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The Ed Tech Blog Carnival 2012 #1

Posted on Jan 29, 2012 in Conferences, Interactive Whiteboards, Useful Links | 2 comments

A few weeks ago I asked for educational bloggers to share some of their posts as part of a Blog Carnival. The idea would be that they would write about aspects of technology in education, and I would then collate into a single post that points to them all. Hopefully you the reader will discover some blogs you haven’t seen before.

So here’s the posts that make up the first Ed Tech Blog Carnival for January 2012:

To start, I’ll point to a post by me about the options available to use interactive whiteboards without the software.

Expat Educator Janet Abercrombie has written a great post about using student news videos as an alternative to newsletters. Learn the process of creating a classroom video news report.

Stephen Lockyer has written about some of the best iPhone apps that he uses in school. Some very useful recommendations.

Kevin Hodgson has written a post entitled: “Considering Mentor Texts 2: The Evolution of an Idea“. Exploring the ways that Make Your Own Adventure novels/stories might be used in the classroom with students, with wikis as one platform for writing and then with YouTube annotations.

Chris Coleman, a grade 4 teacher, has written about using the Pearltrees website to create a bookmark web to embed, share and collaborate

Tyson Seburn introduces the pros and cons of 3 different ways to use Google apps for scheduling with students.

Student teacher Dr Jo Badge has written about Blogging, Tweeting and Being a PGCE Student.

Greg Russell has written about his thoughts on the current state of using e-books for learning.

Seth Dickens gives the first in a series of 5 video interviews he did at BETT 2012, approaching his favourite stands at BETT and asking them why they come to BETT and what are they doing to make teachers’ lives easier. Interesting stuff.

Brad Patterson gives 4 key factors that are changing the business of ELT learning.

Doug Peterson gives his first look at the LiveBinders iPad application which lead to LiveBinders supporting the Ontario Curriculum.

Tom Hesmondhalgh writes about using Google+ to Help Improve Your Teaching. Google+ has generated its fair share of hype since its launch, and while it’s still officially in beta it’s growing at an incredible rate. Tom describes how teachers can harness some of the unique features of Google+ to help improve their practice.

Lisa Butler has written a post about trying a different approach with students and copyright – give them responsibility and ownership and take away the grade.

Terry Freedman gives 4 reasons why the ICT Programme of Study “had” to go. Interesting stuff with some excellent points about the state of ICT teaching in our schools right now.

And finally, Jen Deyenberg has written about creating your own geocaches featuring some of her students’ fabulous creations!

So that’s it! Thanks to all the contributors who have written some excellent posts for this carnival. I’d like to make this more than an annual event, so if someone wants to host another one, say in April, then let me know and I’ll help promote it here and on Twitter etc.

If you’ve written a blog carnival piece and I haven’t included it here, please let me know and I’ll add it. Make sure you include a link to this blog post so your readers can find the other blogs that make up the carnival.

Learning Without Frontiers 2012 #lwf2012

Posted on Jan 28, 2012 in Conferences | 0 comments

This week I had the opportunity to attend the Learning Without Frontiers conference in London. I’ve wanted to go to this before but it’s clashed with other things. It’s always a little too close to BETT for my liking, I’d prefer a little bit of breathing space between the two, to be honest.

I arrived early, thanks to an invitation to attend the launch of a new book by Charles Leadbeater “Innovation in Education” written for WISE and published by Bloomsbury. I’ll blog a review of the book another time, but it’s a study of some amazing education projects around the world, in some very challenging regions. I can’t find a link to it for sale online yet, but when I do, I’ll add it here.

After the book launch I made my way to the main theatre for the speakers, and there was an impressive list of names on show.

The day was kicked off with a video presentation by MIT Professor Noam Chomsky who made some very interesting points. He compared technology to a hammer; “It doesn’t care if you use it to build a house or crush someone’s skull. The Web is valuable if you know what you’re looking for, if you have a framework of understanding. But you always have to be willing to question whether your framework is the right one.” Technology is a tool, and we need to make sure we harness it for good.

Next up was technology guru Ray Kurzweil, who has an impressive CV but was a slightly disppointing speaker if I’m honest. He spent a lot of time telling us about how much technology has changed over the years and how good 3D printers would one day be. He obviously knows his stuff but he spent a long time telling us that computer power is increasing exponentially, something that most of the room, tapping away on their iPads already knew.

Jaron Lanier was up next, and he gave a rather off-the-cuff talk about various projects he’d been involved in, namely early virtual reality experiments, working on Minority Report and helping produce the Kinect for Microsoft. I was interested by his claim that to use technology well you need to hate it. That “intelligence” built into products such as Word try and work out what you want to do (Clippy the paperclip anyone?) and auto-format for you – which is invariably useless. So we learn to interact with the software in a way that we avoid that happening in the first place. We adapt our use of the software to make it do what we want.

Highlight of the morning session was Dame Elen MacArthur who literally bounded onto the stage and had an amazing energy about her. I was fascinated by her Ellen MacArthur Foundation project working on creating a more cyclical global economy, which makes perfect sense – watch a video here. The education section of her website has good resources and scope for including in Science and Design/Technology classes.

After Ellen I took a break from the speakers and headed off to explore the exhibition. I loved the inflatable pods that were being used to house each of the exhibitors. Gave the exhibition space a much different feel to the BETT show. There was much less focus on sales too, which was another interesting change from BETT.

I made my way to one of these pods for a debate by Steve Wheeler, Ian Addison, Drew Buddy and Dughall McCormick about whether the VLE is Dead, ably hosted by Michael Shaw of the TES. It was a fun lively debate, which pretty much summed up the arguments for and against the VLE. Myself, I’m still not a fan of the VLE because I don’t think schools know what to do with them. It’s not a fault of the VLE itself, although I do think many are badly designed especially for primary age children.

There were some interesting things on show in the pods – I loved the old computers on show in the BBC pod, and the National Museum of Computing (which I must go visit). The BBC looks like it’s making a move to get invovled in promoting coding again, in a similar way that it did in the 80′s when it helped to push a generation of bedroom coders with the BBC model B computer. Perhaps pushing a product such as Scratch?

I couldn’t stay late, so missed some of the afternoon speakers, but they have been covered elsewhere I’m sure.

I enjoyed the day at the conference, and am glad I attended. I did think, to paraphrase Mark Kermode that there was a lot of “without frontiers” before we got to the “learning”, especially with the speakers that I was able to see. I wish I could have attended the second day as the speakers seemed to be a lot more relevant to education – Steven Heppell, Sir Ken Robinson etc but I had to teach so couldn’t make it.

I’m not sure of the dates for the LWF13 conference yet, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens with the shifted date for the BETT show next year as well. But I’ll definitely try to attend.

Video – Inanimate Alice BETT 2012 Presentation

Posted on Jan 18, 2012 in Conferences, Digital Media, Games and interactives, Literacy Resources, Other Subjects, Subject Resources, Useful Links | 0 comments

Here’s the video of my Inanimate Alice presentation from Friday. This formed part of the TeachMeet Takeover event at the BETT Show 2012. For a copy of the presentation itself, check here.

Links from the Video:

Thanks to Emily at Promethean for filming the presentation, and thanks to Selda for letting me use the Promethean stand to give the presentation.

Teachmeet Essex 2012 – Sign up now!

Posted on Jan 18, 2012 in Conferences | 0 comments

Teachmeet Essex 2012 is only a few weeks away now. It will take place in Wickford on the 7th February. There are still some tickets available so sign up quick! If you’ve never been to one before, a Teachmeet is some of the best free CPD you can get. Presentations are given by teachers sharing what works for them in the classroom. It’s like a massive show and tell session!

Head to the Teachmeet Essex Ticket Page if you want to sign up to attend.

In addition if you plan to give a short talk, then add your name to the Teachmeet Essex wiki here (username guest password teemhcaet). Talks can be 2 minute or 7 minute. They do not have to be about ICT, you can talk about anything you’ve tried with your class that you think other teachers would like to know about.

If you’d like to give a video presentation instead, that’s fine. Let me have the link to the presentation and we’ll show it on the night.

For more information,and to see the videos from the last TeachMeet Essex, visit www.teachmeetessex.co.uk

If you can’t attend, but would like to see what other Teachmeets are taking place this year, then the best place to go is the main TeachMeet Wiki here.

BETT Show 2012 Roundup Part 2

Posted on Jan 17, 2012 in Conferences, Hardware, Interactive Whiteboards | 0 comments

Here’s the second part of my BETT 2012 roundup, taking a look at the things that caught my eye in addition to the Interactive Whiteboards which I talked about in Part 1.

Here’s a quick summary of some of the things I saw:

BrainPop UK : BrainPop were showing their excellent range of videos which are perfect for the classroom. Moby was there for photo opportunities as always. They were also demonstrating the various new ways to access the BrainPop resources, including on a Playstation 3 and iPad – even more ways to make the BrainPop resources accessible at home. Also check out their free BrainPop Featured movie iPhone and iPad apps. Now you don’t need to have a PC at home to be able to use BrainPop.

2Simple – Purple Mash : 2Simple were there in force again this year showcasing their superb software range. The highlight of course was their Purple Mash online package which has an amazing selection of tools. If you teach in a primary school and haven’t seen what Purple Mash can do, then you must take a look!

I Am Learning : I Am Learning is a games-based revision and homework system which encourages learners both in and out of school. Students take park in games and quizzes with their scores tracked and stored for teacher assessment. I’ll be taking a look at this in more detail in a later blogpost but I liked what I saw, and it could prove to be a very useful resource for teachers.

Play Brighter : This is another website that allows teachers to set up games for their students. On PlayBrighter, you set your students ‘missions’. The games are designed so that success (which might be releasing a Number One single, or becoming a millionaire) is a clear goal that really means something to the student, not just a score that has to reached. It’s free, and looks like quite a fun tool. Like I Am Learning I think I’ll need to come back to this in a later blog post and have a proper play with the resources.

PoraOra: Pora Ora is a FREE 3D world designed to make learning fun, where primary school children are rewarded for completing educational tasks that are linked to the national curriculum. The educational content is embedded in games and quests throughout the world, so children really are learning while playing. Pora Ora is also a safe and supervised social networking site where children can learn how to interact safely online with parents gradually relaxing security settings as they get older. Looks interesting.

Primary Games : Mark Cogan at the Interactive Resources website has always produced some superb interactive games for maths, and other subjects. The online version allows teachers to subscribe and make the resources available across the school and the wider community. This year he was also showing off the new range of Primary Games apps for the iPhone and iPad which look great.

Zu3d - The Zu3D animation software was on show with a new version and animation kit. Owners of the older version can upgrade for a small fee. It’s a fun easy-to-use piece of software for making stop-motion animation and I highly recommend it. In a similar vein, also check out I Can Animate from Kudlian.

Skoog Music : I loved the look of this. A Skoog is an exciting new musical instrument designed to empower those unable to play traditional instruments. The Skoog is a soft, squeezable object that simply plugs straight into your computer or laptop’s USB port. By touching, pressing, squashing, twisting or tapping the Skoog you can play a wide range of instruments, intuitively. Designed for people with any degree or combination of physical, mental or behavioral difficulties. Looks like fun, especially for the musically-challenged such as myself.

Turning Point : The Turning Point range of response ware/voting systems has been expanded with the ResponseCard NXT which has a larger screen and a mobile phone style texting keyboard to respond to questions with full text or numerical answers. There was also the Presenter Card which is a radio device that allows teachers to physically move around a classroom while controlling their TurningPoint session. Teachers can start/stop polling as well as move forwards and back in a presentation, letting them ove away from the IWB.

I was also able to attend the launch of a book written by my good friend and colleague Angie McGlashon. Her book “Brilliant Ideas for Using ICT in the Inclusive Classroom” is an excellent guide to using ICT in the SEN classroom,but has lots of ideas for teachers in mainstream schools tool. You can buy a copy on Amazon, and I highly recommend you do!

And briefly: Word Wall were demonstrating their advanced student response system, which had quite a rugged feel to it, with a screen in the middle. Looked interesting. I also liked the look of AVerMedia’s wireless visualiser which has great potential in freeing up the visualiser so that it doesn’t have to be right next to the computer. Will make using it in science practical demonstrations much easier. Twig Science were proudly showing off their BETT award for their excellent science video collection – well worth a look. Oddizi also won an award for their primary digital content for geography.

So that’s it for BETT 2012. Next year it will be leaving Olympia and heading for the Excel centre in Docklands – for me this is a good move as it’s much easier to get to but it will be interesting to see how being at the new venue shakes up the exhibition. BETT 2013 is also a few weeks later in the year, giving me more time to recover from the ASE conference which is usually the week before.

See you next year!

An Ed Tech Blog Carnival 2012 : Call for submissions

Posted on Jan 16, 2012 in Conferences, Site Stuff, Useful Links | 15 comments

Update – the carnival post can be found here

After running an Education Tech Blog Carnival last year, I put the idea on the back burner for a while. Having met up with a few bloggers over the weekend I’ve decided to have another go.

So here’s the idea:

Any blogger who is in the field of education (teacher, librarian, adviser, consultant etc) and is interested in technology writes a blog post about something related to technology in education to be part of the carnival. Please add a link to this blogpost and say it’s part of the Blog Carnival – that way your readers can find other posts in the carnival

They then email me (danny at think-bank dot com) with the URL of their blog post and a sentence to describe what it’s about. Or you can leave a comment below this blog post with the same information.

The blog post could be about a tool you’ve used, could be some tips, could be a reflection on the state of technology in education or a prediction of the future, or could be sharing good work that your pupils are producing. Anything you feel like sharing! This doesn’t have to be a major blog post, but it should be more than just a collection of links or a plug for their own product.

When I’ve added the carnival post – please amend the link in your blog post to point to that carnival post so that your readers can see the other posts taking part in the blog carnival.

The closing date for URLs is 12 Noon GMT Sunday 29th January. So you’ve got two weeks to have a think about something you want to share and write about. Which should be plenty of time, I hope.

I will then write a blog post that links to all the blog posts in the carnival and promote it on Twitter etc. Hopefully our readers will discover new blogs they hadn’t seen before. Here’s how it worked last year.

Next time, someone else can “host” it and receive all the urls.. and so on. We could do this monthly, or quarterly or whatever.

Let’s try this and see how it goes.

Update – the carnival post can be found here

BETT Show 2012 Roundup Part 1

Posted on Jan 16, 2012 in Conferences, Interactive Whiteboards | 2 comments

So last week saw the annual trip to the BETT Show – one of the biggest educational technology shows in the world, for the last time at the Kensington Olympia venue. As always anyone who is anyone in the world of educational technology was here, showing off their latest products. You can see my photos from the show here.

Like last year I was slightly underwhelmed by some aspects of the show. There was very little that was totally new and there wasn’t much of a “wow” factor. I guess that’s the downside of attending every single year for the last few years. Everything was the same as last year, but slightly updated. There were lots of interactive whiteboards, interactive projectors, visualisers, voting systems, learning platforms, iPads on show, but all just slightly bigger/faster/shinier than they were at BETT 2011 (and 2010 to be honest). Many of the people I spoke to felt the same way.

In terms of interactive whiteboards the major players of SMART and Promethean were both there in force with massive stands while there were lots of other smaller players trying to get into the market.

Promethean had many products on show, the one that caught my eye was their new ActivProgress system which looks like a move into a coordinated platform for assessment and student tracking. It provides a web-based system that is linked up with their ActivExpression student voting handsets (as well as paper-based tests) to collect and collate test scores. It should also link to SIMs and other school management systems.

Promethean were also demonstrating their ActivTable, a 46″ interactive monitor with multitouch to allow 6 students to use it simultaneously. It looks nice. Time will tell how easy the development kit is to produce your own materials. I’m still not sure if the money would be better spent on 10 iPads.

SMART were demonstrating Smart Notebook 11 which did look very good. It’s due out “in the Spring” and the version on show still had a few bugs to iron out. The ability to embed whole webpages was interesting, although sadly it won’t do embed codes – although that could be covered by some of the new html5 widgets. Directly embedding a YouTube video for instance would be a handy feature. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy when it’s released later this year.

Notebook 11 will be a free upgrade for existing users, and the rumour is that there will be an option to buy licences for the Notebook software separately to run on any system you wish – which if true is a big change in Smart’s approach.

I also spent some time on the Polyvision and eInstruction stands, being shown their latest IWB systems, both of which were interesting.

Polyvision were showing off their latest ēno whiteboard which has no need for additional speakers or amplifier. The board itself acts as a loudspeaker, which is quite a cool idea. The Polyvision board can also be written on with regular pens for those “plan B” moments when the technology fails. Polyvision boards use a magnetic strip with icons on it which control the features of the board. Polyvision don’t provide their own generic software, instead bundling the board with Easiteach or Wizteach software.

eInstruction were demonstrating their Insight 360 interactive whiteboard systems. The Mobi system incorporates a wireless slate that can be used to control the lesson and write/annotate on the PC. It also has its own touch screen for adding teacher notes or storing bookmarks and other links. It’s an interesting idea, and gives teachers the freedom to move around the classroom (and pass the slate around the class). It could also be used to control assessments using their voting systems, and store/view scores.

An interesting development is the Mobi360 for iPad which allows teachers to control their lesson via an iPad. They can write/annotate like they could on a slate, as well as interact with other devices such as the voting handsets. For those teachers who often ask if they can use their iPad like an IWB, this might be the solution for you! More info here.

In part 2 I’ll move away from the interactive whiteboards and look at some of the other products that were on show.

Let me know what you thought of the BETT show in the comments below.

Hosting #ASECHAT on 5th December

Posted on Dec 1, 2011 in Conferences, Useful Links | 0 comments

#asechat is a weekly online science education discussion group on Twitter which takes place on Monday evenings from 8.00-9.00pm (UK time). Everyone is welcome. The target audience includes science teachers from primary and secondary schools and further education, laboratory technicians, trainee teachers, teacher educators and anyone else with an interest in science education. Science educators from outside the UK are very welcome too.

The topic for discussion for the next chat on Monday 5th December will be “Using Interactive ICT resources in science teaching” and I’ll be hosting the chat on that evening. I’ll be hoping to share some of my favourite science resources, as well as discuss how you might use them in the classroom. Other teachers taking part will also hopefully be sharing their ideas too.

If you’ve never taken part in a Twitter chat before then #asechat would be a good place to start. If you can’t access the chat live, you can always access an archive on the ASE website, usually from the Tuesday onwards.

You can find out more about #ASEchat here :

http://www.ase.org.uk/news/ase-chat/

http://www.omg-science.org.uk/2011/11/23/ase-chats/

Hope to see some of you in the chat on Monday!

Collaborate for Change – talk and links #c84c

Posted on Nov 18, 2011 in Conferences, Useful Links | 0 comments

Last night was the 2nd Collaborate for Change event, run by Havering LA. It was a fabulous event and there were plenty of faces I recognised from Twitter sharing some of their excellent expertise on a wide range of different topics.

I gave a talk, and ran two table sessions – and I said to those who attendended that I’d make all the relevant links available on the blog. SO here they are: