper publicity article development (Only works if local press use Wave)
- Twitter-like communication between faculty without the Twitter-like time drain
- Share lesson plans with substitutes/administrators/department chairs/other teachers
Besides the school-related uses, I can imagine some others:
- Collaborative book study (I’ve started a Bible study with friends this way – copy a chapter or so, add friends to the wave, add some comments/links/videos)
- Group blogging (WordPress Multi Users MUCH better)
- List of music educators (this could also include math teachers, administrators, whatever)
- Storing favourite web resources in one central searchable location (the archive is an amazing feature of Gmail)
And how could it be used in my classroom?
Here are some of the uses I can see
- Replace wikis
I know a lot of teachers out there use wikis, and they are useful. I like the functionality that they pose, but I also know there are some challenges they have. One nice feature of Google Wave is that it allows a combination of public as well as private communication within a wave. - Playback
Ever been absent during an extended group project? Wonder what you missed? The playback function of Google Wave is amazing in that it allows you to see step-by-step what has happened in the development of the wave. This can also come in handy for the teacher to see how well groups are working together and how much participation is going on. - Group work
One of the huge advantages to Google Wave is that each person in the wave can edit things at the same time. We’ve all been in groups where one person writes, another person thinks, and the other people sleep. I also remember some group work on computers where so much time was wasted trying to find the right font. What if Font girl is responsible for making it look pretty, smart guy is responsible for doing research, and keyboarding goober is responsible for typing it all in? Everyone could be assigned a specific role and work on the same project together. - Teacher involvement
The way I see it, each group would be set up by the teacher and each wave would include the teacher as well as the students in the group. One reason I didn’t like group work when I was in school was because I either did way more or way less work than the other people in the group. If an individual student has a complaint for the teacher, he can simply private message the teacher, explain the problem, and then the teacher can view the playback and see that the other students may not be working as hard. Tattling has never been this simple! - Publishing (Embedding)
After a project is completed, it can be embedded into a website or Facebook group page or something. Yes, there are even plugins to embed waves into blog posts (at least for WordPress and Blogger).
So needless to say, I am excited about this new project and looking forward to seeing how I can use it both personally as well as in my teaching. It won’t be an overnight transformation, and I don’t see email being abolished completely, but I do see it as a pivotal point in the development of online communications.
So you want to teach: 5 ways Wave will revolutionize the classroom
There are many more things such as these that I’m sure people are thinking about but I’m now unconvinced that they can’t be achieved with what we already have in terms of sites or software. Every day in twitter for example the likes of Russell Tarlton and Tom Barrett give some links to sites or software that do a specific job to the best of its ability. This I believe, is where Wave is falling down from the outset; it is trying to be all things to all men/women (ahem!) I’m still a bit confused as to whether it is Instant Messaging with added meatballs, email with additional caffeine or a wiki killer. At the moment the only way Wave will kill off wikis is to slap it to death with a wet haddock whilst calling it names. Such as Cyril….
If you want a Wave 101 (a very good introduction) go here to the Lifehacker site.
In conclusion (for now!) I WILL keep any eye on Wave, keep trying to use it for different things but until they resolve the various things above (and there are more problems coming out daily) then I won’t get excited about educational possibilities. I fell for the hype and I am ashamed…..I hang my head in abject apology and pound my manly chest whilst crying ‘mea culpa! mea culpa! I’m away to edit my new wiki on poetry for Int 2
Thoughts anyone?
