Digitally Exploring

Mixing It Up

As a summative project for a novel studied, students could choose from podcasts, powerpoints, iMovie clips, movie making, Smart Recorder - to name but a few.The intent of whatever mode of story telling they chose was to clearly show the themes within the novel, and to entice others to read and understand the novel.

Logistically I wondered if it might become a nightmare due to computer bookings, cameras and the diverse groupings the students selected. The only real issue, as it turned out, was that the students who chose to make a movie did not realise how long it would take them to pull it all together. None of them saw it as work and once given extensions spent much of their weekend editing and re-filming. There were issues such as group dynamics to deal with but many told me how much they loved the experience and how hugely proud they were of their final product. They clearly showed understanding of issues in the novel and key concepts.

When we played the completed projects it was a celebration of group work portraying clearly showing understanding with more than a twist of creativity.

From their reflections I know that there is enthusiasm to try something new, different, challenging. There is a pride in their newly acquired skills. Raising the bar...

From basic powerpoint such as

Less is More

The Grade 7 Team has 4 new members this year and so, 5 weeks into the year, it was time to present to parents our curriculum, we reviewed the Powerpoint presentation from the previous year. Apart from the curriculum content changing, the slides had too much information on them. We agreed to go for minimal words and more powerful, thought provoking images.


We divided up the 16 slides amongst the four of us, and each added our own perspective to the presentation. At the next meeting we ran through the slides and critiqued each in terms of clarity and conciseness. One of the images was changed as it didn't make the same connection we felt we needed, and we wordsmithed in order for succinctness.

Because the slides were much more minimalistic is allowed us each to have a common base but to add our own personalities into the presentation whilst keeping it consistent content and theme wise, across the grade. As much of the curriculum is current, as opposed to historical, the parents were made aware of the possibilities open to their child's learning. It made for excellent discussion.

It is not only within the G7 classes that I am constantly working to make presentations more precise, and I find Powerpoint an effective vehicle to do this. It is not on the web so we are not reliant on the server - which can still be inconsistent - and powerpoint has so many temptations to clutter up a presentation is is easy to showcase from the sublime to the ridiculous in terms of clarity and purpose of each presentation. Skills learned within powerpoint are easily transferred to other visual presentations.

Worth 1000 Words

Geography terminology doesn't always inspire enthusiasm in students, so I am always looking for new ways to make learning vocabulary engaging and most of all memorable in the educational sense. In order to share the work, and spread the knowledge of terminology so we can move on to the more complex understandings I decided to have each student make a Smart Recording that can be part of a 'Geo Bank' and used as a class resource, as well as beyond the walls of the classroom. The image above was used on the first page of the example given as the visual guide for students, and inserted in a word document along with Word Art and a text box for the definition. All simple. Clean, clear, effective.

The second page includes a world map and three diverse examples of the term - e.g. isthmus. Upon completion the students then make a recording describing their visual and using their document, picture and Google Earth to clearly show examples and locations of their selected term.

The big project is the creation of their own island and culture so these should provide a rich resource of their island and neighbouring countries.

As more than 1/2 of my classes are below the 43rd percentile in the area of vocabulary(according to recent testing) it is imperative that visuals be clear, and catch the viewers eye and provide that hook for learning. Not only will curriculum content be supported by these images - it will be enhanced. In Medina's Rule of Thumb for presenters, the increase in understanding is clearly shown that recall is 3x stronger with visual and 6x stronger with a combination of visual and oral. Not only for the ESL students - for all.

Always learning

Teaching two streams of classes - humanities and IT class is quite different. One is teaching skills (keyboarding, programs etc) and the other much more using skills to support learning of curricular content. What is evident is the transfer from one class to other - cross grade, and over time. In the IT class the students learn to make movie clips and focus on Excel or Word to feature in their clip. One year/class later in the mainstream classes they transfer the knowledge to the geography terms to collaboratively form an on line resource for Geo Terms.
That's just one small example but what it does is allow so much more shared and peer supported learning. Students can focus on the content and not the application. I'm lucky to work in a very competent IT team and as I follow in their wake I am able to consolidate what I do know and constantly incorporate new ideas to support learning.
Reflecting - I know it is a combination of what this course forces me to do and what I find useful and applicable. I'm simply on a journey of absorption and adaptation of IT skills.

Preparing for Mass Collaboration

Students collaborate willingly on a daily basis. They are on line more outside school hours, than they are in school. They collaborate on Facebook, My Space, mail, HI Five, You Tube, MSN, Skype, Genie, World of Warcraft, and Counterstrike. Their social interactions – hopefully positive in nature set much of the groundwork for collaboration with the easy to and fro with their ‘friends’.

“In the economy of things you are identified by want you own – your
Land, house,car. In the economy of ideas that the web is creating,
you are what you share – who you are linked to, who you network
with, and which ideas, pictures, video, links or comments you share.
The biggest change the web will bring about is allowing us to share
with one another in new ways and particularly to share ideas. That matters because the more ideas are shared the more they breed,
mutate and multiply, and that process is ultimately the source of our creativity, innovation and well-being.”
(We Think Leabeater. Charles P. 6)


Students need to be taught that collaborative communities do have creators and leaders, but the format is not the same as they may have traditionally been aware of. As collaborators they need to be taught to create and answer interesting conversations, and be open to adaptation. Basically good people skills translated into an elearning situation. These develop over time and creations such as Web Quests can be very effective steps in that direction by directing learning with multimedia - combining individual and collaborative efforts and shared ownership. People create for many reasons – grades, recognitions, altruism – but whatever the motivation mass collaboration can bring changes we have yet to imagine.

SUPERWEB

The power of the web lies in its exponential growth in terms of access, knowledge, ease of use, and our growing reliance on it . It has power to transform lives in positive and negative ways. It is far more powerful than the radio, or the television ever was in their time as leading communication models.

The web connects for social and business reasons. Information sharing beyond anything imagined by most users. Barriers of knowledge and information are crumbling. It impacts learning of all – and connects learners not in the same room, nor country. A collective learning model is emerging. It allows innovation and mass production. It draws people into political issues, and influences presidential elections. If we don’t like the world we live in, we can join or create a virtual world.

In the classroom it allows us to communicate with other classrooms sturying similar topis, to take virtual tours
The impact on our daily lives continues to grow and at times the ability to totally disconnect takes a monumental effort. That living in the moment with the people or place you are physically with is threatened many times by our electronic world. It has the potential to be an invasion in our lives. Will the web allow us to be more in control of our lives… or less?

It seems there will be nothing the web cannot reach and so we must be discerning.

ON LINE SAFETY? You? Me? Whose responsibility?

If it takes an entire village to raise a child when you are physically with them, so where does it begin and end in a virtual world?

If it is shared technology, it is shared responsibility by all– always. Shared by parents who purchase the technology for their children, shared by schools who supply the technology, and shared by the people who use the technology. It is constant and current. Acceptable Use Policies(AUP)outline clearly what is acceptable behaviour across the board, and from that safety can be addressed.

What to post – and what not to post on line.? NetSafe – a New Zealand organization outlines many common safety broaches committed by teenagers such as home addresses, posting sensitive pictures, negative comments, first and last names next to e mail addresses and identifying photographs. It also teaches how to adjust settings for optimum privacy on social networking pages such as Facebook.

All users need to be aware of the life of anything sent, or posted on the internet. It needs to be taught explicitly and embedded in practice. In parenting – consequences for the inappropriate use that will almost certainly happen, need to be in place.

Currently a cyber bullying case at a school in Sydney has made headlines for the way information was removed from networking sites and manipulated into defamatory information.

“Several teenagers at an elite Sydney girls school are coming to terms with the full magnitude of their public betrayal via the internet. Where to begin? One has had her genitalia discussed in anatomical detail. Another has had her face likened to a koala's. A third has learnt that her circle of friends is not friendly at all: "She thinks she's best friends with lots of people but they actually hate her."
Two year 9 girls at Ascham, who thought they could casually destroy or trash the reputations of other girls in order to advance their own social standing, have left the school in disgrace. So at least some natural justice has been handed out. Thirty-one Ascham girls have been named and dissected in a posting on the social networking site MySpace… “

Ascham Fallout – Sydney Morning Herald. May 2, 2009


Sadly most people do not learn lessons until it directly impacts them even when (ironically) Ascham was one of the first schools in Australia to be involved in responsible internet behaviour.