Now That's what I'm talking about

I have recently linked to "Langwitches - The Magic of Learning Through Technology". Great site. The most recent post It's about reflecting and analysing our teaching practice, really hits the nail on the head when it comes to integrating ICT into our teaching practice. The fact that we use technology is not the issue. The fact that we are able to create engaging and rich learning opportunities which lead to meaningful learning using technology is the issue. Regardless of the tool, or the method, without reflection and analysis of our practice we may as well be using sticks and stones as teaching tools as opposed to ICT. A very clear idea of the learning outcomes is so important as this will impact on unit/lesson construction. The post shows the use of technology in 3 different ways but one way is clearly more engaging, personal and rich compared to the other two. The (now) old phrase "poor teaching + technology = expensive poor teaching" will always hold true. The New Zealand curriculum includes teaching as inquiry as a key component of effective pedagogy. It also includes eLearning as a key component of effective pedagogy. Teaching as inquiry is independent of the tool, while eLearning without reflective practice is a dead duck.

The Volcanics Community, as an eLearning community, I think, is only just realising this fact. It therefore begs the question why we should not just call ourselves a Learning Community, as teaching is not about technology, but about teaching and Learning.

eTeacher Training

We have recently had our eTeacher training , which was held from 3 December to 5 December at Tauhara College in Taupo, NZ. The first day was for eTeachers from the Volcanics cluster where we focussed on developing our online spaces, uploading content, etc. This was a time to spend simply thinking about our teaching, and having time to work on our lesson content. The afternoon session began with a presentation by Trevor Storr (ePrincipal - AorakiNet) on what content or activities in an online environment would really engage our students. Trevor did his presentation via VC from Waimate High School. The presentation was thought provoking and really got us all thinking about what a good online course looks like, and what we needed to do to ensure that our students were engage in the learning.

On the Thursday and Friday, we were lucky to have Chris Allott McPhee from the VLN with us to run the video conferencing training and we were also joined by our colleagues from TaraNet and CoroNet. The CoroNet contingent included one of my fellow ePrincipals, Jan Collier. Sue Winters, an ePrincipal mentor, was among the participants as she will be trying her hand at eTeaching in 2009, team teaching L3 Calculus with Jane Liu from Tokoroa High School.

Well, I have to admit, that this was the best eTeacher training I have been on. The presentor was great, but this was comlplemented by input from the teachers. The enthusiasm and willingness to share experiences and knowledge was brilliant. There was a real focus on student learning, with working out how to use the VC gear secondary. I remember my first VC training. We were all so concerned about the technology and getting this part right, that there was not a lot of time to focus on the teaching and learning aspects. I think we benefitted from the fact that there were experienced eTeachers within the group who could share their experiences. There were also teachers who had never received any formal training on VC, but who had been teaching via VC during the year. This was an opportunity for them to learn and to reflect on how they would do things differently in 2009.

We were also able to VC with eTeachers in the Taranaki and in Hawks Bay. Rachel Roberts (ePrincipal - TaraNet) demonstrated, via VC, the use of Adobe Connect and how it could be used as an alternative tool to VC for synchronous interaction. We also saw how the technology could go wrong as Lynda Walsh-Pascoe's group in the Hawks Bay could see us, but could not hear us. After a bit of help from Asnet, we managed to get the sound sorted and the three way VC continued. Just being able to "hook up" with other eTeachers, doing their training was awsome and strengthened that feeling of community that was developing within our group.




Next year I think the eTeacher training will be in the Taranaki. I am looking forward to that, and meeting up with more like minded teachers.

Collaboratively create a unit of work using Wikis

During this term, I have been working with Tony Jones, the head of Science at Tokoroa High School, at creating a wiki so that him and the science teachers in his department can co-create a unit of work. Neither Tony nor his colleagues had worked with wikis previously. They had flirted with using a Learning Management System, and Tony has created a whole L2 physics course using eXe, but they have found using a wiki the easiest way to put something on line and actually do it together. You can have a look at their work by going to http://nature-of-science.wikispaces.com/.

Now that's what I call blogging

I have often been asked the question "how does technology benefit the learners? Where is the evidence?" Well here it is. This year, four students from Reporoa College did a computing course, through video conferencing with a teacher at Mercury Bay Area School, Max Ross. The first part of the course was dedicated to creating a web page in PHP, with a link to a data base which was created and queried using mysql. The second part of the course was all about building a robot using Lego, and programming it to carry out a set of given tasks. This culminated in all the students congregating at Te Aroha College to engage in the "Robot Wars" to see whose Robot would be able to tip over the other robots and hence claim the "Title".

In order to track their work and to document the project development, the students were asked to set up a blog. Which they duly did. When I read a few of the blogs, what I saw is what we have been talking about as educators. Here I saw responsible and independent learning, collaboration, creativity and problem solving. Check out these two blogs (whose permission I have obtained from the owners to share).

12VC-nxt.blogspot.com
robot-abattoir.blogspot.com

These students would not normally have access to blogs because it comes under personal networking and is filtered by our network filtering system. So we had to unblock the filters for them. Makes you think - responsible use of blogs is so beneficial, but how many students would simply spend their time on bebo (Blog Everywhere Blog Often) and do nothing? Something we need to look at closely.

This week I have been mostly doing.........

This week I have spent time at Tauhara College in Taupo (two days) and Forest View High School in Tokoroa (two days).

I had the opportunity to give a presentation on the Volcanics Cluster and Virtual Learning Network to the Board of Trustees of Tauhara College. They are a newly appointed board, so it was thought it would be a good idea to give them a bit of background on Volcanics and introduce them to the VLN and how Volcanics operates in, and through the VLN. I also had the opportunity to assist some teachers at the College with putting resources up on to their LMS (UltraNet). There was also some good discussion around the educational value of an intranet (LMS) and the pedagogical benefits of tools like hot potatoes, especially when using a discovery learning model of teaching. Again it was shown that it is not the technology that is important, but how it supports the pedagogy. I think we concluded that Hot Potatoes would be fine for certain learning activities, such as building a learning scaffold, moving from the simple to the complex by introducing more and more complex questions, on the basis of achieving success at the easier levels, but would definitely not be an appropriate tool in a true discovery learning situation, other than to test understanding of what had already been discovered or learnt. I also managed to fit in two video conference classes.

Having not been to FVHS for some time, there was a lot of catching up to do. The ICT department is involved with the new Digital Technology Guidelines (DTG) with Heather Williamson and Bruce Dowdle attending a two day conference in Auckland in November. Three other schools from our cluster will also be represented at the conference, namely Reporoa College, Ruapehu College and Putaruru College. All of these schools are trial schools for the new DTG's. Heather will also be in Wellington during November working with NZQA on the TIM domain and how unit standards within this domain can be assessed on the basis of achieved, merit and excellence. This will be interesting as I am wondering what this means for unit standards in other subjects.

Managed to get some PD done, on basic emailing and file organisation with one teacher, who originally came to have PD on using powerpoint. We ended up talking about renaming files, creating and renaming folders and attaching documents to emails. What did I learn? That I need to, again, carry out a needs analysis survey in our cluster schools.

There was discussion around how wikis, blogs and google docs can be affective learning tools, and in what learning situations they would be appropriate. This obviously took us into the realm of when these tools would NOT be the correct learning tool to use, which is part of the whole ideaof making sure you use the correct tool for the job. There was also concern expressed as to whether these tools are simply just the latest fad which will eventually be replaced by the next latest fad. The answer to this comment is "NO". Wikis, blogs, etc are not a fad. Over 100 million users cannot be that wrong, but yes, they will be replaced by something else, and most likely within the next year or so given the rate of change in the technology environment. However, collaboration, contact and connectedness using the internet is here to stay, as is personalising your virtual space and hopefully personalising learning. However, what this virtual environment will look like in five years time is anyone's guess. There was also more work done around the use of online learning environments and the tentative beginnings of setting up a meeting between teachers involved with GATE programmes within our cluster. The opportunity for our gifted and talented students to collaborate, co-operate and perhaps compete across schools in the cluster, using the technology we have, has definitely got potential. Thanks to Kris for putting this idea forward. There are other GATE groups collaborating in other clusters who we can also contact which could widen the net and the experience for our GATE students.
Work was also done on looking at how EHSAS is going at the school and the definite need to clarify and focus direction for the cluster in 2009 onwards. The word used by Ian (DP) was coherence, which in one word explains what our strategies need to achieve. ICT is still on the agenda though, as is VC. The big question is how do we ensure that VC is a positive and successful experience for our students, and how do we ensure that ICT becomes systemic and is used in a pedagogically effective way?

Have a good week-end.

Video conferencing - critical success factors

Having given some thought to what factors will support our students when doing courses via VC, I have listed the following factors which I think impacts on the quality of learning:

1. Quality teachers delivering the course.
2. VC training for eteachers
3. Time allowance for teachers to deliver the VC course. Guideline is 4 hours per week which includes the VC contact time.
   
4. VC accepted as part of the mainstream school and not an add-on. i.e. VC courses are accepted as viable options to face to face classes.
5. Good support for students at their school. The students have a learning centre to go to when not doing VC, so that they can get on with their course work; they have support from the eSupervisor and from their deans who monitor their academic progress.
6. Students vetted for the ability to succeed in a distance learning environment. Students need to be fully aware of what doing a course via VC will entail. It is NOT an easy option.
   
7. Good communication between the student and their eTeachers.
8. Good communication between the eTeacher and the students' eSupervisor and deans.
9. Student reports done every term by eTeachers
   
10. Well organised eTimetable
11. Regular meetings between ePrincipal, eTeachers and eSupervisors.
12. Student and eTeacher feedback (done through survey).
13. Parents understanding of the learning environment.
    
14. Principal and board support for video conferencing. They need to see value in VC for the students at their school. Without this, most of the issues above will not happen
    

Last week I was mostly...........

Well, after a couple of days in Ohakune, where I did not get to see too much of the wonderful Mount Ruapehu, I made my way to Putaruru College to spend a couple of days with the good folk there. I managed to get in a wee bit of PD on the VC gear, went to a VC meeting with the Maths teachers from around our cluster and attended the ICT committee meeting. There were only three teachers at the Maths meeting, which was disappointing, but in spite of the small numbers, a very fruitful meeting I think. The ICT meetings are always full on with ideas flying everywhere. The school is currently involved in equipping its classrooms with data projectors and interactive whiteboards. There was a lot of discussion surrounding installation of DPU's and screens and also around having computers in classrooms. It was felt that in order for teachers to take advantage of the flexibility and variety offered by technology and the internet, DPU's and computers in the classroom were becoming mandatory. The aim is to also have at least four computers per classroom. The big question is whether teachers have the equipment, and then learn to use it, creating a period of no return on investment, or whether we tease teachers with the possibilities, give them the PD, and then provide the equipment in the knowledge they know how to use it in a pedagogically competent manner. While we could have the chicken and the egg arguement here, most of us learn by doing, so it seems logical to get a zero return on investment for a short while as opposed to having frustrated teachers who see no point in PD when they never get the chance to use it.

Ruapehu College - A school with a view

Today I have been at Ruapehu College. Unfortunately, the view is not like the one above as the wind is howling and the clouds are low. I still have another day here so will see what tomorrow brings. Things we have been looking at today include:

• Needs analysis - Looking like Physics and Chemistry for L2/L3 and maybe Japanese.
  
• 2009 VC subject offerings - L3 Accounting
  
• LMS issues - Training - Look to make this a focus for term 4 and 2009
  
• Presentation to the board - Preliminary set for 23 Sept. at 7:30 pm via VC
  
• ICT vision and plan for 2009 - ongoing
• Presentation to students/deans - Set for 8:45 on Sept. 11 via VC.

Also worked with teachers on downloading youtube videos for teaching purposes.

Appraisal - who benefits??

Over the last couple of weeks I have been carrying out VC teacher appraisals. I have only done three so far, but I am finding it a well worthwhile process. As I observe my colleagues at work I am continually reflecting on how I would have done it, or perhaps how I would do it differently. I never saw the process as part of my PD, but it definitely seems to be working out that way. Killtwo birds with one stone. Hopefully, my colleagues will get as much out of my observations as I asm doing by observing them.

A Day at Reporoa College

I spent today at Reporoa College working with teachers on eLearning. PD was mainly centred around using Hot Potatoes, Myclasses and showing people how to use the VC gear. I was busy all 5 periods which was awsome. The teachers I worked with saw the potential in the VC, online learning environments and the associated tools. The nice thing was that they saw the tools as simply ways to improve their teaching, or ways to differentiate their teaching. Learning was still central to what they were about, and it was acknowledged that no matter how good a tool you have, it is only as good as the practitioner applying it.

This week - What i did

This week I have been at Forest View High School and Tauhara College.
I had a good day at FVHS, really just catching up with staff and following up on the workshops I ran during my last visit. Generally positive feedback on workshops, especially regarding online tools like Hot potatoes, Content Generator and Exe.

Follow up:

1. Chris Y – Hot Potatoes – examples of applications in Maths
2. Whane – Hot Potatoes and myclasses
3. Attila – useful economics websites
4. Denise – Using powerpoint and data projectors
5. Brief meeting with Richard to discuss reason for visit and meeting on 28 August.
6. Met with Chris (L2 Acc. student doing course via VC) and did some work with him on work he was behind in. Organised text book for him.

The follow up will occur when I am next at FVHS.

My visit to Tauhara centered around provision of one on one PD. Areas covered included:

• Use of UltraNet - uploading files and photos
• Use of data projectors - how to. Worked with Languages department and Physed
  
• Use of youtube and slideshare as a teaching resource
• Attended the ICT committee meeting.

Also attended the Volcanics Principals Management Group meeting on Thursday afternoon