Journeys with Learning

Dabble

What is Dabble? Well think search engine, social networking and social tagging.

Dabble is like a search engine for video, allowing you to search for video from all over the web, all of the hosts of video like utube, blip.tv etc. So you can think of it as a Google images for movies.

But this is where it varies again. Much like a del.icio.us for multimedia, Dabble makes it easy to organise media you care about, search, tag, describe, promote and share.

What could this mean in your classroom?

• * Easy access to legal and free documentaries, short films, news and movies
  * Accessing the latest resources from around the world
  * The ability to create playlists of movies for students
  * PUBLISHING and PROMOTING your students work on the web.
  * Creating playlists of resources to share with Teachers around the world
  * Benefiting from other teachers knowledge and resources.

I think this has something to offer most teachers. Some will search for suitable movies for their students, many will create playlists while those who are publishing student movies already will find this is a great tool to publicise and promote their students work.

Technorati Tags: Dabble web2.0 education

Schools for the Future

At the recent Catholic Schools Expo I was fortunate to sit in on a presentation by staff from St Clares Narellan Vale.

Anita and Trish presented a very engaging presentation on their schools approach to learning, based around a commitment to collaboration, innovation and engaged learning.

St Clares used 21st century pedagogies, collaborative learning and peer observation to drive new classroom design which would empower their students.

You can hear Vince Campbell’s introduction to the presentation here. Unfortunately in an effort to capture all the audio the quality has suffered.

The audio from Trish and Anita’s presentation has had the “interactive” portions edited out but will make sense, especially when listened to in combination with the keynote presentation below. (Please be patient it may take a moment to load.)

Presentation Part 1

Download

Presentation Part 2

Download

Technorati Tags: StClares Education Learning

Kids Congress

Today I was lucky enough to attend a “Kids Congress” hosted by the Diocese of Broken Bay

From their introduction

‘The Diocese will be facilitating an inaugural ‘Kids Congress 2006’ for Year 5 students to
come together, to consider and debate real world issues and to present their learnings, all within a 21st
century learning environment.

‘Kids Congress 2006’ will be a unique event for approximately one hundred (100) of our Year 5 students (two students per Year 5 class).

This learning event will be “designed for kids and organised by kids”. “

Sounds simple right?? Imagine 116 year 5 students from 50 odd schools coming together to learn from each other. Almost 12 months in the planning, both by adult and student organising committees.

Kids Congress clearly demonstrates the potential of ICLT’s and myclasses to enable and encourage collaboration across schools. At one point there were 15000 planning emails from year 5 students, multiple forums and discussion rooms.

At the links below you can find student blogs, podcasts, Kids Congress information and photos.

Kids Congress DBB 2006

Kids Congress Podcasts

Kids Congress Blogs

Kids Congress Flickr Photos

From talking to the students it was clear that this was a valuable experience, students learning from each other about issues that are of concern to them. Time well invested in creating the leaders of the future.

I interviewed a number of students about their experiences, unfortunately the wind made the audio quite ordinary. However Andrew, one of the great technical support students shared this with me. audio

Personally I am sold on the idea, but what do you think? Would it be valuable for the students of Wollogong Diocese??

Technorati Tags: Kids Congress, Education, Learning

What does Web 2.0 mean for LEARNING??

OK so most people have heard of Web 2.0 but there are still many teachers who haven’t caught on.

What does Web 2.0 mean for LEARNING?
Image from Andy Budd.

Well possibly the first time it takes the “TECHNOLOGY skills” out of publishing content on the web, leaving CREATIVITY as the primary driver.

Two way web, read/write web, students as equals, everybody and anybody can create, publish, share, collaborate and influence.

So what does it mean in your classroom? Well that’s up to you!! Its really only limited by your imagination.

Will Richardson (find his blog here) presented a great presentation at NECC this year entitled A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything. You can listen to a podcast of this presentation here

If you prefer video there is quite a good video from the Guardian in the UK about web 2.0, not education specific but still engaging.

And if you really need to experience some Web 2.0 applications you might like to start at google for educators.

If you are looking for more interesting Web 2.0 links you can find my Web 2.0 del.ici.ous  links here

Technorati Tags: Web2.0, Education, Learning

Student thoughts on podcasts

As I mentioned last post one of our year 5 classrooms decided to use the podcasts of the public speaking. To quote the teacher

“We are focusing on text type ‘review’ in English at the moment ..so it fitted in naturally….plus I wanted to expose the the students to podcasts”

This was the first time the class had listened to podcasts and the student response was really interesting. Below is one boys quick review of the morning session

“I enjoyed listening to the podcasts during this morning’s session of learning. We listened to the public speaking finals and we were able to hear most of the speeches. One of the speeches was on ‘School is important’. That one claimed the winning prize. The next speech we heard was a speech about ‘My worst nightmare’. That one captured the second prize. The last one out of the three speeches was on ‘Creating Peace’. As we were listening to the speeches, we created a mind map to summarise the speech that was our favourite. After that was done, we were able to hear Lance Lagaspi’s speech. Everyone in the room thought that Lance should of come first, not third. His speech was on ‘Creating Peace’ and we thought that it was the best out of the speeches that we heard.

Listening to the podcasts was a great experience for us. I think it is much easier to listen to podcasts, instead of paying money to go to the actual venue….even though the public speaking comp was free …but we were all stuck back at school. Podcasts can be listened to when you’re walking, jogging, biking, working out in the gym, meditating, listening to it in the car and during many other times. They can even be downloaded onto an ‘Ipod’. Having the chance to listen to podcasts is an incredible experience and I’m sure that I will be listening to many podcasts later on in the future. “

Written by,

Kirsten Navarra

You can view 3 of the mindmaps here

Wouldn’t you enjoy lesson reviews like that from your students? I’m sure Kirsten will be podcasting his reviews in the near future.

Public Speaking Finals

Last Friday I was lucky enough to attend the Diocesan Public Speaking Competition. I was particularly taken by the quality of the speakers, their presentation and the way they connected with their audience.

Amazing young people, Eloquent and powerful speakers. You can find podcasts of the finalists speeches along with some photos here.

One of our schools has already started using the podcasts, “At the moment both Year 5 classes are listening to the podcasts and creating mind maps. These mind maps will be used as planning for a written review of the podcast speeches.”

Gary Browns Keynote from ASTD

The Apple Schools Technology Day was held at Port Kembla Golf club last Tuesday. I decided to record the 2 keynotes to make them available to those people who weren’t able to make the day.

Gary started his Keynote with a history of apple and how they have innovated over the past 25 years. After a Top 10 hits of Apple presentation he moved into talking about apples in education and then “Connecting, publishing sharing communicating using Web 2.0 to engage the natives.”

Gary focused on why it is important to engage students with their technology, the technology that drives their world.

Gary finished with a great movie about the new ipod. Ask him to share it some time or view it here

You can listen to this part of Gary’s presentation podcasted here. I recorded this from the crowd so the audio quality isn’t great.

Independent Learning Projects – The importance of Rich Questions

I have been working with a couple of schools this year where students are engaged in year long independent learning projects. These schools have engaged students in learning more about areas that they are passionate about but the two experiences offer me an opportunity to compare and contrast their approaches.

Having just visited one schools final presentations last night I became intensely aware of the importance of questions, rich open ended questions that challenge and extend the students. Without fail, the students who extended themselves and really engaged deeply with their subject area were the students with the rich questions leading to significant learning experiences.

Michelle Shearman presented a superb short session at the Apple Schools Technology Day about her experiences with a year long research project. One of the key features of her implementation of the project was her focus on “Rich Questions”
I guess the best way to summarise the importance of questioning is to quote Michelle
“Rich Questioning = Rich Thinking =Rich Understandings”

You can view Michelle’s abbreviated interactive presentation from the ASTD below. Just click on the “screen” to progress the show. You may need a little patience while it loads. Michelle can be contacted at mshearman@maryimmac.woll.catholic.edu.au .

There are a number of comments about questioning and its importance at the end of this post. If you can’t see the comments please click “here” or on the comments link to the right of the presentation below and continue the dialogue.

Download

Paul Meldrum’s Keynote on Web 2.0 and Podcasting

Paul made an entertaining keynote on podcasting in particular and Web 2.0 applications

Paul posted all his links on del.ious.us If you have a del.ious.us account it would be well worth while adding Paul to your network.
http://del.icio.us/paulmeldrum

Paul is encouraging teachers an schools to use social bookmarking tools like del.ious.us to share resources. He shared many innovative uses of technology including a very powerful use of podcasts for professional learning and the creation of podcasts to enhance student learning.

You can listen to a recording of the first half of Pauls keynote keynote here, again it was recorded from the audience so the audio quality isn’t spectacular.