“The Open Clasroom” Presentation November 29, 2006
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in AGQTP/AISV, Ed Blogger, Video Conference, Web2.0, Will Richardson, blogs, classroom.2 comments
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!!
Thanks to Will Richardson September 14, 2006
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in Personal, Skype, Web2.0, Will Richardson, blogs, podcasts.comments closed
Before getting into this blog proper, I must say thanks to Will Richardson. I stumbled upon his blog some time in 2005 and started to follow it religiously. At that stage, I didn’t know how to use RSS, so I set up my Mozilla browser to access his page every time I accessed the Internet. His blog entries have helped me get a better understanding of how I can use this technology in my classes and at work.
I’ve been working on a project to introduce interested staff at my school to Web 2.0 technology. Part of my project was to show how Video Conferencing could be used for PD or in class. What better way to do it than to ask Will to speak at our seminar, speaking from his home in the States to our school in Melbourne, Australia. Time zones were sorted out and technical issues resolved. Unfortunalty, there were a few technical issues on the day, but we managed to have a Skype Video call (we could see Will, he couldn’t see us!) and we were also able to see his presentation on our projector as he controlled it (thanks must go to Chris Ross and Winston Mattson).
So Will, thanks heaps. Now all I need to do is get you here one day.
