Thoughts on teaching, technology, learning and life in an era of change.

Archive for the ‘ Teaching ’ Category

Do you like telling stories?
October 13th, 2009

I like telling stories. What sort of stories do I like to tell? Stories about days at school, life in the ANZ Bank, stories my father told me, historic sagas and the like.

Where do stories come from? Have you ever wondered about that? Stories come from passion, imagination, experience, tragedy, success, life and death. Stories come from places you have been, places you want to be. Stories come from inside you. Stories come from people you want to be.

Friends

Friends

Stories can be ignited… by loss, joy, grief, happiness, a turning point, a decision.

Where do stories go? They can travel back in time, leap forward to the future, go deep into your heart. Stories can take you to places that you know and places that you don’t. They can be a vehicle of juxtaposition and transposition as you venture into another dimension.

Mother and daughter, Kyoto.

Mother and daughter, Kyoto.

The sad thing is that some stories never survive. They are not written down. They are not recorded. They are not remembered. They are lost… forever.

Now is the time to record those stories. The ways and means are readily available. Write a blog, record your voice on the computer, make a podcast, make a video. Not next week or next year, but now if you can. Teach your students, teach your relatives, teach your friends, teach yourself.

Do you like telling stories?

Here are some links to get you started…

Alan Levine: Wiki ~ Follow the link to 50 ways to tell a story wiki
Alan Levine: Open Discussion on 50+ ways to tell a story
Alan Levine and Bryan Alexander: Educause article on 50+ ways to tell a story ~ PDF
Alan Levine: New Media Consortium Presentation: 50 Ways to Tell a Story
Miguel Guhlin: Digital storytelling workshop wiki
Miguel Guhlin: Place based storytelling
Miguel Guhlin: Digital storytelling with web based tools Wiki
Miguel Guhlin: Voicethread Tutorial
Matthew Needleman: Digital Storytelling Blog Carnival #1 and #2
Educational Origami ~ Voicethread Tutorial
Web 2.0 Storytelling Wiki
Center for Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling Toolkit
Instructify: Digital Storytelling
Keeping the Mood Light: Digital Storytelling
Open Thinking: Center for Future Storytelling
The Art of Storytelling
International Day of Sharing Life Stories

Education and the social web ~ taking learning beyond the classroom
October 13th, 2009

Well, what is this all about, eh? This Wednesday Kevin Lim and I shall be giving a talk at Nanyang Technological University on Education and the social web ~ taking learning beyond the classroom. I am up here in Singapore, on a bit of a break, hanging out with friends and taking photographs, and the opportunity arose to give a talk and I thought why not invite Kevin to be part of the process. The talk is part of the edUtorium series at NTU.

I am a big fan of Kevin’s blog & also his Delicious feed so I thought it would be neat to allow Kevin to speak in Singapore during his current homecoming visit from the University of Buffalo where he has recently completed his PhD. Congratulations Kevin!

Kevin and I at Starbucks, Holland Village, Singapore

Kevin and I at Starbucks, Holland Village, Singapore

Last Saturday morning Kevin and I met up for a drink at Starbucks in Holland Village and synthesized a number of ideas for our talk. Individually our ideas have been gestating for some years now and they have come together in a manner of speaking and this Wednesday I guess an offspring will be generated in the form of our talk. Please feel welcome to join the talk and if you can spread the word. Kevin has been doing a great job already!

What are the details? Taken from the Nanyang Technological University web site…

Date/Time
14 October 2009 (Wednesday) · 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm (2hrs)

Location
NTU Lecture Theatre 6, Level 2, Academic Complex North, Singapore (PDF map)

Overview

The democratic nature of the social web means that the ability to learn and produce meaningful work can now happen at any level – from the independent student, to the individual teacher, to the entire education institution. Now, more than ever, instructors are able to motivate active learning among students, by empowering them with relevant online tools that allow for more creative approaches to go beyond the traditional class-based education.

In this two hour session, learn how you can…

~ cultivate learning beyond the classroom
~ encourage participation in the class conversation
~ inspire student pride through greater sense of ownership of their work
~ include new literacies in research, organization, and synthesis of ideas
~ support multiple learning styles
~ create exemplars by raising the bar of student achievement
~ archive learning by creating a record for both you and the students

And much more…

In this international presentation brought to you by educators John Larkin (Australia) and Kevin Lim (United States), the first part of the session will provide a general state of education on the social web, while the second part will demonstrate tactical approaches to meeting your students’ learning objectives through the appropriate use of social web tools such as blogs, wikis, and social networks. The ultimate vision of this session would be to situate student learning in a more familiar and communal environment.

Speakers

Dr Kevin Lim studies and shares his interest in the wide-ranging cultural affordances of information communication technology, particularly on the self-organizing and pedagogical quality of the social web. With his academic background in communication, his research has ranged from Internet censorship and civil sovereignty in China, to social capital among online non-profit organizations. He also conducts social web-related workshops and produces instructional guides at the Teaching & Learning Center, located in the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Kevin has been fortunate to be featured on the Buffalo News (New York), CBC News (Canada), Zaobao Weekly (Singapore), Channel News Asia (Singapore), commandN.tv (Canada), as well as several prominent blogs.

Mr John Larkin is an educator and instructional designer presently living in Australia. He has vast experience in the development and application of educational technologies in primary, secondary, tertiary and corporate educational fields. John is constantly researching the latest trends in educational technologies and as a result he has established linkages with like-minded educators across the globe. He is constantly seeking new tools and technologies that will allow educators of all backgrounds to converge teaching and technology in a manner that is both practical and productive. He has worked on a significant number of web-based and CD-ROM projects. John has led the design on corporate, tertiary and school based web-learning projects. His skill set is enriched with a keen eye for design and a practical approach towards instructional technologies.

Course Fee
Thanks to NTU the presentation is now free to attend.

Registration Link
http://edutorium.ntu.edu.sg/courses_detail.php?course_id=138

Kevin strikes a pose near Sultan Gate

Kevin strikes a pose near Sultan Gate

Winter approaching…
May 9th, 2009

Winter approaches. It is an incredible Autumn morning here on the Illawarra coast.  See the little photo below.
 
Digital storytelling has crossed my mind of late. Recently conducted a workshop on the topic. It was most enjoyable. I had a creative and highly participative group of teachers and academic staff based in Singapore.
 
Digital storytelling is fine in itself. The term ‘digital’ does not rest well with myself. I tire of prefixing teaching and learning strategies with terms such as ‘digital’, ‘web 2.0′ and the like. At times I have no choice as such terms are required to market my workshops.
 
Storytelling is simply that. It is irrelevant which tool you apply to tell the story. Paper, paint, voice, keyboards. As long as the story is shared.
 
If the story can be shared via traditional approaches then why bother with ‘digital’ methods? The key to that question is to ensure that the digital strategy provides an avenue of expression and interaction not possible with the traditional approach. The technology has to make a difference.
 
Technology affords many possibilities in this regard. Where to begin?
 
Take good old Audacity, for example. You know, the free open source audio recording and editing software. A single storyteller can create a multitude of characters with some careful editing, selecting and filtering.
 
I would recommend storyboarding beforehand. Generate characters, a plot and the script, even just in general terms. Once the story is mapped out then the recording can begin.
 
Audacity allows multiple tracks to be recorded so a variety of characters can be recorded by an individual. Tracks can be named according to character and dialogue.
 
How to differentiate between the various characters if a single student has recorded the story? Select the track for a particular character and alter the pitch using the appropriate effects filter. Raise the pitch, lower the pitch. A single student can be a burly bouncer, an anxious astronaut, or a vexed vixen.
 
Plug in more than one student and you could have a virtulal panoply of characters.
 
You could even have an extraterrestrial in the mix. Record any dialogue. Filter the dialogue using ‘pitch’ and ‘backwards’. There you have it, one alien. Allow the remainder of the dialogue to generate an understanding of the conversation with the alien. Could be an exercise in itself: Codebreaking first contact with an alien species.
 
Audacity also allows for tracks to be easily shifted backwards and forwards in the timeline affording opportunities for flashbacks, stories to be told backwards, and the juxtaposition of contrasting dialogue.
 
You can also make use of both channels with some mixing. Play two pieces of dialogue simultaneously and simply ensure one is mixed to the left channel and the other to the right channel. A single student could generate an argument between two different characters.
 
The characters could come from different times, dimensions, places, planets, universes and states of being. Why interview a person when you could interview a ‘rock’, a ‘leaf’ or an ‘atom’? Give it a voice and let it explain the meaning of life. Personification is a great teaching and learning strategy when peppered with a little dose of Audacity.
 
Then there is the tool adored by many. Voicethread. It is a pity, dare I say it, that it is web based. Would love to see a software client for the tool that allowed offline storytelling creation that could then uploaded to the web.
 
Voicethread is nevertheless a useful tool. Take an old photograph. Upload it and invite others to recollect or tell their story. “I was there too…”
 
Upload a fake photograph to Voicethread courtesy of a little photoshopped magic. Invite analysis and feedback.
 
Invite your students to generate a storyboard. Paint the story, scan the artwork, upload to Voicethead and have others tell the story. More artwork, more ideas. A Voicethread soap, saga or serial.
 
Need to go. Lunch and an impending flat battery. More later.

Sent via iPhone through a Posterous wormhole to alternative universes in Twitter, Facebook and the Watershed.

Posted via email from Watershed Lite

Avatars and educators
April 6th, 2009

Yesterday I raised the issue of avatars and educators on Twitter. I follow a number of teachers, social commentators, relatives and organisations on Twitter and vice versa. There is a wide variety of avatars among those that I follow.

A number of teachers and educators that I follow do not utilise a personal photograph for their avatar. Their avatars range from comic book characters through to line drawings, second-life portraits, logos and animals. Some educators utilise images of themselves taken as children or even images of their own children.

Personally I have utilised all of the images below. My current Twitter avatar is the final photograph on the right.

I utilise a portrait photograph as it represents me. What you see is what you get. As an educator, as a teacher I feel that is the correct approach for myself to take if I am to blog and tweet professionally.

I raised this point on Twitter and it generated a conversation between Lyndon Sharp and myself. I reproduce the conversation below in chronological order top to bottom.

John Larkin: My avatar was once a favourite photo of me as a young kid but then I felt it was a little weird. Some might feel it is misleading. Thoughts?

Lyndon Sharp@john_larkin Twitter avatar choice: room here for PhD research project. Quirky? Cartoon? Provocative? School Yrbk approach? Best portrait?

John Larkin: @lyndons Initially I had no concern regarding the avatar of me as a youth but then felt it would possibly mislead.

John Larkin: @lyndons We teach our students to be wary of those they communicate with as they may not be what they seem. So, what about teacher avatars?

Lyndon Sharp@john_larkin Avatar choice *is* as yet unstudied. Competing interests: need fr privacy, desire fr openness & projection of self-image…

John Larkin: @lyndons this idea re avatar is interesting. What are we trying to project? One’s employment can have an impact.

Lyndon Sharp: @john_larkin I get th feeling people more experienced in Social Media tend to choose something other thn a photo-portrait: a small privacy?

John Larkin: @lyndons yes, self-employed, consultants, etc have more latitude on their choice.

Perhaps, at Lyndon suggests, this question or issue could be the focus of a research project. If a teacher chooses to blog or publish online professionally in an open manner should their profile avatar be a reasonably recent portrait photograph or not? 

Some may even feel that a portrait photograph is simply more professional. At least a recent photograph. What do you think? Is this too retrograde? Too conservative?

Should educators consider the views of other potential stakeholders: employers, students, parents?

Perhaps an educator is blogging incognito. Their choice of avatar may not be an issue in this case.

It is an interesting question. A possible conundrum. As Lyndon indicates there are competing interests.

What is your position on this? Not an issue? Free country?

Exploring sources in history via digital storytelling 2
April 4th, 2009

Earlier today I posted about a project designed to encourage students to gain an understanding of how sources in history can be utilised to build an argument or an account relating to an event, personality or period in history.

Back in 1996, together with artist Nathan Simpson, I created a fictitious landscape back that is bleak and empty of human life. The object for the students was to gather a variety of clues and piece together what has happened. I have reworked a few more images from the project and smaller copies of the same are displayed below together with those also posted earlier.

How would you use these images? A wiki? A blog? A dedicated web site? Allow the students to take the images and rework them and add additional clues?

The completed project will include additional images that depict the embedded clues in an enlarged format.

Simply based on the images shown below what do you think befell the denizens of this landscape?

Opening scene

Closer view of the town

Exterior view of house

Interior view of house

Exterior view of library

Interior view of library

Exterior view of metro rail station

Interior view of metro rail station

Exterior view of research laboratory

Interior view of research laboratory