Textease in South Gloucestershire

My friend James Watson, Softease Sales Consultant for the South West, came along to a session I did on Multimodality for a group of teachers in South Gloucestershire. He spent his time videoing me doing 'my thing'.



The notes for the session can be found here

The Byron Review

The Byron Review is an independent report into the risks posed by inappropriate web and game-based content for children and young people. It supported by the UK's Department for Children, Schools and Families. It is being headed up by Dr Tanya Byron and will finally report in March 2008. The responses on her Bebo site make interesting reading.

The review, commissioned by The Prime Minister will look into the risks to children from exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the Internet and in video games. I do hope that the trawl for information for the review will be a wide so that we get to know, on a world scale, what is happening rather than, as is usual, on a very anglo-centric one.

For me one of the main issues developing from early reports concerning the Review is the perception of 'danger'. It would be wonderful if , just for once, the immense power of the advances in technology and the ability for people all over the world to interact with each other on a social, political and even interest level could be seen as positive not negative.

The media/press do their best to hype up any issues associated with social networking that they can find. Yesterday the BBC managed, in their early morning news, to link the loss of the data discs by the HMRC offices to Facebook in one swift sentence. Tension makes good news, obviously! The public at large are being ill informed and ill served by being led down a path of doom and gloom with regard to what our young people see as a gigantic leap forward in their ability to free themselves from their geography and expand into a much wider world.

The safety of our young people has to be a prime concern but that is, as it always has been for me, one for education. In your kitchen, are there any knives? Or have you removed them or put bolts on the kitchen door so that children cannot get in to see/find/use them? We know that useful things may be potentially harmful but, in terms of a sort of 'cost/benefit' analysis we make an educated decision about them and move on.

There are key issues here with regard to curriculum in our schools and the necessary importance of personal safety education. (Isn't that one of the aspects of PSHE sessions?)

Dr Tanya Byron appears to me to be a sensible person who will report sensibly without hype. I just hope that the media manage to report her report in the same way.

Clusty ... a cluster search engine

Thanks to Ian Lynch for this one...

Clusty is a whole new way to search the web.

Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This "metasearch" approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.

But what really makes Clusty unique is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, our search engine groups similar results together into clusters. Clusters help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clusters help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.

I tried it out on 'Ancient Egypt' and this is what I got:



The 'clusters' down the left of the page certainly focussed things quickly.

Well worth a try, I think, particularly if your school or your LA are worried about or blocking Google.

Podcasting ... easy peasy

Take twenty four, mixed ability, Y6 children with a developing ICT capability, a forward looking teacher willing to 'give it a go', a school prepared to let children try things out, a set of wireless laptops that work with decent microphones connected, a good broadband connection with an ISP that does not block FTP, curriculum idea and Podium and podcasting becomes 'easy peasy' (this is a quote!)

Weather poems was the literacy context with the built in agenda of developing ideas around simile, metaphor and personification.

The children, working in pairs, chose their weather 'topic' and began to brainstorm ideas. These got transferred to phrases and notes and then lines were added to lines. The ideas were then developed in the script writing tool of Podium and allocated to the readers using the functionality built in to the script writer. The groups then, again using script writer functionality, rehearsed their poems.This was the first part of the session with the class teacher leading.

Then I turned up and showed the children how to make recordings using the software and how to import extra MP3 sounds (which I brought with me on a super fast USB drive) and to add images onto their recordings.

It was their turn then ... the initial task was to make a podcast of a single episode with three chapters which was to include their poem and some imported sounds. Many could not find the sounds that they wanted so recorded their own using Podium, saved them as MP3 files and re imported them into their podcasts!There were bees humming, birds singing, snow falling (tickling bells) etc.

About fifteen later it was all done. Poems rehearsed, sounds recorded, images chosen all done and dusted. Fourteen individual episodes all saved as Podium Projects( so that they could go back and add further poems as the year went on) and saved as MP3s so that they could import them into other podcasts they had in mind. And they were all published to the server and a happy group of children wrote down the URL so that they could go home and listen to their recorded works in iTunes.

With time to spare we then did the whole class podcast, one episode/poem. You can listen to the results of their labours by pasting this URL into your favourite aggregator.

http://www.podiumpodcasting.com/~182812/Y6W161107173226/rss.xml

... and not once did the ICT get in the way of the learning. The emphasis was on the quality of the literacy and the opportunity to write, speak and publish to a wide audience.

A quiet revolution ... but some will shout about it

Web 2.0 is coming!! Web 2.0 is coming !! ... and what will we run it on?

In his book 'The Tipping Point', Malcolm Gladwell explains quite clearly the mechanics of change that need to happen before something is adopted or goes 'viral'. I sense that there is a rise in the tide of accessible hardware and it is being pushed by a north wind. When will the surge happen? I suspect at BETT 2008 !

At the 'Handheld' Conference recently RM featured their new Asus Mini Book. Tim Pearson, RM's MD led with: My presentation was called 'Towards the perfect device' and in it I announced the introduction of our new small computer - the RM Asus miniBook. and I read today in PC Pro Magazine an upbeat review of the beast. Commercially called an 'Asus Eee PC 701', PC Pro have it down as A genuine step forward for the laptop, with unbelievable capabilities for the price, plus an ultra-low weight

It deals with the three '95s' ... 95% of the people, 95% of the things, 95% of the time!

A base selling price from RM of £169 (I am told it has been available for 10 days already)or on the open market for (currently) £180, this might find its way into many Christmas Stockings.

It certainly will set the cat amongst the pigeons as its 900MHz Intel Celeron M and 512MB DDR2Ram with 4G solid-state flash disk and integrated graphics might be more than enough for most jobs. The OS is a custom version of a Xandros version of Linux and it cleverly comes with Internet, Work, Play, Settings and Favorite tabs ... each with its own set of apps. Open Office and Firefox 2 are preinstalled.

There are more goodies in the shape of an integrated webcam, SD card reader, 802.11bg wireless.

I think it might just catch on ... or it might provoke a move by competitors to begin to deliver ubiquitous, portable machines that pull everything from the web and don't cost the earth.

I also note from Andrew Brown's blog that they will be in lots of lovely colours!!

Read Ewan's take on the whole thing.

Also listen/watch the video from John Connell's site.

A machine/child could be just around the corner.

Pecha Kucha

Again, I find how far I am behind the times by discovering things that I have been saying about presentations (and in particular, presentations using MS Powerpoint) have been being said all around the world for donkey's years.

I just didn't know ... but now I do !! Wired Mag reported on it in September.

Pecha Kucha even has Wikipedia page which explains everything, I think.

Conceptually clear and should be adopted ( Perhaps it has been) world wide !!

The idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one night. Therefore the 20x20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. Each event usually has 14 presenters. Presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but recently it has also streched over to the business world. ref: Wikipedia

A wider perspective

Friday found me standing near the top of Hilton's newest hotel in Manchester. The views from Floor 23 give a really wide perspective of the City and were a fitting climax to a morning where we had been pushing the boundaries of Web 2.0 with and invited group of guests who had come along to hear about Softease's latest venture, Honeycomb, an integrated set of online creativity and collaboration tools that work through the Internet.

The group assembled in the Podium Lounge for bacon rolls and coffee. An inspired venue choice by Danielle Markland,account manager at Softease. Inspired for the food and welcome but more so as the flagship podcasting software produced by Softease is called ... Podium.

This excellent beginning was followed by an inspiring Keynote by Dr Baldev Singh seen here pondering the meaning of life and times with Peter Sadler, Sales and Marketing Manager of Softease.


Dr Singh took us on an impressive tour of the world in which Web 2.0 fits into educational contexts. Below I pick out just some of the nuggets of his presentation.

These aren't quoted verbatim but are taken from my notes of the event:

We need to get into the 'Q' stuff ... high Q ... Quality

Input less ... process more ... output less - but of greater quality

The best way to predict the future is to build it ( I think that is what Softease are doing with Honeycomb)

In a world of infinite content, the only way to cope with it is to focus on the context.

Did you ask a question today?

Content is important, connectivity is king but context is the emporer.

Kids act as amplifiers for learning.Using powerful technology allows children to make choices.

Access is important ... look to your firewalls!

From elearning to clearning .... connected learning!

I feel sure that there were more but when I read these they start to ask me questions about my thoughts and ideas ... good prompts for the future!

Baldev also flicked through a good number of interesting Web 2.0 site he uses:

Voki - for making and managing your own virtual characters
FlickrStorm - for searching for picture sets
bubbl.us - for online, collaborative mind mapping
walkit - mapper/router extraordinary
voicethread create, comment & share

On his blog John Sutton ably describes the part I played in the proceedings under the 'Honeycomb' heading. I reproduce his comments here ... Thanks John!

Also on the agenda was an introduction to Softease's brand new, soon to be launched, Honeycomb project presented by Doug Dickinson

Honeycomb is Softease's answer to the challenge that Web 2.0 presents to schools. In an article John Naughton wrote for the Observer newspaper in January he bemoaned the over emphasis on skills teaching in ICT and, in particular the heavy concentration on Microsoft Office. This, he argues, is turning children away from ICT in school in order to focus on all the simple and engaging stuff they can do with their mobile phone, Youtube, Facebook and Myspace etc. Honeycomb is an attempt to provide a set of cool tools that will engage children in a way that asking them to produce yet another PowerPoint simply won't. The launch at BETT in January is only the first step along the road for what is clearly a major development project. So far, they have developed a web portal which allows each student to have a website and a blog. These can also act as wikis with group access. The famous Softease "click anywhere and type" philosophy is seen throughout and makes it very simple for anyone to create a multi-media homepage and blog.

They have also included a couple of widgets to start things off (with clearly a long list of potential others to add) and a load of teacher review tools to ensure that staff can keep simple tabs on what children are doing. There are also a host of tiered security features to allow schools to manage access. Getting this right from the start is a major challenge as the two key inhibitors to uptake of Web 2.0 tools in school in my experience are perceived workload issues (not true if you embed it it in your teaching) and perceived security issues (cyberbullying and inappropriate stuff being published). If Softease can build teacher confidence with this aspect of the product straightaway, then they could be on to a winner (as long as the price is right - ever the issue for school!).

It's a fascinating project and I hope to bring you some screen shots when I've been given trial access to the development portal. One to follow for sure.

Podcasting Y3 ... French

I've had a terrific day !! This afternoon I worked with a couple of absolutely incredibly, stupendous teachers and 26 Y3 children. We podcasted (with Podium)

The children had never heard their voices before and were so excited to listen to each other and to get me to listen to what they had said. There was no false modesty here. They came straight in with 'the news', 'Radio school', 'Why I like football'. These were seven and eight year olds ... no fears ... taking risks.

The key to it all was what had happened long before I came on the scene and had my ego trip. They all knew how to log on, open software, save in different formats to their space etc ... and the kit worked ... all of it ... all of the time.

We ended up singing a first episode for the class French podcast ... the numbers.Just paste this url into iTunes or listen straight away to the first of many (I hope) podcasts ...

So exciting. so good, so real and 'in your face' ..... children having fun doing what comes natural with teachers prepared to let it happen and reap later rewards.

Wonderful !

Social Networking Conference

So I got lost in the one-way system of Tamworth and pulled into the kerb to ask the way to the Palace Venue ... 'You're there love.' was the response as the lady pointed to a low building. And so I was !

I have now stood and performed on the same stage as 'The Bay City Rollers' ... but not at the same time!

As for the Conference itself, I came away with a personal task to revisit my views on the security/e-safety agenda. For me it seemed to fill the Conference for, apart from the thirty minutes of 'lightning talks' where six of us gave a brief overview of software/products etc, the thrust of the morning was based on 'opportunities and risks' with the stress on risks and responsibilities.

Now, if the people at the Conference represent a cross section of those who need to think about these things then it is clear to me that there are things I should think about too.

But it worries me that I heard cyber-bullying over and over. I know it is important that we are all aware of what goes on and I know that I have a responsibility to educate about it, BUT I also have a responsibility to be optimistic and excited about what I (and young people) can do now that I couldn't do before.

Those who know me will be aware that in life I am a risk taker. I weigh things up and work out if the risk is worth it and will it affect others before I 'jump' ... but, the chances are, I will jump.

I want our young people to be exciting and confident risk takers and, to a great extent, I think they are. Is it us who are holding them back for our safety and security. In preparation for the Conference I spoke to some young people about what they did and what they felt and was challenged by one lad who simply said 'We're not stupid you know.' .... I wonder ... are we?

We are all aware that our youngest children now do not play out any more. They get ferried from pillar to post because of the dangers that lurk in our minds ( and, I will concede out THERE). They wear goggles to play conkers, they don't climb trees, they are 'watched' by adults everywhere they go. Our young people need adult free space in their lives so that they can lead them. We just need to get the education right.

I have posted this video before but make no excuse for posting it again. Just listen please.



But I will go back and revisit what I think.