Educating the Dragon

In my presentation on SkypeTalkandWrite I spent very little time talking about the background to its use in the classroom. 

Skypetalkandwrite is a synchronous conferencing tool. In this book David Jonassen talks about ‘How..synchronous conferencing can be used as a mindtool.’ 

These tools are not new, back in the day there were MOOs,  MUSEs, MUSHs, MUDs some or all of these are still in use in various forms.  

Neither is skypetalkandwrite unique Microsoft Netmeeting,  CUseeME are two other examples on synchronous conferencing being used today and I’m sure there are others. 

What I’d like to focus on here is the value of the real-time communication which enables learners to become discursive members of a wider community.  As with any level of real time conversation it is important to ensure it stays on track. There is a fine line here to consider, with synchronous conferences being in nature social it is important to establish, and maintain, the purpose of the discourse to avoid the quality of conversation spiralling downwards.One of the key ways to do this is offer purposeful conversation, students require a project to engage with, an issue to debate or a problem to resolve. It is often helpful for students to share a workspace on line, it is good for then to see a product of their labours. This is where the ‘object’- the shared whiteboard provided by the TalkandWrite software comes in, it focuses the students attention on the project at had. Without a shared ‘object’ conversation can deteriorate very quickly (just like a real classroom)  

The single most powerful aspect of a synchronous conference is the immediacy. ‘Live interactions produce more motivation to contribute’ 

There are other applications out there, Web 2.0 is full of synchronous and asynchronous tools. I guess it’s what drives the social networking, the picking and choosing of applications to meet your communication needs. As I type this I was engaged in a conversation with Amanda about this very subject and I started out hoping to support my presentation with some theory but never mind. This is how I conversation went: 

Dragon09 says: Am writing a post about synchronous conferences…. any thoughts? 

Amanda says: i.e. k12 online chats?

Dragon09 says: yeah true…Skype too

Amanda says: or what Ewan talks about in his blog about being able to respond while he gives his keynote?

Dragon09 says: Sort of, but I think that is technically asynchronous cos you don’t need to be on at the same time like we are now

Amanda says: ah yes you would be right in that

Dragon09 says: Twitters an interesting one, its kinda both.. if you think about our ERO twitters yesterday, hours apart, but if you catch people on at the same time it can be…synchronous

Amanda says: definitely

Amanda says: I think that they synchronous element is important in a conference I went to Ulearn last year but didn’t have the contact other than the people i went to school with and some people i met. But after I met you and begun to have more contact with people within the conference via twitters it changed the dimension of the conference. It changed from being me thoughts between the speaker and myself to the possibility of having other peoples opinions i.e. the Helen Baxter presentation and the twitters and examples that were given in rebuttal or agreement with her presentation It meant that I was questioning and thinking during the keynote to a higher dimension than if I was just sitting there listening to HER. Make sense?

Here are few links for my presentation at Emmanual College in a couple of days:

I must confess this is more for me than anyone else.

My class’s thoughts on PRS

Talk and Write presentation

I blogged about it ages ago, Vicki Davies commented and David Warlick showed interest too.

It finally happened, in little old
Flaxmere, New Zealand. The Kid’s Conference.

Kimi Ora, Flaxmere Primary,
Iron Gate and Peterhead came together to showcase what they have been doing with ICT over the past couple of months. We had groups of children demonstrating how Google SketchUp, Art Rage and PowerPoint worked, we had some working with a green screen and my kids showed off their Talk and Write work with Taradale Intermediate School.

What a buzz, kids sharing with kids, teaching each other and enthusing about the possibilities of these applications and tools.

Sitech were on hand to add their input into proceedings and provided additional hardware so thanks for that Kevin.

But it was the kid presenters who really made the day. I was so proud of them all. There enthusiasm for it all practically brought tears to my eyes.

Just a thought from the day, part of a discussion I had with team members down there.

We were talking about how important it is that ALL levels of education jump on board with the new move to Web 2.0 otherwise I’ll enthuse my 7 year olds and get them thinking about broader contexts and incorporating technology use in their work but then they have a further 11 years of School 1.0 to have all that drained from them. Fortunately that is not happening in Flaxmere as the whole Cluster is part of the Sitech Champion Schools Programme, dedicated to teacher PD in the area of technology, so as teachers across the year levels become up-skilled our kids will continue to have those technology opportunities in their learning. (for other pictures from the conference click here)

I sense they are quite privileged in that regard. Are other areas in
New Zealand/ around the globe experiencing what we are in Flaxmere?

Peer mentoring continues in my class using Skype and Talk and Write. Below is picture of the work my Y3 did collaborating with an Intermediate in Napier.

I want to highlight, here the value of engaging the children with collaborative projects such as this.

Giving primary school children an opportunity to witness and experience for themselves the value of emerging Web 2.0 tools is hugely beneficial to their view of the world around them. Using the Internet in such dynamic ways also enables pupils to experience working in a way that will open possibilities for them in the future.

If my kids are thinking in a Web2.0 way now then when they ARE older and are given research projects and assignments then they are more likely to reach out across the internet to search for up-to-date information, expert opinion, and possible collaborative partners. Their thinking will be wider than popping down to the local library, asking mum or big sister for help, all of which have value but knowing that there is a wider knowledge base out there will broaden the scope and depth of their research and presentation.

Today was the day of Peter Holmes’ visit. Now Peter the teaching principal of Otford primary school, Otford being about a hour outside of Sydney as you can see in the picture. It is good to know that there ARE principals out there who ‘get it’. He shared a podcast with pictures that his year 5/6 kids have done, I want to encourage him to post it on Teachertube because it worth looking at. In fact it would be well worth viewing for classes around the world to follow the same format as his class, we could really get a comparision resouce going. Globally- How cool would that be?

I also hope that he gets a chance to share, by way of commenting here, some of the things he was able to glean from his time a Peterhead. All I’d like to say is a huge thank you to Chrissy for her tireless work today and inputting into our discussions about Technology in school today. As always your contribution is invaluable and I appreciate you getting yourself into school for me today. Gush, gush.- And to Voyagers who sat beautifully through a chaotic session with my class today

Back to MY learning…. I am so grateful for what is essentially unlimited internet access for my class. The way my school is organised we have access to all online learning tools and we appreciated as professionals to make professional decisions about the online learning environment of our kids.
Australia, it would appear has huge limitations placed upon school access to the internet. Peter shared a great analogy with me today which illustrates to point beautifully:

“What happens when a couple of kids while playing in the part come across a discarded playboy magazine? Age dependent, obviously, (but we’re primary trained and so our minds think of our own kids in our class) the kids would probably flick through, have a giggle and, if we have brought them up right, either discard it or tell someone. Are we going to issue a blanket ban on kids going to the park on the off chance that they will stumble across a discarded magazine as they play? Of course not, neither should we blanket ban access to the internet, we should educate kids to discern for themselves what is appropriate and what is not, we’re in the business of education, let’s educate.”

Another discussion we had, or was part of the original one?… either way we were talking about the integration of technology in the classroom setting. Why use technology? We discussed how kids today do expect a educational experience to have ‘all the bells and whistles’ and how computers and their adages provide that level of engagement and interest that is required for the digital generation. Kids ‘powering down’ when they come to school may or may not be an overstatement but the reality remains that child level of engagement with technology at home, burning the CD, downloading the music, IM-ing their friends, needs to matched with the engagement on an educational level, the wiki, the blog, the digital story. Schools have access now to new technologies. Peter’s analogy was this:

“He found it interesting that we have a dishwasher in the staffroom, coming from a small 3 teacher school there is no need for one, but to think that if you had one and then expect someone to stand for 30 minutes, run a bowl of hot water and do them by hand is such a waste of a fabulous resource, of course, you’d use the dishwasher! To not would be dumb! So why are we as classroom teachers shying away from technology when its sitting right there, available to enrich, enhance and extend our kids learning?”

I learnt a lot from Peter’s visit. Much of it I am still processing and will be talking to my Principal and Senior management about where education sits with the flattening world.

Thanks Peter.