subject option choice .9a

complete rewrite of tables within the databases is having to happen. Now that I have changed schools and the new school wishes to try this out.

So far the changes are going to be around holding the student data.
SMS ID is having to grow
students are not provided there SMS ID here, instead we will use there network login, so have added an extra field
Form Class is somewhat different as well, here it is a four letter character
though this is going to have some impact on chasing students at the end, or is it, how did the rewrite for the previous school go on for area, more around the fact that it is based on being a senior student, and checking against a flagged item, when submitted.

Junior Technology

I have been meeting a number of teachers lately that have been looking at junior technology with the lower year levels, years 9-10. Gone are the days where they could just do ict skills, now we are looking at technology achievement objectivies.

These are outlined in the New Zealand Curriculum 2007. However there are a number of teacher that do not know about the curriculum resources that have been made available on techlink.org.nz

http://techlink.org.nz/curriculum-support/pdfs/technology-curriculum-support-oct-10.pdf

as well as Strategies for Engaging students http://techlink.org.nz/curriculum-support/strategies/index.htm

I think there may need to be some PD carried out to help assist the community

eduMOOC online learning today

I am looking at this PD as an opportunity to further my knowledge and understanding around this topic.

https://sites.google.com/site/edumooc/home

 

usability notes

I realise this a site for cs for girls, but for my notes there seems to be some good ideas around usability design http://gailcarmichael.com/mini-course/course-content/Pages/notes-3.html

Some real good images of bad designs, as well as what makes good design elements

teamwork

great post in csta voice volume 4 issue 1 Volume 4 issue 1 page 3 and 4
When allowed authority to control their own group experience, students gain important experience in negotiation, delegation, and conflict management.

Junior Technology Ideas

Since starting at a new school, I thought I would start to reconsider the junior Technology Curriculum, one thing that I need to do is to re look at level 4 and 5 of the technology curriculum, I look forward to a meeting this wednesday around how my new school covers these areas.

I have a number of ideas that I have been looking at through the csta voice publications,
one so far is the look at Digital Privacy, through Cybercivics http://web2.clarkson.edu/projects/cybercivics/privacy/

Also something to look at is eVoting http://web2.clarkson.edu/projects/cybercivics/evoting/

For more information on this pilot see http://web2.clarkson.edu/projects/cybercivics/
CyberCivics was developed as a Computer Science outreach program, designed to introduce diverse groups of talented high school students to hands-on activities that reflect the myriad ways in which computing technologies directly impact their everyday lives. The materials provided here were developed for the pilot offering during the Spring 2007 semester and one follow-on offering in Fall 2008.

Both of these would look at the Nature of technology?

programming concepts in scratch

This is an interesting post, It explains simple programming concepts and how to do them in scratch http://compscigail.blogspot.com/2011/05/programming-concepts-in-scratch.html

This looks like it will have to be a blog to follow, as some of the concepts that she is looking at is what we are trying to ourselves

Tasks

With leaving I have to do a handover,

1. googleApps creating, deleting users
2. myportfolio creating users, managing users? deleting users, as with a discussion today we cannot really delete users, but remove them from the organisation
3. UDI what has to go in to meet the UDI requirements of SSO <- csv file to go offsite to our network support services at present to get added into our Active Directory.
4. wordpress, hmmm, not too sure how this one is going to continue.
5. e-asTTle what needs to be done to get this up and running everytime we do a batch.
6. csv to pdf form.

e-asTTle fixes

In order to allow the import you must first make the student in the import file match exactly with the existing record for the student. The error tells us how the First and Last names were specified on the record in e-asTTle:
1. Find the student in the Student section of the AST file. Alter the first_name or last_name fields to be in line with the other record.
2. Import the file (a warning message is generated stating that the student already exists in a different School, this can be ignored).
3. In e-asTTle, search for the student through the Manage Existing Students screen and click ‘Change’ to bring up the Change Student screen. Here you can manually update the student to match the details originally specified in the .ast file.

Candy Bar Challenge

Candy Bar Activity

• Divide the students into groups of 2 or 3. Give each group a candy bar.
• Explain that their task is to determine how many "breaks" it will take to break the candy bar into 12 equal pieces. One break of one piece of the candy bar will result in that one piece being divided into two pieces. Demonstrate a "break" by breaking the bar into two pieces. Then stack the two pieces together and break or cut the two pieces into four.
• At this point, have each student write in their journal the number of breaks they think it will take to break the bar into 12 equal pieces. This should be done without talking to their partner or group members.
• Working together with their partner or group, have the students discuss and then write their plan for solving the problem. They may revise their guess at this point.
• Once this is done, the students should implement the plan by opening the candy and breaking the candy and counting the number of breaks it takes to get 12 equal pieces.

Discussion of solutions

• Choose a group to present their plan to the class.
• How do the steps they used match what they wrote in their journal?

Introduction to the steps in the problem-solving process

• How do the steps they used relate to the “formal” steps of the problem solving process?
• Understand the problem – read or listen to the problem statement.
• Make a plan to solve the problem – use pictures, charts, graphs, systematic lists, objects, or act out the solution to help you devise a plan to solve the problem

In Computer Science we call this plan an algorithm.

• Carry out the plan – once the plan is conceived and understood, follow the plan. If you have planned well, this is the easy part.
• Review and reflect on how the problem was solved – Once the problem is solved, reflect on the plan that was used.
• Extend breaking the candy into N pieces
• Post chart of # pieces/# of breaks, including N and have students give you the # of breaks needed for each number of pieces.

Reflections on the candy bar problem: Ask the students to reflect on the candy bar problem. Why is this problem an important problem to solve for: a carpenter, a chef, a teacher?
 
Resources:
Polya, G. How to Solve It. 2nd. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. candy bar problem suggested by Dr. Manuel Blum, Carnegie Mellon University.

More at https://csforallteachers.org/sites/default/files/legacy/unit_2_day_3.pdf

Idea for a project

What did you do in school today? is a research project that was carried out in Canada throughout 17 districts. I was presented with some of the ideas through this study at the PPTA professional conference held in Wellington.
The ideas that were outlined got me thinking and I jumped on the net during the presentation hoping to find more.

The link to the report that was produced is here, http://www.cea-ace.ca/programs-initiatives/wdydist

What did you do in school today? captures, assesses, and mobilizes ideas for enhancing the learning experiences of students in classrooms and schools through a multidimensional framework of student engagement.

However, I think it is a great idea on a different front. How many times is this question asked at home, what information is given to parents on what there child did during the day.

We have a daily reporting system at school in which the students who are placed on it by the deans carry it around and we as teachers have to write a comment and sign it. Normally this is done at the end of the period just as the student is about to exit the class, and we as teachers just want to get ready for the next lesson. So is it really doing what it is meant to do.

The rules I have for the students that are placed on daily are: it must be handed to me at the beginning of lesson, if not I will not fill it in and sign it. I need to know which of the three boxes at the top that this is for.
The three categories that we look at are:

• Attendance
• Behaviour/Attitude
• Homework

So where does this come in, do students reflect on what they do in class each day? Do they reflect on there learning? On their sports practice? On there technological knowledge and practice? How well they did there science experiments? Could there be a system incorporated into their learning that is simple enough to gather data. Does it have to be a blog or could it be a short 140 character message. The ideas that come out of this are just simple, rate 6 questions on a scale from 1 - 5. Random questions could be used each day, and recorded against.
Students have mobile devices and a simple page that students goto and fill in would be all that is required, in the inital term no username and password would be used. No identification of students, all I am after is just straight implementation on an iDevice.

I looked last year at students developing a system to hold there literacy logs, in which students read a book and then filled in the questions related to the assessment based on what they read through the book. This has been a difficult project each year as the stakeholders and specifications have grown out of control. Also with the changes in technology now, other sites that we have invested time and money into have taken control of this.

Leaving

After none years at my current school, I am leaving. This has been a decision that has been a long time coming. I have felt since going on refreshment leave that I have been at the school too long. I don't want this school to be the only one I work at. There has been a number of factors that have come along, my brother leaving Auckland to move to Australia, the other is that I miss the South Island, if you look at my bedroom wall I wake up to over 40 photos all of South Island scenery.

I have six more weeks at my current school and them move Queens Birthday weekend, I must say it is going to be hard over the next couple of weeks, I don't think I have realised how much crap is at school. It will be an interesting last week bringing all of it home.

The part I am not looking forward to most is the farewell speach. I am going to have to have a plan on how I am going to present it, no projector or other computer gear this time, just me talking... Though there is something I have just found on a family website and I think it ressinates with me

especially for these reasons:
1) their humour, wit and love of story telling.
2) their honesty, values, concern for the decent and honourable in life, and in particular standing up for those less fortunate

it started with a tweet #2

The reply to my previous blog post on it started with a tweet

I agree that personal mobile devices are the way of the future, be they tablets, smart phones or what ever the future brings us. The Ipad is a classic example of how a new technology can change the way people use technology. Personal devices allow us to blur the lines between work & play. We know how powerful it is to put a laptop in the hands of every teacher in the country. As professionals we take our laptops home at the end of the day, we’re reading and accessing information informing ourselves and developing our Knowledge base.

Its my opinion that too many schools concentrate on the hardware and keeping the price as low as possible when considering any kind of student programme. Thinking, that simply putting these devices in their students hands will dramatically improve their engagement levels etc.. and while this can be true… it is only 1 (and probably the smallest part of the puzzle). First and foremost, there needs to be teaching practice which supports use of the technology to achieve real and measureable results. One of my colleagues, Graham P, who I work with has the following to say about 1:1 programmes (or would apply to 2:1 as well). I’ve cut and paste this from one of his papers:

ICT skills acquisition:

With the introduction of such an initiative the ICT knowledge and skills of the students and staff involved increases immensely – but needs to be supported.  Whilst the students will adapt quickly to their new learning catalyst, the staff learning curve is typically a little slower.

Important in any introduction of such an initiative is to provide for the staff professional development.  Not only do professional development programmes attend to the technical skills needed to cope with new ways of teaching and learning, but also they support the important paradigm shift necessary if the programmes are going to be effective. 

The ICT capabilities of all involved will increase significantly – again, providing a competitive advantage for those involved.

Much of the pedagogical impact of such a programme is lost if the portable programme does not enable the teaching and learning process to change –if we continue to do what we have always done – just with new tools…. We will still get what we have always got!

I think your idea of 2:1 is good, but why limit it to this??? If your network will support it, why not 1:1? Is the answer Money?? Well, there are 3 funding possibilities:

1 student pays – consumer finance, purchase outright

2 school pays – using funding it would have put toward infrastructure anyway, or grant applications.

3 combination of student/school funding - self-explanatory

A lot of schools I talk to think that it is unreasonable to ask their parents to pay for a laptop, so, yes, they should be able to bring one from home, but it needs to meet the basic system requirements needed to perform the tasks demanded. A standardised operating environment in any large network is the ideal, but I appreciate schools cannot “demand” or “force” students into anything. At the same time, how many kids already have playstations, ipods, expensive bikes and other costly toys of one kind or another – sure – not everyone could afford an ipad – but most parents would seriously consider it if they thought it would dramatically improve their kids ability to succeed academically and into the future.. All the better if they can finance or split the cost with the school. Why not have all 3 funding options operating – use the best method on a case by case basis?...

Instead of asking – whats the price – the question needs to be – how do we enable equality & sustainability… so.. how can we support the teachers to adapt their teaching practice to use the technology effectively. How will we assess the results of this new teaching practice? What happens if someone cannot afford to participate? What if their device breaks? How will the school support those students who don’t have an internet connection at home, how can learning continue in the face of these problems. Too often, the lowest price option, is low because there is all care, but no responsibility, no support, no resources because there is no regard for the bigger picture which is not just the sale of a smart phone, but the support of a young persons education, their preparation for a future in a digital world.

Anyway.. I could go on for hours… this is very much a passion for me. I Account Manage a few schools doing 1:1 programmes, they are doing really well, and I want to share their success with other schools, I want to help schools go 1:1 and help them avoid the painful lessons that have already been learned at other sites. I really believe that personal devices in students hands is the way to go. I only need to look as far as myself. I know that having my laptop/iphone in my hands 12+ hours a day means im reading more, im collaborating, im working and playing simultaneously (look at what im doing right now) – it doesn’t stop when I leave the office. This is all adding to my knowledge base. I am 100% sure that every student should also have the same opportunity to learn anywhere, anytime..

I know there are lots of other considerations, and we have a duty of care to protect our youth from the dangers that lurk out beyond the firewall, but it can be done, its really not that hard to do.. it just takes a commitment to change for the best.

Anyway, that’s my 10cents worth… what do you think : ) And please don’t think im trying to “sell” you anything = I really am very passionate about it – I feel like I have such good insight into how well it can work, but im not entirely sure I know how to best spread the message?? I’d love your feedback .

From a group post

My argument is definitely not for teaching staff to understand technology any less and think that it is very important for staff to have a good understanding of ICT, my point is though that even with a good amount of knowlege in ICT there may still be extra things that can be picked up from ICT staff. Effectivly I am just arguing for continuing learning and using all the resources avalible to the school to do the best job that they can.

It's the ongoing learning that makes the difference. We claim that for our students, we need to claim it for ourselves.

I like this comment, as I think it has a lot to say.

It started with a tweet

Tweet: What are the key challenges facing schools when it comes to estalablishing a 1 to 1 student laptop programme... your thoughts??

Answer: key challenge is the experiences that other schools have had in the area, negative information has been passed on, no +'s

and

another is the thinking that they will get 5-8 years out of a netbook the same as a desktop machine

thanks. Are the negatives you've heard about related to lack of evidence of benefits?

From then one it has now ended up being an email conversation
the negatives are due to the what the principals in the area have discussed the machines wouldn't last, they broke, the wouldn't run what was required. Mind you I think it comes down to what the school brought and experienced. I look at what is available now to what was available last year or the year before.

Lack of academic results? or Poor tools, poor hardware & support, or lack of good prof dev? Interested
I think it does come down to, some people saw the 1:1 computing as "the Answer" they didn't think of the training, investment in infrastructure, it was the big thing of the day. And then what they saw happening in the classroom, students just use them to write up documents, they wouldn't have seen the collaboration of what goes on, as schools didn't think of what is available with google apps now and collaborative google docs. they would have seen then in the classroom charging and not being used, or locked away.

Schools want to see use of there investment, and getting 5-8 years out of a desktop and 18 months out of a netbook are two different things. just because its a computer they think they will last that long. Who is there to repair them, schools do not have the lucky technician that we have, they have a teacher or a tech for 2 hours a week. Who them looks after the students having access and modifying the laptop to them break it and it becomes a door stop until it is fixed.

I also think schools are looking toward the mobile phone as the end device, but i am more looking at the 2:1 devices for students, the netbook/tablet and the phone/android/iphone. We are looking at our network and explaining it to salespeople, they look at me strangely when I say 2:1, all they hear at other places is 1:1.

What do you think around that idea?

and who's thinking is this? Student/Parent or school? I really appreciate your feedback : )
This is the principal who is telling me most of this, we approached the board for a 30 user netbook programme, and got told basically the above.

Our associate principal is looking at what we are proposing with the wireless network, and he has the statement at the moment, "build it and they will come" - I know, bad movie reference, but when we roll out our wireless network the student will bring the devices with them, they have laptops at home already, and if not they have mobile phones, itouches, android phones, the more devices that we can look at attaching to the network, they better as they understand. Do we want to limit the students to a one stop shop of device. or see what they bring and develop.

Ok, I realise this has been written late at night and its ben a long day, but I hope you get the idea of what I am trying to put across from the tweets.

Sometimes tweets are not enough, they start off with an idea and develop from there.

SSO all working

The single sign on is all operational and working, now worries with this,

Our only issue is now is myportflio.school.nz
number of students able to be uploaded is limited to 200 at a time
all old students on the system have to be manually changed over to SAML
you cannot update any students details through a csv upload at this time
When you import and select the wrong authentication method, you cannot fix it by reuploading
you cannot set you whole institution to SAML in one hit.

I am finding more negatives than positives at the moment with this administration

Thoughts on the three areas

Our School has joined the new Positive Behaviour for Learning in New Zealand initiative. These are the three areas that we are focussing on.

• Be Respectful
• Be Responsible
• Be a Learner

Single Sign On update

Hopefully we will have all of our services running on the watchdog iDP.

One thing we are finding though is that the iDP is very picky about what site the that login information is sent from.
we have out http://schoolname.knowledge.net.nz which is how most of the connections are made, but today I don't know where I managed to get this was http://www.schoolname.knowledge.net.nz, I didn't pick it at first, it was an email to the developers that pickup up the www. in front.

So things to note is come up with is a list of websites that you will be connecting with,

ie.
http://schoolname.knowledge.net.nz -knowledgeNET connection
http://mail.student.schoolname.school.nz - googleApps connection
and http://myportfolio.schoolname.school.nz - myportfolio connection

and make sure that you reference these in all you sites and developments from now on. you will need to note that the www. is not needed or supported.

This has been a great development opportunity and is allowing us to try different things within our lessons, rather than the worry of students not knowing passwords or forgetting information that was needed to be able to login successfully.

One of the next steps to look at is branding of these sites and being able to link between them, one suggestion has been to add links into KnowledgeNET for this to happen, this would then create that LMS portal, so students login to one place and use that to access the other services for their learning.

Single Sign On - watchdog iDp

We have been in a process for the last couple of months, in reality since the knowledgeNET conference. We have been working with watchdog on implementing their Single Sign On service. This has been a busy development for all parties involved. It has required knowledgeNET to finish developing the requirements for SSO, in which they have completed and we are the first successful school to use Single Sign On with them, and it has now reduced some of the issues that we have had with passwords.

In the past we have had to add all of our students manually, well export them from our Student Management System, SMS, and we implemented the websync service just after it was released. This now makes provisioning students a lot easier. Though we still have an issue with the format of our student logins, which require someone to change manually.

Another issue we have found is the issues of the original development and focus of knowledgeNET, which was schoolsonline.co.nz, this is what is represented in the google search for our knowledgeNET system. This is causing a few headaches, but we are slowly working our way around this and updating our school website and login pages to show this change, we wish that there was a reload or a refresh when someone logged in through the schoolsonline page that would then point it straight away to our knowledgeNET site.

The second service that was activated was google apps. This has been a simple change over and is working well.

The third service is mahara, myportfolio.school.nz. This one is taking a little bit longer to get going and implemented. At the moment we have one student who is using the SAML login, which does not work, I am hoping that this week will be when we get all of it working. There is still one more service that we can get activated for our iDp service, however, I am unsure at present what we get...

Also with knowledgeNET we are after some real estate on their navigation bar, this will mean that we can include icons on the bar for students to access these service straight away. this has now been added as a development ticket for future work.

Wether it be, access-it library, wikieducator, or a number of other services. This will be a conversation that we next have at our ICT meeting.

mlearning and 2degrees mobile

I have been working with 2 degrees for the last 2 years on a number of projects that I play with at school. The first was Get Lost! We managed to 2degrees to sponsor the SIM cards for the 2009 project. As 2degrees was a new network and they were wanting to get out into the market place. Last year, 2010, we also used 2degrees as well. However, it was a interesting experience this time dealing with a store rather than twitter and email. The face to face contact was great, explaining what I wanted to the manager of the store and dealing with him on the issues that we were having with some of the departments within 2degrees, one thing I learnt is that you have to give them a months heads up, as some departments have difficulty talking to each other. hopefully from last years experience this years will go a little more smoothly.

Why do I use 2degrees and their mobile network. Well, telecom and vodafone the cost of the SIM cards is too high, 2degrees have a better rate for the SIM card, plus I have started to see some of their details are a lot better. They are willing to work with me and solve solutions to the problems that I give them. Also, the SIM cards that I use are to meet the health and safety aspects of the field trips or activities that I run. I love seeing students in the outdoors and experiencing the Education Outside the Classroom that is now starting to become missing from schools.
If I need to contact a student or for them to contact me it is a quick phone call or text. It means that I don't have to have a lot of teachers out in the field with each group, I am finding this has better relationship with the key competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum. Students, I am finding enjoy using there cellphones for a personal use, but for an educational use they are not too sure. This is mainly due to the $10 text packages they are on, why do they want to use these valuable text for learning. Provide a SIM car with limited amount of funds on it and they want to use it. For the three day Get Lost! programme I provided $5 on each SIM and no student was without credit at the end of it, and I had received over a 1000 texts on my phone from them, including phone calls and PXT.

The latest is to take my year 13 students to a number of locations this year and give them a day to come up with the website. These are 6 hour based competitions that I am thinking of. Students will be given information before the event, like location and any information that is needed. the first one is to north head, this has a self guided walk, what the students will be required to do is to create virtual self guided walk through the information they find on the site as well as what is available on the doc website.

The second is to look at how a qr-code development at auckland museum would work. Students will be given a section of the museum to go through and develop information that could be accessed on an itouch using qr codes or entering in a code. There will be a limited number of exhibits that they can create content for, as well as having to access the museum database as well for more information. They will need to be fast and have access to a wifi network to access information as well as publish information.

Trying new things

I have been working with our schools moodle, a couple of us in the department make use of this great educational tool. We have been busy trying new courses and activities. Though, I found today something rather interesting.

I started to do some work to enable an outside organisation to make use of the resources that we have available, a working New Zealand Moodle for Schools version and it being hosted outside the school. This is so they can access the Moodle for Teaching and learning course that was created as part of the moodleinschools.org.nz project, which the New Zealand Moodle for Schools version was created as part of.

The students logged in today and straight away I had questions, why was there a new category in the moodle instance, what did this mean, was it part of a field trip, what's going on?

What shocked me was that the students started there inquiry, who was the extra category for, why was it created, what was going to be the outcome of it.

When I teach, they just sit there, they don't talk, I try to engage and possibly one of two students answer back, the rest just listen. Why don't students do the same type of thing when I teach a new topic? Question, ask... is it because this is what happens in every other subject.

I enjoy the fact that i am trying something different with the year 13 students this year, the guiding questions that are up at the beginning of class and them having to blog the answers has been insightful. One of the biggest issues is i started the class this way 3 weeks ago and I had a new student added to the class today and is lost in what is required and how the students have already developed there own learning space, be a blog and google apps currently, but when mahara is all setup with the saml authentication I will be using it as part of the learning space.

But what of my classroom, I have this great online presence, but the classroom is bland and empty. I need to find a way of getting these great environments into the visual space.

Onto something else,

I have been using the mail merge add-in with our e-asTTle PDF documents and it has been working great. We had an issue today that it wasn't until lunchtime when a brief discussion with the network manager happened. Around period 3 we had everything go to a holt for around 5 minutes, found out that the student server had no space left on it in its c: drive. All the space was used. When I thought about it it was due to the 699 PDF documents that I was printing. The print queue for the printer I was using was on that server. I went back to check the printer and have found that 60 individualised e-asTTle reading tests had not been printed. So I have someone going through the print out and working out which of the tests have not been printed. Will have to get these printed off on monday.

And now another,

I know this may look like a broken post, but it is always one of ideas and developments that is related to me.
I use dreamspark with my students, I need to get them sorted out with accounts through live@edu, though do I, some of the programming students would do quite well gaining access to this software as they are interested and play with different things all the time. While others just need to the software that is available, like microsoft visual basic express and microsoft expression 4 ultimate to play with and develop on.

What I need to do is export this from our SMS who needs accounts and sort out the codes...
I wonder if I can create individual printed books for the students with there name already on it for the programming class through the mail merge program.

I realise that I am doing a lot of things but that is part of being an innovator, Now that we have Single Sign on working for knowledgeNET, google apps and hopefully myportfolio.school.nz I wont have to manage the import of student accounts for much longer, I can pass this over to someone else. However, what I find is the development of these programs a concern. It is one thing to implement them at school, but I also look at the form and function that they offer and what will work for me with the kit that I have.

I need 5 laptops that can be networked up easily to share an internet connection, I am looking at doing a field trip and need a way for the students to use what they have rather quickly. Think of it as a race, students will be given an area and have to develop a website rather quickly to show off what they found and how it has impact on collection.

Jb hi fi have laptops for <$400 and these would be all that is required for the students to use.
I wonder if this could be an idea...