clipped from www.covenant.nsw.edu.au This year’s challenge is to find a way to display students’ work online. This can be done immediately at no extra cost through Edublogs Campus at http://blogs.tps.vic.edu.au/art The problem with this is that it will not look fantastic. I will experiment with it to see how good it can look as it would be a viable way of making it available without incurring any cost or drawing on new expertise.A very desirable way to display works would be to do it the way the Covenant School in Sydney has done it. Artwork A

The problem with this is that it is a web page that was created by a company called CIMarketing This would involve one or more expert and accomplished web designers. Interestingly, CIMarketing’s “King of Marketing” Seth Godin, is a past student of The Covenant School. Clearly with his skills he is in a position to charge a considerable amount for his services (will investigate / possibly develop own skills / change career?)

It is likely that TPS too has current or past students with expertise in web design. A fast way to move forward with this would be to ask Year 11 and12 IT students and teachers if they (a) had the skills to develop something like The Covenant School’s site (b) were interested in trying it. The answer may be no in which case the options would be to investigate the costs involved to have someone else do it; learn web design (BIG job); settle for an easily attainable but visually inferior way of displaying the work.  Another possibility is new DIY web design sites that for a very low cost would likely deliver a less visually inferior display.

It would be good if it could be done through the school’s website because the more centrally located everything is the easier it is to find. The problem is I don’t think many people are authorised to add content and those that are are probably busy with what they already have to do and would not want to be burdened with extra content to maintain and monitor. I will begin by investigating all of these options and seeing how far I get.

Motivation – Why did you do it?

Ignoring Web 2 technologies is not an option for teachers. There is no doubt that teachers can be effective without using them, but understanding their impact on young people is crucial and I felt I could best understand it by using them myself. Further, I wanted to know if they could be used to enrich student learning.

Intended goals / outcomes

Three projects. Many goals.

Ourspace was created with the goal of introducing students, parents, colleagues and the school administration to the idea of students creating content on a public space. In doing so, students were asked to consider a range of current affairs topics and interact with each other using comments. Another goal was to improve the quality of student writing.

Sustainable future was created as a more open ended task for Web 2 savvy students to explore Web 2 tools while generating their own questions and answers to problems relating to sustainability at our school.

PD@Pen was created to give staff new to Web 2 technology a purpose for using it so that they could build a skill base out of the public eye of students who are in most cases far more competent.

Description of the activity

Ourspace – Students were provided with a prompt to give them a purpose to write online, the ABC children’s news program Behind the News. This prompt also provided them with some choice as there are a number of stories each week. Initially there was some frustration registering users, understanding the interface, supporting students in classes where the teachers also needed support, but in a reasonably short time, all students in the year level were accessing the site regularly. During this phase teachers relied heavily on students to teach other students and this is an ongoing and highly encouraged practice in our use of Web 2 technology.

Sustainable future – This activity was presented as a web quest at a time when the teachers who created the wiki had limited skills in the creation and management of wikis. Part of the goal was for students to assist each other to work out how to upload content, embed other web 2 technologies and complete the web quest at the same time.  Students worked in teams focusing on different aspects of sustainablity – water, waste, biodiversity, energy. There was a great deal of student interaction and less dependence on teachers.

PD@Pen – This was created with the goal of getting staff active in the use of Web 2 technology. Staff were invited to join and briefly describe any recent PD they had undertaken. Staff who joined were asked to invite others to join. The Head of Curriculum helped by putting his name to it and encouraging staff to use it. Take-up was reasonable but not much content has been added.

Use of Online / Web 2 resources & tools – What did you use?

Ourspace  was created in edublogs. To encourage interaction with students in non English speaking countries we added google translator to the blog. To build an awareness that unknown visitors frequently look at what you post we added Cluster Maps Additionally, because another class blog had it and it looked impressive we added Flag Counter. We also used Poll Daddy to introduce students to the possiblity of creating polls. A significant factor in improving the quality of posts and comments was our participation in the 2009 blogging challenge. This is a co-operative project organised by two very experienced and encouraging bloggers and I recommend it highly.

Sustainable Future was created using wikispaces which we were able to use for free as well as ad free because we are an educational facility.

PD@Pen was created using Ning, which we had hoped to use with students, because of its more Facebook / Myspace – like features such as live chat and individual profile pages, but its creators will not allow children under 13 to use it

Anecdotes from Design / Implementation

Initially I sought comments from parents online to reassure the school’s administration who are understandably concerned about sharing control of how the school’s public image is broadcast. This does not really answer the question but highlights my ongoing need to address issues other than student learning. Technical staff must also be considered. Each time we tell them about something new we want to use, they have to look at the school’s filters (which possibly eventually have to go altogether) and work out a way around them for this application.

In terms of learning, when we are working on an online activity we are in a room with 25 PCs. When a student asks me a question, I frequently ask the class, “Who knows how to……?” Invariably 5 or 6 students will put up their hands while continuing to do what they’re doing on the computer. Every time I have said to one of these students, “Can you just show ________ please”, they get up immediately, show the other student and return to their work without apparently losing their train of thought. I endeavour to choose the student who was shown as the teacher the next time someone asks.

Final Reflection

Our Principal began the term with some statistics about student learning and what works. What we were shown was an exhaustive study and I don’t question its validity. What it demonstrated was that lots of factors that many of us thought were major contributors to student success are in fact not. Its findings rang true in that all new things work for a little while. Web 2 technology alone will not improve student learning. We still need quality teachers providing good quality feedback, and generally taking an interest in their students’ wellbeing, learning and continuing education. Part of what we have learned from Tom is that Web 2 allows us to do this in ways that are likely to be more palatable to today’s students. Further it is a constantly updated source of stimulating content.

THE CHALLENGE is giving direction to the school administration, technicians and staff new to the technology. Teachers who feel they have missed the boat have these feelings compounded when enthusiasts keep bombarding them with the latest thing. Schools (when they realise what is going on) will be nervous about a whole lot of teachers and students adding content all over the internet without any controls. What are they saying about our school? Are we identified and presented in a negative light? How long will this stuff stay there? Will students keep adding to it after they have left the school? WHO IS IN CHARGE? Web 2 just doesn’t have this heirarchy but schools do have a reputation to uphold. Web 2 technology will need to be presented in a manageable, administratable way. Doing this will also help teachers who require direction. Links to the official blogging site / wiki / ning may be added to the school’s intranet so that staff know that they will be given time to master one technology before another one is thrust upon them. Administrators will be aware when new content is added and will have access to the EJECT button in case of emergency.

NOW we are in the process of importing our various blogs into Edublogs Campus. This is far from free but undoubtedly necessary. It is another learning curve but that’s what we thrive on…….

Students are using books for research less and less. We don’t have to like it but we do have to deal with it. There are some alarming statistics on the subject (mindful that 75% of statistics are made up on the spot) While we have provided explicit instruction on how to access books in a library, how effectively have we taught students to critically evaluate the information they find on the web. This is a link to a very creatively designed exercise for promoting critical thinking and questioning the reliability of some websites. It won’t fool all of the people, but could be fun.

Web quests have been around for a long time. Many are not much better than a worksheet. Others provide a framework for effective learning that would be difficult to deliver any other way. Today’s session guided us through the process of creating a webquest as well as offering some excellent examples. Look at this one for Federation.

For anyone using IT to enhance learning, I strongly recommend following Tom March’s work.

The group has some very impressive contributors who chose to stay in touch through the initial blog.

I digress. Please be patient and wait for this video to load. Click on the icon itself, not the distracting choices in the speech bubble. There is a girl on the right hand side of the screen at the start, wearing a white T-shirt. Count how many times she bounces the ball.

For those of you who have seen this before, call me boring. For anyone who hasn’t, comment a number and I’ll get back to you.

Making a point using a metaphor may not be making a point at all, but on the homework issue I think there’s a strong possibility that our focus on ensuring its done, well presented, in on time, relevant to course content, expected outcomes bla di bla may be a factor in overlooking the obvious. The exact nature of the obvious is something I’m exploring. Ha!

We are definitely predisposed to learn. Does the homework we set take advantage of this predisposition or does it stub it out? I’m looking for an argument. 

I was just reminded about the rate at which technology changes things. In preparing a unit about marketing, using some recently updated content from the Learning Federation, I displayed the question “How has advertising changed?” Have a look at gmail advertising. No catchy jingle or even so much as a picture, but very targeted. Each email you open brings up a different set of ads on the right hand side of the screen. The ads are based on key words or themes in the body of the text. This one has picked up that I’m a teacher, and that I may be interested in working overseas. I open another one and there is a new set of ads, based on exactly what I’m thinking about at that moment. As a teacher, I’m not going to pretend to be an authority on advertising, but I will be asking students to consider the implications of this type of advertising, and the possibilities. I’ll also be asking the students how to get image to the bottom of the post, because ideally the text would have come first.

Just because you saw it on youtube doesn’t mean its true, but what are we preparing our students for? Many are intrinsically motivated by their fee paying parents, to perform well on tests. Teachers throw in the element of competition which they know to be a big motivator, particularly for boys, and its a formula for some pretty good VCE results for a number of students. Could we be doing more? Tom March has created a model for developing intrinsic motivation called CEQUALL. Its a jolly good read and in the Web 2 tradition, if you don’t agree you have the opportunity to say so. Last year a group of teachers worked on the MyPlace project. This year’s group has a challenge I find daunting – to master the technology and collaboratively apply the educational theory to develop online learning experiences that will motivate all of our students to pursue quality.

• Commercial media is largely responsible for presenting drug and alcohol abuse as a serious problem amongst most teenagers. It is a problem amongst only a small minority.
• Research shows that the vast majority of teenagers do not use drugs and do not binge drink.
• Drinking affects far more teenagers than drugs. Teenagers using drugs excessively tend to have a range of other problems and need more help than a teacher is likely to be able to provide. 
• Many teenagers die in alcohol related incidents because their friends have not been educated about what to do when a friend is unconscious. They need to know that unconscious is not normal and they should call an ambulance. Showers are dangerous because bathrooms have a lot of hard surfaces which are difficult for drunk people to negotiate. Beds are dangerous because teenagers left in their beds have vomited and choked on their own vomit.
• Teenagers actually drink less than they did in the seventies and eighties, except for the at risk group, whose alcohol problem is worse due to starting earlier, drinking more and favouring spirits.

Presentations were made to students as a group, staff as a group and parents as a group, which is an excellent way to ensure the entire school community is educated about this problem which is everyone’s concern. This was extremely worthwhile PD, which even from the students’ point of view took all sniggering, bragging and mystique surrounding drug and alcohol use out of the equation and helped them to appreciate that non drinking non drug taking teenagers are normal, but they still could end up in a situation where they might need to help their friends, or might need help themselves.