The Haul - Shopping for America

Doing our bit to support the American economy is an important feature of any trip to this part of the world and we have made sure we didn't drop the ball on this one. Today I realised that this could be another authentic education activity, thanks to reading USA Today over my morning coffee.

US teenagers (I have only come across girls so far) are posting 'haul' (shopping Show 'n Tell) videos on YouTube. And stores are starting to take them seriously. Makes my couple of photos posted on Facebook pale into insignificance! The example I have embedded below is heading towards a million views and there are heaps more of them online.

After visits to the US I usually return home buzzing with ideas about how we can leverage the latest technology trends in our schools, particularly with a focus on literacy. It wouldn't take much to integrate this idea into the English curriculum, but I can also see a great 'hook' here for Maths- we just need a sponsor.
Watch this space for the launching of the "GI Haul" video channel!

A haul video is a video displaying the fruits of a shopping trip which someone uploads to the Internet. Haul videos may be used by bloggers to connect with their readers and community, and they are also used to generate communities of their own...... Researchers who are interested in the changing ways in which the Internet is utilized and people interact with each other may cite the haul video as one example of how the Internet has changed social interaction. Historically, young women commonly showed off their hauls in person to friends, parents, and roommates. Today, they may be more inclined to post a haul video which will reach not only friends and family, but people all over the world who may be interested in the vlogger's life or opinions on fashion.

Preparing for a Netbook Rollout

As we make plans for the Manaiakalani netbook rollout to the Year 5-13 students in our cluster, one of the priorities for learning at the ISTE conference was what schools, districts and states in the USA who began similar projects several years ago have learned from the experience. We were particularly interested in state schools and anyone who had implemented a project like this with lower decile students. If you don't think this distinction is important, let me tell you that whenever we talk to people outside our cluster about the Manaiakalani Project vision, the first thing more than 50% say back is, "But what about theft and damage?" A response to that question is a post on its own!

We attended a presentation titled "How to Design a Successful 1-to-1 Program".

The brief included:

"The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) is the largest and only statewide 1:1 initiative in the USA. Encompassing every public school 7th and 8th grade student and every educator teaching grades 7 through 12, MLTI has 70,000 laptop computers deployed across the State.... Maine has deployed over 155,000 laptops and 800 wireless networks in the last 8 years. If there are mistakes to be made, we've made them. Learn from Maine's successes and failures to help ensure a successful 1:1 program in your school."

This session provided a wealth of information and I have noted down practical ideas here which we think will be very useful to the Manaiakalani Project netbook roll out. So, in no particular order, here goes.....

Teaching and Learning thoughts:

• Teacher Preparation is essential
• One year before students have the devices the teachers need a laptop and a data projector of their own
• BUT don't wait until staff are fully trained to give the kids their netbook - they will never be fully trained for what is around the corner!
• Use online communication tools with teachers to support their learning, to collaborate and co-ordinate eg Google Apps
• Hold regular teacher meetings where these questions are asked; "What are you doing that's working?" and "What are you doing that you are having challenges with". And record the answers in an online space.
• Get teachers out of school to state and district (cluster) meetings to share their learning and needs
• Every staff meeting book 10 minutes to have a teacher show something that is working
• Don’t teach software - teaching learning, using the software
  Principals need to be attending the professional development alongside the teachers
• It won’t make a bad teacher better, but once you have taught a 1:1 class you will never want to teach in another way again
• The pedagogy must be different. Putting a device in the hands of every student and continuing to teach in the same way we were taught is not going to work.
• In the US they found that 60-70% of the text books they used were available online or as pdfs or podcasts

Parent and Community (Whanau) thoughts:

• Insist that parents come in to school for training before the individual student is allowed to take a netbook home
• Newsletters in a variety of forms are essential for communication
• Ongoing training of parents (at school) should be done by children - but always mix it up. Don't have kids train their own parent!
• By product of this is that PARENTS use technology more at home
• Send the netbooks home. Research shows that sending the netbooks home results in improved test scores.

Technical Support issues:

• Less breakage occurs in netbooks that are being used all the time than those that are stored a lot!
• Breakage is inversely related to HOW the technology is being used
  What they are being used for makes a huge difference. If the kids see classes/learning as boring.... breakage and theft goes up
• More breakage occurs with laptops than netbooks
• Need a regular weekly meeting to review challenges and highlight those that need to be urgently fixed
• Infrastructure - always double the bandwidth you think is necessary.... and double it every year. You will never have too much
• Every classroom needs its own managed access point for wireless
• Students MUST be used as technicians. You will never be able to employ enough adults.
• After trial and error, student technicians fell into two layers; kids who enjoy 'fixing' and problem solving, and kids who organise and administer the requests for repairs
• All netbook issues are logged with the kids who organise the repair scheduling - they cope with the stress being generated by kids with dysfunctional netbooks
• The hands-on techie kids liaise with the adult technicians and work through the job schedules. This way they are not having to interface with aggrieved peers
• Have two old desktop computers in the back of the room as fall backs for kids who left netbook at home or have it in for repairs. Don't replace with another netbook!
• It is not worth insuring netbooks. Cheaper to replace them.
• Use old laptops (especially those with dead batteries) as desktops in back of classroom - for when a kid has one out for repairs OR when kid has been inappropriate - give them one of those :)
• Filtering/Firewalls solution: The best solution they have found is the one they call the GOYA solution (Get Off Your A***) “Teach your teachers to get up and walk around the room” to actively monitor what students are looking at on their screens!

We would appreciate any other useful and practical tips from folk who are further down the track than us.

NB: This post clearly does not address the huge pedagogical shifts we are having to make to prepare for a netbook roll out. There are many other posts in this blog which reflect our thinking in that area.

***Update: Russell Burt has shared his notes after attending several 1:1 sessions at ISTE on a .pdf which can be downloaded from this link

Your Keys to the City - Denver

First impressions on arriving in Denver, Colorado are that it is a very friendly and very clean city.  After spending seven days in the city for the ISTE conference we can confirm it truly is. We only saw graffiti once as we drove out of town.  It has a fantastic climate, good shopping in the centre of town, good eateries and every place we went to had New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc on the menu :)  Denver is one of those places in the world that you leave knowing that one day it would be good to come back.
 
It is a city that is easy to navigate - the regular layout of the streets meant even the most geographically challenged (me) could find their way with ease.  And the public transport was great.  We tried it all; taxi, airport shuttle, bike, horse and gig, free shuttle buses and city buses.  All the drivers were helpful and waited patiently while kiwis fumbled with correct change.  This is a welcome change when you are a tourist.
 
One of the special delights of the city was the Your Keys to the City programme in the main street - 16th Street mall.  10 pianos were left out 24/7 for passers bye to sit down and entertain the foot traffic.  And these were no ordinary pianos.  They all were hand painted by local artists. 

"Ten uniquely painted upright pianos can be found along the 16th Street Mall in Downtown Denver for one month starting May 21st. They are part of a seasonal program called "Your Keys to the City" created by the Downtown Denver Partnership. The concept is designed to encourage those in center city to interact with their public spaces in new and spontaneous ways while contributing to the vibrancy within our urban core! "

We presumed one of the reasons the city was so clean was the large number of people employed to clean up after people and horses. It certainly wasn't the police presence because we hardly saw any.  It was surprising then that there seemed to be so many homeless people and people asking for money.  Although it was pretty constant it never felt threatening.  The major drawback was the complete lack of iPads to be bought in the city.  People owned them and were using them everywhere we turned, but they proved impossible to buy. Fortunately we had better luck in Cleveland!

Google Block Party

The highlight of Monday June 28 at ISTE had to be the Google Block Party.  The invitation had gone out during the day to sign up for the party and they appropriated an outdoor area by the Performing Arts Centre. It had all the Google hallmarks:  primary colours, great food and drink, and light-hearted fun.  The party came complete with jugglers, magician, a kitchen sink band, party games with lots of Google prizes and loot bags to take your prizes and lollies home in.

On arrival we all queued to have our photos taken for hologram luggage labels.  The principal who accompanied me got talking to Fun Productions about the possibility of getting them made at school to give every five year old one as a fun way to commemorate their first day at school.
All in all a great way to wrap up the first official day of the ISTE conference.

One of the many Google takeouts during the day was a tip shown to me by Cindy Lane. Google have recently released templates for Building Better Balloons in your Google Earth Tours.  These will be fun to use for Google Earth Lit Trips.  The layouts of the information balloons are already done for you if you use one of these templates.

Soccernomics and education

This book cover caught my eye as I was trawling the airport bookstores.  Made me reflect on rushing to print with prophecies and wish I was wearing that All White's T-Shirt  from Mr Vintage!  Australia -  king of the world's most popular sport?  History has told.

It's been a great couple of weeks of sport in New Zealand with successes in a number of codes. We can tell from the kids' blog posts that they have been captured by it, with many of them having all nighters watching sport on TV. You do have to wonder what the excitement over a series of draws tells us about the relative importance of soccer in our nation though.  The media and general public often give the All Blacks huge flak when they have had a win!  We expect them to win in style.  But our expectations for the All Whites are such that people are phoning in to talkback stations demanding a ticker-tape parade for some draws.

I know I am not the only one to draw comparisons between our expectations in sport and education.  We like to think in our Manaiakalani schools (all decile 1a) that we are not satisfied with a draw - which to us is getting our students to the national norms.  We want the wins! That's going to keep us busy a while longer.