The Online Conference afforded me the opportunity to go back to Te Awamutu Intermediate School and interview two group of year 7 & 8 students. I was once again amazed at how articulate these students were without any prompting, to express their thoughts on what the online environment does for their learning. They have a clear message for all teachers, so I’ll let them speak for themselves:
Well done! Let’s hope everyone is listening.
The Time4Online Conference has certainly consumed most of my time this week. The curtains opened on Monday to reveal an almost all there line up of workshops. A peep behind the curtains the day before would have seen quite a different picture as we scurried to get the last bits of the first three days into formation online. There were panic phone calls when things didn’t go as expected, and new ways had to be found. But that in itself is worthy of bringing to the front of stage for what it has to offer teacher and student learning in this exciting era.
Gone are the days when you needed to know anything to do something. Now you just have to want to, have a bit of confidence, and a willingness to take the leap even when you haven’t checked to see that there really is a parachute in that pack on your back. This conference began for me with a dream of what could be, that has gradually formed into shape. There were moments when those who had asked me to co-construct this conference seemed to lose faith in my ability to pull it all together - largely due to different ways that we all work, and where we start the process. Fortunately, Anne Mason and I had enough confidence to feel we would get there in the time available.
The planning and dreaming was easy. Contacting people and persuading them to take part was also a breeze - people joined the excitement and I don’t think anyone said no. Everyone basically thought they could do their part, and, many of them at the 11th hour when all busy and able people get going, have made it happen. As with all my learning, I found that I knew only a small drop of what it takes to achieve the results I wanted. I did however have the innate belief that it could be done. Having key people who could do the really big stuff certainly helped. A lot of stuff simply appeared, although I’m sure the magicians who got it there felt quite different about that. But I got my first chance to do lots of things that I would have liked to do but never got time for.
This week, I have made my first movie - have played a bit with the software in the past, but never taken one through to final form. Never had the need until now. But along the way I found out about programmes that convert this to that so that it will work there. I experimented with cutting and cropping, choosing the wrong process first and having to go back to my original footage again - well only because I forgot that magic undo button, but that’s learning for you. I asked a few questions on Skype or cell phone along the way and got little bits of info that I managed to piece together to make some logical process. I found out about exporting it to whatever it was it needed to be, AND, I uploaded it to Teacher Tube without any help, and copied the code into a wiki to have it viewable on the conference site. Imagine the thrill that was for me.
But hey - our students and our teachers should be getting these sorts of thrills every day as they work through the process, check with a few experts they know, and problem solve their way through. Nobody needs to wait until they know how, before they get on and do it. No teacher needs to know how, before they enable the learning process for their students to achieve the learning intentions that the teacher and students have co-constructed.
BUT every teacher needs to know where they and their students can get help when they need it. And that is where web 2.0 is so fantastic - all the experts you need are sitting along the window sill in the classroom just waiting to help when you need them - or they will be if you take part in the conference (no cost - only a moment of time required here and there.) They’ll then know about blogging and be able to read the blogs of the experts sitting on the window sill. They’ll know or be able to look back and find out, how to set up RSS feeds to these blogs, so that people really are on the window sill. They’ll be able to look back and set up a del.icio.us account and search more effectively for the things they want to know by piggybacking on what others who came before have also wanted to know. They’ll get addicted to the wonderful knowledge that is building up ever so fast on Teacher Tube, and subscribe to listservs aboout the things of interest to them.
If you’re reading this and you haven’t got into this stuff, then visit http://time4online.org.nz and get started. If you are into this stuff, go to http://time4online.org.nz and get contributing - there’s a few spare places on the window sill right now :->>
Come on in and enjoy!
How lovely to be sitting here in the luke warm sun at my own desk in my own home after four weeks of extensive workshopping and cluster visits around the country. I have been to Invercargill and back (Waikato, NZ) twice in that time, plus many places in between. It has been inspiring but exhausting, and blogging has been high on my mind, but bottom of the priority list as I moved further into survivial mode.
Today, however, our Time4Online Conference begins, and online everythings are top of the list. If the sun continbues to shine and all is alive and calm in the conference area, I may just catch up on the months of blogging that have been lying low.
Top of my thoughts is how wonderful wikispaces are. Gone are the days of photocopying (except for readings for the workshop) and even burning things to CD to give away. Now when I run a workshop, I create a wikispace - right then and there int he workshop, to show people how easy it is, and how useful! These web 2.0 tools really are the best thing since sliced bread, as they enable us to capture new ideas, share old and new ones, and collaborate beyond the now in a way that was not previously possible. Thanks you a million times over to wikispaces.com for their free wikis for educators - this is a great asset to education around the world. When I’ve used your 100,000th one, I hope you will grant another lot, as this really is the way forward for us all. Of course there are other free wikis available, such as pbwiki, but wikispaces is top of the charts for me right now as it takes a minute to set a new one up, and 2 more minutes to make it look good and get under way.
If you haven’t heard of or used wikis before, check out some of the ones that I have created in the last few weeks, and then go to the Time4Online Conference and take part in the workshops and tutorials that will guide you through the process and extend your thinking on how to use them to greatest effect.
My wiki for workshops on facilitating adult learning in workshops and peer mentoring http://androgogy.wikispaces.com
My wiki for a workshop on 21st Century learners http://21stcenturylearners.wikispaces.com
My wiki for a two day national workshop and regional meeting in the lower South Island http://sthregional.wikispaces.com
My wiki for a secondary school teachers national workshop and regional meeting http://chch2ndary.wikispaces.com
My wiki for an Early Childhood Workshop in Hamilton http://ecehamilton.wikispaces.com
You will see that these wikis, many of which are still in their raw state awaiting a few minutes from me to look good and add in some more info, have been used to:
Check them out.
