Making IT Happen

Broader Views of Literacy

2011-08-16T21:39:00.002+12:00

Today I lectured a group of approximately 100, 3rd year teachers’ college students. This lecture was part of a broader view of literacy module. To demonstrate what is happening in NZ schools I utilised many of the snapshots of learning on Software for Learning.
Snapshots of Learning illustrate how software and digital content, from Digistore and/or Software for Learning, have been integrated to support teaching and learning in New Zealand classrooms. They are intended as a taster to the software and digital content – an indication of how one teacher has recognised the potential to support learning. Current Snapshots of learning are posted on the Software for Learning website
Snapshots really are a wonderful resource to support teacher professional learning; those published in the last 18months drip of effective pedagogy and are written using the teaching as inquiry framework.
Some recently published snapshots include:
Using You Tube as an interactive presentation tool - Somerville Intermediate School
Children retell their stories through animation - Onehunga-Cuthbert Kindergarten
Te Reo peer tutoring using movie-maker and skype - Melville Intermediate
Access the full (and growing)collection here.
The Changing Face of Literacy - Powerpoint used during lecture.

The Changing Face of Literacy

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NZRA- Literacy Explosion Conference

2011-07-25T10:22:00.011+12:00

I throughly enjoyed mixing with literacy guru's at this highly-engaging event.

A highight for me was Murray Gadd’s plenary, this focused on supporting writing in Years 5-8.

The workshop notes are beginning to be placed on the NZRA website.

The Registered Teacher Criteria wiki

2011-06-20T08:01:00.006+12:00

This wiki was developed by the two national Digi Advisors. Our role includes promoting the use of digital content in schools including the use of key Ministry of Education sites such as Digistore and Software for Learning. We felt that there was little explicit reference to the use of e-learning in the criteria and that there was a place for a resource that helped teachers from all sectors to make the connections between the twelve criteria and the effective use of e-learning.

Teachers and schools could use this resource in a number of ways including:

helping individual teachers to identify how their current practice in e-learning relates to the criteria in order to write to this in official appraisal documents;
providing examples of how other educators are using e-learning in relation to the criteria in order to help teachers develop their own practice and set goals;
supporting professional learning opportunities within schools that are focusing on the Registered Teacher Criteria and appraisal processes;
providing a resource for school leaders to support teachers to develop goals related to the criteria which incorporate e-learning.

Registered Teacher Criteria and e-learning

View more presentations from digiadvisors.

To view the full resource, click here: http://registeredteachercriteria.wikispaces.com/

Walking the Talk: from facilitator to classroom teacher.

2011-06-03T10:00:00.001+12:00

A local ICTPD cluster conference: iteam, gave me an ideal opportunity to share my reflections about the joys and pitfalls of integrating ICT into a Yr5/6 classroom. Many thanks to Karen Mills, cluster facilitator, for inviting me to be part of this event.

Facilitator2classroomiteam

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Updated Resource: Literacy Progressions and ICT

2011-04-09T03:47:00.000+12:00

Have you checked out the ‘Literacy Progressions and ICT’ wiki?

This popular resource has recently been updated to include a range of Digistore learning paths and further ideas including how to improve searching by using the "More tools" google search options.

Many thanks to Jill Hammonds for her support and motivation in energizing this wiki.

Comments4Kids

2011-03-28T08:52:00.001+13:00

My social networks came through again last week by providing me with some just-in-time, practical support. Thanks @NZWaikato via twitter for introducing me to Comments4Kids.

Comments4Kids provides a database of blogs; set-up to support students and teachers to find blogs to comment on and to get their own posts commented on.
In addition Comments4Kids also introduced me to the Comment4Kids Wednesday concept. Basically this involves the teacher selecting relevant post for their students to comment on. Read more here.

What we did?

I introduced Comments4Kids Thursday to my class of Year 5 /6’s . We had previously developed criteria for quality comments. In preparation I searched the Comments4Kids database for some relevant blog posts and linked these to our Learning Management System. Students were then given the task of responding to a blog post, using our criteria.

Reflection
It worked ‘ok’ for the first time. The students were highly motivated to view and respond. They worked in pairs and consulted our criteria before posting their comments. My next challenge is to locate blog posts that relate more closely to the work we are doing in class and that are structured in a way that invite rigorous comment.

Any support greatly appreciated.

Meaningful and Manageable Teacher Appraisal

2011-03-21T09:54:00.006+13:00

I have to admit that I found it challenging to work out how a school appraisal system could harness the spirit of teaching as inquiry as well as encompass the twelve registered teacher criteria in a manageable and meaningful way.
Sharing this dilemma at Learning @School with Nick Rate (over a rotisserie chicken and a wine) was the break-through.
Nick discussed how a rich inquiry could and should encompass many of the twelve criteria.
So I had a go with my own inquiry question and have since used this approach with a whole staff.

NB. The writing in brown is reference to specific registered teacher criteria.
While it is still early days we are all excited about this approach and its focus on our learning.
This quote sums up the mood of this approach:
“Appraisal should be about improving competence not proving competence”.
What we did:
Staff meeting 1
Purpose:
To develop understanding of the ‘teaching as inquiry’ framework and explore possibilities for meaningful individual inquiries.
Staff meeting 2
To further develop our individual inquiries
To explore how the registered teacher criteria could enrich our inquiries.

Apprasial2ndmarch
View more presentations from rjensen.

What’s next?
1:1 Coaching and Mentoring session focused on each teachers’ inquiry
Setting up a portfolio – hard copy or electronic. Workshops for staff on both.
1:2 Professional development facilitators are aware of and support the development of teacher’s inquiries throughout the year
1:3 Senior Leaders receive professional development around coaching and mentoring to support on-going high quality professional learning conversations
1:4 Teachers will be grouped together according to inquiry questions to meet as inquiry teams and given time to meet together to reflect on and support each other with their inquiries
1:4 Documentation will be developed from this work that captures the appraisal requirements and process, and that allows for consistent practice across the school

Enhancing Teachers’ Take-up of Digital Content

2010-11-10T09:26:00.007+13:00

Research designed to find out what works in helping teachers embed digital curriculum resources resulted in the publication of the following report: Enhancing Teachers’ Take-up of Digital Content: Factors and Design Principles in Technology Adoption by Professor Michael Gaffney.

This 2010 Australian-based report is a worthwhile 10 minute read.

I found the following diagrams particularly useful in communicating complex, multi-faceted ideas related to the challenges involved in technology adoption.

This continuum (Zhao 2007) describes how the roles of the teacher, the student, and the technology change as one moves from teacher-centred to student- centred Teaching. A useful conversation starter when considering teaching practice.

The next diagram un - packs the many factors at play when teachers adopt technology.
I considered this diagram particularly useful in informing the strategic planning process and in encouraging alignment between the contributing factors.

Click here for the full report.
Enhancing teachers' take-up of digital content: factors and design principles in technology adoption
Professor Michael Gaffney
June 2010

A Blended Approach To Teacher Professional Learning - Warts and All.

2010-11-08T09:34:00.013+13:00

Recently I facilitated an e-pilot project, our online portal was the Virtual Learning Network. This project involved 8 teachers, 1 face to face meeting and many on-line engagements. The focus was: How can the use of digital content assist in meeting the diverse literacy needs of our learners?
The voice thread below and the link to the project details provides further information including:
• an overview of the e-pilot project
• a summary of each teachers inquiry
• reflections from participants on : a) using digital content to meet the diverse literacy learning needs of learners b) a blended approach to PL

This information has been shared using voice-thread so that the thinking, questioning and learning can continue. Please feel free to add your comments.

Click here to view voicethread in full-screen: http://voicethread.com/share/1413651/

Info. for Participants: http://issuu.com/rjensen/docs/tchinfoonline

This ‘efficient’ way of working was not without its challenges.
Below I have listed some of my reflections:
• A specific focus, in this case literacy, was required so that some depth could be explored within this context.
• Blended professional learning (mix of face to face and online) was a popular professional learning option for teachers. More people volunteered to be part of this project than the resources allowed. 30 teachers wanted to be involved and only eights positions were available.
• Teacher engagement in this learning was high from the onset. They volunteered to be part of this project, they self-selected their inquiries based on the needs of their students, actions toward their inquiries were integrated into their class practice, their progress and thinking was regularly shared with the e-pilot group.
• All participants had support from their school principals and were expected to share their learning with the wider staff.
• The facilitator was very explicit from the beginning about this style of professional learning and what would be required from participants. No surprises.
• All activities, face to face and online, were aligned to the overall focus of: How can the use of digital content assist in meeting the diverse literacy needs of our learners?
• An immersion occurred during our face to face sessions so that participants could share and learn about further opportunities that existed before clarifying their own inquiry.
• The face to face session was absolutely essential in forming the relational trust required to communicate successfully online. This took two days and could have been further developed with more time together.
• Teaching as Inquiry provided us with a useful framework and gave us a common language that ensured students remained at the heart of our learning.
• Reasonable, flexible however necessary expectations were communicated to the group by the facilitator via email each week.
• Participants are more likely to excuse themselves from an online session than a face to face session. There seems to be less accountability with online sessions.

What I would do differently as a facilitator?
• Involve fewer teachers and allocate more time to this project to allow for further face to face visits and individual coaching and mentoring with each member of the group. Explore the possibility of buddy systems between group members.
• Co –construct the online components of the programme and distribute responsibility for these amongst the group.
• Have clearer processes established for measuring the impact of our actions on students.
• Facilitate a further face to face hui near the end of the project to share outcomes and to discover commonalities that could guide our future practice.

Many thanks to the amazing group of teachers who participated in this project and to Helen Cooper ( MOE senior e-learning adviser) for enabling this opportunity.

What opportunities exist for e-learning to enhance and provide new opportunities for assessment?

2010-09-15T19:17:00.004+12:00

I have been a real lurker in recent e-portfolio conversations, mainly because I recognised that I had some gaps in my assessment knowledge. An opportunity to develop my assessment capabilities came recently while working with Suzanne Billington – national standards adviser – University of Waikato. We facilitated a workshop around the national standards and the place of assessment for learning. This was valuable learning for me and will aid in ensuring that the decisions I make about the use of ICT are grounded in a growing understanding of effective assessment.
This voice-thread will serve as a ‘collection pot’ for my discoveries. Please feel free to contribute to its growth!

What's Hot On The Radar of E-Learning Leaders?

2010-08-24T08:27:00.008+12:00

The e-learning bop network met last week and spent the day exploring themes of interest that had emerged via the group wiki: http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/19th+August

Speed-geeking and an e-learning smack-down were popular sharing strategies that helped to make the most of the groups’ immense expertise.
Systems and strategies to support e-capability were discussed from the school charter level right through to what unit planning might look like. See resources and models on the wiki.
Mobile technologies were another key theme.
We explored:
*What pedagogy might underpin the use of mobile devices?
*What are some quality educational applications for use on a mobile device?
*What needs to be considered when making purchasing decisions?
This is our list so far:
•What is our vision for e-learning? How does the purchase of mobile technologies fit with this vision?
•Is our infrastructure going to cope with it? Have we had a comprehensive look at the physical infrastructure?
•Will our ‘wireless network’ manage the increased use?
•Where can we find successful school models?
•Who will co-ordinate this project? How will they be supported?
•What do we want the mobile devices to do? An i-pad is not a laptop!
•How will we manage student/teacher access? policies, internet filtering…

What else could be added to this list?
To find out more about this network, visit our wiki: e-learning bop

E-Learning BOP - 19th August on PhotoPeach

How is e-learning reflected throughout your school curriculum?

2010-08-09T10:42:00.015+12:00

Thanks to Fiona Grant, Dee Reid, Toni Twiss and Helen Cooper( senior adviser, e-learning) for their support in drafting a set of questions designed to support schools in giving e-learning effect within their school curriculum.

Some/ all of these questions may be useful in facilitating dialogue with your staff. Click on the doc. to view it in full-screen.

Your feedback (as always) is much appreciated.

Open publication - Free publishing - More newzealand

GLOBAL PROBLEM SOLVING – From keynote to classroom

2010-07-15T08:41:00.013+12:00

A key theme that emerged for me from the ISTE conference was the importance of collaborating to create solutions to community and global issues.

This theme was echoed throughout the conference in a variety of contexts including:

a) Keynote: Jean –Francois Rischard examined the role educators can play in global problem solving.
His key note (depressing at times) centred around 20 global problems that he believes we must resolve within the next 20years if we are to avoid massive and adverse planetary consequences.
To begin resolving these problems he thinks we need:
1) to approach each issue globally. Bringing the best people from all around the world together in one place to explore and create solutions.
2) to develop a mindset in the next generation… one that puts global thinking first and local and national thinking second.
His book: http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2653

b) TEDx TALKS – Individuals Making a Difference

Fiona Grant and I were lucky enough to be guests at a live TED x Talks event. During this event several speakers shared their passions and commitments.
http://tedxdenvered.com/blog/2010/07/01/thank-you-for-making-tedxdenvered-a-success-post-1-of-2/

A highlight for me was the sharing from Dafna Michaelson. Dafna travelled the globe collecting stories about how communities have problem solved. See www.journeyinstitute.org
Dafna’s 7 minute TEDx talk illustrated how community problem solving might be facilitated.
This simple process involved:
1. Identifying the community.
2. Identifying issues
3. Suggesting solutions
4.Taking action.
We engaged in this process during intermission (see pics below) I was amazed at the diversity of issues and solutions that were generated. A positive feeling of working together to create solutions prevailed.
To hear more about Dafna’s project:
http://www.thebalancingact.com/show_segment.php?id=1844

c) Students Collaborating Across the World
Many high quality example of students involved in collaborate projects were shared throughout ISTE.
This is an important area that I believe needs to be explored further in New Zealand schools.
A fantastic resource to help communicate these ideas in numbers we can relate to is the miniature earth project: http://www.miniature-earth.com/
A selection of global projects that nurture rigorous collaboration and problem solving include:

Taking IT global

Rock Our World

ThinkQuest

Such projects I believe put the vision for our curriculum firmly into practice. They also provide a path for developing important relations and problem solving skills. Skills that may one take contribute to the maintenance of a peaceful nation.

How effective are the OLE's you engage with?

2010-07-01T03:05:00.006+12:00

"You can build the Taj Mahal but it doesn’t mean anyone is going want to live in it”.
Source Unknown

The above quote rung true for me today during a workshop on ‘Online Learning Environments to Support Teacher Professional Learning’. I spent the majority of the time waiting for pages to load, losing my way and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time required to participate in any of the activities.
This experience reminded me of the importance of continually consulting with our stakeholders on the effectiveness of our online learning environments.
Considering questions such as:
*Does supplementing ‘face-to-face’ with an ‘online environment’ enhance learning? How?
*What practices/conditions are associated with more effective online learning?”

Google Analytics may also be useful. Learn how to interpret and act on your data here: Beginning Analytics.

I would be interested in hearing what strategies you use to impact the effectiveness on the OLE's that you facilitate.

Poster Sessions at ISTE -2010

2010-06-29T09:05:00.007+12:00

Posters are informal, booth-like interactions that involve teachers sharing a specific learning experience that they have facilitated.
In viewing these through a literacy lens the following ideas caught my eye. I was impressed with the ease in which these ideas had been implemented and the positive impact that they were having on student outcomes.

Photos, Videos, and Animation to Boost Language, Writing, and Comprehension
Adina Sullivan, San Marcos Unified School District
This poster session relates well to my previous post. It focused on how visuals help students increase valuable vocabulary, especially for reluctant or struggling readers and English language learners. It is well worth taking 5minutes to flick through these slides for key points from the research and ideas and resources to support the progression from oral to written language
http://adinaeducation.wikispaces.com/Conference+Presentations

I Can See Me Read – Using webcams for reading fluency
Timothy Frey, Kansas State University with Abby Houlton
This intervention includes having the student record as they read aloud in front of a webcam. The student then uses a self-correction procedure as they play back the video clip. The teacher then conferences with the student and the process is repeated. In pilot implementations, students have benefited significantly from this approach.
Click here to see the 1page research report.

Tiny Techies: Web 2.0 in the Early Elementary Classroom
Melodie Brewer, Dysart Unified School District with Cristy Diaz
Through the use of artifacts including student work and student voice this poster demonstrated the use of several different web 2.0 resources. Each resource focused on the development of one of the following three areas: communication, collaboration, and creativity.
See this fantastic resource for an overview, teacher support material and student examples.
http://www.melodiebrewer.com/ISTE%202010.html

Thanks to all those amazing teachers who shared how they are using technology to make a difference to student outcomes.

Learning with Primary Sources - Some Support

2010-06-29T04:37:00.013+12:00

Workshop Title: Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress - ISTE 2010
Sharon Metzger-Galloway.

This hands-on workshop gave me an opportunity to explore the vast collection of primary sources available from the Library of Congress. See Fiona Grant’s Delicious links.

I attended this workshop keen to learn more about how teachers in New Zealand could be supported to facilitate effective teaching and learning with primary sources. Digistore is New Zealand’s storehouse of digital content and contains thousands of images, audio and video files. The future focus is on the development of further New Zealand content, through partnerships with cultural and scientific insitutions such as Te Papa. Digistore also provides links to further sources of digital content relevant to teaching and learning programmes in New Zealand.

Key Messages from the Workshop:
Examining primary sources gives students a powerful sense of history and the complexity of the past. Helping students analyse primary sources can also guide them toward higher-order thinking and better critical thinking and analysis skills.

My Picks : Support Material for Teachers

Using Primary Sources Guide
Includes question prompts to:
a) engage students with primary sources.
b) promote student inquiry.
c) assess how students apply critical thinking and analysis skills to primary sources.

Analysis Tools
Provides valuable and transferable question starters aimed at encouraging students to observe, reflect and question a primary source:
For a full list of these guides and examples of how they have been applied see:
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/document.html

NZ Examples

a) Year 13 Drama

b) The learning path function in Digistore allows these rich experiences to be packaged for direct student access. See the following example:
He Reo Komanawa:Viewing Image/Discussion

Useful Links:
http://tiny.cc/ufszh
http://virtualnorth.blogspot.com/2010/07/artefacts-of-assination-tweet.html
We would love to hear how other teachers are using primary sources to facilitate teaching and learning.

G-Man Greets Glogster Groupies

2010-06-29T01:15:00.014+12:00

It was with great pleasure this evening that we met with Jim and Ivana from Glogster. This company is working hard to manage exponential growth. Last year users grew from 100000 to 5 million. They are committed to continuing to offer the basic version of GlogsterEdu free for educators and shared lots of future plans including student sharing, student portfolios and teacher libraries. Jim and Ivana are keen to receive feedback from educators, if you have any questions, comments,ideas for development or examples of student work please add to the comments below and we will forward them.

For further information on Glogster and to see examples in a New Zealand context visit Software for Learning.

Designing Learning Spaces

2010-06-28T09:13:00.018+12:00

Over 16 countries were represented at today’s Leadership Symposium -ISTE 2010.
A powerful keynote facilitated by Karen Cator engaged us in exploring processes and strategies for designing learning spaces.

Take-away‘s for me included:
1. Architecture Precipitates Behaviour
2. We need to lead reflection on the design of new and existing learning spaces.
This process could include asking questions such as:
• What behaviour does/could our architecture precipitate?
• How does this space / could this space support desired learning principles?
ISTE Learning Principles.
3. To inform the reality of this process we need to keep asking a range of people: How do you learn? When you wake up and you need to learn something what actions do you engage in?

As part of this session we worked in groups, using learning design principles to create a visual representation of an ideal learning space.

This document has been designed to support school leaders to facilitate dialogue on the design of their schools’ learning space, both physical and virtual.
Through engagement in this process, groups reflect on effective pedagogy: How does ‘our space’ support teacher actions that promote student learning?

Open publication - Free publishing - More technology

Valuable Links:
EDUCASE - Learning Space Design

Design Share Case Studies

Design Observer

http://edinfrastructure.wikispaces.com/Tomorrow%27s+Classroom

http://classroom.4teachers.org/

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+Learning+Spaces

http://tinyurl.com/c2pm8n

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/lrm22/learning_spaces/
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2008/5/21/classroom-technology-infrastructure-whats-needed.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashs-learning-commons.ogv

The learning is set to continue as everyone is invited to add a photo to the ISTE learning space blog : " if you see a space or environment that strikes you , add it to our Learning Space blog by emailing a photo to this address: seems99level2blog@photos.flickr.com".

Smack-down:ISTE Conference, Denver. June 26th:1-2pm.

2010-06-27T15:00:00.011+12:00

The ‘smack-down’ concept is a valuable strategy to facilitate short, sharp professional learning.
Basically a computer and a data projector were set up at the front of the room and anyone who wanted to share could do so. The time limit for any individual to share was 2minutes!
In the hour that followed rich, efficient sharing from educators all over the world took place.

I came away with the following 'tin of tricks'.
NB. For a comprehensive list of all that was shared please see Fiona Grant’s delicious bookmarks: http://delicious.com/f.grant/smackdown_ebc10

1. Storyboard is a free service that uses collaborative storytelling to connect people. Two (or more) people create a Storybird in a round robin fashion by writing their own text and inserting pictures. They then have the option of sharing their Storybird privately or publicly on the network. The final product can be watched on screen, interacted with or shared through a worldwide library.

2. A Trick for Wordle Users
Add a dash in between words if you want your sentences to stay together
i.e.
I –ran-quickly- to –the- motel.
The –dog-stared -with -furry.

3. Search Engines

Mashpedia a real-time, multi-media social encyclopaedia.
This powerful search engine integrates content from sources including: Wikipedia , youtube, twitter, flickr and news sources.

Sweet Search: Creates a list of credible resources, for students. Every Web site in Sweet Search has been evaluated by research experts. http://www.sweetsearch.com/
Soon to be released is Sweet Search for Me – this is recommended for even younger students

Goofram
Goofram is a mash-up of Google Search and Wolfram Alpha (Wolfram Alpha is described by many as a knowledge engine rather than a search engine)
Enter your search term(s) into Goofram and it will display relevant results drawn from both Google and Wolfram.

ISTE Conference Denver - Day 1

2010-06-27T09:03:00.005+12:00

Wikispaces

Fiona Grant and I had the absolute pleasure of spending 10 minutes with the founders of wikispaces: James Byers and Adam Frey. Humble, young guys committed to enabling, even the most resistant, teacher to harness the benefits of web 2.0.

What we found out?

1. Setting up individual accounts for students has just got even easier! ( no student emails required)
This utility lets you quickly create up to 100 new accounts in bulk and add them as members of your wikis. Available for new and existing educator wikis.
Great for enabling private areas within a class/group wiki.
To do this:
Navigate and sign in to your wiki. Select: Manage Wiki – User Creator.

2. The Wikispaces editor has improved: Within two weeks it will be launched. This editor promises to rid the random and frustrating hitches that some of you may have experienced.
New features:
*Compatible with newer browsers
*Undo and Redo buttons
*the ability to paste in word documents without losing formatting
*improved ability to see who has visited/ edited wiki page

We thanked James and Adam profusely and let them know what a positive impact Wikispaces has had in New Zealand.
Click here for home-grown examples.

Right On the Tip of My Tongue

2010-06-25T17:09:00.007+12:00

I haven’t blogged for ages but I have been intending to share these valuable resources:

1. Interactive Whiteboards and Data Projectors: Deciding what to buy and how many can be a challenging task. Phil Salmon from Waihi Central School is currently completing a term on study leave exploring this very topic. He has created a wiki to share his findings including: 100 ways to use IWB and Data Projector, buying an IWB or Data Projector and readings and research. This wiki is still under-development however Phil has made a great start creating a resource to support the decision making and classroom use of these devices. Visit the wiki: http://useict.wikispaces.com/
Among the many morsels on this site I recommend the following reading: Investigation: The Educational Value of Interactive Whiteboards in the 21st Century Classroom by Allan Alach of Hokowhitu School, Palmerston North.

2. $15 for World Class Professional Learning : Judi Buckley, Pam Seath and Jamin Lietze are some of the key people who should be congratulated for taking the initiative and applying for community funding to host the recent ‘Elearn and Network Conference ’. This event was held in Tauranga on the 19th June. Over 150 teachers participated in event. Kath Murdoch proved to be a very popular keynote. See the wiki for more details including the presenters materials: http://elearnandnetwork.wikispaces.com/

3. The ‘Literacy and ICT’ wiki has recently been updated to reflect the changes in the Literacy Progressions. This resource is proving to be a popular springboard for teachers in catering for the multi-literate needs of their learners. http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/Literacy+Progressions

4. The MADE (Movie and Digital Excellence )Awards…coming soon!
Entering this popular event is achievable for all with categories including static image and storytelling. See the website for details: http://www.madeawards.com/index.html
“The MADE Awards seeks to establish an outlet that enables students to show their work with a much wider audience, to be proud of their efforts and to share their learning. The MADE Awards, in partnership with business sponsors, seeks to reward the best efforts of entrants with fantastic ICT equipment which will further enhance the place of ICT in the learning world”.

Have fun exploring!

2010-03-21T21:11:00.009+13:00

E-learning BOP…
is a network established for teachers by teachers.
This network aims to support e-learning leaders in each school to better support their own staff to harness the potential of e-learning.

Is this network for you?
*Would you like to explore themes of common interest? Access people with expert knowledge? Stay up-to-date?
*Are you responsible for e-learning and/or curriculum in your school?
*Would you like to be part of Bay of Plenty network of Y0-Y10 teachers with similar roles?
*Are you prepared to share your ideas and ask others for help?
*Are you available on all or some of these dates? Thursday 20th May, Thursday 19th August, and Thursday 18th November.

First Meeting: Thursday 20th May, 9-3pm.
Venue: School Support Services, 142 Durham Street, Tauranga.

For more details email Rochelle: rjensen@waikato.ac.nz or visit our wiki:
http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/

The New and Improved Digistore

2010-02-20T11:23:00.010+13:00

Many digistore users would have received a pleasant surprise this week when en-route they were redirected to the new fresh -face of Te Pātaka Matihiko- Digistore.

New Zealand’s gateway to quality digital content (learning objects and digital resources) now offers new tools and functions to support educators with the effective selection and integration of digital content.
Resources will be added progressively, and new features introduced and refined.

What you can expect?
• increased discover-ability via browse, search and filter technology.
• to be able to tag and rate your favorite resources
• to create learning paths to ensure quick access for both you and your students
• an associated wiki (accessible via 'Using digital content') created to reinforce the key messages about the effective use of digital content. Examples of how digital content has been embedded into existing programmes and links to other relevant digital content.

Not registered? Don’t know your password:
Visit http://digistore.tki.org.nz/ec/access

Follow Digistore on twitter: DigistoreNZ

Online Project - Oct 12- 30th

2009-10-05T06:14:00.004+13:00

Consider joining the international "WHERE THE WILD THINGS WENT" online project. Another fabulous project hosted by Jennifer Wagner.

There are three ideas to choose from. Your students can extend the story, learning about endangered animals, or verbs -- or you can do all three.

Project Dates: October 12 - 30th, 2009.

http://www.jenuinetech.com/Projects/wtwta/information.htm

For more collaborative projects visit:
http://www.wix.com/rjensen/handpicked

Sharing Integration Tips

2009-09-25T12:55:00.006+12:00

Check out this practical resource, found on the Free Technology for Teachers blog. Many thanks to blog author Richard Bryne.
This resource is the result of a ‘win a book’ competition that Richard set up. To enter this competition entrants had to submit their best technology integration tip.

A similar resource could be created within your own school or cluster.
After all, everyone has something to share!

Breathing E-Learning Into The Draft Literacy Progressions

2009-08-30T14:38:00.007+12:00

The e-learning BOP group met on Friday. Over 20 people packed tightly into a room at School Support Services, Tauranga. The goal of the day was reasonably bold but achievable in light of the huge amount of expertise in the group. In short, we spent the day breathing some e-learning into the draft literacy progressions. The end result was an online resource that teachers could use at all levels to support literacy in their school.
We kick started the day by creating a profile of a literate person in the 21st century.

This following clip and reading on "What's so different about multiliteracies?" helped to stimulate our thinking.

What followed was a sharing fest. as everyone collaborated to expand their repertoire of strategies, processes and ideas for using ICT to support literacy programmes. Good old –fashioned sticky notes were then used to match ideas with parts of the draft literacy progressions. We then split into three groups to synthesise the ideas and create an online resource.
Check the resources out for yourself: http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/Literacy+Progressions+and+ICT Please join the wiki if you wish to contribute to this resource.

Feedback from those involved in the day was overwhelming positive with participants being particularly grateful for the opportunity to create a practical resource that could be used straight away.

To learn more about this group and how to be involved please visit our wiki:
http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/

Face 2 Face : Exploring Multiliteracies with the E- learning BOP Network

2009-08-12T16:04:00.003+12:00

The e-learning BOP network has been established to support e-learning leaders in each school so they in-turn can better support staff in their own schools

The next date tagged for this network to meet is 28th August, 9-3pm. The venue will be School Support Services, 142 Durham Street, Tauranga.

In light of the conversations from our last meeting, see past blog post for details, we are keen to go with an ‘Enhancing Literacy with ICT’ theme for the day.
The day will be characterised by exploring multiliteracies, sharing and collaboratively creating an online resource that can be used at all levels to support literacy development.

To find out more about this network please visit our wiki:http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/

If you are keen to join us on the 28th August please email me: rjensen@waikato.ac.nz

Early Literacy Learning

2009-08-02T19:42:00.018+12:00

One of the best parts of my job is the opportunity it gives me to get into classrooms and work with students and teachers. Today (well it was when I started this post) I worked with a bunch of new entrants and their teacher and together we became explorers. We were explorers on a mission to find letters from the alphabet in our school environment.
We had fun and found almost every letter!

literacy juniors

View more presentations from rjensen.

I haven’t taught New Entrants before but after working with these guys I challenged myself to think about what I would do next to help them practice and transfer their learning.
This jogged my memory to a quote at a recent national standards hui, “knowing what you are aiming at and then having the signposts is half the battle”.

I had a Draft Literacy Learning Progressions (MOE, 2007) on hand. This document was useful in helping me to plan some further activities and provided me with a reference point for assessing these students’ strengths and needs. Other information I found really useful in this document was related to the cumulative nature of literacy learning and the prerequisite knowledge and skills required for further development.
Prompts re further experiences that would be appropriate for these children, gained from the progressions,included involving children in:
*Identifying letters in their name
*Pointing out the same letter in different places
*Forming letters of the alphabet
*Identify letters by name and match some letters to sound and sound to letters or identify a word that begins with that letter

A quick look online and a chat with colleague Fiona Grant also opened the flood gates for other ideas of learning opportunities that would be suitable for these children:

**Identifying letters from google maps.
**Sparkle Box, resources for teachers
Interactives:
http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/ngfl-flash/alphabet-eng/alphabet.htm
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy.html#2
Reference Material: http://soundsandwords.tki.org.nz/phonological_awareness/new_entrants_to_year_1

There is some amazing early literacy and ICT work going on out there.
Check out some of these examples:
Manaia Kindergarten Blog: http://manaiakindergarten.blogspot.com/
Helen Rennie-Younger shares how e-learning has been integrated to support inquiry learning in her junior classroom: http://softwareforlearning.wikispaces.com/eStory1
Judi Buckley and Pam Seath from the Waimarino cluster share their ICT, junior class experiences: http://aliveandhumming.wikispaces.com/

E - Learning BOP Leaders Meet - 19th June

2009-06-23T17:15:00.019+12:00

Over 20 schools from across the Bay were represented by their e-learning leaders at Friday’s e-learning BOP. This network aims to support e-learning leaders so they, in-turn, can better support staff in their schools.

We kick started the day at 9am with two rounds of ‘speed geeking’ (idea stolen from Auckland’s recent unconference, thanks Fiona and Sue)

Sue Brown from Tahatai Coast then joined us via skype. Sue shared her recent experience on-board the North American Apple Bus tour. Her fabulous key-note was titled ‘From the Cave to the Mountain Top’, for 50mins Sue took us under her wing and shared highlights from her trip. A key theme that stuck out for me from Sue’s talk was the importance of not underestimating our students and how we must maximise opportunities for students to show us what they are capable of. Sue also shared how students at Carlsbad High had received international accolade for a film produced by 16 of their students who discovered the horror of the Holocaust. Check out Carlsbad High School Television here: http://www.chstv.com/
Thanks Sue, your exuberance busted out and enveloped the group, even via Skype!

Exploring ‘e-maturity’ models was next on the agenda. See my previous post for more details. We focused on the Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool and through online questionnaire participation, gained a fair grasp of how this tool might be used back in our schools. The group’s overwhelming response was that the use of a tool like this would be very helpful to individual schools as it would provide evidence of a schools e-learning strengths and weaknesses, giving weight to desired actions.
Data gathered through the use of the Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool was seen by some as a good foundation from which to gather more personalised information relating to the areas that had been identified as foci for development.
The alignment of focus areas with support initiatives available in New Zealand was seen as vital in adding value to this tool.
Discussions continued around strategies used to raise the e-learning competence of individual teachers, and models of e-learning teacher accreditation used in other countries were explored.

We used our new ‘e-maturity’ knowledge by attempting to gain a snapshot of our region’s strengths and weaknesses. We hoped that this information would help to inform the group of an area for focus. We made use of good old-fashioned ‘stickies’ and invited all e-learning leaders to ‘sticky’ each e-learning area to roughly indicate where they perceived their school was at. The bottom of the bar indicates lots of support was required and the top indicated lots of success in this area. This exercise served its purpose and interestingly enough ‘ICT and the Curriculum ‘came out as one of the areas requiring the most support.

Tessa Gray rolled up next and as always she delighted the group with her wit and wisdom as we explored ICTPD clusters for 2010. We examined the changes in eligibility and ex-cluster members shared their experiences.
The rest of the day was spent in unconference style. Hot topics that became workshops included:
Learning Management Systems – What, Why and Which?
Web 2.0 – podcasting, blogs and wikis
Open Source vs. Microsoft Office – Would schools be wise to be preparing for open source?
ICTPD – How can we make the grade?

Special thanks to Regan Scarfe and Vicki Coe for their enthusiasm and support in making this day a success.

Further elearning BOP dates for 2009 are:
Friday 28th August
Friday 6th November

Please register your interest by emailing me: rjensen@waikato.ac.nz

To join the e-learning bop listserv, add your email to the 'yahoo group box' located on the right hand banner of this blog.

The E-Learning Pie

2009-06-16T20:11:00.007+12:00

E- Learning is formed from a concoction of many factors including infrastructure, pedagogy, curriculum, leadership, vision and professional learning. It seems that certain standards of capability in these areas and striving for their alignment is paramount to the effective whole school integration of ICT.

I worked at an intermediate school last week who had recently formed an e- learning team; their vision was centred on raising the e-learning bar across the school. The team acknowledged that in pockets of the school e-learning was very effective but the variation between what was happening in classrooms was huge.
The use of a tool that would allow the team to ‘helicopter up’ and reflect on their schools e-learning strengths and the areas to develop seemed like a logical place to start.

After exploring many models and frame-works (see below) I decided to use the ‘digital schools self evaluation’ tool.
BECTA
Digital Schools Self Evaluation Tool
Florida STaRChart
ICT Competency Standards for Teachers
Texas Teacher STaR Chart

I favoured the ‘digital schools self evaluation’ as I I felt that this tool was particularly appropriate for primary and intermediate schools. This online tool, currently used in Irish primary schools, comprises of a total of 45 questions focused on the following elements: leadership and vision, ict on the curriculum, ict culture, professional development and resources and infrastructure. Aspects of the questionnaire were modified as we went to suit the NZ context.

The result was 2hours of quality dialogue. After completing the questions we were provided with a graph of our results. This graph provided evidence that highlighted the schools areas of strengths and areas to develop. More valuable than the graph however was the shared understanding that resulted from the quality dialogue that was necessary to complete this process.

Further discussion continued around priorities for action, which were now crystal clear. Avenues for support were also discussed (this is where we diverted from the Irish context and referred to NZ’s own e-learning resources).
Our next meeting will focus on the development on an action plan.

In summary, the use of this tool was certainly worthwhile in generating dialogue that enabled us to look holistically at e-learning in this school and to gauge where we were as a school on a developmental continuum. This data gave us fresh confidence in planning future development and change.

Has your school made use of any models/frameworks to assess their ‘e-learning’ capability?

In the latest advert for ICTPD 2010, I notice the introduction of a self-review component based on both the Becta and Euronet models.

Some countries that use such models have extended their use to include an accreditation process that schools and in some cases teachers can apply for to demonstrate a certain level of e-learning competence.
See examples:
Queensland - SMART Classrooms
BECTA – ICT Mark
Digital Schools Award

What are your thoughts?

Be In To Win - Up to 55 new clusters up for grabs for 2010!

2009-06-15T20:50:00.001+12:00

ICT PD Programme 2010-2012 Overview

Extracts taken directly from thr: Minsity of Education site
For full details see this site.

The Ministry of Education invites proposals from schools for funding to support three year professional development (PD) programmes related to ICT. These will be focused on developing the capability of participating schools so they can take advantage of current and future ICT developments, particularly the proposed roll-out of ultra-fast broadband and upgrades to school networks.

A review of the ICT PD programme has been undertaken. The initial findings from this have led to changes to the eligibility criteria. In this round of applications for the 2010-12 programme there are three categories that schools can apply under. Schools should not submit a proposal to more than one category.

The categories are:

Category A – Clusters of schools that were unsuccessful in the 2008 selection round
Clusters of schools that were unsuccessful in the 2008 selection process (to participate in the 2009-2011 ICT PD programme) are eligible to apply under this category. The schools that compose these clusters should be substantively unchanged from those included in the 2008 proposal (Clusters that have changed significantly since the 2008 selection round should apply under Category C - refer below for further details). One school in the cluster must be designated as the lead school (the contractor). They will take responsibility for administering, reporting and coordinating the programme. All schools in the cluster are expected to be actively involved and committed to successfully achieving the outcomes of programme.
Up to twelve clusters that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Clusters that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will be automatically considered for selection in Category C.

Category B – Individual schools of 80 or more FTTE staff
Individual schools of 80 or more FTTE staff are eligible to apply under this category. These schools will have either not previously participated in the ICT PD programme or have previously participated in the ICT PD programme and completed the programme before the 31st December 2004. Up to fifteen schools that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Schools that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will have the opportunity to participate in a targeted programme to support the development of their ICT leadership capability in 2010.

Category C – Clusters of schools
Clusters of two or more schools are eligible to apply under this category. Schools that comprise these clusters will have either not previously participated in the ICT PD programme or will have previously participated in the ICT PD programme and completed the programme before the 31st December 2004.
As guidance, schools that have previously participated in the programme (completed before 31st December 2004) should not comprise more than 30% of the total FTTE for the cluster. Clusters consisting solely of independent schools will not be considered. One school in the cluster must be designated the lead school (the contractor) and will be contracted to take responsibility for administering, reporting and coordinating the programme. All schools in the cluster are expected to be actively involved and committed to successfully achieving the outcomes of programme. Up to twenty eight clusters that meet the selection criteria will be funded from this category for three years (2010-2012). Schools that are unsuccessful in being selected in this category will have the opportunity to participate in a targeted programme to support the development of their ICT leadership capability in 2010.

ICT Conference In Tauranga - All Welcome

2009-05-11T10:04:00.006+12:00

The Waimarino cluster have kindly extended an invitation to schools outside their cluster to attend their annual ICT conference. This years conference theme is Collaborate , Innovate and Educate. This one day mini-conference will be held at Bethlehem College, Tauranga on the 12th June. The day is made up of two keynotes and 2 breakouts.
KEYNOTE PRESENTERS are Tony Ryan: www.tonyryan.com.au
and Sean Lyons from Netsafe.

Registration Forms are available from the
Waimarino Cluster by emailing:
Judi Buckley jbuckley@bellevue.school.nz
Check out the cluster wiki for an insight into the work happening within this ICTPD cluster: http://waimarinowiki.wikispaces.com/

Online Learning Communities – Why Would You?

2009-04-16T10:13:00.006+12:00

I was prompted to dig deeper into the use of online learning communities when a colleague asked for assistance with setting up a wiki and commented that she ‘was only going to set it up if her teachers were going to use it’ .
This comment begged the questions:
*Were online learning communities being perceived, by some, as a ‘magic bullet’ for professional learning?
*What components contributed to the success or failure of online learning communities?

As luck would have it, a colleague, Heather Bell from Massey was conducting her thesis on the use of blended learning communities for professional learning. Heather was an invaluable resource for me in obtaining a ‘quick-fix’ understanding of what makes online professional learning communities tick.
The result was the attached power-point which I have since used as a guide in exploring with groups the prospect of setting up an online learning community.
The dialogue generated through these sessions definitely contributes to more rigorous decision making around the use of online learning communities.

Much of the thinking shared could be applied to classroom online learning environments.

Online Plc

Publish at Scribd or explore others: online Education

TOP FINDS

2009-04-16T08:51:00.009+12:00

This year part of my role involves working with TEAM solutions, facilitator Fiona Grant.
Fiona is a powerhouse of ideas and resources and many of these ‘top finds’ have come direct from Fiona. Check out her blog here: http://virtualnorth.blogspot.com/

**Ideas to Inspire
Bookmark this site for practical and interesting ideas for ICT integration.
Resources include:
30 Ideas for Inspiring Writing
25 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom
23 Techy Tips for Not So Techy Teachers

Twenty Five Interesting Ways To Use Wordle In

View more presentations from rjensen.

**Ether-pad (similar to skrbl): For real –time collaboration. Etherpad allows multiple people to work on the same document. No login required. Great for collaborative storywriting, drafting work, meeting notes … Check out this etherpad on ways etherpad could be used in the classroom.
Source: http://teachernz.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/etherpad/

**Kid Rex - Kids Search Engine: This may be a goodie for a classroom homepage. KidRex searches emphasize kid-related webpages from across the entire web and are powered by Google Custom Search and use Google SafeSearch technology.

Teaching as Inquiry - Making a Start

2009-04-08T14:02:00.009+12:00

I have been experimenting with the 'Teaching as Inquiry' model that forms part of the ‘Effective Pedagogy’ page of the New Zealand Curriculum.

Yesterday, we used this model as a guide in teacher planning for the effective integration of ICT into literacy programmes.

Using this model helped focus our discussion and in particularly influenced us to:

a)use data and other information to identify student learning needs
i.e. PAT, running records, information from the RT Literacy.

b)make use of evidence from research such as ‘Te Mana’ and ‘to call’ on own knowledge of what teaching and learning strategies make a difference for the students in our classroom

c)make decisions regarding the integration of ICT firmly grounded in the knowledge gleaned from the above

d) consider and discuss how we might measure the impact of our changed actions.

Teachers used the ‘teaching as inquiry’ model to guide their sharing at the after-school staff meeting. When asked to reflect on the impact of using this model, the consensus was that it had been significant in ensuring the needs of our learners and what we know about what works for our learners drove our decisions about how to integrate ICT.

I attempted to record these teachers as these shared but unfortunately the video camera malfunctioned!! Later I recorded my reflections on the process.

Here is a link to a copy of the 'Teaching as Inquiry' template that was used to guide our thinking.

I look forward to the shuffling between the stages that will continue.

Great 21st C Literacy Software - Newsmaker

2009-03-22T20:24:00.006+13:00

The programme ‘newsmaker’ caught my eye last week when I saw it used in a junior syndicate’s literacy programme. This programme makes you feel like a newsreader, you add text which scrolls as you read it. The whole session is captured via your webcam. Tonight I made the most of my free seven day trial and got my own kids to retell about the party that had been to the night before. As you can see that went over-board with the effects!! Newsmaker is an extremely user-friendly programme that can easily be integrated into any literacy programme; it has huge potential for developing written and oral language skills. Files are saved in wmv. format so are easily uploaded to you-tube for embedding.
Highly recommended
Download the free trial here

Cost is $990 NZ dollars for unlimited site license.
Smaller schools (under 200 students) can combine and purchase one unlimited license.
See newsmaker site to order.

Supporting the Shift

2009-03-08T21:16:00.004+13:00

Part of my role within School Support Services, Waikato, is to assist other advisers to integrate e-learning into classroom activities by supporting them to model the effective selection and the use of ICT to meet students’ needs. This role would have lots of similarities with a person in a school charged with e-learning responsibilities.
I must admit sometimes the barriers in getting everyone ‘on-board’ feel too great and the need for greater support from management at a systems level seems the only way forward.
I see this report Six ways to make Web 2.0 Work, and the education lens applied to it by Derek Wenmoth as a great focus for dialogue with management.

Although no real surprises , school leaders might find that this report provides some useful leverage for reflection and dialogue.

What would you consider are your organisations strengths and weaknesses in terms of the factors identified below? How might these ideas assist us?

Thanks Derek for your fantastic post about this report and for your useful paraphrasing of its contents for education.

From Derek’s blog:
“My paraphrase of this advice for our school leaders is as follows…
1. The transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top. - the evidence shows that the leaders in our schools must lead by example - if they want staff and students to use these tools, then they must be users of them also! Bottom-up initiatives will only scale and become embedded with the support of those who can ensure that the appropriate support systems are in place, and that the systemic barriers (eg firewalls, network access, spam filters etc) are dealt to at a policy and implementation level.
2. The best uses come from users - but they require help to scale. - rather than try to dictate how ICTs should be used in your school, watch for what the early adopters are doing with them select the things that are working well and give them the support to ’scale up’.
3. What’s in the workflow is what gets used. - stop treating Web2.0 tools as an ‘add-on’, or ‘nice-to-try’ part of what is happening in your school - bring them into the mainstream! Start using a wiki to record minutes at a staff meeting and a place to further the discussion after the meeting finishes. Use online video and slideshow tools to encourage the sharing of completed assignments etc.
4. Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs - not just their wallets. We all respond well to receiving recognition for a job well done, or for the innovative things we do etc. Make sure you encourage the innovators and early adoptors, not with empty words, but with encouragement that demonstrates you recognise the value of what they are doing. Encourage them to attend conferences - not just to listen, but to present. Profile them at staff meetings, or parent evenings etc.
5. The right solution comes from the right participants. Be strategic in who you target to become users of ICT solutions. If the group has an authentic reason for using the technology then it has more chance of succeeding (eg blogs for records of learning in junior school, wikis for student collaborative projects further up)!
6. Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2009/02/6-ways-to-make-web20-work.html Fear is a great deterrant to change and innovation. There is risk associated with the deployment of Web2.0 applications - and the response to that needs to be something that everyone on the staff takes responsibility for. Principals should work with staff to establish reasonable policies, such as prohibiting anonymous posting on blogs for example. Ownership and responsibility for ensuring these policies are adhered to must be a two-way effort. Students and parents must also be included in the loop here, as they will also need to continue with these behaviours at home and out of school hours.

Handpicked Collaborative Projects - Updates

2009-02-16T14:13:00.006+13:00

Handpicked Collaborative Projects has just been updated to include:

***Feet First - a project aimed at encouraging students to walk to school more and to understand why this is such important social action.

***48 hours of Furious FilmMaking - - NZ's largest film competition! A cinematic bootcamp !!. Simply put, filmmaking teams have just one weekend to make a short film. Filmmakers don't know what genre (thriller/romance etc) they will be shooting until the start of the competition.

My Favourite
Daily Lesson Plans from the New York Times - Every day the ‘New York Times’ creates a rich lesson focused on an article from the current day’s newspaper. The lesson archive contains hundreds of free lesson plans for grades 6-12.

***Square Root Day: Join Jennifer Wagner’s mathematics project and share your resources on celebrating square root day.

Students at the Centre of Learning

2009-02-16T08:24:00.005+13:00

There seems little doubt that student learning is becoming more and more relevant to the needs and interests of individuals. Students are increasingly aware of who they are, of their communities, their roles and of how they as individuals can support and sustain the world around them.

At a school wide level, class representatives and school councils are common place and help to ensure that a student voice informs school-wide policies and programmes.

It was great to stumble across some ‘high stakes’ technology projects that were also putting students at the centre. These projects directly sought the thoughts and opinions of students and used this information to inform policies and programmes at a national level.

Project Tomorrow - 2008
Top Ten Things We Have Learned From K-12 Students About Educational Technology
This power-point briefly describes Project Tomorrow and the 10 findings. Lots of parallels with these findings and NZ findings.
A short document is also available and provides an excellent summary of the findings.

Jevansfutureofeducation021109

View more presentations from rjensen.

EduTopia, writer Sara Bernard, is working on a story and is looking for responses from students to the following prompt:
What if you had to teach the classes you are taking now or something you learned years ago? How would you use technology to do it? What devices, software, games, networks, or applications would you use to help students learn more easily — and have more fun learning?
For instance, imagine that it was your job to teach algebra, Charles Dickens, volleyball, poetry, a foreign language, science, or the Civil War. Would you have your English students use Facebook to create profiles for each main character in Jane Eyre? Would you have them use Garage Band to create a World War II song or the national anthem of a fictional country? Would you use instant messaging or cell phones as tools for classroom discipline? Could you learn math from Mario?
For more info: http://www.ncs-tech.org/?p=2674

Exploring solutions with those directly involved in the problem sounds like a smart strategy to me. Do we do this enough at all levels of the education sector??r

Less Is Better

2009-02-10T10:53:00.003+13:00

A friend once said to me that he rarely checked out a new application unless he heard or read about it at least a couple of times. This advice has become a rule of thumb for me and I have no doubt that it has saved me hours of time.

This slide-show from Jane Hart at the 'Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies' provides a great reference for finding a ‘proven’ tool to assist with a specific task.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

View more presentations from Jane Hart. (tags: tools learning)

This list has been compiled from the contributions of 223 learning professionals.

That's Not Cool

2009-02-02T06:48:00.004+13:00

At a teacher only day last week we worked on developing a graduate profile .
An aspect that was high on the priority list was the need for students to be healthy in both mind and body.
Lots of discussions took place around the impact of the changing world on growing mental health issues.
This fantastic website uses 'up-to-the–minute' contexts to explore some of the modern day issues our kids (and us) face. The site begs the question : So where do you draw your digital line? Do you/ How do you escape?

The video below is just one examples of the many treasures to be found within the site.
Url : http://www.thatsnotcool.com/

Thanks Sheryl NussbaumBeach for tweeting this link.

Tired of the real one – try a virtual world

2009-02-02T05:58:00.003+13:00

I was intrigued to read in a recent Future Education blogpost that more than 200 virtual worlds aimed at young people are in development around the world. This surge in development was prompted by the fact that Disney bought the virtual world Club Penguin in 2007 for $700million.
About 107 of the listed worlds ( source ) are aimed at kids aged seven and under. Tweens ages eight to 12 are the target audience for 90 worlds, while teens are the anticipated audience for 78.( VentureBeat, Jan 09)

Popular virtual worlds for primary aged students include:
Whyville
Whyville is a virtual world where boys and girls from all over the real world come to chat, play, learn, and have fun together. You design your face, earn clams by playing games, hang out at the beach, and go to town events at the Greek Theater. You can start your own business, buy a car and give your friends a ride, or write for the town newspaper.
Quest Atlantis
Quest Atlantis (QA) is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-15, in educational tasks.
Club Penguin
Club Penguin is a Disney-owned virtual world where users waddle around as penguins. They can play games, chat, and decorate their igloos. Anyone can use Club Penguin for free, but many of the features are available only to paying members.
Club Penguin is recommended for ages 7-14.

Ed. Benefits
Not surprisingly, the education benefits of this growing phenomenon are under-researched and most research that I did find was generic in nature i.e. listed benefits such as engagement. It was interesting to see that John Hattie's recent data placed the effect size of simulations and gaming, where the teacher acted as facilitator, at the top of the pops however this effect size dulled in comparison to the effect size of numerous behaviors where the teacher acted as the activator. (Table 11.1 , Visible Learning (2009) Page 243 )

I guess the educational benefits depend on a complex number of variables including what the world demands of its avatars and how connections and transfers from learning in the virtual world are made to the learners other worlds.

????
It would be interesting to inquire with students into the impact on say literacy learning when blending the use of a virtual world into the programme mix.

Interested in hearing your thoughts and experience with virtual worlds.

Fantastic Video - Pass It On

2009-01-26T14:15:00.003+13:00

Thanks Andrew Churches for posting about this fantastic video– The Lost Generation.
A great message, clever construction.
I will use it this week during a teacher only day on change. I have also bookmarked it(using vodpod) as this is one video I anticipate revisiting!

Great Practical Resource From Future Lab

2009-01-26T13:51:00.004+13:00

“Schools should explore not only how ICT can supplement traditional ways of teaching but also how it can open up new and different ways of learning”.
(Pg36, NZ Curriculum)

Wow! This practical resource series from futurelab is great.

This resource aims to assist teachers in overcoming the common barrier of TIME required to search for, test and think about new tools and approaches that could be used to try something in a new way.

The “Why Don’t You...?” 5 part series looks closely at ways in which technologies can be used to:
*Talk
*Personalise
*Explore
*Capture
*Network

Each of the above themes is explored and then a list of ‘tried and tested’ tools to enable the learning is listed.

I went through the lists and was pleased to see some familiar tools. I have also chosen a few newbie’s to explore, these include:
Grupthink
Eyejot
Story box

Thanks Futurelab, resources such as these are really helpful in evaluating the potential of a tool to improve student learning and also of the reputation of the tool and its power to survive in these tough economic times.

Why Don’t You? - Online Collaborative Projects

2009-01-19T21:48:00.004+13:00

“Schools should explore not only how ICT can supplement traditional ways of teaching but also how it can open up new and different ways of learning”.
(Pg36, NZ Curriculum )

Online collaborative projects are one doorway for new ways of learning. This recently revamped site provides links to pedagogically- sound, active, online collaborative projects for use especially in NZ classrooms.

Please check it out. This site is ‘work in progress’ your feedback would be much appreciated.

Link to site: http://www.wix.com/rjensen/handpicked

Measuring 21st Century Skills – Attempt or Avoid?

2009-01-13T12:17:00.003+13:00

I took some time out today to catch up on some blog reading and found myself focusing on assessment, new models of assessment!
I would agree that there remains an assumption that 21st century skills are extremely difficult to fairly or reliably measure.
The ability to reliably measure 21st c skills must however depend heavily on the tool that is used for the assessment.
It was fun to discover some of the new tools that are emerging. Tools that measure both basic skills and more advanced skills. The common feature of such tools was not merely whether a student possesses a particular piece of knowledge but whether they can use this knowledge to solve problems.
Check out some of the tools/strategies:
****A leader in this field seems to be Council for Aid to Education (CAE)
They have formulated a range of formative tools aimed at measuring a student’s ability to apply 21st century skills.
Tasks include:
Make an argument- Take and justify a position on an issue
Critique an argument- evaluate an argument for how well reasoned it is
Performance Task- complete a task using a set of provided material
This brochure provides a great outline of their work.

****PLC Sydney is trialling student use of mobile devices in exams. Imagine the impact that this will have on the questions that are asked and thus the thinking required!!
“Students will be able to use iPods, the Internet and mobile phones during exams”.

****Another interesting assessment tool for middle school science students is River City. River City uses a video game interface to present its students with a problem and asks them to develop a hypothesis and procedure, test it—virtually—and then describe their findings.

**** The rubrics developed by Pam Hook and Julie Mills re SOLO and the key competencies are well worth a look.

All this reading strengthening my commitment to the work of Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins particularly because of their explicit focus on the authentic assessment of rich tasks. The first stage on the ‘Understanding by Design’ template focuses on desired results and questions that will lead to understanding. Performance tasks are also a key component of assessment evidence. Their book 'Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook' is a worthwhile resource.

What other tools/strategies exist for measuring deeper outcomes???
I envisage some innovative developments as schools continue their journey with the New Zealand Curriculum.

Just Scratching the Surface??

2008-12-15T11:06:00.006+13:00

Getting The Gist of Google

This video highlighted what an inefficient searcher I am!!
Many of us use only a fraction of the potential of some technologies. This 7 minute video explains how to use some of the in-built features of the google search engine.
The power of using quotations, the minus feature and colons are just a few tips that I am certain will increase my web searching efficiency.

Perhaps you could view this video with your students; they may even like to use the ideas to create a video or 'top tips' sheet to support their peers in successful searching.
More resources that could provide great springboards are available here:
classroom posters

Searching skills are a key 'new literacy' skill for us and our students.
Do we assume that students are better at it than we think?
Is it something that we teach explicitly?
How do we monitor searching effectiveness?
Would love your feedback.

This text will be replaced

Worth Sharing 2

2008-10-02T05:10:00.006+13:00

Exploratree
This free tool from FutureLab allows you to choose from the library of ready-made thinking guides, or to make your own. You can change and customise them; using text, shapes, and images, then send, print or work collaboratively with others. It pays to register so that you have the saving option and can build your own set of templates or plans. Thanks Judi Buckley for tracking this resource down.

Glogster for Educators
Have fun exploiting ‘communicating using images, symbols and text’ with glogster for educators.
Check out this link for examples of how students used glogster to represent a character from a film. Awesome work Katikati College Year11’s.

Online Student Dictionary
Build word power by providing opportunities for your students to contribute to this online ‘wiki- style’ dictionary.

EDtalks
A top resource for professional learning compiled by CORE Education NZ Ltd .
EDTalks is a growing collection of videos featuring New Zealand and International educators talking about learning.
I got a lot out of this 5 min clip ‘Inquiry as a disposition' from Sharon Freisen. Sharon talks about inquiry being a disposition, rather than a process that “gets done” by students.

Exploring Machinima

2008-09-30T10:15:00.008+13:00

I stumbled across the concept of 'Machinima' a few years ago but at the time the process seemed too daunting.
Recent examples and requirements seem more manageable and I am keen to sink my teeth into this. It seems this medium has huge potential to engage students in a challenging process of creating and communicating meaning.

What is Machinima?
Machinima combines the technologies of filmmaking, animation, and 3-D video games. A variety of technologies can be used to create 'machinima' but in a nutshell it can be done by:
1. Creating an avatar in SecondLife.
2. Learning how to walk, move, build and communicate with your avatar in
Secondlife.
3. Adopting a screen capture tool such as Cam Studio. This tool will capture the action of your avatar.
4. Prepare to capture
5. Start filming.
5. Transfer your footage into an editing program such as iMovie or Windows
Movie Maker.
6. Edit your film to your liking.
7. Upload the film to YouTube for sharing.

For more information and links check out ' Machinima Goes Mainstream'.
http://knowclue.wikispaces.com/*+How+Teens+Are+Using+Machinima

I am off to give this a go. I would appreciate hearing from others that have experienced this process or anyone interested in collaborating to explore 'Machinima' and the implications for NZ education. Any 'Machinima' workshops or the like offered at ULearn 08???

Check out this fine 'Machinima' example.
Warning: Contains powerful stories guaranteed to pull on your heart-strings!

Digital Dozen - Celebrating and Promoting the Use of ICT

2008-09-02T20:40:00.005+12:00

Suzie Vesper's ICT Ideas in Education was a springboard for the following 'Digital Dozen'power-point.
A component of my role with ‘School Support Service’ is to support advisors with the smart use of ICT. With this power-point I was able to demonstrate what other advisors were doing and hopefully encourage more advisors to 'dip their toes even further into ICT'. Professional learning on areas of interest will follow as hopefully advisors will be hungry for IT!

Maybe you could adapt this idea for your school, cluster???

Digital Dozen

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Top Finds

2008-09-02T05:07:00.006+12:00

I am loving Twitter (a kind of micro-blogging) for keeping me up -to-date with what's happening out there and for tried and true new technologies.
Thanks to all my Twitter community for your tweets.

In the last week my tweets have informed me of these gems:
**Wix - A great tool for building sleek and professional webpages. User-friendly plus!
**Bubble Comment - A quick way to create personal video comments and post them to a webpage.
**Inquiry and Pedagogy Tweet - Perfect match or problematic partners?
Explore the issue via the power-point and movie created by Jane Gilbert.
**Digital Story Telling with Flickr and Heymilly (tweetname) and her class

I am rjensen on twitter.

Innovative Online Conferences

2008-08-25T20:01:00.004+12:00

International Networking for Educational Transformation (iNet) is hosting three online conferences for 2008.
These will be held in October and November,
two of the conferences are for educators and will address key topics of interest to schools in many countries.

Topics:
Learning spaces for 3 to 19 year olds - 20 October to 31 October 2008
Student leadership - 24 November to 5 December 2008

The third conference is for 5 to 18 year old students only, the topic is :
What do you do for fun? 10 November to 21 November 2008

They will all be worth a look. I am particularly interested in the 'Student Leadership' conference. The blurb sounds promising:

Many schools are exploring how the development of student voice and student leadership is the key to personalisation, with students becoming active partners in the construction of their education. This conference is an opportunity to share how schools are developing students as leaders and how this may inspire innovation and transformation.

•What is student voice and leadership and what does it mean to be a student leader?
•How are schools enabling all students to be leaders?
•What difference can co-construction between students and teachers make?
•Describe a ‘school’ of the future which has been transformed through innovative approaches to student leadership.

For general conference info. visit :http://www.sst-inet.net
To register online for the student conference, visit: http://www.cybertext.net.au/studentreg3.htm

To register online for the educator conferences, visit: http://www.cybertext.net.au/inet2008.htm

E- Learning 'Micro' Fellowships for 2009

2008-08-13T20:33:00.003+12:00

Applications for the NZ e-Learning Teacher Fellowship for 2009 are now open. Up to 10 teachers will be selected. The theme for e-fellows’ projects in 2009 is literacy.

e-Fellows will be supported to develop a short but in-depth classroom-based inquiry project.

The fellowship will run over the first three terms of 2009. e-Fellows will receive 15 days’ teacher release time, broadband at home for the period of the fellowship, and funding to attend a major national conference.

Applications are due on 15 September 2008. Guidelines and an application form are on the NZ MOE website.

KWL - Resources and Tools Table Mat

2008-08-13T11:05:00.008+12:00

Our ICTPD cluster, Waimarino, is in its second year. One of the teachers, Jamin, approached me re compiling a list of skills, possibilities related to ICT integration. Although we didn't want this to become an ICT checklist we felt it was important that teachers had a guide to knowing 'what else is possible' as often ‘we don't know what we don't know'!

Download a copy here

Possible Ways to Use the Resources and Tools Tablemat:
* a guide for some aspects of our cluster professional learning programme.
* for staff meetings, perhaps teachers could identify something they know and can share and link up with a colleague that wants to learn this and has something to share with the other person – ‘personalizing learning’ , I think we call it!
* this resource could be tweaked and used as descibed above with our students.
* laminate it and use it as a table-mat for your weet-bix!

Download a copy here

I welcome your feedback and ideas.

Worth Sharing

2008-08-12T07:54:00.006+12:00

Just thought I would quickly share some of the top resources that I keep hearing and seeing in my travels:

TutPup
Similar to the live part of ‘mathletics’. Players register and compete with others from around the world in maths and spelling games. The ability to register your class is an excellent feature of TutPup.

Google For Educators
Is worth a look. I found some useful material under the classroom activities tab and the classroom posters tab. Check out the 'search tips for kids' poster and the overviews of ‘google maps' and 'google sketch-up’.

Internet Safety
It is great to see many NZ schools increasing the availability of hardware in classrooms. Alongside the increase in the use of ICT it would be good to see an increase in the integration of cyber-safe education.
Netsafe is doing a great job of providing engaging and appropriate resources to help us out.
This link will take you to their one page cyber-citizen pathway and this one will take you to accompanying activities for each stage that they are currently developing.

Enhancing Literacy with ICT

2008-08-07T08:14:00.002+12:00

Just a reminder about the cool resources available on LookyBook.
This one sparks lots of ideas for digital camera use:

Fantastic Freeware

2008-08-01T10:08:00.003+12:00

This week I facilitated a course called ‘Fantastic Freeware’. The goal was to share ‘top tools’ for teaching and learning and most importantly talk about why we might use them and how they could be used to improve outcomes for students. The diversity of the group made for some rich sharing. At the course were primary and secondary teachers, school librarians and school leaders, teachers in ictpd clusters and teachers who were not.
Overall, the most popular tools that all teachers saw loads of opportunity for were:
Delicious
Glogster
Voice thread
Photostory
(Many of the teachers already had a web presence for their class such as a wiki or blog.)

The powerpoint used for the day is below. We didn’t stick to at all, as we flew all around the place.
Thanks Suzie Vesper and Andrew Churches, we referred to your work a lot.

Fantastic Freeware

view presentation

Collaborative Projects

2008-08-01T08:58:00.004+12:00

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours updating ‘Handpicked Collaborative Projects’. The section I concentrated on was HomeGrown Projects. In this section you will find projects that classroom teachers have created to get their class collaborating amongst themselves and/or with other classes.
Ideas include email exchanges and collaborative stories in wikispaces.
Ideas in this section could easily be adapted for any classroom and are relatively easy to set-up. Please let me know of any similar projects happening in your area, email me with the details or post directly to the wiki.

DigiStore Content

2008-07-21T11:12:00.004+12:00

Is your school registered for digistore?
Are you interested in testing the latest learning objects and digital resources?
(You can contribute even if you have had little experience with digital content in classrooms.)
Teacher release provided.

Basically this opportunity involves providing feedback on learning objects for educational soundness, functionality, instructional design and the overall fit to the educational purpose for which they were designed.

To register your interest in joining a user focus group, please fill out the online registration form. Once you have submitted it, TLF will contact your school principal to obtain authorization to continue the registration process.
For more information or for help filling out the registration form, please contact the Focus Group Coordinator: celia.mitchell@thelearningfederation.edu.au

Opportunity Knocks – Be Quick

2008-07-20T18:50:00.005+12:00

Heurisko Ltd on behalf of Microsoft New Zealand is inviting schools and school clusters to submit Expressions of Interest for funding innovative school projects. The funding available per project is $20,000 or more dependent on the project.

Expressions of Interest are due on
Monday 18 August 2008.

Funding for Pilot Projects will be for the period October 2008 to end of June 2009.
Full details are available from: http://www.box.net/shared/6s9f1onoco
The programme is being managed and administered by Heurisko Ltd and all enquiries should be directed to: pete@heurisko.co.nz

Amazing Lady

2008-07-16T16:11:00.005+12:00

I remember some-one saying that the top skill for this century will be the ability to synthesise information - combine elements to form something new and useful.
Suzie Vesper seems to be spot on with this skill. Her work models great use of ICT tools and is always practical, concise and helpful. I love her latest medley of ideas for ICT integration.
Thanks Suzie!! Check out her full tapestry of work.

| View | Upload your own

Am I Missing Something? - Interactive Whiteboards vs. Data Projectors

2008-07-16T11:29:00.005+12:00

As far as 'bang for buck' goes I am an advocate of mounted data projectors in classrooms rather than interactive white-boards.

I am interested in your thoughts.
Are you considering them ? Have you got one?

What can you do with an IWB that can't be done with a data projector and/or a marker board?
How do your use your IWB to ensure your students are active participants and not simply consumers of information?

Some of the ideas on this site were useful in challenging my thinking but enough to justify the hundreds of extra dollars - I dunno?

The Best of…

2008-07-08T11:36:00.003+12:00

This site is worth a trip to your favorites!

Larry Ferlazzo, blog author, compiles a series of “The Best of ……..” lists that highlight what he believes to be the best educational websites. There are over 100 lists and they are continually updated.
Some that I have found useful include:
The Best Websites to Help Beginning Readers
The Best Websites for Creating Online Learning Games
The Best of the Best 2007/2008
The Best Online Tools for Collaboration — NOT In Real Time
The Best Sites for Students to Easily Create & Display Online Projects

Allow some -time to check out the entire directory:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/about/websites-of-the-year/

Fresh Lesson Ideas

2008-07-02T08:32:00.005+12:00

I always enjoy skimming through the latest Interface Magazine - the team at Interface are doing an amazing job of supporting educators with the use of ICT!!
I usually note down some practical ideas from the back section on lesson plans. In the last edition I particularly liked the collaborative story writing/musical chairs plan by Marnie Thomas and the geometric shape challenge. I was delighted to find a link to a library of all these lesson plans on the Interface site. Thanks Interface! All NZ schools should be receiving one free copy if you aren't register online.

Looky Book

2008-07-02T08:22:00.003+12:00

I read about this online library of picture books in the June edition of Interface. Not only can you search for picture books in Looky Book but you can also embed them into your blog, rate them and add them to your personal bookshelf. A great edition to any reading programme!

Show Me the Money

2008-07-01T18:01:00.003+12:00

A friend flicked me this report ‘Review of Schools’ Operational Funding – ICT Resourcing Framework – Oct 2007’ and although a hefty read I found it really useful in providing me with some background re MOE thinking in terms of funding for ICT resources.

The report recognised that:
**ICT is an area putting pressure on schools in the management of their operations grant.
**A forward looking framework for the resourcing of ICT across the schooling sector should be developed

Key messages from the report re the way forward:
• A resourcing framework for ICT would provide the sector with more support and greater certainty.
(I took this to mean more information such as that related to standards for cabling, servers, switches etc)
• Additional resourcing should be made available and used to fund ICT network infrastructure development (At present this should come from a schools property grant.)
• Additional funding should be provided ‘in cash’ to meet ICT needs and to relieve some of the pressure on schools operational funding
• Flexibility and self-management are important features of the proposed resourcing framework. Schools are best placed to make resource allocation decisions about their ICT needs.

All sounds pretty good to me. Download the full report.

Measuring ICT Integration

2008-06-29T21:11:00.004+12:00

Thank you Andrew Churches from Kristin College for all your wonderful sharing. Something that I have used numerous times in the last few weeks is the ICT integration triangle.

This tool has proved really effective in helping groups including BOT’s, PRT’s and ICT leaders reflect on how well their school is integrating ICT. Most importantly this tool has helped groups define the factors that contribute to ICT integration and to plan next steps to improve the level of integration.

When using it in a workshop I outlined each of the three factors and then got individuals to construct their own school triangle.
The three factors are resources, skills and curriculum. They form a triangle and the area of the triangle is level or degree of integration.
For full post: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Facilitating+21st+Century+Learning

Top Three Interactives

2008-06-17T08:30:00.004+12:00

I mentioned digistore in another post as an excellent portal for learning objects. Two other portals that I find hard to beat for primary teachers are:
Woodlands
Topmarks
Both sites organise their interactives into learning areas with a clear description of how they operate and the intended learning outcomes.

Worth Sharing

2008-06-17T08:21:00.002+12:00

I have been using ‘google desktop search’ for a couple of weeks now and I am loving it.
It looks just like the search bar that you would use when searching the web but instead it searches your computer. Those wasted hours looking for lost files are over. It’s a free download, a real quick install, super user-friendly and a fast and effective search engine.

Also worth a mention is ‘google docs’. We all need to be thinking about alternatives to Microsoft Office so I was grateful to Sharon Harper for sharing her wisdom on this web- based word-processor. I used it the other night to edit a document with a colleague at Massey. Basically you open your document, invite collaborators and both of you get to edit the document - changes are automatically saved every few seconds so all collaborators can view them. We also made use of skype so we could chat as we edited the document – a really effective session.

Digistore Gets Even Better

2008-06-08T18:04:00.003+12:00

If your school hasn’t registered yet then you should!
Digistore is the New Zealand gateway to a growing collection of quality learning objects and digital resources.

To stay up to date with new resources I suggest you subscribe to the monthly update – diginews.

Thanks Helen Cooper, Senior Advisor Digital Content, MOE, for your work with digistore.
Visit this link for important information including:
*Who is registered?
*What to do if you have lost your password?
*How to register?
*Snapshots of teachers using digital learning objects
*Catalogues of resources by Learning Area

e-Learning Teacher Fellowships 2009

2008-05-28T20:18:00.005+12:00

Thanks Sarah Jones, Senior Adviser, e-Learning Schooling,
Ministry of Education for this info.

**Are you using e-learning in your classroom in innovative and creative ways?
**Are you eager to explore an aspect of your e-learning practice?
**Are you passionate about sharing what you find out?

In early August, the Ministry of Education will call for applications for e-fellows for 2009. We are looking for classroom teachers using e-learning in innovative ways and who want to improve their understanding of what works for learners.

Some aspects of the e-fellowship programme are changing. Each year, e-fellows’ projects will have a theme. For 2009, teachers will be invited to submit proposals describing their innovative e-learning practice in literacy. Successful applicants, supported through the fellowship, will inquire in-depth into this aspect of their classroom practice.

e-Fellows will receive individual, specialised support from researchers to develop their inquiry project. Researchers will also produce findings on common themes across the e-fellows’ projects.

e-Fellows will participate in professional learning with other e-fellows and will share their findings with the teaching community. They will produce a professional e-portfolio, demonstrating the teaching and learning challenges, shifts in their thinking and practice, and outcomes for students.

The ministry will provide teacher release time and funding arrangements appropriate to the proposed projects, which are expected to run over several school terms.

Criteria for proposals and information on the application process will be released in early August 2008. Applications will be due in mid September 2008. For enquiries about e-fellowships for 2009, contact sarah.jones@minedu.govt.nz

Hardware Decisions

2008-05-25T17:29:00.004+12:00

This post from Andrew Churches does a perfect job of weighing up the pros and cons of different hardware options whilst introducing some sleek new technology.
Thanks Andrew, I love your blog:)

Post RSS Thinking

2008-05-25T14:37:00.008+12:00

I just spent the morning catching up on my RSS feeds. Below is an attempt to summarise my thinking.

What do I STOP DOING?
Attending top national conferences because “that is what I have always done”. The best professional learning I have had lately has come in the form of RSS feeds and the K12 online conference. This year’s conference is scheduled for October 20-31, the theme is “Amplifying Possibilities.”

What do I KEEP DOING?

Web 2.0 is where it is at! I need to continue to bask in these technologies and explore their implications for teaching and learning.
I will keep searching for online collaborative projects that make effective use of web 2.o technologies and post them on: Handpicked...

What do I START DOING?
*Participating not just lurking in my networks.

*Making further use of the following very cool tools:

Boolify

This online 'beauty' teachers boolean
search techniques while carrying out your searches.

Super Cool School
Wow lots of potential here, delivery approach still a bit chalk and talk, but great enabler for personalising learning.

Updates

2008-05-04T20:45:00.001+12:00

1) Check Out Issue 2 of the Learning Links Newsletter – Lots of schools are sending this home as a newsletter insert or linking it to their website/blog.
Each newsletter provides brief info. on the changing needs of our learners and of internet based resources that can assist with student learning.

2) E-Learning Exchange - The aim of this event is to keep schools updated and to strengthen the e-learning personnel network in our region. This event is ideal for the e-learning leaders in each school.

E-Learning Exchange – Wednesday 11th June, 1:30 -5pm
Content will include: National E-Learning Update/ A Glimpse at New Technologies/ Classroom teachers talking about how they use web 2.0/ Resource Sharing …
Venue: Venue: Chamber of Commerce, Chapel Street, Tauranga
Cost: $30 including gst.
Register by: emailing rjensen@waikato.ac.nz

Effective Online Communities Of Practice – What does it take?

2008-05-04T20:17:00.003+12:00

Literature Review and Synthesis: Online Communities of Practice - Lai, Pratt, Anderson and Stigter, 2006.

It was great to get my hands on this review as this area is very under-researched.
The first part of this report attempted to define what is and what a ‘community of practice’ isn’t.
Zacharek(1999) warned that ‘community ‘is quite possibly the most over-used word in the net industry. He states that “true community – the ability to connect with people who have similar interests – may well be the key to the digital world, but the term has been diluted and debased to describe even the most tenuous connections, the most minimal interaction...”. It was nice to see this in black and white, I agree that many of the commonly used ICT tools are used for very ‘low-levels’ of interaction i.e. Skype, twitter...
For me, the most useful part of this report was the identification of six principles for designing effective online communities of practice:
*Online CoPs require a blended approach towards development where online activities are supported by offline activities
*Online CoPs should be cultivated to grow naturally
*Online CoPs should be designed to support sociability and participation
*Online CoPs should be created to attract a diverse membership
*Online CoPs should be managed by providing for different roles
*Online CoPs should include technology designed with functionality to support sociability and knowledge sharing

I particularly like the principle related to diverse membership and see this as fundamental in creating knowledge and improving practice.
The report also described four successful online CoP’s, one was Tapped In. I joined Tapped In last week and was quick to appreciate the depth and richness of this community. The emphasis was on long-term projects rather than a ‘grab and go’ style of support.
The full report is 48pages and available here.

Sharpening the Focus

2008-04-18T11:13:00.006+12:00

Recently I attended an e-learning hui in Wellington. A key theme that emerged was the need for advisors to encourage teachers to take a discerning look at technologies in terms of their potential impact on student outcomes.

Below are some of the tools that I have found successful in my work with teachers :

1.Teacher Inquiry and Knowledge Building Cycle –Teacher Professional Learning and Development: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration- H. Timperley et al , 2007.
Great for ensuring that ICT use in guided by learning intentions. I often use this as a framework for goal-setting with teachers.

2.Guiding Questions
Murray Brown used these questions as a framework for adopting new technologies:
**Why Would You?
**Is it the preferred method?
**Does it complement?
**What educational problem or challenge are you trying to address with this?
**How are the networks working together?

3.Digging Deeper into Blogging
Thanks Fiona Grant for pointing out the awesome work of Konrad Glogowski, the blog of proximal development. Konrad ‘s viewpoint is that it is not enough to simply grow a blog, students must have opportunities to look critically at their own work and see how they fit into the class blogosphere.
Konrad makes use of a ‘ripple effect’organizer in an attempt to engage his learners in deeper reflective thought.

The problem is not the technology it is how it is used

2008-03-10T08:29:00.008+13:00

Last week our cluster held a Cybersafe evening for parents. Richard Beach from Netsafe delivered a very informative and moving presentation. His commonsense approach came from the point-of view that the technology is here and it is a huge part of our children’s lives. Adults need to immerse themselves in this technology in an attempt to understand it.
The key messages I gained for both home and school included:
*Rules, boundaries and electronic protection are important but the ‘best filter is the one between our ears’. A whole-school community approach to cybersafety is needed. At home this can start with some simple collaboratively formed rules i.e. cell phones in the fruit bowl by 8pm, not giving out personal details on the net, never saying anything online that you wouldn’t say face to face.
Netsafe have put together some brilliant resources to assist parents with cybersafety in their homes.
For schools, the team at Netsafe have just released the New ‘Cybercitizenship Pathway’ for teaching online safety in your classroom. The 1 page guide is a continuum for ECE through to Year 13.

*Cyberbullying is the unacceptable, cruel face of new technology. This video drove this message home in no uncertain terms. Richard stressed that there are help agencies available for students that are the victims of bullying. Check out this great starting point for NZ children.

I totally recommend Richard to present to communities. Parents chatted in groups long after Richard had packed up the projector!

Questions he left me pondering include:
As teachers we are like magnets to the freebies. It may be worth considering paying a little for the increased security and moderation that some of these web 2.0 applications offer?? For example Voicethread vs EdVoicethread

As schools increase their use of technology, do they also increase their level of cybersmart education ?? Is this explicit? School-wide?

There are high-quality engaging resources available for teacher use, at all levels, via sites like netsafe and digizen. How are these being used in schools? What works? What doesn't?

CyberBullying - What do students think? What steps would they take to counteract this?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Riding the Beast

2008-03-03T09:02:00.012+13:00

I haven’t posted for ages but I have a really good excuse!
I have been busy making sense of the masses of info. by creating more or in the words of Hargadon
“In becoming a producer as well as a consumer, we start to ride the beast instead of just being dragged along by it.”

Sooo check out the following online additions that will become regular spaces for me to sort, sift and synthesise new information:

a) Learning Links Newsletter Insert – This is a monthly newsletter for parents and whanau. The purpose is to inform the community of some of the high quality online resources that they can use at home to support learning. The other key aim of this newsletter is to provide parents/whanau with information about the changing needs of today’s children.
(I will email the attachment to principals in the Tauranga area and they can send it home with their regular newsletter or post it on their website/blog).
b) Handpicked Collaborative Projects – This site is a place for me to collect pedagogically-sound, active, online collaborative projects. It means that as I come across projects and evaluate them that I can then share ‘the best ones’. It is also a place to explore the science behind these projects. I hope teachers will make comments on this site about their experience with online projects.
c) Handpicked Web-Tools for Educators – This wiki has been set up as a place to share top web 2.0 finds as well as a place to share the ‘nitty-gritty’ on the use of web 2.0 tools.

I look forward to your feedback.

Exploring the Key Competencies

2007-11-21T14:14:00.000+13:00

Today I worked with a group of Year 5 students and we explored what the key competency ‘Participating and Contributing’ meant to them. We brainstormed our ideas ( see our skrbl) and mapped them before searching for powerful (copyright free) images to help tell our story. The students then chose a tool to build their story, most chose bubbleshare or image loop.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Delicious Christmas Recipes.

It would be interesting to repeat this activity after more work with this key competency and see if the children’s understanding of how they can participate and contribute has developed.

$$$ Discount for ICT Skill Development

2007-11-19T08:35:00.000+13:00

This looks like a great deal for school staff and whanau especially if it is used as part of a varied e-learning professional learning programme and if staff are given time to utilise this tool.

The Ministry of Education, through the Software for Learning programme, has negotiated a special group rate for schools to subscribe to Atomic Learning. Basically Atomic Learning is a web-site that provides video training on a range of commonly used applications. The key learning in each application is organized into small chunk sized videos so to your needs can be met quickly.
To get a taste for Atomic Learning try out the free web 2.0 tutorials.
Costs: The normal price of Atomic Learning is NZD 1.85 per person per year, but the reduced group rate has the potential to reach NZD 1.50. In addition, the minimum cost per school has been reduced from NZD 1,100 to 600 (plus GST), and schools of less than 325 teaching staff and students can avoid the minimum charge by combining with other schools. All Atomic Learning subscriptions ancillary staff and parents receive free access.
This offer is good for orders placed in the month of November 2007.

For a limited time, you can access the full library of Atomic Learning software tutorials by using the information provided below.
www.AtomicLearning.co.uk
Username: NZ
Password: atomic
For more information contact: murray@envision.co.nz

Education Special

2007-11-11T19:50:00.000+13:00

The November Netguide is definitely worth the $5. This issue has an education special and looks at:
Technology in NZ schools – Lots in this article about the ICTPD project and e-fellowships.
Online Learning Resources by Yvonne Blanch
These articles provide a good overview without all the jargon of NZ’s approach to ICT in schools. Might be worth sharing with BOT’s and community.

The Winners of the School Web Challenge are also showcased in this issue – congratulations to Rachel Boyd whose class took out the primary section.
Web Challenge Results

Pedagogy and Tools

2007-11-09T08:35:00.000+13:00

I am still wading through the rich material from the recent ‘K12 Online Conference’. I liked the work of Anne Davis from the USA. Her presentation ‘Putting the Pedagogy into the Tools’ went that one crucial step further in facilitating transfer to the classroom.
Anne looked in-depth at 13 web tools and provided teachers with an overview of each tool and most importantly information on how each tool could be used to enhance student outcomes on specific learning objectives. In effect this presentation provided mini-lessons that centred on the pedagogical use of web tools.
Each web tool is analysed using the following format. The example below is direct from her presentation material and focuses on a tool that generates newspaper clippings.

Objective: Summarizing
Web tool: Newspaper Clipping Generator
Use of tool: Students take an article or a blog post and make decisions as to what to include, what to delete, and what to substitute in order to summarize.
How it facilitates learning: The challenge of condensing the summary requires students to engage in a fun way to review and revise their own notes and the notes become more meaningful. The publishing of the summary on a blog makes it interactive as the students help each other to learn to synthesize information.
Blog posts:
• A Tribute to the Blogicians on Blogical Minds
Additional strategies to use with students to facilitate learning and thinking:
• Students could paraphrase short paragraphs.
• Students could use this to post celebrations of good thinking in class by other students or other students they connect with online.
How To: This one is so simple. The 'Newspaper Clipping Generator' link listed above takes you to the site. All you have to do is type in the name you want for your newspaper, the date, headline, and your news story.
To download your newspaper, click on the link at the bottom of the generated image. This will take you to a link that directs you to 'Click here to save your newspaper'. You can click on 'Save to disk' or 'open it in a photo software program.
Then students can include this on their blogs. Note that direct linking to the newspaper clippings doesn't work; the images are deleted after a short time span.

For more of Anne's work check out the following links :
Wiki with more of the above.
Full presentation.
Anne's Blog.

Music composition competition - Jane and the Dragon

2007-11-06T07:39:00.000+13:00

CORE Education, in partnership with Weta Productions, is creating an educational web site for students and teachers based on the TV series Jane and the Dragon.

The first activity, the Music of the Middle Ages Composition Competition, is running throughout Term 4, 2007.

Author and illustrator Martin Baynton has provided the lyrics for two songs, and schools are invited to have students compose and record a piece of music for them. (This would be suitable for a whole class or a group of students.) This may be using ICT to record authentic instruments, editing sound files, or using music software to compose and record melodies. You might choose to have a small group do this, or involve the whole class. Find out more about the composition competition on the Knight School website - teacher notes, curriculum links, research material... http://www.janeandthedragon.school.nz

Competition closing date: 7 December, 2007

Evaluating Professional Development

2007-10-23T19:12:00.000+13:00

Today members of our cluster worked with Jan Hill from the education group. She referred to Guskey’s work on the Five Levels of Professional Development.
I wish I had seen this a week ago, it would have been useful in forming questions to aid our cluster review and planning for next year.
Hopefully you can use this framework when reflecting on professional learning in your school.

In short, the five levels are:
1. Participants’ Reactions- How did you feel about the pd?
2. Participants Learning – What knowledge and skills did you actually
learn?
3. Organisation Support and Change – How was the professional learning?
organised? resources, climate, procedures…
4. Participants’ Use of New Knowledge and Skills – What new knowledge
and skills have you applied to your teaching and learning programmes?
5. Student Learning Outcomes – What was the impact on students? Did it affect student performance or achievement?

Two tools I find useful for creating online surveys are survey monkey
and free online surveys. Survey monkey is really user- friendly but the free version limits you to 10 questions per survey.

Cellphones - the "Swiss army knife" for student research and organization?

2007-10-22T21:54:00.000+13:00

This K12 presentation by Lani Ritter-Hall caught my eye. The accompanying wiki is great for an overview of software to aid the use of of cellphones as data collection tools: audio recorders, digital cameras, and digital camcorders.
Congratulations to our 2008 female e-fellow Toni Twiss, Waikato Diocesan School for Girls, Hamilton. Her research will look at the place of mobile technologies in secondary schools.

Voice - Thread

2007-10-22T20:20:00.000+13:00

This application has more potential for e-learning than anything I have seen in a while.
The strength of this web -based software is its ability to capture the thoughts and ideas of a target audience by inviting them to input their voice or written comments. Initially I saw this tool as useful to capture student voice by encouraging oral reflection but the more I played with it the more opportunities I saw. Check out these examples from the voice thread library.
Voice threads for:
Peer teaching
Analysing art work/pictures
Digital storytelling
To present findings
Capturing Ideas and Thoughts

Basic settings in ‘Voice Thread’ allow you to control who your voice threads are shared with and who can comment on them. Threads are easily embedded into blogs etc.
There is a free version and a pro version. The pro version is free to educators and allows unlimited use of the product.
This voice thread direct from the voice –thread library overviews the product nicely:

50 Web 2.0 Ways To Tell A Story

2007-10-17T11:13:00.000+13:00

Via twitter, I have been keeping an eye on the K12 Online Conference. The work of Alan Levine from the USA has been a highlight so far. He has created a wiki on ‘50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story’. This impressive classroom based resource supports the following three steps in telling a simple story:

1. Outlining the story idea - Designing a basic story concept that can be created in a web 2.0 tool using images, audio, and/or video. Lots of tools to help generate story ideas are included.

2. Finding the Media –Images, audio and video. We could collect our own or use the links to licensed or shared media.

3. Picking a Tool To Build Your Story – This well-organised list of web 2.0 tools is organised using the following categories: timeline,slideshow,mixer, comic, scrapbook, map, audio and presentation. Each tool is briefly summarised and even shows examples of work that has been created with it.

This resource is indeed worthy of a bookmark, it goes a long way in demonstrating multi-literacy. Alan has shown the same story using each of the fifty web 2.0 tools!
By limiting the tool options to suit the year level, I can see this experience being a hit across the age levels.

Top 100 Tools for Learning

2007-10-17T11:01:00.000+13:00

I went so far as to print this resource ‘Top 100 Tools for Learning’ by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning and Performing Technologies.
Tools in this resource are categorised by their function i.e. web browsers/ social bookmaking tools/ research tools/ wiki tools/ blog tools/ presentation tools…
It has already saved me time as I make use of the recommended tools or try one of the other suggestions to meet a need. I created a mindmap using the suggested tool Mindmanager ( limited free download) and was impressed by how easy it was to pick up and by the options for sharing the mindmap. Bubbl.us is also worth a look for a simple user-friendly, free, web-based diagram tool.

Have u seen it?

2007-07-29T09:45:00.000+12:00

INTERFACE magazine had a stand at SCHOOLtech07. It was nice to meet the motivated editor who is committed to making this mag. accessible to the masses and hopes to keep it as a freebie :) The content focuses on resources and info. to support the use of e-learning in NZ schools. You can register to receive a FREE copy at www.nz-interface.co.nz.

Smelling the Roses

2007-07-29T09:37:00.000+12:00

I attended a couple of Andrew Churches(Kristin College) workshops at last weeks SCHOOLtech07 Conference. As part of one of his presentations he shared the following movie. I think it would be very appropriate for NZ teenagers to view. I also see this video as a great example of what is possible during the ‘So What, Now What' stage of an inquiry. A similar video could have been created by students after they had engaged in an inquiry that compared their life to that of some-one else’s. Great video, thanks Andrew !!!

Go Google!!!

2007-06-18T20:24:00.000+12:00

This link takes you to some amazing printable ‘how –to’s’ on top google resources for educators. These pdf files are short (max. 2pages) attractively presented and contain just the right amount of info. to get started.
The information is organised into the following headings:
**What Is It ?
**Why Use It ?
**Instructional Ideas
**________ in Action
**Additional Resources

The ones that had instant appeal to me include:
*Sketch Up
*Maps in the Classroom
*Page Creator
*Blogger
*Picasa

Don't reinvent the wheel before checking these out !!

If you are not a gmail account holder you may have to sign up. Quick and painless process. Worthwhile when you see the resources !

Mindware or Hardware?

2007-06-12T21:08:00.000+12:00

As part of my role I have the privilege of visiting many schools in the BOP, I have noticed a couple of trends lately that I thought it was high time I posted about:

1. ‘ICT savvy’ teachers exist in each school. These teachers have a sound understanding of 21st century quality teaching and learning.
2 The ‘overload / frustration’ button is going ON for these teachers as they are exposed to even more information about quality ICT’s and how e-learning can support better outcomes for every child.
3. The ‘overload / frustration’ button is going ON because most of these teachers have a mere 1-2 internet capable computers in their classrooms.

Research (Becker, 2000) has shown that at least five computers are needed in classrooms before there is significant use by teachers and at least four computers are needed before there is high student use for research purposes.

In my opinion, it seems that for many teachers the tables have turned – they have the mindware, now they need enough hardware to make IT happen.

It was a gift from the gods when I stumbled across Jan-Marie Kellow’s, e –fellow 2006 research on ‘Inquiry Learning in an ICT Rich Environment’. This article documents what an ICT –rich environment should look like and what tools are needed to make this happen.
She covers the following in her report:
**Computer Ratios
**Laptops vs Desktops
**Interactive Whiteboards and Data Projectors
**Classroom Cows and Computer Labs
**Online learning Environments
**Other ICT’s i.e. camera

A summary of her research is available here:
http://www.inquiringmind.co.nz/inquiry_&_ict.htm
Well worth a read!

I’ll make use of this document tomorrow, with a cluster management group, with the aim of encouraging principals to make a ‘mark in the sand’ in terms of what infrastructure they should be aiming for in their schools.
I hope you find it useful too!

Many Thanks to Jan-Marie Kellow for her research in this area.

Make the Time 2 Get Online

2007-05-18T00:47:00.002+12:00

I have no doubt that this conference will be well worthwhile. The competent team at CORE will facilitate the content around three key themes:
*Collaborative online learning
*Web 2.0 tools and their applications for educators in their professional learning and teaching practice
*Relevant issues when using online environments.

Each theme will be developed over a two week period.

Register NOW. It's Free.

You must 'Meet the Robinsons'

2007-04-16T18:03:00.000+12:00

Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the movies with my two children; we watched ‘Meet the Robinsons’. This movie was a dazzling trip to the future through the eyes of Walt Disney. It was not only entertaining and witty but the movie also illustrated some key themes for 21st century living- creativity, curiosity, risk taking, learning through mistakes…
The theme of the movie was ‘moving forward' and the following quote marked the end of the movie.
“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
–Walt Disney

If ever you needed an excuse to show a movie to your class and unpack some of the themes – this is the one.

Their Space - Education for a Digital Age

2007-04-03T08:26:00.002+12:00

I really enjoyed the following DEMOS reading – Their Space. This reading is the result of an exploration into the real value behind digital interactions. The emphasis is on how young people use new technology and how schools can build on it. Data was collected through conversations with youth . It is full of quotes from children.
Chapter 5 – The World has changed so why haven’t we? sets out some practical ideas for educators. These are some of my favorites:
Users as Designers – Capitalize on children’s expertise in technology – Use pupil voice. Set up a working committee. Contributions could include producing age-appropriate safety of ‘usefulness’ ratings for websites.
Reverse IT lessons – Children share their knowledge with other pupils, their teacher, leaders…
Cool Tools Monitor
Often children are at the cutting edge of finding or even creating tools. Cool tools monitors could explore the potential of tools for learning i.e. Flickr, Delicious…

This reading also explores some common myths and misconceptions, like this one: ‘The internet is too dangerous for children’. This following quote sums up a lot of my feelings towards bulldog levels of internet security in schools: “... frustrations emerged when parents/ educators based their decision –making on media reports or misconceptions rather than any real understanding of what their child was doing…”
Happy Easter

CHOICES - Social Software

2007-03-29T10:15:00.001+12:00

Thank you for attending today's course. Please post some feedback.

TUANZ - Rotorua

2007-03-26T14:31:00.001+12:00

Thanks to those who attended my workshop today - The ABC of Classroom Blogging.
Keep me posted on your blogging experiences.

TUANZ - ABC of Blo...

Hosted by eSnips

Skrlb - Online White-board

2007-03-21T19:44:00.000+12:00

http://www.skrbl.com/

I am finding this web based whiteboard really handy.
It is a simple tool for sharing online. Contributions appear immediately and multiple users can submit at once.
Huge potential for encouraging whanau/ community contributions to class ‘work’. Give it a whirl with a reading group, perhaps they could use it to post how personal experiences related to those in the book. Maybe they will share more as contributions can be anonymous.
Thank Ivan Lomax, Gisborne E-Learning Adviser, for sharing this morsel.

Movie Making Competition - Taking IT Global

2007-03-21T19:19:00.000+12:00

This info. has come direct from the Taking IT Global website
This competition in open to the Net Generation, in other words, people
who grew up with interactive technology: the Internet, mobile phones, music downloading, etc. Ages 12-29.
The Challenge is : to create a 2 to 5 minute video clip of what you think best describes the definition of your generation. For example, what do you value (having a cool job, being creative/innovative, the ability to multi-task like mad, the openness/awareness the Internet provides, etc.) the most about your life and opportunities that your parents maybe missed out on? You can submit videos to one of three categories:
1. What is your ideal customer experience?
2. What do you look for in a workplace?
3. What should people know about your generation?
Go crazy with it - you can make a music video, a short film, animation, a commercial - whatever. We wanna see what you come up with! 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes will be given out in each of the three categories. Prizes include digital video cameras, digital cameras and web cams.

Deadline: April 16th

Testing Flock

2007-03-17T20:25:00.001+13:00

Have just switched to a new web browser - Flock - http://www.flock/start/

It allows me to post to my blog direct from the web browser and makes photo sharing easy peasey. Will keep you posted as I discover more :)

Blogged with Flock