Reflections on old friends and past deeds

In 2009 I ran a series of classes with 13 year old students looking at the the future of education and we used ideas from The Horizon Reports. Despite the work being really quite challenging for students and staff involved, it did give the opportunity to students to self direct and take considerable control of their learning.

Now, for a number of reasons, we discontinued the project. The first site the girls put up to share their project was in March/April of 2009. It used the 2008 Horizon Report as its base and we rolled in a number of "guest speakers" by means of video and YouTube to help set the scene. Once the project was complete (April 2009) I thought "That's it - no one will visit this site ever again." So it was with some surprise that I looked several months later to see that the site was attracting visitors still. Into 2010 the site was attracting more visitors, though the site was not updated at any stage.

So, today in my inbox was the usual start of US school year updates ... and so I thought I'd go back to one of my old friends, Wikispaces, and just see if anything was still happening around the old site. Here's what I found. Looks like around 25 views per day pretty consistently ... most views are coming form the US, but a lot from Canada, UK and Australia too. Views from NZ hardly rank.

So - whatever these students did, and whatever they wrote and contributed, some people in other geographies are finding some value in it.

The other thing I thought about was my own blog - this one. I haven't written much this year - not that I haven't wanted to, just have not found the time/priority to do it. Despite this - the viewership has actually gone up! Now that tells me something!

Anyway - my reflection is this.

I blog for two main reasons.

1. Reflecting in a public environment about educational matters is important - to me anyway. It helps me clarify my own views and opinions.
2. Just maybe ... something I have to contribute will spark something in someone else, somewhere else.

I have students blog for the similar reasons.

And you never know how long after you said what you said - someone else might just find it useful. On this blog the main attraction has been the post on Google Docs as a time line creator. I put this up last year some time. Every day several seem to head to this page. Great. Whatever I said then was true at the time!

Google Docs as an online timeline creator

Just found a cool addition to the reasons why Google Apps is useful in schools - or anywhere for that matter. The timeline below is generated via a Google spreadsheet using a very simple format provided by TimeLineJS by Verité.




The spreadsheet is simply populated with URLs to any of the content you want to use - I used Flickr and YouTube for the above. You can add titles and comments in columns in the spreadsheet.
Once complete, simply publish your Google spreadsheet as a web page, copy the URL generated and paste it into the "embed generator" on the TimeLineJS page. It generates your embed code for the finished timeline which you then post on your website/blog etc. Any changes you subsequently make to your Google spreadsheet will automatically show up.

You'll find the Google Docs template half way down their page - look for this image

It's very cool and pretty darn easy to use.

There are of course plenty of other tools that do a similar job - ie they create an web based timeline.
xTimeLine is one I have used.
Another relative newcomer is MeoGraph - but I have had some trouble getting audio to work with it - not sure if it is me, the browser or our firewall getting in the way here - so  more investigation required.
Others that seem to be useful (and free), but I haven't used ...
TimeToast
TimeGlider
TikiToki also looks interesting, but the free version doesn't allow you to embed by the look of it.

TED for Ed

Many of us know and love TED for the vast array of inspirational "talks" that have graced the internet over recent years. Today sees the official launch of Ted-Ed, an initiative to introduce the world's greatest teachers and animators to classrooms across the world.

Don't get the wrong message to start - this is an initiative to try and generate great lessons by joining great ideas by teachers with great animators - so there is not much content available yet (12 videos there at present) - the initiative is designed to get you to nominate your ideas to TED and then the community will do its thing and bring the best to life. That's the way I read it anyway. This is from the PRNewswire release:

"In the first stage of this initiative, TED-Ed launches a new education channel on YouTube today [http://www.youtube.com/tededucation]. It offers up original video content that marries the talent of great teachers with top animators to bring concepts like neuroscience to life in in short videos, typically 5 minutes long.  The channel is part of the youtube.com/edu offering – a collection of half a million educational videos – available in many schools as well as to the public online.
Through its open submission process, animators and educators from around the globe can contribute lesson plans and video reels on any topic [http://education.ted.com/]. Select lesson submissions will be matched with chosen visualizers to create video lessons worth learning, watching, and sharing."

Here's the launch video on the Youtube channel for TED-Ed.



So - I'd encourage you to do three things.

1. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for TED-Ed - this is the link
2. Suggest a lesson or nominate someone you know to contribute the great idea - we must have some of those here in our own community.
3. Share this blog post with colleagues of your around the country - as I said earlier - many of us have benefitted from using TED talks, so the more we get for education, the better our classrooms might be.

Thanks TED and good luck!

The Importance of Being Awesome

Faris Yakob is the Chief Innovation Officer for some crowd ... likely a media and advertising company. What attracted me to this 18 minute video was not, however, his name nor the fact I had never heard of him. It was the comment on my Mashable feed that he was a founding partner of Spies and Assassins. What a great title - and on their page they are "Thinkers of Things. Makers of stuff." I love that! That and the title of his presentation which is basically that the future belongs to the most awesome.

Now, at first look, don't be put off by his style of presentation,or the fact that this is just a video of it and some of the detail on his slides doesn't show all that well. There are some very important messages here. For individuals,  business and education (at lest, I think there are). Listen for the commentary around information flow and time for effect. Make the connections between rate of development being almost infinite and the cost of technology basically zero.  Think of the opportunities that are being created daily as a result. The link between content, the media, the medium, and awesomeness.

The danger I think is that we ignore this type of thought provocation at our peril. I think Faris touches on critically important issues. It's up to us how we react and respond. Enjoy.

Google Apps - some resources for teachers

Google Apps is an example of "cloud based" computing - more specifically it is an example of what is called "software as a service" (or SaaS). In reality - it is your "online" version of an "Office" like suite of software - it has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool and email - but in addition it has a website creation tool, graphics and a really cool "forms" tool. Plus - there are a host of other Google applications that you can tie to it (eg Blogger, Picassa, Google+ ...)

We have been trialling Google Apps with some classes for 18 months now and in general it works pretty well. For those unfamiliar with Google Apps - well, that's what this post is about.

Firstly - why use an "online" suite of apps?

There are a number of reasons - here are a few ...

• no software to install and maintain on your laptop - everything runs within a web browser. (This means that everyone has the same version etc)
• all files created are on Google's data servers somewhere - theoretically this might absolve you from backing up your own work - any computer can access your data - just need an ineternet connection.
• compatible with most other applications - you can upload/download into MS Office, Open Office and a bunch of other formats. This means you can upload your existing Word documents
• really cool sharing of files for collaboration - I use this a lot as a milestone/checkpoint for students working on longer projects - the big plus is only having 1 copy of any document ... no more trying to keep track of the "current version of the document".

This video by CommonCraft  explains how this "collaboration" works ...

Are there some drawbacks?
Yep - you bet.

• need an internet connection to work (earlier versions of Google Apps used Gears to rpovide offline access to some functions - but this has been absent for the past year - its back on the development schedule but have yet to see it)
• worried that Google will not treat your data as yours? Then maybe you don't want to head here.
• slow internet connection - to be useful in a school/classroom - need lots of bandwidth.

Overall though - the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

So - how do you get on for some Google Apps training?

There are plenty of options. Here are some to get you started ...

1. 32 Ways to use Google Apps in the Classroom

2. Google Apps for Education Demo (from Google themselves)

3. Using Google Docs

This link to Google's training is worth a look

Then make sure you work through the rest of the links on this site.

and then this one

There are is no shortage of help and ideas on YouTube or any general search of the web will also show a large range of help and support options.

Atomic Learning remains a favourite for training in all sorts of apps - and they have a comprehensive set of video tutorials for Google Docs.




So - give Google Apps a try if you haven't yet

Is this a "Foundation for Excellence"?

"Digital learning can customise and personalise education so that all students can learn in their own style and pace, which maximises their chances of success at school and beyond ...." So says the report "Digital learning Now" from the Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The report lists 10 elements of high quality digital learning. Those of you who follow the push for educational reform won't likely find much new here. But what you will find is a list of a few key policy directions that stand a chance of delivering on the promise that technology has for education. Let me give you an example or two ... then you can digest the report yourself ... luckily it is one of those reports that is only a few pages long and doesn't waste time on putting in irrelevant stuff ...

Point 2: All students have access to high quality digital content and online courses.
Policy directions:

• do not restrict access to courses or content using class numbers, budget or enrolment caps or other such traditional measures ... just make them available
• do not restrict access due to geography
• do require school diplomas to have at least some online course completion requirement

Point 3: All students can personalise their own learning using digital content from approved providers
Policy directions:

• allow students to take online courses full time, part time or by individual class
• allow students to enroll in multiple courses from multiple providers
• allow enrollment all year round
• no limit to number of credits take

Each of the 10 elements has a similar "simple" look - a brief statement of the element and a few policy directions.

I wonder how this might play out in our environment? I have made several suggestions in the past in varying formats that I believe it is inevitable that the nature of learning in schools must change - and I liken it to Chris Anderson's view of Long Tail Economics - I just can't see education in its current form for some students being valid for too much longer. There will likely be a need for bricks and mortar for some - but for others, why? Why when there are better options?

Anyway, read the report, and keep the discussions going - and try and implement a little of the directions every day in your schools.

Just what is the point of the current curriculum in schools?

Conrad Wolfram gave a talk at TED in Oxford earlier this year. it's just been posted on the TED site. And wow, does it pose some big questions. If you are a maths teacher, you will likely form an immediate view of what he is saying. I don't think there is any middle ground here. You will either agree with him or you won't.

But there are bigger questions here too than just those pertaining to maths. The way in which we very likely approach many subjects in the school curriculum, for example. And the point about exams ... I think I've made this point several times in the past.

I've shown WolframAlpha to Year 12 students about to embark on their IB extended essay research over the past 12 months. What I find truly scary is not so much that they haven't seen WolframAlpha before, but that many of them still don't even know that there are search engines other than Google. And even scarier, that Google even has an advanced search tab, and worse, you can look through Google Books or Scholar.

The whole point of using computers for powerful things ... not trivial things ... comes out in Conrad's talk. (He makes reference to an online tutorial showing how to manually solve a problem.)

So, this is I think one of the better TED talks I've seen. It asks some serious questions. It hints at a solution. I wonder if you agree? I rate this talk up there with those of Hans Rosling and Ken Robinson, both of whom I have featured on this blog in the past.

So - take 17 minutes of your valuable time and have a look.

Nice one Apple ... not!

Now, let me start this by saying that I've been an Apple fan for a long time - in fact I worked with and for Apple over a number of years from 1987 to 2000. Apple do make some seriously cool products. While the school I work at is predominantly a Windows laptop environment I have an iMac at home and an iPod touch, and more recently have had this great little iPad to work on. 

I bought the iPad outside of the Apple channel in NZ as the device only went on the market in NZ today. 

And this is the source of my beef with Apple. You see, I registered with Apple for notifications about the iPad as soon as you could on the NZ store site. I did the same on the Apple Australia store. Two weeks before the iPad went on sale in Australia I got an email from them telling me I could order on line - except being in NZ they wouldn't ship. But at least I got an email!

But any info from the NZ website? Nope. Even after the news broke a few days ago that the iPad was to go on sale from today, nothing. In fact the Apple NZ store doesn't even have them listed as of today! Go figure that.

So - why the hell did they bother with the registration for notifications of the iPad? Just to annoy me? They probably succeeded. What do they intend to do with the database of emails they collected?

I guess I won't hold out any more hope to get an iPhone notification - they are due here end of next week, but I don't expect Apple will let anyone know.

Strange behavior for a company that is supposed to sell things.

 


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

"Tread Softly on My Dreams" - Sir Ken Robinson at TED 2010

He's back. Sir Ken Robinson spoke again at TED earlier this year. Entitled "Bring on the Learning Revolution" Sir Ken makes another passionate case for transformation of education systems - not just a reformation of them.
He talks of "dislocation",
He talks of "how do you innovate fundamentally?"
He talks of how we "are enthralled by the linearity in education" and how we take this for granted.
I recall hearing him speak at a conference on the conditions for growth to flourish in Death Valley in the US a few years ago. He makes this point again in this talk.
And he concludes with a very poignant quote from a Yeats poem - hence the title of this post.
Enjoy the 16 minutes.

iTunesU as a resource for schools

I guess I've always had a soft spot for Apple - they do make some of the coolest kit around. And so too, their software. Take iTunes for example. Sure - everyone uses it for music and maybe for iPod games, but increasingly it is serving as a resource for all manner of educational material for anyone to consume. A large number of universities have used iTunesU for some time now, but over recent years a growing number of K-12 institutes have added resources that you might find valuable.


According to Apple iTunesU is ..."The world’s smartest download.
Discover iTunes U and never stop learning. Download lectures, discussions, language lessons, audiobooks, podcasts and other opportunities for enlightenment — all from top universities, museums and other cultural institutions around the world. So whether you’re a college student or a student of life, learn for free with iTunesU.


This post just gives you the instructions to find some K-12 content and download it. Have a good look around - there is some good stuff here that you can use tomorrow,

Seadragon and Photosynth ...

OK - I've been a bit slack this year. This is my first post for a few months. Just otherwise occupied. But, after messing around for a while, I've started to try and refocus on tools that might make a difference to the user experience in the web space - a difference for educators and students. So, recalling some of the Photosynth and Seadragon tricks I'd seen a couple of years ago I've headed off to my Flickr account to see what damage I can do to some of my golf photos from Natadola last year. These photos are just standard ones shot with my Canon EOS digital SLR.


As you zoom around you'll see the incredible detail that Photosynth can bring to the experience. Now, to find some useful images from science ...the ability to zoom in to such detail on an image opens up a host of opportunity for visual learning.

I took a school owned Canon 560 camera to a classroom to trial some stitched photos just to see how the "full" Photosynth experience worked. Some worked as I expected, but the complete 360 classroom effect is not there ... more trials required.

In the meantime, here are some examples using Seadragon - you simply give the url of your image and Seadragon does the rest - so here's Luc at Kariotahi Beach late last year.

K-12 Online Conference 2009 Keynote

This online conference kicks off today with a keynote by Kim Coffino. Kim currently teaches at International School Bangkok and has been on the international school circuit for around 8 or 9 years. Her keynote Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education is a 39 minute scene setter. I've only listened to the first 14 minutes so far - the section on Culture Shock. But Kim has made a few points that I'd like to comment on.

Firstly, she makes the now well made connect that many of us (western teachers) live and breathe what we know. Our view of the world is heavily influenced by what I refer to as our own KER (knowledge, expertise and reputation). She points out that her eyes have been widened to the richness in other cultures only through the contact that her travels have permitted. (So I can see the connection coming that I'm sure she will make between the power of technology to connect students globally and the growing desire to make these connections by both students an teachers.)

Once Kim gets past the introduction she hits on a number of the issues - those of mobility, customisation, 24/7 always on, tradition and new co-existing, just in time delivery, flexibility, collaboration, adaptability. She uses the backdrop of everyday life in Asia to good effect to make her points. The metaphor of everyday life and how education should be part of this and not stand apart from it.

At one stage she alludes to iTuneU and other online course availability to allow students (and teachers) to develop personal learning networks. I've often referred over recent years to the "long tail" economics approach to K12 education - I firmly believe that Chris Anderson's concepts of long tail economics can and will apply to K12 education - and quite likely in the realm of private education first. (Memo to self - finish listening to Chris's book "Free" - there is a powerful message for education in the first message that Chris delivers about the Monty Python experience of "free" with their Youtube channel!)

OK - lots more to pick up I suspect in the rest of Kim's presentation. But for now - off to class!

Resizing a Jing cast to fit your blog

Editing a Jing screencast to fit a smaller window has been a bit of a challenge. But it can be done with no (or very little) HTML knowledge - just a little bit of mathematics. Here's how ...

I have set my screen capture for full (1280 x 770) resolution, but I want to play the resulting video here on my blog at half this size - this is the maths part. So, I want to replay it as a 640 x 385 pixel video. So - if I know where the 1280 x 770 code is in the embed code from Jing - I can simply overstrike them with the new values and they should work. I've done this in two stages - to show you the capture of the embed codes, and then in part II how to edit them. NOTE: that in the video I got my maths wrong! Half of 770 is 385, not 365! Hah! hard to find a good maths teacher these days.

Part I - Getting the Code.

Part II - Now that we have the cast up on Screencast.com you make the necessary changes to the embed code. Jing is seriously cool software for creating quick screencasts. It's a pain you have to do this to get it to play as part of another product (ie your blog or web site), but at least it works.

So, what is fundamental?

I'm at the stage of trying to reinvent our strategic and tactical planning at school - we need to move forward from where we are and have been for the last couple of years. While sorting out my research I found an article I wrote a couple of years ago and thought I'd share it here...(I wrote this before Seymour Papert has that terrible accident in Vietnam)

People laughed at Seymour Papert in the sixties when he talked about children using computers as instruments for learning and for enhancing creativity. The idea of an inexpensive personal computer was then science fiction. But Papert was conducting serious research in his capacity as a professor at MIT. This research led to many firsts. It was in his laboratory that children first had the chance to use the computer to write and to make graphics. Today Papert is considered the world's foremost expert on how technology can provide new ways to learn. He has carried out educational projects on every continent, some of them in remote villages in developing countries. He is a participant in developing the most influential cutting-edge opportunities for children to participate in the digital world.

In 2004, Papert addressed a conference in Sydney where he made the observation that too little time was spent in schools discussing “what constitutes fundamental?” By this he meant what is important to include in the learning opportunities that students are exposed to. He made reference to a key point – most of what is included in current curricula is the result of what can be written down in books. How relevant is this as we move at exponential pace into a world where writing on paper is not the main means of communication? Blogs, wikis, podcasts, email, social networking websites, instant messenger are all new modes of communication that no one had heard of a few years ago, let alone used. Today, sites like MySpace claim to be signing up 250,000 new users every day, and have over 200 million registered users. In addition to this, they claim that the average time spent by a user once logged in is around two hours.

A leading group of computer research scientists met in Washington, USA, in October 2006, to share their views on where they saw developments in technology moving over the coming years. In a summary of their meeting published in the New York Times and titled “Computing 2016: What Won’t be Possible”, the scientists shared their common view that the changes to science, the economy and to society that have occurred over recent years are minor compared to what will happen in the ten years ahead. Developments will impact on all areas in a far wider and deeper way than they have, and there will be significant social policy that needs to be addressed as a result of this.

This month (November), 250 delegates from 48 countries met at a conference held at Philadelphia's School of the Future, where all students have laptops, there are few books or pens, and teaching is done in multidisciplinary projects in which academic skills develop through work on real-world problems. "Education for most people doesn't promote creativity," said Sir Ken Robinson, a British educational consultant. "It actually stifles it." He cited research showing that 98% of children as young as 3 – 5 years showed divergent thinking, and that this dropped to only 10% of 15 year olds and 2% of 25 year olds.

There is a constant theme in each of these stories. Technology, in particular the personal computer, has brought unprecedented power to the user. Information is no longer the domain of books. The power of the press is no longer with the press. For the first time in history the access to information, and the ability to create and publish information, is with the individual.

We are at one of those points in history where fundamental change is taking place. Not just incremental change, but fundamental change.

Research from the USA (PEW Internet Group, 2005) is starting to show the preference for 8 – 18 year olds to get the information they want from an online source rather than in the traditional classroom or from their parents. They get information in a manner and a time frame that suits them. One reason for this is that irrespective of whether the learning style is visual, auditory or kinaesthetic, the individual can find something on the web to suit them. Technology is unique in this way – targeted carefully, it can reach any learner.

The implications and challenges to education are vast. None more so than at the “high stakes” testing we still engage in at the senior end of the school. We continue to assess knowledge in an unnatural time frame using anachronistic tools. The International Baccalaureate (IB) is currently trialing electronic assessment, and this is at least a step in the right direction. Internal (moderated) assessment is another step in the right direction, and both NCEA and IB have significant components of this. [ASIDE: it is not uncommon to hear questions regarding the use of technology in learning when assessment of learning is still carried out with pen and paper. There is no research that supports the premise that student achievement is diminished as the result of significant use of technology in the learning process. There is a growing body of research that supports the use of technology as an element in the improvement of student achievement in standardised testing. The UK is well ahead of New Zealand in the deployment of technology in state schools, and over recent years they have experienced significant increases in student achievement in all subject areas at GCSE and A level, despite their examination processes being even more formal than NZ.]

The New Zealand Digital Strategy states that “New Zealand will be a world leader in using information and technology to realise its economic, social, environmental and cultural goals, to the benefit of all its people.” (Ministry of Economic Development, 2005)

If we are to deliver on this objective at a macro (or micro) level, we have no choice but to deploy tools that will enable the student to successfully participate.

Creativity is a highly valued characteristic that employers seek in future employees according to a 2003 Victoria University study. Searches of the research literature into the use of technology in education frequently highlight creativity, problem solving and collaboration as key outcomes from successful use.

If Sir Ken Robinson is correct, if Seymour Papert is correct, and if the collective intellect of the top IT research scientists is correct then we have a duty to be pushing the boundaries of the “education system”.

We are at a place in time where change is occurring in an exponential manner. Change, by its very nature, threatens the status quo.

We must continue to ask ourselves “just what does constitute fundamental?”

It is a question that we will ask a lot more over the coming years. We are at the most exciting time in history.

A weekend away with 12 year olds - a learning experience

Number 1 son turned 12 yesterday. Now, in itself that's not a major for the planet - but for his mum and dad, well for us - pretty special. We ended up taking him and his 8 year old brother, plus two of his cousins, away for 24 hours in our motor home to Waingaro Springs where they have a pretty good water slide and where, in the middle of winter, not many people go. Great!

Josh had taken his Playstation along so that they had "something to do at night". I took along my iPod Touch to provide the music. The boys are usually not allowed to use my iPod, but being a birthday, well, I let them. What transpired was interesting. You see, I had downloaded a couple of free games and thought they'd be spending their time playing Star Wars Force Unleashed, or StuntCar or Waterslide etc etc. But what did they play?

Lemonade Tycoon - the iPod's version of Lemonade Stand. And did they play it for long? Well for two complete battery cycles! They loved it, were totally engaged. I asked Jord, our 8 year old, why he seemed to like it. "You need to use your mind" he replied. "But don't you need to use your mind on those other games too?" I replied. "No" was the response, "they're just games. In Lemonade Tycoon you need to make all sorts of decisions ..." he went on to tell me what he'd found out about how the game worked. His brother was just the same. "Well, you are in control of what happens" he said.

So, rather than play a pile of graphically awesome fantasy games, Lemonade Tycoon was their choice because they felt they were in control of what was happening.

So the lesson for me is quite clear - the choice of activity does not need to be the flashest looking - but it does need to give a sense of being involved - "to use your mind" as Jord said.

Next Horizon Project starts tomorrow

Going to start with Kate from Landco to help set the scene then run through this Slideshare deck with the students. This slideshow has two extra slides that I usually don't use with this age of student - I have tended to just draw these on the board as I go. Slides 3 and 4 show the growth of information over time - the exponential nature of slide 3 is usually enough to convince most people that something needs to change, and quickly, with respect to what we try and teach and how. But it is worth going back to the overall view of all of history - I've just used since 0 AD - the graph is startling - we go "vertical" with our change of volumes of information - or knowledge. Just how do we cope with this with a society at large that is often blissfully ignorant of just how significant these times are in the history of our planet.

Horizon Project 5

View more presentations from Rob Mccrae.

Great Resources for Educators I

There are a host of fantastic sites that provide useful information and support for teachers and learners in ICT. (After all, we are all learners these days). These are a couple of the places I look to for information on leading technologies and the impact they might have on education. I'll add others in later posts, because there are so many good sources, and they should be shared.Educause - although its mission is to promote "intelligent use of information technologies" in the higher education environment, it has a couple of projects that are really useful for those of us in the K-12 space.

First is the Horizon Report - 2009 saw the first K-12 Horizon Report, a report looking at 6 technologies likely to impact K-12 classrooms in the next 1 - 5 years. A joint production with the New Media Consortium, the annual Horizon Reports provide great insight for emerging technologies and what they might mean for teaching and learning. Indeed, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis have used them extensively for their Flat Classroom projects over the past few years.

The second cool offering from Educause is the "7 Things You Should Know" series. This series began back in 2005 and basically provides a concise 2 page report each month about some new technology. What makes this series a great resource is that they break each technology into simple language and discusses

• what it is
• how it works
• where it is going
• why it matters for teaching and learning

Recent additions include Twitter and Voicethread, but you'll find everything from QR codes to Second Life in a language that everyone can understand.

If you haven't used this site, I highly recommend it.

BECTA - This UK organisation is the government's agency leading the national drive to ensure effective and innovative use of ICT in learning. It has done some excellent work for a long time. It's emerging technologies for learning section draws together research, news, analysis and views around technologies for learning. It has a wide range of research papers and its Tech News section is always up to the minute with news, views and reviews.

Similar to the Educause "7 Things to Know" series, many of Becta's articles have some useful synopsis of just what the technologies are and how they might apply to education. This article on QR codes is an example.

More on Free

Just read this article from WIRED on Chris's new book FREE. There are 3 videos in the article - watch the second one first and if this one gets you thinking, then watch the other ones too ... in any event read the article.

We're on the verge of something big in education ... this is another piece starting to fall in to place for me ...

I also read Scott McLeod's post on the Florida Virtual School and 360Ed and the $ they have poured into an online game for students ... not free ... then I watch my 11 year old and his stop motion Lego Batman (used to be Lego Starwars and Indiana Jones) ... there is a huge array of this type of stuff on Youtube ... and piles of (to me, anyway) more useful stuff for an educator ... all free, though it costs me time to find it - still faster than creating it though.

Free - the future of education???

Now here is a cool tool ... PREZI

I first came across Prezi late last year when I saw a presentation created using it when it was beta. I applied for a beta account and heard nothing back from them, so it was with some surprise that I "refound" it today. But after playing with it for 30 minutes or so, I really like it and will be introducing staff and students to it in the near future. Here's my first effort - haven't found the embed capability yet (might not be there ... at least in the free version). Must check out the different options in the pay category.

Key Competencies

The Ministry of Education has launched a new web site dealing with the "key competencies" as outlined in our new curriculum documents. "Key competencies matter because things have changed" says the first line or so of the "Why are key competencies important". What I found interesting though was the short into video by Karen Sewell, our Secretary for Education. In this she alludes to many of the issues raised in the original (and many versions since) of Karl Fisch's "Shift Happens".

Why do I find this interesting? Well, I guess two apsects to this.

1) it gives credence to Karl's work and

2) if the Secretary of Education is making these noises, then maybe, just maybe, the messages are slowly getting through.

We are at the "mother of all inflexion points" that Tom Friedman talks about in his "The World is Flat". In Papert language, we are in the stages of fundamental change ... it's just that we don't often talk enough about just what constitutes fundamental as far as what we teach and what we learn.

Just in case anyone reads this and are not from NZ, the NZ key competencies are:

1. Thinking
2. Using language, symbols and text.

3. Managing self.

4. Relating to others.

5. Participating and contributing.

At first glance I like what the site is trying to do - provide information and support for teachers (and leaders) trying to implement the new curriculum, and build in the KC's to classroom activities. The following is a snap from the page exploring what the KCs might look like in teaching.

The highlight is mine - the teaching profession in our country is aging, and for a good number I wonder just how long it will take them to adopt these two "fundamental" changes in the classroom practice. Over the coming months we have the opportunity to really try and make a difference in education in our school and in NZ I suppose. I hope we are up to it.