Australia Day – A Day of Celebrations

January 26^th is Australia Day – a day to for all Australians to celebrate being Australian. Local communities celebrated this day in a variety of ways.

The Moyne Shire held a special ceremony at Yambuk commencing with a free breakfast. Formal proceedings followed where the Moyne Shire Citizen of the Year, the Young Citizen of the Year and the Community Event of the Year awards were acknowledged and presented. As this ceremony took place, people seated in the hall could look out the windows at the gum trees and watch the large livestock trucks rumbled past reminding us of the nature of the rural area we live in. The cultural diversity of Australian society was evident even in this country community. Our mayor is from Macedonia, the guitarist who led the National Anthem and Aussie singing bore a distinct Scottish accent and the Australia Day Ambassador who addressed the gathering was from Turkey. Five Moyne Shire residents were sworn in as Australian citizens at the ceremony. They came from China, Sth Africa, Ireland and Germany.

Emily - Moyne Shire Young Citizen of the Year Awardee

The young Moyne Shire citizen of the year was our 2011 Hawkesdale P12 College vice captain. It was with great pride that we listened to Emily Huglin give a great speech on why community involvement is so important and why she wants to make a change. Hawkesdale again was featured, when HADDAC received the Event of the Year award. This was in recognition of the success of the 150^th celebrations for 2011.

Community Event of the Year - Hawkesdale 150th Celebration

Celebrations continued back at Port Fairy, with a free lunch, afternoon concert and a celebration cake – lamingtons. At sunset, on the village green, an outdoor theatre featured the Australian movie “Young Einstein”. Many people brought chairs, rugs, and blankets to watch.

The Australia Day Ambassador, Dr Hass Dellal, during his speech referred to the fact that Australians give all people a fair go. Not only do I live in the ‘lucky country’ but I also live and work in a small rural community where there is a sense of belonging, of ownership, where much is given and there is pride in what we have. Australia Day is a day to celebrate for all Australians!

The Year of the Dragon

Happy New Year to all my dear Chinese friends and colleagues. Jan 23^rd marks the Chinese New Year, which is in contrast to our New Year which falls on January 1^st.  As I become more involved in global collaboration and in global projects, I become more aware of global festivals and holidays that other countries/cultures celebrate.

The Chinese New Year is now of special interest to our school as the second language taught is mandarin Chinese. We also fall neatly into the time zone and school times of Asia and this allows synchronous connections and communication.

Each year a different animal is represented. There are 12 animals in total. 2012 is the Year of the Dragon. In my society, dragons are something to be feared.  They breathe out fire in our mythology. This is in contrast to the Chinese who see dragons as creatures of good luck and fortune. Therefore it is good luck to have babies born this year.

When reading our daily newspaper, on the weekend, I was surprised to read that I had actually been born in the Year of the Dragon, many yearly cycles ago. Even more special for 2012 is that it is the year of the water dragon, an event that does not occur so regularly and again my birthday was the last year of the dragon.  Two grandchildren will be born this year. I wonder what that means for us?

Again, happy New Year to all of you who celebrate the Chinese New Year.

In Australia, the Chinese New Year is celebrated in cities throughout Australia. Do you celebrate Chinese New Year where you live? If so, what does it look like?

Aligning Global Projects with ISTE Student Standards

As I was curious as to whether I could align the Globalstorytelling Project withinternational standards, I chose the ISTE standards. I found that it did align with all 6 standards, under the following sections. (Please note that this challenge #11 of the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher Certificate).

1. Creativity and Innovation

• Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products or processes
• Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

2. Communication and Collaboration

• Interact, collaborate and publish with peers, experts employing a variety of digital environments and media.
•  Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
• Develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.
• Contribute to project teams to produce original works.

3. Research and Information Fluency

• Locate, organize, analyse, evaluate, synthesize and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making

• Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project

5. Digital Citizenship

• exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
• Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning

6. Technology Operations and Concepts

• understand and use technology systems
• select and use applications effectively and productively

Next challenge is to align them with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards - my own state standards and the 21st Century Learning Literacies

Cross posted

Global Collaboration on a Wiki

Global Storytelling was a collaborative project using a wiki that involved four schools, five teachers and a community group – the Melbourne Writers Festival.   Module 4 Contribution and Collaboration of the Flat Classroom Teacher Certificate (Flat Classroom Projects) prog ram challenged us to think about collaboration on a global scale.

Working collaboratively and globally ogn the Global Storytellin wiki differed to other  in-class work eg blogging on or as a class blog as follows:-

• Working collaboratively means that no longer can one person be in charge of the class and make decisions re the timing, content, procedures, outcomes etc (as occurs in a more traditional classroom). There has to be give and take, a sense of humour, trust between the parties involved, commitment and passion.
• Communication was regular and consistent between all parties, using email, skpye and the discussion tab of the wiki.
• There was a real non-negotiable time-line to work to, as the best book trailers were to be featured on centre stage at Federation Square in Melbourne for the Melbourne Writers Festival.
• There were constant reminders and reassurance from all those involved, re work load, content, what had to be done and how it had to be done.  Use was made of the wiki discussion tab to answer questions re the technical requirements and issues.
• Different school holidays, festival times and normal classroom interruptions provided challenges for the completion of work.
• The students from the two schools in Malaysia had not blogged before, created videos nor worked on a wiki before. It was a steep learning curve. We had to learn together and experiment with,  which tools were the best for sending huge files (as we needed a good quality video for the big screen) to the Melbourne Writers Festival people.
• Different cultures and different age groups were involved and sometimes different expectations but any problems and issues had to be collaboratively worked through.
• Although time zones and school times were reasonably similar between Malaysia and Australia, a lot of communicating and connecting (mostly with skype) was done beyond school hours.
• Three way communication often took place between the two schools and Jenny Niven of the Melbourne Writers Festival. This meant getting used to different accents, ways of saying things etc.
• A professional technical team also had to be collaborated with – these were the people responsible for the video, sound and other spaces on the actual day of the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Cross posted

Empower digital citizenship action

In challenge #7 of the Certified Flat Classroom teachers’ course, we were asked to discuss the possibilities of student-empowered digital citizenship with your administration and/or colleagues. Plan and determine how you will use “reverse mentoring” opportunities to stay abreast of digital citizenship and how this can be shared through your organization.

As a school that has just gone 1:1 for students from years 5 to 12, the administration of my school fully supports ‘reverse mentoring’ and is keen to ensure that appropriate digital citizenship is taught and learnt. A small group of students formed student action teams to work on two trial projects with the Innovations and Next Practise division of our state Victorian Education Department – Learning Responsibly Online and Digital Demons – Playing by the Rules. The latter project involved student action teams from across Victoria who worked with the Melbourne Football Club, an AFL Football Team. They explored appropriate behaviour and safety in social networking and other online sites eg facebook, twitter etc where high profile sports players network and then related back to schools and individuals. The footy players were honest in the mistakes they had made and shared their experiences. The student groups surveyed students in our school and other global participants on their use of the internet. The student team was concerned about the number of hours that students are online networking (some well after midnight). Students created a digital video on cyber bullying, uploaded it to youtube and shared it with their classmates. They also wrote several articles for our local newspaper. As I teach ICT, I have the opportunity to

However, in 2012, we could take this further. Here are some ideas:-

1. Further discussions with students exploring the opportunity of having a specific mentoring group setup.
2. Setup a student survey on our school blog. This can alert us to any areas of concern and keep us abreast of the networking tools that students are using.
3. Students add posts as guest bloggers on our school blog or class blogs.
4. Get students to speak at staff meetings of their favourite networking sites, how they use them and why they use them.
5. As I teach ICT, I could give 10 mins of each lesson or once a week for students to share their online and digital world with me and the other students eg latest games they play, uses of networking sites, new tools they have discovered, latest phone apps and discoveries etc.
6. In 2012, it is likely that I will be teaching a couple of primary school classes. Will sign them up for Super Clubs Plus, which is a social networking site that is supervised at all times.
7. Hold evening meetings for parents each term as they are important stake holders. These meetings could be face to face, or virtual (involving web conferencing). Students could be present and show how many of their favourite online sites work, share how to have strong and safe digital profiles etc
8. Students write articles for the community school newsletter and our local newspaper on a regular basis.
9. I shall explore further in 2012, the networking sites that  years 9/10 use and shared with me at the end of 2011. See word cloud created with  wordle below.

Cross posted

10 ways to take skype beyond ‘meet and greet’!

Skype with an author

Videconferencing with another global class is always powerful learning, even when it is just ‘meet and greet’. However, further productive and effective learning will take place when extensions are made to these initial connections. It is always valuable to research further where that class was from and if possible, place a marker on a google map and discuss geography, history, cultural mixes, possible religions, season, natural disasters, foods eaten, sports etc.

Tonight was the first tweetchat on #globalclassroom. As I was not home this evening, I missed it, but noted questions from @tasteach and @mgraffin on my tweetfeed. Below is my response to how to take skype beyond ‘meet and greet’ with some examples.

Linkups can go beyond class to class and more intimate, rewarding videoconferences can take place between two small groups of students or even place students one on one. This really pushes students beyond their comfort zones, but allows them to fully direct their own learning of each other. This is really evident when the small groups are from different cultures, languages backgrounds etc and enables the learning of valuable global communication skills in our increasingly flat world.

Learning to fold paper money for wedding gifts

Here are some suggestions and ways  that I have used videoconferencing to go beyond ‘meet and greet’:-

1. Extend the initial contacts to further linkups where students could bring an object that reflects where they live, conduct food demonstrations, favourite books, pets, favourite sports, hobbies etc (Sharing of objects using the camera dissolves any inhibitions and allows natural curiousity to come to the fore with questions, interest and passion.)
2. Linkup on special days and school celebrations eg ‘come dressed in favourite book character days’, racial harmony day
3. Perform a virtual concert
4. Online debating
5. Teach each other favourite school yard games, historic games, paper folding etc.
6.  Take it beyond asynchronous connections to synchronous connections eg global collaboration on a wiki, blog, ning etc Some projects that have extended our initial ‘meet and greet’ are Global Storytelling, involving the creation of book trailers across two countries/five cultures,  and Across the World – a wiki setup to share  school life in two schools, one from Russia and and one from Australia.
7. An initial skpye videoconference linkup with Christopher Herz, an author from New York, led to regular weekly lunchtime skype linkups, called “lunch with an author“. Interested secondary students from Hawkesdale P12 College, Australia would meet in the library at lunchtimes on Tuesdays. Christopher led the students through a series of challenges to help them with their passion for writing. Evernote was used to share work, asynchronous disscusions and editing.
8. Students interview an expert -organise the teacher from another country. Individual students devise a series of questions and interview the teacher, on a one to one basis, using videoconferencing.
9. Trial webconferencing rather than just videoconferencing, for even richer connections eg  Blackboard Collaborate, DiscoverE etc Tools such as this give an interactive whiteboard, backchannel for chat where every student can have a voice etc. See “Learning Adventures with Web Conferencing“
10. Use teachable moments. Logon to skype and make use of any possible impromptu linkups rather than organised ‘meet and greet’

See also eCultural Learning Adventures, The World is my Classroom, Big Little Classrooms

How have you used skpye in the classroom? Have you used web conferencing with students, especially mixed groups of students? What would you add to this post?

Trialling netvibes

screenshot of the news feed for reinvent school in netvibes

As I am undertaking the Flat Classroom Certified Teacher certificate and finishing module 2, challenge#5 is a bonus and requires the construction of a Student PLN (personal learning network). Reading about netvibes is notthe same as actually constructing one. The best way to learn is not by reading about it but by constructing a netvibes portal. (Project based learning??)

Here are my adventures with netvibes.

1. Checked out some educationalists netvibes pages
2. Registered for the free version of netvibes, activated the email, chose a topic – a project that we will be looking at – reinvent_school. I like the work of Brendan O’Keefe who is challenging us to think about Reinventing School.  This created a dashboard, pulling in feeds for anything that was newsworthy, conversational, searchable for the either of the two words = reinvent+school. This was far to broad, so I created a second dashboard with “reinventschool” and this refined me to the actual material I wanted.
3. Adventuring around independently was not making much sense. I tried to follow the wizard, but that did not really help me, so I googled for help and found youtube videos, a slideshare and other blog posts to help me fathom out what I was doing or should be doing or more importantly, what netvibes was doing for me and the topic.

Netvibes automatically added the tweetfeed for #reinvent school, the latest news items relating to the tag, the usual google searches etc. I like it!

However, the next challenges are:-

1. how to add blogs of my choosing  into the netvibes conversations page
2. how to add further tweetfeed #tags of my choosing, videos that I want to ‘house’ on the site
3. need to check out how many dashboards I can create with the free version as I can see it being really useful especially for my year 12 students and some of the topics for study.
4. continue to customize it etc
5. share it publicly for others to use

In conclusion, I am really impressed with this tool, will definitely use it more this year and really thank Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay for setting up this amazing course and challenging me to use technology to break down my classroom walls further. Personal and class organisation can go out of control as there are so many sites, so much to explore and so much to keep up to date with, but with feeds in netvibes, it will make teaching and learning easier.

Have you used netvibes? How? Do you have vibes to share with us? Can you answer the questions to my challenges. Or have you used other tools that help you manage student projects?

Mobile Communications

Mobile technology is and will continue to make increasing impact on learning, discovery and networking. However, there is no mobile phone service where I live or teach, so using the internet is not easy whilst at school or home on a mobile device unless it has wireless access.
On the occasions when I have had access to the internet on my mobile phone, I have used urbanspoon to find a restaurant nearby that served reasonably priced quality food and that was highly recommended by people who had already eaten there (not food judges, advertisements etc but real consumers). When stuck in a traffic jam in Melbourne and needing to be at a meeting within minutes of the jam, my daughter helped me use google maps which showed the extent of the jam and the predicted time to get to my destination. This allowed me to alter my driving route and get to the meeting on time. As I love travelling, I use the tripadvisor app for all manner of things when away from home. Having a mobile device means that I can join in webinars whilst travelling on a train (with my mobile dongle connected to my laptop), moderate weekly webinars from a hotel room when absent from home etc.

But….back to the classroom and learning! Students love learning to use new tools and apps and enjoy using qr codes. Their suggestions have been to add qr codes to the canteen menu, so that food sold can be broken down into calories, fat content, health scaling etc. Scavenger hunts for new students or at the beginning of the year, “word of the day”, “quiz question” of the day etc could appear as a qr code on the daily bulletin, teacher blog, student blog or ultranet etc

However, one of the most exciting and meaningful uses for students is to take a group of students (or class) from another country on a virtual tour of the school. Each of our students has their own netbook from year 5 through to year 12. They have inbuilt microphones and webcams. Using skype, a student or small group of students walk their netbook or my laptop around the school and surroundings (using wireless access) to share exactly what our rural school looks like and the spaces that they enjoy learning in. It teaches them so much- appropriate communication and diction, how to cope with different accents/cultures, ability to answer questions succinctly, the use of a web camera to give a clear, reasonably static video tour, allows them to introduce small groups of students who may be working on projects, shows what our lunchtimes look like etc. When skype is not stable, google chat video always seems to work, giving a clear video and audio.

Some of the ways that students use their netbooks or mobile devices – completing homework in the car on a three and a half hour drive to Melbourne and completing their homework on a school bus trip that might take 1 or 2 hours each way from home. Those who travel the longest distances love to listen to the quiz question of the day on the radio, others quickly google or look up the answers with their mobile device.  Others uses include taking photos for the 365 project, using the device to take the photo and then upload to their site, learning to play slap guitar from youtube, adding cover songs to youtube and learning from others who have already done so.

How have you used mobile technology in or out of your classroom? How have your students used them innovatively for learning?

Mobile technology is and will continue to make increasing impact on learning, discovery and networking. However, there is no mobile phone service where I live or teach, so using the internet is not easy whilst at school or home on a mobile device unless it has wireless access.

 

Light a Candle around the World – an effective but simple global project

Too often, we enter complex projects which although can be extremely valuable, can also be time consuming and anxiety ridden! I love this simple, but very effective project of my friend, Lorraine Leo’s “Light the Candles in 2012“. Lorraine asked fellow global colleagues to share a photo or an illustration featuring a candle. Her fourth grade students were singing “Light the candles all around the world”. Lorraine’s aim was to get 15 images shared. Did this great project succeed? See her map to find out. It is still not too late to join in.

Above is my photo. As it was Christmas time and as my daughter and I bunch fresh flowers for sale at an honesty stall at our front gate, my photo shows the candle in front of several of our bunched flowers. It is summer time and flowers are plentiful and beautiful. Did you send in a photo? What was yours? Have you been involved in, or organised simple global projects? Would love you to share in a comment to this post.

Ten things to do over the summer break!

As Christmas has finished and the New Year begins, it is summer time in Australia bringing a welcome 5 week holiday break from school before the new school year begins. Here are ten things that I hope to do over the break!

1. “Get lost” surfing through the nominations and finalists in the many categories for the recent edublogs awards.
2. Catch up on many of the 2011 K12 Online conference presentations
3. Sort through and listen to recordings from the 2011 Global Education Conference
4. Reflect on the year that was 2011 and write blog posts
5. Select my favourite online tools for 2011 and predict future directions for learning
6. Go through my twitter roll and follow the many people who now follow me (after a careful check of their digital profiles)
7. Download presentations that are applicable to my teaching subjects for 2012 from the recent Comview Conference.
8. Commence creating digital movies and objects for accounting and information technology at year 11 and 12 level
9. Apply to present at the ACEC 2012 Conference in Perth, September 2012
10. Complete the  modules which are part of the valuable Flat Classroom Certified Teacher 11-03 program

Amongst all this, consideration needs to be made about the direction and content of Tech Talk Tuesdays and eT@lking… but most of all I want to have precious time away with my family and relax!