The New Learning Revolution

I'm reading a fascinating book, 'Unlimited - The new learning revolution and the seven keys to unlock it' by Gordon Dryden & Jeannette Vos.

'All of us, together, are surging through the most profound revolution in human history. Its impact is personal, national, global - and, in many ways, unlimited.

'At its core are seven catalysts, now converging and fusing to change the way we live, work, play, learn, teach and create - at any age.'

The Learning Network's blurb says: "In this book, New Zealand authors Dryden and Vos explore the current direction of learning and challenge our traditional thoughts of intelligence. They cover how to develop your own unique talents, find your personal learning style and give advice on how to embrace a life of learning and creative thinking. Plus they give advice to parents and teachers on how to maximise the learning of children. An excellent book for teachers and parents and those who want to enhance their own learning and understanding."


The book covers the 21st Century trends in teaching and learning across the world. This is a MUST READ for everyone interested in eLearning!

The Wonder of eLearning

In the latest Interface magazine, David Warlick says that teachers should focus on information and learning, not on the technology and simply getting ICT into their classrooms.

"The purpose should be creating the new information environment, one that's at the core of our children's 'outside the classroom' experience with technology.  We have to bring digital, networked, abundant, overwhelming information into the classroom."

This article, (together with my studies in EDPROFST 714), has really nudged me to try a new way of teaching.   I've tried Inquiry before, but never with as much success as this time, and in the past I've ended up feeling quite dissatisfied with the whole process.

But, the winds of change are blowing in Room 24!  This term, I decided to take up the challenge, and use technology, together with our school's inquiry model, to let my students manage their own learning.  It has been the easiest few weeks in my teaching career, and the most gratifying.  My class has gone from a structured, disciplined and teacher-led environment, to one in which I am sitting back taking photos of them, for lack of anything else to do, while my students work at their Inquiry topics.  They are surprisingly quiet, and on-task, and need very little support from me, mostly shunning my conservative suggestions for more ambitious ideas.  For example, they want to take a video of themselves explaining a concept against a green screen, and then point at a diagram on a Keynote page.  (Yikes - we'll have to ask an expert!)

Our topic started out being 'States of Matter', but as the students continued the process of asking questions, and wondering, it became, quite simply: Water.  (We were interested in more than just 'states of matter'!)

This is the process we have followed so far:

• I set the scene by creating a web page in KnowledgeNet with links to websites, videos and online interactive games about Water.  I then set my students free to explore in a very unstructured way.  (For me the letting go was the hardest.  I like structure!)  
• After that we discussed what they knew already.   But, once the list was made, it covered my whole term's planned teaching!  (No sense in teaching them what they know already!)  Then we made a list of what we wondered.  A very interesting list of questions came up.  
• When we sorted the questions, we discovered that they fitted into about seven categories.  We decided that we would have seven groups.  Now to decide how to find the answers to our questions. (Social media was their first choice, but we ended up using books and websites mostly).  They decided how to share their findings, and the kids decided on various forms of Digital Books that could be embedded in our class blog.   We made a list of media to use, and came up with some tools that are available on our laptops and are approved in school.  Once we were ready students chose which topic they were interested in, and chose which software to use for publishing their findings.  We also talked about their focus audience, and it became a literacy lesson on Audience and Purpose!
  
• After that we started looking for relevant info, adding sticky notes to seven posters with the topic written in the middle, as they came across relevant facts. We did this first as a whole class activity, quite randomly browsing a selection of websites and books.  Later each group focused on their topic only. The next step was for each group to sift and sort the information into at least eight pages.  Once more, Reading comprehension skills, such as Finding the Main Idea, Determining Importance, and Summarising all came into play, in a very natural and unstructured way.
  
• Once that was done, students proceeded to write their scripts, using all the terms and jargon they needed, and explaining processes that they would follow.  We spoke a bit about the structure of Explanation writing, but their eyes glazed over after a while, and I left it.  They may as well find out for themselves, that you need a structure!  
• When everything was ready,  they started gathering media, taking photos and recording video and audio.  At this stage we are synthesizing all of this created material into eBooks. 

The most amazing part of this whole process has been not my student's learning, but MY learning.  I am starting to realize that children respond to media that interests them, want to have fun, and learn better when they are doing and not just listening.  (Duh... didn't Piaget say that centuries ago?)   Even my most hardened ADHD child is on task, producing good material, and reflecting their learning in the material they are producing.  They are all writing, reading, measuring, discussing, thinking, managing self, discovering and solving problems. And all this is happening without much input or support from me.   I'm just watching and learning!

Open source tools for you to use!

I had an email from Adrienne Carlson today, telling me about her informative blog post : 100 Best Open Source Apps for Educators.  Have a look!

Some of the ones I liked were 

• Penzu, a journalling site with opportunities for online journalling for our students. 
• WordSift, really handy for visualizing words, especially when teaching reading comprehension strategies.
• UDL Book Builder - cool tool for creating digital story books.

By the way, she also has an interesting blog post for iPhone enthusiasts, 100 iPhone apps for Academic Types.  This blog is definitely worth adding to your RSS aggregator!  Definitely worth checking out - make sure you have loads of time, though.  Her '100 lists' will keep you busy for a while!  Have fun!


Image: http://www.thefattytalks.com/

More about ePortfolios

Further to my recent blog post, this video explains the use of ePortfolios very nicely.

ePortfolios and eLearning

At our school we have been using ePortfolios for the past two years, using KnowledgeNet.  Using a template, our students keep track of their own learning, upload their projects and reflect on their goals.  Parents can view their child's progress at any time, and teachers give feedback and feedforward as needed on a regular basis.

Although it was initially a bit of hard work to set it all up, and get teachers trained to use KNet, the kids took to it like a duck to water.  In my class I tend to break down tasks, so that we focus on one task at a time.  I then model the steps to take to the whole class using my Smartboard.  After that I ask for confident volunteers to go and try it out on their ePortfolios.  I can have seven students working straight away, as I have 4 standard computers and 3 laptops in my class.  Those seven students support each other, and working according to a detachable name list, they then call the next seven students, and teach them the process.  The new seven students then teach the next seven, and so on.  As I only have 26 kids in my class, the whole process takes about 45 minutes.  I try to align the tasks with whatever lesson I am taking, in other words, if we are uploading evidence that we have reached our Maths goals, it will take place in Maths time.  I supporse there's no need for this, though - it's just my old fashioned way of keeping track of what's happening in my classroom.

I feel very positive about the use of ePortfolios in our school.  Students are learning to metacognitize about their learning.  They can see how they have reached their goals, and they love to see my comments. 

Jamin Lietse has been researching ePortfolios and provides a link to an MoE document 'ePortfolios - celebrating learning' for those that are interested. You can also get this document, and more, from Ian Fox's download page.

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Student created quizzes

I have been thinking and reading about how to use technology to improve student's learning, and not just as a teaching tool.

Thinking specifically of Inquiry Learning, here are a list of 12 interactive quizzes that student's can create themselves, to reflect their learning and to test their peers' understanding of their Inquiry findings.

Do 21st Century Learners REALLY learn better?

I must admit - I'm feeling decidedly grumpy! I'm not at uLearn 09.  For various reasons I couldn't attend this year, and I have to say - I'm green with envy...   So, I'll pacify myself by immersing in all things technological, in the comfort of my own home, and under my very warm, fluffy, pink blanket!

I've been reading the research done by Kirkpatrick (1998) in which he looks at the correlation between the use of computers in the classroom, and improved student learning. According to this article, computers in classroom make very little impact on our students learning. At the time of the article being written research was inconclusive, and not much progress was being made.  Many further studies done at the time, underscored these findings.

In an article written a year later, Schacter (1999) argues that computer technology is effective as a learning tool, only if paired with appropriate pedagogy and if designed according to different educational theories and principles. He encourages teachers to not just implement computers technologies for the sake of doing so, but to 'endorse and exhibit the learning that we want all children to engage in.'

In the world of computer technology, changes occur with lightning speed. These articles were written a decade ago.  Shortly after these articles, came Web 2.0.  How has this changed these earlier findings?

Larry Ferlazzo, one of my favourite bloggers and Grand Prize Winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award for Reading and Technology, explains how his use of ICT in teaching ESOL students changed their learning:  "Students could create online journals, read each other’s entries and comment on them, and, at the same time, learn more about each other.  Students could design their own online English games and tests that other students would take. These activities, in turn, would lead to further face-to-face conversations"

In spite of his successes, he still feels that "Technology has its place, but also has to be kept in its place. Our students need the support, and power, that face-to-face, flesh and blood, relationships bring – not the virtual ones of MySpace “friends.”   Instead of having our students primarily relate to computers by sitting in front of screens and just using well-intentioned learning programs, let’s have them use these computers to relate to peers and help create a community of learners.  This can lead to students teaching, learning from, and supporting each other, as well as challenging themselves."

A recent article, by Hattie (2009) comes to the conclusion that there is no necessary correlation between having computers, using computers and learning outcomes.  In his opinion, there are more instances of teachers using computers for instruction, than students using computers for learning.  He goes on to indicate that the best results are found when there is a diversity of teaching methods being used, teachers are well trained, peer-tutoring is taking place, computer time is being planned to integrate self-managed learning, and feedback is taking place.

And that's why I would have loved to be at uLearn '09! It is such a wonderful opportunity to learn all of these skills, so that computers in our classrooms can be used effectively to increase student learning!  For those lucky delegates that are there: Enjoy every minute and please keep the blogposts and tweets going so that the rest of us can collaborate and learn with you!

Hattie, J. A. C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement (pp. 220-233). London: Routledge.

Schacter, J. and Fagnano, C. (1999). Does computer technology improve student learning and achievement? How, when and under what conditions? Journal of Educational Computing and Research, 20(4).

Kirkpatrick, H. and Cuban, L. (1998). Computers make kids smarter — right? Technos Quarterly for Education and Technology, 7(2)

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Teaching Content through Technology

I have been struggling to consistently integrate ICT into my daily classroom program for the last 3 years.

Now I know what is missing in my classroom practice! According to Mishra & Koehler, 2006 I need a new special kind of expertise: TPACK! (Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge.)

"True technology integration is understanding and negotiating the relationships between these three components of knowledge. A teacher capable of negotiating these relationships represents a form of expertise different from, and greater than, the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (say a mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator)."

When I first started reading this article, my first thought was: 'Yeah, right. I've got to figure out the new curriculum, get my head around National Standards, meet assessment deadlines, and then still have expert content, pedagogical and technological knowledge.'

So how does this relate to the reality of teaching in my classroom?

Let's take Writing. I may need to teach the text type Recount Writing. First step would be to find out about the text form. I will need to look up resources such as exemplars, matrices and language features for a Recount. (Content). After that I need to decide how I'm going to teach the framework in such a way that my Year 5's will get it, and be able to apply the knowledge. I may use different strategies, like modelling, scaffolding, writing frames, peer-writing or collaborative writing. (Pedagogy). Now I can decide which ICT tool is best suited to meeting my needs. I may decide to let them blog about an event, create a ComicLife recount, or have different options for different ability or interest levels within my class. (Technology)

The paradigm shift has to take place in my head first. I need to get away from the idea there is only one tried and trusted way to teach specific content. And after 22 years of teaching, that is a real challenge. Fortunately the Digital Natives that I teach have no boundaries or pre-determined expectation of how their learning should be presented. To illustrate this point, I will share what happened in my class this week: I needed to have my students give evidence in their ePortfolios of how well they had reached the goal of 'being able to apply a range of word-identification strategies'. We talked about it for a while, and I had them make individual lists of the strategies they were using. They then explained the strategies to each other. The kids got the idea of putting their ideas on a poster. "Fine", said I, "get out the sheets of coloured paper". The horror on their faces! "Why?" they asked. "Why can't we just do it in Glogster?" Why indeed? They could. And they did - every single on of them managed just fine, without any support from me. What's more, they could continue work on their glogs at home, and are commenting on each other's work in a positive way.

This is a prime example of TPACK. I have managed to transfer my knowledge of Word Identification Strategies to my pupils, I have used effective pedagogy to have them self-assess their knowledge, and I have taught them a techology tool which they could effectively use to illustrate their skills.



Image: http://tpack.org/


Reference: Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2008). Introducing Technological Pedagogical Knowledge. In AACTE (Eds.). The Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Educators.Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Learn IT! Teach IT!

I found this super website off Larry Ferlazzo's website of the day blog. (A great resource for ESOL teachers!)

It's called Learn IT - Teach IT, and it has loads of information for teachers to implement Web 2.0 tools into their daily practice. The videos and 'How To's' should be really helpful for use for teachers and for students. Have a look!

Let me know what you think!

Crazy Professor Reading Game

I've loved Power Teaching since the day I stumbled upon it on Youtube. In Room 24 I have some rather rambunctious pupils, and Power Teaching is my saving grace. The kids love it, it keeps me sane, and the classroom management is a breeze.

This year I have a class with very low Reading comprehension skills, so I gave the 'Crazy Professor Reading Game' a go.

The results are not yet clear, but I certainly have students who are usually very reticent readers very excited about reading now!

Watch Room 24 enjoying the Crazy Professor Reading Game:

Video removed.

For more info on Power Teaching, see my earlier post, or go to the website where there are heaps
of free downloads, resources and videos.

Reading Rocks!

Teaching kids to read is not that hard. Most of my pupils have learned to decode, and read with fluency, and some can even entertain you with wonderful expression. Teaching them to read with comprehension, however, is a different matter. At our school we found that a great number of children tested very low on understanding of reading material. We used AsTTle assessment tests, and an alarming 84% of my pupils were unable to infer or make connections!

This term I have used some amazing tools, online and 'manual' to support me in my teaching of comprehension strategies.

• Our school has adopted the First Steps program. This staff development program comes with comprehensive manuals and great resources. The trainers are professional, experienced and inspirational. The resource books include heaps of fun teaching ideas, games and guidelines. Unfortunately, the program is not online or interactive, but still a fantastic teaching and planning resource. The program is in line with the new NZ curriculum, but I'm sure is adaptable to most international curriculums, and is being used world-wide.
  

• In our reading resource room, I came across a long-forgotten gem: SRA Reading Laboratory. I remember using it as a child, and I believe that my life-long love of reading can be directly attributed to this program. Although our set is a bit out-dated, it's still relevant and interesting for my pupils. How do I know? Well, they love it. I haven't seen kids so enthusiastic about written comprehension tests for ages. Even the boys have taken to the self-evaluating 'Power Builders', and work independantly and steadily, with very little motivation from me.
  

• My all-time favourite online tool this term has been Into the Book. I have downloaded beautiful posters, songs and worksheets from the Teacher's Area. The Student's area is colourful, interactive and exactly on the right level for my Year 5's. The kids love the songs and we have been using the videos each week on the Smartboard as a whole class activity to introduce the strategy of the week. There are usually 3 or 4 interactive lessons to support each strategy, so I've been using them as follow-ups during our daily warm-up lesson before we break into groups. They focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing. Your class can watch their engaging 15-minute videos, and try the online interactive activities.

• Another favourite website is Busy Teacher's Cafe. This cute website is jam-packed with teacher-friendly tools. It has a special area for Language Arts, with links to a variety of great resources.
  

• If you haven't found Woodlands Junior School's website yet, check it out now. This award-winning British school site is fantastic! Although the interface is a bit staid, and not as flashy as some sites, it is not only super for Literacy, but also really useful for Maths and other learning areas. They have a link to some very handy comprehension tests, which are great for kids to do in their literacy computer time.
  

• For excellent, colourful posters on Reading Comprehension strategies, try the Santa-Maria Bonita Schools website. I have downloaded and laminated these posters, and am filing them in a ring-binder for use with guided reading lessons.

Once more, this resource fits in well with all the others I have been using, so there is some continuity in my teaching and my planning is so much easier.

• For loads more links check out the comprehension tag on my Del.icio.us bookmarks!

I have really enjoyed teaching Guided Reading this term. Best of all though, my students have enjoyed, and looked forward to learning these strategies. It's such a thrill to see their eyes light up when they realize that they've made 'a text-to-world connection' or say 'I used my visualising strategies, Mrs T'. See more of our class in our class blog, Sparkle24.

In Room 24 we all agree: Reading Rocks!

Blog Makeover

I've been blogging now for a little longer than 8 months, and I'm absolutely hooked! I started out, not really knowing what it was all about. My first few posts were, well to say the least, mundane!

Now that I actually get it, and have started making some friends in the blogosphere, and actually get comments occasionally - I thought it might be time for a makeover. I've changed the name of this blog, too. (Derek may get away with having his own name in his blog name, being so well known, but now that I know better, I'll stick to a name that actually explains what my blog is about!)


I found these Ten Tips on writing a good blog by Darren Rowse:

Here are his ten tips:

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords

That doesn't seem too hard to do! Anyone have more tips for improving my blog?

I'ld rather be a Digital Pioneer!

In answer to the Learning Circuits Blog's May 2008 Big Question.

I've only been on the blogosphere since last year. One debate that I keep coming across, is the Digital Native / Digital Immigrant one.

According to those in the know, the Digital Native's are users that automatically and intuitively use new technology. Digital Immigrants are starting to use the technology, but seem to keep reverting to hard copies and tried and trusted methods for finding information / communication and collaboration.

Where do I fit in? I'm not that young anymore, and didn't grow up with computers, but I have been around them since the advent of Windows 3.1. I still believe that my students should know some facts and have some general knowledge. I still drill their Times Tables into them. (Yes, yes, I know, it's sooo old-fashioned - but I do use online interactive activities to do it!)

I'm not an expert at anything, really. It keeps changing too fast. I dabble in blogging, create a podcast here, try my hand at Voicethread and RSS feeds, there.

What I do find, is that a lot of the stuff I'm trying and introducing, is new to my students. I'm leading my students into unchartered territory. They trust my leadership. To them, I am the one that tests the waters; I tread unknown paths before I let them try; I lead the way to safe learning. My next years' students will probably find the projects I've done this year ''old hat". But I think of it this way: Together we will be on a new adventure in new technology highways, that do not even exist yet!

Do I need to change the way I teach? Yes and No. Change is inevitable in some ways. The resources may have changed. I see computer technology as a tool, and not as a pedagogy. Learning has not changed, though. My students still need structured tasks. I will still be choosing appropriate learning areas, asking open-ended questions, keeping my students engaged and interested with whatever resources I can find. The classroom may have glass walls. We may be part of a global community. But we still want to optimize learning, just as we always have.

One thing I am certain of. Together we will have Digital adventures. Together we will navigate new lands. My students and I are Digital Pioneers!

Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.

Image: http://www.wmtps.org/eletech/w_crossingshalloww.jpg

Becoming a better Teacher!

Darren Drake writes the following in his blog:

Carl Glickman hits the nail on the head on one of the pages in his book entitled Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed. In my opinion, his message should be read and synthesized by every teacher worldwide.


He also provides a solution. "How do teaching and learning improve? The answer is no mystery. It’s as simple as this: I cannot improve my craft in isolation from others" (p. 4). "

• Glickman, C. (2002). Leadership for learning: How to help teachers succeed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
  

In reading this, I was inspired to start thinking about my own teaching career. I have been teaching for many, many years. Am I the best teacher I can be yet? Surely after all these years, I should know how to teach?

I remember a time when I thought I knew it all. I had been in the job for a handful of years, and had become quite secure in my knowledge that I was pretty good at what I was doing. During another successful appraisal, a man I still remember with warmth and respect, Gerhard Koen, told me that I knew just enough about teaching to think I knew something. I was pretty taken aback. What did he mean? "You will reach a point," he said, "when you will know enough to realize how little you know." Now, a lifetime later, I know what he meant. It has become true that the more I learn (about Teaching, about Learning, about Children, and definitely about ICT) the more I am aware that I still have so much to learn. I'll certainly be looking for Carl Glickman's book!

How to Encourage Effective Learning

We all know that effective learning occurs when...

• Student autonomy and initiative is accepted and encouraged
  
• Teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses
  
• Higher level thinking is encouraged
  
• Students engage in dialogue with teacher and each other
  
• Students engaged in experiences that challenge hypotheses
  
• Class uses raw data primary sources, physical and interactive materials
  
• Knowledge and ideas emerge only from a situation in which learners have to draw them out of experiences that have meaning and importance to them

Derek writes: "In my experience these are exactly the sorts of learning experiences that many of these emerging social web applications enable and encourage."

This brand-new state-of-the-art 21st Century pedagogy was first written about in....
1915 by John Dewey in his "Constructivist Pedagogy". Makes you think about how much progress we've made in the last 100 years in education, doesn't it?

These are my top ideas for using Web 2.0 tools in class, to encourage the type of learning experience John Dewey was dreaming of:

Tip #1
Class Blog: Use blogging software such as Edublogs or Blogger to create your class blog. In a Primary class, it works well to have one student log on username and password, and let them publish their best writing and pictures. I let my class look at our blog every morning just after we've done the roll, and the excitement is always great if we have a comment. The clustermap also lends itself to a quick Atlas search to find out who our readers are!

Tip #2
Class Wiki: I like to use Wetpaint. (You can ask for the ads to be removed, if it is an educational wiki. You can also use PBWiki. For me a wiki is the ideal showcase for students' work. You can create a page for each project, and students can add a page for themselves, on which to add their notes, links and work. Students can edit and comment on each other's pages, and you can have a discussion thread going. This is also something parents can access (but not edit, unless you let them.) My class wiki is still under construction, but it will be used as a sort of filing cabinet to store our work digitally.

Tip #3
Voicethread: This is something I've just learnt about, and I can't wait to try it out in class!

A Vision for 21st Century Learners

This video was created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate school leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.

Changing face of education

I recently had to give feedback to our staff about what I had learnt at ULearn 07. I spent some time thining about it, and together with the inspiration from the current K12 Online Conference, this is what I've learnt:

• The audience is no longer just the teacher, or even sharing with the class - the audience has become global. We will need to teach our students a whole new set of thinking and communication skills. They will have to speak, and write a standard of English which is globally acceptable and understandable. They will have to learn to respect the diversity of their audience. They will have to use words which convey their meaning and emotions without offending or putting themselves at risk. They will have to start thinking about what information they want to share, who their target audience is, and how to best present their ideas. Stuff we've been teaching them anyway.

• Our students will probably be earning their money doing a job that hasn't yet been invented. Very few - if any - of them will have routine, run-of-the-mill office jobs sitting in rows of desks with the same colleagues until they retire. They are unlikely to have a physical inbox and outbox, or go to work carrying a briefcase. Our students have to be prepared by us to work in a virtual office, be able to keep up with constant change, and communicate with anyone, anywhere to find information. Networking skills will be vital, as will creative communication skills.

• Our students no longer have to be taught masses of facts. Yes, basic Maths and grammar facts, and general knowledge is still important, but more important is to teach them where and how to find the information they are looking for. The old encyclopaedias on the bookshelf, even the dictionary and thesaurus will be gathering even more dust. They'll just source information on line. After all who of us are still using the Yellow Pages for anything else than a doorstop?

All the old teaching ideas need to be chucked out the door.

What? Just kidding:

None of the old teaching ideas need to be chuck out the door. All the good ideas we've alwyas had can still be used, just in a different and more exciting way. Here are some examples:

• Playing with plasticine or clay: Yep, they can still do it, only now they will use 'I can Animate', and create digital animation stories with our little characters. Imagine doing volcano's, and creating an eruption, or dinosaurs, and making them walk across the set. Students now have to do more research to figure out how the set will look, what the vegetation looked like, what the backdrop needs to look like. They will need to write a script, draw a story board and collaborate with their peers to put their plans in action.

• Dress up corner: My students love dressing up, and I have a whole corner of my class dedicated to dress up. At the cheap $ stores, I buy fancy hats, wings and other novelties and I add to our store every now and then. The students then take photos of each other wearing the fance dress. Sometimes they make up a character as they go along, Sometimes they depict a character from a book, depending on how I set the task. The photos are downloaded, and used to create comic stories. We use ComicLife. They have now learnt 'old' skills like retelling their story, or creating a story and new skills like digital photography, and publishing in graphic novel format.

• TV Broadcasts: One of my favourite ideas from my college years, was to paint a box like a TV and have the children deliver their news as a news broadcast. I have used this idea over the years with great success to get even the most reticent student to order their thinking, and deliver their story with confidence. Just think how exciting this idea will be if I chuck away the delapidated old cardboard TV and replace it with a real video machine, have them edit their broadcast and publish it in the form of a podcast!

More ideas in the next blog! Watch this space...

Get on the bus, guys!

It's easy to get frustrated with my colleagues, who just won't get on the eLearning bus, but I'll try not to!

As one of the ICT lead teachers, I've been blown away by the Web 2.0 tools. In my Year 3/4 class I have kids blogging, podcasting (well almost), creating comics, dressing up as book characters and publishing and editing their own digital photo's, and more. Today we are starting with digital animation. My students are eager to learn, are writing fun and entertaining scripts, are authors, editors and publishers. Isn't that what we want to teach? Some of the other teachers have got even more inspiring projects running. At my school we have wonderful resources, and everyone can easily integrate ICT into their lessons.

Yesterday we had feedback time about uLearn. Six of us had been there, and come back buzzing.

Our children are growing up in a new, exciting world. My teenagers at home contact their friends in South Africa every day. Cost free. One of them wouldn't eat with us last night, because he didn't want to let 'Morgan' down, who was gaming with him out of Montreal.
Our students will be needing more than the knowledge of 'the bonds of 10' and '20 words with -ing'. They will have to survive and earn money in the global community.

Come on, teachers. Get on the bus!

To blog, or not to blog?

I overheard someone saying that to blog, was a bit like 'blowing your own horn'. Well, maybe it is, but maybe the bloggers out there just love writing. Or talking. Or sharing their thoughts.

Why does it appeal to me? Is it just that I like the 'sound' of my own voice. Or do I have something worthwhile to say? Or is it just the flavour of the month? I honestly don't know. But I'm loving it. It gives me a reason to write. A reason to share my thoughts. And I might just get some communication from out there, which will expand my world!

uLearn '07 - I'm sure learning!

I'm lucky enough to have been given the opportunity to attend the uLearn conference in Auckland this week (during my non-contact time - previously called 'holidays'.) WOW! What a load of mind-blowing ideas! I've seen (and been able to try out my own) podcasting, and got to grips with Garageband. I learnt how to create an animation using I can animate..., and had a look at the easy ComicLife. Today I'll be attending breakouts on more interesting topics. The best thing of all is that the presenters are mainly teachers themselves, which meangs they are not sitting in their thrones sprouting vague grandiose ideas, but are giving us hands on ideas. My was of teaching, but most of all my attitude to my students' learning, has certainly been changed!