Educating the Dragon

Well it’s just hit midnight and I’ve finished a Skype IM with Miguel Guhlin. He managed to ‘talk’ me through converting my .wmv file to a .avi probably with his eyes popping out. Poor guy, sorry to keep you up so late.

Here are the couple of programmes he advised me on:

http://www.ipod-video-converter.org/free-ipod-video-converter.exe

http://www.effectmatrix.com/total-video-converter

Little old me, my video being played in
San Antonio…. Kind of gives me goose bumps. (That is if Miguel Guhlin will forgive me for spelling his name wrong on the Blogroll- How embarrassing)

Something else I learnt tonight, how to send a file through Skype. Above the IM messages is a toolbar, the second from the left reads ‘send file’ it’ll let you browse and then once you click away it goes. Easy.

The last thing it got me thinking about was my Skype name. what’s the point of having a name which noone can recognise. Therefore I have changed my Skype name to Dragon09 which some people may recognise, it’s makes a little more sense at least.

It’s interesting how quickly kids can get ’switched on’ My digital classroom now has 3 networked computers that have internet access, a stand-alone computer waiting to be wired and now my IWB has the addition of a wireless keyboard.

That wireless keyboard just flicked a switch in Gunit. He loves it. There is a mouse pad on the side which he can now work better than me.

“Can I, can I, can I” is now his mantra. He loves gonig on the wikidspace, just so long  as he can do it using the wireless keyboard.

“I like the keyboard because it has two left moyse keys and it is not like a normal keyboard because on a laptop you use your fingers but on this one you use your thumb.”

The digital classroom enthuses the previously unenthusable. I am not even having to use it as a carrot at this point he just loves it. A big thank you to Sitech required I think for all the cool gear.

Here is my response to Vicki’s question ‘Why teach technology?’ It’s my first go at uploading to Teachertube. Technology teaching is the equipping of students today for the environment tomorrow. Yes, the future is unclear but if they leave us armed with the tools, shortcuts, and critical thinking skills then they will be prepared for a lifetime of learning and change.

Ps. I wish someone would teach me how to embed vodcast and podcast into my blog. I look like such a newbie, but I just can’t figure it out.

Picked this up from Vicki.

Makes you think. next time I talk to the staff about ICT curriculum and direction may begin or end with this.

Technology Fear Factor in Education

Well I’m sorry if I’ve seemed a bit down, or distracted over the past couple of entries. I’ve felt that my head was about to explode. Many of the things that are going on are at several different levels.

• I have to talk to my Principal shortly about a survey I plan to run, school-wide, as a response to my talk to the staff the other week. It is my intension to gauge from this survey how ‘connected’ the Net-Gen kids we have really are. I’m hoping that the results from that will impact directly on the direction technology goes within my school.

• I’ve been looking at the policy for Technology in our school of late and I come to the realisation that even though it is an excellent ‘over-arching’ document, robust enough to sustain the Inspectorate eye, there needs to be some sort of supportive documentation to help the X-Gen implement a curriculum for the 21^st Century learner.

• I have skypetalkandwrite that needs facilitation and development. There are several teachers within my school that appear enthusiastic about Talk & Write to give it a go and will need introductions to other users around NZ. Fortunately Voyagers has kindly volunteered to do some collaborative work next term and my class are excited about that. Chrissy and I will be continuing our mentoring work this year, starting in earnest Term2.

• I have begun www.wikidspace.wikispaces.com with a view to other classes around the country (world?) that are working with Year 2/3/4 children (aged 6 to 8) signing up and contributing. I have dragonsinger already signed up from RaumatiBeach. The site is intended to give younger children an opportunity to learn the value of a wiki, showcase their work and begin to work collaboratively.

• Then there is the development of my PRS project, which is a personal response system developed by Interwrite.

• I have to complete the set up of my classroom HUB or most of this work will need revising.

All in all, I’ve begun to feel a little overwhelmed. But I have to say a big thank you to Chrissy and Jenny for today. You really fired me back up and helped me get things into perspective, I don’t know what I’d do without you. And to Garry too, form Sitech. You really know how look after your people.