Above, you will see the collective effort of a Year 9 class, collaborating on a glossary. This was created with Pirate Pad where people going to a unique URL can instantly edit text along with everyone else on the same URL for any kind of function. This all happens in real-time. In my case, it was for Year 9 to put together a collaborative glossary for words they may or may not understand. The feedback from the class at the end was that they found it very useful and overall, enjoyed using it. This was very much a trial run and based on the outcome, I will be using it again.
Another beauty is that you can see the development of the collaborative workspace by going to the time-line. Here is a link to a read only version of the document where you can see how the document progressed.
Now, I am not one myself for laborious engineering projects, but when I came across this video diary of a project over at Gizmodo, I just had to share it here.
It shows a guy in his garage making a full PC from scratch with a whopping 16TB of storage on board. The video is excellently done and there is even a behind the scenes look here! The video is in two parts due to YouTubes restrictions on video length. Enjoy!
Published on April 20, 2010 at 2:11 pm by Mr Adams
Like many others, The Leigh Technology Academy has been hit by European airspace closure caused by ash from volcanic eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull. With staff members stranded in every corner of the globe after their Easter holidays, there are issues coping with the staff unavailable. This need not be too much of an issue if the right cocktail of technology is used to bring about Telepresence. A member of the department who is currently stuck in mid-Europe is able to teach her classes without too much of an issue. This is achieved with a combination of free tools.
Probably the most well known is Skype. This simple to use software makes either an IM, voice or video connection between two people via the use of a low cost webcam and virtually any platform (Windows / Mac / Linux). To compliment the services that Skype provides is WizIQ. From their website:
WiZiQ is a web based education platform, powered by teachers. We try hard to make WiZiQ, a teacher friendly tool : simple, effective and relevant for the teachers. We continuously improve, adding and refining features based on the teacher’s feedback. If you want to teach students online or network with other teachers and experts across the world, then Join WiZiQ for Free, Now.
I have seen Telepresence with this assembly of tools work well and it really made me think that the applications of technologies like this should be used more often. Perhaps Mandarin teachers delivering to UK schools from Beijing?
Link: An inspired post by Mashable on the further uses of Video Conferencing in the classroom, right here.
Published on April 12, 2010 at 11:17 pm by Mr Adams
The welcome event, very official and very Apple!
This year was my first at ATI (Apple Teacher Institute). It is a four day event designed to get educators thinking about using creative technologies in their teaching with multiple workshops to look at different areas, such as podcasting, video editing, iPhone app development etc.
My main objective whilst here is to see how the sessions are run and how they inspire creativity for teachers that should then translate to their students. I am doing this because I come from an RTC (Regional Training Centre) where we have the aim of delivering at least nine events next academic year (September 2010 – July 2011) similar to those delivered here.
Reflection
Day 1
I arrived in Cheltenham after a four hour journey where I immediately met some great people and felt welcomed to the event
It appeared that the event was well put together and looked forward to the next few days
The welcome was insightful to the activities of the week followed by a delicious lunch
Afternoon session was great, got me thinking creatively and working with other delegates, the results of which can be seen below:
Evening showcase of delegate work showed that creativity was rife across the body of delegates
After a quick drink in the free bar, it was off to bed to prepare for the next few days
Day 2
Early start at 7:30 for breakfast, another delicious meal
Mini-seminars in the morning giving a taste of the application of some of the techniques we have been looking at
Learning Zulu
Cross curricular ICT in a Primary School, 2 years of development so far
Planing for filming
The first activity of the day was iPhone app development
Creating web pages, optimised for iPhone screen sizes and then ported into the iPhone application development kit, guided by this document. I learnt a lot from this and this was a session I was particularly looking forward to. I created a basic app which i took a screencast of and can be seen below
Another fantastic meal
Second activity; Using iPod Touches in the classroom
Starting with how it works, syncing multiple devices for a class, managing apps
Creating content for iPod Touch
The ADE had an iPad that we had a chance to have a play with
The last session of the day was focussed around podcasting
Created in GarageBand, final product seen below:
Another great session, exploring once again the link between the apple products
Allowed me to reflect once again on a past event
Rounded up the day with a social event, discussing the days activities with other delegates
Day 3
Mini keynotes in the morning introducing ideas for the days event of creating subject relevant projects
Worked in partnership with a colleague from Wilmington Enterprise College (Her own reflection can be seen here)
Produced a video entitled “Reflection Through Alternative Media” which can be seen below:
Also used XMind for planning:
You can see a reflection of the task within the video
We had a group session in the evening to showcase the products of the days events from all the groups, some brilliant examples
Then some Kareoke!!!
Day 4
Last early start of the week and a farewell breakfast with the other delegates
A leaving gathering before we all parted ways
A great end to a great week / experience
Conclusion
I was a very enjoyable experience where I learnt many new skills and met people from all over the country with a variety of interesting experiences to share. I would reccomend the ATI to anyone in education that has any kind of interest or inclination of being creative with teaching and learning.
Whilst at ATI, I clarified some of my existing skills and had a chance to look specifically at how they might apply is a pedagogical scenario with students. It was inspiring to see how the ADE’s used technologies in creative ways and how they inspired others to adopt these new measures.
As far as observing how the events were executed with a view to recreating them on a smaller scale, I now look forward to running my own RTC events in the near future.
The lateforlunch.co.uk blog used to reside at a /wp where now it is at /blog. There is a redirect so that existing links to /wp will point to the new address, but please do update your bookmarks / links.
The /wp extension was put in place to give credit to the software running the show (WordPress) but /blog now seems the better name. Expect the student blogging platform to change from /wpmu to /blogs soon along with other big changes to the site.
Published on March 30, 2010 at 1:30 pm by Mr Adams
The Leigh Technology Academy in Dartford, UK has been looking at using Apple products to aid the learning of its students since its inception in January 2008. Since then, The Leigh Technology Academy has gained Regional Training Centre (RTC) status with Apple to take what has been learnt so far from the products and their effectiveness, and convey this knowledge to other like-minded educators.
Podcasting has been a major theme of development so far, taking students ideas and learning and producing them in a modern, digital medium. Blogging has acted as a container for these podcasts with many students having blogs hosted within the school systems which they take ownership of and develop according to their individual taste. The pilot scheme of structured podcasting in education was carried out at BETT 2010 in conjunction with Misco.co.uk, one of the academies ICT hardware and software suppliers. The podcasts were focussed around the show events and visitors, and were carried out by two year 13 students, chosen based on their existing skills in media and digital literacy. Both Kathryn Hill and Marcus O’Brien successfully produced eight videos podcast over the three day event, cataloguing everything at the show from interviews with show attendees about how they could use ICT to assist with Special Educational Needs to a full interview with Professor Stephen Heppell on Playful learning and how its it likely to be the ‘theme’ of education over the coming three years.
All podcasts were created using iMovie ’09 on quad core iMac machines and Mac Minis. The podcasts were uploaded to YouTube from within the editing software itself and then embedded in the webpage created for the event with iWeb 3.0. YouTube was chosen as the distribution platform as it had close integration with the Apple products and works seamlessly on the majority of mobile devices. All of this was not without a commercial standpoint. The podcasts were used by Misco.co.uk on their stand and showcased on iPod touches to demonstrate to show visitors the application of the technologies available from Misco.co.uk Over the course of the three day event, the page received over 500 unique page-views where the podcasts were seen by people from around the world. The interview with Professor Stephen Heppell continues to gather a large viewing audience to this time. Both Marcus and Kathryn thoroughly enjoyed the event and were sad to upload their last podcast on Friday afternoon. As a thanks for the project, they both received an 8GB iPod touch for their outstanding efforts and framed certificates of recognition. Comments following the event from the European marketing manager of Misco.co.uk quoted that the materials produced towards the end of the week by the students were of broadcast quality. This is something that was noticed by the mentor of the two students, Toby Adams. It was seen that quality increased with every podcast produced both in editorial quality and content.
Marcus and Kathryn recieving their certificates and iPod touches, presented by Misco.co.uk national account manager; Vic Ryan.
Published on March 29, 2010 at 2:33 pm by Mr Adams
Reflection of learning is something that I feel does not happen enough in secondary education. In both Higher and Further education, this does occur but perhaps the foundations should be laid at the secondary level. Many reflective models are a bit too complex for the 14ish year olds, so based on Gibbs model of reflection, I suggest these pointers to guide student reflection:
In Chapter / Topic X I did…(Should be the biggest section)
While studying the chapter I felt that…
Based on this, I could have…
In Chapter / Topic Y I will…
This would ideally be at the end of a Chapter / Topic to help students gain as much as they can from their own learning. Inclusion of discussion groups either before or during this process aids the learning from reflection.
Cisco has just announced a new routing system that they say is going to speed up the Internet in a big way. Named the Cisco CRS-3, the company claimed that the new system – currently being tested by American mobile phone network, AT&T – is three times faster than its previous model, which was introduced in 2004.
The company offers a few sound bites about the CRS-3 and what it enables:
The entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second
Every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously
Every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.
Of course, that’s not for end users, but ultimately allows the teleco’s (Cisco’s customers) to route traffic around the Internet faster. Cisco believes that Internet traffic will grow at “200-500 percent per year” as bandwidth-intensive activities like downloading and streaming video continue to explode.
At the same time, Google has its own ideas for speeding up the Internet, and is currently looking to test its own fiber network to deliver 1 gigabit per second Internet connections. One way or another, it looks like the Internet is only going to continue to get faster.
Published on March 5, 2010 at 10:28 am by Mr Adams
So there is a lot of hype on Twitter about WordPress 3.0. This blog is currently running on the latest available version of the software at the time of writing (2.9.2). Over at TempleteMonster Blog, they highlight some of the new and exciting features coming in the update. One of the most exciting is that it looks like WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) and WordPress are finally merging into one project, something I have been waiting to see for some time. Lets just hope that Existing implementations of WPMU upgrade to WordPress 3.0 as simply as standard WordPress implementations. Based on a few guestimates, I expect both this blog and Student Blogs to be running on the 3.0 software by September.
A lesser known platform (due to its niche in education) Moodle is also undergoing some much needed development towards a new version, 2.0. This will introduce a few overdue features and enhancements such as a new HTML editor and conditional activities. Get a better run-down over at MoodleMan blog. The expected release of the 2.0 software is July 2010, so expect the lateforlunch.co.uk Moodle software to be updated to 2.0 by September as well as WordPress 3.0 for the blog sections!
So an exciting time for web technologies. I was thinking about this this-morning; when a website utilises HTML5, AJAX, PHP and MySQL, there is not much that it then cannot do! Perhaps we are now seeing technologies that will expedite the transition to truly cloud based applications through the web.
Above, you will see the collective effort of a Year 9 class, collaborating on a glossary. This was created with Pirate Pad where people going to a unique URL can instantly edit text along with everyone else on the same URL for any kind of function. This all happens in real-time. In my case, it was for Year 9 to put together a collaborative glossary for words they may or may not understand. The feedback from the class at the end was that they found it very useful and overall, enjoyed using it. This was very much a trial run and based on the outcome, I will be using it again.
