PBWiki has just announced improvements to their user interface. They’re inviting people to test the beta. http://pbwiki.com/content/pbwiki-beta
The thing that caught my attention was this bit about improving PBwiki’s wysiwyg editor:
“When we launched our Point-and-Click editor a year ago, we noticed a quick upsurge in our usage. The easier it is to edit, the more people use PBwiki.” link
So if your wiki’s text editor is easy to use, more people will use your wiki. Common sense, but good to see it stated.
I’m a bit disappointed. Jotspot was great. Google’s replacement for it, Google Sites, is not so hot. Here’s why I think so.
Jotspot was more than a wiki. It was a platform on which developers could build applications. For example, the Jotspot site we use has a blog, an app called a ‘bug reporter’, a discussion forum, a ‘knowledge base’ app and a project management tool. There were many other apps you could choose to add. I was hoping that Google Sites would continue to deliver this great functionality. Sadly, it does not.
At it’s most basic level, when you created a page in Jotspot you were given a choice of Web Page (basic wiki page), Spreadsheet, Calendar, Blog, File Cabinet and Photo Album.
Google gives you less. When you create a page in Google Sites you have a choice of Web Page (wiki page), Dashboard, Announcements, File Cabinet and Lists.
The Web Page is pretty much the same as the old Jotspot with a slightly improved wysiwyg editor. The dashboard is quite fun, I guess. You can use it to show your Google Calendar, Google Docs/Spreadsheets, Picasa slideshow, and other widgets.
But there are two important omissions:
1. You can no longer email content to a wiki page. Each Jotspot page had an email address allowing users to email updates to wiki pages or to email attachments to pages. We found that really useful. Especially for the less tech-savvy among our staff.
2. Spreadsheets are no longer integrated into the site. You need to link to them from Google Docs and drop them into the dashboard widget placeholder or onto a new page. And, I have to say, I couldn’t get this to work in Google Sites.
Here’s more opinion, from a loyal Jostpot user and from a reporter
One good thing is the consolidated email login through Google Apps Team edition. That is a great idea.
So why the title? Googlestein’s Monter? Because you have to cobble together all the functions you need. Like Frankenstein’s monster, there are lots of great bits, but they don’t fit together very well. There’s just no clear integration of the Google apps suite. You have to switch between your Startpage (another kind of dashboard), Google Calendar, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google sites. You need to plug widgets into pages to get stuff like the calendar to work. And the blog, well, that’s not there at all.
I hate to say it, but Sharepoint just got a whole lot more attractive.
This is a great collection of ‘Laws’. For example:
Conway’s Law: Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it.
Hofstadter’s Law: A task always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. (lol)
The Click for Immutable Laws of Web Design and Development | Blue Flavor
click for Education | Pisa international rankings
Finland’s done well.
More pearls of wisdom from Jakob Nielsen about intranet Info Architecture:
Only three topics attained top-level navigation status on the majority of the intranets:
- human resources (HR) information (66%)
- company information, (63%)
- news (59%)
Whilst he found that information about departments or divisions was a top-level category in 46% of intranets, he points out that:
“In our study, task-based structures often endured better than intranets organized departmentally. In our user testing of intranets, we’ve also found that task-based navigation tends to facilitate ease-of-learning. Thus, the benefits for IA durability are just one more argument in favor of adopting a task-based structure for your intranet.”
He expanded on this by adding that manufacturing companies often have a product category in their top-level navigation, and companies that focus on intellectual property tend to have a top-level knowledge management (KM) category (he doesn’t give an example of what this might be though).
And a warning for management not to meddle:
“One change that can be disastrous for intranet navigability is requests from top management to change navigation labels to reflect the latest buzzwords or corporate fashions. “
click for Intranet Information Architecture (IA) (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
Here are my notes from Keith Kruger’s excellent and thought provoking workshop.
Keith is the CEO of CoSN, the US’s premier voice in education tech leadership. click for CoSN site
Outline of the workshop:
- what has been the impact of technology on education around the world?
- What are the skills that ict leaders need?
- Self assessment
Three major conclusions:
- Competitiveness is a global concern/Developing 21st century skills is necessary
- Leadership & vision matters
- Rethinking pedagogy is essential
1. Impact of tech around the world
Impact in asia (UNESCO 2003) = weak.
Europe (’the ICT impact report’ 2006) = patchy introduction and ‘no profound improvements in learning & teaching’
UK Becta 4 yr study concluded that:
- ‘Personalized learning through technology is key route to educational improvement
- Having a high level of technology will dramatically improve performance, so long as there is the right support and enthusiasm to embrace it.’ http://news.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=33623
Metiri group for Cisco found that tech advocates overpromised what tech could do. But when the vision was appropriate and professional development was there, tech was a “powerful and transformative tool” http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/TechnologyinSchoolsReport.pdf
Students in the US are expressing growing frustration that schools are becoming lame and irrelevant. http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_reports.html
Keith then showed us an interesting slide on which he’d compiled some results from research carried out in Nordic countries. The slide showed a strong correlation between teachers’ beliefs in the positive impact of tech and their ability or proficiency in using it themselves. For example:
- Teachers who believed that tech had no or moderate impact on learning were the ones who made low or moderate use of tech in their classroom practice. They were also not confident in the use of ICT.
- However, teachers who believed that tech had a positive impact on learning were the ones who used it the most and were the ones who felt most confident in using it. Their use of it was ‘project oriented, collaborative and experimental’.
Although clearly important, there is still not enough emphasis on developing teachers’ skills in using tech for learning. The focus should be making educators technologically confident
ss still consumers rather than producers when using ICT not very web 2.0 or maybe use tech for presentation or internet research… most kids hate web cache content filters.
impact of ict in teaching can be measured in pupil engagement differentiation creativity and less waste of time.
2. What are the skills that ict leaders need?
Leadership is fundamental to successful tech in learning. Leaders must be:
- willing to listen and learn
- awareof role and power
- strategically us ict to leverage other initiatives
We need to show the value of investment. Instead of drawing attention to the ‘wow factor’ (over promising) look at the real long term impact and prepare people for that.
Call to action: we need to reframe the policy discussions around tech and education and look at the Value of Investment (VOI) http://www.edtechvoi.org/
..and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). http://www.classroomtco.org/
- vision: powerful tool to accomplish ed goals
- leadership: human element is key to efffectively implementing ed tech
- TCO and VOI: ed tech leaders need to understand both
- community: parent and the business community can be your biggest advocates
- advocacy: become an advocate for ICT in ed.
click for the new cio leader ten prorities and click for more
a. Core values and skills:
- students & instruction
- continual improvement
- managing innovation
- data driven decision making
- flexibility
- results
- creating value
b. CTO Essential Skills:
- Leadership & vision
- Planning and budgeting
- Business Leadership
- Team building and staffing
- Education and Training
- Communication systems
- Systems management
- Information management
- Ethics and policies
Interesting to see what Canberra Primary School teachers are doing with audio recordings with their learners. Some good stuff.
They’re using an application called profcast
They make two kinds of audio recording:
- Teacher created podcasts – they call these enhanced podcasts. Teachers make them to help teach key concepts in maths or to model language. They see this as a form of communication for the parents to use with their kids. The benefit is that it’s easy to use and provides a consistent message about what’s been taught in class.
- Learner created podcasts – Learners record what they read aloud, record interviews and record their oral reflections about a topic. The presenters gave one example of an interview recorded by two learners saying that their teacher use the recording to reflect on and evaluate their learners’ speaking skills.
Why podcasts? Canberra Primary have found that audio recordings
- integrate well in a langauge learning contex
- are a useful tool to model reading and speaking
- allow learners to evaluate and improve their own speaking ability (they record, listen, evaluate and rerecord their attempt at improving)
- build confidence
- support communicative and collaborative skill
- allow learners to make meaning through social interaction: leaners worked in small groups to problem solve while making the podcast.
For most of the presentation they’ pretty much focused on making and using audio. The podcast element, the online rss sharing element, wasn’t explored in much detail. However they did mention that they have a site for uploading and commenting on the podcasts. The hosting site is shared among 7 teachers. But they reckon each teacher should have their own site. Parents have access to the site.
The online hosting and how they share is what’s interesting to me, and I’ll contact them to find out more.
They’re doing some great stuff.
- Creating audio books, with pictures, text and audio. (using powerpoint).
- Learning journeys around town taking their own photos and adding text and audio, scripts too.
- Audio diaries.
They pointed out that due to their learners syllabus, training to use software had to be done outside the curriculum.
They closed by adding that they needed to and were planning to do some qualitative and quantitative research to evaluate the learning.
Newsmaker is a video editing tool that Yu Neng Primary school have been using with their learners.
The normal process they follow with a class is
- P5 & P6 students form a group.
- Brainstorm a topic.
- Research. Collate information.
- Write a news script.
- Rehearse the script working on reading, text tone and facial expression.
- Then they decide on the format.
- Then they make a newsmaker clip.
Benefits? Through newsmaker students have integrated writing, reading and listening skills. It has helped improve their confidence too.
It enhances bilingualism through using subtitles. Students pick an existing video clip from a movie (they showed one from the movie Gandhi). They then write the subtitles themselves, followed by a translation from English into Mandarin. The tool allows them to show both English and Mandarin subtitles together or alone.
Yu Neng are also creating a portal for students to upload videos (probably this site NewsMakerTV) where visitors can comment (like YouTube).
I’m not sure who developed the software. They mentioned EyePower Games, but I can’t find out much about them online.
Derek Roberston showed us what can be done with existing game console and handheld technologies in a learning context. He talked about affecting positive change in the classroom through using games.
The most striking thing about what Derek is doing is it’s relevance. He’s using simple technology that kids are already familiar with, but in a learning context. It has currency. He showed lots of video clips. The one that really hit me was of a young lad totally absorbed in a timed game on the Nintendo DS. He was doing sums. Doing them faster than I could. He was clearly engaged, clearly achieving, clearly aware that he was doing well. Apparently up to that point he had been considered a ‘problem child’.
He also showed some impressive statistics, anecdotal accounts and testimonials to show the effectiveness of games on speed and accuracy in test results using brain gym. Learners also felt better about themselves: improved confidence and self esteem.
He described a class where learners started the lesson on time and worked in silence on activities. He also described a high level of peer support.
This approach is also relatively light on resources. Consolarium uses readily available game consoles and handheld game devices with existing consumer games to engage learners. So no need to spend time and money on developing software and buying expertise, and no need to talk to the IT department about integration, compatibility or security. Just plug it into the TV and work out how to integrate the games into class work.
Although games can have an intrinsic learning point, he pointed out that games don’t need to teach something explicitly. He showed a class using Guitar Hero in an activity to stimulate a cross curricular project. The game helped to contextualise the learning and make the learning relevant. So in this case the learning happened away from the game. But the game set the scene, context and helped in the early stages to set roles and goals for the project. Nice. It looked like a lot of fun too.
Games become less of what we offer by the time kids reach middle school, where they were once part of kids’ education.
Here are a few other notes from his talk that I haven’t tidied up yet:
Tetris. Clever in that context, why not or how could they be clever in other contexts.
- tetris = spacial control, visual awareness and mental manual dexterity.
- zoombinis = strategy problem solving without even know that they were doing it.
- dance mats = help teach phonics
- pro evolution soccer and championship manager = teach strategy
www.ltscotland.org.uk/consolarium
He mentioned Tim Ryland’s work. Myst. Using the game in class to seed and stimulate a writing activity.
And tools to make games:
- Mission Maker
- Game maker
- scratch
- neverwinter nights is dialogue based . ss must create a story
- thinking worlds
- crazy talk – application that creates lip movemens on pictures. Allows ss to make their stories come to life.
