Rob Sbaglia's Posts - Classroom 2.02024-03-29T08:20:24ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbagliahttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1950390770?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.classroom20.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1lamahsu0srt1&xn_auth=noSix Months in a Leaky Boattag:www.classroom20.com,2012-06-13:649749:BlogPost:8447892012-06-13T03:59:05.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>I'm embarrassed sometimes by the attitude some Australians have to our neighbours, New Zealand. Frankly, I'm a bit of a fan of the kiwis. They've given the world plenty, but for mine, their finest contribution has to be the Finn brothers...<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FeKdUeb1InI?rel=0&wmode=opaque" width="420"></iframe>
</p>
<p>One of the more mundane challenges of global learning, as I'm quickly discovering, is the lack of coordination in…</p>
<p>I'm embarrassed sometimes by the attitude some Australians have to our neighbours, New Zealand. Frankly, I'm a bit of a fan of the kiwis. They've given the world plenty, but for mine, their finest contribution has to be the Finn brothers...<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FeKdUeb1InI?rel=0&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<p>One of the more mundane challenges of global learning, as I'm quickly discovering, is the lack of coordination in holidays between the northern and southern hemispheres. With most of the Writers' Clubs' schools located on the other side of the equator, they're now frolicking in the warmth for three months, while we here in the south hunker down for a winter of mid-year reports and a brief mid-year break before the "premiership" term, term three.</p>
<p>I was suddenly aghast. What will happen to our Writers' Club without some of our star performers? Will it go into hibernation, awaiting the spring and a new influx of students?</p>
<p>Fortunately, New Zealand has come to the rescue. Our group of Australian schools can now do some trans-Tasman sharing of writing before the tidal wave of northern hemisphere of schools comes online to join us. Pinehill School in Auckland have already signed up, and have taken to the community like a duck to water. Welcome!</p>
<p>You can check out their writers <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/members/?s=Pinehill%20School">here</a>. In the meantime, check out some more of the fantastic Finns...<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J9gKyRmic20?rel=0&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>Find and Be Foundtag:www.classroom20.com,2012-06-11:649749:BlogPost:8438642012-06-11T05:16:03.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Find-and-be-found.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-753" height="375" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Find-and-be-found.jpg" title="Find and be found" width="500"></img></a></p>
<p>I'm often asked what the point of the Writers' Club is if you are already blogging. Surely having a global audience is not exactly revolutionary - all you need to do is to start a blog, and theoretically, you have a global audience, right?</p>
<p>Well, yes and no. The big problem I have found with blogging in the classroom is (a) finding the blogs of others, and (b) having your blog found by…</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Find-and-be-found.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-753" title="Find and be found" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Find-and-be-found.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375"/></a></p>
<p>I'm often asked what the point of the Writers' Club is if you are already blogging. Surely having a global audience is not exactly revolutionary - all you need to do is to start a blog, and theoretically, you have a global audience, right?</p>
<p>Well, yes and no. The big problem I have found with blogging in the classroom is (a) finding the blogs of others, and (b) having your blog found by others. The result is your audience, and hence the number of comments you receive, are usually pretty small.</p>
<p>And I speak from experience. If you're reading this on the *official* Rob Sbaglia blog, at <a href="http://sbaglia.com">sbaglia.com</a>, you should know that this is my 112th published post, and once you take away replies I've made to comments on this blog, the total number of comments this blog has recieved is.... (drum roll)... thirty five. That's an average of 0.31 comments per blog post, or not even one comment per three published posts. And I'm out there tweeting my posts, putting them on Facebook, reposting on nings and so on and so forth. I can only imagine what an average ten year old's blog receives if they are blogging.</p>
<p>So how to give students an audience for their work? Some teachers take to twitter to get their kids an audience - there is even a #comments4kids hashtag for that specific purpose. But <a href="http://adriancamm.com/post/21954568252/gadgets-fetishism-web-2-0">as Adrian Camm recently noted</a>, this is somewhat artificial. And it's not sustainable. I want my students being able to find and be found without the need for my assistance.</p>
<p>The Writers' Club does this in a number of ways. First, it uses <a href="http://buddypress.org">Buddypress</a>, a social network plugin that goes "over the top" of the blogs. It makes it much easier to find the blogs of other student authors around the world, and to have your work be found by those same authors. It does this in a number of ways.</p>
<p>First, there is an <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/activity/">activity stream</a> that shows all the recent happenings across the site. You can refine this stream by seeing just the recent blog posts, comments, forum posts, and so on.</p>
<p>Secondly, because everyone is a member of the one big community, there is no need for putting in email addresses or anything else to identify the person leaving the content. The account you use to write on your own blog is the account you use to comment on the other six hundred blogs that are on the site. This means that if you comment on my blog, I can click on your name and YOUR Writers' Club blog automatically pops up. I can then go look at your work and return the favour.</p>
<p>Thirdly, there is a nice little plugin called "<a href="http://http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/achievements">achievements</a>". This gives awards to students automatically based on their contribution to the community. Students get points for writing blog posts, commenting on the posts of others, responding to the feedback from others, commenting on blogs from other countries, and so on.</p>
<p>Is it working? Well, students are getting more comments on their blogs than I am. I think that's a pretty good start.</p>Humanising the classroomtag:www.classroom20.com,2012-05-29:649749:BlogPost:8403352012-05-29T02:00:00.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>I was preparing a presentation for differentiating mathematics using technology recently, and ended up editing a TED talk by Salman Khan.</p>
<p></p>
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<p>What struck me was Khan's idea that technology can humanise the classroom - which, as Khan acknowledges, is in some ways counterintuitive. Indeed, when I talk to teachers about technology in the classroom, they have visions of a very inhuman scenario, where students have their eyes glued to the screens, interacting…</p>
<p>I was preparing a presentation for differentiating mathematics using technology recently, and ended up editing a TED talk by Salman Khan.</p>
<p></p>
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<p>What struck me was Khan's idea that technology can humanise the classroom - which, as Khan acknowledges, is in some ways counterintuitive. Indeed, when I talk to teachers about technology in the classroom, they have visions of a very inhuman scenario, where students have their eyes glued to the screens, interacting with noone. I'd argue that many things that currently happen in traditional classrooms are dehumanizing; however, we don't see them this way because that's how classrooms have always been. I'd also argue that technology can humanize these experiences. Here are four things I've invested time and effort into that have humanized the classroom.</p>
<p><strong>Humanizing instruction</strong></p>
<p>As Khan points out, the traditional classroom is predicated on the idea of teacher-led instruction. Teachers give a one-size-fits-all lecture; teachers choose when this occurs and around what topics. And teachers are the ones who decide when the class moves on to the next topic. This dehumanising experience can be humanised through the use of video. By allowing students to experience the instruction that they require for their own specific learning needs; by allowing students to pause and rewind instruction when they don't understand; and by allowing them to move forward to a new concept in their own time depending their individual progress allows us to humanise instruction in a way not possible without technology.<iframe width="400" height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27432447?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p><strong>Humanizing showing understanding</strong></p>
<p>In a traditional classroom, the way students show their understanding is similarly one-size-fits-all. The worksheet, test, exam, essay, poster and other traditional methods of assessment restrict student choice and may alienate students without certain skills; for example, a lack of literacy skills may hinder a student showing their potentially excellent understanding of Mathematics. Technology allows students to show their understanding in new ways, gives them far more choices, and removes the dehumanising necessity for one-size-fits-all assessment.<iframe width="400" height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27961122?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<p><strong>Humanizing writing</strong></p>
<p>The purpose of writing is to communicate. To communicate requires an audience. Writing without an audience is like public speaking to an empty room - a dehumanizing experience. Yet this is exactly what happens in a traditional classroom - students write in writing books where the audience is close to zero. Technology can humanize this experience of writing by providing an audience of hundreds or thousands, spread around the world, allowing students to connect to peers and be exposed to feedback and new writing styles and, at the same time, cultural understandings. Our <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a> does exactly this, and has led to very real human interactions around the world. This is what real writing should be about.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/395767396?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/395767396?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a><br/> <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/395769651?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/395769651?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Humanizing research</strong></p>
<p>Technology has taken us from books to google as a source of information. However, anyone who has done research in the real world knows that research comes as much from other humans as it is from secondary sources. Nevertheless, we persist in ignoring this more authentic source of research for the reference books and googling. Technology can humanise research by linking students to real life experts who can assist students to use their research with greater purpose, and be a more realistic representation of research in the 21st century.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Virtual-expert-montage.jpg" class="alignnone" width="800" height="600"/></p>Bahasa Bahasatag:www.classroom20.com,2012-05-10:649749:BlogPost:8362452012-05-10T23:18:32.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/77035_446695638164_543798164_5494987_1354337_n.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignright size-full wp-image-707" height="540" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/77035_446695638164_543798164_5494987_1354337_n.jpg" title="Perugia" width="720"></img></a> Since learning to speak a language myself, I've valued the role of languages in schools. One of the most life-changing periods of my life was when I went to live in the city of Perugia as a part of my PhD studies in 2000-2001. Immersed in Italian language, I went from knowing a few words to becoming close to fluent in three months. It was an astonishing transformation, one…</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/77035_446695638164_543798164_5494987_1354337_n.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/77035_446695638164_543798164_5494987_1354337_n.jpg" alt="" title="Perugia" width="720" height="540" class="alignright size-full wp-image-707"/></a>Since learning to speak a language myself, I've valued the role of languages in schools. One of the most life-changing periods of my life was when I went to live in the city of Perugia as a part of my PhD studies in 2000-2001. Immersed in Italian language, I went from knowing a few words to becoming close to fluent in three months. It was an astonishing transformation, one that has enriched my life in so many ways. I fell deeply in love with the city and my experiences there, and it always has a place in my heart. <a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/photo.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/photo-1024x768.jpg" alt="" title="photo" width="580" height="435" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-708"/></a>Fast forward 11 years. I've gone from research scientist to secondary teacher to primary teacher to eLearning coach. And the
<a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a> continues to evolve and expand. But now, a new frontier has opened up. We recently welcomed a school from Indonesia to the site. This changes things, as Indonesian is the language taught at our school. Through our contact, we linked up via Skype this week.</p>
<p>So now this has me thinking - this has the potential to bring a whole new dimension to our language program. The <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a> enables students to blog, but blogging in a foreign language (for both schools) could be asking a bit much. Do the students start a pen-pal relationship using the messaging function? Do they use forums? How does Skype fit in?</p>
<p>My head is spinning. I can see the tremendous value in this, but my lack of knowledge of how to teach languages is stifling my ideas. I am pleased though that this is yet another way for the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a> to facilitate connections around the world.</p>
<p>Advice?</p>Castlemaine, Shanghai, Coloradotag:www.classroom20.com,2012-04-29:649749:BlogPost:8339052012-04-29T00:08:30.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>What could these three diverse places, a small town in country Australia, a large international city in China, and a mountainous state the US, possibly have in common?</p>
<p>I must say, when I started dipping my toes into the global education water, I had my doubts. It’s not that I thought global education wasn’t worthwhile… I thought of it as a “nice to have” rather than an essential part of my classroom. Like the best discoveries in life, the benefits of connecting globally have revealed…</p>
<p>What could these three diverse places, a small town in country Australia, a large international city in China, and a mountainous state the US, possibly have in common?</p>
<p>I must say, when I started dipping my toes into the global education water, I had my doubts. It’s not that I thought global education wasn’t worthwhile… I thought of it as a “nice to have” rather than an essential part of my classroom. Like the best discoveries in life, the benefits of connecting globally have revealed themselves to me, little by little, and in surprising ways. I want to write about two unforeseen benefits.</p>
<p>On April 21st, I, along with my erstwhile colleague Simone Uren, presented our global work at the Social Learning Summit, with a cameo from one of a small group of online global colleagues with whom I have formed a real collaborative relationship with, Toni Olivieri-Barton. To be honest, I had modest hopes for the presentation. Yet for several hours afterwards, into the wee small hours of the morning, Simone and I couldn’t stop talking about how well it went.</p>
<p>Much of this success was due to the contribution of Toni, who brought skills and experience that Simone and I simply don’t have. How amazing it is to be able to draw upon the skills on someone you’ve never met. The other thing that struck me is how supported I felt in this community of international educators that, again, I’ve never met. This left me feeling humbled. I should mention in particular the support of Lucy Gray, who has been encouraging me from afar for quite some time now. And this to me is one of the unforeseen benefits of global education. For if you are reading this, you are probably a minority in your school. The culture of schools – endlessly subdivided into units, classes, schools, networks, whatever – can be horrendously isolating places if you think differently. The knowledge that you aren’t isolated, that there are educators out there who understand where you are coming from, can be a really important for your own sanity. And, as in the case of Toni, you can find that the people who ease this sense of isolation can also push you further.</p>
<p>Toni forms the link to the second unforeseen benefit. She works at Shanghai Community International School, but hails from Colorado. It is from Colorado that one of our recent(ish) additions to the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/">Writers Club</a>, Manitou Springs Middle School, is located. To say the students from this school, and this class that is involved, have taken the Writers’ Club by storm, would be an understatement. The quality of <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/members/?s=Manitou%20Springs%20Middle%20School">these students’ writing</a> is incredible. But as importantly, the way these students use the community itself is a notch above what our students have been doing. They are <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/groups/">self organizing into groups around reading and writing</a> without direction from a teacher. Exposure to such quality would have been difficult at a small school such as ours.And so, our students at Castlemaine North, for so long the leaders, (and possibly a touch complacent) are now exposed to a standard of both writing and collaboration that is pushing them to new heights.</p>
<p>So really, I just want to end this rather incoherent post by saying thank you. Thank you to all who attended our session at the Social Learning Summit. Thank you Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray and all the moderators and everyone else who contributes not just to global learning, and provides teachers and students with possibilities not possible in a traditional school setting. Thank you to all the teachers who use and support the Writers’ Club and have made it the most amazing journey so far. Thank you, Toni, for being a fantastic support. And thank you to the entire global community of educators who save my sanity time and again. I promise to get better at being a member of the community, and hope to give back what you have given me.</p>Ownershiptag:www.classroom20.com,2012-04-23:649749:BlogPost:8321842012-04-23T05:15:39.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ownership.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-691" height="203" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ownership-300x203.jpg" title="Ownership" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p>This photo is of my brother and I in 1994. This is our first car, which we shared ownership over. If you can believe it, I'm the guy on the left! The colour of the car, if you're interested, is "Cypress Metallic Green".</p>
<p>If there's one thing I've been acutely aware of since working with teachers, it's making sure I don't rob teachers of a sense of ownership. I think this is because I know how I…</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ownership.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ownership-300x203.jpg" alt="" title="Ownership" width="300" height="203" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-691"/></a></p>
<p>This photo is of my brother and I in 1994. This is our first car, which we shared ownership over. If you can believe it, I'm the guy on the left! The colour of the car, if you're interested, is "Cypress Metallic Green".</p>
<p>If there's one thing I've been acutely aware of since working with teachers, it's making sure I don't rob teachers of a sense of ownership. I think this is because I know how I feel when I am doing something I perceive I don't have ownership over. I'm someone who really needs to be involved in something or else I disengage in it.</p>
<p>This raises some interesting questions for the kind of work I do now. Often I am leading the use of technology in classrooms - which means I am usually creating something : communities, websites, tutorials, ideas... which I assume others will find of benefit to them. But always gnawing at the back of my head is, "how do I give people ownership over the things I create? How would I feel if I was on the other side of the fence?". On the other hand, I feel that sometimes you DO need someone to take the lead and kick things off, and I do acknowledge that not everyone is like me, and some teachers do indeed appreciate being given strong direction.</p>
<p>This issue has been raising its head with our <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub" target="_blank">Writers' Club</a>. The idea is that I create blogs for students of the teachers that join, and they instantly become part of a global community. Which is fine for those who have never had their kids blogging. But what about teachers who are already blogging with their kids? Do they need to abandon their work to join our community? And does this then represent a lose-lose situation, where we miss out on being involved with teachers who already have significant expertise with blogging and global education, and they miss out on being part of a vibrant community?</p>
<p>For a long time, I wrestled with the idea. I talked at length to my colleague in Shanghai, Toni Olivieri-Barton, about it, and I came to the conclusion that, eventually, the audience factor would win, and teachers would be convinced to start afresh on the Writers' Club.</p>
<p>But this ignores the need for the teachers to have ownership.</p>
<p>So when Denton Avenue from New York joined, ready with their blogs, I decided to give them accounts but let them have their own blogs as well. And it works. The students with their own blogs simply put their blog address into their profile, so that when their profile is clicked on by a Writers' Club member, they see the student's blog address and can visit and comment on their blog, outside the Writers' Club. The security of the site is still maintained, the students with their own blogs benefit because they are able to participate in the community and drive readers to their blogs by doing so; and the current members of the Writers' Club benefit by having new things to read and have a greater audience for their own work.</p>
<p>It's not ideal - it would be simpler if everyone had a blog on the Writers' Club. But if I can convince those teachers already doing great stuff that this work won't replace what they do but enhance it, and I can bring even more students from around the world together, then it is for the best.</p>100 reasons to join the Writers' Clubtag:www.classroom20.com,2012-04-16:649749:BlogPost:8282122012-04-16T07:24:15.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>Right, if this doesn't convince you, nothing will!</p>
<p>100 reasons to <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/join-us/" rel="nofollow">join</a> the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub" rel="nofollow">Writers Club</a></p>
<p>1. It's free!</p>
<p>2. All the legwork is done for you, by me</p>
<p>3. It gives your students an authentic audience</p>
<p>4. It's an already functioning community, not just an idea</p>
<p>5. It's secure - only community members can comment on…</p>
<p>Right, if this doesn't convince you, nothing will!</p>
<p>100 reasons to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/join-us/">join</a> the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers Club</a></p>
<p>1. It's free!</p>
<p>2. All the legwork is done for you, by me</p>
<p>3. It gives your students an authentic audience</p>
<p>4. It's an already functioning community, not just an idea</p>
<p>5. It's secure - only community members can comment on blogs</p>
<p>6. It uses Wordpress- the most common blogging platform</p>
<p>7. Because its about writing, you don't need to change your curriculum to fit - all genres of writing can be shared</p>
<p>8. It has students from Grade 2 to Year 8, so there are plenty of students on there the right age</p>
<p>9. No advertising</p>
<p>10. No need for time zones to align</p>
<p>11. You are in a community with globally-minded teachers who may want to do other projects</p>
<p>12. If you like more structure, you can do quadblogging - one of our optional projects</p>
<p>13. Schools can participate in cultural exchanges through our Global Penfriends project</p>
<p>14. You don't have to begin and end your participation at a particular time - you can work on a global stage for as long as you want, pause when you want, and drop out when you want</p>
<p>15. Your own ideas for writing can be incorporated into the club (as quadblogging and global penfriends were)</p>
<p>16. "Achievements" encourage the students to contribute</p>
<p>17. Students and teachers can create their own groups around certain topics and ideas</p>
<p>18. Students can discuss books they are reading and recommend them to each other</p>
<p>19. You don't have to sign up a particular number of students. Sign up one or a whole class!</p>
<p>20. There are experienced literacy experts who form part of our community and may comment on your students' blogs</p>
<p>21. Maps help students locate authors and those who comment on their blogs</p>
<p>22. A twitter feed pushes their writing beyond the club</p>
<p>23. Students can track their favorite authors by "friend"ing them</p>
<p>24. Students don't need email addresses to participate.</p>
<p>25. You can engage your passionate writers by presenting this as a special opportunity</p>
<p>26. The site is monitored by teachers</p>
<p>27. Students build their own global personal learning network</p>
<p>28. Students can be exposed to new styles of writing</p>
<p>29. Students can be exposed to new standards of writing</p>
<p>30. Students can influence and inspire the writing of others</p>
<p>31. Students can be influenced and inspired by the writing of others</p>
<p>32. Cultural assumptions can be challenged</p>
<p>33. Students can add illustrations to their work</p>
<p>34. No awkward usernames or passwords</p>
<p>35. Administrators are friendly and helpful</p>
<p>36. No fancy technology needed. Text is easy.</p>
<p>37. We have tutorial videos to help you get started</p>
<p>38. Students can customer their blog using themes</p>
<p>39. Student avatars personalize their online presence in the community</p>
<p>40. Extended profiles enable students to tell the community what inspires them</p>
<p>41. We have a diverse community of 8 nationalities</p>
<p>42. Search pages make it easy to find authors from a particular country, school or grade level</p>
<p>43. There are some awesome writers on the site already</p>
<p>44. The site is constantly being improved</p>
<p>45. It won't be open to all forever!</p>
<p>46. Set blogs visible to only the community</p>
<p>47. Want students working together? We can create group blogs</p>
<p>48. Already have students blogging? We can create accounts for you that link back to your original blogs</p>
<p>49. Students can make posts private</p>
<p>50. Students can flag material they don't think is appropriate</p>
<p>51. Excellent setting for teaching digital citizenship</p>
<p>52. Run by teachers, for teachers. No commercial interests.</p>
<p>53. No spam!</p>
<p>54. Extend your top writers... How would your work change if you were writing for an international audience?</p>
<p>55. The club has been presented internationally</p>
<p>56. Teach students comprehension and questioning through commenting</p>
<p>57. Students improve quality of writing when writing for an audience</p>
<p>58. Research shows students who use ICT for writing write more often</p>
<p>59. Research shows students who use ICT for writing write more</p>
<p>60. Research shows students who use ICT for writing make more revisions</p>
<p>61. Research shows students who use ICT for writing make fewer errors</p>
<p>62. Our social network interface makes it easier for your blog to be found</p>
<p>63. Wordpress is constantly improving their software</p>
<p>64. 24/7 access to your students' writing</p>
<p>65. Showcase work of your students or others around the world to your class</p>
<p>66. Easy way to connect your class globally</p>
<p>67. Use the blog as a tool for student accountability</p>
<p>68. Empower students - let them make global connections</p>
<p>69. Regular updates from us keep you in the loop</p>
<p>70. Simplified interface makes it easier for students to use the blogging platform</p>
<p>71. Set up Skype appointments between students to discuss writing</p>
<p>72. A "random blog" button will transport you around the globe instantly</p>
<p>73. Students can add their own global map to monitor where their readers are coming from</p>
<p>74. Allow students to find like-minded writers that might not be present in your own class or school</p>
<p>75. Twitter-like activity stream helps community members stay in touch</p>
<p>76. Achievements leader board celebrates the most prolific contributors to the community</p>
<p>77. We are unique in our use of a social network to link blogs together, and our open-ended approach to global collaboration</p>
<p>78. We have a long term goal of getting authors involved as community members - imagine getting your writing commented on by a real-life author!</p>
<p>79. This site is a template for other global collaborative projects - we have a sister project for science, and we plan to cultivate others. Your involvement in this site may lead to other global education opportunities.</p>
<p>80. Next time your class is studying a certain country, you may already have the links there through our Writers' club.</p>
<p>81. We're big - 500 students already</p>
<p>82. Equality of participation. Once you're in, you're in. Start immediately. Your school is on an equal footing, no matter how long they've been involved.</p>
<p>83. Slow connection? Our site is low bandwidth friendly</p>
<p>84. Makes global ed a regular part of everyday teaching</p>
<p>85. Administered by teachers with extensive experience in using technology in education</p>
<p>86. Can be used to share audio and video</p>
<p>87. Growing fast : 0 to 25 schools in less than a year</p>
<p>88. No personal details needed: just a first name</p>
<p>89. Give students a genuine purpose for writing</p>
<p>90. Allows students to use social networking the way professionals do</p>
<p>91. Participating in quadblogging ensures your students receive comments regularly</p>
<p>92. Get other ideas for teaching writing from other classes around the world</p>
<p>93. Join with a feeder school and get students connecting with their future schools</p>
<p>94. Engage previously disengaged students in writing</p>
<p>95. Personalize learning for your students by allowing them to choose their participation in the club</p>
<p>96. Give your students the chance to get constructive feedback from numerous sources</p>
<p>97. Easy for teachers to provide feedback from anywhere they have an Internet connection</p>
<p>98. Hard to lose work - blogs autosave and writing can be accessed from any blog</p>
<p>99. The world our students are going Into is going to require them to work with people around the world - this is a great way to prepare</p>
<p>100. It's run with a vision to improve learning for students around the world, by teachers with limitless passion</p>Weak Tiestag:www.classroom20.com,2012-03-12:649749:BlogPost:8154322012-03-12T05:18:12.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/loose-tie-by-rigmarole.jpg"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-647" height="200" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/loose-tie-by-rigmarole-300x200.jpg" title="loose tie by rigmarole" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p>Reposted from <a href="http://sbaglia.com">sbaglia.com</a></p>
<p>If you could teach your students one lesson from outside the curriculum, what would it be?</p>
<p>For mine, it would be that old chestnut, "It's not what you know, it's who you know".</p>
<p>I used to think this phrase was a synonym for nepotism, but either I had it wrong all along or, with the advent of social media, it…</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/loose-tie-by-rigmarole.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-647" title="loose tie by rigmarole" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/loose-tie-by-rigmarole-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200"/></a></p>
<p>Reposted from <a href="http://sbaglia.com">sbaglia.com</a></p>
<p>If you could teach your students one lesson from outside the curriculum, what would it be?</p>
<p>For mine, it would be that old chestnut, "It's not what you know, it's who you know".</p>
<p>I used to think this phrase was a synonym for nepotism, but either I had it wrong all along or, with the advent of social media, it has come to take on a new meaning. I'm reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell, and I found this paragraph which showed the importance of who you know better than I ever could...</p>
<blockquote>In his classic 1974 study "Getting a Job", Granovetter looked at several hundred professional and technical workers from the Boston suburb of Newton, interviewing them in some detail on their employment history.He found that 56% of those he talked to found their job through a personal connection... But curiously, Granovetter found that of those personal connections, the majority were "weak ties". Of those who used a contact to find a job, only 16.7% saw that contact "often" - as they would if the contact were a good friend - and 55.6% saw their contact "rarely". People weren't getting their jobs through their friends. They were getting them through their acquaintances.</blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Why is this? Granovetter argues that it is because when it comes to finding out about new jobs - or, for that matter, new information, or new ideas - "weak ties" are always more important than strong ones. Your friends, after all, occupy the same world that you do. They might work with you, or live near you, and go to the same churches, schools, or parties. How much, then, would they know that you wouldn't know? Your acquaintances, on the other hand, by definition occupy a very different world than you. They are much more likely to know something that you don't. To capture this apparent paradox, Granovetter coined a marvelous phrase: the strength of weak ties. Acquaintances, in short, represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.</p>
</blockquote>
<br/> I think this a big reason as to why I am so fervent in my belief around the two international communities I have set up - the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a> and <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/science">Science @ The North</a>School. They allow students to create weak ties with people that are different to them. They know things they don't know, and they can help our students access new information or, more excitingly, generate new ideas.<p>The idea that the absence of a variety of weak ties in disadvantages communities limits opportunities for students from those communities has been floating around in my head for the last couple of weeks. Students from big cities, with educated and/or wealthy parents, are likely to have access to these weak ties - note how my cousin from last week was able to access me, someone with a PhD in chemistry, for help with her chemistry homework. However, for students in remote places, small places, or who come from a background of disadvantage, perhaps these weak ties can make them more powerful and give them a better chance to compete with their better connected peers.</p>
<p>With the Writers' Club, it gives students the opportunity to form weak ties with students from other countries; with Science @ The North School, it gives them the opportunity to form weak ties with real-life scientists. In a small country town like Castlemaine, these opportunities are harder to come by, even for those with an educated background, much less those with a history of disadvantage.</p>
<p>If it really is "who you know", I want to give my students every opportunity to know the world.</p>Fish is Fishtag:www.classroom20.com,2012-01-02:649749:BlogPost:7899852012-01-02T03:58:18.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p><img alt="" class="alignnone" height="283" src="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/carle/images/fish.jpg" width="485"></img></p>
<p>One of the most beautiful things about having a child is how it reconnects you with your own childhood. Over the holidays, with Georgina spending more time at my mother's place, her grandmother went scurrying into the bedroom and dug out some of my old books so I could read them to my daughter. One that caught my eye was one I have vivid memories of, 'Fish is Fish'. The illustration above particularly sticks in my mind.</p>
<p>The storyline goes along the lines of two…</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/carle/images/fish.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="283"/></p>
<p>One of the most beautiful things about having a child is how it reconnects you with your own childhood. Over the holidays, with Georgina spending more time at my mother's place, her grandmother went scurrying into the bedroom and dug out some of my old books so I could read them to my daughter. One that caught my eye was one I have vivid memories of, 'Fish is Fish'. The illustration above particularly sticks in my mind.</p>
<p>The storyline goes along the lines of two friends, a fish and a tadpole, grow up together in a pond. The tadpole slowly becomes a frog, and eventually is able to hop out of the pond, leaving the fish behind. When he returns, he describes to the fish the wondrous things he has seen, like birds, cows, and people. The fish, naturally, imagines these things as fish with wings, fish with udders, fish in clothing, and so on. With an inability to imagine a totally different reality, the fish simply superimposes the new on the old.</p>
<p>I found this a pretty strong metaphor for technology's role in education. <a href="http://sbaglia.wikispaces.com/">When I started tinkering with technology in my teaching</a>, it was basically a fish with wings - the same course I usually ran, with additional material to support the students. And as I became more involved with technology in education in other schools, I saw more of the same. The way 'in' with teachers was to show them how technology could help them do the same things they were currently doing, better. Some examples include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Replacing writing in an exercise book with writing in a Word document</li>
<li>Replacing library research with Google searches</li>
<li>Replacing posters with <a href="http://edu.glogster.com/">Glogs</a></li>
<li>Adding PowerPoints to class presentations</li>
<li>Augmenting traditional teaching with <a href="http://sbaglia.com/?p=300">videos</a></li>
<li>Replacing skill and drill sheets and games with things like Mathletics</li>
</ul>
<br/> Now, I'm not here to pooh-pooh these things. I use many of these things in my teaching, and they present real advantages over traditional ways of doing things. But they are not transformative in an educational sense. The advantages will always be limited by the fact that they are simply new ways of doing old things. If we want to see real change, we need to reimagine education, rather than simply put wings on a fish.<p>Another level of using technology to reimagine education might be:</p>
<ul>
<li>Global audiences and collaboration</li>
</ul>
<br/> While we can now allow our students to present their work in new ways, we need to think about what motivates students to do the work in the first place. Students are motivated by purpose - and having an audience much larger than their own class or school can be a great motivator. This concept seems to stretch teachers' ideas about what school is; we still celebrate students participating in local competitions (as we should), but we're curiously indifferent to the idea of students showcasing their work on a national or global scale. We still rejoice in students working across classes or grades within a school, but can't imagine students working with others on the other side of the globe. It's a globally connected world these kids are going into, whether we like it or not. Education needs to reflect this, and the easiest, cheapest and in some ways most relevant way is to use technology to do this.<ul>
<li>Virtual teachers</li>
</ul>
<br/> Even in a technologically-rich classroom, the teacher is still the teacher. The learning experiences of the students are still limited by the expertise, passion and interest of the individual teacher. Yet there are professionals out there - scientists, historians, filmmakers, engineers - who are willing to inspire and guide students in their field of expertise.<p>This isn't a new thing. Having guest speakers come in is a long-established tradition, and the 'fish with wings' version - having a guest speaker on Skype - is taking hold in some technology rich classrooms. The Skype guest speaker means that it is easier and cheaper for guest speakers to connect with their classrooms, and classrooms that are geographically isolated are able to access speakers previously difficult to access.</p>
<p>But a step further is to have these professionals as virtual teachers - constant, occasional providers of assistance to students with particular interests or goals. And rather than the guest speaker model, where the teacher and speaker guide the interaction, the technology can put the power of these interactions in the hands of the students themselves.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.thenorthschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/VE-final-cropped-300x198.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="198"/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The temptation when talking to teachers about experts is to get people who can physically be there - people in the community who can come in, spend a day with the kids, help out in the classroom. That's great, but why be limited by who can come in, though? When that community member leaves the classroom, if you need assistance, they've gone. Moreover, learning in the 21st century means leveraging the expertise of people you've never met - in some ways, the expertise is secondary to the method of obtaining it: 24/7, student initiated, and not a member of the school community in the traditional sense.</p>
<ul>
<li>Personalised learning</li>
</ul>
<br/> While technology has often enhanced the courses we teach, the students still tend to learn the same things at the same pace. The use of video, for example, can do more. Students can now use video to learn different material, material that may not be traditionally taught in the year level of that teacher. This means that students who need to either reinforce concepts not learned earlier on their education, or who have already mastered a concept to move onto a new concept, have the opportunity to do so. And it means that students are not restricted to timelines imposed by the teacher.<p>Again, this is a major shift in the way most educators think about education. We fear students doing nothing with their new-found freedom; we fear students doing work above their level when they really need reinforcement of work done in class; we fear the stigma of 'streaming' and the social isolation that goes along with it.</p>
<p>Yet my experience has been the opposite. By providing students with the right structure, students are more accountable; higher-end students are far more engaged rather than being bored; technology allows students to be with their classmates working at different levels, rather than hived off into separate streamed classes; and struggling students actually increase their confidence by having work they can actually complete, rather than being perpetual strugglers.</p>
<p>Can we rethink education like this, or will our attempts to use technology always be limited by our traditional views of school? For after all, no matter if you put wings, udders, or legs on them, fish is fish.</p>
<p> </p>Epic Mindshifttag:www.classroom20.com,2011-11-23:649749:BlogPost:7792912011-11-23T21:43:53.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>It isn’t often my whole conception of how I teach shifts, but it did yesterday. I had one of the most powerful conversations around education of my career yesterday. And the people who shifted my thinking were thirty-eight students between the ages of ten and twelve.</p>
<p>You may have picked up from my writing lately that the idea of gaming in education has been swirling around in my head since the Teaching and Learning with Vision conference. These two TED talks have also shaped my ideas…</p>
<p>It isn’t often my whole conception of how I teach shifts, but it did yesterday. I had one of the most powerful conversations around education of my career yesterday. And the people who shifted my thinking were thirty-eight students between the ages of ten and twelve.</p>
<p>You may have picked up from my writing lately that the idea of gaming in education has been swirling around in my head since the Teaching and Learning with Vision conference. These two TED talks have also shaped my ideas around them.<object width="526" height="374"><param name="movie" value="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><param name="wmode" value="opaque"></param><param name="bgColor" value="#ffffff"></param><param name="flashvars" value="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2010X/Blank/AliCarrChellman_2010X-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/AliChellman-Carr-2010X.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=512&vh=288&ap=0&ti=1053&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=ali_carr_chellman_gaming_to_re_engage_boys_in_learning;year=2010;theme=media_that_matters;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;theme=how_we_learn;theme=bold_predictions_stern_warnings;theme=women_reshaping_the_world;event=TEDxPSU;tag=Technology;tag=children;tag=education;tag=gaming;tag=psychology;tag=violence;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" width="526" height="374" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="never" flashvars="vu=http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2010X/Blank/AliCarrChellman_2010X-320k.mp4&su=http://images.ted.com/images/ted/tedindex/embed-posters/AliChellman-Carr-2010X.embed_thumbnail.jpg&vw=512&vh=288&ap=0&ti=1053&lang=&introDuration=15330&adDuration=4000&postAdDuration=830&adKeys=talk=ali_carr_chellman_gaming_to_re_engage_boys_in_learning;year=2010;theme=media_that_matters;theme=design_like_you_give_a_damn;theme=how_we_learn;theme=bold_predictions_stern_warnings;theme=women_reshaping_the_world;event=TEDxPSU;tag=Technology;tag=children;tag=education;tag=gaming;tag=psychology;tag=violence;&preAdTag=tconf.ted/embed;tile=1;sz=512x288;"></embed> </object>
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</p>
<p>The first thing I noted was how true the idea of ‘elementary school’ (primary for us in Australia) could easily be seen as a “place for girls”. If I had to be honest with myself, I think almost all our boys would say that, even the ones that maintain a positive attitude to school. And it pains me to say that, since I am a relatively rare male primary school teacher. My first sensation was of having let the boys down.</p>
<p>The second thing that struck me was the idea that gaming was the current generation of boys’ culture, and at school we either ignore it or stigmatise it. How would I feel if that were my culture being denigrated? I mean, at our school, we cater for students who like music, art, reading, writing, maths, science, technology, languages, sport.... how do we cater for those who are into gaming? We don’t even try. In fact, we actively discourage it.</p>
<p>So Simone and I sat the whole class down and started the conversation by showing the second of these two TED talks. Yes, much of it went over their heads, but the ensuing conversation really opened my eyes.</p>
<p>You may gasp at my naivety at what amazed me; please bear in mind that although I’m heavily into blogging and microblogging, in general, I don’t ‘game’.</p>
<p>Of our forty three students present, thirty six identified themselves as ‘gamers’. Every boy present identified himself as a gamer. From our discussion, I would say most of these students game for between one and two hours per night. Many of them do more than this. The gamers represented the entire spectrum of our class – troubled boys, engaged boys, high flying girls, quiet girls... the works. I was absolutely gobsmacked. A quick calculation in my head revealed that a fair proportion of them were spending as much time gaming as they did in school, when you take into account weekends and holidays, when they tend to game more.</p>
<p>Simone and I questioned them – what is it about games that makes you so engrossed in it? Why don’t you have that same passion for school? Some of the quotes were stunning in their perception:</p>
<blockquote>“I want to be the best at a particular game. I can see how close I am getting to being the best”</blockquote>
<blockquote>“In school, you have targets, but you don’t see how close you are to achieving that target. In games, you know how close you are to levelling up, and that encourages you to keep going”</blockquote>
<blockquote>“In school, I feel like if I make a mistake, it’s really bad. But in a game, if I make a mistake, I can go back to the saved position and try again”</blockquote>
<blockquote>“In school, we often have to finish things by a certain time, and I stress about it. But in a game, I can take as long as I like to finish a level that’s really hard”</blockquote>
<blockquote>“In games, I feel powerful”</blockquote>
<p>I wanted these conversations, ideas, and this sudden burst of optimism, to be captured and shared. So I gave the students accounts on our nascent gaming site, <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/games">http://thenorthschool.com/games</a> . I told them that rather than my usual of using their first name and last initial, I would set up their account with their online gaming name (in fact, they all knew each other online already!). The queue to sign up literally went out of the door of our classroom. And students who never contribute anything were all of a sudden writing, contributing, even creating screencasts to explain to me how to play certain games.</p>
<p>Where to from here? Simone and I need to make our class like a game – an ‘epic adventure’. How we do that is the next question. But clearly, whether you agree with the extent to which these kids are gaming or not, it cannot be ignored. Students can clearly articulate why they prefer gaming to school. We need to do our best to close that gap.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in getting something going with us on this, and you’d like some of your kids to join our gaming community, drop us a line at games@thenorthschool.com</p>A global community emergestag:www.classroom20.com,2011-11-21:649749:BlogPost:7781412011-11-21T18:29:00.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>I really couldn't be happier with the way the Writers' club is shaping up. Check out this conversation on one of the student writer's blogs....</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/conversation.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-520" height="558" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/conversation.jpg" title="conversation" width="510"></img></a></p>
<p>An author from Drysdale in Victoria, Australia is encouraged in his writing, and receives feedback from, students at Castlemaine North in Victoria, Australia and a student in Lahore, Pakistan. This occurred without prompting from the teacher, and…</p>
<p>I really couldn't be happier with the way the Writers' club is shaping up. Check out this conversation on one of the student writer's blogs....</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/conversation.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/conversation.jpg" alt="" title="conversation" width="510" height="558" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-520"/></a></p>
<p>An author from Drysdale in Victoria, Australia is encouraged in his writing, and receives feedback from, students at Castlemaine North in Victoria, Australia and a student in Lahore, Pakistan. This occurred without prompting from the teacher, and occurred on a weekend.</p>
<p>These are precisely the spontaneous interactions I was hoping would eventuate from students sharing the same space. With students from five nations now involved, the capacity for more such spontaneous, global connections seems within reach.</p>Lahore, Guadalajara, Castlemainetag:www.classroom20.com,2011-11-12:649749:BlogPost:7740772011-11-12T03:32:07.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<p>What do these three places have in common? At first glance, almost nothing - situated on three different continents, a small town and two large cities, three languages, two religions (at least)... yet all three schools share our Writers' club, and this week we at Castlemaine North Skyped with Lahore and Guadalajara as a way of introduction.…</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0171.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-499" height="225" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0171-300x225.jpg" title="IMG_0171" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p>What do these three places have in common? At first glance, almost nothing - situated on three different continents, a small town and two large cities, three languages, two religions (at least)... yet all three schools share our Writers' club, and this week we at Castlemaine North Skyped with Lahore and Guadalajara as a way of introduction.</p>
<p><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0171.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0171-300x225.jpg" alt="" title="IMG_0171" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-499"/></a><a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0175.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/IMG_0175-300x225.jpg" alt="" title="IMG_0175" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-500"/></a></p>
<p>You may have noticed I am banging on about the Writers' club a fair bit. I really believe in it's capacity to link students meaningfully around the world. I also believe it offers something different from other global projects (that I know of) because of it's lack of defined structure - the only commonality is that it's about writing. It's designed so that the kids take ownership over it, and I summarised why I think it is an important addition to the more structured global projects around on a slide that obviously connected with one of the audience at the TLV conference recently:</p>
<p><a target="_blank" title="yfrog.com - Image And Video Hosting" href="http://yfrog.com/ntv65lfj"><img src="http://a.yfrog.com/img857/2125/v65lf.jpg" border="0"/></a></p>
<p>In fact, rather than writing more, I might leave it at that. We are taking our first steps into global citizenship, and this model of student centered interactions is the one I'm investing my energy in. More schools in more countries would be a good next step, as would be the presence of authors and others connected with the writing interest.</p>
<p>A science club is the next goal. I already know willing scientists, ready to work with students online - I just lack the students from other schools.</p>Around the worldtag:www.classroom20.com,2011-11-03:649749:BlogPost:7701612011-11-03T19:59:57.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
I'm currently attending the <a href="http://tlvconf.wordpress.com">Teaching and Learning with Vision conference</a> on the Gold Coast, and while my wonderful daughter has decided to wake up at 4am, I thought I would write a quick blog post.<br />
<br />
I've been very fortunate to have my proposal to present at the <a href="http://globaleducation.ning.com/">Global Education Conference</a> accepted. And while I acknowledge that I am still a novice at international collaboration, I have made some progress of…
I'm currently attending the <a href="http://tlvconf.wordpress.com">Teaching and Learning with Vision conference</a> on the Gold Coast, and while my wonderful daughter has decided to wake up at 4am, I thought I would write a quick blog post.<br />
<br />
I've been very fortunate to have my proposal to present at the <a href="http://globaleducation.ning.com/">Global Education Conference</a> accepted. And while I acknowledge that I am still a novice at international collaboration, I have made some progress of late.<br />
<br />
One of the problems I find with typical international collaborative projects is that they tend to be one-offs, and reliant on a serendipitous alignment of curriculum (or, you just change your curriculum to fit the collaborative project). This isn't always possible in a busy school. My vision for international collaboration is that, while we engage in collaborative projects when possible, there is also a constant, low-key collaboration happening with our students and students around the country and world.<br />
<br />
We decided that writing would the the ideal conduit for such connections. As I wrote in a previous blog post, the research around ICT and writing is very strong - students write more, of a higher quality, make more revisions, fewer errors and are more engaged when using technology to write. And all schools and all students write. So we set up the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' Club</a>, a place for passionate writers from anywhere around the world to share their writing with a global audience. Currently we have five schools from Victoria and one from Pakistan. And we are looking for more.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Writers-Club.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-486" title="Writers Club" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Writers-Club-300x148.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="148"/></a><br />
<br />
The benefits of such a community are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Writing is usually text based (though not always). The technological requirements are therefore minimal.</li>
<li>Because the community is only for passionate writers, the teacher can control how many students are a part of the community, and there are fewer problems with students who don't want to be a part of the site. Everyone who is there wants to be there.</li>
<li>Blogging doesn't require time-zones to align. Students can contribute what they want, how often they want, when they want.</li>
<li>There is no need to change any curriculum. Students can put up narrative pieces, persuasive pieces, information texts, or any other writing they would normally do in class.</li>
<li>Students instantly get a global audience for their writing. We are already seeing spontaneous cross-school connections, initiated solely by students.</li>
</ul>
<div>Join us. writersclub@thenorthschool.com</div>Who is my teacher? Who isn't my teacher?tag:www.classroom20.com,2011-10-16:649749:BlogPost:7623642011-10-16T02:52:32.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
This is the question a couple of my students could be asking themselves, having just been awarded third prize in a state-wide immunology competition. This is their entry...<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="300" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/29470232?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400"></iframe>
<br />
The curious thing about this is that these students found out about the competition not from their "teacher" (in the official sense), but from one of our Virtual Experts, Dr Krystal.…
This is the question a couple of my students could be asking themselves, having just been awarded third prize in a state-wide immunology competition. This is their entry...<br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/29470232?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br />
The curious thing about this is that these students found out about the competition not from their "teacher" (in the official sense), but from one of our Virtual Experts, Dr Krystal. After these two girls signed up for the competition, I warned them that I wouldn't be able to help them out very much, and they would have to rely on Dr Krystal and another virtual expert, Fiona (a biology teacher in Bendigo).<br />
<br />
The girls used our Virtual Learning Environment and Skype to get advice from the experts, totally independently from their two "teachers".<br />
<br />
<img alt="" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/photo-2.jpg" class="alignnone" width="300" height="400"/><br />
<br />
Aside from the skills these two students showed in understanding immunology (a subject not taught at Grade 5 and 6), the skills used in putting together the story, think of the skills they are learning in terms of broadening their understanding of where help can be sought. And of the skills they are developing in terms of being true, self-directed learners, empowered through authentic connections to people they've never met.<br />
<br />
As I read recently, life is an open-book test. I believe these kids are on their way to being able to take full advantage.Building communities of bloggerstag:www.classroom20.com,2011-10-05:649749:BlogPost:7586712011-10-05T12:13:06.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/compuserve.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396" height="249" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/compuserve-300x249.jpg" title="EPSON MFP image" width="300"></img></a><br />
<br />
So having outlined the reasons why I decided that blogs were the way to go for teaching and learning, what is the best way to do it?<br />
<br />
I remember a talk given by Tom March once, and he said that everyone should have their own domain. I took his advice, and his recommendation of the hosting service <a href="http://www.siteground.com/">Siteground</a>. I registered my own domain names (well, two, actually -…
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/compuserve.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-396" title="EPSON MFP image" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/compuserve-300x249.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="249"/></a><br />
<br />
So having outlined the reasons why I decided that blogs were the way to go for teaching and learning, what is the best way to do it?<br />
<br />
I remember a talk given by Tom March once, and he said that everyone should have their own domain. I took his advice, and his recommendation of the hosting service <a href="http://www.siteground.com/">Siteground</a>. I registered my own domain names (well, two, actually - <a href="http://sbaglia.com">sbaglia.com</a> and <a href="http://thenorthschool.com">thenorthschool.com</a>) and purchased three years worth of hosting.<br />
<br />
This is actually a really cheap option that negates the need to deal with advertising, restricted features, and so on. For example, right now I could sign up for a domain for $3.95 a month. With this, you can create as many blogs as you like, as well as anything else you wish to install - wikis, moodles, whatever. And you don't need to be an expert (I assure you, I'm no expert) : hosting usually includes things like cPanel and Fantastico which make it really easy to install and manage all your 'stuff'. Really, purchasing thenorthschool.com was one of the best decisions I made, as it meant I had total and utter control over everything - I could make my own email addresses, I could password protect sites if I didn't want the public to view things, and the simple domain name meant it was easy for teachers, parents and students to find.<br />
<br />
But back to the blogs. <a href="http://wordpress.org">Wordpress</a> is the number one blog, and with a single click, I was able to install a class blog. But what I was really interested in was a community of bloggers - I didn't want students writing on their blogs in isolation, I wanted a digital community where students could read and comment on the blogs of others. Fortunately, there are lots of free things to help make this happen.<br />
<br />
The first bit of good news is that <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network">with a bit of mucking around</a>, you can turn a wordpress blog into a blog network. This means that the owner of the blog can create new blogs and new users very easily. So, as the owner of my new class blog, I created blogs for each of my students, all linked back to the class blog. Still though, despite the fact that they were all related, that 'community of bloggers' thing was still elusive.<br />
<br />
The final part of the puzzle was <a href="http://buddypress.org/">Buddypress</a>. Buddypress is a plugin for wordpress sites that puts a nice social network interface over your network of blogs. This is the connective tissue between the blogs, and it allows the students to have both their own unique, identifiable blog and a way to be part of a larger community without losing any independence. Frankly, I think Buddypress is perfect for education. As well as providing a way to find the blogs of others, it adds activity streams, private messaging, groups and forums to your blog site. This pretty much covers all our communication needs. Sometimes you don't know how these things will play out in the classroom - for example, I never found a need to engage the students with private messaging, but it has become an important part of our site, allowing students to message me or other teachers, and for them to communicate with our <a href="http://www.thenorthschool.com/?page_id=277">Virtual Experts</a>. I created some 'how-to' videos for one of our online communities, the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub/">Writers' Club</a>, to use Buddypress. Hopefully it will give you a flavour for how it works.<br />
<br />
<strong>Changing your profile</strong><br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27273140?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="195" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br />
<strong>Changing your blog theme</strong><br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27273164?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="200" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br />
<strong>Writing a blog post</strong><br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27273192?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="198" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br />
<strong>Giving and receiving comments</strong><br />
<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27273205?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="200" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
The beauty of our set up is that we can now create multiple communities on our site. We began with one big community, but I'm slowly coming to realise that our kids can belong to multiple communities based on their own learning needs and interests. For example, our passionate writers are in the <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writers' club</a>. We have a book club. There are plans for a Science community. In the same way that I belong to multiple online communities based upon what I want to share and learn, so should our students have their learning experiences personalised.<br />
<br />
In my next post, I'll go into more detail as to how to make the communities of blogs a dynamic place for learners.<br />
<br />
Blog for your lifetag:www.classroom20.com,2011-10-02:649749:BlogPost:7577152011-10-02T10:13:49.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<br />
<br />
Technology has come a long way since these were games. These were around when I was a primary school kid. The main difference I can see is that we've gone from consumers of content to creators of it.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/games1.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-382" height="300" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/games1-207x300.jpg" title="Old school games" width="207"></img></a><br />
<br />
If you're not familiar with how we work at Castlemaine North, I guess one of the most important things to know is that we are big into kids creating content. To do this, the guts of what we do is blogging. In…
<br />
<br />
Technology has come a long way since these were games. These were around when I was a primary school kid. The main difference I can see is that we've gone from consumers of content to creators of it.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/games1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-382" title="Old school games" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/games1-207x300.jpg" alt="" width="207" height="300"/></a><br />
<br />
If you're not familiar with how we work at Castlemaine North, I guess one of the most important things to know is that we are big into kids creating content. To do this, the guts of what we do is blogging. In fact, this might frighten some people, but our students record <strong>all</strong> their learning on their own blog. They are the equivalent of the student's exercise book. Every student has their own blog (sometimes more than one), and as teachers, we can make our own blogs very easily for whatever purpose.<br />
<br />
In various forums, I've had to advocate why we work like this. The reasons that I've put together are below. In the coming days, I'd like to share what specific technologies we've used to do this and why. But for now, I want to put forward the "why" of blogging as a record of student learning.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>Advantages for students</strong><br />
<ul>
<li><strong>Aids organisation</strong> - All students do is press "publish" and your work is there in chronological order. Categories enable students to organise their work with one click - and work can be put into more than one category, so a science report could go under "science" and "writing". Couldn't be easier to stay organised.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Available any time, anywhere</strong> - Wherever you've got an internet connection, you can add to your blog, read the blogs of others, and comment on blogs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables sharing of any digital content</strong> - Audio, video, Powerpoints, PDF, images... if it can be saved as a file, it can go on a blog.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Personalised</strong> - As minor as it may sound, the ability for kids to install themes and add widgets gives them ownership over their blog, and it can reflect themselves as learners and as people.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Gives student choice in how they show understanding</strong> - I don't want a student's lack of writing skills to impede their ability to show their understanding of maths. Students can choose to speak their work, make a model of their work and photograph it, even handwrite it and scan it - blogs give the student far more choice in how they do the work.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables greater teacher feedback</strong> - A student can receive feedback anytime, anywhere. And with the teacher being able to give it anywhere they have an internet connection, the student is more likely to receive it, too.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables self assessment</strong> - Comment on your own blog a week, a term, a year after you've done the work.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables peer feedback</strong> - Your teacher isn't the only one who can give you feedback. Get feedback from other learners - perhaps not in the same class, or year level.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Records a learning journey over time</strong> - Because it is in chronological order, you can scroll down on your blog and go back in time. See how your learning has progressed.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Provides an audience for writing</strong> - Who would see your work in an exercise book? Your teacher, perhaps? Now, work can be shared with the entire school community with one click. When you write, you are writing for an audience. And for some kids, that's an enormous motivator.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables recording of off-line activities</strong> - Doing something that doesn't involve a computer? A role-play, group discussion, making models? With a video camera, still camera or a voice recorder, all these things can be recorded and put up on the blog as a record of learning.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Can't be lost</strong> - You'd be surprised how hard it is to lose work on a blog. They autosave every few minutes, and it doesn't matter if a student forgets their computer at home, or the computer goes down for good - the work is all there on the blog.</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>Advantages for teachers</strong></div>
<div><ul>
<li><strong>Easy to use</strong> - no increased workload for teachers - Once your kids are used to using blogs, there really isn't much for a teacher to do in addition to what you'd normally do. Blogs run themselves.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easy to navigate</strong> - Click on the "maths" category and all the student's maths comes up. Easy.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Provides anywhere, any time access to student learning</strong> - You don't need to lug books back and forth from school to provide feedback. My team-teaching buddy lives 100km from me, and we can both be at home, looking at the same student's work at the same time.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Makes teacher feedback easier to provide</strong> - Type in a comment, hit "submit comment". Done.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables peer feedback</strong> - We want kids looking at each other's work, seeing work of a higher standard and striving for that, or seeing work of a lower standard and being able to identify why it is of a lower standard. Blogs make learning visible.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Makes distribution of digital resources easier</strong> - Got a great video or link to share? Put it up on a blog - one click and all students go to the right place. No typing in awkward URLs.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Increased student engagement</strong> - The fact that students choose how they show their understanding involves all of them more in their work.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easy to showcase good work</strong> - "That's a great piece of work, Mary, but have a look at John's blog - can you see why his work shows greater understanding?"</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Allows engagement of absent students</strong> - Student is away? The anytime, anywhere nature of the blogs means they can be contributing to their learning from home.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Caters to diverse learning styles and abilities</strong> - Choose how you show your understanding. Students are no longer restricted to what a pen can show. Want to show your understanding of light using interpretative dance? Video it, do a voice-over of it, and put it on your blog (one student of ours actually did this : and I kid you not, it showed a pretty good understanding of reflection of light!).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables assessment of reading, off-line activities</strong> - Record your reading. Photograph your models. Those things that might never be recorded in a traditional classroom, and so not reflected on, commented on, shared outside the classroom, can now be kept on a blog.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div><strong>Advantages for Parents</strong></div>
<br />
<div><ul>
<li><strong>Any time, anywhere access to their child's learning</strong> - Don't wait until the report comes out, or parent-teacher interview night happens. Parents can see their child's learning from anywhere they have an internet connection.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Promotes parent-child conversation based on classroom learning</strong> - Parents can now talk to their child about their learning, because they have it there in front of them.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easy access to work requirements</strong> - What was that maths task they had to do? Oh yes, it's on the maths blog!</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Easy to stay in touch with school work during prolonged absences</strong> - Going on a family holiday? All the work is there on the blog. And students can respond to the work from wherever they are.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables parent comments</strong> - Parents can comment on their child's work from wherever they are.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enables reinforcement of skills at home</strong> - "David is having trouble with equivalent fractions. You could play <a href="http://www.fractionbars.com/Fractions_Launch/fr_concentration/application.html">this concentration game</a> with him at home, and get him to talk about his strategies".</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div><em>Convinced?</em> Next, I'll share <em>how</em>.</div>Computers for Everybodytag:www.classroom20.com,2011-09-29:649749:BlogPost:7565782011-09-29T03:51:43.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/EPSON001.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-378" height="300" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/EPSON001-194x300.jpg" title="EPSON MFP image" width="194"></img></a><br />
<br />
Whilst out and about in sunny downtown Bendigo, I stumbled across this book in an 'op-shop' for $1.50 and I knew I had to buy it. Published in 1983, despite loads of funny-looking pictures, there are some insightful things mentioned. There is a whole chapter devoted to computers in education. For example, this is in a section called "The De-Schooling of Learning".<br />
<blockquote>The point is that we must continue…</blockquote>
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/EPSON001.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-378" title="EPSON MFP image" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/EPSON001-194x300.jpg" alt="" width="194" height="300"/></a><br />
<br />
Whilst out and about in sunny downtown Bendigo, I stumbled across this book in an 'op-shop' for $1.50 and I knew I had to buy it. Published in 1983, despite loads of funny-looking pictures, there are some insightful things mentioned. There is a whole chapter devoted to computers in education. For example, this is in a section called "The De-Schooling of Learning".<br />
<blockquote>The point is that we must continue to learn, regardless of our age, if we are to cope with the demands of life today, and that learning must occur someplace other than the classrooms where we spent the fourth grade. Fortunately, the small computer came along at a time when it can be particularly helpful in both the traditional and non-traditional learning environments.</blockquote>
Sounds like the things a number of us are currently banging on about aren't so new after all. I was struck by the book's ability to look beyond the actual technology being used and predict how it is merely a tool to achieve a larger educational goal.<br />
<br />
So how are we going in our goal of 'computers for everybody'? From my own experience and observations, the results are somewhat patchy. There are obviously very talented people out there doing quite amazing things with computers in education; but I'm not sure how close we are to moving beyond that group of innovators and early adopters into the mainstream of education.<br />
<br />
I think one of the barriers might be that too many get bogged down in the actual machine being used, rather than looking objectively at what the kids can/do do with it. I stumbled across this <a href="http://bengrey.com/blog/2011/09/a-lack-of-critical-thinking/">interesting blog post by Ben Grey</a>, who essentially states that spending large amounts of money on technology (in this case, iPads) when smaller amounts of money can achieve the same thing, need to be heavily scrutinized. Unfortunately, the interesting discussion has become an iPad/MacBook vs netbook debate, rather than a discussion on what the kids can actually do with these machines. Frankly, if I knew my kids could do what they can do now with Lenovo netbooks at half the price, I'd ditch our current technology in a second. The only loyalty I have is to the learning of my students.<br />
<br />
My point is that while those of us who do see and can do what technology will allow us to are sometimes critical of teachers who don't embrace 'computers for everybody', we need to be aware that we have a responsibility to keep the discussion focused on the right thing - learning. Because the average teacher isn't interested in netbooks vs iPads. The average teacher is interested in the learning of their students - and rightly so.How to Breathetag:www.classroom20.com,2011-09-10:649749:BlogPost:7411292011-09-10T07:01:21.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
I thought I'd do an opinion piece today. There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time, and I'd like to express my thoughts on it.<br />
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I have an issue with the word "e-learning". I was wondering at what point we are going to ditch the "e" in front of "learning". I assume "e" stands for electronic. Did we have "p-learning" before that, when kids used pens for learning? It seems, to some, at least, the tool that is used to make the learning happen is considered more important…
I thought I'd do an opinion piece today. There is something that has been bothering me for quite some time, and I'd like to express my thoughts on it.<br />
<br />
I have an issue with the word "e-learning". I was wondering at what point we are going to ditch the "e" in front of "learning". I assume "e" stands for electronic. Did we have "p-learning" before that, when kids used pens for learning? It seems, to some, at least, the tool that is used to make the learning happen is considered more important than the learning itself. People (like myself) who are considered accomplished in "e-learning" should be considered first and foremost as great teachers who happen to use technology quite a bit to enable the learning.<br />
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If you truly want to integrate technology into your teaching, your first step is to stop thinking of it as something separate, and start thinking of it as a way to achieve your educational goals.<br />
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This leads to the next question, "What are my educational goals?". The old chestnut of Alice in Wonderland comes to mind...<br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cheshire-cat-10.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-347" title="cheshire-cat-10" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cheshire-cat-10-300x240.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="240"/></a><br />
<blockquote>Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to
Alice: I don't much care where.<br />
The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.</blockquote>
In other words - if you don't know what you want to achieve in your classroom/school, it doesn't matter how or if you use technology.<br />
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For me, my educational goal has been personalised learning - students engaged in learning matched to their own interests and abilities. My interest in "e-learning" exists purely because it can be used to realise my goal of personalised learning. If bananas could achieve it, I'd be into "b-learning". But as it turns out, computers, and the internet, are rather good at realising personalised learning if used correctly. Here are some examples of how I use technology to personalise the learning of my students.<br />
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<strong><em>Personalising Literacy using Technology</em></strong><br />
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What do I need for learning to be personalised for me? Well, first of all, I need motivation and authentic purpose. What is the motivation and authentic purpose for me to do that most basic of things, and write? Let's look at a rather mundane example.... a blog post by one of our students.<br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Writing-Blog.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-345" title="Writing Blog" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Writing-Blog-300x187.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="187"/></a><br />
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Now this student is a fantastic writer. She's also very passionate about writing. In a school the size of ours, there are only a handful of students with her passion and ability in writing. If she writes in an exercise book, she has a small audience, and can only receive feedback from a small number of people - her teacher, perhaps a small number of classmates, or if she takes the work home, her parents.<br />
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However, by publishing her work on a blog, she now has an audience as large as she likes - in this case, she's published her work on our <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/writersclub">Writer's Club</a>, which has students sharing their writing from five schools around the state. Potentially, she could be sharing her writing across the country or world. She can inspire or be inspired by people she's never met before, but share her ability and passion. She can receive feedback from the same people, fueling her motivation and giving her a greater authentic purpose for her writing. In this way, technology has helped to personalise the learning for her, in a way that would be impossible with pen and paper.<br />
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<strong><em>Personalising Numeracy using Technology</em></strong><br />
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Differentiation is an important part of personalising learning. Students not only need to be working on things that match their interests, but also things that are in their "zone of proximal development" - otherwise, the dart board is 2 feet away (boring) or 200 feet away (frustratingly impossible). Our classroom, like others, has a broad range of learners, and we use technology to give instruction to our students at their own level - so here is a video I created to show how to solve algebraic equations, which is a skill called for at the end of Year 7 in Victoria; despite the fact that I teach grades 5 and 6, there are students who are able to work at this level (and higher).<br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26095792?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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Students also use technology not merely access instruction, but also to represent their understandings of mathematics, through traditional 'written' form, physical models, computer games, while recording their voice and articulating their thinking. Here is a montage of some of our students' videos.<br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/27961122?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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Now, if I had ten teachers to address the ten different ability levels I have in my classroom, I wouldn't need the technology. Similarly, if I had time to listen to each student explain to me their understanding of the maths they have been learning, and if I could somehow record what they say, I wouldn't need the technology either. However, neither are feasible, and so I rely on computers to personalise my students' learning.<br />
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<strong><em>Personalising Science using Technology</em></strong><br />
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Real scientists investigate questions they don't know the answer to. I know, because I used to be a scientist. So there.<br />
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To personalise science for students, they need to be working on questions that interest them. For example, some of our students are interested in finding the most effective way to kick a football. Others are interested in finding out what affects animal populations.<br />
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Now, my expertise as their teacher can only take them so far in these investigations. If you've ever seen me attempt to kick a football, you'd know that my knowledge of such things is pretty limited. And my expertise in understanding what affects animal populations is limited to eating them. So, to support my students in their personalised questions, I use technology to allow my students to call on a suite of 'virtual experts' to provide depth and authenticity to their investigations.<br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Virtual-expert-montage.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-346" title="Virtual expert montage" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Virtual-expert-montage-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225"/></a><br />
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<em>Clockwise from top left : Andrew, a graphic artists/teacher in Apollo Bay; Tim, an electrical engineer in Newcastle; Fiona, a biology teacher in Bendigo; Geoff, a biomechanist in Melbourne; Sarah, a biology teacher in Bendigo; Pat, a software developer in Canberra; Krystal, an immunologist in Melbourne; and Chris, a chemist in Florida.</em><br />
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If I could have these people in my classroom, all day every day, for whenever the students had a question, I wouldn't need the technology. This isn't feasible, so technology allows these people to enrich my students' learning.<br />
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I'm not suggesting you should simply do what you do now, but using computers. I'm suggesting you need to think about what your ultimate classroom looks like. Then think about how technology can help bring that about. Then, finally, we can go from "e-learning" to just "learning". Unless, of course, "b-learning" comes along and throws a banana in the works...<br />
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This post's blog title comes from a track on <a href="http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/29767">Depressive Art's album, "Bye Bye Dear Everything"</a>, available for download on <a href="http://jamendo.com">Jamendo</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://pro.jamendo.com/" style="display:block;font-size:8px !important;">Royalty free music for professional licensing</a></div>Internationaltag:www.classroom20.com,2011-08-28:649749:BlogPost:7282852011-08-28T11:04:50.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
Perhaps if you read this blog, you might think I'm a workaholic with nothing more on my mind than teaching, ICT, and the mathematics progression points. You'd be wrong. I have many interests, but none more pervasive than my love of travel.<br />
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My love of travel began by realising that not everyone has my ethnic heritage. On this blog, I have mentioned my Italian connections, but on my mother's side, my ancestry is Serbian. This is a more subtle influence on my life, visible only through the…
Perhaps if you read this blog, you might think I'm a workaholic with nothing more on my mind than teaching, ICT, and the mathematics progression points. You'd be wrong. I have many interests, but none more pervasive than my love of travel.<br />
<br />
My love of travel began by realising that not everyone has my ethnic heritage. On this blog, I have mentioned my Italian connections, but on my mother's side, my ancestry is Serbian. This is a more subtle influence on my life, visible only through the occasional Serbian dish cooked, my severe temper, and my support for Serbia in the Eurovision song contest (seriously, how did this song not win last time?).<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YLPCMrkPDGg?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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My love of all things not Australian extends to wanting to link our kids up to experiences beyond the borders of Australia. It's a big world out there, and as someone who has travelled to 34 countries*, I'd like my kids to be more aware of the world beyond these shores.<br />
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We are lucky enough at The North School to have one of our virtual experts being located in Florida. Despite being a dinky-di Aussie, "Dr Chrisso", as he's known on our site, provides expert chemistry advice to 11 and 12 year-olds in Australia from the other side of the globe. And last week, the time zones aligned and our kids finally got to see Dr Chrisso face-to-face, when he talked to one of our students trying to run a chromatography experiment....<br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/chrisso4.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/chrisso4.jpg" alt="" title="chrisso4" width="600" height="800" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-323"/></a><br />
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Speaking of which, I finally got the rubrics written up for our seven inquiry questions. I'm particularly proud of the one for the group investigating why people from different countries eat different foods, as it borrows from health, civics&citizenship, and history.<br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/afl-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/afl-rubric-300x192.jpg" alt="" title="afl rubric" width="300" height="192" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-324"/></a><br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/animal-pop-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/animal-pop-rubric-300x198.jpg" alt="" title="animal pop rubric" width="300" height="198" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-325"/></a><br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/computer-games-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/computer-games-rubric-300x195.jpg" alt="" title="computer games rubric" width="300" height="195" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-326"/></a><br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/medieval-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/medieval-rubric-300x201.jpg" alt="" title="medieval rubric" width="300" height="201" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-327"/></a><br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/toy-car-racer-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/toy-car-racer-rubric-300x196.jpg" alt="" title="toy car racer rubric" width="300" height="196" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-328"/></a><br />
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/world-food-rubric.jpg"><img src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/world-food-rubric-300x200.jpg" alt="" title="world food rubric" width="300" height="200" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-329"/></a><br />
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*New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, United States, Israel, India, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Andorra. So there.Feu Follettag:www.classroom20.com,2011-08-20:649749:BlogPost:7184752011-08-20T00:03:02.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
For me, the internet is as much, or more, about creating and sharing as accessing the work of others. However, creating in a vacuum isn't how creating is done, and great ideas can be built upon the input and ideas of others. Doing this legally in 2011 is not always easy. Copyright laws can make it a minefield for teachers and students. These laws seem contrary to not only present day technology, but also when compared to what existed in the past, as Larry Lessig (a bit of a hero of mine)…
For me, the internet is as much, or more, about creating and sharing as accessing the work of others. However, creating in a vacuum isn't how creating is done, and great ideas can be built upon the input and ideas of others. Doing this legally in 2011 is not always easy. Copyright laws can make it a minefield for teachers and students. These laws seem contrary to not only present day technology, but also when compared to what existed in the past, as Larry Lessig (a bit of a hero of mine) powerfully suggests in this TED talk...<br />
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So when the rubber hits the road, you want your kids being aware of copyright, and using stuff they have permissions to use. Just understanding that you need permission is a bit of a revelation for kids (and adults!), as they seem to think that if it's on the internet, it's carte blanche. It can be done, however, as this video created by one of our past Grade 6 students has shown, who has used her own images and used Creative Commons Licence to create this funked-up version of an exposition:<br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14201508?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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A problem with finding music and sound for kids to use is that internet providers often block anything that has to do with 'mp3'. Also, you run the risk of encountering dodgy advertising, music with inappropriate language, and my personal peeve, "sign/pay up to download more that 3 music loops". Grrr.<br />
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Slowly, I've been collecting music samples, sound effects, and whole albums that can be used by students as they are published under certain Creative Commons licenses, or have no copyright associated with them. I have now released this collection onto a site for all in education to use, <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/ccmusic">http://thenorthschool.com/ccmusic</a> . All the music has been checked for inappropriate language, and can be played before it is downloaded. I have tried to collate a wide range of genres (I should warn you that 'Spintronic' seems to be of particular appeal to pre-teen boys, and it is <em>exceptionally</em> annoying. Of particular interest might be the collection of Sound effects and Music Loops, which can be downloaded as zipped folders.<br />
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I hope someone out there can make use of this. I plan to add to it from time to time, and welcome any feedback.<br />
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(This week's blog title comes from 's new album, which can be freely downloaded at <a href="http://jamendo.com">Jamendo.com</a> and at our <a href="http://thenorthschool.com/ccmusic/?page_id=644">CC music site</a>.)<br />
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<a href="http://pro.jamendo.com/" style="display:block;font-size:8px !important;">Royalty free music for professional licensing</a></div>"Docking" is "docking"tag:www.classroom20.com,2011-08-06:649749:BlogPost:7006912011-08-06T23:42:29.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
When I tell people I used to live in Florence as a research scientist, they are generally impressed. I assume that this brings to mind beautiful cityscapes, wonderful food and sitting around in cafes on piazzas watching stylish attractive Italian girls stroll past. Reality, however, was somewhat different, as this video made in 2003 with my Israeli friend illustrates.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="349" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FUv9S75l5Hk?wmode=opaque" width="425"></iframe>
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The…
When I tell people I used to live in Florence as a research scientist, they are generally impressed. I assume that this brings to mind beautiful cityscapes, wonderful food and sitting around in cafes on piazzas watching stylish attractive Italian girls stroll past. Reality, however, was somewhat different, as this video made in 2003 with my Israeli friend illustrates.<br />
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<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FUv9S75l5Hk?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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The idea of scientific collaboration across continents sounds very exotic, but at the end of the day, science is science, wherever you go. As an Italian colleague told me, “The Italian word for ‘docking’ is ‘docking’ “.<br />
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I was reminded of this quote when noting that, while using a particular maths site, students could do ‘skill and drill’ races against people from far-off lands. I wondered why. Is 6+8 something else in Holland?<br />
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So why bother linking up with other schools? Here are the reasons I could come up with...<br />
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• Audience for speaking and writing<br />
• Challenge<br />
• Ease isolation of remote schools<br />
• Access to alternate points of view based on<br />
– Geographic location<br />
– Socio-economic status<br />
– Ethnic background<br />
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This led to our creation of the concept of the interschool discussion. Students are introduced to an issue through a student-centred news site such as the ABC’s Behind the News and prepare an opinion based on fact, enhanced through research, shared electronically. Students use the collaborative document writer Etherpad to conduct a text-based discussion of the issue. Students then use Skype to follow up the discussion verbally with reflections and clarifying questions to the students in other schools. Schools around the world are invited to participate.<br />
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/20670768?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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We imagined talking about indigenous issues with schools in the Northern Territory; immigration issues with schools in inner city Sydney; even climate change with schools in Bangladesh. We have a long way to go before we ever get there, but if you’re interested in this idea, check out more at <a href="http://thenorthscool.com/discussion">http://thenorthscool.com/discussion</a> .Rhodes to Wisdomtag:www.classroom20.com,2011-06-26:649749:BlogPost:6622002011-06-26T07:21:00.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/?p=221">In my quest to create a self-paced maths course</a> that enables students to work anywehere between VELS levels 2 to 5, I recently purchased a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I bought this because Salam Khan uses it to make his videos. Who is Salman Khan? Check out the video below.<br />
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This week in maths, we are looking at the rather unexciting topic of multiplying fractions. This corresponds to level 3.25 in number in the mathematics domain. However, I…
<a href="http://sbaglia.com/?p=221">In my quest to create a self-paced maths course</a> that enables students to work anywehere between VELS levels 2 to 5, I recently purchased a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I bought this because Salam Khan uses it to make his videos. Who is Salman Khan? Check out the video below.<br />
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This week in maths, we are looking at the rather unexciting topic of multiplying fractions. This corresponds to level 3.25 in number in the mathematics domain. However, I want my higher end grade sixes doing higher end work, so they are going to be dividing fractions, which corresponds to number level 4.25. I used my tablet, screencast-o-matic, my $8 headset from Big W and my homemade electronic fraction bars to make these two videos. They’re pretty dodgy, but I think if I can get my kids to do screencasts like this, where they actually articulate their thinking, they’ll come away with a deeper understanding of these two concepts than I ever developed in school (all I remember about dividing fractions was flipping the second one over and turning the division sign into a multiplication sign).<br />
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(The title of this blog post comes from Kammerer’s uber-cool lounger offering, available for nix on Jamendo).<br />
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<a href="http://pro.jamendo.com/" style="display:block;font-size:8px !important;">Royalty free music for professional licensing</a></div>Built to Lasttag:www.classroom20.com,2011-06-17:649749:BlogPost:6554112011-06-17T05:30:00.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
This has been a great term for our students to be able to use ICT to access expertise. Here are three stories.<br></br>
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<strong>Story 1 - The scientist, the biology teacher, and the immunology competition</strong><br></br>
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When one of our Virtual Experts, the fantastic Dr Krystal (a microbiologist in Melbourne) alerted us to an immunology competition, I popped it up onto our forum, not expecting anyone from our school wanting to enter (particularly as our focus is on history at the moment).…
This has been a great term for our students to be able to use ICT to access expertise. Here are three stories.<br/>
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<strong>Story 1 - The scientist, the biology teacher, and the immunology competition</strong><br/>
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When one of our Virtual Experts, the fantastic Dr Krystal (a microbiologist in Melbourne) alerted us to an immunology competition, I popped it up onto our forum, not expecting anyone from our school wanting to enter (particularly as our focus is on history at the moment). Two of our top students showed an interest, and so began a curious thing to watch - two students, doing something totally separate to the rest of the class, with me only overlooking - the students were using Dr Krystal and Fiona, a Biology teacher on maternity leave, as virtual teachers. The students organised their own videoconferences using Skype, as can be seen here:<br/>
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<a href="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/photo-2.jpg"><img height="300" width="225" src="http://sbaglia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/photo-2-225x300.jpg" title="Fiona and the girls" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-245"/></a><br/>
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It was quite remarkable to see how students, if supported, can learn almost totally independently of the teacher, and use people they have never met in real life as teachers through private messaging and videoconferencing.<br/>
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<strong>Story 2 - The Castlemaine Historical Society</strong><br/>
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I must admit, when I'm wrong, I'm really wrong. And I was wrong about the Castlemaine Historical Society.<br/>
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As I visited the old court house in Castlemaine to try and tee up a Virtual Collaboration, I wasn't feeling so confident. When I was told by my hosts that there was no computer with internet access at the Historical Society, I felt even less confident. And yet, when I showed how our kids used a simple private messaging system within our online space to contact experts, they seemed open to the idea. I left my hosts with written instructions, and held my breath.<br/>
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The next day, I told our students doing their history inquiry that if they had questions about Castlemaine, they could contact our newest Virtual Expert - the Castlemaine Historical Society. A few kids asked some questions. Later that evening, I saw the CHS had been online, and minutes later, they had responded with some amazing answers to their questions in detail I could not hope to offer them. Ever since, they have been diligently responding to any questions our kids have had. And while there are no bells and whistles, it's been a great example to me of how actually meeting with and spending time with the people you want to be a part of the online collaborative effort can yield results. The CHS too have won out - they have helped the kids who have really wanted the help, when they have wanted it, and the Society members did it when it suited them, and didn't have to leave the building.<br/>
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Thank you, Castlemaine Historical Society.<br/>
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<strong>Story 3 - People Pictures</strong><br/>
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A little while ago, I wrote about getting my kids to produce a 'story' about an object, and telling a history through that object. I offered up my own little effort...<br/>
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/23095468?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/23095468">Small Object, Big Story - The Serbian Cigarette Box</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user5702884">Castlemaine North PS</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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Last year, the parents of a student of ours offered their services as independent filmmakers to help our kids create vignettes about their schooling life before they became 'big kids' at the Secondary College. I gratefully accepted, but thought about if and when we could tie in their skills with what we do in class; after all, video is such a big part of using ICT.<br/>
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Six months later, and I contacted Cath and Stewart at <a href="http://www.peoplepictures.com.au/">People Pictures</a> to see if they wanted to run a couple of workshops with our kids and then follow up with being 'Virtual Experts' online. To see these guys in action, and to see how they can bring a totally new spin on what we were doing, was both humbling and gratifying. As they took my film to pieces in front of the kids, I tried to get over my discomfort and focus on the fact that I was modelling for our kids - we, as teachers, need to model using others to improve ourselves; we, as teachers, need to model learning in the 21st century. Now, our kids are uploading their videos to our Vimeo channel, messaging Cath and Stewart, who are providing feedback online to our kids - when our kids need it.<br/>
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(The title of this blog post comes from the first song on a great album on Jamendo)<br/>
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<a style="display: block; font-size: 8px !important;" href="http://pro.jamendo.com/">Royalty free music for professional licensing</a></div>Esttag:www.classroom20.com,2010-04-20:649749:BlogPost:4644892010-04-20T11:30:00.000ZRob Sbagliahttps://www.classroom20.com/profile/RobSbaglia
A new term, a new inquiry topic, and a whole bunch of new opportunities to use technology have presented themselves at Castlemaine North PS.<br></br>
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Our inquiry topic this term is “Who and what have shaped Australia’s identity?” Somehow, I stumbled on the ABC 3 series “My Place”, which consists of 13 episodes set 10 years apart, from 1888 all the way to 2008. Each episode has a story about a 10 year old child who has been shaped by the preceding 10 years’ history. As well as the DVDs, there…
A new term, a new inquiry topic, and a whole bunch of new opportunities to use technology have presented themselves at Castlemaine North PS.<br/>
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Our inquiry topic this term is “Who and what have shaped Australia’s identity?” Somehow, I stumbled on the ABC 3 series “My Place”, which consists of 13 episodes set 10 years apart, from 1888 all the way to 2008. Each episode has a story about a 10 year old child who has been shaped by the preceding 10 years’ history. As well as the DVDs, there are two fantastic websites that support the material – the first enables kids to explore the house in which each of the kids lives in, and the second contains loads of clips, links and curriculum-aligned activities for kids to do.<br/><br/><p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://www.thenorthschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/myplace1-300x178.gif"/></p>
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Our kids are in groups, with each group focussing on a different decade. Each decade has been given a blog – a departure from how we have been using blogs last term, where they were solely individual. This term, in addition to a student’s own blog, they can contribute to a group blog, to record their learning over the course of the inquiry. At the end of the term, we will have 13 blogs, all linked together, demonstrating our learning of each period of time and how these periods have shaped our own identity. As well as the blog, each group has their own private discussion forum to discuss their progress with each other and their teacher.<br/>
<br/><p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://www.thenorthschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/myplace2-300x223.gif"/></p>
<br/><br/> Right now, we are watching the episodes as a whole, one by one, and we are all doing activities together, so that students don’t end up isolated in one decade – we want students to be experts in one period of time, but with an overall sense of how that period fits into the bigger picture.<br/>
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In addition to the use of My Place, we are thinking about our identity as Australians by Skyping with a school in Iowa, USA. A school has very kindly offered to answer some of our questions, which hopefully will be the start of a meaningful link outside the country.<br/>
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Any schools out there wanting to be a part of any element of what we’re doing can contact me – we’d love to share our journey this term. <br/>