I’m Moving

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:35:47 +1000

If you have bookmarked this blog, or subscribed to the RSS feed, please note that I have moved my blog to http://andrewdouch.wordpress.com/

Please visit my blog now and re-bookmark it.

Cheers
Andrew

Ban the Biros!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:57:03 +1000

As most people are no doubt aware, the New York City Department of Education has this year banned students from bringing mobile phones to any government public school. That decision which was upheld by the Supreme Court last month. This has got me thinking a lot about the items that we ban our students from using. While the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) has not banned mobile phones (actually I think we are blessed to have a Department that by world standards promotes and fosters innovation), I have been to many schools lately that have bans of one sort or another on mobile phones, iPods, and even laptop computers!

I think there is mounting evidence that mobile phones, iPods, and other mobile learning devices have potential to be significant learning tools. In my own classes I am tinkering with mobile phones (too early yet for me to start blogging about) but in my class the iPod has become a central teaching and learning tool - as important, I’d argue, as a text book or biro.

I see a wonderful irony in the fact that many (most?) schools ban phones and iPods. Our profession revolves around the sharing of information, ideas and content. Mobile phones and iPods have become phenomenally popular among our students because they are very efficient and effective ways of sharing information, ideas and content. So how did we get to a point where we ban the very tools that pave the path to the destination we are ultimately trying to reach?

One reason that is often given is that students may use them inappropriately. That is a legitimate concern. There are lots of inappropriate things they might do with them. They might take inappropriate video and send it to YouTube, they might use it to bully other students. They might send text messages during valuable class time, or worse, their phone might ring during class and cause a disruption. They might get stolen. I don’t want to downplay those issues. They are real and important issues. But rather than ban the TOOLS, I’d like to see us address the ISSUES (more on this in future posts).

Students use biros inappropriately too! Some students make them into pea-shooters to fire spit balls , some students use them to write on each others arms and legs. Some students use them to write notes which they pass during valuable class time. They get stolen, too. But we don’t ban biros. Why not? Because we know that if we did we would be compromising our students’ ability to communicate their learning. Indeed we would be compromising our students’ learning itself. Is it possible we are doing the same thing by banning personal mobile electronic devices?

I don’t think the only issue is our fear of disruptions, or cyberbullying or inappropriate YouTube postings (as real as those issues are). I think it is that use of these tools does not fit with our current teaching practices. It’s easier to just ban them and pretend things are the way they used to be, than to change our pedagogy to take advantage of these new communication conduits.

If a teacher confiscates an iPod from a student who was eagerly listening to an educational podcast, claiming that the iPod was disrupting “their” classroom - who, do you think, is interrupting whom? Now, I am not advocating anarchy - or suggesting that teachers should not have control of their classrooms - but I am advocating for teachers to question the reasons why they say ‘I don’t want to see iPods or mobile phones in class’ and to ask - “What if....”

Virtual Guest Speakers

Thu, 1 May 2008 15:00:37 +1000

Imagine if you could bring a guest speaker into your classroom to discuss what your students are learning about... not just someone from the local community, but a luminary, a legend, a world class expert! Would someone like that be prepared to give up 10 minutes of their time to talk to your class? I decided to find out.

An Idea that occurred to me when i was at the Innovative Teachers Conference in Hanoi, in April... was that it is now theoretically possible to bring anyone into the classroom using skype or other, similar, freely available ICTs. The mind boggles. In the past it was such a rare treat to get a guest speaker into a classroom to discuss something that the class was studying. But that guest speaker was usually a parent, or someone from a local interest group (nothing wrong with that). But I would never have even dreamed of asking someone like Professor Peter Doherty - the Nobel Prize Winning immunologist come to speak to my class. But what if i could talk to him on skype, and have him talk to my class that way? Video conferencing has been around for years, but it was costly, clunky, and unreliable. But skype is free, simple to use, reliable and just works. So I did it! I called him up for an interview. He was only too happy to share his thoughts with my students. I asked him questions... some were mine, some were from students. Ohh it was great - and he was pleased to be part of it.

Imagine the possibilities of this! An English teacher could invite the very AUTHOR of the novel they are studying into the virtual classroom. A media class could have a chat with Steven Spielberg! A PE class could talk to Tiger Woods. A music class could talk to ... well there are so many to choose from - but not just someone from the local church choir! Paul McCartney! Madonna! It would take 5 minutes of these people’s time, but what an opportunity for students to engage with the world! My mind races... Would Barak Obama talk to a politics class?

One of the things I always ask myself when i am looking at adopting a teaching tool or pursuing an idea, is “will my investment of time and effort result in me being able to do something that I can’t do as effectively, any other way?” This can. This lets a teacher bring bring the absolute best of the best, as guest speakers into a classroom - no matter where they live in the world. Now come on... you have to admit your mind is welling up with possibilities too... It is, isn’t it?

Paving the ICT desire paths

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:35:39 +1100

A “desire path” is an unplanned path worn into being by people leaving the path provided by a landscape designer. There is a principle in landscape design that some people call ‘paving the desire path’. Instead of planning and laying paths and then expecting people to follow them, you watch people, to see where they actually go, and then pave those paths. Paved desire paths will be more successful - because you are simply making it easier for people to do what they want to do anyway.

I think a similar principle applies to using ICT tools in the classroom. With so many different tools at our disposal, how do we decide which ones to invest our time and PD resources on? We can spend a great deal of time and money on special equipment that can do some cool thing that seem like a good idea to US. Or we can watch and see what students are already doing, and pave those paths - using the technology they have already embraced and using it as an educational vehicle.

I have tried lots of different ICT tools with my students. I have an interactive whiteboard in my room, I have tried getting them to maintain their own blogs, I have used wikis, discussion boards, podcasts etc. etc. There are more new tools available than teachers have time to try! But some of these ‘take’ very easily. Others require me to nag and cajole to keep my students going with them.

That was my experience of blogs. I had all my students keep their own blog - it seemed like a good idea to me! But it was hard work keeping them on my planned path. I had to constantly remind students to write blog posts, and to read each others blogs and leave comments. If i stopped reminding/nagging they would stop posting.

Other technologies however, i don’t have to work hard AT ALL to keep my students on the path. In this list i would put podcasting, discussion boards, SMS and MSN. Once I find an effective way to make these tools a vehicle for genuine learning activities, they become very effective with minimal effort. Why? Because they are my students’ “desire paths”! My students have iPods and love using them. They use MSN chat habitually. They find discussion boards a natural way to communicate. So if I pave those paths - they become sustainable. There’s no need to nag my students to listen to my podcast! Many of them nag me if its been too long between episodes. There’s no need to cajole my students to log on to MSN... here I am - it is almost midnight as i am writing this and still there are three of my students online! earlier this evening there were about ten! There is no need to remind them to go to the discussion board - this long weekend there have been no less than 20 posts on the class discussion board!

I think using mobile phones and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pownce have the potential to be paved desire paths, too. At the moment I am particularly interested to explore the uses of mobile phones in an educational context. Now there’s a desire path! - but in most schools , mine at least, it has not yet even begun to be paved.

Something New I’ve Noticed about discussion boards

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:19:10 +1100

This week, it struck me that something new, and really quite remarkable has been happening in my classroom that I hadn’t clearly seen for what it was. I knew it was happening, of course, but its significance had escaped my attention. It was an unintended benefit of our discussion board.

One of the technologies that I have employed in the last few years that I think has been the most successful is a discussion board. I use the discussion board built into Windows SharePoint Services 3 which is the LMS that my school uses (because it is free to Victorian Government schools). It’s very powerful. It gives me absolute control over access privileges and has an RSS feed.

All students at our school have access to the discussion board. They can use it to ask questions about biology, or to comment on the things they like or dislike about class, to make requests for class activities or topics, ask questions about upcoming SACs (assessment tasks) etc.

I have seen so many advantages of using a discussion board that it’s hard to know where to begin. But here’s a list of advantages that spring to mind:

• It allows students to ask questions when they think of them, at any time of day or night, whereas otherwise they would have to make a mental note to come and see me at lunchtime, or to remember to ask during the next class (and possibly forget).
• When a student has been studying at night, and doesn’t understand something, rather than going to bed with negative thoughts in her head, she can write a question on the discussion board. Even if that question is not answered immediately, at least it has been asked and she knows that she can stop thinking about it for the time being.
• When a student asks a question about an assessment task, it is much fairer if the question is asked and answered on the discussion board, than in private. That way every student has access to the same information.
• If I forget to mention something in class, or want to make a general announcement to the class, I can write it on the discussion board and (as long as all students read the discussion board daily) I know they have all been informed.
• If students are away sick, they don’t miss out on important information.
• It allows class to continue - even through the holidays. (over Christmas there was barely a day when no-one posted a comment or question).
• Because the discussion board is open to all students at the school, it helps to break down the “us” Vs “them” mentality as it encourages sharing between members of parallel classes and their teachers.
• It provides students with a constant source of questions (asked by other students) that they can have a go at answering. In this way they are able to teach each other. Since experts tell us that we remember things best when we teach others, this is a very effective way for students to consolidate their own learning.

But that brings me to the new advantage that I realised this week ...

• Students who have graduated, can act as virtual tutors for current students. This morning I visited the discussion board and saw some questions posted by my students as usual, but the answers were provided by a past student who was in my class last year. This was not the first time. In fact that student has been answering questions on the discussion board all year... it had just never quite dawned on me how special that is.

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As teachers, we always try to encourage a life-long love of learning, we hope that when our students leave our class, that they will continue to be interested in the things we have taught them... but a discussion board provides a convenient vehicle for them to do that in a meaningful and personal way. She is not the only student like this. There are other past students too, who still visit the discussion board and leave occasional comments. One who graduated more than 12 months ago - now enrolled at university, still visits regularly. I’m sure it’s not just a one-off thing but something that will continue in future years. In fact just this morning I was talking to one of my current students about the involvement of past students on the discussion board, and her remark was:

“It’s so cool! - I hope to be like that too next year”.

How wonderful it is that students want to contribute to the learning of other students, sharing the knowledge and wisdom they have acquired. This is what we have always wanted isn’t it? - students whose incentive for participation in class is not the assessment ahead of them, but the joy they have found in sharing their knowledge with others.