This is a brief of the final task in our Philosophy and Ethics class this year.

Within 10 minutes of briefing, first students have already come up with some stunning ideas (see image above - basis for one of the 'showcases'). 

Want to do this ?
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SHOWCASE !
 
For this last task of the year, create something that will evoke a response from people seeing/hearing/reading/touching your 'showcase'.
 
The criteria:
- It has to make people stop and think
- It has to be public (eg. staff & students, entire world...?)
- It has to be interactive (people can interact [with you] in some way, you will have to state/make obvious your point of view)
 
Your 'showcase' can be on any topic we have covered in Philosophy & Ethics this year - or broader.

It could be an image, forum post, poster, video, comic, animation, audio recording, something to touch ... whatever YOU think will evoke a response.
 
You are welcome to run ideas past me or others in class, online or in other ways.
 
You are NOT producing something for the teacher. YOU are 'exposing' your point of view. Be prepared to have people agree and disagree with you!
 
Point of it all? It's called life.
 
Enjoy :-D
 
(Details on assessment, percentages, weightings etc. on Moodle)

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Tomorrow, our class is running a 'community of inquiry' ( a dialogue) with the starting question:
"Why do people play Lotto?"

The whole things is not about Lotto really.

The idea is to examine what makes people happy. Is money it? If not, why do people play Lotto? Why do they want to get rich? Is that what they really want? What if we don't spend money (look at the mess the economy is in...?) ... just a start!

We deliberately have not done too much in preparation for this dialogue. We have looked at the philosophy of Epicurus and read an article titled 'Achieving Fame, Wealth and Beauty are Psychological Dead Ends, Study Says." (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514111402.htm).

Spare a minute to throw some more questions and your ideas in the mix?

Thanks a lot.

Y11/12 Philosophy & Ethics class

 

 

This afternoon a staff member walked up to me and said: "Tomaz, I have been meaning to see you about Moodle. You really need to teach me about how to use it."

This of course is music to my ears as the resident moodler. But then I returned what is now becoming a standard line and a sure tickler: "I couldn't possibly!"

She stood there stunned but polite. Huh, did I get her attention.

I did continue:"I would love to have a chat with you about Moodle and show you around but first - have a look in our Sandpit what Moodle is [the "Moodle explained with Lego" clip] and then the sort of things you can do with it [the 'How can Moodle change a school] clip(s)]. This will give you a broad idea about Moodle before starting to poke around. When done, come up to me with a classroom problem and we'll solve it together, step by step. How does that sound to you?"

"See you on Monday at the workshop!" was the immediate and enthusiastic reply.

Too often we approach teaching of things like software applications with a "these are the features, click here, click there..." and then leave it to people's imagination how they are going to use it. Doing so, we tend to break one of the most important rules of communication - we make it about the software not about the people. We own the information, they merely borrow it.

By turning things around and solving a real-life classroom scenario, challenge, problem, idea people suddenly own the solution. They recognise themselves in the picture - "Hey, that's me"!

Teachers are a very pragmatic lot and love to borrow good stuff. Give'em a good one in Moodle and they will come! If a science teacher has a great solution using Moodle for a problem or idea her class and say, an English teacher sees it and 'gets it' - you can bet the English teacher will at least try or ask how to go about it. But coming from a colleague and a fellow 'struggler' is a much more powerful thing than coming from the school's main Moodle peddler like me. And the bigger the struggler the more potent the message, even at the subconscious level ("If she can do that I reckon I can do that too!").

'Classroom solutions (with software)' versus 'Software solutions (in classroom)'. I know which one a regular chalkie would go for and why. Do you?

Cool morning, sunny +26 C day and the fantastic Perth Zoo were our playground yesterday for a bunch of our Year 9 classes. The excursion is a centrepiece of the term looking at endangered species of SE Asia and particularly Indonesia.

Several months ago the good folks at Packt sent me a copy of Alex Buchner's 'Moodle Administration' book for review. While I had not written a review of it until now, I assure you that this 350 pages long mix of Moodle admin common sense and slick Admin skills certainly gathered no dust on my shelves. If you look at the picture here and count those page tabs I have used to mark useful (and used) information, you can imagine that each tab has significantly improved one or more aspects of our school Moodle (things like screen readers and accessibility tools, meta-courses, enrolment procedures, backing-up/ archiving/ deleting courses etc.) In most cases, this book saved me literally hours of trying to figure some of these things our myself AND improved the Moodle experience for myself, my teaching colleagues and (most importantly) our students.

Now let's be straight here - I am no 'techie' so a few things in this book went right over my head (not the book's fault but my own ignorance). The book does not make Moodle to be the easiest of systems to handle for some operations (eg 'awkward' file upload and management system, which can however be improved and Alex shows how) but the honesty with supporting 'how to' information is commendable.

'Moodle Administration' is definitely is a well packed (pardon the pun Packt) and very clearly written companion in which every Moodle Admin would find something useful, from installation tips,  customisation, performance optimisation to security advice. The Moodle Health Check at the end of the book is simply elegant, useful and very easy to administer. 

'Moodle Administration' has made me realise even more what a flexible and in fact robust beast Moodle is and/or can be. If you are a Moodler running or considering to run Moodle as admin, this book could be one of your best friends. Or even a lifeboat. And you know how much they are worth at times.

 

Just had a wonderful couple of sessions with my pretty challenging class of Year 9 students.

Most of these kids are below the national benchmarks in literacy. Needless to say literacy is a priority. But all these kids watch YouTube and other 'tubes'. All these kids know what tags are:

"so we can find stuff Sir because it doesn't know which video to look for..." - their words, not mine.

All these kids also know what a 'Description' is

"it tells you a bit about the movie so you don't waste time or watch some crap..." - their words, not mine.

They know that 'More...' button gives you more info on the clip and you have a better chance of previewing and/or getting something out of it.

They know how ratings work

Starting to see the literacy and processing skills here?

We have been looking at Indonesia and its endangered species. I put up about 20 assorted YouTube clips in a Moodle course, a printable worksheet (help yourself if interested here) and a brief instruction in the Notices course forum.

The task was to pick any of the 20 clips and tag, rate and review them. When done, 'pick another one that interests you'.

In the first session, they reviewed in pairs (a confidence builder inadvertently helped by a few computer crashes and some quick teaching footwork :-) In the second session, they had a go at clips individually.

They struggled - but at their own pace and interest. Every effort was acknowledged. Their tags were largely spot on. Their ratings consistent across the class. Reviews with sentences like "Krakta didnt igsisted untill the world craked and it made an island" were painstainkingly put together.

As a class they have reviewed most of the 20 clips now. It's on paper (I did have to provide 75% of the pencils).

Tomorrow, we'll make a wiki with a page for each clip. Kids will see and publish their own reviews. They WILL (I know!) take greater care with spelling, expression, sentences when their stuff will be there for all to see and share. They will see who added what to each wiki page.

And all of that thanks to that 'demon' of YouTube (otherwise blocked at our school) and a bit of creative moodling.

Love teaching!

Could not help myself after Rob Abbey's tweet tonight:

Oh Rob, what have you done! A couple of things about hybridity as I see it:

- it is a deliberate strategy to avoid unhelpful, binary essentialism ("all digital teachers are..." and in the other corner "all traditional teachers are...")
- it is a state of being in-between and something else other than the two extremes posited (however ill-defined they can be)

Hybridity is not a melting-pot, it is very power-consciuous.
It is a way of siding with and at the same time disrupting status quo.
It is messy, slippery, and fallible.
"I'm no geek (but I can be), I'm no old school chalkie (but I can be), I can be something else beyond that too" (except a dancer! :-) )

If knowledge is power (Foucault explains it better than Bill Gates), the rise and growing prevalence of 'digitality' and those 'in the know' creates new structures of knowledge.

Yes, as it follows, these structures (will) increasingly order not necessarily who speaks (any mug with a modem can do that) but who is listened to (enter the A-list of bloggers and a revolving circus of travelling gurus of digital frontier churning out the same stuff).

This power is neither inherently good or bad but it must be reckoned with. Hybridity is a wonderful place to watch it grow and temper if necessary.

You tweet next "have gems of teachers who cant get tech except pen, paper oops is tech too". Hey, Socrates did not even have a pen but he had the nerve, passion and wit that made him probably history's best teacher.

Sadly, too many teachers use the "not even a pen..." part to avoid admitting ignorance of a changing world - the essential ingredient of learning and the business they are in.

And I reckon Socrates would have loved Web 2.0 (or maybe just Skype since he liked to talk a lot not write).

I am going back to write my Moodle stuff now, thank you for the 10 minute disruption.

Comments welcome ye'all...go on pick a bone!

Within a few hours of starting, Reality Check got over a hundred lurks and three people from different parts of the world leaving their story in a comment. I am confident there will be more.
To do that without the internet in such a short time one would need a lot of money, influence and technical skill.

2500 years ago Epicurus, wrongly thought to have been a man of excess and indulgence, claimed that we really need three things to lead a happy life: friends, freedom and thought (this of course after our basic survival needs are met).

He was onto something.