Moving & Change

Apologies for the lack of posts over the past month. Several events have been occurring recently in conjunction with the end of our six month pilot.

We’ve completed more surveys with staff and students, and used the large collection of data that we’ve amassed over the past few months to create a final report numbering roughly 20 pages. I hope that we’ll be able to publish it on this blog shortly.

Additionally, I was recently offered a new role that will allow me to assist a great number of educational institutions with their technology needs, and was too good an opportunity to refuse. As such, it’s with some sadness that I’ll be leaving Trinity College. Luckily, the iPad pilot is in great (if not better) hands now, with Trent Anderson and Jennifer Mitchell coming on board to ensure that the teachers are given strong support as our investigations into mobile technology continue.

 

cheers, and thanks for reading!

Photos by Mark Chew
Mark

Early Reflections on Teaching and Learning with iPads

Trinity College Foundation Studies has been trialling iPads in the classroom since August 2010. Staff and students in nine subjects have been using the devices for more than two months. We are now at the stage where all participants have been surveyed to capture their initial expectations and to gauge early experiences of using the iPads inside and outside the classroom.

Since the latest survey in October, follow-up meetings with staff have also fleshed out the educational experiences. It’s now possible to make some tentative comments about practical, methodological and pedagogical issues that may be of interest to others who are currently trialling or plan to trial iPads or similar devices.

More info after the break…

Wiki Server

Trinity College has been using MediaWiki in the IT department for a long time now to document tasks that have to be repeated, bugs encountered, bug fixes and so on. When we started the iPad pilot we continued using this wiki for the IT related facets of the project. But, we decided that non IT staff involved in the pilot would also benefit from access to read and edit a wiki. If staff found bugs, then they could create a page on that bug with a workaround. Or, if they found a good app or had a thought on the pilot in general, they would be able to add to the wiki. The version of MediaWiki we have been running in the IT department uses markup language only and is far too intimidating and/or complicated for many computer users. Being a bit of a Mac fan, I wanted to try Mac OS X Server’s Wiki Server as it is attractive to browse and has an easy to use wysiwyg editing interface.

More after the break…

The Flash Post.

If you follow technology news sites (or even if you don’t), you might be well aware of The Adobe vs Apple WAR ON FLASH (as opposed to the Google vs Apple WAR ON MOBILE OSes or any of the other apparent technology ‘wars’ going on right now.)

A quick aside… Am I the only one tiring of these supposed wars? Are they even wars? Really? I suspect that these ‘wars’ are usually just the formulation of adoring users and the media rather than the companies themselves, who are most likely happy that their products are valid enough to be contenders and receive a good deal of free press.

Anyway, given the lack of Adobe Flash on iOS, I thought I’d add some of my thoughts about the debate, as it’s something that regularly comes up when discussing iPads.

Plenty more to read after the break…

Australia/New Zealand iPad mailing list for education

Many schools appear to be conducting research into iPads in classrooms, and a mailing list now exists to encourage discussion amongst education professionals in Australian/New Zealand schools (though if you’re around the globe, I’m sure you’re welcome as well).

Many of us are likely to face similar questions/hurdles, and together we might be able to collaborate to arrive at better/faster solutions.

If you’re interested in subscribing to the mailing list, please go to http://suburbia.com.au/mailman/listinfo/anzschools and fill out the web based form there.

Obviously the more members that join, the better the information might be, so I encourage you to at least give it a try!

[14/10/2010 edit: Due to demand outside of Victoria, we've expanded the original list from just Victorian schools to include the rest of Australia and New Zealand]

Why Change? Education as a dialogue.

The emphasis on moving beyond the simple to the more complex, as well as the emphasis on creating conditions within which students can pursue intellectual interests without arbitrary restrictions or rigid templates, is something that we can all relate to and appreciate as goals of our educational reform.

After all, if we don’t discover new and better things, and if we don’t develop improved skills, why change?

Teachers who encourage and help liberate the intellectual curiosity of students – and allow them the freedom to develop their own projects – are worth emulating, and provide an insight into a modern style of problem-based learning that is increasingly relevant at university level.

The ideas and experiments generated by Trinity College’s August Entry staff and students currently piloting the iPad potentially seem to fit with these possibilities of moving quickly through the simple to the more complex, encouraging exploration and genuine intellectual inquiry, and broadening the education horizon.

Resources are instantly at hand and easy to collect, annotate, contrast and compare. This gives time to do the important work of thinking, discussing, and evaluating. And students seem to be able to quickly create and deliver presentations.

I agree with the suggested idea by Jane Garton, one of our teachers at Trinity, about a forum within our organisation for conducting, sharing and discussing research and educational practice. And I know that some other staff, including Jennifer Mitchell and Gayle Allan, are keen to promote an education wiki.

We can use these collaborative tools to discuss the kinds of questions raised previously by Gary Stager, Mark Dorset and Pam Lawrence. And, for example, I agree that Gary promotes greater freedom and less structure in assessment. But contrary to Pam’s worry, I don’t believe Trinity could do away with exams or formal assessment. Trinity students are required to achieve a certain score for university entrance.

Perhaps what we need to do is broaden our definition of assessment, and also think about the way in which we conduct assessment or process our assessment.

Another of our Trinity colleagues David Gormley-O’Brien, for example, has an excellent system of electronically commenting on electronically-submitted work which not only sets a formal grade but tracks the backwards and forwards discussion between teacher and student that manifests education that is a dialogue and a process of progression. This is possible through an online learning environment such as Moodle, and is worthy of close scrutiny and discussion by our Foundation Studies staff.

“You can lead a student to the Internet…

… but you can’t make them think” was a defining comment from 1 to 1 pioneer Gary Stager when he visited Trinity College last week, and spent time with a collection of teachers and IT staff over a long lunch to discuss technology in the classroom.

Gary Stager sharing with Trinity College staff

And, as one of Tech & Learning’s top influential people on the subject, he provided a lot of worthy advice. He’s been around the block several times, and most likely seen and heard most of it before, but it was an excellent opportunity for many of us to find out a little more from a master on the importance of technology in education used the right way.

What follows is a summary of what I personally took away from the session. There were 20 other people in the room, and their stories might be different. (In fact, Trinity’s official version can also be found online.)

For any brilliance below, feel free to credit Gary Stager. If I have misconstrued any of his messages, assume error on my part.

Less us, more them. Delegate work to the students, and err on openness. It’s more manageable for teachers to share work, and it also has huge educational benefits. For example, implementing peer to peer assessment in addition to the more traditional teacher only assessment. Try not to be the star of the show all the time. Develop a deeper role of trust in the students. Lower the boundaries between a teacher and a learner.

Why the iPad vs Netbooks/Laptops. They are durable, cheap, instantly on, have a massive battery life, and are easier to maintain. Other staff present added that the iPad frees them to teach rather than spending time trying to make things work and that the low profile of the device on a desk or on a lap created less of a barrier compared to laptops.

When you make simple things easier to do, it means that complex things are possible. By using good technology, students are able to create much richer presentations using a range of formats, whether it’s video, audio, animated, visual, etc. It engages them, and is more appealing to others. We need to try and get out of the “It has to be awful for you to learn anything” mentality.

How to link assessment to the technology? Get peer reviews by students. Err on open work rather than “keep your eyes on your paper”. We’re an interconnected world. Have students critique other student’s essays.

All the work should be available online. Keep it wherever you like, Facebook, a blog, etc. Students can create a portfolio that is not only accessible to their immediate teachers and classmates but can be used by them to connect to a wider audience and to demonstrate their abilities (for example when applying for university or for a job).

Think about how best to use the time when we are physically in the same space. If it’s run of the mill stuff, let it be done outside of the class. There’s plenty of collaboration opportunities available that don’t require physical presence, but not all. Use the time wisely.

If you find an app/product that works, stick with it. Don’t get caught up in ‘Software du Jour’. While new technology can be appealing, it’s worth assessing whether the benefits outweigh the difficulty in migrating. E.g., if you’re using DropBox and it does the job, there might not be a need to jump to whatever else has just been announced in the cloud file sharing space, just because it’s got some hype or a couple of minor new features. I like this advice because you can expand it into the whole technology in education argument. If an iPad which obviously is hardware du jour is going to create more pain and less learning through it’s implementation, it’s worth thinking about whether it’s worth using. (So far though, it seems like it’s worth it!)

Evaluating our iPad pilot is exactly what we’ll be doing for the next few months. So far, it’s been an exciting journey!

What do you think is an important consideration in implementing technology in a classroom?

First Post.

Trinity College at the University of Melbourne began an iPad pilot in August 2010, and we hoped to have a blog started around the same time to talk about our experiences. Unfortunately we’ve been so busy running the pilot that the blog took a little longer than initially hoped.

Nevertheless, here we are!

We launched the pilot with roughly 50 students and 20 staff exploring the use of technology in the classroom. The academic pilot program aims to realise the potential of students and teachers by liberating creativity and promoting exploration and critical inquiry. Its educational aims can be encapsulated in a single phrase: to go further, faster, and with more fun.

iPads at Trinity are being used in the full range of subjects with the August Entry students, including English, Chemistry, Drama, Economics, Environment and Development, History of Ideas, Maths and Physics. Students and staff are also incorporating the iPads in welfare and social activities, from attendance tracking to Chill Out sessions.

Over coming weeks we look forward to sharing our victories and losses and what we’ve learned along the way. We’ve already been in contact with a range of developers and vendors to give them constructive feedback on their products, and we’ll also be making our own changes and improvements in coming months as we learn how to best utilise the tools before us.

In the meantime, feel free to read an article about our pilot that was written by a journalist at Techworld or a short video showing the distribution of iPads to students.