21st Century Educator

Just arrived for the speakers meeting here at ACEC…..  and good news folks the wireless works and it is free!!  WOOHOO….  This is probably going to be much bigger than I realised.  I hope more bloggers jump on the bandwagon….  According to hitchhikr there isn’t too many of us here.  My presentation is tomorrow afternoon.  Still a bit nervous about it all.  Guess we will wait and see!! 

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Blogged with Flock

Getting ready to head off to ACEC.  I fly out tomorrow morning (6:30am flight - Ouch) to get settled in and setup for my presentation.  I am presenting at 2:30 on Monday in the Rainforest Room.  Just puting the final touches to my presentation….  Still a tad nervous about it all but I will just give it my best shot and see how folks respond.  The presentation has evolved some what since the writing of my innitial proposal.  I guess that is just the nature of the topic and the rapid pace in which things are changing. 

I am looking forward to meeting as many people as possible and getting an opportunity to see what others are doing in the wonderful world of EDtech.  Trust everyone has safe travels up to cairns.  Those who can’t make it, I trust you will be following the blogging going on through hitchhikr.

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Blogged with Flock

Al Upton emailed me this morning suggesting we have a “Bloggers Breaky” at ACEC this year. I haven’t sorted out a location yet (I will need to check the coffee quality before deciding) but I think we will aim for Tuesday morning of conference week. Al does a great job with blogging in his classroom and will be presenting during ACEC. The “Bloggers Breaky” gives us a chance to catchup and discuss blogging, podcasting and other web 2.0 tools in education - It is also an excuse to drink some coffee and have a nice breakfast.

I am sure Al and others will be happy to share their experiences of a blogging classroom and I would be happy to share how I use these tools in the education programs I run. So stay tuned for more details. Add a comment here if you are interested in attending… Even if you don’t blog but would be interested please come along….

Hope to see you there…

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Blogged with Flock

Sitting down at Starbucks (yes Dave Starbucks is in Australia) working away on the ACEC presentation.  Just came up with an interesting idea - Thanks to a comment from Dave Warlick.  I am working on a Podcast that goes through the steps of creating a blog and podcast from scratch.  Something that teachers could use as a tutorial to get them started.  I then plan to demonstrate it live in person from my presentation area.

The good news is that there is going to be free wirless for all conference goers this year!!  Also just added a neat feature to my phone that gives the option to send photos to flickr with a menu option that pops up once you have taken the picture. 

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Blogged with Flock

New Toy For ACEC

Originally uploaded by Brett Moller.

Just got the new recording device for 5g vid ipods. I am planning on using it to do some podcasting while at the conference. works well so far i will wait and see how it goes. I am also writing this on my phone and posting via the telstra 3g network.

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I am placing some finishing touches to my ACEC presentation (Australian Computers in Education Conference). I have added some graphics here that I am using in my poster presentation to help explain some of the concepts of using Web 2.0 (particularly podcasting) in learning programs. I have tried to answer the How and the Why questions around Podcasting and then tried to tie that back to web 2.0 tools in general. It is important for me to give the impression that this is something that is worth while integrating into classroom practice.

First of all the how… I have two diagrams here. “Preparing for a podcast” is my attempt to give an overview of the thinking that teachers must do before attempting to implement podcasting as a learning tool.

I have tried to answer some basic questions and also outlined some questions for educators to think through. The next diagram is an overview of how I see5 steps to producing an educational podcast. Remember my aim here is podcasting a learning experience. Almost like using it as a reinforcement tool of the learning. This diagram gives some more food for thought and questions for the educator to think through.

To answer the second section of the presentation – The Why Podcasting. I have decided to do a deeper look into developing higher order thinking. 21st Century education is about encouraging those higher order thinking skills that students so desperately need to develop. This diagram is an attempt to demonstrate how producing a podcast addresses all levels of thinking (in this case Blooms Taxonomy has been used). I have suggested the questions to be answered and then given an example based on the learning program I teach about sound and music.

I would like to welcome some feedback on these ideas. This is a poster presentation I am giving for the ACEC conference. It is the first time I have presented a poster presentation. Actually, it is my first presentation at a conference like this!! All the feedback and ideas I can get from readers would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance….
The ACEC conference has been added to hitchikr with the tag acec06. Still trying to drum up interest in blogging the conference with hitchikr.

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Blogged with Flock

Quite sometime ago I wrote about ethics in the 21st century. It is an interesting area that I think is starting to get some serious consideration by many. David Warlick has written some interesting posts recently. At the end of the day we need to be aware of the information environment students are engaging in and begin to understand the issues that this new environment raise. We then need to consider how to tackle the problems.

To the purpose of this post - I wanted to share a story I overheard from a group of teenagers this morning down at Starbucks - Hmm I have resorted to blogging my ears-dropping?!?!?! Anyway, the kids were talking about an advertisment that comes up at the movies warning people about the risks of downloading movies online. The advertisment challenges the viewer that because they wouldn’t steal a purse or break in to a house and steal a TV they shouldn’t download a movie because it is the same thing. Makes sense to me - Stealing is Stealing!! However, the insight these teens put on the conversation was interesting indeed. One said that it was a stupid argument because if someone just left a purse sitting out in the open where it was easy to get to then of course you would just take it. He continued, stating that because movies and music is so easy to download and because it is out there in the open for anyone to take so easily then it is ok.

I guess there are a number of issues to explore here. I think it is an evolution of social networks and the thinking that is being developed by young minds of today. To think that stealing is ok just because it is easy says to me that they have lost a sense of reality and which in turn distorts their understanding of what is right and wrong. So my challenge is - What could the industry do to encourage teens that it is wrong to download movies online illegally?

Thought someone may find this interesting…..