Talking to Native Speaker

Endang and students asking questions of native speaker

Endang Palupi is an amazing Indonesian educator in Western Java and despite poor infrastructure and working in a developing country. As Endang is well connected, she then connects students she works with to classes and educators across the world. She is studying for a doctorate and her thesis is based Talking with a Native Speaker. Using skype and facebook groups, Endang looks for people who may be available to work with Indonesian students who are learning English and speak it as their second or third language.

One question they consistently ask is “what  is your age?”. I respond truthfully and can see that they understand that as there is some element of surprise, as I could be their grandmother!!! “What is your hobby?” is the second most common question. My response is gardening and arranging flowers but I am never sure whether they fully understand that response. Usually I key that response into the txt chat area to help understanding.  On the weekend,  I took a photograph of some of my flower arrangements so that I can quickly share my screen in skype or ghangouts and show them my hobby as well as tell them.

Images will become increasingly important as we become more globally connected. How do you ensure understanding when working with people from other countries? What tips would you give?

Sharing my hobby in an image

Comparing School Lunches globally!

A senior student lunchbox in summer

On many occasions I can empathise with those who are part of the digital divide. Internet access can often be poor from my home and mobile phone service is non-existent, unless I go outside to the end of the veranda, face south and the weather conditions are good. This gives me great empathy for those citizens of other countries and schools who experience similar conditions.

An online teaching colleague, Reinhard Marx from Germany asked for a photo of a typical school lunch box as his year 7 student were studying foods in science. He asked the name school that I teach in. As our official website is very bland, I always send the link to the school blog. He read the post on the school vegetable garden and asked whether I had time to share with his students about our foods. There were three classes in all and the presentations spanned a week Europe (excepting Russia) is not time zone friendly for synchronous linkups with our classes, but it is reasonably friendly for teaching on my part, as their school day starts in my early evening and often finishes late at night for me. Two of the classes were at 6:30pm my time and the third was at 10pm, 8:30am and noon respectively in Germany.

Skype for videoconferencing was the tool agreed upon as google hangouts do not work well for me from home, despite being on a cabled computer.  I like skype for the following reasons:-

• User friendly
• Globally acceptable
• Can share my screen for the powerpoint presentation that I prepared on food, the school canteen and the vegetable garden.
• Send files through
• Maintain a backchannel for interpretation, ensuring understanding and adding questions in the text chat.

We tried sharing videos from both sides of the world, but the audio was not good. I dropped my video but audio was still poor when I tried to screenshare. The powerpoint presentation was quickly sent through skype and Reinhard displayed my powerpoint on his data projector and I talked through the slides when prompted without video connections.

Our school vegetable garden

The second lesson started in a similar manner but I had booked a Blackboard Collaborate room as a backup. The sound was perfect in here and the presentation could be shown. However, I had forgotten that many of the images were high in pixellation and the final slides did not load for Reinhard and his class. Again, he had to revert to showing my powerpoint at his end. The third time lucky, it all worked as I ensured that I had resized my images on the presentation.

The challenges:-

• Bandwidth – found a tool that worked – blackboard collaborate – I can book a room through my Education Department license.
• Working with a class where English is the second or third language. On occasions I had to pause for Reinhard to interpret
• To ensure comprehension  – by the third class, I realised I should label the food using the text tool on the whiteboard, use lines etc  whilst I was being interpreted.
• To ascertain interest of class when there was one class logon. Would be preferable to have students individually logged on in Germany.
• How to bring my students online next time – share the link and they can logon from home.

The highlights

• Multimedia tools – audio, text chat, whiteboard, video, labels, lines, shapes, app sharing (through Blackboard Collaborate)
• Recording – the classes were recorded for future reference or use with other classes and the links to the recordings shared with Mr Marx.
• The questions from the students, responses to my questions and the sharing of languages and names of foods.

Lunch in the School Canteen

Using the shapes and lines tools in BbC to annotate and ensure understanding.

Here is the

• link to the recording of the second lesson
• link to the recording of the third lesson

Backchannelchat

Jason Graham, from Indonesia, and I will moderate and co-organise the virtual element of the Flat Classroom Conference, Yokohama, Japan from 8-10th March. A mix of tools will be needed to connect the virtual and face to face participants to enable collaboration and to provide platforms for the creation of outcomes. Julie Lindsay discovered the BackchannelChat tool and suggested we look at this as a possible option for connecting and collaborating.

Testing tools is important before launching for full scale use. How the Backchannel chat was tested:-

1. Julie, Jason and I tested the tool initially. 
2. I used it with my year 11 and 12 class – (locally)
3. Jason and I then tested it with younger students – his grade one class at Bandung International School, Indonesia and my year 3/4 IT class, at Hawkesdale P12 College, Australia. (globally)

It was a great hit with both the older and younger students. Students are highly engaged using chat, especially when two countries are involved in simultaneous time. The year 3/4 class involves a number of students with behaviour challenges.

sample chat

There is a free version with more limited features but is the one we used for classroom use. A premium version provides functions for saving, moderation, editing etc. Both versions will allow the url or embed code of eg online photos, slidehares, youtube videos and the actual image, video, presentation etc appears in the chat. Great for classes and resource sharing.

Here is how the chat with Indonesia looked:-

One of the default avatars

Prior to synchronous connection:-

• as a class we discussed netiquette and protocols for appropriate behaviour in chatrooms or backchannels eg bad language, putdowns, spamming text, shouting with all caps.
• discussed how we would enter the chatroom and what our introduction would be.

During the linkup:-

• how would I share the link to the backchannel with these young students? Even keying in my blog address is still a challenge and retrieving from a shared folder still difficult for the younger students. Decided to use moo url shortener as it is simplified and I can choose the extension name. However, as I was in such a hurry, we just used the default letters. All students were able to logon with this. Each of my students logged on individually using a netbook. Jason’s class shared a netbook between two students.

• The two classes introduced themselves to each other using videoconferencing with skype.
• A quick virtual tour of each classroom was enjoyed using the web camera.
• Students then sat at their netbooks and answered the questions that either Jason or I asked of them eg What is your favourite food, animal and subject?
• Skype was kept open throughout for quick communication and enabling instant communication and a view of the engagement in each classroom.

The students loved the chat, talking to people who live far away and asking them questions. Below are some comments back from my students on what they learned (remembering that this class is mono-culture or white caucasian):-

• Even though they are different they have good hearts
• It is summer here and it has been warm, but they said it was cooler than us for them
• The talk the same as us. I thought they would talk different
• how alike they actually are to us
• Their class was made up of students  from different countries  (compared to our class which is all white Caucasian) as theirs is an International School
• As they are so close to us, I thought they would be the same time.
• They were 4 hours behind
• To be nice to the other students
• The time is different in Asia
• Indonesia is a different country
• They looked quite different to what we look like
• How to use a chatroom
• They are different – different tables, setup in the classroom etc
• People eat things that I do not like
• They have the same technology

The backchannel flowed smoothly with no time lags despite there being 32 synchronous logons. The younger students simply used text but next time we would try to share images. The tool was impressive and it will certainly be used in my classes again.

Have you used a chatroom or backchannel with the young? What are your impressions?

121212- 1212

Today is seen as a lucky day for many 12th day of the 12th month of 2012. It was interesting to see what educators did or are going to do on this day. Stefan Nielsen @SNskole, Denmark had a great suggestion of taking a photo at 12:12pm and sharing it on a google presentation 121212-1212 he created.  Thanks Stefan for this fabulous activity – simple but so effective. So many projects and research can be made further from this activity.

It was fascinating to watch photos go up and it gave some indication of  times and zones in the world as people passed the time and uploaded their images. There are many blanks as I write this as it is still Dec 11th for many. Below is my photo taken in our school grounds. It was a hot day 36 degrees celsius.

Below is the google presentation with increasing contributions from across the globe.

Louise Morgan skyped:-

I am going to make a big poster and have the kids write anything they can think of that relates to the number 12. (12 days of christmas, 12 = dozen, 6+6=12, etc). I may also have them make lists of 12  - like their favorite toys, candy, songs, tv shows, etc…. from Louise Morgan

Paula Nagle suggested a 121212 blogging activity. I may get my year4/5 students to do this tomorrow, even though it will be the 13th for us,  it will still be 121212 somewhere in the world.

What did you do for 121212? Did you take an image?

There’s a Frog in my Classroom!

Globalclassroom tweetchats are a great way to converse with others on a specified topic and  meet a network of educators who live in a similar time zone. They are held once a month for one hour over three days and times to suit all time zones.. @Warwick_Languages and I co-moderated one of the December sessions.The topic of conversation was “Eat that Frog!” A great topic discussion suggested by David Potter (@iearnusa) in California. See the globalclassroom post “Eat that Frog“.

This topic was of high intrigue. Frogs! – we are not allowed to eat frogs in Australia, yet they are a prized dish in other countries – primarily Asia.  Would we offend anyone?

As the chat progressed a number of experienced global classroom tweeters came on board and many more were lured into the conversation with this great topic teaser! It became one of the most amazing chats that I have participated in – participants from across the world – some great sharing, honesty, laced with humour and many wonderful experiences to learn about. The hour did not let us do justice to the questions – we ran out of time!

Please take time to peruse the chatfeed which @CliveSir kindly puts together. There is a wealth of advice, resources and experience to be found there. One experience that fascinated participants was that of Jenny Ashby and her 24 hour skype-a-thon, where Australia students went to school with others across the world in their school class time. Read Jenny’s account of their 24 Hour Skype

What frogs do you have in your classoom? Have you been involved in tweethchats? If so, which ones?  What tweet chats do you enjoy?

Learning Beyond the News

How wonderful it is that we can make great global connections. One such special colleague of mine is Lorraine Leo who is an innovative, generous and well connected educator from Massachusetts. Lorraine took a video outside her window of the wind as Hurricane Sandy approached. Immediately following the recent Hurricane Sandy, her son Chris, of New York, took some photographs of his area with the mobile phone, added them to voicethread, giving my students and others across the world an opportunity to ask further questions of someone who had experienced this natural disaster.

You can see the result in the voicethread. Thanks Chris for sharing with us and ‘making the news real’.

International Dot Day

A Dot by Levi (year 11)

Several weeks ago, Lorraine Leo mentioned the existence of International Dot Day on September 15th and that she would be involved in a Scratch World Dot Project a World Museum project organised by Yoshiro Miyata. It was promptly forgotten, until I noticed active tweets alerting us to the upcoming event. Read further to see our involvement, what we did and how we did it:-

1. I researched the meaning of the day and signed up for Dot Day through Fable Vision.
2. Grade Prep/One and Year 4/5 created dots with Doodle Buddy on the iPad for Dots Around the World (Chrissy Hellier’s project)
3. Year 7 and some 4/5s created the dots for the Scratch project.
4. The classes watched the Dot on youtube
5. Chrissy Hellier from Bangkok and her class skyped us. Chrissy showed us the book and read sections to us. See Skype Linkup with Bangkok
6. Students created their dots using Doodle Buddy on the iPad.
7. Lorraine Leo from Boston USA helped year 7 students, on an individual basis, create their dots using Scratch,using skype on the iPad. Going Dotty with a Mobile Teacher
8. Year 11 students wanted to be part of it too.
9. The images were shared in a drop box folder and on flickr. See our flickr images

Year 4/5 Dots can be seen in the following presentation.

Where can you see the final outcomes?

1. Student work is now proudly displayed at the World Dot Project (allow this site to load as it will take time).
2. Work from Year Prep/One, Four/Five and Year 11 can be seen from the video on Dots Around the World

Reflecting on this project:-

1. I love the notion of encouraging creativity
2. A Dot is such a simple concept but students came up with so many different ideas and applications
3. Many times, I bit my tongue, as I was about to say that is not right, why dont you do this etc. I just let the student creativity flow.
4. The younger students just use any colour combination, they have not been taught to keep with certain colours etc and don’t you just love them?
5. Not all students could read or write well but they could draw a dot. It catered for every ability.
6. It plummeted us into the world of technology where we could learn, share and teach others around the world.
7. It forced me to use technology (skype on my iPad) which I may not have done otherwise. Now I want to try and use this more.
8. Communication and collaboration tools used included: twitter, skype, blogs, email, gchat, google+, youtube, slideshare, facebook. dropbox, scratch, flickr

Thanks Peter Reynolds for writing the Dot, fablevision for promoting the idea and to all those who created the projects and encouraged us to add our dots to them.

Happy Dot Day and long live creativity!

Technology and the Future of Education

The PGL Panel

As part of the keynote sessions at the Partnerships for Global Learning conference, a panel of guest speakers was invited to share their opinions on “Technology and the Future of Education” from a global perspective. The panel consisted of Steve Hargadon, Lucy Gray, Julie Lindsay, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano and me (Anne Mirtschin). Steve ably led the discussions and spent much time preparing the forum questions. Approximately 600 conference participants listened to the panel.

Panel discussion audienc

Here are some of the questions directed at the panel members:-

• Please give a favorite example of a use of technology in global education/collaboration
• Have our definitions of global education changed because of the internet and web/collaborative technologies, and how do we begin to identify (store) best practices we’re seeing with technology and global education?  That is, what do successful global projects [using technology] look like?
• How do we measure the outcomes of global education, and how is the technology involved?
• In an increasingly test-driven education environment, how do you find leadership support for global activities?
• Students and teachers increasingly lead parallel lives:  they are learning from and with new technologies, they are being measured in inadequate ways…  Lets’ talk about technology from the educator side
• Are there ways of overcoming technology gaps between participating schools? How do you connect with a school that has low, limited, or no access to technology or connectivity?
• Is global education our end goal?  What is your prediction for where we are headed?

Thanks Steve, Julie, Lucy and Silvia and a big thank you to the organisers of this great conference for inviting me to participate. It was such an exciting and proud moment. The conversations continue on our mighty bell space. Please join us.

Julie, Sylvia and me

Steve and Lucy ensure discussion questions go smoothly

The changing face of teaching!

This year I teach ICT or computer studies to years 4 and 5 students for one lesson per week.

Vesna's sprite

Lorraine Leo, a long term colleague,  also teaches this age group at Jackson School in USA. Hoping that we could work together on some global project, Lorraine suggested we get involved in the World Friends Scratch project.

Knowing that the grade 4/5 boys (who tend to be disengaged in the normal classroom) would like working with Scratch, I agreed.  However, I have never put time aside to sit down and learn how to use it, despite being highly interested in its use.

Soon after, grade 4/5 went to the library to watch a skype videoconference linkup with Lorraine and her student Lana from USA. It was Wed night at 7:30pm Lana’s time and Thursday 11:30am our time. Students watched intensely as Lana used the screen share facility of skype and stepped us through the creation of a sprite, how to make it move and how to add speech bubbles that would appear when it bumps another sprite.

At the end of this presentation, students were able to ask Lana questions and 50 minutes disappeared very quickly. Just as the bell went, Lana took her laptop to the window to show us the snow that had fallen outside. Despite the darkness we could see it quite clearly.

Blake's sprite

Students then proceeded to create their sprites during following ICT lessons. Lorraine created two screencasts which quite clearly demonstrated the steps required and emailed them to me. The links to these were shared on my class blog. Students were able to work at their own pace and as some students completed the tasks, they mentored the others. I became a facilitator and simply watched the learning begin and blossom.

The first group of students have now completed their sprites, tested them and some were uploaded to the public gallery on Thursday, ready to be transferred to the World Friends site global project site.

What we learnt

• Digital citizenship – the necessity to make our sprites resemble our own persona. One student had made an animal sprite, another gave their body a different colour. They were changed to bear a greater likeness to themselves for global sharing.
• How to use screen casts effectively. How to use video tutorials that Lorraine Leo created to help them learn.
• Students can become effective instructors and mentors, even when they are virtual.  They talk to each other in their own language.
• The necessity to follow each of these steps or the sprite would not talk when bumped.
• Expertise no longer matters if a teacher has a strong learning network

Why it worked so well

• The engagement of student learning with technology –
• having an American student teach them virtually
• working with a tool that is not obviously literacy or numeracy based
• having experts teach the students – both Lana via skype and Lorraine via the screencasts
• students mentoring other students within the classroom.
• A real project with an authentic audience

How does this fit the pedagogy of learning? (adpated from the ISTE NETS standards for students)

Students will

• use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively on a global scale,  to support individual learning
• contribute to the learning of others
• connect, interact, collaborate and publish with global peers, experts and general community members, including family.
• use a variety of media and digital environments to connect, communicate and create.
• share learning spaces
• communicate information and ideas effectively to a variety of digital audiences using a variety of media and formats
• develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners from other cultures.
• Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.

Screen shot of the World Friends website

Do you have any questions? Please email them to innovatorofthemonth@gmail.com or add a comment below. Have you used scratch? If so, how? Has there been an element of global collaboration?

Developing a Learning Network with Classroom 2.0

A question is often asked of me as to how I make global connections. Developing a learning network or PLN (personal learning network) is essential in getting globally connected. A great place to start is to join one of the biggest classrooms in the world – Classroom 2.0!

Things were getting frantic – with just two hours until interested grade prep to 6  parents were to assemble in  our school library for our Technology Showcase,  videos would not display on our new iPod touches. One excited class had been busy making videos and they were to show them using the iPod touches.

Urgent messages for help were sent out to all and any email lists.  In sheer desperation, a discussion item was also placed on Classroom2.0. Within 10 minutes, we had the answer – not from anyone in Australia or our emailing lists, but from Matthew Needleman, in the USA. Following his instructions the videos displayed to a library overflowing with parents, grandparents and students.  The showcase was a great success!

This was my first taste of the power of networking and its ability to provide information NOW from anywhere across the globe! (It needs to be noted that I teach at Hawkesdale P12 College,  a small rural, geographically and culturally isolated prep to year 12 school, in South Eastern Australia.)

Four years ago, I joined classroom2.0 a ning set up by Steve Hargadon of USA. At that stage there were 3,000 members from all levels and tiers of education, all passionate about the use of technology in education.  Today there are more than 466,000 members and I am proud to be a welcoming host on this ning.

Wordle from current classroom2.0 page

The above word cloud was made by highlighting the screen of classroom2.0, copying and pasting into wordle.

Why join Classroom 2.0?:-

• It is free
• It is a space to make global connections and friends
• Empowers teaching and learning
• Allows discussions/forums. There are many active discussions over the years, many still applicable today.
• Keep up to date with the latest developments in education
•  Share learning and join in conversations
• Publish and read members’ blog posts
• Search for discussions, tags etc on tools, subjects, areas of personal interest
• Mailing list updates on upcoming free webinars and events
• Share and peruse photos and videos
• create or join in collaborative global projects
•  There is are easy search features on previous discussion topics, technology tools, subjects, areas etc

Where can such membership lead? Here follows some memorable stories  of classroom2.0 friends, connections and just some of the rather amazing  outcomes for my classes.

1. Chrissy Hellyer from New Zealand  taught us how to create a wiki, sharing the power that interactivity, connectedness and collaboration can bring. See anzacconnection
2. Lorraine Leo of USA,  introduced me to the power of  virtual classrooms using discoverE. Over the years, we have taught each others’ classes despite teaching at different age levels and living in different time zones. We have shared colleagues, photos, videos, experiences, festivals, celebrations and cultures. Lorraine has brought the following virtually to our school: a research scientist from her tent in Antarctica and Rich Wilson, a US sailor and his quest in sailing solo around the world. (Listen to Skipper Rich). Her  grade 6 student  spoke about Halloween to my fascinated students and Lorraine organised a  student of Dean Shareski from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada,  to speak to  my accounting students and much, much more. We have been part of exciting pioneering three to five way linkups, connecting a classroom in the Phillipines with mine plus teachers from three other continents, all in the one classroom.  We have worked on voicethreads together – a  firm favourite being “My question of you” where Lorraine’s  grade two students asked a question and my year 7s replied to them. Teaching and Learning Across the Globe is a recorded joint presentation for the online Global Education Conference 2010.
3. Ekaterina from Russia:- We have videoconferenced together using skype  (our classes were televised on Russian television as a result), shared student surveys eg Climate Change Questionaire, developed an  Across the World wiki together etc.
4. Govinda Panthy- an amazing educator from Nepal who has become e-connected and painstakingly, patiently and with great determination brought global awareness to the plight of his school and students in Nepal. Govinda would awake at 4:30am in order to skype because his power is frequently cut off during daytime working hours. With the aid of friends made on classroom 2.0, Our Open World Project is now raising funds to bring several computers to SAV school and much needed physical library requisites. Make sure you visit the Open World Project site to see the real power, empathy and learning that can extend from membership.
5. Alison Saylor -  We worked on google docs together and co-surveyed our students on their ownership of personal gadgets. Students in a school from Jerusalem were also surveyed. Students from each school  mapped the results in a spreadsheet for comparison.  The project  raised extensive local classroom discussion and provided many teachable moments.

There are  many, many  more wonderful stories that could be shared.

The long tail!:

1. In 2010, I was proud to be  the Australasian mentor for the innovative online Global Education Conference which connected educators from across the globe in a free three day online conference – a direct result of my membership at classroom 2.0.
2. Through the resultant friendship with Steve Hargadon, he encouraged Carole McCulloch and myself to be a moderators and organisers of eT@lking, an online webinar using Blackboard Collaborate for the  Australia Series. This has led to even further connections and networks.

Tips for successful membership of Classroom2.0 or other similar networks

1. Ensure your profile has enough information to encourage others to consider and add you as a friend
2. Lurk, lurk and lurk! Watch the discussions, search the tools, subjects or areas that you may be into help,  network and share existing knowledge.
3. Introduce yourself on the  Introductions  discussion.
4. Watch the discussion thread on “Introductions” and befriend some of the others who may be like-minded across a number of countries.
5. Make friends where possible.
6. When confident actively join in the conversations and discussions.
7. Add your own discussion topic
8. Write some blog posts (these can be cross posted from your existing blog).
9. Set up an RSS feed for the discussions you are interested in.
10. Return regularly

The networked teacher has the power to transform learning and education in directions that are only ‘dreamed about’! Together we can make the ‘dreams’ a reality!

What spaces or tools have helped you build a learning network? Are you a member of classroom 2.0? If so what experiences can you share?

Any questions can be directed to innovatorofthemonth@gmail.com or add a comment back here.

Please note that this blog post was written for the Edublogs Challenge on Developing a PLN. There are many other great posts to be found here.