ICTs For Learning

Teachers are great at doing all the work for students. I used to be guilty of this. Soon our students in 9-12 will have devices in their classes (not just in labs). What would I do in my Maths class, in my RE class or in my SOSE class?

Role Based Class

1. My role is to know my syllabus, my unit and my outcomes. IdeallyI have gone through a backward mapping or planning process where I am aware of the desired outcomes and have key activities that will help students achieve these.
2. I need to divide the class up and assign them roles (See below).
3. I have to set up a MyClasses page so that it has properties – one per group and all group members have maintainer (ie creator)  rights over their property.

Student Roles

• Researcher
  This group has a copy of the unit paln, the outcomes etc. They compile websites that would assist students
• Web 2 Team
  This group searches through all the Web2 tools at http://itsymposiumtsv.wikispaces.com/Share+Free+Stuff+%28It+must+be+Free%29 and looks for ideas for embedding tools in the work we are doing in the unit.
• Community Connectors
  Find people in the community we can talk to who have ideas or real life use of the concepts we are studying…. This group gets a couple of outsiders to agree to look at  what we are doing and leave a response. The group may also take on the role of replying or responding to the guest each time they contribute.
• Reporter
  This group keeps a blog on what we are doing. They write down what happened this lesson…. Identify the best and worst aspects and comment on it. An application like Fodey may be useful for this…
• Learning Object Embedder
  This team looks for relevant learning objects and digital content via your portal. Do students have access to Learning Fed objects on MyInternet or is it teachers only?

These students roles are played out whether you are incorporating ICTs into what you are doing or not. That means as a teacher, I may not be doing too many things in terms of ICT integration, but the students are constantly looking for the ways to enhance the learning via the ICTs.

We have had the pleasure of having Mark Treadwell as a guest speaker at the Principals’ Conference. You can find all readings by clicking the links below.

Mark’s First Reading

“Whatever” and Inquiry Learning 

“Whatever” – A Sample Section

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Hi ICT School Reps. I want to use this Blog post to deliver documentation for some key processes and understandings. It will complement our March 12th Meeting.

Rationale For ICT Support Meetings

Why are we bringing you all together?

1. Because the changes happening in the ICT realm are changes to core business. They are things all schools need to be aware of.
2. Our support model requires that school staff are able to deal with certain ICT responsibilities. It is important you understand what these expectations are and have the skills to meet them.

Agenda For Download: Agenda for the 12th March, 2009

I will explain each of these processes:

• The link between Maze, DataJug, School Curriculum Server accounts, MyInternet Accounts.  You can download the full document by clicking account-creation-process.
• Start of year procedures: How do we make sure all staff laptops are connected and all staff and students have network and MyInternet accounts? What is the school’s role in this process?

• Staff Getting Started Guide (Accessible On DataJug)
• MyInternet Student Uploads  (Accessible On DataJug)
  You never need add a student to Mynternet again. We have a data upload that lets you do the entire school in one go.
• Student User Accounts  (Accessible On DataJug)
  With the new automated account generation system, all students can be given a single password that gets them into the school server and to MyInternet. You can also reset a student password as follows:

• Staff User Accounts  (Accessible On DataJug)
  All staff can be given access for day 1.

• How is our network setup? When you type in an Internet address, where does that request go? How can this knowledge be used to problem solve? 

• Using the help desk. To use the helpdesk, click here.
• Setting the proxy…. What is it? Why do we bypass the proxy for some sites? How can we turn it on and off. If you don’t use ProxyPal, you should.
• Registering your Laptop, agreeing to acceptable use, agreeing to conditions of use…. This is a critical step in terms of our “due dilligence” and “student protection” processes.
• Why am I using Google Pages, EduBlogs, DataJug and MyInternet? What’s the difference between these communication mechanisms. There are some issues you have to be aware of:
  • Students under 13 cannot register their details on an online registration form. Therefore they cannot register for EduBlogs, Wikis etc.
  • These are great tools for teachers. You can add links to your Web2 sites in MyClasses pages.

You are welcome to leave comments. You will first have to register by clicking on http://edublogs.org/

What is our approach to MyBlogs?

MyInternet has recently released its MyBlog tool and we have enabled it for teachers as a trial. I am keen to hear your thoughts on the resource.

You can leave a comment at the bottom of this post. If you are not registered on EduBlogs, you can do so by clicking here.

Once your MyInternet admin person enables Blogs for teachers, start blogging. See Web 2 tools for some excellent examples…..

 MyInternet Release Notes       Blog How To Guide 

The Townsville Diocese uses a centralised IT support model. Teachers in our primary schools take on the role of IT Support Person ‘on the ground’ and they liaise with the TCEO IT Support Officer assigned to their school.

IT School Support Training

With the dependence on IT growing around the diocese, improving our support model is a high priority. Having school based personnel with higher and higher levels of ICT comfort is a key part of our strategy. 

There are 4 days booked in the TCEO calendar this year to bring school ICT support staff into TCEO for training. 

• 12^th March 2009
• 11^th June 2009
• 13^th August 2009
• 11^th November 2009.

 Things on the agenda for the first meeting include:

 Before Lunch

1. How the account generation system works and the relationship between Maze, Active Directory, MyInternet etc.
2. The differences in passwords and accounts. Why is the Admin, Curriculum and Sina accounts different? What is the importance of making sure the password on the teacher laptop is consistent with the network one. When these don’t line up what sort of problems occur?
3. Standard configuration of the new servers, explanation of the resources that are consistent and how to navigate them.
4. Basic checks on any computer problem including:
   • ensuring the network card has a link (green light);
   • checking the computer has its phone number (ip address) so it knows how to call the network;
   • power cycling the ‘box thing with antennas’ (wireless access point).
5. Understanding the structure of the WAN, why we have proxy exceptions, and how to trouble shoot when a user says “My computer isn’t logging in”.
6. What are some of the more used SINA admin functions: adding accounts, resetting passwords, accessing user Internet logs; etc.
7. Tightening procedures for accessing the tech support team including consistent approach to Help Desk use;
8. The importance of all staff  registering their devices and signing off on ‘Acceptable Use’ and ‘Conditions Of Use’.

After Lunch

1. Ideas and projects to encourage usage in class;
2. Procurement strategy – 10 laptops per class means that teachers have 1:1 by sharing with two peers;
3. Participating in an online support community.

 Please leave other agenda items by adding a comment to this post or emailing me on rjayawardhana@tsv.catholic.edu.au .

The Townsville Diocese ICT Symposium will be held on April 20th 2009. Its aim is to have teachers explore the Dimensions Of Contemporary Learning (released in draft by Catholic Netwrok Australia) and to explore the role of Web 2 tools to achieve these dimensions.

Follow links to access Conference Program, Invitation To Present and Invitation To Attend.

Congratulations to Holy Spirit and Jean Tait from our office. Both are embracing a new way to collaborate and support teaching and learning around the diocese. When you open datajug, on the home page search for “RE Prof” and you will find 10 self study guides complete with readings, web links and a submission sheet so the participant can seek credit for their work. Similarly do a search on “Advert” and find the unit submitted by Holy Spirit. It has the unit plan, examples of student work, how to guides/videos so you can do the same, links to relevant Learning Objects from the Learning Federation…..They even engage with the new Contemporary Learning Framework.  And its all in one place and available to everyone in the diocese.

Who is next? Who has great work they are ready to make available to all? Please don’t treat these examples as “Fait Accompli”. If you have ideas, improvements, contributions or feedback, just email the authors. The aim of this resource is to encourage creativity and collaboration…..

end_of_year_procedures

Attached is a list of end of year procedures from MyInternet. I have asked the tech team to discuss these actions which each of their schools and help you determine a strategy to deal with this maintenance.

We are planning to roll out a fully automated process for the creation of accounts on AD and the creation of users on MyInternet. Once that happens, schools will no longer have to add students or staff to MI… It will be done automatically…. And we will have the same password whether the student is logging in to MI or the school.

More on this later.

I understand that some of you prefer to use generic accounts for student login to your networks (eg. Prep/prep). Can we start a discussion on this? Maybe for primary schools we can rethink the school login process. We will do the unique identifier stuff anyway and automate it simply because this is a facility we will need when we publish DataJug as a student access tool. It will the mechanism we use for staff and student surveys and even for things like publishing student internet use, absence history, results and behaviour to parents online.

Keen to hear your comments. Please register your details on this site then leave a comment..

Curriculum server replacement

Kev and team have been scoping these out and have gone to tender for them. It is an opportunity for us to standardise and automate a number of things and the way this is designed needs your feedback…

For example, we could have:

• standard directory structures in all schools. ie sections of the school network only accessible by staff, where staff leave work for students, where students leave work for teachers and others cannot open this work, delete or alter it, etc etc;
• standard backup processes in every school including a standard drive which is not backed up eg the place to download photos whilst you are using them in portfolios…
• an automated account generation process where students are fed from Maze to DataJug, then their accounts are created automatically on AD, and MyInternet, and all the school has to do is pick up the Acceptable Use policy from the printer in the morning and take it to the new student for signing and filing.

This sort of rollout needs input from you and really solid planning because it impacts on every school and may mean a change to what you are used to. Any ideas how I can facilitate the discussions that needs to be had?  For example, I can set up a forum for this topic and you could nominate a person or persons from your school to contribute?

Storage Solutions

What do you think of the idea of making something like this a standard fixture in every classroom? These particular solutions come from a company called Dalmau Designs in Brisbane (http://www.dalmaudesigns.com/). I have no pricing as yet but just wanted to flag the concept with you. If it was to be a diocesan initiative, we’d go to tender for it.

In terms of Infrastructure, we already have devices in teacher hands, projectors in every room, wireless in every classroom. Is 2009 the year to focus on:

• server upgrades and consistent backup processes;
• better bandwidth?
• full automation of account generation?
• further upgrades to classroom infrastructure so that the envrioment is getting closer to what is required to support constant student use? 

There is a lot of discussion between schools at present about how they will get devices into student hands but manage ICT in schools without necessarily increasing tech support. Mobile labs, battery bays, student initiated rebuilds from USB, automated connection to school networks, automated account generation (including MyInternet, active directory and DataJug) the moment a student enrols…etc. These are all related issues because they all contribute to whether or not ICT facilities in schools are accessible to the everyday teacher and all students in all KLAs, and sustainable economically.

There is interest in eeePCs because they are cheap.

There is interest in OpenOffice and Ubuntu…But the Microsoft licensing rules are squashing that. Now that all our schools are on a school desktop agreement, you have to pay for every desktop on the network, regardless of whether you have Microsoft products on them or not.

There is interest in the notion of battery bays. But Jason in my team has pointed out that these bays can become redundant the moment you change to a different device or if the company decides that new versions have different battery types. Because eeePCs are so cheap, it may be worth purchasing the devices and the battery bays….

From a system point of view, I am constantly looking for things we can do systemically to support your ideas and needs. Mobile labs and flexible learning areas seem to be the thing everyone is asking for. People want facilities to complement labs and provide more options for pedagogy. Many of you already use laptop labs. But issues like security have been raised.

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