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Social Media in Schools: Handheld Learning Conference 2009

On the Tuesday afternoon of the Handheld Learning 2009 Conference I had an opportunity to present on Social Media in School. This was part of the social media break out strand of the conference.

Below are the main slides that I used in my presentation below:

Social Media in Schools

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The main points from my presentation were as follows:
 
What is Social Media?

There are lots of definitions of Social Media and lists of social media tools all over the Internet. Some diagrams and descriptions are more useful than others in trying to define what social media is and how we can used in education. I came across the diagram on the right (there are various versions of it) which I thought was useful in trying to define the role of individual social media tools (you can click on the image for a bigger version of it).

As I explain during my conference session I don’t pretend to be an expert in this topic. But I have had some success in using ICT and social media tools in an education context. For me there is no single definition that can encapsulate what we mean by social media but I think it has most of the following characteristics.

Social media:

• is primarily about communication in particular the conversation
• challenges traditional models of communication
• tends to be open allowing an access to a wide audience
• is normally built from the bottom up

Five reasons why schools should be interested in social media:

1. The power to engage

Social media such as blogs, wiki’s and podcats can give students a sense of audience.

Like all social media tools in school it is important to start somewhere. I suggested that a good place for schools to start might be writing a Wikipedia article about your school or at the very least having a look to see if your school has a Wikipedia article written about it. The truth is that many schools do have their own Wikipedia articles and that many of them are quite negative and not truly reprehensive of the school community.

Writing or re-writing an artical about your school can not only create an accurately researched cross curricular project but at the same time it is likely to improve the image / marketing of your school (Wikipedia is very popular in Google). It is also hugely empowering for students. How often do they normally get to publish to the largest encyclopedia in the world?

Some education authorities such as East Lothian in Scotland have really embraced some types of social media in particular blogging. Edubuzz (managed by David Gilmour) is a Wordpress Multi User blogging platform that is available for all learners within East Lothian. One of the reasons it is unique is because it is not hosted on the councils servers and therefore completely independent to the councils corporate IT department.

The East Lothian EduBuzz project has been and continues to be a massive success.  Most school websites in East Lothian are now edubuzz blogs which means they are quick and easy to up-date by teachers and pupils. The director of education has a blog which shows that he is fully supportive of the initiative and schools such as Preston Lodge have over 1500 subscribers to their blog by email – creating an effective, easy to publish digital news letter. Law Primary Schools blog and how it uses ICT was sited as an example of good practice in a recent HMIe report – this has given other schools confidence to develop a similar model.

 
Social media tools can also be used to encourage collaboration. Again East Lothian are one of the only education authorities that I know of in the UK that have adopted Google Apps for Education across the whole of the authority for students. Not only does this provide them with a great email solution and massive free data storage solution for pupils but it also allows students and teacher to utilize Google Docs in their learning and teaching.

In my experience well managed collaboration on work normally results in an improved output and increased student pride. It is also a vital skill for enterprise education.

2. Real data in real time

Social Media can also be used to source real data in real time. During this part of the talk I described two examples of this that I’ve used in schools.

i) Google Alerts to celebrate pupil achievement

Google Alerts is a way of telling Google a key word of phrase and then if that word of phrase is published on the Internet and picked up by the GoogleBot then you get sent an email linking to the article where it has been published. I sometime describe this as ‘searching the future internet’.

My suggestions is that all schools should have Google Alerts for their schools. Why? Well it can be used as an early warning system if someone writes about or mentions your school online. Importantly, it’s also a really good way to track student achievements. Many children take part in activities outside of the school and some of them are really impressive. They are often written about in the media and normally the child’s schools is mentioned. As most papers are digitized Google Alerts gives you an opportunity to be told about this as soon as it is published and this is often before you have a chance to read the local paper.

I also believe that the use of Google Alerts is a vital study skills that we should be teaching young people in order to collect their own research. I’m sure higher education researchers use alerts a lot.

 ii) Twitter to gather weather data

My Twitter snow lesson is quite well documented but the key points of the lesson were:

• My twitter network was asked where they lived and if it was snowing
• We plotted all the tweets on a Google Map
• We exported the data into Google Earth and overlaid the real-time satellite imagery
• We discussed every part of this process and the results

The children were captivated by this particular task because it involved collecting real data and communicating with real people. In essence the lesson was ‘live’ and this provided a powerful context for learning.

3. Social media is not going away

Schools need to realize that social media, new technologies and the Internet are not going away. In fact they are only going to become more prominent in 21 century youth culture and society. Schools need to start asking themselves questions about why devices such as mobile phones are banned within their education institutes? Are phones really phones any more? Or just powerful mini computers that happen to make phone calls?

Some schools have been very progressive in social media adoption and I think one of the UK leaders in this field is Saltash.net Community College in Cornwall.

You only have to look at the Saltash.net home page to see they are forward thinking. This is a school where parents and the wider school community can get up-dates on school news via the Saltash.net twitter account. Pupils and staff up-load work, assignments and achievements to the schools YouTube channel (effectively creating a school television station). The school has an animal enclosure and you can visit the pigs and chickens 24/7 via the school webcams. If your lucky enough you can also attend one of the schools live broadcasts via twitcam (an on-line video streaming service). Finally, if you like what your reading here you can even contribute to the school project via paypal! Most importantly anything that the school does with regard to social media is based on well grounded classroom pedagogy to support learning and student achievement.

Other schools are also making use of live video streaming services suck as Qik. Musselburgh Grammar School has broadcast a live music event from the schools drama studio to other classroom in the school. As the event was not open to the wider community parents and friends of the pupils involved could also join the broadcast on-line.


4. Professional development

Social media can help education professionals and school leaders move towards a more ‘drip feed’ approach to CPD. I like attending conferences for the conversation but in recent years I have learnt a lot more from my immediate personal learning network than I have from listening to conference presenters within the traditional ‘sheep dip’ model.

However, in order for people to become used to using social media  for their professional development they may need to be nurtured as it presents a whole new way of working. My suggestion is to get teacher using some of the more easily accessible websites that have an obvious link to CPD for example slideshare and teachers TV. Try to get people to rate presentations and programmes and to leave feedback as this contributes to the social aspect and personal development of using such tools.


5. Businesses want to hire people who can use the Internet

Schools ICT should no longer be about how to create letters in word, underline text, making things bold or drawing a graph in excel. We have moved on and ICT tools have moved on. I’m not saying Microsoft Office isn’t important, because I think it is very important. But I also think the ICT curriculum needs to develop, move on and evolve in exactly the same way that ICT and the use of the social web has done within successful business.

Lets face it, organizations that continue to use traditional models based on an industrial hierarchy don’t seem to be doing that well in the new world markets. Banks are a good example of this. Companies such as Google on the other hand continue to thrive and expand in this rapidly change world. An enjoyable easy read on this subject is ‘What Would Google Do?’ by Jeff Jarvis.


Challenges

Schools and teachers wishing to use social media will continue to face challenges. The first challenge is around permission and strong school leadership. One of the reasons that there has become wide spread blogging and more open culture in East Lothian is that the Director of Education has fully supported the blogging initiative.

The second challenge is one of web filtering. There is no easy answer to this and the situation seems to be completely un-coordinated across the UK with massive regional and local variations.

I was in a primary school before the summer holidays where I observed three girls rehearsing a dance routine for their summer show from a laptop perched on chair in the corner of the room. YouTube was un-blocked in the school and the children’s access to YouTube was built up on a system of trust and respect between the students and the class teacher. There are other schools that I know of that block this service completely for both students and staff. I know which school I would rather work for and wish that schools would risk assess filtering (in a similar way to school trips) rather than blanket banning such potentially valuable education resources.

At what point will digital entitlement for students include access to content as well as access to devices?

School improvement

Finally it will be interesting to see how education institutes start to use social media to contribute to the schools continuous cycle of improvement. We have a lot to learn from enterprise here. Starbucks for example has a website called ‘My Starbucks Idea’ where customers can leave a comment suggesting ways that the coffee chain could improve its service. Some of the ideas it adopts – just think about how much money it is saving on research and development. Won’t it be great when schools become open enough to do this?

Athelstanford Primary School in East Lothian recently challenged parents at an assembly to post a comment on the schools wall wisher page explaining how they were going to become more environmentally friendly. A great example of how the whole school community can be involved in children’s learning.

Conclusion

As I said at the start of this long article on social media in schools I don’t pretend to be an expert on this subject and I know there are lots of other benefits and challenges in using this type of technology with young people. However, I remain committed to the fact that good teachers use good tools and I think some of the web based tools that I have mentioned above should be in every teachers toolbox.

What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment if you were at the presentation at Handheld Learning 2009 I would love to know what you thought.

Oxford University on iTunesU

When I am out talking to teachers and school leaders I often describe Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in two ways:

1. Sheep Dip CPD this is more traditional CPD when a large group of people gather together to hear from an expert on a topic. When they leave we assume that they are all experts in the topic because we have immersed then in it for the length of CPD session.

2. Drip Feed CPD this is more about learning at any time and in any place. It empowers professionals to find the answers to questions on a need to know basis. Importantly, drip feed CPD is continuous and is on-going though a personal learning network. This means that you find out answers to questions that you didn’t even know you need the answers too!

iTunesU is a good example of one type of Drip Feed CPD. You can subscribe to a topic or course that you are interested in on iTunesU and if a new episode is up-loaded by the provider it will automatically download to your computer the next time that your fire up iTunes.

At Learning and Teaching Scotland we have made all of our on-line video content available via iTunesU and you can to subscribe to different courses. If you’re a Scottish Teacher its worth keeping an eye on this service as we will soon be up-loading exemplification of good practice for A Curriculum for Excellence and we will also be adding more Games Based Learning examples.

Anyway, when I was at the FOTE Conference last Friday I listened to an interesting presentation from Peter Robinson of Oxford University. He was talking about Oxford Universities new materials that are now available on iTunesU.

The Oxford University iTunesU Channel containes a huge amount of information and educational content that can be downloaded, listened to and watched for free. But what impressed me about their model was that academics still owned the content but they chose to donate it to the learners and make it accessible via iTunesU.

This idea instantly struck me as a model that would be appropriate to repeat for examination courses in schools.

Microsoft Songsmith: now free for UK Teachers

The UK Microsoft Innovative Teacher Blog celebrated its first birthday today and as a reward it looks like Kristen and Stuart are going to be giving away free stuff to members of the Innovative Teachers Network (ITN). Anyone can join the ITN you just have to register on the website to gain access to the resources and discussion forums.

Today they announced that they will be giving away Microsoft Songsmith. If you have not seen Songsmith before it’s a clever little product from Microsoft labs.It didn’t get off to a great start in the UK because it was launched with a pretty awful television / web commercial. But now I’ve had a look at songsmith I think it’s got some potential – particularly now it’s free!

Basically, you (or your students!) sing into your PC and and Songsmith adds a background track of your choosing to create your own song. The songs are produced as .MP3 files, and could be used in a number of ways.

Stuart Ball wrote about possible uses for Microsoft Labs Songsmith here.

To download your free copy of Songsmith, go to the UK Innovative Teachers Network. (You’ll need to register and log in with a free username and password if you don’t have one already.) You’ll see an announcement about Songsmith on the home page and a link for further information and download instructions.

Here is a nice little Songsmith song created by my friend Dan Roberts and his class at Saltash.net community school. Its on Magnets – more songs from Dan’s class here.

If you use Songsmith in your school I would love to hear from you.

You can also download Auto Collage for free from the ITN

Twitter Learn: Learn French from Twitter (140 characters at a time!)

 

I met up with my award winning friend Mark Pentleton last week for a quick catch up – I actually hadn’t seen Mark since Handheld Learning 2008 when we were both presenting in the Spotlight Scotland Section.

Anyway, Mark is the brains behind the Radio Lingua Network that I think has completely revolutionized language learning via the use of audio and video podcasts. Mark and his small team have now produced podcasts in over 20 languages that form a range of language courses to allow people to learn at anytime and in any place.

Importantly, the lessons provide structure, depth and progression. Much of the material is also free to download and there is also a subscription service.

You can always find Podcasts like Coffee Break French and Coffee Break Spanish near or at the top of the iTunes Education Podcast Store (in a number of countries!).

During out meeting Mark started telling me about one of his summer projects called Twitter Learn. Basically, during the summer holidays you could sign up to Twitter learn in French, Italian and Spanish.

Each day you receive a number of short (140 character) tweets going over the lesson and phrases for the day.

Also each day there is a short (140 second) podcast to accompany the tweets that get sent out. The tweets link to the podcast but you can also subscribe by RSS via iTunes.

I just thought this was a great idea and can’t believe I missed the launch of it while I was away in the summer. I just love this idea of drip-feeding learning is short bite size chucks that in re-enforced by a variety of media.

This type of learning has huge potential for schools. The use of twitter sending short messages to a mobile device makes the learning highly personal and instant for children. The audio content then provides the ability to dip in and out of the learning and offers reinforcement and practice.

Really looking forward to watching this service evolve with time. Well done Mark!

Podcasting for Teachers

Over the next few weeks I running a number of workshops for teachers where I will touch on some of the great web 2.0 tools that you can use in the classroom. One tool that I still believe is underused by many schools is podcasting.

Podcasting is the process of creating an audio recording and then distributing it on the internet. It’s a form of on-line radio but the big difference is as a consumer (listener) you can subscribe to the podcast and then you will automatically be notified when a new episode becomes available.

Over the years I’ve been involved in a number of Podcasting projects from creating some of the first web downloadable audio revision material to a regular weather Podcast that was broadcast out of my classroom when I was head of Geography at Dunbar Grammar School. I also listen to a lot of educational podcasts as part of my own continuous professional development.

Anyway, as I was up-dating my own podcast on-line handouts I came across this fantastic slideshare presentation titled, ‘Podcasting for Teachers’. Defiantly worth a look if your interested in finding out more about creating podcasts at your school.

Podcasting for Teachers

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Essential Language Phrases from the BBC

With most of the English and Welsh schools now also broken up for the summer holidays. I expect there will be a lot of people wanting to escape the awful weather that we have been having in the UK for my sunny climates.

If you are going abroad this summer this nice little resource from the BBC might help you brush up on language skills.

It’s called ‘BBC languages Quick Fix’ and contains essential phrases in 36 different modern foreign languages.

If you take the French section for example the website gives you:

• 10 essential basic phrases in French
• 9 essential accommodation phrases in French
• 13 essential food and drink phrases in French
• 11 essential shopping phrases in French
• 12 essential getting around phrases in French
• 15 essential ski phrases in French
• 13 essential beach phrases in French

The site gives you the option to print out the phrases, listen to the MP3 files, download the MP3 files to your computer and download the MP3 files to your mobile phone.

As well as being useful for travelers going on holiday this summer. I can also see this resource being useful to modern language departments in schools and for schools celebrating language weeks.

Overall this seems to be a really useful resource from the BBC with lots of education potential.

iPhone and mobile devices in education

I was asked to speak yesterday at the UK Apple Regional Training Centre Conference in Glasgow. I’ve been an Apple distinguished educator for a while now and it was nice to be asked to contribute to the conference on my home turf! I presented on using mobile devices (particularly phones) in education.

Unfortunately it was bit of a flying visit and I didn’t get an opportunity to catch up with anyone due to other commitments.

I did promise to post my slides below – here they are!

iPhone and mobile devices in education

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If you’re looking for links from the presentation or a write up on any of the iPhone Apps that I mentioned then click on the iPhone/iPod Touch Category in the left hand tag cloud to see any apps that I have reviewed (most were mentioned in the presentation).

A huge thank you to all the positive ‘tweets’ that I received as a result of the presentation. It really is appreciated.

Microsoft UK Innovative Teachers Forum (1 of 5): The Process

Last Thursday and Friday I was invited down to Microsoft head offices in Reading to take part in the UK Innovative Teachers Forum. The reason for the invitation was because I had submitted a Virtual Classroom Tour for our Guitar Hero Transition Project.

Unlike most of the other award winners I’m not new to the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network. In fact I’ve been a member since 1995 when I took part in the Scottish Microsoft / SQA Partners in Learning Initiative and developed the original GEOCASTS (geography podcasts) that are now hosted over on the Do-Be site.

The Microsoft Innovative Teachers network has been a key part of my personal learning network ever since then. In fact its how David Noble and I first met and this in turn has led to a number of other collaborative projects. I’ve also been a featured teacher on the network a number of times and get the monthly e-newsletter from the US Innovative Teachers network.

A virtual classroom tour (VCT) is a simple PowerPoint Presentation template that is used to present an aspect of good classroom practice. It contains all of the information that another teacher would need to recreate that activity in there classroom. You can view and rate the Guitar Hero VCT by joining the UK Innovative Teachers network – the network is free to join.

There are a lot of good VCT’s within the Innovative Teacher Community and there is also an option to peer review other peoples VCT’s so you can quickly find the best ones. The good thing about VCT’s is that they encourage sharing and the swapping ideas between educational professionals. As I have said before – It’s the small ideas that change things!

So how did I end up in Reading?-

• In November Teachers from all over the UK were invited to submit VCT’s for Innovative projects. The closing dates for submitting the VCT’s was 1^st February 2009. Details of this were posted on the UK Innovative Teachers Blog that I subscribe to by RSS. Information about the competition also appeared in the SQA newsletter
• Last week I found out that my VCT had been picked by the UK Innovative Teachers Team as one of their favourite ones from the UK entries and that I was to attend the UK Innovative Teachers event in Reading on the 19^th and 20^th February.
• During the forum day on the 20^th February we found out that the Guitar Hero VCT was one of the four being put forward by the Microsoft UK team to represent the UK at the European Innovative Teachers Forum in Vienna at the end of March.

Exciting times and another example of how the social web can lead to great opportunity for teachers.

BETT 2009 - BETT Awards

Photo: Merlin John Online

For some reason I was missed off the complementary BETT awards dinner list for this year? Obviously an oversight on the organisers part :-). And the fact I don’t own a dinner jacket!

Anyway, it was good to catch up on the award results over on my good friend Merlin’s New Site. I was particularly pleased with the winners in the following categories:

Outstanding Achievement in ICT Education
Professor Stephen Heppell – I am a big fan of Stephens work. Not only did he once mention me on his blog! (even saying that my presentation was fascinating!) But we also have a number of other things in common. Most importantly a passion for the sea, snow and……I guess education?

Judges' comments: "Stephen Heppell's contribution goes back to the earliest days of ICT in UK schools (1980 with the national organisation MicroElectronics Education Programme) which is why the judges considered him to be the very best person to receive this inaugural award. Stephen has worked to raise the profile and application of ICT for learning right across education - with learners, teachers, school leaders and even governments.”

Content-Free Tools
Softease for Podium – I think Podium is great! Intuitive, Simple, Effective and Reliable!

Judges' comments: "It supports planning, structuring, creativity and collaboration. It is easy to use and supports a complex area that some teachers may shy away from. The instructions are good, and it breaks down complex tasks into simple and achievable elements."

 

ICT Company of the Year
2Simple Software – I have been so impressed with their 2 DIY Software.

Judges' comments: "This is a company that responds totally to the needs of schools and children. It is a partnership organisation that supports learning and teaching with staff and management that cares about the children and teachers – both here and overseas – that use their products."

 

E-Safety
Childnet International for Know IT All for Parents – another great resource that links nicely to our Internet safety and Responsible Use training that we have been running in East Lothian.

Judges' comments: "It offers comprehensive coverage of the e-safety agenda. The navigation is clear and intuitive. This resource could have a big impact on parents and carers who are essential partners in children’s learning and it does this in a professional and engaging way. It is engaging and informative, meeting a wide range of user expectations – parents’, carers’, teachers’ and so forth.”

BETT 2009 – Microsoft UK Innovative Teachers Network

It was nice to finally meet Stuart Ball (pictures right above) from the UK Microsoft Innovative Teachers Network at BETT 2009. We have spoken on the phone before, exchanged emails and tweets. It was also nice to briefly meet Kristen Weatherby (Microsoft) and Dan Roberts (pictured left above), who was one of last years Innovative Teachers World Wide Semi Finalists.

I won an Innovative Teacher Award for a Virtual Classroom Tour back in 2006 for work that I had done on developing a set of Geography Revision Podcasts. I called the project GEOCASTS and it was pretty successful and quite cutting edge at the time. This particular resource is now hosted by my friends at do-be, who always tell me that the resource is still very popular. You can still download all the GEOCAST mp3 and mv4 files from the do-be website. I’m also keen to revisit this method of distributing content to children later in the New Year.

The Microsoft Innovative Teacher Network connects a global community of educators who share a common interest in enhancing teaching and learning through the use of technology.  It’s free to join the network and there are lots of interesting ideas and resources within the community portal.

You can follow the up-dates from the UK Innovative Teachers Network on their Blog.