small steps

Is this a fair indication of what the PDHPE syllabus stands for? I think it does quite a nice job.

While I think the core messages need to be about the pedagogy as opposed to the tools, I thought I would put together a few of the tools that I think would be of most benefit teachers who are just starting out on their digital journey.

1. delicious (or other social bookmarking tool) – a simple way to share and find web based resources with others. Create networks and subscribe to key words so you collect everything from the web that you want without having to go looking for it. Here are my PDHPE links as an example.

2. google reader (or other RSS tool) – have the web come to you. Instead of returning to quality sites to see if they have changed, get them to send you all of their new stuff with an RSS feed. Can collect from blogs, wikis & webpages that displat the little RSS symbol (and any other pages with ‘add to rss’ or similar).

3. pbworks (or other wiki platform) – wiki’s are a great way to collaborate with others and a simple way to create interactive webpages. Yr 12 PDHPE Wiki and 9 PASS wiki as examples.

4. google docs – I could really separate each document as they all have great features but again, the ability for more than one person to interact on the one document has some great potential benefits. The spreadsheets application is one of my favourites as it can be used to create online surveys that are automatically entered into a spreadsheet. Great for surveying students and creating quizzes. The word document is useful for faculty programming and group tasks.

5. Wordpress (or other blogging platform) – great tool for webpage creation, reflective writing, publishing and sharing student work amongst other things. Example of Yr 7 PDHPE and Sport Coaching Blog used with students. Lots of great PDHPE blogs around if you have a look about!!

6. Google calendar – keep organised and productive with google calendar. Send free sms or email reminders for events and organise your work and personal life.

7. slideshare – loads of great powerpoints and resources here and a great place to share and store student presentations. Ability to embed them into your own blogs and wikis to showcase student works.

8. youtube/teacher tube – lots of great resources here and the potential to post up the work of students to add to your wiki or webpages. You can keep them private if required and have a place to store your video’s online.

9. Twitter – while I rarely ‘tweet’ myself I do come across a lot of resources from the people I follow who seemed to have slowed down on the blog posts and amped up the twittering.

10. google search – I almost don’t consider it a tool because I use it so regularly and it is such a natural part of using the internet. Can’t go past it though.

Lots of others I could easily slot in but all of the above deserve their place (for the time being!).

I am getting more and more excited about the digital education revolution that is happening in NSW DET Schools, and not just for the great opportunity I see this providing for students. I think part of its greatest potential is all of the reflection on learning that will occur amongst teachers over the next few years.

Conversations have already well and truly started and will continue as teachers grapple with a new aspect to teaching and learning. I am sure it will encourage many with its great potential but also trouble others who have difficulty with, or resist its use for a wide variety of reasons. It is the conversations that will come about because of this that I see have such great potential. Teachers will be forced to re examine their practices and think about the ways we currently do things and whether there are better ways of doing them. I am sure that initially there will be people who strongly oppose the laptops, and those who are strong campaigners for them and to me this will be healthy for the debates that will arise over how, when and why laptops can be effective learning tools.

A lot of these conversations will take place in spaces where others will have access to them and while they may be locked down behind DET walls, DET teachers will (should) all have the opportunity to take part in these conversations. In the past these may have taken place in faculty rooms, network meetings or executive areas, but they were largely constrained to the people and spaces in which they took place. We now have the means for these to take place in online spaces which can be shared and accessed anytime, anywhere with internet access. To me this is powerful and will help us as teachers develop and reflect on current practices, which will hopefully benefit students in all of our classes.

The ICTEV conference is being held down in Melbourne today and I have just checked out Jarrod Robinson’s presentation on using mobile phones in the classroom. He is doing lots of innovative things around implementing ICT in the classroom and his afternoon session on his use of the nintendo wii in his classes is also a great program with lots of potential.

I also stumbled across this great little video made by year 6 students on mobile phones and I can see this would be a great little activity we could do in PDHPE. It is based on the video “mankind is no island” which was the winner of tropfest NY in 2008.

Find more videos like this on What’s Next?
 
There are lots of areas in PDHPE you could have students create a similar style video and it is an activity I think would engage students and get them thinking deeply about an issue to try and construct their movie.

My classes have greatly enjoyed using google docs as a way to share information and complete class activities and I have just read a post by Jarrod Robinson who completed this activity in a similar way. He has taken a screencast of the activity and this provides a great visual as to the way the google spreadsheet works.

Essentially, using google spreadsheets allows all students to input their data simultaneously and the graph will update live. It is interesting to see the data turned into something meaningful in real time and this in turn is quite motivating for the students. I have used a ‘google form’ to enter the data also but this does not allow for the instant updating of the graph so I prefer to enter straight into the spreadsheet.

If you have not already come across Jarrod’s blog I recommend having a look around as there is lots of great stuff over there and his post will provide further insight into how you can run the activity.

I recently put together some of the important data from the 2008 AIHW report that is regularly used in PDHPE into a google presentation. I did this to use in class and also so it can be uploaded to our wiki. I like google docs because if I decide to add anything to the presentation then I do not have to worry about re uploading it anywhere as it will be automatically updated everywhere it is embedded. Just another little benefit of google presentations.

The digital education revolution strategy announced by the federal government aims to put laptops into the hands of all Australian students over the next 6 years.

This presents a wonderful opportunity for students and teachers and will take some pretty intensive and well delivered PD to teachers to make it work well. I think this presents a great opportunity for PDHPE teachers and some centralised planning and development could make it all work much more effectively.

My ideas would revolve around a few key areas.

Professional development of staff is the key – (I think the teacher becomes more critical for effective teaching and learning with technology invovled).
1. Face to face & online professional development courses to help teachers understand the range of technology and tools available and how it can be used in the classroom. This could be module based with online learning for specific tools such as blogging, wiki’s, podcasting/vodcasting etc and resources to assist with implementing these in the classroom. The online courses should be accredited and contribute to the institute of teachers and be allocated release time for the teachers involved.

2. A range of competitions organised and funded by the educational authorities to encourage teachers and students to participate in using these tools and help ensure they are used in powerful ways. Well thought through learning actvities could be developed by the educational authorities, with student work being shared amongst all participants. Students could also play a role in evaluating the entries and participating in peer assessment beyond their own school.

3. A common place to share and publish student work so students can see what is happening in other schools and learn from other students. An example may be a youtube style channel for students to publish health commercials or videos made in class, or flickr style space for images/posters etc to be shared. These should all be tied together at a central webspace/wiki (see next point).

4. All of these spaces should be tied together in one place where students can go to access other students work samples and where teachers can go to access teaching activities and resources to assist implementing these activities into the classroom.

The digital education revolution allows a lot of the learning for both teachers and students to take place online. I would think it essential that the early PD and initiatives allow for success and provides activities and learning that is motivating and engaging for teachers and students, has a low skill requirement and is easily accessible for all.

Underpinning the success of the whole program will be the bandwidth available in schools. With cheap computers with minimal processing power (update – looks like the DET schools will be working with quite a powerful machine that looks pretty handy allround – scratch the initial comment), cloud computing apps will be critical and without bandwidth these become almost useless also.

An internet connected laptop is by far the most powerful learning tool to students have ever had access to and I think will change the nature of teaching and learning in schools over the next 10-20 years. A move away from recalling content to students creating, collaborating and constructing their knowledge in more practical and powerful ways.

Online Quizzes (click here for access to the quizzes and results sheets)

I had an idea recently to develop an online quiz that would mark itself for my skeletal system and muscle system quizzes. We quiz the students a lot for these rote learning style areas and while I still think the idea is great, in having used it there were a number of problems in implementing.

1. To be self marking you have to enter the correct answer/s into the formula in google docs and with anatomical terms there are a million ways the students find to spell each body part. Unless they enter one of the pre entered spellings then they get the answer incorrect when they actually may know the body part. This means you really need to double check the answers anyway. This would not be such a problem in other areas I don’t think, and could be a good way to improve literacy skills.

2. Embedding the form and the images on the page is a little tricky. This took longer than I thought and if you have more than a few answers to enter and can be difficult to present this in a user friendly way. For my muscles quiz students had to open the answers form in a seperate window and resize both windows to be able to see the both at the same time. This is another step to explain and teach and a small barrier to use.

3. Students can view there results if you let them which is good for instant feedback but you need to go in and copy down the formula to add them up. This means the test is not marked until you go in and update the formula. The answers can be added into the top cell of the spreadsheet so students can compare to the correct answers which still provides instant feedback also and makes them check to see which ones they got wrong.

I randomly modified an activity in class the other day to get students to post their answers into a google spreadsheet that all students could simultaneously access and modify. (I have posted a live view of a brief section of the students adding their data). This was initially going to be completed as a table in their workbooks.

The task involved students researching a certain food and looking for both positive and negative information about the specific food. They then had to express their opinion on what place that food should take in a balanced diet.

I thought overall the activity was worthwhile and provided some interesting moments. The students overall seemed to enjoy sharing their information in this way and were very engaged throughout. They researched swiftly to be able to enter something into the spreadsheet and found it useful not to have to write it all out but to be able to read the other area that people had completed.

Then came the fun and games – one student posted a question ‘what is soy?’ to try and clarify what soy actually is, and this seemed to open the flood gates into random postings. This question in itself was great and it was good that a students was able to ask a question in this forum to be clarified. A few short minutes later though students were posting all sorts of random comments into the spreadsheet and I ended up locking them out as it stopped being productive and we had enough information to being with our next task. 

Did the random postings begin because they had finished their work and were passing time or is this the way they are used to using such technologies and forums?? I am keen to try something similar again to see the way the activity develops and see if the tool proves a benefit or distraction and look at some ways to ensure learning remains the focus of the activity.

took this screenshot with jing – great little screen capturing tool!

The 1:1 initiative by the government provides an opportunity for classes to connect and share as has never before been available or possible. How can we best use this opportunity?

While the government initiative is to be applauded and presents wonderful opportunities, teachers will be largely left with minimal to no training in how to best utilise these tools to assist students and engage them in their learning.

Is the government hoping they will be used to assist and improve on what is currently happening in schools or is there a hope that this will lead towards a whole new pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. When their whole schooling comes down to a high pressure examination how much scope is there to utilise the laptops for exciting and challenging projects that students can engage with, particularly in year 11 & 12?

Just stumbled on a few new applications that are pretty cool.

1. kickyoutube – great way to convert and download youtube videos.

2. wakoopa – way to track how long you spend online and what you are doing online.

3. jing – a free screen capture tool that seems pretty awesome at first look and play!! For both mac and P.C.

Always good to be able to play around with a few new things in the holidays!!

It is an early call as I have only just stumbled over it, but I think I have a new favourite presentation program (over powerpoint, slideshare, sliderocket). The “Google presentation” program allows viewers of the presentation to interact with the presenter and other viewers as the presentation is going on. Their is a panel on the right hand side of the presentation where viewers can discuss what is happening and ask questions of the presenter. I am keen to try this one out with one of my classes and see how they take to it and if it helps some of the quieter students ask questions and become part of the conversation.

I have started a presentation on Web 2.0 tools for PDHPE to test it out. Not finished yet but will keep updating it as I go.

I have said before that I think the commentary that our students (Digital natives) are all technology experts and teachers are all ‘digital immigrants’ who are behind the students and will struggle to catch up are gross generalisations. From my experience students are definitely more willing to experiment with computer based technologies and will ‘play around’ until they figure it out. Teachers who are uncomfortable with technology from my observations seem uncomfortable with this idea of playing around and learning by mistakes and doing things on computers and think that they are going to ‘wreck’ something and use this as a reason to avoid using technology.

To me this seems to be a key difference between the two groups. Even though most students may be adept at using technology, being able to use it for educational reasons is not generally a strong point and I think there is a lot that we as teachers can add to their ICT usage to help them harness the power of the technology they use. A glaring example here is their use of social networking sites and online safety. Go search through a few of your students facebook/myspace/bebo etc profiles and you will learn a lot about them that you may not want to know and more importantly they probably don’t want you to know. A lot of students don’t seem to realise that what they post on their site is available to ‘everyone’ that they need to think carefully about the online profile they are developing.

The wiki that has been built for this years HSC PDHPE class has just started getting a real workout from not only students from Magdalene, but also other schools around the state. (I monitor the site using a tool called ‘sitemeter‘ that tells me who is visiting and the town/city they are from. This provides some good feedback on how worthwhile the project has been and whether it is useful and worth pursuing). 

One of the more contentious aspects I have recently added to the wiki is the summary notes for each of the Cores and Options that we do. 

I read about a teacher a while back who was getting exceptional results with his HSC chemistry class year after year and one of the strategies that he outlined as important was giving the students his summary notes for the course and having students improve them. This to me is effective as it provides the crucial information in a simple and structured manner and allows students a base of quality information to work from.

Some may argue that this is almost cheating and you are doing all the work for the students. I would argue that as a teacher our job is to provide high quality information to our students for them to have the best chance of doing well. Especially in the HSC which is a high pressure, high stakes exam I see it as our responsibility to provide simple, structured, quality information to our students. Just as a text books provides information so do the summary notes. 

The other part Iike about the summary notes is that it encourages students to critique the information presented as it has not been verified as the textbooks have and I make it very clear to students to expect mistakes in the summary notes and to try and improve them and add accuracy to the information. This teaches students to be critical of the information they receive and to validate it from other reliable sources.

The HSC Online forums have been running recently and I see them as being a really valuable resource for students. Students can ask questions and get answers from experts in the field. Even if students do not have questions, reading through others questions and the answers posted is a great way to reinforce their knowledge and understanding. Students can also attempt to answer the question themselves which is a great way to apply their knowledge.

My only fault with the service is that the time it runs for is very limited and the posts are withdrawn almost immediately after the closing of the forum. I think there is benefit in leaving the forum available to be read right up to the HSC, even if students can no longer post. Obviously the forums cannot run indefinitely as the time required to moderate is unfeasable for the teachers and educators who do so.

The www.boredofstudies.org website fills a gap in some ways here as they provide a forum and study notes/resources that students share. The forum is maintained by students so there are some risks here in the accuracy of the information but for the best part I have found the students to be close to the mark. The study notes are also a great resource for students and while I can see a lot of teachers and educators might disagree, I think they are great for students to use, critique and add to their own notes as a way of preparing for the HSC.