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In this post I am continuing my look into the oral language survey.

Out of a cohort of 36 NZ teachers, 25% would rate their knowledge of how students learning oral language as poor to fair, 50% would rate their knowledge as good and 25% would rate their knowledge as very good.

Teachers were asked if they had attended any professional development in the area of oral language recently (in the last 12 months) 80% of teachers responded they hadn't had any PD in that area. Of the 20% who had PD the sources were:

• Reading Recovery
• ICTPD cluster - questioning and inquiry
• RTLB (resource teachers of learning and behaviour)
• Critical Literacy
• NESB - Jannie Van Hees (Non-English speaking background)
• Head start development
  

When asked where teachers get most of their teaching ideas from the highest response rate (17) was from books, specifically:

• First Steps Oral Language
• NZ English Curriculum Document
• Linking the Language Strands - Jill Eggleton
• Write Ways - Lesley Wing Jan
• Read and Retell - Brian Cambourne and Hazel Brown
• Exploring Language: A Handbook for Teachers [English Online]
• TKI - Resource Link Online - Effective Literacy Practice
• Oxford University Press - SpellWrite
• TKI - Assessment: Exemplars: English
• English Planning Made Easy - Learning Network NZ

14 participants listed websites:

• Te Kete Ipurangi - The Online Learning Centre
• Assessment Resource Banks in English, Mathematics, and Science
• English Online
• Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom (I-TESL-J)
• NZ Herald - The Latest New Zealand, World, Business, Sport, Entertainment News 

9 participants listed colleagues as a source of ideas and support

5 participants listed their own experience

4 participants listed other professionals:

• RTLB (resource teachers of learning and behaviour)
• SLT (speech language therapists)
• ICTPD Facilitators (Information and Communication Technology Professional Development)

2 participants listed podcasting and lastly 1 participant each mentioned television and Toast masters.

Are there any gems that you would like to add to this list? Leave them in the comments and share the wealth.

All links are live from *** ICT U Can! blog, head over there if you want to look at the books or websites mentioned here.

 

A few months ago I asked for people to fill out an Oral Language Survey as part of my research in the E-Fellowship programme this year. 36 teachers from throughout New Zealand took part in this survey - A big thank you to all those who took part. I thought I would begin to summarise some of the findings on this blog.

Of the 36 teachers who filled in the survey, 72% teach in the primary sector, 9% in the Intermediate and 3% in High School.

How many hours per week do you spend on the following literacy areas?
* Writing - ranged from 1 hour per week to 8 hours per week with an average of 4 hours
* Reading - ranged from 1hour per week to 7 hours per week with an average of 4.5 hours
* Visual Language - ranged from 20 min per week to 5 hours with an average of 1.5 hours
* Oral Language - ranged from 0 hours per week to 12.5 hours with an average of 3 hours.

In the responses to reading and writing, one person mentioned that they integrate these subjects and in the responses to visual and oral language three people mentioned that they integrated throughout the curriculum. One response to Visual Language read, "Don't know what this is".

I am just reporting back statistics straight from the survey here and would not like to draw too many conclusions as yet. This is only one part of my data gathering to form an overall picture. But I would like to say that it is interesting how differently teachers run their programmes. It seemed that teachers found it easier to calculate the times they spent teaching reading and writing as these two areas of literacy seem to stand alone outside the programme even when integrated. Other things are integrated into these areas. Visual and Oral Language on the other hand are seen as integrated through all other curriculum areas.

This does lead me to wonder whether enough specific focus is put on these two areas. If you think about the skills adults will need in the 21st Century (as far as we can predict anyway) it seems to me that Oral language is maybe one of the most important skill students can take away from our classrooms. A person with well developed oral language skills can communicate their needs and ideas effectively. Also students are interacting more and more with visual images. I believe being able to communicate and interpret visual images will be just as vital as being able to write in the coming years. I am not saying that writing is not important, it is. But it must be underpinned by effective oral language skills. The four strands go hand in hand. My aim is not to push Oral Language to the detriment of all other literacy areas, but to bring it out into the immediate family. As I see it currently, Oral Language is the third cousin in the back row of the wedding photo with his head obscured by the bride's veil.

*** ICT U Can!

I have been podcasting with my class since the end of 2005.  I can not stop telling people about how powerful podcasting is in the classroom.  It provides an authentic context for learning and gives students an authentic audience.  Well, today we had something really exciting happen.  Over on our podcast page from last year,  Room5's podcast we received a comment on one of our book reviews. Now this is nothing new, we get lots of comments on our book reviews but this one was special... It was from the author herself! Check it out! Click on the image for a better view.

Imagine how the producers of this podcast now feel!  They have put together a podcast reviewing a book they enjoyed reading and then received feedback from the person who wrote the book, how powerful is that.  What a great motivator to not only keep reading, but producing scripts (writing) and recording podcasts (oracy).  This is only made possible by the power of using the internet.  I would love to hear of any similar experiences you have had.  Let's celebrate. 

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.