What I learned . . .

• kids want to be online all the time and given the choice of an ordinary handheld and an iphone or ipod the majority will choose the iproduct

• many apps can be used for educational purposes, by end of July Classroom 2.0 will publish a list of about 300 Apps they’ve reviewed.
• educators are now writing Apps specifically for educational purposes
• qr code is really powerful and has exciting potential in the educational context

On Monday morning we went to the NECC 2009 Exhibitor’s Hall. It was huge, vast, expansive . . . so American.

We were on a mission to get a Promethean and SMART t-shirt.

They made it so hard fill in forms, show a magazine bit of a hassle really!!!! Never did get the SMART shirt probably a Freudian moment.

We were caught in the rush of the crowd, jostled along, not sure where we were going.

Suddenly an arm appeared out of nowhere, a blue t-shirt was thrust into our hands . . . a BIG sloppy PEARSON shirt.

People looked at us as if we weird when we got on the bus this morning. “What’s with the t-shirt?”

Well you know what we’re not so stupid.

Standing in the endless snaking Starbuck’s line this afternoon a hysterical woman ran up to us offering congratulations and these two cute little ipod shuffles . . .

for wearing our PEARSON’s t-shirt.

Cameras flashed, celebrities for a minute, congratulated by our fellow coffee addicts . . . what a buzz!

 
Human impulse is to write (21st Century Writing).

Kathleen Blake Yancey believes writing has been affected by the context of history from 1940’s to present

• war and distance created need for people to write letters
• school writing disciplined and punishment oriented
• freedom of graffitti writing, letters of freedom of gaol
• writing process, moves that lead to final product, process became very linear and unlike process real writers use. Energy and using steps in the way they need to be used not as a prescription.
• process became digitised, formatting and publication possible
• writing for connection – visual display powerful in writing
• connection is new and exciting and part of process who for, which medium and why.

Writing is about connection. What does that look like now?

1.  Blogging from school to the world – responses are important and a measure of success, teaches respectful reply. Students like the environment.

2. Take on the personna of characters creating back stories in poetry, drama, blog that represents the author, historical character, scientist

3. Information Ecology, past information owned by experts.

Create a concept map to answer question, search of blogosphere to answer the questions. Found not possible so had to go further into other forms of information: academic, mainstream and alternative. How do we know we can trust resources? Need to be explicit in posing questions.

Go to Time Magazine and see top 100 list of blogs.

4. Blogging as learning in action.

Give an explcit task to pursue and share on communal blog. Where is poetry seen in culture? Students can see poetry almost anywhere but how is it poetic? 

Signs project all signs are about what you can’t do. Used to be words alone. Became mixed and now all pictures. Need to participate not be a voyeur. (Blog Projects done at Virginia Beach Schools)

Three types of participation

1. Experts and laypersons are composing knowledge eg citizen scientist,

2. Citizens composing news, when people help each other information seems to be more reliable. Not just crisis driven but stories of people are being told and their stories are part of History.

3. Citizens have composing power in form of facebook, twitter, blogs etc. This means we need to develop understanding and control of these tools. Need to know which tools are to be used and when to support effective and appropriate connection

 Craig Bellamy

In recent times the line between public and private has become very blurred to the point of non existence. Young people, young teachers, students all use social networking spaces to air their thoughts, their feelings and their lives.

More and more I hear comments about there being no privacy anymore. All is public!! The most recent comment was as I was sitting in Kevin Amboe’s session on Wiki’s for Writing Workshops at NECC 2009.

Kevin Amboe said he expected his young daughter to be up on the web and out their organising her life on Facebook and commenting through her blog. Will Richardson has said he would be disappointed if his daughter did not have a web presence. Employers today look for a web presence as a guide for employability.

Mark another of the presenters today commented that he felt it would be safer for his child to be out there on the internet than walking through the local park.

Creeps and undesirables lurk everywhere, we need to teach our children and students how to deal with them both physically and internetly rather than locking them away in inpenetrable towers.

The inpenetrable towers block out so much that is good and exciting and fun to be part of. A world I don’t always understand but I do respect the young people’s need to be part of it. To us it is technology. To them it is natural they were born to it.

Nobody can stop the young people of today from getting through all the blocks that are put in their way. What a challenge? What a skill! I could never hope to be half as good a hacker as most of the young kids I know.  

A case in point. At our school we use a really cool social networking / problem solving game. It can be played in beta or paid for. For payment you become a full member with treasures at your fingertips.

One of our 11 yo really wanted a membership but his parents wouldn’t allow it. He wanted to be a member so badly he persevered until he hacked into the site and became a member.

Does he get rewarded for skill and initiative or sanctioned for willfully tampering with another’s property?

The world is changing, the world is changing so fast, way too fast for many of the older generations to understand. A young person’s social mores are not what the older generation understand. Do older generations have the right to impose our will and sanctions on something we don’t understand.

Rather than funding technocrats to shut down something that can be amazing shouldn’t we promote teaching practices which ensure we are developing responsible students who are so engaged and motivated by the authenticity of what they are doing that they do not have the time or inclination to abuse their use of the internet.

Footnote 

It was really interesting in the session on one to one laptops attended yesterday the majority of those present felt people who saw themselves as EXPERTS in technology should be kept AWAY from SCHOOLS. Technocrats were cast as control freaks preferring to use technology to shut people out and control rather than develop an inclusive caring and respectful learning community. 

The concept of connective writing is not about the act of publishing it is what happens before and after publication.

Reading and writing now, are not what they were.

They were:

• Reading to inform, teach and indoctrinate.
• Writing was for the few, the elite of the literatii.

Now  they are skills used by all. They are vital elements for

• Personalisation and establishing relationships based on trust and with respect between readers/writers as the basis for interaction across the web.
• Self sponsored learning and we need to help our students to get to this stage.

What will be the life span of the printed page word?  It is in doubt because the printed word is not as easily accessible when compared to the fast flexibility that is provided in the www environment.

Writing is ubiquitous . . . it doesn’t have to be DONE at a particular time in a particular context.

It happens any where any time when the mood strikes, the link or the connection is made.

Connective writing stems from what we read because ideas for writing have beginnings in what people have read. Others’ thoughts and ideas are reflected upon and writing is then produced.

Sceptics question the quality and preciseness of the information. The audience requires quality and preciseness and they will ensure ideas are fine tuned and written in a knowledgeable way as knowledge is no longer the domain of the few. It is outside of us all. It exists in the world in the space of the www.

Writers on the web synthesise their ideas and link them to sources and context. Writing has to be linked. It cannot occur in isolation. It has little meaning if isolated, unlinked and unread.

What does linked writing look like? Look at Borderland.

Publishing is a cyclical process? It is not only writing it is reading. Is the way we read being changed by  our www experiences? Teachers who know their students and observe the way they work in a classroom can tell you reading for the students of today is a different more complex skill than it was even 20 year ago. The NCTE has endeavoured to address this with their recent NCTE Definition of 21st century literacies.

Do online readers use the same reading strategies as a paper reader?

Is literacy more dependant on images than words?

Is reading as we have been taught and tested still relevant?

What strategies are there to teach reading in an online world?

How do we use web 2.0 and blend it with the best of pedagogy to ensure our students learning needs are met?

Speak Up 2008 available 24 March

We are becoming Nodes around interest groups on line.

Children are learners and teachers.

Lines are blurrring between who is the teacher and who is the learner.

According to context the role of learner is fluid.

Moshi Monsters has taken our school by storm.

The program was first introduced , in Beta form, by Anna Rossvoll, of the GLOW team in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Driving across the UK gives plenty of time for thinking and discussion and that is where this idea evolved.

This little program seemed as if it might be the answer to introducing the students (and their teachers) to regularly using the web for working, playing and communicating.

Aim: to learn to be responsible users of Web 2.0 and social networking in a secure environment.

Charateristics of Moshi Monsters program:

• Create own Moshi, it is up to the creator how outrageous or demure a Moshi might be.
• Encourages students to take responsibility for the monster they create, it needs to be named, clothed, fed, housed, have friends and generally be very well cared for, if neglected the Moshi can become very nasty!
• Students earn currency, Rox, with which they are able to keep their Moshi happy and content. They earn Rox, by playing the variety of games available in the Hall of Puzzles. The student and their Moshi achieve higher and higher levels.
• Moshi’s live in Monstro an ever evolving and developing land especially for Moshi Monsters.
• Moshi creators are able to invite friends to join in chat on the noticeboard.
• Moshi creators may visit each other’s sites and rate them.

Benefits of using Moshi

• Students are simulating a social network in a safe environment where no one is to invite a friend to join if they are not known to them as part of the school community. Each student has to accept their friends and delete or report those who act inappropriately.
• Students use the Beta edition of the game, however, with parental permission they can become members at a cost which enables a wider range of choice when purchasing items for the Moshi.
• Moshi Monsters is a game environment, it uses games and puzzles to develop students literacy, numeracy and thinking skills.
• Creativity, communication and collaboration are encouraged.
• It is competitive among friends and personally.
• Great vehicle for developing good social skills and collaboration in a whole class situation when modelling how to access and create a Moshi.
• Excellent opportunities for authentic communication about internet safety and appropriate and inappropriate use of social networking sites.
• Discussions about what constitutes constructive comments (in preparation for blogging)
• Requires students to plan and make decisions.
• Develops good social habits, every day I have students asking if they can be my Moshi friend, as they do of all the teachers. It is a good way of students and teachers getting to know alittle about each other and at the same time observing good social networking etiquette.

Teachers found using the program as a whole class activity early in the year was great for

• team building,
• turn taking
• developing positive relationships
• classroom management.

New teachers who had not used an IWB before found

• students taught them a lot about the boards, especially not be afraid of breaking them!
• built confidence with the IWB.

Moshi Monsters has provided an ideal opportunity and environment for teachers, students and parents to talk about what is happening in the world of Moshi’s. Parents are often as interested and excited as their children are about Moshi Monsters with quite a few students becoming members under their parents approval.

Involvement in this community is a great way in which our students are able to exercise responsible and appropriate actions in a social networking environment. The lessons are learned and the rules for our school community observed.

The students value this opportunity so much that they are prepared to observe the rules and enjoy the opportunity to be responsible participants who are able to create, communicate and connect in a fun, motivating and engaging way.

The opportunity to be trusted, develop confidence as social networkers and be constructive commentators is preparing these students to engage with the www community in a meaningful and discerning way.

This is a far more powerful way of having students learn about the www. All too often educators and education authorities try to block students out of sites that have great educational merit rather than teach them to be discerning aware global, digital citizens who actually know what is right and what is wrong.