ICT and TLC

I was fortunate enough to attend the Exapanding Learning Horizons Conference which is held each year in Lorne.
2009 was the third ELH conference I had attended and, this year, I had the pleasure of sharing it with five of my colleagues. This definitely added to the experience!

The highlights for me were many and varied.  During a number of sessions throughout the conference, you could have been forgiven for thinking that we were attending a personal development conference and not an ICT one.  For me, this was why this year’s ELH conference made an even bigger impact on me than previous years.  I really felt that things were “coming together”, so to speak.  Valuable lessons in life were merging with ICT and educational issues – I loved it!

It was during two of the Critical Conversations sessions that I felt real connections were made between life and ICT in education.  The discussions during both of these sessions headed down the ICT Professional Development path.  In one session, I heard Margaret Meijers talk about the importance of the right attitude and, in another, I met Roy Williams, who told me of his great passion for Physics.  The idea of the importance of picking up on people’s passion and linking this with ICT was then raised during the Critical Conversation by Peter Steer.

I was first introduced to the idea of Attitude determines Altitude by Roger Barrow, whilst he studied for his Private Pilot’s Licence.  Although the “attitude” it refers to is the attitude of an aircraft, of course it also suggests that with the right mental attitude and self-belief, we can achieve great things!

Teachers with the right attitude, even those who lack ICT skills, means that we are half-way there.
Teachers who do not have the right attitude towards the use of ICT in education means that we have an even greater challenge on our hands!
I would rather train a room full of “believers” who lack the skills than try to convince the “non-believers”!

Keynote speakers Andrew Douch and Travis Smith were both inspiring. Andrew showed us how ICT is “Redefining the Classroom” and how his use of Web 2.0 tools has improved the academic results of his students.  However, it is not just his use of Web 2.0 tools – it is also his passion for learning.  His students love Biology!  Travis’ enthusiasm and sense of humor was also a highlight for me.  His keynote presentation about “Scaling Innovation in Teacher Practice” touched on a number of important issues that generated valuable discussions with my colleagues.  He also included just the right amount of free software to keep us “Web 2.0-holics” happy!

I was fortunate to spend an entire afternoon with Steve Collis as he outlined his school’s “Real Audience Project“.  He illustrated the many innovative ways his school uses ICT to publish a variety of student work from traditional printed books via lulu.com to podcasts aired via their own school internet radio station using SHOUTcast.

Steve’s colleague, Mark Liddell, gave an incredible presentation titled, “Technology Ideas for Mathematics“.  Maths is definitely not my strength so I was intrigued to see how Mark approached his use of ICT with his students.  Again, it was this presenter’s passion that shone through.  If only I had a Maths teacher like Mark when I was at school!

Learn how to learn with passion and curiosity

There were many other highlights throughout the conference and I would need to several blog posts to do this conference justice.  However, for me, all of the highlights involved people who have an enormous amount of passion for what they do.  At the 2008 ICTEV Conference, I heard Margaret Meijers say, “Learn how to learn with passion and curiosity”.  At the moment, I am reading Sir Ken Robinson’s book, The Element, in which he speaks about “how finding your passion changes everything”. It was clear to me from the keynote speakers, presenters and the many people I met and spoke to at ELH that they had all found their passion.

At the end of 2008, we embarked on our virtual worlds journey with the introduction of Quest Atlantis in our Year 6 English program.  You can find more detailed information about this project on our My Quest Atlantis Blog.

As Quest Atlantis is designed especially for middle school students, we started to explore ways in which we could extend this type of virtual world experience for our students.

After exploring options such as OpenSim, Active Worlds and a closed estate in Teen Second Life, I was amazed and excited at the possibilities.

I was aware of the wonderful work being done at Suffern Middle School in New York by Peggy Sheehy and, a little closer to home, at Northern Beaches Christian School by Steve Collis.  I think the real “light bulb moment” came to me when I read Steve’s blog post, Practical Examples of 3D Virtual Environments for Learning in High School.  As I watched the accompanying movie I was, to say the least, completely blown away!  You may wish to read more about Booralie and Ramapo Islands on their blogs.

I have been very impressed with the possibilities available to students and educators using a virtual world such as Second Life.  In particular, the opportunities for students to develop 3D design or “building” skills are enormous.  Their completed objects and buildings have a real purpose as they can then be featured in the virtual world and used by teachers and students as part of the curriculum.  I have loved “playing” in jokaydia’s building sandbox so I can only imagine how much the students would enjoy this type of activity!

At this stage, I have explored a number of different educational areas in Second Life’s main grid.  I am particularly grateful to Dean Groom for suggesting that I explore the islands of jokaydia.  It was the perfect place to start for a Second Life newbie like me!

We are now at the stage where we will soon be putting together a project proposal and I have been in discussions with different staff members to gauge the interest in this type of curriculum development.  Their reactions have been extremely positive and part of the purpose of this post is to provide a little more background information to interested staff.

For those who have never experienced a virtual world, it can be difficult to visualise based on the blurry descriptions of an over-excited ICT Trainer!  I hope the links in this post and the slideshow below will give staff a little more insight into the exciting possibilities of this type of project.  If you are unable to view the slideshow below, you may wish to go directly to flickr and view the full set of images.