2010 is going to be a big year for my school as it will be the last time the school is officially known as Boort Secondary College. By the final stages of first semester work will commence on a brand new school on our existing campus that will eventually house both the Primary and Secondary schools within our town. I personally am over the moon at the prospect of receiving an entirely new school that incorporates cutting edge designs and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
However, as you could imagine the new school, and the subsequent demolition of our existing school, is causing quite a lot of worry amongst some of our staff. In some cases, there expertise into their own teaching areas has been highly valuable, and has contributed towards healthy discussions about what would work best. However in recent meetings, I have grown frustrated with the utterly pointless conversation that is happening between the staff.
The basis for the conversation have been around the lack of storage space within the new school. In direct comparison the storage is around 50% of the capacity of the existing school. The argument from some of the older staff is that the new school will not be able to house all of the stuff we currently have and we will be forced to throw things out. Now while this is a major concern for some I really couldn’t care the slightest about something as trivial as the size of the cupboards or how many filing cabinets it can store.I especially couldnt care when the teaching resources the staff are holding onto have been around since the 50’s and havnt been used in a classroom since the 80’s.
I say this forced clearance of our school, will be a great opportunity to sort through the junk and keep the stuff that is actually worthwhile. Anyway so after one of the meetings I was asked by a senior member of the staff if I would have enough time to move my teaching resources from the existing school to the new school, if a wrecking ball was to come crashing down by weeks end. To her amazement I replied with… “ I wouldnt have to take anythying, as everything I’ve ever used in class or created is online for me to access from anywhere in the world”.
I’ve heard the saying that “Teachers don’t like change” but to be honest this has gotten to the point of being ridiculous. It’s time to move on…
So if anyone from my school is reading this, promise me one thing, that we will NOT talk about the size of the store rooms in future meetings, but use the time to talk about the reasons we cannot wait to enter the new school.
After presenting a session at the VITTA conference last month entitled ‘The Complete Guide to using QR Codes in Education’, Ive decided to finally film and blog a couple of the activities I had the participants complete.
The first is a ‘futuristic’ maths worksheet that contains QR Codes under each problem. Upon scanning the code a step by step tutorial is launched in Youtube explaining the process of solving the problem.The second activity is based around a life-sized model of a human heart. The heart is broken into major components and each of which has a unique number. Upon scanning the QR code that is associated to the number, a name of the component is revealed along with links to descriptions, Youtube videos and online tests.
To see it all in action, check out the video below.
If you are unsure of what QR Codes are then I encourage you to read through my previous posts surrounding their use within education or my presentation from the VITTA conference.
Today I stumbled across an amazing video on Youtube of an Eminem concert. Now your probably thinking, whats so amazing about that? Well the fact is that the concert was never been commercially filmed. So after a bit of investigation I soon found that the video I was suprised to be watching, had been spliced together by a very talented young kid. To put it as simple as possible, he basically searched Youtube for any videos of the concert that had been filmed using cell phones. In his searches he found videos from all angles, and points of view from all of the songs within the concert. He then downloaded them from Youtube and began to piece them all together in time with a CD Quality audio release of the concert. I think you will agree the final product is nothing short of incredible.
Proof that those tiny little devices we carry in our pockets, allow us to do amazing things. So why do we continue to deny students the opportunity to create original content with them?
So what does the ability to remix and recreate content mean for education? Could we have done something like this 3 year ago? What else could we not have done 3 years ago?
During November last year when my blog was in its infant stages, I decided to place it into a Wordle to see what the most common themes were throughout my posts. It was great to see that one of central words was indeed students and that my major interests in mobile phones and nintendo were prevalent.
So after a year of blogging and learning a million and one new things, I’ve decided to do the same thing again to see if there is a difference.
Overall a very interesting excercise to see how my thoughts have changed during the course of a year. Its also great to see that students remain at the root of my work. Finally it was interesting to note the changes in my interests throughout this year, with QR Codes and their use in education featuring quite high. Try it out for yourself by visiting http://wordle.net/create
It was about this time last year that I started blogging my experiences with using technology within my classes. It initially started out as more of a test exercise to learn how I could have my students blog, however after receiving my first comment it soon became very exciting and very rewarding to post. During these initial stages I learnt about RSS and began reading a variety of other blogs which I found to be simply superb.
Flash forward a year and its now time to nominate people for the 2009 edublog awards . My nominations are as follows;
Best individual blog – Betchablog - I find myself checking my RSS feed on a daily basis to read the new stuff that Chris posts. From tutorials through to his opinions, Chris does it with clarity, thoughtfulness and a passion to assist others in improving their use of technology in the classroom.
Best individual tweeter – thecleversheep- Initially I was unsure of how I could use Twitter effectively. However through reading it Rodd’s tweet I soon started to share my own experiences and my learning went through the roof. Now not a day goes by where Rodd isnt posting a mixture of educational goodies through his twitter stream.
Best resource sharing blog – The Clever Sheep - The first blog I ever really read and it is still my favourite blog when it comes to the sharing of interesting resources. A quick trip over to Rodd’s blog will result in me finding out lots of cool new tools or interesting ways in which to tackle a particular problem.
Today I attended a conference in Melbourne and as a result had to leave work for students to complete back at school. Usually this is a major effort and much harder than actually teaching the class, but I’ve decided to start utilising Youtube to make the teaching of lessons much easier when I’m away for both the replacement teacher and my students. So here’s the video from today.
So next time you have to leave your class, why not make a quick video explaining the session. The replacement teachers will certainly thankyou and I’m positive the students will think it’s pretty cool
Next week I will be presenting a session at the VITTA conference on QR codes and how they can be used in the classroom. This comes as quite timely given the recent announcement in the 2009 horizon report that mentions QR codes as a ‘technology to watch’. So in getting myself prepared for the presentation I have been filming some of the ideas I have had in the past around how they could be used in education.
One of the ideas I initially had was to use them on library books, or any books for that matter. The idea is simple,
Use a QR code generating website to create a code for the book.
Print out a copy of the Code
Attach the code to the book and return the book to its original location in the library
Imagine going to find a book, but rather than simply reading the blurb you could scan a code to reveal a youtube video with people explaining the book, a podcast of someone reading the book, a short text review or even a website that lists similar books. The possibilities are endless. Check out the video below for an idea of how I imagine this would actually work.
As my students are now very familiar with QR codes I have decided to integrate a very simple addition to my worksheets. To put it simply I have started inserting QR codes. Basically the QR code can be scanned to reveal extra information about the worksheet . For example a QR code could easily link to hidden text, a video on youtube, an automated SMS message, audio, pictures or any website you deem relevant to the worksheet. The best thing about it is the process of creating QR codes is very very simple making it all to easy to make your worksheets much more than a piece of paper. Here is how you do it.
When creating a worksheet, leave a spot for a QR Code
Enter your desired information into the template and select ‘generate’
The QR code will quickly be generated and you can then copy and paste the code onto your worksheets
At this point it is up to the students to scan the code, which will then link to the content you have entered into the QR code, which could indeed be anything you like. No matter what you decided to include within the QR code, this idea makes it all too easy for you to extend a worksheet far beyond what is nothing more than a boring piece of paper.
This video is simply excellent and certainly supports the notion that we will choose to do that which we find fun over that which is dull and boring anyday. Thankfully, this has always remained at the forefront of my mind when planning my lessons. So what do you think? Isn’t it so true?
As some of you may be aware I have finally purchased an iPhone and couldnt be happier. To put it simply they are simply amazing and certainly get me really excited about the future of mobile learning. Anyway I decided that I would try to avoid posting too much about its features given the fact that most people still don’t have one, however I couldnt pass up the opportunity to share my ideas about using it to create virtual tours. So here it is…
The idea uses the Run Keeper app which comes in both a free and pro version ($12.99 AUD). Run Keeper uses the iPhones GPS to enable users to track their outdoor activities and then have them displayed on a Google Map for review at a later stage. Not only is your path recorded but your distance, speed, pace and elevation are logged making for a powerful workout analysis. On completion your information is automatically sent to the Runkeeper website and can also be auto shared with social networks. Anyway the feature that becomes the most important element of my idea is the ability to take geotagged pictures during your activity which are referenced to the place at which they were taken.
For a more detailed explanation check out the screencast that will take you through all of the features and share a few ideas of how it could be used in classes outside of Phys Ed and Outdoor Ed.
Sound interesting? Check out the link to my tour of my town ‘Boort’, which includes some of the main attractions. Now we might not be at the stage where our students have iPhones, but there is no reason why schools couldnt invest in the technology. One iPhone would bring about endless possibilities with our students, including activities like this.
So what do you think? Could this be used in your classroom? How could you make a virtual tour? What would your virtual tour be about?
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