This is just a collection of notes I made during Russell's keynote - not really a ‘Keynote’ as I’d expect it – rather a collage of interesting technologies wrapped between some poignant stuff. Russell is difficult to pigeon hole – perhaps ‘Entertainer’ with an educational evangelist theme. My jury is out on his radio stuff, which he seems to be pushing from all angles, but perhaps I can see the educational potential in communication, team work etc …So – here’s the poignant notions that I think might be relevant to us at Edge Hill – and the bits in square brackets I’ve added in post-conference:
- There are 27,000 unemployed graduates in the UK [the Guardian says up to 40,000 new graduates will fail to find employment within 6 months of graduating - http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jul/02/graduate-unemployment-rise-recession-jobs]
- Employers are looking for staff who are literate and numerate, both in traditional and new technologies. Employers are looking for leaders who can motivate, help create stuff and innovate.
- This led to Russell urging us to ditch the [Victorian] education system - to move to create autonomous ‘self led’ learners (but not suggestions about how). Perhaps a new system may address the current learners (and future employers?) needs in the 21st century.
- Technology can make a good message grow rather fast – ref Lauren Luke who started selling makeup on eBay in 2007, create a YouTube channel the same year, and now as a 60million following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Luke
- Plea to stop being precious about education – don’t ‘Ban’ YouTube, Skype and Face Book.
- Students to be involved in the creation of an Acceptable Use Policy. Further, Russell questioned the use of filtering systems to ‘protect’ children in schools – stating that the UK and France are the only two counties to use such systems. [However, are these filtering systems more for the protection of the school than the child?]
I note these snippets:
- The use of Twitter for organising people in real-time cutting-edge ways – like organising transport when European airports were shut down under the ash cloud (#AshTag, #GetMeHome and #RoadSharing) – days ahead of any provision from officialdom. If you’re still unsure about Twitter – take a look a the common craft Intro to Twitter: http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter
- Free Skype call recorder – http://www.callburner.com/. Consider use for student assessment.
- YouTube sharing profits from videos. Russell showed a video created by a primary school community (pupils and teachers) - kids signed up the school for a YouTube channel, made a dance video, and have (unconfirmed) profited £10k from the advertising on the back of the video (Jai Ho Short Film): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ORaS-mJqWA
- Text to movie service - xtranormal.com - " ... if you can type, you can make movies" - see: http://www.youtube.com/user/xtranormal#p/u/12/PmzTUEd3ngE
- Voki – a free service that creates speaking avatars that you can put on your blog, website, or BlackBoard course. Voki is featured in this video from teachers tv (5:22 on): http://www.teachers.tv/videos/online-communities-in-the-classroom
- Dr Who Trailer Maker: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/trailermaker/. I think this would make a thoroughly engaging activity for key stages 2-3 (9 – 13yrs).
- Wordle – creates word clouds – see http://www.wordle.net/
- Cheap GPS tracking devices that can record someone movements during an activity.
Other snippits too numerous to mention – listed on Russells technology blog: http://www.andertontiger.com/technology/default.htm
Out of all of these, my favourite at the moment is xtranormal.com - have a go ... and get back to me with if you use this in your practice.
Apologies for a bulleted list – but I got Russell’s stuff as a mosaic – hence the format above.
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