Boys TWEET Girls FACEBOOK.....?! Discuss

Interesting hypothesis, and to many Primary teachers and parents of mixed gender children, this will probably be no surprise....Boys don't like writing much, what a discovery!
But its more than that...having spent a couple of days with groups of mixed gender and aged children on the Albert Dock in Liverpool, we were conducting the handheld project. During a period of downtime, I observed what the children were doing. Boys had much more of a tendancy to talk (AudioBoo) and Tweet (Only 140 characters after all, whilst girls preferred FACEBOOK, making friends,connections and writing a fair bit more too!
STILL BLOGGING THIS

Plan for 21st & 22nd October

Itinerary

09:15 ~ Arrive at BT Convention centre.
10:00 ~ Tour of Bug museum. Students will be looking out for any codes (QR/coordinates)
11:00 ~ Classroom base
12:00 ~ Tall ship and interview with captain of the ship - photos/videos/blogging etc.
12:30 ~ make way to ferry picking up any clues along the way.....
13:00 ~ Ferry ride activity
14:00 - Freedom to walk/interview/photograph etc. looking out for QR codes
14:45 ~ Sum up in cafe - email results/conclusions

To do

• Twitter account - BM
• Facebook account- BM
• Email account- BM
• you tube account- BM
• Buy snacks/drinks for day- BM
• Pick up iTouches from Shorefields CLC - NR
• Risk assessment for Bug Museum/ferry/cafe/Albert Dock- BM
• Letter of consent for trip including consent for videos/pictures- BM
• QR codes for journey around Dock

• Children will be meeting their teachers at 08:30 in school - NW/PM
• Packed lunches need to be bought in, FSM packed lunches to be organised - NW/PM

BIrds eye view!

Currently sat in the sky lounge in Manchester at a conference - imagine taking students to a location with panoramic views around a city. With handheld technologies not only to take photos and movie images of the view how could the use of GPS apps, and other technologies help to enhance the learning experiences of children and young people.

* How different do cities look from the sky than from the ground?

* Does it open up more curiosity for learning - can students see different areas/spaces in new ways?

* Could panoramic views and handhelds be a little micro project for groups - where could we go with this, not just geography and citizenship but History - can you see the different ages of a city and look at the changes over time - what Religious buildings can be seen, that perhaps you dont notice from the ground? where are the open spaces? are there more or less than you expected? what sounds can you hear and how does this help you understand the city better.......

Once again this is just more thinking pouring out, but might be something nice to explore given the number of buildings that we have in the city that people can go to the top off????

Take your i-phone on a train journey of discovery

Handheld Learning Project – Where will your journey take you?

Take a train journey;

Aim – investigation of places, spaces and people

Objectives – complete an interactive map that would help people decide where to get off the train for leisure, work, school etc.

Differentiation/extension – Audience variation – peers (journey to school and opportunity for transition projects with Secondary schools helping plan journeys for year 6 pupils) tourists, EAL visitors and residents . Different maps or overlays for different themes i.e sport, leisure etc.

Overview – Pupils are grouped into pairs or small team and given a flip or i-phone, a train timetable and a map.

They will be asked to complete an interactive map for the journey that they will take having to get off the train at a minimum of 6 stations. At these six points the students will be allowed to go no further than a 5 minute walk from the station to capture images, videos and sounds that would give other passengers an idea of what they could do if they got of the train at this station. This information would be added to a digital map perhaps My Maps on Google Earth so that the next passenger could use the handheld device, log onto the map and then at each station look at the interactive media pop up that would tell them what there is to do in that place.

Added to the challenge would be that the students only have the time between trains at each station – ie if the trains run through the station every 15 minutes then the students would only have 10 minutes to collect data at each station. Rather than seeing this as a hinderance this would encourage the students to think about only using the necessary information, thus developing analytical skills to select appropriate resources.

There are many ways to adapt this project

· Encouraging students to complete the task for journeys to school – thinking about safe places to cross the road, alternative routes etc.

· Completing the task for people with English as a second language and so need to focus more on visual images to convey information

· Audience variation - how the maps may change if the audience was different – local people, tourists, adults, children

· Transition work – year 7 and 6 students working together in the summer term to look at how the new students to the school can get there on the first day etc...

Celebrating our city - Digital map with pop ups

Handheld learning Investigating our City.....

Overview: Using devices students investigate local areas to find clusters of information, about their local area, overlaying maps with sounds images and movies that show how the area is perceived to children and young people. The picture of the neighbourhood that is built up will then be uploaded into a larger data base so that a whole city picture or digital collage can be developed. The large digital collage of the city will then be used as a presentation and celebration of learning with handheld technologies at the e-safety launch in February.

Tie Ins:

Possibly use the screens and table top at Campion

Every child matters and community cohesion

E-Safety

Creative teaching and learning

Further Thinking:

3 schools per day would use i-phones and flip videos to collect and investigate data from their local area. Each school would be working as an individual unit in the field. Collecting images sounds and video that represents themes from within their neighbourhood. Different schools could be given different foci to look at i.e. Religion; Cultural Diversity; Leisure etc. On completion of the day the schools would have presentations, made by the young people that can be further used in school and assessed. But the information would also be uploaded into a central store that would begin to build up a large media rich collage of the city that all the schools will have contributed to.

Imagine a large outline map of the city, that when you touch it in given areas pops appear that show the perception of that neighbourhood from a young person’s point of view.

The pop ups would also show what the areas where like at different times of the day, and then as an extension task for the older and more able students they will have also created a digital package to show what the same neighbourhood looked like in the past and then have done a simple voice piece to describe their personal aspirations for what the area might be like in the future. This would mean that for each area of the city there would not only be a present day collage but a pop up for the past and the future.

The digital collage would initially be used to celebrate the teaching and learning that can be achieved in the field with handheld devices and launched at the e-safety launch in February to highlight the benefits of using handheld technology responsibly rather than not at all.

This project could be linked not only into History, Geography and PSHE but also to RE, English, ICT and Science. Equally there are opportunities for 14-19 diplomas to get involved with the Creative media and digital diploma students looking at ways to present the information and making films etc to enhance the learning that is taking place.

For the diagrams to enhance this thinking see written notes, -they show how the pop ups would work on the map of the city..

Home safely - and some what down beat.... to add to the narrative that B has already added, I have to say that as a self confessed over excited creative thinker I have never been sooooooo bored and un stimulated in my life! I had gone expecting to be blown away with ideas, to have a headache because I had so many new ideas and no time or space to get them into classroom and to share teaching and learning with young people. Instead all the sterotypes that I hold (while I acknowledge that I shouldn't) about businessmen in London came flooding to the front - arrogant; rude; ignorant and only concerned with the advancement of self (and that was just the organiser) at no point over the last tow days did I ever hear any reference to a classroom, young people, learning, innovation or 21st century learners.

Sadly as i prepared to leave feeling more than a little cheated, exhausted from sulking and feeling guilty that i had left my learning platform to flounder for two days, teachers were in the lobby of the event asking for a full refund, people leaving in droves only half way through the event and the response they got - "well that's was the whole point half of you loved it and half hated it" SERIOUSLY !!!!!!! DO WE REALLY WANT TO ADVOCATE THAT SUCCESS IS 50%?????

On a positive note - (not going let them win) We had two days to think, bounce ideas and develop project outlines that actually will stimulate learning with handheld devices. That will engage the learner and inspire curiosity for learning in the local environment. The next two posts are the start of just two of the ideas we had, that hopefully will engage learner in Liverpool over the coming academic year...

OH and always always read the small print apparently early birds dont catch the worm... unless they have a credit card .........

#HHL09 Handheld learning conference October 5th-7th 2009

I have put October the 5th to the 7th in title, I suppose in the vain hope that something inspires me this afternoon to actually stay until tomorrow.
On our arrival yesterday, after an early Monday morning start catching the train down to muggy and wet London, we arrived at the Barbican conference centre, and, like all delegates, our focus was on the tea coffee and biscuits that would be on offer....or would they...? Yes is the answer, but at £2.50 a cup!
With no complimentary catering for those of us that were planning on the endurance test that is the 3 days of 2009s Handheld conference...we headed out.
So, refreshed from our visit to Starbucks (If we had to pay we would at least make sure it was a half decent cup of coffee, not the over-stewed luke warm brew on offer).

The seminars, events, showcases and 'breakouts' lay before us...
We had missed Victoria Owen from LJM Uni, which I had hoped to catch, in case there was potential for cross-over work. The 'menu' for the next 4 hours was product placement...'Hi, we have a great product, are you a budget holder?' ...'No'...'well we are not really very interested in talking to you then'. Mmmmmmmmm!!

I didn't get to see all the 'real people' from real classrooms, but those I did catch were a few steps ahead of projects I had been involved in 5 years earlier.There were small children around, however I didn't see them do more than play on the nintendo stall, and who can blame them!

Handheld Technology 2009 awards ceremony for creativity and innovation

Even though the day hadn't gone as well we would have expected, we decided to make the effort and go to the awards in the hope we would see some excellent practice that had been rewarded, and, we could then see the level and set the bar for ourselves and where we need to go for the next year.

The evening started at 19:00 - drinks and bar snacks and a live jazz bank. 3 orange juices later and half a bowl of olives, the same jazz rift later (around 20:30) yes one and a half hours later, the awards still hadn't started, I think they were hoping for a sudden influx of people to fill up the half empty (or half full if I am to say something positive) hall.
We gave up at that point as there seemed no sign of an awards ceremony starting.

Tuesday

Free tea and coffee to start, Hoorah!!
Graham Brown-Martin indulged us in a story about his handheld girl i.e. his 4 year old, we then sat through a home video of a 4 year old playing with Dad's old iPhone - okay, I can indulge any parent their devotion to their child. Graham went on to say that industry bulletins would then be announced by various people...from industry....selling their product...Mmmmmmm.....
I was looking forward to Zenna Atkins as I was, and so were many others, (she had been tagged as the chair of Ofsted),expecting a discussion around, handheld, safeguarding, e-safety, innovative use in the curriculum - what I had paid £375.00 + £120.00 Train fare + £280.00 hotel + £80.00 food expenses for (or LIVERPOOL CITY COUNCIL had on behalf of taxpayers)
What I got was a Tory who clearly was socialist-phobic, discussing the 'Threat' of mobile phones in the classroom and then described an incident where her year 8 son had videoed a teacher with his feet up on the desk reading the paper whilst the classroom was a circus. Her reaction - Phone the school and use her position to get a senior teacher to go and check on the class - to her surprise, the teacher confiscated the phone!! (I think at this point she was the only one that was surprised)
We then had to listen to tales of her young wayward son playing truant, her, herself being thrown out of school and proudly declaring the only qualification she had is a grade B in Biology O'Level. It had been sheer hard work and determination that had got her to where she was today; Chair of Ofsted, CEO of this company, Executive member of something to do with the MoD and the list went on.
So I took away from that, she believed, teachers were to become superfluous, as were school and classroom environments and our children would learn in their own way at their own pace using technologies not invented yet...well that would be all very well for those children that had the correct environment to work in, a supportive family, excellent social skills, access to the technology and the funding that would require...Every Child Matters? Chair of Ofsted? Yes I'm worried.

But not nearly as much as I was after Graham introduced an old friend that would be the Keynote speaker...
If you don't know who it was, I would like you to try and imagine who you think it should be....
Cutting edge technology conference, Handheld Learning, Innovation in the classroom, radically looking how we need to deliver a 21st century curriculum....any ideas?

Malcolm McLaren...we sat through the dodgiest keynote speech I have ever had the misfortune to listen too. MM talked about his life, from war baby to wine tester, to the Sex Pistols, to why kids should take drugs....teaching and learning you say?? naaaah! none of that nonsense....Using technology in the classroom/school/community you ask?? naaaaah! none of that nonsense, sex drugs and rock n roll...?? never mind the B****cks...what a load of B****cks!
We didn't stay for session 2, or lunch, I'm back in my Citadine apart-hotel typing this up....and it's the most stimulated I've been for 2 days....could I have done this back in Liverpool??? NO!! I could have done some REAL work on our handheld project.

Monster in the Mersey

Handheld learning project Liverpool Schools Pilot

Overview

In preparation for the ICT Conference on the 27^th November 2010 two schools in the authority will be working with John Davitt, Brenda Mooney and Nicky Reckless to pilot the use of handheld technologies for teaching and learning.

One primary school - St Christopher’s and one Secondary School – Notre Dame will spend one day each in the field with completing a learning task that is fully delivered through mobile technologies. The day’s field work will go to forming the backdrop to a keynote speech to be given by John at the conference but equally as important it will hopefully inspire and engage schools to continue working with new technologies to promote learning outside the classroom.

Theme

Investigating monsters that might exist in the Mersey.

Key Skills

Communication (to peers and also for different audiences and in different genres); investigation; data collection; presentation; reflection; ICT

Outcomes

For pupils - Learning to learn skills, writing styles and development of communication and team work skills

For teachers – developing the use of technologies for out of class learning. Increase awareness of technologies, adaptation of work for further dissemination in school throughout the year.

For the authority – Launch of handheld projects to be developed and enhanced over the coming academic year across more schools and with wider learning outcomes for both learners and teachers.

Field work Itinerary

Location - Albert Docks including Confernece areans, Bug Museum, Ferry, and ferry terminals and surround buildings and local area.

Day will run from approximately 9.15am with students back to school for approximately 4.30pm at the latest. There will be 10 students on each of the 2 days with a minimum of 4 adults at all times, the adult quota may rise with the addition of PGCE students from each school attending on the day.

· Arrive on site and be briefed with the first task Task one, pupils will be told that they are going to make a promotional news report to publicise the conference that they will be attending on the 27^th November. They will be given a day to get the film made, but should look out for Logos (QR CODES) all day as these will give them new tasks to complete. On arrival at the convention centre there will be a large QR CODE waiting, once scanned this will show them a video clip of a monster escaping from the Mersey and heading into town. At this point the teacher swill suggest that perhaps this makes a better news story, so lets go an investigate if there is a monster, where it lives, where it may have come from and what it might be surviving on etc....Task two - the students will be split into pairs and over the course of the day each pair will be given responsibility to investigate different pieces of information at different sites, so that towards the end of the day they can bring all their work together for a full news report to be made. At this point there can be differentiation for the older students who will not only be asked to collect the evidence and think about the report, but they will also be asked to consider blogging or tweeting the day as they go through the tasks, and then think about how different media streams will require different styles of reporting. QR code to lead to the tall ship

· First location to visit will be the Glacier Tall ship - Task three the students will be able to interview the man who raised the boat to see if he noticed anything odd or that may be related to the monster. At the end of this interview he will give the students another QR code that will lead them to the Bug museum.

· Second Location The bug museum. Students will complete the tour Task four and be asked to think about what kind of animal might be hiding in the docks, what it might look like, what it might eat and how it may have adapted to live both in the water and on land. Looking at the creatures in the exhibit the students might start to draw or design the creature they think they are chasing. At the end of the bug tour the students will see another QR code that will give them GIS coordinates on their handhelds to lead them to the ferry terminal

· Students will take a ride on the ferry, and also use this time to have their lunch. The ferry will also give them the opportunity to Task five interviews the captain in case he has seen or experienced anything that he thinks might be monster like in the Mersey. Task six The students will also be encouraged to look at and examine the cityscape to think about how the monster might be able to move around the city unnoticed, ie which routes and building would give it the best camouflage - how long can it stay out of the water for etc.

· After lunch and the cityscape the students will complete the final task of the day Task seven interviewing people around the terminal and in the Albert Docks to gain local witness statements. These short vox pops will form part of their final news item. On the wish list for the day would be to try to get Fred the weatherman to come down and do a report on the children doing this type of learning experience and also to help them with hints and tips for making short snappy news articles for slots on the local nightly news programme.

· The last location will be an indoor base somewhere at the docks where the students will have minimum of an hour to bring all their collected information together (perhaps using Bluetooth to share the information between the handheld devices) to then edit and produce a short news item on the monster in the Mersey. On completion of this task the students will return to school having completed all their learning (the delivery from the teachers, their collection and presentation and the final presentation) on handheld mobile devices.

To do list:

· Find and organise a base at the docks where the students can begin the day and then complete the final hours work bring all the information together to present a news item as their final presentation

· Risk Assessments

· Letter home for parents

· Transportation

· Preparation of the laminated QR codes at each site

· Speak with the people who may be interviewed

· Book the bug tour

· Book if needed the tall ship

· Pre load handhelds with any information that might be needed

· Make the first movie clip that will show the monster on the loose in the city

· Create blog and twitter accounts for use on the day

· Ensure enough handheld devices

· Applications needed – btag;geocaching; ipedio...........

· Possibly locate and use Flip videos?

· Invite Fred the Weatherman

· Install Crazy talk software in both schools for use once back in the classroom to extend the project if teacher wants

· Permissions slips to ensure the students can be used for the Conference key note

· Liase with John Davitt (Mon – Wed 5-7^th October)

Need to complete a prep day – Friday 16^th October

Need to organise cover costs for the half day planning (Friday 2^nd October) rece 16^th October and then the field days either the 21^st or 22^nd October plus sort out cost of transportation, museum entrance and ferry tickets for all group.

random thoughts for "blue sky snapshot learning journeys with creative thinking and innovative learning ventures"

Forget all the gargin this is a post to developing thinking.

Key question - How can we encourage young people to think about their local environment as a learning tool?

Objectives - to engage young people in creating learning opportunities for themselves and their peers in the local environment using handheld technologies.

Groups - One year 11 group and one year 6 group

Locations - Everton/Breckfield and city centre (year 11) Speke/John Lennon Airport (Year 6)

Time scale - one day in the field

Ideas/thinking and starting points:

* The year 11 could be encouraged to go out into the local environment to investigate a theme e.g. Regeneration or social cohesion/community and plan a piece of out of classroom learning for a group of students in Year 7 (the students in year 11 developing a resource to use with a lower Key Stage group) To complete this the students could be lead to locations using GIS or Geo caching activities, and on arrival and each point their could be tasks that help develop knowledge of the area. Once the students have gained all the information, they will then think about how their knowledge could be shared or disseminated to younger pupils. They could be given the option of creating a movie, picture story etc to guide younger students to better understand the theme or issue that they have learnt about. Added to the teaching resource creation the students could be encouraged to keep a blog or picture story to share their own development and understanding of issues.

* An alternative to the above could be to use and adapt the headings on the create an App site to encourage the students to create a teaching resource that would improve the opportunities for relevant learning for people their age. This may involve them not only using and gathering information from the field but then using the content generator ideas to develop and present their thinking...

* Finally for the older students they could perhaps use the hand-held devices to take part in a tour of an area or location, to collect and investigate information in a geo-caching style, with clues hidden behind QRcodes that are cited at each location (in this sense it is a giant treasure hunt to begin with, with activities at each location) the clues would form part of a larger puzzle that would be solved and then use the content generator to present the finished puzzle.

Year 6 thinking

* codes or GIS locations to take students to locations around a chosen area. At each location the students have to complete a task that will increase their knowledge of the chosen theme. However to present this knowledge they must use a different generator at each location, so experiencing many ways of presenting and sharing information. The evaluation/reflection task at the end could be to see which presentations are the most suitable for the content and which ones are the best in terms of sharing information - all peer assessed and voted for using either the survey tools in the learning platform or via bluetooth options on the hand-held devices.

* pupils are split into 5 pairs, and each pair is asked to find out a piece of information about a given theme. e.g if they were investigating the Airport one group may look at the destinations, another the retail facilities; access links (how to get there) and so on. When each group have gathered their information they will then share the smaller parts to generate a whole picture, using bluetooth or sharing apps. They will then develop a presentation, newsround style report to disseminate their learning the the rest of the class when they return the the school the next day. - the information that the pairs collect could be found logically or via apps and other devices such as QR codes.

*Pupils are taken to a location, without a topic or theme, given support to use the technologies and then given time to create a movie, blog, podcast, picturebook etc to share something interesting with the rest of the group. The data collection would be done with the handhelds, but equally they could use the internet to research, and investigate, or the devices could be preloaded with information that the students could access in the field.

All these ideas arguably need far more thought and development. They need the input of teachers in the school who will know what themes topics and issues will fit the best into the current teaching and learning schemes, and they will understand the abilities of the students. The opportunities are limitless in many way, but the time constraints on one day mean that there need to be tight controls over the length of time of any collection activities and then the time needed to present and share the findings.

Equally as important is to develop an opportunity in which the schools can devote more time or develop further work in schools.

Main concern is to engage the pupils and give them the opportunity for new ways of working, but as important is to give the teachers the opportunity and confidence to use new technologies for teaching and learning so that hopefully they will be more accepting once back in the classroom.

ARRRGHHHH lots of verbal diarrhoea in the above but there may be hints of ideas that can be adapted with the teachers tomorrow morning......