21st Century Educator

Before the mid Semester break I did a presentation at a parent night about social networking. There was the usual discussion about safety, the appropriate amount of time using them and if they are worthwhile. However, what came across as I was presenting this and preparing it (1 hour before parents arrived) was the fact that allowing social networking sites at school and using them for educational purposes means we must change the way we teach and assess. Stupid old me started a trend with my film and media class of allowing social networking for school purposes. This started off harmlessly enough with the beginning of a class group page.

After the class page students started using some initiative and created Facebook pages, youtube accounts and twitter feeds to manage their group assignments. All of these pages/groups invited me to be a part of it so I could add thoughts and advice along the way. However, the exciting thing here for me was when students started adding experts in the particular fields to the groups. What is that I hear you say – There are experts on topics more knowledgeable than me – The teacher?!?! You must be mad!! (Sarcastic tone there ladies and gents!!)

So far so good – All I had to do was encourage the collaboration with tools the students were already fans of and we began engaging students. Next I got a little smart and thought I would challenge the students to develop any means possible to engage the largest network of experts to help them with their personal documentary projects. One student started a facebook page and started inviting the experts… Well as luck had it his documentary topic is all about technological change in society and how schooling has not kept up with the rapid change. However, the interesting thing here is that the apparent experts he is engaging are fellow students. With some encouragement these students are beginning to see the value of connecting through these social technologies.

But the real mind shift came when the following was found on facebook 2 days out from our class exam last term. After encouraging students to us social network sites to help with ideas for assignmnets, I didn’t realise they would use the same site to help them work out what was coming in the exam. One student decided he would use Facebook to contact some of my past students at my old school. He had success, and in fact ended up asking the right questions of the right people from my previous class.

I had informed my students that the exam would include a few essay questions that would ask their opinion on different quotes from various film makers. This student finds some of the quotes from class notes and begins posting them to some of my past students to see if he can get any idea as to what is coming up in the exam.

I found the posts at this stage and had a decision to make… Do I put a stop to this or do I encourage the initiative to crowd source. Is this cheating? Or is this an example of why traditional assessment must change?

I believe the best lesson here is that we must change our methods if we are going to embrace new technologies in our classroom. Furthermore, it is clear to me that when a teacher encourages students to use the technology they will embrace the opportunity and run with it. Watching students develop in this space is just awesome!! They demonstrate a true desire to learn when it is relevant and challenging. I am sure there will be more to come here!!

Spent some time over the past few months thinking through iPhone projects we can work on in our school next year. Over time I have collated the apps that I think are making my life as an educator more effective and efficient. This is a list I want to build on as I discover more useful applications. The list is not a list of “educational” apps, it is more a list of apps that help me in my daily life as a teacher. This is in no particular order just a random collection of thoughts over the past few months.

1) Calendar… Sounds boring but it is a life saver. Once you have this puppy linked to your exchange server at school or iCal server there is no missing meetings and appointments. I have had phones and PDA’s in the past with similar features but they have never worked. The key with this app is it’s ability to sync with the calendar services on your school network. Meeting requests, reminders and appointments all just push through seamlessly without me doing anything special!!

2) Tweetie… So not everyone is a twitter freak like me, but the usefulness of this app and the twitter service is amazing me more and more each day. The ability to crowd source so quickly and easily absolutely anywhere is a lifesaver for me each week. Free assistance on any issue from using advanced editing software to teacher recommendations on particular software or class activities!! All of this depends on you creating a network of worthwhile friends and colleagues, but once you achieve that there are some awesome advantages to an app that gives you quick and easy access to a wealth of knowledge!! Starting next term I am starting a project with 1 class to follow the a twitter feed of class information (more on that as it develops). (My twitter name is brett_moller)

3) Ping… Oh ping is an amazing push messaging service that I can see going nuts. Best of all it is free to download and free to use (basically). Push messages is just like sending an SMS to your iPhone buddies without the crazy telco charges. Push messages work over wifi or cellular. Each message is around 2Kb of data so there is no going over your data limit, unless you send 1000’s of messages a month. I see this as a great way for teachers and students to communicate. So far I have used this more as a social tool – but as more and more colleagues are on board I can see this becoming a great tool for connecting and communicating. (My Ping handle is Molski)

4) In the same category as ping would be AIM (iChat client) and Skype. The potential of these apps as collaboration and communication tools is great, however, we have had some interesting technical obstacles to get skype working 100% within our school network. While I was in Hong Kong earlier this year I participated in a conference call to a meeting back at school with skype on my iPhone. I was on the ferry on my way to a school visit off the main island, connected to the free wifi on the Hong Kong ferries participating in a meeting back home in Australia.

5) Evernote… Oh my this is an amazing tool that is so simple yet so powerful. Evernote is a great note taking app that syncs to your account which can be accessed via iPhone, web or desktop. Finally all my meeting notes, class notes, assessment of oral presentations are all synced, backed up and easy to access. Your notes can be private or made public. This is a great tool as it also allows me to share notes from class discussions with students on a public page. My evernote feed for my Film class is in our class LMS page and often contains text notes from class discussions, copies of workflows, even basic voice notes and pictures can be shared their also.

6) iDisk… For all you mobile me buffs iDisk on the iphone is a must have. Simple access to all my documents and important files on my phone is just so useful!! I can’t remember the number of times I have been in meetings where someone has questioned something and I have been able to clarify with direct access anywhere to my important files and folders (obviously I have all my work documents on my iDisk)

7) OmniFocus… Expensive but well worth it for the disorganised and very busy teacher. I have struggled for so long to manage projects and basic tasks. With this app you can easily setup projects and tasks that need to be completed with basic steps and reminders. The app has a desktop companion which synchronises with your iPhone. For me this is the best productivity app I have ever used. I like the way it lays out projects and lets you setup and schedule tasks.

iExpensit… This is a great app for keeping track of departmental budgets. With different budgets that I take care of it is great to have something that helps me keep track of what is and isn’t spent. Always good to keep your school accounts staff happy with you!! I would love to see a expense app or budget app the synced to a web service so it could be shared amongst other staff. Any suggestions?

9) Wikipedia.. At your fingertips anywhere this is just priceless!!

10) Voice Recorder… I am constantly using class discussion and debate in my classes to help students form deeper meaning and understanding of issues. The ease of voice recorder to capture those priceless conversations is just an awesome thing!! Often I grab a conversation and with minimal mucking around I have the file on my computer submitting to our podcast server. Next step for me would be podcast capture for the iPhone!! App to capture and submit media to your podcast server!!!