Why did the Chickenman cross the road?

Keep an eye out on Tuesday for a feed on twitter #ITF09. This is the feed from Microsoft’s UK Innovative Teachers Forum in Birmingham. It will have many innovative teachers locked in a room twittering and bickering about the latest things in education.

You can see what is going on by reading the official blog here: http://bit.ly/8h4GbU

You may have read about a recent blog of mine about the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum held in Brazil a few weeks ago. At this worldwide awards Mandeep Atwal and Ollie Bray won awards representing the UK. I was also an award winner at the Worldwide event in Hong Kong in 2008, I am sure Mandeep and Ollie will echo what I say that they are fantastic professional development experiences. The UK is the first phase of a big year of potential for the ten finalists selected for this UK final, the next phase if they are lucky to progress is to the European Innovative Teachers Forum in Berlin in March and then who knows where next.

I am extremely proud that four of our teachers from my school (saltash.net www.saltash.net) have made it to the final ten which is a fantastic achievement. They have some brilliant and innovative projects developing:

Dave Garland – Deputy Headteacher is working on a great idea called learnovids where students create their own videos in a standardised format including their own little ‘learnovid’ jingle on different subjects in Science.

Amy Lewis – who is a Teacher of History and RE and is only in her second year of teaching is working on a fantastic global collaborative project called Heroes which looks at children picking local people (heroes) who have dared to make a difference and sharing the attributes they admire in them with children from Nigeria, Indonesia, Canada and Ireland. The students have created photo stories and songs using songsmith to share their ideas and opinions.

Georgie Carey – who is a Teacher of Science and is also in her second year of teaching, is working on a amazing concept of students who have created their own learning resource of hard to teach Science topics. The students have created a really professional video as a resource and will become lead learners and to help support their own revision will teach other students using their resources and get students to create their own based on their ideas.

And finally last but not least is James Edwards who is a Teacher of ICT and is in his third year of teaching. James is doing a project based around e-safety and getting older students more involved in e-safety so that they create resources mainly videos to raise awareness and educate younger students and parents in the school community.

I feel extremely honoured and privileged to work with such innovative teachers on a daily basis have a look at the feed and take part in any collaboration that develops on Tuesday 1^st December. Remember #ITF09!

Are you considering entering in future ITF’s? Please do it is one of the best forms of CPD you can do! If you haven’t already joined then also sign up to the Partners in Learning Network @ http://uk.partnersinlearningnetwork.com/Pages/default.aspx

This once again appears to be a rising topical issue. I read a really interesting arcticle in the TES this week called Friend of Foe? Talking to a few people in education about the use of mobile phones in the classroom. Click on the link to read:

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6028637&navcode=94

It has also been quite a big talking point in the states recently; basically my response is WAKE UP! I am pleading with school leaders, union representatives, ministers and even some teachers to really open their eyes and see what is really going on in classrooms all over the world. Teachers and students are embracing the use of mobile phones and using them in really innovative ways.

I have been teaching 7 years and since my NQT have openly used mobile phones and encouraged students to use them whilst involving them in creating an acceptable use policy. Maybe I have been lucky but both of the two schools I have worked in have not banned mobiles and allowed students to use them to enhance their learning. We have great success with them and encounter hardly any problems of misusing them this is because I think we educate our students to use them properly and they play an integral role in creating our acceptable use policy.

Why do schools ban them?

Well I have read lots of things that tell you why they are so bad and I have heard teachers nearly break down and cry because they are so scared of this electrickery in a small box! Some teachers are concerned about behaviour and the classroom management however as an NQT in a National Challenge school I think I may have noticed if this may have been a problem. Some are scared of them being used as a big stick to bully teachers or bully other students we have had very few of these situations happened and my current school has allowed mobile phones for four or five years now. As long as students are educated what is acceptable use then most of them will stick to it and if you have an effective behaviour or moral code then students know what will happen if they do misuse them.  In fact recently we had an e-safety inspection and we passed with glowing colours and one of the strengths was allowing the use of mobile phones but within a safe framework. Some are worried that students that can’t afford them or will have no street cred because they haven’t got a smart phone will suffer but they won’t because they can have first refusal on any netbooks or laptops etc from the school that you may have in your classroom and allowing the other students to use their phone puts less strain on your classroom resources.

I just read a blog by Dominic McGladdery http://www.domsmflpage.blogspot.com/ he is so right with what he said! I have found exactly the same as him – the use of mobile phones can allow students to take more responsibility for their own learning and thus is a tool to help true independent learning.

I have openly used mobile phones in class since I started, more recently we had a very successful project called Recharge the Battery which utilised the use of students mobile phones read one of my earlier blogs: http://chickensaltash.edublogs.org/2009/06/07/recharge-the-battery/

This was found to be a great idea as it won an award at the Worldwide Innovative Teachers Forum in Hong Kong in 2008.

Some simple ways to use mobile phones in the classroom:

• Students use the voice recorder to record audio of you explaining a concept so they can listen back to it for revision.
• Students use the voice recorder to record their own podcasts for revision, or even their own raps or songs within the classroom. Students could even get other students to each record them a question so for homework they could listen back to the questions and record answers about the topic they are studying.
• Students can take photos of other students work for example, some of our students take photos of each others mindmaps to help them in their own revision. Students can take photos of an experiment to help them create a story line of what they were doing.
• Students record videos of other student’s presentations or record videos of a science experiment and then use the footage to create their own videos. I have done this where I did a heart dissection and students recorded it on their mobiles, inserted the videos into moviemaker and narrated over the video clip demonstrating their knowledge then uploaded it to youtube to get feedback on their video.
• Students use the Bluetooth function on their mobiles to text in answers to questions on the whiteboard in the form of an interactive quiz. I have found this to be really effective with less able boys who don’t like writing in fact some boys prefer to write notes on their mobile and print it out at home and stick it in their book.
• Students use the phone to access the internet for research etc.

Just this week we had a new student join us who couldn’t speak any English what so ever within ten minutes of joining her new tutor group her fellow tutees had downloaded an app that could translate what they wanted to say to her and there were smiles all round now that is powerful stuff!

Do you or your school ban mobile phones? Do you have any great projects or ideas where you have used mobile phones to enhance learning in the classroom?

On Friday the 4th of December Javier Dril Bustamente will visit the students and teachers at Saltash.net Community School in Cornwall. It is part of his visit to Europe where he will answers questions from MP’s in London and then talk at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

You can hear him talk live via twitcam from Saltash on Friday 4th December at around 12:25pm GMT please follow @chickensaltash on twitter to look out for the link that will be sent out before the start. We would like any teachers and their students to watch the talk live on twitcam and there will be the chance to ask him questions. If you want to take part then please DM chickensaltash and I will ensure you are sent the link in advance.

Javier Dril Bustamente, 27, was born in the village of Tinkereni in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. I was fortunate to meet and spend time with him in my recent trip there.

Javier lives there with his wife Yolanda, an Ashaninka woman and their three children.  His parents Anna Maria and Cesar, and grandmother Noemi – who is one of the few remaining shamanic healers – live nearby within the same community.

Javier’s has spent his whole life in the rainforest and it has been his family’s home for generations.  But, at the tender age of seven, Javier, along with his family, had to flee their settlement as a result of the Shining Path terrorists violently pushing their community off their traditional land.  His family set up home in the Otishi hills, above the Rio Ene, hiding away from the terrorists.

Javier’s community regained their land four years later, and, at the age of 11, Javier spent the next six years studying in a secondary school at the nearby village of Cutivireni, where, instead of their usual settlement pattern of small dispersed villages scattered throughout the rainforest, the Ashaninka tribe stayed close together, with 2,000 people living in one main village for security. 

During this time, the tribe began to repopulate the rainforest and today only a few hundred individuals remain in the gateway village of Cutivireni (where there is a river port and a small grassy airstrip).

Javier left Cutivireni to study agro-forestry at a local technical college in the frontier town of Satipo.  After graduating in 2006, he was elected as ‘Regidor’ (assistant) to an indigenous Mayor of his district of Rio Tambo, one of the largest regions in the whole of Peru.  

Javier is also President of the first Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association of Cutivireni (called Tsimi, which means ‘forest sanctuary’ in the local language).  Established two years ago, the Association provides an on-the-ground mechanism for continued protection and conservation of around 60,000 hectare of rainforest.  The forest – and its community – is under severe and constant threat from loggers (legal and illegal), oil companies and massive hydro dam projects who all want to cut down their trees.

The Association is highly democratic, involving representatives from all of the eight main villages in the region. Externally, it is supported by Cool Earth and Ecotribal, both UK based.

Javier and the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association of Cutivireni is working with Cool Earth to protect their land, their communities and the trees from the loggers.  So far, the charity has provided support to build a local school, provided money for them to grow cocoa plants for chocolate makers and generate income so that they remain guardians of the rainforest, the lungs of the world.

All Javier wants to do is to live like his ancestors have done for the last 5,000 years, in peace in their forest.  His community is passionate about protecting it – if they are allowed to as they have done for thousands of years.

Since its launch in 2007, Cool Earth has protected over 50,000 acres of Peruvian rainforest.

This will be Javier’s first time leaving his home in the rainforest and his country to travel on a plane to the UK.   His visit has been supported by the charity Cool Earth, APE (Artists Protecting the Environment) and Ecotribal (an organisation that sells the tribe’s handicrafts and plants trees to offset against carbon emissions). 

Javier and the Ashaninka Bioclimatic Association of Cutivireni is working with Cool Earth to protect their land, their communities and the trees from the loggers.  So far, the charity has provided support to build a local school, provided money for them to grow cocoa plants for chocolate makers and generate income so that they remain guardians of the rainforest, the lungs of the world.

All Javier wants to do is to live like his ancestors have done for the last 5,000 years, in peace in their forest.  His community is passionate about protecting it – if they are allowed to as they have done for thousands of years.

Since its launch in 2007, Cool Earth has protected over 50,000 acres of Peruvian rainforest.

This will be Javier’s first time leaving his home in the rainforest and his country to travel on a plane to the UK.   His visit has been supported by the charity Cool Earth, APE (Artists Protecting the Environment) and Ecotribal (an organisation that sells the tribe’s handicrafts and plants trees to offset against carbon emissions).

For more information check out www.coolearth.org

As teachers at the so called ‘chalk face’ or these days the ‘smart board’ we continually strive to prepare our students with the knowledge, skills, attributes and life experiences that will make them effective life-long learners in the 21^st century. But what if you have no technology as such, no wireless or broadband, what if you don’t even have electricity? Do teachers in these particular situations still need to prepare their students like we would?

During August this year I was extremely honored to travel to the Amazon rainforest in Peru with a charity called Cool Earth as part of their new teacher fellowship which is about teachers experiencing the challenges of living in the rainforest and then taking this experience back into their classrooms and schools. For more information on this visit the education part of the Cool Earth website: http://www.coolearth.org    (In fact they are now accepting applications from teachers for next year as you are reading this).

As part of the fellowship (no I promise it isn’t anything like lord of the rings although once or twice whilst wondering in the dense rainforest I thought I heard voices coming from the trees) we lived with the indigenous group called the Ashaninka people for ten days or so and experienced their lives of living in such an amazing environment, we learned about the challenges that they face living in the rainforest and how Cool Earth as a charity was making a real difference to the future of the rainforest and the people.

One of the most fantastic elements was spending time in local schools with local teachers and students discussing how they learn and the challenges that they face. For me a teacher who loves to use technology in innovative ways I was really interested to see what technology they had and how they used it. Obviously due to things such as infrastructure, logistics and finance the technology they had was pretty limited however how they made use of this was very impressive. For example we visited two primary schools and two secondary schools for around about 60 or so students in each. These schools are in very remote areas of the rainforest which are a short flight from one of the frontier towns on the edge of the rainforest followed by a two hour trek through the rainforest. These schools do not have regular electricity however do have some small solar power units which can power electricity for a couple of hours a day. Each school had probably at least one laptop each which were primarily shared between all the teachers within the school and a few of the students to prepare materials for lessons.

Obviously due to the limited time for electricity and the limited number of laptops this use of technology could only go so far. I spoke to the teachers about whether they really needed the technology. Were they preparing their students in the same way that I was and did they really need to? All of the teachers I spoke to made it clear that they did need the technology and probably even more than my students for several important reasons. The first is that it is extremely critical to educate the students their about the rainforest and how to conserve it. This is extremely important not just for them but because they have a responsibility to the entire world. As protecting the rainforest could be the single biggest influence in tackling climate change, the students will need technology to help them communicate this to the wider world and to future generations.

The next reason is that the world is changing at a rapid rate for these students it is even quicker they will fall even further behind other young people their age if we don’t begin to educate them about the potential of technology. This soon will be an issue for them as the Peruvian government plan to build a road to one of their villages in the next 5 years opening up access to the outside world. Will they be ready for what they will have to face? Technology will be the key to their survival and the future of their race. I saw an example of this while I was there visiting technology like for all of us can opens doors, one girl who had more access to technology as she was studying ended up gaining a scholarship to become a doctor and was undergoing her training at University in Cuba with a view to returning with the right medical training back to her village. Technology definitely helped her in making a success and raising her own aspirations. Finally technology has the X factor the students were in awe and wonder and using it engaged them I could see that just by the way their faces had the biggest smiles in the world and the laughter whilst they used it.

So where now and what can we do? Let’s not forget that it isn’t just about the technology the teachers in the schools often have to pay using their own money for materials like books and pencils, in some of the schools the students have little food and are hungry so what can we do to help? Well you can help fundraise to help give these schools the materials, electricity and technology that they need. I am setting up a collaborative fundraising student project using edmodo in association with Cool Earth if you’re interested in getting involved or finding out more contact me on twitter @chickensaltash.

So do these teachers need to prepare their students for the 21^st Century as we are trying to? The answer is yes and in fact you could argue that they need to even more than we do but they have a much bigger challenge in doing this then we all do. I want the children from Peru to have the final word:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CoolEarthDotOrg#p/a

This is just a short post as I feel duty bound on behalf of teachers and students around the world to make a recommendation for the 2009 Edublogs awards. As you may know if you read my blog, I am relatively a blogging virgin (ok I am still trying to hold on to this!) I started my blog at the end of May this year, one of the reasons or inspiration for this was from reading the fantastic work and ideas that other educators around the world were doing. One of these fantastic educators that I regularly subscribed to initially through twitter was Shelly Terrell. I don’t feel that I have to introduce her because she doesn’t need any introductions you all probably know her and all probably subscribe or regularly visit her blog for ideas. I think she is absolutely amazing and makes a real contribution to the education of students all over the world through sharing ideas with all these teachers.

I urge you to visit her blog if for some strange reason you haven’t been before: http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/

You can vote for your favourite blogs (there are many different categories) by visiting the site here: http://edublogawards.com/

As in my opinion Shelly is one of the most innovative and influential educators of our time and the fact that she is so active in building such a vibrant PLN I am nominating her for Best Individual Blog. You can also follow her on twitter @ShellTerrell. Shelly we all love you! Big love from the Chickenman

I will be making more nominations in the next week or two.

E-Technologies – Curriculum developments with QCDA

Actually it isn’t that boring! zzzzzzzzzzzz

So I headed off to the train station before 6am to begin my 9 hour return journey to attend a meeting with the QCDA, as I tucked into my home made Sausage sarnie with HP sauce (ketchup is a no no) I pondered would it be worth it? Time would tell… All I knew was that I had been invited due to a project we had done with futurelab where our school had been a case study for using technology in innovative new ways within the new curriculum.

Actually I do have to say I was on a winner even though I was going to be on a train for nearly 10 hours I was going to get to spend time with more of the futurelab bunnies and more importantly finally get to meet @dawnhallybone face to face!

When we arrived we were told the main objectives of the day which was to understand role of curriculum networks, share practice how we use technology in innovative ways in the curriculum. QCDA’s main vision is that they are trying to develop a world class curriculum that will inspire and challenge learners for the future.

We started looking at curriculum networks – they have been going for the last couple of years as part of a development process with the QCDA and its curriculum development.  It consists of around 80 or so secondary schools as well as primary and special schools.

As a result of this development our school now has free access to http://www.mycurriculum.com/  What does this actually mean? Well it is a site to share good practice and network for teachers. It is in the beta stage and is not open to all but keep a look at for it going live soon.

We also heard about the home access scheme being piloted in Oldham, North West where families were given grants for computers and free internet access based on free school meals – They have found that there has been huge benefits to learners, increased parental engagement, number of parents using technology themselves has also increased.

As a follow on to this we discussed what the challenges for schools are? Do schools know how many of your pupils have home access? Do schools know how your pupils are using technology outside of school? How can the curriculum be developed to maximise the benefits of home access? How can the curriculum prepare the pupils to fully participate to the digital world?

Ben a senior researcher from Futurelab then did a presentation. He discussed some background research to the future – What are the social & technological trends in next ten years plus? (this is research carried out by futurelab for DCSF called Beyond Current Horizons):

He summarised the following; there will be Denser, deeper & a more diverse information landscape, normalisation of machines, changing adult-child relationships, weakening of institutional boundaries and the decline of ‘knowledge economy’ etc. It was all really interesting and thought provoking.

We will now see over the next few weeks what will develop out of the network created and what good practice will be shared. The highlight of the way home was seeing Jenny a guest researcher from America @jsgroff sitting on the train highlighting her new large folder about QCDA curriculums what a nerd!

Well it isn’t a new game for the xbox it is a simple, free web 2.0 way of sharing ideas by recording your own audio type podcasts. I first came across it when I read through Nik Peachey’s Web 2.0 tools for teacher’s booklet which he produced a few months back. It is a great booklet with lots of good ideas and examples of useful web 2.0 tools. If you haven’t heard of him he is definitely worth following on twitter or check out his blog: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/ 

As Nik says in his booklet “Voxopop is a web based audio tool that enables users to record their speaking for others to listen and respond to. It allows teachers and students to build up threaded audio discussions online similar to those on a text based bulletin board.” It is free and really simply to use by visiting www.voxopop.com

I used it a month or so ago with some of my Year 10 class as part of an extension activity during a lesson. The students had completed the objectives earlier than the rest of the class so to review what they had learnt I had planned earlier in the morning as part of the differentiation to set up this voxopop. It was so easy to use – I basically quickly set up an account and then created my first voxopop where I basically recorded some questions using the recording audio function on the site. I then could share the url with my students and get them to respond. So that is what I did, when the students had completed their work earlier than the rest of the class as an extension I gave them the url and asked them to respond.

You can see by clicking on the link below that this as a tool has great potential for students to collaborate and coach each other in many different ways. It can also be used in any subject and these discussions could even be created by the students themselves. Basically people just keep adding to the conversation, I thought that this could be use to build up revision podcasts for different units of work.

 Have a look at the one I produced with my students and please let us know by commenting what you think of it and what you think of voxopop as a potential web 2.0 tool.

 http://www.voxopop.com/topic/f32adfbc-c618-43dc-bc79-7bf91b85b401