Derek's Blog

Issues like world hunger and the world's energy crisis can simply appear too big to tackle for most individuals, but there are ways we can demonstrate that the collective action of individuals can make a difference.

My family and I participated in the very successful Earth Hour in Christchurch on Saturday evening - despite meaning that I missed watching the Blues vs Bulls game live on TV :-) We spent an enjoyable hour as a family playing Scrabble by the light of two candles. It was my kids who were particularly keen for us to do this, having been exposed to advertising about the event at school and in the media, so while we played Scrabble, we also discussed in detail the significance of the Earth Hour event. I'm a fan of Social Action outcomes in terms of what we do in education - even if they take the form of demonstrators or symbolic events such as Earth Hour - hey, 12.8% saving in the city's electricity use for one hour has to provide some indication of what can be achieved on a longer term basis.

Back to the Scrabble game and the focus on vocabulary and word meaning - made me interested when I came across an online vocabulary building activity called Free Rice. The site has two goals; 1. Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free, and 2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. For each word you get right the site sponsors will donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.

This is a great activity site - with 55 levels and the ability to select the level you start at and remember this for another occasion. You even have the ability to listen to the word before selecting its meaning from a list of four options. And of course, using the site provides a great opportunity to highlight the issues of world hunger and what can be done about it.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks to Clarence Fisher's Twitter message, I've been introduced to Phun, a 2-D physics modelling application. Still in Beta form, this freely downloadable application has been created by Swedish computer science student Emil Ernerfeldt for his Master of Science Thesis.

Currently available for Windows and Linux (with a Mac version in development), Phun is intended to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Nigel posted this video on my Facebook Funwall recently, and I've been pondering its usefulness for education. Four things occur to me:

1. It provides a very useful framework for engaging students with thinking about complex issues and reconciling multiple points of view. I've long been a fan of the scenario-planning methodologies, and this framework uses some of this thinking (although I'm guessing is origins are more in the economic modelling and decision making domain).


2. It provides a great vehicle for encouraging group work by providing the four perspectives that could be explored by different groups for instance. it provides an opportunity to us the ideas promoted by DeBono with his thinking hats to encourage students to explore ideas from a perspective that may not be their own, or the one they'd naturally identify with.


3. It provides a good model for how students could present the efforts of their individual or group research into topical issues - both in terms of the framework itself, and in terms of the video as a way of sharing it. I also got to thinking how effective it would be to create the quadrants in a web environment and add hyperlinks from each statement to supporting evidence etc.


4. It's a ready-made learning object for use with a class thinking about climate change! Students could be encouraged to add their own perspectives to each of the quadrants, debate what the presenter has already added, seek the evidence to support their statements etc.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Just received an email from my electricity supplier in Christchurch - telling me of an educational website they are sponsoring called ElectroCity. It's worth checking out - reminds me a lot of the SimCity projects that I used to run with kids at school - dividing into groups to see who could create the most successful city, and using the experience to discuss issues such as taxes, transport, recreation, governance etc - and coming to understand the issues involved in designing and maintaining a city.

ElectroCity is very similar, although its focus is on teaching about about energy, sustainability and environmental management in New Zealand. I worked my way through the very well constructed tutorial an can see real potential in this being used as a virtual learning experience in the classroom.

There's a resource area for teachers, a very helpful FAQ area, and some pretty impressive prizes being offered in two categories, one for schools and one for public contributions.

The game is designed to be played online - but something I found to be of interest is that there is an option to download a limited version of the game that runs on any computer and doesn't need internet access, with two versions available, one for MacOSX and one for WindowsXP. (I haven't had the chance to try these yet, so can't vouch for what they're like).

If I was back in a class again I'd certainly be looking at this as a useful learning resource - some notes from the website explain why:

ElectroCity is not a win or lose game. There are lots of different ways to play and you can set your class specific objectives. For example, if you wish to try a green approach, a win might be considered any city with 50,000 people and an A rating in the environment category. Or you might focus on economics and get the kids to go for the most money.

ElectroCity is designed to be flexible, so you can use it as you wish. A whole module that deals with energy, the environment, tourism and growth could be centred around the game, mixing formal lessons with fun interactive game play. You could return to the game again and again over several weeks and compare how the kids played at the beginning with how they play at the end, putting their new knowledge into practical use and getting the kids to assess what they've learnt to help them make better decisions in the game.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Now here's some serious competition for the traditional print media publishers - WikiJunior, a project of WikiBooks, aims to...

...produce a series of full-color booklets for children aged 8 to 11. The subjects will be appealing to kids, and the writing will be light and friendly. These booklets will be richly illustrated with photographs, diagrams, sketches, and original drawings. The texts will also follow a format, so that each booklet, while different, will also have certain common features.

I downloaded a PDF copy of the solar system booklet - 97 pages packed with information and images. The layout is pretty basic from a design perspective, consisting largely of headings and blocks of text, with the occasional image inserted here and there. The image quality is pretty good on the whole. The main headings are phrased as questions that students may come seeking an answer to, but without an index of them it's pretty hit and miss as to whether you'll find the question you want. I'd have to say that the language level may be a bit challenging for many students in the target age group - many comparable published texts that I've watched my 9-year old become engrossed in would have a greater amount of visual material including annotated graphics etc to make it easier to access the meaning of some of the scientific and technical terms.

That said, this is an interesting development which will deserve to be followed to see how it develops and how the resources being produced are used.

A further 8 pages follow that provide details of the GNU Free Documentation License which tells you what you are able to do with regards copying and distributing copies of the booklet.

Thanks to Kevin Kruse for the heads up on this one

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I had the opportunity to attend a part of hte IBM conference here in Christchurch last week, and was introduced to some of the education projects that IBM has been supporting. One of these is TryScience.org which I've had the chance to play with now and can recommend.

I'd guess it's best use would be for senior primary and junior secondary students. The publicity states that "TryScience is the collective knowledge of thousands of science expertis in subjects ranging from archeology to zoology, and it's presented in a way that ignites the imagination of children"

In the "Fieldtrips" area I tried the "catch a cultprit" activity! A crime has been committed, and you are required to use your skills of observation and science knowledge to find the perpetrator. Completing the exercise called "Suspect Sketcher" requires intuitive deducation and attention to detail - the basis for scientific discovery!

within the TryScience environment there are five distinct areas to exlpore:

• Adventure - interactive experience.
  
• Experients - hands-on scientific activity
  
• Field Trips - visit science centres throughout the world
  
• Curious - investigate scientific topics in the news
  
• Live Cams - offer a real-time look at some of the world's most interesting science and technology exhibits.

There are plenty of other activities to explore and engage with - I've only started to scratch the surface, but I'll be sharing this with my son for sure, and observing just what takes his interest.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a lot of activity in NZ at the moment around the establishment of MUSH networks in local areas, providing linkage to the Advanced Network (KAREN) that has just been implemented. In the school's area in particular, there are a number of initiatives exloring ways of using these networks to share services and resource repositories.

Seems that the whole issue of digital storage is attracting attention, particualrly as the so-called Web2.0 technologies take hold. The key here is the fact that consumers are now becoming producers - and the more they produce, the more the need for this to be stored - and the more that is stored, the greater the need for what is stored to be able to be searched for.

The relationship between storage and search is that more digital content requires more digital storage, and cheap storage stimulates consumer and enterprise proliferation of digital content. The more content that's stored, the more important search functionality is. The better the search functionality, the more people will use it. And so the cycle continues.

All of this brings us back to the importance of digital storage. An interesting blog post titled Future of Online Storage, 40 points to think about by Jeremiah Owyang provides a really useful insight into this area for those who may be considering where to next in their network. Some of his points will challenge the traditionalists in this field, for example, the idea of viewing thinking about Peer to Peer storage and the prediction that By 2010 all Media will be 50% consumer created.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a really fascinating set of 16 interactive slides designed to explain what happens in the brain of a person with Alzheimer??s disease. Titled Inside the Brain: An Interactive Tour they explain how the brain works and how Alzheimer's affects it.

The interesting thing for me is the fact that, although designed as a teaching tool to help people understand more about Alzheimer's disease, it provides a stimulating introduction to our understandings of how the brain functions, and how different parts of it appear to be responsible for different aspects of our behaviour and abilities.

I have observed a number of teachers introducing these ideas to their students in the context of understanding the nature of knowledge and learning - often with a limited understanding of the very complex medical and physiological matters involved. This resource may help provide a more informed perspective.

Others who refer to our understandings of how the brain functions in relation to how we learn include Ian Jukes in a recent post on his blog titled Parents get a look at teens brains and others such as those with articles on the Brain Research and Education website.

Another article titled How can research on the brain inform education? from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in the US provides a useful overview, and includes a table listing a number of points suggested by recent research and some suggestions for teaching to address these.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I came across LearnOutLoud today while searching for some multimedia files on the web.

LearnOutLoud.com has scoured the Internet to assemble over 500 free audio and video titles which are available free to view on the Web. Many of the titles can be downloaded for a small fee from the original site.

This LOL directory features free audio books, lectures, speeches, sermons, interviews, and many other great free audio and video resources. Most audio titles can be downloaded in digital formats such as MP3 and most video titles are available to stream online.

Well worth a browse and bookmarking for future reference!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the advantages of having a teenage daughter who uses the web as a part of her everyday existence is you get to find out about all sorts of things that would otherwise pass you by. Here are a couple of examples....

Paper Planes
Three students at Leeds University have applied their learning to a problem that has plagued humanity for decades: how to make the perfect paper aeroplane. Their plane, the avenger, has been judged by academics to combine aerodynamics and ease of manufacture. This simple Flash object shows you how to make the Avenger in simple steps.

The Llama Song
If you think the Crazy Frog is irritating, take a look at this - another Flash object complete with soundtrack Warning - this could be just as irritating!

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting site referred to in today's edition of Kevin Kruse's Newsletter :

e-Learning for Kids Launches 15 Free Courses
This is a great non-profit founded by Nick van Dam. Their initial efforts have resulted in the first wave of 15 courses (math, letters, keyboarding skills), with many more to come. Spread the news to parents and teachers. If you work in an e-learning company maybe you can volunteer some services

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's more evidence of the proliferation of free, quality educational resources on the Web that I came across this morning. I love the organisation's strap line: "Connect, collaborate, change your world!"

The Development Gateway Foundation's Open Educational Resources portal aims to equalize access to education and help people in developing countries improve their chances for a better life. The portal features free course materials and other educational content offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Chinese Open Resources for Education and other institutions around the world.

On my first browse through I found all sorts of interesting resources that would be useful at all levels, from primary school to tertiary, and some for community education. In the current climate of focus on the World's energy problems, Dr E's Energy Lab is one example that I found within a minute of visiting the portal.

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 5:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've just finished reading an entry in Dave Davies weblog about RLOs - well worth a read. He's taken a rather satirical look at learning objects in an entry he calls The Content Conundrum. In a satirical Q&A format, Davies explores a number of the assumptions around RLOs and their use (or intended use). Overall, a worthwhile read - and many of the links David has included are worth exploring as well.
While you're at it, take a look at some of his other entries on the topic of RLOs and resources in the online world, including:
If RLOs didn't exist you'd have to invent them and his short followup piece, The problem with definitions - or how I learned to get over learning objects and start making good e-learning instead

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Take a look at this site:
The maths internet site
"Over 100 top websites carefully chosen for their interactivity and grouped into five search categories. Ideal for individual learning, homework, classroom discussion or students' project."

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Learning objects are getting a lot of press at the moment. The creation, storage, discoverability and reuse of them are all issues that are the focus of much debate. Here are a few recent articles that I've come across with lots of links within them for those curious about these issues.

Continue reading "Learning Objects" »

Posted by Derek Wenmoth at 3:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)