IPod Touches
Following the Handheld Learning Conference in 2009, and the pensioning off of the EDAs the team bought a set of iPod Touches. Almost immediately my colleague who was setting them up discovered that the ports we needed to access the iTunes store were blocked – after all someone may want to buy music whilst in one of the educational establishments :-( The kit consisted of:
• Class set of 30 ipod Touch (8GB)
• Two Parasync docking stations (take up to 20 ipods each) in a ‘suitcase’
• One Mac Book for synchronisation
• One wireless router (Netgear) (is robust enough to allow 30 ipods onto Google Maps)
• A selection of apps
Eventually they were ready for use by children and they were loaned to a Year 5 class of a large primary school based in Witney, Oxfordshire. The Class teacher was fairly new to the school and was very keen to try new things. This teacher was willing to let the ipods be used as classroom learning tools as well as for directed tasks. The iPod Touches had general class tools loaded such as - dictionary, internet look-up, Quick Office linked to Dropbox, mental maths games as part of maths lessons, a copy of Dragon story as a literacy text and the use of Google Maps for Local Study project.
Class Teacher
“When the iPods arrived, the children were so excited. We played and explored the apps downloaded. The children have now got used to them and use them to help their learning. They use the thesaurus and dictionary in literacy. In geography we looked at map work which was great to plan a journey using google maps. In literacy we created a Martian and then wrote a Description. The children use their iPods as they would pick up a pencil and it is not very often they are not available.”
“The parents are very keen and have embraced the experienced. A parent said she liked the fact that the children were able to work at their own abilities in the lessons. The children's favourite apps are spelling bee, hangman and touch pets. We have used the books for guided Reading. The only disadvantage is that if things go wrong (which does happen with ICT!) and sometimes when looking at images or paintings the screen is too small... Now if they made one with a bigger screen - now you’re talking!
LOL
For more information on the apps and a video clip see our project page http://occprojects.buzzinged.org.uk/OCCProjects/iPod_Touch.html
Saturday, 2 April 2011
mLearning History - setting the scene 1
Hand-held Learning and Game-based Learning
Our first Venture 2008
For a couple of years at Oxfordshire County Council the ICT Curriculum Team’s has had an interest in mLearning or Handheld learning. After a wonderful conference presentation made for us by David Wiley from the Wolverhampton mLearning project we bought a class set of EDAs and a county loans scheme started.
The team bought a class set, a colleague set them up, installed software, he spent loads of time and work, it was not particularly easy. We, as a team, had a training day booked. The software we were intending to use was Wild Key http://www.wildknowledge.co.uk/ a really inspired program with various data bases that could be used to identify minibeasts, plants, seaside wildlife and vegetation, butterflies and more.
Our training day arrived. The router or something similar that was supposed to give us all wireless access out in the field arrived and we started out. I never did get connection, I kept breaking my EDA, it had to be re-streamed so many times it was unreal – eventually mine was used as a reserve machine for others that went wrong :-(
Four machines only connected to the wireless, but even then once those users identified a minibeast the GPS to feed back the information to the master database failed… we did not have a lot of luck.
However – the team all blamed me for breaking them ;-) and the trial went on! For some things the EDAs were very good - where they have a fixed wireless link they were fine, and where I was happy to use my iPac some people kept hold of, and used their EDA. A few schools has some success (one at least left them in the cupboard I found out recently!).
Eventually the EDAs got pensioned off to where they could be set up permanently at one of our outdoor education centres for which they are ideally suited.
For more information see http://occprojects.buzzinged.org.uk/OCCProjects/EDAs.html
Our first Venture 2008
For a couple of years at Oxfordshire County Council the ICT Curriculum Team’s has had an interest in mLearning or Handheld learning. After a wonderful conference presentation made for us by David Wiley from the Wolverhampton mLearning project we bought a class set of EDAs and a county loans scheme started.
The team bought a class set, a colleague set them up, installed software, he spent loads of time and work, it was not particularly easy. We, as a team, had a training day booked. The software we were intending to use was Wild Key http://www.wildknowledge.co.uk/ a really inspired program with various data bases that could be used to identify minibeasts, plants, seaside wildlife and vegetation, butterflies and more.
Our training day arrived. The router or something similar that was supposed to give us all wireless access out in the field arrived and we started out. I never did get connection, I kept breaking my EDA, it had to be re-streamed so many times it was unreal – eventually mine was used as a reserve machine for others that went wrong :-(
Four machines only connected to the wireless, but even then once those users identified a minibeast the GPS to feed back the information to the master database failed… we did not have a lot of luck.
However – the team all blamed me for breaking them ;-) and the trial went on! For some things the EDAs were very good - where they have a fixed wireless link they were fine, and where I was happy to use my iPac some people kept hold of, and used their EDA. A few schools has some success (one at least left them in the cupboard I found out recently!).
Eventually the EDAs got pensioned off to where they could be set up permanently at one of our outdoor education centres for which they are ideally suited.
For more information see http://occprojects.buzzinged.org.uk/OCCProjects/EDAs.html
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Teen Work
Last night I spent some time in Skoolaborate for the first time since it has moved onto the main grid. My login has only just been sorted! Skoolaborate teachers were invited to see the work that has been done by a group of teens. The students were there, ready and more than willing to show off their work and even though they were teens they were very childlike in the demands to looks at their poster next! They were anxious to talk about their work and their experiences. I was very moved by what I saw. On the surface it is a simple, but very well presented poster display, but the notecards given by the posters were very distressing and clearly were inspired by first hand experiences. After writing about their experiences the students had done research and suggested ways to cope and move forward.
Short quotations from the posters
SMACK!!!!
My mom once experienced domestic violence when she was married to my sister’s dad. She told me that one day she and my sister’s dad got in an argument. When he smacked her so hard that she started dripping blood from her nose. She was wearing glasses so they scraped her nose really hard.
If you’re Latino you won’t be able to get to college because you are going to drop out. That’s how people talk about us. They also call us wetbacks and lazy. They don’t think we deserve an education.
My grandfather died from drinking alcohol. I was 10 years old when my mom told me the story. I felt sad but at the same time mad. I know that alcohol is bad for everyone. I always wondered why he had to drink to his death.
So many people don’t even care about what they do to the earth. For example the factory that burns many things, the smoke is changing the weather. Ok, what about me? You? What are we doing to kill our planet?
It was a Saturday night. I knew something bad was going to happen. My dad was out with his friends drinking. I was with my sisters in the room when. All of a sudden, I heard, “BOOM!” the door closed real hard.
Smack!!!! My older sister got hit by her future husband. My sister started to cry. Her husband told her to stop crying. I got my little baby niece out of the room but I was too afraid to go in the room.
I have seen bald eagles and their tree’s have been cut down. And bald eagles build there nests in houses. Or in city lights around neighborhoods. Because there trees have been cut down and they have no homes.
The statistics for domestic violence and alcohol related problems where they live are horrifying. These are teens.... it is so sad that they have to live through these things :-(
Short quotations from the posters
SMACK!!!!
My mom once experienced domestic violence when she was married to my sister’s dad. She told me that one day she and my sister’s dad got in an argument. When he smacked her so hard that she started dripping blood from her nose. She was wearing glasses so they scraped her nose really hard.
If you’re Latino you won’t be able to get to college because you are going to drop out. That’s how people talk about us. They also call us wetbacks and lazy. They don’t think we deserve an education.
My grandfather died from drinking alcohol. I was 10 years old when my mom told me the story. I felt sad but at the same time mad. I know that alcohol is bad for everyone. I always wondered why he had to drink to his death.
So many people don’t even care about what they do to the earth. For example the factory that burns many things, the smoke is changing the weather. Ok, what about me? You? What are we doing to kill our planet?
It was a Saturday night. I knew something bad was going to happen. My dad was out with his friends drinking. I was with my sisters in the room when. All of a sudden, I heard, “BOOM!” the door closed real hard.
Smack!!!! My older sister got hit by her future husband. My sister started to cry. Her husband told her to stop crying. I got my little baby niece out of the room but I was too afraid to go in the room.
I have seen bald eagles and their tree’s have been cut down. And bald eagles build there nests in houses. Or in city lights around neighborhoods. Because there trees have been cut down and they have no homes.
The statistics for domestic violence and alcohol related problems where they live are horrifying. These are teens.... it is so sad that they have to live through these things :-(
Sunday, 27 March 2011
The 4th Virtual Round Table March 2011
The 4th Virtual Round Table 2011 has taken place this weekend with
• 5 plenaries/ panel discussions
• an Adobe ConnectPro and a Second Life strand
• 18 presentations
• 16 workshops
• a Pecha Kucha Night
• an Open Mic session
The Virtual Round Table is planned by Heike Philps, Shelly Terrell and Berni Wall and takes place in Adobe Connect and Second Life. It is a free, totally on-line conference for language teachers primarily, and a very inspiring event.
It has been a fantastic few days with some amazing presentations such as Barbara Sakamoto's Little Tech for Big Results, Janet Bianchini's Storytelling in a Digital Era, Tyson Seburn's Soundcloud for listening and writing practice and mLearning: an introduction - by Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly. There were masses of wonderful presentations for language teachers, but my interest is in the technology more than anything else.
I have to say that the Pecha kucha was quite amazing - I am still laughing at Marisa's event, it was without doubt the funniest presentation that I have seen. I don't know how she carried it off, she must have practiced for ages to do it without laughing but it was good. Recordings will be available soon!
The open mic night was somthing of a revelation too, Bernie has a lovely voice :-) Sue singing the VRT song was wonderful - I had only heard Heike's rendition before the event… it was good Heike - but don't give up the day job!
The party was fun - I think everyone was a bit exhausted by then but I have some lovely pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/24572238@N02/sets/72157626365999086/
For loads more information, wonderful photos and videos very soon keep an eye on http://www.virtual-round-table.com/
• 5 plenaries/ panel discussions
• an Adobe ConnectPro and a Second Life strand
• 18 presentations
• 16 workshops
• a Pecha Kucha Night
• an Open Mic session
The Virtual Round Table is planned by Heike Philps, Shelly Terrell and Berni Wall and takes place in Adobe Connect and Second Life. It is a free, totally on-line conference for language teachers primarily, and a very inspiring event.
It has been a fantastic few days with some amazing presentations such as Barbara Sakamoto's Little Tech for Big Results, Janet Bianchini's Storytelling in a Digital Era, Tyson Seburn's Soundcloud for listening and writing practice and mLearning: an introduction - by Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly. There were masses of wonderful presentations for language teachers, but my interest is in the technology more than anything else.
I have to say that the Pecha kucha was quite amazing - I am still laughing at Marisa's event, it was without doubt the funniest presentation that I have seen. I don't know how she carried it off, she must have practiced for ages to do it without laughing but it was good. Recordings will be available soon!
The open mic night was somthing of a revelation too, Bernie has a lovely voice :-) Sue singing the VRT song was wonderful - I had only heard Heike's rendition before the event… it was good Heike - but don't give up the day job!
The party was fun - I think everyone was a bit exhausted by then but I have some lovely pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/24572238@N02/sets/72157626365999086/
For loads more information, wonderful photos and videos very soon keep an eye on http://www.virtual-round-table.com/
The Naace Conference 2011
Well - back from the Naace conference for three days now and I have still not got to grips with my thoughts of the whole event. It was great seeing Sugata Mitra present, he has long been a hero of mine. Sometimes when one is looking forward to a preso it can be disappointing but in this case it was just wonderful. I was slightly worried, having seen You Tube videos of his talks that there would be nothing new but it was superb.
His new pedagogy - " I have no idea I am going now, see you in eight weeks," still has me giggling. His SOLE - Self organised learning environment - is a story to inspire. Some of the new things he added to this talk were about primary children answering GCSE questions in 20 minutes, the children in Hong Kong answering how an ipad knows where they are thus mastering trigonometry without even knowing what it is called and The Hyderabad Experiment where very strong accents were a problem to teaching English and students were not getting jobs. Sugata set up computers with speech to text software which did not understand the children's accents so returned rubbish, he told them that the software was fine they needed to make it understand, then he used his wonderful pedagogy when the children asked him what they had to do. When he returned he met a child and he asked how they had got on, apparently the child replied in perfect English "Fantastic." He queried the children to find that they had downloaded the Oxford Talking Dictionary and learned how to pronounce the words that they knew properly :-)
I loved Ollie Bray's session about gaming! There is so much information about the Consolarium and so many recordings of his sessions I will not attempt to write it up here - but it was inspiring!
Ewan Macintosh kicked off the conference reminding us why ICT needs to be taught in schools, tinkering with the curriculum is what ministers do but what they need to do is invest money into CPD!
There were so many inspiring talks and breakout sessions I can't begin to write it all out. The one session that I really enjoyed though was towards the close, it was Geoff Stead talking about
Mobile learning: Can smaller = more personal AND more effective?
From the programme:
"There is an amazing convergence point happening right now. After several years of creative, disruptive and technological tension there is an emerging consensus of how new and mobile technologies can add real and meaningful value to today’s learners.
This convergence is steering us towards opening schools up, allowing students to use a range personal devices and encouraging schools to adopt “collaborative project based” approaches to new technologies.
These solutions are by no means straightforward. “techno-hype” and “supplier enthusiasm” can quite often drown out the most important of lessons. Sometimes local problems can only be solved with local solutions whatever the global enthusiasts tell you.
Geoff will be challenging UK schools to look at lessons learned further afield. Post-school. In work. In health. In Africa. Across the globe. He will also be presenting a range of tools and ideas to support practitioners looking to adopt some of these emerging lessons."
Geoff started his talk with a video clip from You Tube showing how mobile devices can really help in times of crisis: http://www.mole-project.net/project-vision
He shared a site offering a collection of Research papers - having read a few there is some really interesting stuff here! http://www.mole-project.net/research. He did mention that there are some tools in the making - whether these are cross platform, useful for education or what I can't say, still waiting for an answer to an e-mail :(
Sadly this is now well out of date, it seems to have lurked in draft for two weeks - hmmm - some catching up to do!
It has been so long in the waiting all of the conference videos are on-line now - maybe only for Naace members though :-( www.naace.co.uk/conference2011 that seems a bit sad to me - it will hardly encourage membership!!
Also - nearly forgot with the passage of time :-) I receieved my Certified Naace Professional certificate after the gala dinner - quite an honour!
His new pedagogy - " I have no idea I am going now, see you in eight weeks," still has me giggling. His SOLE - Self organised learning environment - is a story to inspire. Some of the new things he added to this talk were about primary children answering GCSE questions in 20 minutes, the children in Hong Kong answering how an ipad knows where they are thus mastering trigonometry without even knowing what it is called and The Hyderabad Experiment where very strong accents were a problem to teaching English and students were not getting jobs. Sugata set up computers with speech to text software which did not understand the children's accents so returned rubbish, he told them that the software was fine they needed to make it understand, then he used his wonderful pedagogy when the children asked him what they had to do. When he returned he met a child and he asked how they had got on, apparently the child replied in perfect English "Fantastic." He queried the children to find that they had downloaded the Oxford Talking Dictionary and learned how to pronounce the words that they knew properly :-)
I loved Ollie Bray's session about gaming! There is so much information about the Consolarium and so many recordings of his sessions I will not attempt to write it up here - but it was inspiring!
Ewan Macintosh kicked off the conference reminding us why ICT needs to be taught in schools, tinkering with the curriculum is what ministers do but what they need to do is invest money into CPD!
There were so many inspiring talks and breakout sessions I can't begin to write it all out. The one session that I really enjoyed though was towards the close, it was Geoff Stead talking about
Mobile learning: Can smaller = more personal AND more effective?
From the programme:
"There is an amazing convergence point happening right now. After several years of creative, disruptive and technological tension there is an emerging consensus of how new and mobile technologies can add real and meaningful value to today’s learners.
This convergence is steering us towards opening schools up, allowing students to use a range personal devices and encouraging schools to adopt “collaborative project based” approaches to new technologies.
These solutions are by no means straightforward. “techno-hype” and “supplier enthusiasm” can quite often drown out the most important of lessons. Sometimes local problems can only be solved with local solutions whatever the global enthusiasts tell you.
Geoff will be challenging UK schools to look at lessons learned further afield. Post-school. In work. In health. In Africa. Across the globe. He will also be presenting a range of tools and ideas to support practitioners looking to adopt some of these emerging lessons."
Geoff started his talk with a video clip from You Tube showing how mobile devices can really help in times of crisis: http://www.mole-project.net/project-vision
He shared a site offering a collection of Research papers - having read a few there is some really interesting stuff here! http://www.mole-project.net/research. He did mention that there are some tools in the making - whether these are cross platform, useful for education or what I can't say, still waiting for an answer to an e-mail :(
Sadly this is now well out of date, it seems to have lurked in draft for two weeks - hmmm - some catching up to do!
It has been so long in the waiting all of the conference videos are on-line now - maybe only for Naace members though :-( www.naace.co.uk/conference2011 that seems a bit sad to me - it will hardly encourage membership!!
Also - nearly forgot with the passage of time :-) I receieved my Certified Naace Professional certificate after the gala dinner - quite an honour!
Saturday, 19 March 2011
A lovely Day
Well I guessed right but it did not go quite as planned, Andrew's work van broke down on the way back to work to drop it off so I had to get H out of bed early to go and tow him in :-) H got out of bed after only 3 hours sleep and dressed - jeans and t shirt - ready to tow a van in! This is significant - when they got back we had a houseful and he did not change, now does not like the photos :-(
Clem arrived in their car with the meat which we got started, Pete and Helen rushed over as soon as they heard to get the veggies all prepped, by the time Andy got here it was as if he had started on time :-) This is good - Andy is a little stressed just now as trying to stop smoking!
Sadly three of the family could not get to us due to work but 14 of us sat down to dinner about 2pm; our best man and his wife, lifelong friends, and the family. Everyone who walked into the house seemed to have an armful of food! They had it planned down to the last fine detail. Andrew phoned Helen last night realising he had boobed saying that no-one had told him mum didn't know..... doghouse for Andy ;-)
The sun shone, it was uncommonly hot for March and we spent some time outside with all of the family dogs!
I was presented with a huge pink box, I had already had to move it to lay the table and knew it was a light as a feather :-) Inside was a helium filled balloon with two tickets for a hot air balloon flight attached to the ribbon, on the 9th April we are going hot air ballooning - our present :-)
The day has been quite wonderful, a lovely surprise and celebration.
Clem arrived in their car with the meat which we got started, Pete and Helen rushed over as soon as they heard to get the veggies all prepped, by the time Andy got here it was as if he had started on time :-) This is good - Andy is a little stressed just now as trying to stop smoking!
Sadly three of the family could not get to us due to work but 14 of us sat down to dinner about 2pm; our best man and his wife, lifelong friends, and the family. Everyone who walked into the house seemed to have an armful of food! They had it planned down to the last fine detail. Andrew phoned Helen last night realising he had boobed saying that no-one had told him mum didn't know..... doghouse for Andy ;-)
The sun shone, it was uncommonly hot for March and we spent some time outside with all of the family dogs!
I was presented with a huge pink box, I had already had to move it to lay the table and knew it was a light as a feather :-) Inside was a helium filled balloon with two tickets for a hot air balloon flight attached to the ribbon, on the 9th April we are going hot air ballooning - our present :-)
The day has been quite wonderful, a lovely surprise and celebration.
The Cat's out of the Bag
Had a phone-call from one of my sons last night - "Mum there is an accident on the A34 - I am stuck behind it, need to get to Woodstock and Chippy to deliver can you see if you can find a route for me?"
So - I start to open maps and road news pages to see what is going on an where and Andrew keeps chatting….
"Clem and I will be over quite early tomorrow…"
Fine I say, but Phill and Vicky usually come mid - morning (his twin and twin's wife whose son's birthday it was in the week - me thinking they wanted to see Woody for his birthday!)
Andrew - Oh is it Woody's birthday?
Me - beginning to get puzzled - Yes it was Wednesday! Also your dad will not get to bed until 5.30am so he will not be up until about 10-30…
Andrew - but Helen (his sister) said we have to sit down at 2.30 and I need to get the meat on…
Ahhhh - suddenly these oddments come together and he has let the cat out of the bag. It is our 30th wedding anniversary on Monday and the family are clearly planning a huge family gathering today - Andrew is cooking - I can understand their choice, he is an excellent cook, it will be like Christmas again :-)
So I have done the house, am dressed in better than usual Saturday jeans and t shirt - just waiting to see what unfolds :-)
So - I start to open maps and road news pages to see what is going on an where and Andrew keeps chatting….
"Clem and I will be over quite early tomorrow…"
Fine I say, but Phill and Vicky usually come mid - morning (his twin and twin's wife whose son's birthday it was in the week - me thinking they wanted to see Woody for his birthday!)
Andrew - Oh is it Woody's birthday?
Me - beginning to get puzzled - Yes it was Wednesday! Also your dad will not get to bed until 5.30am so he will not be up until about 10-30…
Andrew - but Helen (his sister) said we have to sit down at 2.30 and I need to get the meat on…
Ahhhh - suddenly these oddments come together and he has let the cat out of the bag. It is our 30th wedding anniversary on Monday and the family are clearly planning a huge family gathering today - Andrew is cooking - I can understand their choice, he is an excellent cook, it will be like Christmas again :-)
So I have done the house, am dressed in better than usual Saturday jeans and t shirt - just waiting to see what unfolds :-)
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