The article outlines Apple's new MobileMe service which is an overhaul of a suite of Internet features that used to be called .Mac. It's aim is to to keep the e-mail, calendars, address books and Web bookmarks on all of your computers -- Macs, Windows PCs, iPhones and iPod Touches -- synchronized in real time. You still have access to an iDisk: a virtual hard drive where you can park, back up or transfer files that are too big to send by e-mail, but some of the old .Mac features are gone, including E-greeting cards and discussion groups.
For more information you can download a guided tour.
'Inanimate Alice' tells the story of Alice, growing up in the early years of the 21st century. Written and directed by writer Kate Pullinger and digital artist Chris Joseph, this series of multimedia, interactive episodes uses a combination of text, sound, images, and games as Alice takes us on a journey through her life from the age of eight through to her twenties. Alice becomes a games animator; not just any animator, but a creator of characters for the most successful games company in the world.
And one character stands out: Brad, Alice's only true friend in life. The ten episodes of 'Inanimate Alice' become increasingly interactive and game-like, reflecting Alice's own developing skills as a game designer and animator. 'Inanimate Alice' is a study of human/computer relations in a world where having friends means never having to meet them.
I was contacted by Ian about this project recently - and I thought it worth passing on. He draws attention to episode 4: Hometown" (http://inanimatealice.com)in which Alice previews a software tool that she has created, called iStories. A supremely simple storytelling tool, iStories enables students and staff to choose photos, add words, music and sound effects and BOOM! you have your own interactive story in minutes. Check it out at http://www.iStori.es
I'd love to hear from any teachers how have the chance to try this with students.
The rise in use of mobile technologies is identified as one of CORE's ten trends, and the release of the iPhone last week in NZ and around the world certainly attracted a huge amount of publicity (With the New York TImes reporting over a million new iPhones sold in the US in one weekend!). But behind the hype there are indications of where the future of ICT and online communications are headed. Someone who definitely sees it this way is Chris Deering, former Chairman and President of Sony Europe, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and now Chairman of Handheld Learning who considers his bet's on the new Apple iPhone in an article titled The New Apple Core. In it he makes a number of predictions, beginning with; "the terms TV and PC will sound as outdated as "8 Track" tape decks within 2-3 years. Everything will be capable of delivery over Internet Protocol (IP). Live sports to big screens and everything else." Read the rest yourself..
Following my recent post about Software as a Service I've had several discussions with teachers about the use of Google Docs by staff and students in schools. many are finding that these applications provide pretty much everything they need on a day to day basis. So it was with interest that I took a look at the Interactive Tutorials that Google have developed to explain concepts within all of the current GoogleApps (including the GoogleDocs suite).
I'd love to know how they've developed these tutorials - they're easy to follow and are a great example of how instructional material can be presented online - both pedagogically and technically. I wonder when this service will be provided as one of the Google Apps??
I've just completed another day with the establishment team at Albany Senior High School - this time assisting with the planning of their programme of professional development for the team of new staff they have appointed and who will be coming together in term four to prepare for the first intake of students at the beginning of 2009.
So it was with interest that I read a discussion forum in EdWeek's Teacher Magazine titled 21st Century High School. The first post asks:
If you could design a 21st century high school, what types of staff development would your offer to your teachers and how would you go about making sure the teachers met your objectives? I am a new Instructional Technology facilitator and want to offer my teachers the best staff development. What staff development has worked best for you and why?
Interesting to read through the advice that is provided by many of the respondents - emphasizing that there is no such thing as a "one size fits all" approach, and that the best PD is done over a long period of time (not in one-off sessions). Just one response links the whole issue of professional development with an exploration of the values of the school - and then only as one of the options that staff members may focus on. There is some discussion about what a 21st century school might look like - focusing mostly on assumptions about the role of technology.
The focus of the initial part of the question that starts the post is exactly where the Albany staff are at (viz "If you could design a 21st century high school, what types of staff development would your offer to your teachers...?") - but the responses in the discussion so far seem to miss the point of what some of the bigger-picture questions are as I see them, eg...
what are the characteristics of a 21st century school?
what are the characteristics of a 21st century curriculum?
what skills/knowledge/competencies will a 21st century student need to learn/develop?
what do we understand about learning and how this occurs - in the 21st century?
what will the role of the teacher be in a 21st century school?
what skills, knowledge and competencies will be required by21st century teachers?
what will be the role of technology in all of this?
The responses to these sorts of questions should, in my view, form the basis of how we go about designing professional development experiences and opportunities for staff involved in teaching for and in the 21st century.
What is required of our school principals to effectively lead learning in their schools in the digital age? This was the focus of some presentations I gave at the First Time Principals gathering in Auckland today, where some 200 new principals were attending the final three day face-to-face meeting as part of their introduction to the role of principal.
Mark Treadwell set the scene for what I shared in his initial keynote in which he drew from ideas in in his recently published book "Whatever!" - The Conceptual Era and the Revolution. Central to much of what he presented were his thoughts about the "Upper Limit Hypothesis", a concept originally proposed by Robert Branson of Florida State University (download his original paper here - PDF). Branston's hypothesis is that somewhere between 1950 and 1960 education reached its upper limit of its potential capability, and that this is the reason that schools are incapable of achieving any real improvement in performance.
To make significant progress in education, Branston claims, will require three major changes:
Fundamental redesign in schooling from the predominant teaching-centered model to a learning-centered model. Current school organization was established long before there was a science of learning and motivation.
Major investment in the research and development of products and processes for schooling to make capable systems available. This research should be conducted by research institutes at the state level, much like the infrastructure for agricultural research or medical research.
Cultural change within education to create demand for new products and processes based on R&D.
Treadwell extends this thinking to illustrate what he describes as the difference between the "book-based paradigm" and the "internet paradigm" in which the potential of education to achieve far greater levels of performance and potential is significantly increased.
In my session on leading learning in the digital age I focused more narrowly on the adoption of ICTs by schools and by young people - using the findings of the 2008 Horizon Report (PDF Download) as a basis for emphasising the role of principals as leaders of learning in the digital age. Key findings from that report include:
The growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking, combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization, is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of teaching/learning and scholarship
The way we work, collaborate, and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases
Access to, and portability of, content is increasing as smaller, more powerful devices are introduced.
The gap between students' perception of technology and that of faculty/teachers continues to widen
it is the final point in that list that poses significant challenges for us as educational leaders. It is not simply a case of finding ways to include the use of more ICTs in our classrooms in the hope that students will somehow find that more engaging. Instead, our practice as educators needs to be more informed by our personal use and modelling of these technologies in every aspect of how schools are organised and managed. It is simply no longer acceptable for any of us to be heard saying "the students know how to use it all - I don't need to, I simply let them show each other!"
Educational leaders in the digital age must be technologically literate, they must model this on a regular basis to their staff, students and community, and they must promote a similar disposition among all those with whom they work. Failure to do so will mean that we are not "Leading Learning" at all, but simply "following" it and, if we're lucky, contributing to it in some way.
CoPs as a means of changing (technological) practice
I had the opportunity to speak to the HETTANZ annual conference today - the topic was "Online Communities of Practice". I spoke about the ways in which the use of online applications and environments could enrich the discourse within their professional community, and enable them to continue the valuable conversations they were initiating at this event well beyond the dates of the physical conference. As a professional organisation, this group has a well defined domain within which they operate, they are identified as a community by their membership of this organisation, and they are all engaged in the practice of teaching home economics within the school system - so they amply meet the criteria for existing as a community of practice as defined by Wenger et al, and could benefit greatly by using the online environment to continue the discussions about the issues they are facing as practitioners (eg. the introduction of the New Zealand Curriculum, the status of HE teachers, assessment of HE etc)
It was clear that what I had to share, particularly about the online technologies, was new to many of those in the group, making some feel uncomfortable or anxious about expectations being made of them to become active in this area. This was highlighted in some of the questions at the end of my session and in numerous conversations afterwards in which the following three issues were repeatedly raised;
Schools are not adequately resourced to allow much of what I was demonstrating to become a reality for them in their classrooms (referring to availability of hardware, software, internet access etc)
There isn't the time required to become familiar with this technology or the applications demonstrated, and
There are serious concerns around cybersafety and security that present too big a barrier.
While I do have some empathy with these concerns, these are exactly the reasons why professional organisations such as HETTANZ should be mobilizing themselves to use the online environments for their own professional development and to enable participation in their professional community of practice. Before these issues can be sensibly addressed, we need to see more teachers developing informed views about the potential use for both good and bad of these technologies based on their personal use rather than the opinions expressed in the media. I illustrated how this is happening already with several hundreds of teachers engaged in the Curriculum Online discussions and forums, and in the Centre4 communities that have formed around the ICT PD clusters.
With many now asking, Is it OK to be a technologically illiterate teacher?, it's time to say Enough Excuses and begin committing time and energy to exploring these technologies and what they offer - and I believe that participation in an online community of practice is an excellent way of engaging with people to achieve this. Not only does it introduce them to the potential (and possible pitfalls) of the technology in a practical way, but it does so by engaging them in authentic acts of debate and discussion about the practice they are involved in.
I am reminded as I write of a quote made by Karen Sewell in her keynote to the conference the previous day: "We must escape from the prison we trap ourselves in - too often we respond with reasons why we can't innovate!". Now there's a challenge :-)
In preparing for this talk I reflected about my own mother who trained as a home economics teacher, and who brought all of that knowledge and experience into her role as a wife and mother in the home. The video clip at the bottom of this post comes from the era that she trained, and illustrates the fact that home economics was then, as it is now, a subject that has much to contribute to the development of young people.
An interesting article in Education Week titled Friend or Foe? Balancing the Good and Bad of Social-Networking Sites draws attention (again) to the potential pitfalls of promoting the use of social networking in our schools and classrooms. It begins with a story of a group of students in a US school who are disciplined after photos of them shown drinking alcohol are discovered on a Facebook site. Since drinking alcohol is against the school rules, and the fact that Facebook is a public site, the school felt it had no option but to punish them.
The article argues that "educators must have a clear vision and guidelines for doing so, or they will face serious technical and legal pitfalls. And... schools have a role to play in educating students about safely and appropriately using such sites." The writer lists the following tips for social networking use by educators:
Establish a policy for dealing with incidents in which students break school rules and their inappropriate behavior is showcased publicly on social-networking sites.
Outline clear guidelines for administrators that spell out how schools should discipline students based on information garnered from social-networking sites, and let parents and students know about those rules.
Educate students about online-safety issues and how to use sites such as Facebook and MySpace responsibly
Have a policy in place for dealing with cyber bullying.
If teachers are using social-networking sites for educational purposes, they should establish clear guidelines for how they intend to communicate with students via those sites
. Some useful advice here, worth noting and acting upon.
Recently published by the Commonwealth of Learning is this edited e-book titled Education for a Digital World - advice, guidelines and effective practice from around the globe. This 500-page volume contains a comprehensive collection of proven strategies and tools for effective online teaching, based on the principles of learning as a social process. It offers practical, contemporary guidance to support e-learning decision-making, instructional choices, as well as program and course planning, and development.
There are five sections in the book, with contributed chapters under the headings of:
The impact of Instructional technologies
Preparing Online Courses
Implementing Technology
eLearning in Action
Engagement and Communication
The book itself has been designed in such a way that it could be used as a handbook for a course on the topic - with each of the 31 very informative chapters introduced with a list of learning outcomes that should be achieved as the reader works his/her way through the chapter.
There's simply too much in this book for me to do it justice with a brief mention here - suffice to say that there is something of value in here for everyone, from the newcomers to the topic to those who are well down the track.
I found chapter 30,"Supporting eLearning through Communities of Practice" of particular interest having just attended an all day seminar yesterday with Etienne Wenger, whose work gets quoted in this chapter. There are some very useful models and frameworks explained in the chapter, as well as some informative case studies that illustrate the nature and operation of some of these communities of practice - including one that I've been a part of for a while, namely the SCoPE online community hosted Simon Fraser University in Australia which brings together individuals who share an interest in educational research and practice.
The concept of 'software as a service' has been gaining momentum in recent months, with many schools I visit now using Google Docs and web-based wikis and other applications to create and share content, as opposed to using traditional locally hosted software installed on the user's own machine or local server. Supporters of SaaS cite the following benefits
easier administration
automatic updates and management of 'fixes'
compatibility (all users will have the same version of software)
easier collaboration, for the same reason
global accessibility.
There are, of course, still concerns over things like security of the content that is produced and stored online, and the fact that these applications are still maturing in terms of the features they offer, but things are developing rapidly in these areas.
Recently GoogleDocs introduced the ability for users to create and edit content offline using their Google Gears technology, a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. Over the weekend I've been playing with the latest release of Zoho which has been adding significant updates to several of its applications over the past few months, including its word processor (Zoho Writer), spreadheet (Zoho Sheet) and its presentation application (Zoho Show).
I'm impressed with Zoho Writer, built on Ajax technology it's easy to use and I can create documents online (and offline too using Google Gears!), and access them from any computer, at home or at work. Plus, the instant collaboration, inline commenting and chat facilities enable me to develop documents in true collaborative style - no more emailing drafts back and forth. Writer has an increased range of features that you expect in a word processor, and the ability to export my documents in a range of formats, including HTML, WORD and ODF.
The other apps are all significantly improved since the last time I played with them - in particular ZohoShow which now exports to Powerpoint and has integration with Flickr and Picasa.
While exploring several of the applications in the Zoho suite, I was intrigued to receive an email soon after from someone in the Zoho team, offering to assist me with the service should I need it - providing me with links to online help docus, forums, blogs and even a twitter account! Now that must be a sign of things to come!
Future Learning is a new blog set up by the Secondary Futures project. Apart from some quirky behaviours in the way the blog is constructed, the content and intent makes it worth a visit - and contributing to. A browse of the comments that have been posted reveal that there may still be a lot of talking required before we can reach a point of agreement on many of the important issues.
At a different level I found it interesting interacting with this blog (as compared to many other blogs I read and comment on). One of the hallmarks of the web2.0 world I've become accustomed to is the 'personality' of the blog poster (or posters) that emerges through the style of writing, the identity of the poster listed with the post and through my ability to read their profile online. I found it interesting that on the Future Learning blog each of the entries has been posted anonymously, and there are no links to the original contributors apart from the about link which refers to the four guardians of the project, but does not specify whether they are the ones generating the discussions or not. The cynic in me wonders if this is an attempt to employ a web2.0 approach by someone who is not familiar with how it all works? The graphics an interface are attention grabbing - if not reminiscent of a previous century of education rather than the future (and I've been trying to figure out what that blind does) - but some of the expected functionality isn't quite there.
Despite this I'll certainly be reading this blog regularly to see what sort of discussion it generates.
ULearn'08
Christchurch, New Zealand
October 7-10, 2008
KPEC Project
The K-Perak Elearning Cluster Project in Malaysia A joint project involving iNZed (of which CORE is a part), K-Perak Inc. and the Perak State Department of Education
see website
Link here to the TUANZ tips area in the Centre4 environment for teachers Contains an accumulation of the feedback from TUANZ education seminar participants, linked with discussion forums for ongoing discussion.
Derek's Profile
Online Participation: The 4 Cs
The Barrel 
Services Oriented Architecture for Education 
The rise in use of mobile technologies is identified as one of 
Derek Wenmoth
The Distance Education Association of NZ
Link here to the 
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