Primary sources and the ANZACS

WWI propoganda

The commemoration of the centenary of the Gallipoli Landing during World War I has stimulated an explosion in the digital content available online. Photos from family and institution collections contribute to a comprehensive overview of the period from the images on the battlefront through to the homeland and everyday life.

These images make possible a range of rich learning activities that can extend a student’s understanding of the experience of individuals and expose them to resources to explore further in their own time, for example:

  1. Use Ergo, State Library of Victoria – Australia and World War I to study topics such as enlistment, conscription, the homefront and propaganda supported by primary source artefacts including diaries.
  2. Document analysis worksheets designed and developed by the education staff of the [US] National Archives and Records Administration are an excellent resource for use with primary sources. These worksheets are not new and have been refined over time. They’re in a convenient .pdf format for use either online or as printed hardcopies. Worksheets are available for the analysis of a printed document, photograph, cartoon, poster, map, artefact, motion picture and sound recording. Highly recommended.
  3. It’s not news to any teacher to say that students love Google Images. A lesson in the Advanced Search function of Google Images is an opportunity to experiment with various search terms; with learning how to separate World War I from World War II images; how to isolate propaganda images; locate images relating to women; find images of a particular colour or from the region ‘Australia’ only. Use with Google Search Education lesson plans to enhance your own search skills and those of your students.
  4. The number of public institutions uploading resources to Flickr: The Commons has grown steadily over the years. As Creative Commons resources, students have a wealth of resources to work with. Once again, using a range of key terms such as ANZAC, Gallipoli, World War I, WWI, students can become familiar with this constantly developing database of original images.

This centenary year can be a launching point that introduces students to an authentic range of resources they can revisit time and time again……. now they know they exist.  Explore!

ImageCodr: Easy Attribution for Flickr CC Photos

Correctly citing an image with a Creative Commons licence can be a tricky task for both educators and their students. ImageCodr is a website that aims to help by providing a generator that will construct attributions for Flickr Creative Commons photos that can be embedded into blogs and websites.

Simply paste in the url of the Flickr image and click Submit

To use ImageCodr, simply copy the URL of the desired Flickr photo and click on the Get Code! tab. Drop the URL into box and Submit. There is also an option to install a shortcut in your menu bar which will automatically attribute any Flickr photo you are viewing. You are provided with a preview and some information about the CC licence as well as the image code with proper attribution.

Here is an example of a Flickr image attributed with ImageCodr. Too easy!

 

Update and final thoughts on Tania Sheko’s Flickr project

You may remember reading about Whitefriars College teacher librarian Tania Sheko‘s collaborative learning project using Flickr. The project has now concluded and a few of the students have shared their thoughts, reflections and ideas about what they loved most about the project.

Tania explains:

As part of the evaluation of this project, I interviewed a few students to get their feedback. You have no idea how long it took me to convert the interviews to film and embed them in this blog. Sorry about background noise!

Thanks to Tania and her students for a number of posts about the project from the beginning right through to the end. Sounds like it was a great success and thanks for sharing.

Mashpedia

Looking for an online, multimedia, real time encyclopedia? Mashpedia is just that and is worth using with students.

Screen shot 2010-08-12 at 6.39.34 PM

The website explains more:

Mashpedia is a web encyclopedia enhanced with cutting-edge functionalities and sophisticated features such as multimedia content, social media tools and real-time information, accessible to people all over the world. It’s free to use and open for public participation, allowing users to discuss specific topics, post and answer questions, share relevant links or contribute in new creative ways. Mashpedia integrates a variety of online services and applications like Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Google News, Books, Blog Posts, and further contextual information into a single slick interface, presenting an organized outlook of live content feeds for every topic, thus providing a broad spectrum of services and features that eliminate the user’s need to visit each service separately.

The FAQ page explains more:

Mashpedia aggregates multiple web feeds (streams of content from different sources) into structured articles about specific, encyclopedic terms, historic events and popular individuals, groups, organizations, companies, etc.
Every article provides a basic definition of the term, along with the most relevant videos about it, a stream of current Twitter messages, latest news, images, blog posts and links. Mashpedia also offers semantic connections between the articles, in form of links.
Even though there are advertisements on Mashpedia, it is a worthy search tool for (at least) older students as it gives a real overview of a topic from many different points of view and many different types of media.

Are we still learning? How did the presentations go? Tania Sheko’s Global Flickr project

Following on from the post Tania Sheko’s Flickr Project, published on 8 March 2010, it is time to revisit the project and see what has been happening. Tania explains the progress:

3921794231_0d418778fcPhoto courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Time to do a stocktake on what we’re learning here. Una and I smiled when the boys yelled out an enthusiastic ‘Yay!’ when she announced we’d devote the first half of the lesson to the Flickr project.

Looking around the room, I saw heads bent down to view photos and comments, unmistakable eagerness in reading, eyes darting about from comment to comment, fingers working at top speed to keep up with written responses.

Yes, but is this learning?

Just in case any of us started to think this was just chat – not that we would – I thought I’d take stock of the types of learning happening here.

First of all, I think it needs to be stated at the outset that engagement is a healthy precursor to any kind of learning. Although this project has clear guidelines and timeline with weekly themes and questions to answer, there are obvious reasons for the engagement we are seeing:

  • peer audience
  • global connections
  • familiar ‘chat’ platform for communication
  • ease of communication through Flickr comments setup
  • transparency of all activity
  • cultural curiosity
  • natural desire to socialise with other young people wherever they are

As I’ve said previously, it’s a far cry from writing on a prescribed topic for the teacher. The themes and questions have been chosen to encourage sharing of background, passions, hobbies, etc., and the students want to write about themselves and their lives because it’s part of a natural desire to share these things in order to make meaningful contact with others.

Cultural curiosity sparks questions like ‘What is AFL?’ or ‘What is that fluffy thing?’ (dreamcatcher). The desire to connect is clearly demonstrated too – ‘I also love watching crime investigation shows’; ‘my parents are also the most influential people in my life’, etc.

The positive comments and encouragement the students give each other is good to see, and much more meaningful to them than any comments from their teacher. I find this heart warming, actually, and cling to it when I read all the negative press in the media about young people being bullied and abused by their peers online. I think we could organise more of these types of learning environments to bring out the best in our young people.

There’s much still to be discovered in this learning process, some of it related to the options within Flickr itself. For example, for now we haven’t too fussed about tagging or organising photos into sets. That will come, and some students will learn that themselves just by browsing the site. Then there’s the photographic aspect – so much to learn about the potential of a picture. Even within Flickr there is an editing button above the photo which takes you to Picnik where you can play around with the image. When students think about how they want to present their picture, what message they are trying to convey – this is visual literacy. I expect initially they will be focussing on satisfying the weekly theme, but later they may think about creative elements such as focus, colour, texture and so on. The potential for differentiated learning exists both visually and within the written text.

This has been cross-posted with Tania’s permission from Through Global Lenses @wfc.

How did the presentations go?

People have been asking me this since I faced two groups of people and talked about my experiences with nings, flickr (and briefly blogs) in the classroom, and how these things can create learning communities.

Well, I’m not sure how I went, to tell you the truth. I’m really not certain.

This is the first time I’ve presented at a whole-school professional development day – I did present with Maria Toomey last year, very briefly, about our Year 7 English ning at a staff meeting. And that’s it.

So here are my thoughts:

It was definitely a good experience for me. I had many moments during the session where I realised things, and this will contribute to my own learning and hopefully improve further presentations if they ever occur.

I realised that my Web 2.0 experiences have been predominantly within humanities areas, centering on discussion, reflection and sharing of ideas and viewpoints, construction of deeper understanding, and peer interaction. I haven’t had as much contact with maths, science, commerce teachers (apart from Nicole’s forensic science blogs), and haven’t seriously considered the fact that not every educator’s teaching depends on these things.

I’m usually hard on myself, and I will acknowledge the many supportive, positive comments I received from staff, but I think that I have a lot to learn about presenting in an engaging, relevant way. I intend thinking about this and perhaps paying attention to good speakers – our guest speaker, Travis Smith, being one, and the speakers who have just participated in the TEDxNYED talks which I missed because my notebook’s connectivity has been so sporadic.

Here is what I had in mind, and what I did for the presentation:

I wanted to show how rich the learning can be within collaborative Web 2.0 platforms, so I created a ning as a temporary sandbox for newbies. Within the ning, I created groups for some of the subject areas, and as more people joined my session, I expanded these groups, and tried to include a few resources and questions for discussion to give people an idea of how the ning could work for them. I created a collection of videos which provided either background to Web 2.0 technologies, or the future of education.

I had so much to share, and I knew that I wouldn’t have time for everything. The last thing I wanted to do was overwhelm everyone with theories and pedagogy, so I included a few of my blog posts which had already detailed the ning and flickr experiences. I added bits and pieces for discussion, including relevant and challenging quotations, a cool little flash demo about how high blog commenting rates in Blooms Taxonomy, and so on.

4371522372_5f6c830505Photo courtesy of ecastro on Flickr in group ‘Great quotes about learning and change.’

My original plan was to start the session by acknowledging change, and how, as educators, we may feel overwhelmed or frustrated by it. I showed Karl Fisch’s video, What if?

This is what I showed the first session. I followed this up by asking the question, ‘How do you learn?’ I had set up a discussion for this within the ning, and included my own answer as a starting point.

I learn by writing things out, by making colour-coded charts and maps. Obviously now it’s much easier to locate information – I google instead of going to the library or consult an encyclopedia. In some respects, the way that I learn has changed over the years. I used to learn from one teacher, or by myself. Now I learn from and with people. I ask, I have discussion with others, I ask questions. I’ve built up an online personal learning network – people who are experts in different fields, educators mainly, but also people who push my thinking. I can ask these people for information, advice or their ideas any time and anywhere.

Teachers wrote their answer, read other teachers’ replies, and commented on these. The idea was to immerse them in a ning discussion, giving them an idea of how the threaded discussion worked, and how valuable this online discussion was in terms of collaborative peer unpacking of a topic.

That worked pretty well, without any dramas. Most of the staff wrote thoughtful replies,

I like to find things out for myself and discover new pieces of information. I like to take information or ideas from one field and apply them to another field. I like to see the possibilities of things and explore their extent.

others had a bit of fun,

We’ll try to make sure the office is a calm place for you to learn. Would you like us to bring some scented candles in???

and I think that’s a fair indication of what our students might do. So that’s cool.

It was interesting to see the beginnings of dialogue which extended the thinking through collaboration:

I learn through discussion with others. I find that discussion inspires me, and helps me to order my thinking. I tend to use this style of teaching in my classroom.

reply to this:

Do you think that how we learn and how we teach is different?

Originally, I had intended to follow that up with a video that showed how students learned, The digital generation. This was to be the lead-in to the whole point of the nings, etc. – as a connective learning platform within which our students felt comfortable, one which suits the way they are used to interacting with each other – the point being that they learn best with and from each other instead of from the teacher, and writing for the teacher only.

I didn’t show this video in the end, either session. I don’t know if I just chickened out, but I got the feeling from my audience that they hadn’t come to think about the future of learning, pedagogy or anything like that. I felt from them that they’d come to consider whether nings and things were the way to go with their compulsory ICLT project. I made the decision on the spot to modify my approach and just supply practical and relevant information and instruction.

So from that point, I showed them a couple of nings which had been working very well – both within senior English classes. As I spoke about these, and later our flickr global photo project, I was aware that teachers who didn’t rely on the construction of knowledge and understanding in students from discussion and predominantly through writing, wouldn’t find my information relevant.

I have to say, it did affect my confidence and I felt that I withdrew in terms of dynamism. It’s not that I lost all enthusiasm, it’s just that I felt I hadn’t prepared sufficiently for all members of the audience. That had something to do with the fact that many of these had only joined my session very recently, in some cases that morning. Still, I think you do have to think on the spot and make spontaneous decisions after you get a feel for the audience.

As I mentioned earlier, many people were generous with their supportive feedback to the session. I would like to follow up with the rest, and find out whether they found the talk useful, and how I can provide answers to any questions they may have. I do feel I can do more through individual conversations.

It was disappointing that some teachers were not able to get into the ning – not sure why – and I’d like to try again, so that they can at least have a look around and see if there’s anything that interests them. The videos alone are a good resource, and I’m hoping that someone might take the time to look through these, as well as read some of the posts I’ve included.

I wonder if the ning will become a place I can continue to throw out interesting resources, links and videos. It may just die a natural death. I like the fact that it encompasses the whole school, and that I could potentially replace the separate emails to staff with ning group resourcing.

I wonder if the flickr project sparked any ideas in teachers other than those of English, foreign languages and English as a second language. I’m really keen to see what teachers can think of, where they can take some of these ideas. There’s no doubt that people will think of things that I haven’t, and I hope to gain from these perspectives.

Overall, it’s been a valuable learning experience for me, taking me out of my comfort zone, connecting me with teachers I would normally not see, and providing me with the challenge to synthesize my own experiences into an oral presentation to a broad audience.

If anyone has experiences or resources to share, I would be grateful.

This is an edited version of the posts Are we still learning? and How did my presentations go? from Tania Sheko’s excellent blog Brave New World.

Congratulations to Tania on sharing her wonderful work with the readers of Bright Ideas and her staff. It can be extremely difficult to convince some people that they could and should use technologies to enhance teaching and learning, but using a project such as Tania’s Flickr Project as a living, breathing example is a great way of doing it.

Tania Sheko’s Flickr project

Extremely creative Whitefriars College teacher librarian Tania Sheko has developed another engaging and interactive piece of work for her students. Using Flickr as its basis, Tania explains how the project went from idea to reality:

In his book, The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman says that there are certain ‘flatteners’ that promote and allow for connection, collaboration and creation via distance. He was referring to technological applications which shrink geographical barriers and make global connections possible. This is my aim for a special project at my own school – a project which would enhance teaching and learning through ‘connection, collaboration and creation’, taking the students out of the classroom and into the world.

In 2009 I decided to take up a Flickr challenge to upload a photo every day for a year and post it to appropriate flickr groups. As a result I connected with others through interest and dialogue, and three of us – Marie Coleman, Sinikka Laakio-Whybrow and I – agreed that a similar project would be an enriching experience for students. I was lucky to find a teacher who was interested in the project and who has supported it wholeheartedly.

In the planning stages, we collaborated in a Google document, using Google spreadsheets and slideshow (thanks Marie!) to brainstorm and formulate our project. The geographical time differences weren’t a problem at all, and occasionally Sinikka would catch me in Google chat before going to bed if I was online early enough in the morning.

The final product is an 8 week project with a weekly assignment based on a photo and written description following a theme. The first assignment is to take a photo which ‘is not you, but represents you as a person’ – so, an introduction to initiate the sharing of personal information and interests. Although almost every student included sport and music in their introduction, there were diverse details which created interest in the group. The cultural differences were obvious conversation starters, and the similarities brought the students together through shared interests. I know that our boys, being in a single sex school, were interested in the opportunity to connect with the girls!

The project is quite simple but with very rich results. The weekly themes set diverse tasks. Some themes ask for the sharing of personal, cultural or geographic information, some encourage photographic creativity (‘Take a photo: of something you go past every day and take it from an interesting new perspective”), while others require deeper thinking and creative solutions (‘Take a photo that goes with the title or lyrics of a song’ or ‘Take a photo that somehow represents learning to you’).

We have used Flickr as a platform for this project. Flickr provides an easy way to upload photos, an automatic photostream for each student, and a profile for identification. Our group, Through global lenses, is a one-stop shop for the whole operation. It holds all the members from the three schools, allows for instructions and program, as well as storing all essential information such as netiquette, creative commons, commenting guidelines, etc. It even has email.

Challenges

Following a weekly theme and guiding questions, students’ task is twofold. Firstly, to take their own photo – this requires thinking and reflection, creativity, individuality, and it is hoped that, as students become accustomed to the challenge, they will become more creative and try different things. Secondly, to write something which responds to the theme, answers prompt questions, and informs and entices readers.

When students view each other’s contributions, this sparks curiosity, natural questioning, and ensuing dialogue. It also brings out a desire to do as well or to do something different. Students are not writing for the teacher, but for a peer audience, sharing generational views and tastes, and learning about cultural differences.

It really is one big conversation, with everyone getting a go, and nobody feeling they can’t get a word in. Several people can engage in dialogue under the same photo. Conversation arises from shared interests and curiosity about cultural differences. Students encourage each other and develop trust and respect for each other. The result is writing from desire instead of duty.

Differences in language are often the subject of conversation. Students ask and explain linguistic and semantic differences, for example, the first week’s photo has resulted in a discussion of the differences between American and Australian football.

Challenges for us include encouraging students to move away from ‘chat language’ and to write correctly and fluently. Despite our instructions, I’ve noticed in the early stages students reverting to their preferred chat in the comments.

Practicalities

It’s easy to keep up with who is commenting on your photo, or further conversation in photos you’ve commented on, when you visit the homepage for the group. Another useful feature is the availability of editing comments or writing. Teachers can ask students to improve or correct their writing at any time.

Reading through comments in the early stages, I can already see the conversations developing as more people enter the conversation, as questions are answered and elaborated on, and the desire to develop the dialogue becomes self motivating. This is very different to writing for your teacher which is a static exercise. Here the writing is interactive and can continue at any time. The Flickr Group Pool can be viewed here.

I’ve noticed that our boys seem different in their writing and comments to the way they present themselves at school. In the comments they seem unafraid to say that something is beautiful, comment on cute dogs, and be generally more open. I guess that’s what comes with writing to a peer audience. That and writing to connect with kids like them from distant places. For these reasons I’m excited about this project which, even in its initial stages, has sparked authentic and engaged conversation, and which will no doubt develop for each student his/her voice through images and words.

Isn’t it interesting that the students are more open to authentic and honest commenting via Flickr than they were previously in face to face situations? It seems that the ways the boys communicate will be a lasting effect from this project, which is absolutely fantastic. It is also another excellent way of students committing to writing and enjoying what they write; being aware of a (possible) international audience means that they really think, write and polish. The project is also a lovely way to engage in dialogue about cultural differences and similarities.

This is an edited version of a post that first appeared on Tania’s excellent blog. Posted here with Tania’s permission.

Shahi visual dictionary+

Shahi is a fantastic tool for ESL students, language and literacy learners.  “Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Flickr images, and more!”

Shahi 1

A number of definitions are provided and are categorised into nouns and verbs. Visuals from Flickr, Google Image and Yahoo assist users in grasping the meaning. Hover over a photo and the photo is enlarged. Click on a photo and that takes you to the photographer’s site.

Shahi 2

Even words or phrases that are not recognised by the dictionary section are recognised by the photo section:

Shahi 3

Thanks to the wonderful Audrey Nay for alerting Bright Ideas to Shahi!

It’s not about the tools, it’s about the skills

Author of the wonderful award winning Langwitches blog Silvia Tolisano (Twitter name is @langwitches), has written a must-read post. Looking at the advent of Web 2.0 and the way it is perceived by parents, Tolisano addresses the skills developed and used by students in using tools such as blogs, creating podcasts and adding to wikis rather than the tools themselves. To read this post, go to Silvia’s blog now!

Pru Mitchell’s ‘Open and Social’ SLAV conference presentation

In October, Pru Mitchell, the Senior Education Officer at educaton.au delivered an interesting presentation to the delegates of the SLAV ‘Skills for School Libraries v2.0’ conference.

View more presentations from Pru Mitchell.

Pru discusses the idea of mass innovation and creativity and shows the tools that can help establish these skills. Well worth viewing and considering.

Animoto

Say goodbye to boring old slideshows with Animoto. Animoto takes your images, adds music and turns them all into a slick professional style video.

Animoto home

Animoto home

You can upload images from your computer, or select those already stored on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug and Facebook. You can add text and then you can select music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own from your computer. Images can be reordered at any time and text can be edited. Selected pictures can be ‘spotlighted’. When uploading music from your own source, you are reminded to check that you have the right to do so. If you decide to use a song from Animoto’s collection, the songs are arranged by genres and you can listen to a sample before you decide to select it or not. Before you know it, your images are presented in an engaging way, set to a rocking track.

Educational case studies

Educational case studies

 Animoto has a special ‘Education’ section, where educators can sign up and give students an access code. This enables students to upload videos to Animoto, purely for the class (or whoever is given the code) to see.

As per most Web 2.0 tools, Animoto basic is free, but there are upgrade options for people who want to make longer videos, burn videos to DVD and so on. For most of us, the basic package will suffice as it enables the user to get an embed or copy code for embedding into blogs and wikis or copying to a multitude of sites. The best thing about Animoto is that is is very easy to use. The site is extremely well designed and intuitive, making it a pleasure to use.

Have a look at this video, which was literally produced in ten minutes. Finalised videos can be uploaded to YouTube, as well as embedded in blogs and other websites.