KimP’s Blog

A fun aspect of the presentation was the backchannel chat that occurred alongside the streamed version of the session. I can’t remember the name of the application Will used, but he videoed the session live and the viewers watching live were able to chat along as they watched the session.

The comments and quips came quick and fast as people asked questions, requested more info, passed comment and shared insights. Very enjoyable, but really fast paced and a little scary for a newbie

“We write to connect – to publish as a mid point – to converse and engage. There is no final copy – we can articulate our ideas to a certain extent – but we put it out there to be read and to be pushed.

We publish because we want to engage in the conversation.

World Map is the child’s classroom. “I ask my readers”

Connective writing – real audience and real purpose to engage with people – to expand efforts and knowledge.”

Will walks the walk – his sessions really encouraged you to push your own ideas, and the chat with others also pushed Will’s ideas along as well.

Image: ‘speech‘ 
www.flickr.com/photos/98624608@N00/75288771

Leveraging the Potential of a Hyperconnected World

Spent Friday listening to, and being inspired by, Will Richardson at Syba Signs Network Literacy Day.

The “most thought-provoking idea” for me was …..

The idea of having a personal connection or personal involvement in learning about /embracing the use of web 2.0 tools before attempting to use them in the classroom rang true from my experience.

Will showed that the map of the world = his personal classroom – that everyone that was there as a “red dot” on the map was there because they want to be there; anyone that joined the conversation joined because they wanted to be part of the conversation, they wanted to share the learning. Will’s classroom is an active and participatory place.

I tried to share some of the joys and excitement that web2.0 applications offered with staff at my school last year. I ran a number of workshop sessions where the group played around with applications, trialled making slideshows and bubbleshare, had time to see applications in actions on blogs and wikis, tried commenting and reading blogs. Unfortunately, there was little “spill-over” effect into classrooms. Participants participated only in what was required in the session, and few even tried to use these tools with their classes.

I realize now that each person has to have a personal reason to try these new tools – they have to do it for themselves first and foremost. Will was able to show what was available, tell anecdotes and stories, and demonstrate why we might find these tools effective and useful. He followed up taking questions and again actually showing how to set up accounts and how to follow ideas, topics and people on-line.

Persuasive, motivating and inspirational I think!  

TED Talk: “Why play is vital – no matter your age” presented by Dr Stuart Brown from the National Institute for Play in New York.

Dr Brown’s research indicates that there is a strong correlation between success and playful activity. Play is an altered state, and it’s this state that allows us to explore the possible.

Play changes or overrides:

•       Nature
•       Behaviour
•       Outcomes

Types of play as identified by Dr Brown:

Body play – spontaneous desire to escape gravity – playing for play’s sake – no purpose but the joy of play

Object play – play is practical and need curiosity and exploration with our hands to help solve problems

Social play – if you want to belong

Rough and tumble play – learning medium for all, be chaotic and develop emotional regulation

Spectator play

Ritual play

Imaginative play — Internal narrative story

Solo play

Our own play history is unique and personal, and can be a transforming force.

Importance of play to creative thinking leading from Mihaley Csikszentmihalyi’s idea of

FLOW = fully immersed in what they are doing

= energised focus

= full involvement

= success in the process

What has this to do with learning and learning using games?

It reaffirms the “permission to play” idea I was interested in exploring by adding to this idea in these ways:

•       Play is a biological human need.
•       Play releases the passion within us.
•       Play enables humans to form trusting relationships.
•       Play enables humans to safely explore, to be curious, to connect, and to learn.
•       Play helps contextual memory of events, places, and people.
•       Play empowers humans, and enriches life experiences.
•       Play is a freedom and an opportunity.

Here is the talk – 26 minutes in total.

Image: ‘Play with the Earth‘ 
www.flickr.com/photos/7961121@N04/793987042

RESOLUTION

Or what can it look like in the classroom?

“Create Something Extraordinary” – Oceans of Info Project

This is what we were studying as a class:

•       Sustainability focus, environmental issues nationally and globally.
•        Mapping, locating oceans and seas around Australia and the world.
•       Food chains, adaptation of species

Which led to a negotiated Individual enquiry project.

Rubric – negotiated with students, expectations high and clear.

Oral presentation of information highlighted – talking & listening.

Researching – reading, writing, playing

Planning – writing, reading

Performing – negotiating, practicing, 

Outcomes/ presentations can be seen on AllStars blog.

CODA

Games in the classroom!

DS Lites, wii, Playstation

•       Contexts for learning
•       Springboards to spark and inspire
•       Collaborative knowledge gathering
•       Practising skills, attitudes
•       Authentic purposes and audiences
•       Group responsibility
•       Cultural relevance

Find examples and write ups of using these games here!

Dolphin Island

wii Tennis

Learning Teaching Scotland’s Nintendogs Project

END OF STORY

Well that’s my story, now its time for you to come on board, to take time to explore and play with these tools that offer so much  – especially in the areas of connecting, communicating, collaborating  and creating.

Your task is ……..

To play

To discover

To choose something new

That could fit in your classroom and that you would share with your class or your staff, tomorrow or the next day…….

Go on, try for yourself ………. What’s the worst that could happen?

Here is a friendly slideshow that reassures (and offers practical advice) for …. facing the ICT  elephant

COMPLICATION

Change

The world has changed.

The students have changed.

Knowledge and learning have changed.

Schools and teaching have changed ???????

Here are two short presentations to promote some discussion:

See Think Wonder

Child Centred

•       Individualised / personalised
•       Information skills for active strategies to research
•       Literacy for authentic and personal purposes and audiences
•       Interests / enquiry focus

Creativity

Sir Ken Robinson – “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” TED Talk

“If human intelligences were limited to the abilties measured in IQ tests, most human activity would stop, or would never have started …..”

Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson, 2001. Pg 102

Where to go for exciting, web-based tools to spark and interest?

Try ……. Cool Tools for Schools wiki

21^st Century Pedagogy Conference 2009

The “c” Generation

connect, communicate, collaborate, create

Innovations in ICT Practical Workshop: 

Quality Tools and Quality Teaching in a Quality Learning Environment

Here’s the story plan for today:  welcome to my session on using exciting tools with your students to explore, communicate and create together in your classrooms.

ORIENTATION

Using the NSW Quality Teaching Framework, the three dimensions of pedagogy that underpin the teaching and learning that occurs in classrooms are:

Quality Learning Environment:  refers to pedagogy that creates classrooms where students and teachers work productively in an environment clearly focused on learning. Such pedagogy sets high and explicit expectations and develops positive relationships between teachers and students and among students.

Significance:  refers to pedagogy that helps make learning meaningful and important to students. Such pedagogy draws clear connections with student’s prior knowledge and identities, with contexts outside of the classroom, and with multiple ways of knowing or cultural perspectives.

Intellectual Quality:  refers to pedagogy focuses on producing deep understanding of important concepts, skills,and ideas. Such pedagogy treats knowldege as something that requires active construction and requires students to engage in higher-order thinking and to communicate substantively about what they are learning.

From: NSW Department of Education and Traing, Professional  Learning and Leadership Development.

These are the basics that we are starting and finishing with today – it is the teaching that allows our students to connect, to communicate, to collaborate and to create. It is the quality of the teaching, the quality of the relationships, and the quality of the communication that will make the difference. Technology is the tool that can help us to help our students. It’s the “teach” not the tools that make the difference.

Sort It Out

Diamond

Here is a “lost” blog post that I wrote after taking part in a full day Tim Rylands workshop (last month in Kent, UK)

An outline of the workshop is available on Tim’s site, here, and the combined thoughts and reactions of the day can also be found, here, written by Gail and myself.

The day really sparked my thinking – especially in regards to the framework I am piecing together ­- using computer games creatively to enhance and encourage student writing.

Two ideas that I keep coming back to are giving students

1.    permission to wonder

and

2.    permission to play.

Permission to wonder, to  share your thinking, to brainstorm, to develop creative ideas, silly ideas, the freedom to pose possibilities and run with them.

Too often this step is non-existent in the writing we do in our classrooms, in our haste to get to the written text, the conventions and the punctuation we dismiss this gathering and sorting of ideas – thus depriving our students of a wealth of interesting and exciting possibilities that they can choose to use in their writing.

Giving students the permission to play also supports student language acquisition by making the collection of ideas, words, phrases and sentences

·      physical,

·      active,

·      kineastheic,

·      REAL.

This activity and movement, I‘ve noticed, is vital in my school and class setting, so I was interested to see Tim employing techniques and strategies that got the students moving.

The students gained much from physically linking movement with words – I wonder if this could be connected to “muscle memory” that dancers use????

Thanks Tim for a fantastic day – you are still sparking my thinking and learning – even from this distance. Amazing