On the weekend my eldest (10 years old) son and I had a discussion about balance or more to the point about imbalance. It seemed that every time I turned around he was sitting playing on one of the many connected devices around the house. The end result of this apparent frenzy of digital activity, was a technology free afternoon and evening. The events of day reinforce for me the need for balance. It is critical that our young people are technologically fluent, able to use the huge variety of tools to access the different mediums with ease, but this is not at the expense of physical activity and play. Its critical that they play, whether that is playing electronically, physically,  competitively,  socially or individually. The news recently highlighted the challenge that we face with exercise and health.  Obesity rates are frightening with New Zealand ranking third on the global obesity ranks USA Mexico New Zealand UK Reading John Ratey’s  Book Spark- The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain reinforces even more the value and importance of exercise in learning and the benefits that a healthy body brings. If you read Dr John Medina’s brain rules these same principle are again stressed. I know that I work, play and sleep better when I exercise, its all about balance. Taking an hour out to exercise has benefits that far out way the  time invested. Its all about balance

Technology Use Audit Tool - http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Tech_audit_tool The technology audit tool is a quick snap shot of how technology is being used in the classroom. It is based on the work of Bernajean Porter.  There are three levels to consider: Literacy, Augmentative and Transformative.  Each level has a place in the learning process. You have to learn about the technology to be able to integrate it, and then apply your understanding and eventually transform the learning in the classroom. The material below is the updated material from the Edorigami wiki Level 1: Literacy use - This is often "Teaching about technology". This level of use often manifests itself as learning how to use technology etc. This is critical as there must be an aspect of this before we progress to the higher levels. eg. This could be teaching of word processing techniques, discussing use of colour in a presentation, writing formula in a spreadsheet etc Level 2: Augmentative/Integrating use - This is often "Teaching with technology". Does the use of technology reinforce, augment or substitute for a traditional teaching approach? The key question here is "Can we do this without technology?" If the answer is Yes, then this is augmentative or integrating. eg. This could be using an email system to distribute class notes or materials, having students process mathematical formula or process on a smartboards, developing a presentation etc. Each of these can be achieved using traditional teaching approaches. Level 3: Transformative use - This is "Teaching through technology". Here the activity or learning you are doing can only be completed by using the technology. The learning is focused is on learning by and developing skills in collaboration & communication, self-directed learning, higher order thinking and use of electronic information. Technology here is not the goal, rather learning is. At this level the use of technology is seemless and this level of learning could not happen without the technology. eg. Students collaboratively researching a presentation topic and assembling the research in Google documents and then each students prepares a section of the presentation synchronously using the presentation tool in the Google apps suite. A teacher who holds a regular evening homework tutorial between 7pm and 7.30pm for his students using a collaboration tool. etc. The three levels of use represent a progression from learning how to use the technology, basic implementation to eventually using it to transform the classroom. An example that you could use would be the use of blogging in a classroom. The process starts with Literacy use - the teacher and the class explore the blogging site, they learn about the user interface and what the various features of the site are. They probably post a number of test blogs posts where they use different formatting, add images, links and other enhancements. Once the students have developed a basic understanding of the tool and its use, the teacher then integrate this into the classroom practice. The initial use of the individual student blogs is a process and reflective journal, where the student reflects on their learning and progress through a project or unit of learning. This is integrating or augmentative use as the student could do the same task using a paper based journal, writing daily entries. Transformative use occurs when the teacher and the students peers use the comment feature to discuss and comment on the students post. They establish a learning conversation that could not have been done with out the use of technology. Technology State technology & use in the classroom Level 1 Literacy Use Level 2 Augmentative / integrating Use Level 3 Transformative Use Blogging - using Edublogs. Students learning about the blog site Explore basic features Understanding formatting include media Blooms: - Understanding and Applying Blogging - using Edublogs. Student writing and maintaining a process and reflective journal Student reflect on their learning. Posting regular updates on their learning. Students consider the learning outcomes and link lessons Blooms: - Analysis and Evaluation Blogging - using Edublogs. The students peers and teacher use the discussion feature to comment and reflect Students reflect and comment on their peers posts. The students moderate the posts, considering the worth of the comments and discussions and approve these accordingly. Student start a threaded discussion using the comment feature. Blooms: - Analysis and Evaluation   Reference Grappling with Accountability 2002: Mapping Tools for Organizing and Assessing Technology for Student Results, Bernajean Porter

This is a very useful site with a great list of different iPad applications sorted by subject areas and then these are broken down in to different categories. The applications are both free and paid subscription/purchase. For Example - Language Arts apps has sub categories for literacy reading practice hand writing spelling grammar graphical organisers This is a useful reference site - http://www.tcea.org/ipad It is also worthwhile reading the Educause - Seven things you should know about iPad apps for learning. This is another excellent synopsis that helps clarify the use of iPads in the classroom. For the Scientist, here are some free iPad applications that I have recently added to my laptop: Owl pellets lite - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/owl-pellet-activities-lite/id413711518?mt=8 Chemistry Formula practice lite - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chemistry-formula-practice/id422958981?mt=8 Building atoms, ions and isotopes - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/building-atoms-ions-isotopes/id437001161?mt=8

  Source: http://badgemonkey.com/images/smile.jpg Badges? What are badges? I always thought badges were small circular discs that you pinned (carefully) to your shirt or jacket. But we now have digital badges as well. Educause has just released their latest update which discusses Digital badges - Seven things you should know about badges. This is the link to the PDF file for download. here is the link to the library of resources from Educause in this series. My students and I are investigating Digital media as part of the ITGS course, specifically we are examining the issues, impacts and changes that exist in IT and the home. What effect and impact does IT have on the arts, leisure, entertainment and the home. My students are in their mid teens and for many of them they have seen very few different music medias  - so I went looking for an infographic that showed the different media over time I found a very good one thats worth sharing. See the original article by David Wallace - http://www.davidwallace.com/2010/10/evolution-music-playing-formats/

Failure is such an uncomfortable topic in education. We are very failure adverse and consequently risk adverse. It is often seen as unacceptable for students to fail and this avoidance of failure is not mirrored in the real world beyond the safe environments of the school. I believe that we must use failure or getting stuff wrong as a tool for learning, that we must accept it as a part of the learning process, that we must use it to progress and develop. We should and must strive to succeed, but we need to allow opportunities for students to learn from their mistakes and in fact to provide opportunities for them to make mistakes. Getting stuff wrong is a natural part of learning and growing. Getting stuff wrong is how we learn. Consider the analogy of a person getting fitter and exercising. To develop more muscle tissue you must place that muscle under stress, this stress cause damage which is stimulate the grow and repair of the muscle. It is only by pushing limits that the muscle grows and develops. The same can be said for learning push the limits, apply stress to challenge and stimulate growth. The trick is of course how much stress to apply. How hard to run, how big a weight to lift or how challenging a learning task. Priest in his book on adventure theory describes  the relationship between risk and competence. The area of peak learning or peak adventure is that match between competence and risk. This is based on Vygotsky’s Zone of proximal development. Peak adventure involves getting it wrong, it involves making mistakes and failing, but more than that it involves learning from our mistakes. source: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/graphics/zpd.GIF In making mistakes and failing in an environment where you can develop and learning. Where the risks are managed so that catastrophe is avoided and learning occurs. This is part of the true art of teaching. taking our students from their current level of achievement or competence and pushing them into the zone of development. In outdoor education, this is a practice so natural and obvious as challenged based education is the norm. Part of education is preparing our students for the world beyond the classroom. A world where they will fail, they will make mistakes and they need to have the skills to be able to recover and learn. They need to be resilient, adaptable and reflective. They need to see failing or getting it wrong as part of a process to mastery. They can not go out into the world unprepared and unable to cope with what life throws at them. When you talk to and listen to the top achievers, the high flyers, the world class athletes (both physical and mental athletes) they will all say the same. Life has its ups and downs and to succeed you work (battle) through these. You push beyond your limits out of what is comfortable and  why? Well this picture sums it up….  

I have just had this article past to me by a colleague in the US - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/texas-republican-party-2012-platform-education_n_1632097.html. When I first saw it and read it I though this was a joke, but unfortunately it is not, this is the education manifesto of the Repulican party, in the Very republican state of Texas. The key points of the article, once you have moved past the headline grabbing aspects of sex education and absitance are as follows; corporal punishment is effective  the party opposes mandatory pre-school and kindergarten, saying parents are "best suited to train their children in their early development." they oppose the teaching of "higher order thinking skills" — a curriculum which strives to encourage critical thinking — arguing that it might challenge "student’s fixed beliefs" and undermine "parental authority." - Quote " We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-BasedEducation (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challengingthe student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." encouragement of legislation that prevents "non-citizens unlawfully present in the United States" from enrolling in public schools Controversial theories - We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories.We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind Textbook reviews - Until such time as all texts are required to be approved by the SBOE (state board of education), each ISD that uses non-SBOE approved instructional materials must verify them as factually and historically correct. Also the ISD board must hold a public hearing on such materials, protect citizen’s right of petition and require compliancewith TEC and legislative intent. Local ISD boards must maintain the same standards as the SBOE. Traditional Principles in Education - We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, includingthe Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings School Health Care - We urge legislators to prohibit reproductive health care services, including counseling, referrals, and distribution of condoms and contraception through public schools. We support the parents’ right to choose, without penalty, which medications are administered to their minor children. We oppose medical clinics on school property except higher education and health care for students without parental consent State Board of Education (SBOE) - We believe that the SBOE should continue to be an elected body consisting of fifteen members. Their responsibilities must include:……. and  Maintaining sole authority over all curricula content and the state adoption of all educational materials.This process must include public hearings I have to be honest, I find this very scary. As an educator what they are proposing contradicts educational theory and practice the world over. It challenges freedom of information a core element of the American constitution. We do not want our students to engage in higher order thinkings skills - analysis, evaluation and creativity - as this may challenge their "fixed beliefs". If teaching the students to think challenges "fixed beliefs" then you have to wonder what they are. If teaching them to think challenges parental authority, what is this authority based on? I struggle to with a return to corporal punishment as a method of maintaining discipline in the classroom? How does inflicting pain and humiliation to a young person help them to learn? How does it improve their learning outcomes? How does this role model acceptable and appropriate behavior by saying it is acceptable to beat people for infractions, does this mean that the same principle will be applied out side of the school? Perhaps in the home or the workplace? Is this a curriculum of indoctrination perhaps worthy of 1960′s communist systems? Blind acceptance of policy and fixed belief is the core of many of the terrorist organizations plaguing the world today, these organizations indoctrinate by suppressing questioning, focusing on drilling/reinforcement of core concepts/principles/beliefs and using physical and mental deprivation and abuse to condition their members.

My Colleague Lee Crockett made a comment the other day about BYOD, Bring your own device and Digital Citizenship. He said that the heart of any BYOD program is digital citizenship. And he’s right. As soon as a school starts allowing students to bring their own devices into school, they begin to surrender some of their control of the learning environment to the students. They do not have the ability to dictate and control what applications are or aren’t on the students machines. They can not control the media the student may have on the device as the computer is more than just a learning tool its also the young person social medium and often entertainment center. Schools also lack the ability to search the machine, it is not the schools machine, rather it is the private property of another individual. The boundaries between home/personal use in its varied forms - whether this is homework, social connections, entertainment, games or even inappropriate activities become blurred. What they do at home comes both unintentionally and intentionally to the school environment. While BYOD provides many obvious strengths and opportunities to the school ranging from improved care, access and use; to reduced capital, repair and licensing costs. This change in control challenges schools systems. It raises questions of duty of care and safety. So how do you manage and mitigate these risks? Since the traditional laptop program mechanisms of restricted rights, reduced access and control no longer work effectively alternative approaches are required. The onus of responsibility must shift from the school to the student. Students must live and abide by the underlying ethics of digital citizenship, and to do this we can not set down a block of rules like the tablets of the 10 commandments and say abide by these. What is required is a deep understanding and acceptance of what is appropriate and right. It is setting a moral code that guides and protects the students. It is a ethic that the students themselves must take up and follow. This is not saying the students are left to fend for themselves…. Rather it is a process of development of the guidelines that is shared and mutually agreed to. Each aspect is simple, understandable and supported by clear reasoning & justification. It is also a process that is reinforced by all teachers as a consistent approach where the teachers model and enforce all the aspects. The process also requires there to be monitoring, intervention and consequences. Digital Citizenship is not limited to an agreement between the school and student it must also include the families Core to BYOD is Digital Citizenship and Digital Citizenship is a three way partnership based on agreed goals, supported by shared understanding and reinforced by appropriate monitoring, intervention and concequences.

The last 15 days have been amazing. Yet again I have been privilaged to take a school group on our 2 yearly community service trip. This years trip was to Ladakh in Northern India. The community service involved working at the Lamdon Model School in Leh, the capital city of Ladakh - http://goo.gl/maps/Q3E8. The school is amazing as it services the surrounding districts as well as Leh itself and provides excellent education. A large number of the students are there on scholarship (it costs about $1000 per year for full board and fees). The school offers education from K to 12 and is an amazing place to visit.   The second phase of the trip was the 8 day trekking expedition which started with the walk to our first campsite at: Zinchen - http://goo.gl/maps/PbJC Rumbok - http://goo.gl/maps/yoYZ Ganda La High Camp Skyu Markha - http://goo.gl/maps/1ic0 Hangkar - http://goo.gl/maps/r6EA Nyimiling Meadow - http://goo.gl/maps/cto9 Road End The trip was a huge challenge as we walked in 8 days 116 Km and climbed or descended 6.8km. The students reached almost 18,000 ft on the last day as we climbed over Konmaru La (La means Pass and Ri Means Peak in Ladakh) Trips like this bring a huge range of experiences and challenges to students and staff alike. While the key theme was community service there was a very large adventure based component to the trip. For many of them what they had learnt in class suddenly had relevance. They saw, experienced, touched and felt what it means to live in a developing nation. They could make sense of the geographical features they had heard of in class, but now saw first hand as they explored rock pillars, Waddies, canyons etc. They saw the impact that current projects bring electricity to some of the more remote villages was going to have on a local economy based more on trade than on currency. The value of a bottle of coke changes when you realise that in this remote village with no road, it has been carried for 3 days on a pony train to get there, especially when you have just walked the last two days of that trail yourself. I believe that genuine authentic learning occurred on this trip, much of which fits within the syllabus framework, but much too is personal and reflective. I believe that trips like this bring understanding of different cultures, appreciation of our own position and circumstances, respect and understanding of how different people live, an appreciation of other peoples religions and beliefs. Seeing first hand the concepts in play that our students learn in class, understanding and evaluating the multiple layers of impacts that these events and processes have as well as the visceral challenges presented by operating here is incredibly valuable. Julley….

Well the first week back at school is completed, I am still recovering from the Ladakh expedition. Its been a very busy week and a very interesting one. One of the first things that caught my attention this week was this article published on the BBC website linking nutrition and learning. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18997223 - the article is free school meals for all boost results Essentially it clearly makes the link between proper nutrition and learning. I remember talking to a nutritionist who pointed out the students (and adults) who have a "nap" in the afternoon are the ones who do not have a proper breakfast. A proper breakfast, sets you up for the day and enables you to work. Education and teaching is now much more that just know stuff (but for teachers it always has been more than content), we are nutritionalists, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators. The Second thing that caught my eye was a quote on facebook posted by a good friend of mine, Geoff.  The citation is poor, so I can not give an exact source to credit this too. John Tapene, Northland College (NZ) principal  Offered the following words from a judge who regularly deals with youth … "Always we hear the cry from teenagers ‘What can we do, where can we go?’ … My answer is, "Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons, and after you’ve finished, read a book." "Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in poverty or sick and lonely again." "In other words, grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone, not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It’s too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you…" This is worth reading a couple of times. For me it engenders mixed responses, I agree with many sentiments and not with others. Given this is from, I believe, a Youth court judge I suspect it is tempered by the young people that he sees. I have seen many of my students doing exactly as has been suggested here, giving, servicing and participating. So it is not an encompassing statement, fair for all, but it does have some value. Thoughts. In Leh, I bought a reading from his Holiness the Dalai Lama called the Paradox of our Age. This too is worth considering and reflecting on. The Paradox Of Our Age We have bigger houses but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicines but less healthiness. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble in crossing the street to meet our new neighbour. We built more computers to hold more copies than ever, But have less real communication; We have become long on quantity, but short on quality. These are times of fast foods but slow digestion; Tall men but short characters; Steep profits but shallow relationships. It’s a time when there is much in the window But nothing in the room. — the 14th Dalai Lama.

Our classrooms are not limited to the four walls of the physical building we teach in but can encompass the entire of the planet. Technology, and much of it is free, has enabled us to push back the classroom walls and stretch our virtual arms across the globe to shake hands with classrooms and students almost anywhere. WHY? Source: http://www.soil-net.com/album/Places_Objects/slides/Globe%20Planet%20Earth%20NASA.jpg Some may well ask why would we do this and this is a valid question. We live in a world where the physical borders between countries fade  as we move from the concrete real world to the virtual/online one. Icons of today like facebook continue to reduce the distance between countries and people as more and more people join these sites (there are over 900 million members now) and as more and more devices support access (over 200 million people access facebook via mobile devices). Our students are residents of these virtual worlds. So for us as educators, in our ongoing task of preparing them for life, we must help to shape them into being global digital citizens who are respectful and protective of themselves, others and of intellectual property (See http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/The+Digital+Citizen). But its more than just being respectful of the different people and different cultures we may encounter, its also accessing the wide range of experiences, places, teachers and students that are available often at the click of a button. To visit and talk to people in places we may never have had the opportunity to visit, to experience the differing environments that young people learn in. Our students respond to this, they are engaged and motivated, often challenged and sometimes confronted, but this is of value too. HOW? Some of the most successful projects I have seen require nothing more than access to a shared space online. A great example is the wiki comparing hemispheres http://comparinghemispheres.wikispaces.com/ which is a collaborative space set up for primary students at two primary school one  in Nelson, New Zealand and New York. The Wiki compares one day in time in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. The staff worked together collaboratively to plan the day, and the students in the two classroom collaborate to answer the guiding questions about where they live in one hemisphere and what is different in the other. Another example based around a wiki is the casestudy wikis set up annually for the International Baccalaureate ITGS (information technology in a global society) course. The case study that the students will be examined on is made available to the students undertaking the ITGS course at least one year prior to their examination. The students are presented with a scenario and then required to develop a depth of understanding of the technologies, issues, impacts and importance of the topic.  The wiki is scaffolded and students in he participating schools around the world are assigned a page or pages that they initially develop. Once they develop the page their peers critique the pages using a strictly enforced set of guidelines and processes. Having had feedback and an opportunity to refine their pages, the pages are opened up to the other members of the group to contribute to. http://itgs-casestudy-2010.wikispaces.com/ http://casestudy-itgs-2011.wikispaces.com/ http://casestudy-itgs-2012.wikispaces.com/ source: http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/uploads/2/9/3/9/2939181/6542080.jpg On a larger scale are the stunning projects developed by the flatclassroom project http://www.flatclassroomproject.org/ These global projects link classrooms across the planet as they investigate common goals and objectives. These projects are more complex expanding beyond the use of wikis, into invitation only social networks like ning as well (http://www.ning.com). Flatclassroom offers a range of projects including: NetGenEd - http://www.netgened.org/ based on the annual horizon project, this wiki looks at technology, education and the networked generation Eracism http://www.eracismproject.org/a global student debate that joins diverse cultures and includes authentic debate for global competence and international mindedness. Flatclassroom - http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/ Digiteen - http://www.digiteen.org/apply.html "A week in the life…" http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/a-week-in-the-life-project.htm WHAT? What can I do a global project on? The flatclassroom projects have a defined set of goals and objectives that match well with many subject areas. They require the teachers to work along side the students and offer a certification course for flatclassroom teachers. If you want to organise your own project there is really not limitation to what you can use global projects for. They can be simple, like answering a single guiding question or complex and on-going. Some of the projects may be collaborative projects between members of the same class, or within the school or potentially across the world. source: http://www.public-domain-image.com/nature-landscape/hot-spring/slides/yellowstone-thermal-spring-in-morning.jpg Skype is a very well known tool used by many, it also has huge potential in the classroom. Skype has an education program that connects classes, teachers and students to experts around the world. For example skyping with the park rangers at Yellowstone National park in the USA. This is a great opportunity for science classes. http://education.skype.com/projects/2237-yellowstone-national-park-rangers-can-skype-with-classrooms The tools and technology used like the project itself can be simple or more complex. Here are some useful tools Wikispaces - ad free wikis for education http://www.wikispaces.com/content/teacher/ Wetpaint wikis - http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/ Skype - Simple video conferencing - http://education.skype.com/ ning http://www.ning.com Social networking (this service has a cost) Facebook Groups - this is potentially a useful feature, but may have issues with school policies Considerations Global projects are very beneficial, I have found them to be engaging, motivating, challenging and as I noted before sometimes confronting. The learning opportunities are diverse and provide huge opportunity to interact with not only students in different cultures but also with renown experts and leading teachers. But like everything there are some considerations: Does your schools/districts network policies allow access to the different mediums like wikis, Skype, social networks like ning etc What are your schools policies in regard to students online, privacy, sharing images & names etc Do you have suitable and compatible software/hardware/infrastructure to enable connection and sharing? All of these projects should be deliberate and considered, they are hugely beneficial but do require careful identification of goals, proper planning, establishing acceptable norms and expectations of behavior and suitable reflection. I love this adage failing to plan is planning to fail.