FutureLab and Maps etc

I couldn't get down to London today to the Futurelab Conference 'Why Don't You ...? Supporting innovative approaches in education but with the power of the technology (and the skill of Leon Cych) I was able to 'sit in' on a number of presentations. In fact, as I write, I am waiting for the final keynote to begin! - conference attendance with little carbon footprinting.

The session I was particularly keen to attend was the one by Andy Black from Becta:

BLOG OFF: these Web 2.0 tools will never make it into the learner experience
Much has been made of learners being so deeply embroiled in technology that they see it as commonplace, neutral and invisible. We call it ‘Web 2.0’, they use it without thinking. Teachers are failing to keep pace with awareness of this technology, never mind incorporating it into their practice. This workshop involves a rapid tour of some Web 2.0 tools that are already used by learners, and examines issues such as the barriers to teaching staff deploying these tools to support learning. The session also gives participants a chance to create artefacts.

In his presentation Andy went through many Web 2.0 tools many of which were familiar but one I was not aware of was 'Flash Earth' ( another thing missed!). This is a sort of web based version of Google Earth but you don't need anything downloaded to your machine to use it. As well as this it is possible, on the fly, to change the version of the map you are viewing from, let's say' Google Maps to Microsoft VE.

I feel sure that the whole of Andy's presentation ( and all of the others) will pop up soon on the FutureLab site.

A close look at the aerial photos on both of the later for my particular area suggests that both of these were imaged about 7 years ago whereas the aerials I am getting from Google Earth appear to be about 2 years old - so, swings and roundabouts.

Sebran

Letter rain and more

One of the key issues that never fails to 'get teachers going' is the matter of typing and/or keyboarding and the importance that we should place on it. After all, there is certainly a lot of time spent on handwriting techniques!

Teachers have their own ways of dealing with this and for many years I have pointed out to people an application called Sebran - a freeware download from the internet. It is a very small file ( 700 kb), that might just help out. Earlier versions of the software were only in capital letters but now I note that, in the set up options, there is a 'lower case' and a 'mixed case' choice.

More than just a way of improving keyboarding, there are also lots of well-loved games to play that are simply put together and make excellent whiteboard activities.

Better still is the fact that the software currently is translated into twenty three different languages. The program teaches using either Afrikaans, Bahasa Indonesian, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Samoan, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish, Swahili or Swedish (in Swedish, the droll zebra gracing the main screen is called "sebran").

There is also an offer from the author:
Translators wanted! Has Sebran's ABC not yet been translated into your native language? Would you like to help me with a new translation? All you need to do is to fill out an Excel spreadsheet with all the words and phrases. No programming skills required.

'I'm comin out'

I've got to confess ... I'm a 'feeds' junky. Just can't help it ...every time I click on that little yellow star and my 'feeds' open I get this adrenalin rush of excitement that just knocks me out. Each and every time there is a note, a link, an idea that transports me to worlds I dream about. Sometimes I get reinforcement of ideas postulated, sometimes it is something that moves my thinking on, sometimes it is an information source which takes me to an information source which ... you get the idea.

Today ... as any other day... I worked my way through the feeds ... in descending order ... Alan November, Allanah Appleby, Booruch, Clusterblog, DfES (sad isn't it), DJD on Ning, etc onwards and downwards until I cane to edu.blogs.com and there I paused as my eye was caught by this, it was the creative writing reference that caught me:

KimP’s Blog » Samorost
Kim thinks about what she'll do with the game for creative writing.
KimP’s Blog » Samorost - Day 1
Kim shows how her initial walkthrough went.
KimP’s Blog » Writing with Samorost
Some great examples of creative writing having used Samorost as the stimulus
KimP’s Blog » Thinking about Samorost
Using Edward De Bono's six thinking hats to understand how we could exploit games in writing and speaking
KimP’s Blog » Wondering Why????
Why are there so many gains from creative writing when games are used as the stimulus?

And I wondered why Ewan would have all these links there and what was 'Samorost' anyway? So I typed 'Samorost'into Google and was lost to the world for the next hour or so as I explored.I can't tell you how taken I am with this and I am so excited that a new discovery like this can excite me... just proves that it is possible to teach and old dog etc etc .



I then went back to the posts on KimP's blog to see what had taken Ewan and read about what had taken Kim. The interest she had created with her young students in her school, Belmore South Primary, in Sydney, was exemplary. It just needs reading and running with. Just can't help wondering what else I have missed as this work was done last June.

I am going to delve into Samorost 2 now, not that I have finished with V1 yet. It is just that, like a child approaching the swimming pool, I want to get in there before everyone else uses up all of the water.

The rest of my feeds can wait ... or can they ?... who knows what new excitements lurk in the depths of 'ICT Inspirations' or 'The International Schools Island'...

World News Service for Children

Back in the early 50s when I was in primary school I remember that one of the highlights of the week was to listen in class to the radio. I think we listened to lots of different things from stories to assemblies. Later when I began teaching in the mid 60s my classes missed their playtime each Friday because the BBC broadcast the Look and Read TV series at 10.25 (I think it was) and we had no way of recording at the time. Now much is digitised and available online for anywhere/anytime consumption either as sound or video.

Today's early morning news brought back these memories as I listened to a piece about the BBC's World News for Children, a five minute digest, broadcast weekdays at 07.15 and 12.00 GMT (or, of course, available online).
Monday's bulletin consisted of: In today's international news bulletin for children: Children put to work in Indian factories, Tornado in Australia 'American football fever: New York giants beat Miami dolphins. And our question today: what's the capital city of Mexico? So I went online to listen to the whole thing. The reports I listened to were wide ranging and concerned Africa, India, USA, Australia, UK and Mexico.The BBC news item showed children from Africa listening to the bulletin and in the ensuing interview they gave credence to the information they received. It appeared that one group travelled in a minibus to a centre just to listen.

I was transported back to my early 50s classroom as I just listened ... and I thought of the all the technology that as been put in place since then ... but for five minutes this morning it was the power of the spoken word that held me and I wanted children to be held by it too.

Nostalgically I recall the Queen hit 'Radio Ga Ga'

Child safety on the Internet

I note that the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has relaunched its 'Think U Know' site to inform young people about safety and good practice in using the Internet.

The site comments:
' Come in to find the latest information on the sites you like to visit, mobiles and new technology. Find out what’s good, what’s not and what you can do about it. If you look after young people there’s an area for you too – with resources you can use in the classroom, at home or just to get with it. Most importantly, there’s also a place which anyone can use to report if they feel uncomfortable or worried about someone they are chatting to online.'

This looks really good as a reminder to some and new information to others. I suspect people reading the age-leveled information will nod and believe that they know it all. Its just nice to be sure though ... I think.

It is well worth visiting this site and then reviewing the information you get with reference to the 28 Oct post on Ewan's blog. and the post on Ollie Bray's blog.

Extinction ... but not as we know it ...

It is not just creatures and plants that are in danger of extinction in our ever developing world. Languages are at risk too. About every two weeks another language dies taking millennia of human knowledge and history with it.
The Enduring Voices project aims to bring awareness of this issue to people all over the world and makes excellent use of the power of ICT to transmit information in an engaging and meaningful way.
It is facinating to click into the site and follow links through 'resources' to individual languages and to listen to folk tales told in the ancient tongues.
This would make a terrific exploration for young people without them having to place their carbon footprint on the planet.

ictopus and Web2.0

A short while ago I was in a school doing some work with a group of children and we had fun ... it came to the end of the session and I suggested that the children just added their name to their own work, or if it was in a group, all of the names. As you do, I just glanced at the finished pieces and noticed one name began without a capital letter.
'Please check that everything is okay,' I said.
I looked again ... still no capital letter.
'Is that okay?' I said.
'It's fine,' came the reply.
I gave up being 'Mr Nice Guy'.
'The capital letter to start your name?' I asked in question.
' My name doesn't begin with a capital letter,' came the quick response.
'That's right,'said the teacher,'it doesn't!I've seen the birth certificate.'

So, sorry I just can't put the capital letter even at the start of the next sentence as for me ictopus is a proper name and I have decided that the 'sentences begin with capital letters' rule does not take precedence.(I am now looking forward to people fighting me over this)

ictopus has come of age in a big way. There are now 3529 subscribers from 30 different countries... truly international and the, largely English based, editorial team is striving hard to develop the 'internationality' of the items in the news or in the resources.

The latest edition of 'Sharing Good Practice' has a useful down-to-earth article about blogs and wikis in the classroom.Well worth a read.

ToonDoo

I have just discovered ToonDoo by taking part in the K12online Conference and listening to Wendy Wolfe from Saint Paul, MN, USA
“If All My Classes Did This”

djd8

Click on the 'GO' button to see what my day was like ...

Presentation tools

At the Naace All Members Conference (AMAC) recently I used a blog as my presentation tool, working back chronologically through my posts in the way that a flip chart would be used on an interactive whiteboard or the way slides could be used on PowerPoint. I use blogs for this purpose because I find it easy to embed videos and links into the posts and I can pass the information to people simply by giving them the URL which they can access anywhere they find a decent connection.

I felt that one of the advantages of using the blog was that people who wished to could post comments quickly and easily and this could be incorporated into the presentation. It hasn't proved to be as successful as I had wished in this regard at the moment. The ethos of 'commenting' or 'continuing discussion' or 'offering more/further ideas' does not yet seem to be part of our conference culture and so the presentation ends with ... well, the presentation. This is a pity as presentations at such conferences ought to be challenging enough to provoke further insights.

As a progression from this I have been excited by the way presenters at the K12Online Conference have used wikis as their preferred tool. A good example of this is found in Anne Davis's presentation “Learn to Blog: Blog to Learn”

I haven't tried this yet but certainly will, though I am, as yet, unsure how this will further my aim of gleaning comments and questions. Simply editing the wiki surely is not the answer and Anne's engaging presentation appears to use the wiki as a carrier of links to other wiki pages or even blogs ( WebQuest being one of these). Perhaps I am missing something really obvious here. Or does it matter at all ? The main thing is -does the compilation (is it a 'mash up') carry the message ? ... and for me it certainly does.

This takes me on to an interesting article that will fire off another set of ideas as we move into Web 2.1 and beyond. Dr Jason Ohler from Alaska has an interesting take on this (Naace Sharing Success).

Rushcliffe Science

Teachers from a whole development group of schools from the Rushcliffe area of South Nottingham gathered on Friday 19 October ( one day before the half term break)at the Jubilee Campus of the University of Nottingham for a Science Learning Centre day organised by the team at Leicester University SLC.

They were fed ( non-literally) on a high diet of exciting science activities from a wonderful Keynote concerning communication in science given by Rosemary Feasey through 'How to make fizzy chocolate' with George Foster to the exciting work of engaging early years pupils in ICT explorations with Tricia Neal ... these and many more.

My own contribution to the day was a workshop called Creative Interactive Whiteboards

The blurb said:' This session will look at how to get the very best use out of an Interactive Whiteboard to support the teaching and learning of science throughout the primary phase in a creative and exciting way focusing on many activities involved in data handling. There will also be an opportunity to try out some of the ideas.' and I did my best to deliver. You can read some of the comment here. This was the first time any of the teacher participants in the workshop had been asked to make their comments about the session in a blog. The blog is quick and simple to set up and continued the electronic 'theme' of the workshop. I have used the idea a number of times now but find it difficult to get people to reflect on the session and to suggest pathways forward from it for themselves and their colleagues.

One of the key points of my session was to discuss the difference between the use software tools on an Interactive Whiteboard and using prebuilt content. We began by looking at the subject of the 'Earth in Space' and looked at content from Learning Connections to support the understanding of day and night and the the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. The discussion here extended into using models to explain scientific ideas.

This was followed by me building an 'Earth/Moon' model using Textease Studio CT. The model produced was 'not quite right' see here (if you have a copy of the software loaded ... if not you can download a 30 day copy from here)In discussion the facts about: the earth not spinning, the distances being wrong, the orbit being too elliptical and the moon going the wrong way came out. This was seen as having potential as a validatory exercise in terms of confirming/questioning understanding.

The group were then given the task of developing a model which was more accurate. An example can be found here.

The teachers were interested in the ability to record sounds onto objects created on screen (this is possible both on Smart and using Textease) and the potential this afforded for the verbal recording of experiments and how this tied in with the first three strands of the New Framework for Literacy, those concerned with speaking and listening.

Also of interest, within a science context, was how digital images and videos can be quickly and easily transferred to screen for instant feedback. Course participants were shown the use of USB card readers for quick transfer.

In preparation for the course explained how I had created a blog which has links in it to some really excellent sites for use in primary science and showed how to access and use it. This was to create the idea that electronic preparation in this way could be a good idea with curriculum leaders sifting materials to assist their colleagues to match resources to curriculum delivery. If the course had been longer the building of such blogs would have been the next stage.

The course participants accessed the 'linkscience' blog and explored the sites. I also gave the URLs of the other blogs created for similar purpose ... 'Earth in Space', 'Term One' and 'Physical Processes'. Access to these promoted a discussion on using the idea to create 'home-school' links and extending learning beyond the classroom.

On-Line Conferences

I am becoming a fan of on-line conferences ... firstly they don't demand that I travel long distances putting my carbon footprint all over our unique planet; secondly they don't cost me travel time (although travel time is often thinking time so there is a trade off to be had there) nor do they cost me real money; thirdly I can decide the time to listen and follow up that suits my learning patterns ( and those who know me will know how bizarre they are) and lastly (for now) I can be International ... my learning is not tethered because of geography.

There is, of course, so I am told a downside to all of this. No F2F networking, no bar until the early hours, no making new 'real' rather than virtual acquaintances but, as I said, it is growing on me.

All this is leading towards the fact that I spent time early this morning ( I really am a very early in the morning person!) following the K12 Online Conference 2007 subtitled 'Playing with Boundaries'.

The Conference schedule is awesome with many top thinkers in the field of education and the potential of ICT tools to support and enhance it. Better still it is not a conference where I will get all of the superb input in one day so that my mind goes numb and I can't cope with the innovation of it all ... the conference goes on daily until Friday 26th October.

I won't attempt to 'Readers Digest' the presentations ... they stand on their own feet and, anyway, the summaries are there ... on the site.

David Wallick's 'Inventing New Boundaries' ... 'The borders have gone ... they have been made transparent' sets a pattern of thought that challenges and inspires.

One of the main things that impresses me is that the technology is in place to secure interest in the conference in a variety of ways ... you can Twitter, go to the wiki, listen to the presentations in many ways and/or watch the videos. Everything is there to take account of taste and time.

Isle of Wight MFL Conference

Over 70 MFL teachers gathered on Friday and Saturday 12/13th October at Nodehill Middle School in the Isle of Wight for a Conference to reach out and accelerate the use of ICT across all aspects of the teaching and learning of languages. It was a truly multi-national affair with delegates from as far afield as Scotland, Wales and Portugal !

The sessions kicked off on Friday evening with a structured 'un-conference' show-and tell session in the Castle Inn in the centre of Newport. The evening began with David Noble from Fife setting the scene on the things he is currently thinking about. Have a look at his Future Lab interview on the subject. At 9.30 we tried a Flash Meeting with people from around the world ... New Zealand to USA ... the concept was great and it showed the potential of the medium but was let down by the speed of the connection.John Warwick was the man for Flashmeeting and he did a well visited presentation on Saturday. There were many interesting projects brought to the fore during a long evening the main thing coming through time and time again was the enthusiasm and commitment on the part of the presenters and the audience to quality education for young people. I finished off with a look at how Textease Studio CT could be used to read the page and record sound in different languages.

The Conference proper on Saturday had a host of presentation with many delegates really wanting to get to grips with blogs and podcasts and Joe 'keynoted' with a how to get started with podcasting. I know that there will be videos etc from him about all of the other presentations on his blog ( as soon as he and his wife have recovered from their organising efforts).

My session on the Friday evening provoked a good deal of interest in Textease Studio CT and the presentation stand had a great turn over of vistors wanting to know more. The Podium session attracted 15 or so who were looking to compare and contrast methods of podcasting before they dived into it. In using Podium I responded, in answer to a question, that ... 'Yes, it was a 'paid for' application' but felt that there was nothing that came entirely free and that people must judge for themselves about speed, simplicity, security and 'fit for purpose'. I also commented that it was up to those working across the educational arena to ensure that all colleagues and students had access to technology which fitted their learning and teaching contexts''

Keep your eye open for next year's Conference.

Teacher TV ... Mobile Phones - Mobile Minds

Technology has a way of nudging forward whether you want it to or not. Teachers TV (thanks for the link Tricia) takes 'a look at the world of young people with mobile phones, and the impact on schools and education.Owning a mobile is becoming an indispensable element of young people's lives, for both teenagers and increasingly primary age children, all around the world. Are mobile phones a force for good, or an example of technology gone awry? Is it sensible to ban their use in schools or should this device be given a place in lessons and learning?'
Watch the video here.

Just what can you uncover in one week?

Just one week ago today I was at the Naace All Members' Autumn Conference and there, in discussion with colleagues, picked up on the vast amount of things that people are consumed with.

This week my inbox has been dominated ... and I do mean dominated ... by the inappropriate use of an email forum by a group of urgent people discussing the nature of e-portfolios. I do wish that they had got themselves sorted out early enough to talk in a private forum about the topic or at least managed to digest it. As a subscriber to two of the groups I kept getting a double dose of the information ... interesting though it was I do feel that they could have carried on privately. But ... if they had done this would I have missed out on some important details ? A real cleft stick !

I spent two days this week in Cornwall working with some delightful young people podcasting using the Podium Software in French and Spanish. The software proved no barrier to these intelligent youngsters but the impressive thing was the way that the various groups cooperated together and produced the podcasts without 'batting any eyelids'. The school, Helston Community College should be heartily proud of their young people. Their podcast can be found by pasting http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/~182812/
ManyGroups051007130013/rss.xml into your favourite listening tool. This was a first shot for these teenagers and the software wasn't the barrier ... in fact there were no barriers ... they now need to repeat and progress.

Arriving home and checking my feeds I discovered , yet again, that Ewan and Kent were ahead of me.

The Kent ClusterBlog is always a source of new and exciting information and this time has come up with a very interesting web 2.0 app called Jing Project well worth having a look at for image capture and computer screen capture.

I have not had chance to try another suggestion found there but feel that Poly might well excite some mathematicians.

I did notice that my globe trotting friend Ewan was on the other side of the world enjoying himself in New Zealand at the ULearn07 Conference
where I feel sure, judging by his blog, he opened eyes and ears and had his opened too. I noticed that he chose to highlight the excellent work done by Stephen Heppell in terms of emphasising the correlation between creativity and ingenuity. On the 'Be Very Afraid' blog there is reference to a superb piece of 'creative ingenuity' that far outstrips anything a closed school curriculum could possibly imagine. Just watch the Ravensbourne College initiative... and this is now two years old ... where will the thinking be at this end of 2007? It is well worth listening and looking at this year's ideas.

After Shanghai, New Zealand was certainly a place to be!

Podium Podcasting in Derby

What a superb morning! A group of Y3 children from a primary school in Derby attended a podcasting session at the local ICT Training Centre. And they were up for it !

ICT techniques to the fore ... they knew what it was about so they podcasted in FRENCH.

Scripting, recording, editing, importing MP3s, publishing and carefully listening to each other all seemed were taken in great leaps rather than strides.

You can hear their podcast by pasting this link into your favourite aggregator...

http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/~182215/the011007105705/rss.xml

You can read more about the session on the Podium Blog