This week there has been a fair bit of talk about Wordles. What this website does is take a bunch of words, or body of text and create word clouds using all the words. The more frequently the word is used the larger it is in the cloud.
Sue from Tassie wrote about Wordle in her blog, Ms. W and her SmartBoard and ended with the question - “How could doing this help you when studying for an exam or test?”
I was intrigued so I hopped on to Wordle and created my own word cloud. I chose to use my Delicious tags to create my Wordle cloud so that I could see at a glance my most popular bookmark tags. I was able to edit my Wordle by choosing alternate colour schemes, different fonts, and layout.
As I played around with the different layouts and colours, I began to think about Sue’s question.
As teachers we are often trying to give our students strategies and tools to Visualise their Thinking. I can see how Wordles could help students -
When I first began teaching in the 1980s as a graduate, the people I would turn to for support would be my fellow teachers and my leadership team. They knew everything I needed to know about what to teach and how to teach it. Or so it seemed.
At times, depending on budget allocations, I could go off to a PD to hear what was happening with Literacy or with new technologies. This information sat with me until I was ready to use it or would be buried within my mind with all the chores that were more pressing at the time.
In 2008 this would no longer be enough for me and wonder if it is enough for others. Admittedly I am not a graduate teacher anymore but still feel that there is a wealth of new knowledge and experiences, especially in the area of ICT out there that I cannot ignore. So would my immediate colleagues be able to support my desire to learn and grow now?
In the last 8 months my life as a teacher and learner has changed somewhat to include a new online Professional Learning Network (PLN). A network that is growing and fluid enough to accommodate my wonderings and discoveries, my shifts in mindset and my whims.
As a result of joining these online communities and developing them into my own PLNs, I have been on a huge learning curve and also a journey that I have some say, in how and when I learn. I am able to self regulate my professional growth and can share my reflections along the way through the same networks that support me. This blog helps me to process and document my journey.
Recently I met up with, what I choose to call, my new Learning Partners. These were educators who I had met online through Twitter and our respective blogs, through Diigo and more recently Second Life. It was wonderful to meet them in real life, but know they are just a tweet away in my PLN.
This is a photo taken recently at the ICTEV 2008 Conference, on Saturday May 24th. Jo McLeay, Tony Richards and Jess McCulloch are enjoying an ‘unconference’ in the sun. Without my online PLN I would not have known these educators, nor would I have been able to share and learn with them.
Earlier this month Sue Tapp organised our first Bloggers Feast in Melbourne. We had a wonderful time. You can hear and read about it here -
I don’t know why I have taken so long to explore Second Life. It has been over a year since I first heard about it. I have read people’s blogs, joined groups on Classroom 2.o but not actually gone in to investigate further.
Well, in the last 24 hours I have mustered up the courage to delve into a whole new virtual world that is exciting and fresh and offers huge potential for interaction and learning.
To begin with I needed to download the application (about 72mb) and then had to register with a user name and a password. I used my own first name but needed to choose another second name - I became Helen Moonite. Pretty cool sounding name I think!My next step was to choose an avatar that I could later modify.
Upon entering Second Life I was run through a series of tutorials that help you to communicate, travel, and modify appearance. In this area I was supported by other newbies who were just one step ahead of me.
Today I went into Jokaydia, a region created by Jo Kay from Wollongong. Here a number of OZ/NZ educators met the night before. Unfortunately I was late in last night so decided to go and explore tonight. I found a few twitter friends there, including barbs1, Laurenogrady, heymilly, efreeman and jokay. Jokay was amazingly helpful to the newbies and made you feel very comfortable even after the many mishaps that can happen when you are still learning to walk, fly and even get dressed.
This is a screen shot of me as Helen Moonite standing in front of the Edublogs sign.
As I said the possibilities for learning and interacting are many and in the next few weeks I will explore these further. Please feel to add how you use Second Life in your educational setting.
Last night Lucy Gray sent out a tweet on Twitter about Google Apps for Education. As I went on to explore her link I came across some resources that I thought would be really helpful for some of the schools I am working with. As a teacher I have often seen kids heading off to look for information on the Internet only to find that they have come away with nothing more than a few snippets.
Whilst working with a team of secondary teachers I realised that this is not just a primary school issue. When I explored Google Apps for Education there was a link that took me to a great set of Google search tip posters. These are a great resource to have in classrooms or labs as visual prompts to help students make the most of their searches.
This is a photo taken on April 16th at the Dimboola Memorial Secondary College. DMSC put on a great 2 day conference to highlight their work with the Leading Schools Fund with the focus on technology in the classroom. Dimboola teachers were passionate about the use of their Interactive Whiteboards and had them set up in just about every classroom.
Here is a snapshot of how the IWBs were used -
Modelling lessons
Interactive quizzes
Manipulating data
Shared writing
Reflective dialogues
Student presentations
Podcasts
Videos
Skype sessions with students from other schools
Deputy Prime Minisiter Julia Gillard was there to acknowledge their wonderful work and was available for questions, chat and photos after her speech.
“Hullo. I am Angelica. I am 5 years old. I really don’t have much of a past. In fact, I am the future.”
If we were to teach not only for today but also for tomorrow, what should we be teaching our students. Hedley Beare raises this question in his story about Angelica, a fictional 5 year old sitting in your classroom.
Today we asked teachers what they believed to be the most important 21st Century Skills were for our students. These were some of the comments -
Flexibility
Communication
Empathy
Global Awareness
Learning how to learn
I have set up a VoiceThread below and would love for you to add your comment.
Where are you now? Oh, I see you. On the couch reading. Feet up. Using your laptop with a small snack by your side. Lights low. Music going, telly in the background. Did I just see you get up to get a drink?
With Information and Communication Technology (ICT) becoming more prominent in classrooms since I was in school (and most parents of our students these days) the physical layout has had to change somewhat to accommodate computers. In my experience I have seen a variety of ways that teachers and administrators have decided to arrange the technology in the classroom.
When I returned to teaching in 2000, computers were neatly positioned at the side of the classroom and students would sit facing the wall to do their work independently as part of rotations.
Then as a school we moved to positioning the computers at each table cluster. There was normally 4 table clusters in a room. This meant the students would have a computer at their table without having to leave. They often worked in pairs or in groups.
In my last classroom in this school I was lucky enough to be part of the pilot for laptops in a classroom. We had four laptops in my room and they no longer needed to be neatly set up against a wall or positioned at a table. They were free to roam around for learning to take place anytime anywhere! And boy did it!
I would have to say that when we moved from computers fixed to walls to becoming mobile units that could be used anywhere in the room to anywhere in the yard, then this was the time learning took off in my classroom. My Grade 5 students would pick up a laptop just like they would pick up a pen or a book. If they needed to research, look up a word, publish or even create a music piece the laptop joined them wherever they were.
It was the first day of school and my classroom was a buzzing hype of excitement and awe. Small groups were forming, chatting pointing and smiling about the way the room was arranged.
“A couch! Cool. Looks like a lounge room” says a wide-eyed newbie to the room.
“Check out all the cute stuffed toys,” says her friend.
“My classroom never looked like this,” joins in Sam.
And these were just a sample of comments coming from the parents!!
You can imagine the pleasure I felt when I could hear these positive comments, and the affirmation that this may have been the beginning a great learning environment. Hesitantly the parents left their children’s classroom and my year began with a new group of students.
I have to thank the forward thinking leadership in one of my schools for supporting teachers in their quest for creating learning spaces that were appealing and inviting to students. As teachers we were given a small budget at the beginning of the year that was purposefully for establishing a learning environment. This supplemented what we as teachers often spend ourselves creating the classroom we would want to spend time in if we were students.
What can I buy this year? Hmm lets see –
• Floor cushions
• Dr Seuss stuffed toys
• Oils and a new oil burner
• Stable tables for floor work
• Colourful table covers
Now what have I got from home that I can use –
• An old but comfy couch and recliner
• More stuffed toys my kids no longer want
• Floor rug
• A pink CD player
• Bean bag and scatter cushions
“Now kids, what can we do to make this our room?” I ask.
“Can we paint the tables like Mrs M’s room?” ask the kids.
So we set off on our first inquiry of the year…
How do we create a great place to learn? How should we paint the tables? What colours should we use? What sort of designs would promote thinking and learning? How do we decide the groups we work in?
What a wonderful message for our students. I have just returned from seeing Horton Hears a Who with a colleague. Now you may wonder why I went to a children’s movie with another adult??
I have to say I am a lover of great books for kids and that is where Horton comes in. Over the last few years of teaching I have discovered the power of Dr Seuss books and have used them extensively in my planning for learning. A few years ago I planned a whole integrated unit around values and personal learning, which I based on Dr Seuss books and his messages of friendship, tolerance, negotiation and persistence, as well as other values. We even discussed the dispositions of characters such as Horton according to Art Costa’s Habits of Mind.
I think there are many options to develop some real thinking around Horton Hears A Who. These are some possibilities for developing good reflections of the messages of the story with the use of purposeful new technologies –
Create a Voice Thread with each student sharing -
• a quality of Horton that makes him a special friend
• their favourite moment
• a way that they are like a character from the story
Create a wiki for students to create a class reflection using
• Plus Minus Ideas
• deBono’s 6 Thinking Hats
Create a short claymation/animation based on the qualities of Horton and post to Teacher Tube.
