Plunkers e-Learning

Mobile phones for programming

2007-11-07T22:59:00.000+10:30

It has been a while, wonder how many people still actually read this blog. ;-)

I know this isn't a new idea, but am interested in a slightly different spin.

Programming for mobile phones has been a discussion I have noticed in a few places, however few people have mentioned using them with input/output devices.

I am currently exploring a few options for a course next year to motivate students with programming and have been looking at robotics.

Options I have explored include Lego Mindstorms, Scratch with the optional interface or from a purely motivational standpoint Alice or a creative use of Flash.

During this exploration it has occurred to me that students have their phones.... is there a way to get an attachment for the phones that will allow input devices to be added? Can a simply language then be used to make use of these readily accessible computers sitting in kids pockets...

Another avenue to explore - not sure I will get anywhere with all those different connectors.

School Newsletter Blogs

2007-05-13T10:56:00.000+09:30

I am presenting at a School Support Officer conference this coming weekend in the south-east of South Australia. One of my topics is blogging.

My plan is to promote how a blog could be used to present information to a school community via an online medium. I was then going to link this into bloglines and demonstrate how all school newsletters for the south-east could be made available from the one page.
This would reduce costs and mean that mail-outs to other schools would no longer be required.

Problem....
I have only been able to find a few examples online, and the quality hasn't been that high.

Does anyone out there know of any schools that have a blog that is set up for their school newsletter?
Does anyone know of any examples I can use?

Mindomo - Web 2.0 tools

2007-05-06T08:44:00.000+09:30

With the recent activity I have had with web 2.0 tools I thought I might share an observation. (btw after the holidays I came back to school and we couldn't use any of the tools at school that we used during the holidays. :-( )

Mindomo.com - a mind mapping web 2.0 resource - excellent resource to use.

But did the creators think about the name?... or maybe they did it on purpose....

mind = brain (just go with it)
omo = a washing powder

Therefore mindomo must be a brain washing program .;-)

Local Delivery Model - Progress being made

2007-04-28T21:10:00.000+09:30

Nothing like a two week break to bring a fresh look on things.

My last post suggested that the selection of students meant that the technology wasn't being used as it was last year and bandwidth issues were causing problems.

I guess when things don't work you adapt. During the holidays students have requested help online. This has resulted in a new "tool-set" being adopted.

Initially the students were using my school email for contact. This turned out to be problematic, due to space restrictions etc. Purely by accident we fell into using g-mail accounts and we have found that the default layout really promotes a discussion thread. Really useful when you are reinforcing a concept and having a student work through something. This has received a big tick.

I do need to encourage the use of forums again however. Email has worked fine in this case, however a forum in general is a much better tool.

For more immediate conversations we have taken to using Windows Live Messenger (Transcripts kept for historical reference - safer than a phone call really). Using this and screen captures has gotten around the issues of not having the use of Centra.
The only issue with this tool is that you need to be careful not to be "too available". I am sure people will understand what I mean here.

Although not used as the students are beyond the analysis/design stage, earlier in the piece I made use of an online collaborative space - thinkature. This was not used with students, however, I could see this easily being adopted and fitting the model.

So in situations of low bandwidth it is still possible to local deliver. One simply needs to adabt to the environment in which they are working.

Internet Management - Monitoring and Filtering

2007-04-26T21:13:00.000+09:30

I missed the Jimmy Wales talk this week, although I feel that from the blog entries since (and talking to people) I have a good understanding of what transpired.
I was reading Graham Wegner's post on Barriers to Knowledge Sharing that led me to John Travers' article. I left the following response, but felt that it deserved to be reposted on my site.

here tis...

The management of Internet within schools comes down to two basic principles;
monitoring
filtering

Both of these have their merits and problems. It seems in South Australia we have a very heavy filtering aspect to our management process.

Monitoring of students would require evaluating sites accessed regularly and managing the results of these searches.

The monitoring tools exist, (although some would suggest they are broken) however it has been left up to individual sites to manage this with little direction.

As such the department can not rely on schools enforcing this and they appear to have relied heavily on filtering as they can manage this centrally.

This solution is cheap and easy, but realistically does not consider the needs of the learner.

One figure I heard was that 40% of websites are blocked by DECS. Even a very active person unblocking web 2.0 tools and other such services is going to be kept rather busy.

If Jimmy Wales is talking accountability, surely monitoring would take up a larger component of schools management of Internet access?

How would this be achieved? Education, after all we are schools. We need to educate the Principals, Governing council's and teachers to make this happen.

Individual schools need to be resourced to monitor students Internet use and this needs to ACTIVELY happen (Including personnel, equipment and training).

Consequence's (for lack of a better word) need to be forth coming for those breeching acceptable use and educating with counseling needs to occur to educate those students to how to use the Internet appropriately.

I am not saying do not filter. I am saying reduce the filtering and make better use of monitoring.

If we stick with the status quo then we are hampering students learning. As you have pointed out some schools are active is unblocking sites for students to use. Others are not. These students in these schools are getting a second grade education due to a scenario that was more than likely implemented as a cost cutting exercise.

Just my two cents...

Local Delivey Model - Distance Education

2007-04-16T16:36:00.000+09:30

Last year I posted an article "practice what you preach", discussing the fact I would be launching into the delivery of Information Technology Studies through our local delivery mode.

Well after one term, I felt it was time to evaluate my progress in this experience.

To put this into context it is important to realize that this year is the first year of a new curriculum statement that has changed the assessment model for students. This has meant the production of new assessment items, and changes to the delivery of content to meet the outcomes of the course. As such many things have not been tried before and successes and failures could be just as easily put down to this as the delivery model.

Local delivery definitely has some hurdles that need to be overcome. These include coming to an understanding of the knowledge the students come to the course with, time management/commitment to studies, individual differences and group dynamics and finally distance.

Schools all run differently and provide different processes for students to select subjects. At the end of last year I had the names of the students doing the course within my site, but only had sketchy numbers for the students at the other sites. After my first session that occurred in week 2 my numbers dropped considerably.

Point 1. Ensure that management provides details the year before.

The students came from various backgrounds. Some students had done the year 11 course previously, whilst others had not done IT since year 10. In essence this meant that some students had not been exposed to databases. This has brought its challenges, especially as they would be producing relational databases within this course.

Point 2: Have a meeting the year before the course of those involved to establish prior knowledge. Give tutorials/basic knowledge required to those with limited knowledge to do in their own time (i.e. Christmas holidays) to give them an opportunity for success.

The local delivery model we use has the students meet face-to-face for one hour a week and through Centra for 1 hour. If you consider that the average school probably has the students face-to-face for 5 hours a week then this requires the students to be able to manage their time effectively between lessons to ensure success.

In essence a local delivery model requires both the teacher and students to manage their time effectively and complete work between classes. Comments that some students have already made suggest that the course is being placed behind other subjects. Why? The face-to-face lessons get priority as their teachers are there to push them.

Point 3: Set the expectations clearly the year before and ensure candidates are aware of the time requirements of the course. Make good use of various communications media to reinforce deadlines and work requirements.

Last year the group of students I had were active users of technology and made extensive use of Moodle and other technologies. This year this is not the case, with my remote students only having access to dialup at home. As such they don’t use the resources unless they have to, with email also checked infrequently. In one instance a student has not been sighted for two weeks due to sporting commitments and with dialup access at home it is near impossible to set up a centra session or something similar to check in.

This changes things considerably. I had big expectations of Moodle that have not occurred to date. Last year it would have been a different story based on my clientele.

Point 4: Consider clientele, their experiences, technology etc when setting up tools for the delivery model. On that note, delivery models need to be flexible enough to change based on the clientele.

Finally as we have an expectation that we have one face-to-face meeting per week this needs to be considered. Who will travel? Where will you meet? If students are traveling how will they be supported with this?

At this stage it has turned out to be a lot more work than I expected. Getting students knowledge levels and understandings to a point that they can apply them in a project setting is quite a challenge.

If I had my time over again I would not have chosen to do this in my second year teaching the subject and with a new curriculum statement. The combination of all three makes it quite challenging. Having said that... there is nothing like a few challenges to make life interesting. ;-)

Long Over Due Dim-Dim Post

2007-04-16T10:02:00.000+09:30

I apologise for anyone who may have been waiting for my follow-up post, it has been a long time coming.

A few months a go I had the opportunity to have an online meeting with Sundar Subramanian, one of the developers of Dim-Dim.

Obviously we were making use of Dim-Dim, and as previously posted I got to trial the new version.

Much has changed. It has been a while since I have used it, and being away from my computer I haven't got my screen shots handy but will make an effort to explain what is happening.

The program now makes use of two-way voice communications and the layout has totally been revamped. Google is now a partner and this has had an influence with this layout and design. No longer is it a stand-alone application, it is now a web 2.0 tool with a clean crisp finish. Application share is also functional which makes it a tool that is now functional.

I found myself exploring the tool whist we were having the meeting, (I am easily distracted) and although my attention was not entirely focused on the presentation found that the potential for this and grown substantially.

The new polished look gives you the feeling that this could be used professionally and the fact that it now works within the browser means that there will be less issues getting it to work across multiple sites with different security settings.

I took some screen captures during the meeting and Sundar asked me to hold off posting these until the new version was released (This occurred along time ago). As this has occurred I will add these to my blog shortly.

In essence for the early adopter keen to trial a new technology who has some server space available, this is worth a try. There is potential for use with meetings etc to start with and in teaching longer term.

2007-01-24T12:45:00.000+10:30

Sundar Subramanian from Dim Dim left a comment on my blog recently regarding my review of DimDim.

After I responded to his comment, I was been invited to attend an early trial of the new version early next week. It will be interesting to see how far this software has progressed since the version I trialed. This version will include two-way communication, which will make it a much more valuable product. I get the feeling it does not have two-way video, however this does not really concern me as I am not a big user of this feature anyway.

DimDim is based out of Boston USA, Ottawa Canada and Hyderabad India - I will be adding input from Mount Gambier, Australia and I get the feeling that some one from Sydney (Julian)might have been invited to attend also.

I am in the process of working out my criteria for the software from an educational and philosophical standpoint.

Interaction, Engagement, Feedback are all key items that I believe are important. I want to have a whiteboard so I can split the screen into sections and have each student answer questions or draw diagrams in their own segment.

For the two way communication to work in a class setting, there needs to be a way other that interrupting for someone to gain the attention of the teacher to ask a question. How have they handled this? It will be interesting to see in the new version.

They have totally redesigned the interface so it will be an interesting experience. I promise to report back on the trial next week.

Unusual behaviour...

2007-01-22T06:15:00.000+10:30

My blog appears to be misbehaving.
Bloglines today told me that my own blog had two new articles to read.... old ones from way back. Of interest was the fact that I have not so much as read these posts let alone edited them, in fact when I did read through it I found a few typo's. So why were they marked as new? I am puzzled.

I did receive a new comment on my blog, but to neither of the two articles marked as new. Hopwfully this is a once off, if the problem persists I will endeavor to fix it.

increased use of FOSS software

2006-12-31T09:06:00.000+10:30

Recently some of the projects I have been responsible for have required the use of some specialist packages. I am proud to say that I have taken the FOSS path for many of these.

The School Magazine

Back in 2003 I was responsible for the school magazine, I completed it without the use of a dedicated Desktop Publishing Package (DTP) accepting content from people in most formats and publishing to PDF for export to the publisher. It was a challenging process and I remember swearing I would never do it again.

Bring on 2007 and guess what? - I have chosen to do the magazine again. This time I feel I am a little more prepared.

This time I will be making use of Scribus. I believe I have researched this well and feel it will meet our needs. My only concern is document size, but the main page of Scribus website is promoting the fact a book was published using it so I feel relatively confident.

I have read reviews, gone through the introductory tutorial (easy – no sweat!) and considered the features I will require and read up on them. Since then I have produced a document, made some page masters and applied it across the document with success. I believe that it is a mature package that will meet my needs. It will even support PSD (Photoshop Documents), which for me is a good thing as I have not been confident enough to make the switch to the GIMP.

Local Show IT Competition

My Local show introduced an IT Competition for people to show off their skills in Information Technology. It is called “OnWithTheShowThisIsIT”. Peter Ruwoldt was one of the key instigators of this competition.

This year I was placed in charge of the website and chose to overhaul the layout of the site (content remained unchanged). As a part of this process I decided to make use of NVU for making the pages, notepad++ for tidying up the code and Filezilla for uploading the site.

NVU was okay, although I wasn’t overly happy with the code it produced. It tended to be messy and had a weird way of dealing with tables. Originally I also made use of its upload feature, however to ensure I got the site structure that I wanted I ended up uploading manually with Filezilla. I would suggest that NVU still has a way to go before it is a fully functional package, it tended to crash occasionally also. Now that I have all my templates made up, it is a relatively easy tool to use.

Year 8 Course

Year 8 is the first year of High School in our State. This year I will be teaching it for the first time in my school. Previously it has been handled by other teachers. I have decided to overhaul the course and only use FOSS.

At this stage I can not see why it wouldn’t be possible. The concepts required are fairly generic and it shouldn’t be difficult to apply the skills in a different application.

At this stage the plan is to make use of Open Office, Paint.NET(I am a big fan of this project), Scribus and Firefox.

Many concepts do not require an application so these should be the only applications that I require. For example teaching the students about Internet safety will not require the students to use any software other than a word processor.

My other plan is to convince the new Art teacher to make use ok Inkscape…. I might be pushing it a bit on that…. But I can only try ;-)

The Red Headed Giant is in South Korea!!!

2006-11-26T19:22:00.000+10:30

For those who have not caught up with the news, Peter Ruwoldt, aka the red headed giant, aka waraku (or watiwara) was a member of a team that won a grant to visit South Korea to check out how open source software is being implemented in their schools.

He departed our fair shores yesterday (Saturday the 26th Nov) not to return for a week. If things are a little quiet with his online presence you will have to excuse him.

I do however hope that you all hound him as much as I will to blog about this experience upon his return.

Dim Dim Follow up

2006-11-26T07:12:00.000+10:30

I forgot to post out initial review of Dim Dim after we got it running so I will do so now.
We got Dim Dim functioning relatively easily on our test server.

We then set up a session on a work station and had another workstation join as a student.

The software installed automagically just like Centra and our session began.

The first thing that you notice is that a lot of the buttons are grayed out. These are features that are not yet installed. At this stage the white board is grayed out, and I have to say it is a fairly important feature for what we require. Other grayed out boxes included Word files and Excel files.

PowerPoint was available so we went a head and inserted one to see how it worked. This feature worked perfectly.

A trial of the video and voice capabilities was also promising, the sound was clear and the video impressive. There did tend to be a slight delay with the video however. (Might have been the specs of our test server that caused this.)

Unfortunately at this stage I would have to say it is an EARLY beta. The lack of interactivity for students makes the teacher a talking head with no way for the student to interact unless they use the chat feature (text). Without the whiteboard you also loose a lot of flexibility.

An update to the software is due this quarter, so I have added myself to their blog and we have left the software on our server. If the new version is an improvement then I will blog again of any improvements.

The Demise of TSOF

2006-11-25T08:17:00.000+10:30

I have sat quietly since the demise of TSOF, unsure due to the political nature of this issue how it would effect me. I now blog on this topic, being encouraged to by our states Computers in Education Group (CEGSA).

TSOF was a pillar of light for our state, providing educational research and fantastic facilities for meetings and trainings.

Over the years the funding has been cut and the center has had to cut back on features and begin charging schools to visit. In effect the government has been cutting th service for years to reduce the impact of shutting the service.

The model is to be replaced with one teacher in each district to support all teachers in that area. This will be supplemented by video conferencing.

The two problems with this model are that the teachers in districts tend to be primary teachers. This is fine and offers excellent support for primary teachers, however fails to address the more complex and varying needs of the secondary teacher.

Secondly is that video conferencing only works in conjunction with other support. Face-to-face and a form of communication for afterwards are critical to the success of learning via distance. This will be no different for professionals.

Being a part of a local delivery hub we haven't even used the "talking head" component of the software we have been given. Finding that once you are aware of who you are speaking too it tends to be a pointless feature that hogs bandwidth. We use the voice and whiteboard features extensively in conjunction with Moodle and other technologies.

Don't get me wrong I believe their is a place for elearning, but this model does not support it.

Further TSOF undertook research and provided the results of this to schools and professionals to dissect and use as fit. Who will do this now?

Should we even mention that the infrastructure that the video conferencing is to be used on has had issues since its conception (nearly two years ago) with it recently being in an extremely un-useful state for nearly two weeks. Not to mention its frequent outages, and poorly timed down-time that seems to always coincide with the holidays prior to year 12's finishing or when organised training requires it.

I have always been a strong believe in using Centra and other such services to support the country teacher. Anything to reduce our need to travel to the city for training is fantastic but face-to-face is important and sometimes meeting centrally is important. Will we get any ideas from up North or Central now that we will be provided with only face-to-face meetings within our district?

I guess we will now be relying on the good-will of Adelaide schools to ensure that state-wide events have a venue. Hope these schools will be able to support the wide range of software that people are experimenting with/using promoting across the state.

South Australia was once the leading State in learning technologies, we were a leader in our field having excellent training, research and state of the art facilities for teachers... Now we have no centralised centre, nor a workable state network for which to collaborate.Our Internet is near useless and any Web 2.0 tools or collaborative tools are banned, ensuring teachers can not be innovative. We are moving very quickly into the dark ages. What happened?

Dim Dim

2006-11-05T11:01:00.000+10:30

Leigh Blackall brought DimDim to my attention and I am horrified that I didn't know about this sooner. This will fit in with my local delivery model I am developing as DimDim is a Web Conferencing company which is open source.

This has a lot of potential for me as I am currently using Centra to provide a similar service (and using this next year). At this stage DimDim is not a replacement as it is a one way service - not allowing the attendees to interact with the presenter, reducing engagement/motivation & limiting learning potential.

On the positive side the developers plan to link this with Moodle and have already used it at the Sydney Moodle Conference (I knew I should have attended)!

Feedback given at the conference encouraged the developers to integrate two-way communication, it will only be a matter of time until this becomes a functional application for education.

If all goes well we will be trialling this within my school over the next few months. I will blog regularly on my progress.

Why would students need email?

2006-10-28T16:08:00.000+09:30

A school in my district has just recently decided to remove email from all of its students unless they are in SACE Stage 2(their last year of study).

In doing so they have become the second school in our area to do so, there argument being that students are distracted by this technology and that harassment is rife.

This stance horrifies me.

Why would one blame the vehicle that is used to communicate rather than the underlying problem? If a school is having problems with harassment over email I would suggest there are much deeper issues

Would we take a pen and paper from a student if they used this to harass others? I am sure that there are more practical and beneficial solutions that schools would use.

I do not believe my school currently has a problem. We have had some issues in the past, however we dealt with the harassment not the technology. This involved parent & police involvement and was focused on resolving the harassment. We did also remove the email access from the student for a period, a tactic we use regularly if inappropriate use occurs.

Another comment that I had from a teacher at the school which irritated me was; “The kids have mobiles they can use those if they need to communicate with each other.”
Where do I start with that comment! The fact that this is inequitable for those who do not have mobiles… or the fact I believe the school is palming their responsibility off by suggesting they are not responsible for what students do with a mobile.

Although the school has seen an improvement and believes they have resolved their problem, I believe they are simply hiding from reality. The problem still exists and has not been addressed.

If a student harasses another verbally there is no evidence. If they send an email there is a digital trail (evidence) that can be used in resolving the problem.

Why remove email?

The principal has told me I have not given him a satisfying argument as to why students would need email for their education. (A man that I have much respect for, although he has shaken this recently.) I now call upon those who read my blogs help.

What can I say to this educator/leader/manager who is trying to look after the best interests of his community/students to convince him email is fine?

Practice what you preach

2006-10-18T20:06:00.000+09:30

Today our local delivery group had a meeting and it was deemed there was a need to deliver the Information Technology Studies using our delivery model (This is a senior school course based on Information Systems).

Although there are teachers in the other schools who can teach this course there are not enough students to make this viable and some how I have been given the Guernsey to deliver this course.

So now I will need to practice what I have been preaching to the other teachers using this technology and those online. That is correct I have not delivered using the technology.

Don't get me wrong I use the technology to supplement my regular teaching, but never in a situation where I have needed to rely on it.

Currently I see the students each day and after holiday breaks so can catch them if they miss something (including on purpose).

Now I need to worry about ensuring students remain motivated, get their work done, request support when needed and grasp their level of understanding. Not easy things to do through the technology.

Already I am seeing a requirement to test their knowledge more often to ensure an understanding as tis will not be as obvious as when working in a class environment.

How does one push them to work when you are not standing over them each day?

I will endeavour to blog about my progress on this.

Help or hinderance?

2006-10-06T16:29:00.000+09:30

Well the Education Department’s network is down once again whilst they move the servers to a new server farm. This will be one of there larger outages, with all services out of action for approximately one week. This includes all school websites, the Centra server, email and internet access within the school.

I remember kicking up quite a fuss when something similar occurred at the same time last year. My concerns revolved around this being the worst time of year to shut down the service for year 12’s who are madly completing their year.

This time it hasn’t bothered me, as I am sure it hasn’t bothered many teachers. We host our Moodle server outside of the department so the students still have access to this resource during the holidays. We even actively promote the address rather than our school website. The email is a little frustrating but I learnt from my mistakes last year and have access to the students other email accounts to send them edited draft assignments.

This has however made me wonder, if we have become so use to the systems inadequacies that we work around it is this a good thing?

By making use of other email accounts we are avoiding all the features/safeguards of the email system? Why should we host (place static websites) up on the departmental service when we know it is so woefully unreliable?

In fact I can only name a few secondary schools in the near vicinity to our school (approx one hundred kilometers) that haven’t purchased their own hosting, which in part would have to do with the inadequate service provided.

Do other education departments make it as difficult as ours to educate their students?

Gnomes & Crows Scarves

2006-09-21T21:13:00.000+09:30

Occasionally I like to spice things up at school a little. This week I chose to wear an Adelaide Crows scarf to school.

As would be expected I have been getting a constant barrage of comments all week. Yesterday’s warm weather prompted me to remove my scarf at one stage and it went missing. (Thanks to a group of year 12 lads.)

The game was on; I was suddenly getting cryptic messages as to where I might find my scarf. With a little help I got it back, but I failed to mention this to the students, who continued the friendly jabs and cryptic hints.

It got to much for me today when the mastermind was making some amusing comments, not realising I had it back. I couldn’t help myself, so I snuck out of the room, put it on and came back in. The look on his face was priceless. (And he hasn’t relented, trying to find out who told me ;-).)

So what was I to do with my scarf now that it was so obviously a target? Well I played their game. I went out of my way to hide it somewhere they could get it…. And surprise, surprise it’s missing.

After overhearing them in a computer room it became aware that they were mimicking a stunt the year 12’s did to me two years ago.

I had a gnome in my office, (don’t ask) which the year 12’s thought they could have a little fun with. I came into my office at one stage to find my gnome missing and a ransom note left in its place.

I retaliated with a “public” notice (placed in areas year 12’s frequented) suggesting that I didn’t deal with terrorists. This continued for a little while until the game got tired.

The gnome then began to turn up in unusual places. It became a walk on prop in the drama

play, was a star appearance at the SRC Quiz night and many other sightings were reported throughout the year.

I got my gnome back at the year 12 dinner and the students had great fun returning it to me. In a way the gnome became a way of dealing with the pressure of year 12. Our year 12’s always seem to get up to some strange behaviours during the stressful periods.

So what am I going to do about my scarf?…. It not exactly a gnome (nor will it have the impact) but I will let them have their fun…. Will need to find some other way to pledge my allegiance!

Long time between blogs

2006-09-21T19:56:00.000+09:30

It has been a while since I have blogged. I had been trying to hold off until the holidays however an online training on Web 2.0 today caused me to rethink this.

My superglu site was up on display for all to see (thanks Graham) and my last entry (which wasn’t a blog entry) was in July!

It has been an unusual term as I took on some extra duties for the first four weeks, I have spent the remainder of the term in survival mode as I have caught up on my regular class room duties, worked out exit strategies for some of my year 11’s and attended all the Professional Development for the new SACE/VET courses next year.

The Web2.0 session was good, much was not new too me, although some of the mashups were quite interesting. After seeing what was on offer I am considering moving away from superglue to another site. Stay tuned and see what happens!

Additionally I am going to spend time during the holidays cleaning up my del.icio.us account and adding some new photos to Flickr. After all there is so much around here worth taking photos of!

For those using my Superglu feed, I apologise in advance for the inundation of feeds you may get whilst I tidy up, please ignore.

Allow me to over simplify...

2006-07-17T19:29:00.000+09:30

Bill Kerr and Leigh Blackall have been in an interesting (long) discussion recently targeting many aspects into the future of education (and what is wrong with the system at present).

The article from Leigh was pushing learning theories to a degree (although not mentioned) and which technologies should be pushed.

I should probably really but out, however here are my thoughts....

I think learning is simplistic.

I believe in the old adage that it doesn't matter what learning theory you use, what methods etc. It comes down to the teacher.

Now this is a little out of date and the word "teacher" should be replaced with whatever suits, but the principals are the same.

The adage works because the learning occurred due to a "positive relationship" that was formed that allowed one to be guided down a pathway.

What learning theory and technology are used I feel come later in the process, having seen successful teaching occur in the different learning theories and using the different technologies.

Japan uses very little technology and the learning theories implemented are definitely not modern, however they get the results (although I wouldn’t want to be a student there).

Further I can think of a behaviourist that is a brilliant teacher (although he drives many teachers up the wall). The students learn a great deal – why? They have a positive relationship with him in which they feel safe to learn (although he would probably dispute it – he builds good relationships).

In this environment students fill comfortable to take risks and have a commitment to the relationship to do their best.

Both Bill and Leigh make good points but I really think we need to target this from a positive angle, what teachers are doing is great – we want to enhance this with technologies that meet their specific needs.

Leigh:

I don't believe school is where we go to get an education anymore, remembering that I speak mostly of a tertiary and sometimes secondary school.

And are teachers becoming redundant? I agree more and more learning is coming from informal sources, but we all need a good prod now and then and it helps to be given a bit of direction.

Open V’s Closed Environments

2006-07-16T10:23:00.000+09:30

I continue to use and like Moodle, even though I find I am constantly being challenged to rethink my stand point.

Recently Graham Wegner was one of those making me validate my stand point.

Usually when those who are progressive in adopting new technologies question Moodle it is in regard to the system being closed. Comparisons are made to blogs and wikis that are open for the whole world to view and share.

This is a valid point, the openness of blogs and wikis is a very powerful feature, helping one grow/develop and explore new ideas. As someone who tries to keep up with the blogosphere I do not dispute this usefulness. However I believe the closed system has its place.

A closed system obviously lacks the depth of user input. The opportunity to interact with experts can be missed and certain viewpoints will influence the learner. However this system also has its advantages.

During the learning experience a student’s viewpoints and understandings change. What one believes at the beginning of the journey will more often than not be different to what they believe at the end of the journey. Further students will feel more comfortable exploring an idea in a closed environment.

In a world where employers now “Google” potential employees names before employing them what impact will this have on their futures?

I believe that a combination of the use of these technologies is the answer. Each technology could be used for specific purpose, with students being aware that material published to the web is in the public forum.

Students can then explore new ideas in a safe environment and when they are ready to share their thought with the world they can do so.

Blogs in Moodle 1.6

2006-07-12T07:14:00.000+09:30

This article is to revisit my earlier post on the new features in Moodle.

Now that I have had more of an opportunity to play with the blogging feature I am not so impressed.

To access another person’s blog you either need to have the “myMoodle” interface setup on your site or you need to navigate to someone’s profile (including your own).

You do not have the ability to comment on the blog, I believe the idea is that a forum is set up for this purpose, however I do not feel this would be the most productive way to respond. After all a comment can be quite short, whereas we tend to insist forum posts are longer (promote discussion).

One benefit is the use of tags, this feature works well and allows you to filter the blogs according to the terms you are interested in.

I believe RSS feeds are possible, however to date I have not worked out how to achieve this (I haven’t tried that hard). If it is not intuitive then I believe it is a tool that will not be used.

If the argument is that a forum is a better platform for discussion then that is fine, however I believe they are missing a key point in blogs - freedom of direction.

In a forum you need to keep to the forum topic, whilst in a blog you can change the direction as new thoughts and ideas are established.

One of my visions was to have the students setup blogs that the rest of the class had RSS feeds for within their myMoodle interface. This would allow students to see at a glance the direction others were taking with their projects before moving into a moodle course.

At this stage to achieve this outcome I would need to have the students setup an external blog and add the RSS feeds. I believe that this would also be a more rewarding way of working at this stage.

If I have overlooked something all feedback is warmly welcomed.

Blogs in Education - just a passing fad?

2006-07-12T06:38:00.000+09:30

The latest issue of MoodleZine has an interesting article on blogs.

From other blog entries and the Moodle forums I was aware the article would have a certain bias (or opinion). The article did however discuss some interesting ideas.

The article begins by suggesting that blogging in education will fade within the next 12 months, an interesting comment considering one of their other articles clearly provides evidence of steady growth in blog interest over three years.

I agree blogging will probably have a drop off when the honeymoon effect wears off and other technologies hit the spot light, but I doubt blogging will vanish off the radar. It will find its niche.

What really got my attention with this article was the comparison to other web technologies like journals and discussion boards. The idea that all three technologies were made up of the same basic components; genesis, input interface and feedback intrigued me.

So what is different, according to the article the only difference is the focus.

Blogs focus on the most recent posts and feedback is related very specifically to that post, if someone goes off on a tangent it will be hard to follow.
Journals have a focus on the overall insight of the entry and feedback is usually restricted to a teacher or small group of others.
Discussion board’s focus is on the feedback. The initial post provokes a discussion and values others input.

Moodle is considering going down a path where they replace these tools with a simple “iPublish” tool. It creates the mechanics behind all three and you choose your focus so the environment can be changed. The thinking here is that if a particular blog entry provokes an interesting discussion you cold change it into a Discussion forum.

I am still contemplating how this would work. Flexibility in a class room is important, however I believe having the structure of three distinct tools (environments) within a course would be less confusing and be more likely to promote sharing.

Moodle 1.6 and Personalised Learning Environments

2006-07-05T22:01:00.000+09:30

E-learning has a real thrust with student centered learning. We talk about building on students’ previous experiences and their interaction with peers/experts. Self paced learning is central to most tools and we engage our learners.

I believe that students are a key contributor in the learning environment, and the ownership of this “space” is important. The ability to personalise this environment is critical. I believe the popularity of MSN spaces is due in some part to this concept.

Moodle has received criticism on occasion for not supporting this model. I haven’t believed this to be true, after all Moodle allows the user to have a personal profile, an avatar, a presence within the environment and in some cases they can modify the theme.

I have however understood where these people are coming from. The environment has been relatively closed, only allowing the resources provided by the teacher (although these could promote sharing). The student could not set up their personalised learning space.

So what has changed? – Lots, but specifically two fantastic new tools.

My Moodle
This is my favourite new feature. When a user logs onto Moodle it takes them to their personalised home. Initially this is fairly sparse but with a bit of editing a student can add RSS feeds, their calendar of important events, a calculator, personalised HTML, random glossary entries, messages and the “blog menu”.

Combined, these features provide an information portal that has the potential to really enhance a students learning. I can already see the potential of sharing RSS feeds of each class member’s blog within this space.

Blogs
I still need to experiment with this more, as I have only had a basic “play” in my playpen. Initially I was disappointed as to how I had to access the blogs – through the profile page, however I now believe that there may be some potential in this. Linking from My Moodle work perfectly, linking the two seems to be a smart move.
I have a long list of things to experiment with, for example I haven’t checked support for RSS feeds yet. Further I am keen to see how others can easily check out blogs within the site/within the course.
I am in the early stages and will report back on this feature later.

So what do I think of Moodle 1.6?
I think that the new features are fantastic. I think they will encourage individuals to take more ownership of their learning and promote good learning experiences. Top work Martin and team!

CEGSA here I come!

2006-06-28T18:22:00.000+09:30

Haven't posted for a bit.... guess I have been prioritising ;-)

Well this is the first CEGSA conference since I became a fully fledged blogger and I have to say it has influenced the sessions that I am attending.

There were some really interesting sessions that conflicted, this lead to some serious consideration over which ones to attend.

Having been interacting with certain individuals online really had me motivated towards going to there sessions…My other thoughts were that I could gain what I needed from them online and visit the other session for a fresh perspective.

One clash in particular was interesting, a blogging as professional learning or a session on delivering Information Technology Studies (ITS) in a rural setting.

This should have been a simple choice as I am teaching ITS for the first time this year in a rural setting. However Graham Wegner was presenting the other session and I was really keen to see him present.

After much consideration I choose Graham’s session. My reasoning? The sense of community that blogging creates. I could go to the other session and learn about delivering a specific course in a rural setting (I have taught in rural settings for 9 years now) and not be able to explore this further with others or….

… I could listen to a blogger present and know that I can debate/discuss the topic afterwards with them and others… and work towards a shared concept. In this environment the beefit from the conference will be ongoing for a long time to come.

See everyone at the conference.

More on filtering

2006-05-27T12:09:00.000+09:30

Those reading my blog entries and those of others would be aware of the archaic approach the South Australian Education system has taken to educating our students to the dangers of the Internet.

The opinion being that putting ones head in the sand and ignoring the issue, wont make it go away. Whilst we have the students in a “safe(r)” environment we should be educating them to the risks and the decisions they make.

I am beginning to worry that this may impact on us sooner than we realise.

As mobile phone technology improves, extra features are added to make them more appealing, to lure you in for your next upgrade.

A fairly standard feature on phones today is a web browser. Telstra is also bundling a certain amount of web usage into their bundles to encourage its use. So as students upgrade their phones they are getting an unfiltered browser as a part of the package!

Many would argue that we should ban the use of the phones at school. This already occurs in many schools, although students still find a way to bring them in. The banning of the phones outright isn’t the answer. It is simply another knee jerk reaction from out of touch decision makers (what part of the 75% do they fall into?) that moves the problem rather than resolving it.

As we continue to restrict students access they will adapt to the change and find other solutions, solution that to some degree are being created for them. We need to be proactive and begin educating our students to the risks. Some teachers are already falling into the trap of believing the filters stop inappropriate access and as such believe they have a reduced responsibility for the students whilst accessing the Internet.

Yes we need to filter to some degree but we also need to educate, I believe it is time to consider a state wide think tank to explore the issue and make some recommendations.

Adapting to Change

2006-05-27T11:34:00.000+09:30

Friday itis struck heavily yesterday. An unusual occurrence for me, but as I arrived at school late to notice I had forgotten my watch I new it was going to be a long day.

My watch is a piece of technology that I have found I am rather dependent on. In hindsight this is amusing, as every classroom I teach in has a clock, let along every computer having accurate time pieces built into the desktop.

I survived the day quite well until took a Physical Education relief. As you could imagine there wasn’t a clock in sight.

This is where things turned interesting. I scanned the room for someone wearing a watch; to my despair I couldn’t immediately see one. In desperation I asked has anyone got a watch? Five students dived into their pockets grabbed their phones and told me the time.

I found this interesting and asked the students if anyone actually wore a watch anymore. Only one student did, a present from his parents and a fashion statement (Rip Curl). The other students were actually not that interested in a watch. They were of the opinion they had a perfectly good time piece built into their phone, why would they need a watch.

I guess when you consider how much “time” they spend looking at the screen with the clock on it, it’s understandable. Phone etiquette still needs to catch up.

My impressions of this were that the students had adapted a technology to suit there needs. As the phone becomes an item that people just can not live without, what other technologies (not just the ones being pushed upon us) will be manipulated to meet our daily lives?

I am beginning to show my age. As I write this my watch is firmly back on my wrist. I haven’t even considered using my phone as a replacement.

With students growing up in a rapidly changing world, obviously adapting to change easier than their teachers, what impact will this have? From my observations students are already better connected than their teachers; blogging SMSing, instant messaging.

To grab a statistic from Graham Wegner’s Blog, 75% of teachers in our state sill have only a basic understanding of ICT’s.

If we are not careful our students may become better learners than us.

My Moodle - on life support

2006-04-22T09:27:00.000+09:30

I have mentioned earlier how I believe that OLE's only work because of the community that develops of learners.

Sitting back and watching various Moodle environments I can see their success, with in many cases a small band of loyal supporters making the community what it is.

Obviously these committed people can make or break the environment based on their focus and how the "teacher" (or facilitator or whatever) directs them. Stopping off topic discussions, redirection when they head down the wrong path, helping them refine ideas...

Unfortunately I got caught up with things at school and neglected my learning environment. I don’t use it for the assessment module and of recent have not provided resources through the interface, nor opportunities to discuss things.

The students continued to post for a while, (in the general forum) however without feedback began to drop off. The glossaries are great but many entries are missing and some need honing.

I have spent the last few days in intensive care, trying to recover from the disaster that I have created. Adding resources for sections we have now completed so they can be used for revision, adding discussion forums and the like. Am I too late? Only time will tell.

Fortunately Moodle e-mail’s all participants when new posts are added to forums. So I am in the process of applying the paddles to the heart of my blog.

I am disappointed with myself for letting this happen. I really liked what I had created. For those of you using Moodle or considering it can I strongly encourage you to remain active, it makes the experience so much better.

Btw does anyone know when is the 1.6 release of moodle is due? It should have been out by now.

The Honeymoon's over

2006-04-20T08:20:00.000+09:30

Many people start a blog. I can't remember where I read it but only 1 in 6 continue to use it after 6 months. Is this an issue? Not really just means that there is a lot of stagnant blogs in the blogosphere.

In reality I have been blogging for over 12 months. Practically however I only got into blogs in a serious way around Christmas. What are my thoughts four months on?

I definitely went through a honeymoon period. I couldn’t resist blogging and keeping up with everyone else’s blogs. This was time consuming.

When I returned to school and the pressures of the regular work load returned, the time I had to commit to the blogosphere was seriously reduced.

I now find that I scan headings for points if interest and then scan the entries of those that I think might be interesting. Those that are I dedicate my time too. When time is precious I tag an entry within bloglines to keep it fresh so I can read it later. (I currently have 31 entries of interest requiring attention!)

Obviously I also have a group of blogs of fellow educators within South Australia that I read regardless (time depending) as I am interested to follow what they are up too.

Looking back at my time in the blogosphere I notice a few things. Firstly I feel the quality of my entries need to improve. I have been cringing as I read my blogs over the last few days and find glaring spelling errors and grammatical errors in my entries.

Secondly I am a little verbose. Or more to the point I ramble. If this was simply a journal this would not be an issue. No matter what people say blogs are not journals – they are public.

I had a focus for my student blog a while back to keep the entries short. This was a smart idea that meant more students read my blog.

I now feel that even if blog entries are not short they should be well structured. We teach design rules for web pages and tell students that they should not have huge slabs of text. We tell them to break text up with pictures, gaps, lines and other techniques. Yet many blogs entries (like this one) are overbearing.

Time to rethink how blogs are written I think.

MythTV -part 2

2006-04-19T18:33:00.000+09:30

My last post (the one with the grammar that was worse than usual and spelling errors a plenty) may have been posted a little early.

My TV-tuner card, a DVB-T Lite, was actually installed by Knoppix instantly; I simply needed to select the correct card within the MythTV interface.

My issue with getting MythTV to work on my television turned out to be two separate issues.

1. RTFM – Can I stress that when working with Linux it can be a good idea to read the manual before you start. Yes you can stumble through as I did, editing configuration files to reduce the screen resolution. (Only after looking for help online.) A simpler solution however would be to type tv at the instal splash screen and press enter – it’s in the manual :-(

2. The second issue was a TV issue, the TV didn’t support a resolution large enough to run MythTV. Using a second TV, ( not much better than the first) fixed the problem.

It is simply brilliant.

I am running KnopMyth 0.19 on a P4 -1Ghz processor with 512MB RAM and a 20GB HDD. I had to buy a low profile graphics card with s-video to fit my low profile case (NVidia GeForce 5200 - $50) and the DVB card mentioned earlier.

Everything just simply worked, including the remote that came with the tuner card.

A few suggestions however. Although my system works – it works barely.
Firstly get a big hard drive – a VERY big hard drive. I will be putting in a 200GB drive as a 20GB drive doesn’t let you do very much at all.

Secondly although a 1Ghz processor works, the High Definition TV is slightly jumpy. I would suggest a minimum of a P4 1.5Ghz.

Now imagine this on your school network, the library records TV shows to the HDD instead of tape for classroom viewing. The teacher simply uses the nearest MythTV front-end to watch it with the class.

A student is away the day the video was watched? Get them to watch it on any computer within the school. There is a lot of potential in this setup. A complete media library kept centrally within a school but accessible everywhere…now to see how I can finance this idea…. Ohhh and get the library onside.

MythTV

2006-04-09T22:17:00.000+09:30

Any one who has ever considered setting up a media PC should consider this option.For most things it works straight out of the box. (if you buy the right hardware) but for some things the newbie still struggles.For example I now have KnopMyth booting up on my TV screen, but as soon as it jumps into the MythTV interface it black screens (works fine on a monitor, just not the TV).A work in progress, I will discuss more as my project progresses. It makes a wicked music player for my MP3 collection and I’ve even added some pictures to look at..... now just need to get that TV working....

Boot Camp

2006-04-09T10:10:00.000+09:30

It has been a while since I have blogged... (I feel like I am confessing my sins!) but one must prioritise.

Apples new “Boot Camp” idea intrigued me, initially I felt it sounded cool but thought the uptake would be slow. As I begin to formulate ideas about this new technology though, I believe the uptake may be greater than I anticipated.

Having just read an article on the Register, my mind started to race. Like the author I feel that Mac OSX is a far superior operating system. I disagree however that apple has convinced enough people to make software for the Macintosh.

Unfortunately in the various tasks I do within the school year I do need Windows - be it specialised database packages such as sportstrak to manage our sports day, or subject specific applications that teachers demand. Why couldn’t we have the best of both worlds?

The general user doesn’t really care what operating system they are using, so long as they can get the job done. We installed Ubuntu on a classroom machine two weeks ago and the interest has been mounting. Japanese has access to Japanese characters and games, Chemistry can make use of a molecule based games (combine the atoms to make the appropriate molecule!) and students can use open office as they would on any other machine.

In fact the number of students using it quite surprised me. As our printing system (we charge) is windows based, we couldn’t change, so the printing is free. Quite a few students have cottoned on to this, specifically those students who have taken Open Office home. At some stages they argue over who gets to use it. (Realistically it is only for the free printing.)

So if staff and students are taking to Ubuntu so easily why not Mac OS?

As I said my mind is still racing and coming up with ideas and solutions to this concept, but if every machine in a computing lab could be set to boot Windows, Mac OSX and Ubuntu, and the user got to choose the operating system that they wanted… can you imagine the power that the user would have? The schools could not be accused of supporting one platform… the choice would be down to the individual… or in some cases the teacher and the applications they have selected.

Current problems with this idea.

Obviously the apple hardware is more expensive, this would impact on whether or not this could be a successful venture, but there is the quality workmanship to consider.
You still need to purchase a Windows license.

The last point for me is the real stumbling block. We have a Microsoft agreement that allows us to install specific Microsoft Software on our computers. The catch is that you must have a 32bit Windows operating system license before you can upgrade it using the kit. OEM licenses obviously are linked to specific hardware so technically can not be transferred over to the Macintosh machines. So I believe that this would leave us in the situation of needing to buy a license. Not a pretty prospect when you add that to the cost of your new Macintosh computer.

Obviously some thinking required. I will discuss this more when I have had time to consider it in more detail.

FOSS & other minority groups

2006-03-19T20:14:00.000+10:30

Although some would debate that Free and Open Source Software is a minority group, I have begun to question how well FOSS looks after minority groups.

My attention was drawn to this issue from an article on news forge in relation to disabled technology users. This article raised some interesting points. Commercial software has an obligation to meet the needs of disabled users and other groups. The nature of FOSS however, means that no such commitment is required.

Is this the fault of the FOSS community? I believe not. The community donates its time to ensure such products are successful. Realistically the better projects tend to be funded these days. (for example Google's funding of Open Office) and as such will begin to meet such requirements. (Are they loosing what it is to be Open Source?)

The community is aware of these issues and working to address them, however I wonder what other issues are lurking that also need addressing. How many hours of attention are required to fix these problems?

I guess my stand point is that people should not go blindly down the path of FOSS without considering the consequences. In business this definitely happens. Are we doing the same thing in education ... I am not so sure. A paid solution in many cases is the right decision; FOSS solutions have their value but need to be weighed up in the bigger picture.

Not a Total Loss

2006-03-05T19:00:00.000+10:30

I was unable to attend Marc Prensky's session in Adelaide on Friday. This was a painful choice but I decided that working with our leaders of tomorrow was more important so I went on our Student Representative Council (SRC) camp. (I manage the SRC within our school.) This sent me down a path I wasn't quite expecting.

The camp is entirely organised by the students, with just the occasional prod by the teacher to keep things going in the right direction. The students learn about meeting procedure, job roles and their responsibilities.

The SRC then decide on their priorities for the year and form their goals based on this. Sub committees are formed and the students begin their planning for the year.

I have to say it was a most rewarding experience, our SRC is quite active and to see them planning for the year what they intended to achieve was most satisfying.

On the Thursday night we ate out and it was most amusing to see all the students interacting across the table whilst “SMSing” their friends not on camp. I thought this was rather impressive.

Our Principal happened to be on camp and we ended up in a conversation on the use of this technology. A larger school (1,400 students) has banned the use of phones unless express permission is given in written form by the parent. I find this a curious stance and wonder what they plan to achieve from it. (i.e. rules for rules sake, I feel it will create a bigger problem.)

Communication is a cornerstone of education, we obviously need to communicate ideas to students, and I therefore view any such restriction on the use of a communication medium carefully.

We are now being told by our legal and risk department that “SMSing” students is strongly discouraged to avoid legal action. I understand where that are coming from but can we prove a phone conversation any easier than a text message?

I know our previous Drama teacher regularly used SMS messages to ensure her students turned up for rehearsals. I myself assist students with their homework using MSN messenger.

If we ban all use of new technologies in communicating with our students how are we meant to keep up with an ever changing world?

Don't get me wrong I understand they can be an issue. Students texting in class rather than interacting... I believe some protocols for effective and safe use of the technology should be made up rather than banning the technology. Otherwise aren’t we just shooting ourselves in the foot? What are others opinions.

Influencing Others Beliefs continued...

2006-03-05T18:38:00.000+10:30

I had planned to quietly dismiss my last post, with possibly just a comment on its conclusion, however Graham Wegner's blog response has left me feeling I should explain where I am going from here.

The answer is not what most would expect. I have chosen to ignore the article and focus more on the underlying issue. Ironic as this may be I feel the issue is a lack of (or ignorance to) education.

You will note that I continually refer to this “knowledge source” as a library and not a resource centre. This is for a simple reason they have not made the philosophical move to a resource centre.

To complicate issues they are technophobes. One example of this is the libraries choice not to provide DVD’s to the school as this would be “inequitable”. Considering many people no longer own VHS players this is obviously an antiquated view point that I need to work on changing.

However of more concern was their decision to have four computers removed from the library. It was felt that it was too hard to manage these machines and supervise them adequately. (This has obviously limiting students’ access to a valuable resource.)

This has put me in an unusual circumstance. I am pushing for more access to websites in my classrooms but am considering a white list for use within the library. (I actually don’t believe it is possible to do both at the same time in different sections of the network using educonnect.)

So after this long winded response what is my plan of attack? I plan on taking baby steps. I am going to ignore the gaming response and hope that “my influence” will override that of the library. I am now going to begin the long and painful journey of slowly encouraging new technologies within the “library”, demonstrating how these new technologies can enhance learning and understanding.

Influencing Others Beliefs (Games in Education)

2006-02-27T15:51:00.000+10:30

I am riled, I have had my library ruffle my feathers and they got the reaction they were after. (Let me have my whinge, I have noticed others have this week.)

Following Bill Kerr’s lead I have been promoting video games and how they can have a beneficial effect on students by promoting the higher order thinking skills, provide students with a “rich” information base (how many students can give you an accurate representation of history based on the games they have played) and other such skills.

We even purchased James Gee book on gaming so teachers could consider the pros and cons of computer gaming and the influences they have on students. I am even building a repository of articles on games in education for people to read.

So what is our libraries response to this? This evening happens to be the Annual General Meeting of the school. Our library also happens to be a community library with members of the public regularly making use of our library. This post was placed just inside the library so all members of the community would be confronted with it. Notice the highlighted section that quotes a phycologist from an Adelaide Hospital as saying the army uses games to desensitise their personnel to shooting others. Just one small aspect, without looking at all the positives. (In my opinion a poorly researched article with only references to smaller names within these circles.)

So if they wish to attack the line I am taking, (which they are) why do they not tackle the educational points that I am raising rather that focussing on the tired old point that they promote violence. (How little faith they must put in our children.) You can find something wrong with anything if you look hard enough.

I doubt the librarians have even read this book. What frustrates me is the fact that those who criticise do very little research. They refuse to consider new ideas, their opinions have been previously made up and they only read the articles that support their thinking. How does this improve one as an individual? and in an educational setting!

I have a burning desire to write an article for the local paper promoting games as good for education. However I am sure I will calm down and this idea with not come to fruition.

BTW, did you notice how the library has decided that some PG titles are not suitable for children so stuck them in the “adult section”. The fun we have at this school.

Connected Learners

2006-02-09T15:55:00.000+10:30

My role in my School is "Learning Technologies", basically to promote the use of technologies that enhance education within the classroom. (Rather than the outdated philosophy of teaching applications.)

The idea of course is that the technologies seamlessly integrate with what the students are doing rather than being tacked on to a course or actually diminish from the learning (as has been known to happen.)

As I hooked up the third year 12 students personal laptop to our wireless network, it occurred to me that to some extent I am being successful. (Another student is purchasing a wireless card this weekend with a total of six students with laptops within the school.)

On the surface this may look rather a limited indicator, but looking deeper into this you discover that students find it difficult to access computer rooms and our own loan laptops (we have three) are constantly booked out.

To give some context we are a school of 150 students from year 8 to year 12 in a smaller size township.

I still have a long way to go, with many of my staff yet to have computers at home. (Our laptops there is another student purchasing a wireless card this weekend) are very popular at report writing time.)

The students want to be connected. I walked into an English class today and was amazed to see three laptops open with students busily accessing the Internet for research and typing up their work.

Is this connected learning? I guess not technically. Once the students start publishing online we will bridge the gap but progress it being made.

I now need to reconsider my infrastructure for my new three year plan. With only one third of the school covered by our wireless network I need to decide whether there are benefits in increasing this coverage. How many year 12 students will be connected next year or the year after?

Also of grave concern for me is the equity issue, fortunately last year we decided to increase the number of laptops available within the school from three to six. However it is still concerning me that whilst some students are reaping the benefits of a connected learning experience, others still need to access the aging “computer labs”. (Wont the idea of a computer lab seem archaic in a few years!)

We live in exciting times.

Photoshop or GIMP

2006-02-06T17:16:00.000+10:30

For some time I have bee influenced by people regarding the open source movement. Many discussions have been had about using open source tools or even operating systems.

I think the idea of open source is great, I make use of and teach Open Office, Audacity and other such programs. I also acknowledge that by teaching students proprietary software, we are sending students down a pathway of dependence.

My problem has been however that I have struggled with using the GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop. I regularly have argued that GIMP isn’t a replacement for me. It was with great interest then when I discovered this article, “Why Photoshop tops most-wanted Linux app list”.

I found the article a relief, as I now realised that I was not the only person who felt this way. The idea of Photoshop being a platform not an application was more interesting as I began to think about how I use the application. (I rarely go a day without opening the application.)

My experiences with the GIMP have been a little different. I don’t find the “Single Document Interface an issue and the menu’s can be learnt with time. For me the experience was about little things. I regularly need to select parts of a photo, I therefore make good use of the selection tools. Not having a magnetic lasso for me was a huge loss, making simple tasks take a longer period of time. Finally not being able to easily adjust the brush size easily really frustrated me – another time consuming task.

So where to from here? If you consider Photoshop a platform I am uncertain. All I know is that image editing has become a component of what I do and I have learnt Photoshop’s way of doing things. I am not sure how the Open Source community will convince me on this issue.

The Changing Face of Education

2006-02-02T17:42:00.000+10:30

One of my students contacted me using an instant messaging application last night asking to have his password for our Moodle environment so he could do some Physics homework.

I obliged and it wasn’t long before he began asking more questions. ”I want to add some custom html code to my forum but it won’t work”.

Not exactly rocket science, and something he should have known how to do… but I helped him. It didn’t take long for me to realise that I was giving him a lesson in HTML and fault finding.

Twenty minutes later after he went away having happily re-learnt the skills he needed I considered what had just transpired.

A student had shown the initiative to contact a teacher for help, got on with his learning in his own time and requested assistance from someone to enhance his own knowledge to complete a set task.

In essence he had just picked the learning he wanted to do and accessed a resource (in this case me) which suited how he best learns and achieved an outcome. (He did also get his Physics done I checked.)

The pessimists suggest that education won’t change – after all people keep changing their minds every few years. The attitude with these people is to sit back and wait as it will just go away.

I don’t think it will go away. Like it or not I think the change is happening already, whether we like it or not. The students are ready – are we?

Whilst writing this article that same student from last night has begun discussing our IT Studies work and what he needs to research (the critical thinking comes later) for class.

What will the school of the future look like again?

A learning centre where attendance is optional, learning can occur online by accessing the teacher using the technology? Instructor time and lesson times are very flexible to meet the needs of the learner – in fact if one instructor isn’t available then the student then accesses another one?

It’s a little overwhelming but if students are already using these technologies and are engaged in their learning then the possibilities for the future are endless.

Boys only class - Lib School Policy

2006-02-02T08:13:00.000+10:30

This is the heading of "The Advertiser" from South Australia for yesterday the 1st of February.
Those of you, who have been paying attention to the South Australian bloggers, would be aware that we have a variety of issues to contend with.

On top of our filtering system and the federal governments supposedly "meaningful reports" (they are anything but), we now have our local liberal party telling us how we should be educating in our classes.

This is meant to be a tactic to improve boys learning or as they put it “rebalance the agenda”. I agree something needs to be done. The focus on girls in education a few years ago has had such a positive outcome that boys have been left behind in most aspects of their education. Locally few males have made dux of the school, those that have, have come from schools that have begun to focus on improving male successes.

Speaking to those involved in these programs, as we are beginning to go down that path the feeling is that indirect methods are the most successful. This type of approach would only damage the success of boys.

Enough ranting – what scares me the most is that these type of things happen so often in our state that I am beginning to have the same approach as other educators. I no longer get upset and I am starting to ignore the rants of the “pollies”. I now find that I teach the way I find successful and ignore those around me. Not sure this is a sensible tactic but I now understand why teachers tend to switch off when governments bring in new policy.

Back to the Chalkface...

2006-01-29T08:37:00.000+10:30

Excuse the very outdated title phrase... although one of our classrooms still quite literally has a blackboard.

The school year begins for us tomorrow, the students will flood back in and I have to hope that I am ready fro them. At this stage I felt it a good opportunity to reflect on my growth over the holiday period.

Twelve months ago I was blogging, not very well but I was blogging. Six weeks ago as the holidays were about to begin I decided to reinvent my online presence by splitting my blog apart.

The blog that I aimed at IT professionals grew quickly. Bill Kerr motivated me with his comments on my blog, I began checking out those who commented on his blog and the rest is history. I was hooked.

So what has changed? I am now very aware of social networking tools and the benefits that they bring. I have read posts of people experimenting with these technologies in their classrooms.

After reflection I will look at implementing some of these tools in my students learning. Specifically I am considering allowing my year 10’s to blog about their learning experience in their Information Technology class. (This is my most progressive class – very student driven.)

I am also keen to trial a wiki in my year 12 class. Peter Ruwoldt has been the main motivation here – I must admit I am nervous about this but I don’t think it will hurt to give it a go. I intend to incorporate this into my current Moodle environment.

Most importantly though I want to see if I can replicate the “addiction” that I have had - in my classroom. At this stage I am uncertain how to proceed so this just happens. Will the students take to it like I have?

I think this is a good idea. How could being addicted to sharing thoughts and ideas on the web be a bad thing? I tend to do my research before posting which I am sure my students would. (Everyone wants to be recognised as a reliable source.) The Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) involved should make this very beneficial. How does one pull this off?

Pod Driving

2006-01-24T20:54:00.000+10:30

The title is not technically correct, but it will do until I find a more apt heading.

No I have not joined the ranks of people who are pod casting - far from it. I am simply listening to pod casts that I had tucked away to listen to at a later stage – in the car.

I live 50Km from the school in which I live in which equates to a 35 minute drive. Previously I have car pooled, but this isn’t an option this year. The new year and the solitude in my car gave me the opportunity to listen to pod casts on the way to and from work.

Previously I had found it difficult to listen to pod casts without distraction. I therefore gave up on them. I believe I am now on a winner.

One of the pod casts that I listened to today was David Warlick’s December 28^th 2005 pod cast (his 50^th) on the future of education. This one I really enjoyed and I liked his vision.

I agree with his vision with one exception. I believe that their will still be computers (actually probably a terminal) in the classroom. However I doubt they would be recognisable.

Imagine the desks the David talks about being an interactive environment, students can write on the desks, this writing then gets converted into text. Imagine being able to pull digital assets around on the surface of this desk, be it a video, images relating to the topic in question or even a pod cast.

Without question students would have access to social networking tools and as they are learning they could be blogging about what they have learned, debating the finer details of what they have learnt.

The nature of these desks would encourage collaboration between the students in the class as well as to discuss their ideas with others from around the world. And they would be as easily moved as any desk we have today.

For this reason I believe that the tablets will not exist (too heavy!). Instead I see a change in the mobile phone technology we have today. The desks will act as the input and output devices and data could be transferred to these devices.

Each student will have a phone which will have similar duties as today, except they will be more of a storage medium. At school students will use these phones as the headphones for their pod casts. The data would not remain in the phone, simply be transmitted to it. Students could take photos and upload them to their “shared space”.

Students wouldn’t need to store homework on their phones, this would remain online for them to access anywhere they go. The phones would be for students to download pod casts or video to evaluate on their way to their next access point.

Just my vision, but I think it would be totally cool.

Nuvvo Evaluation

2006-01-14T10:45:00.000+10:30

Noticing all the hype regarding Nuvvo in various blogs I decided to take the plunge and trial the LMS.
It wasn't entirely my choice to use Nuvvo. I am a keen supporter of Moodle, however with my site unavailable for reasons outside my control, I needed to start preparing materials for the new school year so I decided to give it a go.

The first thing that you notice is that the site has a very professional finish. It is attractive and makes good use of white space. Further the tutorials and support are very impressive.

Setting up a new environment is very easy, although the formatting options are limited. (depending on your beliefs this could be a good thing or a bad thing.)

As this is the first time using the environment you are guided through the various sections that need completing.

The screens are easy to navigate and the blog integration is very convenient, giving the teacher good control over this component. The AJAX integration is also fantastic giving the site a very crisp and quick finish. (Now all we need to happen is have Moodle integrate this into their systems.)

As my experience revolves around Moodle I find myself wanting some of its tools, I acknowledge that this is a bad thing and I need to let Nuvvo's way of operating "influence" me. But I am stuggling with this.

I am a strong believer in the philosophy that students contruct their own learning. I find the tools for this in Nuvvo are limited. Blogging is obviously a powerful tool in such an environment, however I am a big user of the glossary feature and I believe that forums have their place. (Not the time for a debate over the difference of forums & blogs).

I also miss the upload assignment feature - an easy way for students to submit assignments without the worry of deciding whether the assignment was submitted on time or "I handed it up, it must have got lost somehow." arguement.

I will give a further evaluation later, but at the moment I am finding this hard to meet my needs, I like to give students research tasks that are then discussed in forums to clarify understanding. Haven't worked out how I am going to replicate this environment with the control (yes I know how people hate that word) that I am use to. My big concern is that by using a blog I won't be able to facilitate the discussion as well.

The "lack of" rights of a student

2006-01-13T16:54:00.000+10:30

It is good to see that Bill is keeping up the fight for "freedom of information" of students. I found the angle the law takes on the issue disappointing, but then again it is the politicians we really need to convince.

I believe that Bill doesn't believe in removing the filters entirely, nor do I.

Leigh Blackall has supported Bill and is helping to get the message across. I specifically liked his quote:
"South Australia, meet North Korea. North Korea, meet South Australia."

I think the above quote really states our current situation. I had the misfortune of sitting down for a break before in front of the television (been putting in a retaining wall) and finding that Footloose was on.

After reading Bill's article it occurred to me that the government is really taking on a similar view to the priest. The priest’s daughter and "close male friend" are fighting the good fight to have dances allowed for their prom (dance).

Maybe we should tackle the situation in a similar way, quote them various passages from their own documentation and campaign to both the department and various groups apposing this change (i.e. the church) demonstrating how the approach that we are suggesting would better protect the students in the longer term....

(ohh yeah and you need to "let go" of the teachers and trust that the education you have given them will lead them down the right path :-) )

Online Communities

2006-01-06T09:15:00.000+10:30

During my university studies to be a teacher we had it drilled into us how important the sense of community was to learning.

Community is an interesting term, which is rather broad. Wikipedia description of a community is:
“A community is an amalgamation of living things that share an
environment.“

Through my school I am apart of the school community (or community of learners), the educational community (A rough geographically determined community of fellow educators) the Edtalk community (discussing technical issues in school networks) & the IT teacher community (discussing the teaching & learning of information technologies within schools).

I teach in a small town called Penola so I am a member of the Penola community, I live in Mount Gambier so I am also a member of that community… I could keep going but I won’t.

Online communities have always existed, however due to a growth in social-networking tools they have grown exponentially recently.

For example I am now a member of the edBlogs community. Although I have been blogging for over six months my blog was disjointed and I was only influenced by a few others. Recently this has changed and now I feel like a member of this community.

The term web2.0 is interesting, focussing on using the web to promote interaction. I think community goes another step. Using the technology groups of people with similar interests can form new communities over vast geographic distances.

For example a person with an interest in the history of telegraph poles could meet like minded people online and form a community of people to discuss this.

People who join a community want to be recognised. They want to be considered a person of worth in the community. This links I believe to info-addiction as we try to keep up with what others are thinking and interact with others in the hope of being recognised for ones own work.

Most of my communities involve a face-to-face element. I find this element of the community a powerful one. I believe interactions progress more rapidly and take different paths in these environments.

The way people speak; physical gestures and other factors such as the amount of amber liquid consumed during these interactions really change the “environment” in which the communication is occurring.

The future of these online communities will be interesting what format will they take…

Blogline Failure

2006-01-02T23:06:00.000+10:30

From an earlier post...(Simple tools (small pieces) loosely joined)
"My other concern is redundancy. I spend my time telling students they need to reduce the redundancy in their databases but then I use various systems to hold my on-line content. This obviously has its advantages as far as I am not reliant on any one system for my online experience, (i.e. del.ico.us is currently down) but is this really efficient?"

One of the tools that I have begun using is bloglines (thanks Bill). I began using this because I was away in Adelaide and didn't have access to my aggregator. I liked the idea of the "network tools" philosophy but was a little concerned about its efficiency.

As I am now able to sit down and make use of my blog and other tools such as Flickr, even though bloglines is down I notice some advantages of using various online tools. I do also have the opportunity to make use of RSSOwl again, although I haven't been keeping it up to date :-(.

However I begin to worry about the reliability of such tools and am concerned about the consequences of taking the plunge and making use of these in a school environment.

Slashdot mentioned earlier about blogs outgrowing their server space. Will these outages simply increase as more people use the services?

Curious to get others feelings about this issue.

More on Info-addiction

2006-01-01T13:54:00.000+10:30

USA today article commenting on stress levels relating to information overload.

Moodle as a Learner Management System

2005-12-31T08:23:00.000+10:30

I am going to go out on a limb here and state that I like Moodle.

I have been going back through historical posts that discuss Content Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Moodle. Much of this discussion has revolved around EDNA groups. The reason I feel I am going out on a limb here, is that those whom I regard in high esteem in the blogging circles dislike LMS.

Leigh Blackall has had a lot to say, regarding EDNA groups and the choice of using Moodle. I agree with him that Moodle would be frustrating from the point of view that you need to login and find your specific group before you post, but in general see it no different to blogging. You can still syndicate your feeds and have them appear in your aggregator.

Alan Levine also has an interesting article. I specifically like the quotes he has pulled from the Moodle forums and agree that there is an uneducated conversation going on… but isn’t that the point? Wouldn’t have these statements been debated in the forum? Helped to change people’s points of views?

I think the quoting of comments that were given in good faith is also a good example as to where closed forums can sometimes be useful. (not suggesting you have done the wrong thing Alan) A “newbie” that may end up quoted on another’s blog would be shut down very quickly and chose not to post in such an environment. Moodle can be considered a safe play area - to stop the child from running out onto the road.

As a tree dweller I find that I am currently walking through the cave…

I guess I am a “control and structure” person, even if I hate the term. I refuse to lock down computers within my school. How are students meant to learn how to use them? I use Moodle to scaffold (structure) the learning so that I can get the best benefits within a short period of time. (Have you tried booking into a computer lab lately?) It is also nice to direct the learning when students login from home and work through the material.

Yes I control the forums and keep an eye on the glossary entires… but who wouldn’t? Harassment and abuse can just as easily happen in the virtual realm as it can in the physical world.

A second article by Leigh Blackall touches on the point of security. Many teachers are going to prefer a system that they have some control over, the “lock out” is going to make the learners more comfortable to post.

Being a part of an e-learning trial that was conducted in South Australia this year I was quick to observe how most teachers locked up their Moodle environments during the trial. Initially this irritated me but through discussion it became apparent that this was about confidence. Once they become comfortable with the environment I have no doubt they will then “open up” their environments.

The other discussion has revolved around small pieces loosely joined. I agree this method has its merits, you only choose the tools that you require but for many the disjointedness of this is what would stop them from doing this. Having five different username and password combinations and needing to add material in various separate databases is frustrating to the user. The unreliability of tools such as delicious also does not help. It can also be quite time consuming to keep up with these various tools and be an active participant in the blogging process.

My closing statement is simple one. We are here for the learning. I feel that sometimes people get so caught up with the tools that they use they forget this, yes I like the small pieces loosely joined philosophy but it is not different to Moodle. Used inappropriately in either environment the learning will be hampered.

Next article: Online Communites (inlcuding eduBloggers) and hoow they make an impact.

Infoaddiction

2005-12-30T08:56:00.000+10:30

Infoaddiction, net addiction, dataholic & O.C.D. — online compulsive disorder, these are just some of the terms being bandied around in relation to people who crave information.

This topic became of interest to me after I increased the number of RSS feeds I accessed. This activity was a result of my blogging.

Although I have been blogging in a limited capacity for some time, it has only been recently that I began blogging more seriously. This was a real eye-opener for me, as I read responses to my blogs I would be curious to know more about the person who had posted and began reading their blog. In turn they would link to other blogs and sources and I felt compelled to read them.

Suddenly I found that the number of RSS feeds I was accessing was becoming quite time consuming to keep up with. Remember that when you add a new source you suddenly have a back-log of entries from their site.

Whilst on holidays in Adelaide my partner’s father made a comment to me about how I seemed to be hooked on the computer in the morning. He had a point. As soon as I had finished breakfast I would sit down with a cup of coffee and see what new entries I had in my aggregator, and make my own posts. I tried to limited this time to one hour but found I was spending up to two hours keeping up with things! I would then find myself compelled to check out my aggregator and blog later in the day to check for responses and new articles, this would usually take another 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

Information addiction is a recognised psychological addiction with many sites discussing this issue. Interestingly to my knowledge few blogs have discussed the issue, although D’Arcy Norman makes mention of it in an article on aggregators.

Impact Lab has an interesting article that discusses the impact this addiction has on family life but also ones relaxation and creative time.

The Centre for Online and Internet Addiction is another good resource and discusses information from a study that was conducted.

Am I an information junkie? Well I did the test to find out and was glad to discover that according to the test I am just an average on-line user. (Although some would disagree) How would you fare? Do the test and find out.

Interesting Link

2005-12-24T12:16:00.000+10:30

Currently I'm a little overwhelmed with information. This link is not currently following the path my blog is taking, but I found it interesting. Will post more on it later, but some might find the link interesting... I'm still working on the info-addiction article...

Structured Blogging

SuprGlu

2005-12-22T18:32:00.000+10:30

Call it an experiment in social networking... here is my SuprGlue site.

If this is a success I will be asking everyone to use the RSS feed from there instead of blogspot. (Don't worry it contains the same content!)

Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a great festive season!

Next blog entry.... Information addiction - No one I know suffers from that ;-)

Small Pieces Loosely Joined - Revisited

2005-12-22T17:06:00.000+10:30

I will like to thank Bill Kerr for correcting me on my errors in the last Blog entry.

I still have a lot to learn. I have revisited this, read the articles and listened to the pod casts (Rather than skim reading the article like I did previously.) and now have a fresh view on Small Pieces Loosely Joined.

Weinberger states:
"We are the true 'small pieces' of the Web, and we are loosely joining ourselves in ways that we're still inventing."

I was seeing the communication software as the small pieces rather than the person. In theory I was on the same track as the interaction between individuals is the key component.

I still question that Small Pieces Loosely Joined is a paradigm shift, from desktop to web applications. I think they are related but not the same thing.

As a 'small piece' in the bigger picture ;-) I feel that I am making use of specific technologies to join myself to others.

For example I received a comment from another educator in South Australia the other day that I know, but was unaware he was blogging. Shortly after I was checking out his various blogs and found some links to some other blogs of interest, sites he recommends and other useful material. In essence I was now loosely connected to him (thanks Graham).

I agree however that there is a paradim shift from desktop to web applications. These web (or network) applications as Bill has referred to are information based.

Whilst reading Bill's critique of this article I found myself considering the network applications that I use at my school, they tended to all be information based. (At least the powerful ones!) We have the daily notices program, moodle, the booking systems etc.

I then considered the web applications that I was using whilst reading his blog entry. Information based!!

These tools empower the user and encourage participation in the sharing on information. I believe it is a long overdue change. (although I think it is still developing, for example the multiple authentication issue discussed in my last post.)

My concern however is the difference between the level of information exchanged within a school and that I do myself. Schools only use information tools at an embryonic level, a little email, communication through digitalised daily notice programs and maybe a basic intranet system. (Some lucky schools might me uses a LMS such as Moodle that encourages students to communicate in forums etc.)

Whilst schools block and ban the use of forums, blogs, wiki's and social bookmarking tools they are not only disadvantaging the students, they are forgoing a very powerful tool in the exchange of knowledge in schools.

Simple tools (small pieces) loosely joined

2005-12-19T09:12:00.000+10:30

Many fellow educationalists have been pushing me to explore new technologies. For some time now I have been working with blogs and RSS feeds, I have also experimented with Flickr and del.icio.us.

I find each of these tools rather useful and I like the philosophy that a tool designed for a specific purpose will do a better job, more simplistically than packages that attempt to encompass all things.

Having not placed a lot of effort into these tools I found that they were rather disjointed. My Blog didn’t link to my bookmarks (del.icio.us) and unless I created links to my flickr images in my blog there was no easy access to them.

I find this one of the biggest problems with the philosophy – Simple tools loosely joined. Although I haven’t made use of it yet I am aware of the tool called SuprGlu that links these together. I think this is critical to ensure the success of these tools. However wouldn’t it be great to have your bookmarks work in your blog? Wouldn’t it be great to have relevant photos from your Flickr archive be displayed with your article?

My other concern is redundancy. I spend my time telling students they need to reduce the redundancy in their databases but then I use various systems to hold my on-line content. This obviously has its advantages as far as I am not reliant on any one system for my online experience, (ie del.ico.us is currently down) but is this really efficient?

Security is my final concern. As a promoter of these technologies within a school environment, I am aware of how teacher hate and do not want multiple username/password combinations to remember. I wonder how many people using these technologies are using good practice and changing their passwords monthly – for each and every service. I wonder who uses the same password for most of these.

I have an addiction that I must now admit. I am hooked on Moodle. I love the learning environment and like that I have many tools that work with one simple username and password combination.

I could place my web links in a wiki or glossary. I could place my photos into my storage allocation and create appropriate links to these which I could search on. I could create my own page that pulls in relevant RSS feeds for me and contains links to my regularly accessed sites. Unfortunately I do not have access to blogs – yet.

Do I see this as the solution – no, I don’t think it is designed for that nor does the job well enough. But I like the idea of a system that combines all the features together, complete with a backup facility.

Am I a traditionalist? I don’t think so, simply believe that the exact principals that this philosophy stands for (simplicity) – is lost when used in practice.

Social-Networking

2005-12-17T08:39:00.000+10:30

Internet Social Networking is basically a virtual community of people of similar interests that share information online. Your interests and familiarities lead you to join specific commuites of interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking

As far as education goes there are sites set up specifically ofr education including facebook.com. According to wikipedia there should also be a site called classface. However the site seems to no longer exist.

My interest in social-networking at this level stops here. I am more interested in how as educators in South Australia we have been creating our own social networks, both between our peers and for our clients - our students.

If social networking involves blogs, photo archives and links are we not already doing this? I make use of RSS feeds from other teachers blogs and read with interest their views on varying topics. Simple tools loosely joined.

Students could benefit from something similar.
They could be encouraged to follow their interests at school and create their own portfolio of blogs, wikis, photo archives and links.

If we use the social-constructivist approach to learning then we could assume students would make links from information they are taking in from these resources and link this to learning occurring within the classroom.

Not sure how it would all fit together at the moment. I am just starting to explore the idea, but I believe their is some potential.

This will lead me onto my next post - Simple tools (small pieces) loosely joined - pros and cons.

2005-12-11T09:18:00.000+10:30

Welcome
This is the first step in my plan to split my blog into three sections. If you are reading this you have found my "professional" blog.

I have moved the relevant blog entries from my last site into this one. The only problem of course is the date stamps.

Stay tuned for discussion on social-networking and its relevance to education...

2005-12-11T09:03:00.000+10:30

Those who read my last entry would question the design of my blog - with good reason. When I set this blog up I was very green behind the ears (inexperienced). Realistically I should have placed a large “L” plate on the front of the site to warn people arriving to have a look.

I like to think I have progressed to my “P” plates now and believe it is time to redesign and refocus my efforts. Originally I had the ambition to have all these various groups accessing my single blog to gain insight and information. I placed family information, student information and information for my colleagues all within the one site.

This was a foolish ambition. If I had stopped to look at what my own students were doing I could have saved myself some time. One of my students has three blogs, of which I am only privy to one. Each of her blogs has a specific audience.

This is obviously not uncommon with many people having a personal blog, a business blog as well as others for specific purposes. A fellow educationalist – Bill Kerr has his blog that he publishes for his fellow educationalists but also has another one set up for one of his classes. Potentially if you set one up for each of your classes and areas of focuses you could have many blogs.

Shortly this blog will transform. The main focus has been for my peers so this blog will remain for those people. I will then construct three new blogs; a school blog, family blog and a “student interest” blog. The last being a fancy idea I’ve got but not sure how to pull off. – more on that later.

2005-12-11T09:02:00.000+10:30

In the last three years digital cameras have exploded in popularity. Most people have a decent digital camera, let alone the ones they have packaged into their phones.

As people begin "expressing" themselves with these images online they are in away using a different form of literacy. The consequences of this and the impact this is having in the way people are interacting is not the focus of this post. Mine is a little less exciting.

Working in a school we have very strict guidelines to publishing student’s images. This includes the traditional media and online content. No image can be displayed without written permission.

It didn't really occur to me until I started to visit some of my student blogs that this measure for protecting students’ privacy isn't enough.

After one student discovered my MSN identity it blew out. This is not an issue as the ground rules are stated for conversing, I can block them if necessary and text chat can be saved. It hasn't been an issue. I blocked one student one night and they begged me to unblock them. To be quite honest most of the time it is not used. Occasionally for homework help and discussions re school. Mostly I am left alone.

At this time I suddenly had access to all the student blogs. This really opened my eyes. The students really want to express themselves in this environment. Students want to spell things correctly, they want to be considered important enough that people read their blogs and they want to be interesting. (My blog has already been classified as REALLY boring, guess I've got some work to do ;-) )

Of most interest however was that I had access to pictures of students hanging around at school (taken on mobile phones) and a complete set of camp photos from Adelaide.

Of course none of these students were asked if this was okay, was it okay to place their image on the net. This I believe has some serious consequences. Who is responsible? The student who took the picture or the school for not educating the students on such matters?

Our situation is made difficult. Blogs are not permitted in schools and are blocked; therefore teachers do not educate students about them. Does this stop the students? Of course not they go home and use them anyway.

Blogs are a very powerful tool. Photos are becoming an issue. My solution is that we begin using this technology and educating the students. We need to embrace the technology and set the guidelines. A pen can be used inappropriately; we don't take the pen away do we? We teach them their responsibilities.

I wonder how many schools have considered what those mobile phones with their cameras have been up to.