Reflections on Ping – 21st century education

In the elluminate classroom

Two thirds of the way through 2008, my principal came to me with mention of a proposed music project with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I promptly forgot all about it until towards the end of the final two weeks of term, I was told that a representative was going to come and speak with me and our secondary classroom music teacher. Not wishing to be rude, but being so busy with end of year functions and other exciting online projects that I was involved in, I reluctantly attended the meeting with the full intention of being honest and saying that I really was not interested.

However, 5 minutes into the meeting with Ajax I was ‘hooked’. This was exactly the type of activity I wanted to try out in 2009 and the type of classroom that I was working toward! The answer was:-‘Yes, please! We will be part of it!”

The project:  This pilot project   explored new ways of delivering music education to year 6 and 7 students from 4 rural Victorian schools, using in-house teaching artists, blogging and online virtual classroom workshops with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra  (MSO)and Orchestra Victoria. Students  composed short compositions/sound stories and uploaded them to the  website, as well as participating in online video conference workshops with MSO and Orchestra Victoria musicians.

The classes: As I did not want any of the year 7 students to miss out on this project, 28 students crammed into our computer lab. This meant we had to borrow 5 netbooks to ensure that they all had computer access. Joseph Abou Zeid, a resident artist from the Song Room, worked in the classroom with us. For 50 minutes we would listen to an instrumentalist from MSO or Orchestra Victoria. For the next 50 minutes students would learn how to use audacity and compose their own musical stories. These stories used pre-recorded music clips uploaded onto the Ping blog by the instrumentalists. Students then uploaded their stories back onto the blog.

Learning about the trombone

Engagement in Ping

The highlights

• Always exciting to be involved in a pilot project – love the challenge, new adventures and the constant learning.
• Working with the amazingly well connected, Ajax McKerrall, whose innovative idea this project was – a former digital productions manager with the London Symphony Orchestrata – gifted and talented user of multimedia and web 2.0 tools. I learnt so much more by working with him, about blogging, using multimedia and the elluminate room to fuller potential. He capably and professionally led the elluminate class sessions, ensuring that we had the best quality sound from the 3mbs radio studio in Melbourne.
• The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra came into our classroom, when our students would rarely attend any of their concerts, as Melbourne is 3 ½ hours drive and Warrnambool, our closest regional city centre is 30 mins away. (MSO may visit Warrnambool once a year) To have our students learn about the wonderful classical instruments, their physics, their sounds etc and then to be able to use their recorded clips and mash them together into their own personal musical stories – the impact cannot be justified in words.
• Having an artist in residence from the Song Room, Joseph Abou Zeid, to teach the students about muscial composition through the free software audacity.
• The sheer engagement of the students in the elluminate classroom. This was an unexpected outcome. The learning for me, as a teacher, to see each student at their own desktop, interacting with the musicians, chatting, offering feedback, using a range of emoticons to convey feelings, was enlightening. Students would readily state in the chat section that they did not understand the instructions. This rarely occurs in the normal classroom. Students are reluctant to state that they do not understand, they are rarely given the opportunity to offer feedback  or evaluate what the teacher or instructor is saying and are not given the opportunity to interact as individuals.
• The student outcomes. Their musical stories developed from ‘basic sound grabs thrown together’ that challenged the musical ear, to musical stories that actually reflected animals, soundscapes and ‘stories without words and pictures’.
• Many of the students who struggle with usual classroom work in the generalist classrooms, were able to excel in this environment. Literacy no longer became an issue as they could work with music and creativity.
• The collaboration with the students and teachers from the three other rural schools who share similar experiences and characteristics, threats and challenges working on a common and shared blog site . This is an area though, that could be further developed. 
• Witnessing the increased confidence in all students, especially those who do not normally achieve to a high degree in generalist classrooms.
• Ovbserving the improvement in student listening skills.
• Having a chat option when outside the elluminate classroom and when just working on the blog or in the normal IT classroom.

The challenges

• Lack of Experience: This project started in the first full week of term 1, when 30% of the year 7 class was new to our school, some with little computer expertise and few of the new ones knowing what a blog was and it was their first time in our computer lab. None of the students had been in elluminate before. The rehearsal was done with my year 9/10 class as they were my class at that time.
• Lack of a computer technician: We were on our own, with many technical hitches getting the audio – microphone/headsets working. The class was noisy trying to work it all out. It took more than 20 minutes for us all to be logged into elluminate. Students had to get used to an online classroom and use the tools there to communicate. Frequently they were vocally calling out for help.
• The Chat: Initially the chat was being abused, students discovered the private messaging function, but strangely, they did not fiddle with the white board tools. Students tended to ‘bully’ one of the students, but interestingly, other students told them to stop it. A couple of swear words came through and spamming was frequent (where students type 20 smiley faces in one sentence etc.) We worked together to formulate a code of conduct when using online chat. That code now rests on my  class blog and the school blog.
• The web cameras It was vital that we had the video image on our computer screens, but as we worked in a basic lab, it was difficult to get our webcamera in a position that was useful to our instructors. Being able to see the class was essential for them, but it was an issue that was never really resolved.
• The time delay The streaming was often delayed between desktops and netbooks in the classroom and this could be annoying.
• Student curiousity Students will fiddle and check out everything. So hands will be raised for prolonged periods, the white board will be covered with graffiti and private messaging will run rampant. To overcome this, students need time to play and explore and the first lesson should do just this.

After two lessons, I was ready to say that it was not working and we would remove ourselves from the project, but…..

….after 10 mins into the third lesson, I could have heard a pin drop. Students were engaged, listening intently and had sorted out any technical issues by themselves. The tapping of keys would break the silence as students happily chatted away, made use of the range of emoticons and tools  and interacted with the guest musician. They would provide feedback on what they heard, interact and ask questions. They learned to work the chat and asked questions of me through it as well. At times, a student would hum along, oblivious to their surroundings.

And so, I was led into the classroom of the 21st century.

On behalf of the year 7 students and I, I would like to sincerely thank Ajax McKerrall, Joseph Abou Zeid, and the  Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, The Song Room, and Country Education Project. In particular to our generous sponsors  - the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Innovation Division.

Learning outcomes

• improved listening skills (students were able to interact, use various emoticons and tools to keep them engaged and listening.
• Appropriate behaviour and codes of conduct in a virtual classroom – (learnt by experiencing)
• how to tweak the audio controls in elluminate
• Learnt how to use audacity and many of its finer features to create muscial stories and mp3 files
• how to grab flk files from the Ping blog to import into audacity
• how to embed musical stories in mp3 format with a player into a blog
• how to blog (this was especially so for some of my new students who had never blogged before)

Converting xtranormal and animoto to movie format

As part of the digiteen project, one of my year 10 girls, bubbliibananas,  produced an xtranmormal movie on appropriate code of conduct in online chat. She was asked to embed it into the digiteen wiki which worked well as xtranormal gives embed code but now she wants to add it as a movie the ning.

My ever reliable twitter network was asked how we can convert xtranormal into mpg or other movie formats, but when tweeting I made an error and asked about converting animoto to movie format. So, here are the responses for both online tools, allowing them to be made into movies.

xtranormal and animoto   conversion

billgx@murcha Cam Studio can capture everything on your screen & export to AVI or SWF. Not sure if it does MPG or WMV. http://camstudio.org/ h …

gardenglen@murcha you can upload video to YouTube and then use http://www.zamzar.com/url/ to convert to .mpg or .wmv Premium account may be required to upload to YouTube

craff2008@murcha handbrake will convert any video but its mac

animoto conversion

courosa@murcha from the animoto site – http://bit.ly/gTyMq2:17 PM Jun 16th

adrian_camm@murcha use Super to convert – http://www.erightsoft.com/S…

 

Cross posted on my class blog

Country Education Project Rural Forum

Beautiful Dunkeld

Venue:- The Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld, Victoria, Australia

Participants:- From all tiers of the educational sectors including representatives from principal class, R and L’s, preschools, primary and secondary schools, prep-12 schools

After hearing about the new initiatives from the DEECD and other current potential initiatives that may impact rural education, we listened to a report on the CEP New Leaders Group recent trip to a number of schools in regional Canada. Their highlights were summarized as follows:-

 1.        Resources

• Students need to have resources when required not when timetabled. Need to move to areas where students can do what they need to.
• Can move when student directed and not teacher driven.
• Leave school as independent, resourceful thinkers, with strategies to go about learning  throughout life. 
• Curriculum was individualised and was also used for ‘at risk’ students. 
• The teaching and learning has been replaced by learning and a teacher whose role is facilitating/coaching/assessing/planning. The teacher facilitates the activity and spends less time teaching large focused group.
• Development of off campus classrooms in the centre of town, where teachers are on flexible timetables and students could come in when it suited them. Therefore students could work and support themselves but still complete schooling by going to an off campus centre. Take school to the community.

2. Leadership

Throughout the school districts a common language has been developed with common management strategies in place. Principals are moved to schools where their strengths are needed most.  (usually no more than 5 years at one school). Working together in teams, having common understanding and practice eases the workload and minimizes duplication. As learning was individualised, there was  much more 1:1 support. All staff, including the cleaners were regularly interviewed,  Leadership actively sought advise as to what they could do better and then it was acted on. Everyone working there was seen as important. All principals had to do masters of education.

3.      Cyberschool

Over 1500 students are enrolled at the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School . Created subject curriculums online and these subjects are part of accredited courses. The Cyber School also house educational web activities filtered by grade and subjects. Teachers in the cyber school are employed on the basis that they maintain 2/3 face to face teaching and 1/3 or their time to developing and implementing their subject. Previous experience has shown the most significant indicator of quality in the creation of online course is selecting a master teacher and asking them to adapt, create and model quality educational activities in this new forum.

Technological skills and computer literacy are developed as part of this process. All science experiments in the real classroom, were videoed and uploaded onto the website, so online students could still see the experiments being conducted and could contact the teachers to seek further clarification.

In Saskatoon district, all students complete one or two subjects as an online subject. The cyberschool sets them up for independent learning and therefore lifelong learning

 Discussion then centred back on our Victorian rural areas (here follows some of my notes)

There is a need to explore the strengths and assets of the small rural country schools to re-engage with communities. Larger schools are researching small subschools or family groups to give a sense of connectedness with a community.  Rural areas could play a role in helping the larger schools. Small communities can make collaborative and new learning environments. Free from age and year level structures, communities can all learn together when their interests cross paths. Although the flexible learning path may seem radical, this approach has been essential to the way remote rural students have been educated over the  years.

Rural school experiences focussed on the ongoing development of their community. School staff take on community based roles eg  sports coaches Rural education needs to look 5 years down the track, stop the education train, and redesign the tracks and direction.

What is a rural community?

• Size of community is less than 5000
• At least 30 minutes travel to preschool, adult and VET education, Health and well being service, access to public transport facilities,
• sense of an identified community, – catchment of the community,
• has a vision, sense of belonging,
• Is at least 1 hour’s travel time from Melbourne
• At least 20 mins from the nearest largest centre of 10000 residents.
• Cost of access to get community services

 Challenges

• Relocation of public and community services over recent times.
• Changing demographics of rural Victoria
• Rural community populations are generally getting older, more young people leaving to access learning – especially post school learning
• The social economic demographic is changing in a number of rural communities eg cheaper housing
• Anonymity may also set in, in rural communities.

 Need to change the learning parameters and change to the big picture of global learning. What are the best practices that we want to incorporate into rural education? Here is our opportunity to state our destiny.

Historically small schools have used technology to deliver subject programs.

Young people – mobile, global, multi-task and want everything now.

Education is data driven, VCE focus, Literacy, numeracy. Every child to succeed globally.

What is good teaching and learning within  rural Victoria?

Develop life long learning , enquiry based learning, data driven, personalizing the learning. giving students a future skill set. Most students learn most between 6:30 and 9:30 at night.  School needs to go outside its current hours.

A Grand Jam Session for Ping

Before the jam session

So much happened at the end of term, that I am only just catching up on all my posts now. In early June, we held our grand finale for Ping -  a massive ‘hands-on’ concert with all the students involved from Casterton High School, Casterton PS, Heywood and District College and Hawkesdale P12 College.

Unforgettable moments – the online world meets f2f

1. As we entered the assembly hall, I told students to go outside and get some fresh air while we waited for the other schools to come. I felt a tug on my shoulder, and one of my boys asked me “Is that Ajax?” (Ajax had moderated and led many of the online Ping sessions)
2. As Ajax played back some of the most interesting musical stories, he got to Camko’s and after playing it, he asked “Who is Camko?”

Some of the student body

 

Sheldon, a capable conductor led 3 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra instrumentalists and the 60 odd students attending in a grand musical production. As we started to settle and await instructions, I thought that this is just not going to work. 60 excited students from years 6 and 7 were all talking and sections were not listening very attentively to group instructions. The first exercise was a warm up where stretches were undertaken and then rhythms of words practised.

To my initial dismay, students were gradually asked to seat themselves at instruments that had been carefully laid out on the floor. The majority of students had not learnt an instrument andtheir only exposure to composing had come throught the Ping project. However, I underestimated the talents of Sheldon. Within minutes, he had those students ‘in the palm of his hands’. They listened intently and actually played a fabulous piece based on word jingles set to short sentences. Shiles suggested they needed a  segment on a space theme and so, in it went

Listening to instructions

 How great it all sounded! It was recorded and can be heard here.  The home economics centre prepared a wonderful fingerfood lunch. This was a gesture of thanks to our students for being involved in the project.

Sheldon leading the jam session

Reflections on the MS Regional Innovative Teachers Conference

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 26^th – 29^th

Attendees:- Approximately 110 people from 15 countries in Asia/Pacifica and Canada. They represented many cultures, religions and creeds. The majority of attendees were teachers, some Microsoft staff, students and judges.

My poster – a crazy patchwork quilt

Conference groups at work

The museum in KL

Inside the traditional Malay house

Indigenous shelters -traditional Malay house

A poster

Some participants

This colourful poster was by an Indonesian teacer

Colourful posters for judging

Sections:- There were two elements – the teacher and the inaugural student section.

Constraints: Language barriers. English was the conference language, but the majority of attendees used English as a second language or could speak little English.

Highlights

The posters and poster sessions.

All innovative teacher winners had to set up a poster on boards provided.   The posters featured the nature and application of the innovation. These posters were judged on the second full day by global judges. Both student  and Malay teachers were invited in, to talk to us and look at the posters after the judging. Conference participants mixed freely, discussed innovative themes and swapped contact details. As teachers, we were consistently pushed beyond our comfort zones.

The project based learning focus of the conference.

All teachers were placed in small groups – each of the members from different countries. My group consisted of representatives from Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Each group had  a theme – indigeneous shelters, the cityscape, environments and culture and religion. The first full day took us on a half day excursion to the museum for an overall understanding of the Malay people and then groups went in different directions according to their theme. Our group had “ indigeneous shelter” as its theme, so we visited an old Malay house, investigating how it had adapted near perfectly, to the somewhat harsh conditions of Malaysia – incessant heat, rainstorms, dangers of jungle animals etc  We had to work in our groups to produce a lesson plan that could be used as a potential global project. This was challenging as English was not strong amongst our group members. However, we worked on and within our strengths – technology, photography, educational expertise and English writing etc, with all group members contributing. These lesson plans had to be handed in for judging. The best 6 presented to the gathered audience and from these three were chosen for final online publication. As the presentations were made, those delivering the presentations were reminded of the need to keep cultural differences in mind.

The speakers

Although not many in number, were high in quality and calibre. Ms Janet Pillai who is heavily involved in The ‘Arts in Heritage Education‘ project , where students are removed from school for a period of time in Penang to study culture. It is feared that with the onslaught of the internet, traditional culture and knowledge may be lost, as the world becomes globalised. This project attempts to ensure that students are immersed in their tradition.  The director of Microsoft for Malaysia, spoke proudly of her mother, a teacher, who ensured that she had biscuits in her bag to feed the hungry children before school, tissues to clean their dirty faces and a comb to make their hair look respectable. She spoke of the need to continue producing human capital and develop unique citizens. Exploiting opportunities of ICT helps us to perform this goal. We can experience the classroom of tomorrow,today.  Gwang-Jo KIM, Director, UNESCO Bangkok has published works in ICT and Education.  Eventually he feels that ICT makes teachers learner centred. Teachers will be able to free their tie so that they can auto-manage teaching content, student data, learning process and learning results. If teachers are innovative, engaging and big in high knowledge application and project based collaborative learning, powerful learning will occur. He also spoke of the work of UNESCO in Asia.

The student conference leader

The final speaker at the opening ceremony was Michael Gurdyk co-founder of Taking ITGLobal.org Social networking for social good for young people. Michael established a business at the age of 12, sold it at age 17 and became a multi-millionaire. He has since become a social entrepreneur working with young people across cultures.  Three of the students involved in the conference were questioned by the audience on educational related matters.

The students came from various Asian countries and also worked on a project that was passionate to their designated group. On the final day, they had to present their concepts to all participants and convince us that their idea, should be the winning project to win $1000US to take on the project.

Other highlights include the following:-

• The accommodation, catering, evening dinners, conference venue were first class
• The sharing of ideas, projects, contact details and friendships gained.
• Connecting with many teachers, from both our own country and from across Asia of like-minded ideals which will continue into our classrooms, once back home.
• Realising that teachers in any country are innovative and able to use ICT effectively, often despite much adversity. That despite language, religious, cultural barriers, we can work together and have common goals and ideals in teaching.

Impact on me as a teacher

• Reinforced the value of project based learning
• Attempt to use groupwork as much as possible, allowing students to use their individual skills and strengths to contribute to the final outcome.
• Gave me valuable connections to work with collaboratively and interactively
• Increased my awareness of working with other cultures

Potential impact  for my school

• Chinese mandarin LOTE is our second language. Despite having a sister school relationship with a school in Beijing, there have been many firewall barriers to connecting with China in real time.  Internet speed is limitied etc  Until these are resolved, we could work with the Chinese students of Malaysia, eg  connect our  year 12 VCE student learning Chinese with a Chinese Malay who wishes to improve her English. They can work together at nighttime as our time zone difference is compatible for synchronous connections.
• Established contacts of educationalists who may come in as experts virtually as speakers when classes study a specific country in Asia.

Potential impact for education

• The need to consider a global curriculum
• Connect the innovators in Asia to transform educational communities
• Incorporate students more as leaders, experts, decision makers etc in conferences, planning and policy making.

Impact of Using Word Processors

I keeps on becoming i

Since commencing blogging, I have found that nearly every student fails to put in capital letters.  The frequently used word “I” is constantly being shown as “i”. Few sentences start with a captial letter. This really annoys me, as I am trying to get students to use professional language styles in their blogs.

However, yesterday I worked with the SW Zone of SLAV teachers (State Library Association of Victoria) and one librarian made a pertinent comment “They are lazy and so used to using a word processor eg MS Word, which automatically corrects the start of sentences with capitals and changes i into I for them. What do you think and how can we reinforce appropriate spelling? I am sure that she is right. What observations have you made?

Regional Innovative Teachers Conference – Day 4

My Group 3G completing our project

As I have been completely distracted by correcting student work, exams and writing reports, I have been neglectful of writing about the fourth and last day of this exciting conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I also wish to write up my reflections, but that will take a bit more time and be published next.

The morning session started a little later on the last day  – 9am! I spent time trying to take photos of all the Innovative teachers’ posters, collect the flyers etc that had been prepared. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to print business cards and take little gifts. This was a customary gesture from all other participants. 

Traditional Malay dress worn by our guide.

When gathered into the conference room, all groups were given another hour or so to complete their collaborative lesson plans. Our project was on ‘indigenous shelter’. The judges then announced the 6 projects that were to be presented to all of us. Each presentation was delivered after which the judges made reflective comments. They constantly reminded us  to keep in mind the different cultures and language barriers.  From these 6 presentations, three were chosen to be the finalists and announced at the gala awards dinner.

It was time to then dismantle our poster displays. The area looked so bare after they were taken down, as there would have been 100 or so in total.

After lunch, the student section of the conference presented their proposals to the teachers. They also had worked in small groups, cross country/culture etc and had come up with projects to spend their proposed $1000 on. We heard about rural schools in the Phillipines, where they struggle to get qualified teachers. The teachers they do get live in the city and take Monday to travel to school and Friday to return, so students get three days of education. One group wanted to bring them internet access, establish online lessons for 24/7/365 learning  and teach them how to use the technology. They also felt that by teaching the rural students, the general community would benefit as the traditional craft workers may find an online market for their wares and help pull them out of poverty.

The students turn to present

Another group wanted to give out computers to the poor in the slums of Jakarta Indonesia and teach the young how to tell their digital stories. These would  be published online. A third project was to ensure that business would be environmentally aware and the fourth wished to create online collaborative sites for global young people.  The students presented confidently, capably and with a maturity beyond their years. Questions from the assembled teachers were answered admirably.

The afternoon sessions soon ended and most participants went to dress for the gala dinner, but I gathered my bags and caught the fast train out to the airport as it was time for me to fly home after another amazing experience and step in my e-journey.

WIWOW

Staff in attendance: CW, D W, AM at our weekly “Walk In Walk Out Wednesdays”

In the midst of report writing week, the staff who attended had questions on Markbook – our electronic report writing software eg adding comments to the database, changing headings in the database etc

The Flat Classroom Projects from a Participant’s Point of View

 

Flatclassroom members meet face to face in Doha

Julie Lindsay has put up a notice on the Oz Teachers mailing list alerting its members to the Flat Classroom Projects that have been organized for the next 12 months. Questions were raised as to “What is a Flat Classroom?” Julie and Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher) started the concept several years ago.

So, I shall answer that question, from my point of view having participated a number of these projects over the last 12 months with my classes. The projects themselves  are now being patented and  involve  project based learning activities. The course has been developed by two of the most innovative, hard working  teachers that I have come across – Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher) from USA and Julie Lindsay from Qatar. In simplistic terms, “flatclassroom” in practical terms, for me, means that my students work in small groups, on projects prepared by Julie and Vicki,  beyond my classroom walls with students from other countries including USA, Canada, Spain, Japan, Pakistan, NZ, Oman, Qatar etc Therefore my classroom walls have been ‘flattened” and, as a staff member I work collaboratively in virtual teams to ensure that the project for all  students to get the best possible outcomes. However, this differs very much to the formal definition found on the wiki. So the formal definition is the one to use.

How I got involved ….. As my year 12 students were studying virtual teams as part of their course, I noticed on twitter, that people were being sought to become the ’sounding board’ for the Horizon Project. Soon after, calls were made for students to be part of the next Flat Classroom Project, so I enrolled my year 9/10 students in this project. Students are grouped with 5 other student members, each from a different school and usually a different country. They socialize and learn about each other on the flatclassroom ning, where they can post images, videos, blog posts and enter into discussion topics. Each group is given a topic which is related to the current and future use of the internet, usually in education. Student groups build wiki pages together, using the discussion tab to work together in asynchronous time. At the end of the 10-12 week program, students complete a video that is uploaded onto the ning and embedded in the wiki for judging by global judges. Part of this video will include an outsourced video clip by another student in another country.

Regular staff meetings are held in elluminte to ensure that all teachers involved are fully informed. At the completion of each project, both student and staff summits are held in elluminate, inviting global participants to listen to the reflections. These sessions are also recorded and linked on the wiki. In the current flatclassroom project, we were able to use videoconferencing to be part of the keynote address on ‘citizenship journalism’ presented by a University lecturer in journalism from Doha Qatar.

Our involvement meant that three students and I could attend the Flat Classroom conference in Doha, Qatar in January 2009 where students met their virtual class mates, face to face and worked again on projects that were of concern to all of them.

The netgened project was a fantastic experience and the biggest ventures of all so far.  Students worked with Don Tapscott, best selling author of “Grown Up Digital”. The awards ceremony was held in Reaction Grid of Open Sim, a virtual world where a big stage had been set up on an island with the powerpoint slides uploaded to announce the winners of each category. Students, staff and other interested parties chose avatars and were dressed in fine form for the presentation. The Digiteen project is less demanding and a good entrance point to the project. It  works on building effective digital citizenship concepts.

For me, personally and also for my students, this has led us on another amazing journey using the emerging technologies and has boosted our practical knowledge of digital citizenship, cyber safety, collaborative work in virtual teams, netiquette and using wikis and nings effectively. It pushes the students beyond their comfort zones and gives them real life skills.  Several schools from Australia have been involved. Please join us in the next project(s) for an amazing journey in your teaching career – one that takes you beyond your classroom in the digital age that is ours today.

Here are the proposed projects for 2008-09

For further information, read Julie Lindsay’s post

Student peer to peer mentoring!

 

Teaching blogging - one to one

On Friday June 5th, 23 year 7 students travelled to Portland, as the result of a grant to take part in peer to peer mentoring. The day had been organized by Britt Gow and we thank her for her the hard work that she put in, in doing so. The students who have been with us in primary school at Hawkesdale P12 College have been blogging on their individual student blogs, for nearly 16 months now. As such, they were amongst the first students to blog, as individuals in the state of Victoria.

Each student from Hawkesdale was paired with a grade 5 or 6 student from Portland.  Three lessons were spent with them. Some students did not have an email address, so that was the first task to be undertaken. Next they applied for a globalstudent blog, a campus of edublogs, run by DEECD. All went smoothly and only two students did not get their activation email for registration before lunch.

Portland North Primary school treated the students, by giving them morning tea and a drink. Another 30 minute break was taken to share class blogs between the two schools – grade 6 Portland North and grade 6 Hawkesdale P12 and to demonstrate some Hawkesdale p12 student blogs. Otherwise all students worked conscientiously, effectively and efficiently together. By the end of the three sessions, the Portland students had some great looking blogs.

Some feedback

• “I learnt a lot today”  (from a Hawkesdale P12 College student)
• All students said that they enjoyed the day
• My students said “It was much better than expected”

Students as mentors is a very effective mechanism as

• students tutor and  explain in their own language,
• having one on one was an extremely effective learning activity – a rare luxury in the normal classroom
• students know what they like to have on their blogs
• it gives increased confidence and a maturity for those mentoring
• it gives a chance to share knowledge
• enables higher order thinking skills when working in small groups.

From Tammy’s and my point of view, the students of all ability levels, worked together intently to achieve outcomes far beyond what we expected them to achieve. They far exceeded our expectations. and we were so proud of the way that they all worked together.

Next week we go to Camperdown to repeat the exercise with their grades 5 and 6 students.

Peer to peer mentoring

Year 7 from my school, Hawkesdale P12 College, put together this presentation in order to teach students at two other neighbouring rural schools (1 hour’s bus drive away) how to blog effectively and safely. It is amazing what students can achieve, without help from their teachers.

Click on <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/hir0001/blogging-1525400″>this link </a>to slideshare to view their presentation.

Cross posted at <a href=”http://murch.globalteacher.org.au”>http://murch.globalteacher.org.au</a>

Working intently on blogging