My Brain Hurts

This term was coined by Marc Prensky several years ago to describe the great majority of today’s students who are growing up in homes and a society where technology is embedded in the fabric of that environment. In Prensky’s words “Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. ” (http://www.marcprensky.com)

This makes a lot of sense to me and is reflected by the behaviour I have observed in today’s students. I am surprised by the number of educators who have still not heard of this term, but when I explain it (and the term digitial immigrants) to them they do understand and agree with the point. A Wikipedia article on Digital Natives makes an interesting point that it was actually digital immigrants who built the Internet, but then continues to make some statements that appear to miss the point Prensky was making. The article is open for editing so it will be interesting to watch how it evolves.

This week, five 5th Grade students on a television show were asked “What type of software are Internet Explorer and Firefox examples of?” Now these were intelligent students and prime examples of what a digital native is supposed to be, however, only one student gave the correct answer Web Browser and one other gave an answer that was close but not quite correct. Only one in five digital natives knows what a web browser is? Later in the same program they were asked “What is a graphical representation of a person?” and they all gave the correct answer Avatar. Hmmm, now this would appear to be a much more technical question than to identify a web browser.

Here we have an example that supports the digital native concept. If the students were asked to describe the functionality of Firefox et al then no doubt they would have done so easily. All you do is click on an icon and browse the web, nothing actually comes up to say You are using a web browser, so the term is logically not familiar to them.

You don’t just click on an icon and get an avatar, they need to be created. Progams where you create an Avatar would use that term repeatedly therefore the terminology becomes known.

Many are of the opinion that YouTube is just bunch of adolescents putting up goofy videos of themselves doing stupid things, well it does has that but it has a lot of valuable educational resources as well. One example if social history recorded by ordinary people. Take any newsworthy event that you plan to cover with your class and there will probably be something there, an example of that is the numerous Tsunami videos. Many are poor quality taken with phones but they are graphic portrayals of human reactions to this event, the images and recorded voices give an interesting insight into what it was like to actually be there.

Obviously viewing live in class is the first option but many narrow minded people in power block YouTube from School network use. However all is not lost, there are a few twists along the way but it’s a fairly simple process to download these files so you can use them with your classs. A Google search on “download from YouTube” will produce many options. My favoutites are these two:

Vixy (http://vixy.net) – open the YouTube page with the video you want. Open vixy.net and copy the URL into the required space. Select one of the five target video formats available and away you go.

TechCrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie) – open the YouTube page with the video you want. Open TechCrunch and copy the URL into the required space and away you go. The file is downloaded in the original flv format use by YouTube. You can view the file with a player such as VLC but I prefer to convert it to an mpeg using iSquint (http://www.isquint.org). This process does have an extra step but I think the final result is a better quality file.

The lure of blogging has been calling for some time but the abilty to answer it has been a somewhat rocky road. Having had two blogspot blogs go west at blogger and not been able to resolve the problem I decided to up anchor and give edublogs a go. All was well for the first month and I really liked the way the blog can be customised to suit the look you want. However then the same problem I had with Blogger followed me here – suddenly my password and username were not recognised even though they were being entered correctly. Throw in some time off for a holiday and I was off cyber air for about a month. Upon my return, no amount of fiddling seemed to work so it was time to seek some technical assistance.

Unlike my Blogger experience I requested a new password which still didn’t work but it appeared to actually come from a person rather than from an automated response system so I wrote to that person detailing my tail of woe. The next day there was a reply email with new login details that again appeared to be from a real person. OK, things are looking hopeful. Tentatively the new details were entered into the login page and holding my breathe, the magic go button was pressed. Nothing much happened straight away, but then that is a good thing – no error message. Then the page loaded and voila my blog was back.

I am so impressed that a site that now hosts 100 000 blogs was able to give human attention to my problem. Well done edublogs and mant happy returns. I’m looking forward to getting back into the blogging seat.

This wonderful little utility is a DVD to mpeg-4 converter. I’m yet to find any DVD it does not work with. Really useful to convert to iPod format. It gets a giant thumbs up and should be an essentail part of your ulility cupboard. Runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.

http://handbrake.m0k.org/

These words were uttered to me today by a friend who only uses PCs. For a long time I have used both a Mac and a PC, nowdays its an Intel Macbook that runs both so at least I only need one computer. I really wouldn’t like to be without both as each has its own advantages, but if I had to make a choice the wonderful creativeness of the Mac and it’s associated software wins hands down. But this is not about me.

My friend’s statement referred to his wife who also has a PC only background but was issued with a Mac by her school earlier this year. He stated that “She had put it in the cupboard and left it there, having only used it about twice. So much for the user friendliness of the Mac”.

The Mac vs PC thing is really boring so let’s not go there as this is not about that.

The real issue here however is an all to familiar one in education. Lots of money spent on the technology and precious little on staff training.

I know that she has had bugger all PD on how to use her new Mac. Teachers are incredibly busy so unless they have a real techno drive they are not going to invest the necessary time required to learn something new. A person can not become an instant expert on a new machine after only limited exposure.

Has she been shown the basics of using it? Has she been shown the way it uses Word, Powerpoint, Excel and the Internet exactly the same way her PC does? Has she been shown the highly creative iLife suite of programs preloaded on it? Has anyone shown her how simple it is to create and publish really high quality podcasts with GarageBand? Widgets anyone? Or how easily a class lesson can come alive using Comic Life? The inbuilt camera, ichat, webcams or downloading podcasts and organising audio and video content via iTunes? How to download a file from uTube to use in class, converting video formats with iSquint? Has she been exposed to the wonders of Google Earth? How easily files can be dragged and dropped into other applications or the wonderful level of interactivity between various programs? What about the use of virtual worlds? etc, etc, etc

I doubt that she has been made aware of any of this.

In reality she has been given a Ferrari and all she has been shown how to do is to put on the parking brake. Given the above situation I’d probably put it in the cupboard as well.

It’s been stated by many people many times over that for every $ spent on technology a $ needs to be spent on training. Some schools and districts have wonderfully supportive PD networks, but some others . . . . . .

Some Year 10 students today were telling me about their web site where they post short movies they have created which also appear on YouTube. They have 5 “movies” posted and were rightfully proud of their small site. They were using MovieMaker and agreed with me that it is a toy program and that they would love to update to some real software like Final Cut Pro. Seems like they need part time jobs. At least the school uses FCP so if they enrol in the correct unit next year they can fuel their movie passion with some real tools.

This does show how creative students want to be and their willingnes to take on new learning to fulfil a desire. The instant success of YouTube is the end result of that. Also makes you wonder what these students have to put up with if these creative spirits are not encouraged in a pencil and paper school system.

These are really high quality, very motivational and a great teaching tool. There are 12 different categories of podcast that you can subscribe to. They are free and NG permits broader use within educational settings as defined in their conditions of use.

For more information and to subscribe visit:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/

This was an amazing conference attended by a staggering 18 000 delegates. Infinitely larger than anything I had ever been to. Leaving a frosty wintry Canberra to land in summery Hotlanta, Georgia was a welcome weather change. The conference kicked off with a night at the Atlanta Aquarium, the white beluga whales and the giant glass walled tank were fascinating.

The large number of concurrent sessions made it difficult to choose between presentations. Some sessions were podcasted so no need to go to those, instead download the podcast later. There were also poster sessions, student showcases, special focus playgrounds, birds-of-a-feather sessions and workshops ( for an additional fee). More than enough to cram into a mere three days. Most of the presentations I attended were very informative. These included blogging in the classroom, virtual schooling in Second Life, web based tools, online PD, teaching with emerging technologies, information fluency and podcasting – all of which were very informative sessions. Unfortunately there were a couple of dud sessions also but it was simply a case of bail out and sneak into another.

Then there was the trade display, this was HUGE and I mean really HUGE. So many companies on display offering insights into new and existing products – and of course the freebies.

While in Atlanta, it’s well worth a visit to the World of Coca Cola, but be wary when the sampling room attendant makes a recommendation – grapefruit flavour . . . yuck!

This was a great excuse to take a month’s long service leave pack up the family and see the east coast of the USA. We had a great time visiting New York, Washington and Florida. Next year NECC moves to San Antonio, Texas. Very tempting to go back . . . . .

Let me start by stating that I am an IWB convert. Like many people, I once thought they were little more than an expensive gimmick until I started to use one. I quickly realised their great potential to enhance learning in my classroom.

Like 450 other people, I have just returned from the 2007 IWB Conference at Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast. Well organised and well supported in a location well suited to the event. It is always great to be among like minded people and to pick up new ideas from collegial networking (particularly while enjoying the night view from the top of Q1) and seeing what innovative work is being done by others. There was the usual mixture of people, from the experienced to those on a fact finding mission who come to ask a lot of questions and seek a lot of answers.

Strangely enough one major board manufacturer was missing which makes one wonder why buy their board if that aren’t really interested? An interesting post at http://betch.edublogs.org/ says it better than I could.

So how does an IWB improve student learning? By itself it doesn’t, an IWB is just a piece of plastic hanging on a wall. However, in the hands of a creative teacher it becomes a powerful teaching and learning tool that promotes “engagement” and “interaction” between the participants and the lesson. Yes this can be achieved in other ways but an IWB is a great catalyst for achieving this. Its more about the pedagogy than the tool.

Maybe one person in a hundred will be convinced of their usefulness by talking about them. Maybe 50% will be convinced by seeing them in action. Very few people who have used one will want to go back to teaching without one. I was a classic non-believer in IWBs until I actually used one. It was then that I started to see ways in which I could enhance my lessons using this great tool. In my first day of IWB operation with a class, a bright 6 year old raised his hand and asked “When do we get to use the board?” and guess what . . . he was right. From then on my students control the board as much as I do and this makes our lessons more interective, engaging and realistic. Not everything revolves around the board, like all good tools its use should be left to the tasks it does best.

So stay open minded and don’t just talk to people, go into classrooms and get some first hand experience with them. One thing I will guarantee is that once you start using an IWB you will change the way you teach – and it will be a beneficial change.