TechStuff 1 April 17, 2007
Posted by Steve in Technotrivia.comments closed
Below are listed some of the technical, behind the scenes, type details that have been happening and I have been involved in some way:
- Honours students have been sent invitations to join TIGHONOURS group the last day of Term 1
- at the time of this entry, responses have been weak
- those that have joined have already produced their own synergy as they collaborate with each other
- as an educator, it is fulfilling to observe students create their own synergy
- the Honour’s co-ordinator must be pleased
- The school has subscribed to a hosting service. URL: http://tigs.com.au/
- WordPress Multi-user Application has been set up by Andrew Greenlees who did this outside of normal working hours.
- we tried other open source blog applications but they did not meet my criteria and I was most familiar with WordPress. URL: http://tas.tigs.com.au/ will take one to the super admin site.
- the administrator can interact with any blog created on the site (good)
- Some of my Year 7 Mentees have interacted with me during the April holidays via emails
- the Python people do not seem to be making much progress during the holidays
- the Year 7 workload seems to prevent them from extending themselves in other areas?
- The Junior School asked if a ‘discussion area’ could be set up.
- I set up a Forum area at our new Moodle site. URL: http://tigs.com.au/moodle4tigs/
- The initial setup went smoothly
- I discovered the TIGS email system would not accept emails from the Moodle site (bad)
- Andrew Greenlees again spent numerous hours outside of working hours finding a solution
- The site has been thoroughly tested. Let us hope this is what the Junior School actually wants.
- This is a newer version of Moodle from what I have used in the past.
- I experimented with Edumate2 from home:
- the mark-book is certainly easier to use as compared to the iWise version
- some of my class lists were inaccurate. To whom do we report errors?
- contact details seem to be lacking a lot of data, data that I would have thought would be easy to migrate across. Heaven help the clerical staff if they have to enter the data by keyboard again.
- the Relations within the contact list seem particularly good and should be able to handle any complex family scenario. eg. which parent has access to student records at school.
Status4 April 17, 2007
Posted by Steve in Musing, Web2.0.1 comment so far
I finally finished a significant book entitled: The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. It appears to me to be the most significant book since Alvin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock’.
The videos that have been referred to on this site actually make use of the concepts that have been explored in the text. Basically, the text has stated that due to recent events, technology has made the world flat and it will have impact upon our society. Some of the main points that come to mind:
- Our education system prepares students for assembly line type work which is no longer applicable because the likes of S. Korea, Taiwan, India and China are carrying out the actual manufacturing.
- Our education system needs to SHIFT its focus. We need to make use of technology to aid in the shift of focus.
- The ability to synthesise material from different areas and be able to explain the concepts in a simple manner is a needed skill in the future.
- those students who take up music, drama or take up a hobby in-depth, tend to develop these type of people
- hence, the Arts are necessary to aid in the development of the holistic student
- in the Pacific Northwest of America, schools have shut down their arts programmes due to financial considerations.
- The ability to collaborate with others will be essential where distance is no longer a factor.
- People will need to be able to interact with the public readily.
- India has the ability to do everyone’s taxes since they are an educated population. Australian accountants beware! the Indians can do it overnight!
- Within accounting, those people who create new concepts will be the ones that will be retained.
- The flattening of the earth will create more job opportunities but small businesses will evolve that hire 5 - 10 people as compared a company hiring 50.
- Business structures will become more horizontal as compared to vertical.
- Web 2.0 services on the web (workflow software) will allow businesses to work smarter not harder. They will be able to let the software do the administrative work on the web which in turn allows the owners to concentrate on their core business. [Triple Convergence 1]
- eg. the advent of e-tickets for airline reservations. The consumer is doing the work of clerical staff.
- Different businesses will need to connect to each other and collaborate with each other rather than the old ‘command and control’. (Supply chains for the likes of Woolworths, Aldi). Emphasises ‘just in time’ strategy. [Triple Convergence 2]
- 3 billion more people have joined the market place with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the demise of the USSR and the entry of countries like India and China. [Triple Convergence 3]
- this will increase the size of the market as Indians and Chinese develop their middle class as consumers
- communication technology allows the Indians and Chinese to carry out tasks that used to be reserved for respective countries. eg. call centres, and production of Interactive White Boards in Canada (which most probably will move to China).
- The education system will need to shift to encourage students to be able to design, develop and create. Technology such as video editing is a natural mechanism to encourage these skills. The likes of podcasting, blogging, NoteIT, wikis and other Web 2.0 services also are other mechanisms that can help encourage ‘the swinging voters’ (swinging students) to become engaged in their schooling.
- The development of high order thinking skills is still the top skill to develop but technology should be able to compliment those subjects that develop high order thinking skills in their own way.
- Currently there have been strong statements that ‘homework’ should be abandoned and not so much demands placed on students outside of school hours.
- if we adopt this attitude, Australia will become less competitive with its brainpower
- the next generation may have to work harder to maintain its quality of life
These are just a few of the points that come to mind. It is apparent to me that the education system needs to re-think its focus. No one will change their ways too much if the New South Wales Higher School Certificate Exams remains in its current state: that is a 3 hour written exam for each subject.
Pay Attention (Video) April 13, 2007
Posted by Steve in Stimulation.comments closed
Pay Attention: from TeacherTube
A list of resources can be found here. Darren Draper is a Technology Curriculum Specialist in the Jordan School District in Utah. He put together the following presentation to motivate educators around the world to more effectively use technology in their teaching.
Status3 April 9, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Musing.add a comment
The IT assistant at school, Andrew Greenlees, has worked tirelessly over the Easter break to figure out how to use WordPress Multi-user at the school’s additional domain website: tigs.com.au I haven’t quite figured out how we are a commercial entity as compared to an organisation or an educational entity. It looks like Andrew has successfully met all the criteria that I set. In the long run, it means a much cheaper alternative as compared to using EduBlogs Premium for the school. We will start the Honours students off first. Semester Two will see a rotation of Technology classes and we will add the new classes at that time.
Of course, the site is available to any subject who wishes to make use of a blog.
The videos on this site have at least a message to get across to mainly teachers. It appears that there is great resistance to the use of Technology in the classroom. I tend to dispute that, especially at my current place of employment. If the Web2.0 services cannot be used to promote the high order of thinking, then it isn’t being used to its potential. Developing a quiz program (drill and grill) is not high order thinking in my opinion. Technology should compliment what already exists. It is not meant to replace current strategies.
For me, the most difficult skill to develop in students is the ability to show relationships between concepts in writing. Why writing? because the Year 12 Three Hour Exam is a written one and that is what we teachers are building up to.
It is more important for students to be involved in the creative process using technology. They need to create the Podcast, they need to create the Blog and they need to create the short 3 - 5 minute video. This ‘Project Work’ integrates all the facets of learning. After they create the end products, they will be more critical of the mass of digital data that is bombarding them. We hope that the multi-media tasks also helps develop that ability to show relationships between concepts.
Yes, the students are digital students. They make use of the iPod, mobile phone, digital camera but that does not make them critical users. Activities need to be developed to nudge the development of analysis and critical thinking.
The use of Web2.0 services are another bunch of activities that we can place in our teachers’ “bag of tricks”.
Linear Text April 8, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Stimulation.add a comment
VideoThis YouTube video shows how text has had impact upon society. Probably need to be fairly technically inclined to fully appreciate. XML evolved from HTML. XML allows one to worry only about the content of a database webpage, not what it looks like. The webpage will look the same on all computers which is particularly good for business transactions.
Fear Factor Technology April 8, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Stimulation.add a comment
The following is a short TeacherTube video to stimulate teachers in the use of technology.
Visual Learners April 7, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Stimulation.comments closed
This relates to Visual Learners.
Animated Gifs Clever April 7, 2007
Posted by Steve in Sample.add a comment
Here are 2 clever animated gifs: (MS Gif Animator can be downloaded for free).
The creation of animated gifs can be carried out in a Technology Mandatory class.
Status2 April 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Musing.add a comment
It seems I have made at least some progress with elearning since about June of 2006. Some of the events that have taken place include:
- Moodle training 2 days in Sydney
- no Moodle available to my school
- hired a site in Perth. Extensively tested but students could not download files due to my school’s security settings. Sigh.
- participated in online Moodle conference via video conferencing
- Participated in panel for hiring an elearning integrator
- no one was hired due to lack of practical experience
- ICT Group formed, I became the minute secretary
- A paper entitled “Elearning at TIGS” was written by me and passed onto the Executive in an attempt to bring the 3 dimensional aspect of elearning into a clearer perspective.
- Virtual Staffroom came into existance where I became much more aware of Web 2.0 services.
- Elearning conference, 3 days, Melbourne
- Summary paper written about the 3 days for the Executive
- Evaluated Edumate for my school which undergoes implementation in 2007
- Became involved in the Honours Programme as an elearning integrator and as part of my co-curricular obligations.
- mentoring 3 students in programming so far (Python)
- may be mentoring one other in graphics editing software
- set up TIGSHONOURS yahoo group for communication purposes
- participated in presentation to parents about the Honours Programme
- a lot of time spent outside of school hours setting things up
- Scoured the Net for student activities that can be used in individual student blogs.
- Decided upon Learnerblogs.org as our site due to security and lack of advertising
- 3 lessons lost due to technical difficulties at the Learnerblogs site
- opted for Edublogs Premium for six months, 35 students but it is expensive
- a signficant number of students seem excited about the concept of a blog
- ICT Support investigating WordPress options that run under tigs.com.au domain
- Participated in Podcasting inservice run by the AIS
- tested out blogs ability to upload mp3 files and movies
- tested out Movie Maker 2 with 1394 cable, digital camera and new laptops
- Blogs and the use of Audacity inservices have yet to take place
- I suspect I will be a presenter at future professional development days at my school
As I grow in skills, it certainly has been a case of two steps forward and one step backward! But that is the norm for technology and trying something new.
Powerful Video April 6, 2007
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Stimulation.add a comment
This is a short, powerful movie which shows why I am such an advocator of the use of technology with students. Please comment.
