Why I just love the Internet, seek and ye shall find... mostly

I was reflecting upon how the Internet has help me with my teaching over the past 6 years. We certainly have witness a massive change over the past six years and my job would be a lot harder without it. The number of resources for my subject are huge and most of the time it takes very little time to track down a book or article that can address my interest, or my students questions. But here is the problem, to much stuff and not enough time. In order to help students get the best out of the resources on the Internet students MUST learn how to be critical. When looking at any information from the net the first thing I tell them to think about is "Does this serve a commercial interest?". Also looking and the web address is a good indicator to, "Look at the URL... what does this tell us?".

The currency of the information is also a major factor, the net has been around for a while now and there is a lot of information which was posted over 10 years ago. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that 10 years calendar time is a lot longer when you are thinking about currency of information on the net. Now this all may sound like old hat to teachers but just sit back for a while and watch your students use the net to find information. Many of you will be shocked at how even know after the net has been in our classrooms for sometime students still don't know how to move beyond the first few matches in google.

Getting teachers to use Moodle

Currently I administer a Moodle for a secondary school and I am also currently developing a second for our other campus. One question that always comes my way is how do you get the recalcitrant to use Moodle. The answer is I don't, the students do. After awhile most teachers get on board, it is a slow process but slowly is the best way to go. Usually I focus my attention on the keen but technically challenged teachers and encourage them to have a go, this is always supported by one on one help. Over the past four years and three implementations this appears to be the best way to go, find an interested teacher and give them one on one help and hopefully others will follow. It is impossible for one person to adequately train a large number of teachers of various capabilities and motivation but get a few key people on the band wagon and this is a good start. What is cool is that students do actually appreciate Moodle even though many will not admit it in front of their peers.

Rise of information and communication technology (ICT) in schools

“…rise of information and communication technology (ICT) in schools is unstoppable, and developments in ICT encapsulate broader trends in education. ICT touches every aspect of education, building in new networks of teachers and driving new paradigms of teaching and learning, and putting teachers and students in contact with each other on a truly global scale.” (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2004, p.59)

I wonder how some schools would operate if they lost, email, Internet and network access for a week? I would say it would not be pretty. Therefore, it could almost be said that a Secondary schools core business, teaching and learning, are severely hampered without properly implemented or managed IT.

Creating a Moodle Quiz

A great tutorial on how to set up a Quiz in Moodle, quizzes are really good for checking understanding, revision of key concepts and giving immediate feedback to students. You are all most probably saying but when will I find the time to write these. I suggest get each teacher in your faculty to log into the course and write a couple of questions each then construct the quiz from these. Even better break your students up into groups, group one for questions, and group two for answers. Get the students to write the quizzes and answers and upload them as a txt file so you can copy and paste them with little trouble over to the question bank.

week one of laptop roll out

We rolled out around 70 laptops at our school last week and Monday was the first day for students and teachers to use them in class, seems to be running well so far.

Web 2.0 and learning

A good presentation from BECTA in the UK, I really like how all the students are learning together and using IT as a tool to create and reflect on their learning. An interesting point is made that space must be made to give credit for this type of learning. What is needed is at the teacher training stage to demonstrate to teachers what can be done to enrich and engage students in their subject areas using ICT.

School Lap Top Program

Tomorrow I will be working with our Dean of Studies and IT support team to begin our laptop roll out to our year 8 students. It has been about a year in the planning and we are ready to go. I have had our Moodle LMS up and running for nearly a year now and teachers are beginning to get on board and the students are logging in more and more. Moodle coupled with our Click View video streaming solution, which I also manage, are a good combination to begin the schools journey into ICT integration and 21st century learning. I am sure it will not all go as planned but if we waited until all possible issues were ironed out we would never get started, so it is G O for tomorrow.

However, the government has not paid for these laptops it is the parents. It is a common mistake to think that the RUD government will pay for laptops in schools, the funding we received was to be strickly used for desktop computers. The desktops we purchased with the government grant have been welcomed by our students, parents and teachers.

Social Networking Tools for Learning

Interesting results from Masie
about the use of Social Learning. What I draw from this is the barrier is not ICT capacity but organisational culture. Also a very strong response in the positive for social learning. Social learning has always been a key way in which people learn so it seems hardly surprising that social learning mediated by IT is going to be any different.