Create a Live, Permanent, Always On Video Conference...

(Quick news first: I was interviewed for the EdTechCrew podcast http://www.edtechcrew.net/2010/11/09/ed-tech-crew-142-innovating-with-steve-collis/ . It went really well - the two guys who run it are just lovely people, Darrel Branson (The ICT Guy) and Tony Richards from itmadesimple.com . My episode is sandwiched between two others that I also recommend, one with Lucy Barrow and another with Dean Groom. In all three, virtual worlds are discussed to some degree.)

AND NOW ON WITH THE SHOW:

"Create a Live, Permanent, Always On Video Conference..."

...by which I mean have a computer in your school that provides a permanent video conference link to another school. This becomes a little window out into the world. Students who walk by can glance at the screen and see who is at the other end. If they want to they can put on a headset and chat!

When I thought we'd give this a go I went first to Judy O'Connell (@heyjudeonline on Twitter). She works as teacher/librarian at St Joseph's College, Riverview. In fact, this is quite close to my school, and in the same city. But the point was, let's just get cracking! Let's see if this can work! Let's see what goes wrong! Let's just get some momentum going.

My initial email to Judy was brief, and she picked up on the idea immediately. We didn't have a meeting, we didn't write a program, we didn't design a policy.

Within a couple of days she had set up the computer at her end, and I had at mine, and we were ready to go.

All we needed to do is boot up the computer, run Skype, and call each other with a video-call. It runs all day. We leave it to serendipity as to who will talk to who, when, and about what.

We've done this two days so far. 

At my end, I needed to quickly adapt the plan as we went. My students need to sign an agreement before sitting at the computer. I have a script of questions that they can ask - "What are you learning at the moment? How is your day going?" and so on. I have emphasised everywhere DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR SURNAME OR CONTACT DETAILS! 

Two more things have to happen:

- I need to move the location of the computer somewhere a little more discrete (not too discrete - we need to supervise!).

- I want to set a screen recorder up on a loop so we can actually record everything that's happening for monitoring purposes, so I can tell the students 'you are being recorded'! General rule of thumb: students behave differently if they know they are being monitored. 

Once I've sorted that, I want to set up two or three permanent connections, not with local Sydney schools, but with schools in Japan, Russia, and the outback (in all three cases the time zone will be workable)

It's early days in this project, but I love this way of working: Ready, Fire, Aim, or "Act, then think". This method grounds your ideas in practice, making it really obvious really soon what will and won't work, rather than putting energy into planning that can come to nothing through fatigue or impracticality. 

More later, I'm sure!

Just How Easy Print Book Publishing Can Be!

Ok I think I went a little over the top with the capitalisation of the blog post title.

Anyway, you probably already know my school runs an online bookstore, selling real print books authored by our students! See: : http://stores.lulu.com/realaudienceproject

This is an example of how we do it. This example suits Primary projects. I'll cover Secondary in a tick.

1. The students were engaged in imaginative descriptive writing with their teacher, Mrs Julia Harbor. They cared about what they wrote, especially because they saw our bookstore and realised their work was going to be sold and seen.

In this case they wrote about 'My Hiding Place.'

2. After editing and refining, they type up their description onto an A4 page, print it out, and get it proofread.

3. Now they add illustrations. This is what we end up with:

 

4. I scan the pages at 600dpi on a colour scanner. The scanner spits out a 130 mb PDF file at me.

(in case you don't know what a scanner looks like!)

5. I upload the PDF to our account at www.lulu.com 

6. I rescan another A4 page to act as the front cover, and another as the back cover. I scan them as JPEG image files, upload to Lulu.

7. I type in a title, description, and set a price.

8. DONE! It's on the market!

Check out the finished product at: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/my-hiding-place/13854240

By the way, Secondary is even easier. Let's assume your students have written a study guide, a novel, a student-written textbook, a set of poems, or whatever. Let's assume it is basically all text. Throw it into a Word document, upload the Word document to www.lulu.com, add a description, set a price, and bang! It's on the market!

We're going to set up a display where all past titles are available for purchase by visitors to our school. We'll order a few copies of every book in order to get stock running. 

Out of curiosity, I've just checked, and we've sold 80 books so far.

Please let me know if you've tried this idea too at your school.

Miss this, you do not want!

There are some fantastic events happening in the next few days, and you can participate from your lounge chair, the beach, or your office - all you need is an internet connection. Best of all, if you don't like what you see you can just log off! 

(ooo first I will mention I was interviewed for a podcast - click here to listen to me on the illustrious Ed Tech Crew show)

Now, my colleague Mark (@markliddell) is an energetic thinker and is right in the thick of leading his team at my school through a process of redefining what maths teaching looks like. For one, we're getting rid of maths textbooks and the students will work from an iPad instead. What? How? Well, come along and hear some insights by a passionate man thinking outside the square, because tomorrow (Monday 15th November 2010) he is presenting on technology for teaching maths.

He is web streaming his presentation so you can watch live and even ask him questions in the chat channel. Ready more about it here at his blog. The web stream can be accessed live here, and the time of the presentation in your local time is here (9.20am Sydney time) and another presentation 4 hours later.

THEN, Tuesday 16th November 2010 two other colleagues of mine, Chantelle Morrison and Louise Deibe, are presenting on "Capturing the hearts of reluctant writers with online publishing". Every teacher has come up against this brick wall, where students have no confidence or inspiration to write a word. They have taken web publishing to some interesting places and had great success breaking this impasse. In particular they will refer to www.calameo.com, a nifty website allowing students to easily create online glossy magazines. 

Chantelle and Lou have been preparing meticulously for this session, doing a complete run-through practice session on Friday. They have fascinating video footage, some mind-bending mental exercises, and much more in store for you. I will be there with bells on and hope to see you there.

Chantelle and Lou's session is on Tuesday at 4pm Sydney time, click here for your local time. To attend, simply click here and the conferencing system will load in your browser.

Actually, Chantelle and Louise's presentation is just one of a plethora taking place this week at the "Global Education Conference". This is being held over web conferencing. You click a link, and BANG you're in the session, listening to the presenters and interacting in the chat system.

It just goes to show, you don't need to attend a face to face conference anymore to hear the best ideas from the best people in the world. And let me tell you, the people who attend these online conferences, from their lounge chairs, beds, breakfast tables, or school offices, or wherever, are wonderful creative people to connect with. If you've not attended this sort of thing before, come along and give it a go. You'll uncover an energetic and progressive grassroots movement of passionate educators. 

Read more about the conference here: http://www.globaleducationconference.com If you click on 'Schedule' you'll be able to choose your time zone and get a full list of upcoming presentations. 

Conan the Librarian!

On our trip we saw a so-called 'library' the rewrites what a library is. I'm very much continuing the theme of my recent blog posts on cliché and mental baggage that comes with definitions of learning spaces. Read on to see a series of photographs and simple comments about this radical reframing of librariness.

Cues on 'what we're on about here'

In my last post I asked about the atmosphere at your school. What's the 'vibe'? When you walk onto a school's grounds you get a very quick feel for it. Is it tense? Chaotic? Settled? Manic? Aggressive?



I think there are cues that communicate to students, staff and visitors alike 'what we're on about here.' At my school we've had teams of staff and student leaders standing at the entrances greeting students as they enter the school. You can't underestimate the impact of this on the atmosphere of the school. Every student begins the day with a greeting, a smile and eye contact from a team of peers. It is humanising.



We are also working toward redefining what school breaks are about. Are recess and lunch seen as a desperately needed refuges from the tedium of the day? Perhaps a chance to vent the frustration of the institutionalised school experience? Well, in the first place hopefully school is energising and inspiring students. So why not continue this atmosphere at lunch? (Another question is why even have defined break times? Could students not take a break when they get tired?)



So we're trying to continue the creativity during break times, establishing a plethora of activities for students - sports competitions and events, a music corner with instruments and a PA for jamming, a regular program of student-run entertainment events in the plaza, chess, and many other activities.



Yesterday I visited the Universeum in Sweden - http://www.universeum.se/index.php?lang=en a large maze-like building containing everything from a massive rainforest (populated with monkeys!) to water experiments, and countless experiments and experiential learning activities covering physics, mathematics, astronomy, psychology, linguistics and so on.

What if your school were populated with similar activities? The needn't be high-tech or expensive to set up. We noticed there were mathematical challenges around the Universeum consisting of mystery sets of symbols representing patterns that needed to be reverse engineered.



If 30 or 40 such activities were put together they could be rotated around the school. A proportion would be retired at any given time, and would drop in and out of circulation from year to year. A steady injection of new activities, displays and challenges could appear.



What we noticed at the Universeum, without surprise, is that all the young people were utterly immersed in the activities. They were in high energy states, utterly focused.



Peppered around a school grounds, such activities would act as powerful cues for orientating students and staff with a sense of 'what we're on about here.' These cues have a powerful affect over a long period of time. They act as a wind that blows the school culture in a direction, defining "Who are we and where are we going?"



I think they need constant renewal. The routine of school, like any organisation, tends toward low energy blandness. It is human nature. I am reflecting on ways to reinvigorate the school vibe - not a one-off project, but an ongoing drive.