School 2.0 in SA

A lot of us have the problem that most web 2.0 tools, that can assist in learning and teaching, are blocked by our school/departmental firewalls. In the proccess of keeping systems safe, a lot of good learning is also being blocked in the process! So, we have started a debate on our wiki at http://saschools.wetpaint.com to see if we can motivate the realease and use of web 2.0 tools provided that we can adequately motivate the use of the tool in support of teaching and learning!

This morning my colleague has asked me to motivate the use of Twitter (and other tools) to be allowed through our firewall. With the help of my twitter network, I am planning to create a comprehensive motivational list to convince the “powers that be” to open up my favourite learning and sharing tool!

If you want to take part, read the listand

• Add your motivation by commenting
• Twitter it using the tag #twittermotivation or
  
• Reply to me @maggiev in twitter

So far we have:

• You can get instant Assistance and feedback, not only from your own network, but from a global constituency of practitioners in your field
• It can act as a way to stay up to date in your subject field (lifelong learner roll)
• It’s the ultimate resource for crowdsourced intelligence, opinions, and debate (from a twitter contact) (@woganmay)
  
• You can “learn over the shoulders” of experts and specialist in your field
• You can stay up to date on issues relating to your subject
• You get instant notifications of events, workshops and conferences in your field
• You are notified of the latest cutting edge resources and articles in your field

I am so glad to report that instead of me nagging teachers to start blogging, I have been getting a lot of requests to run a blogging workshop. So I have decided to run all my essential teacher toolkit tools as learning pathways /un-workshops online (We are all gatvol of workshops- if you want me to do a F2F workshop, book me for next year). This just means that I will be featuring a tool at a time in a focused and step by step way, taking everybody through the steps collaboratively and with community support (hopefully). This will all happen online using my learnwithmaggie community as our base, this school 2.0 blog, our SASchools wiki and the featured tools. Hopefully there will be some off you that will volunteer to facilitate a pathway with your featured tool (eg run a un-workshop where-ever)

Motivation:

The problem with all the new wonderful tools are, that we do not have time to really get to grips with them. This in turn leads to an inability to successfully use the tools for teaching and learning. We will only know if a tool is going to be effective in our classrooms if we first use it ourselves in an engaged way! I also find that teachers sometimes choose the wrong/right tool for the wrong/right purpose or place too much emphasis on the tool that the teaching and learning get lost (I am also very guilty here I am afraid). Hopefully the online nature of these learning pathways/un-workshops will also give us the opportunity to support one another as we walk along our learning pathway, as well as allow us to get on top of the tool (:-) in our own time, on our own terms, in our own space/place, wherever that may be! These un-workshops will also give me a chance to pilot my DoE learning objects and to get feedback in order for me to adapt, edit and improve them! To really make a tool your own you have to use it regularly for at least 3-4 weeks. So that is what we will do! Over a 4 week period we will register for the tool, explore its use, collaborate using the tool and support one another’s use of the tool through commenting, discussion and collaboration. I am hoping to get especially South African teachers on board….

Essential toolkit

It is actually very difficult for me to decide on my favourite tools. So I am going to highlight some of the tools (from me and Bronwyn’s connected teacher’s toolkit workshop in e\merge 2008) that I absolutely love and feel should form the essential arsenal of any teacher hoping to empower themself and their learners for life in the 21st century! (Will add and subtract). Please vote for what you would like to be un-workshopped below!

Click on topic for more info, (to register and for a more detailed breakdown of the un-workshop)
(Note: all pathways are at beginner level, but if you would like to act as a mentor, we will love you forever, please register)

• Talking/chatting (Mxit/Skype/GTalk) (we will juse this for realtime support)
• Blogging (edublogs/wordpress/blogger) (Publishing yourself) (Start 10th November)
  Registration now open……
• Micro-blogging (twitter) (Bestest way to network!)
• Social Bookmarking (Delicious and Diigo) (Share resources)
• Social Networking (Facebook / NING) (Collaboration and learning communities)
• Wikis (Pbwiki/Wetpaint/Wikispaces) (Collaboration and learning communities
• Photo sharing (Flickr and Picasa) (Media literacy and creativity)
• Presentation sharing (Slideshare) (Media literacy and creativity)
• Aggregation (Netvibes/igoogle) (Collecting and staying on top of all your favourite resource updates)
• Mindmapping (Bubbl.us)
• Googledocs (Collaboration and document creation)
• Videocasting and tools (Media literacy and creativity)
• Podcasting (Media literacy and creativity)
• Thutong.org.za (our educational portal learn how to upload and use!)
• Web 2.0-atise a lesson (bring and sing) (Bring a lesson and lets see which tool will put it alight!)

Once you have registered, you will receive a link to an online contract of commitment where you will undertake to

• “Stick it out” for the duration of the chosen learning pathway
• Support each other through comments and discussion
• Reflect on your learning pathway by posting a blog entry (or linking an entry) in this community

Dates:
Check list above for start of pathway, but feel free to jump in any time (you might have to work on your own though- post a request for a learning buddy)

Why you should do this?
To get with the programme, become a lifelong learner, prepare your learners for the 21st century and fit it all into your everyday teaching load……What can I say…let’s dream on….

Cost: free
Please bear in mind that I am working 24/7 developing learning objects for my dayjob at the DoE. So I will be just as busy as all of you teachers , so I will, like you, fit this in between having no time and having no time….So no excuses…..

I think all teachers can relate to this dramatic presentation! I have decided to use it as a ice-breaker for my next teachers’ training workshop. There are quite a few “teaching styles” that can be explored as “how to-not to do it”….

What I enjoy most about this presentation is the passion- which is the most important thing that maketh a teacher!

This morning I had my first try on WIZIQ, a free online virtual classroom platform. And I am pleasantly impressed! I have registered for  Wiziq some ago but have only got round to giving it a spin today.

I set up my session and invited some of my contacts to come and join me. The whole interface is totally user friendly and I got a message via e-mail to remind me of my session (which is just as well as I was still in bed and recovering from my hubbies birthday party the night before). I clicked on the link which took me to a screen telling me that I will be allowed into the session as soon as it starts. This was a bit daunting as I would have liked to peek around before the rest of my invitees arrived!

Right on schedule I was allowed in and found myself all alone in the “room”. I was then joined by a friendly soul from California, Alvin,  who is also still trying out WIZIQ and who fortunately knew a bit more than me! He “pointed” me in the right direction and showed me where to use the pointer!

The room consisted of a attendee list, and showed me as the “teacher”. In this role I can control who ‘has the microphone” and I can even set it up so that more than one person can share the microphone (a bit chaotic due to the a bit of a lag which resulted in people talking over one another). Once I shared the microphone, whoever I shared it with can talk and use the whiteboard and play with whatever I have loaded onto the common area. It is really easy to load powerpoints and documents from your computer (I used a presentaiton from the common resource area). I was very impressed with the whiteboard as it even allows you to draw pretty nifty sketches (more or less the same tools as in Paint) but it also has support for mathematical notation! How much cooler can you get? It even has a graphing tool. Maths Heaven!

It has the normal chat window and you have the ability to mute your microphone. Eugene, one of my critical technology friends, joined us from a GPRS datacard and we could hear him crystal clearly! So the interface seemed to not hog so much bandwidth, a critical consideration here in our bandwidth starved little country! Yolandi from a rural town in Limpopo joined us as well and again, she sounded like she was right there next to me! I had a bit of trouble with the handing over and release of the microphone, but did figure it out eventually! If someone do not have the mike, they can put their hand up and you can give them control. We drew on the whiteboard, typed on it and chatted. A real connected classroom! At times there were a slight echo and of course the inevitable lag factor, but on the whole, it worked really well.

Alvin introduced us to Dragon dictate, a speech to type tool, and he actually talked and chatted at the same time. This could also be really useful for those of us without headphones!

You can choose to have the session recorded and it gets archived for a month. Our session is available here.

One the whole it was a great experience and I will definitely be using it for virtual meetings and teaching. You can even register yourself as a teacher and get paid for training!!!

At the moment I am busy with a course on online facilitation in preparation for the Emerge 2008 online conference  using the SAKAI online learning invironment .

It is amazing how much you learn by collaborating and sharing ideas, resources and knowledge in an online learning environment! Very exciting.

One of the resources that were mentioned in the lounge is the “144 Tips on Synchronous e-learning: Strategy and research, which is downloadable for free from the E-learning Guild. Apprently the E-Learning Guild “conducted a survey of its members, asking for their favorite tips relating to strategies for effectively creating, managing, and using synchronous e-Learning. Members could submit tips relating to any or all of five different categories. As is usual in our past surveys, the tips range in length from one-sentence ideas all the way up to multi-page discourses. You will find tips in these categories…

• Blending Synchronous Learning with Other Learning Modalities
• Designers of Synchronous Presentations, Courses, and Webinars
• Managers Who Lead Synchronous Learning Efforts
• Synchronous Speakers and Instructors
• Technical Production, Planning, and Preparation “

Very cool and handy indeed!!!