Anyone interested in joining a proposed Music Festival via VideoConference? March 7, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General.add a comment
Gary Hodges, a good friend and colleague was buzzing today. His Year 9 Business class has been putting together a real life project revolving around the Music industry and they are in the process of organising a Music Festival at school. As part of the day’s activities, his students will raise money which will be donated to one of the school’s main charities (Cambodian Housing Project).
He was likening the activity to Band-Aid, the Bob Geldof inspired charity work where musicians gave their time freely to raise money for Ethiopia’s starving. Definitely not in the same league, but a start. He then had the thought:
Wouldn’t it be great if we could telecast it?
So, is there anyone out there who would like to beam in via VideoConference (using http protocols) and take a look at the Year 9 Business Studies class and their attempt to raise money? It won’t be high tech, modern concert gimmicks, but a chance for some local talent to strut their stuff in front of the school community and perhaps, nationally or internationally.
If you can’t participate, but think it is a good idea, can you please send a message of support so the students get an idea of what they could do in the future. Perhaps even link this to your site for wider exposure.
This all depends of course on our IT technicians having the VideoConference equipment set up correctly (something I’ve been asking them to do for over a year and it still isn’t quite right). A lot of whatifs and maybes, but the idea and potential really excite me. Exact details to be confirmed - I think Friday March 16, midday-ish (Melbourne, Australia time).
Thanks
School Uniforms of the Future - Part 2 March 7, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General, Mobile Phones, classroom.add a comment
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.
YouTube, BBC and the Victorian Government March 5, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General.1 comment so far
Recently, I wrote about the ban placed on YouTube in Government schools. Then the very next day, BBC announced plans to work together with Google (owners of YouTube) and allow clips of its news and other programs to be made available to users of YouTube.
Fantastic! YouTube users now have access to a great service.
And as a teacher, I look forward to the day where I might choose to use a clip from BBC in my class, just because I know it is there and I didn’t think to record the previous night’s news. So whenever there is a ground breaking news item or natural disaster in the world, I know that I can access YouTube and use it in class. Without organinisg to record the news, just in case something big would happen. How cool? An excellent example of using this wonderful resource in class. Probably more useful to Primary or History - Geography - SOSE teachers.
(Why is it that most news items are “Bad News” items???)
I wonder when the Victorian Education Department will reverse its decision to ban YouTube in its schools now? Of course, they won’t reverse the decision as they wouldn’t dare look stupid, would they?
School uniforms of the future March 4, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General, Mobile Phones, classroom, podcasts.2 comments
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 jackets 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 March 3, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General, classroom.add a comment
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) .
My State Government has banned YouTube in schools March 1, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General, Mobile Phones, Screencast.1 comment so far
The Victorian State Government today announced that YouTube would be blocked in State Government schools. Why? (Read an article here or here)
Maybe there were too many students using it in class to look at innapropriate material instead of focussing on their work? Good guess, but no. Maybe because the extra bandwidth was too costly for the Government and they were trying to cut costs. Another reasonable assumption, but wrong again!
The reason is cyberbullying. Late last year, a group of teenage boys filmed themselves while assaulting a young girl and then making DVDs. The DVDs were distributed in the local area and it was then uploaded onto YouTube. Once this story got into the media, there were many commentators calling for the banning of YouTube in schools (as well as other technological tools).
While I am appalled at the actions of this group of boys and other cyberbullies, there is no way in the world blocking YouTube in schools will stop cyberbullying. While students are at school, bullying will continue to exist in school yards and classrooms, with and without the use of technology.
Naturally, other independent schools will follow suit (if they haven’t done so already) and block YouTube. What concerns me is that YouTube can, be a useful tool. I am currently playing with vodcasts for use by my Year 12 Further Maths class. I have started creating short videos on how they should be using their graphics calculator to solve various problems. YouTube (or podomatic or mogopop or other similar services) would have been an ideal way to distribute these helpful vodcasts. I also plan to use some YouTube videos I’ve found as part of some of my class projects (I’ll post an entry about these one day soon). But now with this ban, many schools will not be able to find crative ways to use YouTube.
So I now have to ask. How will my State Government stop students using YouTube out of school hours? Will they get ISPs to blacklist YouTube? Will they also ban all mobile phones at school and at home to prevent those nasty SMS bully tactics? Maybe they’ll even ask Telstra to close down its phone lines between 8:00 and 10:pm every day to prevent a student bullying another student by phone.
Sorry Steve Bracks (Victorian Premier) and Jacinta Allan (Education minister). You have got this one wrong!
BTW, YouTube removed the video from their site within a very short time, but there would still be many copies of that DVD circulating about. Maybe we should destroy all DVD players too!
Excellent examples of Computers in 21stC Eduk8n February 17, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in Colleagues, classroom, podcasts.2 comments
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.
On holidays January 20, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in General.add a comment
I haven’t blogged for quite some time as I have enjoyed time away with my family or working on a house renovation. I will get back to blogging about Computers and 21st Century Eduk8n in the near future.
Blogtagged January 1, 2007
Posted by Joseph Papaleo in Colleagues, General, Paul Harrington, Tom Barrett, blogs.3 comments
I’ve had a complete break from blogging after finishing work for the year. To my surprise, I’ve been blogtagged - twice! By Paul Harrington and Tom Barrett. Thanks!
OK - 5 things about me
- I “worked” as a volunteer for 7 years with an organization called Camp Challenge - later renamed Challenge Cancer Support Network many years ago. It was a support group for kids and their siblings with Cancer or hematological diseases. Lost many friends, but made one great friend. My wife Christine. We first met while she was a “camper” and then she returned a few years later as a leader. Many years later, we started going out and what do you know, we got married.
- We have 4 children - Jeremy 9, Claire 8, Olivia 4 and Zoe 2. Each is unique and I love them all very much.
- For Olivia’s birth, Christine went into a very quick labour. Realising we were not going to get to the hospital in time, I called the ambulance. While on the phone, Christine’s waters broke and I ended up “catching” Olivia in the bathroom. We have a recording of the phone conversation of Olivia’s birth which I’ll play at her 21st Birthday.
- I am highly allergic to Nuts and Sesame Seeds. My allergies started with walnuts and Sesame Seeds when I was about 8 years old and as I got older, I became allergic to other nuts. Of course, back then, no-one had any idea and so I continued to eat nuts that I wasn’t allergic to. But then I became allergic to them. Most people allergic to nuts are allergic to peanuts, but I’m not. But to be on the safe side, I’ve been told not to eat them anymore. Oh, how I long to eat Crunchy Nut Breakfast cereal again (remember me Tom next time you indulge!) I now carry an epipen (adrenaline) in case of accidental ingestation - my throat may swell, causing my airway to block - don’t really want to think about it at all.
- I love painting walls. Give me a room to paint during the holidays and I’m happy. I actually find it therapeutic - a chance to slow down, a chance to think, time to reflect on life, listen to the radio, etc. The satisfaciton when the job is done is great. And these holidays (we have our 6 weeks off now), I hope to get as much of our renovations done as possible on our newly acquired home.
5 people to tag -
- Mario Papaleo (my brother who is new to blogging, so it will give him some time to practice.
- Gary Chapman (Work colleague)
- Paul Kelly (Work colleague)
- Rosa Ochoa (I just discovered her blog - an Australian teacher)
- SoulCradler (I just discovered her blog - a new Australian teacher)
“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!!
