Well, here I am... back for another shot at this school 2.0 malarkey! sorry for not posting for so long! but lets hope I can make up for it over the next while.
I watched Ewan McIntosh's New Zealand presentation yesterday, and I must say it was genius. The main reason being his use of the technology he's talking about during the presentation... see if you can spot it yourself. There are numerous occasions during the presentation where he manages to quickly switch from the slides to simply demonstrate or back up his point by simply clicking on a bookmark or typing in a web address. I'm sure anyone who has seen the presentation will agree that it worked well, it kept the audience interested while involving them more with the points he was trying to make. And probably the best thing about it is, it's not difficult to do.
Lets switch to the classroom for a minute... now, you've got a teacher, standing at the front of, say a maths class with 20 students, and the teacher is trying to introduce them to algebra. Of course, the best way to do this is to walk them through an example on the board. Afterwards, he/she turns and asks the class if they understand it. You've then got a few who grasped it well first time, the majority who seem to have followed it, but a fair few who can't quite understand. Now, believe it or not the teacher has a choice. They can either choose the old "tried and tested" method of simply taking a different example and going through the exact same process as before, describing it in the exact same way and hoping that by this time it sinks in. Or, they could take a step back and try something a little bit different, after all, the computer sitting at every teachers desk isn't just for word documents, spreadsheets and powerpoints. It is these types of situations where a quick search on youtube for a little video might be useful, you can even bookmark it for later. Or why not hit google and find a little interactive game to play with the kids for 5 minutes. It's things like this that can sometimes make a big difference, for the main reason that it's setting a whole new perspective on this maths equation. It's still the same idea, it still relates back to what was written on that board, but it isn't just repetition of the explanation, it catches the pupils off guard in a sense, gets them involved, makes them more interested, and why? All because a teacher has just used a youtube video or a game as part of their lesson. It takes technologies that school pupils are already aware of, and are actively using and puts them into a completely new situation for them, making it relate more to them and sometimes making it that little bit easier for them to understand and follow.
Sean
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8 comments:
Sean, youtube is full of fantastic videos for teaching languages. You are missing the point. Youtube is blocked.
E Forbes
I'll make a point. I AM a teacher who does this, all the time. In fact, when we learn something really cool, I say, "Let's record that screencast and upload to youtube."
The point is that it SHOULDN'T be blocked. These tools should be made available to teachers everywhere so that they can use them. Teaching should be a little spontaneous. I will say, however, it is important to prescreen videos, however I do use such videos all the time in my classroom.
It just makes things more relevant.
You have really got the whole point of bringing in these new technologies into education. I work as an ICT teacher in Wellington, New Zealand and many of the teachers I work with haven't quite got the vision that you have and that is something we are aiming for. Your comments in the earlier blog post about sustaining interest in these tools and people using them outside of school hours really hit the nail on the head as well. The teachers I work with will often set up wikis or blogs but won't carry this work on in their own time, again because they haven't quite 'got it' yet. I may have to point some of them in the direction of this blog!
Thanks for the comments,
I agree with you Mrs Forbes, it's all fine and well as long as these tools are not blocked or disowned, but part of the argument us school 2.0 bloggers have is just that. We are campaigning in a sense to bring these tools forward, and get them used. Although a lot of the time it may seem like our message is aimed at teachers it is in fact mainly aimed a lot higher up the food chain.
I know that there is a great upset with everyone about the Perth and Kinross content keeper, in fact I'm surprised they give us the internet at all considering the small list of sites that remain unblocked. However, there are a lot of schools out there that have a more liberal content blocker and can actually use these tools... and how lucky they are. But for us at Perth Academy, we just have to sit tight and hope that this "campaign" gets through.
Sean
Hello Sean
What a fantastic blog! I wished you were a student, pupil in my class ... And why not? Welcome to our learning blog (experimental) The Sausage Machine and starting wikis!
Yes, I'm a teacher (languages Dutch and German, in a secondary school in Flanders, Belgium) and my pulils are of the same age as you: 15-16-17-18. Some of them are beginning to blog, you can find them at WordPress: lepofo, huntersofdoom, midnight4, and at ruttietje.bravejournal.com.
I read about you in Ewan MacIntosh's recent blogpost and I'm very pleased to meet you here. I want to teach 'a little spontaneous' (vicki a. davis). I believe in 'technology enhanced learning' (Wilfred Rubens in the Netherlands). I think: secondary school has to go 2.0 NOW (I have the feeling it's almost too late ...) by blogging, wikiing, ... In my humble opinion it's a very beautiful, rapid, democratic, pleasant and emancipating way of learning in connection and collaboration.
Congratulations and good luck!
janien (The Sausage Machine)
Sean it must be your worst nightmare having teachers invade your blog.
I enjoyed Ewan's keynote speech in Auckland and his presentation opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities.
I teach at Green Bay High School in Auckland. From Glasgow originally and liked Perthshire. Camped regularly on a campsite in Aberfeldy when I was a lad.
Teachers are often burdened with a whole heap of administrative dross. It's difficult to be creative or learn new skills when you are under continual time pressures. Mostly web 2.0 will free us up from the tyranny (not sure of the spelling without a checker)of preparing lessons and making resources.
Without the technology I would probably have got out of teaching several years back.Much more fun in the classroom when you can pull down resources at a keystroke and check out how Rangers are doing in Europe before school starts.
I enjoyed reading you blog and look forward to the next installment.
Sean, like John West I know you hate having so many teachers responding to your blog...but your perspective of teachers and technology is so insightful. I used to be a teacher in South Carolina and now work for our school district teaching teachers how to integrate technology into the classroom. Reading Ewan McIntosh's blog lead me to yours. It is so timely. I will in fact be training teachers this Monday about blogs. I plan to add your blog to my presentation. Please keep writing...one person like you can change the views of other teachers around the world. (Isn't it amazing how technology works! Keep it up.
thank you for all your comments, they are very much appreciated.
I must say though, getting comments from teachers on my blog doesn't bother me, it's good to see that my opinion is valued.
Thanks
Sean
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