The Big Question

This is from a 15 year old Student blogging on Web 2.0 and School

The Benefits of School 2.0

I was sitting in maths earlier this week, learning about some formula
that I’m almost certain I’ll never see again after my exam in May
(unless I fail that is…) when I turned to the guy sitting next to me
and told him about the Blog I wrote a couple of days before hand, and
how there were people out there taking a serious interest in my
opinion… which to be honest really surprised me. When I had finished
the story there was a pause. He then asked me, “What’s a Blog??”… My
only thought after that was if only he knew. If only he had discovered.
Not just what a Blog is, but what a Wiki is, what an RSS or and Atom
feed is. How it could benefit him. If only he had been taught…

Read the rest at the source

technorati tags:web2.0, students, bassplayersblog, learning, school2.0

Blogged with Flock

These podcasts provide some great opportunities for professional learning. Subscribe and enjoy

Connect Learning – David Warlick

K-12 Online Conference 2006

Moving at the Speed of Creativity

National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) 2006

Learn 4 Life

The Scottish Learning Festival (SETT)

The Online Connectivism Conference (OCC) 2007 You can download the audio from the presentations, view the videos or the powerpoint presentations

technorati tags:professional, learning, podcasts, web, 2.0

Blogged with Flock

TecnoTeach has a useful post of blogging teachers sorted by subject area and complete with a description of what their blogs are about.

TecnoTeach: How Can Teachers Blog?

technorati tags:teachers, blogging, blogs, web2.0

Blogged with Flock

Preparing a session on RRS I decided to review and list some of the blogs that I subscribe to and read on a regular basis. They are largely focused on the use of technology to engage students in meaningful learning. If you like the look of some of these blogs look for this RSS symbol and subscribe. (more on RSS coming soon)

Will Richardsons blog about web 2.0 in the classroom

Wesley Fryers blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

Also see this wiki of Wesley Fryer’s workshop resources!

Every One Learns - a place for comment and reflection on what it takes to make school a place where everybody learns.

The education.au blogs

The purpose of Aus Mac Ed is to provide a hub for Australian educators using Macs and iPods to engage and facilitate the best educational outcomes for their students.

Alan November is recognized internationally as a leader in education technology.

click on the digital edition or subscribe to the RRS feed

Marc Prensky’s blog (Digital Native fame) not updated very reguarly

I have had a couple of requests for holiday readings and so I thought I would share a few ideas here.

For a good introduction to blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, and all things Web 2.0 you would be hard pushed to go past Coming Of Age: An Introduction To The NEW Worldwide Web This “booklet” is a free download and a great example of the online collaboration that Web 2.0 is enabling. (Source Website: http://www.ictineducation.org)

On a similar theme 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

And I recently wrote a post about Social Software and Learning another great article from FutureLab. Again well worth the read.

And finally if you have any energy left you might like to look at the prereading for the TEACHnology moving toward 1:1 for Leaders course .

Have a great holiday whatever you get up to.

Technorati Tags: Web2.0, Reading, Learning

Social Software and Learning

This is a great professional reading about social software, Web 2.0 and learning in the current web environment.

[Open pdf version for best printing results (opens 994kb file in same window)]
CONTENTS

_{Executive summary}

_{1. Introduction: How do we learn in an era of connection and collaboration?}

_{2. What is social software?}

_{3. Does learning change in an information society?}

_{4. How do we move towards ‘c-learning’?}

_Bibliography

_{Appendix 1: Some annotated links}

Technorati Tags: Social, Software, Learning, Education

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

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.

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.

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.