Besides being a teacher of High School Mathematics and History (I only know of one other teacher in the country who also has this combination) I have also just started my second year of teaching Web Design & Development to Year 12 (16-17 year olds), a course that I developed last year.
On the first day of the course the students are asked to complete an online survey – a Google Form of course. The final question in the survey asks the students to “List 10 words which come to mind when the word Internet is mentioned”. This is an individual task where students cannot consult other students. I then display their results by copying/pasting their answers to Wordle to form a Word Cloud, in which the words that are entered multiple times display larger than others.
This exercise in itself creates good discussion among students, however this is the first year that I have been able to compare the results to the previous year. The results (below) created great discussion and highlighted to students how quickly new tools are adopted and sometimes at the expense of others.
Snapshot taken beginning February 2009 (26 students):
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Snapshot taken beginning February 2010 (54 students – 2 classes):
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Most telling Trends (for teenagers)
- Facebook was a small player a year ago (smaller than bebo) but now is the most dominant (with bebo dropping)
- Using the web to access Information is not as strong
- YouTube whose 5th birthday is this week has grown further
- Email has emerged more strongly – possibly because of the trend towards webmail and away from PC based software such as Outlook
- Music has dropped significantly – can anyone suggest why this might be??
- Porn (top right in 2009) fails to get a mention in 2010 – I don’t know what to make of that
- Explorer (Internet Explorer) doesn’t rate a mention this year – probably because we rolled out Firefox 3 days earlier
- Google is still the dominant player for internet searching, well at least in New Zealand anyway
I know that this was hardly a scientific survey, but it did stimulate some interesting discussion.
Google Forms (survey tool in Google Docs) and Wordle (word clouds) are a powerful combination of tools that could be used effectively across a range of subjects in a variety of ways. If anyone would like to contribute their experiences or ideas then do feel free to reply to this post.
Well its been 6 weeks since my last posting. I have been incredibly busy but have continued to use Google Docs for Collaborative work with my students. Here is another way that I have used Google Docs in the last few weeks.
Year 9 (13-14 Year Old) Research and Presentation – Ancient Rome
I decided recently that I have had enough of doing all of the work in preparing and teaching for me a new topic. I decided to get the students to do a 8-12 minute presentation to the class on a topic within Ancient Rome. They were to work in groups of 2 or 3 (their choice).
Choosing Groups and Topics – Google Form
First I listed a range of topics for the students to choose from or they could suggest their own. I gave them a link to a Google Form where they could put in their preferences for group members and topic preferences (3). This made it easy for me to collate & appoint topics to each. Here is a link to the Google Form the students filled out.
Planning & Research – Google (Document and Spreadsheet)
The students then worked in groups on developing Three Focus Questions for their topic. This was done in Moodle Forums to allow students to feedback to other groups. They then worked collaboratively on a Google Research Document which would become their presentation notes. I did the activity myself on the topic “Hadrian’s Wall” as I wanted to model to the students what was required. As I write some of the students have already presented while others are yet to. I used a Google Spreadsheet (collaborated to all students) to allow the students to choose time-slots for their presentations. This was another time-saver and worked really well as students raced to choose the best times.
Presentations – Google Presentation
The students, having done most of their research and planning, were now at the stage to develop their presentation slides to support their presentation notes. This of course was done in Google Presentation. Again, I modeled this for the students (link here) as I wanted them to see that the slides were visual (with no or limited writing) and used to support what was being presented (voice). This simple presentation technique is still overlooked by many presenters. Presentations with a combination of both a voice script and reading off slides have long been proven to be the least effective.
So far two groups have presented and the standard has been reasonably good and will no doubt get better as students evaluate those that went before them. I have three more in about 30 minutes time so got to go.
I hope that this use of Google Docs for Collaboration has been of some use.
Our High School, Wellington College, has been using a model of student involvement in ICT. This has grown out of the School’s principle of actively engaging senior students in all areas of leadership.
The Tech Crew program, started in 2006, was based on a model that our sister school, Wellington Girls College, had initiated. A handful of tech savvy students were assigned to a group of teachers to assist and train them in the use of various software, hardware, web and any other teacher related ICT’s. This proved successful in that the students, as trainers, started to feel ownership of their school’s infrastructure as well as developing the skills to mentor. Teachers were very comfortable learning from students in the know.
This year the Tech Crew program has evolved into something more substantial. Our College has just completed a 3 year Ministry of Education funded ICT Professional Development cluster. Over the three years most staff have become more ICT literate, however we desperately need to be utilising the constantly evolving web-enabled tools which have fantastic potential to help improve teacher pedagogy and student learning.
This year the Tech Crew are working closely with me to help develop and enable these tools for learning in the College. The Tech Crew consists of 14 students most of which are seniors though some juniors are involved to ensure the program is sustained. These students have a wide range of skills which are targeted towards the various projects. Some examples are:
- Moodle Learning Management System – Our school does not yet have an official site. One of our Tech Crew members has hosted our development site on his server (based overseas). He handles the technical side while I manage the administration. Our Moodle site (rightclicklearning.co.nz) has managed to enrol over 400 students (1/4 of school) in courses in the first month. This success will see the school introduce an official school site for 2010.
- Library Help Desk – One of our Tech Crew has organised the equipping of a help desk in our centrally located and well utilised Library. They manage it at lunchtimes and also assist with the management of Library computers. As further web-based tools are introduced into the school, the Tech Crew will be called on to assist further. This help desk gives visibility and easier access to students and staff for help if needed.
- Online Booking System – One of our very talented Tech Crew members has been tasked by me to write a program for teachers to book computer and other College facilities over the web. It is nearly complete and will be launched in just over a week.
- Online Help Desk – Three of the Tech Crew are developing a Moodle Course which will act as an online request and technical training site for teaching staff. This site will serve dual purposes. It will encourage teachers who have not used Moodle to experience its usefulness from a ‘student’ perspective. It will also be a central point for help requests. Teachers will be able to request “Rapid Help” from the Tech Crew via a google form – our aim is for all help requests to be answered within 24hrs. Tech Crew will respond to the requests which they feel equipped to deal with. The Google form also feeds into a spreadsheet which enables us to later analyse how the system is being used.
There will also be blocks which provide information and support for each of the different software/hardware/other issues that teachers encounter. We are starting with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Laptop issues, Outlook, and Room Equipment. However, this will be expanded into web based tools such as Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, Mahara etc as they are rolled out.
- MyPortfolio (Mahara ePortfolios) – Two of the Tech Crew are working alongside me to become familiar with this web tool. I am using it with two of my classes (Year 9 History and Y12 Web Design) in very different ways. I am attempting to model to other staff the possibilities. About midyear the tool will be promoted and we will have the Tech Crew expertise to support it.
- Google Apps Education Edition – In about a months time the College will be rolling this out school wide. It will be a big change for staff and students alike. In preparation for this I and the Tech Crew have been using these Apps for communication and collaboration. We have a Tech Crew Google Calendar for planning. All communication is via Gmail and in particular we have a number of shared Google Docs. Two of the Tech Crew will also be administering the Apps site with me along with designing the site theme etc.
- Digiweb Video Project – One of our Tech Crew members has been tasked with exploring how we can digitalize and share with the students/teachers all College owned video. This is a large project which he is undertaking but a very important one as, like many institutions, we need to find better ways to manage these valuable resources.
So as you can see, by involving these tech savvy students in assisting staff and our College wide shift to web applications we are able to achieve:
- Technical and Application support for staff and students
- Support for me by having a willing and capable team supporting the various projects
- Tech Crew students gaining valuable leadership experience and being extended in their own ICT skills
I hope this post proves useful to you. I will be writing more about the above projects from time to time.
