Education, Technology - an early perspective

Different Internet between countries

2011-10-12T10:51:00.000+01:00

I'm just back in Ireland so am noticing interesting distinctions between the level of access to Internet websites and facilities between the UK and Ireland. It's reminded me how evident it is that while the Internet in principle is an open playing field, various legal and contract agreements mean that every country gets different services.

Examples: Amazon mp3's. Unable to purchase in Ireland. A real pity too as they had no rights management and a better price than iTunes.
Spotify. The hugely hyped online music service that isn't offered here (with no sign of an offering).
Amazon electronics. Unable to purchase in Ireland.
the new iPhone 4s's new voice interaction feature, Siri, is not available in Ireland to begin with.

I could continue going on here but the whole point is that there is different tiers starting to appear online. A 1st world Internet, 2nd world, etc. Ireland isn't on that top tier unfortunately - economies of scale play a part here as we're just too small for some of the larger companies to be given an incentive.
Of course, this means that companies in Ireland have a massive opportunity here to take this market. There's no excuse for one of them to go and negotiate with the music labels. What are you waiting for?

What do you think? Are some countries getting better offerings than others? Am I missing competing services here in Ireland so that I shouldn't notice?

Teaching ICT, not educating in Office tools

2011-08-30T08:49:00.001+01:00

Update 30/8/11: Fixed formatting issues on page

"He said he had been flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools, despite what he called the "fabulous initiative" in the 1980s when the BBC not only broadcast programmes for children about coding, but shipped over a million BBC Micro computers into schools and homes."Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made. That is just throwing away your great computing heritage," he said."

As taken from BBC article from a recent talk by Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt.

"But, more importantly, the curriculum is disabling rather than enabling for most kids, because it is preparing them for a technological world that is vanishing before their eyes. Training children to use Microsoft Office is the contemporary equivalent of the touch-typing courses that secretarial colleges used to run for girls in the 1940s and 1950s – useful for a limited role in the workplace, perhaps, but not much good for life in the modern world.
The worse thing about the ICT curriculum, however, is its implicit assumption about our relationship to the technology. "Look," it says seductively, "using a computer is like driving a car: you don't need to know how the thing works – you just need to know how to drive it."
Of course, this is, broadly speaking, true for cars, because few of us are going to go into the car-making (or even car-repairing) business. But computers are not like cars. They are machines driven by software, and software is pure "thought-stuff", in other words, something that is accessible to anyone with the requisite curiosity, intelligence and talent. So while teenagers might not be able to make cars, they can certainly get into the software business, because the entry barrier is so low. All you need is imagination, talent, time and persistence. But it really helps if you're schooled in an environment that encourages tinkering and experimentation, rather than one which just preaches utilitarian use of information appliances with "no user-serviceable parts", as the saying goes."

As from an article on the Guardian about 'Kids needing a license to tinker', sourced from @philwheeler1

One of the highlights of teaching ICT is getting the opportunity to teach and educate pupils on computers, those tools that are living, breathing parts of almost everyone's daily workflows, whatever their career nowadays. But one of the disadvantages and most common looks of shock I got throughout the year was when I showed a pupil a piece of raw HTML code, or even basic Java. The look of shock on their faces that this was how a computer actually worked never ceased to amaze me - this was the first time they'd ever seen this type of thing. Even more incredibly, 99% of them almost looked as if they'd never even considered how the fancy graphics appeared on their mobile-phone/console/tablet/computer. Are we missing out on something major here? I think so.....

The solution, I think personally, (other than a change in the curriculum) revolves around ensuring that the teachers are comfortable to work with this type of code. This will obviously required either training, or giving teachers adequate time to self-learn amongst each other (something similar to what I saw in Spanish International Schools - a two week block of time before the pupils arrive in school at the beginning of the school year to learn and develop new skills). Am I wrong here?

Collaborative work projects

2011-07-07T15:05:00.000+01:00

One of the best experiments I've tried this year with the pupils to introduce new technology into their classes is the use of collaborative tools to allow multiple pupils work on documents at the same time. The tool of choice has been the well known Google Docs - and the word processing tools.

The interesting part has been watching pupils adapting to working together. One common issue I've noticed across many of my ICT classes is the independent tasks that all pupils have been required to complete. There is no team work or incentive to try and complete work that other people will depend on. In whatever job they work on in the future, most tasks they will be completing will be for someone else to support another project. So the idea of creating some group projects really intrigued me.

As it happens, as we started a new topic on e-safety the timing seemed perfect to develop some posters in different groups on the topics covered.

Of course, the first 10 minutes involved lots of pupils work being deleted and modified and some silly comments. But over the next 20 minutes that they developed the work, some fantastic resources started to appear. They're not perfect yet but I've seen enough potential in the couple of classes that we've tried this to know that this is the future of my classes.......

Wiki-races

2011-05-19T12:04:00.000+01:00

I got pointed to this from ChickenMan's blog (for Saltash.net school) - it's called a wikirace!

the idea is to make your way from one page on Wikipedia to another one on a completely different topic, but only using the links inside of wikipedia.

As an example, I started my pupils this morning on St. Mary's wikipedia page and told them to find their way to the page for Avatar (the movie).

I'll give the answer here to help you as an idea :)

click on 'Chesterfield'
on this, go to section on 'The Arts' and click on "Odeon Cinemas"
Then click on the section for 'Controversy' and follow for "Alice in Wonderland"
From here, go to the section on 'Reception' and under the section for North America, you'll see a link to Avatar!

Can you come up with any more good ideas?

2011-01-19T16:10:00.000+00:00

Watch from minute 21:50 onwards. Look at the incredible power that a mobile phone can now have and realize that we're really only at the tip the iceberg of their potential.......

I wonder nowadays, as pupils are growing through all these technologies, does it matter that they don't really think about how these devices or tools work. I don't expect all of them, but is there many of the pupils who could potentially be technically minded and just don't appreciate what is going on here? Are we all going to the point where it's like cars now - we all just buy them but don't really think (other than knowing how to change a tire and bring it for a service) about how it works. Is this a good thing? or just basic evolution of tools and services?

And for more amusing ideas from Google, this was part of their promotional project where all staff were invited to play around with Google products and use them in weird and wonderful ways. Enjoy :)

Learning to Program

2010-12-14T10:46:00.000+00:00

One of the fun things at times in teaching is pupils showing an interest in learning topics outside of the planned curriculum set. I regularly have pupils asking me about game programming or development so I've started pointing them towards this, Scratch. Developed by MIT, it's a programming language for children to introduce them to the idea of coding.

I honestly haven't tried it out myself yet so maybe it'll be something to try out over the New Year.....

2010-11-20T13:36:00.000+00:00

Google has published a really nice online book discussing all the various components that make up the modern Internet.

It covers all the pieces, from how you connect to the Internet, to how the fancy animations are displayed on screen, to how social networking operates. A really nice piece of work.

Also, if you look at this using a 'modern' web browser (i.e. not Internet Explorer - I laughed when I saw this comment at the top of the screen when I read it in school!), it should have nice flow effects between pages and it shouldn't feel like the page flashes to load the next page. This is using just the basic programming code of the Internet, HTML (although the latest version 5 which Internet Explorer does not support), and not using anything extra like Flash, etc.

What do you think? learn something new from it? Are you interested in learning more, or appreciate a bit more how the wonders of the Internet now operates?

what Generation to do you think most closely matches you?

2010-11-19T09:55:00.000+00:00

ReadWriteWeb linked this forrester article recently discussing the generational habits of users in the digital age, and I was bemused to see that I fall across the divide of Gen X and Y, not only in age but in many of my habits.

Where do you fit in?

Of course, this does lead onto the fact that a lot of new habits are being brought to both day-to-day life (with new ways to communicate such as online social networking), and their perceptions of how to work - an article like this makes for interesting reading...

Thoughts?

The evolution of the smartphone

2010-11-16T12:32:00.002+00:00

The Nokia 9120 Communicator. Image from ArsTechnica.com

Ars Technica had an excellent feature story about the evolution of the smartphone, mainly in the past 10 years and I looked back in interest/bemusement/fascination/nostalgia to the models they showcased.

Many of the devices I recognized as ones I had used at some point in time - or at least used a variant of the original design. The Nokia Communicator stood out as a real break-out device at the time - imagine that you could get on the Internet from a mobile phone in 2002?! Yes, it was slow, but it was also a pioneering device for it's time.

Interestingly, I'm hearing more and more that people are accessing the Internet through their mobile devices - YouTube discussed

"revealed that YouTube now boasts over 2 billion video playbacks a day, 150 million of those being on mobile devices." (courtesy of Techcrunch.com interview with YouTube's product manager).

The time is fast approaching where many people are considering mobile phones with some sort of functionality for connecting to the Internet while mobile. Not just so-called-smarthphones such as iPhones or Android devices, but 'feature phones', the more basic models that are the bigger sellers worldwide. The new Windows 7 phones look like they are aiming for this market, with a much more stream-lined functionality for many features.

So, leading on from the evolution of smartphones to their current functions and styles (namely lead by the ground-breaking iPhone only three years ago), where do you think this is all going to lead? What functions do you think will appear? And how should it be dealt with by schools to support this sort of new technology, and even in the workplace?

Personal Development

2010-11-04T19:49:00.000+00:00

The ideal way to work and survive online - dual screens!

Tonight (Thursday) at 8pm, I'll be doing a little Continuing Professional Development but not the sort of sitting in a lecture hall or training room. I'll be doing it from the comfort of the couch as I take part of an online discussion group on Twitter. Yes, I know I could be just spending the time watching rubbish on tv, but in fairness, it really is rubbish, I don't just call it that as a saying!

Firstly for those who don't know how this works, and considering you may have looked at twitter and seen either nothing if you just had an account but no friends in it, or if you looked at the full live stream of 10's of millions of tweets/posts. To make a work-around so that people without any real connection could interact, and also so that 'trends' could take place, the use of special tags (hashtags) are utilized.

How do you use it? In short, just tag a specific word with the # before it. For example, in my hobbies, I rock climb a lot, so I'd add the hashtag #climbing or #training (or both). Other major examples. during the major Iranian protests a year or so ago, everything took place under the hashtag #iranelection. You'll also notice on the Twitter homepage that they always have links to the "trending topics" - this is actually taken from the hashtags that people use!

The idea of an education-based discussion started up at some point in the USA (under the term 'edchat'), but to facilitate users in the UK and the different timezone, a new version was created with the hashtag #ukedchat - a much better description and explanation of it all can be found here also.

I've always wondered since looking at these in the past few months - would something like this work with pupils? I know quite a few of them have Twitter accounts now so would it be possible to get them to interact in a discussion (perhaps a different one per subject one or two nights a week). There'd have to be some liasons potentially so that topics were similar but would it work?

2010-10-21T17:07:00.000+01:00

For some reason, I heard about the Apple announcement that was live on the Internet last night and ended up turning it on while back in the house. Granted it wasn't the only thing I was doing (I was training at the time for my sports), but it was still a fascinating watch as Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, announced new product after new product.

Many of them were software, the new iLife 11 suite of photo, video and music editing packages which were impressive in their own right (the audio editing features and the tutorials for how to play the guitar and piano looked astonishing).

But then they had a final moment and they announced the second version of the Macbook Air (see photo above). As you can see it's pretty thin (1.7cm at it's thickest), light (1 - 1.1 kg) and fantastic battery life (5-7 hours depending on model of heavy usage, and 30 days of standby life)!

And the thing is, like many netbooks around, it doesn't have a DVD drive. It's ironic because only a few days ago, I had to use the installation disk on my own (now much older) Macbook, and I realized in the three years I've owned the laptop, I've probably only used the DVD drive about 20 times. So, what's the point of it taking up all the space and bulk in my device? As Techcrunch described this morning, Apple may have shown the way by supplying it's installation software on tiny memory sticks. And really, how many of you actually have used your own? I'd suspect it's used a lot less than you think.....

The more and more I think about it, there really is no point to the use of CD's or DVD's. As one pupil put it to me today, they always break after a while or get scratched. If a young child can recognize this, I think he's onto something.....

Predictions: DVD and CD rentals and purchases will slowly disappear in the coming (5?) years. We'll download most of our content and media as we require. And to do so, Internet suppliers will really have to continue to step up to the plate to continue to supply good, fast, reliable Internet connections.

What do you think?

Google Code-In: pre-university open source contribution challenge

2010-10-12T11:16:00.000+01:00

As someone who never really had the opportunity while in school to try my hand at programming, and with only limited experience from university, I find it really interesting when I hear about school challenges to promote programming and technical uses of ICT that could lead pupils towards developing their own ideas and programs in the future.
The interesting part for pupils is that you will get paid for this if you're successful in your challenge....."For each task successfully completed, students will receive $100, up to a maximum of $500" ($100 is £63 - October 2010).

This is the information on the promotional page for the challenge:

Google is opening up a new challenge, the Google Code-In 2010 (similar to their annual Summer of Code) for pre-university pupils to learn and practive at coding and all the surrounding tasks involved in programming. It's part of their recognition that as computers become more and more pervasive in society, we need to acknowledge a need for a large number of new programmers to develop these new tools.

We are inviting students worldwide to produce a variety of open source code, documentation, training materials and user experience research for the organizations participating this year. These tasks include:
Code: Tasks related to writing or refactoring code

Documentation: Tasks related to creating/editing documents

Outreach: Tasks related to community management and outreach/marketing

Quality Assurance: Tasks related to testing and ensuring code is of high quality

Research: Tasks related to studying a problem and recommending solutions

Training: Tasks related to helping others learn more

Translation: Tasks related to localization

User Interface: Tasks related to user experience research or user interface design and interaction

The Google Code-In 2010 opens for applications on November 22nd and you can find out more information (including ideas for tasks, and how to apply) by following the previous link or reading their blog here.

Will we not be driving out own cars in the next 20 years?!

2010-10-11T20:34:00.000+01:00

Footage of the Google car seen on the road sometime in the past year.

Google is developing cars that can drive themselves (official Google blog post). And they've already been out driving on roads around California - over 140,000 miles in total with (as of now), only minimal input required from an engineer in the car to make sure it's all working o.k (and mainly because they haven't managed to engineer it yet so that it can avoid cyclists who skip red lights.....).

Think about it, does this mean that, just like now children can't imagine a time before the Internet and mobile phones, there will be confusion about the fact that we used to drive ourselves to work or to the beach or [insert location here]? Even Google admits that they are at least 8 years away from producing a functioning model for sale, but even still.......

Unfortunately, if you do a search online for more information now, much of what you come across will be moaning about Google's supposed intentions that it just gives us more time to spend searching on the Internet (which is obviously how they make their money), but I'm going to put this how I feel about it now.
They have developed cars. That. Can. Drive. Themselves. In Traffic. On motorways. On busy streets.

Wow, talk about a story to inspire kids to think of their own new solutions.........

Merging of online tools and the 'Real World'

2010-10-06T16:32:00.000+01:00

So Google Goggles was released for the iPhone yesterday, opening creative new methods for us all to search using our mobile phones. Granted, it's been built into their own mobile phones for the past year or so, but considering how prevalent the iPhone is amongst users, I'm sure it's potentially opening it's userbase massively.

For more of an idea on this, check out the Youtube promotional video below that Google released. Note that he is doing a voice search in the middle as well, it doesn't really make it obvious.

This seems to be a more natural extension of integrating Internet resources into day-to-day activities than my first experience of these merging technologies. Layar, the Augmented Reality (as the field is called) browser, was my first introduction to it, and while a fascinating demonstration of the technology, I was never really sure of what actual use I could do with it (although perhaps if I was in the market for buying a home, my opinion would be different).

See their original demo below (and their newer video here which I don't think shows the real use of the technology as well):

I'm of the opinion that anything that starts to remove the divide between what we do in our daily lives, and what we do online in our daily lives, is a huge benefit and bonus. I've already tried out the Goggles feature and to my huge shock it recognized the Crooked Spire in Chestefield! - I probably learnt more about the Spire in this search than in the past year spent around the area so perhaps there is a huge for it after all :)

What do you think are the actual practical uses of this sort of technology? is this more of a demonstration of the capabilities of a modern mobile phone, or would you actually start using such concepts straight away? If so, here's the link to the iphone app store (it's a free download).

Learning from what I learnt!

2010-10-01T09:40:00.000+01:00

I may be an 'adult' now, not a pupil anymore, but I still remember without too much detachment my school experiences. Homework, lectures, discipline, fun, boredom, interactivity, socializing, frustrations, enthusiasm.

And I'm trying to learn from these memories - what was it that gave me the real positive experiences from the above list? What made me make me want to learn, be enthusiastic, create without even realizing?

Some of it was definitely teachers, or the ones at least that showed that enthusiasm themselves, made me just want to explore whatever we were learning. Some of it was purely just a topic I was interested in. Some of it was being given the freedom to interact and improve off the ideas of group-work.

Of course, not all school-work will be perfectly amazing, interesting, or about a topic I really enjoy. But it's not to say that many of the topics can't be made more fascinating to make the pupils actually want to research, learn, and create their own experiences and learning.

what do you remember from school? What was it that got you interested in your classroom the content you were learning? And what was it that put you off?

Raising Creativity and is creativity dropping - I don't think so!

2010-09-29T16:40:00.000+01:00

One of the bigger stats to come out in the past few weeks is from a Forrester report detailing that the number of content creators, and not just consumers through social media is dropping even while the number of users of social networking is increasing (rapidly).

It's an interesting one I'm thinking about especially as I'm hearing more and more pupils making the most of Facebook and others uses while at home or through their mobile phones (something which is becoming much more prevalent recently also). One of the interesting things here is how much of the information the pupils are taking on board nowadays is purely just consumed, and whether they're not gaining an insight or motivation to actually create, develop. Due to the constant bombardment of distractions from status updates, texts, etc. - are pupils getting less enthusiastic about creation?

Personally, I'm not so sure of this, I wonder whether the number of people signing on is primarily from older age groups so it's not a specific reference to children. But I do recognize that many pupils purely just want to spend their time playing games, or chatting on whatever-instant-messenger-their-friends-are-on, but not actually thinking or creating. I'm sure that this hasn't changed much over the years - pupils were always various stages of motivation and laziness - but is there more distractions potentially now?

And if so, what do we go about to override all these distractions? but then again, I think this post about "Our students want better work, not less work" is probably a great answer to that!

Mobile subscriber numbers

2010-09-23T15:54:00.000+01:00

Something that has stayed close to my interests over the years is the use of mobile technology, stemming from my background with a big mobile telco many years ago.

While reading through some technology news a few days ago I came across this article discussing the number of mobile subscribers worldwide and the fact that the world really is starting to trend towards full mobile connectivity. Of course, the numbers are slightly skewed, it's not actually the fact that 80% of the population has a mobile phone, but the fact that in regions like Europe, there are 160% more mobile phones than people - from users having multiple handsets due to work, personal use, or for different countries as they roam (such as myself carrying two mobiles from different countries).

And now, this number is starting to explode as many new devices start to appear with a mobile internet connection; notable examples are the iPad. Other newer, more extreme examples are connection options are starting to appear in cars: the Paris Motor Show had a BMW with mobile connectivity, car mounts, etc. for devices.

I come from the borderline Gen X/Gen Y group so have grown up my my late teens with a mobile phone, it's something that is part of me - to be honest, I can't remember the last time I used a landline! So I straddle the divide between some the era of no-mobile-phones, and their by-now widespread adoption.

Many pupils are starting to get used to the idea of doing searches, communicating fully through mobile phones. And yet, most schools don't allow any use of them in schools, and give no guidance on how they could be used for their benefit other than just texting each other. do you think the level of discussion of mobile usage should be increased in schools? All ideas welcome!

Year 7: "Hands up how many people read books"......

2010-09-13T20:12:00.001+01:00

The new 'book'?

One of the fascinating comments I had today while teaching a new starter group in my school was after asking a question about the number of them that read books. The response, while admittedly, unsurprising was the fact that about 80% of them said they didn't read books at all. And of course, this was followed up by a comment from one of the kids that the only thing they read nowadays is on the Internet.

I have to say that I was kind of expecting this - I've read enough articles and books about the topic to be aware of it. And in many ways, I can see why books just don't have that incentive when they're competing against the likes of Facebook, the Internet in general, normal playtime, and computer games.

But the question whether kids stopping reading long-form text is a good thing or not. Personally, I know there's a lot to be said from reading such material - I wonder if there is even a subconscious training for focus that comes from reading. Internet-based reading is very short, only articles or links to posts that they see from friends.

do you think this is a good thing?

And how do we, as teachers, persuade pupils to read for actual enjoyment, and not only as required reading for work (that they probably receive through subjects such as English)?

OCR Nationals Unit 2 - trying to make ICT interesting

2010-09-09T22:26:00.000+01:00

I'm teaching OCR Nationals this year - a new challenge for myself as while I taught a single module of the curriculum on my first placement as a teacher, it's a whole new challenge when working full-time.

The group are an interesting bunch of pupils so I'll be aiming to keeping the pupils occupied much of the time.

One thing I do remember is to not bore people to death with Powerpoint slides - I think 9 for a full class is sufficient?

As regards making a class challenging so that the pupils don't even realize they're doing work, what's your advice? all comments welcome!

A twist on an old quote......

2010-09-08T21:22:00.000+01:00

Thought this was a great way to re-engage on the blog discussing ICT, education and social implications of tech.

As posted on Twitter today:

Under Solen Media (undersolen):
haha RT @familyonbikes: "Dance like the photo's not being tagged, Love like you've never been unfriended, Tweet like nobody's following."
http://twitter.com/undersolen/status/23930577768

What do you think - made me realize just what has changed in the world - it's surprisingly not far from the truth of modern living :)

Challenging and enlightening thoughts from Stephen Fry

2010-06-22T12:51:00.000+01:00

STEPHEN FRY: WHAT I WISH I'D KNOWN WHEN I WAS 18 from Peter Samuelson on Vimeo.

One of those lovely videos to challenge some perceptions and ideas of habits.

Books in school - is buying them for students a good idea?

2010-06-11T11:22:00.000+01:00

One of the interesting things I've noticed since arriving in the UK and starting to teach is that most schools here buy the books for the pupils. Coming from my own background in Ireland, I always remember the challenges of purchasing the required textbooks for each year, and then lugging the necessary books into school each day, depending on my classes.

There was disadvantages to this for definite. The weight of all those books has probably left a lasting impression on me :) But the benefits were that I actually had the books at home should I want to read them.
I've noticed here, especially in ICT, that the books are rarely taken off the shelves. The strongest, best pupils definitely take a copy home, or use them in class, but for the most part, many do not get much use.

Essentially, I'm wondering if by the school taking the step to purchase the book, does it remove some of the obligation on the pupils to actually read or use the books. I'm sure I could be wrong on this, but I'm guessing there might be less incentive on the pupils to actually read the books if they don't have them in their possession.
Of course, the argument is now that pupils can get much of this information online, but there's also a lot more distractions online and there's a lot to be said to having a concise book (or e-book) in front of you on a specific topic.

thoughts?

Technology - the concept of 'trust' and 'privacy' online

2010-05-25T21:13:00.000+01:00

The beginnings of rumblings of complaints have started to surface amongst the technology bloggers and tech writers worldwide. Even The Sunday Times had a massive article about it this weekend (and unfortunately due to their new subscription model on the website, I can't link to it). Other examples are Leo Laporte, the online broadcaster, and it's a sign of the times that even well known online leaders are taking the leap.
Honestly, it does feel a little bit hyped up in it's current context, in many ways nothing has really changed in the past few months. Yes, Facebook has slowly been changing and updating it's terms of use (up to almost 6,000 words I believe!), making it more elaborate and, most definitely, mind boggingly confusing. No one seems to understand it - but what is important is how Facebook is handling your data. I presume anyone who reads this blog will have seen this diagram (as linked from allfacebook.com):

All the sections in blue, are sections that Facebook has made public. By default. How ridiculous is that?!?!? But anyway, if you want more information on this whole issue, there's a lot more places online that will give a better and more professional opinion on it's current status. Suffice to say, it seems that we'll all be getting some new privacy settings this week after Facebook slowly tries to mop up the publicity mess it seems to have caused.

The thing is though, with all this discussion, it's roaming around all the concepts of privacy and how to behave online. Most people will probably have heard of someone (either local or through a newspaper article) who has been fired, quit, their job from a comment they made on a social networking site. As I said to @timbuckteeth on Twitter recently:

There's still a detachment between many people's perception of their online world and the 'real' world. Firstly, the 'real' world is now everything - i.e. your online persona is part of life. Look at how many Facebook accounts there are currently - over 400 MILLION. That's a serious number of people, and I could be wrong, but I think it's something like over 60% of those users who sign on every day.

Basically at present, we're slowly evolving to include these new facilities in our mindset. What we write online will come back to haunt us in the future, we just haven't realized it yet. I know I always make a point of when I comment on a forum/blog to use my real name and contact info - basically, some of it is to keep me honest. In doing so, I am always conscious of the fact that these comments could be said back to me in the future. Don't get me wrong, I've said some things over the years that I laugh at now, but they were just opinions - things I'd have said in person, it's just my perspective has changed. Having said, that the other side of the coin is that I just don't trust comments that are made annonymously - I feel that by not providing a name dilutes the status of such responses as I have to consider that the person is just uncomfortable with this opinion and thus it might not be completely valid.

Of course, the other side of the coin is those who just aren't involved online. Is this because they're smart enough to recognize the potential dangers, or just because they don't see the relationship/benefits of this new communication medium? I'd love to know!

And then in relation to teaching and the younger generation, I wonder is there a different perception with younger people because they have always had these mediums around them, it's not like they're having to learn them after years of familiarity to just the telephone and text message to communicate. Are they just more aware of the potentials, or are they more naive (and just haven't thought about it)? I know I ask pupils nowadays whether they've used the Internet, and the traditional response is, "Sir, that's one of your dumb questions!" :)

Blog post - challenge of traditions against a new wave of ICT

2010-05-24T20:21:00.000+01:00

I really feel like I'm joining the teaching profession at an amazing time of opportunity.My 5 years in telecoms were fascinating even watching as it was even evident that they were struggling to come to terms with the new opportunities of mobile communications, and their use for data - not just voice. Right now there's a lot of of the older traditions that will always be valid, the skill of the teacher. And lots are evolving as they should do - behaviour management, special educational needs, etc. But there's some massive sea changes in HOW information can be supplied and found. The development of the Internet, couple with ubuituous access for many people of all financial means, has meant that there are some new challenges that are seriously affecting old methods. Not in any sense of the fact that pupils still have to learn to learn, improve their knowledge, and expand their ideas and creativity, but that this ease of access has also placed new challenges in other means - it's easy to just become a consumer of everything, not actually a creator. am I wrong on this attitude/idea? I don't feel that it's a fully formed thought myself yet, but that it's something that I'm trying to consider as I teach to my pupils. What method do you use to inspire people to learn when many believe that it's easier to just look it up on Google?

The Networked Teacher

2010-05-20T20:27:00.000+01:00

"Networked Teacher Diagram", credit: Coursa flickr's stream

I got an email from a student to thank me yesterday for showing him the endless options for revision podcasts that are stored on itunes (itunes link). I also came across the image above through Twitter. My last post was as I watched the live stream on the use of new communication tools for media.

I'm going to use this as a goal for the forthcoming year, especially as many of these can help my own professional development, and also many can be used to communicate with the pupils - as important as the former point. How do you fit into this?
And even if you're not a teacher, how do you fit into this?