Video looking at the growth of social media.

Highland are rolling out Glow. Part of this rollout is to pilot Glow in the Mallaig Associated School Group. This is made up of Mallaig High School, Mallaig Primary School, Lady Lovat Primary, Arisaig Primary, Inverie Primary, Eigg Primary, Muck Primary, Canna Primary and Rum Primary.

The choice of this area to pilot Glow is obvious for anyone who knows the challenges that the geography of the West Highland can bring to small schools.   

They are making a short video on using Glow. Here is a the hilarious opening scene.

Becta has published major new research at the end of July. I have just come across it and it is interesting reading. It looks at the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, blogs and social networking, by children between the ages of 11-16, both in and out of the school environment.  

The reports found that young learners are prolific users of Web 2.0 technologies in their leisure time but that the use of Web 2.0 in the classroom was limited. However, schools and teachers who are innovating in this area have found benefits, such as:

• Web 2.0 helps to encourage student engagement and increase participation – particularly among quieter pupils, who can use it to work collaboratively online, without the anxiety of having to raise questions in front of peers in class – or by enabling expression through less traditional media such as video

• Teachers have reported that the use of social networking technology can encourage online discussion amongst students outside school

• Web 2.0 can be available anytime, anywhere, which encourages some individuals to extend their learning through further investigation into topics that interest them

• Pupils feel a sense of ownership and engagement when they publish their work online and this can encourage attention to detail and an overall improved quality of work. Some teachers reported using publication of work to encourage peer assessment.

The research also found that over half of teachers surveyed believe that Web 2.0 resources should be used more often in the classroom.

However, the majority of teachers questioned had never used Web 2.0 applications in lessons, despite being frequent users of technology in their personal and professional lives. Their main concerns involved a lack of time to familiarise themselves with the technology and worries about managing the use of the internet in class.

The reports recommended that teachers should be encouraged to help learners to develop more sophisticated use of Web 2.0 technology and to give them the skills to navigate this space.

Just finished listening to an excellent programme by BBC Education journalist Mike Baker. From Abacus to Circle Time: A Short History of the Primary School The first of a three part series. Mike explored the strict, no-nonsense Victorian schoolroom and hears from former pupils about their experience of primary schools from the 1930s to the 1960s, including Baroness Shirley Williams, who recalled the poverty of her fellow pupils in her London elementary shool in the 1930s. It certainly stuck a chord with my primary school experience in the late 1950’s

The other two programmes will go on to trace the controversial changes to the ways we have educated our youngest children over the past 150 years, from the rigidity of the Victorian age to the occasionally anarchic, experiential learning of the progressive 1970s.
It certainly puts some of the developments around Curriculum for Excellence in perspective.

At he end of the series the BBC will host a debate on primary education.

If you missed it it will soon be available on the BBC iPlayer site

Photo courtesy of R4vi’s photostream FlickrCC

Latest version of Did You Know.

Often when talking with colleagues about computing equipment for schools the discussion often starts with the use of terms such as desktops and laptops, the report below makes it clear we really need to change our terminology and start to talk about connected devices instead.

We know that smartphone sales on the increase but an analyst says that they will outstrip worldwide PC sales by the end of 2011. The report, by RBC analyst Mike Abramsky, estimates that by that time shipments of both will be approaching 400 million a year. Smartphones are much more capable of running web applications and browsing the internet than previous generations of phones, making them more able to interface with learning platforms. Many older pupils own smartphones and will increasingly expect to access educational content using them. This suggests that schools and colleges will need to plan to support a more diverse range of devices for home and remote learning.

Photo courtesy of mastrobiggo FlickrCC

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has produced The Mobile Difference, a report into the gadget preferences and mobile lifestyles of groups within the US population. The report defines two sets of five cohorts.

Adults ‘Motivated by Mobility’ (39%):

Digital Collaborators (8%) who prefer to use technology to collaborate and share their creativity with others.

Ambivalent Networkers (7%) who are heavy users of mobile devices, but who can be irritated by how they impact on their lives.

Media Movers (7%) who like to create or seek out and record interesting digital ‘nuggets’ to pass them around their online social networks.

Roving Nodes (9%) who use mobile devices to manage their lives, especially through email, SMS and websites.

Mobile Newbies (8%) who are new to the mobile digital world, but like to be a part of it, especially using their new mobile phones.

Adults who are the ‘Stationary Media Majority’ (61%):

Desktop Veterans (13%) who prefer landline and other cabled access for regular access to digital information.

Drifting Surfers (14%) who are light users, familiar with a range of technology but who say they would be happy without it.

Information Encumbered (10%) who find that there can be too much information online and often feel inadequate to deal with technological problems.

The Tech Indifferent (10%) who are unenthusiastic about digital lifestyles, although most have a mobile phone.

Off the Network (14%) who do not have the technology – they may never have had it, or the may have become disenchanted with it.

The following online quiz  may help determine what kind of tech user you are

Kodak has announced last week that after 74 years, they are discontinuing the last of their Kodachrome films, K64.

K64 was one of my main choices for film in the 80’s. I later moved onto Fuji Velvia 50 because of its punchy saturation. I suppose the demise of K64 film was inevitable given most folk have moved to digital (though I do have 10 rolls of Velvia still in the fridge) and its a real shame to see K64 go. The Kodachrome Project is a photo documentary shot all on Kodachrome film that celebrates the last couple years of Kodachrome film’s life. Its well worth watching

Teachers are always trying to combat student apathy and University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin, has found an interesting way to do it using Twitter in the classroom.

Rankin uses a weekly hashtag to organize comments, questions and feedback posted by students to Twitter during class. Some of the students have downloaded Tweetdeck to their computers, others post by SMS or by writing questions on a piece of paper. Rankin then projects a giant image of live Tweets in the front of the class for discussion and suggests that students refer back to the messages later when studying. The Professor’s results so far have been mixed but it is clear that more students are participating in classroom discussions than they used to

[From How One Teacher Uses Twitter in the Classroom]

HP’s slick take on Did You Know. Very sophisticated graphics and animations. The marketing folk at HP have obviously seen how many people have watched the original Did You Know clips on YouTube. Its around seven minutes long and thankfully only in the last 40 seconds does turn it into an advert for HP products that tie with mobile web and cloud computing. No doubt we will be seeing various excerpts from it at presentations in the near future. Well I know we will as I have just downloaded a copy!