Exciting times. Today was the first opportunity for one of our Year 3 s to Skype into a higher class for Maths. He is 8 and working at stage 5 nearly stage 6 of the New Zealand NUMP (maths) programme. Through the power of skypetalkandwrite he was able to participate at his academic level.
He was so excited about this and it had such a profound effect on him that he reported to his teacher: ”I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.”
It is so rewarding when you impact on a child’s education in this manner. I felt honoured to play my small part. Look out for commen ts by the teachers involved.
Miguel Guhlin invited me into a Skype call he was having this afternoon (night- his time) with a guy called 
Kevin. As I was brought up to date with what the conversation was about, it intrigued me: Kevin is heading up a not-for-profit organisation which seeks to promote the education of young people about the native wildlife of
New Zealand. As the conversation progressed we debated the value of ‘broadcast’ method of presentation against establishing a wiki/ blog inviting interest and collaboration from teachers and students. Although his target audience was year 12/13 I could still see the remarkable possibilities of such a project for my year 3’s. Currently there is a website associated with the project and I hope it will give something of a flavour despite them being somewhat out-of-date as Kevin claimed.
If you have a moment, take a look, but look out for the sound effects, have your volume turned up nice and loud.
Kevin also manages www.cmag.org.nz
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.
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.
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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.
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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 21st Century learner.
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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.
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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.
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.
80 ummmms……. I can’t believe it 80. We I guess that’s what you get for feeding back on a session with a hard message. I think if I had visual aids. Skype Talk and Write up or some power-point, maybe I would have stuttered less….probably not. Talking to staff during a meeting is such a nerve-wracking experience for me. It’s worse than talking to strangers because they know how good/ or bad I really am. There is no getting past the fact that they know you so well- professionally.But I still stand by what I said. The delivery of ICT needs to be addressed in a meaningful way. The future of our kids depends on it now more than ever. I have begun, in fact it goes live with my kids in two weeks, a wikispace for year 3/4 (7/8 year olds). Its entitled wikidspace. There is not much there at present but hopefully it will grow with the help of my kids and dragonsinger’s class. If you want to join just let me know.But I didn’t talk about that. Nor did I talk about www.skypetalkandwrite.wikispaces.com. Maybe I should ask teachingsagittarian to help out with a staff demo next week. Just for those willing to fane interest. I don’t know I’m kind of feeling I lost momentum with it all after today. (Gnash)
Just copied this off David Warlick’s site.(sorry David, if I could ping it I would)
From Three Bullet Dave, I would suggest:
- Economy — It’s global, constantly changing, and it increasingly relies on rich information skills.
- Our Customers — They are tech savvy, effective collaborators, who are accustomed to a rich, interactive, and dynamic information experience. They know how to play the information. They need to learn how to work the information.
- Our Schools — The very nature of information has changed. It is networked, digital, and overwhelming, and it can’t be contained in any folder, book, bookshelf, library, or school. How can we redesign schools (reinvent education) to address and harness this new shape of information?
It just got me thinking that the issues my school face are bigger than my school board- They are faced by educators and policy makers on a global scale
