Protect, Nurture, Grow with Web 2.0

Mount Eliza Secondary College Librarian Lynn Swannell has developed an excellent presentation for her staff on how using Web 2.0 with students can help ‘protect, nurture and grow’.
Lynn explains:

I was asked to do a presentation about Web2.0 for our staff during the ‘Ultranet’ training day – plan B!

In putting the presentation together I tried to look at how I could link Web2.0 to our school motto of “Protect, Nurture, Grow” and also incorporate alot of what I had learnt during the program. I was quite pleased with the result and had lots of positive feedback from our staff.   There have been lots of requests for up-coming ICTuesday PD sessions which is great and I made sure to ‘plug’ the ‘Sharing eLearning at MESC’ wiki that I created earlier in the program.  A number of departments have now created their own wikis to share information amongst staff within their departments, as well as some classroom wikis happening – I did tell them that they can be addictive once you get started!

View more presentations from Lynn Swannell.

I’m going to send staff a weekly email of links that I’ve found via Twitter and various blogs (including Bright Ideas) and added to the ‘Sharing eLearning‘ wiki to keep up the interest.

Thanks Lynn for willingly sharing your excellent work yet again with readers of Bright Ideas.

Sharing eLearning at MESC

Lynn Swannell, a Librarian at Mount Eliza Secondary College has developed a very useful eLearning wiki.
MESC wiki
Lynn explains how the wiki came about:
I created this ‘Sharing eLearning at MESC’ wiki with two things in mind – teaching myself how to use Wikispaces and creating a Web2.0 sharing space for staff at Mount Eliza Secondary College.
In April 2010 I signed up to complete the 12-week SLAV ‘Personal Learning Network Program’ and during this time I have discovered (and rediscovered) a huge range of Web2.0 online tools that I wanted to share.  In the past I have emailed teachers and saved them to my Delicious account for future reference but I was looking for an easier way to make them more accessible and share them with teachers.
Since starting the program I have not only expanded my own personal learning network via my own blog (Lynn’s PLN) and reading other  blogs, nings and twitter but also gathered together some fantastic resources recommended  via these methods.  Bright Ideas is one of my favourite blogs and I’m thrilled to have been asked by Judith to contribute.  After reading about the Echuca eLearning Wiki created by Maryna Badenhorst (Bright Ideas 24 May 2010) and then learning about Wikis during week four of the program, I was inspired to create my own wiki using Wikispaces for Educators.
As you can see I have tried to group the resources into various categories and created a page for each.  The ‘Areas of Learning Links’ only has a few links at this stage but I hope to expand on it as more teachers create their own blogs, nings, wikis for their classes.  I have also added a few subject specific resources to the page.  ‘Digital Citizenship’ is an area which our school is exploring at the present and this page has been of great use recently.  The page on ‘Presentation Tools’ is one that is going to be neverending as more students and staff look for alternatives to PowerPoint – I particularly like animoto at the moment.
Our school motto is ‘Protect Nurture Grow’  which is what I hope will happen with this wiki as I launch it to staff this term and encourage them all to share in eLearning.
It is so pleasing to read that Lynn has been inspired by Maryna’s wiki featured on Bright Ideas. It is lovely to know that all staff are encouraged to share eLearning together with Lynn.

21st Century teaching tools

Ollie Bray, a National Advisor for Emerging Technologies in Learning at LTS (Learning and Teaching Scotland) has produced a useful presentation.

Looking at tools for 21st Century learning and teaching, Bray asks questions such as how do we ensure students who have access to unlimited information develop emotional literacy and social maturity?

There are some new tools featured as well as ideas for Personal Learning Networks. Worth a look.

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

Connect and Web 2.0

Russell Blackie from the Victorian DEECD’s eLearning Unit presented the following information to the recent SLAV conference; Skills for School Libraries V2.0.

There are some familiar tools there for readers of Bright Ideas and some nice new ones you may not have tried yet. Did you notice that Russell used Edublogs.tv to host his presentation?

Thanks to Russell and SLAV for making the presentation available to the wider school library community.

WikiEducator

Free eLearning content by and for teachers is being developed at the WikiEducator wiki. 

Homepage
Homepage

What is it and who developed it? The website states:

Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of Learning was the founding patron of WikiEducator. The project has adopted a community governance model which is coordinated by WikiEducator’s Open Community Council, building on the work of the Interim International Advisory Board. Ambassadors for WikiEducator promote the project around the globe, and our technology roadmap helps us make the future happen.

WikiEducator’s technical infrastructure is supported by a financial contribution by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to the Open Education Resource Foundation an independent international non-profit head quartered at Otago Polytechnic New Zealand. The servers are hosted by Athabasca University, Canada.

There are ways for interested teachers to get involved with WikiEducator. The website explains how:

Get Involved ~ There are so many ways…

Thanks to @wizdommy for the information on WikiEducator!

ePals

 ePals promotes itself as ‘the internet’s largest global community of connected classrooms.  It is a free resource that offers collaborative school projects, eMentoring as well as ‘ePals on the web’.

Homepage
Homepage

From the website comes the following information:

The Social Network for Learning

ePals is the largest and fastest growing K-12 online community for meaningful learning. More than half a million educators and millions of learners across 200 countries and territories safely connect, collaborate and build community.

  • Schools around the globe use our school-safe email and blog tools.
  • Deep learning is catalyzed through collaborative learning projects and experiences such as In2Books, ePals’ research-based curriculum-aligned eMentoring program.

Exchanging ideas and questions in a meaningful way with other learners – down the block or around the globe – generates great excitement about learning and builds 21st century digital literacy and learning skills.

ePals was written about recently in The Journal. The text of the article follows: 

ePals Boosts Language Translation Capabilities

By David Nagel

08/19/09

Education technology provider ePalshas upgraded its ePals Global Community by expanding its instant translation capabilities. The service has now added 26 additional languages and can now translate text in a total of 35 languages.

Some of the new languages supported by the translator include Arabic, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hindi, Polish, Russian, Swedish, and Vietnamese

ePals is a free resource that reaches more than half a million educators and millions of students worldwide, offering collaboration tools, social networking capabilities, and school-oriented features like Classroom Match, SchoolMail, SchoolBlog, and In2Books.

  • Classroom Match is a tool designed to let teachers connect with other classrooms or online projects around the country.
  • SchoolMail is an integrated, teacher-monitored e-mail system that includes 72 language-translation pairs, spell checking, virus and spam filters, and file-sharing capabilities.
  • SchoolBlog is a literacy education tool that offers teacher-supervised message boards that encourage students to express ideas and collaborate with peers and instructors.
  • In2Books is an online literacy curriculum based around a dialog between a student and an adult mentor designed to improve student achievement on standardized tests and increase critical thinking and writing proficiency.

According to ePals, more than 500,000 teachers and “millions of students” around the world use the online service. Further information can be found here.

The In2Books section of the site may be of interest to Primary School teachers:

With In2Books, 3rd – 5th grade students:

  • Are connected with carefully screened adult pen pals
  • Select and read 5 books closely each year
  • Engage with adult pen pals who read the same books
  • Exchange 6 online letters each year with their adult pen pals

and,

With In2Books, teachers: the learning with in-class discussions about the books and related instruction in genre and literacy skills.

Reinforce and extend

Certainly worth perusing.

Free eLearning Conference

KnowledgeBank is hosting a free eLearning Conference for interested Victorian teachers. It will be held from Monday 3 August to Wednesday 5 August through the online conferencing program Elluminate. Here are details of individual sessions from KnowledgeBank:

 

Monday 3 August

Learning is Real, Rich & Relevant – Keynote – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Monday, August 3, 2009, 9 – 10am
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Tom March
Summary Tom March has contributed to authentic teaching, learning and children for the past three decades. He finds this often involves technology as bothinspiration to creativity and a means to impressive accomplishments. Recognised as a Teacher of the Year Finalist for San Diego County after five years in the profession, he concluded ten years as a classroom teacher in 1995 by taking a three-year fellowship at San Diego State University. There, Tom worked with Professor Bernie Dodge to develop the WebQuest model. Since moving to Australia in 1998, he has contributed at least one new product or initiative every two years. These include Web-and-Flow, BestWebQuests, ClassPortals, The New WWW and CEQ•ALL. Each initiative builds on what’s been learned and addresses new needs of Web-enriched education. He regularly keynotes, writes, and facilitates workshops focused on aspects of making learning for Real, Rich and Relevant.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…

 

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iPod Touch in the Classroom – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Monday, August 3, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Louise Duncan – eLearning Coordinator-SHS
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Linking Special Education & Mainstream World via Blogging – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Monday, August 3, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Sue King – Teacher Belvoir
Summary Sue is a Special Education teacher with a passion for providing resources and support to mainstream teachers working with students with special needs. This session will demonstrate how blogs can be used to motivate student learning, share resources and develop world wide learning networks, for parents, teachers and students.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Blogs and Wikis in the Classroom – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Monday, August 3, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Marion Spencer
Summary Jennifer Frisardi is an experienced Secondary ESL and LOTE teacher and Primary Classroom Teacher. She is currently working as a teacher at Mooroopna North Primary School which has IWBs in every learning space and student access to laptops. Jennifer has been developing Ms Frizz’s Blog and a Class Wiki. She finds that since her students use their laptops for the majority of literacy and numeracy sessions, either investigating websites, directed to from Ms Frizz’s Blog or doing work on their wiki pages, the laptops have become a tool for the students which is not far removed from their exercise books or pencils. It is her aim to have the students viewing the laptops as a useful learning tool and not as a special treat. The Blog and Wiki have proven useful tools for increasing the effective use of the internet by the students in her class and their online publishing skills have also noticeably improved.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Sharepoint V3 – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Monday, August 3, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Marion Spencer
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Tuesday 4 August

IWB Interactive Whiteboard – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 9 – 10am
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Monica Sketcher – Teacher
Summary Monica Sketcher is a dynamic and energetic teacher who wears many hats for her role at Mansfield Primary School (too many to mention!). She works as a full-time teacher in a team teaching situation with 2 shared Prep grades. Monica is passionate about the inclusion of ICT applications and tools in her daily program and has her Preps completing amazing work independently on their computers. In her role as ICT co-ordinator, Monica has enjoyed sharing her ICT ideas with her colleagues so that the inclusion of computers, laptops and IWB is a daily part of a classroom routine. She has made PD accessible to her local smaller neighbouring schools by offering training ‘online’ and ‘on demand’ to match people’s needs.
The aim of this session is to provide participants with some ready to use tools on the IWB for any classroom situation. Some activities will be user-created, online or downloadable. Participants will be asked to share their ideas, so that this session is relevant to their unique teaching situations and so that we can create a large resource of IWB ideas for participants to take away with them
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 Remote Control Response Paddles – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 9 – 10am
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Derek Bowey – Teacher
Summary Derek is in his 14th year of teaching. Currently teaching at Wodonga Senior Secondary College, he has a role in helping imbednew and effective technology into teaching and learning practice. Derek is enthusiastic about technology and it’s potential application in education. He is not a technical expert, but he hopes those who are not familiar with the remote response paddles (software and hardware) find his presentation of some interest: Workshop Content: (a)Software and hardware (remote response paddles) that allow students to respond to multiple choice questions.(b)Basic preparation – screen dumps. (c) Images and explanations of tools being used.(d) The power of immediate feedback and automatic collation of data for planning individualised future lessons.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Building a learning network in your town or region – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Mark Richardson – ICT Coordinator – PD Organiser
Summary Interested in networks and networking?? They’re great aren’t they? Especially the ones without servers, WAPs and blue cords! What did he say? Yes, networks of teachers you use ICT to enhance teaching and learning are essential to a vibrant pedagogy in classrooms. Whether it’s face to face or online, personal learning networks are an essential part of any teacher’s toolkit Mark Richardson shares his experiences of networking in a primary school, a DEECD region and in rural and regional Victoria.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Classroom Blogging in Early Years – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Tamara Steinhauser – Teacher
Summary Tamara Steinhauser is a Year 2/3 teacher who uses ICT to engage students in her classroom. Tamara started using a classroom blog last year as a means of showcasing student work to the community and enabling students to reflect on their own and other students’ work in a secure, moderated online environment. This session provides a first hand insight into using Blogs in your classroom program to motivate and engage students through all areas of the curriculum.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Delicious and DIIgo & Exploring free softwares – 21st century eLearning Conference

 
When Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter John Spencer – eLearning Coordinator
Summary John Spencer is an experienced teacher of ICT. He is currently an ICT teacher at Peranbin Primary College. This year he has 24 days of Professional Leave aimed at increasing effective use of ICT in his school. This workshop will look at using Diigoand Delicious (social bookmarking sites) in a classroom setting, along with other Web 2.0 applications available on the Internet.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 Wednesday 5 August

 

Online Resources for Early Years classroom – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 9 – 10am
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Kerry Rowett
Summary Kerry Rowett is a primary teacher who currently works at Connect (previously the Victorian Education Channel) at DEECD (Ed Dept). She has a particular interest in exciting online tools enabling students to communicate and create online. A practical session focused on how to find and use great websites, animations, videos, games and web 2.0 tools for use in the Primary classroom.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 Principal & eLeader Forum – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 9 – 10am
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Brendan O’Brien and Richard Olsen
Summary Brendan has an extensive background in ICT, science education, classroom teaching and teacher education. Richard is co-director of IdeasLab, and has been at the forefront of resourcing a 21stcentury agenda for Australian schools.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 ‘this is the Ultranet’: the basics – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 Using Digital Learning Objects on Remote Tablets – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 11am – 12pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Michael Barnard
Summary Michael is an experienced teacher of mathematics and physics at Wodonga Senior Secondary College, and is also an integral part of the Excellence in Mathematics and Science Program at that school.Perhaps you don’t feel as if you are taking full advantage of the Digital Learning Objects that are provided by The Learning Federation. This session will demonstrate how the “It’s a Drag” vehicle braking distance simulation can become the basis of an engaging mathematics lesson that caters for a range of abilities. The task involves collecting data then using a spreadsheet as a tool in its analysis.The use of a wireless tablet in the classroom will also be covered.To participate in this session you will need access to the DLO (available on-line: eduweb.vic.gov.au…) and Microsoft Excel or equivalent.
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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Dataloggers in science lessons – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Brahm Deo
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 Infomercials made by children! – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Rosemarie O’Brien
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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 PhotoStory and Audacity as aids to develop literacy skills – 21st Century eLearning Conference

 
When Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 2 – 3pm
Where Online in Elluminate
Event type Knowledge Bank Online Event
Presenter Helene Bearup
Elluminate Link sas.elluminate.com…
 

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There appears to be something for everyone! See you in Elluminate.

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning

The United States of America’s Department of Education has just released a report on the “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning“.  The 93 page document sets out the answers to the following questions:

1. How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face-to-face instruction?

 2. Does supplementing face-to-face instruction with online instruction enhance learning?

 3. What practices are associated with more effective online learning?

 4. What conditions influence the effectiveness of online learning?

 With our current educational system, the majority of us will be interested in questions 2, 3 and 4 as we implement online learning alongside face-to-face teaching instead of replacing it. (The range of ‘learning outcomes’ that were measured varied depending on the subject taught.) The report goes on to state: 

The corpus of 51 effect sizes extracted from 46 studies meeting these criteria was sufficient to demonstrate that in recent applications, online learning has been modestly more effective, on average, than the traditional face-to-face instruction with which it has been compared.

 And on average, online learning produced better student learning outcomes than face-to-face instruction in those studies with random-assignment experimental designs (p < .001) and in those studies with the largest sample sizes (p < .001).

 Studies comparing variations of online learning provides some additional insights with respect to designing effective online learning experiences. The practice with the strongest evidence of effectiveness is inclusion of mechanisms to prompt students to reflect on their level of understanding as they are learning online. In a related vein, there is some evidence that online learning environments with the capacity to individualize instruction to a learner’s specific needs improves effectiveness.

In brief, students who have been exposed to both online and face-to-face teaching and learning have fared better than those who have experienced only face-to-face learning or only online learning. As most of us interested in embedding new technologies into teaching and learning use this method, this is an exciting (but a hopefully expected) finding.

The report concludes with this statement:

Educators making decisions about online learning need rigorous research examining the effectiveness of online learning for different types of students and subject matter as well as studies of the relative effectiveness of different online learning practices.

It seems that there have been few other studies into the comparison of face-to-face teaching and the quantifiable efficacy of online learning and although this study admits the results are encouraging, it is being left up to individual teachers and schools to determine for themselves if combining online and face-to-face teaching and learning suits their students and subjects.

Nevertheless, this report is encouraging for any teacher who needs to demonstrate to others the worth of using Web 2.0 tools in teaching and learning. 

Futurelab

Futurelab: is a not-for-profit group from the United Kingdom. Their goal is innovation in education and their website states:

Who are we and what we do

Futurelab is passionate about transforming the way people learn. Tapping into the huge potential offered by digital and other technologies, we develop innovative resources and practices that support new approaches to learning for the 21st century. A not-for-profit organisation, we work in partnership with others to:

Futurelab homepage
Futurelab homepage

Futurelab has a range of resources for educators. There are pages on:

  • projects (includes research data)
  • resources
  • events

Some of the projects include Games and learning, Design challenge and Innovate to educate.

Games and learning
Games and learning

Futurelab is a portal to all things innovative in education. Well worth a visit and reflection on how these ideas could be used in our classrooms. Not all projects are current, but the ones that have been completed are usually accompanied by research data and reports on the efficacy of the project.

21st Century learning?

If you are having trouble convincing colleagues about the need for technology in schools, this video entitled Mr Winkle Wakes might just change their minds…  It would be a great way to begin a meeting or presentation on ICT in schools. (If you don’t have access to TeacherTube at school, consider accessing it at home and dropping it into Vodspot. It is well worth the effort.)

It is certainly food for thought and is true in many schools, despite the best efforts of many! Thank you to Sharon Brennan for sharing this one.