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Kate Elive

photo from my phone;-)
Using mobile phones as computers in class
Part of learning hubs project. Funding. All 5th & 6th to have handheld learning device.
Negative image of mobiles in schools: Phones should be banned in class. Staff at school have responded very well losing these negative notions.
Higher 5th & ^th years staying on.
Phone spec:

  • 3G with internet
  • Camera & Video
  • Sound recoding & playback
  • Keyboard (not on screen)

Looking at MDA choice: Vario II, keyboard, GPS, looks serious, not a phone, looks like a computer.
Children will not phone, just use for data. Data only Tariff.

  • Video Camera: Science Experements, upload to youtube for revision and reporting.
  • Video Camera: PE compare.
  • Video Camera: Drama, to improve performance or build mini video.
  • Video Camera: responses to NABs instead of writing.
  • Camera: Flickr set for field trips
  • Camera: Art models
  • Camera: Animation stills
  • Camera: 365 photo project
  • Watch Video: News Clips Modern language, modern studies, first aid skiils.
  • Sound Record: Modern language homework test.
  • Record interviews for Radio Station.
  • Record for assessment instead of writing
  • Listen: podcasts iPod-plus, music

Windows mobile, office, type up essays, bluetooth keyboards in English.
Maths: spreadsheets. Bluetooth homework. read ebooks (boys especially).
All the goodness of outlook organisation.

This project not using text (data only), but text has potential: reminders: exams, bullying report etc.

Internet access
All have access, research, blog, this should equalise digital divide.
Kate is now talking about finance… business involvement to help buy cheaply.
Want contribution from parents, parents may pay for device as deposit (returned at end of year), or parents insure device (£5/month).
Children used device for 1 or 2 years, get to keep device if they go on to further edu. Already incentive to go into 5th year.
Research going onto health & safety, personal safety, behaviour, consequences and rules. (Not a street device, misuse lose for a week).
Attribution and permission.

Troubleshooting pse period, self supporting system, children to teach teachers.
Links: 2020.wikispaces.com 121.wikispaces.com www.learninghubs.co.uk.David looks like he is blogging this at the other side of the room.

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I’ve arrived at elive sitting in the keynote and see Mr W is flying the blogging flag!

Siting net to Ewan who is blogging Hans Leganger’s keynote. I can’t type fast enough so am happy enough to listen to Han telling about a great school in Oslo.

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elive seems to have got off to a great start, quite a few blog posts.

While I am waiting for them to turn up on ScotEduBlogs news: index I’ve folled with my own wee toy: taged eLive07.

It looks like teachMeet is going to have:

with lots of swapping chairs and showing each other’s stuff on laptops, rather than presentations. Much more relaxed than the last TeachMeet

says Ewan.

My message was going to be short anyway, I might just makes some flyers, here it is if I do not buttonhole you:

List your blog at http://www.ScotEduBlogs.org.uk

Tag your blog at http://www.ScotEduBlogs.org.uk

Link to http://www.ScotEduBlogs.org.uk

from your blog. Graphics avalible at the SEB wiki:

Don?t like the graphic, I don?t blame you, design your own share it on the wiki.

Spread the word, with RSS we GTD .

http://www.ScotEduBlogs.org.uk

We are also looking who can help us with a server for http://www.ScotEduBlogs.org.uk see Donations

Propaganda: encouraging readers or viewers to: “jump on the bandwagon”

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Originally uploaded by michale.

I just posted a comment on Dangerously Irrelevant: Know a great commenter? listing just a few of the folk who have really made their mark on the Sandaig blogs. There are of course a great many more. All make a great deal of difference to the children here we own them many thanks.
If you have commented on any of the Sandaig blogs, Thanks:-)

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E Live Banner

teach meet

I am quite excited, next Wednesday I am going to elive: Edinburgh’s Festival of Learning for the 21st Century.
I seem to spend half my blogging life reading posts about great ideas coming from educational conferences and feeling a little green.

Days out of school for inservice do not feature as much as they did a few years ago. I’ve been lucky enough to be part of Masterclass and am now a Glow mentor which has meant that I have managed to go quite a few interesting gatherings. I really feel that my teaching benefits by being given the chance to meet with colleagues and get exposed to new ideas face-to-face.

Last year I was talking at ELive and they have asked me back again this year. Whilst I am a little nervous to be talking to teachers rather than pupils I am really looking forward to going to other seminars and having a chat with anyone that sits still long enough.

I’ve usually found that the informal chat surrounding inservice events and conferences to be as much value as the events themselves. Last year’s elive was followed by an informal bloggers meetup (Photos) this developed into teachMeet06 at the Scotish Learning festival and now TeachMeet07
Starting at the Jolly Judge, between 4.30-7.00 for drinks and wifi. and moving on to Centotre, George Street, Edinburgh, 7pm-late.
Past experence and a look at the wiki means this looks like being a great night.

technorati tags:

Blogged from tm

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I just caught up with the last Booruch which I forgot to load onto the ipod before going on the Netherlands trip and suddenly remembered it just before I left to walk to the shops.

David interviews Dave Cain who is behind the great Pencaitland Primary Blog. A lovely interview Dave C, a probationer, has embraced blogging with ease and confidence. Great ideas for using a blog with younger primary pupils. I am pleased that David continues to find scotEduBlogs.org.uk useful.

The gentle optimism of Booruch makes it my most regularly listed to podcast along the the frequently silly and useful Geek!Ed!.

Popping over to Booruch to grab the links I noticed David’s twitter:

Walked around the village with my class; sharing the task of aligning our map with satellites (GPS) as we produce our Mediascape.

It would have been nice to be in David’s class today.

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A while back we got a free LG shine from The LG Shine bloggers relations programme. This was really useful on our recent trip to the Netherlands where we posted photos regularly to the Sandaig’s Netherlands Moblog, we are also starting a wee classroom experement: Sandaig MoBlog which needs some work.

 

 

Anyway I’ve entered the Born to Shine Competition to try an win another phone. All we need to is to get more comments on the Born to Shine Competition – blog entry than other entries and we will be on our way to a class set of phones.

You can see the full size full size photo and if you have a minute please pop over to the entry and give us a hand.

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We got back from our Netherlands 2007 trip this morning after a rather tiring drive through the night.

I think we made a pretty good fist of blogging the trip and I am beginning to think about what went right and what didn’t work so well with the way we handled the blogging, I might have better thoughts once I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

The main focus of the blog was communication with the parent and it certainly hit that nail on the head. The reaction from the parents and from the children when I read the comments on the buss proved that.

But I am starting to think of other possibilities:

The trip was not really designed for the children to do written work, our timetable is packed and I was relying on volunteers to try posts during the bus journey. This meant not every child was posting and the posts were pretty much the first thing that the bloggers thought of.

It might be possible to build in some whole group reflection time where diaries and blogs would be kept uptodate, but we would not want it to feel like school.

Maybe we could have a blog/pod team organised on a room basis and give them a wee bit of time each day (maybe they could stay up a little later then they would not miss out other things).

An internet connection in the hotel would have been good, I posted shivering in the dusk from the town square with a t-mobile pay as you go wifi one evening, a cosy cafe was better the next night and I am afraid I had to shelter in Macdonalds on a third.

The Netherlands Moblog was a good idea, but unfortunately my kludge to get it working left no facility for comments, this could be a really good tool.

I made the firsts UK post and the last one via a bluetooth mobile, this worked very well and didn’t cost too much. I posted one quick post, one small photo and about 6 words, from the Netherlands and it cost about £4! I’d like to investigate getting a dutch sim for another time.

I lost my MP3 recorder on the first day, but even then it was apparent that the children really need time to think and rehearse even informal podcasts. Again time would need to be made for this if it was to include all the children.

We had another tech disaster when a card in a camera with a load of great pictures and video got corrupt. Very disappointing.

Overall I am quite pleased with how the web 2 aspect of the trip turned out (other aspects were good too) but it is really another scratch in the surface suggesting lots of ways to do it better.

Now all I’ve got to do is read a weeks worth of email I think I’ll leave my fed reader for tomorrow.

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Spent the day packing and getting ready to go. My inbox is empty, I uploaded the new episode of Radio Sandaig the Netherlands 2007 blog had a final tweaking and I worked out a fairly horrible kludge to allow the class to publish photos and maybe audio from our phone: Sandaig’s Netherlands Moblog.

Cameras, macbooks, mp3 recorders and other kit has been gathered. I just hope we can find some wifi.

Usually the blogs are posted by the children so this will be a bit different, the children will take photos, video, record some mp3s and type up some notes on the bus, but I think I’ll be the one doing the actual posting unless we can find a very convenient connection (except for the phone stuff). I’d quite like to try to record the trip on google maps but think I’ll leave such cleverness to the children when we get back.

It is a bit weird thinking I may not read a blog or email for a week, it will probably be good for me, but I am not looking forward to my inbox next weekend.