Computers & 21C Eduk8n » classroom

Presentation by Tom Barrett

Joseph Papaleo — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:31:39 +0000

Several months ago, I got in touch with Tom Barrett after we had both started blogging about Google Earth in the classroom. Tom is a Primary teacher in Grade 6 and he has a fantastic blog and his classes are using blogs as well.

I liked what Tom was doing in the classroom and I used his work in my presentation to the k12online conference last year. Then I asked Tom to do a presentation for our Primary teachers as part of the Australian Government Quality Teachers Program. It was 10 months in the making as we couldn’t find a date that we could get all our Primary teachers together. In the end, we thought we’d do one campus at a time.
Tom presented from London last week to semi-rural Melbourne. It was 7:30 am here and 10:30 pm there. Many thanks must go to our Primary staff for actually turning up (in their dressing gowns), but more importantly, Karen Griffiths who supported me throughout this activity.

Most importantly, Tom talked about how he uses Google Earth, blogs, wikis, PhotoStory and Turning Point in his class. It was enthralling to watch and listen to him as well as his captivated audience. I’ve had several comments from our staff, who were quite impressed with his presentation and several have already asked about how they can do some of the same things.

Thanks Tom.

Classrooms of the Future – Virtual Education

Joseph Papaleo — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 13:06:43 +0000

Wow!

Many of us have heard of Second Life. But did you know there were many educational resources available? Check out Jo Kay and Sean FitzGerald’s wiki page on this very topic.
From the Educational Uses of Second Life wiki page, I found this list of links.

There are heaps of resuorces avaialble and I can see it will take me some time to get through. Am I keen to explore it?

Yes just to see what can be done
No because I’m scared I’ll spend far too much time there. I think that at the moment, I might stick with the latter option.

School Uniforms of the Future – Part 2

Joseph Papaleo — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 10:44:11 +0000

I’ve been thinking about school uniforms of the future recently – whacky ideas really (see School Uniforms of the Future), where I wrote about Dick Tracy, Maxwell Smart and some current Nike shoes, Levi jeans and a jacket that have been adapted to incorporate an iPod.

So it got me thinking that this would be a great research and design project for students (both Primary and Secondary). After researching, present the open-ended question With technology converging and getting smaller, what will your school uniform look like in 2017? I could see the boys would get right in to the technology side of the project while the girls could get in to the fashion side of things. Perhaps a group project with a boy and girl matched together for the project – if numbers allowed and boy germs didn’t contaminate the girls and vice versa (how silly are they???).

The project would have students investigate

Dick Tracy’s wristwatch radio
Maxwell Smart’s shoephone.

Research could include interviewing Mum or Dad or some other older person. The research would not have to be written evidence, but could be recorded on their mobile phone or the Sound Recorder in Windows or other recording device if they have one (eg video interview). Discussion in class could revolve around these interviews being Primary sources of information (as opposed to Secondary sources of information which would include the Internet).Students would then be required to do some research on

Nike+ runners and Sport Kit
RedWire DLX Jeans
Kenpo jacket

and find a common link between them.
Once the research is completed, a report (can be any format) is to be presented on each item. Then the open ended question – With technology converging and getting smaller, what will your school uniform look like in 2017? Students would be free to be serious, silly, creative, etc.
I think I’ll use it soon with one of my IT classes. I’ll write it up and post a reference here in the next few days.

School uniforms of the future

Joseph Papaleo — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 14:56:42 +0000

In the 1970s, I watched the Dick Tracy cartoon where the detective, Dick, would speak into his watch and communicate with headquarters. In the 1960s, Maxwell Smart from Get Smart was a popular show where the bumbling hero spoke into his shoe phone and had all sorts of gadgets.

Recently, Nike and Apple got together to release the “Nike +” running shoes and iPod Sport Kit, designed for use by joggers.

The Sport Kit allows your Nike+ shoe to talk to your iPod nano. The sensor uses a sensitive accelerometer to measure your activity, then wirelessly transfers this data to the receiver on your iPod nano. See source

With these shoes and iPod, joggers can now listen to music that syncs with their running tempo. A slow jog delivers a slower beat, a sprint changes the music to a more upbeat song. I really hate jogging, so I can’t see myself ever getting these items.

I remembered seeing an article about Levi releasing a new pair of jeans for the iPod with an “invisible” pocket to hide the iPod while it had a special controller in the watch pocket.

I also found that jacke ts are now available where the iPod fits to the inside of the jacket and the sleeve becomes the controls.

What gadgets will students have in the future? We are getting closer to a convergence of technologies where mobile phones and cameras and GPS and voice recorders and music players and computers will be incorporated into one device. How long before these devices will replace laptop or desktop computers and become part of a student’s tools?

So if jean, shoe and jacket companies can make special items for the iPod, what will the school uniform of the future look like?

Will school uniform committees be brave enough to allow students to wear clothing that allows these new devices to be worn in such a way that they can be used in class? Will they consider student safety as they get to and from school by ensuring these devices are hidden from view?

I have a son who has trouble with handwriting and spelling. My hope is that by the time he gets to secondary school, he will be able to use a voice recorder to record his thoughts, stories, answers, essays, etc. and have his computer convert it to text for him. Imagine a uniform that had a microphone in the lapel of a jacket that was so designed to record only the wearer’s voice. This could then be turned into podcasts or text as described above.

Will classrooms of the 21st Century still be contained within 4 walls? I hope not. Imagine students taking their tools safely from learning site to learning site and using the tools at their disposal. A camera, computer, mobile phone and GPS for safety. It is conceivable that these will be in one device in the future and small enough to fit within a sleeve or pocket or even on the student’s wrist.

Of course, many teachers would argue that all of this is coddswallop. I’d argue I could teach many innovative things if this were to occur. Would students be easily distracted? Of course. But give them a real, rich and relevant learning task and they will stay focussed and interested.

So what will the uniform of the future look like?

Mentoring – online

Joseph Papaleo — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:07:41 +0000

Last year, I “met” Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach through my invovlement in the K12 Online Conference. Sheryl was one of the organisers of the conference and led an international discussion using Elluminate that I participated in. It was a thrill to have a real-time discussion with many “big names” in the education blogosphere.

Recently, Sheryl got in touch and asked me if I would like to join her class of pre-service teachers and participate as one of many “online-mentors” from around the world. I was intrigued and agreed.

Sheryl as it turns out is a lecturer/professor at The College of William and Mary and has two classes of pre-service teachers. Using tapped-In, a global, on-line classroom has been established where Sheryl and her students pose various questions or seek assistance as they develop new units of work for their subjects or teaching rounds. As a result of the questions students have posed, I have been challenged several times in the last few weeks to refocus on my own teaching style . Thinking through their questions and my practices and then reading responses from other mentors has allowed me to become a better teacher.

Anyone can see this group and request to join it.

Thank you to both Sheryl and all of her students for this great collaborative project that has truly enriched me (and it has only been going for about month) .

Excellent examples of Computers in 21stC Eduk8n

Joseph Papaleo — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:53:33 +0000

On our first day back this year, we had a combined campus secondary teachers’ meeting. I got word that there was going to be a presentation on how IT can be used in the classrooms. I was actually rapt that someone would be presenting and a little jealous it was not me!

Our Head of School started the session and spoke about this teacher and how many others would not think of him as a user of IT in the classroom. He introduced a colleague based at our other campus, Colin Turner. I really don’t know Colin well and it will be an aim to get to know him much better now I have seen what he did in class. I have seen Colin at various PD sessions at work and he has been an active particiapnt in AGQTP activity that I organised last year. I always wondered why he showed up to many of these sessions and now I know why!

Colin got up and spoke as a non-IT professional and showed how he used camera phones, iPods, podcasts and PhotStory in his English classes. He spoke passionatley about his Romeo and Juliet unit where the students “switched on” when he used an iPod recorder to get them to record their inner most thoughts. He stated that some of his most difficult students took to the learning activity and benefited from it in their exam.

He also showed us how he got students to write very personal pieces by supplying various cartoon images of characters in different poses. They wrote their piece and inserted the image that best represented the “mood” they were in. To finish the topic off for the students, he produced large posters of the writing and pictures and displayed them in the library. Apparently, the Librarians reported that it was one of the more popular displays in the library.

He also got his students to take pictures of an item in the school yard using their mobile phone camera (if they had one). They then wrote a descriptive piece to describe the photo without mentioning what it was. To top it off for the students, he put the final piece into PhotoStory with some nice relaxing music to “show off” the work. The writing was not the focus for the PhotoStory piece, nor was the photo. But rather, I felt that the students would have seen how much they wrote and how each of them did the same thing. A new confidence boost for some I’m sure.
Well done Colin. I look forward to learning more from you. As a Maths/IT teacher, this is how I would envisage IT would be used in an English classsroom, but couldn’t get through to some “dinosaurs” over the years who were not prepared to listen. To see Colin do it on his own was inspirational.

Rumour has it that after his talk, some of his own English faculty bailed him up. Pity that some dinosaurs (any older teacher that refuses not to look at new technological practices) feel compelled to bring down the educational uses of the tools that the students are using in their everyday life to suit their style of antiquated teaching.

The sooner dinosaurs in any school evolve or retire, the better.

“The Open Clasroom” Presentation

Joseph Papaleo — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 12:18:39 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, we had our presentation on blogs and what they are. What a success!! Only 20 or so staff attended the session out of 150 teachers at our school (although only 35 were invited, so not a bad rate in my opinion). But the staff that attended included the Head of School (his introdcution and conclusion were fantastic and I’m not sucking up!!), Head of Campus, Head of Secondary, Director of Curriculum, Assistants to the Director of Curriculum, Head of IT Projects, as well as other interested staff. The staff were inspired by James, Jane and Jo (see previous posts for more details), who as educators and blog experts were all very different to each other, yet they showed that blogs were a teaching and learning tool and how they can be used inside and outside our classrooms – making them truly “open”.
James relaxed introduction surprised a few staff, but it suddenly turned serious when he started to talk about pedagogies and constructivism and how blogs can be used in classes as a teaching and learning tool (alongside other teaching and learning tools). Jane was quietly spoken, but delivered so eloquently and showed how her ESL classes have used blogs over time, even though she had some issues with her slideshow at times. Her academic background came through and showed the staff that blogs were not a “gimmick”. Jo spoke passionately about her Year 8 class and the way the students used the class blog. Students at a small school in Canada found her class blog and their is now correspondence between the two school groups. She showed how the students use of English improved as people outside the class discovered the blog and lastly, how she plans to use a form of blogging (podcasting) as a Year 12 revision tool. (I wish I thought of that ). Lastly, James wrapped up and showed how easy it was to create an edublog site and made a BIG announcement – but I’ll leave that to him to announce it to everyone else.

At the end of the session, it was clear that these presenters had hit the mark as there was lots of serious discussion. Today at work, staff were talking about it and wanting to get their classes to start blogging. I heard that at a Teaching and Learning committee meeting this morning, they kept coming back to last night’s meeting and the potential of blogging and other new technologies.

Sometimes, you don’t lead by getting up there and doing a big song and dance about what you are passionate about, but rather by sitting back and organising some great sessions and allowing others to see what it is you want them to see. It may take months, but it is worth it. So thanks Will Richardson, who started the inspiration with a wonderful presentation a few months via SkypeVideo, thanks to Reef Ed and the National Space Centre for videoconferencing with us, thanks to James Farmer, Jane Westworth and Jo McLeay for giving a great presentation yesterday. Two more sessions are planned for early next year – one on podcasting led by David Kelly, a friend and great IT teacher, the other on how a Primary teacher, Tom Barrett uses ICT in his classroom. Looking forward to them!

Fantastic!!

The Open Classroom

Joseph Papaleo — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:38:02 +0000

I’ve organized an afternoon “chat” called “The Open Classroom” for some of our staff next week as part of our AGQTP/AISV New Technologies program. I call it a “chat” as it isn’t PD, nor is it a lecture, nor a workshop. More of a “what is this blogging stuff and where can it take us?“. There will be no compulsion for staff to set up a blog afterwards, but I hope that some start to see the possibilities of creating Open Classrooms in the future. Our school has links with other schools around the world, in particular the Round Square organization, whereby, students participate in yearly conferences, International projects and exchange programs.

So enter three very qualified speakers or presenters from Melbourne – Jane Westworth, Jo McLeay, James Farmer. All are educational bloggers and have been doing so for quite some time. I have deliberately asked these three people because their backgrounds are so different to my own. At times, I feel as though I don’t get across to some of our administrators as they may see me as some type of techno-wizard (hopefully not a geek). As many of our administrators are of a Humanities background and I have a Mathematical / Science / IT background, we sometimes see things differently.

Jane is an English /ESL / Drama teacher – Lecturer / Researcher and a member of the Advocacy group at VATE. Jane is currently teaching at RMIT and working on a PhD at Monash. She is proud of the fact that she is not IT savvy. Yet, Jane has been using blogs since 2002 when they were first established. She has used them for her research and taught using various types of blogs for 4 years (a long time in blogging circles). She has achieved great success with ESL learners and students returning to study and her work has interesting parallels with our ELICOS center, English, Primary, LOTE classes and our Round Square community and Open Classrooms.

Jo is also an English teacher, member of VATE and she is completing a Masters of Education. She uses blogs in her classrooms and uses them for assessment purposes, an area that seems to get neglected as I read through other teachers blg entries (or perhaps I’m not looking hard enough yet). I enjoy reading her blog as she has used technology in ways that some of our staff may consider “gimmicky“, but in my opinion, she is using the technology to enrich student learning. Isn’t that our job? Jo’s blog is called “The Open Classroom” and I have borrowed this name for the presentation.

James has his own section in my last post.