In Plain English

Here are some great videos to watch because a) they use plain English and b) I love the clean presentation style. They cover some of the new Web 2.0 tools that have really enhanced the way people use the internet in the last few years.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English



Podcasting in Plain English



RSS in Plain English


You can find all their videos, covering Twitter, Social Networking, Photo Sharing and, erm.. Zombies on YouTube here. Or go to the CommonCraft site to download high res versions to use elsewhere.

My Extended Memory

I have an average memory. I mean, it's OK but it's nothing special. I can remember birthdays and I can quote whole chunks of Eddie Izzard routines but I do tend to forget things. I'm bad at remembering hardware specs and prices. I often forget the web address of that great site I just saw in a teachers magazine.

So my memory needs a little help sometimes. Luckily technology can help me. In the form of my mobile phone.

I don't always have a pen or a piece of paper with me. or if I have written it down I may not have that bit of paper on me when I need it. But I always have my phone with me. Which means I always have a camera with me. And this is where it can really help.

I see a web address in an article or on a poster that looks interesting. Simple, I get out my phone and I take a photograph of it. I see a new digital camera in a store and I want to go home and check out the reviews and price-compare online. Easy, I just take a photo of the shelf label and look it up when I get home. Most modern phone cameras act as pretty good document cameras.

A domestic example; I need to buy some more washing and proofing products for my Ski gear to get it ready for next season. I always get mixed up which products we need. So I took a photo of the bottles. Next time I find myself in a ski store I can just look up the image on my phone and buy the right products. The chances are that any piece of paper will have long been lost by the time I end up in a store.

The camera in my phone acts as a memory enhancer. I'm quite a visual learner and I need visual reminders. I could type things into my phone too, although I find that can be slower than a photo. I do make use of the Notes feature in Outlook (which syncs to my phone) for longer notes and reminders of work-related addresses and passwords.

There are other features in the phone that I could also use - the voice memo feature for example, but I haven't made much use of that yet. And there are many web2.0 sites like Remember the Milk etc that can help with to-do lists if you want to take it to another level.

I do try and remember these things normally too. I don't see myself as a slave to my phone. But the technology helps to make my life just that little bit easier. And prevents our kitchen filling up with uneeded products!

How could we harness some of this in the classoom? As a science teacher, I can see ways we could use them in the science lesson. Want kids to remember the apparatus set up? Easy, take a photograph of it. Maybe take a video of the trolley going down the ramp or the weights on the spring. Use the voice memo to record the results as they read them out. Get them to add important dates such as coursework deadlines or homework into the calendar of the phone.

Some kids could aid their revision by using their PC to record themselves reading out important facts they need to know for their exams. They can put it onto their phone/iPod as an MP3 file and listen to it on the way to and from school....

An extreme example maybe, but some students could benefit from taking a new look at the computing power they routinely carry in their pockets.

The Internet itself also acts as a way for me to extend (and share) my memory. I use my del.icio.us feed to add websites that I want to remember. Tags help me search for them later. If I have found a good website that I haven't got a lot of time to look at, I can add it to del.ico.us and then access it later on when I have more time. I may not be on the same computer or even in the same location, so a standard bookmark isn't going to help.

On training days, I am often asked for lists of good websites. I used to do this in Word. But you can guarantee that as soon as you print it off you find several more you could have added. Dynamic bookmark lists such as del.ico.us or Diig means I can share the lists with people and know they have the most recent version. Tags mean I can direct trainees on my whiteboard days to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/iwb and my PGCE students to http://del.icio.us/dannynic/pgce.

Similarly I use my blog and forum as a brain dump. Many posts are morefor my benefit than for my readers. It's nice to share though, so if others also find the links useful then that's great.

So taking this all into account I actually have a very good memory. But it's not all inside my head!

Effective Presentations

Here is my first attempt at using SlideShare to share a PowerPoint presentation I have used in the past.

The presentation covers some of the advice I give to teachers when using PowerPoint or Interactive Whiteboard software such as Smart Notebook or ActivStudio.

It's amazing how many teachers never check the IWB resources they make to see if they can actually be read from the back of their classroom. Often the text is too small, the background too busy and the colour combinations very bad.

This quick guide should help

| View | Upload your own

Next Generation Interfaces

Becta have just released the latest edition of their report into Emerging technologies for learning.

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends.

It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

You can access all the articles here, plus the previous editions.

One article of particular interest to this blog is the chapter entitled: Interactive displays and next generation interfaces by Michael Haller, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences. This is an interesting look at the history of the Interactive Whiteboard as we know it, and a look at some of the new technologies that may well replace or enhance it in the near future such as Interactive Tables, Interactive Paper and Digital Pens.

Download the pdf file here

Why change?

A little history first. Back in 1998/1999 the school I was working at The Cornwallis School, in Kent which was just starting to flex its muscles as quite a forward-thinking establishment in terms of its use of ICT. Our school was a pilot school for the Microsoft Anytime Anywhere Learning (AAL) project in which we gave 2 tutor groups or year 7 students a laptop each. When people were told we were kitting out 60 kids with laptops there were a lot of raised eyebrows and doubters that the scheme would have any benefits.

As part of the introduction to parents and staff, the Deputy Head gave a presentation that contained some excellent quotes from teachers and educationalists down the years complaining about every new development such as paper, fountain pens and ballpoint pens. It was a very effective argument ;)

I was reminded of that presentation the other day with a post on the blog Learning is Messy. I must learn to trawl archives before posting, because much further back is another post with all the quotes the Deputy Head used.

I'm going to repost them here since I really like them, and I am using this blog partly as a brain dump for myself so I know where to find things in the future.

Students today can’t prepare bark to calculate their problems. They depend on their slates which are more expensive. What will they do when their slate is dropped and it breaks? They will be unable to write!”
Teachers Conference, 1703

Students today depend upon paper too much. They don’t know how to write on slate without chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?”
Principal’s Association, 1815

Students today depend too much upon ink. They don’t know how to use a pen knife to sharpen a pencil. Pen and ink will never replace the pencil.”
National Association of Teachers, 1907

Students today depend upon store-bought ink. They don’t know how to make their own. When they run out of ink they will be unable to write words of ciphers until their next trip to the settlement. This is a sad commentary on modern education.”
The Rural American Teacher, 1929

Students today depend upon these expensive fountain pens. They can no longer write with a straight pen and nib (not to mention sharpening their own quills). We parents must not allow them to wallow in such luxury to the detriment of learning how to cope in the real business world, which is not so extravagant.”
PTA Gazette, 1941

Ball point pens will be the ruin of education in our country. Students use these devices and then throw them away. The American virtues of thrift and frugality are being discarded. Business and banks will never allow such expensive luxuries.”
Federal Teacher, 1950

For proper attributation, these quotes are apparently from David Thornburg’s book Edutrends 2010: Restructuring, Technology and the Future of Education (1992). There is another good blog post over at The Fischbowl that makes the same points.

This argument was taken further by Ewan McIntosh over at Edublogs over the recent news that a teaching union wanted students not to bring gadgets into school and stick with a pen. While I can understand that shiny new toys can be a distraction and there's a chance of bullying and having them stolen I can also see the benefits of embracing these technologies and putting them to good use.

I don't use a paper diary, I use my (rather battered) PDA. I set reminders to do things on that or on my phone. I have a poor memory for some things, so if I want to remember something (a web address in an article or the details of something I see while out shopping - I use the camera in my phone to take a picture of it to remind me later. I dump web addresses and good websites onto Del.icio.us or onto my forum. I use the technology to help me, why can't we educate the students to do the same?

I don't think I have much more to add to the debate that Karl and Ewan have already eloquently said, only to say I agree with their sentiments and to ask what if we had listened each time someone resisted new technology? Would we still be using slates and chalk?