http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

You may have seen in the news today that Microsoft launched a new product due for release later this year - Microsoft Surface. From what little I’ve seen of it… imagine a large, table-top touch screen computer.

It seems that it would make things very easy to use, and the clear touch-pad technology is now out there (we’ll also be seeing it on Apple’s iPhone when it comes out) to make new things like this possible.

I wouldn’t be expecting one to roll out into a classroom too soon, though. Some reactions over the net, and even some of the potential use scenarios depicted by Microsoft suggest that it could be a product famous (for a while, at least) for its novelty value.

[slideshare id=56786&doc=parents-friends-meeting-30-may-2007-14453&w=425]

Last night I had the pleasure of presenting at our school’s Parents and Friends Association meeting. I was invited some time back to inform parents of the great things happening with technology at St. Michael’s in 2007. My 20-30 minute presentation went significantly overtime, but as Anne said to me afterwards, there’s so much to tell, and I couldn’t have gone any faster.

So our small group of parents in attendance can follow up from the meeting, I posted the presentation to SlideShare, knowing also that other parents who couldn’t make it could also access it. Not happy with that alone, my desire to share what I wanted to say (as my PowerPoint presentation, like all good PowerPoint presentations supported my talk and was not a visually-displayed transcript), I decided to make it into a video as well.

The result is the video embedded below, which I posted on TeacherTube - essentially at YouTube for educators. Remember how we were all into the program Photo Story a few years back? Well, I saved all the slides at images (which is really quite easy), put them into Photo Story, recorded a narration for each slide, then exported it and uploaded it to TeacherTube. It really is quite easy. In fact, if we’re using PhotoStory in class, TeacherTube would be an effective way of sharing students’ work with parents and friends over the Internet.

I also created a del.icio.us page for the parents that contains links to what I discussed and related resources. All in all, I think those who were there were pleased with what we’re achieving.

Download: Posted by E=2>stmbtech at TeacherTube.com.

Going… going…

As a grade partner of mine left their room on Friday afternoon, they said goodbye to me (as we friendly people in Year 4 do), but then also to her chalkboard.

It was a realisation that when we walked back into our rooms on Monday morning, the first and very obvious step towards a very different classroom would have already been taken.  The chalkboard … gone.

Yes, we’ll retain the smaller (and formerly sliding) whiteboard, but the interactive whiteboard (due for installation very soon) will provide a never-before-seen opportunity at St. Michael’s to really change the way we teach and learn through the new tools available at our fingertips.

The shock of a missing chalkboard was a little more brutal in our Year 1 rooms almost a week ago.  As one teacher put it, “… there were 5 minutes there when I was in stand-still shock, but then it was okay…”  The missing chalkboards revealed an unpainted wall - yes, their boards were built in to the classroom when it was built in the 1970’s!  Come this Monday, the should have a pleasant surprise - new feature walls painted this weekend before the new IWBs get installed.

My colleague and I reflected on all the things we were led to believe would happen in the year 2000 when we were kids.  The 21st Century was going to be a world where your house was up in the air, you drove hover cars that would fold up into a briefcase, and we’d all have a robot at home to do the housekeeping!  Yes, the makers of The Jetsons have a lot to answer for today.  But, with 21st Century technology in our classrooms, perhaps we’ll be able to inspire and challenge the learner that will one day build that fold-up hover car…

Dale Spender may wish so, but perhaps isn’t holding out too much hope.

Some people may remember that Dale Spender was a presenter at the 2003 Diocesan Focus on Learning Conference.  Last week she contributed her thoughts on federal political education policies and their relevance to the 21st Century world our schools need to prepare children for.  I was alerted to this Sydney Morning Herald article by the Diocesan Library blog, Edlib.

As we approach a federal election this year, the party leaders are talking about “vision” and “the future”.  We as educators need to pay attention to and critique the education policies to see how visionary they really are.

As learned professionals we need to make informed and objective choices.  ABC’s Stateline on Saturday reported on the NSW State Government’s disagreement with recently announced Federal Government policy.  While the Iemma Government is opposed to performance pay for teachers, it also sought to criticise levels of Federal funding for government schools vs. non-government schools (always a touchy subject for those in Catholic Education, but not one for discussing in this forum - I’ll use a personal space to express my personal opinion), presenting the data in a way supportive of their own perspective.  “There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and…”

For those people interested in learning more about the education policies in the lead-up to the federal election, below are links to the policies of the two major parties:

• Australian Labor Party
• The Liberal Party of Australia doesn’t have a dedicated policies page yet for the current election, but read the news on the home page and in the archive for the latest policy announcements

[slideshare id=51020&doc=beebots-at-st-michaels-school-17379&w=425]
This is a presentation which Cherie created that introduces us to bee-bots and tells us a little of what Cherie’s been achieving with her students this year.

Nicole Sprainger has also posted the presentation from the Term 1 Seminar at DAC on the Bee-Bots Downunder blog.

The good news is that Nicole is arranging an order of Bee-Bots for schools.  I’ve asked Nicole to order four for us, which will allow us to double the number of bee-bots we currently have.  Once we have our own, we can return our loan pair to CEO and give another school the chance to discover these fantastic learning tools.

This weekend will see the beginning of the end for “old technology” in several of our classrooms.

Daryl will begin the task of removing the chalkboards from our classrooms that are soon to receive interactive whiteboards.  Year 1 will be where work begins, so teachers will need to have the chalkboard and the attached pinboard clear.

Daryl also hopes to retain the existing sliding whiteboard and fix it to the wall in part of the newly cleared space that won’t be needed by the the IWB.

Thanks in advance both to Daryl and to Norm from Nagle for their work and their willingness to do it on the weekends for the sake of everyone’s safety and sanity

One of the presentations made at the Leading Technologies for Learning forum last Thursday was a brief introduction to CENet. The main question it tried to answer is, “What is CENet?”

CENet is a Virtual Learning Environment

A short answer, but one perhaps requiring further explanation and detail, is “a Virtual Learning Environment” (VLE). CENet brings together a range of facilities for the management and conduct of online learning and teaching. The main facility our schools will most likely use is that called myclasses, where online learning activities can be managed, shared and undertaken. Around and within this are other features such as web-based email for staff and students, file storage, forums and discussion boards, and resource collections, such as the Learning Federation learning objects. Essentially, CENet takes our school Intranet concept further, providing features such as home access, sharing and collaboration tools that were beyond our means as an individual school to provide.

Above is a screenshot of a CENet class I created as a test, given that I have had absolutely no training whatsoever. The creation process took no more than a minute.

The best answer I have at present about what is CENet is this:

CENet is what you make of it.

OK, this sounds like a cop-out, I know, but it’s true! CENet is a collection of tools that give us the opportunity to engage our students in relevant, meaningful and exciting 21st Century learning. The CENet experience in other dioceses reflects a range of use and quality of use from one teacher to the next. Quite simply, exceptional use of CENet relies on a sound, contemporary teaching and learning pedagogy.

CENet is part of our school’s Professional Learning and Learning Technology Agendas for 2007 and beyond

Initial training and professional learning for CENet will commence later this year once we establish a timeframe with the Learning Technologies team at CEO. From that initial PD, we will need to continue to commit ourselves to developing not only the skills required to operate CENet, but to ensuring quality teaching and learning to make the CENet journey worthwhile.

All staff now have access to CENet through the “Resources” menu in Staffnet. A default password has been set (available from the LTC), which can be changed after you first enter CENet to match your password for Novell/Staffnet/GroupWise/etc.

The Leading Technologies for Learning Forum, hosted by CEO Parramatta, was held on Thursday 3 May from 4:00 - 8:00 p.m. at the Panthers Pavilion, Penrith.

The intent behind the forum was to give leadership teams the opportunity to explore new technologies available for teaching and learning; see how technology is being used to enable and support teaching and learning; network with colleagues across the diocese; and discuss issues around the implementation of learning technologies in schools.

Michael, Anne, Sue and I all attended the forum. The benefit is that each of us came to the forum from different perpsectives, from school leader, to technology coordinator, to classroom teacher.

Perhaps we can provide some more detailed posts in the future about some of the forum presentations. For now though, a quick glance at a few presentations of particular relevance to us.

E-A Reporting

Ron van Vliet (CEO Parramatta) gave an update on the E-A report writing package developed for/by the CEO for schools. I must say that it has come a long way since the first Microsoft Access-based trial package was released in Term 2 last year. It is now a web-based application that is accessible through Staffnet to participating schools. CEO anticipates that all primary schools will use the package by the end of the year (except for Kindergarten), so be prepared to use it in Term 4.

We Can Make Our Robots Dance

A presentation from Nicole Sprainger (CEO Parramatta), in collaboration with Modern Teaching Aids about the Diocesan Lego Robotics trial that St. Michael’s is a part of with our Year 6 students (led by Andrew and Angela). Later, Nicole was also scheduled to present on the Bee-Bots trial that our Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 classes have contributed to, especially through the work and leadership of Cherie.

CENet

Brian van Vlimmeren and Stan Wawrzyniak from CEO gave a short introduction to CENet; which I think was helpful to Michael given he’s been relying on my brief re-hash of similar presentations as his “expert knowledge” of CENet. All our staff currently have access to CENet, and later this year we will be engaged in professional development around the use of this virtual learning environment (VLE).

Interactive Whiteboards

A presentation we didn’t need to attend because we clearly were already introduced to this emerging technology. I watched a face or two turn a little green with envy when I would casually mention, “oh, we just bought eight of them…”

As I mentioned before, hopefully we can follow some of these topics (and perhaps others) up later. In the meantime, our first Technoblog podcast! It’s a quick wrap-up of the forum naming my highlights, disappointments and “trainwreck” moments in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.

Here is a site that is worth looking at - Teacher Magazine, an online magazine that produces articles of current  interest to  Teachers.Although US based, many ideas are relevant to our teaching.