Stills from “How Quiet Helps At School” Coronet Films [Prelinger Archives]

Is your class characterised by the presence of “work sounds”? Not sure? In that event I recommend that you watch this informative film “How Quiet Helps At School“. This instructional film was produced by Coronet Films with advice from Dr. Henry Bonner McDaniel, a professor at Stanford University and the first director of guidance and counseling for the California Department of Education.

The films compares and contrasts two different classrooms. During the investigation of the second classroom a number of classroom management strategies are shared with the audience.

Some of the baby boomers that occasionally read this blog should look closely. Perhaps you are in either or both of these two classrooms.

The Internet Archive has an abundance of resources useful for history teachers, students of pop culture and media studies researchers. The resources are diverse in terms of media type and content. On and off during the last few days I have explored films relating to the assassination of JFK, Cold War propaganda, the dawn of the atomic era and instructional films from the 1940s and 1950s.

The archived films, for example, are particularly useful. It is possible to watch the films from within the browser yet links are provided that enable the researcher to download the films in a variety of formats including Cinepak, Ogg Video, MP4, Real Media, MPEG2. Embed code is also provided for the researcher. The embed code did not, however, work with this blog. Not to worry, as I downloaded the films to share with my students anyway.

The short films could be utilised to introduce a topic, generate argument, raise questions and act as the focus for a project. Students could download a sequence of short films on a particular topic, Cold War propaganda for example, and remix their own mash-up or documentary based on the material.

Stills from The Eleventh Hour [Film Chest Vintage Cartoons]

Two favourites of mine from the archives include a Superman cartoon from 1942 as well as the famous instructional film, Duck and Cover. In The Eleventh Hour Superman is busy destroying ships and military installations in and around Yokohama. He commences his acts of sabotage at 11.00PM each night. He also rescues Lois Lane who is also present in the city. Why she and Clark Kent are present in Yokohama at that particular time is not so clear.

The Japanese foe is depicted in a racially loaded and demeaning manner. As one commentator on the site pointed out it is interesting to see Superman wreaking destruction as opposed to saving the planet. I saved a copy of the film in MP4 format. One can also stop the film at specific moments, right mouse click on that frame, select ‘Copy” and save the individual frame for later embedding in a support document or web site for the students.

Stills from Duck and Cover [The Prelinger Archives]

The other, Duck and Cover, is a well known civil defense short film from 1951. Burt the Turtle gives advice on how you and I can survive an atomic attack. Sure, you can survive an atomic blast! Watch it and be amazed at what the general public and students were taught regarding atomic warfare. I usually show the students this film in conjunction with clips illustrating the destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the impact of the underwater atomic test at Bikini Atoll during Operation Crossroads.

These are just two of the thousands of films in the Internet Archive. Some are shocking, others simply amusing yet all are informative.

Yesterday my wife Shao Ping and I ventured up to Sydney to meet up with Tom Barrett and Steve Collis. I was keen to meet both Steve and Tom as they have always been thorough gentlemen in all of our communications and great supporters of my blog too. Great chaps indeed. Tom and his family are on holidays here in Australia. They have travelled all the way from Nottingham in England.

The view from Circular Quay

Shao Ping and I jumped in the car and drove to Allawah in Sydney, parked the car and hopped on a train to the city. We changed trains at Central Station, alighted at Circular Quay and caught a ferry to Manly across the majestic Sydney Harbour. We then walked along the Corso to the beach at Manly. We were a little early so we wandered about a bit.

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Opera House and the city in the background

Manly Beach

Tom found us first and then Steve turned up. Excellent! Interesting Tom looked more Australian then either Steve and myself. We all made our way to a local cafe for lunch. It was a bit like a blind date really. I had never met Tom or Steve in the flesh before. Have you ever been on a blind date? My wife and I were joking about this on the way to the meetup. Perhaps I might fall for Steve or Tom! Nothing quite like an each way bet, eh?

Three men on a blind date. Tom, John and Steve.

We ordered drinks and a meal and the conversation began. We carried on for about 2.5 hours. We covered all sorts of territory from practical, down to earth blog posts, the effectiveness of Twitter as a source of immediacy and connectedness in the classroom, through to innovative teaching and learning practices, teaching second languages and emigrating to a different country.

Life is good. Holidays, travel, freedom, drinks with friends.

We compared our actual teaching situations and spoke of future plans. Steve’s recent trip to the United States was a source of interesting discoveries. My wife and I took a few photographs including the obligatory hardware snap. In fact the  hardware surfaced for all of about 2 minutes. I do not own a mobile phone so I played with a small camera for the benefit of the shot.

Mini unconference. NECC watch out!

We adjourned to Manly Beach after the meal and we also took a few photographs with the Santa hats I had brought along for the meeting.

Steve in a jovial mood

Tom by the beach in a festive setting

We all had a jolly good time and I am glad I made the trip to Sydney. The weather held off and it was just a great experience to meet up with Tom and Steve. Two great blokes, both hard-working and innovative teachers and each a source of support and inspiration. Thanks Tom! Thanks Steve!

PS. Tom is on his way to Adelaide now to catch up with his dad and perhaps Graham Wegner, another gentleman on the blogwaves.

During the afternoon I gave a presentation via the Net to a group of teachers gathered together in Ungarie in far western NSW, Australia. They were attending a two-day Weaving Technology workshop. The title of the presentation was “Getting started ~ putting knowledge into practice”. The presentation was in conjunction with the NSW CAP programme, the DET and the Weaving Technology group. Anne-Maree Moore and Stacey Kelly were the prime movers behind the day.

A number of educators worked with the teachers during the last two days. In addition to Anne-Maree and Stacey the participants heard from Adam Currey, Phil Nosworthy, Darron Watt and Greg Alchin. A couple of new tools were brought to my attention during the two days: Kahootz and Shoutem.

The workshops that happened in Ungarie were a follow up to the excellent Weaving Technology conference that was held in Wagga, NSW, Australia last October. Following that conference I composed a few ideas regarding the thought or process of getting started with technology in the classroom. I blogged about those ideas at the time.

Essentially, when starting out with technology in the classroom I feel it is useful to keep the following three rules of thumb in mind…

1. Choose an aspect of the curriculum with which you hold a passion.
2. Choose an online tool with which you feel comfortable or ‘clicks’ for you.
3. Steer a simple, straightforward path at the outset.

As well, timing is also important… For example I find term III is favourable moment when the pressure is off somewhat. No final exams and no reports to write.

I pointed the participants in today’s presentation to the following resources…

Web 2.0 links and resources: Here you will find online guides and resources for applications and tools as diverse as Twitter, Second Life, Wikis and more. There are links to classroom blogs, wikis, Second Life sites, teacher blogs and a variety of advice from educators near and far. I have just updated the list with additional Nings and Twitter resources.

How to guides. This page is chock-a-block full of pdf guides to blogs, wikis, Twitter, RSS feeds, Posterous and much more. Feel free to download and use these guides. Worpdress has just been updated so that guide is a little out of date. I have also added these resources to my home page.

Blogrolls. These are some of the blogs that I read some of the time, not all of the time. This needs updating. Need to import my latest OPML file into Google Reader.

I have also uploaded four rough edits of an interview recorded by Nanyang Technological University. Four questions were answered. These videos could have acted as a back-up in the event that I could not connect with the participants for whatever reason. Click on each question to view the relevant video. You will need to ensure you have Quicktime installed.

What is Web 2.0?
How can teachers and students exploit Web 2.0 technologies for teaching and learning?
How can teachers benefit from web 2.0 technologies?
How can students benefit from web 2.0 technologies?

The presentation that was conducted this afternoon was recorded and is available here. Jump to 37.11 when the presentation actually begins. There were, initially, some issues with audio at my end. That was ironic as we had been experiencing some issues with video earlier this week. Technology keeps you on your toes, eh?

Cheers, John.

View larger image

This is an ancient aerial photograph taken just before the final stages of the historic Battle of Thermopylae between the Greeks and the Persians in 480BC. The image was taken by Anna Chronism. The Greek forces were courageously led by Leonidas. The troops are camped by one of the ancient walls of the pass. To the right the traitor Ephialtes can be seen.

How was this post created? The original photograph was taken using a digital camera. Mt Faber, Singapore, 2003. The ants were building a wall of sorts prior to a storm on a step on a path. Were they intending to funnel water towards or away from their nest I wonder? Why were they building a wall? Was the impending storm their version of an invading Persian force? I imported the photograph into Comic Life. The cartoon elements were added. I exported the project as an image. Opened it in Photoshop Elements and saved the image for the web. Large and small.

Wednesday morning, Sydney. Arrived last night. Workshop is on today. Innovative Technology in Schools Conference at the University of Technology in Sydney. Printed the resources (grab your own copy here) and updated the links for today’s participants. Added a number of Second Life related links to the Web 2.0 Workshop page. These include links to the ISTE Second Life site, Terra Incognita site and Skoolabarate.

I also updated the Web 2.0 workshop page with some additional resources and links, particularly with respect to that most enigmatic of all technology tools, Twitter. See you there.

This week I received a telephone call from Westley Field. He is the Diretor of Online Learning at Methodist Ladies College in Sydney as well as the force behind Skoolabarate.

Westley asked if I could help him out of a bind. He is scheduled to give a two day workshop on Emerging Technologies at the forthcoming Innovative Technologies in Schools Conference at the University of Technology, Sydney. Westley can not make it to the first day of the workshop due to a pressing commitment so he asked if I could replace him on the first day. I secured approval from my boss and I will be heading up to Sydney for the conference on that day.

This is a description of the workshop as it appears on the ITSC web site…

“Technology changes the way we work and live. And the types of technologies that are emerging have tremendous implications for the future of education. Schools will need to adopt new practices and new skills for teachers, if they are to remain competitive. In this presentation we will explore new technical directions as well as learn the strategies that worked in establishing a successful global collaborative initiative in teen second life. From beginning to end. Participants will learn of practical strategies and administrative considerations that make these projects work, viewing video footage of student experiences as well as interacting with students and partners during the presentation. With a focus on international collaboration this session will look at the incredibly successful Skoolaborate project (www.skoolaborate.com) and have you teleporting within days.”

Westley and I have been friends for years. We met back in the 1990s when we were undertaking postgraduate study at the University of Wollongong and working on projects with the Interactive Multimedia Learning Laboratory. We have both had the chance to work in Singapore as well this year. I managed to get Westley a gig at the Good To Great Teaching Conference at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore earlier this year. That was a great conference. Tom Reeves presented as well. The three of us had a great time. What a fantastic week that was!

Westley and I worked in Singapore together once more later in the year. I did some work with NTU, the Hwa Chong Institution and Singapore Airlines. Not bad for a school teacher. It has been a good year indeed. I am most fortunate. I am proud of my achievements.

I suspect the ITSC will be just as excellent. Stay posted for related materials and contributions.

This evening I checked through my feedreader, I use NetNewsWire. As I scan through the blog posts and the various news feeds I select those items that I would like to explore further. I prefer to read the full post in a browser. Clicking on the feed title opens each post in a browser with a new tab. I then quit NetNewsWire and begin reading the relevant posts in Firefox or Safari for example.

Tonight I earmarked about 50 items. There is a variety of content. Book reviews, inspiration, video, links, resources, technical tips, sites I feel that may benefit my colleagues and so on.

Fifty great ideas. Tap twice to begin, tap once to stop.

I will read through a number of the items this evening, comment here and there, and continue with the rest during the week. I may even add a few to Diigo (and Delicious by default).

At other times I may note 60, 70, 80 or more posts or items to read. It is overwhelming at times. There is so much great stuff out there. So many great ideas, so little time…

Google Earth and its browser based cousin Google Maps fascinate. This morning I read that a possible meteorite crater has been discovered in western New South Wales. The report in the Sydney Morning Herald tells the story of opal miner Mike Fry and how he spotted the crater via Google Earth. Mr Fry had been using Google Earth to explore terrain for possible opal mining sites. The site requires further geological investigation to confirm it is the result of an meteorite impact. The western rim of the site is visible. The eastern rim has been significantly eroded and is no longer visible.

View Larger Map

Earlier this year another potential impact crater was discovered in Western Australia by Dr Arthur Hickman, a government geologist with the Geological Survey of Western Australia.

View Larger Map

If you are interested in similar discoveries and meteorite craters around the globe this Google Earth Hacks site, Craters [scroll down], and this Google Maps site, Meteor Craters may interest you.

It fascinates that both of these geological ‘discoveries’ were made whilst seated in front of a computer display.

Have you ever made a ‘discovery’ while exploring Google Earth or Google Maps. Some time back I was exploring some of the towns where my wife and I had lived while we were living in Singapore. To my surprise I ‘discovered’ that a group of trees that were located in a park that was adjacent to our estate spelt out the name of the town, Pasir Ris. We had walked through and around the park many times yet we never realised that the trees had been so planted.

View Larger Map

In the classroom I like to use Google Earth to support the teaching of history. It is particularly useful when teaching students the history of the Persian Wars. Sites for battles such as Marathon, Salamis, Thermopylae and Artemisium are all accessible. Of course the terrain and coastlines have altered to some extent yet the maps provide an invaluable viusal for the students and it makes the events all the more tangible.

View Larger Map

Battle of Marathon site. Athenian soldiers are buried in this mound.

View Larger Map

Both the Battle of Thermopylae and the naval battle of Artemisium were fought in this region.

View Larger Map

The Battle of Salamis was fought in the narrows between the island of Salamis and the coastline of ancient Attica

So, have you made any “discoveries” using Google Earth? What do you think are some of the more interesting locations visible via Google Earth? How do you use Google Earth in the classroom?

Presently watching a documentary on television entitled “Where’s My Robot?“. Will not go into too much detail. Essentially the presenter went on a quest around the world looking for the robot that he had wanted as a child. Robots of varying capabilities in laboratories around the world were investigated. Researchers still have a long way to go. I wonder if this area of research is useful. Robots that can function in hazardous environments will be practical. Yet I wonder, are we spending money in the right places?

Given the challenges that the human race face with global climate change, for example, I wonder if I should change tack and begin teaching students about the past, the present and also the future. As a child I was so looking forward to the future. Well, the future has arrived and it has not matched my youthful expectations.

Growing up I had an interest in astronomy, space exploration and the future. I enjoyed reading books that provided glimpses into the future. When I turned 10 my father gave me a book entitled “Our World In Space and Time“. It was published in 1959. I have scanned a couple of images from the book in order to illustrate my thoughts. The book was essentially an overview of the the planet earth, its place in the universe and mankind. It was anglo-centric and written with an “imperial” view of the globe and its residents.

The overall impression it gave of the future was optimistic. There was no real hint that the resources of the planet were finite. In fact one of the chapters was entitled, “Forests that cover a quarter of the earth”. The chapter mentions that although there is a timber shortage in Europe and that “western Europe still needs more timber than it can easily come by.” Timber could be easily sourced from elsewhere. The image below faced the chapter. As you can see it shows forest clearing. It is depicted as a manly and exciting adventure.

Cut them down boys. Plenty more elsewhere.

The United Nations reports that about half of the world’s forests had disappeared and that most of that loss occurred during the three decades leading up to 1997. Afforestation projects are reversing the trends in some areas but it is not enough. ”Deforestation, mainly due to conversion of forests to agricultural land, continues at an alarmingly high rate – some 13 million hectares per year.” [Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005].

I live in Australia. It has the world’s fifth highest ecological footprint in the world. We are one of the greediest nations on the planet per capita. Shame. We need to do something.

The same book provided an optimistic view of space exploration as well. That dream has certainly not come to pass. The book and myself envisioned the 21st century with significant orbiting space stations, regular manned trips to the moon, bases on the moon, explorers on Mars and manned journeys making their way to the outer reaches of the solar system. Admittedly the text book was published in 1959 and Yuri Gagarin had not made the first manned space flight. But the vision seemed so possible.

The world in 2000

In 1973 I bought a book entitled Challenge of the Stars. It was published in 1972. It set out a series of predictions regarding the exploration of space by mankind. One of them was the establishment of a base on the moon by the 1990s. The illustration below sets out their ideas for life on the moon about 1990. It all seemed so easy back in 1973.

Moonbase 1990

I watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey as well during the evening. It presented a magnificent view of space travel in 2001 with regular space flights by Pan American Airways, massive space stations (that resembled a five-star hotel within), a moon shuttle, large bases on the moon, inter-planetary travel and so on. It was a grand vision. In 1968 it all seemed to be within our grasp. It seemed that all of that could be achieved. [I am not advocating that the human race attempt to achieve these goals now. More important matters are pressing.]

What has happened? The Clavius moon base illustrated in 2001 A Space Odyssey could not even be built on the planet earth in 2008 let alone on the moon. This planet is too busy building massive shopping centres while others starve. Nothing shits me more than seeing news reports about food eating contests, world record hot-dog consumption attempts and the like. I think that is obscene, particularly when one is likely to see images of starving or poverty stricken children during the same news bulletin. What is wrong with the human race?

In recent weeks wealthy nations around the world have raised nearly $USD5,000 billion to fight the global financial crisis. I am not an economist but one wonders if the planet’s economy was better managed in the first place surely that $USD5,000 billion could have been put to use preventing some of the woes that face us in the 21st century? Where did that money come from?

Governments around the world are tightening their budgets and going into deficit as well. Will they also reduce their proposed budget allocations originally designed to combat global climate change? Where do all of those promises stand now?

Imagine if governments no longer had to include the military in their budgets? The money could be spent on cleaning up the planet and feeding people. Of course, if that was to happen there would be military coups on every continent. The military would not allow it to happen.

There are times when I feel guilty. I have this laptop, a digital camera, a TV, etc. What is my ecological footprint?

The optimistic vision of the 21st century that I grew up with as a child is not coming to pass. The 21st century is beset with famine, poverty, climate change and a growing chasm between the rich and the poor.

I feel that we should be teaching students a range of values where materialism is not paramount. Community, resilience, sharing and giving. Positive values for the future. [I hope I do not sound like a politician. It sounds like something Kevin Rudd would say.] Yes, we share by example in our schools yet I feel that a more substantial slice of the curriculum should be devoted to teaching our students and ourselves how to really live on this planet.

It is the only planet that we have and given that by 2050 mankind will require the resources of 2 or 3 similar planets to satisfy the needs of the human race one wonders what will be left for the children of our current crop of students? Presently it is taking the planet 1.2 years to regenerate what is taken by mankind in a single year.

We need a new subject. It’s focus should be on the future. Not sure what to name the subject. But we need it. Maths, English, Music, History, Art, Science, Geography, and… Life.

Addedndum. I was exploring the ABC web site and discovered this interesting clip on their new Fora site. I am yet to watch all of it however it fits in with my thoughts here to some extent. The video consists of a debate between Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and futurist Peter Schwartz about which of the two disciplines is the better: Historian or Futurist?

Each day I share a ride with three other colleagues on the way to school. We all live near each other. We take turns to drive to school, week on week. We estimate that our travel costs are about $7.00 to $8.00 a week. Car pooling is a good idea. We travel against the flow of the traffic as well. Every day we see all these commuters driving into town, occasionally banked up for kilometres. The last part of the drive is rather scenic as we pass by dairy farms.

Well, on the way home one of my car pool buddies marked the final examinations for his Year Nine Mathematics class. He has 28 students. The exam finished at 3.15PM and he began marking straight away as he waited for one of our colleagues to complete bus supervision duty. He continued marking as we made our way home in the car. It was my turn to drive this week. He had completed his marking before we reached his home. The drive is about 20 minutes. There were multiple choice questions and equations to mark. He finished them all. The entire class. He can relax this weekend.

I teach the same class. History. They did their final examination today as well. I will have essays and extended responses to mark. It will take up most of the next few evenings. I teach two other similar Year Nine classes. All up 87 students. That is 87 essays, and 261 extended responses. Then there is Year Eight History. More essays and extended responses. They did their yearly examination as well. The marking is part of the job. I accept that. That is fine.

I guess I sometimes wish I was a Mathematics teacher at marking time. Mathematics teachers have it too easy.

Think I will make my way to the fridge and grab a beer.

Just corrected some links on this blog to these resources…

Web 2.0 Workshop Resources
Technology guides and support documents
Web 2.0 links

Preparing for exams
[Source: Wikipedia: Factory farming]

This may seem premature yet the end of the school year is fast approaching. The last day of school is the 18th December. More than five weeks away. The students will probably complete their academic school year during the previous week. The final week is taken up with presentations, parent interviews and professional development.

This week our students in Years 7 to 10 are undertaking their final examinations. The weeks leading up to these examinations involved catch-up lessons, revision, summary notes, practice tests, and similar. It has been rather frenetic. This time of year always seems so far away yet it creeps up on you and the students are sitting for the final examinations.

The driven students seek additional trial tests, opportunities for revision and those elusive hints. Other students do not seem to have a worry in the world. Some of my students went on a holiday during the week leading up to the exams. How is that for a carefree, laissez-faire attitude? Have you witnessed that in your teaching career?

So, examinations for years 7 to 10. Only the students in Year 10 are sitting for an external examination. The NSW School Certificate. The majority of the Year 10 students were keen. Yet, a number of the students know that they will be returning to Year 11 regardless of the result that they achieve in the School Certificate. There is something fundamentally awry with that. What do you think? I suspect that the School Certificate will be no longer in the not too distant future.

After this week the teachers will be marking exams, writing reports and meeting deadlines. The students are aware that although the school year is not yet over the assessment programme has been completed. I see some of you have a wry smile on your face. Some educators have labelled this time of year “the silly season”. That does not sound too good. I know a number of the parents would not be too impressed to hear that. Particularly fee paying parents.

During this time of the year the teachers have to be really on their game. This is when you unearth the interesting lessons and the intriguing projects. That is awry as well. We should be engaging in the really creative and interesting strategies during the course of the year but the examinations act like a finishing line that we must cross at all costs. The examinations sometimes force us to adopt factory farming strategies to force feed the students. There are students and parents that almost demand it. “Fill up my brain with factual fodder so that I can get an A“.

Examinations. I have mixed emotions about them. Certainly professionals and students training to be in a role in which the lives and safety of individuals are at stake should pass through a testing regime of some form. Yet, students in an academic environment where progression from one year to the next is a given should not have to waste their time with a period of examinations not unlike those undertaken by my parents back in 1932. Surely their competencies and skills can be measured by other assessment methods.

I confessed I have mixed emotions about examinations. Quizzes and tests seemingly have their place in some contexts. A number of the students actually enjoy them. Others do not. Some students enjoy the competition. Others do not.

How do you feel about examinations? Does your school also experience a period during the academic year when all assessment is complete yet the students still have a few weeks of school to attend? Are your students assessed right up until the last day of the school year? If so when do you create your reports, etc?

What shall I be undertaking with my students during November and December? I hope to explore a few technologies with a number of the classes. Of course there are the students who take advantage of the situation and ‘play the game’. Who can blame them? Good luck to them. I shall endeavour to be one step ahead and make sure that they derive value during these last few weeks of the year. We have considerable latitude in what and how we teach during these weeks.

If you were I how would you be teaching the students during the coming weeks? 

Our homestay student just arrived home from university. She completed a final examination in biology today. The examination lasted for 2 hours.

The examination consisted of 120 multiple choice questions. Each question had five options from which to choose. Not four options, five!

Think about it. On average each question had to be dealt with in 60 seconds. Each option needs to be considered in say 12 seconds. Less, when you think about it further.

That is madness. That is an abuse of the multiple choice question format. The lecturer is simply lazy in my estimation. Easy to mark, true. Fair on the students, not true.

120 multiple choice questions in 120 minutes for an examination that covered an entire annual course.

Which university? The University of Wollongong. Which faculty? Science.

That is not an education.