PD Today

Today I gave a short PD at school about Emerging Learning Tools. I kept it simple and focussed on ebooks, audiobooks, podcasts, videocasts and screencasts. My colleagues were most surprised at how many ebooks, audiobooks and quality podcasts are freely available over the Internet. I don't know if the teachers will try any of it but I think that it has made them more aware.

Moving to this Blog

Today I moved all my Moodle posts to this blog and dated them accordingly. I feel better now that they are all together in the one place. I am rather freaked out about Assignment One. I can't seem to get to a point where I am happy with my kG page. It looks bad to me and I feel that I haven't really put as much as I should have. But then again will this kG page ever get finished? I was reading on Kate's blog that she feels that her kG page will never be finished. So I'll "let it go". Ok now I have to write up the process and then add in the resources on my kG page and that will have to do.

Computer Games in Education

What have been some of the most profound things you have learnt through games and gaming.

I love games. I mean, who doesn’t love learning when it is highly interactive? I have always used games in my teaching. My most successful use of a computer game was the game ‘Amazon Trail’. It is a CD ROM that allows you to travel up the Amazon River as an explorer. You have to choose a guide which you can speak to and choose questions to ask - the guide talks to you and answers your questions. It is like an inset video. The game took me 3 weeks to play with my Grade 6 class as we often stopped to find out more through research. We had a giant map of the Amazon River along one side of the classroom on which we kept a record of our journey. Students also added clippings of their own further research into the places that we had visited. Each student also kept a travel diary of the trip. I really liked to use this game as it made the whole unit of explorers come alive.

Talk to some computer game players (a child, teenager and adult) and ask them what have learnt when they play the games.

My husband likes to play games on the PC as a way to unwind. He says that he has no expectations to learn anything from computer games. My students all play games and they tell me that they have learned a lot of different things depending on the game played. Mostly the games that they prefer are just for entertainment.

Do you have visions of how you might be able to use educational games in your out teaching or learning.
I am always on the look out for new games. I use them to keep my students interested in logging into the class blog. I am careful to choose games that relate to current learning. I originally used a non-educational game on my Grade 5 blog because they were a tough class to crack. They all told me that they hated computers! I needed to show them that I could be cool too and not always focussed on learning outcomes. It did the trick - most of the class now love blogging. At the moment I am using a game based a Famous Five story. It is CD ROM but very interactive and 3D like Second Life. My students are having to read the story so that they know what to do in the game. This is their first novel study and they are using an ebook with audiobook. It is working really well. We have even made a podcast about where the students think that the treasure is hidden.

Prensky

Discuss the ideas and experiences outlined in Prensky's article?
The main idea in this article is that schools or educational institutes have not evolved very much. They remain places for left brain learning and require students to adapt. Prensky argues that the Digital Natives need learning to reflect the world that they have grown up in. They live in a world of interactivity and engagement. He implies that the classroom has little to offer these learning styles.

Do these match with your experiences?
In my own schooling I must agree. There were very few teachers that made the lessons engaging. However now that I’m a teacher I apply my own style. I have always been considered ‘unorthodox’ in my methods. I like my students to learn through experience - hands on learning.
Like recently in an inquiry into natural resources I took my 3rd Graders to dig up some clay in a nearby village. The kids had already looked up some websites that showed how to identify which layer of earth is the clay layer. On this trip the kids got thoroughly dirty. The nannies freaked out! We then went to a local brick factory to see how the clay was made into house bricks and then back in the classroom make pinch pots with our village clay which we later dried and fired in a sawdust firing at the back of the school. We found out how to do this by watching some videos on You Tube. A normal school could not cope with this. I would have my lessons divided up neatly and expected to meet the learning outcomes within the 40 min lesson slots. At my current school I’m encouraged to integrate and can use the whole day when needed to pursue an inquiry. Oh don’t get the wrong idea, I have curriculum scope and sequences to fulfill as well. It’s just that if you are clever you can integrate Math, Science, Art and language together giving a much bigger block of time. Technology is integral not integrated.
Thankfully I’m no longer the odd teacher that does ‘weird’ stuff. I am now teaching at an IB - International Baccalaureate school. Whenever I plan a lesson I must ask myself the following:
Is it worth knowing?
Is it engaging?
Is it true?

Have you been in learning situations where you have been enraged by the methods that you were expected to use?
Yes, at boarding school. I crossed each day off on a big calendar until the next holiday. The teachers were so dull! I hated computers too. I couldn’t work them and it was all too technical. I hated the mouse and wished that I could just write directly onto the screen. I felt so disconnected.

Blogging using audio (Podcasts) or video (videocasts)

What has been your experience of listening to Podcasts? Have you listened to a podcast of an audio conference session held in this course?
I have only recently got into podcasts, thanks to this course. My husband is trying hard to improve his English and subscribes to a few EFL podcasts. I have also become recently aware of the many quality podcasts devoted to teaching Indonesian. There is one at http://learningindonesian.com That has new episodes each week and there is also a forum. I will recommend this site for new teachers coming to my school. I am very excited to learn about podcasting. Thank you Peter, but honestly this course has been rather expensive for me as each time I learn about these new technologies I find myself buying more and more gadgets. Am I AGD - addicted to gadgets disorder? I love my new iPod classic with its’ extra microphone which allows me to ‘podcast on the run’. I also listen to many podcasts for EFL which work great with my Grade 5 class. I found one recently all about Go Karts from English Bites.
What potential do you believe podcasts have as an educational tool?
Huge potential. My parents can listen to their child and can compare their child’s
speaking skills to the others in the class. I love the fact that you can multimedia podcast. My son is experimenting with that as a way to present his project about the water cycle. I totally recommend GCast.com for podcasting. It is free and easy to use. I also like the way that Podcasts are free to download! Did I mention FREE!
If you have a blog or have used blogs with your students can you please share some of your positive and negative experiences.
Positive - My students LOVE blogging. I have been using it for 6 months now with my current Grade 5 class. We are connected in a way that just wouldn’t be possible in a traditional classroom. The widgets for blogs are so cool. Each student is able to ‘personalize’ their blog. The visitor trackers teach about geography and have made my students realize just how many people are reading our Grade 5 blogs. We use our blogs to post homework and reflection writing. Actually you can use them to post all kinds of things but I do insist that postings must connect to our learning. At present the counter on our class mother blog is at 5,400! I just added a new visitor tracker and after one week we had about 300 visitors from all over the world. Just amazing! They learn to learn from one another. They learn to share with the wider community. Their writing improves as they think more carefully about their writing that will be read by more than just the teacher. Their reading levels improve. Bottom line, my students ‘get’ why we should use technology. The weekly computer lessons were just not getting the message across.
Negative - Some parents just don’t understand it and can be hard to persuade. They can’t handle ICT and think that it is too much for their children. Actually the kids discover new ways to use the blogs faster than me. Plagiarism is rife. I am always battling that, but I think that it is a problem regardless of blogging. You need to allow sufficient time for the students to post their work. This allows for the dodgy Internet connections and for other issues such as when sites just won’t work. I usually give about 2 tasks per week at the very most. Blogger.com is the most reliable but it sometimes does strange things when used with Safari 3. When the students move onto another teacher the blogging is usually dropped. This can be very disappointing for the students who have become used to ‘blog life’.
Essential Elements: An AUP is a must. Ongoing Internet safety lessons too when you are blogging with younger kids. All students must have access to a computer and the Internet at home. Blogging at school only, doesn’t allow sufficient time to browse other blogs which is a most important factor. I couldn’t get my class blog to be so active if we had to rely on in school access only.

Wiki

What are some of the most powerful educational features of wikis?
They allow students to work on a document collaboratively. It teaches us to allow others to contribute directly to a project.
What are some potential negatives?
I guess that it comes down to management. How to you stay on top of cyber-vandalists?
Do you believe a wiki might be useful in your own learning or your own teaching? How? Why?
Yes, I think that we should use wikis for writing curriculum documents. I have to keep a planner for each UOI (unit of inquiry). This UOI is taught across the curriculum involving many different teachers and having a wiki-based planner would allow all teachers to contribute. Has anyone used a wiki like this in their job?

mLearning in my school

Have you had experience using m-learning devices in a learning environment?
Currently the use of mobile phones at my school is more directed at the parents rather than the students. We use SMS to inform/invite parents to workshops and meetings. My parents often contact me using SMS but I only reply if it is before 7pm. I believe that after that time is my family time so I will reply the next day. My students in Grade 5 all have mobile but I prefer to email with them because it’s free rather than using up my personal phone credit. Our school has a dedicated mobile phone for each Principal for school meeting announcements. Teachers must use their own phones and pay for phone credit themselves.

Do you see possibilities for using e-learning devices to either enhance existing learning practices or enable emerging learning practices?
I have heard from a friend of mine who used to work in Japan that SMS is used to track students as they move from tutoring class to tutoring class. As the child checks in an SMS is sent to the parent’s phone to alert them to the whereabouts of their child. In Japan mLearning is a happening thing. Here is a link to a blog post about a new university course offered http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/28/college-course-via-mobile-phone-being-offered-in-japan/

I have been experimenting with podcasting in my classes recently. This has developed into also using ebooks and audiobooks. I was surprised to find that there are many free ebooks and audiobooks available on the Internet. Podcasts are numerous and mostly free. I found some great ones called English Bites from iTunes. These are video podcasts and focus on real situations. In each episode words and phrases from the footage are focused on.
My students love making podcasts in the classroom and my Grade 3 are calling these podcasts Gigglecasts as they really like to tell jokes. I will take them to the Jakarta Gemstone markets this Wednesday and I hope to make use of my new voice recorder there. I have bought a new iPod classic and a microphone attachment that enables recording. It is really clear. We hope to make or first field trip podcast about what we will see on the trip. I like to use podcasting as it has made my students more aware of how important it is to be able to speak loudly and clearly. You can hear our podcasting attempts here on my blog, http://janeinjava2.blogspot.com
As well as this we are also doing a novel study from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and I have bought the audiobook and ebook to use with my students. The novel is an ebook and on a Mac you can get the computer to read it to you. The new voice ‘Alex’ that comes with Leopard actually has a degree of intonation. The audiobook doesn’t follow the story word for word but is quite entertaining as it is like listening to a radio play. My students are able to load this MP3 onto their iPods and listening to it as much as they want. The problem here is you only get authorization for 5 users. It’s a pain if you have 20+ students in your class. I am going to give a small workshop about all of this to the other teachers next week as I want to persuade the school to build up an ebook and audiobook collection. There are many free books online but I really wanted my class to do the Famous Five. I wasn’t able to get enough copies of the paperback and that was what led me to use the ebook.

Topolsky, J 2007, College course via mobile phone being offered in Japan [online], Available from: http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/11/28/college-course-via-mobile-phone-being-offered-in-japan/ [Accessed: 05/01/2008].