OllieBray.com

Wikipedia is good for pupils and teachers: TESS Article - November 2009

Ollie Bray — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:52:37 +0000

At a number of recent conference and staff training events I have been speaking about Wikipedia in schools. Many of my thoughts on this are based on my original post that I wrote back following the 2009 Handheld Learning Festival. You can read the full article in more detail here.

On Friday in the Times Education Supplement Scotland there was an article about some of this work. This was partly related to some of the things that I was talking about during my keynote and workshop at the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers Annual Conference.

The article is reproduced here for reference purposes. I have made some comments about what I think about his article at the bottom of the post.

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Wikipedia is good for pupils and teachers

News | Published in TESS on 20 November, 2009 | By: Elizabeth Buie

Scotland’s games-based learning guru Ollie Bray has challenged the orthodoxy that teachers should shun Wikipedia as a reference source in the classroom.

Mr Bray, depute head of Musselburgh Grammar, who is currently seconded to Learning and Teaching Scotland as national adviser for emerging technologies in learning, argues not only that pupils be allowed access to it in their lessons, but that teachers use it to show pupils how to evaluate the reliability and credibility of information.

Speaking at this year’s conference of the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers, he said teaching pupils to use and evaluate articles on the online encyclopaedia, written and edited by millions of users globally, fitted with Level 3 literacy outcomes in A Curriculum for Excel lence. These require pupils to look at techniques in assessing sources and reliability of information.

Although many teachers and academics criticise Wikipedia for lacking reliability and accuracy, and favouring consensus over credentials in its editorial process, Mr Bray claims teachers can’t stop pupils using it at home, so it is better to teach them to use it responsibly.

Wikipedia flags up entries which contradict each other, he says. “We, as teachers, should be looking at these disclaimers and working with young people to discuss why articles are disputed or contradict themselves. If we start with the belief that everything is subject to opinion, then we can work on how to validate it.”

He suggests teachers and pupils study the “discussion”, “source” and “history” tabs on the website. The discussion area will show pupils the extent of debate that goes on to find compromise in a disputed area, while the editing tab will allow them to contribute to the discussion and increase their knowledge.

Teaching how to use Wikipedia should fall into the same category as internet safety and responsible use of technology, says Mr Bray. When people talk about “inappropriate content” on the web, it’s about sexual or racist content, but it should also include biased information, he believes. “There is extreme content on the internet, but kids only find it because they go looking for it.”

Teachers should be teaching pupils how to validate where knowledge comes from, says Mr Bray.

Pupils should also be entitled to use sites such as YouTube, he argues, but the picture is “very mixed” when it comes to allowing teachers and pupils to access them. His authority, East Lothian Council, has unblocked YouTube access for teachers and pupils, he says; some authorities block it for both, some for pupils only, and others allow staff to view it after 4pm.

A debate is necessary, he argues, about which approach is right.

Economic factors are also involved, he says: “Why is it fair that children in East Lothian can get access to hundreds of hours on Channel 4, National Geographic or the Scottish Parliament, when other schools and teachers have not got access to these resources?"

“It means that children don’t get to benefit from it, or the teacher or head has to spend a lot of time copying the resources, or the department has to spend time procuring resources which are available for free.”

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Overall I am happy with the piece – after all I did say these things (plus a lot more) at a recent conference!

I would just to clarify a couple of points:

I don’t consider myself a games based learning guru – but I have had some success in using technology (including computer games) in the classroom.

I have no evidence to suggest that some education authorities block or filter Wikipedia BUT I know a number of schools, departments and teachers who frown upon its use. YouTube is a different matter and I’ll come back to that in a separate post.

Although I think that appropriate use of Wikipedia fits the Level 3 outcomes of A Curriculum for Excellence – I also think that its use is equally important in the level 2 and level 4 outcomes as well.

I think its important to clarify my statement “There is extreme content on the internet, but kids only find it because they go looking for it.” – I’m not saying that sometimes children do not come across inappropriate content by accident BUT I am saying the research shows that many young people do go looking for inappropriate content – see BBC article here

Finally, I’ll come back to YouTube is a separate post.

I would welcome any comment on the above, either below, by email or on the TESS website.

Killing good ideas: the stone and the stone wheel

Ollie Bray — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

I think this YouTube Clip may be coming to one of my in-service training courses soon.

It’s a great light heated example of how difficult it is to sometimes get people to take on new ideas…

Managing Risk on Youth Expeditions: Leading Edge Expeditions

Ollie Bray — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:00:00 +0000

On Saturday Clive Burgess, Mark Salmon and I ran a youth expedition seminar for Learning Edge Expeditions. The aim of the seminar was to provide future expedition leaders will advice and support on running their own trips.

I was given the task of speaking about 'Managing Risk on Youth Expeditions' and also providing some sources of information on possible ventures, venues and ideas.

I promised that I would post the slides that I used during my morning slot – so here they are:

Managing Risk on Youth Expeditions

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

If you were at the seminar and would like further information and advice please get in touch.

NOTE: The picture above is Chesil Beach on the Saturday afternoon. the waves were wild!

Using Mobile Technology on Fieldwork and Expeditions: RGS-Explore09

Ollie Bray — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:49:06 +0000

On Saturday I was invited along to speak at Explore 2009 at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London. When I lived on the South of England I used to hang out in the RGS a lot. I’ve spent hours going through old expedition reports and looking through their map room. However, since moving to Scotland its not been as accessible to me and its been a few years since I was there in a geographical / expedition capacity.

The Explore Conference is an expedition & fieldwork planning weekend. I went to my first one (or an earlier version of it) over ten years ago and it was a real privilege to be asked to contribute to the expedition strand by Shane Winser and Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop. Escape from the City has already written a good overview of the conference.

My input to the main conference was on ‘Using Mobile Technology on Fieldwork and Expeditions’. In particular though I was asked to steer away from the use of satellite phones as that was being covered in a separate presentation by Simon Thompson.

I had lots of good feedback from the talk and the slides that I used are embedded below (although they have lost some formatting in the transfer to slideshare):

Using mobile technology for fieldwork and expeditions

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

The main points I covered were:

Sometimes it may be appropriate not to have a satalite phone – It depends on your expedition location.

Communication back from the field to up-date a blog, record audio, up-load photos etc can be done through a smartphone (such as an iPhone). Advantages of this type of technology is that it is light and easily chargeable with a solar charger.

Like any mobile service from overseas smartphones can be expensive, particularly for data. It’s worth checking coverage beforehand, looking at international calling cards or taking out a seperate data plan for when you are away.

In 2004 we used a normal Nokia mobile phone to send SMS messages back from Denali which were then typed up in the UK and up-loaded to our expedition blog. It was cheap, but it worked until we ran out of battery power! (solar panels were not that great in those days!).

This summer during the Great Divide Expedition I managed to use WiFi hot spots to up-date my Twitter status and keep people informed of my progress. Agin you can search for these in advance online.

The added value of a smartphone (such as an iPhone) are the Apps. They can add value to your expedition communication strategy and well a providing an electronic field notebook.

Specifically I mentioned the following Apps that I think can add value:

iPhone notebook (built in)
Google Maps and Satellite View (built in)
Ordnance Survey Maps (I use OSBrowserR2)
Built in GPS for Google Earth Exports (I use GPS recorder)
Evernote – The ultimate electronic fieldwork notebook!

Demo of evernote below:

Other Apps I mentioned:

Mobile blogging Apps – Including Typepad, Blogger and Wordpress
Other fieldwork apps that night be appropriate for children (clinometer, compass etc…)
AudioBoo – Great because people can subscribe to your Boos through iTunes

Finally:

How to take an iPhone screen shot (instructions here)

The importance of linking social spaces to improve audience and publicize your venture. For example you can use a smartphone to up-date your expedition blog, which will automatically send out an up-date on Twitter which will automatically up-date you expedition facebook page.

The trick is putting your content where people are – rather than relying on people coming to you.

Mark Beaumont (Currently on a BBC supported expedition to Cycle the Americas has made excellent use of Social Media on his trip)

You can also use aggregation sites such as ‘twazzup’ to bring together expedition ‘hash tags’ from different team members to make a real-time expedition handout.

If you were at the presenation – I would be more than happy to answer any questions and as always welcome your feedback. There was a lt to cover in a very short space of time.

"Why it’s all Ollie Bray’s fault..."

Ollie Bray — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I laughed when I read Dave Rogers recent post in my RSS Feed Reader. It was a real delight to read a lighthearted blog post called 'why it's all Ollie Bray's fault' from someone I have so much time and respect for.

Dave was writing about the first time that we met at the Scottish Assosiation of Geography Teachers Conference (SAGT) in 2006. I over ambitiously presented a talk titled ’50 ideas in 50 minutes’ – at the time (despite over running!) it seem to be quite well received by the assembled audience of close to 200 geography teachers.

I made a screen cast of the talk and posted it to Google Video – it surprises me that it still continues to get hits and views most days. Much of the content is now quite historic and some of the tools that I mention don’t even exist anymore! I’ve also changed my mind about lots of things – but otherwise if you have not seen it, it might be worth a watch?

It’s nice to think that I might have influenced Dave’s practice in some way. But I’m sure if I had not introduced him to blogging then he would have found his own way. Never the less reading his post made me feel quite proud. It’s great to be able to work with teachers, introduce them to new ideas and share resources. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my job.

I also read this article on PopTalk (the BrainPop UK Blog) titled 'Save the planet with a little help from Tim and Moby'. It was a post about Annette Lafrate a newly Qualified Teacher at Knightswood Secondary, Glasgow she had been using Tim and Moby to teach her class about environmental issues. The children had produced BrainPop posters as part of their assessment for the unit of work. Again Annette had discovered BrainPop through this site.

It is stories like this that remind me why I continue to blog, share and collaborate with the wider education community. I still believe sharing is the biggest efficiency saving we could make in education.

How many people have you shared your thoughts lesson plans or ideas with this week? Also if you have used a link or idea from this site - I always love to hear from you!

Photo: geoblogs

Computer Games and Literacy at the Highland Learning Festival

Ollie Bray — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Derek Robertson, Con Morris and I traveled up to Dingwall Academy a couple of weeks ago to attend the Highland Learning Festival. As normal Con was speaking about the value of on-line CPD (particularly CPD Find) and also sponsoring the water at the event!

Derek and I were asked to run a workshop on the use of computer games to specifically iprove literacy skills with children and young people. We had six 30 minute slots over the two days.

30 minutes is not a long time – particularly when we are both used to running whole day workshops! Also the delegates seem to be so engaged and interested in what we were saying our sessions ended up being six one hour slots!

The format of the workshop was a brief presentation from either Derek or myself and then there was an opportunity for the audience to experience some of the games consoles and software that we had brought along.

During the presentation we discussed the following:

1. The role of the Learning and Teaching Scotland Consolarium and why games based learning and emerging technologies are important to schools.

2. The use of commercially available computer games that have been built for entertainment but can be ‘retro-fitted’ for education.

3. Narrative Driven computer games for the Nintendo DS – in particular the work that has been done with Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Professor Layton was piloted successfully in Clackmannan Primary Primary School last year by Brian McLaren and Morag Clark. If you have not played it it’s a great narrative driven game, with an excellent story and mystery to solve as you look for the Golden Apple (its not a bit of fruit by the way – but I won’t spoil it for you!).

On your way to completing the game you also have to solve 150 puzzles. Many of these puzzles involve numeracy and cognitive problem solving skills. Brian recently presented his project at the Handheld Learning Festival.

If you have not heard of Professor Layton before I have embedded a trailer of the game below (You Tube clip).

3. Immersive Worlds for the Nintendo Wii

Again the focus here was on ‘off the shelf games’ in particular we mentioned the use of games like Endless ocean that can form an enriching contextual hub for learning.

If you have not seen Endless Ocean before have a look at the this Games Trailer below (You Tube Clip):

Endless Ocean has been used in a number of schools – we gave examples from Stirling and also pointed out some of Tom Barretts excellent work with the same title.

4. Crazy Talk

Now we know this isn’t really a game – but it is highly engaging for young people. If you have not heard of Crazy Talk before it worth checking out. Basically it allows you to draw or take a picture of a face and then record your voice. With a few clicks of the mouse you can then lip sinc and animate your picture to your voice.

I’ve seen Crazy talk being used in lots of schools and it’s a great resource to support literacy. Children feel more empowered to write more when they know that the character they have drawn will be speaking their text.

Here’s an example of people about to get on the Titanic and to sail to New York (they didn’t make it by the way!).

5. Hotel Dusk Room: Room 215

Hotel Dusk is a Detective Mystery Game for the Nintendo DS. It has a PEGI age rating of 12 years old and one of the main reasons for this is that the narrative that drives the game is quite complicated. Hotel Dusk is actually really an interactive Graphic Novel. In fact to solve the mystery of room 215 you have to read more words than are contained in Harry Potter.

Hotel Dusk was used successfully in Perth High School last year and it was one of the projects that was presented at the Spotlight Scotland Session at this years Handheld Learning Conference.

The S2 class at Perth High School were asked to play the game for homework over the Easter holidays. They then completed activities related to the game when they returned in the summer term. One of the main outputs was that the class wrote their own detective story that was podcasted and published. The podcast was made available through iTunes as well as on the schools own website – which provided a real audience for the students work.

Hotel Dusk Trailer below if you have not seen it:

6. A brief description of some of the games that were available in the time following the presentation.

We brought a number of titles with us including:

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
My Word Coach (link)
Crazy Talk 6
Wild Earth: African Safari (link)

Overall a fun couple of days (despite my loss at dominoes on the Tuesday evening!)

Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum–Brazil 2009 (3 of 10): Innovative Schools

Ollie Bray — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

This year’s Worldwide Innovative teachers forum was combined with the Worldwide Innovative Schools forum to create the Microsoft Worldwide Education Forum (does that make any sense?).

Over 110 applications were submitted globally by schools who were wishing to take part in the programme. Out of these 110+ schools 30 schools were chosen to attend the Innovative Schools Forum in Brazil. Two of these schools were from the UK and both were from Scotland. It’s also worth noting that Scotland was the only country in the world to have two schools represented at the forum – the applications must have been good!

The two Scottish schools were:

Stirling High School
Calderglen High School

As part of the schools strand of the forum the schools set up displays on the Tuesday evening about their schools and their local contexts. The displays also contained information and ideas for possible curriculum change, models of future curriculum architecture and individual school vision. The two Scottish Schools are shown below:

Stirling High School, Stirling

Calderglen High School, South Lanarkshire

It was interesting looking around the school displays (until Kristen kicked me out!).

One of the things that struck me was how much attention Stirling High School were getting. On the Stirling stand the Principles of Curriculum Design within A Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) were proudly on display as the schools vision.

The principles and priorities seemed to impress many of the international delegates - particularly when they found out it was actually Scotland's vision. I found this very reassuring and although I know there may still be confusion about A Curriculum for Excellence at local level its nice to have in reinforced that we have the big picture thinking right.

There are two types of Microsoft School within the schools programme - Pathfinder Schools and Mentor Schools. Both Stirling and Claderglen are Pathfinder schools. You can find out more information about the Microsoft Innovative Schools proramme here.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the impact of the event on the two school over the next twelve months.

On-line CPD: Internet Safety and Responsible Use (Glowing Thursday)

Ollie Bray — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:30:55 +0000

Most Thursday’s Jennifer McDougall (one of our Glow Development Officers) at Learning and Teaching Scotland hosts an on-line CPD session that we call Glowing Thursday (the name comes from here).

The programme is available well in advance and the CPD sessions are about an hour long and led by someone who has interest or expertise in the chosen field. The sessions are delivered via GlowMeet (Glow’s video conference client) and anyone with a Glow log in is welcome to join. You just turn up in the virtual room.

The sessions are nearly always videoed if you miss a session or if you can’t get along to watch the presentation live. GlowMeet is currently based on the Marratech client which allows instant messages between participants, a shared whiteboard space for presentation slides and video / audio capacity.

When I’m out and about speaking to teachers I always try to make the point that was well as Glow having fantastic potential to enhance and open learning in schools and classrooms. It also has amazing potential for CPD – Glowing Thursday and our Building Windmill Events have been really good examples of this.

Anyway, below are the slides that used during this evenings presentation on Internet Safety and Responsible Use and thank you so much for everyone who attended. Its great to see web cams pointing out into classrooms with groups of staff watching these presentations after school on-line. This really helps demonstrate the wide impact that this type of technology can have on professional development.

Glow Internet Safety Talk

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

If your looking for some notes on some of the things that I said have a read of this blog post and for specific information on http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2008/05/mobile-phones-i.html

Also, we are currently working on a National Internet safety and Responsible Use Glow Group – that I hope will become a great resource for all Scottish teachers.

Feel free to leave feedback about tonights talk below.

Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum–Brazil 2009 (2of10): Event Opening and Keynote

Ollie Bray — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:00:00 +0000

The Microsoft Innovative Education Forum officially opened on Tuesday 3rd November and delegates were treated to some live Brazilain Music and dancing. I was particularly impressed with the Capoeira Dancers that seemed to combine marshal arts with acrobatics.

The following morning we all collected headset and assembled in the main conference room to listen to the event opening keynote presentations. The first presentation was from Michel Levy, President, Microsoft Brazil who welcomed delegates, and officially opened the Forum.

The second keynote was from Hon. Jacques Wagner, Governor of Bahia State, Brazil. I found Wagners keynote really interesting partly because it was being translated into my ear live and the voice changed from a male to a female halfway through. But mainly, because it reinforced to me that every country in the world that I know of at the moment is going through education reform. And in the process of this reform every country in the world is experiencing similar problems. The Governor seemed incredibly proud of his state and this came across in his presentation.

The final keynote was given my Michael Golden the Corporate Vice President of the Education Product Group, Microsoft UK who was amply assisted by Microsoft’s Scott Burmester. It was a good presentation and set the tone for the conference.

Michael gave an overview of his perspective of global education and gave a really clear message, ‘It all starts with one’. He suggested that if we were really going to have impact and change the world than we need to start tackling global education issues one child at a time and one school at a time. I couldn’t agree more and that is just one reason why I agree with a fully inclusive education system.

As you would expect as part of the presentation both Scott and Michal also demonstrated some Microsoft Products. The product demonstrations included:

Microsoft Worldwide Telescope – fantastic for learning about the stars and galaxies. Scott demonstrated how you could find out facts and figures of different stars and planets. I couldn’t help thinking it would be a really great resource as a stimulus for creative writing as well. Imagine getting children to write their own space tour or using some of the bright and vibrant colors of some of the intergalactic constellation of far off lands.

Windows 7 – The touch screen capacity of Windows 7 was demonstrated (I’m not quite sure how Scott managed to demo everything upside down but he did!). I think that that this has good potential in education and without a doubt multi-touch is a growing interface and will certainly find a niche in early years education very quickly. What I want to know is who has got Windows 7 working with full multi touch capacity on an interactive whiteboard? The split screen function of Windows 7 was also demonstrated.

Bing Maps – Again Bing Maps are often over looked resource by schools. As regular readers of this site will realize I love Google Maps as well. But in some cases Bing maps actually provide more detailed and up-to-date satellite imagery. Ts always worth comparing both if you are exploring place with a class. Its also always worth downloading the Bing Maps 3D plugin on the standard build of your school computers.

Partners in Learning Network – the new partners in learning network was launched at the event. Its got a number of advantages most notably you can now search across countries to make connections and you can use your Windows Live Login to access the network. It’s another good example of how Microsoft are working hard to join up services (xBox Live, Windows Live, SkyDrive etc…).

Microsoft Semblio - Lots of potential here. More about this next week.

Multipoint – a really cool way to allow many users to controls lots of different mice on the same screen. Great for collaborative working and even better if eventually your Windows enabled mobile phone becomes the mouse. Lets hope they have already through of that?

Live @edu – Free education services available for schools. Email, messenger, student sky drive etc…

Math’s add in for word and the math’s worksheet generator – I’m not as keen on the math’s worksheet generator. I struggle with the concept of creating lots of different versions of the same problem. But I do like the technology behind what they have created here and I think the maths add in for word would be great for teaching Math’s and Physics. Alessio Bernardelli has made a nice little InnoVID on the Maths Add in for word.

Overall a great start to the conference.

Photo credits: Franz and Valter Pontes at COPERPHOTO

New Tools for Teachers: Barnet, London

Ollie Bray — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:40:17 +0000

Yesterday I had a flying visit to the Borough of Barnet in London. The Borough of Barnet have been great friends to Learning and Teaching Scotland during the last two handheld learning festivals in London and as a result I agreed to go and speak at their annual ICT Leader Conference.

The other reason I agreed to go was because Professor Tanya Byron was the speaker before me at the conference. I have heard Tanya speak on-line a number of times but I had never seen here live and I was very keen to meet her in person. More on her presentation in a later post.

Anyway, I promised I would post the links from yesterdays talk. I’m not going to re-post the exact slides but you can find a very similar presentation and on-line hand out here.

Also, if you were at the talk – thank you for your positive feedback on the evaluation forms. Please feel free to leave further feedback or comment below.