Delicious Library

James from New Village Leadership Academy was introduced to us as Carol Anne McGuire's right hand man. I recorded him talking about Delicious Library as I had not yet seen an example of a school who had utilised it to manage their school's library database and loans. The video is not as zoomed in as a screen capture however James does such a great job of describing how they have set up this system in their school, I am confident that you will 'get the picture'.

e-Learning and pedagogy

I have been following Michael Wesch online, many of you may be familiar with the videos he has created with his students exploring the impact of new media on society and culture ( "The Machine is Us/ing us" and "A Vision of students today").

While the ideas that they explore are significant, what also challenges me is thinking about Wesch's application of new media in his practice. See a previous post "There are no natives here" Again I would recommend that you invest some time and watch "A Portal to Media Literacy".

Last week Wesch posted a link to some work created by one of his students Kevin Champion. I have watched this video a number of times since ( embedded below) and have enjoyed thinking about the concepts Champion explores around connectedness, the impact of new media and the breaking down of barriers in education that are now possible as a result.

" In education, this is seen in the emphasis on cross-disciplinary, multicultural, holistic, and interdisciplinary studies. It becomes clear that no one discipline and no one perspective can provide all the answers. Over the last 50 years, this theoretical connectedness has been expressed in the physical world through media. Television, cell phones, and the internet have added both a new level of connectivity and new ways to connect." Kevin Champion

What continues to capture my thinking is the question of how Champion's use of new media to explore, share and create his understandings, may have been supported by the teaching actions of Micahel Wesch? During repeat views of the video I have tried to identify links and examples that may reflect effective pedagogy in the NZC specifically e-learning and pedagogy (p. 36).

This exercise has continued to extend and challenge my thinking around "the changing role of the teacher and also our understanding of elearning as a pedagogical practice"...and also what this might mean for how we use assessment to both provide feedback and inform future action.

For me this has been a useful next step from 'A Portal to Media Literacy' and the concepts of what it means to be a teacher in this century. I plan to use this example to further explore the concept of e-learning as a pedagogical practice with colleagues.

Many thanks to both Michael Wesch and Kevin Champion for their inspiration.

"Whoever comes is the right people"

Last year an unconference was coordinated in Auckland by Suzie Vesper. You can listen to feedback from participants on the VoiceThread below. We have had a number of informal requests to repeat this get together or 'unconference' so have decided to hold it again on Saturday May9. The venue will be open from 10am -4pm and in the spirit of an unconference there is no registration, cost, or required time to attend.



What is an unconference?
We have set up a wiki page with more information here. You are invited to add your details to the wiki as it could be useful for people who are thinking of attending to have some idea of who might be there and areas of interest. There is no commitment as we are acknowledging the openspace rule... "Whoever comes is the right people".

There will be updates on the wiki closer to the day. You can keep up-to-date by joining the wiki and clicking the 'notify me' tab at the top of the wiki page to set up notifications. There is also a hash tag in twitter you can follow by searching #may9 from Twitter. This will show you updates about the unconference and can also provide you with some idea of who might be attending and topics they are interested in exploring.

The unconference is very much about giving and receiving, while I admit that there will probably be a few geeks there (not looking at anyone in particular... lol) this will be a valuable but relaxed opportunity for participants to learn. If you have been thinking about using some of these new technologies and have questions, this might very well be the place for you on #may9!

Images from last year's unconference.

Lunchtime conversations still reign!

Received an email from a friend recently, quote... "Man I didn't know whether to tweet, to delicious , blog or spam you"...however today's impromptu lunchtime chat with friends proves face2face still rates when it comes to my personal learning network.

This from Jenny Pope in the lunchroom today...Apture a very cool Web 2.0 tool that works with most blog platfroms, wikis etc... to "integrate reference guides, images, video, maps, music, documents, presentations". I have integrated Apture into this blog post to demonstrate some of these options. (Note: when you add video you can also control the timing ie: identify a part of the video you want to display).

Lots of opportunities here for teachers to develop interactive learning objects online and for students to make connections and apply their learning in new contexts. I am especially attracted to the potential of including multimedia and other Web 2.0 applications.

Also includes a Twitter Viewer which lets you embed your Twitter stream and the Twitter experience on your sites and across the web right next to relevant content on the page (...say that fast in less than 140 characters!)

If anyone has examples of how teachers and students may have been utilising Apture please leave a comment and links on this post. I am keen to see how you have integrated and hear from you on the impact on students' learning as well as your teaching.

'Learning Everywhere'

As I synthesise some of my thinking (and hyper-linking) from the last three days of the Learning@School09 conference the three keynotes from Andy Hargreaves, Pam Hook and Wes Fryer have provided both an anchor point and many springboards for my learning.

If our students “are messages we send into the future”, how do we best prepare them to succeed in a future that is increasingly unknown? Within the context of his book written with Dennis Shirley, The Fourth Way, Andy focused on the importance of investing in people and community to better develop more creative and inventive individuals, better prepared for the changing global economy. Stories from both industry (Nokia) and education (Tower Hamlets) demonstrated the improved outcomes and possibilities that can be achieved as a result of communities “connecting to the best they have been” while investing in people, through building stronger schools with increased community engagement and support for each other.

A focus on collective responsibility and communities setting high standards for achievement, in contrast to individual accountability, has proven to have a greater impact on student learning. These examples reflect the concept of Ako in Ka Hikitia and also Pam’s questioning of where and how learning takes place… “learning at school verses learning everywhere”. ICT enables students to “bypass teachers altogether” and we were reminded again about the evidence that class sizes and ICTs alone have little impact on student achievement. What makes the difference is quality teaching – what happens when we change our practice based on the evidence? ...and how can we utilise the technology and online environments to support learners more effectively as demonstrated by Wes in the final keynote? (see conference blog).

As a result of the conference keynotes (and the many conversations with others attendees in between) my thinking has predominantly been anchored by the importance of the collective responsibility for student learning. Amongst the many, many springboards the following stand out for further exploration and thinking:

Read - Visable Learning (Hattie) and The Fourth Way (Hargreaves and Shirley)
If you have access to EBSCO a preview by the authors can be downloaded from Educational Leadership, Oct 2008, Vol. 66 Issue 2, p56-61

Explore - Hooked-on-Thinking Pam and Julie’s wiki

Participate – The e-Learning Research Network online discussion Hattie and ICT Implications

Stumbled on the following video while writing this post. How is this a metaphor for the history of education?




learningatschool

A Portal to Learning@School

Last year I created a public portal to the uLearn08 conference in my aggregator, Netvibes. This was useful as I was quickly able to scan updates from the numerous conference feeds including blog posts, tweets, photos etc. Also able to share these with virtual attendees and others who could not be there in the flesh with some interesting consequences (see Reflections and Connections post).


I have created a portal for the Learning@School 09 Conference in Rotorua next week to keep track of the various conference channels and 'back chat'. I have previously blogged about the value of using an aggregator to manage online learning and maybe a conference portal could also be useful if you can't make the conference and want to personalise the conference channels you follow.

Looking forward to seeing my virtual learning network face-2-face and also collaborating with Rochelle Jensen to facilitate a few breakouts. Rocky and I are very excited to be working together over the next couple of years and will be utilising the Software for Learning wiki to learn more about how teachers are utilising e-learning to support student learning.

See you all next week,
Hei konā

tags technorati : learningatschool

Welcome to the Eastern Block e-Learning Cluster

Welcome again to Willowbank Primary, Point View Primary and Somerville Intermediate who together form a new ICT PD cluster for 2009, Eastern Block e-Learning. Today was the cluster's launch at Point View School. I have posted some photos on Flickr embedded below. As promised links to online resources explored this morning have been posted on my Delicious, a Social Bookmarking tool, which enables me to save my bookmarks online. I have included a brief descriptor for each however please contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks again to Suzie Vesper who joined us on skype. You can access Suzie's blog here, I would recommend that you add this blog to your reading list. Suzie also highlighted the website ICT PD Online the learning community area that provides support for schools involved in the ICT PD Cluster programme. Instructions for joing ICT PD online can be downloaded from the cluster wiki here.

Finally I would like to acknowledge the teachers from each of the cluster schools who stepped up and shared their knowledge at the taster sessions today, it was appreciated. If you have links and resources to support your sessions links can be included from the cluster wiki. If you need support with this contact me or your Principal.

iThink

I am loving this series of digital resources available through digiStore on TKI. Schools will need to register to access here.

iThink is a series of animated short features that include the unscripted voices of some engaging groups of children discussing their ideas on a range of topics from rubbish to relationships. The style is similar to that of the documation creations by The Simmonds Brothers and the UKTV series Creature Comforts.
I can see these being used with students in a variety of ways:

• To model and promote dialogue between groups of students
• Explore concepts in a real life context students will find engaging and can relate too
• Demonstrate the use of animation to communicate thinking and new understandings
• Students may develop their own iThink style animations to reflect on their learning.

Central North Shore Cluster Celebrates

Auckland turned on a spectacular day for our cluster celebration last Friday. Many thanks to Milford School for hosting us...the view of Lake Pupuke from the hall says it all.

It was wonderful to celebrate our eLearning journey together and look back over the past 3 years. Each of the schools presented a celebration of their learning and the impact of viewing these reinforced not only how far everyone had come but also how much we had grown in confidence...and what a lot of fun we are having learning together!

I have embedded all the presentations in the wiki here...(where else...lol!) I have cut some of the original sound tracks and replaced with FreePlay music because of copyright but feel confident that the images and video continue to convey these messages about our journey...

Change ...Everybody Learning Together...Shift Does Happen...
Student Voice...Thinking Differently

Finally what's a celebration without some dancing!

Congratulations Stephen and Helen!

We have acknowledged both our cluster and ICT PD network links as primary sources for staying current with both educational research and elearning trends as the cluster plans for 2009 and beyond. This also includes identifying opportunities for teachers to both continue their learning and to support sustainability of the learning community the cluster has developed over the past 3 years of the contract.

We are therefore very pleased to congratulate two of our teachers, Stephen Gordon and Helen Rennie-Younger who have successfully applied for teaching scholarships for 2009.

Stephen has been awarded 1 of 40 paid Primary Teacher's Sabbatical leave positions for 2009. The purpoase of his work will be to continue to build teacher capacity and understanding of eLearning and effective pedagogy and further inquiry into the development of the school's LMS to support professional development, eLearning and the NZC2007.

Helen will be one of the 10 e-fellows for 2009. Helen's research will be to inquire into strategies that may increase the level of motivation and engagement of a diverse group of young learners who are experiencing difficulties in producing written text.





We are very happy for both Helen and Stephen and recognise the value their work will bring to the continued learning opportunities for the cluster as we approach the end of the contract.