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

My class’s thoughts on PRS

Talk and Write presentation

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.

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.

Her class are 5 and 6 year olds, mine are 7 so the level of conversation, let alone collaborative input is somewhat limited.

So this is what we managed to establish in the 15 minutes of to-ing and fro-ing: its fine weather in
Hastings and its raining at Palmerston North.

To any meteorologist this is fascinating stuff; the prevailing Westerly winds, sweeping across the country increase in altitude as they rise above the Ruahine Range, dumping their watery load before descending upon the Heretaunga plains and sweeping dry air through
Hastings. Palmerston North lies to the south of theRuahine
Range and is not within the rain shadow just described.

To a 5/6/7 year old the observation is “Ahhh, that’s not fair, we’ve got wet play and you haven’t.”

Bring on skypetalkandwrite for the Mac is what I say, and then we can start recording this stuff in a more meaningful way.

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

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.

• 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.

What I’m proposing to do is a repeat of my presentation about Talk&Write. It’ll probably be more of a ‘a journey so far’. There is much to do in the months ahead. I’m looking forward to my children Skyping with Taradale and Taranaki and hopefully Palmerston North too. No international links thus far. Though If I could link with a school
Bangladesh, the States or anywhere really that’s appearing on my cluster-map. If you are either an educational professional or have a class of your own and would like to participate please just leave a comment and we can hook up and get the ball rolling and get this show on the road and kick start this thing into high gear….. (too many idioms).

Secondly I am presenting on the Interwrite PRS system. Looking at higher order thinking. I must remember that my kids are only 7…. The Personal Response System looks similar to a TV remote. Many a joke about ‘switching boys on’ but there I go with the idioms again. Using this response system enables the class to be much more involved and reduced the ability of some kids to duck away from thinking about let alone responding to a teachers question. If you have experience of using these things I’d love to here your thoughts, good or bad.

Anyway, that’s where I met Peter. He took particular interest in my skypetalkandwrite presentation, back when it consisted of a powerpoint, some smoke and mirrors. As a result of that we began a dialogue to start Skyping trans-Tasman. Which incidently is yet to begin. Me and my tangents, get on with it Simon.

The long and short of it is that he very kindly put my name forward to participate in the IWB conference on the Gold Coast. I had a good Skype with the organiser a gentleman by the name of Malcolm Lee. And I’m going. I need to get some more details, and there is still a lot to organise but he invited me to attend, and of course with it being the Gold Coast and all I had to think about it for a very long time!

So, thank you Malcolm, and thank you Peter for the introduction. And those of you who are possibly reading this because of the link on my site, Welcome to the conversation. Please comment and let me know who you are, where your from and I can pretend I’ve known you all my life when we arrive in August. You you blog about talk&write tag it skypetalkandwrite and it’ll get fed to the wikispace www.skypetalkandwrite.wikispace.com

I’m very excited about this trip, not least because it gives me an opportunity to expand my thinking about skypetalkandwrite and how it fits into the curriculum of a digial classroom. Plus how does that then assist a school looking at School 2.0.

The current list of people associated with the wiki is so far quite short, but given the opportunity to expand the children’s experiences beyond
New Zealand I hope will encourage others to give serious consideration to the use of Skype technologies in the classroom setting.