Tomorrow morning I'll be offering a keynote to the Computer Education Society of Ireland, looking at what they might be able to pull from the Live Web successes of Scotland and, importantly, why all this is something they might want to pursue. This was the blurb:
Casting the net: what can change our classrooms in 2007?
The number of Scottish educators using social media to facilitate learning is taking off. Why is it that blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking and other social media are helping to enhance the educational landscape in this small country? What changes in the nature of teaching and learning have taken place to allow for this and what can Irish educators learn from the highs and lows of this Scottish (r)evolution?
I'll navigate through five principles of change to reveal how we might change the shape of the classroom in 2007.
As far as I can pick up from one of the conference organiser's blogs there is a general frustration at the lack of action centrally to give a lead on teaching and learning that adapts to the 21st Century kid. What an opportunity for the teaching profession, though, to make changes from the bottom-up, as it were. This, I feel, is what kicked things off in Scotland, getting some senior figures on board part of the way in to bolster what the groundswell felt was right. Stephen Heppell's innovation curve was spot on in this respect, where "hero innovators" come up with the goodies while governments and large corporations jump onto the bandwagon (bringing loads of cash - good thing, sometimes - and, depressingly often and as if it really mattered more than anything else, even more content).
I'll be popping up my picto-slides to the CESI Flickr set later on today, and tomorrow morning will post the outline of what I said (or, at least, meant to say). I've brought the new toy, too, so I might be able to podcast the thing straight after, too.
A very cool toy - just what we need at RadioHigh. Tell me how well it records, quality and how easy to transfer files to computer? What format are they? How much is it? Can we review this for you???? Sharon
Posted by: TechnoTeach | February 15, 2007 at 07:01 PM
The quality is exceptional - a really good, top of the end condenser mic. You get the files off it just like a digi camera - it's got a 1GB memory pen attached to the mic itself and you just press the big red button to start recording. Files are saved as WAV.
At the moment it's under pretty much constant use gathering material for the LTS podcast, earning its keep (it ain't cheap). When I come up to interview you guys, though, we can do a bit of mutual gadget comparisons for a wee while.
Posted by: Ewan McIntosh | February 15, 2007 at 07:10 PM
Hi Ewan,
Just listened to the Heppell cast you linked to from your podcast rss, thanks, lovely to hear his voice and a glowing mention of HyperCard;-)
do you have a edu seller who sells the mic? I might have some money to spend if it is not too expensive and the children would just love that.
Posted by: John | February 23, 2007 at 04:47 PM