Useful Web links for Computer Science/IT/Computing/ICT/Programming teachers

I have found a number of these websites useful for developing some programmes that have been useful in teaching students programming and included in these are some fun innovative projects.
If anyone has any other useful websites they use for encouraging students to get into IT I would love to hear about them!

K-12 Faculty Community Site http://www.microsoft.com/education/FacultyConnection/precollegiate
A source for curriculum resources, teacher forums, and program announcements

Programming Languages for Beginners

• Alice – http://www.alice.org/ – A 3-dimensional, drag and drop programming language from Carnegie Mellon University
• Kodu - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/kodu/ A graphical programming tool for younger students. (Not available for public release yet!)
• Scratch – http://scratch.mit.edu/ – a light weight 2-dimensional, drag and drop programming language from MIT, for learning resources visit http://learnscratch.org/
• Small Basic - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950524.aspx Small Basic is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.
• Microsoft Popfly - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/devlabs/cc950523.aspx Popfly includes a simple way to create and share games with your friends. Choose from a variety of built-in templates or start from scratch to create a side scrolling game, a 2D shoot-em-up, or a host of others. And best of all, you can get started without writing a line of code. You can also build mashups. Mashups are a kind of application that take information from many places and mix it together.

MSDN Academic Alliance http://www.msdnaa.net/
A Microsoft program for schools to get Microsoft Development software for labs, teachers, and students - costs attached

DreamSpark for High schools https://www.dreamspark.com/HighSchool/Default.aspx
DreamSpark High School provides professional-level development and design tools to students enrolled in an accredited, secondary educational institution at no charge.

XNA Game Studio Express http://msdn.microsoft.com/xna
Software for developing games for Windows, the Zune and the XBOX 360. Also links to the XNA community with sample code, tutorials and support forums.

Visual Studio Express Editions http://msdn.microsoft.com/Express
Free development tools (IDEs) for Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual C# and Visual Web Developer

Beginner Developer Learning Center http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/bb308754.aspx
A web site for people of all ages who want to learn programming and web development. Tutorials, videos, projects and web casts

Microsoft Robotics Studio http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics
Visual Programming Language for robots, runtime libraries for higher level programming, a 3-dimensional robot simulator with sample simulations, tutorials, and videos

Coding 4 Fun http://blogs.msdn.com/Coding4Fun
A web site for hobbyists and computer tinkerers - sample projects and information for doing fun and interesting thing with programming; often combined with interesting or unusual hardware

CSUnplugged http://www.csunplugged.com/
Computer Science Unplugged is a series of learning activities that reveals a little-known secret: computer science isn't really about computers at all!

Privacy
Also I know that we are back at school now, but 28 Janurary was Data Privacy Day 2009

January 28th, 2009 is the second annual Data Privacy Day. Intel has a great information page about this day and includes this explanation:

Designed to raise awareness and generate discussion about data privacy practices and rights, Data Privacy Day activities in the United States have included privacy professionals, corporations, government officials, and representatives, academics, and students across the country.

One of the primary goals of Data Privacy Day is to promote privacy awareness and education among teens across the United States. Data Privacy Day also serves the important purpose of furthering international collaboration and cooperation around privacy issues.

At the Intel Data Privacy Day page you will find educational resources that you may find useful in class. Items include:

• Teen privacy online (ZIP 2.69MB)
• Teen privacy online script (PDF 159KB)
• Teen privacy online sources and resources (PDF 32KB)
• Teen privacy online highlights (PDF 124KB)
• Privacy Today slide presentation (ZIP 39.3MB) and manual (PDF 522KB)
• Secure your computer to protect your privacy presentation (ZIP 594KB) and speaker notes (PDF 319KB)

Fun Stuff

Ok, now some fun stuff, got a webcam, now you can have your own Microsoft Surface,

One of the hottest new technologies in computer interfaces is Microsoft Surface which uses multi-touch to allow several items (like hands for example) to control things happening in software. The hardware for this is a bit expensive. OK it's a lot expensive. Microsoft recently released some software as an open source project that makes this technology a lot easier and less expensive to try out. It requires a webcam to use and the following Touchless SDK video shows what it is about.

http://www.codeplex.com/touchless/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17986

And something for you Mythbusters fans out there, what is the difference between a CPU and a GPU?

Well there is cost for one thing. And prep time for another. Oh wait, you don't know what I'm talking about. Let me back up. Apparently at some sort of event the NVidia people wanted to show the difference between how a CPU works and a GPU (graphic processor) works. They also had an interest in entertaining people so obviously they hired the people from the TV show Mythbusters to create the demo. You can see the demo here. Now if you know the show at all you probably know that they are big fans of robots and of shooting things – all sorts of things with all sorts of shooting apparatus. Yep, there is some of that here.

Expression Video Content

Colleagues in the US created a tonne of great video training content for Microsoft Expression design tools. I think there are something like 28 videos in total.

A good starting point if you haven’t used Expression before is to try the fundamentals series:
Microsoft Expression Blend Fundamentals
Microsoft Expression Web Fundamentals
Microsoft Expression Design Fundamentals
Microsoft Expression Encoder Fundamentals
Microsoft Expression Media Fundamentals
Then there are load more and I thought I would list them all here for reference (excuse the long post!):
Expression Design Essentials:
Vector Tools
Exporting
Expression Blend Essentials:
Projects and Hierarchies
Layout and Controls
Custom & User Controls
Interaction
Animation
Data Binding
WPF v Silverlight
Expression Web Essentials:
Standards Based Sites
CSS-based layout
Rich Data Presentation
Server Technology
Expression Encoder Essentials:
All in One Encoding
Rich Media Enhancements
Publishing
Expression Media Essentials:
Asset Organisation
Image Editing
Presentations
Microsoft Expression for Designers:
Expression Studio
Expression Design
Expression Blend
Silverlight

Dreamspark

I am waiting for the Ministry of Education to formalise an agreement with Microsoft to offer Dreamspark in New Zealand Schools.

This is rather funny, as I have been busy today downloading aspects of the software to be installed tomorrow. It has been a simple process. Though you do need a windows live account to activate the subscription. It is differerent to what is described in the FAQ on the dreamspark website. you login, then enter a url including the 26 digit activation code.

I wish the ministry luck on getting this into schools, though I beleive that if a teacher is on to it and is looking at what is jappening in the world of computing they would find this and sign themseleves up giving ownership to the teacher and students. Do we need the Ministry to give us everything?

techlink - bebo - snapshot

Found this while looking around for ideas for year 10's on techlink, this looks to be quite interesting and would work well against the computer art class that is happening.  

Catchphrase – Bebo

Class: Year 10
Teacher: Nicole Hunt
School: New Plymouth Girls' High School
Category: Class unit

Second year Technology teacher Nicole Hunt hooked her Year 10 students into their website skin project by asking who had a Bebo page* and telling them they would be designing a Bebo skin. Although every student, including those without home computers, had a Bebo page, not one of them had designed a personal skin for it.

With the whole class focussed on the lesson, Nicole then downplayed the Bebo aspect as she explained the that they had four lessons in which to create their skin, after which they would each create a skin for a school-based interest or sporting group in an eight-period project on which they would be formally assessed.

Nicole started with a breakdown of Bebo requirements, using that page on the site to familiarise students with it so they could easily make another skin later. Students learnt that they had to follow guidelines on intellectual property issues, sizing and upload time if they wanted their skin accepted for publication; just making a skin wasn't enough, it had to be approved for the site, and something like incorrect sizing would result in an automated rejection message. All students received a 'How to' (.PDF document, 150Kb) handout to explain and guide them through the process.

Starting with the Bebo skin gave students the opportunity to design something that they all wanted to do, and meant they were likely to be more motivated when given a more specific topic for their next skin.

The class had learnt how to use Fireworks in the previous four weeks, so were able to apply some of these skills to their projects. Students worked through the technological process as they designed their skins, starting with discussion of terminology, such as 'issue' in their given brief. They had to brainstorm ideas and research other skins on the website, critically analysing both these and their own work.

Students had to include six components in their skins – navigation bar, main background, main icons, main footer, module header and module footer. As well as meeting requirements for height, width and upload time, they had to consider resolution of images, something many hadn't thought of when they first found a 'cool' photo or drawing.

Nicole considers this a successful unit and plans to use it next year, when she will also require students to include text so that they have to think about colour and sizing for optimum effect. She says that the unit is an introduction to the technological practice students will use in Year 11 and has been a helpful stepping stone for those who continue in the subject.

coding4fun - xmas musical lights

I have been seeing these things for a number of years, and finally made the decision to act on it, well my students will be actin on it as a challenge. they will find a set piece of music and have to program the lights to move to that piece of music.

I have found the phidget interface cards at ozziesim.com.au and have managed to put them out of stock, the board I am planning on using is the Phidget Interface kit 0/0/4   ::  AUS$95.00, this has 4 channels that I can use, I have brought two of them to provide 8 channels which should be enough for a basic light display.

We will need to create a mock up of the full display that I plan to use in the hall in the classroom, so the students can test out there displays. I think it should be fun as a final challenge which should push some of them before we really get into programing, I am yet undecided whether to do this with year 12 or 13 yet?

Here is the inspiration of what has lead me to do this:

CDAWG2 created a computerized lighting display using the Coding4Fun holiday lightarticle by Brian Peek.  They used 8 channels and about 4,500 lights and only cost about $150.  Nice job guys!
Wizards in Winter 2008 by Transiberian Orchestra - video powered by Metacafe

Microsoft Dreamspark

I had sort of given up onour school becoming a MSAA high School a while ago, once I had done some research and had noone at Microsoft get back to me. That was until I read a blog from Americia. The blog author talked about a new prgramme from microsoft called dreamspark. It is a programme that entitles students to get the latest web development and software development tools from microsoft for free. Though these can only be used for 12 months. Once I contacted them, and they explained that it wasn't available in New Zealand, I gave up. Though I had a posting on a listserve from a teacher asking about the dreamspark programme and whether it was available in New Zealand. I thought I would try again, December 9th I sent away the registration, didn't hear anything back from them, until the other day, I was asked for a letter of authorisation from the school saying that I could be the administrator of the programme, whoohoo, though it took some emailing and some phone called to get the letter as at the moment our school is currently closed for school holidays. I received the 200 licenses last night and am in a quondary of what to do now. I am looking around for curriculums, as well as finding out that the ministry is having talking with microsoft next week on getting dreamspark in. Well here is hoping every school in the country gets dreamspark, because it will be huge for computing courses all throughout the country. Now we just need to get these teachers Professional Development. 

I have been thinking about this, if the schools are given software by the ministry will they want to use it, I realise that we have XP and office installed, but we have visual studio.NET, yet we don't use it, I instead found the express editions good enough and small enough for students to use and handle, plus they get it at home for free. Should the schools be 

given the dreamspark software, or made aware that it exists and this is what they should do to access it, it then puts some ownership on the teachers and the schools, rather than the ministry has provided the software.

I am now also waiting to hear back from microsoft whether I can download the software and keep it on our own servers at school for the students to copy from rather than using up there own internet traffic caps. Which some only have a 1 gig cap a month

ISTE NETS for Administrators

***DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT ** DRAFT *** 

 

Draft of Refreshed ISTE NETS for Administrators (02.Jan.2009) 

Working Document – Copyright ISTE® 2008 – 2009 

 

 

1. Inspire Excellence Through Transformational Leadership.  Inspire and lead development and 

implementation of a shared vision for comprehensive integration of technology to transform the 

educational enterprise and promote excellence throughout the organization. Educational 

Administrators:  

 

a. inspire, articulate, and facilitate among all stakeholders a contemporary, shared vision of 

purposeful change that maximizes use of digital-age resources to meet and exceed learning goals, 

support effective instructional practice, and maximize performance of district and school leaders.   

 

b. convene stakeholders to contribute to the development of technology-infused strategic plans 

aligned to a shared vision. 

 

c. lead purposeful change in the learning environment that maximizes use of digital age tools to 

achieve learning goals. 

 

d. advocate on local, state, and national levels for policies, programs, and funding opportunities that 

support implementation of technology-infused strategic plans.  

 

2. Establish a Robust Digital Age Learning Culture.  Create, advocate for, and sustain an educational 

culture that values and rewards a rigorous, relevant digital-age education for all students.  

Educational Administrators: 

 

a. ensure instructional innovation focused on continuous improvement of digital-age learning. 

 

b. model and reward the frequent, purposeful, and effective use of technology for learning.  

 

c. provide for learner-centered environments that use technology to meet the individual, diverse 

needs of all learners. 

 

d. ensure effective practice in the infusion of technology. 

 

e. promote and participate in local, national, and global learning communities that stimulate 

innovation, creativity, and digital-age collaboration.   

 

3. Advance Excellence in Digital Age Professional Practice.  Advance and sustain a professional 

environment that promotes, supports, and rewards robust, continuous professional growth and 

fluency in the infusion of current and emerging technologies.  Educational Administrators:  

 

a. ensure ongoing professional growth by allocating time, resources, and access to learning 

opportunities related to the effective use of technology for improved learning and teaching.

b. facilitate and participate in learning communities that stimulate, nurture, and support 

administrators, faculty, and staff in the use of technology for lifelong learning, leadership, and 

productivity. 

 

c. promote and model effective communication and collaboration among colleagues, staff, parents, 

students, and the larger community using digital-age tools.   

 

d.  increase awareness of educational trends and emerging technologies and their potential uses in 

education. 

 

4.  Ensure Systemic Transformation of the Educational Enterprise.  Provide leadership to manage and 

implement strategic plans, monitor progress, and evaluate results to ensure ongoing improvement of 

the educational enterprise.  Educational Administrators:  

    

a. establish metrics, collect and analyze data, interpret results, and communicate findings to 

improve staff, teacher, and student performance. 

 

b. recruit highly competent personnel who demonstrate proficiency at implementing technology to 

advance academic and operational goals. 

 

c. leverage strategic partnerships to support the educational enterprise. 

 

d. establish and maintain a robust infrastructure for technology. 

 

e. implement and use integrated technology-based systems to support management and 

operations.  

 

5. Model and Advance Digital Citizenship.  Model and advance digital citizenship by developing and 

implementing policies, acting with integrity, and facilitating understanding of social, ethical and legal 

responsibilities by all stakeholders.  Educational Administrators:  

 

a. provide equitable digital-age learning and working environments for all students, teachers and 

staff. 

 

b. ensure access to appropriate digital tools and resources to meet the needs of all learners. 

 

c. advocate for, promote, and model safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and 

technology, including respect for copyright and intellectual property.  

 

d. promote and model responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and 

information. 

 

e. model and facilitate the development of a shared cultural understanding and global awareness 

among all stakeholders using digital-age communication and collaboration tools.  

Holiday thinking

So I tried being clever and installed google gears because I knew that I would not have an internet connection. First I installed an offline blog reader/creator, but i can’t seem to access any of my blog posts or create new ones. I kind of new if something went wrong I would be able to use Google Docs since this would sync up when I get back to the real work. Well I can read documents that I have created and edit them, but I cannot create new documents. I knew I should have tested this more fully before I went out into the non internet.

The campsite I am at does not have internet access, however if I was further in town the camp there does. It is becoming common to have internet access at the camps now. Which is cool for those people that cannot stay away, but some of us need time away from the net just to get back down to earth.

Which brings me to a comment that I say on twitter just before I left, I follow a couple of teachers who in the mist of there holiday are talking about the new curriculum. There messages started off looking at junior classes who are using laptops to do there school work in class and at home, and the problems that traditional teachers are facing when they have these classes. Traditional teachers are used to chalk and talk, ok, whiteboard marker and worksheets, imagine having a class that is constantly collaborating, e-mailing, checking up the teachers facts, coming up with there own conclusion on how something happening, instant researching. 

These teachers believe that ICT will be a passing fad and will not have to bring it into there classroom. This lead onto another discussion about the use of mandated use of ICT in the new curriculum, I don’t think teachers have quite thought about what this will mean for them, it will not mean taking students to a lab and getting then to do a 10 minute research task and the rest of the time playing games, it will mean work that is integrated in both the real and virtual world. We have seen where things are heading with quest Atlantis at school, and how the intermediates are using this for the key competencies, Though it still has a long way to come, as I do not like to use of MMORPG to go around and find tasks, and then use word to write up your tasks and email it in. If you are going to use a virtual world to engage students you need to have a better way of transporting tasks.

Will the new curriculum die off and leave us where we are at now. The curriculum's we have came out in the 1990’s and most saw this as a way of being able to get all schools teaching the same content and syllabus, it helped to bring up schools that had been lacking and gave a standard of what students at various year levels should have. We in technology have not been so lucky, we have students who have done very little technology coming through and when we look at there levels we are shocked to see level 1-2, and possibly a level 3. We have seen this and probably have not been doing our best to help with this, as we are teaching ICT skills as this is where we have seen students lacking. The subject has changed at year 9 and 10 with less periods available to teach the students. Year 9 used to be two periods a week all year, now it is three periods for a term, some terms are 9 weeks, other are 11, you do what you can. Year 10 previously was three periods a week all year, now it is two periods a week all year. A two week assessment that covered a number of technology practices used to go for six periods, now we have to do this over three weeks, which the students find hard to keep going, especially if they misses a period due to sickness of absence. Also were in the timetable affects this as well, if you have then monday and tuesday, you don’t see them until the following week where they have forgotten what you taught them. I am looking at a flash assessment to do with them at the moment based on a dida assessment from the uk. It is looking at taking almost 6 weeks to do.
Getting back to the conversation they were discussing whether teachers will be waiting for the new curriculum to fade away and go back to what they are doing at the moment. I dont think this will be the case, I can see the new curriculum being a force that will engage learners and develop students who can think, interact with others, use technology, and... isn’t that what we have now?

This needs some more thinking on my part.
Other things are coming in, for senior subjects there will be guidelines on various methods of assessment and what topics, ideas could be used to help foster these. Techlink have come out with a booklet giving some various topics and how they have been assessed using “current assessment standards” I must say there are some interesting ideas in the booklet, materials created a street luge, Foodtech looked at creating your own sachets to mixed with instant noodles, ICT developed various multimedia cd-roms to be used in a kiosk environment, snore.

I would love to see a more challenging topics being covered in ICT, yes everyone can do multimedia, design, word documents, how about thinking outside the square.

• How about trying to created your own streetview, but for a mountain bike track, so people can see what competitors are going down, where difficult parts are, GPS of the track. This would require some initial money and time, but getting the students out and involved in something out of school is what is needed now with client interaction at NCEA level 3, there are a number of tracks in Auckland, Woodhill has 200km of tracks, Hunua and Whitford. It would give people a chance to see what the tracks are like, what jumps are available. This would require a GPS and a way to sync up the helmet cam footage, I would probably think more about using the virtualhighway.org.nz that New Zealand Transport Agency has put up on the net, which is just a forward view. 
  
• Wii fitness, getting students to work out how to do the testing and record results using an application taht is simple to use. Kind of like the previous Year 12 programming course looking at the dietary intake of the family.
  
• Xbox 360 development, I went along to the dtg symposium and talked about what I am doing with my students, I was talking to a former teacher college mate who said, no one there had any idea what I was talking about. I find this rather difficult, but when I read various message boards and list serves, I see that they really do have no idea, there are some teachers who are getting into python, but really teachers are teaching VB, Java. Why? These are languages that the polytechnics and Universities are teaching the students. Why not introduce students to something different, something fun.
  
• Ok, robotics, yes everyone who is anyone is now getting little LEGO robots going, sorry, BIG LEGO robots going and getting them to battle, dance, do tasks, but the assessment for this is rather funny, there has been a large amount of discussion on the listserve that talks about what are the principles of robotics. It is nice getting the students ready for the robotics cup, but you need to look at timing in the year and whether you make it a unit of achievement standard, Students now are crediting hunting, the course that offers Achievement Standards attracts students, off Unit Standards and you might as well say goodbye to your area.
  

What are we trying to prepare students a school to do with Technology-ICT, are we preparing them for the workforce, Tertiary Education, or something to be a bit more knowledgeable at home.

I teach a topic called hacker high school which there are no standards attached to, it is a topic that the students are interested in and develops there level of understanding on how the internet works, why Microsoft and Apple have to keep putting out security patches and what to look out for when someone is trying to access your computer. I should probably look at integrating a network Unit Standard into this so that the student can get something. But they love getting into things that noone else in the school has access to. Ok its a Linux box sitting on the network that that have admin rights on, but they relish the fact that it is different. Also we do have Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine that they can play with as well.

I hope to have dreamspark in the school next year, this will allow students to have windows server 2008 and a number of programming and development environments. this would be a major boost to schools who lack the funding to get the latest software. One of the best parts is that there a number of already developed curriculum resources available on academicresourcesenter.net for this.

• Creating a Remote Operated Submersible is also another one of my ideas, since looking at the slashdot article in 2005, it is a pity that I cannot find the pdf that explains the process or the images of them putting it together. I believe that ICT is not always about sitting in front of a computer, there are real world applications and ideas that can be developed. Imagine last period on a thursday going down to the pool and throwing $300 worth of parts and a webcam into the water and bringing up the images and video on the poolside. Then developing a way to make it move.
  
• Live results from a cycle race using Twitter/GPS? How could you link into the transponders, 
  
• Developing a curriculum that is worthwhile and different are my aims, i do not want to be like any other teacher.
  

or am I thinking too big, Are some of these University projects, but I would love to get students engaged in their learning.

• As I think about some of these projects more and more I would like to look at the feasibility of how they would work and could be developed. 
  

We looked at things this year in a Library Competition System which was a good idea, we just ran out of time developing the administration interface for the teachers, another was developing a wireless hotspot system for a motel and for school, our biggest issue was that we took over the school network in giving out IP address and Internet access. We needed a live system to access the internet to do the downloads, we just didn't realise we had this power.

• i would like to look at Virtualization using vmware ESXi, I have a couple of Dell machines that I brought for the wireless hotspot development, and I would like to get rid of a couple of the old servers that are cluttering up my office, I can see the Pent 120Mhz being imaged and dropped onto the virtual machine, that same for H1, which no longer works due to a issue with a system fan. I would also bring the house system onto virtualization as well, as all it is doing is running wordpress. This would also allow for students to run there own virtual web server that wasn't running on there own machine, they can run phpadmin, mysql, php and apache all through wamp and control what happens themselves, through shares and remote desktop. The only issue would be that students need access to mstc, the microsoft remote desktop application. I am looking at a 1Tb hard drive x2 of course for raid mirroring, and 8 Gig of RAM, though it may need more.

Ok it looks like i am going to have to apologise as it looks like the blog.gears is now working, it looks like i have to be in Offline mode when starting up firefox.

Now that my battery is charged up, I must sign off, but I will be back to write up some more of my thinking.

Holiday thinking

So I tried being clever and installed google gears because I knew that I would not have an internet connection. First I installed an offline blog reader/creator, but i can’t seem to access any of my blog posts or create new ones. I kind of new if something went wrong I would be able to use Google Docs since this would sync up when I get back to the real work. Well I can read documents that I have created and edit them, but I cannot create new documents. I knew I should have tested this more fully before I went out into the non internet.
The campsite I am at does not have internet access, however if I was further in town the camp there does. It is becoming common to have internet access at the camps now. Which is cool for those people that cannot stay away, but some of us need time away from the net just to get back down to earth.
Which brings me to a comment that I say on twitter just before I left, I follow a couple of teachers who in the mist of there holiday are talking about the new curriculum. There messages started off looking at junior classes who are using laptops to do there school work in class and at home, and the problems that traditional teachers are facing when they have these classes. Traditional teachers are used to chalk and talk, ok, whiteboard marker and worksheets, imagine having a class that is constantly collaborating, e-mailing, checking up the teachers facts, coming up with there own conclusion on how something happening, instant researching. These teachers believe that ICT will be a passing fad and will not have to bring it into there classroom. This lead onto another discussion about the use of mandated use of ICT in the new curriculum, I don’t think teachers have quite thought about what this will mean for them, it will not mean taking students to a lab and getting then to do a 10 minute research task and the rest of the time playing games, it will mean work that is integrated in both the real and virtual world. We have seen where things are heading with quest Atlantis at school, and how the intermediates are using this for the key competencies, Though it still has a long way to come, as I do not like to use of MMORPG to go around and find tasks, and then use word to write up your tasks and email it in. If you are going to use a virtual world to engage students you need to have a better way of transporting tasks.
Will the new curriculum die off and leave us where we are at now. The curriculum's we have came out in the 1990’s and most saw this as a way of being able to get all schools teaching the same content and syllabus, it helped to bring up schools that had been lacking and gave a standard of what students at various year levels should have. We in technology have not been so lucky, we have students who have done very little technology coming through and when we look at there levels we are shocked to see level 1-2, and possibly a level 3. We have seen this and probably have not been doing our best to help with this, as we are teaching ICT skills as this is where we have seen students lacking. The subject has changed at year 9 and 10 with less periods available to teach the students. Year 9 used to be two periods a week all year, now it is three periods for a term, some terms are 9 weeks, other are 11, you do what you can. Year 10 previously was three periods a week all year, now it is two periods a week all year. A two week assessment that covered a number of technology practices used to go for six periods, now we have to do this over three weeks, which the students find hard to keep going, especially if they misses a period due to sickness of absence. Also were in the timetable affects this as well, if you have then monday and tuesday, you don’t see them until the following week where they have forgotten what you taught them. I am looking at a flash assessment to do with them at the moment based on a dida assessment from the uk. It is looking at taking almost 6 weeks to do.
Getting back to the conversation they were discussing whether teachers will be waiting for the new curriculum to fade away and go back to what they are doing at the moment. I dont think this will be the case, I can see the new curriculum being a force that will engage learners and develop students who can think, interact with others, use technology, and... isn’t that what we have now?
This needs some more thinking on my part.
Other things are coming in, for senior subjects there will be guidelines on various methods of assessment and what topics, ideas could be used to help foster these. Techlink have come out with a booklet giving some various topics and how they have been assessed using “current assessment standards” I must say there are some interesting ideas in the booklet, materials created a street luge, Foodtech looked at creating your own sachets to mixed with instant noodles, ICT developed various multimedia cd-roms to be used in a kiosk environment, snore.
I would love to see a more challenging topics being covered in ICT, yes everyone can do multimedia, design, word documents, how about thinking outside the square.
-How about trying to created your own streetview, but for a mountain bike track, so people can see what competitors are going down, where difficult parts are, GPS of the track. This would require some initial money and time, but getting the students out and involved in something out of school is what is needed now with client interaction at NCEA level 3, there are a number of tracks in Auckland, Woodhill has 200km of tracks, Hunua and Whitford. It would give people a chance to see what the tracks are like, what jumps are available. This would require a GPS and a way to sync up the helmet cam footage, I would probably think more about using the virtualhighway.org.nz that New Zealand Transport Agency has put up on the net, which is just a forward view.
-Wii fitness, getting students to work out how to do the testing and record results using an application taht is simple to use. Kind of like the previous Year 12 programming course looking at the dietary intake of the family.
-Xbox 360 development, I went along to the dtg symposium and talked about what I am doing with my students, I was talking to a former teacher college mate who said, no one there had any idea what I was talking about. I find this rather difficult, but when I read various message boards and list serves, I see that they really do have no idea, there are some teachers who are getting into python, but really teachers are teaching VB, Java. Why? These are languages that the polytechnics and Universities are teaching the students. Why not introduce students to something different, something fun.
-Ok, robotics, yes everyone who is anyone is now getting little LEGO robots going, sorry, BIG LEGO robots going and getting them to battle, dance, do tasks, but the assessment for this is rather funny, there has been a large amount of discussion on the listserve that talks about what are the principles of robotics. It is nice getting the students ready for the robotics cup, but you need to look at timing in the year and whether you make it a unit of achievement standard, Students now are crediting hunting, the course that offers Achievement Standards attracts students, off Unit Standards and you might as well say goodbye to your area.
What are we trying to prepare students a school to do with Technology-ICT, are we preparing them for the workforce, Tertiary Education, or something to be a bit more knowledgeable at home.
I teach a topic called hacker high school which there are no standards attached to, it is a topic that the students are interested in and develops there level of understanding on how the internet works, why Microsoft and Apple have to keep putting out security patches and what to look out for when someone is trying to access your computer. I should probably look at integrating a network Unit Standard into this so that the student can get something. But they love getting into things that noone else in the school has access to. Ok its a Linux box sitting on the network that that have admin rights on, but they relish the fact that it is different. Also we do have Ubuntu as a Virtual Machine that they can play with as well.
I hope to have dreamspark in the school next year, this will allow students to have windows server 2008 and a number of programming and development environments. this would be a major boost to schools who lack the funding to get the latest software. One of the best parts is that there a number of already developed curriculum resources available on academicresources.net for this.
-Creating a Remote Operated Submersible is also another one of my ideas, since looking at the slashdot article in 2005, it is a pity that I cannot find the pdf that explains the process or the images of them putting it together. I believe that ICT is not always about sitting in front of a computer, there are real world applications and ideas that can be developed. Imagine last period on a thursday going down to the pool and throwing $300 worth of parts and a webcam into the water and bringing up the images and video on the poolside. Then developing a way to make it move.
-Live results from a cycle race using Twitter/GPS? How could you link into the transponders,
Developing a curriculum that is worthwhile and different are my aims, i do not want to be like any other teacher.
or am I thinking too big, Are some of these University projects, but I would love to get students engaged in their learning.
-As I think about some of these projects more and more I would like to look at the feasibility of how they would work and could be developed.
We looked at things this year in a Library Competition System which was a good idea, we just ran out of time developing the administration interface for the teachers, another was developing a wireless hotspot system for a motel and for school, our biggest issue was that we took over the school network in giving out IP address and Internet access. We needed a live system to access the internet to do the downloads, we just didn't realise we had this power.
-i would like to look at Virtualization using vmware ESXi, I have a couple of Dell machines that I brought for the wireless hotspot development, and I would like to get rid of a couple of the old servers that are cluttering up my office, I can see the Pent 120Mhz being imaged and dropped onto the virtual machine, that same for H1, which no longer works due to a issue with a system fan. I would also bring the house system onto virtualization as well, as all it is doing is running wordpress. This would also allow for students to run there own virtual web server that wasn't running on there own machine, they can run phpadmin, mysql, php and apache all through wamp and control what happens themselves, through shares and remote desktop. The only issue would be that students need access to mstc, the microsoft remote desktop application. I am looking at a 1Tb hard drive x2 of course for raid mirroring, and 8 Gig of RAM, though it may need more.

Ok it looks like i am going to have to apologise as it looks like the blog.gears is now working, it looks like i have to be in Offline mode when starting up firefox.
Now that my battery is charged up, I must sign off, but I will be back to write up some more of my thinking.

Designing with little time

I found of of the worst roads in this country today, Going from Hanmer Springs through to Nelson. This road is very windy though does have some beautiful scenery.
Though this does not bring into what I have been thinking today. While working as a print designer for a day I have found some interesting thoughts.
In 5 hours we had managed to get the program and some of the other bits and pieces done to put on the cars and in the cars. It did not help that we had to wait for the the files to arrive by email, which in the end never arrived and we had to access the emails through webmail interface which had never been setup before. Not having the compete files and waiting, then getting people coming in to the shop and wanting us to change the design and content. One of the explanations is that people come in with an idea or an opinion on what they want, once it has been put together though they want to make further changes, or add content. Even though this programme has been done for a number of years, yet they dont make any of these suggestions before, it is left to the designer to update the material and make it look professional each year.
Another issue is why do people expect to be able to hand in the information at the last minute, and get a professional design and print one day out from the event.
People are not to sure what they want when they enter, they can only make judgments on what they get.
I was thinking about this and how this could affect our students, especially in the technology area, clients come in with a general idea, though they have no idea on what they want as a final design. It is up to the student to design an interface and software interaction.