Sopping up the earthquake aftermath with Moodle

At a school PD session this afternoon, we talked about how our year has been affected by mother nature, and especially the effect on time spent on Professional Development. The work already done towards my personal goal of improving differation in my classes, using ICT, meant that my classes were less affected by disruptions than they might have been in the past. I have consequently kept up with my work on this goal, simply because it was making my life easier, and helping my students.

Obviously it has been easier for my more motivated students to keep up, as they can access course material, and contact me, without being at school. It has also been great for all the new students who are still arriving in my classes - many more than usual. They are generally able to work independently in classtime, and at home, to catch up - I keep an eye on them and keep giving feedback on submitted work, but seldom have extra preparation.

I'm sure I've said it before, but I really believe we must "Work Smarter, Not Harder".

Moodle

I've been experimenting with Moodle for about a year now, along with several other teachers at my school. I now have a reasonable amount of content for all my classes, especially seniors. It seems like a good time to evaluate my use of Moodle, and the student's response to it.


Positives for me:

• Students like it! Although some teachers are still a bit anxious about using Moodle, even my most limited students have embraced it and seem to manage very well.
  
• Sometimes I just use it for students to submit work, instead of printing (they seldom have print credit). This enables me to mark their work anytime, and they love getting written feedback from me.
  
• Any work submitted by students can be opened, by them, at home. Parents can then also see their work, and my feedback.
  
• Having a student finish work at home, without being asked, and submitting it to me in the evening is awesome!
  
• I have been able to add some activities for different groups of students to continue with, while the rest of the class is working with me. I have used it for:
  - students needing extension tasks: I have several extra units of work on my Year 10 course, to cater for different interests.
  
  - students who cannot manage all exam work (mainstreamed students in particular). They have been added as a separate group, and check here daily to see what to do next. They then submit work to me (I get an email when new work is posted), and eagerly look for feedback the next day.
  
  - Mixed level/ability classes. Senior classes are currently mixed level, with different levels of experience within that. Therefore they are all working at different rates, often on different units. All activities are added to Moodle, and all work submitted this way. I have also started to add extra help, such as embedded YouTube videos, and links to other sites.
  
• PowerPoints that I use to teach the class are easily saved as a PDF and added to a Moodle course. This is great for students who have been away, or want to recap at home.
  
• Hot Potatoes quizzes are a great way to add starters for lessons, especially with a focus on vocabulary. I usually have students repeat the quizzes until they get 100% - they love to compete against each other. One wee year 9 lad who was often not engaged in class work at other times, loved this idea of getting 100% so much, he used a pen and paper to record answers as he got them correct so he could go back in and get them all right!
  
• The Save to Moodle add-in makes it much easier and quicker to add files to Moodle courses.
  
• Work smarter, not harder! Most of what I added last year is still good this year. More effort the first time BUT definitely a much easier year to follow!

Not so good:

• The administrative side still has a few hiccups, especially the links with Kamar. We're definitely getting there but it doesn't happen over night. I will persevere because I think it's worth the effort.
  
• I don't like the messaging feature, which we don't seem to be able to turn off for individual students/courses. It can be a bit of a pain in the wrong hands.
  

The future:

• Try forums
  
• Get even more interactive with content updated to reflect what we're doing right now.
  
• Investigate how other learning areas are using this, and hopefully we can inspire each other.

Class Blog

I have just started another blog, for use with my ICT classes. There is now a considerable quantity of class work which cannot be printed off and taken home to show parents, so I had to think of another way to do this. The blog seems to be the easiest way at present.

• I started off by bringing all my Year 10's animations together in Movie Maker, adding some music from Freeplay, and creating a short movie. This could then be put directly into the class blog.
• I've included presentations - PowerPoints added to Slideshare and embedded in the blog, and the Google presentation created by a group of Year 11s.
• The use of labels, previously unexplored by me, will enable students to look at postings relevant to their year level.
• A clever Year 11 student, with a keen interest in using Photoshop, will create a photo banner for the top of our blog.

After considerable thought, I decided to create a second Google account, for use by students. Unfortunately, however, my students are currently unable to log onto Blogger at school. I really hope to be able to let students make some postings, so hopefully we can overcome this problem.

Getting started in the ICT Classroom

Getting to know each other

During our first week, traditionally a time for getting to know students, I tried out a couple of ideas. With one class, I had the students create a "Bio Cube" about themselves. They add information to six different sides of a cube (I gave them suitable headings for each side), print them out and fold and glue into a cube shape. These can be made into a mobile for classroom display. Of course this is also a handy way of presenting information for a class assignment.

Another class started the year by creating a PhotoStory about themselves, which we shared as a class. They used photos from Pro.Corbis for this, and told us why they had chosen the particular photos. This was a really interesting way to find out what these kids are really like. This served a double purpose as we were beginning a Presentations unit, and students have since chosen to create quick photostories for inclusion in their PowerPoint shows - much more interesting than multiple slides of photos.

My Year 13 class used Inspiration to prepare a web showing me what ICT skills they already had (from school and home), and what they would like to know more about. I collated their webs into a class web and used this as a basis to suggest individual projects they could be working on this year, outside normal class time. An unexpected plus for this activity was with the initial web - many students started off with only a small number of skills listed but, with a little prompting from me and seeing what everybody else had, ended up with a really large web and a corresponding increase in confidence. It was interesting that initally most students kept school and home activities quite separate, not including Bebo, photo editing etc on their webs.


Research and Presentations
I've used Web 2 Tools to solve a couple of problems. The way our school network is set up, any changes that are made on the network (other than in home drives) are lost as soon as the computer is logged off. This means we have few problems with our network, but can be a bit of a nuisance at times. One thing that really is a pain, is the fact that we cannot store bookmarks in our browser. For me, this means that I am using my delicious account every day, and have also introduced a couple of senior classes to delicious, when they were working on research projects. While not everyone can be bothered with it, a few have added me to their network.

Quite a number have been fascinated by my iGoogle page, and gradually I see more and more students signing in to their own page in class. One of the main uses for this page, is for keeping frequently used bookmarks. This is a great alternative to delicious for people who don't yet need to keep a lot of sites bookmarked or, like me, just use it for the sites you go to most days.

One of my year 11 classes started the year with two computing theory units. This isn't really what they were expecting or hoping for, they mostly just want to get on with learning new applications. It was great to keep their interest by using some new tools. While learning about Ergonomics, each student researched one topic and they all added their findings to a class slideshow. We used Google Presentations for this (a new part of Google Docs) - it was a quick exercise and worked well with a group from diverse backgrounds.

We are very lucky to have Clickview at our school - the Computer Hardware video I had used before now took on a whole new dimension. We viewed the movie right through as a class (with just a projector - no need to bring a TV in), then students worked at their own pace to answer the worksheets. They thought this was pretty cool, but the really good thing for me, was that they asked if they were allowed to access these videos at other times for revision, and to help with assignments. Some did indeed refer back to the video clips for assistance when working through later worksheets - for these students this worked better than referring to written notes.

Differrentiated Learning
While teaching half a class about computer hardware etc, I also have to keep the other half of the class working on useful activities. This has been quite a challenge as these students speak very little English. To keep things going for a few weeks, I created PowerPoint slideshows which included screenshots as well as written instructions. It took a wee while for everybody to get the idea of checking back on the slideshow for assistance but we got there in the end. Now I've tried out CamStudio, the free software that records all activity on your computer and creates AVI video files, I'll be using this tool to create a bank of video tutorials. Hopefully these will be helpful for ESL students in particular.

These students will be my constant challenge this year. I'm thinking about the benefits of blogging for these students - hopefully I can work in with their other teachers on this one. I'd like to get them started but don't want them to spend too much of my class time on this as there are many other things we need to cover. Maybe I can tie other things into the blog hmmmm.... a bit more thought required.

ICT and Key Competencies

| View | Upload your own

ICT in the New Zealand Curriculum

I've been spending quite a lot of time looking at the new curriculum document, and personally can't see how schools can implement the key competencies in the manner intended, unless they also include a focus on ICT.

I've put my initial ideas into an Inspiration document - follow the link to download your own version (Inspiration 7.5).


Download Inspiration File

Audio on a Blog (2)

Further to my problems outlined in a previous post, I've been trying the suggestion from Iain. He suggested using box.net to store the file. Once uploaded, the files can be sent straight to your blog, with a comment, meaning there is no need to add a new post to your blog first.

This worked perfectly for me, and was very quick and easy, but unfortunately it ended up on the wrong blog! If you want to use this method, make sure that the blog you are posting to is at the top of your blogger dashboard before you send the audio file to it. You can do that by making a change on your blog first, and it will then be moved to the top of the list. I decided to write this info first, then go back and send another post.

Of course if you only have one active blog, this won't be an issue.

Once the file has been uploaded to box.net, just click on the wee arrow on the top right corner to see the option to send to your blog. Select your blogger name, add a message (appears as post content), and away you go.

Audio to a Blog: box.net

This audio file, and message, were added to box.net and sent straight to this blog from there. No need to go to two different websites - brilliant! Thanks Iain.

kays_podcast_1.mp3

Quest Atlantis

This week's lead teacher meeting was taken by Sue Partridge from Tasman School. She introduced us all to Quest Atlantis and shared her experiences with this virtual world. As far as we know, Sue's students are currently the only kids in the South Island currently lucky enough to be part of this world.

Quest Atlantis (QA) is a learning and teaching project that uses a 3D multi-user environment to immerse students, ages 9-12, in educational tasks. It has been developed by Indiana University and could be relevant to New Zealand teachers as a model of an online project. QA builds on strategies from online role-playing games and combines strategies used in the commercial gaming environment with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. Includes unit plans for teachers.

Everything to do with Quest Atlantis is free, and of a very high standard. There is an extensive amount of background reading required - Sue uses QA as part of her reading programme - and even the story books are provided free. Before teachers can gain access to the full Quest site, they are required to complete a small amount of PD - approximately 1.5 hours a week, for three weeks. This is done online with a professional and other new users. This sets you up really well to embark on the Quest, and ongoing support is freely available.

While the amount of reading, research, comprehension, problem solving and analysis is considerable, there are also a lot of other lessons to be learnt along the way. Students choose to work in worlds such as:

• Unity World
• Ecology World
• Culture World
• Healthy World

They then choose Quests to complete from these seven arms:

• healthy communities
• compassionate wisdom
• diversity affirmation
• environmental awareness
• personal agency
• creative expression
• social responsibility

The messages contained in the various quests sit incredibly well with the key competencies of the new curriculum. With over 500 Quests currently available (teachers may allow as few or many of these as they wish), students will never get bored. Quest Atlantis is constantly being upgraded and kept to a high standard.

I was incredibly impressed with Quest Atlantis, and believe it has tremendous potential for:

• capturing the interest of reluctant readers
• engaging boys
• extending students
• developing thinking/analytical skills
• problem solving
• social interaction

Users of Quest Atlantis need to download software to their computers, and then work online. While online they are able to interact with students from around the world who are online at the same time. Note that while the Quests are online, there is a considerable amount of research and drafting that can be completed without the computer.

Teachers have full access to students accounts, and can check what they have been doing at any stage. This looks to be a very safe environment for students, while still offering them the excitement of being involved with people from around the world.

For more information, have a look at the Quest Atlantis website.

Here's a wee intro into the legend of Atlantis:

Lead Teacher Sharing Day

Discover IT Tasman had our first Lead Teacher Sharing Day last week, at Tasman School. It was a great day (with yummy lunch!) which we hope to repeat more often in the future. See the ideas shared by our teachers on our "IT Heroes" wiki.

Audio on a Blog

I've been asked by a couple of people how they can add audio to their blogs. The answer to this isn't as easy and obvious as adding videos through YouTube for example (although we may not ever need to do this again with the new video upload button in Blogger).

As with all other objects we have been adding to our blogs, the audio file has to be stored on a third party site - finding this has been the most difficult part. I've got mine working and it wasn't too difficult. I decided to upload my files (MP3) to my Google Pages account. Google Pages allow you 100MB of free storage which sounds a lot but my short podcast was 2MB so it wouldn't take long to use up your allowance - there must be somewhere else we can upload files to but I can't find it! Once uploaded, you can right click on the audio file and "Copy Link Location". This can easily be hyperlinked and added to your post as below "Hear our Podcast".

Now my favourite part of this: to show a list of all MP3s linked to your site, I've added a Streampad Player to this post. It's easy to choose any audio file to listen to. NB: It may take 2-3 hours before new MP3's appear on the player.

Hear our podcast

Instructional Design

I am currently facilitating Producing and Integrating effective ICT resources into the classroom, with a group of teachers from our cluster. This is part of the GradDipICTEd previously offered by the College of Education and now, since the merger, a University of Canterbury course.

While this course has always had a very practical focus, there is also an expectation that resources are not only created, but are based on sound learning theory. Discussions amongst our group have been a great way of refocusing on all the things we know already, but can have a tendency to gloss over when busy.

This week we looked at two different Instructional Design models: ARCS and ADDIE. The PowerPoint presentations we will be creating are to be designed based on one of these models. As I prepared my presentation to this group, I decided to base it on the ARCS model - the end result was a session that ran smoothly, with participants going away feeling that they had achieved what they set out to achieve. There were only a couple of small things I needed to add to my presentation to ensure this happened - nothing new, but techniques from the classroom which I sometimes forget when talking to adults. These included:

• a short video to get everyone's attention
• explicitly defining the learning objectives of our session
• explaining the relevance of the readings and how they fit into their projects
• maintaining attention by asking a question at the beginning, the answer to which was included in the following slides
• giving opportunities for them to share their knowledge and relating this prior knowledge to the new system we were looking at
• working together to complete the presentation, for sharing afterwards
• modelling the system we were talking about
• reviewing learning objectives at the end of the session.

We came up with this summary of how we could apply the ARCS Instructional Design system.

AttentionRelevanceConfidence
Satisfaction
ATTENTION

Key Characteristics:

• grabbing learners attention
• providing sensory stimuli
• inquiry through questioning
• maintaining attention through a variety of stimuli

Examples:

• thought provoking questions
• 'hooks'
• videos
• links
• audio: oral/music
• photos
  

l

RELEVANCE

Key Characteristics:

• what's in it for me?
• advance organiser
• setting direction for learning
• stated learning objectives
• so what?
• tying instruction into learners' experience

l

l

l

Examples:

• sharing learning intentions
• choice of presentation tools, according to learning styles of class

CONFIDENCE

Key Characteristics:

• setting students up to succeed
• explicit success criteria
• high level of student control and involvement
• scaffolding for success

l

Examples:

l

• rubrics
• feedback/feed forward
• 1-1 conferencing

SATISFACTION

l

Key Characteristics:

• evaluation and self-assessment
• intrinsic rewards
• extrinsic rewards
• enjoyment

Examples:

• opportunities to present
• opportunities for further exploration
• gain a certificate/award
• students describe how their new knowledge/skills have helped them

l

l

Videos in the Classroom

Students today take in as much as 50 percent of the information they receive through visual images. Teachers are using visual media such as television, movies, video games, photography, and Facebooking both to engage this "eye-curious" culture and to help students think critically about what they see.

The Washington Post, July 6, 2007

VIDEO BASICS

Videos are a powerful visual resource for your classroom - whether you download them to show your students, or upload students' work to share with others. Some terms you will come across:

Streaming: playing video straight from the internet

Downloading: saving the video to your own computer, to play at a later date (you would no longer need to be on the internet)

Embedding: Add a streamed video to your own webpage or blog. The video would then play from your page - it is not a hyperlink to another site, although it is stored on an external site (you do need to be connected to the internet).

Example of embedded video: When I Become a Teacher ....

Editing: making changes to a video. You can use Windows Movie Maker (free download) to cut away the bits you don't want eg you might only want 5 minutes of a 20 minute video. It's easier than you think.
Help with editing in Movie Maker.

Converting: Changing the format of the video so you can play it from your computer.

VIDEO SOURCES

The Loop
Clickview - try here first! These are fabulous educational videos created for Australian and New Zealand schools. They are neatly divided into chapters, so you can play as much or little as you wish. You can also choose to take them home in your 'schoolbag'; put a few clips together to make a 'lesson' for your students to work through at their own pace; request a recording of a TV programme coming up; use resources supplied with the video. ONLY available as part of The Loop (school, not home).

New Zealand ContentTV New Zealand on Demand View or download full-length New Zealand shows. Streamed only.
TV New Zealand on You Tube popular segments from a selection of New Zealand shows - mostly news and current affairs. Streamed from YouTube, or can be converted via ZamZar.TV3 Current affairs; news; business; science/technology; weather/environment; health and sport videos. Streamed only.

Made for Teachers
Teachers TV 15 minute videos which can be streamed or downloaded.To download a video you must first register with Teachers TV and log in to the website. All of their downloadable videos are available in Windows Media Video (.wmv) format (no conversion needed). More recent downloadable programmes are also available in QuickTime (.mov) format. Most videos also have supporting resources available.
Teacher Tube Videos from teachers, for teachers. Can be streamed, downloaded (and converted via ZamZar), or embedded into your webpage. Some even come with support files! What about uploading some of your own videos here to share with others?!

Video Classroom Videos for teacher Professional Development. These videos cover most subject areas and provide a lot of inspiration for teachers.

International
YouTube A plethora of videos on every subject imaginable. Try searching for something - you might be surprised!

• YouTube do not include a download option, but videos can be dowloaded and converted via ZamZar.
• If you want to play several videos at once, create a 'playlist'. You can save your playlist and access at a later date (you will need to create an account).
• To include a YouTube video in your Slide Show, just copy and paste the URL to your PowerPoint slide.

Google Video Streamed video, many of which have an option to download for both Windows and Macs, or can be embedded straight into your blog (blogger) with the click of a button. Also worth a look is BBC on Google Video.

Internet ArchiveMoving Images library of free movies, films, and videos. This library contains thousands of digital movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to videos of every genre uploaded by Archive users. Most of these movies are available for download.

Breaking News Videos from CNN Streamed videos only
Expert Village Video tutorials on all sorts of topics - don't forget to browse through the 'Other' category.
National Geographic High quality, professional videos: Environment; Animals; People and Places. Streamed only

VIDEOS IN THE CLASSROOM

Get ready!

• if you are showing a video to the class, bookmark your video page in advance then open it and let it play through once directly BEFORE the class. This will ensure it plays smoothly.
• if you want students to look at several videos, create a page of links for them. This can be as simple as a word document; add the links to Moodle; or create your own Google Page.
  To add a hyperlink in Word, just type the descriptive word for the video - highlight it - right click - hyperlink - add the web address. Make it look like a 'proper' webpage by formatting the background with a nice texture, and saving it as a webpage. This can then be opened from your browser - your own webpage (for in-school use), complete with hyperlinks!
• locate the class set of headphones, so students can listen without disturbing each other.

To download and convert videos:
Choose this option only if it's impossible to use the internet in the classroom. Preferably save the downloaded video to your flashdrive, or a CD, as space is precious on the school server.

If a downloaded video won't play on your computer, go to ZamZar to convert your video into an appropriate format. For Windows machines, you want a Windows Media Video File (wmv), or Windows Video File (avi).
For Mac users, look for an Apple Quicktime Movie (mov).

Get Creative
Many of the above sites also allow you to upload your own videos. You will be amazed at how engaging students find this activity. Think about Digital Story Telling - you don't need a movie camera, still digital photos can quickly and easily be turned into a movie with narrations, titles and background music using either Movie Maker or, even easier, Photo Story (both free downloads from Microsoft).

Podcasting and the Key Competencies

Click here to get your own player.

See my Create a Podcast page for:

• direct links to Audacity Video Tutorials
• downloadable instructions for creating a GarageBand Podcast
• link to a podOmatic tutorial
• downloadable Podcasting Plan

The Slideshow below may help you introduce the concept of Podcasting to other teachers:

Download a copy of this PowerPoint Slideshow

Interesting Session!

IMG_0232
Originally uploaded by kaymaree_1

I wish I knew which session these people were in - there's something good going on!

Actually, this picture (from our Cluster PD Day last year), was just an experiment. It was added to this blog straight from Flickr. If you are looking for a way to store or backup your precious photos, or share them with others, take a look at Flickr.

There are many ways you can use this free internet service at your school, and photos uploaded there can be sent directly to your blog (it was even quicker than adding them into the blog itself).

Working with individual photos

Just click on any photo to find options. From here you can:

• add ‘Notes’ – a fabulous way to add more information to ‘bits’ of your photo (children’s descriptions or comments could be added here)
• If viewing others photos, you can add comments here. If sharing with other children they would love to see comments about their photos
• you can also add a photo and text straight to your blog from here.

For more information / help with Flickr, please contact Kay.

Inspiration

Impossible is not a fact ... it's an opinion!
For more ways to inspire your students try Inspiration, or Kidspiration, software. With such a strong emphasis on the key competency of Thinking Skills, I consider these programs to be essential in the classroom. Very rarely would I consider paying for software, but would make an exception with Inspiration.

There are so many things you can do with it! It's a fantastic concept-mapping tool for your students or, if you only have one computer and a projector, use it to put the whole classes ideas together. You can brainstorm, group, compare, organise, arrange and rearrange. It's also fantastic as a writing frame, especially for our more visual learners, and with one click turns a colourful diagram into a word document. Download a free trial here.