Ideas for Mobile Technologies

At the end of November I presented a session at the VITTA (Victoria Information Technology Teachers Association) Conference on how I had used mobile technologies (iPods and phones) with my Year 8 class. I showed what I did for my project and talked about a few other things, then I got the people in my session to have a go at making an audio or video recording on their phones and bluetoothing it to me. I wanted them to record any ideas they had for how they might use mobile phones in their classrooms. This is what they sent:



(The guy in the first video is Jarrod Robinson who has done quite a bit of stuff with phones. It’s definitely worth checking out his blog – P.E Geek)

Facebook Me

This post has already been written on Twitblogs – a little app that allows you to post to longer messages, photos and videos to Twitter. It would be great if it had a cross-posting feature!

I just read an article about how social media is becoming the new inbox for the web. Check it out here. A couple of the things the author mentions that I highlighted were:
*that ‘Facebook Me’ is being used like ‘Google it’ and instead of email addresses people are exchanging social media information. Don’t worry about asking for someone’s phone number, just ask them if they are on Facebook.
*Social media is more effective than emails as it allows for more fluid conversation and if you can read status updates like ‘I got a new job’ or ’saw X movie last night and thought it was fantastic’ then there is no need for emails to be filling up inboxes.

The most important part of this article for me was the last bit where the author, Erik Qualman, states that even though consumers do not want to communicate via piles of emails, many businesses have not caught on to this. It just made me wonder what we are missing in education. How do our students WANT to be communicated with? What are we really missing? Would we be able to reach them more effectively if we communicated with them through their favoured social media outlets (as well as f2f) ? I suspect we could.

How I’ve Missed You All

After what has been possibly the busiest year of my life, I have finally got some time to sit down, write and read. This semester started as per usual, and I was out and about on a few PDs – which usually means trips to Melbourne, three and a half hours away. Then, I went to China for 6 weeks with 20 kids which was fantastic but exhausting, and since returning from then I literally have not stopped. I’ve presented several times which means prep work, and I’ve been in Melbourne every weekend apart from the last two (my husband is in Melbourne which is one of the reasons I’m moving back there in a week!), and so have spent 7-8 hours per weekend travelling. Then there was reports, and all that other stuff that needs to be done. No wonder I was walking around like a Zombie these past couple of weeks, and the kids were not getting much sympathy for “Mrs McCulloch, Tom’s got my ruler.” “Mrs McCulloch, James looked at me mean and made me upset.”I write this not to whinge (though that helps a bit), or to seek sympathy, but to make the point that there is something I really feel like I have missed out on with all this busy-ness – connecting with my Personal Learning Network (PLN).

Until last night, I could not remember the last time I left a comment on someone’s blog, let along read a full post in my reader. Now I have and I am starting to get a sense of a few things that I’ve missed out on – mainly just the conversations. I really enjoy reading blogs and writing comments. I really enjoy having conversations on Twitter. I’m connecting with real people and real ideas – just as valid, and I’d say more so in many senses, than an official organised PD session. So, I have decided that next year my PLN and the Edublogosphere are most certainly going to be more of a priority when it comes to Professional Learning. I will think twice before signing up to go to a PD but will not think twice about delving in to read a few good blog posts and take part in a few good conversations. I’ll keept track of the things I do and claim it officially as the PD time I need to clock up to maintain my registration. I learn more from my online PLN than I do from most ‘live’ sessions I go to. A mix is good, but I know what my priority will be.

So, here I am again – please let me know the main things I have missed. What has been your favourite conversation over the past three months or so? What have been your favourite new discoveries as far as tools go? Any tips, tricks, and links would be greatly appreciated :-)

P.S The photo was taken when I took myself out to dinner to finish (start!) my reports recently. I was getting too distracted at home by the thought of sleeping, so I had to get out and do something about it. Pasta and wine was the way to go!

I’m A Mechanic Apparently

He he, found this little website via a link on Twitter – run your blog through Typealyzer and it will tell you what sort of blog writer you are. The note at the top does say “writing style on a blog may have little or nothing to do with a person´s self-percieved personality.”

The text say: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Race cars and firefighting! Who’d've thunk it?!

Convincing The Kids

I wrote recently about a project I did with iPods, mobile phones and Year 8. It wasn’t an entirely successful venture, but not a complete failure either. My main aim was to engage Year 8 more with their Chinese language learning, and I don’t think that happened. They liked using the iPods and phones, but that didn’t get them to create any more or any better quality work. This has really made me think about what I’m doing and why.

It is becoming a bit of a cliche, but I’ll say it anyway – the technology is only a tool. We really need to be thinking much more deeply about the quality of the content we are working on with the kids. The content is paramount to motivation and no matter how fun the technology is, the kids will still get bored if they aren’t interested in the content. Introducing technology will not magically engage kids – well, it might for the first couple of classes, but the novelty will wear off and they will see through it all!

I have found that students still want lots of teacher direction, but they are still very quick to criticise when something is boring. Sometimes that is a bit confusing as to what they really want, and I have had the impression from a couple of my classes this year that no matter what is put in front of them, or what they get to choose, they still aren’t going to be interested. Admittedly, the two classes I have in mind have not only been difficult for me, but other teachers as well. Our Year 7 class has turned their noses up at many things – complaining about having to do Voicethreads and big deal about a video conference with Manila. A few of them even asked their English if they should be learning how to read and write more!

I think the big thing for me to realise is that it is not only the staff who often need to be ‘convinced’ that this technology is great and can have huge impact on our students, but the kids need to be shown explicitly what the benefits are for them too.