School 2.0 in SA

Quite a few of my teachers have asked me how I get it right to twitter, bookmark, chat, engage in social media and get my work done. I do not always get it right to juggle everything as effectively as I would have liked to, but I have devised a way to slip in all the things that I feel strongly about into my workday in a way that I do not even notice that I am doing it. So I thought I will share it with you.

My main daily communication and resource tools are Twitter (microblogging tool), Delicious and Diigo (bookmarking tools), Google reader (keeping track of new posts from my network and all over) as well as Skype/gtalk (for real-time chat and support)

I check my Twitter , say, every 1/2 and hour or so. Mainly to see if my network has anything valuable for me to look at and to see if there are any @replies or direct messages for me to respond to. Twitter is an instantaneous learning tool – it is not as intrusive as e-mail and it is quick to scan. If I am passed a great resource (and my network is really brilliant, so I always have!), I look at it (click through from the tweet) and immediately store it for later reference and use. I do this …

• Using my Diigo button (installed when I downloaded the Diigo toolbar), a little window then pops up where the
  • Web address is automatically captured as well as…
    Whatever I have highlighted as a description. I always try and insert something relevant there as it makes it easier when searching for resources.
  • I can then tag the resource at the same time. This step is very important as it will make it possible to find the resource again (and that is what it is ultimately all about in the end) So I make sure that I tag it using relevant tags familiar to me.
    • I also use tags that I have set up in Diigo to perform certain actions..
      • like creating a automatic weekly blog post of all my resources tagged with that word (eg see all the weekly bookmark posts- they have been tagged with the word “school2.0” which then make Diigo create a blogpost once a week)
      • also have specific RSS feeds set up that will look for all the resources tagged with a specific word and then send it to a feed located on a different blogpost (eg ML123 tagged resources go  to my mathsliteracy blog feed, and resources marked with “mathematics” go to my mathematics social network on NING)
      • I can also decide if I want to send the bookmark (resource) to a specific list or group (eg if it is a maths literacy resource, I post it to my ML123 group or if it is a general teacher resource I post it to my Educator group)
  • The window also has a little checkbox which, if ticked, will send my resource to twitter. I love this feature as it is a quick way to share resources on the fly with those interested in the same things I am (maths, social media, teacher stuff, ICT4teaching&learning) who are following me on Twitter (instant learning).
    • All my twitters automatically go to my Facebook update, which means that in the process I educate my kids, family and Facebook friends (advocacy ) They moan bitterly about this!!!
  • I have also set up my Diigo to automatically post all my bookmarks to my Delicious bookmarking system as well
    • Diigo is like a database of resources (a very good user friendly one) and depending on how well I tag my resources, I can find anything, drilling down to the last detail, in seconds.
    • I initially started off with Delicious which is also a bookmarking system, but has a far simpler interface (I have tried both with my teachers and Delicious has been more user friendly for new computer users) It is not as social and do not have annotation and discussion features. This means that I physically have to go to it to see what my network is up to (which I do once a month and the tag back to my system). (See my Delicious learning object for teachers here)
    • The reason why am using both systems simultaneously is
      • I actually find that Delicious is an easier search engine to use
      • I have an established network on Delicious that I value and support
      • My novice teachers are on Delicious and I need to support them as well.

I check my Google reader at least once a day. Google Reader is a RSS (real simple syndication) tool that downloads (automatically) all the feeds (from articles) that I have set up for it to fetch.

• When I open it (and I always keep it open) I can see when anyone in my network/blogs/websites have updated their blog etc.
• Scanning through the heading titles quickly brings me up to date with the latest news and Edtech skinner
• and If I find something that I would like to use in future I tag it using my
  Diigo button (see above) –> database–> delicious–>twitter–>twitter replies. So this is a vital part of my daily professional development

Skype/Gtalk is my personal contact with the world and I mostly use it to support my teachers and stay in direct contact with my kids. I can talk anybody through anything using Skype. It is almost like being in the same room. I always mark myself as “away” (even if I am there) in order for me to have the choice to engage or not. This way people do not have to feel bad about bothering me, as they know that I have a choice to talk to them.

I do  not use Google search much any more. I rather search through my database (Diigo and Delicious) or ask my Twitter network directly. I only go to Facebook once a week and get my friend updates in my Tweetdeck or via my Friendfeed. As I find Facebook to be very “slutty” it can be a mindless distraction and I limit it for myself.  In a next blogpost I will highlight all the other tools that I use on a daily basis.

As a parent I have been horrified at the level of addiction my children (3 of them) embraced virtual world gaming with. I have had numerous heated arguments about “what these games are doing to their brains”, not to mention the fact that it was turning them into anti-social maniacs. As a teacher I wondered about how we can channel such “addictions” towards learning. Then, after they turned out to be relatively well balanced, happy, socially adapted, achieving young adults, I was forced to re-evaluate virtual gaming as “not such a totally bad thing”. (Okay sure, my incredibly good parenting might also have played a role..;-) )

I tried to make the effort to spend time with them finding out what all of the hype, that is keeping them up weekends, is all about. Apart from the absolutely horrendous use of language, the endless violence, and people screaming and shouting at one another, there existed an incredibly fair team structure where everybody had an important role to play in authentic (though bizarre) virtual circumstances, for which they were valued and got rewarded. They have to think on their feet and work together or get killed (which is maybe one of the reasons girls are not such avid gamers as boys- we do not like being killed).

This made me think that, if we define education as preparing learners for real life, then surely virtual gaming has all the ingredients of a great educational tool ? Sitting there with the kids I definitely felt that they were using higher order thinking skills that left me feeling both intellectually and technologically impaired! I also realised that they were engaging in very involved social relationships based on not only friendships but skills and expertise that make my face to face bring-and-braai relationships look rather boring!

I was recently pointed in the direction of a blog article which really created a WOW moment for me. It was about how teenagers have used mathematical modelling to figure out how to defeat “the bosses” in their virtual online game. A definite must-read: “Videogames are becoming the new hotbed of scientific thinking for kids today….”

So maybe we need to rethink the role collaborative video games can play, before we go all out to protect our children from becoming “screen kids”. Or maybe we need to become even more pro-active and use video gaming as an essential tool to support our teaching efforts in our classrooms?

One such a virtual world environment totally dedicated to educational goals within the confines of a safe space is Quest Atlantis:

“Quest Atlantis is an international learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse children, ages 9-15, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. It allows users to travel to virtual places to perform educational activities (known as Quests), talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae. Over the last four years, more than 15,000 children on five continents have participated in the project. Students conduct rich inquiry-based explorations through which they learn particular standards-based content, and at the same time develop pro-social attitudes regarding significant environmental and social issues. Rather than just placing work and play side-by-side, QA strives to make learning fun and to show kids how they can make a difference. We have demonstrated learning gains in science, language arts, and social studies, and students have completed literally thousands of Quests, some of which were assigned by teachers and many of which were chosen by students to complete in their free time. Teachers have also reported increased levels of student engagement and interest in pursuing curricular issues outside of school”

You can learn more about the project at http://QuestAtlantis.Org).

They are currently looking for brave teachers, within the Southern African context, to emerge themselves and their learners in the virtual world learning explorations. So get more information. Go to our wiki for SA schools at http://saschools.wetpaint.com/page/Virtual+worlds+and+education  

Last week I ran into a little hassle with the creation of my PowerPoint tutorial for the Thutong portal. My colours were not quite “going together”. Joy, my colleague advised me to use similar colour palettes. Now for those of us, who are not art teachers, finding the right colour scheme might not seem so easy after all!

So today I stumbled on a little script which can help you with your colour choices! And it even give you the names of the colours

Here is the link: http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/

How can we use ICT to address the gap in performance of learners going into secondary education?

This is a quick idea that we brainstormed in an effort to come up with an ICT intervention. The idea of an e-portfolio was explored as a way for teachers (school communities) to help smooth the way for learners and address the “performance drop” from primary to secondary school. If teachers have easier access to information in the form of an e-portfolio they will possibly be able to assist learners with problems.

Questions:

• Privacy: who will have access to what information?
• Who will control the information that go into this system?
• How will you incentivize pupils and teachers to contribute to the system?
• Has anythging like this been done elsewhere?