Our Journey to iPad learning ...

Well, we've taken the plunge! The extra money in this year's budget helped but the amount of work involved has been quite extensive. More than I thought it would be.

One of the things I'm trying to accomplish as well is documenting what is happening and why. Communicating this to all involved and giving them a voice. So a small blog seemed like a good idea. It's another one of those READY FIRE AIM strategies but I'm starting to get concerned that there might be too much firing and not enough aiming!

Anyway, to see where we are at have a look here: St Kevin's iPad Trial

Delivering 'e'PD ...

Today I had my first experimentation with delivering PD without being at the PLT meeting. Last night I prepared a wiki on our PD and then had staff access the wiki together for 10 min just to go through how to access and then they were left to complete the PD in their own time at any web enabled location by a set date. I grabbed the idea from the notion of flipped classrooms and thought that perhaps a better way was to prepare the content now and use the time together for discussion and exploring. It just developed from there.

The notion of developing ePD is attractive because it has a life beyond the time taken. Teachers are tired after school as well and to be able to complete the PD in their own time in the environment of their choice was appealing. There is still the collaborative aspect as their posts can be seen by all.

To see the wiki I created click here: http://skormond.edublogs.org/wiki/staff-wiki-elearning/

One of the issues I mulled over for a while was ... do I use a wiki or a blog to post this information? I decided on a wiki but I'm not sure if I chose right.

Below is brief rundown of blogs and wikis ... not quite as serious a discussion as it could be but some of the differences between each is presented.



For a more formal and dry comparison you could try this one presented by a New Zealand teacher.



Further Reading: http://web2debate.wikispaces.com/Guidelines+for+using+Blogs+and+Wikis

Another Educational Resource I've started ...

The Return of Apple

Not since the days of the Apple IIe have I considered the Apple as a viable alternative to PC's in an educational setting. After getting my first iPhone, I began to realise that perhaps Apple did make some pretty cool items. Then came the iPad and I thought; this is actually a great tool for the classroom.

So I've just ordered a class set to use in the school and I had to get a MacBook to control this setup. Well I have just spent the past hour using a MacBook and I cannot believe what I have been missing out on over the last unpteen years! This is what's called a paradigm shift!

I'm sold ...

Update Your Twitter Profile

So, now that you have set up a Twitter account, how do you get rid of that silly egg and add some other information about yourself?

First of all, log onto your Twitter account on your desktop computer. You can edit your profile on most smartphone apps but they all do it in a different way, so I'm going to show you from a desktop internet connection which will be the same for all users.

Your Profile should contain a picture that represents something about you. Either a picture of yourself, the school, or perhaps the school logo. If you run more than one Twitter account, use different Avatars for each. The picture is called an avatar. The default avatar is the Twitter Egg.

Your Profile should also contain some further basic information. Personally I won't generally follow a Twitter account that I know nothing about. As well as this your Profile can contain you website, and a short bio about your school, or personal mission statement if it is a personal account.

Here is a small swish file that shows how to access the Profile section once you have logged on to your Twitter account. To view the video in a larger format, click the box on the right bottom corner.

If you have any further questions, just post them here or to my Twitter account @Mavenshare

I also made an earlier post on this blog about why you might want to set up more than one Twitter account.

Social Media/Control

To read the full text and background material click here: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/quit-facebook-or-be-expelled-school-says-20120516-1yqp0.html

Appearing this week in The Age was an interesting piece on Facebook. The issue at the heart of the discussion is cyber-bullying. It’s not something that we haven’t already heard a lot about. I know that there are very strong feelings about it in general, what is the school responsibility, what is the parent’s responsibility and what is the child’s responsibility? It is a far more complicated problem than most people realise. That’s why no clear answer has been given and society in general moving ahead.

Today's Meet

Join Today's Meet and let us use it as a easy way to exchange ideas. I have created a meeting room called SEprincipals. Go to http:// todaysmeet.com/SEprincipals. Add your name and start exchanging ideas. I have opened the room for a year. Have a go!

Teaching students "how to search" :google

More on the issue raised at our conference that children in our schools do not know the ins and outs of how to search on the net efficiently. I came across this great resource for teaching Google. Complete with lesson plans! Just click the image to go to the site.

Are your teachers utilising web 2 tools?

Some yes some no ... we could all use a little help. Here is a resources to pass on to them. It's not posted here as being a "best of", just one of many places, but a start ...

• Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher An Internet Hotlist on Web 2.0created by Sue Summerford

An online class ...

I'm toying with the idea of creating an online class. I could possibly use some of the social networking tools to create this. Twitter, Wiki, Facebook, perhaps there are others. This might be a cross level class from say year 4-6. As a first experiment I'm thinking that rather than an instructional online class, this might be a discussion type class, but I'm not sure, as this posting contains my first thoughts on the matter. I'm interested in getting the thoughts of our massive reader base. All nine people :).
Perhaps this class might travel across some our schools and include the senior body of more than one school. We could incorporate skype in this as well. Is anyone interested in partnering or joining this venture? Post your comments below or shoot me off an email or twitter.

• email: mday@skormond.catholic.edu.au
• twitter: @mavenshare