A little video I made showing my understanding of how new technologies have made our world a smaller place and how this impacts the role of both the teacher and education.

I came across this article today from the BBC.

What astounded me was this fact from the article:

There are just around 45 million internet users as compared to over 370 million mobile subscribers. 

Voters are being targeted via their mobiles with ring tones, text messages and wallpapers for their phone!  Bluetooth kiosks are in prominent locations to push similar media to people’s mobile devices.

“Sunil Rajshekhar, the chief operating office of Times Internet Ltd ,says they have developed special election packages which can be subscribed for as little as 30 rupees ($0.60, 40p) a month.

Subscribes will receive details of candidates, poll trivia, party meetings, election rallies and dates of voting.”

Just thought I would post some images of the edupov equipment and details about how you can get hold of your very own set!

You can buy them online from the edupov store

Product Description

Glasses contain;

- Polarized lens - camera

- Easy to use

- Built in 2GB memory with 2GB expansion micro SD extension ( optional )

- Combination charge / USB download cable

- Up to 5 hours recording time

- Up to 6 hours recording time - log battery life

- USB easy connection to PC / laptop with no software required

- Real (live) time recording

- Lightweight design - weighs just 39 grams

- Records in 3GP format - software provided to enable file conversion to MP4 and other formats.

- 12 months manufacturers warranty - one-for-one return, user pays postage.

Tags: EDUPOV

My EDU POV glasses arrived last Tuesday!!!

They look great!  I haven’t had a chance to use them with teachers yet but I have talked to quite a few teachers who are keen to trial them with their classes.

The glasses look like a pair of black sunglasses… but there is a tiny wee webcam mounted in the bridge over the nose.  On one of the arms is a small control panel with an on/off and record button.  The glasses record both audio and sound and have 2 GB memory into which you can plug a USB cable.  You can also insert a tiny MicroSD card and save directly to this if you wish.
These are some of the ides I have discussed with teachers about potential ways for using these in the secondary classroom:

Within the science classroom the opportunities are amazing; The glasses could be used both by teachers and students for recording experiments as they are conducted - leaving hands free to perform the task.

I can see in the future that being able to project the image as it is being recorded would be of huge benefit in the classroom.

These glasses could be incredible time savers for coaches of sports teams as well as collecting valuable information that might otherwise be missed or forgotten.  They would be able to keep their eye on what is happening on the field, whilst keeping a running commentary of what they are seeing and thinking throughout the game.

I can see the potential for these glasses in administering assessment in practical subjects.

I have also just been talking to a secondary school Metal Work teacher who is very keen to use these within his classroom, so as he can record the demonstrations he is doing and loop them on the big screen for students to refer to throughout the lesson!  The opportunities are endless and I look forward to sharing some of the videos here as soon as I get my hands on them!

In June this year I am heading off to Sydney as the international guest speaker at AUPOV.

AUPOV is;  the “inaugural networked technologies event showcasing the use of point-of-view technologies in educational organisations and related workplace training industries.”

Over the next term I will be trialling a brand new POV technology with some of the teachers I am working with.

EDUPOV1

One of the best things about my job this year is that I am able to work with so many different teachers across such a wide range of the curriculum.  While most of my work is supporting secondary school teachers to develop strategies for eLearning, I am also lecturing a first year Media Studies paper and continuing to present the findings of my research, and ideas for eLearning in the classroom at both curriculum based conferences and ICT or eLearning specific conferences; and, I am still studying towards my Masters in Education…

So… I have lots of educational contexts in which to trial this new technology.  At the moment the areas I am specifically keen to explore are Learning Support, Science and Physical Education… watch this space!

The report is available as a PDF for anyone who is interested.

Toni Twiss - Ubiquitous Information

Well…

My report is finished - to final proof-reading stage anyway and I am feeling good! I thought I would pop my abstract up here for people to have a look at… The report will be made available through the efellows website in the next few weeks and no doubt I will pop a copy up on this website too.

Ubiquitous Information

An eFellow report on the use of mobile phones in classrooms to foster information literacy skills

Abstract

The technological capabilities of mobile technology such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are developing at a furious pace. These incredibly advanced pieces of hardware are available readily and for most as must have consumer items, particularly amongst our youth – genY, the iPod generation, the “prod-users”. This technology has seen a fundamental change in this generation from those before. These students are always connected and always available.

This report considers the impact ‘anytime’ access to information via access to the mobile internet will have on teaching and learning in the future. It explores the potential applications for mobile phones in the classroom and the skills that our students will need in order to cope with the mass of information on-demand that is available to them.

The research conducted for the purpose of this report involved a class set of 30 3G mobile phones being made available for a single unit of work by three different classes; a Year 12 Media Studies, Year 9 Social Studies and a general Year 8 class. Each unit of work ran for approximately 5-7 weeks. The teachers involved in the study were given support to learn how to use various functions of the mobile phones and to plan their unit of work.

The findings of this report indicate the following:

• applications and tools available for use via a mobile phone, including access to the world wide web, have a great deal of potential for use in schools. Currently cost of data is the single biggest factor in limiting this use.

• while as teachers we are constantly being told our students are ‘digital natives’, many of our students are not as au fait with technology as teachers are led to believe. Students are being labelled the ‘net-gen’ and teachers who have been told that they are ‘digital immigrants’ often do not see that the skills they believe their students to have are not always present. While students may seem very ‘tech savvy’ they still need to be taught the skills to deal with the world that their use of technology gives them access to, namely the world wide web and information overload.

• key factors identified by secondary school teachers as impacting their ability to teach information literacy included limited access to resources (particularly technologies for accessing the world wide web), access to professional development and the impact of timetabling leading to a highly segmented curriculum.

Tags: education, information literacy, learning, mobile phones, professional development, Research

I haven’t posted for a while - well ages - largely due to the fact my report is nearly due - and I have been spending every waking moment trying to put that together

But I digress…

Just in the nick of time, (the report is due next week and I am just putting the finishing touches on it now) VodafoneNZ has conducted a survey of New Zealand’s mobile phone habits… I haven’t got a copy of the actual survey findings, but here is a summary gleaned from the NZ Herald article which you can read here.

So, are we addicted to texting??? I know I’m not … but my students???!!!! The results of the survey definitely point to a social shift to which mobile phone use in general (but particularly texting) has contributed.

For those of you reading from afar, NZ has a population of just over 4 million…

New Zealanders send at least 600 million text messages a month

Calls to mobiles or text messages were the preferred way to keep in touch with friends. (73.8%)

Email 14.2% and social networking sites 4.7% were the preferred method of contact over calling someone on the landline 3.1%! (which I can agree with the only people who ring our landline are my parents and Darren’s parents… and yet we still have a landline?? I guess we need it for interweb anyway…

Although when I first met my husband (in 1999) I had a mobile (well a brick that needed to be charged every 36 hours) I don’t think texting had been invented! Therefore, I have been completely immune from having to add another complication to the whole dating/meeting people scene. However, 44.2% of people surveyed said that they had asked for a date via text! Interestingly, 20% of people had caught someone cheating through checking their text messages (is it just me or is that a lot of people cheating?) (oh and is it also just me or is it that a lot of DUMB people cheating?) Once again - I digress….

There is definitely a whole new culture being developed around the social norms to do with the way we communicate with others which I find fascinating. Things that I personally have noticed in my own use is that I use email to contact ‘contacts’ or work colleagues but social networking sites (facebook) to contact friends. I don’t like it when colleagues (who aren’t also my friends) want to join me on Facebook but interestingly I hate it even more when friends try to follow me on the social networking sites in which I do all of my work type networking.  The two are distinct groups (although there are a few people who do cross in to both groups which is also nice!).  I think it is interesting how different online spaces seem to have such distinct unwritten rules that we follow (or that I seem to!) and because this space is all so new we are writing them as we go.

Funny little facts that seemed to keep coming through from the students I spoke to throughout the year… there was a general feeling that it was considered rude to call someone with out texting to check they were free first. Some students also talked about the awkwardness of talking on the phone and not knowing what to say or having silent pauses - texting gave them the opportunity to think about what they actually wanted to say and respond in their own time… But when asked what they actually texted about - most said they were generally texting about nothing in particular!

After somewhat of a rather chatty post, I think I have managed to find statistics AND my own personal evidence to go some way to explaining the way that technology is changing the way we communicate with each other.

Is change a bad thing? Nah - get over it… something really interesting that I once read (and I can’t remember where I read it now) was the suggestion that the invention of the household freezer impacted communities in the most profound way in the 20th century as no longer did people have to share food amongst the community as they had too much and had no way of keeping it, they could take care of themselves and their family’s own requirements and did not need to connect with others in the same way. It is an interesting idea.

To me, while the WAY we are communicating is different, the thing that I think is so exciting is that we are communicating so much more! Via social networking sites I am talking on a weekly basis with people who I had otherwise lost touch with, through sending informal text messages you can chat to people without committing to an in-depth phone conversation which often you never get round to, and through email you can keep so many more people up to date with what you are doing through group email.

What do you think???!!!

Tags: , communication, social networking, statistics, texting, Vodafone

Will Richardson began the keynote by articulating his vision for the future.

Our students can create and grow their own personal learning networks.

The power of this comes from putting educators in to powerful learning communities.

Sheryl followed up by saying that in her experience, that in NZ, we as educators have a really good understanding of community and personalisation.

I personally found this keynote reinforced the time and effort I have put in to developing my on-line presence and the importance of building my personal learning network (my PLN).I am involved in connecting with teachers and developing my own network, I participate and learn from events like K12 Online, so it was really cool to hear from the people whom I follow and whose knowledge I draw on. For me, this keynote was very real and engaging because these speakers were talking a language that I not only understand, but live through the networks I have built and continue to build.

How can we help kids to become literate? (technology)

Will points out that at the moment our kids are sharing often inappropriate ’stuff’ ie. through bebo. Our kids in the future are going to be extremely ‘Googleable’. What are we doing for the kids in our schools to prepare them for this future. He asks, how are we teaching them to share ‘well’? Are we preparing them to live in these networks? We want our kids to be ‘clickable’ but we have to teach our kids to do this well?

I really liked the way Sheryl clearly explained the difference between Communities of Practice and Networks. For me, it really clarified the NEED to not just waffle along in our networks - but to have a shared goal and ACT ON IT!

Online communities for teachers provide a “Safety net that builds bold and creative teachers”. Will Richardson

What is a community?

It is a group of people with a shared interest who connect.

Communities of practice are people who work together to improve in a specific area. In Communities of Practice, co-construction is key. A feature of communities is that they build and grow. Sheryl points out that at the beginning you may have a leader driving the community but in time, this will progress to being totally co-constructed and driven by the community. Effective communities become self-regulated, user-owned and they have a clear purpose.

Communities of practice have benefits over and are quite different to a network. In order to create Communities of Practice we need to:

Share the work we do - connect.

Cooperate with sharing

Collaborate

ACT collaboratively for change. MOVE on making that change.

Sharing online is really easy and is the factor that is able to make these communities and networks really work.

Will Richardson addresses the question

How do connections build communities?

When people have a presence, they are clickable and online - people help you to ‘connect the dots’. It is really important to continue to discuss and share and post. The community shares within their walls, but it is important for individuals to go back to the network and share and bring this back to the community.

I think that the message came through loud and clear at the end of this keynote.
The world is changing and we are doing a disservice to our students by not adapting and effecting change in our classrooms.
Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach