Jane's Blog - ICT U Can

I am in the process of writing a literature review on "informal personal online learning networks". I decided that lifelong learning will be a central idea in this review and began reading 'The concepts and practices of lifelong learning'.

I realised that I had a very narrow view of the concept and there are elements that I have never entertained. Some ideas I am grappling with at the moment are:

• Lifelong learning can be thought of as elitist. The concept is that the individual will drive their own education and access opportunities but not that the government will provide those opportunities (as opposed to the policy of lifelong education). If this is the case then only those people who can gain access through their economic or social position will have access to quality lifelong learning. This brings up the whole question of equality.
  
• Lifelong learning can be linked with social control. If you accept the notion of lifelong learning then people accept they must adapt and change. This clouds out the other issue of questioning the direction of the change. Deleuze says that one of the features of societies of control is the idea of perpetual learning.
  
• Lifelong learning is essential in the 21st century because of the changing learning society spurred on by changes in science and technology.

I still see the value in lifelong learning and think that greater emphasis needs to be placed on the equity issue. Maybe if we face this issue then the issue of power and control can be addressed also as people learn to evaluate and question change before adapting it.

This has really made me think about the fact that this concept 'lifelong learning' needs to be understood in detail before being claimed to be of benefit for our students or ourselves. I am a lifelong learner and I embrace the concept more now that I have begun to explore what it means, the inherent pitfalls and the opportunities for making the concept of value for all, not just the select few.

These are my initial musings. I am just starting to explore this issue, I am sure many more ideas will come to light so I reserve the right for this post to be seen as my grappling with ideas not making black and white statements. :)

Today I spent some time watching videos put together by Michael Wesch. Many will know his now famous video The Machine is Us/ing Us. He has made a series of other videos about students engagement in school and a fascinating lecture which expands on his simple videos. Below are some of the key messages I pulled out of these videos.

Michael Wesch from Kansas State University put together the video A vision of students today (4:44min) after observing a level of disengagement in tertiary students he wasn't happy with. This video inspired a similar video for junior students A vision of k12 students today (4:09min)

In a presentation at the University of Manitoba entitled A portal to media literacy (1hr) Michael Wesch expanded on the initial video explaining how it came about and discusses the use of digital literacy to enhance student learning.

He asked his students:
Who doesn't like school?
Over half put up their hands.

He asked his students:
Who doesn't like learning?
No one put up their hands.

Michael Wesch also talks about the common statement made by teachers that

Some children are not cut out for school

He then makes the point that School is Learning

Is it fair to say:

Some children are not cut out for learning?


The power of the learning environment is discussed, with the question "What do the walls say about learning?"

He says that the traditional classroom may say:

"To learn is to acquire information
Information is scarce and hard to find
Trust authority for good information
Authorised information is beyond discussion
Obey the authority
Follow along"

This just is not the case for 21st century learning.

What does your learning environment say about learning?

I had a good day yesterday. The best part of my job is listening to teachers share their successes and ideas. I spent yesterday at Outram School and every teacher I worked with walked in with something they were proud of to share with me. What a buzz!

I had one teacher who had been exploring the use of glogster to make posters explaining algebraic equations. Another teacher had made her first digital story with PowerPoint on a Mac and then using the easy 'make movie' function to turn it into a Quicktime to post on her blog. The next teacher was buzzing from a workshop she attended at ULearn facilitated by Amanda (heymilly) on 5 frame storytelling. She had started with two frame stories with her 6 year olds and was delighted with their achievements. We discussed the next steps and how digital storytelling can enhance and enable oral language in students and the resounding "That's so exciting" could be heard emanating from the room. Another teacher had made the most remarkable printed storybooks with her juniors where their original artwork had been scanned.

Wow! All this after just one year in the cluster! I remember my first visit to the school where I met with some very uncertain teachers. Uncertain about their ability, uncertain about how useful ICT is for learning, uncertain about the cluster. I am really looking forward to watching these teachers' journey continue over the next two years.

I have been reading some photography blogs and one had some tips for photographing pets and I thought I would have a go with my lovely Jessica...

The 2009 e-Fellowships have been announced and I am very excited that a close friend and colleague, Esmay Sutherland, has been awarded an e-Fellowship for next year! Esmay will have an exciting year working alongside the talented people at CORE Education on a research project incorporating movie making and literacy. Who knows... I may even be able to get her blogging!

I have always said Pine Hill School Leads the Way! and this definitely is the case with effective teaching and learning with ICT. Pine Hill School is a small 3 classroom school and has had two teachers awarded e-Fellowships over the last three years. Not bad for a small school at the bottom of the South Island.

Update: Here is the official press release
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Over the last two days in Dunedin we have held our annual Kidz @ Conference. This is the third year this event has been running and we seem to have ironed out a lot of the kinks. One of the aims for this year was to make sure that the students' work made it online, the last two years this has been a bit of a mission but this year I think we cracked it!

The theme for this year was "I have a dream". Students attended four sessions through out the two day conference learning how to use various technologies: I Can Animate, Garage Band, Lego Robotics, Beebots, digital photography, movie making, green screen, Google Sketchup, Scratch and Wikispaces. And making new friends across the various schools attending. The key to the conference is collaboration, communication and technology.

The Kidz @ Conference is a remarkable two day event for those students lucky enough to attend. There are only places for 100 students (year 5 or 6) and teachers can attend with the students to sit in on the sessions as professional development. The buzz of excitement is contagious. On the first day the students arrive and are given their conference packs and a t-shirt. They then file into the lecture theatre at the University of Otago College of Education where the conference is held. One student was heard to exclaim:
Wow! Look at the seats!Every part of the conference is an event for the students. After rifling through their packs they were entertained by some very cool dudes from the John McGlashan School band .


These young men from the band then spent the day at the conference running sessions called "Jam with the band". Students could learn how to play their instruments and have their jam session recorded. These sessions can be found on the wiki.

The theme of this year's conference was apt. The Kidz @ Conference has been a dream of the organisers for a very long time and was realised in spectacular fashion this year. A big thank you and well done goes to all the session facilitators and conference organisers who come from schools and education institutions around Dunedin and volunteer their time for free to put on this event. It is a privilege to be involved and I look forward to next year's event.

I had the privilege yesterday to work with a group of year 4/5/6 students at Ravensbourne School. We were looking at how to take close up photos. The photo above is one of the results of our session taken by Alisha, a year 4 student and I think it is amazing! We talked about how to take a close up using the macro function, we talked about angle and lighting.

I took a group of 10 students and taught them these elements of photography and they then went out and took some photos and shared back with each other. Five students then paired up with a new five students and taught them everything they knew. We did this until everyone in the class had learnt how to use the camera to take quality close up shots. I stood back in wonder as the students did such a good job at teaching each other and the excitement built over every creative shot taken. There was no silliness, no silly photos, just students whose world view had been narrowed! I say narrowed because they began peering around the school yard looking for small things of interest. A great cry went up when it was noted that small green clusters of leaves had small droplets of water inside which glistened in the sun!

It is a privilege to be a part of a child's learning. To share the excitement of new knowledge. To discover a world that went unseen before we, as teachers, opened the door to help students see.

I love my job.

Last night I hit a problem. A colleague is in the last stages of cancer and the staff at her school have made her a tribute in the form of video clips of children and colleagues saying goodbye. I was given all the footage to build into a movie. I was honoured to be asked to help.

I sat down with these clips and started building the movie, however when I imported the MPG clips into iMovie there was no sound. I hadn't come across this problem before so I thought I would post the solution I found for anyone else who comes across the same problem.

Apparently MPG intertwines the audio and video tracks so iMovie can't separate them (there will be a technical way of explaining this I'm sure). I consulted trusty Google and one solution I came across was to use some software to split the MPG into an audio and video track then resync them in iMovie. Oh no! this was going to take forever.

Luckily I came across another solution. I downloaded Mpeg streamclip and the problem was solved. I converted each clip using this software into quicktime movies and had the movie built and burnt to disk in no time at all!

This got me thinking (as it always does) about the joys of problem solving. I was on a high because I had solved this problem, it was a similar feeling to finishing a half marathon! It was made even more special because it was such an important problem to solve for the people involved. Do we rob our students of experiencing the joys of problem solving when we solve their problems for them? Our role as teachers is to guide them in their journey to finding the answers and let them enjoy the feeling of success. It takes a skillful teacher to help someone find their own answers.

I have just watched a thought provoking TED talk, so thought provoking that I had to write this blog post as I sit on my plane flying from Wellington to Dunedin. Sugata Mitra asks the question “Can kids teach themselves?” and went about finding out with a very interesting research project. Concerned about the poor level of education for students in remote areas such as rural India Sugata decided to find out how technology could help. He built ‘hole in the wall’ computers connected to the Internet and placed them in remote, non English speaking areas and then videoed what happened. He found that children very quickly taught themselves how to use these machines to browse for information. Amazingly these children taught themselves how to speak English using the machines to enable them to actually use the machines!

He found that all children could teach themselves with the computer, and this is the vital bit – as long as they were in twos or more. Over 300 children would become computer literate in a 6 month time frame with only one computer. And this was because of the group nature of the learning.

There are many more profound instances in this talk, I urge you to watch and be challenged.

Now I am not seeing this talk as saying we don’t need to teach our kids. One of Sugata's premises was that technology is being rolled out for schools with good kids and good teachers and not making too much of a difference, where it should be rolled out in areas where students are not experiencing a good education, have a lack of teachers, lack of quality education and there the technology makes a marked difference.

However there are important elements in this talk for those of us lucky enough to be in well-developed education systems. There were two major things that stood out for me in my thinking from the results of this research project. The first one was that it affirmed my solid belief in the importance of using computers collaboratively. With all the push for 1 to 1 computing I think we are losing the great benefit of students talking to each other and problem solving together.

The second thought was to do with teachers who are afraid to introduce technology unless they are proficient in it themselves. I have always believed that teachers need to be confident with the technology and be able to know the possibilities but do not need to be the expert. This talk highlights that we can’t hold kids back because of our limitations. My favourite way of introducing new technology to my class is to grab a couple of kids, give them time to explore and play, have them report back to me on what the technology can do and then I introduce it to the rest of the class. I then have ready made experts who can support the students. My job as the expert in learning and teaching is to know how this technology can enhance and extend my students’ learning. If we hit a problem with the technology, then fantastic, problem solving time!

The quality of the sound is a bit low but stick it out, it is worth it.



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The second keynote was presented, ably, by Steven Carden. This was a highly entertaining talk with a profound message. I asked the twit network to reflect on the keynote as it was happening and you can see their comments in the image to the left (click to enlarge).

The take away message from this keynote:

We are facing or experiencing rapid, extreme change - discussions are needed about our future. What sort of society do we need to be to survive in a changing society?

Steven argued that we are not ready for this change. We forget how small we are (NZ) on the world's stage. We do not have any profound answers... yet. Dialogue is needed.

Societies who are moving in a forward direction have three things in common:
Idea-generating
Ideas are needed to cope with a world that is changing

Idea-absorbing
Small countries like NZ can't generate all the ideas we need. We need to absorb them from elsewhere.

Willing to change


Steven asks what does all this mean for NZ's education sector?

1. The workforce needs highly adaptive people. The nature of jobs is changing dramatically
2. We need radically new ways of educating young people
3. It's all about YOU - the quality of the teachers in our schools is the key.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." (Alvin Toffler)


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Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach opened the ULearn conference with an inspirational presentation with examples of students using blogs to make a difference.

Laura is a young girl who lost her grandfather, she decided in his memory to make a difference to the world. She tells her story at her blog http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com.

At a conference Laura was asked a question.

"Laura can you tell us how do you come up with your ideas of who to help."
She replied "I ask my readers."

Laura has a voice. She knows her opinions are valued. She feels empowered to make a difference and contribute. Do we allow this in our classrooms? I use the word 'allow' pointedly. Do our students get to use their voices?

It makes me think of the joke of the young girl spending her first week at school:
"Dad, I don't think I'll go to school anymore there really isn't any point"
"Why is that?"
"Well I can't read and I can't write ... And they won't let me talk."

21st century technologies allow us to have voices, to voice our opinion, to make a difference. These technologies are available for our students, our children. We must let students have their voices and we must make sure they know how to use these voices in an ethical manner and in a safe way.

That is our job as educators.




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I found this quote buried in my blog and wanted to shout it from the roof tops.

"When we adults think of children there is a simple truth that we ignore: childhood is not preparation for life; childhood is life. A child isn't getting ready to live; a child is living. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation. How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognise children as partners with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing them as apprentices. How much we could teach each other; we have the experience and they have the freshness. How full both our lives could be." John A. Taylor, Notes on an unhurried Journey.
Childhood is not a preparation for life; childhood is life!!!

How's that for a thought to carry with you into the classroom each day.

Million Futures is site I have just come across for which I can see many applications for use in the classroom. Million Futures is a UK based initiative which asks people to write their hopes and dreams for the future on a paper plane and launch it into the air to circulate with the collective hopes and dreams of others.

I can imagine using this site with your students to respond to their learning to give an authentic message. They could be looking at sustainability, participating and contributing to society, caring for each other, future focus, the list could go on. The students could launch their hopes and dreams on a paper plane to join the hopes and dreams of others.

What would your paper plane say?

79 words

Speed test

I have been told I'm a freak. I have been typing since I was in primary school when my then step grandma bought me a typewriter and a typing book. It was something I enjoyed doing and I never realised it would come in so handy. When I was in primary school the only people who needed to know how to type were secretaries.

Well now, the best thing about typing at 79 words a minute is that when I ichat or skype chat, no one can get a word in! You've got to be quick to keep up with a conversation with me!

Now the reason I'm bringing all this up is I am fond of typing tests and I found this one that has a twist. The test uses the most common words in English. It's not a flashy learn how to type game but if you want a quick 60 second speed test and want to expose your students to the most commonly used words, this is a good site to try out. Can you beat me?

Update - I am rather stuck in the vortex... must stop typing test... must join the real world... must stop procrastinating...

83 words

Speed test

86 words

Speedtest

97 words

Speed test

Okay, I can stop now.