Computers in Classrooms #22 ISSN 1470-5524 ~ For colleagues who teach or manage information and communication technology (ICT) in schools ~ From Terry Freedman Home Page: http://www.ictineducation.org Email: terry@ictineducation.org 6 October 2006 *** IMPORTANT *** The details I have for you are as follows: First name: Last name: To log in or change any of these details, please go to: http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/amember/member.php You need to log in to be able to read the latest newsletter or to download any freebies such as the filofax-style website guide. You can also log in to change your details or to sign up for the Leading & Managing ICT service. In this issue: 1. Every Child Matters. 2. Responses to a question about wireless keyboards and mice. 3. Podcasting: a mutual back-scratching suggestion which could help both me and your students. 4. Web 2.0: The Coming of Age project. 5. Correction. 6. Articles from the Educational Technology: ICT in Education website. 7. A school which has embraced webcasting. 1. Every Child Matters I've been asked by the organisation called ASPECT (The Association of Professionals in Education and Children's Trusts) to write an article for them about what people need to know about England's Every Child Matters. They've asked me the following questions (amongst others). I see this as a great opportunity to get more discussion going in this area, ie what ECM actually means in practical terms, so your response would be tremendously useful. If you can provide an example or two in response, that would be great. I'll assume that you're happy to be cited unless you tell me otherwise. Please email me at terry@ictineducation.org with the subject header Request for information about Every Child Matters. a. Are you aware of any particular initiatives government has set up in wake of ECM agenda? I'm probably aware of them too, but I've included this question in case I overlook one. If you are aware of a local initiative that would be interesting as well. b. Examples of how ICT facilities were improved by intervention of lead professional (eg consultants) in a particular setting would be useful. c. How is the government & any relevant agencies helping schools to embed ICT in with the Every Child Matters agenda eg examples of where professionals helped teachers adopt a holistic approach. d. Key issues you think that we need to understand and relay to organisations working with children and young people. e. What you'd like to see happen in relation to any future developments and government involvement in this area. f. What do you see as Local Authorities’ role in agenda, IMS. 2. Last time I said: I've had an email from a lady called Angela, who asks: "We are looking for a wireless keyboard and mouse that have a range of 10 - 15m for use anywhere in the classroom so that students can input information and move the cursor from their own seats." Does anyone have any ideas about this? If so, please let me know ASAP and I will make sure Angela gets them. Well, I received several replies, as follows. Tanks to all who did so. Jay Managan recommended an "off-the-shelf Microsoft set #1014 that sells for about $50" Dave Trevena suggested the "Gyromouse wireless mouse and keyboard suite, the best I have used, £85 from www.classroom-ict.com" Keith Hague said " There is a review (American site) at http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-312-1.htm, which notes "The first thing that users will notice of course is the inclusion of a Bluetooth USB dongle. This device complies to the new and improved Bluetooth 2.0+EDR which means that it can have ranges of up to 60 feet. ..... The range on this dongle was phenomenal. With the keyboard, I was able to walk 30 ft into another room and could still pause and play music." It is available from PC World, and at Ebuyer (at following link). http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=94460&_LOC=UK Cost is around £76." Paul Hynes wrote "Wireless keyboard/mice packages - I have a Bluetooth Microsoft set that will do 30m (event through walls) with fresh batteries. The key is to get bluetooth rather than radio frequency (they only manage about 3-4 metres in my experience). I am sure Logitech will make them as well." Paul Gidman: "I use a tablet and pen but that's on my interactive whiteboard. That goes from classroom through the wall to the next classroom." Finally, Sheila Morrisson: "We use a Gyration Compact Suite which consists of a wireless keyboard and gyro mouse. The sets cost about £80 and have been really popular with teachers who have used them. They have a range of up to 9m." If I've inadvertently omitted someone, my apologies. Please let me know, and I'll correct it next time. I passed these tips on to Angela, but without divulging email addresses. 3. I have a request myself this time. I quite enjoy the idea of podcasting, but most of the time I don't really have the time to edit it properly. I do try my best, but I find it very time-consuming. I'd like to be able to just record it, and then more or less forget about it. I've come to the conclusion that ad-libbing doesn't completely work for me, because I then spend ages editing out all the hesitations. On the hand, scripting doesn't work either because I can't read my own writing. So, my next podcast will be based on a compromise, I think: a list of topics which I would like to cover, with bullet point prompts under each heading. OK, here is my request, which I think could be very helpful to some students. I was wondering if, as a project, a couple of students would like to get involved in the editing, putting in transitional music, and the music at the start and finish and all that kind of stuff? Apart from the opportunity for skill development, eg in using Audacity, something like this would give them the chance to develop the sort of project management skills inherent in the higher levels of educational technology literacy. For example, in England, Level 8 in the ICT Programme of Study states that students must "design and implement systems for others to use." OK, I know I am not requesting a system as such, but I think if you take that in conjunction with Level 7: "Pupils combine information from a variety of ICT-based and other sources for presentation to different audiences.", Level 8: "they make appropriate use of feedback" and Level 6: "They present their ideas in a variety of ways and show a clear sense of audience.", I think it's clear that even though working with someone on their podcast cannot be directly linked to a particular level, it is a higher order skill. Essentially, the students will have to work with me to establish things like: * type of audience I have * nature of the podcast * copyright issues * ways of capturing feedback (eg my feedback form on Episode #17: see http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/db//podcast_rss/doc_page19.html) * project management skills (eg working to a deadline, getting things signed off) * time management skills, especially if different time zones are involved. I'm happy to give out my Skype and IM details, also to give a reference or showcase their work and so on, to make sure it counts towards any qualification they're working towards. If it sounds interesting, please let me know as soon as possible. I think apart from anything else, it will be interesting to see if we can develop a model that others can use as a sort of template in other contexts. 4. Web 2.0: The Coming of Age project. You can see the latest version of the table of contents at http://web2booklet.blogspot.com/2006/10/draft-table-of-contents-16.html. If you found the first one useful, please drop me a note to say in what way it was useful. I'll assume that you're happy to be cited unless you tell me otherwise. Please email me at terry@ictineducation.org with the subject header Request for information about Coming of Age. Thanks very much in advance for your support in providing me with some information. The sections of the book are now as follows (together with some definitions in case you're new to all this -- which most people are): Section 1: Introductory Section (ie table of contents, notes about the contributors and other, erm, introductory stuff). Section 2: Cool Tools: An Overview. Includes a few book reviews and overview-type articles explaining what it's all about. Section 3: Blogging, ie writing your thoughts, news, diary or whatever online. Section 4: Podcasting, ie audio shows that can be subscribed to and new episodes automatically downloaded. Section 5: Photography. Digital, of course! Section 6: Digital Storytelling. Using photos to tell your story rather than (only) words. Section 7: Wikis. These are websites which anyone (who has permission) can edit -- great for collaborative projects. Section 8: Video and related matters. Includes YouTube (of course) and legal issues. Section 9: Other Aspects Of Web 2.0 -- for example, social bookmarking. Section 10: Institutional issues -- eg how to implement Moodle across a Local Authority (School District). Section 11: Educational Issues -- such as security and safety issues, and high-stakes testing. Section 12: Implementing Web 2.0 In The Classroom, A Holistic Approach, including the role of educational leaders. Section 13: Web 2.0 and Pre-service teachers. Section 14: Now What? Includes more book reviews and a list of resources. The idea is that you can read the book from start to finish if you like, or focus on particular sections. Please go to the website address listed above for more details, ie the chapter headings. There is some powerful writing here. In this extract from her chapter entitled "Thinking About the Digital Divide: Past, Present and Future", Bonnie Bracey Sutton makes the problem of poverty in the world comprehendible by describing it on a scale we can understand. I've come across this before, but it's just as powerful as it ever was. "If the World Were a Village of 100 People (A Snapshot) If we could reduce the world's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this. The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific. 51 would be male, 49 would be female. 82 would be non-white; 18 white. 67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian 80 would live in substandard housing. 67 would be unable to read. 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation. 33 would be without access to a safe water supply. 39 would lack access to improved sanitation. 24 would not have any electricity (and of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.) 7 people would have access to the Internet. 1 would have a college education. 1 would have HIV. 2 would be near birth; 1 near death. 5 would control 32% of the entire world's wealth; all 5 would be US citizens. 33 would be receiving – and attempting to live on – only 3% of the income of the village. (From: http://www.familycare.org/news/if_the_world.htm)" Find out about Bonnie and her work here: http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/bbracey. In another chapter, Clarence Fisher puts Web 2.0 in perspective in his chapter entitled "Did you know...": "Did You Know.. Are you wondering about the value of teaching using social software in your classroom? Consider some of these statistics.. According to the blog tracking service Technorati, as of August 2006 there were over 50 million blogs in the world. The number of blogs online is doubling every six months. There are 150 000 new blogs created each day which breaks down to 7 200 each hour, or two new blogs every second! All of these blogs create an incredible amount of content. Over 1.6 million new articles are posted each day; 19 new posts every second. The Apple iTunes store lists over 65 000 different podcasts that you can subscribe to for free. There are more podcasts available worldwide then there are radio stations. There is expected to be over 60 million podcast listeners within five years. YouTube, the site that lets anyone upload their own videos, handles over 50 000 new video uploads each day and hosts over 45 terabytes of video files. YouTube distributes over 50 million videos every day. That’s over 9 300 total years of viewing time in less then a year that the site has been online." Read Clarence's blog at http://remoteaccess.typepad.com. 5. Correction The last issue was designated as a "Special Web 2.0 issue". It wasn't. 6. Articles from the Educational Technology: ICT in Education website I've proposed a new tool that schools could use to evaluate whether a process or project constitutes good or best practice, and ways of tagging them in social bookmarking sites. See what you think: Good Practice, Best Practice: http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/article_885.php I've also written about the problem of outgoing spam, ie spam that appears to come from you, and what you can do about it: Spam, Spam, Spam: http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/article_883.php In an article entitled Beyond Games, I suggest that educational games are even more useful when you try to use them for a purpose for which they were not intended, or try to discover their implicit assumptions: http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/article_882.php Subscribers to the Leading and Managing Educational Technology service are currently enjoying a series about managing staff. When you join a new school or institution, you have to manage staff -- even if you don't line-manage them. This series tells you how. The subscription is currently £21,50 a year, and that includes all my ebooks at the moment. To sign up, go here: http://terry-freedman.org.uk/amember/signup.php Alternative, send in an official purchase order. Our contact details are here: http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/contact.html I've published another website guide, this time on syndication. Go to the List of website guides available at: http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/website_guides.php and then download the document called: 02_Website_Guide_Getting_content_for_your_website.pdf. This describes how you can obtain content for your website directly from my website -- automatically. 7. Finally, it's great to find a school which has taken webcasting on board in a really purposeful way -- not just the pupils, but staff. Go to http://www.spaldwickschool.org.uk/webcast_lists.htm to see what I mean. Headteacher Val Cameron, whom I met on a training day for the Strategic Leadership in information and Communications Technology (SLICT) training day recently told me that the staff make a one minute webcast at the start of each term, outlining what work they'll be doing with their classes. Apparently the parents really like this service. Next issue: Amongst other things, a Review of Shakespeare Works. Disclaimer =========================================== Good morning, Judge. I wasn't even there; it wasn't my fault; he made me do it, etc. Seriously, though, all the information and links in this newsletter have been checked, and offered in good faith. For the full text of the disclaimer, please see: http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/about.html. Pass it on/How to subscribe =========================================== Now pass this newsletter on to someone else please! Alternatively, direct them to http://terry-freedman.org.uk/amember/signup.php, where they can obtain it automatically by completing a short form. (Just think what a fantastic present a subscription would make, and it won't even cost you a penny!) To unsubscribe =========================================== To unsubscribe, please see the instructions at the bottom of this message. To subscribe, go to http://terry-freedman.org.uk/amember/signup.php. This newsletter is © 2006 Terry Freedman and individual contributors.