Students Writing Tutorials for Teachers - now that's clever!

I was reminded the other day of one of my favourite consequences of giving students a laptop. A student, who had that day been given a laptop as part of the NSW Department of Education laptop initiative, had published a tutorial written to help teachers and others use Photoshop.

The exciting aspect of this story is how quickly and naturally teenagers can break down their own understanding of a process for others to digest. It doesn't take a degree in education to know how to teach someone what you know. It also doesn't take much experience in using screen capture software and web publishing solutions to get your teaching steps published in a tutorial form.

In this case, the tutorial is based on some of the software provided on the laptop - namely, Adobe Photoshop. It is clear in the screenshots and explanations that this student relishes the access to professional software and I think the Department has done a great thing to provide the tools used in industry instead of only cheap or open source alternatives (such as GIMP).

Lets all keep encouraging our students to not just learn new skills and knowledge but teach it to others.

Public Schools - the Ultimate Untapped Great Teacher Network

Public Schools in Australia have the most awesome resource that has not been properly explored and harnessed - great teachers in one network of practice. A shared community of expert knowledge and teaching skill.

This is an untapped resource, mainly because of the geographical divide between schools but also because of the segregation between faculties and stages.

The divide is sometimes bridged when teachers attend inter-school meetings, professional development conferences and training seminars. But these are few and far between. These events are also exclusionary by their nature - only teachers who get released from their school duties can attend and the funding for conference fees is split many ways, limiting the opportunities.

As a result of the limitations, meaningful collaborations between teachers on a large scale has failed to eventuate.

I don't mean that collaboration between schools from different suburbs (or indeed states and countries) hasn't occurred already. It certainly has, through programs like the Connected Classrooms Project here in New South Wales there has been many wonderful connections between schools.

However, these connections have often been between students in class groups, in the way of virtual meet-ups organised by the teachers from the various schools.

As yet, teachers haven't been able to freely and regularly share their own practice and expertise with each other. They may have joined professional associations, such as the Computing Teachers Association (of which I have been an active member), but this also provides time and budget limitations on teacher collaboration. It's not yet free and open. It also depends entirely on the goodwill and tireless effort of organisers. It's still very hierarchical and as such there are bottlenecks in the collaboration process.

I await the day when the great teachers in our public schools have a virtual space for the free and open sharing of their expertise and resources in a format that easily transfers to another school. Something well organised that puts the power in the hands of teachers to share. Without financial or geographic boundaries. Utilising the wonderful resource that is the Internet to pull everything together in an elegant way of organising collaboration. Something not bottlenecked by a business model.

Teachers in our public schools share the same employer, the same core educational values and ultimately the same clientele - the students who put their faith in public education. Why can't they share their hard work without any more effort than clicking a button? Let's be clever about making collaboration happen in the ultimate great teacher network.

(Mountain photo thanks to Tony Burton - http://www.flickr.com/photos/t0nyburton/)

How Graffiti Leads to Better Teaching

I enjoyed a wonderful talk in our second staff PD day at school from a Christian Apologist named Dr Frank Stootman. The good doctor made many great points, but the one I wish to focus on today is the human desire for significance.

This desire is an intrinsic one, and without trying to espouse the religious reasons that were explained today by Dr Stootman, I want to point out a metaphor that is obvious in just about every community around the world - the signs of making one's mark in a public way. Even at the expense of public property!

Take a walk in a park and you see initials and a love heart on a tree, graffiti 'tags' on the pathway, cheeky S.O.S. signs made with pebbles in the dirt, .... there are many examples of people leaving their mark. And they do so in a deliberately public way. Why do people do that? Is it simply a way for those who are rebellious in nature to renege from social responsibilities?

I tend to think not.

Teenagers have a burning desire to find their place in the world and make their mark. And most of the time their most frequented places and institutions and family don't provide the avenue to truly express one's self. So, they are left to do the wrong thing as an outlet of this expression.

While not always the case, this general scenario is correct more often than not. But it doesn't have to be a negative experience.

Yesterday I witnessed an alternative approach. In fact, I encouraged it by inviting one of my computing students onto my Skype conference call to discuss "writing projects" with a bunch of teachers from all over the world. You can read what one teacher-participant thought in his blog post correctly titled, Students Teaching Teachers, and you can listen in on the conversation via the podcast.

What transpired was simply a revelation to me and I am only beginning to unpack it. One conclusion I have made is that students have a massive vested interest in education. Time at school for the average teenager equates to 1,600 hours a year or 19,200 hours in total. In every pupil we have a walking barometer, thermometer, teachometer, schoolometer! They know what has happened to them in every class - it's all stored up there in the grey matter and much of it deeply ingrained in their heart through positive and negative experiences.

Yet so often students are expected to check their experience and opinions at the classroom door, if not at the school gate. They aren't asked to contribute to a body of knowledge about education despite the fact that we could learn so much from them.

As teachers, what is stopping us from surveying students at the end of each course? I haven't done this in a while but I certainly think there is merit in it. One approach could be a simple questionnaire embedded in our course websites. I know Moodle has one such function in the form of the Feedback module, soon to be integrated (possibly in version 1.9).

Alternatively, what about engaging with kids via podcasts, webcasts, blog posts and other forms of communication? Even via informal chats. I recall huge success achieved in the past simply through interviewing students via Skype on course material. It uncovers some amazing insights, sometime some gaping holes in understanding, but ultimately the student's feel empowered and often go on to greater heights.

I think great benefits can be had by providing a positive outlet for teenage self expression. Schools and teachers need to take the risk. As someone wise once said, "Go out on the limb, that is where the fruit is."

Speed Dating is not for whimpy teachers! (or married men)

Well, I'm typing this very late after watching the Socceroos get trounced 3-1 by the Iraqis in football - it's Asian Cup time and I'm slowly starting to wish it wasn't!

But enough about that disappointment, cause today I had huge success in a "Speed Dating" teacher training event at my school, where four of my teachers rotated between computers that were connected to expert teachers around the world - two from the States and one Kiwi. It was a super time with big thanks going to the people who made it possible: Sheryl, Jen and Allanah.

Don't believe how well it went? Just listen to how it transpired and tell me its not wonderful that teachers can connect across the oceans of the world and chat about how to make a deeper mark in the sand of education!


Click here to get your own player.

Another clever Maths site by Aussie teacher Jenny Eather

clipped from www.teachers.ash.org.au

The initial release several years ago of A Maths Dictionary for Kids was impressive enough, with its flash-based games to teach kids dozens of mathematical concepts. Now, Jenny Eather has gone one step further with a standards-driven website called "Rainforest Maths", built again in flash and using the best interactive activities money normally buys. The difference here from other commercial products is the cost - free!

If only more teachers could learn flash animation and action scripting skills so they could put their subject knowledge into full colour and clickable fun as Jenny has done. I have no doubt that primary (k-6) age kids would devour this content and plan to put it to use with my eldest two sons, seven and five years old. Will report back here on the results and possibly interview them to see what they think.

Weave your voice, or your pen, around this...

clipped from voicethread.com Browse Create MyVoice

Just discovered this cool new web service that allows people to upload media that can be commented on by anyone who has a free voicethread account. A very cool idea that has many applications for the classroom.

In the past i have been excited to use Inspiration to add graphics and narrate some sort of audio that gets attached to the graphical objects - students being able to click and listen via the speaker icon. This takes that concept to a whole new collaborative level by placing it on the web and allowing both voice and text comments to be threaded together around the media.

Gotta love these new web apps. My only fear is that there'll be a Web 2.0 crash one day and they'll all disappear. I wonder what business model can be used to keep such sites in business?

Enough about doom and gloom. Time to apply this beauty while the going is good.

Clever Learning Design for Adults

I really like what this site does for adult learners. There are 23 things in a list and staff are told they have to work their way through all of them by a set date.

What's left to do is decide on the order, the magnitude, the scope and write your own material as you travel through the web 2.0 maze. Designed for library staff, this concept comes from the 43 Things website.

I like the open ended nature of such a task - surely learners would be engaged throughout and by its very nature the flexibility will allow as much or as little attention to detail as your prior knowledge would require.

Certain to try this in one of my classes, stay tuned for a follow-up story.