The Learning Federation

Well I guess my last post was a little unlike sunny ol' me - but geez, it's Tuesday and I have absolutely no money left from my last pay! Why is life so expensive????

Anyway, I thought I might do a little word-spreading about 'The Learning Federation". These wonderful people spend all their time collecting resources for us to use in our classrooms. Anything from interactive flash animations to photos to video, they have something for most subjects we're teaching. Available free to all schools, they are well worth a look. There are catalogues available on the website, but in Canberra we generally get a hold of them through myclasses.

I've made a little podcast (my first ever!) about doing an object search, so if you're unfamiliar with the process, please have a look:

By the way, this was my first go at imovie - what an amazingly easy program to use! One thing I think I'll have to work on is file size; 3Mb is probably too big for some. I might look at posting podcasts onto my wiki too (must get back there some time!).

While I'm on the subject - podcasting - WOW!

I saw one a colleague had created using a digital camera (hmm...must get my school to buy one!), smart notebook software and imovie. It was amazing, with kids speaking about values etc. Very nice work! It got me inspired, but I'll have to think of a good topic. 

But podcasting has many possible applications - tech support stuff such as I've attempted here -or SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) as another colleague calls them; subject tutorials to be posted onto myclasses pages (e.g. homework/lab help); showcase of kid's work (email to parents?) etc etc. Lots of potential, now to find the time...

On a teacher's salary??

Enough said. 

Block??

Howdy strangers!

No, I didn't get scared and run away with less than 10 posts under my belt! 

There are a few reasons I haven't been in for a while: end-of-term-itis, family and home life (I have spent the past couple of days painting), and the dismal fact of not having an awful lot to contribute.

Oh, and I've been playing with my new toy a little bit. One of the programs I'm particularly fond of is photo booth. Is it any wonder when it can make me look like this?

What a great program! A simple in-built camera that does the most bizarre things with your image! What fun! Can't wait to show the class!
Haven't touched garageband or itunes yet though. Hopefully soon. I'm still organising all my music (I have about 4500 songs on there), which is always my priority.

What else is new?
My last PD was smartboards, which I did last year, but it was nice to see what others are doing. One of the fantastic teachers I did the course with last year had made a fantastic podcast - very inspiring!
And I'd been kind of bitter about smartboards of late - not having had daily access to one for the entire term. That's finally been rectified (on the second-last day of term mind you), so I'm itching to get back to it. No network access mind you, so we're running from the hard drive. A bit tricky, but better than nothing.

Where do we find good smartboard stuff? Well, if you don't have the 'essentials for educators' gallery (sorry activboard users), it's a good place to start. It's on the CD, and you can also click "check for updates" in your gallery.
Another place to go is the SmartTechnologies website, which has forums, resources, lesson plans, and other things to try. Elsewhere on the site there are short tutorials on a variety of smartboard tasks.

And...? A real blog!
A friend sent me a link to this blog, which is written by a "teacher teacher" from what I can gather. Some good stuff about new technologies and learning.

And before I go, another great photo booth creation:

Tech support?

Check out this video - pretty funny!

OK, so this ad has nothing to do with computers, but we saw it during one of our training days, and it's a great analogy for how tech support works in schools. The school-based people usually have really good skills in a couple of ICTs, but if they're faced with a new problem, they might get 'stuck'. Then they have to log a job, wait for the tech people to come out, and hope it won't happen again.
So I think there's a good argument for having lots of different people in the school who have some ICT skills. One might be good with a smartboard, one might be great with software and internet stuff, one might know a little bit about networking etc..
That way, they can handle almost everything, keep the wheels turning.
But even better - they could all 'train' each other! Then all of them would have the same skills. And if one or two of them left the school, there would still be someone there to handle things. And, bonus! The people who leave might even go to a new school and pass their skills on again!
OK, I know we don't live in that wonderful utopia (where teachers have an assistant to hang displays and tidy their desks; where we have the time and resources to plan the perfect lesson for each individual child; where our schools are so fantastically resourced that everything we need to create outstanding lessons is there for us), but surely there are ways we can help each other!
What's the point of having awesome ICT gear if only half the people use it? Not because they don't want to, but because maybe they don't know how to, or have time to create stuff, or their gear doesn't work properly and they're not sure how to fix it.....
We spend all this money on gear, and then we don't invest the time or money to train people, or give people time to learn how to use it properly. Even if it was just a group sharing session twice a term, or a school PD day, instead of some pointless course selling us something that none of us will ever use. (oops! Did I say that??)
One of the teachers at my IT PD told us about their school, where at least once a term they have a 'roving' staff meeting, where everybody walks from classroom to classroom, and people share the exciting stuff they've been doing. How cool!
Anyway, bit of a whine and a moan (you've gotta do it sometimes). I know - schools have so many different priorities and goals and budget considerations...blah blah blah....But it makes me feel better to complain!

The First IT Pro

It's in Danish (or something), but stick with it, I think it paints a pretty clear picture of how we all feel when faced with new technologies...

Crossing over to the dark side....

I've bought a Mac. Well, technically I'm renting it, but still, I'm going to consider it mine. 

It's very cute, small and light and compact - although I stopped short of paying an extra $1000 to have it wafer-thin and able to be slipped into envelopes....

I've wanted a Mac for a while. I've always liked using iTunes (I've heard it's more user-friendly on a Mac, but haven't got around to trying it out yet), and I'm excited about all the media stuff I can do: Garage Band, iMovie, iPhoto...

Mind you, I've got to learn how to use it properly first! I've got the basics down, but it's gonna take a while for me to figure it out. Lucky the holidays are coming up (or maybe unlucky - is this going to take me away from important holiday business?).

PCs and Macs are a bit like Holdens and Fords I think. People viciously defend their chosen tool, putting down the opposition wherever possible (I guess the computer companies are probably guilty of that, too). Me, I think both have admirable qualities. Macs have that wonderful media thing going on, but PCs are much easier to get software (or support - as I found out after calling my ISP help desk) for. 

So I'm passing my PC on to my son. First year of high school, I think he's ready. He's stoked of course, but so am I, because it means it's not that far away...