Jane's blog

Today I was having a moment of crises.  I was asking the existential questions - why am I here?  what should I be doing with my life?  How should I be spending this time in the fellowship?  Am I getting things right?

Mmm... So I thought I would take some time to have a think about the activities I am engaging in as an Efellow and see if I am spending my time in a worthwhile way.  So here goes...

Time for intellectual debate - I have the time to be up to date on the latest discussions in technology and education and to contribute my thoughts to the public arena.  I can read and contribute to debates, I can take part in the Time 4 Online conference, I can chat with international educators in Second Life, I can discuss with New Zealand educators on Skype and I can talk to my colleagues face to face.  I can take all of these discussions and synthesise them and use my thoughts to continue the discussions in these many different forums.

Time to read - In the crudest terms, 'you gotta get to give". I have the time to read journals and books in the area of educational technology to further inform my ideas and let me go further with the conversations I am entering into.

Time to reflect - One question I have stopped to ask myself, is "Why is this important?" and even, "Is this important?"  Music is an important part of life, but we don't insist that every teacher must know how to play a musical instrument?  Sport is an important part of life, but we don't insist that every teacher be an accomplished athlete.  Why is it that we are asking all teachers to become proficient in the use of technology?  The answers to these questions are for another blog post :)

Time to share - I have had time to prepare workshops (of much better quality now I have the time to craft them!) for different conferences and presentations.  I have presented in person to large and small groups from Early Childhood Educators throught to University students.  I have presented in an online conference and am crafting a submission for another online conference.  I am preparing three presentations for Ulearn.  In a nutshell I have the time to share what I am thinking about and learning to much wider range of people.  For example over 3500 people have viewed my online presentations.

Time to engage in research - Lastly I have the time to undertake a research project and provide some evidence to answer the question I posed earlier, "why is this important?" 

Being an Efellow is definitely a privilege and a stretching, learning, growing experience.  I feel upside down and tumbled around.  I am questioning, reflecting, reading, sharing, talking, collaborating and it is the ride of a lifetime.

 

Something funny happened to me today.  I went out for my evening 10 km run.  I had my ipod on and was catching up on listening to some podcasts.  I was listening to an episode of podcasts for teachers, which is a podcast out of Fordham University in New York, and they mentioned they were going to be talking about a podcast from New Zealand.  

"Cool," I thought "I need more podcasts to listen to, wonder who it is." 

I nearly fell over when they started talking about my podcast!  What a small world we live in.  I now know how my students feel when they get comments on their blog and podcast posts.  It was a strange feeling.   

Sure is quiet in here.  I can hear my voice echoing, I can hear the crystal 'tink' sound as my thoughts bounce off the wall... mmm.  Is there anyone out there?  

 Today I sat in on my first conversation in Second Life.    I sat down and chatted with Meg Writer, who owned the house we were in, and two teachers who are from the Discovery Educators Network in the US.  Wow, it was a great experience. 

What I found interesting though, was learning (or constructing / co-constructing) a new etiquette for moving about in SL.  I looked on my map to see if there was anyone else in EduIsland and then went to find them.  They were upstairs in a building so I walked in and climbed up the stairs.  I stood at the open doorway and sent a chat message.  "Do I knock? I've just realised I don't know the etiquette in SL"  Walking into a complete stranger's house is not something I have ever done before, but something that is quite acceptable in SL.  I was greated with a "Welcome, come in" where I continued in and took a seat.  We then had a discussion about what the etiquette might be and how we could find out.  I  spent an interesting half hour listening to these educators talk about their teaching lives and their experiences with SL.  SL really is becoming an addiction!

This is me in 'Meg Writer's house.  I'm getting quite good, I can walk, fly and sit now!  Just need to learn how to build stuff and write scripts... mmmm.  My SL name is "Jojash McMillan" so if you are ever in SL remember to say hi.

 

Last night I went out to a school to run a workshop on Inquiry Learning.  I thought about the content during the week and planned my keynote slides.  Knowing the principal of the school I knew there would be a projector and screen handy.  

But once I got there I realised that sometimes a screen can come between someone and their message.  I quickly abandoned the presentation and settled into a discussion with the ten people sitting around the table.  They had questions they wanted answered not a polished presentation.  Normally, this would make me very nervous, but I realised once I abandoned the polished presentation with carefully planted jokes and humorous slides, that it was my passion and experience about the topic I was discussing that was getting through.

It made me think about the old adage that a teacher can teach anything.  Mmmm, but I think it is easier to learn from someone who truly believes in what they are saying.

Just my ramblings... this truly is a year for stretching and growing and learning and falling down and picking yourself back up and keeping on going.  I'm loving it. 

I was listening/viewing one of my favourite podcasts, Screencasts Online, when I came across a tutorial for Circus Ponies Notebook software.  After exactly three days of gathering data I have realised that it is hard to keep track of it all in a meaningful way.  I have folders in folders on  my computer and I consider myself to be a VERY organised person.  But this organisation still doesn't feel completely comfortable with me.  So I tried out Notebook.

 

Notebook looks like a real notebook.  You add pages on the contents page and it automatically creates the pages for you.  You can then click on the blue dot beside the name of the page to go to the page and begin editing.  Now here is the thing that sold it to me.  I can then insert a sound file, a photograph, text, hyperlink and a movie file all onto the same page.  Previously I had a file on my desktop with a sound file in it, a word document and a quicktime movie.  This gives me a display with everything related all on the same page.

 Another nice feature is that as you add stuff to your pages Notebook automatically indexes for you.  The Indices are included in the contents page and it indexes every word you type, all hyperlinks, all attachments, and a few other things.  I can see how this could come in handy.

 I haven't tried out the exporting features yet, but apparently you can upload Notebook as a html file.  You can also cut and paste your text to word. 

I am thinking that I will keep all my data organised in Notebook to help keep my mind in order but still have my folders on my desktop with the individual files in I can use them in other ways at other times until I figure out the extent of this application.  But at the moment, it's looking quite handly to me.  Has anyone else used it?  What do you think?

Today I turned up at school for my second day of data  collection... I forgot my video camera!  It is really difficult to turn from a teacher to a researcher.  I turned up at school all excited with the direction my second lesson was going to take. I was going to use Google Earth to show the kid the trip from Dunedin to Malaysia and Texas.  We were going to have a great conversation about what we already knew about these places. This was what I was thinking about... But guess what... I'm not a teacher anymore.  I'm a researcher. What I should be thinking about is having my video camera positioned correctly to capture the great conversation that was happening between two of my boys. 

By the time I figure out I have switched to researcher from teacher it will be the end of the year and it will be time for me to step back into the classroom.  Will I spend next year as a teacher actually being a researcher? ??   

Today I started my podcasting programme with a group of students.  I began by having the students fill in an online questionnaire asking them about their attitudes towards oral language.  It is interesting, I find I get more thoughtful and extensive answers from students when they fill in online questionnaires than paper ones.  I think they enjoy sitting at the computer and thinking about what they have to say.  It provides them with something different from writing out their answers on paper.  I also think it provides them with the safety net of not having to think about spelling because they can have the computer help them.  I think I would alternate the two methods so the children wouldn't get sick of one method over the other.

­Next I gathered some pre data about their oral literacies by having them carry out a 'barrier game'.  I prepared a background scene and some cut out figures, car, house, cat, etc.  The students then individually built a scene to their liking which I took a digital photo of.  The students then described the scene using Garage Band or a digital voice recorder.  They swapped with a partner and tried to build their partner's scene by following the instructions.  Once they had built the scene they had a look at the photograph to see how well they followed the instructions or how well their partner had given the instructions.

The students then sent each other emails with feedback on their instructions.  The feedback took the structure of one thing done well and one thing to work on.  It was interesting the things that the students picked up, it was mostly about language skills - loudness, mumbling, etc.

The students were motivated and there was a general 'buzzing' feeling in the air.  I explained the project and how we were going to be podcasting with buddies in Texas and Malaysia and the students thought this was great!

I'm looking forward to the rest of the term and seeing where this project takes us.   

 

­­T­oday Maureen asked a question that got me thinking: What would you say to a teacher who asked, “how is your research going to benefit me?”

Mmmm… three things came to mind:

•    Highlighting the need for more child centred oral language in the classroom
•    Concrete examples of the benefits of having a go at podcasting.
•    Practical examples of how you can run a podcasting programme in the classroom

From my research to date I am reading that when students use oral language they are processing knowledge.  Speaking your thoughts and speaking to others helps to logically sequence ideas and think critically, creatively and logically.  If the teacher is only person in the classroom doing the talking then students are missing out on vital learning opportunities and chances to process their thinking.  I want people to walk around schools and celebrate how noisy they are not how quiet they are!

I have met a lot of teachers who ask why they should add a web 2 tool such as podcasting to their classroom programme.  These are the teachers who need to be convinced of the educational merit of a strategy before investing the time and effort in it.  This is an admirable trait.  These teachers will thoughtfully weigh the pros and cons of a tool before implementing it into their classroom.  My research aims to give these teachers concrete examples of the benefits of using podcasting.  

Lastly, there are many teachers out there who are enthused by the idea of using podcasting but really don’t know how to go about it.  By publishing case studies of students carrying out a podcasting programme will give these teachers practical ideas for getting started themselves.  This reminds me of the metaphor of turning a moving car.  These teachers already have their motors running and need to start moving in a direction before starting to turn their car in the different directions using web 2 tools can take them.

So, after careful thought, I think I can answer that question.  I think my research project has value and the most valuable element, in my mind, is giving back students their voice.  

The power of a single voice can change our world

I have been following this incident as it has been unfolding on the web.  It is really interesting how much Web 2 has played a part in the aftermath of this tragedy.  To read my take on this issue visit my Ictucan blog page.

In my position as an ICT Facilitator and even more so now that I am spending a year researching podcasts in the classroom, I get to listen to a good many different classroom podcasts. I thought that it would be a good idea to present some of these podcasts in a review to help teachers who are wanting to have a go at podcasting have a starting point. The podcasts that I review in this episode are all primary (elementary) schools: KPE: http://www.ptengland.school.nz/index.php?family=1,338,788 Small Voices: http://kinderteacher.podomatic.com
Rowland: http://rowland.podomatic.com
Andersen's: http://adonnell.podomatic.com
Cefn Fforest: http://cefnfforest.podomatic.com
Appleby Showcase: http://allanah.podomatic.com
Pine Hill School: http://room5.podomatic.com

If you would like to listen to this podcast, just head over to my podcast page.

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