So one of my big themes is how we as educators should be using, not censoring, social media. That being said, you can imagine my pleasure when I got an email about THIS. That’s right, the US Embassy in cooperation with the Imperial Museum and Bebo are working to “digitally link generations” through an online video contest. The embassy is asking UK students to play documentary film maker and put to bits the memories of the rebuilding of Great Britain post WWII. The winner has a chance to win:
a trip for two to the United States
a new laptop computer
a new digital video camera
cool video editing software
And in case you’re wondering, I named this post in reply to Digital Katie’s posting Bebo Blues.
A few months ago a pretty cool site was brought to my attention–dotSUB. It’s a video sharing site that allows registered users to transcribe and translate shared videos. That’s right. It means your videos can be made accessible to both the hearing impaired and those who don’t speak your language. The process is pretty simple, and I’m currently uploading and transcribing the Tabletop Explainer. You’ll start to see “dotSUB” buttons below embedded videos.
So if you speak two or more languages, head over for some translating fun. Here’s an example of a subtitled video. As of this posting, it’s only available in English. Want to change that? Register. View this link; then choose a language under “Translate This Film.”
The following is an abbreviated version of the final narrative report I submitted for my Fulbright Teacher Exchange. I have taken the liberty of adding hyperlinks where appropriate. For those of you who didn’t know, I am currently on exchange from Lexington High School in Massachusetts to Broughton High School in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Over two years ago I decided to apply for the Fulbright teacher exchange. Having taught for several years and already holding a Masters in Education, I was looking for new ways to improve my craft. Absent a clear predictive model of human learning, teaching remains more art than science. So I’ve come to believe that beyond a mastery of ones subject and minimal educational training, collecting diverse professional experience remains the surest path to improved teaching. We teachers learn by doing. I applied for an exchange confident teaching abroad would improve my professional skill set, expanding both my experience and perspective. I am happy to say, the exchange has exceeded my expectations. (more…)
A few months ago a colleague told me about Brain Gym. She had been to the first of two training sessions. So I tagged along for the second, were I was told tracing a figure eight in the air would improve my students’ reading comprehension. Brain Gym is a trademarked set of exercises “designed” to promote learning skills in students. At its heart is the idea that directed low-impact physical activity can help foster focus and improve student attention. This is probably true. Working with eleven year olds, I have found getting them up and moving is an important part of the day, without which attention suffers. Brain Gym, however, is in the business of selling this idea, and they push the claim that their activities can do more: improve spelling, memory, reading comprehension…. After a little digging, we’ve established a lower limit on how much money is being wasted by Scottish schools on this pseudoscientific snake oil. Over the past five years, it’s been at least £127,579.45, and the real number is likely a couple of times larger. Below I’ll discuss how we arrived at this number, and I’ll even suggest a free alternative to help prevent future loss. (more…)
Graham Brown-Martin from Handheld Learning gave a talk on the technical side of mobile computing in education. He started off with a summary of Handheld’s history and mission. What’s coming? Well, Graham predicts that desktop computers will disappear and all computers will become ubiquitous. Even laptops will die. “The future,” Graham says “is mobile.” He made a case that market forces would help this along, propelled by consumer electronics. We have six-year olds with 3G phones. We think talking is the killer app. for mobiles. It isn’t… Bandwidth is increasing and costs are coming down. Add this to the decreasing cost of online storage, and times they are a changing. According to Graham, we’ll soon have a brilliant Web 2.0 universe built and paid for by the free market and available for use by education. (more…)
This talk was given by Derek Robertson, and he thinks education should resonate with learners. For Robertson, games present a challenge. This challenge demands problem solving and helps to provide a powerful motivational context.
He spent a good amount of time debunking “the new moral panic” which sees gaming as the source of society’s ills. Like Rock & Roll, TV, and comic books before, he sees it as the target du jour. In fact, Robertson is part of the Consolarium, Learning and Teaching Scotland’s center for the educational use of computer games.
Looking over my notes, I realize there’s no way to summaries his examples except to say, gaming need not run counter to learning or even physical fitness, it’s all about what you do with it. Media vs. message anyone? So why don’t you check out what Robertson’s up to on his blog, inexplicably named “Hot Milky Drink.”
Glow is a national intranet for Scottish schools. Basically, they’re looking to produce a one-stop site for educational content, collaboration, and communication. That means a directory containing data on everyone (all teachers and students), a means of allowing secure access for these users, a virtual learning and teaching environment, educational content collections, collaborative space for teachers, email accounts, and meaningful system support.
Unfortunately, the speakers didn’t do much more than “give” a PowerPoint presentation. One attendee was seen to write “Kill me now” on his colleague’s note pad. The idea, however, is sound. I got a much better description from Tess Watson at BarCampScotland last March. A Glow mentor, she describes things quite well on her blog.
Digital P.S. (May 23rd): Tess does more than simply describe Glow, she blogs it too.
Unfortunately, a last minute room change meant that this talk was drastically under attended. It was given by Grahm Kinrade, and three things really struck me about how they’re using computers out east, including their interpretation of 1 to 1 computing.
1) Teachers are trusted with administrator rights on their own computers. Grahm recognizes that innovation comes from play, something I strongly believe. He even likes teachers using their school-issued machines to make home movies, because when a good teacher discovers something cool they say, “Hey I could use this in the classroom.”
2) There is a BIG focus on ubiquity and functionality. Tech has to be available, and it has to work. Their approach to tech support is proactive. He believes support should be calling schools and telling them when something’s wrong, not the other way around. If teachers don’t trust it; they won’t use it.
3) The focus isn’t on getting every student a computer; it’s on getting every student a computer when he/she needs it. To facilitate this, they’ve moved to a library deployment, letting students check computers out. Laptops rarely stay overnight at the school. They’re being used.
I would love to share some of the great videos Grahm brought along showing student work and classrooms in action, but they aren’t on the web yet. Most of them were filmed last week. So keep an eye on the Isle’s website. I’ve been assured they’ll show up soon.
Today I attended eLive ‘07, “Edinburgh’s Festival of Learning for the 21st Century.” Here are my notes from the day. During the second talk, I discovered the eLive wireless network and flirted with the idea of live blogging it, but I don’t type that fast. I like to read over my work, and Ewan McIntosh beat me to it. So here’s my thumbnail sketch in several postings. ;)
ICT to Inspire: The day started with Tim Rylands and a talk describing his efforts to inspire students through exposure to rich digital worlds, namely the Myst series. If you’re a primary teacher looking for a means to inspire your students’ writing, you should check out his website. Here’s a wee taste. What you’re watching is Tim’s students reciting their own creative writing inspired by their Myst-ifying experience.
