Sir Ken Robinson

Love this video by Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution.

As usual he has a lot of really good thoughts mixed with humour. He suggests that schools make a shift from the traditional model to personalised learning where children's natural talents can florish.

It certainly makes me think about the way our schools are run at present.

YouPublisher

Another great Web 2 tool (free) that I like is Youblisher. You upload your pdf files and it makes the document 'flippable' so the pages turn - it makes it more like reading a 'real' book.

I have embedded a small pdf (2 pages) so you can see how it works. This is great for schools - children could make their own pdf files to add to classroom blogs or wikis.

Digital literacy across the curriculum

Digital literacy across the curriculum

What another great book for teachers to download (free). This book is aimed at primary and secondary teachers who are interested in critical and creative uses of technology in the classroom.

Schools are encouraged to embed the use of ICT in all curriculum areas across both the primary and secondary schools. Teachers need to consider how the digital literacy can support the subject knowledge can help ensure that using the technologies enhances teaching and learning as opposed to being simply an ‘add-on.’ As teachers we try to prepare young people to make sense of the world and to thrive socially, intellectually and economically, then we cannot afford to ignore the practices of digital literacy that enable people to make the most of their multiple interactions with digital technology and media.

Movemeon

A book for teachers, Movemeon, is available for a free download (or a hard copy may be bought) for teachers. This has been made from the Twitter community and consists of tip, suggestions and ideas. It has lots of interesting ideas about activities, behaviour, classroom management and feedback. It is well worth teachers downloading this book. Apparently another book is planned on school leadership.

Ning

A large number of educational communities have been created in Ning generally using a free account. From July these are now going to cost depending your plan. There are three plans: Ning mini, Ning Plus and Ning Pro. The cheapest is Ning Mini at @2.95 a month. They say that Ning Mini Networks will be available for K-12 educators and their students that a 'major educational company' is sponsoring this. Higher education appears excluded from Ning's educational plan.

I have been reading Steve Hargadon's blog about this as well as the information on Ning. Steve's blog is a balanced account of the changes.

Pre-service training

I have just been reading Jessica Shiller's blog about pre-service training. She is discussing teacher training in America however a lot of what she has written is very applicable to us here in New Zealand. We had Teacher Training Colleges which have now been merged into the universities here. The one I teach at merged 3 years ago so we are still in the process of redesigning or changing a lot of the courses in our degree. We are also struggling with the best way to prepare our teachers for the classrooms.

I think this is particularly important as our classrooms and schools are also changing at a rapid pace (here in NZ we have Mission Heights with some particularly innovative practices). Teachers need to be flexible and open to new learning themselves - teachers are now 'life long learners' rather than expect to go and do the course and be an 'expert teacher'.

I agree with Jessica's comments particularly the last paragraph as this is also applicable to us here in NZ:

"whether teacher education is at a university or not, we need some standard for
what teacher education is. Teacher education should not dump theory nor should
it focus entirely on the practical skills that can only be applied inside of a
classroom. Teacher education should combine the theoretical and the practical,
but more importantly, it needs to give future teachers rich preparation so that
they can be strong teachers for kids"

I would be very interested in what others think of this.

Pre-service teacher training

We set our 1st year students a task to create a multimedia resource to use in the classroom with primary (elementary) aged children. The students were given a range of web 2 tools to use or they could use PhotoStory 3. The students were encouraged to use a tool they had not encountered before.

I provided online help tutorials as they were required - 'just in time learning'. As well students supported each other in group situations or through an online forum. This gave the students an experience where they were able to see how the tool (or something similary) could be used in their future classroom.

After making the resource they had to either give a link to their work or upload the work to our online learning environment. Many of the students who used Photostory 3 or Animoto then uploaded them to YouTube to be able to embed them in our online environment or into their e-portfolios. I wonder if there are many teachers who are providing experiences like this in their classrooms and how they are doing it. It is great to be able to show these students 'real life' examples to follow on.

Fantastic book for all teachers

Terry Freedman has done it again. He has put out a new book - The Amazing Web 2 Projects Book.

This book is free and has many ideas for the busy teacher. The best thing is all of these ideas come from teachers globally so that there are some really great ideas. These teachers have trialled the projects so you know that they are going to work.

Facebook in the classroom???

I have just been reading Ewan McIntosh's blog. He uses an example of Kimberley Swan and her total lack of understanding about consequences. His blog reminded me of a similar case here in New Zealand a couple of years ago when a teenager was derogatory about her place of employment. Her post was seen by her boss and she was sacked. Many teens here were very upset and did not understand why she had been fired. Lawyers were called in to show that the company had every right to fire her.

He further links to Lindsay who complained about her boss on her Facebook page; the only problem was she had added him as a 'Friend'.

Ewan's final sentence to sum up is fantastic (I wish I had thought of it...)

"If Lindsay or Kimberley had been taught by a real "real teacher", maybe they'd
have not only had a conversation at some point about how one uses social
networks for both play and work, as part of your public face, they may also have
had, subject to the filtering policies in their schools, some hands-on practical
sessions in privacy settings and the art of communication on the net."

Kevin Kelly talks about technology

In this thought-provoking talk Kevin Kelly muses on what technology means in our lives -- from its impact at the personal level to its place in the cosmos. It is worth having a look