Sunday, December 7, 2008

Our Presentation

Robin was the main presenter on Friday re the Te Reo Project.
There were 25 attendees from tertiary to schooling and one New Zealander Mark Brown form Massey Uni.
The presentation went really well and there were plenty of questions especially from schools with Aboriginal children about the thinking behind full immersion schools.
I presented the work around the VLN and how it could be a vehicle for coordination, brokerage, information etc for New Zealand schools in giving an environment for the where to from here after the ICT skills etc are developing in schools and the scaling of the expertise.

I think it was very useful in developing thinking in Australia about the coordination and logical movement from skills to moving work outside of the classroom walls.

After the presentation we were invited to a meeting at the Innovation Centre where we talked about some work going on around the Ronald MacDonald houses and the roll out of Video conferencing and Electronic boards across NSW.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Rest of LAMS Conference

Thursday and Friday

The workshop on Thursday was invaluable in seeing what new functionality is available in LAMS.

My Computer went belly up Thursday and Friday, Blue screen scary stuff.
Not sure why but seems to be working OK today, will keep fingers crossed

The Workshops I attended to be honest were underwhelming and I don't think worth reporting.

I will however relate the useful people and conversations I had as well as our own presentation.

The first Key note was really discussing the fact that a lot of tertiary people do not have a teaching training background and therefore have a number of gaps in the way they communicate in an educational setting. The key note was about what systems and arguments can be given to change this fact. Not really relevant for what we are doing. LAMS was of course said to be one of the most sophisticated tools that will help change some of these issues.

The second Keynote involved two teacher educators and their teacher trainees and their use of LAMS.
It was useful to see the process they went through as part of the program to see how they had developed their sequences.
However there was one flaw. They had not actually used this in a teaching context with students.
The sequences appeared to long to me and the advantage in making them shorter with more reflective breaks would have been great.
The very first breakout was probably the best:
Debbie Evans from the innovation Centre at Macquarie University’s E-Learning Centre Of Excellence. The NSW LAMS server had as of that day
103 groups and 3223 users. As explained some were heavy users and others weren't.
Debbie outlined the support they gave at the centre and also in the schools.
They are employees of the NSW Govt but have three year renewable contracts to offer innovation and PD.
To be frank I am not even going to mention the other breakouts as they were not really what I was looking for in showing in depth support an developments of LAMS sequences.

It was good to hear in casual conversations that people were using LAMS to reevaluate their own teaching practices and re think their teaching practices.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Stuff we were covering that is of interest:
I am writing random thoughts as they arise during the workshop
  • Competencies can now be created in LAMS and mapped onto activities nice. What are the SMS implications here?
  • There is a who is online feature as well in LAMS
  • Each Sequence has a specific URL now but you need to be logged in as LAMS keeps a record of your learning
  • In monitoring teacher can enter any chat live and get it back on track
  • Dim Dim is another feature but it has 2 versions one open source which has questionable functionality and a pay for one so discussions with other people will continue.
  • There is a who is online feature as well in LAMS
  • Each Sequence has a specific URL now but you need to be logged in as LAMS keeps a record of your learning.
  • In monitoring teacher can enter any chat live and get it back on track.
  • A new feature called conditions makes it possible to customise the sequences for specific outcomes. A very nice feature that would need a bit of use to get your head around it.
  • Google maps
  • Wiki
All the new features of 2.2 LAMS can be found here
http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/LAMS+2.2+Feature+List#LAMS2.2FeatureList-NewFeatures

More detailed info that you may be interested in about LAMS can be found at
http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org/display/lams/Home

Lams Community has loads of shared sequences at this link
http://www.lamscommunity.org/register/?return_url=%2fdotlrn%2findex
You will need a user name and password to get there

http://moodle.lamscommunity.org/moodle/index.php
here is my link for log in to the moodle lams integration site

Talked to James who has been working with Ernie from (Moodle)
Over the next year All Moodle tools will be available in LAMS and vice versa so what to do? Call it LAMSMOODLE?

As well as a number of other applications like Google maps will have a drag and drop interface and be made available in the LAMS environment.

What would I would suggest now goodness this is possible to do either all in Moodle or all in LAMS?
I think the interface of LAMS suites our schooling sector.
So I would suggest we have both options but being well aware of the two environments and using what is best for their needs. But real consideration for the pedagogical impacts and how they address PD and Learning Deisgn.

A new overlay being developed will have templates that will help and the link to this demonstration is at this link. A very smart development.
http://saturn.melcoe.mq.edu.au/jly/Ped_planner.htm
Wow what a long time since I have been doing this will try to do better
In Sydney at the LAMS advanced workshop will be talking to James about scalability options and the work that is happening between LAMS and Moodle.
http://moodle.lamscommunity.org/moodle/

There are 19 people here and three from different Departments of Ed in Aussie.
Will catch up with them if I get a chance.

The integration of the drop and drag functionality will be awesome if it happens.

Will be talking to James at lunch and at the end of the day as to where they are up too with this.

http://wiki.lamsfoundation.org this link is too all the documentation you will need
You will need to create a user name and password. Well worth a look here

Monday, May 26, 2008

Update

I have been flat out at work so I am going to take some time out to comment tonight.
We spent a couple of days more planning around the development of the VLN.

We will migrate from Interact to another platform over the next year or so and we are developing some papers for internal sign off at he MoE. When we get a clearer pathway I will publish it here.

These things really do take time.

I am going to a reunion at Bishop Viard College in Porirua where I used to teach many years ao this weekend. I don't usually go to these things but I am really looking forward to this one?
Must be getting old.

The business I have been working on with an old student of mine, a really nice young man has taken a giant leap forward last week. We have got initial backing from a large company to run a pilot with them as the partners. All exciting stuff.
This I hope will give me more flexible options for my future.

I will fill you in about this when we go live.

Am off to fly aces high http://www.hitechcreations.com/frindex.html I love this online game. If you are into flying world war 2 planes etc in an online environment I recommend this so much fun.
See ya

Monday, May 12, 2008

Me and Cam hard at work

Eddie Profile and update

I thought I would fill you in on some of the work that I do for the MoE in New Zealand. Iwas asked to write a bit for a cluster news lettter and thought that this summed it up well.
WHAT JOB DO YOU DO?:
I am the Ministry of Education
contact person for Hive, VLN, Adobe Connect, Moodle, LAMS, Video/Audio Conferencing Bridge,
and the Tandberg Content Server. I manage the contracts for these products on behalf of the MoE. You can find out more at http://www.v6.breezeserver.co.nz/moe
covering technical connectivity issues as well as the implementation of these services for schools and the business arm of the MoE. I have a strong pedagogical focus in the work that I do and the
services for schools and MoE are directly related to better outcomes for children through Ka- Hikitia - Managing for Success as well as 'Enabling the 21st Century Learner' - this is The e-Learning Action Plan for Schools 2006-2010, and outlines the key outcomes and actions for e-learning in the New Zealand school sector for 2006- 2010. It describes the goals for elearning
in schools and the projects, tools, and resources that are being developed to address those
outcomes.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO ELEARNING?:
I discovered computers in the early part of the 1990's and started creating web sites etc. I was then employed part time by The Correspondence School based in Wellington. In the latter part of the 1990's I went full-time at The Correspondence School and was involved in the Esection headed up by Derek Wenmoth. That was where my teaching passion was turned into a passion for technology and the convergence of the face to face teacher with the classroom teacher.
Making it possible for students of all ages to access learning when, where and how they liked either in the face to face environment or the online environment or a mixture of both.
WHAT VISION DO YOU HAVE FOR VIRTUAL LEARNING IN NZ?:
The vision I hold was stated before in a little way and that was "Making it possible for students of all ages to access learning when, where and how they liked either in the face to face environment or the online environment or a mixture of both." This philosophy will I believe
address a number of issues like: equity, teacher shortages, preparing students for the 21st century and beyond, flexibility in learning choices and a whole heap of other issues that need to be addressed in our education system
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE WEBSITE?:
I could say the VLN of course http://virtuallearning.school.nz but I guess I like a lot of them out there such as, Trade Me, Snapfiles.com, YouTube and a number of others. I tend to get caught up in on line forums about different products etc. that are good for education for example I am exploring Wiz iQ http://www.wiziq.com/ so I am going to get involved with WiZiQ's Meeting Place on Ning "Anyone can teach and learn live, online!" to see what is going on internationally
and whether it is worth pursuing.
eddie.reisch@minedu.govt.nz
I guess that sums me up I will psot more work on the VLN upgrade as things develop. Thee is a fair bit of work going on behind the scenes at the moment.