Educational Origami

Educause publishes a series of useful resources for administrators and teachers. Here are their latest offerings:

• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-connected-learning – One of the critical skills universally identified for thriving in the 21st Century is the ability to communicate and collaborate.
• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-infographic-creation-tools I love infographics and the research about our brains ability to process images and develop meaning from these back up their use.
• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-video-communication Video conferencing is no longer the domain of the special few with the expencive equipment. Tools like Skype for education, which allows multi person video conferencing for free for educators are change this.
• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-makerspaces – this is an interesting one – this isn’t so much about a technology but about a physical space that enables the use of technology for all users – a must read for anyone investigating libraries, multi purpose spaces etc.

These resources are slightly older but are very useful for teaching IT theory or providing accessible PL resources for teachers

• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-ipv6 7 things you should know about IP version 6 – this is the new IP protocol that is being gradually being implemented
• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-mobile-app-development This is a briefing paper on mobile application development – we only have to look at the rapid emergence of tablets and broad acceptance of smartphones to see the relevance of this.
• http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-agile-development Agile project management is a very useful approach to the development of software and IT based projects (its not the only one though). This is a useful resource for this.

The last week and a bit I have been in Edmonton Canada working with the teachers and facilitators of the Edmonton Catholic School district. The purpose of the week was that, with Lee Crockett, we were developing an understanding of the 21st Century Fluencies and beginning the development of problem based units of learning for implementation across the schools, across the curriculum and throughout the years.

It was a pleasure to work with such enthusiastic and committed teachers and managers. Everyone got stuck in and had a considerable amount of fun and came away with an improved understanding of how they could make learning contextual, relevance and integrating higher order thinking , specifically creativity. Core to our workshops was solution fluency and information fluency which underpin the whole concept. The teachers developed problem based scenarios based on their curriculum that had relevance and context to the students. For some people this is rather hard, but the groups that we worked with did a superb job at this. They then had to use a structured problem solving process, solution fluency, to define the problem, discover the background dream, design and deliver  a solution and debrief. Design includes group formation, roles and time wise planning.

Torkel Klingberg in his book the overflowing brain states that students in their early teens who have education focused on problem solving, inductive and deductive reasoning, inventiveness, decision taking and observation skills will have a 10% increase in IQ. The quoted study was supported by Israeli, Yugoslavian and German studies supporting the teaching of problem solving processes, creativity and inductive and deductive reasoning. All of the studies showed increases in the students IQ irrespective of age, sex or initial test scores. In other words its beneficial for every one. [Klingberg, Torkel, The overflowing brain: information overload and the limits of working memory, 2009 Oxford University press Inc ISBN 978-0-19-537288-5]

While we were in Edmonton we were invited to see St Joesphs Catholic High School. A school of 1100 student with 600 on Self directed learning programmes. It was fascinating! The students were motivated and engaged learners. The courses while self directed and personalized were very well organised and presented, students had access to support and regular structured session with their teahcer advisors and course advisors. It was not a here is the stuff and go away and learn. Rather a managed approach which saw student taking responsibility for their own learning. The students who struggled were quickly identified and very well supported. As they say there is constant review of student progress. Here are two quotes from their manual that I like…

“At St Josephs, student are personally responsible for their learning and are engaged within their learning”

“Students at St Joesph are active participants in their learning on a daily basis whether it is though group discussions, participation in social justice activities, participation in field trips, etc. St Josephs students are amongst the most active in the city!”

St Josephs is a BYOD school which teaches the Alberta curriculum and the IB Diploma and Certificate courses. A fascinating and exciting trip, even if it was a warm (for edmonton) -5c.

Here are a couple of educause updates. These are part of the excellent seven things you should know series, published monthly by Educause.

The latest two are:

• 7 Things you should know about microlectures – http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-microlectures
• 7 Things you should know about group texting – http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-group-texting

Educause has a number of interesting libraries that are worth exploring – here is one I like, the video and multimedia production library – http://www.educause.edu/library/video-and-multimedia-production. Have a look at this 7 things about the evolution of the textbook  to see the links that are coming through with video and multimedia production – http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-evolution-textbook

Also have a loom at the K-12 Library - http://www.educause.edu/library/k-12

One of the very useful, but perhaps under utilised features of mountain lion is the dictation tool. Once its switched on the world of dictation is opened.

Switch it on by going to system preferences > dictation and speech and switching dictation on you can also select your language type.

From here it’s really easy double click on the function key FN  and speak.

I found the Apple care page on this useful as well. Here is a selection that covers the basic problems you often have with dictation.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5449

Do you have an iPad 3? Try out siri for dictation. Once you have enabled it in settings by clicking on the microphone icon in the pop up keyboard  (Settings > General > Siri). Here is the help file – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5176

Source: http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT5176/HT5176_01–mike-002-en.png

Education Alberta (Canada) has published a Development guide for Digital Citizenship Policy. This is an extensive document which includes some of my work and that of my esteemed colleague Dr Jason Ohler.

This is a great resource and well worth downloading and working through. It is about 80+ pages so you do need to put aside a little time to do this.

http://education.alberta.ca/media/6735100/digital%20citizenship%20policy%20development%20guide.pdf

Check out their internet safety page - http://education.alberta.ca/admin/technology/standards/internetsafety.aspx

Wordle of the tenets of Digital citizenship

FINALLY….

…. Apple announced that volume licences will be available in a number of new countries including New Zealand. The list is:

• Australia,
• Canada,
• France,
• Germany,
• Italy,
• Japan,
• New Zealand – http://www.apple.com/nz/education/volume-purchase-program/
• Spain,
• UK,
• US

This is great news for the large number of schools that are adopting the iPads as their preferred learning device for their students. The lack of volume licences has made the imaging or softwaring of the iPads difficult. It limits the effectiveness of the Apple configurator tool which uses the volume liciencing codes to distribute the licienced software.

Until now schools have had to purchase individual licences and were unable to access the reduce costs. For example pages costs $13.99 for a single licence but using volume purchasing if you buy 20+ you can pay $6.99 each. This makes a substantial saving for schools as well as allowing uniform distribution of software, quickly and effectively to a fleet of iPads. This is very very good.

Check out the T&C’s http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/volume/nz/terms.html

Worth noting

“Gift Certificates, Allowances and iTunes Cards, and unused portions of Gift Certificates, Allowances and iTunes Cards, expire on the later of, two years from the date of issuance, and two years from the date of last activity if applied to an iTunes Store Account. “

One of the reasons why iPads and android tablets have flourished is the ease of access to applications. Whether you go to the App store or the App marketplace (https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/?pli=1) you have access to a huge range of applications at a reasonable cost.

One of the advantages that I see with Apple’s model, is the “vetting” or approval process that occurs before an application becomes available on the App store. The app you install is tested and approved by apple. The speed of this process, the cost of set up & return on investment may be seen equally as disadvantages as well.

If you read the posts and features about Microsoft Windows 8, which has extensive support for tablets you would note that this is a ubiquitous operating system – the same OS operating on tablet, using touch or PC.  Great!

But here is my question, one of the selling points of the ipad and android tablets is low cost and to be fair often lower spec applications. This makes them accessible and useful. But the consistency of applications from PC to tablet raises the possibility of having to pay “full application” price for much of the software. There is after all a considerable difference between what you can do with a fully featured PC, with keyboard, mouse and large monitor.

Will we see a change in the pricing policy for developers and software providers? Since Windows 8 supports both tablets and PC’s will we see reduced feature set apps being run on both platforms?

This, I think, will be interesting to watch.

source: http://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/2790/as-images.apple.com/is/image/AppleInc/ipad2012-step0-ipad-gallery-01-normal?wid=520&hei=410&fmt=png-alpha&qlt=95

The iPad and other gesture based tablets have capture the minds and fingers of many in education. Whether its in pre-K or senior classes these intuitive devices are making changes to how teaching and learning occurs in the classroom.

The combination of ease of use, cost effective applications, simple navigation and user friendlyness plus a generally lower entry price compare to a full laptop (rather than a netbook) make these the tools of choice for many schools. Its worth noting that for many people there is also a convenience and aesthetic factor as well.

As schools grasp with these devices its great to see people sharing their teaching practice. Here are some sites that I have recently stumbled across that are useful.

1. TCEA - http://www.tcea.org/ipad A useful list of applications broken down into curriculum areas

2. Apps in education  – http://appsineducation.blogspot.co.nz/ This site is broken down again into learning areas and has detailed lists of suitable applications.

3. ipad curriculum - http://www.ipadcurriculum.com/ this is a regularly updated blog on the use of ipads featuring a single app per post

4. ipad schools http://ipadschools.wikispaces.com/home this is a wiki on the use of ipads again detailing apps by learning areas

5. ipad multimedia tools – https://sites.google.com/site/ipadmultimediatools/home this google site is focused on the multimedia aspects of ipad use. It looks at the ipads apps by use rather than by learning area.

6. iPad as… http://edtechteacher.org/index.php/teaching-technology/mobile-technology-apps/ipad-as this is an excellent post examining the use of the tool rather than the curriculum area.

7. Bridging the gap – http://bridgingapps.org/ This is a site bridging the gap between applications and disabilities – they have reviewed a number of apps for suitability for special needs students, a very useful site.

Harry Dickens & I wrote the apps for learning book with scenarios from different subject areas to examine how the tools could be used from a variety of perspectives.

Many schools are considering a BYOD program for a wide range of reasons. For schools this represents a huge shift from the various models they have employed before to see appropriate ICT’s in the hands of their students for learning. Whether the program has been a lab based approach, a laptop program or some blend of everything, BYOD brings its own challenges as well as advantages.

While there are the obvious issues of inappropriate use and the shift of control from the school to the student, there are more subtle issues that are as important.

School based networks often provide back up solutions for students who store materials on the network, this feature may or may not be available on a BYOD program. Even if it is available the onus of responsibility shifts to the student to action the back up, to keep safe their work. Students now also have to consider the underlying concepts of file management as well. (protect yourself)

In a similar vein, students need to protect themselves and their peers by taking responsibility for the antivirus protection required on their device, something that most school owned/leased programs take care of. (protect yourself and protect others)

The freedom of having your own device and control of it carries with it the responcibility of self management. It is unrealistic to expect that the students BYOD devices is only for use at school. BYOD is blurring the boundaries between the social device and the educational tool. It challenges students to be focused on learning and resistant to the distractions presented by the applications and connections that they have on their own device. Applications and connections that in the structured format of a school program are limited and restricted.

source; http://www.freefoto.com/images/04/20/04_20_50—Laptop-Computer_web.jpg

Within reason schools are able to control the connections which utilise their network, filter applications and sites. However the convergence between mobile technologies/cellular phones and devices like ipads/tablets etc means that students are able to connect independently of the school and thus can bypass the controls the school may put in place. Inappropriate must now cover more than just unacceptable images etc. (respect and protect yourself and others)

The students and their parents, who are paying the bill, have a vested interest in the care and maintenance of the device that extends beyond the standards expected of a school provide tool in many cases. They need support on how to care for their device, be that carrying it around, regular maintenance and care, repairs etc. This too is an aspect of digital citizenship where the student takes responsibility for their learning. (respect and protect yourself).

With students having a greater degree of control over the devices, and with it probably the ability to install software comes the issue of ethical and moral use of software. Because you can download and install software doesn’t mean you should. Because you can install a cracked version does not mean you should. In the school provided model it was possible to prevent this, but the BYOD model now requires this to be a conscious and considered decision, something that 14 year old students living in the now struggle with.

At the core of a BYOD program must be digital citizenship, and digital citizenship that encompasses all aspects of the use of technology within and beyond the school environment.

http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Digital+Citizen+AUA

My Colleague Lee Crockett made a comment the other day about BYOD, Bring your own device and Digital Citizenship. He said that the heart of any BYOD program is digital citizenship. And he’s right.

As soon as a school starts allowing students to bring their own devices into school, they begin to surrender some of their control of the learning environment to the students. They do not have the ability to dictate and control what applications are or aren’t on the students machines. They can not control the media the student may have on the device as the computer is more than just a learning tool its also the young person social medium and often entertainment center.

Schools also lack the ability to search the machine, it is not the schools machine, rather it is the private property of another individual.

The boundaries between home/personal use in its varied forms – whether this is homework, social connections, entertainment, games or even inappropriate activities become blurred. What they do at home comes both unintentionally and intentionally to the school environment.

While BYOD provides many obvious strengths and opportunities to the school ranging from improved care, access and use; to reduced capital, repair and licensing costs. This change in control challenges schools systems. It raises questions of duty of care and safety.

So how do you manage and mitigate these risks? Since the traditional laptop program mechanisms of restricted rights, reduced access and control no longer work effectively alternative approaches are required. The onus of responsibility must shift from the school to the student. Students must live and abide by the underlying ethics of digital citizenship, and to do this we can not set down a block of rules like the tablets of the 10 commandments and say abide by these.

What is required is a deep understanding and acceptance of what is appropriate and right. It is setting a moral code that guides and protects the students. It is a ethic that the students themselves must take up and follow.

This is not saying the students are left to fend for themselves…. Rather it is a process of development of the guidelines that is shared and mutually agreed to. Each aspect is simple, understandable and supported by clear reasoning & justification. It is also a process that is reinforced by all teachers as a consistent approach where the teachers model and enforce all the aspects. The process also requires there to be monitoring, intervention and consequences. Digital Citizenship is not limited to an agreement between the school and student it must also include the families

Core to BYOD is Digital Citizenship and Digital Citizenship is a three way partnership based on agreed goals, supported by shared understanding and reinforced by appropriate monitoring, intervention and concequences.