Web 2.0 Projects Book

Terry Freedman is updating his Web 2.0 projects book. This book has been available (free of charge) for teachers to use. I am teaching about integrating ICT into the primary classroom and often find that our students initially have very limited ideas on how to do this. We have directed our students to this book for some time now and they all find it very useful to see how teachers use these tools in so many innovative ways - many of them have never used any of these tools themselves before starting our course.

I know many of you are using Web 2.0 in your classrooms, why not contribute to this book (over 11,000 downloads of the last edition). Terry has extended the time to submit until 16th October - we have school holidays here at the moment so this is a great time to do something like this. In this way we can get the ideas to each other to use in classrooms. It is great to have the ideas in one place to look through and then adapt for our own classrooms. If you are interested go to Terry's site where you will find a link to an online form.

NEW DEADLINE: due to everything going on the new deadline is 31st October.

Open Education Resource (OER)

The Open Education Resource (OER) Foundation was officially launched on 17 September 2009 by Dr Robin Day.

This is very exciting for teachers globally and our own teachers here in New Zealand.

"The OER Foundation is a new not-for-profit organisation that will assist
education institutions in New Zealand and around the world to reduce costs
through open education resources. These are materials which educators are free
to reuse, adapt and modify without restriction."

To meet the demands of a new age

This video shows a 21st century curriculum philosophy. The message is one for all teachers; and certainly those integrating ICT and Web 2 tools in their classrooms will relate to it.

To Meet the Demands of a New Age from Steven H on Vimeo.

Wired for the future

Mission Heights, a school here in New Zealand, featured on our TV programme, Close Up, here last Thursday night. This is well worth watching. This is a new school who have set up a learning environment for this century. I wonder how things will change in the next twenty years?

Making elearning books

I have been making an elearning book using ClassTools. You can then embed these into your blog or wiki. A big positive is that you do not need user names, passwords etc. Unfortunately the book needs to be under 10 pages. However what a great tool to use in the classroom. As well as the obvious curriculum area of literacy it could be integrated into any curriculum area. There are some really great templates such as fishbones and timelines for example - have a look. You can also create educational games and activities. These are all done using Flash. It is free!!

Click here for full screen version

Discover a great degree at accounting online

Does the use of ICT in the classroom enhance the thinking and learning?

I have just been reading an article by Terry Freedman. He has been listening to a journalist, John Clark, at a recent conference he was at. John was obviously an interesting keynote speaker.

Terry points to four main points from the speech:

1. ICT has a number of important potential benefits for
education.
2. The degree of hype and misplaced funding has been such that the
potential real benefits are being obscured by illusory ones.
3. After massive funding in the UK over the last decade, the research
evidence about ICT's effectiveness in raising attainment is still either
superficial or ambiguous.
4. Much of the software we laud is actually anti-educational: it
institutionalises short attention span, and provides a raucous, cacophonous
environment which is anything but conducive to learning.

These points give us, as educators some points to ponder. As he says we need good research to provide the evidence that we are enhancing the thinking and learning - not just anecdotal evidence. Is anyone out there doing some research about this? I would love to hear about it.

Cheers
Di

The future of newspapers...

Fascinating article in The Independent. This is something that we regularly discuss at home as a family member was an old fashioned sport's reporter! A neighbour recently cancelled his paper as he is now reading it online each morning.

I love these maps in the article to look at different arguments on the topic.

It is a great idea to use in the classroom as a debate topic.

Pre service courses for teachers

We are currently relooking at our courses for pre-service teachers.

Any teachers in the classroom who have any ideas of what they consider important for these students to cover, in relation to the use of ICT in the classroom, while they are undertaking their preservice training please let us know.

Thanks so much for your help.

Vlogging

What is vlogging? As you can imagine it has something to do with blogging as well as videos! The vlog (video-blog) is a blog which mainly uses videos in each post.

This video is by Leigh Blackall and gives a good explanation of vlogging.

New Learning

Kalantzis and Cope (2008) have an article on the Curriculum Leadership web site. This is well worth a read. They are discussing the changes that are happening in education. They ask the questions "what will learning be like and what will teachers' jobs be like?" This is something that fascinates me as I am sure that there are going to be a lot of changes in the near future but just what the classroom of tomorrow will look like I am not too sure.

They discuss eight dimensions of learning today that may help to formulate a theory and practice of New Learning. These include; locations of learning, tools of learning, outcomes of learning, balance of agency, significance of difference, relation of the new to the old and the professional role of the teacher.

Another article I have been reading on a similar vein is by Rachel Bolstad. Rachel and Jane Gilbert wrote a book Disciplining and drafting, or 21st Century Learning? Rethinking the New Zealand Senior Secondary Curriculum for the Future . They have used a series of graphics to illustrate how students 'navigate' through their secondary school life. These graphics helped me to clarify these concepts.