Is this the world’s biggest conference? Global Education Conference 2012

You know there is something great and exciting going on when

• the twitterverse starts pumping out tweets in a continuous wave  using the #tag #globaled12 If you do not already follow hashtags, try going to tweetchat and entering globaled12 in the search window and watch the tweets fall. See the globaled12 hashtag analytics
• 1000 people apply for membership to the Global Education ning over two weeks
• here is much animated chat going on in the Global Education  Conference social networking site,
•  people say hi in their language in the chat
• you can see conversations going on in a number of languages in the chat window
•  a multitude of people email to seek advice and answers to questions re a conference,
•  presenters are collaborating and working together and when the world is involved there are amazing conversations.
• opportunities for training take place on an increasing scale

With over 330 sessions, a five days of conference and a potential audience drawn from across the world, the Global Education Conference is potentially the World’s Biggest Conference for Educators and people interested in promoting global education. This amazing feat for a conference is online, virtual and best of all free.  It does not sleep for 5 days with presentations around the clock! Presenters at this conference include educators, students and various community bodies interested in global education.

The hard work of Lucy Gray and Steve Hargadon together with a global committee have been instrumental in its organisation.  Do not miss this exciting opportunity to :-

• learn about the world from the world rather than a textbook
• learn with the world
• enjoy the comfort of your home or office space or classroom to be part of some amazing keynotes, spotlighted sessions and many presentations from people who are connecting globally and pushing education beyond our classroom walls.

Check out the schedules and sessions, scroll down find your time zone, click on the link to your timezone and you will be sent to the schedule for where you live. Choose the session(s) you want to attend, look for the link to the room, click on that prior to the session and you will enter the room where that presentation takes place.

Following are links to either lists of some of my favourite projects and connections and some suggestions for those people who are new to global education of presentations that might be of interest to them.

1. Hello Little World Skypers  presentations
2. Flat Classoom Project presenters and Stories from the Flat Classroom with Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis
3. Sessions that might interest those who are new to global education.

See also Julie Lindsay’s great post on How to attend the global education conference.

Are you presenting? What sessions would you suggest? What do you think of an amazing conference like this? What excites you about this conference? Have you attended any of the past global education conferences?

Hope to see you there!

Global challenges – “Lunch with our author 2013″

School can be a really busy place, with many interruptions to a timetable and routine experienced almost on a weekly basis. Christopher Herz, our author from New York has kindly offered to run further lunchtime classes with those students who are interested in further developing their writing skills.

Here are the challenges we face when working cross hemisphere, cross continent, time zones:-

• Timing of session with a school’s busy  curriculum: the need to meet at lunchtime, as students come from across year levels – year 6 through to year 10. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful if students could be released from their class for one lesson to do this? Sigh! but that is there is this perceived need that the curriculum must be covered in individual timetabled subjects)
• Suitable times: finding a suitable time for both sides – Hawkesdale and New York. Our early school morning coincides with late night before New York. Our lunchtime pre-daylight saving is 11pm New York time. Too late to expect anyone to link up with us on a regular basis, when there is work the next day.
• The School Year: The timing of the school year – the need, therefore, to wait for daylight saving, to start which is into term 4 – a crazy time of year for schools in Australia as we this is our last term and senior students finish early, school camps are on etc
• Finding a suitable day, knowing that our today is Christopher’s tomorrow
• Achievable time span: the need to keep the number of lunchtime meets to an achievable time span
• Student commitment: getting an ongoing commitment from students to complete tasks given within the week
• Extra curricula school activities that can interrupt student attendance
• Achievable outcomes: Working out the best approach to the writing activities – getting achievable outcomes within a limited time span. Christopher is doing this for free, so we do not want to encroach too much on his precious time.

Attempting to overcome the challenges:-

• Offer the weekly lunchtime class to years 6 to 10. Students come on a volunteer basis but must be committed to completing the tasks given by Christopher
• Avoid extra curricula school activities
• Agreeing to a 5 week program to avoid end of year activities
• Christopher came up with great idea of “Writing through the Senses”. Each week, he will use a different sense to inspire students to think beyond their imagination and create plausible characters, scenes and stories that will be engaging and captivating to their audiences.
• Christopher told students that they must write for 15 mins everyday and carry pen and paper with them at all times, jotting down notes when they can.

Notebooks and mobile device ready for note taking

And so, we have now completed two weeks of linkups – each one offering further challenges (which will be written about in further posts) but also some wonderful  inspiration provided for the students and their writing, sheer engagement on the part of students and Christopher’s obvious passion coming through.

A backchannel for ESL

Further to previous backchannel posts, the point at hand was really “could a backchannel be used in an ESL speaking class (English as a second language).

A backchannel, using  eg Todaysmeet,  could be used in numerous ways in the ESL classroom. Students or participants could:-

•  share in real taking notes on the content of the speech
• get a group of students to write in the backchannel the speech content in both the spoken language and the native langage
• translate all or part of the speech
• Using postive feedback and appropriate language,  comment on the accent used, speed of speaking, understandability, general delivery of the speaker etc
• Student evaluation of the speaker and their speech or conversation
• Students could add a question in the backchannel and the ESL speaker interpret it into English
• note any confusion with translation, or words not understood at all
• the teacher could go back through the chat to ascertain the understanding of the audience, the confusion, the notes gathered etc and where further teaching or learning is required.

What ideas do you have for using a backchannel in the ESL classroom? Could you please share them in a comment below. Thanks

Using a Back Channel

A back channel is an online space where participants in formal or informal sessions have a virtual place to converse, ask questions, share, add to a discussion and simply ‘have a voice’. A question was asked of me on twitter:-

As such it can be very effective for either a speaking class or writing class. The back channel allows everyone to have a ‘voice’ and add to the conversation compared to a traditional classroom where one voice rules. Participants are given a link to a space where collaborative and interactive chat can take place. (See suggested tools below).

Speaking or Writing Classes

In a speaking class, a text based backchannel could be used for asking questions, sharing opinions, adding to the discussion, giving positive feedback, constructive criticism and  for interpretative purposes if a second language or strong accent is used. If it is a debate, it could be used to discuss the pursuasive arguments of the speaker, their impact as a speaker, the clarity of their voice and the depth of their arguments. In a writing class it could be used in a similar way plus for  brainstorming, demonstrating  confusion, seeking feedback, querying concepts etc. Some backchannels now enable video. Questions can be asked immediately and the teacher answer them at an appropriate time (eg they may be working with another teacher at the time of the question). This conversation or backchannel can be saved and used for reflective and revisionary purposes. Questions and conversations can continue beyond the event.

The back channel can be very effective in a conference presentation or workshop. Participants can add questions, share resources and add opinions. These can be saved, used for further reflection and can enable the presenter to answer questions during or after the event. At the recent ACEC 2012 conference, I set up a backchannel using Teachmeet for each session and encouraged the use of twitter. However, the screenshot below shows the confusion and misunderstanding of some workshop participants and makes me aware that skills in using a backchannel need to be initially taught – a valuable lesson for me as an instructor and an element that I would be otherwise unaware of.

Some tools I have used to backchannel  include

• Todays Meet - does not require registration, expires after a nominated time period.
• Chatzy - does not require registration.
• Twitter
• Google document
• Coveritlive
• The chat area of a virtual classroom eg Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect etc

How to use the backchannel!

1. Choose a tool (I shall use todaysmeet as an example)
2. Goto todaysmeet. 
3. Give your room a name
4. Choose expiry date (I forgot to change this for ACEC2012 and now do not have a record of the conversations of two of my sessions.)
5. Create room
6. Save the link and share the link with participants
7. Show them how to use the backchannel
8. Encourage its use throughout the class or session

Effective Backchannelling

1. In a conference or workshop, appoint a person to be a scribe and deliberatley add links/resources and answer questions where possible.
2. Refer to it during the class, session, presentation and answer any questions or clarify any points
3. Save the backchannel chat, refer back to it, reflect on it, answer further questions, act upon any advice for next class, session etc.

What backchannels have you used? Why do you use them? What tips or hints would you have? Have I answered the question well enough? How would you answer the question in twitter?

 

Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom

A one day workshop will be held as pre-conference workshop at ACEC 2012, in Perth, Western Australia. This Australian Computer Educators Conference is held every two years.

Participants will be using the following documents

1. A backchannel using Today’s Meet
2. A google doc for permanent sharing and support

• Twitter - for developing a professional network
• Blogs - an online space for connecting and communicating
• Wikis - a collaborative and interactive space
• Collaborative Documents:- titan pad, pirate pad, google docs
• Skype for videoconferencing
• Wallwisher - online sticky notes for eg brainstorming, reflecting, sharing
• Voicethread – online podcasting
• Answer Garden and QR Codes

Organisational tools

1. Online stopwatch
2. Fruit Machine

Reflecting on workshop:-

What web2.0 tools do you think you could use? Add to this answer garden or scan this qr code to take you to the site:-

Tech Talk Tuesday: A Guided Tour of Twitter

Please note that this session is now rescheduled for Tuesday, Sept 4th. (It was originally publicized for Tue Aug 28th)

When: Tuesday 4th September, 2012 4-5pm (Melbourne, Australia gmt+10)

About the session: Twitter has been advocated as a favourite tools for professional development and networking, by many users.  As a follow up to a previous session and as a means of finishing and highlighting Connected Educator month, twitter will be revisited.

The nature and direction of this session will be determined by participants and their needs. What is a tweet, how do you keep it to 140 characters, what makes a tweet, how do you find people, organisations etc to follow, how do you keep track of tweets and hashtags etc. Come along with your questions, your experiences, things to share and let’s continue to be connected.

Here is the link to the recording of this session

What questions would you have about twitter? What knowledge could you share? Has twitter had an impact on you or your classroom?

eT@lking Webinar: A Melting Pot of eIgnite!

When: Wednesday August 29th, 8-9pm, Melbourne, Australia time (gmt+10)

About the session: Loosely based on the eIgnite idea of people having a limited time to speak and taking a little bit from Teachmeet and other timed sessions, the presenters will choose either 20 slides with 20 seconds to speak to each slide or a 6 min or 10 min timing.

Our presenters and topics:

1. Symbaloo (a free social bookmarking site) with Adrienne Kajewski
2. Flickr (online photo management and sharing application, with ability for connecting globally) with Penny Bentley
3. Quest Atlantis  (virtual worlds for the young) with Ness Crouch
4. Twitter with Anne Mirtschin

Here is the link to the recording. Please join us and share in the conversations and the fun!

How I got connected!

As Connected Educator month nears to a close, requests have been made encouraging us to share how educators have  got connected, sharing a journey that others may adopt and be encouraged by. Following are the online spaces  that have had the most impact on my connected learning especially in the early parts of the journey.

1. Blogging – where it really began. A grant from our Victorian Education Department (DEECD) required the use of web2.0 tools. Blogging looked like something I might like to do and so this blog was born.  Close to this time, an email from DEECD stated that a Global Teacher and Global Student blogging campus, through edublogs, was available for Victorian teachers. This has now become global2 blogging campus. The connections commenced when Heather Blakey who was moderating the blogs encouraged her global network to comment on our class, backyard and student blogs. It was amazing to think that others across the world could visit us, read about our work and share a little of their world. We were off and running with blog entries, highly motivated and engaged. From there, a never ending journey began.
2. Classroom 2.0 One of my special colleagues, Jess McCulloch a young, tech savvy teacher at my school brought to my notice the existence of Classroom 2.0 which at that time it had 3000 members from across the globe. This global classroom had been created by Steve Hargadon. Here I have met so many wonderful educators who are still part of my precious network. One of the first was Chrissy Hellier, then from New Zealand. I really wanted to do a global collaborative project with someone but had no idea what or where to start. Chrissy saw my request on Classroom 2.0, immediately said she and her class would collaborate and Anzac Connections was the product. Suddenly I was catapulted into wikis, animated text, vokis and other web2.o tools. Read more at Developing a Learning Network.
3. The Flat Classroom Projects - where my students and I have learnt so many skills and been welcomed as part of a great supportive global network.
4. Twitter – This is where I met Sue Waters, co- moderator of   edublogs,who mentored me and suggested people to follow as twitter was just not making sense to me! Through twitter I learned of the Flat Classroom Projects.
5. Hello Little World Skypers group – a group of global connected educators from across the globe who are available for conversations 24/7 and someone is always available to skype with classes, or provide advice and support.

There is much, much more but that will be another post! How did you get connected? Why don’t you write a post and share with us how you did?

Sharing a movie file and adding to dropbox folder

As part of Connected Educators month, Hello Little World Skypers group is making a collaborative video on what it means for members to be connected.  Members come from across the world and several from countries where there is low bandwidth and little access to hardware and technology. Here is what we are to do:-

• create a movie with the HLW skypers group logo in it somewhere. Introduce ourselves and say what being connected means to us. Instructions and the logo have been shared with us all in  a dropbox folder.
• Save our completed video back in the dropbox for Janet Barnstable to stitch all our videos together.

Hints: keep the video length short – less than 1 minute in total is preferable. Keep file size small for online use and sharing. Videos should not be .avi as these files are huge – rather mpg, mp4, wmv etc.  Here is what to do if you are using Moviemaker on a PC to convert the movies and pull them back in size.

• Save movie file to computer in an appropriately named folder.
• Open Moviemaker (I am using  Windows Live Moviemaker) Check list of video type files that Moviemaker will upload. If yours is different file extension,  use a tool like Format Factory, a great free tool for converting music, video and picture files,  and convert it to wmv or mpg or mp4
• On home tab in Moviemaker>add videos and photos

• Double click on your movie
• Check that it plays as expected
• Goto first tab (one to left of home) and choose Save Movie>for email

• Right click on completed movie in desktop folder> choose copy
• Open dropbox folder that has been shared with you (in this case HLW Skypers), right click and paste in there. Rename with your name to make Janet’s life easier.

Notes: If your movie is large or your bandwidth poor it may take a day or two, to fully sync in the folder. It is ready when  green tick appears on the file.
Here is my contribution to the collaborative video.

What have I missed out on? What would you suggest?

The Changing Space of Education – Learning 2.0 conference

The changing space of education from murcha

The Learning 2.0 conference has now finished, but what a great conference it was with some great online sessions and some fantastic keynote addresses. One of my favourite sessions was a keynote by Lucy Gray - Social Media Tools for Personalized Professional Development. Lucy shared some great tools to use for getting connected, some suggestions of people to connect with and some great blogs to read. Here is the link to the recording of her webinar.

My session was entitled “The Changing Space of Education” and to my delight, one of my mentors and special online colleagues Peggy George, host of Classroom 2.0 LIVE was my moderator. Another of my great online colleagues, Sebastian Penakal from India was a participant. The presentation discussed how learning spaces are changing due to being connected with others. They are becoming:-

• digital
• virtual
• global
• mobile

and perhaps, importantly, learning has become networked.

with learners having the power to take control and source of their learning. Examples were given from my classroom and experiences. Here is the link to the recording. In order to encourage conversations and help answer any questions, a google doc The Changing Space of Education was set up with resources referred to in my session and an area for questions from those who view the recording or who participated in the webinar.  Alternatively ask any questions as a comment to this post.

Technical issues prevented my presentation being uploaded correctly, so I resorted to app sharing and used a similar presentation that had been uploaded to slideshare. This was disappointing for me as I had added more slides and tailored it specifically for this global presenation. However, here is the link to the presentation or you can see the slideshare at the beginning of this post.

How are your learning spaces changing? What impact is it having on your classroom?

Congratulations to Steve Hargadon on another amazing conference which helps connect us. Thanks to the sponsors of the conference, to the presenters and the moderators.