ejourney with technokids

 With my students…..

• experimented with live blogging and www.coveritlive.com with the year 9/10 students (thanks to Jess McCulloch for her help) This was in preparation for our live blogging linkup with CT, USA on Friday. Also had a trial run with CT
• Friday……the BIG ONE!-the big highlight of the week. Linked to CT, USA using live blogging. Our yackpack link was blocked as was the live video of Mr PBogush, our highly skilled virtual teacher but  the live blogging worked. Students loved the live blogging, collaboration and learning outcomes (See post)
• As a result of the popularity of this session, I recieved a delightful email from one of his students, the next day, asking us whether we can do it again soon.
• Grade 6 class blog is now up and running.
• Still working on our camp in a sentence with year 7.
• Grade 4/5 students received (much to their delight) another wonderful parcel of letters, a book on Canada and a new webkinz - a white polar bear called Diamond from their friends in Canada. We got to know this class through our cross posting blog on webkinz pets.

• attended an elluminate session, on Wed night,  on the flat horizons project that my students and I will be involved in for global peer reviewing.
• Commenced reflecting on the huge, educational possibilites that live blogging could be used for.
• stood back in amazementand awe, in our live blogging session with CT and the sheer virtual ability of Paul Bogush, in disciplining, teaching and helping all his remote students.
• applied for an emerging technologies grant, throught the Victorian Education Department, to create a flat classroom
• ordered a flip video from USA through Australian ebay (Cannot wait until it comes!!!)

Student blog of the week …goes to a lad in grade 5. Congratulations jimmyg on the number of posts you have presented, both requested and voluntary ones. The images you have used adds to the overall presentation. Keep up the great work!

Favourite post of the week…..

Educating students to be more effective presenters (and teachers as well) My students still enjoy working with MS Powerpoint for its ease and simplicity of use. I liked this post for its suggestions on using it more effectively.

Hmmm….. The warts will show up big time, this week!

Student Achievements

…the warts

•  One of our most prolific bloggers in grade 6, accidentally (I still dont know how) deleted his blog
• logged in to the http://ms1001tales.wikispaces.com site to only find that another of our grade 6 boys had managed to edit the ‘gorgeous’ front page and put his personal photo and  ‘about me’ page on there. Horror of all horrors!!! A quick ‘edit this page’ deleted his ‘about me’ page, but I quickly emailed Jeff Whipple to ask him to restore the original front page. It is now as it was!!! Whew!
• attempted the impossible with grade 4 and 5 students and failed miserably, despite having the help of  two year 9 students and a student teacher. Tried to finally enrol remaining students onto the 1001tales wiki, asked them to place comments on to the Thai student blogs and required a post of them. One boy ended up under the table!!! And it seemed as though out of this class of 28, I had 20 students hot on my heels requesting help. The wiki enrolments were fraught with problems too. Next week, will be a much simpler task. Groan!!!! Not such digital natives after all!!
• Anzac day public holiday, a strike half day and a teacher professional learning day, meant I missed my 9/10 classes and the posts for collaboration nation will have to wait until next week.

…..and all

• year 8s were successful in commenting on student posts from Costa Rica, and again I heard squeals of excitement from students when they got their first comment back
• year 7 students were settled into their blog tasks, which allowed me to commence their ‘camp in a sentence’ into a voicethread. Will finish next week, and each student will embed the VT into their blog post.
• Grade 6s wrote a post on Anzac Day
• Heather Blakey managed to rescue the deleted blog!! Thanks a heap Heather.

Personal achievements

• Jess and I used Thursday as a TPL (Teacher Professional Leave Day) to reflect on our accomplishments at laying the eplanks in a virtual classroom floor and to plan our future directions. Added to our wiki on eplanks re our achievements. Discussed how we could get more staff on board web2.0, and proceeded to interview a secondary English teacher and podcast her opinions and comments, and then enrolled her for a blog, much to her excitement. All steps taken will be podcast and available soon.
• worked with some individual primary school staff helping them with blogging mechanics
• ‘Walk in walk out Wed’ = first session. Two staff attended but we worked together on their needs (email problems, music grabbing for network use etc), and placed work on our intranet. A very productive session!
• enrolled for the after school online session with Marcus Torres in May. (He is visiting Australia)
• took part in the online session with Oz/NZ teachers using flashmeeting.

Student blog of the week

• Goes to teddaoo, a year 8 student, who has worked so hard at establishing a social network. She has made so many comments on other global student blogs, and the red dots are finally appearing on her cluster map! She has also completed all tasks that have been set her.

• Have not attempted my google reader so my favourite blog post of the week will have to wait

Happy Birthday to classroom2.0! Cr2.0 is 12 months old today (well, actually, yesterday as the USA is a day behind us.) To celebrate, we held a party at elluminate with Steve Hargadon, its founder and someone whom I stand in awe of, for his hardworking contributions to the global web2.0 community.

What has this got to do with web2.0?……Well, nearly everything for me. In July, 2007, I joined classroom2.0 wondering what web2.0 was really all about. It was at this site that I made global contacts, friends, joined in discusions and forums, became a member of various groups of interest and participated in global projects etc . I learned so much about the web2.0 tools and their possible application in an educational environment.

To be able to embrace web2.0, educationalists do not necessarily need to be taught the skills, but need to make social networks where they can find people of like interests to further their understanding, learning of, application of and sharing of these tools. Connectedness is the key.

Tips for starting off with web2.0

1. Join active mailing lists for teachers. Many of these lists now have messages, requests, advice for web2.0 use.  Connect with those people.
2. Browse around people’s blogs. Check out their blogrolls to see whose blogs they like to read.
3. Connect with these people byadding or inserting comments on their posts, with questions if needbe. Most are happy to reply back to you and connectedness begins.
4. Best of all, for me, was joining ning groups of like minds especially www.classroom20.com but others  include www.projectsbyjen.ning.com and www.onlineproj4teachers.ning.com (for global projects), www.passionateteachers.ning.com (run by a committedd Indian maths teacher), www.education.ning.com and www.vidsnacks.ning.com (for digital videomaking)
5. Join in a global project. This is a great starting point and 2 ning groups are mentioned above or do a search for global projects.
6. Commence a social bookmarking acount with diggio, delicious etc. Networks can be created using this means.
7. If you teach in Victoria, join www.globalteacher.org.au and register your students for globalstudents. Heather Blakey has been one fabulous mentor to me and helped me through the blogging maze and introduced me to both experienced educational and non educational bloggers.
8. Commence blogging and join wikis. Let your friends know you have started blogging. Eventually, people will find you and comment, so make sure you categorise and tag your posts. Always reply to comments as this establishes another wonderful network.
9. Attend online pds. This another wonderful connecting tool as like minded people are also part of this environment.
10. Twitter - another recommendation high on the list where microblogging exists  in 140 characters gives advice, discussions and lots of sharing.

Be prepared to work actively and fervently to establish a network. The rewards and dividends are high.

 With great interest, I read a blog post by a USA administrator concerning the need to introduce teachers to social networking rather than showing them ‘how to use web tools’. These social networks are then the main sandpit where skills can be shared, taught and new tools compared. This made me reflect on the networks that I have used and am using, their role and  part they have played in my use and acceptance of the emerging technologies. On the same day I received a comment from Rash Kath, one of my e-colleagues who commented on my posting re my 10 new year resolutions and she encouraged me to share with my colleagues and keep this paramount for 2008.

Australian Mailing Lists

• Yr12 IT Apps The first and still one of my most important networks. A Victorian teachers mailing list that allows teachers to share resources, assessment materials, advice and moral support when teaching year 12 IT. It is a branch of www.edulists.com.au, another great subject or interests list.
• http://lists.rite.ed.qut.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/oz-teachers a mailing list created for Australian teachers (many of the enquiries on using software tools have been of value to me.)

Global networks

• www.classroom20.com This fabulous site has forums, discussion groups etc on a ning based website. It is a must and was the real impetus to me successfully web 2.0 due to the networking presence.  Found many friends here to work with on collaborative projects.
• www.education.ning.com A result of classroom20.com for those interested in working on ning sites for educational purposes.
• http://del.icio.us  An online social bookmarking site. I have established a network of people to follow. Allows me to see what they are bookmarking and keep up with some of the latest additions to web 2.0
• www.twitter.com  This is the latest one that I have joined, and possibly my most time consuming one (if I should allow it) and yet , maybe my most valuable one. Twitter has become increasingly popular as a website where short tweets (messages) of no more than 150 words are posted online to be read by other people on twitter. A network is established by  following people and than having others follow you. Hopefully the following match the followers so that real collaborative teamwork can proceed and engaging conversations maintained.  Websites, blog postings, general advice and just plain banter are shared. Comments can be acted upon immediately. My tweeter colleagues have provided me with a caring sharing community and introduced me to many important contacts, educational pedagogy and web 2.0 references.
• http://curriculum.globalteacher.org.au/  Magic Garden Project Has led me further into cyberspace, starting with Australian global teachers and then onto meeting others who are not teachers but experienced bloggers, digital artists, poets etc.
• edtechtalk Is an online radio type program produced in the USA where discussions of all thing web 2.0 and emerging technologies take place.

I firmly believe that social networking will be the key to success in using the emerging technologies and to encourage more and more educational staff to come on board the web 2.0 journey.