Here is a video explaining LibX – a great tool that I promoted at NECC in San Antonio.
The LibX Murdoch University Toolbar is a Firefox Browser extension that lets you search the library holdings straight from a toolbar in your browser.
It also embeds little symbols next to the titles of books and journal articles in pages you view on the web. Clicking on these symbols lets you check whether the library has it.
This is awesome and a cool Web 2.0 enhancement for libraries. Enjoy!
World of Warcraft (commonly known as WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with over 9 million people playing. Luckily I ended up in this session run by Leslie Fisher, and was thrilled to be introduced to the game and how it is played.
What’s World of Warcraft about? Believe it or not, it can be about
“working with enemies” to create positive learning! This immersive environment seems most impressive. The interactive nature of WOW capitalizes on the positive and negative features of each of the characters. Each character adds to the group blend, and ways of working together to manage the competitive environment. As each character has particular features which allows them to only undertake certain activities the whole notion of blend, collaboration, and effective participation comes into ‘play’. You do what you can do with your character – the aim being to do it well.
I think the ‘in game’ environment of WoW is beautiful – recreating the actual way that natural environments
work within the mulitmedia environment. It is clear that the game is immersed in action, and the action is all goal-based. The point of it all is the capacity for students to learn key skills through gaming:- planning; conversation and coordination. To participate in a Quest well is to involve yourself in forming partnerships. Frankly, this is the most exciting form of collaboration I have seen! This is cool! This is perfect for all students, but particularly for the boys in my school. Keep playing (and learning) till you reach your objective! This is certainly the dream goal of all education!
Students are doing a lot of research, and engaging in collaboration and analysis in depth to achieve success. Those who research well will be ‘friended’ by keen learners. Also languages skills are supported, and team building is supported at all levels. Good typing and good sentence structure is vital to improve the competitive ability of each character. Good research, good typing, good language and good social interaction are what is needed to do well in this game. Players need to be able to communicate effectively and socially to accomplish tasks.
Gaming in WOW can help with can help with
• Mapping, direction, etc.
• acting, role-playing
• ESL
• handicapped students
• global interaction.
Just like the real world, characters specialize in a profession, and can then make items that will benefit others. Those with unique items and accomplishments usually garner more attention.
A question from a teacher in a Quaker school about ‘killing’ raised the issue of where students can go for a similar experience without the violence. Though I haven’t played it, I think Quest Atlantis would fill the bill.
Clearly this game is addictive, but it is fun, challenging and great for learning skills. Kids just don’t realise they are learning because they are having fun!!
Getting into WOW? Look for Lesley at Server: Alleria Guild: Emerald dream Characers: lesliegolf, Fairway and Bogey.
So what do I think of all this? WOW. But the reality is that lots of schools aren’t going to get into this because of the monthly cost per person, and because of the kill kill kill that would not work at all in some schools.
We love inspiring each other! So those Jokaydians who are at NECC were stoked to be able to meet up with Konrad our fellow Jokaydian whose research and thinking provides the bedrock to educators working with online tools, and in-world tools.
In true Jokaydian fashion we jumped on the opportunity to stream Konrad’s presentation into Jokaydia, for our SL friends. Dean Groom, Al Upton and myself grabbed our gear and set up to stream into Second Life. Will Richardson came into the room and jumped in with us to Ustream the session!
Konrad’s presentation Blogging Communities in the Classroom: Creating Engaging Learning Experiences inspired us in ways to transform our classrooms into a blogging community that will help students become competent writers and capable, critical thinkers.
Catch the video/chat recording at Will’s blog. Jump on over to read Konrad’s Blog of Proximal Development.
Saturday saw the enthusiastic Web 2.0 bloggers all gathered together at the EdubloggerCon, prior to the official launch of NECC the following day. It’s impossible to cover what we learned that day, but it is certain that the whole experience of this unconference was amazing. The first thing was seeing so many bloggers in one place at one time ‘in the flesh’.
Everyone had their wow moment – but for me the opportunity to say ‘hello’ to Ewan McIntosh was very cool, as was the chance to catch up with Will Richardson, meet up with Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davies. The list was long, and consequently the value of the sessions during the day were equally interesting. Catch the reports and feedback at the wiki.
These people can all be found at some time or another at the Bloggers’ Cafe – hub of all things fantastic and innovative. The Cafe features a live feed via Summarize of twitter feeds – just totally amazing to see the activity going on throughout the conference, and the concurrent reporting unavailable as as a result….and this before the actual launch of the conference! You can pick up the feed yourself at the Summize NECC.
As part of our Study Tour we have the opportunity to take part in a number of briefings. This morning we met with Kieth Kruger from CosN. Keith mentioned some of the following:
People who advocate for investment in technology have over-promised. That transformational uses of technology happens when leadership is inspired. Technology stages have three cycles. First wave – technology infrastructure. Second wave is really around applications and professional development. Third is about standing back and asking what it is we can do with technology that will change what it is we are doing. We need to focus on teachers, but what COsn focuses on what it is that needs to be done to transform leadership. Do policy makers ‘get it’! The biggest challenge for integrators of technology is the lack of vision of those in leadership positions. 90% of superintendents ‘run away’ from technology. The trick is to capture the leadership by exploring the big educational problems – and exploration of whether or not technology has something to offer in this area. Technology has changed the role of superintendents to communicate with their community. And we need new pedagogy and assessment – to reflect on the lives of students outside of school. We need new ways of delivering professional development. In all these contexts school districts need to change in the way the work and operate within education.
Now on Sunday and we have had the opportunity to take part in the ISTE Leadership symposium. Again, much to learn and very interesting to see the leadership of this organisation. At this morning’s session (after a sumptuous breakfast) we spent time exploring ISTE’s Educational Technology Standards for Students (ISTE NETS) – the next generation.
These standards are created under the following headings:
We had the opportunity to listen to key thought leaders, and four super-star teachers, amongst whom is Julie Lindsay, well known in the blogosphere for her work in the Horizon Project.
We broke into groups to look at some great practice in action. The aussies were very pleased to support and learn more from Roland Gesthuizen about use of drama and hand puppet theatre as a way of teaching technology values.
We were also delighted to meet Peggy Sheehy from Ramapo! Man, was it exciting to hear somebody talking about the same thing that we have been talking about in terms of the vital role that Second Life can place in our mainstream curriculum. Frankly, this conference is way cool!
Back in the bloggers cafe, and we just kept on meeting with more and
more wonderful folks!
Dean and I chatted with Paul Harrington.
After that we went off and had lunch with Ewan McIntosh. Terrific, four different accents around one food table in San Antonio. Everyone is here, and the twitter feed keeps us up to date with ‘breaking news’ at ISTE!
Oh yeh, San Franciso was covered in a haze of smoke the whole time that we were there, and our asthma played up! and we all got sick with some kind of virus leading to much swapping of lozenges, tablets and more. One of our party had to head for the doctor by the time we got to San Antonio. Why am I telling you this? Because we are soooo busy, and having such a great time, that I just haven’t kept up with all the blogging.
So since others are reporting on our tour I thought I would throw in a plug for ACCE – who through Tony Brandenburg as our tour leader, is
hosting this first Study tour to NECC. The Australian Council for Computers in Education is our national peak body representing technology educators in schools here in Australia. It is not a group I personally have had any involvement with so far. But this tour has given me the opportunity to meet many of the key people active in the group – and for me I am wondering why I didn’t know such a fantastic and inspirational group of people? I have mentioned before how I believe we should have stronger relationships between groups – if only to draw on the strength and knowledge of the ‘best’ between them. If Australians are going to promote education more effectively, we have to work with and through the amazing talents of people such as those I have been touring with on the road to NECC.
Bottom line? This Study tour and the opportunities it is presenting are awesome, and the best professional learning experience I have had in my teaching career! Thank you ACCE.
Actually, there is too much to report, and not time to report it! However, I have to note that the opportunity to visit Orace, Apple and Google was just fantastic. Yes, there are many tours that visit these places, but it was a first for ACCE and we are the inaugural group to see how worthwhile (or not) it is to include these in a tour. It was particuarly interesting to hear the story from each of these companies. Oracle delivered a particularly interactive session engaging us in a discussion about education futures, as well as showing us what Oracle is doing through the Oracle foundation. Good news for us is that there is likely to be an Australian/New Zealand version of the ThinkQuest competition – making this a fantastic addition for our schools. I am hopeful that ACCE will partner with Oracle to deliver this opportunity.
The Apple briefing included a little of the Apple dream – and their version of how to change education.
Awesom stuff again, though if you are not already an Apple user or familiar with Apple products, then an opportunity missed to do an expose of the innovative capacities of Apple products. No access to an Applie iPhone for us yet either! It’s worth noting that some of the tour group are using Applie iPhoto devices. They are just amazing the way they connect to the Internet and allow regular twitter updates. I felt like a dinosaur without one!
Finally, the Google plex was totally different – just the way we have all read about it. The presentation about Google appls wasn’t particularly inspiring, but we did learn a few useful things about implementation of Google tools in schools, particularly the flexibility of the education pack and it’s solution for productivity tools. We learnt of the Department of Education’s decision to migrate email to Google services for the State system of schools – and cheered at that decision!
This day of the tour was a highlight for sure. Oracle was awesome; Apple was amazing; and Google was sensational. The food at Google was amazing too – and stationed everywhere. The decore was …. well sooooo Google. If you are following along some of the pics of the tour, you will notice the little animal friend that freatures in so many pics. That is for the mini-legends, as our famous Al Upton is on tour with us too!
We spend Wednesday in Auckland visiting some outstanding schools – then hopped on a place early in the evening to fly across the international dateline to arrive in San Franciso (you guessed it!) on Wednesday.
What a time we are having. A lovely tour of Auckland sights set the scene nicely for our visit to Summerlands Primary School. I have met and listened to the rather energetic Principal, Luke Sumich, early in 2007, when he came across to Australia to visit schools in the Parramatta Diocese. The entire school is painted in bright colours, and every corner or every classroom is inspiring and comfortable to be in. A busy Mac school, students are comfortable collaborating, creating, and engaging in every bit of their learning. This is achieved by a clear focus on teams and team building by this Principal. He creates a shared vision, and expects teachers to role up their sleeves and work with passion.
We talked together a lot about what we saw at Summerlands, and reflected on the similarities and differences. However one thing has been clear – inspirational Principals and leadership are fundamental to creating successful innovation in schools, even though Luke claims that it is team work that makes it so! We agree that it is hard to have one without the other 🙂
Luke’s take on teams!
Our next stop was Marina View School. Oh my! what a wonderful thing we discovered there with MVTV. A full TV studio run by kids, that produces a full show for the school community three times a week. The program includes news, weather, events, highlights of great things happening inside the school, motivation skits – in fact a wonderful program that is incredibly professional. Students manage the entire show in a room that is kitted out just like a ‘real’ studio.
We saw the students run through an entire show – and then they turned the tables on us, and asked us, the visiting teachers, to be the various news readers so we could see what it was really like. Our teacher readers had a bit of a struggle managing the prompt, catching their queue, and keeping a straight face. We got quite a few laughs out of that!
Rather amazingly, we headed off for the airport after this, for our 12 hour flight to San Francisco. We arrived
on the same day, and before we knew it, we were off for another tour of city sites taking in the Golden Gate Bridge of SanFranciso and more. We were exhausted, but undeterred, we continued to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 49 to relax, and check out the views of Alcatraz (on a very smoke-filled evening), before struggling home for a rather well deserved night’s sleep.
Sleep? I was up at 4 am, ready for my next day in San Franciso – but that’s another whole report.
If you are interested in catching a global view of our tour, then jump on over to the Roland Gesthuizen’s Google Maps outline of our ACCE Study Tour. Thanks Roland!
Touring schools in Auckland, we learned lots of different things. I want to share our wonder at what we discovered about school shoes!!
We noticed kids running around in bare feet, and we kept noticing it and began to wonder what was going on……wee kids in the playground on the coldest day that Auckland had experienced so far this winter.
Simple. Kids don’t have to wear shoes unless its a school excursion or a sport event. So lots of bare feet at school. We even spotted some kids walking home in bare feet, carrying their shoes! This is something Australia could try!
If you read this in time – then I recommend attending the a mini-conference focused on Inquiry Based Learning on 26th June in Second Life (the virtual world) from 0.00-05.00 Second Life Time (this is 5-10pm in Sydney, for times in other regions/ countries go to
http://tinyurl.com/6oo4n3).
It is a free event, taking place on Infolit iSchool (Sheffield University’s island in SL, which is focused on Information Literacy and Inquiry Based Learning). The focus of the mini-conference is exploring the nature of Inquiry Based Learning (IBL), and its use in teaching in both Real Life and SL. The mini-conference is aimed at anyone who wants to discuss the potential of IBL, learn more about it and/ or exchange experience: you may be using IBL already (whether in RL teaching or SL teaching) or just be thinking about using it.
Note that delegates can attend one or more of the sessions – you can choose the ones that suit your schedule or interests. It is a SL track for a real life education conference taking place in Sheffield. It includes a “crossover” session interacting with the real life conference: Lyn Parker (a librarian at Sheffield Uni) will be leading that discussion in real life. Anyone who wants to attend in SL should email LTEA2008inSL@gmail.com including their real life and SL names. There is full info on the sessions at
http://networked-inquiry.pbwiki.com/About-LTEA2008-in-Second-Life
(optional extra para) Inquiry Based Learning is basically like problem based learning but more open ended – more like learning through research – and several unis in the UK have a focus on it, hence the RL conference.
From Sheila Webber, Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield
I am soooo tired, and soooo pleased. I am here in New Zealand travelling with a group of exceptional educators. The conversations we are having are ‘worth bottling’! We talk about what we are seeing, what we are doing, and what we are dreaming.
The clever three are on this tour. Watch out world…here comes Jo McLeay (left), Sue Tapp (right) and Al Upton !!
Our visits today included Papatoetoe High School (an amazingly large school with the most multicultural mix I have ever seen) to see how they are managing ICT within the exponential growth of the school; Next Space to learn about 3D graphical communications technology, and Buckland Beach Intermediate School.
I was particularly thrilled to have the chance to see Lenva Shearing at her own school, and to be able to meet her staff and see the creativity, energy and robust pedagogy that these students (Years 7-8) are involved in every minute of their day. I wonder just how a Principal like this has time to blog. Thank goodness Lenva does blog, because she shares her knowledge, her wonderful Web 2.0 finds, and models to us exactly what she would have her students learn.
Web 2.0 is completely embedded into the curriculum. Their learning management system Knowldege.net is just a jumping board to a plethora of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, voicethreads, and more. Each student has an electronic portfolio that is interactive and so enriched by metacognitive thinking, and reflective practices that our heads were spinning trying to absorb the extent of the ‘revolution’ taking place at the school. Each student’s electronic portfolio is accessed via a self-tailored entry page following the school template which students are now doing in Glogster. The kids run their own radio station; have a sound studio (they interviewed Tony Brandenburg our tour leader with the aplomb of seasoned reporters) and all take part in audio visual learning opportunities as part of the daily work.
Each student’s portfolio has the following key elements:
Here is Al talking with Year 7 students, engrossed in creating their Voicethreads.
Today, Sunday, I am frantically chasing my disorganized tail trying to pack my essentials (and non-essentials) to head off on a fantastic Study Tour hosted by ACCE. Part of our tour takes us to NZ and San Franciso, ending at the National Education Computing Conference in San Antonio organized by ISTE.
This is an exciting opportunity for me, and I am very grateful to my wonderful school for allowing me to take part in this professional technology tour and event.
Just think – on the tour I will be networking with some fabulous educators from Australia – catching up in person with some of our online leaders, and meeting others from around the country, who are either leading innovation in their schools, or facilitating innovation in some way in their school districts.
Then in San Antonio I will meet so many more of my online contacts, and have the opportunity to learn so much from the various sessions. As part of the tour we have some special opportunities to meet with key people – but more on that later.
But there’s even something more special. As Cathy said “It seems surreal to think I’m on the list for presenting in a panel discussion” – me, way over there in San Antonio. Imagine my excitement about collaborating with Joyce Valenza, Carolyn Foote, Cathy Nelson, Diane M Cordell, and Kim Cofino who will join us remotely. I know there are lots of bright sparks from Australia who regularly go to NECC, and even present sessions. But me? I am just thrilled to have this opportunity to collaborate, share, make connections and build an even stronger professional learning community than I already have.
The Jokaydians are going to get together ‘in world’ – those at NECC will be able to share a bit of the goodness in our favourite online meeting space. We have a strong connection with ISTE, being regular participants in ISTE events to keep the Aussie and US connection strong!
We also have a wonderful story being shared about an Australian Skoolaborate initiative! Westley Field and Lindy McKeown will explain the work they have done in setting up a Teen Second Life project that some of our schools have had the good fortune to join.
I will also be looking forward to meeting up with people who have joined Second Classroom – a very new Ning space supporting educators working in 3D immersive environments. There is such a growth in immersive environments, which is totally amazing and exciting. Whether its Teen Second Life, Quest Atlantis, Open Sim, Twinity or more, we need to share our experiences if we are going to keep pace with the technology opportunities around us. Join Second Classroom and share your questions, experiences, and ideas with us all!
(Psssssss. If you are at NECC, keep an eye out for Dean Groom, who just might have an Open Sim that runs of a thumb drive to share with you!)
The Tour group will be blogging their tour. So you will see a few posts from me about key sights and events. I will also probably use Jottit to help me store information to share. I just love how simple that tool is for recording and sharing without the whole ‘live blogging’ thing.
judyoconnell.com 