OllieBray.com

Teachmeet Musselburgh: Our ICT Strategy

Today we ran our first Teachmeet Roadshow at Musselburgh. The roadshow was supported by East Lothian Council’s Education IT Team. We ran workshops in on-line publishing (blogs), on-line broadcasting (podcasting), animation, digital photography and digital video.

I took a bit of a chance when organising the workshops. I asked subject PT’s (after discussion) to sign their departments up to a particular workshop, rather than getting individual teachers to opt into workshops. I am keen that departments become ‘experts’ in one or more types of technology and then look at ways in how they may take this forward as a department.

I don’t like it when some children get a more positive and creative learning experience than the class in the next room because the classroom teacher has not embraced an initiative. I also don’t like it when lots of departments all try to embrace the same initiative. I remember a few years ago when many departments were trying to introduce digital video. Children moved from one department to the next with the teachers going over similar skills and techniques. The final result was a lot of bad digital video projects.

Overall the workshops went well and the feedback was positive considering it was a two hour CPD slot during the last week of November! I heard that some staff were a little negative – but with schools there is never really any avoiding this. We had a couple of technical hitches with the publishing workshop, but these were managed really well. I looks like that on some of the new build computers the additional programme to export Audacity has not been installed – but we can fix this. And, some people thought the digital video and digital photography workshops could have been more advanced – but then they did sign up to an ‘Introduction to Digital Video / Digital Photography’.

The main things though are the positives. The majority of staff are buzzing with ideas on how we can take this technology forward. Lots of people are talking about class websites, as a way to set homework and communicate more with home. A number of departments are talking about the possibility of creating audio and video revision guides for students. The art department are keen to embrace animation within the S1 or S2 curriculum – the skills could then be transferred to other subjects further up the school. Two of the guidance teachers at the animation workshop thought that animation could be used to get students talking about controversial issues – this to me is the sort of cross curricular links we should be developing within schools. The music department have identified good links between podcasting and SQA evidence. There are also lots of other ideas drifting around.

So as a school, how are we going to maintain this momentum? Well, we are proposing to do it in two ways.

1. Follow up. We have another Teachmeet Roadshow planned for the 14^th December. At this workshop, specialist staff we be available to assist staff in refining skills and thinking about developing departmental initiatives. Additional optional support will be available between Christmas and Easter. Next year departments will be asked to consider taking forward ICT and Creativity as part of their departmental development plan.

2. Resourcing. We have invested some money in peripheral equipment. I am convinced that the reason that teachers have not embraced initiatives such as digital video, photography etc… before. Is because, they haven’t had enough equipment. Its ridiculous that some schools have one video cameras in ten different departments. The cameras hardly get used, because its impossible to teach 30 children with one camera. What would be better is to consolidate resources and then departments book them out. In the same way that they would book a computer room. So in response to the resourcing issue we have created class sets of the following equipment the teachers / departments will be able to book out:

• 10 digital video cameras, 10 tripods, 10 external microphones and 10 clapper boards.
• 10 animation cameras, 10 mini-tripods and a box of animation accessories.
• 10 digital cameras (each with 1GB Card) and back up card reader.
• 10 USB Microphones, 10 Voice recorders and 10 copies of Audacity portable.

All of the above equipment can be signed out as a set of five or as a set of 10.

Now the only think to do is to wait and to see if the technology takes off. Only time will tell – its interesting times.

Finally, I am grateful to the following individuals for offering their services and support for today’s training:

 

• Digital Video-  Dave Rawson and Elizabeth Cowan
• Podcasting-  David Gilmour and Alan Coady
• Digital Photography-  Brian Cunningham and Robin Strain
• Online Publishing- Tess Watson

I ran the Animation workshop (I'll post some of the movie premiers later!).

SQH - Course two: School Analysis and School Improvement Project Plan.

Tomorrow is the submission date for course two my Scottish Qualification for Headship. My SQH colleagues may be surprised to hear that this time I have submitted the assignment on time!

This second course is titled School Analysis and School Improvement Project Plan. My assignment is 52 pages long and has taken several weeks to complete. I am pleased to announce that this has been the second biggest waste of my professional time during my teaching career (the first being the completion of module one!).

Don’t get me wrong. I like the SQH. I like the people I have met. I like the university staff. I like the Standard for Headship. But I don’t like all the course content and the assessment criteria. I think it needs to be modernised and more forward thinking.

I’ll let you know if I pass assignment two.

Ocean Paddler - Issue 5

Issue 5 of Ocean Paddler is now out and I have to say it continues to get better and better. This issue also includes the review of the drysuit tests that we carried out over the October Half Term – there’s even a rather un-attractive mug shot of me on page 68, looking rather weather beaten!

The Google Highly Open Participation Contest

This Looks Interesting

Below is an extract from Google Code Website:
              

'Following on from the success of the Google Summer of Code program, Google is pleased to announce this new effort to get young people involved in open source development. We've teamed up with the open source projects listed here to give student contestants the opportunity to learn more about and contribute to all aspects of open source software development, from writing code and documentation to preparing training materials and conducting user experience research.

If you're a student age 13 or older who has not yet begun university studies, we'd love to see you help out these projects. In return, you'll learn more about all aspects of developing software - not just programming - and you'll be eligible to win cash prizes and the all important t-shirt! You will, of course, need your parent or guardian's permission to participate where applicable.          

To get started, read the Official Contest Rules and the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Once you've done that, you're ready to start investigating the many ways you can contribute to these open source projects. Just click on the participate link next to a project on the right when you're ready to enter the contest.  Let the games begin!'

I really hope that we can get some East Lothian and other Scottish entries for this?

                

      

My Word Coach - For the Nintendo DS

Finally got round to playing ‘My Word Coach’ for the Nintendo DS over the weekend. I have to say I’m impressed with the game and think it could make a real difference to literacy levels in the same way that ‘How Old is your Brain’ seems to make a difference to basic numeracy levels. Who knows, it might even improve my spelling!

The good thing about ‘My Word Coach’ is that the words it uses come from the English Dictionary – rather than an American Dictionary. This is one of the problems that we have been experiencing during the testing of ‘Hot Brain’ for the PSP.

My Word Coach - Game Features include:

• Over 16,500 words and definitions using the Official Cambridge Dictionary
• 3 difficulty levels
• 4 different personal coaches to choose from
• Save data for 3 people so the whole family can play

6 Core Training Exercises:

1. Missing Letter - Find the missing letters. In harder levels words have an incorrect letter, replace it with the correct letter.
2. Split Decision - Choose the correct definition for a given word.
3. Pasta Letters - Spell out words from letters sinking in a soup. In easy levels, letters are displayed in the right order before being mixed in the soup. In harder level, only the definition will be displayed and you will have to figure out the word which needs spelling.
4. Block Letter - In this Tetris like exercise spell any of the listed word with the blocks. When a word is correctly completed, it's blocks are removed.
5. Word Shuffle - Choose the correct definition for a given word. You will then be given a new list of words and must find the correct word for the definition.
6. Safecracker - A word is the code to a safe. Using the definition you must write the correct word as fast as possible to beat your opponent.

This is just one in a series of Ubisoft Games that are coming out over the next few months – I’m really looking forward to trying the ones that have been developed for Modern Foreign Languages, for example My French Coach.

The Game is also available for the Nintendo Wii.

DJ's Liberton Blog

A number of people have inspired me in teaching and education over the years and one of these people is Donald J Macdonald.

Donald was the Senior Depute Head at Knox Academy while I was there between 2001 – 2005. He left in the summer of 2005 to become Headteacher at Liberton High School in Edinburgh. I left later int he year to go to Dunbar Grammar School. 

Anyway, from what I hear Donald is doing at outstanding job at Liberton and now we will get to hear all about it because he’s started his own Blog. I’m already finding it really interesting and its great to get an insight into the good practice going on at another school as well as the complicated roll of the headteacher.

This is a must read for SQH candidates and I would encourage all my other readers to pop over and give DJ some web 2.0 support!

Definr – Free On-line and VERY FAST Dictionary

Lots of people seem to be mentioning Definr in their shared del.icio.us feeds over the last couple of days. So I thought I would have a quick look.

Definr is an incredibility fast on-line dictionary. Apparently the reason it’s so fast is because they cache the top 10,000 most requested search terms. There is even a rather cool Firefox extension for your tool bar.

This little web app is a must and should be included in the favorites of any school computer.

Find CPD with CPD Find

I was through in Glasgow today working with the National CPD Team on the CPD Find Website. We were basically reviewing the site, layout and usability. We also got an up-date on the progress of CPD Reflect (more on this in January) and plans to include CPD Find within GLOW.

CPD Find is starting to come together nicely and has become populated by a number of National CPD providers. As the search function on the site becomes better I think it will provide great database for professionals to discover new CPD opportunities.

One thing that sometimes people get confused about is that a CPD opportunity hasn’t just got to be a course, conference or seminar. It also hasn’t just got to be face-to-face contact. One of the nice things about CPD find is the search function also directs you towards professional reading, other website, web-tutorials and all the traditional CPD Courses.

I’m so impressed I’ve even added their button to my website! Well done Con and the team!

SQA National Qualification Question Papers - completely free of charge

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) have recently launched a new web service that allows you to download National Qualification (NQ) question papers - completely free of charge.

Available from their main website, the facility is a great tool to assist with study preparation and features material from 2007’s NQ exam diet.

There are a number of ways to access the service. You can:

• go directly to the Past Question Papers on the SQA Website
  
• go to the SQA website, access the NQ logo and select      the ‘Past Question Paper Service’
• select the NQ subject page      you are interested in and select the ‘Past Question Papers link’

Past papers with their solutions are available for purchase from Leckie & Leckie and include material covering the past four to five years for all NQ subjects. However, as Robin Strain pointed out to me, A different part of the SQA web site does have the marking instructions for many papers freely available. Simply, go to the SQA home page, www.sqa.org.uk Click on Services for Learners and then choose your subject from the NQ subjects.

Ten Ideas for using Google Maps and Google Earth in the Classroom

Last week East Lothian hosted one of the Free Google Earth Courses for Educators that were being sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and Google. The course was run by Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop from Digital Explorer and has received excellent feedback.

Tonight it was my job to run a one hour workshop on Google Earth and Google Maps for East Lothian Teacher – this is part of our open ICT drop-in initiative. The course was well attended and I had an opportunity to share a few ideas on using Google Earth and Google Maps. Many of the ideas I have already shared at Teachmeet07.

Idea 1 - Use the Google Maps mash-up Smoke Signal Generator (http://www.mapmsg.com/send/smokesignal) as a different way to set learning objectives, homework tasks or to re-cap a lesson.

You can use the mash-up in exactly the same way as you normally use Google Maps to find places by typing in the location. You can zoom in and zoom out in exactly the same way and switch between map, hybrid and satellite view. The mash-up however allows you to generate smoke signals from any location within Google Maps. The screencast below shows the demo that I used at tonight.

Idea 2 - Turn on the Grid Lines and spin the globe

This is a very simple, yet powerful and magical idea. I believe that children find maps, globes and places fascinating. A great lesson starter is just to have Google Earth Spinning as your class comes into the room (they will instantly start to comment and try to work out where places are). You can also very easily turn on the Grid Latitude and Longitude lines to allow you to quickly add an extra dimension to this starter activity. Here’s the screencast showing you how to do this:

Idea 3 - Teaching about place and location

At the front of your classroom have a bucket of European or world city names (would also work with countries, mountain ranges, rivers etc…). You can get lists from websites like www.citymayors.com.

Students pick a city name from ‘the hat’ and type the location into Google Earth – class watch as they fly from their school to the city location. Once in the city Student gets one or two minutes to explore in front of the rest of the class. As long as you have websites like Panoramio enabled within Google Earth there will be no shortage of things to look at and you will quickly get a real feel for what an area is like. I think it is very important to always flay to your location from your school, this adds to the experience of distance, place and space. Here’s a quick screencast showing what I mean:

 

Idea 4 – Teaching Distance

The Google Earth Ruler is really simple to use and allows you to quickly change between units (cm, m. km, ft. yards etc…) There is a  lot of scope here about to talk about measurement and also ratios if you start to swap the units around. You can also use the ruler to perform interesting tasks. For example you can calculate how far the ingredient of a pizza have travelled before it gets to the UK. Here is the screencast showing you how the ruler works:

Idea 5 – Sea Level Rise Mash Up

http://flood.firetree.net/ is a favourite Google Maps Mashup of mine. It allows you to change the sea level height to see areas of land that would be flooded due to sea level change. Its simple but really effective, interestingly it wouldn’t take much for the Glasgow Science Centre to be underwater.

Idea 6 – Look at what other people have already created

At http://www.gearthhacks.com you can download klm files (Google Earth Files) about Current Events, Previous Events, Sightseeing, Sports, Historical Places, Transport, Natural Formations and a whole heap of other stuff. The Current event files are excellent. The screencast below shows how quickly it is to download a Google Earth file on recent Greece Fires.

Idea 7 – Flickr and Twitter Vision

Flickr vision is a another great lesson starter activity or way to promote class discussion. The site basically shows the geographical location of real time photos being up-loaded to Flickr. It gives a real feel for what’s going on in the world and sense of place. It can also be used to promote interesting discussions. For example, you have to wait a long to see a photograph being up-loaded from Africa, Antarctica or South America? You can see an example below:

You can even use Flickr Vision in 3D:

Twitter vision gives another interesting perspective. It basically shows text messages of people thoughts from around the world.

Idea 8 – Turn Layers On and Off

Sometimes things get really crowded and sometimes you want more detail. You can turn layers on and off using the layers tabs. Fly to New York to see the 3D Buildings in action. If you are struggling with Bandwidth Issues at school you can save on bandwidth by turning the layers off.

 

Idea 9 – Make your own Maps with Google Maps

Google Maps has a great way to make your own Maps. Here’s an example from a recent canoe trip.

We are going to cover how to do this in more depth at a further East Lothian Training session in the Summer Term.

Idea 10 – Try and keep up-to-date and try out new ideas as they become available

Try and follow these websites for some up-to-date Google Earth information and ideas on how it can be used in Teaching and Learning.

• Google Earth Users Guide Project
• Juicy Geography Google Earth Guide
• Google Earth Blog
• Ogle Earth Blog