paradise unplugged

…. the trickiest part about this afternoon was to generate the excitement without overloading everyone with too much at once. I think we got the balance right. The proof will be in the pudding – let’s see where we get to from here. Already LC has branched out and created new blogs and that’s great. Next thing I want to do is to work with individuals and tailor blogging to them/their class needs. whaddya reckon TFT?

as We have just had a fantastic session with our Junior School Teachers and I’m excited; so much so that I’m sitting at the shops creating this post on my iPhone as I wait for my Son to finish work.

Their enjoyment and signs of exitement during the session was fantastic. Kudos to my partner in crime LG for all the work she has put in … momentum is really starting to be generated.

… if you read the blog of one of my partners in crime yesterday, you know that I had one of those rare moments in time when I was on the verge of laughter or tears or both…when SH said “LG, I have some homework for you” my insides just collapsed and I felt myself paste a ‘team player’ attitude on my face. In the next few seconds my insides recovered sufficiently to begin screaming “I have enough work to send me completely round the twist and off for a little rest in the insane asylum!”

Then I heard some key words drift through … technology … more laptops …. more classes with computers … and then I couldn’t help myself … I

bugger!! now he knew I was keen and he was on a winner!! te he he

So now we take a huge step and blast off into new territory. And I chose the photo for this post quite intentionally … because in this leg of our journey a key to our success will be getting the groundwork done and done very well. Even Houston doesn’t achieve lift off unless so many obscure and minor details are in place at just the right time.

What?

People (teachers, techies, management, students, parents, sponsors) need to be on board, strapped in, excited, knowledgeable, with a clear vision of their part of the journey, eager to play their part in the team … but with a shared goal in mind.

It’s not about the ICT gadgetry; that’s the console that TFT will operate in mission control. It’s about the pedagogy that comes with shifting our teachers’ and learners’ positions in both time and space. It’s about us capitalising on each component of the staging of this learning and using that to propel us into the next phase. It’s about changing how we do what we are already doing well. It’s about keeping the reason for this journey clearly in mind.

And that reason is?

Facilitating the learning of our students so that they are lifelong learners with ubiquitous skills for the 21st Century world that awaits them.

That’s our payload for this journey.

…5, 4, 3, 2, 1, (Now, who has the map?? I do … )

Authoring and MultiMedia Task

LG sent me this the other day, and asked “any ideas? I had thought that we might use it for real in the MS Office in view of SH coming over to the twisted dark side…..”

So, this lead me to think about how we could achieve this. The Hardware side of things is easy, though we’ll have to get a Touch Screen from somewhere. How best do we get our students to come up with a solution to this. The biggest issue is making it stable, and easy to restart in the possible event of a crash or freeze.

My first thoughts were these:

There are 3 ways that come to mind that this could be done.

1. PowerPoint based application – probably a bit flaky
2. Web page shown in Kiosk mode – better option + easy to set up
3. Flash based using “Swish” or Adobe Flash (if it can be accessed). Swish is on the College Computers and I have flash on my Macbook. Also very easy to run as a Kiosk style appliance.

Yes, I think we could put one in MS. Would be a good demonstration tool of what we are about, using Technology created by our students in a “real world” situation.

How would you do it? What other options can you come up with? Lets see where this discussion can get us?

I often read Miguel Guhlin’s “Around the Corner” blog, and a recent entry caught my eye. Caught my attention in a big way is probably a better way of putting it.

In his post Big Issues, Michel takes an educational spin at the comments on Stewart Mader’s blog on wiki patterns where in a recent post John Tropea: “tools are the conduit for this culture change” starts with the following quote:

John Tropea says people need to understand why they should use Web 2.0 tools in organizations, not just “because everyone else is doing it so I need to as well, and I’ll just use this recipe approach.”

Michel pulls out the questions asked in the article on Stewarts post, and rewrites them for use in a School situation.

• Where are the bottlenecks and obstacles that stop students from working to solve or raise awareness about relevant life issues in schools?
• Do teachers/students know how and can teachers easily get access to the information they need in a self-service manner with as little red tape as possible?
• Are students and teachers able to coalesce around common ideas instead of being isolated behind traditional school boundaries?

What are your views on these questions? Do they cover enough ground? What would you add?

I’m going to sit down with LG and nut this one out a bit. Let’s see what we can come up with, both in the questions, and more importantly, the answers.

After reading 2 of Ms Cofino’s articles on setting up her class blog, details on how she set up Linked Gmail accounts and then how she set up the class blog on Learnerblogs, I was sort of prepared for LG asking me about setting up a blog for her Stage 4 Core Class.

The only hurdle that we have in place is that G-Mail is blocked by our College’s Internet Filter. Now having recently seen a request to unblock this site be knocked back I had to think of a work around.

Luckily this is very easy. We run exchange 2003 at our campus, and this would allow me to create an email address for each student and attach it to LG’s mailbox. Then I can setup a rule so that when an email comes in for each student, it will then get moved to a folder set up for that student under LG’s mailbox hierarchy.

Once this is done LG can set up her class to use a Single Class Blog or even set up Individual Blog’s for each student.

Watch this space as we update the progress, the pro’s, and the con’s (if there are any that is).

Now all I need to do is get my hands on her Tablet…

Edit Sat 23rd Feb ‘08:

I was reading the comments to Kim’s original posts when I noticed that Lindajay had added the following to her comment:

“Another good thing to do when starting a class/students blog is to set up a spreadsheet to record details as you set up students’ blogs (names, passwords, etc.) so that can then be used to generate cards to hand out to students, and a list for later reference if things are forgotten!”

This should have been fairly obvious, but it slipped my thinking, though I haven’t had a chance to talk to LG about this yet. We’ve both had a busy schedule of late, which has made finding time to discuss our plans difficult.

I’ll get LG to give me her class list with preferred email details for her students “dummy accounts” and details of their blogs (in an excel file) and I’ll set up the rest for her ready for her class.

Now, will she want to use “live writer” too. Better follow that up next….

Just over 12 months ago we purchased 28 Laptops, on 2x 14 capacity trolleys for use in our Junior School. These have been met with great enthusiasm by our JS Teachers who are using them as much as they can.

When we set up these Laptops we purchased a product that sits on top of Microsoft Office and provides a user friendly interface aimed and the younger students. In the meantime we had upgraded the rest of the College to Office 2007.

There were 3 main problems that showed up.

1. Quite often the overlay wouldn’t open properly and you were left with Word (or whichever Office App was used) open showing every possible toolbar and leaving only 1 or 2 lines of page visible to edit (this has not been solved by their Tech Support).
2. These computers couldn’t open files saved by other staff using Office 2007. Even with the “Compatibility Pack” installed, things weren’t happening as they should.
3. The promised Office 2007 version of the product was not forthcoming

So this week we met with the Head of JS and some of his staff and have decided that usefulness is better than simplified functionality. We would rather our Teachers have a product that they can use, rather than trying to make it more user friendly for the younger Children.

This may mean a refresher for the staff in using Office 2007 so that they can pass this on. Let’s see how we go.

As it always seems to be, we will be spread very thinly across all the things that we need to do.

LG has limited period allocation for her ICT Coordinator role, on top of teaching some interesting classes full of “challenges” in many forms.

My role as Systems Admin seems to be jumping from one thing to another continuously. One minute I’m doing the administrative role, then fixing a Laptop or Tablet, then helping a class sort out Printers, then back to ore paperwork, then re-imaging our new SS Lab etc etc.

Ok, so I don’t want to sound like I’m whining, we do our best when we are under pressure. What we need to do is work out the best way for us to work around each other, and what is the best approach overall.

• Do we book a time to formally meet and discuss ideas and strategies?
• Do we use an IM client that will work in our environment and discuss as we go?
• Do we use a Blog or Wiki to share ideas, Do we do it here?
• Do we set up a Private Forum on our Portal?

As we look forward, through the fog of the here and now, we need to be able to function for the remaining 37 weeks of this School year. I want to help LG as much as possible. First we need to work out how best to do this.

Ok, so its still 7 days until the Students return and my head is already spinning like a top. There is so much going on to get ready for 2008, and yet there is all these things that I already want to get started.

ICT Committee – I’d like to see this become a bigger part of everyones thinking. It was started to help staff get what they want and ensure that we get the most out of our ICT resources. To a lot of staff it’s just too difficult.

Student Input – They haven’t even started yet and I’m thinking about how we can help the students. What can we do to assist them with their ICT use. How do we let them have their voice. LG’s idea of an ICT Student Sub-Committee is a great one. We can meet with designated student leaders from years 5-12 and give them an outlet for their voices to be heard. Then we take this to the ICT Committee and hopefully build a rapport with the student body, and they’ll know that we do listen.

Staff ICT Support – As I’ve posted on my TFT blog, I’d like to give Teachers a reference of what is available for them to use, in simple language. How best do we do this?

Student Involvement – We thought about simple competitions hosted on our Portal for students to enter and showcase their work. Whether we choose Photographic, Short Film, or Writing, how do we build momentum? LG’s idea of starting with Pangea Day in her Yr9 Classes should be a good catalyst.

All these things on top of getting our new Student Laptops ready for Laptop Delivery day on Friday, and completing the other numerous tasks to get ready for the coming Term. We must be onto a good thing when my thoughts are in the region they are, rather than stressing about what is still to do before School starts.

Darn it! I am timetabled in SS3 and in my head I read SS1…because CD said that might happen. Wonder if she forgot OR we can change it?

But hang on, doesn’t SS3 have wireless via my office? and the mini-lab as well? Maybe that’s what CD had in mind.

Now how many computers in the mini-lab? 8? 10?

With regards to SS1 … was thinking perhaps the ICT Committee could draw up a kind of order form for future installations; that way we have a procedure of a kind that generates itself.

I had in mind a wish list of ICT components, specs, est. $$, training, uses/applications and so on. This could be used by the Heads of School to plan their new rooms/installations/budget allocations and comes back to the ICT Committee.

What do you think – would that tighten things up & keep everyone in the loop as well?

For the Pangea Day competition I thought I might alleviate that imagination crisis by giving them just a couple of possibilities that explain limits, requirements and so on. This way they choose one or the other and get underway immediately. I can afford to keep their choices narrow on this one as they’ll have more freedom of choice on later tasks. Also I have registered us as hosting an event on that day – thought we might make use of the plasma screens????