ICT in my Classroom

These are some of the ideas I have been brewing over during my half term break from school. Today I managed to have a great few hours and got 3 solid looking weeks of planning done which incorporate all of these concepts. As the next few weeks pass I will reflect on their effectiveness in the classroom with our classes.

Photostory

Not a particularly new idea as this is a firm favourite for digital storytelling. I have always spoken highly of this simple application from Microsoft because it has such a clearly set out structure to follow. It is particularly beneficial for young children as there is noa chance they will get lost in an open application searching for features or trying to remember how to do things. Photostory is linear in structure and so each step has to be passed by to finish.

We have had success in the past with Photostory so it is familiar territory for the staff in Year 5 but our classes have yet to look at it with us. They had some brief experience with their classes last year but not on the scale we want to use it.

The children will be generating illustrations, clay models, images and paintings to help tell the story of James and the Giant Peach for the first few days. We are not taking on the whole story though, as the children have already written a letter explaining about his early predicament to an imaginary character. We are going to use Photostory to bring that letter to life and make it multi modal in nature. The prior writing will be a good source of support and the children will add audio and narration of their correspondence in this new digital way.

Comiqs

I first came across Comiqs from Steve Kirkpatrick’s excellent blog. There are growing numbers of online comic and cartoon sites but the feature that makes this so useful in the classroom is its simplicity. I am looking forward to mashing up their writing into this different digital form following our Photostory work. The children will have to reappraise their writing and look at the direct speech of characters in more detail due to the comic book genre.

I have contacted Michael at Comiqs regarding multiple logins and just asking advice in general about using it with a class of 30 or even 60 children in total. It is clear that a class sign in system, like Voicethread, is not yet in place so I wanted his opinion – single login for the class or multiple logins. He replied:

Currently, it might be best to use a single login and password for the site. However, managing the photos, etc, would be a bit of an issue. However, we might look into implementing a paid service with better much login and classroom support.

If this is the case it should be interesting looking out for this in the future. I am excited about letting the children loose on Comiqs and know they will enjoy using it for their digital narrative, nonetheless it remains to be seen how well it copes with large amounts of media in a single account, accessed by many children.

Google Earth

During a seminar at the Scottish Learning Festival Ewan McIntosh explained about using Google Earth for narrative in Penguin’s 21 Steps examples from Charles Cumming. The idea struck me that beginning with a journey would be a great way to tell a story and combined with the children’s general confidence around Google Earth it should be a great medium for narrative.

The idea for our own work is using James and the Giant Peach as our launch pad, but taking it in a different direction. I thought today that the class could write his escape from the clutches of his Aunt and to write the ongoing story using placemarks in Google Earth.

I spent some time hunting around for a place in England somewhere that matched the location of the house from the Dahl story. I found somewhere in Dorset I think, on a hill with a thin sliver of sea visible in the distance.

I will show the children how to create a path using Google Earth and talk through James’ possible escape. We will use the real features of the land to help inform the narrative. I will ask the children to write 6-10 parts of the escape story from James’ point of view. Each placemark could form a paragraph and must refer to the real environment around it.

I love the idea of a visual pathway beginning the story rather than traditional plans or notes. I think the children will respond well to this digital form of stroytelling and perhaps we can make it an option in the future for writing narrative. The possibilities are huge for the scope of this work and combined with other information and creative media within Google Earth layers it could really support children’s storytelling. This is the one I am most looking forward to exploring.

Woices

To support the location driven narrative of Google Earth and to provide the children with the opportunity to talk through their writing ideas prior to using GE, I have decided to plan in a few sessions using Woices. This is a geotagging audio site and is meant to be used for recording audio references “echoes” about places in the world, they then can be combined together to form a “walk” of “echoes” with something in common.

An echo is an audio record that is attached to a physical real-world location or object. Echoes are words, left by one person at some precise place, that can be listened to by anyone, as if their author was still there. Echoes can speak about any topic and respond to any user’s purpose. They can speak about local history, art, curiosities, personal memories, and so on. Just something you think its worth to leave that may make the world a more interesting place.

As soon as I saw this tool i thought digital storytelling on a map! And that is how I am planning on using it, the children will take their journey from Google Earth (see above) and record audio of James’ escape story. The children have to navigate on a world map to the location of the first piece of audio, so giving them a real location to search will be important, and then they record part of the narrative. Whereas Google Earth placemarks are the written version, Woices is the spoken version.

This is still very much an unknown service and I am unsure how it will cope with the media we will throw at it in a very short time. I will be getting in touch with the folk at Woices to forewarn them and to get some advice about usage. Once again their is an issue around many users on one single login and with lots of media being generated.

I am planning that the children will work in pairs to create their Woices audio on the map – once the “echoes” have been created they then can choose a bunch of them to create a “walk” and this will tie in together theor work creating a seamless narrative.

Of course now thinking about it the pooled audio provides for an interesting option of generating a whole variety of “walks” by combining different children’s ideas. I also had the thought that the Google Earth journey type narrative could lead from one path to another. The starting point for one child’s story could be the end of another, the whole class has the same theme and you begin with a shared/modelled piece of work and then the children take different parts of the journey. Combining to form a whole class digital journey narrative.

There are many unanswered elements here and a completely new application to explore in the classroom, but there is also the reliability of Photostory and the exciting prospect of geo-narrative in Google Earth. I am looking forward to what the children make of it all and broadening their horizons to the nature of storytelling and narrative.

I was pleased to discover that Edublogs now has the functionality to embed iframe, javacript and most object code into blog posts and sidebars. Below I have embedded the two different Google presentations on sharing good practice in Google Earth and using the IWB.

If you would like to contribute to the ongoing development of these two presentations just let me know you have a tip to share.

In order to embed a Google presentation into a post, like I have done above, just follow the screenshots.

If you have any other ways you have used javascript, iframes code etc in your Edublogs let James and the rest of the community know.

This afternoon we embarked upon the most challenging technology related work we have done to date in Year 5. The children are 4th graders, 9 or 10 years old.
Recently we all went to Perlethorpe Activity Centre to support our work on rivers – we measured the velocity and profile of the River Meden, as well as enjoying a lovely sunny walk around the grounds of Thoresby Hall. As we walked round I snapped away some pictures and this afternoon we had the opportunity to geotag them in Google Earth(GE).

The children have used GE many times already this year, so I decided to take advantage of this knowledge as opposed to using Google Maps or Quikmaps as I have done in the past. The geotagging work ties nicely into their ongoing map skills development and is a good conclusion to the visit.

This video clip is one of the children completing the process of embedding an image from Flickr into a GE placemark, using the correct written code. (<img src=”">)It certainly was a challenge for the children but once they had written the code a number of times, and often corrected their mistakes, they were flying.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5612066013521995380" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Here is what you have seen Kyle do in a step by step guide.

1. Find an image stored somewhere online, study it carefully and try to pick up on any clues as to where it is. Remember when you geotag an image it should really be located where the photographer was standing when it was taken, not the subject of the image.
2. Copy the location or url of the image – in Firefox you can just right click and “Copy Image Location”. IE take the URL from “Properties”
3. Now navigate back to your new placemark in GE. Make sure you are looking at the properties window – you will add the code in the “description” part.
4. If you just paste the address it will not display the image because you have not told the map to retrieve anything, it will just return a link. You need to add in a little code.
5. All you need to do is ensure the image URL is encoded with the highlighted parts in the example below.
6. <img src=”alovelypicture.online.234.jpg“>
7. Now click OK. If you click on the placemark it should open up with the image inside.
8. When embedding video or other media – just look for the “Blog This” option, and paste the generated code straight into the placemark balloon. Google video can be added pretty easily in this way.

The visual / spatial skills needed to correctly place an image on a map is an interesting one to explore. The children were looking very closely at what clues the image revealed as to the exact whereabouts of it.

I told the children that they would have had a successful afternoon if they could embed just one image in a placemark at the correct location. But, just as they often do, the children ran with it and tagged many pictures correctly on the map. A challenging but ultimately successful afternoon of GE mapping work.

(I will add a link to some example KMZ work as well as a Google Map of our work from today when I can.)

I hope that some of you have enjoyed reading the 33 Interesting Ways (and tips) to use your Interactive Whiteboard. The Google presentation continues to grow as people contribute, the last three tips are titled:

• #31 – Snap it! (using the SMART capture tool)
• #32 – Check by order (self checking method using the layering of SMART Nbk objects)
• #33 – Befuddle It (using Befuddle to create a picture puzzle from your Nbk pages)

Well there is a new kid on the block looking for help!

I have begun a new Google presentation (currently) titled: “Four Eighteen interesting ways (and tips) to use Google Earth in the classroom.” It follows the same model as the IWB presentation, in that it is an open resource that needs your contributions in order to grow. Please feel free to share with your colleagues if you find it useful, spread the word or even embed in your blog.

Contribute one idea or contribute ten! I have made a start – the process is easy.

1. Go to the presentation and take a look at was has been contributed. If you would like to be added as a collaborator send me an email (thomasgeorgebarrett [at] googlemail [dot] com – or use the contact tab at the top of this page – or even send me a direct message via Twitter I am tombarrett) I will invite you in as a collaborator.
2. Add your one slide, one idea and one image.
3. Change the presentation title slide and file name to match the number of ideas.

It will have a humble beginning as before, but I know with your help it will soon grow into something that offers a uniquely authored resource, sharing good Google Earth practice from around the world.

Last week I had a fantastic afternoon which saw, for the first time I can recall, my learning network impacting in real time on my lesson and the children’s learning.

I had planned to do 2 sessions with our two Year 5 (9/10 yr olds) classes on the usual introduction to Google Earth type content but it all changed. Sometimes things just happen and I love those sort of sessions – the unknown, the edgy, the challenging sessions that we all learn more from than sticking to the usual, grey sessions we could do with our eyes closed. Pushing the boundaries a little.

Needless to say Twitter and Google Earth were involved, and the latter is not a particularly new tool – but the combination of both created very powerful real time discovery. A few moments before the children came in from lunch, I asked my network to challenge the children to find them in Google Earth, to search and discover their location from a few scraps of info via Twitter. Well the challenges rolled in and in a couple of hours we had 25 different people to track down.

Of course we got stuck in straight away and I sent the first class off trying to find the locations of our helpful teacher GeoTweets! Then it occurred to me that we had to reply in some way and prove that we had found them, so once we had identified where they were we Tweeted them a message with the proof. Here is an example:

Not much there but we did a quick look at technolibrary’s Twitter profile and soon found her location on her blog. Off the kids went trying to track down her school. The imagery was excellent and we could even read the words on their football pitch! Of course hidden under all of this excitement is children using the search and layers tools to refine what they are looking at – some of them using GE for the first time.

Here is the Tweet I sent to prove we were there…

and

The children’s efforts were driven by a real purpose and I always think that such a context around any edtech helps to push it to one side and we focus on the learning going on – not just the tool. Of course we had some trouble finding Clay Burell :-0

As you can imagine we had lots of fun exploring the world and the real time challenges from real people – that is the power of bringing Twitter into the classroom. I repeated the session with another class and just refreshed the request for challenges in the break. It worked out to be a wonderful intro to Google Earth which would also work really well with adult learners or during a professional development course.

Towards the end of the sessions we found Chris Lehmann and the Science Leadership Academy. The kids found it fascinating as we looked at the 3D buildings layer and what more GE had to offer.

Here is a quick summary of how you could use this concept in your classroom:

• Ask your Twitter network for challenges, GeoTweets if you will. Do this in advance of the session to give people time to respond.
• Guide the children quietly – you want them to be explorers not tourists!
• Encourage the children to found out about the area of the GeoTweet – find proof – we found the name of the local garage for one!
• Tweet back the proof to the sender to say you have found them. Maybe ask a further question about the area.
• We used my own Twitter network as I wanted the children to focus on using and exploring Google Earth.
• If you think your network isn’t quite at that tipping point where it will give live results, then you can prep it before hand and ask for specific responses a couple of days before. Ask others to pass on the request to their network – spread the word a bit.
• Some children will not find some of the locations because of the inaccuracy of their search. Encourage them to check and retype.
• Display the GeoTweets on a separate board or in a different application because Twitter’s timeline shifts everything down. You could use the screen capture tool in SMART Notebook (or other IWB app) to pin up current searches.
• Get different groups of children searching for different people – to spread the work.
• Be flexible and relax – this is a live session and is in the hands of your network, go with the flow of it. You have invited your network to contribute something so be prepared for the change of pace. You may have to wait, be patient – also you may have to juggle lots of GeoTweets.
• Remember to explain what Twitter is to your kids! Explain about the connections it cultivates, you may be surprised by their reaction.
• Have fun!

A big thankyou to the 25 odd people who jumped in with their challenges for my classes we had a great afternoon of GeoTweeting fun!

At this time of year I like to look at this great resource in Google Earth I think it will be a useful teaching aid for Science.

It shows the leaf colour of major forests in and around the UK, the information is gathered from the Forestry Commission sites and layered into Google Earth. The colours will change as the Autumn season progresses.
Open this Placemark

Take a look at my wikispace for classroom uses of Google Earth for further resources. 

In my class assembly on Thursday I am going to talk to my children about the missing adventurer Steve Fossett and how with the use of technology I have managed to help look for him. Even though I am some 5000 miles away from where his plane is meant to have been flying, with the use of technology I, we can help.

I sat down and following a post in my Google Reader I went to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and after registering, searched for Steve’s plane or the wreckage of it using Google Earth. Anyone can register and help look – you are given a HIT, a Human Intelligence Task – in this instance to review a small satellite image for any clues to his whereabouts. You are also given a precise set of coordinates, I put these into the “Fly-To” in Google Earth and took a look at the exact location. Brand new, up to date satellite imagery needs to be opened via a KML file and then it is a matter of scouring the small area as part of your task.

Once you have taken a look go back to the Amazon site and complete the HIT by checking the appropriate choice. It took me about 15 minutes to look at about 10 distinct areas almost 1 square kilometer of searching.

This is a human story that has a history – as Jim Gray, when lost at sea, was also searched for unfortunately without the right outcome. I hope that something good comes from this deployment of human and technological effort. There is obviously hundreds of square kilometers to search, but if everyone does a little bit perhaps there still may be a positive outcome.

Image: ‘Spirit Freedom‘
www.flickr.com/photos/15572047@N00/324409978

Last Thursday night I presented to Ivanhoe Grammar School about the uses of ICT in my classroom. But this was no ordinary professional development event, Ivanhoe is in Melbourne, Australia.

We conducted the net cast using a free trial on some desktop conferencing software and used Skype for the voice call. It was quite a challenge for me as you don’t have the ability to see the faces of your audience so you don’t know when to go back over things or just shut-up fo a minute! Joseph Papaleo helped organise the event for his school and from his responses it seemed to be a success.

During the presentation I covered a range of topics, giving practical examples of their use in my classroom -

>>Blogs
> Writing for a real audience and purpose
> Visitors and comments

>>Google Earth
> Starting the day with a “Wow!”
> Going beyond geography
> Being an information tourist

>>Using Wikihow for instructional writing

>>Turning Point audience voting system

>>MS Photostory – an alternative presentation tool

I would just like to thank Joseph and the staff at Ivanhoe for inviting me to present and I hope that although the line was a bit poor you all were able to take something that could make an impact in your classroom.

Two boys from Year 4 just about burst into my classroom this afternoon proclaiming that they had been left a comment from a teacher in Australia! They were the very picture of excitement and I was too, we loaded up their class blog and read the comment. I said that they needed to go and find where Geelong was on an map, they replied, in a very matter of fact way…

“We have already looked it up on Google Earth.”

Wow, missed that one. This is one very happy ICT Coordinator. Thanks John

As long as my tired eyes are not deceiving me I spotted that my “Classroom Google Earth” wikispace has been nominated in the Best Wiki 2006 in the Edublog awards!

How mad is that!

I feel honoured to be included and that someone even nominated the space – I hope that you can take a minute to vote, I have done so at least I have one!!

(Updated the broken vote link thanks)

I will have to clear some room on my virtual mantlepiece!

How rude of me – these are the other nominees (who incidentally are far more worthy of the award)

• APWH Wiki

• David Warlick’s CoLearners Wiki

• Flat Classroom Project

• Schome

• SupportBlogging