Hey; is this web tool Flowgram the death of powerpoint? I think so.
Well with a half decent internet connection this program is very flexible and powerful.
Of course best practise always needs to be established and finally I have a tip for recording voice.
This Literacy time line I made for a recent workshop pointed out that a couple of things have changed recently. What does this mean for teaching and learning.
Have added some new literacies below to add to this list
I guess we are all entitled to one off task post.
I am growing a mo for mens' health.
Here it is day 15.
Donations go to great cause will post pic again later.
Using xbox camera and skype for video snapshot.
This is intended to be a five minute post on one to one computing and price point.
While not the only issue things have to be affordable for parents and schools.
The price of the same Acer Aspire one netbook as gone up 20 percent in the past month.
Ouch !!!
So the contenders are
The things changing in education should be carefully considered.
If you read/view any post on this blog make it this one.
Get engaged?
Wanting to reflect on what face to face and what online communication
and learning had to offer. I used the following to stir my thinking pot about it.
Took a whole lot of equipment to the e waste day in Hamilton and was suprised with
a line up of cars queuing to drop off e waste. There were people being sent away who had trailers
of stuff. We had been stock piling crt screens which had been replaced with more energy efficient LCDs. We also had some wireless cards that were no longer compatible with our network.
It was good to see proactive people organising this waste.
We are a small country but we collected
over 900 tonnes of equipment.
“All equipment collected through eDay will be recycled by accredited recyclers who have advised us that over 95% of the materials in a computer can be recovered and re-used. Precious materials such as copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver can all be recovered from e-waste and turned into new products instead of being dumped in landfills,” said Mr Zwimpfer in Wellington.
What still scares me is that some one in China will probably burn off the plastic and inhale
the toxic fumes of disposal, wade in heavy metals etc.
To improve our sustainability we can purchase equipment designed for its end of life
and with less impact in its life.
Envirochips - the low power consumption of the intel atom chipset makes it the sustainability pick for all but higher end video editing tasks.
Three desktop units that may be suitable are
Asus EEEpc desktop
Shuttle x27
Very Pc
company
And we need to have a way to recycle these with less burning and looting.
Visual literacy Reality check
I have interviewed Peter Walch an innovative teacher at Southwell School
about the impact of visual literacy on learning. Learners in Pete's class have told powerful stories with Visual Language driving the message. I asked Pete some questions about Visual Literacy and he came up with some interesting answers.
Video from 2007
The image below is taken from eduorigami a indepth look at learning from Andrew Churches of Kristin School. I used the image to help me consider what learning might look like for students. We have been asked as a staff to consider what we see as important with the key competencies so here Goes. What would it look like in my classroom? While Andrew's diagram is not only about competencies it has helped me to think where I stand with them. What would we try to work towards as a group.
Thinking
Act appropriately in a range of settingsI read a bebo comment where someone was called a loser and asked to "go cut themselves". I know that online insults often don't hold back. Well we notice more people involved in having their say. So "students" have a look at this video on youtube. Have your say Comment on any of the following or just make general comment about this clip.
A teacher at my school is working with young students using Dipity
Learners will feel proud to establish and share the information together.
What questions and discussions would bring learning to the fore here?
Determined to post. In the cloud ?
As microsoft schools agreement comes to a close do we jump onto the cloud in the
hope that we won't fall through?
Reality Check 1
I have always backed visual images and sound as great learning tools. There is more information in these than text. I am interested in what information and collaboration will develop with a group using text about Darfur compared with one using a Youtube video clip.
What Students produced from the thinking tool
I guess I am a believer in google.
But Why???
So what is so good about a google map, doc etc.
For me the same opportunity is consistent. Collaboration is my preferred learning style in this web environment. Creativity, added knowledge and personalisation make me feel as if I can serve some purpose.When we add and individualise a map we are adding knowledge value. As others add knowledge this increases further.
This post started as a quick rant on the need to consider health in learning. I have revised this to saying we need to consider how we learn: engaging with reality, rather than utopian ideals, using research alongside beliefs and past experiance.
This star gazette article talks up the importance of exercise in offering brain-related benefits such as reducing stress and improving attention.
There are some schools where exercise is making way with keeping up with requirements in other areas.
To me it reminds us that some of the most important things in education maybe quite subtle health, diet, art, music, emotional engagement ,values, learning a second language etc. I say maybe as I fe
el this is what we need to come to understand . My concern is that we will repond to the challenges of the future with an increasing number of checklists rather than an agreement of what is important.
Julia Aitken talks about learning to learn. So the question for me is will being healthy and involvement in music help add to engagement levels when engagement is what is wanted at the highest levels. This reminds me of the need also for downtime when new understanding is hard. For example moving from a demanding session of maths to another one in formal language may actually reduce understanding with the brain not allowed time to build pathways for this learning.
Some recent research concludes
The brain performs many functions simultaneously. Learning is enhanced by a rich environment with a variety of stimuli.
Learning engages the entire physiology. Physical development, personal comfort, and emotional state affect the ability to learn.
The search for meaning is innate. The mind's natural curiosity can be engaged by complex and meaningful challenges.
taken from a table of the implications on brain research for how we learn
| Recent Research Suggests | Teaching Suggestions |
| The brain performs many functions simultaneously. Learning is enhanced by a rich environment with a variety of stimuli. | Present content through a variety of teaching strategies, such as physical activities, individual learning times, group interactions, artistic variations, and musical interpretations to help orchestrate student experiences. |
| Learning engages the entire physiology. Physical development, personal comfort, and emotional state affect the ability to learn. | Be aware that children mature at different rates; chronological age may not reflect the student's readiness to learn. Incorporate facets of health (stress management, nutrition, exercise) into the learning process. |
| The search for meaning is innate. The mind's natural curiosity can be engaged by complex and meaningful challenges. | Strive to present lessons and activities that arouse the mind's search for meaning. |
| The brain is designed to perceive and generate patterns. | Present information in context (real life science, thematic instruction) so the learner can identify patterns and connect with previous experiences. |
| Emotions and cognition cannot be separated. Emotions can be crucial to the storage and recall of information. | Help build a classroom environment that promotes positive attitudes among students and teachers and about their work. Encourage students to be aware of their feelings and how the emotional climate affects their learning. |
| Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes. | Try to avoid isolating information from its context. This isolation makes learning more difficult. Design activities that require full brain interaction and communication. |
| Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception. | Place materials (posters, art, bulletin boards, music) outside the learner's immediate focus to influence learning. Be aware that the teacher's enthusiasm, modeling, and coaching present important signals about the value of what is being learned. |
| Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes. | Use "hooks" or other motivational techniques to encourage personal connections. Encourage "active processing" through reflection and metacognition to help students consciously review their learning. |
| We have at least two types of memory: spatial, which registers our daily experience, and rote learning, which deals with facts and skills in isolation. | Separating information and skills from prior experience forces the learner to depend on rote memory. Try to avoid an emphasis on rote learning; it ignores the learner's personal side and probably interferes with subsequent development of understanding. |
| The brain understands best when facts and skills are embedded in natural spatial memory. | Use techniques that create or mimic real world experiences and use varied senses. Examples include demonstrations, projects, metaphor, and integration of content areas that embed ideas in genuine experience. |
| Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat. | Try to create an atmosphere of "relaxed alertness" that is low in threat and high in challenge. |
| Each brain is unique. The brain's structure is actually changed by learning. | Use multifaceted teaching strategies to attract individual interests and let students express their auditory, visual, tactile, or emotional preferences. |
| Caine, R.N., Caine, G. (October 1990). Understanding a Brain Based Approach to Learning and Teaching. Educational Leadership 48, 2, 66-70. (Excerpts). Adapted by permission of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Copyright 1985 by ASCD. | |
How network dependent are we?
Well we have just about signed off on the development of a wireless gateway at the school where I work. A what?
A wireless gateway is a computer networking device that routes packets from a wireless LAN to another network, typically a wired WAN. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless gateway
or off the top of my head
"A mechanism for providing wireless access to a network and controlling the traffic on it."
We are using a bluesocket solution. This will mean that all kind of devices and visitors can use our network to access the web or other resources while we remain safe in our data and internet connection.
It is funny but it strikes me that both are necessary now. An organisation needs to be able to host others on its network as life without internet becomes informationally untenable. This is coupled with people's realisation that their devices are wireless capable if only the environment in which they find themselves can provide network access.
Devices like this psp or the eeepc above or dare I say it phones. I am just continuing this post having transferred my device from an expensive ibm x60 tablet running vista (a problem with fan noise is driving me to drink) to my daughter's $500 nz eeepc. The screen size is different but the application is the same ie the web and what it connects me to.
The network the network the network.
Friends, sounds, opinions, information, differentiation, images, diversity, provocation, articulation, video, passive activity, aggregation, automation etc etc.
Outside of this there are many other applications of course but I feel the involvement of others is what makes the network the place to be.
The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies:
I am not a great fan of current events in the classroom.
Why? Because what we generally see as a current events programme is: a teacher decides what of value has happened in the past week maybe 2. (generally looking in newspapers and on TV).
The questions that are generated at an assessment level are trivial pursuit in nature. So why do we teach this?
Mark Treadwell Talked about the Juniors ie Students aged 5 to 7 At the Learning at Schools conference last week in Rotorua. He was talking about the need to remove pressure from junior classrooms for everything but language. He mentioned that science for example should have no real objective beyond say being amazed by the world around us. This could be achieved by looking at some things though a microscope (perhaps one a day for a week) The mosquito wing below is a prime example. The main message I see is to reduce and simplify moving to essential knowings and concepts rather than skills and discrete objectives. What we need to be comfortable with is what do student really need to learn at age 6? What Can they Learn?
The following are my thoughts on where Junior Schools might fit into
learning pathways.
langauge
Oral
It look to me that in most cases applications are moving to the network. My colleague and friend Mark Craven was talking about his belief that cloud computing is the way to go.
"cloud computing -- where applications and files are stored on a large, centralized supercomputer or network. The end user accesses his or her files using computers that are more streamlined but less sophisticated than today's typical machines."
I see some exceptions today with the power etc not quite there for video editing, high end gaming etc. But overall I think that Mark is right. Cloud computing is simple, reduces admin over heads etc. At the school where I work email, calendaring, planning, learning, photo galleries, wikis, forums etc already happen on the web. Portfolios reporting and collaboration are happening in this space also.
This is an organisational cloud in my mind.
Assets for cloud computing
Have been working on a presentation for an upcoming conference.
This has been a reflection on 8 years of work in co-ordinating ICT
in a large New Zealand primary school. Probably the hardest infrastructure get
right is people. The more time I spend with technology the further I develop
my skills and comfort. Yet there are people who are yet to go online in any significant
manner or for any significant purpose.
As technologies become more reliant, powerful and ubiquitous those not on board
seem more conspicuous by their absence.
If we consider conceptual frameworks that
may provide a learning pathway for these people what might it be.
