Teacher's Blog
As mentioned, next week we will be blogging ‘live’, (well, almost) from the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum in Hong Kong. Kristen and I will be accompanied by Peter Carney and Dan Roberts whom, Kristen spoke about in her last two blog posts. They have the hardest job at the event, as they will be presenting their Virtual Classroom Tours; Spy Academy and Recharge the Battery, with teachers from all around the world, to a panel of judges who will select the best VCTs in the categories of : Content, Community and Collaboration.
We will be bringing you all the action from the event, with guest bloggers, photos and comments, and I will be trying out some GPS technology linked to Virtual Earth and Photosynth, so you will be able to see our travels directly. We are really excited to be attending this event and are hoping to give you a true sense of the experience and maybe inspire you to submit your own Virtual Classrooms Tours. So next year it could be YOU attending this event! Can we all wish Peter and Dan good luck? And in true Soap Opera style… Who will win the coveted awards? Who will lose their luggage? Where is the Gala Dinner? Find out next week in Far Eastenders! Doof, Doof, Doof…….
We will be bringing you all the action from the event, with guest bloggers, photos and comments, and I will be trying out some GPS technology linked to Virtual Earth and Photosynth, so you will be able to see our travels directly.
We are really excited to be attending this event and are hoping to give you a true sense of the experience and maybe inspire you to submit your own Virtual Classrooms Tours. So next year it could be YOU attending this event!
Can we all wish Peter and Dan good luck? And in true Soap Opera style… Who will win the coveted awards? Who will lose their luggage? Where is the Gala Dinner? Find out next week in Far Eastenders! Doof, Doof, Doof…….
Last week I shared with you the award-winning lesson from Peter Carney of Bowring Community Sports College in Knowsley, whom Microsoft is bringing to Hong Kong to participate in our Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum. You'll hear more from Peter when we're in Hong Kong the first week of November.
As promised, this week I'll share the work of Dan Roberts, the other Innovative Teacher joining us in Hong Kong. Like Peter's project, Dan's is science-focused but includes many other subject areas as well. Although he designed it as a 3-lesson cycle for years 7-13, it could be adapted for Key Stages 1 and 2.
Dan's project also brought students closer to a real-world topic, the farming of battery hens vs. raising free-range chickens.
Students were asked to take an in-depth look at how food actually gets to their tables, examining the issues surrounding farming methods that are often used by large suppliers. Students worked in teams to do this research and presented their findings in a video podcast.
Dan and others at Saltash .NET Community School in Cornwall took things a bit further, however. With another local school, they actually created a space at school for students to care for rescued battery hens and raise chickens from eggs. The space includes pigs (and piglets!) that the students look after as well.
The school has created a Web site, complete with live Pig Cam and Egg Cam, news updates from students and staff, blogs, and even a song composed and performed by one of the students.
What adds to this whole story is the 6-foot chicken I alluded to last week. When teachers present their work at these forums, they have a table and poster presentation so that other teachers, guests, Microsoft employees and the judges can learn more about their projects. The teachers put a lot of time and effort into these visual presentations, and most are quite impressive.
At our European Innovative Teachers Forum in Croatia last spring, Dan took his presentation one step further by presenting his project while wearing a chicken costume. Here's a picture, in case you can't imagine it. We're not sure how this will work in a region often concerned with bird flu...
To access Dan's VCT on the Innovative Teachers Network, click here.*
Make sure to check back next week when we'll be blogging LIVE from the Hong Kong Innovative Teachers Forum!
*Note: If this is your first time accessing the Innovative Teachers Network, you will not be able to access the VCT directly from this link. You'll need to go to http://uk.innovativeteachers.com and register to create a username and password for the site. Then click the link above (where you'll be prompted for your username and password) to get to the VCT.
Keeping track of all the communities I belong to on the Innovative Teachers Network is becoming a bit of organisational nightmare, as I just keep forgetting what I have joined. Luckily, I have managed to find some useful tools that can help me keep track of my information.
Before you can use any RSS reader you need to set up your communities in the Innovative Teachers Network. This is really easy to do. In your selected community, decide on what you want receive alerts on, i.e. Announcements, Events, Discussions, Links or Shared Documents. (Unfortunately there no way to select all, you have to set the alert for each area separately.) Click on the Action link, and a drop-down menu will appear. Select View RSS Feed and then select Subscribe to the Feed. This adds the feed to your subscribed feeds list in your RSS reader.
If you don’t have or use an RSS reader then set up the ‘Alert Me’ function. This will send you an email when something is added to the community. If you own a community on the Innovative Teachers Network, it is good idea to remind your community members to set up their own RSS feeds or email alerts. This will ensure that all your community members get up to date information.
This automation is a great way of sending out information to people , but it does not factor in some people’s ability (namely mine!) to just forget to check their feeds. So I have managed to solve this problem with the Vista News feed gadget that is part of the default gadgets included with Vista. If you have not already done so, add the News Feed gadget to your Vista desktop sidebar. Next click the Setting icon (a small spanner), and the gadget will recognise all the RSS feeds you have subscribed to. You are able to choose whether to view all the feeds or select a particular feed. In this case, select the Innovative Teachers Network and Presto! -- instant, visible reminders right on your desktop. This has really solved a problem for me as now, I get reminders where I can always see them. Now if I could only find a piece of technology that will remind me of my wedding anniversary, life would be sweet.
If you have any tips or tricks that make things easier or simpler for teachers and students, then feel free to share them on this blog or on the Innovative Teachers Network.
One of the great things about my job, and I can assure you there are many, is that I get to see the latest technology as it emerges. Although a lot of the latest developments go straight over my head, it’s those that I can instantly see a use for in the classroom that I get excited about (I should get out more shouldn’t I?). This week, whilst looking for resources to support using Virtual Earth in the classroom, (I will let you know more about that in a future post and on the Innovative Teachers Network) I discovered the applications described below. I think these are examples of ways that technology can really enhance teaching and learning.
Auto Collage 2008 is a simple program that does some complicated stuff with images. It automatically creates photo montages from a folder of images. The way it does this is based on face recognition technology, and the results are impressive. This is an ideal application for students and teachers to use to create montages of events or field trips. Even better, it could simplify the time consuming process of producing end-of-year books. If you have any other ideas about how you might use this application, then let us know, if would be great to hear from you. You can see a demo and download a trial version here. It is well worth a look.
Deep Zoom for those who have seen its use at the Hard Rock Cafe site. Then you will know that Deep Zoom is a Silver light* application that allows you to display and explore large or Hi-resolution images, without the problem of slow downloads and fuzzy images. You can check it out in more detail here. But what is great about this is you can download a Deep Zoom Composer? This allows your students to create their own Deep Zoom montages from a collection of images. Although the higher the resolution, the better the results, you can still get decent results from an everyday digital camera. Creating a Deep Zoom montage is really easy, its just a process of selecting the images and dragging them into place. The Deep Zoom Composer does the rest. Students could use this to create their own e-portfolio of objects and memorabilia, which would be a really cool way of presenting an art project of sculpture or 3D design. It also makes a great way to visually tell stories or capture events. This is something that will really inspire your students and I guarantee, yourselves. Inspired like me, I’m off to catalogue the objects of our local Greasy Spoon Cafe, not quite the Hard Rock Cafe, I just fancy deep zooming a bacon sandwich!
And finally…… This is called Touchless and I have no idea what to do with this, yet! it is such a new concept that only this demo exists. But with all these developments around touch technology such as Surface, could this be an indication of how we might be using whiteboards in the future? All you need is a simple webcam to capture objects that you can use to interact with a computer. There is enough in this demo to get your students excited about the potential use of this technology and if you or your students are capable programmers, then you could create some potentially ground breaking activities. Download it here
If you have any ideas about how you are using technology in the classroom and you would like to share them, join the Innovative Teachers Network
*Silverlight is a free cross-platform plug-in, that allows Silverlight applications to work in a web browser.
Stuart and I have been talking about the teachers we work with all over the UK (here), including those who create Virtual Classroom Tours (explained here) and travel with us to Innovative Teachers Forums around the world (described here).
We're about to embark on the grand-daddy of all Innovative Teachers events at Microsoft, our worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum, being held this year in Hong Kong. Literally hundreds of award-winning teachers from all over the world will be flown in for this event and will get the chance to share their innovative classroom learning activities with each other.
This year's event is the first week of November, and Stuart, the teachers and I will be blogging "live" from Hong Kong during the event. We're bringing two teachers to the Forum to represent the UK: Peter Carney from Bowring Community Sports College in Knowsley, and Dan Roberts from Saltash .NET Community School in Cornwall. Both teachers won prizes at our European Innovative Teachers Forum last spring in Croatia, and thus qualified to attend the worldwide event.
In addition to being excited about the amazing programme of events in Hong Kong, we at Microsoft are proud of Dan and Peter and the work they're doing with students at their schools. We want to share their Virtual Classroom Tours with you so that you can learn from them as well.
This week, I'll talk to you about Peter's VCT. You'll have to tune in again next week to learn about Dan's.
Peter's work is part of a larger curriculum reform that is taking place at his school. He was part of a team of teachers working together on this learning activity, which took place with year 8 students over several class periods.
Students were given a "real-life" project to solve; specifically, one of the teachers in their school had stolen £2000 earmarked for a school trip. Students were required to work as teams to analyse data and evaluate a range of evidence in order to eliminate suspects and find the "criminal". The tasks they were required to complete included fingerprint analysis, viewing of fibre samples from the "crime scene", and memory activities based on CCTV footage.
The student teams then had to create a presentation, in whatever format they chose, presenting the work they did to eliminate the suspects and their idea of who-dunnit.
Peter's fantastic VCT, containing all of the lesson plans, student activities, assessments, and examples of student work, is on the Innovative Teachers Network for you to use in your schools right away. (Click here to link to it directly.)
Next week I'll tell you about Dan Roberts' VCT and the 6-foot chicken he's bringing to Hong Kong.
In an earlier post (here) I told you about the communities that exist on the Innovative Teachers Network (ITN). Since the beginning of this school term, we have had over 20 new communities created on the ITN. All have a different focus and represent the innovative ways schools are approaching the use of technology to support learning. To find an existing community on the ITN, first you need to sign in*. Once you're in, hover your mouse over the Communities tab at the top of the screen and select Find a Community from the drop-down menu. This takes you to the first of several pages showing all of the communities that exist on the ITN.
Over the past few months two communities have really begun to show what can be achieved through communities. One is a public community, called MS Office and Learning Styles, and the other is a private community called Saltash.Net EPICT CPD. These communities each have a different focus.
The MS Office and Learning styles community is for sharing ideas and resources around using Microsoft Office in the classroom, in particular Microsoft OneNote. Contributors to this community are far ranging, such Dr Ole Lauridsen, whose research into technology and thinking skills can be accessed in the documents Learning Styles in PPT and OneNote - Learning Styles. (If you've ever wondered about how the use of colours in PowerPoint impacts attention span, this community has a document that explains all. Believe me the results are amazing!) Mike Tholfsen, who works on the development team for OneNote, has also joined this community and contributed a wealth of resources on using this marvellous application in schools.
Although the second example is a private community, the nature of what Saltash.Net Community School are wanting to achieve means that if you request to join their community, they will probably let you. The school uses their community as an organisational tool for their teachers to share ideas and support each other in the school’s goal of achieving EPICT status. The community contains ideas for virtual classroom tours and the activities that school is undertaking. If your school is thinking of developing some form of whole school professional development, then this community is an ideal place to start.
Creating a community is really easy, as I described in this earlier post. But before you create a community, think about what it will contain and who you're trying to reach. It is also a good idea to have resources ready to populate your community with. You will from time-to-time need to motivate your community by adding new resources, to spark new discussions and activity. It is worthwhile to consider ‘advertising’ your community through email or blogs, but you can only do this effectively if there are already resources in your community that you can point people to.
If you have community that you would like me to blog about, feel free to get in touch.
Recently I told you about the E-Librarian, a service to help you in your search for information on education topics. (To refresh your memory, click HERE for that post.) Today I have another time-saving tool to help you with UK-specific education research.
Say you want to search for information on using Tablet PCs in your classroom. If you use Microsoft Live Search or that other search engine that starts with a "G", your top results will include lists of places where you can buy Tablet PCs, a Wikipedia article on Tablet PCs and, if you scroll further, more places where you can buy Tablet PCs. You'll have to refine your search quite a bit to get to any research or information on using Tablet PCs in schools, and even then it will take you a while to find information that is specific to the UK.
Don't give up the search yet! The TDA and Microsoft have created a tool called the Education Evidence Portal (EEP), designed to help anyone search for materials from a variety of reputable sources in the UK.
If you enter the same search for Tablet PCs in EEP, here's what you get.
There are 137 results for research and other education-specific evidence relating to Tablet PCs. The drop-down list shows the organisations in England and Scotland where these documents are being pulled from.
To make it even easier, those of you using Windows Vista can install the EEP Vista gadget. Here's mine. It enables me to search EEP right from my desktop - doesn't get much easier than that! (I'm only posting this photo to remind myself that there was at least one sunny day in England this year...)
I recently attended a great gathering of teachers at the the E-Learning Conference in Jersey (and got to see the Red Arrows performing at the Island’s Battle of Britain celebrations, which was very cool). I think the conference challenged and certainly enthused us all; I've provided links to some of my favorite presentations here:
DK also told me about this great presentation on creativity in schools (or the lack thereof) by Sir Ken Robinson; if you have not seen this TED talk, you must, check it out here.
I ran a workshop at the conference about the Innovative Teachers Network, during which teachers voiced their frustration that they can't use many of the most interesting web-based classroom ideas they had seen at the conference. This is not due to a lack of resources or technology, but is simply because, a result of a directive from the Local Authority, the web sites they need are not accessible through their school networks. When I was teaching I experienced a similar situation, with the directive coming from the Minister of Education in Wales.
I understand the issues around safety and appropriate use of web technologies, but I am beginning to hear more and more people say that students enter school and ‘power down’, meaning that they can’t use the technology and associated skills they have mastered outside school to support their learning. Do any of you have the same frustration? Have you managed to overcome these issues?
One thing I have learnt is that whatever the issue we have with technology, a teacher or school somewhere has solved the problem. This is where the Innovative Teachers Network can prove invaluable. Clare Satchwell, a history teacher from the Priory City of Lincoln Academy has recorded in a Virtual Classroom Tour (VCT) how her school have managed to use MSN Messenger to support learning - something that other schools don't often allow. Clare’s VCT, which she presented at the European Innovative Teachers Forum in Zagreb as an award winner from the UK, describes her idea as simple, but the issues they have managed to solve are complex. Clare’s VCT describes how students use MSN Messenger to contact their teachers to support their learning at home. It is a great idea and is having a measurable impact on exam results.
You can download Clare’s VCT from the Innovative Teachers Network. Joining the Network is free and will give you access to even more resources and communities. So in the words of the 80s TV programme The A-Team, ‘If you have a problem and no one else can help, then you need the [Innovative Teachers Network]. I love it when a plan comes together’.
Please feel free to contribute any other A-Team quotes -- or any innovative ways you use technology to support learning -- and share them as a Virtual Classroom tour on the Innovative Teacher Network site.
We throw around the word "innovation" a lot in education today. Indeed, it's one of our favourite words at Microsoft, as we've frequently referred to Innovative Teachers or Innovative Schools programmes in this blog.
But what does it really mean?
I was reading an education and technology blog put out by Edutopia, the journal of the George Lucas Educational Foundation (that's right, THE George Lucas, as in Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and so forth).
This blogger was talking about innovation and asked teachers (and these are US teachers, mind you), to write in and discuss how they are using technology in innovative ways to support their teaching and their students' learning.
I have to admit, I was surprised by some of the answers, as they didn't seem very innovative to me. Using wireless mice on classroom computers? Playing videos for students from a computer rather than on a television?
But what do I know?
I'm visiting schools in the UK on a regular basis, and I've visited schools all over the world, but many times I'm visiting a "showcase" school that the government or partner uses as an example. I know that schools and teachers have to start somewhere; innovative use of technology is different for a teacher new to using ICT than it is for a teacher for whom computers are old hat. At the same time, there are many teachers who use technology regularly but may not be innovative. I've seen many teachers using technology simply to replace old tools, such as pencil and paper, rather than using it to do things that students couldn't do without it.
I know there must be a million examples of innovative uses of technology in schools in the UK, but other than a handful of examples I don't know where it is, who is doing it, and what impact it is having on teaching and learning. So you tell me - what are you doing with ICT that's innovative? How do you define innovation?
I know you have more going on here than our friends across the pond. Either add a comment to this post or complete a Virtual Classroom Tour on the Innovative Teachers Network and tell us what you're doing.