Web 2.0

[Still] struggling to get our heads around social media in schools…

Published by Nick

Dan Haesler has written an article titled [Still] struggling to get our head around social media in schools… about how social media is taught in schools – with a focus on what not to do. He describes how schools (and parents) focus on the negatives of social media without considering how students can use it to create a positive digital footprint. The point he makes is that avoiding a negative digital footprint does not mean avoiding a digital footprint altogether.

While accepting the need to help students navigate social media safely and responsibly he makes it clear that teaching young people how to develop a positive online presence is also critical. He frames this online presence specifically in relation to future employment.

If at some point every one of our students will experience and use social media what can we do to help them use it in a positive way?

The following video is Dan giving a talk on the subject in 2016 to a group of teachers.

You Tube

Published by Nick

You Tube is one of the greatest free sources of educational material that we have access to on a daily basis. Want to know how to program your TV, fix an issue with your computer, learn a new language, improve your maths? Then go to You Tube. The list of things you can learn is seemingly endless.

I have previously posted (see below) about how useful Twitter and Facebook can be in the classroom and for professional development and thought it would be useful to look at You Tube in more detail.

Firstly create an account for You Tube. Obviously you do not need an account to access You Tube but if you want to subscribe to other people’s channels or post your own videos it is necessary. Click here to create an account.

Once you have an account you can:

  • Subscribe to educational channels – keep up with latest videos posted by these channels. They are there ready to use when you are doing a related topic in your classroom.

The image below shows my subscriptions down the left hand side.

Screen Shot 2016-03-12 at 1.14.40 PM

  • Create playlists of your favourite videos. Place videos from different channels into a single playlist. The one below is a playlist I made of videos on body systems.

Screen Shot 2016-03-12 at 1.15.35 PM

Created playlists appear in your account – see the centre row of the image below.

Screen Shot 2016-03-12 at 1.15.13 PM

Create your own channel. Do you want to create your own educational videos for students? Do you want to get your students creating their own educational videos to demonstrate their learning or to teach their peers? You can use your channel to post and share these videos. Click here to create your own channel. If you don’t want to make your videos Public there are other options when you upload a video including Unlisted and Private.

Here are some You Tube channels to explore:

The Khan Acadamy – The Khan Academy has multiple channels. Go to their main channel and then click on the ‘channels’ link to access specific channels in a variety of subject areas.

Bearded Science Guy – Amazing science experiments.

Bill Nye The Science guy – Range of science topics.

Veritasium – Veritasium is a channel of science and engineering videos featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science (check out their cool slinky video).

TED-Ed – Lessons created by talented teachers and professional animators.

The Great War

Crash Course  – Courses on: Anatomy & Physiology; Astronomy; U.S. Government and Politics; Economics. Playlists for past courses in World History, Biology, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, Psychology, and US History.

MyPEexam – Senior PE concepts explained

PhysEd Games – Simple PE games

ThePhysicalEducator – ThePhysicalEducator.com is an online professional development resource for physical educators.

AITSL – The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) provides national leadership for the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments in promoting excellence in the profession of teaching and school leadership.

Edutopia – Edutopia creates videos about what’s working in K – 12 education.

Teaching and Learning in South Australia – This channel features videos related to teaching and learning.

BBC Earth – You’ll find 50 years worth of astounding, entertaining, thought-provoking and educational natural history content on here (short clips from TV shows like Deadly 60 and David Attenborough documentaries).

National Geographic – Inspiring people to care about the planet.

Bio – Short biographies on famous people. American centric.

Smithsonian – Smithsonian Channel explores the history of our planet, life and culture.

ThinkEdAust – Resilience, Optimism & Confidence for Kids through Education.

Babble Dabble Do – Combining science, technology, engineering, art and math. More projects can be found on http://babbledabbledo.com/

Tinker Lab – Hands-on activities for kids that encourage creative and critical thinking skills. The projects lie at the intersection of science, art, and technology, and are fun, simple, and use basic materials.

 

 

 

Minecraft Edu

Published by Nick

I have always been fascinated by Minecraft. It is simple and easy to use, kids love it and it is an open ended creative virtual environment that has a wide range of applications for learning. I must admit that I do not have a Minecraft account but two of my children share an account and they are hooked. They spend time creating dwellings mostly, designing living environments and watching videos of what others are doing in Minecraft.

What motivated me to write this post was an article (passed to me by Wardy) in the Kadina Memorial School newsletter. Teacher Luke Atkinson wrote about how his 5/6 LA class had used Minecraft to learn about Sustainability. I have copied and pasted the article directly from the KMS newsletter below.

As part of our ‘Sustainability’ focus within Design and Technology the 5/6LA (TR2) class used Minecraft. This wasn’t just any random level, but a specifically designed map with 2 islands. Each island had limited resources. The aim for students was to create a sustainable environment. I had my own underlying focus on sociology and wanting to watch how the students interacted with each other. The students formed 2 groups, each of which had an island to themselves. My role was to watch and not influence what the students chose to do. This type of learning is dependent on reflection and what outcomes the students see as important.

By the end of the lesson many students had much to say about what they had achieved. Island 1 was decimated, with barely anything left. There was no food (apart from a pig stuck in a tree) and limited trees were remaining. The group was so focused on building a huge and amazing house for everyone… they ran out of resources. Island 1 commented that if they had to do it again they would build a smaller house and focus on re-growing trees, rather than cutting them down without future planning.

Island 2 built many small houses on their island, some into the hillside, others made of wood. The students commented that if they were to do it again they would maximise the land for food (animals and crops) and not build houses out of wood but stone, as wood is flammable.

Oddly enough there was also an Island 3. Two students didn’t agree with what Island 1 was doing so they dug out some sand and dirt and started to build their own island. They discussed the importance of working with others and planning when using limited resources. The students had countless stories to tell and wrote up what happened. There were discussions on how to improve for the future and how this reflected upon their own lives. They had created a system of law enforcement (a prison I was to run for them), discussed resource management, the correct use of resources and even built a separate nation for those who didn’t agree. Only in minecraft could this open and deep version of learning be possible.

Luke Atkinson, Kadina Memorial School

This is a great example of how Minecraft can be used in the classroom and thought it was worth sharing with everyone.

Not having much experience (none) with Minecraft in schools my understanding is that schools can use the original version created by Mojang or MinecraftEdu a version designed by Teacher Gaming with full endorsement from Mojang. The total cost to purchase MinecraftEdu across 28 computers would be a one off cost of $433.

Below are some videos helping to explain Minecraft as an educational tool.

Click here to visit the Educrew YouTube Channel.They have 12 instructional videos to help you get started with MinecraftEdu.

Ever Wonder? – Wonderopolis

Published by Nick

Ed thought this website might be interesting for staff and students (he can’t help himself). I have had a quick look and it has some great things on it. If you hadn’t made the connection the site is all about wonder and encouraging kids to learn new things. There is one particular page which caught my eye called Explore Wonders and if you click on the image below you will be taken to this page. It has a huge array of videos on a wide variety of topics, some of which you can see in the picture. Each video is combined with text to encourage thinking about the concept. Some videos are instructional while others have no direct instructional value but when combined with the text cause you to think and wonder.

Screen Shot 2014-01-30 at 4.48.27 pm

How has technology changed the way we learn?

Published by Nick

Here are the Power Point and videos from our student free day session between recess and lunch. I hope that the staff who were unable to be there on Monday will have a look.

If you are really interested in finding out more about what Will Richardson has to say click here to visit his blog. His book Why School? which is available to download is also an excellent read.

PBAS 14 Day Twitter Challenge

Published by Nick

Twitter app

Before starting this post I must thank Jarrod Robinson (@mrrobbo) who posted a PE teacher 14 Day Twitter Challenge on his website thepegeek.com. A perfect example of how Twitter directed me to something that then resulted in an idea that could be used to encourage staff at PBAS to learn a new skill that potentially could change the way they view professional development and teaching.

Thanks to all the staff willing to have a go a the 14 Day Twitter Challenge. I hope that everyone finds it worth while. Below are copies of the 14 Day Challenge graphic. I have also added a follow up video to the first session where we created our Twitter accounts in case anyone wanted to get a refresher on some of the things we talked about on Day 1 of the challenge.

 

Links to TfEL and The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

TfEL 1.3 Participate in professional learning communities and networks.

TfEL 1.5 Discuss educational purpose and policy.

Australian Teacher Standards 6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice.

Australian Teacher Standards 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice.

 

The 14 Day Twitter Challenge instructions

14 Day Twitter Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PBAS Twitter Basics

ABC Splash for teachers, parents and students

Published by Nick

This looks like a great new resource produced by the ABC. The statement below is taken directly from the site.

ABC Splash brings you the best Australian content from across ABC TV and Radio plus high-quality video from around the world.

  • a new world-class education website for Australia
  • packed with hundreds of videos, audio clips and games
  • 100% free to watch and play at home and in school

See volcanos erupt and microbats fly. Investigate fossils, megafires and worm farms. Meet fairytale monsters. Unwrap an Ancient Egyptian mummy and explore the Great Barrier Reef without getting wet!

Not only is there a great range of resources it is also connected to the Australian Curriculum. Definitely worth putting in your favourites.

Click here to visit the ABC Splash site to view a quick video explaining what ABC Splash is about.

Minecraft in the classroom

Published by Nick

Minecraft is a down loadable game from the Internet that costs around $40 for one license for a PC, there is a free iPad app (very basic, can’t save but good for learning on) or a $7.49 app for iPad (Phoebe assures me it is not as good as the online version but not bad).

What is Minecraft? Wikipedia explains Minecraft as an open world game that has no specific goals for the player to accomplish, allowing players a large amount of freedom in choosing how to play the game. The game world is essentially composed of rough 3D objects—mainly cubes—that are arranged in a fixed grid pattern and represent different materials, such as dirt, stone, various ores, water, and tree trunks. Players can gather these material blocks and place them elsewhere, thus allowing for various constructions. The game primarily consists of two game modes: survival and creative. Unlike in survival mode, in creative mode, players have access to unlimited blocks, regenerate health when damaged, and can fly freely around the world.

I’ve actually never played Minecraft but we do have an account that Phoebe and Lucy use. The more I watch the girls build and create worlds the more potential I see for use with students. Without any personal experience using the game my first thought is to use it to engage students to design and build historical locations, buildings, statues and artifacts. It would be a brilliant tool for this purpose. Click here to visit a teachers example of how he used it in an Ancient Greece unit (see photos of the student’s structures). Another use could be to design scale models. As everything in Minecraft is built with blocks students could convert measurements into blocks and replicate an object i.e. a building (Phoebe worked out to scale the height, width, lengths of arms and legs etc of one of her dolls in blocks to recreate it in minecraft).

If you where looking to engage students in learning I think this would be an ideal tool. Of course their are many blockers to using something like Minecraft to engage students and the list probably looks something like this:

  • It costs money.
  • I don’t know how to use it.
  • It will be too much extra work to organise it.
  • I don’t have time to learn something new at the moment.
  • It looks great but it is not for me.
  • and so on …..

But also consider:

  • There will be a child in your class who can show others how to use Minecraft (give students leadership). Jump in and learn as you go, you don’t have to know everything before you start.
  • It is a way to differentiate the curriculum and make it accessible to students who find watching a video or creating a poster dead boring.
  • It allows for higher order thinking skills to be used including Analyse – investigate, examine, Evaluate – decide, justify, Create – construct, design, invent

With the potential to save multiple worlds on one iPad ($7.49 app) it may be an engaging tool for teachers to use in the near future at PBAS.

Below I have added some video and images of creations built using Minecraft.

The video below is of a students work. He had to design a structure from medieval times and decided to do it in Minecraft instead of building a traditional project.

Here are some images of things people have created using Minecraft. It is amazing what you can build out of blocks!

Staying Relevant

Published by Nick

When your computer goes down or the Internets not working you might ring a help desk for assistance. This video is a humorous take on what happens when someone can’t get their ‘new book’ working. They have been used to working with scrolls and this new technology has them confused!

When your viewing the video pretend the person learning to use this new book is a teacher. If he gives up because it is too hard/frustrating will he continue to be an effective teacher? The answer of course is no. Books will soon become common place and scrolls will disappear. He will no longer be able to communicate with his students effectively as schools will no doubt be using the new technology with students.

What is our understanding of how: 1. children use the following (in and out of school) and 2. how can we use the following for teaching and professional development?

  • The Internet beyond a google search (web 2.0 tools)
  • Programs beyond Microsoft Office
  • iPads and the thousands of apps available for education
  • Social media such as Facebook and Twitter (how do students use these? what are their pitfalls and benefits?)
  • Blogs (your own or professional reading)
  • Wikis
  • Gaming i.e. Minecraft, which by the way I think has great applications in the classroom
  • Smart phones
  • Creating a YouTube account
  • Being responsible for and maintaining our online footprint
  • BOYD programs (Bring Your Own Device)
  • Mobile Learning

Do we risk becoming obsolete over the next 5-10 years if we do not embrace and embed technology as part of our pedagogy beyond the twice a week visit to the computer suite? (note I said as ‘part of’, we should never throw out old still effective pedagogy just because something new comes along, we should however be adding to our pedagogical content knowledge).

 

While you ponder this question enjoy the video, it is very funny!