Peter Looms - Leading E-Learning Change

What is E-Learning?

What is the value of using video in learning?

Why do we need to discuss the topic of common technologies and whether they are "designed" for education?  Who cares?  Why aren't we talking about HOW we can use any of the technologies available to us?  From ANY industry or area of society.

Wordle??? NO SHIT!!!!

I am really tired of coming to courses like this and being told a whole lot of stuff about "e-learning" and ICT for learning IN GENERAL!!!

I thought I was coming to this to learn how to approach e-learning change with the people I work with and how we can promote positive benefits of using e-learning strategies and technologies.

This guy is from a university in Denmark.

Why can't we have sessions with school teachers and how this has been addressed and worked for them?

OMG!!!  He just suggested we think about "something called Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats"!!!!!  As if we might not have heard of this cliche and static theory of learning.

He isn't making it relevant either.  More like "ooo I should show I know a bit about education by inserting comments about learning theory... here..."

Kotter's eight change phases

1. establish a sense of urgency = DO IT NOW!!! not next year.....

2. Create a coalition

3. Develop a clear vision

4. Share the vision

5. Empower people to clear obstacles

Money

time

6. Secure short term wins

7. Consolidate and keep moving

8. Anchor the change

Four quadrant expectation management (look up)

Explicit expectations

Internal stakeholders

External stakeholders

Implicit expactations

NABC model

OMG!!!  He just suggested we think about "something called Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats"!!!!!  As if we might not have heard of this cliche and static theory of learning.

He isn't making it relevant either.  More like "ooo I should show I know a bit about education by inserting comments about learning theory... here..."

OMG!! he can't actually answer a question without referring to a previous slide to find the answer.  He just referred to a learning theory based on thinking and he has just shown he cannot think independently for himself.

I also can't think outside of my lesson plan because you just asked something I have planned for this afternoon.   Arrgh! stop thinking so much, I haven't planned to answer that question yet.

I would rather talk about how to go through the process, rather than vague lecturing on the fact that other institutions have gone through the process.  What is the process???!!!!

How do we make it work???!!!

I don't think our school is really that reluctant across the board.  I want to know how we can do it WELL.

I like the idea of the "Lone ranger"
I think people need to be free to explore what works and then bring it to a collective e-learning strategy.  How do we know what to plan to implement if we don't know how the tools can be used and implemented?  Three amigos, baby!

I hate action research!!!!!!!!

I think the point that "podcasts are boring" is dumb.  Make them better! Make them interesting!
They should not be just lecture style lessons.

Thinking Outside the XBox (v2)

Audio and Visual Creations

Gaming for Learning

Ewan McIntosh

Exploring ideas and sharing experiences with gaming in education 

 

Google search Podsafe music

FreeSound

Creating Podcasts

Audacity

Basics to consider:

recording volume

This is what I made with my friend, Diane:

Posterous

Thinking Outside the XBox (v1)

Wellington Loop Professional Development Day:

Gaming for Learning

Ewan McIntosh

Exploring ideas and sharing experiences with gaming in education 

Putting your ideas across and communicating ideas is the number one skill employers are looking for, in any industry.  Coming up with creative ideas is crucial and collaboration is key.

The opposite of play is not work, it's depression.

Engagement 
You have to fail to win

Engagement isn't synonymous with fun, it's also about challenge, driven concentration and reaching achievement - winning is always possible.

Epic nature of video games - epic goal

Flow - Time flies.  Consumed by the mission undertaken.

Borrow the lessons from video games as contexts for curriculum learning.

NAME levels of achievement v. World of Warcraft 200 levels, though shorter achievement goals, get increasingly harder.

Gamers are their own boss; in charge of their own destiny.  Even when playing collaboratively. 

The Tinkering School - TED Talks

Calamity becomes the learning point.  Exploring by doing.  Tilting towards completion. 

Entrepreneurial Learning

Take risks

Build teams to make their ideas happen

Not the most creative, but prepared to jump off a cliff without knowing the answer why... yet

Guitar hero in English

Playing the game is not the point of learning, it is the context for learning

How does motivation show itself?

Don't take quiet as unmotivation.  

Any student, any gender can engage in any context.

Don't approach gaming as a male world, it's just a world like any other.

Skills explored when using Gaming in Learning
Play
Performance
Simulation
Appropriation
Multitasking
Distributional Cognition
Collective Intelligence
Judgement
Transmedia Navigation
Networking
Negotiation

Transmedia Navigation Example
CSI episode where killer not revealed.  SecondLife rooms and labs were created by viewers where people met to nut out the answer.  Real scientists, police people, specialists working on details from show - the body, evidence, crime scene.

Myst 'Exile' in the classroom

Assessment - questioning and reinforcing student answers, validating responses
Technology integration - low tech, one copy of game,
Loved - engagement, interaction teacher with students not to students

Viewing Myst from an English point of view

Music and tone of voice over creating atmosphere of mysterious past

Establishing background story and giving player context and so emotional/personal investment in game and the need for succeeding.

Point of view of player interacting with characters

Mise en scene

Pathways to encounter knowledge that builds capacity to succeed in game.

Narrative aspects of content to lead narrative pathways through the game.

Conflict and disorder contribute to emotional investment and challenge to defeat obstacles and adversaries 

Manipulating narrative to follow preferred path as can return to previous point later. 

Writing focus from viewing Myst

Stimulus for rich writing

Feeling of the water in the scene

Mise en scene, film language

Punctuation pyramid

Vocabulary -visuwords, wordle

Use screen shots to illustrate creative writing online, for backgrounds of presentations, photostory

Write success guides to playing the games as formal writing activities

Games

Rome
Sim Park
Myst
Spore creature creator - biology

Sim City

Hotel Dusk - crime novel pitched as a game

Call of Duty 4 - 16+ modern terrorism. Epic goal = save the world!!

Guitar Hero

Peacemaker - History, solving Palestine crisis
The Incredible Machine
JMOL - build molecules - bio, chem, free plugin for Moodle
Tycoon series
Oolite - Space trader - Social Studies, History, Economics, Marketing, Maths
Ceel Craft
Lightbot 2 - logic, sequencing
Electrocities - city planning, Maths, resource allocation, time, graphs
Smackdown - Professional wrestlers - History, PE - professional, athletics, nutrition, Maths, Physics, animation

Other tools:
Posterous.com

NZQA Moderation Best Practice Workshop

On Saturday, I attended the best practice workshop with the NZQA moderator of Classical Studies.

As there are only three internally assessed achievement standards across Levels 2 and 3, we were able to discuss several exemplars and get into the details of the assessment process.

It was interesting to see the tasks that other schools are giving their students and the quality of work those students are producing.

We spent a lot of time on the research standards at both levels and there was a lot of discussion around the need for correct referencing and bibliography.  As neither standard actually requires either we can only ask students to do both of those for the purposes of authentication.  On teacher then queried why you would bother teaching those skills at all.  I think that is really irresponsible.  Classics is and will always be one of those "academic" subjects where students CAN learn those skills.  Where else will they learn those skills if teachers don't take it upon themselves to teach them.  I think it is a very important skill, especially if students are going on to university study.  We should not be making it okay for students to, technically, steal other people's ideas and work.

When we looked at the communicate knowledge standard at Level 2, one of the exemplars was not achieved and the moderator admitted that it was her student and that she had given the work back to the student for resubmission.  As we are all getting our heads around the rules for resubs, I asked her what she said to the student when she gave it back.  She directed the student to go back to the standard and to look at the criteria carefully, and also to look at the task.  Basically, the student's first submission did not follow the specific format carefully enough and did not communicate knowledge ON SPECIFIED ASPECTS OF THE TOPIC.  A really important point to note when giving back work for resubmission.

I also asked about submitting links to student created websites for moderation.  She said that they preferred student work in its original format, so yes to send links.  Yay! She said she was going to check out who our moderator is (apparently there are about seven moderators for Classics around the country) so we can check where to send those links.  I think sending the links typed on paper for them to type into their search bar would be fine.

One of the best things about going to these workshops is catching up with other Classics teachers and to chat about what topics they teach.  As the only teacher of Classics at WHS, it is really great to have those professional conversations within my subject area.

Also, she took us through the NZQA subject specific page for Classics, which I visit often but I haven't checked out the clarifications or newsletter for a while so must remember to do that. 
Learnt lots, mostly from the discussions, and came away with heaps of exemplars.  Fantastic!