So Much to Learn...So Little Time

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow - The Slidecast @iowconference08

Here's a slidecast version of the talk I gave at IOW Conference 08. I'm looking at why blogs and podcasts have a natural home in the MFL classroom.

Free Your Mind And Your Class Will Follow : Using Blogs And Podcasts In The MFL Classroom

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: iowconference08 learning)

Blogging CPD

After promising to do so for ages, I am hopefully going to do a bit of CPD with some colleagues this lunchtime. The topic: Blogs, and how to start one using typepad

I have put together a presentation in keynote (which now looks rubbish in ppt but oh well) and I also sent it to garageband and added some music so there's 2 versions.

During the session (only the first in a small series I hope) my colleagues will have the opportunity to set up their own blog under the school's account.  So fingers crossed that there will be someone there.

Click To Play

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Motivating learners - Embracing New Technologies for Learning

On Saturday 19th April Aberdeenshire Council's Education, Learning and Leisure Department hosted a CPD event at Meldrum Academy, called Motivating Learners - Embracing New Technologies for Learning.
The idea behind the event was for teachers to acquaint themselves or update their knowledge of the new technologies that are available out there with the potential to enhance teaching.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to present a seminar. My focus was Blogs and Podcasts. I would have liked to be able to host a hands-on session taking teachers through the recording of a podcast, but that wasn't a possibility with the available facilities so basically I looked at reasons for both students and teachers to blog, reasons to incorporate podcasting in the classroom, some resources available to make podcasts and finally examples of podcasts / vodcasts produced by myself and/or my students.

Unfortunately due to the time limits I was unable to show the delegates who came to my presentation the examples of blogs I'd hyperlinked into my presentation. With that in mind for those who attended and any of my readers here is the pdf file.

Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow

Alternatively here's the slideshare embed.

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Blogs and Podcasts - Free Your Mind and Your Class Will Follow

What Kind of Teacher are You?

Are you this kind of teacher?

Or are you this kind?

Images courtesy of Alec Couros from his Doctoral Thesis, Examining The Open Movement: Possiblities and Implications for Education, and were originally uploaded to Flickr by Alec. 
Thanks to Mr W. for bringing them to my attention.

May I be so bold as to suggest that if you are reading this you are probably a networked teacher, or on the way to becoming one. I find myself more and more a networked type and I have to say it suits me down to the ground. I have never thought so much about my job (vocation?) ever, and have never had so much contact with fellows world wide; at this particular point in my life when due to my ruptured discs I am not in my "Typical Teacher Network" it is really quite comforting and stopping me wallowing in too much of my own pity.
For example I was ironing a few clothes on Sunday ( I can still do a bit of work) with Twitteriffic chirruping in the background and Ewan wanted some contributions for a piece he was in the course of writing. I had a few thoughts and so did a few of our mutual followers. You never know I might vaguely recognise something he writes in The Economist.
Yesterday I caught a tweet from Lucy Gray asking for examples of presentations showing good practice in Global Ed. I sent her a link to one I did for our Welwitschia Partnership...lo and behold I discovered she has set up a whole network dedicated to Global Education.Fantastic.
One BUT though. I put out a tweet for any GLOW monitors to ask about their role. Nary a tickle. Glass half full version, non of them are online tonight. Glass half empty version...they don't know about Twitter...oh dear, better not utter my true thoughts.

All hail the network.

Technorati Tags: Aleccouros, networkedteacher, network, adamsutcliffe,

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A 2oh student's plea.

Sean The Bass Player has come up with some interesting thoughts in his latest Students 2.0 blog post. In short he would like not only to be taught to pass exams but to ensure that students are kept up to speed with technology. His thoughts were piqued by the Queen going all 2.0 by posting her latest Message to the Commonwealth on YouTube, along with a variety of historical films.

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He asks that if an institution as old as the monarchy can move with the times, why can't education?

I think this question is very valid. Why indeed does the education establishment not move and evolve more quickly. Well we all know the stock answer boils down to funding, or lack thereof; but unfortunately there also tends to be quite a lot of inertia in classrooms. If a certain way of doing things has got kids past their exams for the last10 years ago then it will jolly well do so now...if it ain't broke don't fix it.

The inertia thing is quite a difficult problem to deal with as it involves trying to persuade folk to do things they have no desire to do, and I don't wish to go in depth about that here.
But what about the other issue that crops up...funding. Many schools operate on networks that are long past their sell by dates. (My place has only just replaced the Windows '98 machines we were operating.) Now obviously updating these costs a heap of cash, but many of the very usable applications available on the net are free, especially to educators. I'm thinking of applications such as YouTube (or any video hosting site), Flickr, Animoto, Voicethread, Skype etc., etc. All these and more are free and are outstanding resources for educators and their students, BUT how many of us can actually access these sites in schools? Many are banned in the name of child protection, for (a very real) fear that kids will access inappropriate content.

This is where we the educators and students such as Sean ( and his 2.0 colleagues) need to step in by dealing with digital literacy on a daily basis; by educating and encouraging thoughtful, sensible use of the resources on the web. Then maybe, those who hold the keys to the filters may unlock them when they see that these tools are being used wisely and how useful they are to education. And then Sean et al  will feel that they are getting an education that goes some way to preparing them for a future that we cannot yet know.

Photo credit:  Dia 48 - School's Out, originally uploaded on April 18, 2007
by MëL

Working with eLearning Tools

Jane Hart's E-Learning Pick of the Day has provided me with loads of new applications to try out over the last few months.
Here's one I wanted to share. The E-Learning Guild has just produced a free to download ebook called 162 Tips and Tricks for Working withe Elearning Tools.
On first brief overview it is chock full of tips on how to use a plethora of web tools. The book is free to download and share but cannot be altered in anyway. So with thanks to the E-Learning Guild here is...

162 Tips and Tricks for Working With eLearning Tools

Online Teens

How creative are you?
Thanks to David Warlick for drawing my attention to a recent survey of teenagers in the US, by PEW Internet.

Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004.

How much longer can the vast majority of educators continue to ignore the fact that a huge number of the youngsters they teach each day are connected and online AND being creative. How many educators can seriously say they have actually created something recently. (I can. I can.)

Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys, however, do dominate one area – posting of video content online – online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it.

Interesting that girls are dominating the blogging side whilst boys dominate the posting of video online. Could we learn from this fact. Do we need more visual ways of educating to bring more boys on board?

Another thing that comes out from the survey is that teens appear to be inveterate commenters:

89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least "some of the time." Teens who post videos report a similarly large incidence of feedback, with nearly three quarters (72%) of video posters receiving comments on their videos.

Now we all know that at times these comments can be insulkting and appropriate but there are times when these comments can be useful critiques and show a level of thought and dare I say it a kind of Peer Assessment.

For me the "killer" info in this survey is this:

For many teens they are now an integral part of the system of communication that they use to conduct the work of their lives. Fully 41% of the teens who use MySpace, Facebook or other social network sites say they send messages to friends via those sites every day.

If just under half of all teens are using social networking sites to communicate educators must get involved in this (r)evolution at some time, otherwise we are going to lose all contact with those we are charged with educating.

Tellingly, even more so than internet stuff, mobile phones are THE preferred method of communication:

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of teens now have a cell phone and for teens who have them, they are the premier communication method for talking with friends.

Why? Well they are relatively cheap, easy to use and many can do most of what kids want them to do (and they don't have to share access with parents????). Although it pains me to say it I think these things are going to overtake computers as the primary net access source, so rather than banning them in schools
we need to educate about appropriate use and harness their power and omnipresence.

What do you think?

All quotes taken from PEW Internet and American Life Project Press Release (19 Dec 2007)

Response to Derek Wenmouth's k12 Online 2007 Questions

More from me on K12 Online 2007.
I am so glad this conference has been taking place during our half term holidays because it has meant that I have given myself time to watch / listen to some of the presentations. I've got through about half of them so far and am still interested.
For the purposes of this post however I wanted to respond to the questions posed by Derek Wenmouth at the end of his presentation entitled: "Holding a Mirror to our Professional Practice".
This keynote looks at the issues surrounding the use of emerging technologies in the classroom, and ways of trying to make the use thereof as invisible as possible, but he looks particularly at how we should reflect on our use of these technologies.
It is all well and good trying to use blogs, podcasts, wikis etc but the outcome must be that students learn what they are supposed to learn, which is usually dictated by a curriculum.
At the end of his presentation Derek leaves us with a series of questions to enable us to reflect on our own practice. He asks us to chose the one question most appropraite to ourselves...I'm a swot and have answered most of them.

    •    What are the mirrors I am holding to my practice?

not enough at the moment. I think the time is approaching when I need to stop looking forward all the time and just take stock of some of the things I have done in class recently and try to analyse how effective I have been and how much the students have learned.

    •    Who are my mentors WHO I RELATE TO REGULARLY?

I suppose my mentors are my colleague language teachers when it comes to the actual teaching of the languages, however i feel as though there are few, if any, colleagues in school who could sufficiently mentor and coach me on how to integrate emerging technologies in the classroom. There appears to be very little discussion on, or use of these technologies in my school. Every one is waiting for an INSET on them...I am not a "dIgital native" as the generation we teach are supposed to be. I only started to use computers in 1995 when I started teacher training (but it wasn't part of the course). I have learned and developed through my own interest. No INSET or course can provide you with the training you need because the training as we know it doesn't exist. Most of my training and mentoring comes from my blog reading and comment writing and TRYING STUFF OUT...AND FAILING

What is my professional reading?

        Blogs, blogs and more blogs. I have to admit I was never a good reader of academic material...not enough crime or horror in it for my reading tastes, but since my discovery of blogs I have never felt more up to date and in tune with educational thinking. Blogs are immediate and I can, if I wish, comment on what is written. Until just over a year ago I honestly only really spent time reflecting on my practice when Annual CPD review time came about. Now I'm doing it all the time.

What communities of practice do I belong to?
The blogosphere I suppose


DO I HAVE A BLOG?
You're reading it

What about my rss feeds?
Numbers growing on a weekly basis as reading leads me to new people.

When was the last time I observed a lesson?
I have not done this in a formal sense in along time but I often observe my MFL colleagues at work  if I need to visit their classroom.

When was my last presentation?

Done 2 main presentations in last 8 months Communicate.07 and 'shire and city In-service. Really enjoyed doing them and actually felt I was contributing to other colleagues development (thanks to feedback received), but actually done lots of assemblies and such like recently.

Well that wasn't too bad. All of this reflection leads me to the idea that I should really get myself together and go for Professional Recognition with GTCS.

Web tools I use

Welcome to the first in a short series of mega posts.
More for personal reasons I decided to audit the different web / ict resources I use, have used or intend to use. This list is those web-based resources I have used in class or for other professional reasons. I have tried to give examples (where appropriate), along with a screenshot. So here goes.

firefox

great free open source web browser, built to work with RSS technology. Lots of add-ons (foxy tunes links directly to your computer's media player and allows you to control media player from browser) and customisability. Blocks pop ups, links easily with different google apps and as with most open source stuff safe because those in the know work to protect it. Cross platform usage (windows, mac, linux etc)

flock
specialised social networking browser. Just out of beta. Links all your social networks together in one browser. I use it for uploading to flickr (great resource for this puprpose..multiple uploads easy batch tagging). Just seems to have too much going on at one time for me. I like to ...browse with my browser.

animoto
great way of putting together slideshow. Free for 30 second videos. Upload copyright free music to go with photos. Quick way of putting together an exciting slideshow to include in a presentation. There is a pro version which allows you to produce full length videos, about $30 I think for one year.

bubbleshare
Nice way of presenting photos in a slideshow

BubbleShare: Share photos - Here comes Halloween!

slideshare / slidecast
Used it for publishing my own slides from presentations, but have used slidecast to produce vocab learning resources. Could be used to promote pupil produced resources. Slidecasts are quite easy to produce and synchronise but you need to have a url for a voice file, I just uploaded to my blog and used the post's url. Would be great if you could upload sound file direct.

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zamzar
Great little resource to convert all kinds of file. etc into other formats. Have used it to convert my .mov files to .wav files and vice versa. All conversions carried out on zamzar servers. They then send email of link where to download converted file. Simple and efficient.

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pbwiki
Wiki for collaborative work - collaboration depends on collaborators getting on board, but this is very simple. As easy as a Peanut Butter sandwich. If you can email or word process you can use this. I am currently using it to promote our activities in our Connecting Classroom partnership. You can upload files (limited file space if you have a free account) or you can embed using the plugin menus...I find this a great way to post videos without using too much space.

I want to get into using it with students as a way of helping improve writing skills and helping them build a portfolio of work.

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wikispaces
as above but above but I prefer look and feel of pbwiki.

google docs
as I am disorganised with paper this is a great way for me to keep documents. No need to worry about school server packing up. However not as feature filled as office and I some times find it a bit frustrating...although I hear microsoft are coming up with a web based version of their office suite to rival it. Includes word, xl, powerpoint equivalents. The ace thing about these docs is that there is a share/collaborate tool which allows you to work together on a document.

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gmail
great easy to use unlimted webspace email. just about impossible to fill up inbox. Also creates conversations with mails exchanged between same people. The search facility is fantastic as well. A million times better than the new yahoo mail where I also have an account. (Compare these figures, in the last week my yahoo account had over 100 spam mails, gmail account had 2 so there is very good spam protection.) I am considering whether to start an experiment with a class where each student sets up a gmail account. I can then link them all to their own blog / wiki or whatever, but there is also an IM chat facility so I could specify a time online where difficulties with homework could be rsolved away from class... WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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feedburner
creates feeds...don't ask me to explain how it works or what it does but it works. Basically if you create sound files or write blogs you can ensure that potential subscribers can follow your every outpouring...you can probably tell I don't fully understand it but it works.

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typepad
blogging platform, paid but comes with all the whizz bangs necessary. You can link text, embed videos slideshows...as you can see from this very post. Extremely simple to use.

flickr
photo sharing website. Great for photo blogging etc. I have used the creative commons search facility to find photos for use in class. It can be used to share photos from class trips or school events etc. There are loads of "toys" that can be used with your flickr photos (motivational posters etc.). Try flickrvision for a few minutes, its mesmerising.

flickrslidr
produces embeddable slideshows from your flickr photos

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

skitch
allows sharing of screenshots. These can be annotated. Does lots more that I've not yet discovered. ONLY FOR MAC. I STILL HAVE 2 INVITES AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE WHO LEAVES A COMMENT. See examples on this post.

bloglines
This is my feed reader. allows me never to miss what people whose blogs I enjoy reading write. Also does a whole heap more that I've not discovered.

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youtube
video sharing website. Upload films and share with the world. Embed or link to your blog, social networking site etc.

teacher tube
video sharing website specifically aimed at educators. Self moderated

school tube
As teacher tube. requires registration via a school based email address and videos are moderated before publication. Doesn't seem to be as easy to use as tt but allows for longer films and are able to identify more specific channels for film. Was excited about it at first but am cooling on it very fast.

delicious
Bookmark sharing. Great way of helping students find web-based resources also enables you to bookmark interesting sites on whatever computer you are using. Here are my own favourites.

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vixy.net
"record" videos from you tube etc to your own hard drive. In other words allows you to convert youtube files to files viewable on PC, iPod, PSP etc. Great when school network doesn't let you see you tube

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miro
A bit like itunes specifically set up to search video sharing websites

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rss
really simple syndication. aggregates everything that interests you on the web. rather than you going out to look at something all the time this is the technology that brings it to you, via bloglines in my case. Look out for the little orange logo in your  browser address bar which lets you know you can subscribe to the site via an aggregator (eg bloglines, netvibes, my yahoo, google reader etc.)

voki

Talking avatars. Create cartoon type characters from the available types then record, text or upload voice file (max 30 secs). Great way of encouraging kids to speak without having see themselves, good amusement factor as well.

Get a Voki now!

flashmeeting
open university hosted free web based video conferencing. can chat in back channel, exchange urls etc. All conferences are also recorded and available afterwards, including all chat. This links to the recording of a flashmeeting organised by Joe Dale.

That's it for now. Hope this wasn't too long. Maybe I should have written a separate post for each application...hmm!
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K12 Online 2007 - David Warlick

Have spent most of the day doing CPD on the lounge floor whilst kids played out in the sun.
Last night I subscribed to the video podcast channel for the K12 Online Conference 2007. I didn't know it existed last year and found out about this years via Vicky Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog.
So (in a Fast Show stylee) today I have been mostly watching David Warlick. Now I'm sure that for most of you who read this David Warlick is not a new name, but if he is click his name to find out more. Anyway his keynote was entitled Inventing New Boundaries and dealt with how teachers are in the strange position of trying to educate students for a future we are unable to describe...scary isn't it, but so true. Most students have very little idea about how they will make a living once they leave school.

The real crux (for me) of David's presentation came towards the end when he talked about the gulf of knowledge about using new technologies between students and their teachers. Apparently 57% of US students have produced original digital content and as a result communicate directly with their audience.
To my mind too many teachers are stuck in their traditional ways with little desire to shift out of their comfort zone...there ought not to be a comfort zone anymore, things move so fast. There are a surprising number for whom email is still an alien force with a mind of its own. More importantly there often seems to be a total resistance to change within our profession, in other words " i have been doing the same lessons the same way for years and I'm not going to change my lesson plan for nobody..." that kind of thing.

I am not saying every teacher must blog, podcast and spend hours, like me, checking out things on the web but surely every teacher must now start to make some kind of effort to get near the kind of learning landscape which our students inhabit. Did they all have lessons on how to Bebo? Who gave the YouTube homework? What was the Facebook NAB like? See what my point is? We all need to be pro-active in using new info and finding out about it.

I'm nowhere near as eloquent as David so let me quote his blog:

One question that I consistently get is,  “How do we train teachers to work with today’s information and communications technologies?”  I don’t quite understand this.  It’s probably my own very unique perspective, my outside the box mentality, my own success as a learner, and less success as a student.  But this just doesn’t seem like such a big problem to me.

It’s completely understandable that educators, with the institutional culture that we work in, would attack the problem by asking, “How are we going to teach this to teachers?”  But yesterday, I asked the audience, of almost 300, to raise their hands if they could say that they learned at least half of what they do with technology by teaching themselves — and almost every hand went up. 

The thing I am finding with much of this web 2.0 stuff as i go along is that it gets far easier to pick up the more you look into it and ideas for using the things come quicker...the big thing though is making sure there is educational value in using your chosen technology. As Ewan says

its the teach not the tech.