New Zealand is hosting the Time4Innovation Conference. Many NZ educators are participating through viewing video and adding to the discussion boards. Last week I enjoyed hearing Janice Gulbransen talking about leadership.

Janice’s Video in Google Video

This weekend I watched to TATV - a group of Te Awamutu students shared their voice. To hear what the students have to say about how they want to be taught and what they want to be taught click on the 2008 folder and view the video “You Have a Message.” Both videos are thought provoking and worth taking a moment out of your busy day to watch.

Via my aggregator (sorry I clicked away from it before I recorded who gave me the link) I came across this little beauty written in the form of a webquest- All About Explorers. It helps students realise that all that they read on the web may not be entirely the real thing! A bit like the story of efforts to save the Pacific North West Tree Octopus!

Just because it’s out there doesn’t make it good!

All about Ferdinand Maggellan…

“This Portuguese explorer was born on October 12, 1492 in southern Spain. It is an amazing coincidence that he eventually became a world explorer, because that is the day Christopher Columbus first landed in El Salvador, thus discovering a New World. Magellan is best known as the first person to travel completely around the globe.

Early in his career, Magellan was first a soldier. During the Battle of Hastings, Magellan was seriously injured. His leg had to be amputated as a result. The wooden leg that replaced it never fit him properly, and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He also lost an eye after being shot by an AK-47 during the same battle.

It was not long before King Ferdinand of Spain noticed this rising young star with whom he shared a name. In 1519, at the age of only 27, the King enlisted the support of several wealthy businessmen, including Marco Polo, Bill Gates, and Sam Walton, to finance an expedition to the Spice Islands.

But Magellan, was not content to travel the ordinary way. He had to be different. Magellan took his five ships, led by the Trinidad, west instead of east. In the process, he discovered a new route through the Panama Canal, which shortened travel times to Asia considerably. In the process, he also discovered the Pacific Ocean, which he named after his daughter.

While in the Orient, Magellan traded with the Chinese for spices, silk, and small plastic toys which he could bring back to Europe and sell at huge profits.

In another bid to buck the trend of the day, Magellan continued west after this, and his expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the globe on February 29, 1562. Magellan, unfortunately, did not live to see the completion of the trip. He died of old age only six months earlier, but his accomplishment still stands today as a testament to human willpower and the spirit of discovery.”

Terry Freedman, blogger and podcaster from the UK has just posted this on TechLearning Blog.

“Here in the UK we use the term “ICT” — Information and Communications Technology — rather than “educational technology”, and in many schools it is taught as a discrete subject. So what is it that makes an ICT lesson excellent?

In this list, I have tried to suggest some of the characteristics that may be present — although I hasten to add that one would not expect to see all of them in the same lesson!

This is taken from a much larger list that I published in my newsletter, “Computers in Classrooms”, back in December. You can download the newsletter from here, if you wish to look at the whole list. Look at the list below and tell me what you think:

• The lesson forms part of a unit which forms part of a scheme of work. There is a good starter activity, one that gets the pupils settled down and in the right frame of mind to do the work the teacher has planned for them.

• The teacher spends time at the start letting pupils into the secret of what the objectives (intended learning outcomes) of the lesson are, ie what is intended to be achieved by the end, and how this lesson fits in with the preceding and following lessons

• Pupils are given open‑ended tasks (as far as possible), or at least not tasks with a glass ceiling. (Even lessons designed to impart a set of skills can still be more interesting than “drill & practice”).

• There are plenty of resources for the pupils to use, enabling the teacher to give quality guidance, ie not confined to explaining how to save the document! Such resources will include “how to” guides and posters, on‑screen help (which the pupils will have been taught how to use), and each other.

• Ample time is allowed for the plenary, thereby allowing it to be somewhat more useful than the POLO model: Print Out and Log Off. The plenary is an essential part of the lesson, used to check what learning has taken place, consolidate learning, and prepare pupils for the next stage. In fact, a lesson might have two or three plenaries rather than just one at the end.

• Homework is set in order to consolidate and extend the pupils’ understanding of the work they have been doing in lessons.

• Pupils are given plenty of time on the computers, with the teacher helping individuals and small groups.

• Work is set at an appropriate standard, taking into account the pupils’ prior learning and attainment, and what is expected of their age group in terms of national standards.

• There is a lot of questioning – probing questioning – and assessment for learning techniques are in evidence.

• There is a good range of material to provide for differentiation (higher attainers and children with special educational needs) and personalised learning.

• The teacher is aware of individual pupils’ needs, such as their individual education plans – and makes use of the assessment and other data she has – remember: data only becomes information if you do something with it!

• Not all work takes place at the computer: there is ample opportunity for discussion and reflection. What is important is not the use of technology per se, but the appropriate use of technology.

• Pupils respect the equipment and the room. For example, they do not leave discarded print‑outs on the floor.

• Pupils are happy and confident enough to try out things which the teacher has not actually shown them: they ask help from each other or look at the posters and manuals that are available for them.

• Pupils keep looking at the clock on the wall, because they want to get to a certain point in their work before the end of the lesson. They have a sense of urgency.

• Pupils want to work at lunchtime and other non-lesson times.

• Pupils want to show off little tricks they have discovered, such as keyboard shortcuts.

• Pupils ask questions that the teacher is unable to answer.”

I feel bad because I have taken Terry’s post in it’s entirety to post here. I do so because it is such a great list and I identify so much with his points and I want to encourage people to read it who may not necessarily follow my encouragement to click and read. Posted with permission from the man himself- thanks Terry.

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Here is one just for Kiwi Primary Schools! Today I got a few requests for Twitter followers and two of them were from the guys at Selwyn Ridge School in Tauranga. Through these links I found out aout the Movie and Digital Excellence Awards for NZ students. They say…

“The MADE Awards were started from a collaborative exploration of finding ways to celebrate student achievements in community settings by Tahatai Coast School and Selwyn Ridge School.

Students love to use digital media to discover, explore and communicate learning. Much of the fantastic work completed by students has an audience limited to their class peers, sometimes a school assembly, and occasionally to a proud parent who has popped into class.

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.”

I need to get back in a classroom to have go in one of their categories- commercial, music video, storytelling, curriculum and static image. Hope they do it again next year!

They will be judged in three ages levels to give everyone a go- Year 1-3, Year 4-6, Year 7-8.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach wrote an excellent post that reflects what has been festering in my mind since taking up the ICT Facilitator’s role this year. I have attempted to ‘make the shift’ in my classroom but how can I best encourage others to make similar moves in the way they learn and teach. She highlights nine principles needed to make a shift to 21st century learning pedagogies.

If I can quote her- “Real change, transformational change happens when there is personal ownership of the new technologies and concepts. Today’s new economy is all about human capital, which starts with the educators in a school and then extends outward to all members of the school community.”

1. People- change is best sustained if people are able to support each other on their learning journey if they can learn in supported groups- we are not islands and the collaboration we strive for in our classrooms needs to be modelled by ourselves as adult learners. This is where action research can be such a powerful tool. He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He tangata. He tangata.
2. Leadership- because any sort of change can be threatening the support and guidance of those in leadership roles can be critical- the process can be so un-necessarily difficult when classroom teachers are not well supported by those they look to for leadership.
3. Including all members of the learning community- everyone is part of the process- efforts need to be made to bring all on board- whanau, support personnel, professional colleagues, the wider community.



4. Developing a shared vision for how things need to be- the need to make sure that teachers together articulating the core beliefs. Our new NZ curriculum statement goes some way to addressing this issue.
5. Own it- this phrase has been very powerful for me since I first heard Sheryl say it at TUANZ last year. It’s good to use 21st technologies personally before ‘going public’. Become familiar with them, practise and become used to them. My first experiences with communication on line was through the use of email- personally with relatives overseas- because I could see the immediate uses of it I became better at using it.
6. Communication- we in NZ at the bottom of the globe can be as connected as anyone globally- geography has become less of an issue through UStream, Skype, Twitter etc. Communication with teachers and students outside of your classroom. I am able to communicate with people from UK, Australia, USA, Canada, Uzbekistan- all over.
7. Know your culture and try to anticipate trends- Sheryl says that participatory media has a tendency to ‘go viral’- we need to try and think ahead of the possible consequences of giving these tools to children. A number of children in my class now have their own personal blogs not moderated by me. I endeavour to have given them the skills and common sense to be safe on line.
8. We do not know what we do not know- new things will come along that are totally random- we can expect the unexpected. We will need to be able to run with these new challenges.
9. The power of collective wisdom- we all learn together. We are all learning and what each of us thinks matters.

Thank you Sheryl for insightful post. I encourage my readers to read Sheryl’s blog in its entirety as she is able to write in much eloquently than I but I wanted to write my own version to help me move my own thinking along by giving it my own ’spin’.

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Just a quick note to remind people about World Maths Day, 5 March 2008.

You can register now and start practising.

Remember to read Al Upton’s great Aussie blog as well.

Jane Nicholls of ICT U CAN podcasting fame also has a new job working for CORE looking at the New Zealand Curriculum On-Line project. She has started a forum for sharing initiatives and stories about implementation on the new curriculum. Share your stories of your interesting or successful forays in to using the new document.

Click here for the link to the Centre4 forum.

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I am in a bit of a blogging frenzy at the moment but couldn’t resist sharing this great find from Andrew Churches of Educational Origami fame. The Historic Tale Construction Kit is an on line storytelling site that is just so easy to use and I could imagine it hooking some kids into wanting to write a whole series of slides, developing character and plot along the way. Cheers Andrew.

For the last six weeks or so I have been interacting with a myriad of educators, superintendents and teachers, in America as an ‘expert voice’ in a Ning administered by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson. The idea is that six ‘expert voices’ from around the globe are asked to contribute their voice and assist in the building of a Personal Learning Network for those educators.

I am most honoured and humbled to be invited into such an austere community and hope that my contributions have proved to be worthwhile. As the first round draws to a close I would hope that some of those connections made can continue from outside of that Ning.

Because our school holidays were on I was able to join in a couple of Elluminate sessions with the cohort. It was great to be able to participate live in rich conversations about harnessing the power of the connections made on the web to create a Personal Learning Network.

In this introductory video Will talks about how we might build these networks, how they might look, the transformative nature of a PLN and how we might help children navigate their own networks safely, ethically and effectively.

I am so looking forward to facilitating the 14 schools in the Discover IT Tasman ICT cluster throughout 2008 achieve just those sort of connections. In case you haven’t heard via Twitter I have taken leave from Appleby School for 2008 and will work as a roaming ICT facilitator based in Motueka.

What a wonderful opportunity for me learn and make a whole lot of new face to face connections and develop that sort of network with students and teachers so close to home.

Exciting times are ahead.

View my page on TechnospudProjects My on-line friend, Jen Wagner, has recently created a Ning for primary school teachers as a place to met up, share ideas and find other teachers around the world who want to collaborate on global projects and meet up with other like minded teachers. Joining this Ning would be a great way to join a PLN, Personal Learning Network, and move out of just sharing your learning with your class, school or parent community.

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Lisa Parisi, from New York, and I have recently collaborated on a Hemispheres Wiki. Lisa’s class set a couple of questions that could best be answered by people living in the Southern Hemisphere and we set about answering them from our own experiences showing photos and videos of our findings. The seasonal differences were highlighted by our class photos on the ‘about page’. Lisa’s children were standing in their playground surrounded by snow and mine were on the beach.

And just so you know- we found that water in the Southern Hemisphere twirls in an anti-clockwise direction when going down a sink plug hole!

Our Derek Wenmoth made us all proud with his K12 Online Keynote ‘Holding a Mirror to our Professional Practice‘. Well done Derek!

I just watched it last night and felt compelled to blog in reply. At the end of his presentation he asks us a number of questions to help us reflect on our personal growth and professional practice as teachers. Here are my reflections to the mirror that he holds up…

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How do I hold a mirror up to my professional practice?

I tend to be my own harshest critic. I set high standards for myself and tend to throw myself into my passions- I  believe of the need to teach children how to be get on with each other and to collaborate to learn and actively seek opportunities for them to do so. I try to model this behaviour both personally and on-line.

Who are the mentors that I relate to on a regular basis? Who provides feedback for me on my teaching?

Sadly I feel that we, as teachers, still teach within the four walls of our classrooms. I get regular feedback on my teaching practice  from the 25 cherubs who regularly give me feedback on their preferences!  Over my  teaching career I have been fortunate enough to teach with a couple of exemplary leaders and mentors- Harold Bailey, now retired of Roslyn School and Barry Williams, presently teaching at Huntley Boys. These men believed totally in helping children learn and led their staff with vision and passion.

What professional reading do I do to keep up?

Apart from subject specific reading my professional reading is done on-line through the blogs that I follow that challenge and affirm what I try to do in my classroom- Will Richardson, Miguel Guhlin, Ewan McIntosh, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Greg Carroll. To some degree also these people are the ones that I look up to- they don’t know it but they are the people that lead me to thinking the way that I do because of their brave outlook on the change in pedagogy that is needed for 21st century learners. I am a follower in their wake.

What communities of practice do I participate in?

Apart from the very supportive teachers in my own school and a few other nearby teachers my communities of practice are global- mainly via Twitter, Skype and blogging conversations. I have been invited into a couple of Ning communities but for some reason cannot connect at home and Ning is blocked at school.

What RSS feeds do I follow?

I follow 136 RSS feeds with Bloglines grouped into folders- podcasts, class blogs, children’s blogs, NZ edublogs, UK, USA, Aussie blogs, family blogs and Tech blogs. If you are at all interested you can view my RSS feeds here.

When did I last visit someone else’s classroom and reflect on their practice?

It is sad to say that it has been quite some time since I have been in other teacher’s classrooms while they have been teaching. I do from time to time peer in people’s windows and do what I call ‘industrial espionage’- look for cool ideas that I can see in other people’s rooms. I need to get out more and see what others are doing. Our ICTPD cluster did facilitate a tour of a couple of other schools in Term Two which was great but for me didn’t lead anywhere particularly- probably because I didn’t teach last term and now the momentum has gone.

When did I last share some of my learning with others?

This is something I am proud to say I have done quite a bit of this year- Learning at School, TUANZ, ULearn07 and with our ICTPD cluster. I also try to make myself available to help people on line through email, Skype, Twitter, Hotmail and face-to-face if possible. I will miss this facet of my practice next year as attendance at these conferences will be harder now that we have finished the final year of the contract. Anyone want to sponsor me? I would love to go to NECC!

On re-reading this post it all seems to be about me. Maybe it is but please take the time to listen to Derek’s presentation. It will be time well spent.

I would be interested to read your reflections on the questions that Derek posed…

Sheryl is now safely back in Virginia from the Shanghai Learning 2.0 conference and has posted a link to the recorded archive of our Elluminate Session. I really do recommend that you listen to it as the other speakers were spot on with their contributions- well worth listening to again.

To listen to an Elluminate session click on the above link and you will need to give permission to open a Java application, it will check for the latest version and automatically load, wait a bit for it to open, it starts a little scratchy and then Clarence Fisher tells us about how he uses Web2.0 tools in his isolated school in Canada, followed by David Jakes, myself and Chris Betcher.

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Clarence talks about how a class can be limited with just one teacher and the need to open the classroom doors so that children can learn from each other and other teachers/experts from around the globe.

This slide shows his representation of how a network of links has developed through blogging. Our class blog would be very similar I think. We learn things from friends and from friends of friends.

Do have a look/listen- you will not be disappointed.

This afternoon NZ time I had the privilege to be invited to participate in a discussion at the Learning2.0 conference - Communication, Collaboration, Connection in Shanghai by my good friend Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.

The event was brought together with Elluminate and a group of distinguished educators from around the globe.

I was accompanied by Clarence Fisher who is a full time teacher in a small school in the backblocks of Canada. I felt close to Clarence as his school is also small and a little isolated but he uses Web2.o tools to communicate and collaborate globally. Then we featured David Jakes who is a technology co-ordinator from the US and my new friend Chris Betcher from Sydney.

Chris and I had worked together the night before the presentation discussing what we might highlight and Chris tried to lend a hand while I struggled with converting a Jing video in swf format to something that would upload as a podcast. BTW I got there in the end by using a little cunning and a lot of persistence! (If you want to
Download

This is a slide that I captured from Chris’ presentation as it graphically shows how a blog can be the hub of communication and networking with live updates embedded from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, comments, Clustrmap and other blog links.

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I will post a link to review the conversation when Sheryl publishes it.

As usual I learnt more from these connections than people learnt from my ramblings.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has invited me to participate in the Learning 2.0 Conference in Shanghai! My contribution will be via Elluminate and will focus on how we use the web to network and learn from experts all around the globe. She writes…

That’s right- the person of the year is “You,” as in YouTube and MySpace, and the World Wide Web. Never before has it been easier to create and collaborate via the Web. Come see examples of how to create a classroom learning ecology where teachers and students learn from each other and content experts from around the world.

To illustrate this I have added to her 21st Century Collaborative wiki. I surprised myself as to the extent and variety of examples of some of the things we have been doing in the last twelve months.

Here is a new thing for me - Prof Martin Hofmann from Switzerland has linked to my TeacherTube Video One Woman’s Wanderings with Web2.o in German (I think). I am going to have to get some of my European friends (or Google Translate) to translate for me. All this linking is so very wonderful. Wouldn’t it be cool to link with a class in Germany who was learning English- they could practice their English and we could have to world open to us.
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Aus dem Inhalt:
Den GrundschülerInnen von Lehrerin Allanah King von der Appleby School stehen seit 2006 jederzeit 12 Notebooks (Apple Laptops) mit Zugang zum Internet zur Verfügung. Erste Erfahrungen mit einer online Lernumgebung machte Allanah King bereits im Jahr 2005. In einem Workshop lernte Sie das Bloggen kennen und führt seither auch ein sehr lesenswertes EduBlog. Im Video berichtet die Lehrerin davon, dass jede der fünf Schulklassen (1. - 6. Klasse) an der Appleby School inzwischen ein eigenes Class-Blog (Klassen-Blog) führt, in das die Lernenden mindestens einen Beitrag (Post) wöchentlich schreiben. Für das Verfassen des wöchentlichen Blog-Eintrags ist bei Frau King immer abwechselnd jeweils ein(e) Schüler/in verantwortlich. Häufig schreiben die SchülerInnen jedoch mehrere Posts wöchentlich; insbesondere dann, wenn viele Aktivitäten in der Schule oder im Unterricht stattfinden. Alle Kommentare auf den Class-Blogs werden zuerst von den LehrerInnen geprüft, bevor sie frei geschaltet werden (Moderationsmodus). Von den einzelnen Class-Blogs verweisen zahlreiche Links auf weitere nützliche Web 2.0-Tools: Blogmeister Class Blog, Education-Blog der Lehrerin, TeacherTube-Konto der Lehrerin, Klassen-Wiki, Podcast-Plattform, Kalender, Quick Notes, Fotocommunity Flickr, einzelne SchülerInnen-Blogs u.a.m. Besonders beliebt bei den Kindern ist auch die digitale Uhr. Ausserdem besitzt jede Klasse ein del.icio.us-Konto (Social Bookmarking), mit dem die SchülerInnen nützliche URLs sammeln. Allanah King bemerkt, dass del.icio.us zwar nicht sehr häufig genutzt werde, jedoch trotzdem ein sehr nützliches Tool für den Unterricht sei. Alle Class-Blog haben zudem einen Site-Counter (ClustrMap) installiert, damit die Lernenden auf der Weltkarte sehen können, woher die LeserInnen ihrer Blogs stammen…

I have spent the last few days exploring VoiceThread, a newish collaborative tool for recording voice with photos and inviting oral comments from others.

To support and record my own use of Voicethread I have made a new post on my tech blog Bling4yrblog along with an actual Voicethread. It takes you through step-by-step how to create a VoiceThread. VoicceThread has lots of possibilities and I look forward to using it in my class next term.

Here is my first effort with Voicethread.

Thank you John Pearce for your expertise in embedding VoiceThread in Edublogs. You are a star.

Of course you are presently reading the blog of one of the biggest clutzes known to man! You need to make sure your Voicethread is public otherwise you will be the only one on the planet that can see it!!!!! Thanks Paul and Steve from Voicethread himself for your feedback.

Last night we had a bit of a highpoint for our podcasting and Skyping endeavours- through one of our Appleby parents we made contact with Rob Waddell, Olympic gold medalist and now grinder on Team Emirates New Zealand yacht in the America’s Cup challenge in Valencia, Spain.

Children had prepared fat questions to ask and we had all gathered back at school at 7pm on Monday night.

In order to overcome the problem of feedback when Skyping to a larger audience I plugged a splitter into the headphone jack and had one pair of headphones in one socket and speakers into the other. Perfect!

To add a little spice to the session TVNZ had got wind of it and were filming in Appleby, NZ while a second crew were filming in Valencia.

Rod proved to be an excellent spokesperson for Team New Zealand and had an easy rapport with the children.

You can view an edited version of the call on our podcasting page.

And to top it all off we made it onto the nationwide TVNZ six o’clock news tonight. How’s that for being globally connected with a rich, real authentic context!

Our Time4Online NZ conference is now up and running for real and the power of Web2 technologies have been brought home to me in a number of rather spectacular ways.

Firstly, in that we can have a conference like this at all. Teachers from all over New Zealand can learn and connect at their own pace, in their own time and from any location as long as they have an internet connection and a bit of patience. I wonder how many will join in over time?

Secondly, that I can contribute from Nelson through a collaboration with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach for her keynote in Elluminate and my video presentation, uploaded to Teacher-Tube. At last look it has had 4,400 views in one week. This surprises me as I didn’t think that that many people would be that interested. Thank you Sheryl for your enthusiasm and encouragement for me to showcase some of my classroom practice.
Through these links a number of others from a variety of English speaking countries have linked to this blog or my presentation and I tip my hat to them.

And thanks to Technorati for the ability to find and link to others. And to James Farmer founder of Edublogs who helped get things going again after some downtime in the weekend.

Download: Posted by AllanahK at TeacherTube.com.
This is my presentation for the Time4OnLine New Zealand Conference that starts on 28 May. Yay- you get a sneak preview! It is six minutes long and here is a pdf of the shownotes!

Time4OnLine Conference Shownotes

Now all I have to do is relax and enjoy the rest of the presentations.

It’s late Sunday afternoon and I just got home from a blustery autumn afternoon in my classroom where nine parents from school and one student helper set about creating a blog site for themselves using Blogger. I set up the data projector and big screen up and were away after a six minute viewing of my movie presentation for the Time4OnLine New Zealand web conference that starts May 28th. What a hoot! I prefer to be behind the lens but it was fun making it!

Thank goodness our internet access held up and we were all able to go on-line at the same time. Usually I have half of the pod of twelve me laptops on the internet and the other half doing something non-web based as it can be tricky. By the end of the session they had all made a blog post, added a photograph, customised it to their liking, hid the problematic navigation bar and changed the settings to reflect personal preferences. Hopefully that is nine more blogs to add the blogosphere.

It is great that they were keen enough to come back on the weekend. That makes twice back to school this weekend. The other was on Friday night for a live Skype call to one of the boys in my class who has gone back to the UK for a time and called in at Cefn Fforest School in Wales that our class has been linking to for some time.

Naturally it and two other exciting Skype calls have been turned into a podcast on our Podomatic site.