10 Highlights for 2010

2010 in pics

2010 had many highlights for me as a teacher and learner.  Here are 10 of them, but there were many, many more.

1. Asian Connections – virtual elluminate linkups, between my year 11 IT class and Zainuddin Zakariah’s year 10 IT class formTaman Burkitt School, Kuala Lumpur over a 5 week period – the highlight of the year for my 11 IT students. Renewing my online acquaintance with Veronica Woo, from Ipoh in Malaysia,  having some wonderful skpye linkups, including an e-Intercultural Learning Adventure. In September meeting Veronica and a fellow teacher, Evon, face to face, and working with their school staff and students at SMJK Poi Lam. In that same trip, I was able to meet my cyber class from Kuala Lumpur face to face as well – a very special moment. Learning about International Friendship Day with Aini Hussein’s  class from Singapore,  using skype and videoconferencing.
2. Successfully teaching a year 11 virtual accounting student from Balmoral, as part of my face to face class (using skype, elluminate, google apps, blogs)
3. Using webinars for networking, sharing, discussing and connecting. In 2010, I was proud to organise and moderate the webinar, Tech Talk Tuesdays, using a partnership with Innovations and Next Practise Division, DEECD. eT@lking commenced  in partnership with Carole McCulloch (coach_carole). This is a regular weekly Wed night webinar whose purpose is to connect all tiers of education. This series was triggered by discussions with Steve Hargadon, on his 2009 trip to Australia. It is sponsored by Learn Central as part of the Australia series.
4. Continuing liaisons with Lorraine Leo, from USA, with whom I have taught and learnt across the globe and who continues to connect my classes to some great speakers – eg her grade 6 students spoke to my 9/10 ICT elective class about Halloween and  her niece and nephew spoke to   year 11 students about their experiences volunteering in the cleanup of the Haiti aftermath, using DiscoverE
5. The Global Education Conference 2010:- connecting educationalists and classrooms across the globe. Particular highlights include co-presenting with my special USA colleague Lorraine Leo, who continues to be an inspiration to me, listening to four amazing teachers from Kenya, crowded around a sole laptop to tell us about learning in their school and area,  the student summit with Julie Lindsay’s class from BISS and my year 11 IT class, and our linkup with the classroom 2.0 LIVE team for the presentation:-  “Classroom2.0Live meets the Australia Series.”
6. Virtual Teaching Round Practicum Trial – a partnership with Country Education Project, the University of Ballarat and Hawkesdale P12 College. Three pre-service teachers completed a 6 week teaching round, which included two pre-service teachers teaching off campus for one week, whilst the third student teacher spent 4 weeks in China, teaching our grade 4 students back at school about her experiences there.
7. The Flat Classroom Projects including attendance at the Flat Classroom Conference in Mumbai, with one of my students. Thanks Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis for your inspiration, leadership, drive and hard work here on these projects.
8. Discussing racism with Alex Gustard and a physical education class from the American School of Bombay involving grade 6/7 students using skype and google docs in real time. Discussing cricket and “should Australia go to India to play sport” with Purti and her class from India
9. Attending face to face conferences, including  the ACEC2010 conference, VITTA andand  Comview (VCTA).  Presenting virtually  to a group of Greek teachers who teach English, about blogging. (at the request of my virtual friend Dimitris)
10. Finally from my school: 1:1 netbook program for years 5 to 8, moderating three evening sessions, entitled TechnoParents for parents live in elluminate, with students, parents and staff all in the virtual room discussing learning at Hawkesdale P12 College. Increasing uptake of global projects by staff and classes at school.

If you have been part of my network during 2010, I thank for that and look forward to working and networking with you in 2011.

Tech Talk Tuesdays and eT@lking – this week’s sessions!

Tech Talk Tuesdays, August 31st 3:45-4:45pm (Melbourne time Australia, gmt +10)

Topic: eLearning through Personal Learning Portfolios

Presenter: Lenva Shearing

Synopsis: Lenva Shearing from Bucklands Beach, Intermediate School,  New Zealand, will share with us the pedagogy, vision, implementation and effects on learning that personal reflective portfolios can provide. This session will not discuss the tools that might be used, but the pedagogoy behind the personal reflective portfolios.

Link to the session:- https://sas.elluminate.com/d.jnlp?sid=2007026&password=techtalktuesdays

About Lenva:- Lenva Shearing is the Deputy Principal at Bucklands Beach Intermediate School, Auckland, New Zealand, and is responsible for the development of ePortfolios and eLearning throughout the school. She was the facilitator of the 2007-2009 Bucklands Beach ICT PD Cluster, providing professional development in ICT to Auckland schools. Lenva is an Apple Distinguished Educator.

eT@lking, Wednesday Sept 1st 10:30-11:30pm

Topic: The Global Education Conference 2010

Presenter: Steve Hargadon

Synopsis: Note the later time slot for eT@lking. Join us for this session with Steve Hargadon, and learn about the exciting, innovative, online Global Education Conference that is coming up in November.

Link to the session

About Steve Hargadon:- Steve is Elluminate‘s Social Learning Consultant and the founder of the Classroom 2.0 social network (www.classroom20.com).He blogs, speaks, and consults on educational technology, and is particularly passionate about Web 2.0, social networking, Free and Open Source Software, computer reuse, and computing for low-income populations. Hes run the Open Source Pavilion and speaker series for the North-American NECC, CUE, and T+L edtech shows, is the organizer of the annual EduBloggerCon. He is also the Emerging Technologies Chair for NECC, a regular columnist at School Library Journal, the recipient of the 2010 Technology in Learning Leadership Award (CUE), and a blogger at  http://www.SteveHargadon.com He has consulted for PBS, Intel, Ning, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, CoSN, and others on educational technology and specifically on social networking. Steve’s interview series can be found at  Future of Education, Conversations and EdTechLive

Reflections on the Flat Classroom Workshop in Mumbai

Some Flat Classroom Workshop students in Mumbai

Highlights

• Meeting my virtual  colleagues face to face and making new valuable connections
• Working in real place and time with Vicki Davis (USA), Julie Lindsay (Beijing) (co-founders of the Flat Classroom Projects) and Bernajean Porter ( USA) an experienced digital storyteller and presenter.
  

  Flat Classroom Teachers

  Witnessing the full power of the Flat Classroom projects in both a face to face and virtual situation. Students from a number of countries worked were placed in small groups (both face to face and virtual) with students they had not met before. Despite the cultural, religious, language, ideological differences they all demonstrated and shared common ideal/ goals/viewpoints in regard to education and where it could be improved

• Watching these groups work tirelessly and ceaselessly together, (including their virtual team mates) on their presentations and then overcoming nerves, personal insecurity and technological problems that saw their whole video work erased, to present their ideas to both real and virtual educators from many global countries.
• Acknowledging again the powerful creativity and innovative ideas that students can provide.
• Working in real time, face to face, with inspiring Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis and Bernajean Porter.
• Experiencing “full on” Mumbai – the poverty, culture, religion, chaos, traffic, tight security measures, slums, colourful garments, busyness and wonderful people that are Mumbai. It has to be experienced to be believed and fully understood!
• Full exposure to the digital and global divide in a real setting, not just an online or secondary sources. 

The Location

For my student who is isolated geographically and culturally, this city came initially as a huge culture shock. This included the following:-

• age of the taxis (1950s fiats that looked like they were rusting everywhere at the seams)
• the tenacious, persistent, desparate, ‘in your face’ hagglers who placed their upper bodies through our aiport taxi windows, looking for tips once they had helped us throw our luggage up on the taxi roof top
• The sights, the magnitude of the slums and the degree of poverty
• Tight security everywhere. Guards accompanied us on the school buses, vehicles went through security checks before they entered the Trident hotel grounds (where flat classroom workshops were held), security surrounded the gates of the American School of Mumbai etc
• American School of Bombay-fantastic hosting school, just around corner of Trident Hotel- organized a ‘home room’ for our students, complete with security guard
• Trident Hotel: most flat classroom workshops were held here. Students had their workshops in the conference rooms of this  new five star hotel . The service and food was exceptional. A technician was on hand all through the day and the everpresent security guards were in the room with us and in addition, one was always at the entrance door to the room. The food was a great mix to suit the taste of young people and adventurous tourists in India.
• Essential and crucial internet access: wireless internet was available 24/7 in the conference room. A technician was in the room at all times, and most students brought their own laptop.

The Participants

• Workshop leaders: Vicki Davis, Julie Lindsay and Bernajean Porter were fantastic. It is great to have the cofounders of the flatclassroom projects together  working with both teachers and students. What a treat to meet them face to face and not just virtually. Bernajean is an experienced digital storyteller presenter and her passion and influence came through as she led the students to create a great story.
• The teachers: There were three teacher groups who represented many countries. Teachers worked on the same projects as the students, experiencing the same learning curves, time pressures, anxieties, excitement, virtual and collaborative teamwork etc.
• The students came from seven different schools in India, Australia, USA, China, Korea
• The virtual participants: Each team of students and teachers had virtual participants as members and these came from further countries: Germany, Spain, Oman, Qatar etc This was an exciting element that proved to be more stable in this workshop. The participants when on line would come into their group via the backchannel (chatroom using chatzy) and then be skyped in to the group. It was great to see the groups have their virtual participant on video on one of their laptops watching and listening to the group as they presented their pitch. The virtual participant would also add their feedback to the presentation using the chat in skype. Students took careful note of these comments and responded where applicable. The virtual participants contributed to the discussions, found required images and sent them through etc.

 Pulling it all together

Online tools included

• Chatzy was used as the backchannel was the communication link between all groups, the real and the virtual participants.  At times this was extremely busy, with lively debate occurring between all. Loved the chat re “Does a teacher need to know everything”. Students, teachers, virtual participants all contributed to this discussion.
• Ustream: The whole conference was relayed via ustream or live video streaming for any global participants interested. It was great to know that parents also watched the live casts.
• Wikispaces: A wiki was used to produce a multimedia online textbook recording the discussions, research, sharing, outcomes etc of all groups. This is now a rich site of resources and reflects the rich learning outcomes that took place. The digital stories, pitches etc can all be found here.
• Ning: The flatclassroom conference ning was used as a social and personal networking site. Participants blogged, added comments etc before coming to Mumbai and then added further blog posts, reflections, comments, images, videos etc for sharing.
• Skype: this was often used for the virtual and real participants as a discussion and sharing platform once they needed a more personal space rather than the backchannel. Both chat, audio and video features were used.

The conference

The flat classroom workshops were run back to back with the ASB Unplugged Conference, which itself had more than 300 international attendees. The ASB Unplugged conference was held at the American School of Bombay.

The sessions

• Student participants were met at 7:45am and were bussed  to the Trident Hotel each morning, complete with security guards. Workshops commenced immediately and the days were long, taxing but very rewarding. Students attended the TedxTalks  along with the ASB Unplugged conference at the American School of Mumbai.
• An opportunity for sight seeing was offered on the Wednesday, the day prior to the commencement of the workshops. The American School of Bombay kindly organised a tour guide and bus and this was, for many of us our only real opportunity to be a tourist. A pleasant day was spent checking out a museum, the Gateway to India and surrounds, spend some time souvenir shopping and  check out many of the old colonial buildings and the everpresent slums.
• Groups worked on a pitch that reflected how a  problem with education could be resolved. Vicki, Julie and Bernajean inspired groups to produce the best story possible. These pitches were presented to other conference participants and further feedback given. Once the presentations  were complete, they were added to the wiki for virtual and physical citizens to vote on. The best three then worked with Bernajean to finalize their stories for presentation to the closing ASB Conference ceremony.
• Thursday morning visits to schools for the underprivileged provided a background and further experiences in telling their digital stories.  Again this valuable experience  gave participants a first hand opportunity to experience poverty, education, cultures etc in India.

Aseema School Captains

• Host families hosted the visiting student contingent, and this was another great way of being immersed somewhat into the culture of Mumbai.

Possible areas for improvement

• The diversity of face to face students was not as great as in the first Flat Classroom Conference in Qatar, 2009 but this will always vary depending on cost, commitment and interest. Sponsorship moneys is desperately needed to enable more variety of students to attend.
• The days may have been too long at times especially for the students. One day, students were up at 5:45am and then did not get home for their evening meal until 10pm.
• Chances to socialize with the other global visitors were few once conference sessions were finished. A final get together or social night with evening meal would have been good.
• Workshops could have been broken up even further with greater variety. Too often all worked through their lunchtimes etc to work on the projects. The dedication was great to see but added to ‘tiredness’ levels.
• The Flat Classroom workshops were reasonably remote from the ASB Unplugged Conference conference as although they were on two near adjoining sites, students did not really get much opportunity to explore the school and feel any real connections with the ASB Unplugged conference attendees, except those who attended  the Flat Classroom workshops. Students were, however, part of the opening, TedxTalks and the closing ceremony.

 Again a huge thank you to Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis, Beranjean Porter and the wonderful organizers of the ASB Unplugged conference for this amazing opportunity for our students who have experienced a Flat Classroom!  Words cannot convey the value that these opportunities provide!

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?

Where to in 2009?

As we enter the third month of 2009 and the sixth week back at school, it is time that I publish my goals and possible directions for 2009. Although I have thought long about them, I need to add them on to my blog, so that I can reflect back and evaluate my progress.

My goals for 2009

• Constantly develop and encourage the integration and successful use of  emerging technologies for use in classrooms and across our school.
• To continue to actively seek local and global connections and work on global projects wherever possible. (Project based learning)
• Maintain the valuable links and connections that were made in 2008.
• To foster the notion that students  use their blogs in all subjects.  Blogs will become journals of  progess, for reflective purposes, a personal filing cabinet for all resources, evidence for digital or e-portfolios and that students voluntarily use their blogs.
• Integrate web2.0 tools as much as possible in my subject areas other than information and communications technology eg accounting and VCE IT subjects.
• Increasingly use teachable moments, by leaving skype open on my laptop, whenever possible, to make the most of experts who might appear and share experiences with my students.
• Experiment with the use a backchannel for class discussions etc eg chatzy, tiny chat
• Look at using virtual classroom software for my own classes eg elluminate for my VCE students where  I teach two year levels as  one class in 2009.  
• Use DiscoverE  software on an increasing basis this year.
• Actively seek out expert speakers who might talk to the students through virtual classroom software.
• Look at and experiment with students on a one to one basis, with other global students – particularly in relation to mandarin Chinese which is our LOTE.
• Work with my subject associations, encouraging the use of appropriate web2.0 tools.
• Experiment with synchronous and asynchronous linkups with other countries.

Other educationalist’s goals of interest

See glassbleed’s direction for customized learning.

Specific Ideas as they come to hand

• Teaching with Ted

All eyes on the flatclassroom conference

A flatclassroom f2f

 Words cannot begin to describe the amazing experiences that we had whilst in Doha, Qatar, in January 2009 for the flatclassroom conference.

However, as part of  my reflections,  I will take  a  look at it through my eyes in respect to:-

• Students
  

  VickiDavis with Omani students

• teachers
• travellers
• leaders
• parents

 Eyes upon the students

We left amidst some angst as to the Gaza situation in Israel. (Parents had been concerned about going to the Middle East anyway, even before this situation eventuated!)  Many would see it as a high risk undertaking. The three girls from my class had not been out of Australia before. Summer school holidays meant that we had to do all our communicating online . Once at the airport, the girls soon learnt the routine of passports, security, laptops, immigration control etc. After a journey totalling more than 28 hours, we arrived  in Doha, Qatar and were transported into another ‘world’ -  a land that was white, featuring middle Eastern style buildings, crazy traffic, constant building activity  and white sand everywhere. The girls were immediately impressed.

The first days were spent shadowing students around the Qatar Academy, helping with conference administration, packing the showbags  and helping  teach a grade 5 class how how to use voicethreads etc. The girls gradually became familiar with the massive, magnificent school buildings and due to friendly host families, settled in well. The school itself, had a full range of cultures, creeds and nationalities. This is in stark contrast to our school where we have a monoculture of Anglo Saxons.

How wonderful it was to see them mixing with these different groups. When the conference started, there were students from many countries. They met their Omani and American classmates from the flatclassroom project of 2008. The Omani students were, of course dressed in traditional dishdasha and kommah, the African boys attired in suits, the girls from Africa in more formal gear, the Qatari girls in hijabs and the Pakistani girls in their traditional dress. Accents had to be closely listened to, so that we understood what was said. When Carly was introduced at one stage, she was immediately called ‘Cauliflower” Some names we could not even attempt to pronounce and I simply called the students from Oman “Boys!” when I need to catch their attention.

The skype session with Tom Friedman was rather amazing. He wanted the students to ask him questions, which I thought was taking a huge risk. What would they ask? Would enough ask questions to fill in the time? Surprisingly,  students young and old, from all countries represented came up to the microphone and asked some amazing and incredibly mature questions.  Tom  responded immediately and appeared to have no difficulty with the many and varied accents.

When the conference commenced, my girls were grouped with students from other countries to work on a project involving an issue common to all of them eg  poverty, racism etc One of my girls, was placed in a group where the common language was Arabic. So, the Arabic had to be translated back into English for her. Another group had English as their most common language but google translator was used to translate  into Arabic for the Qatari student in the group. On the second day of the conference, a presentation had to be made by student groups, to all conference

Tarzy's group

participants. The aim was to try to convince the audience to vote their project in, to become  the next flatclassroom project for 2009. One of my girls said that she had never been “so scared in all her life.” Yet, she got up and spoke with confidence and played her role admirably to the assembled crowd. Another, had her mother

Presentation time

online until 1am in Australian time, helping her to cope with her nerves and stomach butterflies. All students were pushed well beyond their comfort zones, at so many times, during their stay.

We learnt about the importance of gift giving in some cultures. The students from Oman gave all schools involved small gift and provided tasty sweet Omani treats to try at the end of the conference. The conference showbags also bore evidence of Qatari customary gift giving with printed tshirts, usb drive, a coffee mug etc inside

Despite the differences, there were so many similarities amongst the students – the same passions, interests, needs and goals!

Eyes upon the teachers

How absolutely wonderful  it was to see the students who had been  involved in the flatclassroom project 2008, face to face. These included the boys from Oman and the students from two different schools in USA.  It was also great to see them all mixing comfortably and gaining a deeper understanding of the different cultures. Yet underneath this difference, were common interests, pursuits,  emotions, problems, goals and ideals.

The highlights for me were working with Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, the founders of the flatclassroom projects. These  two women work so well together, yet have only met 5 times face to face.  The powerful outcomes of their work are testimony to their successful collaboration and virtual teamwork.  Estie Cuellar from Texas and Salim Al-Busaidi from Oman were two teachers who I worked with in the flatclassroom project in 2008 and it was so good to connect with them face to face. Whilst in an elluminate staff meeting,  Salim encouraged us to come to Qatar, as in his words “we are a safe country”. Any fears that I had harboured were dispelled by this statement. I loved meeting face to face some of my other  twitter friends –  Anne Baird from Australia and Paul McMahon, an Australian in Hong Kong, Heather Davis, a  Canadian in Beijing and Jeff Utecht from Bangkok. Then there were the new connections with Chris Chater from Paris (whose work with online music is admirable), Soniiya  Jahangir from Pakistan and two teachers from India, teaching in Saudi Arabia and George Haines from New York. Ray who was such a kind host to us and Jill Boulanger and  Beverley Stubbs from Qatar Academy ensured that we were comfortable and welcomed at the school. The list could go on but I will stop there.

Watching my students grow in confidence and push themselves beyond all boundaries was a source of great pride. To see them have a go and present publicly to such a varied but distinguished audience, was quite uplifting. We were also  so proud to celebrate Australia Day in Qatar.

During the conference, I spent time in the ISTE sessions which challenged us regarding the leadership role that educationalists should take on in the digital age.  The conference event was made possible by the support of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) with Don Knezek (CEO) and Lynn Nolan (Senior Strategic Initiatives Officer) coming to Qatar to lead workshops. The elective sessions using online music sites and google applications with Chris Chater and Paul McMahon, respectively, were practical, highly useful and inspiring.

On the last day, teachers were mixed in groups with educaionalists from other countries, with a student project manager, a problem based project, complete with skill challenges and time pressure.  We had to  pitch our outcome at each of the groups. By this stage, I knew just how the students must have felt.

Eyes upon the leaders

The organization was superb. Julie Lindsay worked long and hard hours behind the scenes securing sponsorship, organizing facilitators, students, teachers, programs, showbags, catering, facilities, visas, the tech team  etc.  Vicki Davis facilitated the student summit sessions. These were based on “Project Based Learning” and  empowering students with great learning outcomes.  They learnt to connect, communicate and create together. Their skills in using web2.0 tools were improved substantially with the expertise of Vicki Davis. A producer from Hollywood, tutored the students  in film making and using music under the guidance of Chris Chater from Paris. Digital citizenship and netiquette were constantly reinforced and learnt through experiencing. It was inspirational to see the students  presenting  with competence and confidence,  to the large audience, as a result of their summit collaboration.  Thank you to Julie and Vicki, our flatclassroom co-founders and the other facilitators for your great work.

Eyes upon the parents

One of the really interesting outcomes of this experience, was the involvement of parents. This was something unplanned  and unforseen, but ended up playing a key role in our connectedness. As we were on school holidays the majority of planning and communication had to be made online,. The girls had set up membership to the flatconference ning and wiki prior to departure. Before they left, the girls became ‘the experts’, helping their parents to register for the ning , join our school group and showed  them how to write messages, comments and blog posts. This meant that parents experienced the conference with us. Photos and videos were uploaded daily, with blog posts written when possible. Parents commented regularly on all our pages and activities. They were able to watch the sessions that were webcast and one parent stayed up until 1am to watch her daughter make her presentation.  They even joined in on the chatzy  back channel and could see the commentary going on behind the scenes. We received photos of the Australia Day breakfast, held in Hawkesdale as part of the Australia Day celebrations, an hour after it finished, as one set of parents had uploaded them to the ning. They became part of our learning network.

Eyes upon the travellers

We were fortunate to arrive in Qatar three days earlier. Julie took on the extra workload of organizing accommodation for us with Qatar Academy staff. By the time the conference started, we felt quite comfortable and at home at the school. Students shadowed their host students around at school and experienced a typical school day in Doha. The hospitality of our hosts was wonderful. They were kind, caring and sharing.

For four or five nights, we stayed at the Gloria hotel in Doha. This was situated in the old town within walking distance of the souqs and the Islamic Art museum. The hotel was beautifully furbished, attentive to the needs of its guests and provided wireless internet connection (which kept us all connected to those back home)

Two or three buses picked us up from the hotel door and took us to the Qatar Academy for the conference or other activities. This was a great chance to socialize, listen to the student chatter, enjoy some laughs and talk about our experiences.  I shall never forget that last night on the bus, with students from Australia, USA and Ethiopia and Kenya, singing their national anthems with pride, gusto and emotion! Then they sang songs that they all knew, one being “If I could fly” which seemed to be so appropriate.

There was a good balance of sight seeing tied in to the conference. As this country is quite different to the home country of many of the visitors, it was great to be able to have time set aside for us to do some touring. It also gave us all a chance to mix and get to know each other in a more casual atmosphere.

Ray played the patient, caring  host and took us to the souqs (when it rained), the half day desert tour to the inland sea, the corniche and the Islamic Art museum. The Sunday evening was spent at the souks again where we all scattered in various directions to find something to eat and souveneirs to purchase. The stalls selling hunting falcons were most intriguing. Anne Baird, Paul McMahon, Ray and I enjoyed a wonderful Arabic meal of dipping sauces, hommus, traditional chicken and rice dishes and fresh, warmed, unleavened breads.

The conference meals were varied and tasty. There was always a choice of dishes. The dinner on the Saturday evening , set in a formal atmosphere with the HSBC guest speaker was a fitting end to the first day of the conference. The buffet bar of the school canteen was always appealing. The weather was pleasant as it was winter time.

The final night was spent at Villagio in the new town. This is an ultra modern shopping complex, with painted skys on the roof, the best in fashionable shops,  a canal complete with gondolas providing rides for interested parties, an ice skating rink and the usual Western fast food chains.

Eyes on the sponsors

There were many sponsors involved and we cannot thank them enough - the chief one being the HSBC who sponsored the conference whilst in Qatar.  One of their representative spoke to us at the formal dinner. The Qatar Academy provided the venue, staff and other incidentals. For us personally, ACE radio helped to sponsor my students in their travel and our local Hawkesdale and District Action Committee also donated some money.

Eyes that are now opened!

How proud we were, to be Australian, when Australia Day fell on the last day of the conference! However, we came home with American tinged accents!

This was a truly amazing, life changing experience that will equip us for the flat world that of ourfuture.  We can now state that we have experienced the impact that the digital age will have in  a flat world. Thank you to all involved!

Crossposted

Footnote:   Skills learnt – understanding and working with different cultures, netiquette, digital citizenship skills, communication skills in an online environment, the use of many different web2.0 tools, how to collaborate and work in a virtual team, risk taking, pushing outside personal comfort zones, real life pressures of time commitments/project management and how to create effective products for online use and a global audience. How to live, work and play in a globally connected world!

My routine has just gone kapoot!!

 

This morning, I was awoken by my husband shaking me  asking me what time I needed to get up on my first morning back in Australia. (I had already slept in by an hour.) The routine that had been developed over the last week has been broken. 

 5am Prayers from the local mosque would awaken me in Doha, Qatar

5:30am Arise and get organized for the day

7:20am School would start at the Qatar Academy, or 8:00am the flatclassroomconference would commence .

School day, tours or conference sessions filled in the day until 2:20pm (the end of school) or up to 8:00 pm for conference sessions.

My students are again a monoculture compared with the many varied nationalities, creeds and cultures of the last week.

The accents are all the same, except for those of us who went to Qatar and occasionally slip into the Texas or Alberta accent without thinking. I had to listen so intently to the many and varied accents of staff and students to ensure I understood what was said and responded appropriately.

The dress is entirely Western again – gone are the  thobes , Ghutra and Igal of the Qatari and Arabic men, the abaya and hijab of the Islamicwomen , and the more traditional dress  of the women from Pakistan. Back are the short skirts, singlet tops and shorts, and our school uniform.

Summer was replaced by winter and we then returned to a scorching Australian summer.

Gone is the routine but the girls and I have come home with henna, lifelong memories and the desire to continue to make our classroom flat.

Henna on a Qatari student

The student summit and leaders

Cross posted at ejourneys with technokids

My favourite web2.0 tools for 2008

My favourite web2.0 tools 2008

This time last year, I drew up a list of favourite web2.0 tools. It has been interesting to draw up my list for 2008 and compare. (They are not in any order)

2008	2007
1. Blogs using wordpress and globalteacher/student	1. Delicious social bookmarking
2. Skype for videoconferencing/chat	2. Bubblus a mind mapping tool
3. twitter - to extend my personal learning network	3. blogs using wordpress
4, Voicethread - fantastic educational potential	4. Wikis using wikispaces
5. slideshare - uploading ppt presentations	5. Google docs  sheet, word
6. Igoogle (customizable homepage with google reader, calendar, notes, todo, gchat (, gmail)	6. Skype videoconferencing
7. Google docs (sheet, word, form etc)	7. Voki  talking avatars
8. Delicious (social bookmarking)	8. Podomatic  online storage for podcasts
9. Gchat (google chat, now with video)	9. Teachertube
10. flickr (online photo storage)	10.Surveymonkey for online surveys
11,Facebook
12, wikis
13,teachertube
14. Elluminate live - online meeting room/virtual classroom
15. wordle - word clouds
16. nings - social networking
17. Coveritlive for live blogging
18. Audacity for podcasting
19. Toondo - cartoon making
20.DiscoverE – virtual classroom software

It can be noted that:-

1. I have double the number of favourite web.20 tools 12 months later
2. Twitter is now on my list and has been such a valuable tool for PLNs
3. Although I still use bubblus, vokis and podomatic they are not used as frequently. Survey monkey has been largely replaced by google forms
4. Voicethread, slideshare and wordle are increasingly being used.
5. My students have used the vast majority of these tools as well.

What were your favourite web2.0 tools and how have they changed over the year?

Baby steps – but with children and teenagers!!

Reflecting back to Term 1 2008

Scenario 1

What is that student doing under the table? Why are the students so noisy and restless? This was one nightmare lesson with 27 grade 4 and 5 students.  I had never had a class like that before!!

Scenario 2

Urghh!!!! Those new students in year 7 are useless! They dont seem to listen or do what I ask. Why aren’t they achieving what I want them to? They are getting no-where.

Term 3 2008 Today!

Scenario 1

Grade 4 and 5 students quietly and eagerly writing a post about what  was special about their school, then copying and pasting the comment onto my blog prompt. Students in another p-12 school at Wycheproof are doing the same.

Scenario 2

Year 7 students capably checking their comments, emailing back the students in USA who commented on their blogs and then also commenting on that student’s blog.

The power of blogging is taking place – conversations are evolving and engaged learning being witnessed.

Why the two different pictures between term 1 and 3?

We had been taking baby steps with our staff, but I had forgotten to do that with my students. I now realise that those students who were new to our year 7 group (approximately 50%) had had little experience with computers and here was I throwing them into the deep end and expecting them to blog …. and do it well ….  and get it done today!! Arent they supposed to be digital natives?

Those who had spent grade 6 with us were well tutored in the ways of using web2.0 tools and were well skilled by the time they reached year 7.  I had assumed our new intakes were as well. However, two terms later, those new students have caught up and blogging is now working its magic with them.

Now ….. as for that dreadful class with grade 4 and 5, and despite having the help of a student teacher and three year 9 students, I had tried to do too many tasks with too little instruction and forgotten to take one little step at a time, with a group of very young students. One of the tasks for that lesson was to write a post and copy it as a comment into some other global student blogs. Six months later, they can now do it readily and mostly independently.

So, no matter the age group, those little baby steps are absolutely vital to the successful uptake of web2.0 and 21st century learning.

Happy belated birthday dear blog!!!

As usual, I often forget  important events and dates and here is one I have actually missed – the birthday salute to this blog. My first post was on June 27th, 2007, entitled Getting started! and my opening lines were “Don’t really know where to start!”. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was going to do, nor where it would lead me, except that I had stated blogging as a criteria for our rich picture case study grant application for the Victorian Education Dept grant. I just had TO DO IT!!!

Now, when I look back I cannot believe where this has taken me. It started as journal entries for journeys with my classes in podcasting, but has become a valuable resource, reflective tool and a means of connecting with so many wonderful people both locally and globally. The value of comments, and the conversations and connections that have evolved have been fantastic and taken my knowledge and use of the emerging technologies to ever increasing levels. I shall reflect:-

My first post Getting Started

My most popular posts:- 

• 20 reasons why students should blog
• Keeping students cybersafe
• One little tweety bird This would be my most memorable post as I shall never forget how alone I felt with some of the web2.0 tools especially twitter.

Most commented on post:-

Day in a Sentence Goes Technicolour (I was proud to be the first overseas host of this wonderful collaborative activity set up by Kevin) and the result of this post is summarized in a slideshare using powerpoint.

I really value all comments but some that stand out:-

•  from Graham Wegner “Great to see more Aussie teachers dipping their toes into the Web 2.0 waters – “we need more switched on educators like yourself prepared to take some risks and work out the potential benefis to our students.”
•  from Bill Genereux   ”I find your international collaborations exciting and fulfilling the dream of what the Internet was supposed to be all about.  Your students should be proud to be involved in this sort of learning. ”   

So to anyone who has read my posts, visited my blog, made comments, mentored me or helped me in anyway a big thank you!!   A big special thankyou to my fairy blogmother, Heather Blakey, of “soul food cafe fame” and my partner in virtual learning and laying the eplanks for a web2.0 school, Jess McCulloch.