Tag: technology

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I just saw What is Digital Literacy? A guest blog from Andy McLaughlin, University of Aberdeen – DigiLearn and a pointer to the discussion on LinkedIn.

But what do we do there – if we go open source or other methods are we giving our young people the skills to enter the workplace .

Ian Gibson

Ian and John, I’d love to hear your take on the idea that Big Tech’s “efficiency agenda” has been the biggest hindrance to digital skill development.

Andy McLaughlin

There is a lot of interesting ideas popping up in the conversation. I joined in, although I don’t really have a clear idea as to where I stand. Quite quickly I reached LinkedIn’s maximum character limit, so though I’d post here and link in there, POSSE style. Here are the rather ragged thoughts I wanted to post:

Of course in Scotland we have access to an Open Source product in the form of WordPress 😉 But I doubt there is much awareness of Open Source generally among my colleagues. As a primary teacher, I need to get my head round hundreds of experiences and outcomes, leaving little time for the reading, never mind the thinking needed in this area.

Open Source is involved in many work places. Some even owned by ‘Big Tech’. Unfortunately Open Source and open technologies (RSS for example) do not have an army of paid and unpaid evangelists in the same way as ‘Big Tech’.

I am not suggesting we should abandon Big Tech, but we should be able to think about the implication

I recently quoted this:

warning parents that although they think they are giving their children access to the internet, they are really giving the internet access to their children.

BBC World Service – The Documentary Podcast, Assignment: Ireland’s phone-free town

Could we replace parents by educators, children by pupils and internet by ‘Big Tech’.

Not sure I fully grok Big Tech’s “efficiency agenda” but to my mind it might be jumping into using tech too far from the base metal? Just a few (20) years ago, I’d start teaching pupils some basic text editing, a wee bit about the difference between bitmap and vector image software before moving on to more complex tools. I think I’d rather see a pupil ‘misusing’ powerPoint or Keynote to make their own creative images than cycling through possibilities in a more sophisticated tool.

I am also open to the idea that a bit of friction in your toolkit might mean to spending a bit more time thinking.

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From 2005 to 2008 I used podcasting as an activity in the classroom1. I found it a powerful tool for writing, talking and listening, collaboration and more. Back then podcasting was not the well known entity that is is now.

Back the I managed the podcast as a lunchtime club, volunteers form my class contributing. We did occasional whole class shows and even whole school projects.

While I was out the classroom I ran few courses on podcasting. I don’t think I managed to encourage much uptake. We did run a podcast server in North Lanarkshire for a while but it was used more for video than audio.

Last session I finally got around to podcasting with pupils again. This time I tried to exploit it a bit more and involve the whole class. The pupils wrote to local businesses and got sponsorship for the first 3 episodes. We organised it as an enterprise with different children taking on different roles including site & logo design.

The final one was made during lockdown. The children sending in recordings which were edited by a key workers child in school.

This year my class were keen to start again. My plan to begin at the start of term two got spoiled by covid and other unexpected events. Finally we got round to it in November. Given time constraints I decided to skip the sponsorship and deal with some of the scheduling myself. I gave the class a bit of time to write, a fairly free choice of what to write about and who to write with.
I helped with the occasional phrase but pretty much let it to them. We did work in parallel thinking and marking up text we were reading aloud.

They then recorded themselves over the next couple of weeks. A p7 pupil who had edited last session did so again this time with a p6 apprentice. Pupils created wee bits of music to link items. Another pupil posted Episode 5.

I feel it was a pretty successful exercise. The class were very engaged. I could see and hear the effort they put into writing and recording. I also heard an improvement in some children’s reading aloud.

I believe we covered a wide range of the experiences and outcomes, listed below4.

Workflow

  1. General discussion of content, pupils organise them selves into groups and groups divided into pairs & individuals
  2. Script written in notes on iPads
  3. Children recorded each other using the Voice Memos app, either from prints of the notes or using split screen.
  4. Audio AirDropped to the editor’s iPad
  5. Musical snippets recorded in GarageBand & AirDropped
  6. Edited in GarageBand

The only involvement I had in the editing was to level the voice track using The Levelator2 on a desktop and exporting the m4a to mp3 again on desktop. I am pretty sure m4a is a fine format for podcasts but I am a bit old fashioned.

we used an iRig mic this time

Last session on some episodes we split the editing into groups, with each section of the podcast editing their bit and the main editor putting these together. I plan to do that next term to increase the number of pupils with editing skills. We will probably formalise some more roles in groups too.

Benifits

Apart from the obvious: responsibility co-operation, working together, leadership, practical skills and problem solving involved I took a quick trawl through the CFE experiences and outcomes alongside the benchmarks. I’ve added a partial list below4.

Changes

It is a lot easier technically to make a podcast now than when I started. Glow Blogs are a good free podcast hosting solution for schools3. The idea of podcasting is mainstream now. It does seem a bit harder to get audience feed back than it is 15 or so years ago. As with class blogs, commenting from afar seems to have declined or moved to likes on Twitter. Back in Sandaig we had comments from around the world and made some connections that went far. This is, again in my opinion, a pity.

We are intending to try more podcasting next term, I appreciate that is a bit harder to fit in now with all the demands of the curriculum but I do think it is really worth the effort.

1. Radio Sandaig Archive.org link. I also produced hundreds of podcasts with David Noble over at Radio Edutalk for 10 years starting in 2009. ↩

2.
The Levelator is one of my favourite pieces of software. Mac App Store, Wikipedia. ↩

3. GlowCast has some information. ↩

4. E&Os Benchmarks in italic from Curriculum for Excellence Benchmarks

I can use my voice, musical instruments and music technology to experiment with sounds, pitch, melody, rhythm, timbre and dynamics.
EXA 2-17a Uses voice, instruments and technology to create music

I am investigating different careers/occupations, ways of working, and learning and training paths. I am gaining experience that helps me recognise the relevance of my learning, skills and interests to my future life.
HWB 2-20a Identifies connections between skills and the world of work

I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to create texts of my choice.
LIT 1-01a / LIT 2-01a

I can recognise how the features of spoken language can help in communication, and I can use what I learn.
I can recognise different features of my own and others’ spoken language.
ENG 2-03a Recognises some techniques used to engage or influence the listener, for example, vocabulary, emphasis, tone and/or rhetorical questions.

When listening and talking with others for different purposes, I can:
share information, experiences and opinions; explain processes and ideas; identify issues raised and summarise main points or findings and clarify points by asking questions or by asking others to say more. LIT 2-09a
I am developing confidence when engaging with others within and beyond my place of learning. I can communicate in a clear, expressive way and I am learning to select and organise resources independently.
LIT 2-10a / LIT 3-10a Communicates clearly, audibly and with expression in different contexts. Plans and delivers an organised presentation/talk with relevant content and appropriate structure. Uses suitable vocabulary for purpose and audience. Selects and uses resources to support communication.

I can make notes, organise them under suitable headings and use them to understand information, develop my thinking, explore problems and create new texts, using my own words as appropriate. LIT 2-15a Makes and organises notes using own words, for the most part. Uses notes to create new texts that show understanding of the topic or issue.

I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience. LIT 1-20a / LIT 2-20a Creates texts regularly for a range of purposes and audiences selecting appropriate genre, form, structure and style.

most of the Tools for Writing E&Os can be touch on

Throughout the writing process, I can check that my writing makes sense and meets its purpose. LIT 2-23a Writes most sentences in a grammatically accurate way.; Uses sentences of different lengths and types and varies sentence openings. Uses paragraphs to separate thoughts and ideas.; Writes in a fluent and legible way. Reviews and corrects writing to ensure it makes sense, is technically accurate and meets its purpose.

And lots of writing ones:

By considering the type of text I am creating, I can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in an appropriate way for my purpose and use suitable vocabulary for my audience. LIT 2-26a Organises information in a logical way. Selects relevant ideas and information. Uses appropriate vocabulary, including subject-specific vocabulary, to suit purpose and audience.

↩

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Replied to a tweet by Athole (twitter.com)
Definitely part of it. But I think it’s also the culture of these digital tools. Free to use for teachers. And they offer and promise a lot. But, ethically, this is incredibly problematic. Says the man currently tweeting on an iPhone! Feels like there was more open source before

Personally I like open source & I like paying for software (hopefully I pay for FOSS by using, bug reporting & sharing). I’ve no problem tweeting from an iPhone I paid for. More problematic ‬Is how I “pay for” twitter.

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Somedays computing technology seems like a collection of very fine threads with a lot depending on them. I don’t suppose there ever was a time where ordinary folk could really understand much. But when I started using macs around system 7.1 I was under the illusion that it might be something I could grasp if not master. I now feel like I am at one end of a multitude of dependencies, with no change of a glimpse of the root of any.

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Reviewing use of tech in my classroom this year. I think it has been a slight mistake to think first about the network rather than local. Bandwidth limits made Airdrop more useful than external means of sharing. Next session I think I’ll be depending less on external stuff.

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In early October my school had a visit from Google Expeditions. I’d been contacted to see if I would be interested and jumped at the chance.

Google Expeditions are a 3D VR ‘experience’ using google cardboard. I’d tried a few mobile apps using cardboard before but not in a classroom setting.

The plan was we would choose Expeditions that would fit into our learning.

On the day Kostas from Google turned up in Banton having traveled on public transport with the whole kit in a backpack. This consisted of one tablet, one router, a set of android phones with a google cardboard for each phone.

Expeditions are a set of several 3D VR ‘images’ that can be looked around. The images are broadcast from the tablet ( or a phone) to other devices on the local network. The Tablet is handled by the ‘leader’ the phones by the ‘explorers’. The leader controls which image/space the explorers see. The leader’s non-3D view includes some notes and discussion points.

table leader view

The devices need to be connected to the same network but they do not need to be online. The scenes are ‘served’ from the tablet. The tablet does need to be online at some point to download the scenes in preparation.

When in a space the explorers can look around by turning their heads or bodies. Moving forward and backwards has no effect.

The leader cannot control where the explores look in a scene but double tapping will show the explorers an arrow pointing to the object tapped (we saw that explorers would always follow these arrows).

We had chosen a couple of Expeditions that would fit with out learning, but did have the chance to explore quite a few.

in the box

The pupils were very engaged immediately, the images are surprisingly ‘hyper real’ and the experience of turning round or just moving your head was delightful.

We collated some pupil responses on the class blog: Around the World in a Cardboard Box.

I’d chosen the spaces we looked at at fairly short notice, one did not really fit with my expectations the other was linked to a topic we had not then started. So for the point of view of linking into the learning and teaching I hadn’t planed well enough. From the point of view of exploring potential new technology and giving the pupils a glimpse of the near future.

I’d also feel that the resources might be a bit more valuable after the initial excitement had died down and the pupils used the system more than once.

So how would we use this past an exciting but brief test. Although the kit is relative inexpensive a class set would still be an major resource for even a large school.

I suppose it could be a share resource for a group of schools or local authority.

I wonder too if it could be used on a smaller scale, with less devices. At the end of last month I was talking to Will Tuft on Radio #EDutalk about ‘The immersive classroom’, this involves setting up classroom experiences, for example the aftermath of a hurricane, with props and tasks. I wonder could the cardboard be part of some such class. For example a group of ‘divers’ could take it in turns to put on the googles and explore the sea.

It could also just be used by a few children as a time.

I wonder if as well as the obvious exploration angle if it would be a rich resource for writing.

All in all an interesting experience, it will be interesting to see how this type of technology develops.

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‘Points & grunt’ or ‘eloquently instruct’

A couple of weeks ago Oliver Quinlan was a guest on Radio EDUtalk. The thing that stuck in my mind the most from the episode was this idea. Oliver has now written a bit more about it on his blog.

The command prompt allows you to use the power of language to interact with a computer. In comparison, clicking around in a  desktop environment is akin to pointing and grunting. Getting people to do things by pointing and grunting is OK at first, but as children we naturally put in the effort to learn how to move beyond this to get things done quicker, more precisely and more elegantly.

‘Points & grunt’ or ‘eloquently instruct’ – Language & computers – Oliver Quinlan

I’ve often struggled to explain, even to myself, why I enjoy using the terminal application. This is the best elevator pitch I’ve heard.

I am no command line expert, but I end up using it for small things or interesting experiments most days. I guess my first exposure was on the introduction of Mac OS X in 2001. Af first it was something to use occasionally for system settings that could not be done in other ways. Slowly over the last 15 (eek!) years I’ve used it a bit more and slowly learned. It is not something you need to be an expert to get use from. For example Batch Processing MP3 files is probably not eloquent but it saved me a huge amount of time.

For most of the time I’ve been using the terminal I though of it as a somewhat old fashioned process. It is now fairly obvious that it will be in use for some time yet. This week the news that Microsoft is bringing the Bash shell to Windows 10 brought that home.

It is worth mentioning that there is an amazing amount of information on using the command line on the web. I can’t remember when a search has failed to help me learn.

Elsewhere Oliver recommended Conquer the Command Line as a good resource to getting started. From the MagPi Magazine available as a free PDF.

 

Featured image: my own, grabbed with LICEcap.

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My raspberry pi, was having problems. For a while it had sat on the windowsill happily posting images to tumblr day and night on skypi and broomhill sky’s, it served up a small website itself too.

At some point it stopped working. I rebooted the device a few times, turned if off and on again, then left if for another day.

I had a bit of time on my hands on Thursday so decided to story it out. Since the device didn’t seem to be working at all, I could not connect to it via ssh and it was not serving the website I though I’d better just start from a clean install. So this is what I did.

  • bought a new SD card.
  • downloaded a new image from NOOBS for Raspberry Pi
  • wiped the card and copied the files over
  • moved the pi to the living room and hooked up the to and a keyboard
  • booted the pi and went through the initial setup
  • shut down the pi to prepare to move it back to the windowsill where I planned to connect via ssh and redo all the server and script stuff to get it working.

At that point, while the pi was still hooked to the tv I though I’d give the old card a final try. Of course it booted up straightaway!

I then took the pi with the old card back into the other room and connected to power and ethernet. Back to the Mac and tried to ssh on. Fail, check the website that sits on the pi, fail.

Finally I took the Ethernet cable out of the powering plug and put it back in again. Everything started working properly.

I do not know how many times I’ve repeated this sort of routine expecting the worst and skipping the obvious. I do hope I’ve learnt my lesson but somehow I doubt it.