VoiceThread and post equinox nights

I’m alerted by a former student (thanks Kate) to VoiceThread. Now, I’m always reluctant to publicise commercial products on this blog, so consider this as an alert to something which you might be able to use, rather than as a commercial. I am not selling VoiceThread. I think that it’s worth checking out as it seems to me to be a fairly cheap way of allowing your students to participate in online discussions. VoiceThread basically works by a teacher or TL posting a text document, graphic, photograph or video and asking students to comment on what’s posted. On the website, you’ll see examples of how the tool is used. Students can contribute to discussions in text, audio or video form and their “comments” can be in the form of creative material such as pictures or poems. I think it’s worth checking out and if you like it but your school is not in a position to pay, then I hope I’ve not raised expectations.

It’s now 8 days since the summer equinox here in the northern hemisphere and, of course, 8 days since the winter equinox if you are in the southern hemisphere. Hereabouts we still have the long summer nights to enjoy for a good while yet, although tradition has it in Scotland that, the day after the longest day, someone will comment “Aye, the nights are fair drawin’ in”. If you want to make a pedantic point, however, the nights were not drawing in until last weekend,according to one article I read. There are still lots of opportunities for dramatic sunsets. Just beforethe equinox, we had some easterly winds and some high tides. An example of big waves – for this time of year – and a nice sunset can be seen in the picture below.

Waves and sunset

“Informed bewilderment” and swans

Interesting article in The Observer on Sunday which reviews what we know about the internet and how we might extend our understanding of this tool which now affects so much of our lives. The author of the article refers to Manuel Castells and his phrase ‘informed bewilderment’ i.e. that we know much about the internet, in particular the web, but are still often confused by its contradictions. This article is useful for TLs to read but would also make an excellent discussion article for upper school students to read and debate. The Observer article goes on to proved nine ways to look at the internet, in order to increase our understanding of it and perhaps lessen our fears. Or the media’s fears, given that, if you read certain tabloid newspapers, the internet (they mean the web) is full of porn and predators, and almost certainly dangerous.

If you go walking along the golf course near our house, there is a large pond which is always left when the tide comes out and there are always birds on this pond – mallard ducks, shell ducks, black-headed gulls and sometimes swans. Last night, I caught a family of swans (see picture below) complete with cygnets. Now swans have a reputation of hissing at you, but this only happens if you come very close to them and their offspring. Otherwise, you can get quite close to these photogenic birds. In Australia, if you mention swans, depending on where you are or to whom you are talking, people may think of the AFL team the Sydney Swans and either smile or grimace, according to their allegiance. In Perth, Australia, one of the suburbs is called Swan and one of the sights on the Swan River in Perth, is the Black Swan

Swans in Dunbar

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Becta closure and guillemots

There was a shock in the school sector here in the UK, with the announcement that, due to government cuts, Becta which is the UK’s ICT agency and whose website I have often referred to. While cuts had been expected, the decision to close Becta, as outlined in a Guardian article  was very surprising. When Becta closes, schools across the UK and internationally will be deprived of an excellent resource which advises on ICT use and promotes effective ICT use in schools. If Uk schools are to be supported in their use of ICT – as all governments want – then the funds saved from the closure will have to be found elsewhere. So make sure that you use the excellent resources on Becta’s website while they are still there.

Guillemots are fascinating birds which nest in huge numbers on what appear to be very precarious cliff edges. The photo below – which is not as sharp as it should be – gives you an idea of guillemots nesting. Looking down from the cliffs, the guillemots often look as if they are taking shelter from the wind by huddling together for protection, with their backs to the sea. They nest incredibly close to each other but seem content with the close proximity of their hundreds of neighbours. Your blogger also kept a safe distance as one of the tasty meals which guillemots have to sustain themselves is – herring.

Guillemots at St Abb's

Futures thinking and lighthouse

From the ever informative Futurelab, comes an excellent resource for schools which TLs might download and pass on to colleagues in the school. The Futures Thinking Teachers Pack provides a resource which can be used with students who are engaged in discussing a ‘possible, probable and preferable’ future society in their country, as opposed to trying to predict what might happen in the future. The complete pack can be downloaded but there are subject packs covering English and Geography and other subjects. This looks to me like a set of resources – there are also webcasts and lesson plans – which could be used in many different countries, so please take a close look.

At the weekend, on the walk around St Abb’s Head – mentioned many times in this blog, I got a close shot of the lighthouse and you can see the prisms through which the light shines. Many light houses has Fresnel lenses which allowed much more light to be captured and the lenses allowed the light to be seen more than 20 miles (32.4k) away. There is of course, the children’s book The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch which many of us read to our kids and is used in primary schools for a range of activities.

St Abb's Head Lighthouse

Information environment and The Cellist of Sarajevo

Writing an article on students’ views of the workplace information environment while on work experience, I realised that I had used the term information environment many times in my writing, and I also teach a subject called The Information Environment. However, I had never thought about providing a definition of the information environment, so I set out to find some definitions – not an easy task. I did find one academic article which referred to information resources, information objects and the technology used to organise information. My own definition is that a school’s information environment is  the context in which information needs exist, the sources of information available, the technologies used to retrieve, organise and manipulate information, the information practices of people, and the culture of information use, in that context. What do you think your school’s information environment consists of  and how do you contribute to it?

I’ve recently read The Cellist of Sarajevo, a novel by Steven Galloway. It is set during the 1990s war which affected Bosnia and other countries in that region. It’s a very tense novel, extremely well plotted and with 4 interlinked characters who are all based within the besieged city and are all at risk from snipers in the hills around the city. It’s  story of despair, tragedy but also hope and also a reflection on war, but not a didactic one. The cellist was a real person who played for 22 days in the open, risking his life, to commemorate people killed while queuing for bread. The cellist himself is part of the context and not a leading character. I would recommend this very highly.

Workplace information and Nin

At the moment, I’m writing up some research I did recently on students going on work experience in year 10 of secondary school and what differences they might find between their school information environment and that of the workplace where they do their short placement. When I interviewed students before they went on work experience, they had very little concept of what difference they might find. Also, the guidance teachers interviewed were unsure of what exactly constituted a workplace information environment. The results show that students find the workplace to be a different environment in terms of information literacy practices because, firstly, they find that in the workplace, people do not use the web for all their information. students expressed surprise at how the employees they met used other people as the main source of information, either face to face, by phone or by email. if you are in a secondary school, check if the teachers organising work experience for students, get their students to study the workplace information environment.

Teh final visit at the LIDA conference was to the historic city of Nin. It is a city in that it was a bishopric in the Middle Ages and it has what it claims to be the world’s smallest cathedral. However, it is not a city in modern terms, as it is a small island with a very small population. It is a stunning place to visit, with more history packed into this small island than you’ll find in some modern towns and cities. The ‘cathedral’ is a small church which is bare inside and holds, standing up, perhaps 20 people. There are also Roman ruins from a temple which existed in Nin and some very ornate sections remain, as in the picture below. Put Nin on your list.

Section of Roman temple in Nin

Homo sapiens digital and Zadar sea organ

There was much debate last week at the LIDA conference about digital natives and immigrants. Marc Prensky, who started this debate in 2001 with a rather simplistic view of the extremes of digital natives – young people supposedly born with a silver laptop in their hands, and digital immigrants – so called ‘older’ people who were not brought up with ICT. In a more recent article , Prensky discussed the concept of homo sapiens digital. His argument is that increasingly sophistical digital technologies will make us think differently in the future and that our brain power and our wisdom will increase if we use these technologies effectively. It’s an interesting article but needs to be read with some scepticism. Technologies have always developed e.g. the wheel gave us a much better chance of moving on from cave-living to agriculture. So we have to be careful in arguing that digital technologies are somehow very different from previous technologies. Wisdom is wisdom and I would argue that wisdom relates to what we think and learn. Digital wisdom is a questionable concept for me. Read the article and decide for yourself.

While in Zadar, one of the pleasures was to walk along the new promenade and listen to the sea organ. This is an ingenious idea and I’ve yet to meet anyone who has seen another one, although they may well exist. The sea organ is made from pipes laid under the promenade and the ‘music’ comes from the air pushed into the pipes by the sea. It is very peaceful and you can see people sitting/lying next to the pipes being entranced by the sounds. The picture below shows the setting of the sea organ on the steps near the end of the promenade.

Zadar sea organ