NAVCON

Still catching up with my time in New Zealand and at Navcon 2k4. There is still much to share with my colleagues about my experiences... the people I met and the friends I made, the presentations I gave and the presentations I attended.

Stephen Powell and I gave a presentation 'Action Enquiry in the Classroom using Blog technology'.

I think we continue to make the mistake of not fully appreciating how many people just want good online tools that they can appropriate themselves. I spent much of this session talking about how participants, once back in their organisations, can work with the many online tools that are available and with a bit of time, create tools that work for them. For some, this is much harder if there is not the support from schools to allow them to explore and play with technology.

At Ultralab, play and experimentation is a key element in our work.... how else can you find out what the possibilities / limitations are?

A few people have emailed to ask me about the software I used in my Webcasting session at the Navcon2k4 conference.

LiveChannel v2.2 from ChannelStorm is a powerful application which allows you to mix live and pre-recorded video together and broadcast this across the Internet over IP. It's rather like being a DJ, but of TV rather than spinning discs.

You can download a trial version of LiveChannel from the ChannelStorm website.

On Friday morning, (the morning after the conference dinner!) I presented a session with Richard Millwood on 'Learning with ICT: the Distributed School'

We used SubEthaEdit to share the names and backgrounds of the people who came to listen. Having outlined our proposal for the Distributed School, participants then simulated the live video connection between the three sites. This activity stimulated people to discuss and think about what the learning might look like in the Distributed School.

Here is the document that participants collaboratively wrote using SubEthaEdit. Each group took on a location around the world. Text has been copied and pasted as written by participants.

UK:

1. The need for a global curriculum
   structure.. so groups of schools agree of what is taught, to whom and when
2. Teacher competency... being able
   to handle this sort of teaching and learning... also the relief teacher situation
   - how comfortable are the back up staff going to be to build this expertise?
3. Preparation time.. collaborative
   teaching takes planning time.
   International education - new mode of teaching where teachers take on shift
   work if operating across countries.. Parents doing work for their children..
   need for some sort of ID device to prove that Mary is actually operating the
   computer
4. New assessment methods ie: assessing
   work that is produced electronically
   Discipline issues - Would students really be responsible for their own b/h?
   Need to be on same platform technologically... otherwise huge delay in possible
   in communications.. Collaborative peer assessment (ie:email document outlining
   standards, group negotiate and assess). Virtual surveillance of schooling..
   Parents log into monitor what students are doing.
5. Capturing learning - issues around
   building a structure to capture students' learning... think of the parent
   who demands to see Johnny's exercise book... ie: need for huge amounts of
   data capturing capacity
6. Social interactions... eg: Physical
   education ... how will this be addressed? Building in social interaction time
   in a face to face mode.
7. Hardware/software/power - Need
   for a local power generator to back up the power
   New ways of learning -
8. [Traditional model of schooling]
   Possibility to use tech to offer expertise in a particular subject area not
   already offered by the school

 
Tasmania
important stuff

1. getting sense of community [using
   technology socially before using it formall]y
2. how to get past the 'legal duty
   of care' that means schools block things like chat components - how to manage
   this? [urban schools key issue]

working doc:
serious planning issues [coordination so all on same lane]?
how teacher participation happens?
fluency of conversation?
incorporating chat effectively? [merging different technologies for a better
fit for flow of conversation
getting sense of community [effective connection across sites - or even within
schools - f2f communication is essential how to facilitate that effectively
- establishing protocol
how to manage cummunity across time zones? for 'lesons'
how to get past the 'legal duty of care that means schools block things like
chat compnonents - how to manage this? - how do we manage where kids go?
how to break the content is fitted to the class model?

 
NZ
Technoogy issues -l
funding/support
philosophy - curriculum issues
pedagogy different teaching practices
colaborative
length of school day - routines/structure. Time zones
how would you choose partners
What is the key point of chosen schools

- different teaching practices
cultural aspect
national/global
Cultural activities/kapahaka

compatibility of software/hardware
common platform for sharing
security /safe learning environment
quality of assurance of programmes being delivered - accountablity
teacher driven/child driven
face to face capabiity- real life experience
technological support
adult supervision
Facilitator to oversee cluster
Board of trustees?

Richard Millwood and I presented a pre-conference session at NAVCON on webcasting.

Richard began by asking participants to share their thoughts on catalysts and inhibitors of creativity.

The remainder of the session was fairly manic as people worked collaboratively to produce a five minute live broadcast using a mix of prepared media and live video feeds. The emphasis on this session was 'performance' rather than 'composition'.

ChannelStorm's LiveChannel application was used for the broadcasts.

• About this webcasting session