Free Stuff..... who needs Flash and photoshop?

Before committing to spend potentially hundreds (for home users) or thousands (for school departments) on licences for Flash and photoshop you may want to try the following online tools.

Lunapic
This was introduced to me by my students who had been using it to customise their myspace sites. It has all the features you would want in a simple graphics package. Features include:

1. Simple interface.
2. Graphics creation.
3. Animation.
4. Drawing tools

I would need more than just this web site if I was doing a graphics specific project, however, our students now see this web site as the first port of call for image manipulation when wanting to enhance presentations or documents.

Flickr

Online community and can be used as a tool to share photos with groups of students. Great way for students to share what they are doing over the summer. Need to be careful with security issues- although is a good way of introducing ideas of online safety and information literacy.

Flaming Text

A site that students have been using for some time, but starting to look a little dated and short of ideas. However, it is still very good at creating text based graphics and buttons. Straightforward and easy to use; and is also a good way of introducing students to different ways of representing colour when creating web sites etc. Works especially well in conjunction with MS Paint.

Cool Text

Your students will love this, no matter what age they are. Very good for students who are struggling to understand the concept of "house style" as there are loads of unusual fonts that are based on album covers, films and the like. They add more authenticity and professionalism to web sites and presentations.

Blogger

Blogger is an excellent tool for allowing students to publish work on the Internet in a safe and controlled way. I would suggest a teacher setting up an account and a blog first and then inviting the students to participate. The blog can be limited to whoever you want to view it- for ICT teachers its a great way of parents being able to participate. A very effective way of allowing students to develop ideas and concentrate on connective writing. Here one that some of my students have been working on. Further insight can be gained at www.weblogg-ed.com.

Information Literacy

Information literacy is the most important development in education over recent years. The change is a simple one- students find out how to find information and evaluate its validity rather than learning a series of "facts".

The understanding of information literacy has developed with the internet. However, most writing on the subject has been aimed at either businesses or the Higher Education sector. As a 11-16 classroom practitioner I am dealing with students who have never had any time without the internet- the first wen sites appeared when I was at university in the early 90's- I as most adults am at a distinct disadvantage.

My first exposure to the concept of information literacy was several years ago when Edexcel introduced their DiDA course. Here was a fully web literate qualification developed with the specific goal of enabling students to become "power" users of ICT. DiDA was good but flawed. The qualification involved you having to use ICT to create every piece of coursework and this had to eb included in an "e" portfolio- however, one of the secrets of information literacy is knowing when not to use computers and when other methods will be better.

I am currently writing a scheme of work involving introducing learners to the new internet- blogs, wikis, aggregators, rss and the like. I realised I had to do this when I found that I could no longer update wikipaedia entries from the school network- apparently so many students had tried to corrupt existing entries that wikipaedia decided that they were not going to play ball- understandable really.

I am hoping that this will aid students learning in a real way and develop information literacy skills that they will be able to use.

At the same time, I think it is our duty as educators to reassess what we mean as literacy. I would see information literacy as a higher level skill than simply spelling or grammar and could be used as a framework for the other two. This will involve a new set of pedagogy's for teaching literacy and a massive amount of upskilling for educators.

What do you think?

(try typing information literacy into Google- and see what you get!!!)

Getting the buggers to learn.....

I must mention a few books and resources that I have been using recently as they may prove useful to you:

Getting the Buggers to Learn: Duncan Grey

A great general book if you are interested in information literacy, learning skills, approaches to learning and learner centred environments. I found the part on information literacy especially interesting and this linked into:

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Marc Prensky

You want to know why students behaviour is better in an ICT lesson than others. You want to know why the 5 year olds in front of you seem to have no fear of digital media, when colleagues in the staffroom actively avoid it? This guy has the answers. Very well thought out and easily accessible- tgis could be seen as the short history of digitilisation! Which leads to:

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms: Will Richardson

Richardson is an author who can explain complicated concpets in such a way to make them easily understood and accessible- the sign of a good teacher. His book gives loads of ideas and examples of how to use digital media in the classroom. I have found inspiration in his book and it has genuinely affected my teaching and the way I have used ICT in my classes.

Global ICT: Alex Savage

You want to see an example of building environmental awareness into your teaching- well try this- I have and it works! Alex is an AST from Notre Dame High School in Norwich and in addition to his excellent resources that are available from the school web site, he also publishes avery informative blog- there's nothing like putting your money where your mouth is! There is an RSS feed available so its well worth opeining a bloglines account and poiting a feed in the direction of Alex!

Going Global- Importance of environmentalism

Well! Haven't we made a mess!

The western world spends 200 years using as many of the world's resources as possible- finding as many uses for previously unusable "stuff" as possible! Creating new stuff, from the previously unusable stuff and find that it really has a bad effect on the essential stuff!

What a bloody mess! (I could use stronger language- but some of my students may be reading this!

The problem we have is that we have got into our current environmental mess by a human attitude of short termism. As human beings we find it very difficult to understand how our actions will impact on the world in 40 years, 50 years. We just presume that humans will adapt they always have in the past- thats why we dominate the planet in the way we do.

But heres the thing! When our forefathers where making their mess- there weren't 6 billion of them- the reason that they had their particular attitude is that resources did seem endless- we now know that that is not the case.

In school we have adopted a scheme of work (in the ICT department) that was created at the Notre Dame High School in Norwich by Alex Savage. Global ICT has made a real impact on the environmental awareness of our learners. This is because they learn their ICT skills in an environmental context. The lessons fulfill the needs of the National Curriculum and are laid out in a way that ensures students can access them- even with literacy and attitude problems- in my opinion the guy's a genius- although an extremely modest one!

I feel that young people in the UK today have a lot of people wanting to write them off and criticize the "hoodie" culture. However, this is only a reflection of the society that allows these things to happen by ignoring the social problems that are happening on its doorstep.

The youth of today are fantastic. Their attitude towards the environment is very different. They realise that attitudes need to change- and they are willing to change them!

Reflection on my membership of an online learning community

I have been completing an online degree at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, England. The title of the course is Masters in "e" learning. The course has involved both tutor led and "E" learning based sessions. The "e" learning based sessions have taken place using a webCT based Virtual Learning Environment.

My initial thoughts towards the learning community where extremely positive. I had recently started the course and everything was pretty new- sure I felt confident on the Internet- but I hadn't really used it for anything more than buying some airline tickets and checking some email! I was playing a full part in discussions- I was online every day. When I published my first posting I waited to see if anyone would reply- was it worth it- what would they think. I can remember the elation when not only someone replied- but they asked questions that showed that they had actually thought about what I had said!

However, as time went on I found it increasingly difficult, due to work commitments, to get online every day- this also meant I had less time to think about postings and what I was trying to say. This was compounded by me finding I was unable to access the VLE when I had allocated time to it and this led to me approaching the postings in an increasingly asynchronous manner.

I was still trying to take part in online discussion- however, keeping a discussion thread alive when you are only accessing the VLE once a week was very difficult because conversation just doesn't happen that way.

My postings got shorter- partly because this was the only way for me to keep track about what I had said- but also because I just couldn't cope with the amount time I needed to reply to the well thought out replies I was receiving.

This was all compounded by the access problems and further issues with my account- by half way through the term I had been frozen out four times and each time I had to make a specific journey into Edge Hill to sort it out- that said the technical support where then very supportive and efficient.

Maybe my problems where down to me being an "e" immigrant rather than an "e" native, but I eventually found myself accessing my account from Edge Hill- partly because I had confidence that I would be able to access the community when I needed it- but also because having a set time and place for my learning to be completed in made it easier for me to control and adjust to. On reflection my approach was much more conventional than I anticipated.

My postings where getting less and less frequent as work commitments seemed to unerringly clash with those in college.

What does this mean for me?

Firstly, I understand why students who were used to the format became lurkers- choosing to observe discussions from the fringes rather take a more active role and contribute little and later. This meant that postings and information that came their way was much easier to manage.

Secondly, my posting will be shorter and to the point. This will minimise any misunderstandings and also means that I will be able to keep a better track of what I have written- brainstorming on a discussion board seemed to be a bridge to far for me at the moment and not necessarily a fruitful experience.

Thirdly, I will avoid the temptation of feeling that I have to read everything in detail and respond to everything- there just wasn't time in the day and also most of my comments where rushed and didn't actually mean anything- a well thought out response to a smaller number of postings is probably better than a wordy response that hasn't been considered properly.

I have found contact with my "e" tutor to be useful and reassuring. Having a place where I can email drafts of work and receive comments has been extremely useful and has been a reason I have completed the learning objectives when it would have been much easier for me to give up.