Not a substitute but a supporter Phil!

“Computers are no substitute for the real thing” says Phil Beadle in an article in education Guardian today. http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,2269745,00.html

He goes on to rubbish BETT, the “nerds” at BECTA and presumably Futurelab and seems to suggest that the solution to all this “techie” stuff is to give everyone an HB pencil!

Author: Bob Harrison, Flux Blog, 1st April 2008
Full article available here. Great video worth a look. Created by students by of ACU showing how iPhones and related technologies are used in student life and pedagogy.

RM INFORM Conference

1 May 2008
Bristol

A free one-day conference aimed at headteachers, principals, senior managers and e-learning directors in secondary schools and colleges, providing an opportunity to gather ideas and to share experience and knowledge with friends, colleagues and educational experts. The theme this year is Partnerships for Learning.

www.rm.com/Secondary/Events/Article.asp?cref=MCET778941

Author: FutureLab

See article here.

Digital Age Assessment: Part 1

A look at technology tools that aid formative assessment.

Effective observation and diagnosis of student learning can be greatly assisted by 21stcentury technologies. Below are five practical tools to help educators measure student progress.

Clickers

Personal response systems such as those by GTCO allow us to get a snapshot of students’ comprehension in real time. We might ask a middle school social studies class: “Which state does not belong in this list and why? A) Florida; B) New York; C) California; or D) Nevada.” As the computer displays the answers on a teacher desktop or on a projection screen, the results (appearing in chart or graph form) provide quick information on any gaps or trends in student understanding.

Online quizzes

Students take an online practice quiz offered by a course management system such as Blackboard, HotChalk, or Baudnet; a quiz-giving service such as Quia; or through a noncommercial service such as ProProfs. The teacher can organize the test so that it evaluates the learning standard at a high level of thinking.

Author: Harry Grover Tuttle, TechLearning, 15th March 2008

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven - 11

11 - Light Versions (Split personality!)
Twitter is so popular because it is so Light! I mean, 140 characters, can work on cell phones (mostly ones here in the US, though.) However, as we look to link with people (and classrooms) in countries with little or no broadband access, we need to have easy ways for our (social) networking pages to connect to and from cell phones of all kinds.

Access in Africa
This first hit me during a recent discussion with Beth Kanter on Wow2. She is recently back from Cambodia where she was teaching 18-24 year old students about blogging. We need alternatives to make our content more concise, easy to read and the ability to pull residents of bandwidth-limited areas into our conversations.

Lemonade
Additionally, as I was listening to last week’s Digital Planet podcast from the BBC, I heard about the open cell phone standard entitled Lemonade which will make email access more readily available on even non-smart phones. So, why can’t we do the same thing with networking sites?

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

Full article available here.

Technology Immersion Turns Around Texas Middle School

Take a Title I urban school with fewer than 50 computers for some 850 students and a staff that wasn’t strong in technology. Add an ambitious plan to roll out a new technology program that gave a laptop to every teacher and student. Sound like a recipe for problems? Actually, it wasn’t.

The school, Marvin Baker Middle School, part of the Corpus Christi Independent School District in Texas, faces challenges familiar to many urban schools. The student population is diverse; the mobility rate is rising; and 80 percent of students receive a free lunch. However, Baker also houses the district’s Athena Program for gifted and talented students; about a third of the school’s students are part of that program.

Author: Linda L. Briggs, T.H.E. Journal, 27th March 2008

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven - 10

10) Identity Verification System
I would like to have an icon that says “identity verified” that you could get. They would have high standards of verification, like ssn, drivers license, etc. (Kind of like getting a Verisign ID) and then verify that your page is who you say you are. (Akin to the voluntary system being implemented in Second Life.)

So, if I went to a page of someone, I could see that it had been verified that that person is who they say they are. Then, we could teach people that if they don’t see such a sign, to know that it may or may not be that real person.

Online impersonations are a problem and there needs to be a way to combat it without limited freedom of speech, parody sites, etc. Some people just don’t know to have that instant skepticism and harm has come in some situations.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven - 9

9) Name Notification System
When you create your “name” and location, I believe that if another person sets up a profile with the same name and location and other information, that you should be notified. This would help with impersonation and would get people to go ahead and get a myspace or facebook if only to “hold onto” and claim their identity.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

Podcasting Basics: Simple Steps for Introducing Podcasting into Your K-8 Class, Part 2

In the first segment in this two-part series, teacher and consultant Brad Pearl explained what kinds of hardware and software you’ll need to introduce podcasting into your classroom. He also shared advice for selecting a first project and getting students involved in the work of recording podcast segments.

In this segment, Pearl explains how to edit and publish the podcasts your class produces. He also offers suggestions for managing a classroom where it seems like every student is going off in a different direction in pursuit of the perfect podcast.

Author: Dian Schaffhauser, T.H.E. Journal, March 2008

Full article available here.

Award-Winning Teacher Utilizes a Wealth of Classroom Technology

In his classroom, Mr. Thompson has been using blogs to communicate class activities to parents and SMARTboard technology to have students create powerpoint presentations. In addition, Mr. Thompson utilizes movie technology for both classroom lessons and student products. This caring and dedicated teacher even provides “Podcasts” on his web page that give verbally recorded instructions for parents on how to help children with their math and reading instruction.

Below we present our interview Mr. Thompson in question and answer format. We have included numerous links to his classroom materials including “The Morning Work Show,” “The Literacy Fastbreak,” and his classroom web page.

Author: Tom Hanson, OpenEducation Blog, 27th March 2008

Full article available here.

Links for the day

One of those days… if I had another 6 hours, I still wouldn’t be done. So in brief, some links and very little comment:

INTUITION, SRI Virtual Worlds survey, The Myth of the Media Myth, and VLE vs PLE again again. More below.

INTUITION

INTUITION is a Network Of Excellence focused on virtual reality and virtual environments applications for future workspaces. It is funded by the European Union, and operates under the 6th Framework of the European Commission (IST). The Network includes 58 partners and it is being coordinated by the Institute Of Communication And Computer Systems of the National Technical University of Athens in Greece.

SRI Business Intelligence Virtual Worlds Consortium

Author: Daniel Livingstone, Learning Games Blog, 26th March 2008

Full article available here.