Horizon Project 2008 Lesser Role February 17, 2008
Posted by Steve in hz08.Tags: hz08
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It is with regret that I make this entry. It appears that I will not be able to meet with a mixed group of students once or twice a week outside the normal timetable due to the number of extra co-curricular activities that already take place. It is week 3 of the school year, and students are involved in the school’s major drama production; we have a group of music students going over to China to participate in a music festival; we have the Honours Program, a new online project entitled “Values Exchange” and the rest of the students are involved in some sort of sporting activity. I never did get all the interested students at one meeting.
Plan B was to just involve my Year 9 Information and Software Technology class. Unfortunately, a significant number are committed to the “Values Exchange” online project that is described in a previous post. That teacher is having the same difficulty: trying to nominate a time where all students can meet. Since we were committed to the Values Exchange project first, I thought it only fair that it be given priority.
We had hoped that the students involved in the “Values Exchange” program would complete that and rotate to the Horizon Project which would be also counted toward fulfilling requirements to achieve the school’s Scholarship Medallion. Perhaps we can do this with the next Flatclassroom Project if it continues.
There is a possibility that a smaller and younger group of students consisting mostly of Year Eights may still want to go through the motions of participating.
I have contacted the organisers and explained my situation. I have volunteered to take on whatever other duties that may be required for the Horizon Project 2008 to succeed.
Sigh.
Values Exchange February 17, 2008
Posted by Steve in Elearning, Web2.0.Tags: Elearning, TIGS, valuesexchange
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Another teacher and I became involved in a Values Exchange pilot program late in 2007. The other teacher is not too confident with the technology side of things and requested that I attend the introductory session where she could focus on the conceptual ideas that were offered and not be distracted by the online technology that was involved. As it turned out this was a very good idea because the software is quite complex.
There are a few schools involved in Australia and New Zealand in the pilot program. If successful and funding found, the progam can be scaled up to bigger and better things.
Teachers are required to submit a proposal that can be discussed / debated online. Students are required to research the proposal and go through a series of online screens that forces the students to articulate clearly about their stance on a proposal. The software breaks all proposals into social areas such as the Law, a group of people, human rights, dignity ect. The students rank each area by using interactive graphics. Most screens require an opinion by the student of no more than 150 words.
When the student completes the entire process, the software translates the responses into numerical data in various ways. The software also displays emperical data after a group of students have responded to the proposal.
The learning by students in this pilot program is two fold: one for experiencing the interface of the online software and two: improving their ability to persuade and / or analyse a scenario.
The teacher cannot just ‘whip’ up a proposal within 30 minutes. The teacher actually has to provide some thoughtful notes on the proposal and give details as to where further information can be found.
The author of the software, David Seedhouse, is more than willing to give assistance to teachers when polishing their proposal.
I created a proposal and with David’s assistance it evolved to:
It is proposed that social operating systems should be completely transparent and have no privacy restrictions.
The concept comes from the Horizon Report 2008. I choose one their concepts on social operating systems, identified a specific concept that may prevent social operating systems from evolving and created the proposal (again, with David’s assistance). My first proposal attempt was mediocre at best.
The language found in the Horizon Report 2008 is too complex for students in Years Eight or Nine. I did considerable re-phrasing in the hope that the students will be able to understand the concept.
To the best of my knowledge, anyone can go to the Values Exchange site and register to participate in some of the experimental proposals.
The Values Exchange Pilot Program can be found at:
http://knox.values-exchange.co.nz/
Remote Control Garage Doors February 17, 2008
Posted by Steve in Technotrivia.Tags: garagedoors
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We moved premises a few weeks ago. Moving into a new place always provides opportunities for problem solving and identifying idiosyncracies of different things. After moving in, we could not oven to turn on. The oven had all the instructions for various white goods in the kitchen inside it. Not a good idea if someone could easily turn on the oven without checking. I check the fuse box and it seemed operational. After a few hours, my wife discovered a on/off switch that actually turned on the oven. Never in our lives had we seen such a setup. It must be a safety feature for young people?
The new place has a couple of remote operating garage doors. Naturally, my remote control pad lost its settings and I had little or no Internet access for the first 10 days of the move. Eventually I located an Internet terminal. I did a quick search for the manufacturer of the Australian door, found a FAQ section which gave instructions on re-coding the keypad. When I took the cover off the remote controller on the door, I was surprised at how complex the circuit board appeared. It definitely has the ability to do a lot more than previous generations of remote controlled doors in Australia.
Pressed the Door Code continuously, and at the same time pressed the transmitter button on the remote pad twice. Tested the remote out and everything was operational!
Horizon Project 2008, a Beginning of a Chapter February 8, 2008
Posted by Steve in hz08.Tags: hz08
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February 7, 2008 saw me getting up early and participating in the initial online conference that had to do with the Horizon Project 2008. Interested people were from such places as Austria, Spain, Melbourne, Qatar and of course North America. The effort that Julie Lindsay and Vickie Davis have put in and will be putting in is amazing.
We used the video conferencing software Elluminate that seemed to easily cope with the 20 odd participants. The audio was very clear from all participants (which indicated they had the proper headsets with microphones). Julie and Vickie easily co-presented the initial session and Alan Levine, a contributor to the Horizon Project 2008 document gave an impromptu speech. It was quite seamless. I have severe doubts that I could handle moderating an Elluminate session and read the back channel at the same time. These people are obviously very experienced in participating in audio events.
An approximate timeline:
- March: research component, pre-project survey to be given, front loading anticipated
- April: teams allocated, wiki introduced, perhaps videos to watch, keynote speech given
- May: complete video, resourcing, summits, post-survey, post-project reflections
Specific websites that relate to the Horizon Project 2008 include:
- http://horizonproject2008.ning.com/
- http://horizonproject2008.wikispaces.com/
- groups.google.com site which will be used privately just for involved educationalists.
I have bitten the bullet and have volunteered a mixture of Year 8 - 11 students to participate. I expect 10 - 15 students to be involved. We will have our first meeting during Week 3 of our new school year. The school certainly has the video editing facilities. We need to tap into the expertise of one or two staff members in regards to planning storyboards and video angle shots. I am fine with the technical aspects but not so good with the creative side of things.
I am looking forward to all the challenges and the learning experiences that will take place with both my students and myself.
I can see that if the momentum is established and a number of guest speakers are used, “mass collaborations will change everything.”
The following is a tagging standard — you can add examples of your own using delicious.
2008 tagged items http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08
- Grassroots Video http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+video
- Collaboration Webs http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+virtualcollab
- Mobile Broadband http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+mobile
- Data Mashups http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+mashups
- Collective Intelligence http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+collectiveintelligence
- Social Operating Systems http://del.icio.us/tag/hz08+socialos
