EdTechRoundUp

edtechroundup logoI am pleased and excited to announce the release of the EdTechRoundUp podcast. We are a growing group of UK based educators committed to helping others implement the best educational technology has to offer.

EdTechRoundUp is a place where a group of UK-based educators come together for discussion and collaboration around the use of technology in education. We believe in pedagogically-sound uses of educational technology, but don’t believe in ramming Web 2.0 (or anything else for that matter) down people’s throats?

The inaugural show is available via the blog or through an iTunes feed. Sinclair Mackenzie and David Noble are at the helm for the first show and are joined by Joe Dale in a short interview about blogging.

Our aim is to deliver common sense advice and guidance that is practical to teachers – much of what we will talk about has been tried and tested with our classes. The shows will be hosted by two different people each week – to see who is involved please visit the contacts page on the wiki.

In the first show Sinclair and David discuss ClassTools.net and the problems of online content being blocked in schools. I have used the ClassTools site before and it is a great addition to your online toolkit – we hope you find the advice useful and the debate engaging.

I will be hosting the next show with John Johnston which will be available very soon.

Please let me know what you make of the first show as we really value the feedback. We are happy to welcome new teachers willing to work with us so drop by the wiki and get involved – if you feel the urge to contribute please add your name to the wiki.

@manyvoices Twitter Project

I am pleased to say that we are going to be contributing to this great little writing project from George Mayo. The @ManyVoices project is a collaborative, creative writing project using Twitter.

Each child writes part of the story sticking to the 140 character limit, once they are done another pupil picks up the authorial baton and continues the tale.

One of the best aspects of using Twitter for children to author creative writing is the character limit – those reluctant writers do not feel over-awed by a large blank page. The short paragraph they have to contribute is manageable and offers greater accessibility.

We are going to access the @manyvoices Twitter account and I will ask the children to work on a single laptop throughout the day next few days

The updates are copied onto a supportive wiki whereabouts you can read the whole story so far and follow along. George also explains:

The story concludes at the 140th entry. At that point, we collectively edit and revise our little Twitter story before publishing it as a small book through Lulu.com

I look forward to contributing over the next few days and I will post about how it goes. If you want to be involved I know that George is still looking for contributors – why not get in touch with him and get your kids to play their part.

Round and round the tree again…

It is always the same at this time of year. I am sure that you are feeling it to. The change of pace. When we break up from school I know that I will immediately slow down and change into a different slower gear. It is just great.

One of the most important ways this affects my professional work is that it allows me thinking time. During the working term it is so difficult to find quality time to relax and think about the work you are doing, the projects you have had success with, the new tools you have used, the ones you yet still want to explore or the blog posts you have read! So little time. I feel a mental decluttering as soon as I am a few days into the break and it allows me the freedom to peruse some connections or projects I have had to ignore.

Changing current pedagogies in your classroom to embrace a powerful new tool requires quality connections to be made and this, in my opinion, demands quality time. I am lucky enough to have non contact time to plan, prepare and assess at school – we call it PPA time in England. But there is no T for Thinking in there. I would call it TAPPT – deliberately in that order too. Thinking, Assessment, Planning, Preparation and Thinking time.

Recently I went for a walk with my son, I love to just amble along at his pace. It’s great, there is no hurry. He came across a tree and just wandered around it a couple of times. Exploring the possibilities it held – feeding his curiosity. He stopped and continued to walk – but then he went back to the solitary trunk and went round again. Time was no issue.

There it was, exactly what I enjoy about the holidays during the year, no time constraint – a freedom to wander off but then return to a thought if you want to. For me that is what I want from a teaching job – built in reflective time to explore ideas. Not as a bolt on or rooted in the time away from school, but intrinsically part of your working routine. A routine that understands and values how important that time is.

I have always remembered a phrase Bill Watterson used in a Calvin and Hobbes strip:

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

Do you find you slow down during the holidays? Does your school allow you quality time to develop ideas and make connections in your work?

During the holiday period do you find yourself thinking much more clearly about utilising technology in the classroom?

Is there a doctor on board? Twitter as part of your Personal Learning Network

You might say that this post has been brewing for a while. I took another look at Twitter a little while ago and it started a train of thought about it’s place in a personal learning network(PLN). There is something odd about how it functions. I hope to explore in this post what part, if any, Twitter can play in supporting fellow education professionals and to unpick it’s nuances through a teacher’s lens.

Before I begin I want to set a clear frame of reference for what I refer to as the Twitter network. I will be referring to the supportive edtech environment it has created and is used by hundreds of teachers. The network that helps you to solve a Mac iPod problem or alike. I am not referring to the day to day trivia or more personal aspects of this form of communication.

My Analogy

This is very simple and I hope that it allows you to understand the basic issue that faces many new users of Twitter, and indeed turns people away from it.

I hope that I never have to ask the question:”Is there a doctor on board?” but if I had to I would prefer to ask the question over the tannoy on an Airbus A380 then a small helicopter. With 839 passengers hearing my question I clearly have a higher probability that someone is indeed a doctor! I know that my chances are pretty poor when I turn to the other 3 passengers of the chopper and say “Doctor?”. But, and here is where the analogy changes slightly, bear with me, imagine that you went to the tannoy or stood up on that flying bus and asked the same question but no one even heard you utter a word. In fact you have a legitimate need and you imagine someone can help, and yet nobody can hear your request. The only option for you is to listen intently to everyone’s conversation in the hope that they maybe mention something about your problem.

This, in part, explains the frustrations for new users to Twitter.

The New User Experience

Joining Twitter as a teacher, generally speaking, intrinsically means that you want to connect, collaborate and tap into the wider community’s expertise to help and support your learning. However it often takes time for the value in a Twitter network to be revealed. If a new user is not “followed” by many people than their voice is not heard, their questions go unanswered, they echo into an empty space. This is not what Twitter is about? Do we need to show new users the way it works? It would be great to see a movie of someone using Twitter to get an immediate response, receiving an answer to a question etc. This would prove the concept so clearly to a new user, maybe we need to model it.

I have begun to see much more of this modelling behaviour. I do not think that Twitter is a resource that can be explained if detached from the network itself ie. away from a computer that is online. You may refer a colleague to this great networking tool and they perhaps take a look on their own later that day but, not surprisingly, they will wonder what all the fuss is about. I demonstrated Twitter to a friend last weekend and after 5 or 6 quick responses from around the world, realised the value of the “Say hi to…” tweet (a Twitter message). It is quite an innocuous thing to do but modelling how the network actually functions, much like a great deal of learning, leaves a much more indelible image on a new user.

Building your Network

Everyone starts from the same place when using Twitter but the day to day experiences have a varying success, depending on the number of followers you have. It is a simple equation, that is, if you have accumulated 100’s of followers over the course of a considerable time using Twitter the chances are when you ask for advice / help / contributions – many more are forthcoming. This successful, positive experience breeds more commitment to the network tool. You see great value and consider using it more / more often.

The flip side of this is that a newbie may have to wait until their network is large and eclectic enough to reap the immediate rewards of Twitter. Perhaps it is these new users that need a broad, wide reaching network from the word go. They (and I am referring to teachers curious of the benefits of such a tool) need to have success pretty early on and see the link with their own practice and how it can make a contribution. Otherwise they may turn away and see no value.

I think the importance of “I follow you – you follow me” behaviour cannot be underestimated, we need to help each other build a supportive collaborative network.

Tipping Point

Since I began writing this post (its been a slow one!) my own Twitter experiences have changed. I went through the period of use when my network was growing, when between 20-30 people were listening to your updates but you would get little or no interaction or replies. I am currently on 101 followers and I think that my first real successful interactions with the Twitter network took place between 80-100 people following my updates. These two experiences combined have been my tipping point – after which I knew that this tool is very important to my day to day work.

On a Thursday morning my teaching partner and I normally get some PPA time and 2 weeks ago we were sat talking about the following week’s planning. I was exploring the use of magazines in literacy linked with PSHE. I asked on the Twitter network:

> Anyone know of good examples of school magazines or newspapers produced by the kids?

Two replies came back immediately…

> @tombarrett there is a case study on the BBC newsround site http://tinyurl.com/28l5hx

> @tombarrett – Have a look at http://www.edu.fi/magazinef…

All of this occurred within the immediate time I was planning, allowing me to take it into consideration. Twitter has impacted on my planning processes.

The second positive experience I had was just this week. My Twitter PLN had grown to close to hundred followers by this point and this particular example has to be the most successful use of the network so far. After a successful meeting regarding the school laptop project I decided to author some possible questions for a pupil survey. However I just had a blank – I managed one but needed some inspiration. So I asked…

> Aaargh – I am writing our pupil laptop survey but hitting a brick wall, need some inspiration. 8 ltops per class 9-11yrs any ideas for q’s?

The responses were fantastic and really helped to shape the survey:

>where have they used the laptop? is it easy to carry? what action have they had to take to make sure its not damaged?

>Don’t know much about your program but here’s a question: What do u do on the laptop when ur not being told what to do?

>’Has using a laptop with a partner changed how they collaborate?’ ‘If so, how?’

>’given the choice, what would they still rather use paper/pens for?’

>Which was most fun / useful? Anything else they’d like to use? Best thing / Worst thing? Biggest benefit of having laptops?

>what about any software they would have liked on? frustrations, such as speed and connectivity to school network?

>Pupil survey Question: If u had to write a blog about using a laptop in school, what would the name of your blog be?

>three ways in which they have used it in subjects? what restrictions they have had?

As you can see the suggested questions are both insightful and creative – and they proved invaluable in authoring the survey. But the Twitter interaction was not finished there, as I created a Google Doc for the questions, shared the link and asked for comments about the drafted questions. Again the feedback was very helpful and contributed to a further edit of the survey. I am very grateful to those who helped.

Again it all comes down to numbers – if you have a large enough network with the right people in it who are willing to share, contribute, advise and help – then you will get experiences like this. Be patient and let your network grow – don’t expect too much from it early on. Nurture it and encourage it to broaden by following other classroom practitioners.

What does it all mean for classteachers and schools?

In my opinion building your own PLN is vital in the current edtech climate. I learn so much from being involved with people like YOU, reading this post, your comments and contributions help to shape my practice in class. Furthermore tools such as Twitter not only help make connections easier, but allow individuals to tap into the collective wisdom of many.

I would advise if you are a classteacher, like me, to take a look at Twitter – and if you can get someone to show you then all the better. But it is a long road and you need patience to build your network up. At the beginning of this post I was thinking of changing the Twitter model – to make it easier for newcomers to realise the potential, (I still think that this is important) to bypass the frustrations and shortcut into a bigger network, but perhaps a true networking journey in itself is more insightful and enjoyable.

Building any network takes time and I think that it is time well spent.

As I have been writing this final paragraph I saw this Tweet:

http://twitter.com/room24 This is cool experiment. 4th grade teacher letting students tweet on class account. embedded in his blog.

This would be a nice way into blogging in such a micro form and would facilitate further writing on a class blog. In effect the children microblog and connect directly with a class network.

Laptop Project Review Meeting

This afternoon we had an opportunity to review the progress of our laptop project for the upper junior classes. All four classes in year 5 and 6 have 8 Toshiba laptops permanently located and at their complete disposal. After a full term (project has been running since September) of use the four members of staff (which includes me) and our head discussed the successes and frustrations so far.

The questions below are taken from the agenda for the meeting – blow them are brief notes of the responses from staff.

Can you explain / outline one lesson or activity with the laptops that was a real success?

  • Science (Y5) – using a shared Google spreadsheet to input pulse data, all children focused on task and gaining a great deal from seeing the other data simultaneously being added.
  • RE (Y5) – paired research using the Learning about Religion software.
  • Science (Y6) – laptops were used to provide a different learning approach when exploring the features of plants. Laptops setup on a table with web based activity, other tables with practical and adult led activities. Children moved around the activities throughout the afternoon.
  • Maths (Y6) – successful use of SMART Notebook to make a game during an assessment of measures.
  • Literacy (Y6) – TV Scripts – children accessed video of news reading on laptops to help support their understanding of script writing.

Great to hear about other successful lessons and the different ways that they have been used, a good positive start to the meeting.

What are the most positive aspects of having the laptops as part of your classroom?

  • Increased motivation for learning.
  • “Feels like they have always been there.”
  • Enhances and supports learning.
  • Children’s feeling of ownership.
  • Focus during learning activities, when working together or in pairs too.
  • Making learning fun.
  • Parental appreciation has been evident too.

We explored the second comment a bit further and decided that the older children have been able to quickly adapt to the responsibility of the hardware in their learning environment. They have a strong sense of ownership and are diligent when looking after them. Would this happen with younger year 3s or year 4s? Would there be too much emphasis on the management of hardware issues; which have become almost invisible in the classes involved with the project because of the initiative shown by the children.

What has changed about the way we are thinking about planning / teaching / learning?

  • Enhances learning – particularly for boys, make the most of this.
  • Planning and teaching has continued in a similar fashion.
  • TB explained that a shift in thinking may be necessary in order to get the most value from the resource.
  • Laptop resource presents new opportunities to differentiate for a task – Good IT skills with Good literacy skills type groupings.

It will be interesting to explore in more detail the differences in learning that takes place – even if planning and teaching remain similar (with a few tweaks) has the point of learning broadened and does it now encompass other opportunities?

If there have been frustrations, what has been the biggest or most common?

  • Procedures to save – issues about network paths to server.
  • Differences in versions of MS Word and compatibility with other classroom computers.
  • Battery life when using Kar2ouche.

I was a little disappointed to hear that we had battery life issues already. However I think that the processor intensive use of Kar2ouche a cached, over the network, multimedia software title asks a lot of processor and in turn eats battery life for breakfast. Not to mention this is all over a wireless network, I am just pleased Kar2ouche is working at all! I can remember thinking would it work over just such a network a long time ago. We talked about actively managing battery life and encouraging the children to take account of it too.

How has it impacted on the children’s experience of school?

  • Very positively!
  • Ask the children – online survey
  • Use of del.icio.us account has been extremely well received by children who have gone home and continued work on a web link used in class. Lots of examples of this in all four classes.

The use of del.icio.us has been a great success so far and allows us to easily share web links, but also to explore the social bookmarking inherent in this tool. With over 100 links saved by the teachers at school the resource can only grow and get better. This, as a colleague mentioned, will require us to be a little more sophisticated when tagging resources so searching for them is easier.

I am already looking forward to seeing what the children make of the laptops overall – I will need to explore some online (or other) method for doing a survey for 120+ students.

What would you like more support or training for?

  • Using Excel spreadsheets.
  • Diigo for use in literacy – a colleague had read my blog post about it in y5.
  • Tips and shortcuts that make life easier.
  • Using audio – sound recording equipment etc.

I hope to be purchasing some audio recording equipment for school soon and will be looking into the best ways to incorporate this capability in the curriculum.

What are the next steps for this project?

  • Desire for more machines from all colleagues.
  • 1 between 2 would be ideal.

We have all had a very positive experience so far with the project and I am pleased that the staff feel confident to take on board a greater number of machines in their classrooms, let’s hope the momentum continues throughout the new year. To help us develop as a staff we also discussed the possibilities of learning from other schools who have a similar resource. I explained about Graham Wegner in Australia having something parallel to us and how it would be valuable to hear from the staff involved. A visit to a another UK school would really help us get some perspective on the approach we are taking.

Please get in touch if you have a 1:1 laptop project (whatever stage it is at – we are still in the foothills so to speak) running in your school and are willing to explain your responses to some of the questions above.