OllieBray.com

New Tools for Teachers: Barnet, London

Yesterday I had a flying visit to the Borough of Barnet in London. The Borough of Barnet have been great friends to Learning and Teaching Scotland during the last two handheld learning festivals in London and as a result I agreed to go and speak at their annual ICT Leader Conference.

The other reason I agreed to go was because Professor Tanya Byron was the speaker before me at the conference. I have heard Tanya speak on-line a number of times but I had never seen here live and I was very keen to meet her in person. More on her presentation in a later post.

Anyway, I promised I would post the links from yesterdays talk. I’m not going to re-post the exact slides but you can find a very similar presentation and on-line hand out here.

Also, if you were at the talk – thank you for your positive feedback on the evaluation forms. Please feel free to leave further feedback or comment below.

Microsoft Peer Coaching

Last week I took part in the Microsoft UK Peer Coaching course led by Stuart Ball and Walter Patterson.

It was good to take part in some CPD over a couple of days and have the opportunity to meet some more enthusiastic teachers from around the UK. I was also good to see that Microsoft UK have named a meeting room after me in building 2! (this is a joke by the way!).

I’m not new to coaching and have been coached myself during my initial few months at Musselburgh Grammar School and I also took part in the East Lothian Internal Coaching progrmme a few years ago. I think it remains a powerful form of professional development.

The Microsoft Peer coaching resource materials are free on the Innovative Teachers Network. Although they are slightly written in US English (eg: using the word ‘instruction’ rather than ‘teaching’) I feel the resources are very good. Particularly considering they are aimed at and have been translated for an international audience.

The resources are free for anyone who is a member of the Innovative Teachers Network (ITN). I am mentioning this because the ITN is free to join and it would save any local education authority from re-creating their own programme. Many of the resources are written in Microsoft Office, which means I'm sure they could be adapted for local need.

The other thing that I found particularly appealing about the MS peer coaching programme is that participants on the pogramme can gain masters level accreditation at the University of Warwick. Again this is one thing that local versions of coaching scheme lack and would provide an extra insentive for those wishing to partisipate.

I’m just wondering now if it would be possible to build an internal peer coaching network – using the MS (or other peer coaching resources) within Glow?

Would this be a form of accredited CPD that Scottish teachers would find useful?

Direct link to the peer coaching resources here (registation required).

2009 UK Innovative Teachers Forum and Awards (plus FREE CPD)

 
Microsoft has announced the 6th Microsoft UK Innovative Teachers Forum, which is to be held on 1 December 2009 at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Birmingham.

This one-day conference is free of charge for all teachers and educators who wish to attend and will look to address the theme of ‘Connecting Learners, Connecting Teachers’.

Keynote speakers include John Davitt and practical workshops will explore the above theme, along with ‘real life’ examples of some of the most innovative use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. If you attend you also get a free copy of John's book.

Registration for the conference is free and is now open.

Innovative Teachers Forum awards

Entries are also now also open for the UK Innovative Teachers Forum Awards. I was a UK innovative Teacher award winner earlier in the year and my success at the UK awards led to my attendance at the European Innovative Teacher Awards in Vienna and on Sunday I fly to Brazil for the world finals. All because I submitted a Virtual classroom tour about this time last year.

So if you you have a learning project that utilises technology and has made a difference in the classroom then why don't you consider entering for an award?

You could be one of the top educators in the UK invited to share your work with delegates at this conference in Birmingham on the 1st December 2009.

This year Innovative Teachers Forum awards will be given in three categories:

1. Microsoft Innovative Teacher Award – sponsored by Microsoft Partners in Learning

2. Innovative Teaching and Learning through a Learning Platform Award – sponsored by Shireland Learning

3. Impact and Improvement Award– sponsored by Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

Full details of how to enter can be found at www.uk.innovativeteachers.com

The closing date for entries is 15 November 2009.

If you want some help and advice with your Virtual Classroom Tour then please get in touch with me and I will be happy to give you a hand.

It would be really good to see more Scottish teachers involved in these awards. We have some fantastic practice in Scotland and a Glow related project is crying out to win an award in the Learning Platform Category. Last year I was the only entry from Scotland in the UK finals and there were four from Wales and five from England.

Again, please get in touch if you want any tips, support or help.

Did You Know 4 0 : The Media Landscape

The original ‘Shift Happens‘ presentation by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Jeff Brenman was turned into a video and uploaded to YouTube in June 2007. The video was then remixed, becoming a YouTube and Slideshare hit called ‘Did You Know?‘ its now attracted over 6.5m views on YouTube.

'Did You Know 4.0?' is the latest version that has been created by The Economist and Xplane for their Media Convergence Forum (The Moment of Truth: Consumers, Technology and Commerce) which will be held on  20th - 21st October 2009 in New York. You tube video below.

Although I have seen the original lots of times - I still like looking at these videos.

ICT in Geography PGDE Lecture - University Edinburgh (October 2009)

I met with an enthusiastic bunch of PGDE Students at Edinburgh University today where we talked about ICT in Education.

I promised that I would post the links and slides from the talk so here they are:

• PGDE Geography Workshop – September 2009

• Free Tools for Teachers – October 2009

• Games Based Learning in Secondary Schools – October 2009

• Classroom Ideas for using Google Earth – June 2009

You might also like:

• Geography: 50 ideas in 50 minutes – October 2006

• Geography Back to Basics – October 2007

If you were at the presenation today I would very much welcome your feedback. Please feel free to leave a commnet or to get in touch. Also don't forget you can also subscribe to this website by email (top right).

Meeting Greg Whitby

After work today I got to spend a few hours with Greg Whitby I was really impressed with Greg’s style, philosophy and passion for education. I left the session feeling very inspired (and that’s not a word I use very often).

Like many others I first came across Greg in this short YouTube video – if you have not seen it is well worth a look:


Since then I have followed his blog and more recently followed Greg on Twitter.

A bit more background on Greg:

Greg Whitby is the pioneering Executive Director of Schools in the Diocese of Parrammatta, in Western Sydney, and leads a system of approximately 80 Catholic schools. He has 30 years combined experience in K-12 schooling and senior system leadership.
 
In recognising the critical link between good teaching practice and student learning outcomes, Greg is working to build the capacity of school leaders and teachers through a whole-of-system approach to professional learning.
 
 As a regular speaker at national and international conferences, Greg talks about the key areas underpinning a new model of schooling for today’s world:  de-privatising teacher practice, personalising student learning and ICTs as enablers to facilitate deep learning.   
 
In 2007, he was named the most innovative educator in Australia by the Bulletin Magazine in its annual SMART 100 awards.  Greg has also been awarded an ACEL Presidential Citation for his contribution to Australian education.   

 

So what was Greg’s message?

Greg spent two hours with a group of us at the LTS offices in Glasgow and we were joined by other practitioners from all over Scotland in a flashmeeting.

I took a number of things from his presentation including:

• Lots of young people are disengaged from their learning

• To overcome disengagement we need to search for relevance

• We have spent the last 20th Century perfecting 19th centaury learning (quoted Stephen Heppell here)

• We need to start asking big questions about learning and the structure of learning. For example why do all children start school at the same age? Does the class you end up in dictate where you end up? How much do school timetables kill creativity?

• The whole next version of the web will be a mash up

• We have good schools but we are victims of the past when it comes to school improvement.

• What’s the point of a classroom of the future or  school of the future? We want a classroom of today!

• If you want success you have to un-lock the timetable.

• I [Greg] expect all of my schools to be extremely diverse.

• We need to develop systems that allow us to take action as things happen.

• Students learning is what makes the biggest difference

• The focus of technology should be on teachers learning as well as students learning

• Good leadership involves the making or courageous decisions

• Use the wisdom of the crowds (teachers, parents and most importantly students) to drive forward school improvement

• All of our children and staff are allowed to use facebook, youtube, my space etc… But it is important to have robust network security and tracking.

• Teachers feel under valued because they are always being told how to improve.

• Our leaders have to be leaders in pedagogy

If you are interested in what Greg had to say – why don’t you listen to his presentation on the flashmeet re-play.

Balbardie Primary School

On Friday afternoon I headed over to Balbardie Primary School in West Lothian to speak to the staff about ICT in education. We talked about lots of things in particular simple web based tools that can have an impact on teaching and learning, Internet search, using images and games based learning.

I promised the staff that I would post the links from the presentation and you should be able to find everything that you are looking for by reading these recent posts:

1. 21st Century Teaching tools (link)
2. Free Web Based Tools for Teachers (link)
3. Computer Games Based Learning in Scottish Schools (link)

I really enjoyed speaking breifly to staff and if you have any questions about the presenation then please get in touch - my contact details are top right.

Finally, I was rather taken by this 'farming family' display that the P3's had been working hard on and was up on show in the classroom that I was working in. I liked it so much I took a quick photograph - great stuff!

Free Tools for Teachers: Handheld Learning Conference 2009

During the Spotlight Scotland Session at the Handheld Learning Festival 2009 I was given the task of talking about free tools for teachers. My role within Learning and Teaching Scotland involves quite a bit of time out on the road speaking to teachers and school leaders. When we run CPD we often speak about free web based tools as many of these tools require low bandwidth, are really simple to use and can be transformational in the classroom.

During last Wednesdays session I specifically spoke about eight groups of tools. The sides that I used in my presentation are embedded below:

Web Based Tools for Teachers

View more documents from Ollie Bray.

Here are also some notes from the presentation and any links that I mentioned:


1. Generators

Generators are a really quick way for teachers to produce engaging content with very little expertise. They are a great way of building confidence. As long as you can type a few things into a website, up-load a picture and press the ‘generate’ button you are competent using this form of ICT. The biggest challenge for teachers in knowing where to find these resources in the first place.

The generator blog is the number one stop for finding generators hosted on the Internet and many of them are useful for schools.

 My favorites are:

• The wizard text generator
• The newspaper generator
• The photo flying flag
• The smoke signal generator

Alternatively if you want to impress you line manger try the education jargon generator (its not recommended for interviews!).

2. Images

I mentioned a few specific tools in this part of the session:

Bing – The  Microsoft Bing start page is great. Every day a new high quality picture from around the world is used for the start page. The image in itself makes a great discussion topic. But also hidden within the images are clues to where the place is in the world providing an opportunity to create an interactive mystery with you class.

Flickr – in particular the slideshow function. This is a fantastically simple lesson starter or way to create some engaging content. I’ve written this up before in more detail here.

Photosynth – This programme binds together images of a location into a 3D representation of the place.  There are lots of ways that Photosynth could be used to support outdoor learning and other collaborative work. But I think it also provides teachers with a great opportunity to digitally re-create their classrooms. Not only can this be used to show off all of the great classroom display work but it can also be used to aid transition between schools by allowing children to become more familiar with their new surroundings.

Deep Zoom – This programme is a way of layering pictures without loosing the overall quality. The Fairtrade example that I used in the presentations written up here and if you’re a Beetles fan you might want to have a look at this Hard Rock Café memorabilia example or check out some of Stuart Balls excellent tutorials on using Deep Zoom.

3. Sketch Up

A free 3D modeling package from Google. It is currently being used in lots of Scottish Schools.

Islay High School use Google Sketch Up to bridge the gap between outdoor learning and ICT. One of the things that they have been doing is measuring deserted settlements on the island and then remodeling them in Google Sketch up with some pretty impressive results.

Musselburgh Grammar School in East Lothian have also really taken to the programme and one student is enjoying using the software so much he has even started to re-model the whole school!

4. Google Earth

Regular readers of this website will know I am a big Google Earth fan partly because I trained as a geography teacher but also because I really think it is the ultimate cross-curricular tool. During the session at Handheld Learning I briefly mentioned a few Google Earth tips and tricks in particular spinning the globe, measuring distance and the historical imagery layer.

If you want a few more tips and tricks (including the above) for using Google Earth have a look at this short video made by Leon Cynch of my presentation at Teachmeet NE London in April this year.


5. Animoto

Some people don’t like animoto because they say it does all of the creative work for the children. I think they have missed the point. Anomoto provide a great way to display and digitize student’s work. Recently Athelstansford Primay School in East Lothian have been doing a whole series of work on robots. There class teacher made this great Animoto video that was sent home to the parents to show them what the class had been up to and everything that they had been learning.


6. Comics

Comics generating tools such as Pixton and Comic Brush have a massive amount of potential in the classroom. They are both free and web based - more about comics on Wednesday! (watch this space).

7. GoAnimate

Another great web based resource is GoAnimate. It really is a powerful tool to inspire creativity and develop a whole new way for children to express themselves in different ways. Just like any form of animation its great for teaching and providing an output for controversial issues.

North Berwick High School in East Lothian has been using GoAnimate to work with groups of children to create numeracy stories in mathematics.

8. Wallwisher

Wallwisher is again a superb and free to use resource that allows the user to place 'virtual post-it notes' onto a web page. Kenny O'Donnell a Geography teacher from Glasgow has used this in a really innovative way to support home learning by getting his class to research rainforests. Lynne Lewis soon to be acting headteacher at Dirlton Primary School in East Lothian has used wallwisher to work with parents on how families might become more environmentally friendly.


Final points

If you have any questions about the above – please get in touch. How many of these web based tools are you using / able to make use of in your schools?

Also, if you attended the Spotlight Scotland session at Handheld Learning 2009 – I would love to know what you thought of my 30 minute ramble…..

K-12 On-Line Conference

The K-12 International On-line Conference is now in its forth year and it’s a great example of the concept of drip feed CPD that I was mentioning in a recent post.

All of the conference presentations are available on-line and are released over a series of two weeks while the conference in live. Participants are encouraged to collaborate with the conference presenter by leaving comments, emailing or participating in illuminate sessions.

I will be presenting on our East Lothian Games Based Learning Guitar Hero Project during the ‘kicking it up a notch’ strand of the conference during the final week.

More details about the conference can be found here.

The Technological revolution: what does this mean for schools?

Following on from my post yesterday about changing youth culture. I thought I would also mention some of the other data that I referred to at the Building Windmills Conference about future technological changes and why we should be thinking about these changes in schools.

In its recent publication ‘Europe Logs On: European Internet Trends for Today and tomorrow’ Microsoft predicts five trends for the near future (2012).

These are:

1. The 3 screens

We will see a concerted shift to seamless PC, TV and mobile experiences.
 
2. The rise of connected entertainment

Seamless entertainment experiences will bridge the gap between online and offline. This will end the need to watch TV in real-time as we shift to seemless PC and TV experiences. Consumers will download movies and TV shows and only access ‘live’ TV for big news and sports events.
 
3. The whole web will become social
 
Social connectivity will become commercial and advertising will become increasingly personal.

4. The 3D Internet
 
The 3D internet will become a reality, with consumers able to virtually experience a holiday resort before they book, students will be able to attend virtual lecture and shoppers will be able to see how an armchair would look in their living room before they buy it.
 
5. The rise of smartphones
 
Smartphone's will stop being a category of their own and become a mainstream affordable choice. People will increasingly use mobiles as a natural first port of call for web browsing, social networking, photo sharing, music, videos and other dimensions of their digital lives.

Again I think that this data is interesting for education and I’m sure that some will argue that these changes are already here, but perhaps not yet widely adopted?

Assuming than that over the next five years this technology will become the normality should schools be asking the following questions?

1. What is your school dong to prepare for the next global advances in technology? Are you thinking ahead?
2. How can connected entertainment become connected education?
3. What systems have you got in place to teach young people responsible behavior within the emerging 3D Internet?
4. Will mobile phones continue to be banned in your school?
5. When does a mobile phone become a mini computer that you can make phone calls on?

What do you think?