Allison's Blog

I really enjoyed all of the presentations on different Web 2.0 tools. There are so many tools out there that having them presented in this format has been great for seeing what is out there and what has real potential for use in schools. A big time saver! What I really liked about a lot of them is their simplicity of use. I think that complex tools are daunting for teachers who don’t have a lot of comfort or proficiency with computer use, so some of the simpler tools are excellent for those teachers who want to dabble a bit in using different instructional technologies without feeling overwhelmed. Being able to pass these sites on to teams of teachers in my school offers me a good opportunity to hopefully inspire a higher level of experimentation and use of technology with staff. I’ve got plans this coming Wednesday (day off school) to set up a staff blog highlighting some different Moodle tips and web tools for instruction, and the sites presented in class will be my starting point, so thank you to everyone for those!

I really enjoyed the information on digital images. I’ve fallen into the trap of having pixilation when trying to enlarge images, and now I know why and how to avoid it! Photoshop has always been somewhat of a daunting program for me, so learning some of the basics has helped me to overcome the ‘yikes!’ factor. I might just try to do something to make those horrible pictures I take look better!

Coincidentally, after leaving class tonight I finally got round to scanning the headlines in yesterday’s SmartBrief on EdTech. The leading article brief was about a recent study done on the impact of less than appealing fonts (Comic Sans included!) on student retention of material read. A summary of the findings can be found on the Wall Street Journal’s Idea Market Blog, which also contains a link to the study, completed by a team of psychologists at Princeton University and Indiana University.

Interesting food for though and debate to say the least!

Moodle is a web-based, open-source course management, or e-learning environment used by thousands of institutions around the world.

I’ve been wrapping my head around various aspects of Moodle for the past couple of months as at my school we ready to launch our Online Learning Environment with students. My knowledge and skill, and our OLE is an infant work in progress!

Dabbleboard.com is a surprinsingly simple web-based visual organiztion/mindmapping tool for indidividual or collaborative use. It can be used in classrooms with students (brainstorming, word-mapping, diagram drawing, etc.) or in professional meetings or group settings. The basic service is free, or users can pay for multi-user premium accounts.

Dabbleboard has a predictive interface (if that’s the right word) allowing you to easily use your mouse to draw shapes, lines, etc. It is also possible to upload your own images, or insert from a gallery of user-created drawings.

Check out my super-basic dabbleboard outlining some of the pros, cons and potential uses of Dabbleboard.com:

Okay, admitedly I’ve had some difficulty here ‘embedding’, and rather than link you to my dabbleboard to see it in full life, I’ve had to embed it as an image. Glitches for me to explore further!  To get a clearer picture of what’s written in the dabbleboard, right click to ‘view image’ and you’ll see an enlarged version.

MyGradebook.com is an easy-to-use, enhanced gradebook tool for K-12 teachers. It allows teachers to set up classes, grading categories and periods and enter details and results of various assessments. It also can track attendance. It is a web-based tool, thus available anywhere there is internet. The service allows teachers to easily set up accounts for students so they can keep track of their performance on a regular basis, and offers the similar options for parents to monitor their child’s performance. Students and parents can also see details of upcoming or missed assignments. There are multiple reporting options to analyse individual and group performance.

A brief overview of the pros and cons of MyGradebook can be found here:

There is a fee for more than 30 days of use of MyGradebook, but it is quite reasonable. Cost for individual teachers is $50/year, with the price per license decreasing as more users join together. Schools or school districts can purchase multiple-user licences and import class data from their school information management system.

A little video (which could not be embedded   ) is available here.

Technology at my school is always in a state of flux and is a source of both inspiration and frustration for all involved. As a relatively large school (approximately 1450 students) on a well established (close to 30 years) campus keeping up with technology involves a small army of dedicated IT staff and regular attention.

There are approximately 300 computers in total on campus. Of those, around 180 are available for student access. This includes computers in 5, 25 unit computer labs, (4 in the Senior building, 1 in the Primary building), common area units (libararies, student lounge) and computers in each Primary school classroom and a number of Senior school science labs. Teaching staff have good access to computers. In the Primary school the general staff workroom has a number of units and in the Senior school every academic department has 1-2 computers in their workroom office space and 1-2 departmental laptops available for use, as well as 4 units in the general staffroom. The remaining units are assigned to the desks educational administrators, secretaries, and marketing, finance, and admissions offices. The school has in the past supported installment plans for the purchase of personal laptops, though has recently discontinued this as most all members of staff have a personal laptop they use daily.

On average, machines have at least 2GB of RAM and a processing speed average of 3Ghz. They are updated as needed and as possible as there is no written, timelined replacement plan.

All computers operate on Windows XP, and are equipped with a standard MS Office package (2003, 2007, 2010 depending on where they are), Norton Anti-virus software and other ‘standard’ software such as Adobe, Flash, etc. Some student computers have specialized software to support teaching and learning, especially in higher level IT, Art and Science courses. The school uses Phoenix as a Student Information Management package, but will upgrade to Engage in the coming academic year as Phoenix can  no longer meet the school’s needs.

All school computers are networked and the school operates 15 different servers, including separate servers for administrative, teacher, and student data as well as various technical servers.

Internet is a constant source of frustration for teachers. Until recently, the school’s internet service was connected through the local Central, which relied on outdated wiring. Internet was erratic at times and stoppages were frequent. To help out, the school has provided mobile broadband USB modems to teachers. Very recently the school moved to WiMax internet service, which does not rely on Central cabling and has improved the reliability and speed of internet service. That said, there is still a way to go to improve speed and bandwidth, as presently multiple video streaming across classrooms can grind the internet to a standstill, hence the blocking of sites such as YouTube! Much of the school does have wireless internet access, though the nature of the building has made it difficult to reach everywhere. Students in the senior school can access the internet in most classrooms and common areas provided they get the security key from the IT deptartment. All school computers have access to the internet and there are also a number of wire-in access points for teachers and students.

Around 80% of teaching rooms have LCD projectors and half primary classrooms have E-beam whiteboards. It is planned for all classrooms to  have projectors by next academic year, and interactive Smartboards are under exploration. There are a number of portable projectors available for classrooms which do not have fixed projectors.

The school continuously works to upgrade internet and other IT facilities and address the needs (and frustrations!) of staff. In the years I have been there the state of technology has improved greatly and plans for the future look promising.

I had just familiarized myself with Creative Commons the other day, when I downloaded a CC user guide to moodle. I love the concept, and have already been browsing through the Flat World Knowledge catalogue as I think this is just the thing to help me and my departmental team leaders in some resourcing decisions. We offer a lot of courses in a way that just aren’t common in the US  and so finding resources always proves difficult. With budget constraints, we aren’t inclined to purchase $70 textbooks that we’ll only use a couple of chapters from. This type of thing could be just the solution to a variety of resourcing needs…especially with an online course management system where they can be posted! Another site passed on…

If anything, having the opportunity to learn about various websites and tools and having them summarized/reviewed in a short period of time is proving quite useful as I work to encourage more technology use in classes in my school. Being ‘in the know’ and being able to pass that information along helps in showing my own commitment to the process I think. I’m already penciled in to showcase some digital storytelling tools in to the English Dept. It is this type of thing which as an administrator and curriculum manager I’d like to be able to do more.

Admitedly, I only half had a careful eye on the Excel workshop. I use Excel a lot for analyzing student performance data, drafting out master timetables and a few years ago, in the absence of any other reporting tool, created a pretty complex workbook that allows us to create student reports several times a year by simply pasting in information sent from teachers on templates and keying in a student number which draws relevant information from every subject area and puts it in one place. What was beneficial, however, was seeing how Craig approached the teaching of Excel. I agree that Excel can be used to solve most problems!

Looking forward to tomorrow’s lesson and seeing what Web 2.0 tools there are out there!

Another mind-boggling lesson, with lots of new tools to try. The overview of computer hardware and software components was great, especially for understanding the ‘tech needs’ of various software packages and how they might impact software adoption decisions. It is quite mind-blowing just how fast the hardware technology changes, so it was good to learn a few ways to get the best out of machines for the longest time.

The different storytelling tools really appealed to me, and made me wish I were back in the classroom to be able to use them with students. Already I’ve passed them on to a variety of teachers and am looking forward to seeing the results!

The plethora of Web 2.0 tools out there is astounding. I’ve now spent hours looking through various ones, and still find it difficult to narrow a few down to present on. I guess that’s one of the pitfalls of the internet…there is so much out there that it can be quite time consuming to really explore, evaluate and choose different sites and tools to use! I’m curious to determine just how many effective, free, or low cost, Web 2.0 tools there are out there that could be used to ‘run’ schools in terms of organizing, communicating and working with various school data, not just instructional tools. My exploration continues…

This post is twofold: it gives me a chance to play with google docs and by default lets me learn a bit about you. Please take a few minutes to complete the brief questionnaire below: