Parent Technology Coffee Morning 3 - e-safety

Last week saw our final Tech Coffee Morning for the term. The focus was e-safety and over 40 parents attended to look at a range of issues.

The Prezi below can be viewed to look at some of the ideas covered by clicking the play arrow and waiting for the presentation to download.

One of the clear messages from the morning is that we need to develop resilient, ethical digital citizens who use technology in a positive way. Trying to lock down their access and control what they do is not the way to do this.

We also looked a little at net monitoring software and discussed that whilst it might be appropriate for some families it is not appropriate for all.

For those interested in further reading, you may find some of the links below useful:

Childnet Parent Presentation

Digizen

Thinkyouknow

Many thanks for all those who attended this session. Dates for next term will be confirmed shortly.

Parent Technology Coffee Morning No. 2

Our second Parent Technology Coffee Morning was even better attended than the first one with 56 parents arriving to discuss Games Technology. We were also joined by Frankie Tam from the Hong Kong Digital Games Based Learning Association.

The presentation highlighted why games are an important aspect of child development and how, as one of the most dominant forms of media in young people's lives, parents need to be able to understand the importance and intricacies of many of the games our students use.

We also brainstormed some of the concerns that parents have about gaming. The word addictive was used and we discussed what that really meant. Did it really mean addicted in the clinical sense or did it mean "liked a lot" or "would much rather be doing"! I inferred that parents might be less concerned if they thought their children were "addicted to reading" but to my surprise parents showed that they would be concerned by that too.

Research into the effects of games was touched upon as well as the way the media covers the issue.

Positive aspects of gaming were looked at and we watched a video of some of our students explaining the intricacies of Club Penguin.

We also looked at the way we use games to stimulate learning here at Kellett.

The Prezi shown can be accessed below;

Parent Tech Coffee Morning - Games Technology on Prezi

Resources from the session

Key Text;

Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning! by Marc Prensky (Feb 14, 2006) - available in HK stores but you may have to order it

Other texts;

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition: Revised and Updated Edition by James Paul Gee (Dec 26, 2007)

Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century by Tom Chatfield (Nov 15, 2010)

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal (Jan 20, 2011)

These books will help to gain a better understanding of aspects of game playing.

Areas for development at home

Design

Scratch; http://scratch.mit.edu

Atmosphir; http://www.atmosphir.com/

Kodu; http://fuse.microsoft.com/project/kodu.aspx

Play

Wolfquest; http://www.wolfquest.org/

Little Big Planet; (PS3 PSP) http://www.littlebigplanet.com/

Ayiti; http://ayiti.newzcrew.org/ayitiunicef

Darfur is Dying; http://www.darfurisdying.com/

Spore; http://www.ea.com.hk/spore

Professor Layton; http://professorlaytonds.com/

As in our first session the 75 minutes seemed to fly by and the audience was very positive and engaged with the discussion, offering their thoughts and feedback regularly.

Many thank to all those that attended.

Our next session is set for Friday 18th March and will look at the topic of e-safety.

Hong Kong 21st Century Learning Conference

Next week sees conference season kick off with the 3rd Hong Kong 21st Century Learning Conference taking place at West Island School. Nearly 30 teachers from across Kellett will be attending to participate in a number of sessions and forums.

Big hitters Stephen Heppell and David Warlick will be the keynotes and I'm delighted to say that Katrina Hall has been chosen to present a session on the use of iTouch Apps in the Primary Classroom. Katrina has previously presented at the 2nd Hong Kong 21st Century Learning Conference on Games in the Classroom as well as on the use of mobile devices at the Hong Kong Handheld & Mobile Learning Festival at the University of Hong Kong.

The trailer for the session can be seen below;

Doodling

Sometimes you see a video that just makes you drop your jaw! Having been introduced to Vi Hart via Twitter I'm now a devoted fan.

Parent Technology Coffee Morning

Here is the presentation from the first of our Parent Technology Coffee Mornings.

Parent Tech Coffee Morning - Social Networking on Prezi - allow presentation to download before clicking on the arrow to scroll through - alternatively click More and choose Full-Screen

The focus in our first session was Social Networking, with the emphasis on the use of Facebook. Clearly this was a very appropriate place to start as over 50 parents were present for the session in the primary school gym. We looked at some definitions of Social Networking and discussed why it was so popular with young people today and why it has the opportunity for them to learn and utilise a variety of skills which they will have to call upon as they get older.

Having looked at the benefits we listed some of the issues and spent time finding out how to configure profiles and privacy settings.

The two major texts used as the basis for the talks are free and can be downloaded here;

A Parents Guide to Facebook;
http://www.connectsafely.org/pdfs/fbparents.pdf

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out;

http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/hanging_out.pdf

Also a good idea to listen to danah boyd talking about young people's use of social networking;

Many thanks to all those that attended. If you have any feedback about the session or have a suggestion for future events, please let me know or comment in the space below.

The remaining dates for this term are;

Friday 11th February - Gaming Technology

Friday 18th March - e-Safety

Connected Camp

Earlier this term I attended P6 Camp on the island of Wing Yi Chau in Sai Kung. Despite the fact that there was no wireless on the island we had decided we were going to try to make the experience more interactive and connected with the school community by using Twitter. Whist we would continue to use technology to photograph and record our visit, the use of Twitter would allow us to update our progress in real time.

We also used a couple of apps to track our progress, more of which later.

The micro-blogging service Twitter is an extremely useful tool, both as a means of communication and as a way of exchanging knowledge. Having used the service for nearly three years I am a big fan and would go as far as saying that it is an essential tool for teachers in the 21st Century, who need to continually strive to keep themselves up to date with new techniques, thinking and tools.

As a straight communication tool it proved to add an extra dimension for parents whose previous experience of camp was saying goodbye on the first morning and then opening up the bag full of unworn clothes on return.

Not only were we able to post text updates, we also used YFrog and Twitrpix to share photos, and TwitVid to post videos (although sadly students and colleagues within school were unable to view these due to the filtering service provided to us by PCCW!)

The service itself is very easy to use at it's basic level and I was hopeful that our community would see the opportunity to connect. I was staggered by how eagerly our parents used the service. Over 30 parents signed up to follow our tweets, with some of our photos being viewed over 150 times. Many parents took the opportunity to tweet back to camp to show messages of support and encouragement (or ask why their child wasn't wearing their hat?!)

There was also the opportunity for staff and students in school to follow the progress of camp. Many younger brothers and sisters were able to see what was going on. Three students in P3-10 were able to send greetings to their siblings, an act which must surely help to dispel and fears that younger students might have about their upcoming first camp.

All the feedback we've had since the trip has been extremely positive with parents saying that it added an extra dimension to the the whole visit.

It's certainly something we will continue to look at in the future whenever possible.

We were also able to use a couple of apps to track our progress, thanks to the iPhone. We used GPSMotionX to track our journey to Sai Kung, and Runkeeper to trace the walk from the pier to the camp. The screenshots below show some of the info we got back.

Thursdays; only Girls Allowed

Terry Freedman in his most recent newsletter highlights the work of the Big Ambition "Girls in IT Month" which highlights technology as a positive and rewarding career path for girls. I know that Terry has voiced his concerns over this type of initiative in the past but I feel they can be a valuable element in the highlighting of tech choices for our female students.

We covered this issue a while back and more recently we have made a change to the format of our lunchtime sessions. Our ICT room is open most lunchtimes for students in KS2 on a daily rotation basis, although those with work to do have priority.

Most of the students who use the room play games of try out different pieces of software. There are a number of guidlines they have to follow, such as no inappropriate games or no use of video sharing websites and in general there are very few problems.

The vast majority of those who turn up to use the room are boys, sometimes as much as 80%. As a result of this I decided to change the timetable this year and made Thursday the day when you could only come to the room if you are a girl. The response has been amazing with most stations used every Thursday. All the girls think it's a good thing; "We're so grateful for you for doing this for us," said one of the students.

Interestingly, many of the games they use are the same as the boys, although more of the Webkinz ilk admittedly.

Thinking about this reminded me to look up the winning video of the Inkwrite Classroom makeover competition from a few years ago, which highlighted girls working with technology. The original link to the video no longer exists but it is still on Youtube and can be seen below;

Hong Kong Handheld & Mobile Learning Festival

I was lucky enough to be involved in the organisation of the Hong Kong Handheld & Mobile Learning Festival held at the University of Hong Kong last weekend. Over 100 attendees gave up their Saturday to listen and share their experiences on handheld learning.

Two of the presentations featured teachers from our school; Miss Hall presented on her use of iTouch within the classroom alongside Serena Fan from ISF Academy, while Mrs Bookless, Miss Adams and Miss Hitchcox discussed our work with Games Based Learning. It's great to see our teachers sharing and discussing their practice with wider audiences, not only does it help them develop as profession

als by being able to explain their work, it also gives them the opportunity to discuss and share with teachers working in similar ways.

Miss Hall and Miss Fan's presentation can be seen below;

iTouch in the Classroom

Other presentations included using Nintendo DS consoles in the Chinese languageclassroom, Activote in Early Years and GPS on field trips. Keynote presentations by Professor Cher Ping Lim (HKIEd) and the Library of Congress's Kathleen Ferenz gave the audience much to think about and confirmed my own opinion that the use of handheld and mobile devices is an important tool in empowering students to engage more closely with the learning process.

Later in the day I moderated a forum panel consisting of Dr Daniel Churchill (HKU), Gilbert Ho (Apple Asia) and Peter Woodhead (GSIS). The panel responded to a video presentation featuring Tim Rylands, Derek Robertson and Dawn Hallybone, European based influential voices in this field. The discussion was extremely stimulating and covered such topics as leadership, relevance and emerging technologies.

Hopefully one of the results of the day will be an increased sense of community among those who have an interest in this type of learning. Feedback from the day was certainly positive.

Many thanks to all those presenters who worked so hard to produce stimulating and engaging sessions and also all those who turned up to share and learn!

Moon Festival INSET

Whilst it's a long weekend for many this week, it's going to be a busy time in school as we host an INSET session on Friday. Focusing on preparing teachers to implement the ISTE Standards, the day will guide staff on how they can meet the five standards and performance indicators required;

1. Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

We are lucky to be joined by Dr Daniel Churchill and Dr Bob Fox from Hong Kong University who will be speaking and running workshops. The day will consist of two keynote sessions and ten workshops, eight of which will be run by Kellett staff. It's excellent to see that we are able to provide professional development opportunities for our staff using our own expertise.

We will also be welcoming three colleagues from overseas FOBISSEA schools who will be joining the day and sharing their experiences.

The workshops range from subjects such as Google Apps and Docs, Data Handling in Maths, using Scratch, Twitter as a professional development tool, and using iTouch apps in the classroom.

As you can imagine, hosting an event like this has taken a large amount of organisation and I'm very grateful for the efforts of the ICT Team in making it happen, as well, of course, to all those involved in the workshops and keynotes.

Scratch@MIT Conference

Wow, where did that summer go?!

Welcome back to the new school year. As ever this year looks to be a series of exciting challenges, just one of which is to spend more time blogging. The advent of Twitter has certainly cut down on my blogging but I'm determined to get back into it this year and help keep our community informed, as well as putting the world of education technology to rights too!

Last week's prep week wasn't quite as productive as I'd hoped largely due to the fact I was late to return after attending the Scratch@MIT event in Boston.

Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is pretty much at the pinnacle of academic technologies and is consistently ranked within the top five universities in the world. Attending a conference at MIT's Media Lab was a great thrill. The Institute has been responsible for LOGO and Scratch, two technologies I have used in schools a huge amount. Indeed, my first experience with LOGO was as a trainee teacher in 1986!

The four day conference gave me the opportunity to look at how others have implemented Scratch within their environments and to receive new ideas about ways in which it could be used in the future. We have been using Scratch since it was first released, initially in our Computer Club, but then within the technology curriculum. On Friday morning I contributed to a presentation looking at ways in which the technology can be moved into the Mathematics curriculum. It seemed to be well received, which was a bonus!

Below is a video put together by the amazing team that were recording the conference.

There were plenty of 'takeaways' from this conference, not least the reassurance that we are on the right track with our use of Scratch. We now need to look at implementing the program within different contexts throughout the school, not just the Mathematics or Technology curriculum. Areas such as language teaching and digital storytelling can also benefit and we need to pursue these this year.

There were a large number of international delegates present from outside the USA and a number of possible future projects were discussed.

Attendance at the conference strengthened my view that Scratch is the best piece of free software that schools can use. In fact, it may just be the best piece of software for education full stop.

Parents often ask me about software they can install at home that will help to develop their children. Well, the simplest answer is Scratch. It hits a number of areas, but crucially can aid problem solving and creative development.

Scratch can be downloaded (at no cost!) here.

Using Go Animate to create a presentation

P5 have been experimenting with Go Animate

GoAnimate.com: Chris, louisa and Jasmine by kellett

Tessellation in Google Sketchup

Students in P3 and P4 have been using Google Sketchup to investigate tessellation. After learning how to draw basic 2D shapes they then used tools such as the copy & move and rotation tools to help them to tessellate accurately. They then used the component tool to allow them to replicate patterns within their shapes.

Some students also created 3D solids, including a stellated octahedron. Below is a slideshow of some of our work.

Using Google Sketchup to Investigate Tessellation and 3D Shape on PhotoPeach

World Scratch Day

Outstanding.... What now?

I must admit, I dislike the word intensely, it's not something I think a school should ever say about itself, but I guess if somebody else says it about you then it's ok.

So OfStEd has declared that we are outstanding in every item of it's schedule. That's a fantastic achievement and a testimony to the hard work of the staff who consistently deliver across a huge range of school experiences.

From a technology point of view it will be interesting to see what the inspectors say. They were able to see a wide range of technology usage and commented to me on how the teachers and students were engaged with what they were doing. They certainly saw some innovative uses of technology; Web 2.0 (Shelfari), online Mind Mapping (Mind 42), Nintendo DS within Literacy, iTouch to support phonic awareness etc. OK, so these ideas aren't original but they are in the upper band of classroom innovation.

The report will hopefully highlight these as signs of a school that is continuing to improve. The need to continue improvement is keenly felt within the technology department - any tech department that wishes to be seen as outstanding must be constantly striving to improve, as the landscape changes continually.

I was delighted to see that Scott McLeod commented on my previous posting on OfStEd and I return to his words to help me evaluate what we need to do next.

The following extract from his closing comments at ASB Unplugged has been hijacked by me with some of my own additions.

"Most of you have yet to put a computer in every kid’s hands;"

No we haven't. We are 121 in secondary but in primary we're 124 - that's a decent ratio that I'm pleased with, but not when I see machines not being used. With other international schools in the region looking to extend their 121 programme into primary it may be something that we will consider in the future. Ultimately though, it's what you do with your kit that counts.

"Most of you have yet to incorporate online courses into your curricula in any kind of substantive way."

Guilty as charged - this is a huge challenge for us and will occupy large amounts of staff time during the forthcoming year.

"Few of you are teaching students to be empowered - not just responsible - digital citizens in our new information landscape."

We are making inroads here; schools have a responsibilty to ensure they produce ethical, resilient digital citizens, and we work hard on that. It does need to be a whole school approach and we need to enhance our staff development models.

"Few of you have a staff full of educators that are modeling active participation in that landscape."

Staff need to become more active in using the web as a means of professional development. This is explicit in the ISTE standards for teachers and we will be looking to implement these more widely in the future. It would be great to see more staff actively fostering a digital footprint and developing themselves as professionals online. We have teachers who are now using Twitter as a development tool and we need to encourage more to do so. By engaging with educators on a global level, the impact upon classrooms can be tremendous.

"As far as I can tell, none of you has robust student assessments at every grade level that target higher-level, more cognitively-complex thinking and doing and being."

Getting there. We have been looking at higher order thinking skills but we haven't managed to consistently develop them within units that use technology. We are aware of this and have made some progress.

"None of you has moved to a truly personalized learning environment for every student, one in which students’ progress is facilitated and perhaps assessed by technology and is organized around student competence and completion rather than age and grade level."

In truth we're a long way off this although various initiatives have helped us down this road. We're built around what Heppell might call the Victorian model as are most schools and I could only see us ever nibbling at this.

So, that's Scott McLeod's challenge for school improvement. I'm going to add a few more that I'd like to see us tackle!

We should be questioning our curriculum and examining it in the light of what technology can enable us to do and what our students can produce. We can't keep going on about 21st Century Learning without identifying what's 20th Century Learning and questioning it's validity. It's no good saying to hit HOTS we should be podcasting if we can't say what those podcasts should replace... newspaper reports, postcard and letter writing?

We need to look at how we can use technology not as a replacement tool but as a transformation tool. Let's use the new tools we have to collaborate, create and problem solve. We've made some good progress here but there's still a long way to go.

We need to foster a feeling of innovation, creativity and excitement consistently throughout the whole school by capturing the expertise we have and highlighting it and building upon it.

As all schools and organisations do we need to take a good long hard look at ourselves regarding the environment by using our technology in a greener way and utilising it to help us become more ethical and resonsible in our use of resources.

So, outstanding we may be and that's great news, but we've still got huge amounts of work to do and there's no question that we will be striving to achieve much more in the coming year.

The tag cloud is from our ICT School Improvement Plan (SIP) for the forthcoming year.

Earth Day - April 22nd 2010

Today is Earth Day and millions of people around the world will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of this event by carrying out activities linked to the environment.

Reception children will be looking at Recycling in their ICT lessons, finding out what it is and working in Simple City.

In the spirit of Earth Day, below is the recent edition of Kellett Tellit - please don't print it out!!