An Open Education workshop was held at Macquarie University MELCOE, Sydney during November 2008. A key activity of the workshop were the facilitated discussions to contribute to an open education strategy for cross sector collaboration, and to build skills and document best practice for the future. I particularly enjoyed the lighting talks.

You can listen to a recording of my lighting talk and slideshow here. Don't just listen to mine, have a squiz at the other great speakers.

This picture is of some fellow educators on the oz-teachers mailing list. They are a great bunch and I was glad to be able to meet and greet them. You can view a slideshow of photographs that I took at this workshop.

All up, a great chance to think about the direction we are heading and some of the exciting things on the horizon. Well done to the team that worked hard in the background to bring this all together.

It is entirely professional for teachers to insist on viewing the evidence when told how to engage with new technology. It never hurts to ask, "Show me the research and pedagogical evidence that underpins this decision or practice of education".

If I do engage with a new technology, it often is because I am myself am exploring what I can do with it to help answer these questions. I am not necessarily going to always model best classroom practice or expecting that others will follow from this informal ethnographic research. What works well for me, might not work well for others.

Good research takes time for planning and must be carefully structured, It must be openly reviewed by our peers. This involves an academic rigor that is often missing from department classroom trials that are sometimes set up to always succeed to justify their funding. Whilst some anecdotal field observations are fine and help us to work at the cutting edge. If a case study being presented is so compelling, then insist that they submit it for publication in a peer reviewed research journal. It doesn't excuse us from asking the hard questions and insisting on the hard evidence when we are presented with this in  the workplace.

Anything less makes a joke of the science we call education and allows others to pull the wool over our eyes.

Computerworld has published an interesting story about computers rolling out to schools.

The NSW department of education has announced that it will install OpenOffice, on 41,000 computers due to be distributed to schools across the state by the end of 2008. They will also downgrade every new computer it buys from Vista to Windows XP.

The report notes that "This incurred an additional expense in the short term, he says, but was less expensive over the life of the computer. The move is less a backlash against Microsoft and more recognition that the purchasing model for software in educational institutions is changing."

It seems as if somebody in NSW is wide awake and noticed that the world of ICT is changing very fast. Good on them. I wonder if my Deparment of Education has taken note?

I am typing this reply on an Ubuntu Linux desktop (excuse me for being a power user). The USB waicom tablet that I loaned from school just plugged in and started working. Again, this got me thinking about the benefits of a 'touch sensitive' interactive whiteboard (IWB) as compared to just using a wireless bluetooth enabled mini-keyboard with trackpad / USB port and a bluetooth Waicom tablet.

In theory two (or more) sets of these units can be shared amongst students and the teacher in a classroom, perhaps one per team of students. When necessary or desirable, they can then collaborate, annotate on the big screen, all using a portable or existing projector system.

This week, I am going to order two sets of these wireless devices for a trial.  Whilst I am not trying to reproduce the traditional IWB and might miss out on some of the "eye candy", the cost saving and approach where students can contribute from their team desks is very appealing.

What do others think?

Screenshot of the home page for the ePotential website. This resource has been produced by the Victorian Department of Education to help teachers  integrate ICT into their learning and teaching. It includes a continuum and survey tool with benchmarks.
     http://epotential.education.vic.gov.au

At the time of this review, the site was  locked down so that private school teachers, curious tertiary educators and budding student teachers can only examine the main menu and little else. Clicking on the "tour as a guest" button will gently escort them back to the home page (a strange way to treat curious and interested educators).

The front page notes that Victorian Government Schools can access all the deeper layers. I suppose that they can contemplate quietly logging in and leaving the others guessing and gasping about the wonders that must be contained within.

The error message: "INSERT INTO entityuser (entityid,userid) VALUES ('66713',null)" rang a warning in my ear about about the freedom of good educational information.

I have some deep concerns and unresolved doubts about the value of Government money being spent on a hidden and closed portals such as the digilearn portal using Learning Federation Objects. Whilst there may be good commercial reasons for shutting these doors to authenticate users, protect intellectual property and recover costs, I can think of a hundred reasons why education should be open and free.

Until they fix this bug, I have more important things to do.

I read that the NSW Department of Education has decided to stick it out a bit longer with MS Windows XP, holding off a decision to upgrade to Vista. This comment in the newspaper was also interesting:

"I'm honestly of the opinion that we don't need the latest and greatest of everything," Mr Wilson said. "It doesn't always represent the best value for money because you're always paying more for the latest and greatest."
link

I recall watching a fascinating 1 hour Google Video presentation last year where Barry Schwartz briefly described a "paradox of choice" that contributed to poor decisions. When is good enough, fair enough? Does doubling the software features, processor speed or even software cost equate to twice the learning? At what point should schools stop chasing the latest and greatest?

Good to see the NSW Department of Education taking life one step at a time and considering the reasons for their upgrades. I wonder if they could also consider why every student needs to have the latest and greatest version of Office 2007 on their desktop when there are some good alternatives around that might suit their needs.

Money saved could then go back into the school system, new hardware or teacher training; an investment that is directly returned to the local community.

Here is an interesting online community for educators to share instructional videos. It probably fills a need for an educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners given that for many schools, access to YouTube videos are blocked. There are some interesting videos for teachers to use with students or for teachers teaching teachers.

http://www.teachertube.com/

Geetha Narayaran has some inspiring ideas for education. This is great reading and I hope to get to listen to the associated podcast as well.


Credit to lucychili for posting this to the Allies list.

Phil posted an interesting question on the Moodle mailing list about using tablet computers with interactive electronic whiteboards that got me thinking.  Yesterday at the VITTA conference I have heard Don mention about using a classroom set of cheaper graphics tablets, shared whiteboard software and a conventional projection system. This would work in a similar way to this flash based, ImaginationCubed collaborative drawing too.

I had a chance to see Elluminate, a slick Java solution. Whilst free for up to 3 users, it seems sadly overpriced when you consider any enterprise wide. A quick dig about the web showed me some cool open source software whiteboards under development that could be used in the classroom such as HiveBoard, DimDim or Drawboard.

There are a couple of different groups working to integrate these free tools DimDim into Moodle and another group at Cornell that has undertaken an even more challenging Moodle and Second Life integration with Drawboard and other project at San Jose State University.

All up, this is fun collaborative stuff that doesn't lock users or presenters into using a particular vendor or hardware system :-)

Not as funny as it sounds .. an English teacher had some horrid connection issues that caused several blue screens of death. I had too much on my plate and a technician would be able to make good any repairs until after the weekend. Instead I I tossed him a self booting Ubuntu CDROM and a spare IT student to show him how to boot from it. I was only buying him some time so he could do some typing with OpenOffice on his USB key but in fact, with no instruction they got the wireless Internet working at school, a printer and later even got it working at home. The following week he asked for it to be installed as a dual boot option and refuses to hand back the CDROM.

As he put it, "insurance from the madness with something that bloody works".

We forget that most casual users are less than forgiving with computer errors and perhaps less demanding of what we think that they might need from a computer.

We are reinventing many aspects of business and schooling with a focus on networks. It imperative for teachers to understand and objectively enage with the new technologies that underpin these new distributed networks. It is an issue that our ASISTM cluster has been working through.

Glen Boreham, the new CEO and managing director of IBM, points out that Australia's information and communications technology needs to become more competitive to take advantage of new ways of working and doing business. Organisations are being replaced by highly responsive, globally resourced enterprises that do not think of themselves as organisations but as networks. We see this happening with the development of Linux, open source, eBay, Secondlife, blogging and many other web2 and other folksomony initiatives.

Glen notes that the skills of the future will come at the intersection of the disciplines of IT, science, engineering, mathematics and business yet sadly, the Australian education system fall short of supporting both a fusion of these skills and misses out from our fantastic first hand knowledge of other cultures and languages. The window of opportunity is fast closing. (March 2007 National Press Club address, Computerworld - March 2087- IBM CEO urges Education Revolution)

So what is going on in the minds of our students?The president of the Melbourne PC User Lyn Goodall group recently observed from their aging membership profile that young people don't have much of an interest in understanding the workings of technology. Rather, they seem to be increasingly motivated by the socialisation that happens online than the physical company of others. (The Age - bunch of old mugs)

We also know that technology has changed family relationships at home, sometimes for the worse. Whilst mobile phones and instant messaging can give children a stronger sense of individual identity and independence, these tools may also undermine the time that families can spend together, making it harder for parents to know what is going on in the lives of their children as mentioned in (The Age - Technology threatens family bonding, Parents should monitor childrens web use)

I guess that it is all about swings and roundabouts. With these new freedoms and liberties will come new responsibilities to manage these opportunities.

Parents are responsible to provide effective parenting and supervision of their children, technology should not replace this supervision or undermine this relationship. Similarly, if teachers are going to effectively and safely engage with this technology in the classroom, they need to consider safe collaborative and virtual learning sandpits such as Moodle whilst ensuring that their curriculum covers any important Internet safety issues.

Teachers don't all need to create a personal webblog for every lesson, a Secondlife account, edit a movie, program a game or jump online to play one. They all do need to keep open the channels of communication with their students and critically understand the challenges presented by web2 technologies, drawing upon the interests, language and cultural backgrounds of their students. We ignore this at the peril of our role as leaders in the lives of our students.

The revolution is real and it will not stop because our minds are closed shut.

4I read a negative report in The Age newspaper about IT as a course of study in Victoria. A key line that I picked out regarding the cause of problem was that :

"All the off-the-shelf, do-it-yourself and managed services have created a well-worn and safe rut. It is easier to follow than to innovate, to take risks."

Melbourne is trying really hard to package itself as an IT center for innovation. I am encouraged that I have the opportunity to work with groups at the cutting edge to support fellow IT educators. They all have moved beyond the well-worn paths and are exploring new territories.

There has been much talk in the media of late by Education Minister Julie Bishop about giving teachers financial incentives for demonstrating student improvement. From what I can see, the only measurable way of doing this seems to be the application of nationwide testing.

I was interested to read a cross post in the New York news that mentions some heart-breaking results from the current national testing regime in the US. The report also raises the ugly and unfair bias that can creep in with grade inflation and only teaching to the test. [I have dropped blog link in this blog to the New York Times as their articles slip behind a user-pay firewall. Out of sight, out of reach. Instead, view The EducationTrust press release that was the basis for the news report.]

A key problem was whilst clear standards had been set, schools typically did not provide teachers with an idea of what 'on-standard' work looks like or time for them to collaborate so that they can align their assignments with the standards.

I would like to think that most teachers work hard to deliver results without linking their teaching outcomes to monetary rewards. in Victoria, we are moving to deploy a new "Outcomes" based curriculum model called the Essential Learning Standards or VELS. It should be an imperative for school administrations to provide sufficient funding and time to help better prepare and train teachers. As Kati Haycock, Education Trust President notes at the end of the report.

     “Just slapping new names on courses with weak curriculum and ill-prepared teachers won’t boost achievement.”

To date I have run each year a set of hands on workshops for local teachers.  This year I am going to put together a new workshop on Web2 technologies along with my traditional GameMaker and Moodle workshops. I hope to slip in a mention of the cool free software and teaching strategies around. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Web2: towards a collaborative, read-write Internet

Organising information on the web can be a source of frustration for many users. This workshop is about the Web2 covering blogs, wikis, podcasts, tagging and other social technologies that might interest primary and secondary teachers.  The changing role of technology in education to collaborate online, new trends and their impact for educators will be explored. We will consider how they can be used in the classroom in a way that is sensitive to how we can best enable students to connect with these new ways of learning and embed ICT skills into their curriculum as required in the VELS.

This workshop will give participants some of the information strategies to understand tagging, using tagging to explore the blogsphere, create and edit their own image tags and even dabble with geoblogging to source information to support classroom teaching. Participants will work to create a collaborative webspace including a blog and a wiki. The workshop will provide some self developed resources and samples of student work. Participants should bring a memory stick including some digital photographs and web addresses that they are happy to share.

Last day of school for this term .. aghh, spent much time cleaning my office to make room for two cool colleages that I will share with..

Mike keeps asking if I would like to see a Beta copy of Vista. Dont get me wrong, I'll get around to looking and probably upgrading to this product. I will admit to having a problem understanding the burning need to upgrade my VITTA,  operating system yet again. Some technical bloggers have grumbled about the overload with too many Microsoft applications released at once. I will get around it it but this will take time. For now I am pleased with OpenOffice that I can reuse my teaching notes from this year.

I have been fascinated by Virtual Machines since Donna gave me a self booting CDROM copy of Ubuntu to play about with. To date I have been tinkering with installations and tests using both Microsoft VirtualPC 2004 and VMWare 5. The former is free and the latter is full of cute features, tweaks and extra features. Virtual machines are fascinating to tinker with. There is even a cute picture on Wikipedia of Windows XP, running as a virtual machine on an Ubuntu host computer. Whils I could do this for hundreds of different operating systems, it made sense to first try the easy to use and install Linux Ubuntu system.

The folder sharing functions of VirtualPC 2004 didnt work at first when I used it to to build a virtual comptuer with Ubuntu, a Linux based operating system. Soon after, I discovered the application in the virtual Ubuntu that would permit me to share folders with my host computer by just using the laptop's wireless connection or a USB key. One of my hard-core IT students was fascinated by a copy I had running, spending some time to tinker and play with the settings to explore the different functions, layout options and file storage system. That is something that I learned at ACEC1006 conference, letting students play about with the software is a legitimate educational activity.

I was curious about the differences and read tonight a review that suggests that VMWare performs better than VirtualPC 2004. Whilst VMWare GSX is running on Google's 13000+ linux servers, this is probably not something that my students would notice. I also read some good notes in an online forum that indicate that these virtual machines work better if they are used on a hard disk drive that is physically separate from the operating system running on the host computer. I am going to try and see if it makes a difference if I copy and run them onto a 80 Gb relocatable USB2 HDD that I carry around. If this works, I can then easily run and tinker away with this on my laptop, work desktop or home computers. :-)

I have another student teacher working with me next work. I have asked him to develop and teach a 5 period Moodle teaching unit based around operating systems, drawing upon the practical task of installing both Ubuntu and Windows98 into different virtual machines. I insisted that he use Moodle, develop an online quiz and even share all his work on the VITTA website. Worried I was probably throwing him into the deep end, he just made oodles of notes, sat back with a smile and said "I like the pace are setting." (phew)

WIth the gracious assistance of my younger son, we just made an audio recording for Peter of MESA (Marine Education Society of Australia). Peter required a swag of small audio recordings for a professional marine science education project.

We had some fun stumbling over the difficult words such as "prominent". Try saying "Port Jackson shark egg case" ten times quickly. It was a snap to edit the audio clips we made to both normalise the audio volume level, removing gaffs, goofs and silent moments. I took a screen grab near the end of our project and it is interesting to reflect how we used the free open source software, Thunderbird, Firefox, Audacity and OpenOffice to complete this task. Solid workhorses that will function on just about any computer system.

Back in June 2006, Tony and I had a meeting with Mark Weber (aka the Flying Numbat), a leading Science and Technology educator from Western Australia who dropped over for a visit whilst in Melbourne during June 2006.

Mark is an innovative teacher and great bloke who has given me considerable inspiration since my early days of working in the school system. I have enjoyed our banter of e-mails across the continent in the early 1990's when he described his efforts to bring out the best in his students and a fond memory of meeting him face-to-face for the first time at an ACEC conference, a booming hello from over the street that was heard across the city of Brisbane.

Mark was interested in how we use Moodle and GameMaker. He was particularly impressed with the detailed simulations and applications developed by Tony. He showed us his Numbat Conspiracy website with a movie of his flying falcon rocket, a student project to build a car powered with with parts and motor salvaged from a computer CDROM player! It was my pleasure to take Mark and his wife Leanne on an evening drive and tour of the City of Melbourne. Good onya mate! I hope we can meet up again.

The Mag-Net project file server. This pioneering file server helped bring together a community of educators in the 1990's. It hosted a webserver, mailing lists and a suite of experimental projects that included a data logger, web camera, online quiz and more. This was before Department of Education even had its own website. For some educators (including this author) the Mag-Net sever provided their first serious Internet e-mail address, website and online footprint. The Mag-Net team even helped organise the first Netday in Victoria.

The file server was powered by Linux and located in the basement of the Education faculty of Monash University, Clayton Victoria. These photographs were taken when the final Mag-Net file server was finally decommissioned in 2001 and perhaps ungraciously stripped for parts.

Here is a small slideshow of the Mag-Net project.

At our staff meeting, we had an interesting speaker mention "readers theatre", an interesting teaching strategy where you can take your favourite story and turn it into an outstanding script to be read out by a team of students in the classroom. This Readers Script website has some useful teaching hints, background information on how to start your first classroom theatre performance and many sample scripts to download.

Over the past few years, I have done some interesting variations of this teaching strategy in my Information Technology classes, from plays recorded with a web camera using hand puppets in front of the data projector display or poster to hilarious readings from the Monty Python sketches such as "We Were So Poor".