Inspire, Innovate, Gary Stager

Last week I attended the 2012 ICT Inspire Innovate : Think Digit@lly,Teach Cre@tively & Transform Ped@gogy Conference (boy what a mouthful). This was run by the Department of Education -South Western Sydney Region. A huge range of workshops and provocative keynote speakers. It was a credit to the organisers. 

The aspect that really got my attention was the keynote speaker - Gary Stager. I hadn’t come across Gary before but had vaguely heard of some of his work. An American, who worked with a number of educational bodies worldwide. He had initial helped set up Australia’s first one on one laptop program in Melbourne in the early nineties. From the opening comments - this guy had me hooked. 

How - why did this guy appeal to me ? 
First of all he had a rounded view of education. Quite often technology driven educators start with the technology and the technology is the main aspect of their theory. Gary had a more rounded and inclusive view of education. The computer was just a tool (an essential  and powerful tool - yes - but just a tool) to bring about meaningful learning. He started from a platform of what he called “The Best Ideas in the World”. This combined a number of theories (some of them - nothing to do with technology) - such as Reggio Emilia , El Sistema, One Laptop, Big Picture, 826 Valenca etc. He came across as - what I call a “Humanist” educator. By this I mean an educator driven by the thought process. Generally emphasising  literature, poetry, arts, maths and Science. Generally considered old fashion education that has nothing to do with the “job” or “business” or short non-thinking type courses that education seems to heading towards. “If we teach them to think - how is that going to get them a job or give them a specific skill ?” As far as I can see - we can NEVER teach them what they need for a job. The present generation will have have 15 different jobs and will work at jobs that haven’t been invented. 
So what can we give them ? The ability to think, organise, adapt, resilience, create and a love of learning. 

I recently read the Steve Jobs biography and one of the things that hit me about him was that he was this sort of thinker. He wanted his objects to be as beautiful on the inside as out. He wasn’t just a computer geek (in fact he wasn’t one at all really) but had an interest in the artistic side of life as well. 

Gary Stager was quite a provocative speaker. A lot of what he said would challenge a lot of people. But he also made no apologies regarding his views. To give him credit - I think he has seen enough different educational settings, over a range of years to be able to make some conclusions about certain pushes in education. He was an advocate of “project based learning” - but projects had to be meaningful. He meant to the students. He was critical of the Apple approach to Challenge Based Learning. How many 10 year olds would really be interested in,  or relate to  “How can we make our city water supply better ?” The project had to be student based - not something grand and airy-fairy.

The best example I can think of is, recently my wife was in charge of her school’s Harmony Day activities (Harmony Day is a national push each year in Australia - to try and highlight inclusiveness and celebration of our cultural diversity). For weeks leading up to it the Stage 3 (10-12 yr olds) students and her ESL students  planned, organised and prepared for the day. They wrote and presented speeches, made posters, collected and practised games, organised the school in multi-aged groups. When the day arrived - it was totally student run. Students gave speeches, ran games and activities for the younger students, supervised and organised. The sense of achievement and pride of what they had done would last with them for life. It did involve some technology - but was a natural aspect - which required a purpose. Project based learning that was relative to them. This was the main point Gary Stager was making. Projects make memories. 

Gary was also against National Curriculum’s. It narrowed education. A National Curriculum  has been advocated for a number of years in Australia and will come to fruition in the next couple. 

He had many interesting comments to make regarding the one on one laptop program 20 years on. A few findings I found surprising.

* He emphasised that the creativity was in the software. The computers had to contain multimedia software that would enable the students to create - not an emphasis on network and wifi. He wasn’t a fan of ipads. To him - they were more a  consumer device than a creative device. 

* Laptops had to be given to all cohorts at once. Not a half grade here and half a grade there. One grade all got them - the other grade waited.

* Laptops had to be personal - therefore go home with students. He claimed that costs actually go down - because there is less  maintenance when the students control them.

* He found that a lot of IT departments and Educational bodies based their approach on control. How could they control the students and their equipment. This approach really had nothing to do with education.

* There is zero benefit in giving laptops to teachers first. This one surprised me - as I have been pushing to have laptops issued to the teachers. I thought if they had ownership it may encourage them to do more. Not according to Gary. His research found that they made a good teacher better, a great teacher greater and a bad teacher worse.

At the end of Gary’s presentation I was hungry for more. I noticed he was presenting a workshop just after the keynote - so instead of going off to my alloted workshop I stayed to hear more. 

You can read about more of his work at 

http://stager.org/

iBooks, Textbooks, iBooks Author and Education.

Apple have come along and changed the game again. I must admit I was quite excited about the announcement today regarding the education aspect of what they are doing - for a number of reasons.

Firstly - I was pleased to see a commitment to Education by Apple. For many years Apple seemed to be embedded in Education and the creative side of computing (with Windows taking care of corporate and personal). That seemed to all change with the introduction of the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Suddenly their focus was personal items. Your iPhone, your iPad - if you can use it in the corporate or educational world - fantastic - let us know how you are doing it ? From day one, educators saw the potential of the iPad in education - but were more or less left to their own devices on how to utilise, deploy and administer them. Australia, for example is still waiting to obtain educational licensing for apps. I thought that todays announcement singled a return to at least some interest in education.

Secondly. To me the real power of the iPad was not going to be fully realised until teachers were able to construct their own apps or have a direct say in the materials that they wanted their students to use. Yes, you could construct your own apps but the skill needed was beyond most peoples ability and patience. Plus the waiting to see if it would be approved by apple.
Enter "iBook Author". This little gem will allow anybody to construct their own course material, with a minimum of fuss and deliver it directly to their students. My understanding at this stage is that you can construct your own ibook and put it through the ibook store (with apple's approval) or simply deploy it directly to any iPad under your administration. This has to be the biggest break through for educators since the iPad was introduced. iBook Author i is a "Pages" type program that allows you to construct your own ibooks including video, audio, interactive media, keynotes etc. It has the same layout as Pages - therefore is very easy for anyone familiar with iWorks to operate. Just what we have been waiting for. I also wonder if it is going to be the introduction of a new iWorks (iWorks 2012 ) ? It even has a preview - which allows you to link to your iPad or iPhone to see what the end product will look like. After trying to construct ePubs through Pages 09 - this is a very welcome feature. You need to use iBooks Author on a mac running Lion. There has been some early criticism over having to run it on a mac and the end result being only usable on the iPad (not Android) - but hey - what do you expect Apple to do !

Thirdly, related to number two, having actual book companies coming on board to construct actual text books that will be usable in the education environment. Most companies see this as a good thing and are willing to invest the time and resources into producing quality, usable texts. This was something I expected when the iPad was first released , but never really happened. It does seem that now this will finally get under way. Quite a number of publishing houses have come on board and hopefully the number will grow.

The next aspect that excited me - was that of iTunes U . I had been an extensive user of iTunes U but it always seemed like it was buried away and not often updated. I was pleased to see it now has it's own app for the iPad. It stores any podcasts you have downloaded. This elevates it's profile - therefore I will assume a lot more material will start to appear - and relative to other countries outside of the United States.

All in all an exciting day for educators. While the bulk of the population will wonder "where is the new iPad?' or "what are the new specs of the new mac pro?" - educators will be excited about todays releases (at least I am). New iBook app ; iTunes U app ; publishers on board for text book publication and iBook Author program for mac - to construct your own interactive ibook material.

Let's now see how the year pans out.

Evernote and Skitch (about workflows again ?)

One topic that always intruiges me is the aspect of peoples "work flow". There seems to be an incredible amount of variation - what someones says is a very effective and efficient workflow - can be someones else's "hours spent experimenting to achieve the same result as they were doing before". There is a lot to be said for sticking to one method or program and utilising it fully. 

I have recently been through my own elipical journey - only to arrive back at my starting point. 

I have tried many programs and apps that would allow me to work seamlessly between work computer, home laptop and ipad and across different systems - Windows and Apple. After trying many I keep coming back to Evernote.
I originally tried it. Didn't really get into it. Came back to it at various times. Tried other apps. Came back to it again. 

My latest arrival back to it made me think - "if I want to do something quickly and have it available across all platforms - this is the one I keep coming back to!" It does notes, audio, checklists, web links, adds files (of any sort) and across all platforms. In fact I am typing this on it now - because I know later I will want to finish it (or add to it ) working on my ipad. In other words - a work flow that works for me. I had mentioned about Evernote in this blog before http://woodbutchersguide.blogspot.com/2011/04/some-older-things-revisited.html but had been going in and out of it at various times. But I have found the more I use it, the more handy I find it. 

The other program I have found extremely handy on a mac is one called Skitch. This was originally an independent program but got taken over by Evernote. I had also mentioned this one earlier. http://woodbutchersguide.blogspot.com/2011/04/skitch-another-old-one-revisited.html#links.  I had used this one extensively doing screen shots for people - making notes or explanations. A very handy and again, very quick (I really don't want to spend a long time getting to learn a program).
The exciting news is , that the people from Skitch (or Evernote) have now made an app for the ipad. Free and links in with Evernote. So it enhances your workflow with Evernote.

As you can see - you can do most of the things you could do with the full program - shapes, text, arrows or lines, writing and then link it to Evernote or email it.

I must admit - I like things that make my time more efficient and this fits the bill.


If you haven't given Evernote and Skitch a try, I suggest you do. You may be like me and find they are very handy and useable. 

Touch, Voice, Sight - is smell next ? Google App for iPad.

It is quite interesting the "rivalry " between Google and Apple. Amusing for us users because the more they compete with each other the more benefit we consumers gain. Many of us think of "Google" as a search engine. I even have a friend who refers to looking something up as - why not use "the google" as if it is a noun. Others, of course, know Google as the maker of a wide range of very useful apps.
I came across one recently that I hadn't noticed before (in fact I'm not sure whether it was just released or whether I hadn't noticed it before). It was one I downloaded for my iPad but it is also available for iPhone,  (I also believe there is a version for Android). The app is simply called "Google Search".  This little app has quite a number of handy features.

When the app first opens you get the normal looking Google search bar . But down below there are three interesting connections. I'll start in the middle first. The yellow circle - Voice Search.Activate this and a microphone appears. Say a word or phrase for what you are searching and a second or two later a list of web sites appear. Very nifty.








The red one on the left "Applications". This brings up a page of Google apps - gmail, google docs, Youtube, calendar etc. Most people have a gmail and probably some goggle docs - so it is handy to have these connections come up on the one interface. Although I must admit I don't care for their calendar app here - much prefer iCal or even the web interface for Google calendar.

The third one , the blue one, goggles, is the exciting one. Click on this and your camera comes up. Take a photo of a well known landmark, book cover, bottle of wine, artwork, text, and it comes up with a listing of websites, photos, information and so on. It's early days yet and it's fairly limited to what it will find but it really takes the aspect of the visual search that one step further on.

Like the aspect of touch that was introduced to our computing use (iPads, smartphones etc) - the voice and visual aspect is the next game changer. That is what Goggle is trying to incorporate here - and reasonably successfully. These new but subtle changes have a habit of creeping in and by the time we turn around twice everybody is using them and they are a normal aspect of their computing/communication. I am amazed how underrated the the introduction of Siri is with the new iPhone. I personally find this little feature is going to be the big change maker in the next couple of years - but at the moment most people just yawn and go "big deal - so what - it doesn't even work that well". But I think they underrate the potential of what is happening. Time will tell.

FlipSnack and Edmodo

I have been trying to sort out aspects that might be useful for my teaching next term. Two things that I came across that I feel will be very useful.  One is a sight called "FlipSnack". These guys can convert your pdf files into flip books. I think this would be extremely interesting for students to publish their stories or booklets in a different form.  Here is the link: http://www.flipsnack.com/.  An example of the flip book is given below. If you find it takes over your whole screen - just hit the escape button to bring it back.

The other aspect that has me quite excited (and I want to check out fully) is "Edmodo". This is an extremely interesting social education network. It can be set up for class or school use.  It is a place where you post student assignments, homework, discussions - including any form of media. You can have students post their assignments to the site as well as give them grades and feed back. It is all secure. You can set up class or subject groups. Well worth a look.  I have been looking around for alternatives for my class web site. I maintained a iWeb class web site and blog this year - but with the demise of iWeb with Lion - I thought I would scrap it next year. Therefore - either back to Google sites or something different. Edmodo looks like it could be an exciting and viable option. Check it out.
http://www.edmodo.com/home

To Lion or not to Lion - that is the question !

I recently had to incorporate a number of new laptops into our bank. With the demise of the Macbook (of which I was never a BIG fan) the decision had to made to what we would purchase. The macbook is still available for education but it is technology that is a few years old (and obviously on the way out). The choices were the Air or Macbook Pro. To fit into the educational price range (at least for our budget) it would have to be the 11" Air. This isn't much bigger than the iPad ( but a dearer price) and the 13" Air was going out of our budget. The decision was to go with the base model MBP 13".  I felt fairly happy about this as I feel that the MBP is a much sturdier product than the MacBook and will live up to the riggers of multiple users. Also a 13" laptop fitted the needs of the present Stage 3 classes. They will be using the iPads as well but I'll explain that in a future blog. The major decision was to be "What operating system ?" All of our computers run Snow Leopard and we also have a Mac mini server that runs Snow Leopard. Although they will come with Lion will we bring them back to Snow Leopard or keep the existing ?

I decided to see how Lion fitted in. I had a few weeks before they needed to be fully integrated so I started with one. I had ordered a couple of teacher units with 8G of Ram and set one of these up as a trial unit. My first impressions were rather reserved. I thought that most of the changes were cosmetic - therefore no real reason not to back date them to Snow Leopard. But the more I used it - the more I found and the more I liked. Everyone finds things they like and dislike that are different to popular opinion. I was no different.

The two major aspects , Launch Pad and Mission Control, I rather dismissed at first. Until I started to use them a little more effectively. Launch Pad, which looks like an iPad or iPhone, I decided was a fairly quick way of students finding the programs you want them to use (and tucking away the ones you don't - such as the App store). You can make folders - therefore have all the programs that a particular class uses often (say a Year 5 folder with Google Earth, Sketchup, Scratch etc).  Mission Control would help the students find where they were and what they had open.  The scrolling for different desktops is great. You could have one desktop with Safari open, one with Pages and one with a PDF of your lesson notes. Very handy!
Preview has also been revamped and made more useful. You can do a lot more editing in it. The aspect of "full screen" view - I was at first rather cynical - but I find I use it a lot. If you are working on a 13" screen, to easily go from full screen to showing toolbars is a God send. Even the "backwards" scrolling I found no issue with. I go from a Lion machine to a SL machine and I haven't found a need to change the scrolling direction. The changes in Mail and iCal, which the critics all raved about, I find rather ho-hum. Students won't really use them in my set up. I am yet to road run Airdrop, but I am thinking this could be very handy for distributing files to students as well as students sharing work with each other. All in all, Lion  - a winner - therefore stay with it.

My next dilemma  - can I clone Lion and have the machines boot off the server ? With Snow Leopard my work was minimised by being able to ghost an image , with all the programs and settings I wanted, putting it on the server, and then having a laptop boot from the server. This meant that if a computer had an issue (other than hardware) I would have it boot off the server and re-image the machine. This was quicker and more effecient than spending hours trying to find out what little, niggle issue, was causing issues.  What I had done in the past was to use Carbon Copy Clone. At first I cloned an image to a portable hard drive and set the laptops on this. When we got our mini mac server - I put that image on the server. Because Lion has a recovery partition I wasn't sure it would be straight forward.
Here's where I ran into difficulties! I tried CCC, making an image and then putting it on the server. When I booted up the new machines - they couldn't find the server. Hours were spent trying to figure this one out. I   also tried booting off the portable hard drive - it still couldn't see the image ! Frustration - as I've stated earlier - I am a wood butcher - therefore have no real knowledge of these matters. Ironically - I attended an iPad  presentation, where an Apple engineer was present. I asked him about my problems. He said that I would need a Lion server to deploy a Lion image. Ok - one issue solved. But why wouldn't my Lion machines see the image off a portable Hard Drive ?

I did a lot of reading off the net and trials. I ended up trying "Super Duper".  This worked ! I managed to clone a Lion machine (with all programs and settings) to a Hard Drive. I then used this image to boot a number of MBP's . Then loading the image to the HD. Success !
As far as using Lion on my network - I have found no issues. It picks up the network printers, I have linked the student home drives from our windows server , as well as their folders from the mac server. It manages to pick up everything that the Snow Leopard machines could.
I can see and control them through Apple Remote Desktop which helps immensely. I can update them and send packages. I may upgrade the server to Lion at a future date (certainly expense is not a factor) but will hold off for the moment. It will be to my advantage because I can administer the SL machines as well as Lion (which is going to be any new machines) as well as the iPads. But, to save myself the learning curve (I am just getting a handle on SL server) and to make sure there are no hic ups (after all - it is only version one)
Bottom line - upgrade to Lion ? Yeah , why not ?

Ah - are we too old to learn ? I don't think so ! Marco Torres and Beyond Chalk.

The last week have been extremely stimulating and has lifted my spirits in regards to education and the use of technology. Notice that I wrote "education" first. Gone are the days tinkering for technology for technology sake.THe modern approach is " I want to do such and such - what tools can assist me ? " Not " How am I going to make technology fit into the task I have to do ?" This is certainly not the thinking of students today. This was exemplified by an example I heard today, which was reflected within my own family. On two occasions my son was bought a wristwatch by well intentioned relatives.  They both have never been worn. He has always used his phone to tell the time. Today I heard a similar story of a young lady who gave  her niece a wristwatch - only to be asked "What else does it do?" Kids today - or should I say - reality today.

Last week I went to a very stimulating presentation by Marco Torres, a LA educationist, film producer, and keynote speaker at numerous International Technology and Education Conferences. It was a day of stimulating thought and discussion. He was a man who appears to be one of the people who initiated  the Apple “Challenge Based Learning” (have a look at the Apple Educational website). He also produced a number of the “Myth Busters” TV series and the show is based on the Challenge Based Learning concept. When you look at the show you certainly see two guys learning ( not two guys teaching). Many of the aspects he spoke about are too involved to go into here - but as a brief summary these are some of the points that struck a cord with me. 

He spoke about people who have a passion for what they do. One thing they all had in common - they had a hobby ! He had made a study over a number of occupations and the most successful and passionate people were the ones who had an outside interest. They were able to make associations or connections with their interests and their jobs. He found the same for the teaching profession. If you want to be a remarkable teacher - get a hobby!

He also gave many examples of students who were not overly academic - but had drive and passion. The ones who were curious and endeavored to take things one step further. Really - the mode of which we should be teaching. The approach of the modern learner is  “ Learn, Create, Share”. We should be accommodating this style - not fighting against it because its not the way we have always done things. 

If I had to sum up two brief aspects I got out of his talk it would have to be “Teach Curiosity “.  Fits very comfortably with the concept of “teaching for life long learning”. When it all boils down - it is the main skill we can give kids in this every changing, turbulent world. 

The second was “Solve and issue and tell a story”.  His web site is rather chaotic but worth a look. Also if you get a chance to hear him speak or attend his workshops - I highly recommend it. His web site is http://torres21.squarespace.com/

The second workshop I went to was of a more practical, hands on style. It was presented by “Beyond Chalk” - a group I have had dealings with before. This was more about “you want to use the technology for your students - here’s how”. Beyond Chalk are a group who use young, enthusiastic and knowledgeable presenters - no easy task considering the aging teacher population (in Australia at least). I always come away from these sessions invigorated, enthused and more knowledgable. Tori, the young lady presenting took us through various aspects of working with the mac platform to help and enhance our students learning. Very practical, student focussed and a spurt of student focussed enthusiasm. I always come away impressed and invigorated.  

http://www.beyondchalk.com/

If you get a chance to attend any of their workshops - if you keep an open mind, - you will certainly get something out of it.

Ah - it's good to be stimulated and invigorated !