ELH 2009 Discovery & TTLI Sessions

Presentation Title:

"I Didn't Know You Could do That!" - Games with Mainstream Software - Mark Smithies

Presenter Organisation:

Devonport High School/Learning Services NW Tasmania

Presentation Description:

Game making is a creative endeavour with ample scope for teaching ICT patterns, as well as relevance across the curriculum. The best games are made with specialised software, but much can be done with Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. Using familiar software has the added benefit of motivating and teaching with commonly encountered tools. This session will stretch the capabilites of Microsoft Office by demonstrating a battery of techniques with wide applicability.

Presentation Title:

Engage, Innovate, ANIMATE! - James Taylor, Sarah Toovey

Presenter Organisation:

Frankston High School, VIC

Presentation Description:

The aim of this session is to introduce different methods of animation that teachers and students can involve themselves in and provide teachers with time to explore the possibilities and limitations of the technology (i.e. to play), as well as time to plan the purposeful integration of animation into their subject areas.

By purposefully integrating media-making, in particular animation, into classrooms, teachers can engage students with their learning, improve student learning outcomes, and prepare students for their future. Students are engaged with making animations because the learning experience is hands-on, collaborative and student-directed by nature. Through transforming information into new forms, the students take ownership of the information and gain a true sense of pride in their work, allowing for a deeper understanding of the curriculum. Making animations enables students to develop a range of 21st Century learning skills, such as: collaboration, creativity, innovation, problem-solving, visual literacy and digital literacy.

Presentation Title:

Still More Creative and Productive Uses of ICTs in the Modern Classroom - Adrian Bruce, Samuel Bruce

Presenter Organisation:

adrianbruce.com, Samuel Bruce Year 5 Student

Presentation Description:

Our course is ‘Hands On, Minds On’ and is based on software and processes that we know work. The course is designed to give delegates ‘just a brief feel’ of the variety and power of modern free educational software applications and web tools. It also aims to equip teachers with skills that will help them ‘keep up’ with the constantly changing ‘digital landscape’.

During the course Adrian will explore processes such as ‘co-learning’ and ‘SCAMPER’ as well as organisational strategies that enable teachers to implement Information and Communication Technologies in highly creative and engaging way. Samuel will take small tutorial groups to focus on various pieces of software. Course participants will leave this session with a plethora of great teaching ideas, an incredible amount of inspiration and realistic goals to implement back in their schools and classrooms.

Presentation Title:

The Real Audience Project - Stephen Collis

Presenter Organisation:

Northern Beaches Christian School, NSW

Presentation Description:

"Real Audience Project" is the title the presenter has given an entire movement at his school towards the web publishing of student-created material. For example, English students publish a study guide on a book their reading. No matter the age or subject, students have something to offer, and it only takes seconds for a teacher to paste the text or pictures they've created into the class website. Teachers can equip the website with a map, and the students can see all the visitors they are getting. From past experience, within a year or so most class web sites have 3,000 or more visitors.

This session will cover everything from the establishment of a website, posting to the site, adding pictures, a map, and other shiny things like "Vokis" and "Voicethreads". Participants should attend with a specific class and topic in mind, so that they'll leave ready to publish. Even better - bring some digital work to publish on the day.

But why stop there? A free service called www.lulu.com allows teachers to make their students' work available in print, in a properly bound book that anyone in the world can purchase. We'll look at this process. If participants bring properly prepared and proofread digital work from their students (a collection of stories, science experiments, diary entries, essays... anything), there is no reason why they can't have a book available to print by the end of the day. With Christmas approaching the book will a perfect gift from the students to their families, and will change the way they think about the worth of their creative output forever.

Presentation Title:

'Our Journey’ - Moving Towards Digital Assessment, Reporting and Distribution to Parents - Kym Ayling

Presenter Organisation:

Calvary Christian College, QLD

Presentation Description:

The session will begin with a description of the 18 month ‘journey’ CCC Junior School has gone through in order to plan, and deliver digital assessment, reporting and distribution to parents. Some analysis of the successes made and pitfalls are discussed. A suggested outline for similar projects in schools is given leading into the workshop where participants are encouraged to use this knowledge to develop their own plans.

Presentation Title:

Animations for Mobile Devices - Margaret Meijers

Presenter Organisation:

Taroona High School, TAS

Presentation Description:

Do your students love making Pivot Stick animations? Have you ever thought of making animations with a message and putting them on mobile phones?

This session is suited to teachers of students in grades 5 - 12, across a range of learning areas. It will begin by exploring Pivot Animation and Stop Motion Animation to create a message or story. Then we will look at the use of free tools to create original background music or voice over tracks suited to the animation, and export it in a format suitable for mobile phones or iPods.

This activity can be used to address a range of mainstream learning outcomes. Additionally students will gain deep understandings of file types and formats and ICT communication skills. Examples of use of this might be:

creating an animation about keeping the school clean and sharing it at lunchtime in the playground

creating an animation with a voice over track to support an e-activism campaign about global warming and sharing it at a rally

creating an animation with a message about drug use for a health class and sharing it at a party

creating an animation with a funky music track to teach multiplication tables and sharing it with a younger class

Presentation Title:

DyKnow Interactive Education Software and Classroom Management - Laura Harmer, Matt Ferrell, Laura Konkle

Presenter Organisation:

Frankston High School, DyKnow

Presentation Description:

Join this hands-on session to see how Tablet PCs, DyKnow Monitor^®, classroom management software, and DyKnow Vision^®, interactive education software, increase student engagement and collaboration, raise student achievement and help educators manage the digital classroom quickly and effectively.

Laura Harmer from Frankston High School will demonstrate curriculum she has used at Frankston High School using DyKnow as well as experience how educators:

Create lessons and send them to students’ computers for immediate annotation. Students can even view the teacher’s extemporaneous notes immediately on their computer screens.

Allow one or more students to share control of the teacher’s digital workspace.

Gather student feedback and see the results instantaneously by conducting an immediate poll.

Block non-curricular applications and URLs so students stay on-task during class.

View thumbnail images of students’ screens for increased visibility in the digital classroom.

Lock all student computers to focus student attention.

Embed live Web pages, images and videos into a session without opening a Web browser.

Presenters: Laura Harmer (Frankston High School), Matt Ferrell (DyKnow), and Laura Konkle (DyKnow)

Presentation Title:

E-folio Evolution - Inspiring Students Through Innovative ICT Tools - Toby Trewin

Presenter Organisation:

Presentation Description:

This Discovery session would be based around the creation, use and value of an e-folio for students in a modern classroom environment. The e-folio, built in PowerPoint and supplemented with numerous ICT applications, would be the central digital learning tool used in this session. Improvements in student engagement, motivation, understanding and achievement will be demonstrated through student exemplars.

A focus of the session will exhibit the e-folio’s ability to encapsulate and incorporate numerous ICT innovations into the one teaching and learning resource. Classroom examples will reveal the wide and varied range of ICT applications that can be successfully integrated into the e-folio, such as Tablet sketching and annotation, Inspiration, Word, digital Images and video, computer aided design, Excel, internet research and computer aided machining.

Integrated assessment of the folio with a digital marks book, Turnitin plagiarism check, tablet marking and class server tests will also be explored, revealing the advantageous accuracy and fine grain measurement available through the combination of digital learning and evaluation.

Presentation Title:

Exploring Web 2.0 Teaching Ideas - Julie Squires

Presenter Organisation:

Casey Grammar School, VIC

Presentation Description:

I plan to demonstrate the usefulness of a variety of tools and sites I have found most valuable in my teaching including those most important to my own personal learning about Web 2.0. There will be an English/Library focus although the sites and ideas are adaptable to most subject areas.

The structure of the session will include:

Tools for Professional Learning: Discovering the ‘Eduverse’; building a personal learning network; useful tools Diigo Bookmarking, Using RSS feeds and the best educational sites to follow, Microblogging.

Blogs and Wikis: Ideas for teaching and learning: My sample blogs/wikis include: Literature Discovery Tour (blog), English @ 11 Wiki (a wiki of both resources and tools I use with my Year 11 English class as featured on the Bright Ideas blog SLAV), Wikis as Reflective Learning Portfolios such as my LEAP wiki which I use with gifted and talented students)

Other useful tools/sites: Pageflakes: (used as the ‘front page’ for our SLAV webquest ‘Earth 2.0: Is it possible to create a completely sustainable planet?’: winner 2008) glogster, classtools, Big Universe,
Toondoo, Animoto, wordle (if time permits). No specific software required other than access to the internet to access edublogs, wetpaint and wikispaces.

In terms of sharing resources and ideas my aim would be to:

Create a wiki especially for the session

Begin a Diigo group for all participants to access sites and add their own with comments.

Presentation Title:

Implementing a Scholaris Portal - Avoiding the Pitfalls - Steven Tsocas

Presenter Organisation:

All Saint’s College, WA

Presentation Description:

This session will greatly benefit those who are new to Scholaris or in the development phase of implementing a Sharepoint Portal. We will explore a number of effective strategies in setting up your portal site and also look at removing the barriers and limitations in moving forward. In the practical part of this session, you will learn how to customize classroom templates and permissions, embed ClickView videos and more.

A laptop with an internet connection will be needed and access to creating a site will be given to participants without a Sharepoint site.

We will also take a sneak peek at other portal sites to see what other ideas and projects are being developed within schools.

Presentation Title:

Introduction to Adobe Captivate 4 - Susan Bell

Presenter Organisation:

Australian Technical College Northern Tasmania

Presentation Description:

Learn how to use Captivate 4 to create effective elearning resources for your classroom. Create software simulations, assessments, scenarios and quizzes that will engage students and create online learning communities. Captivate is a complete elearning tool that makes elearning fun and easy to use.

Participants will learn how to create elearning resources to complement their classroom teaching practice. The session will demonstrate to teachers how to create online resources that can be used within any subject area. The session will also demonstrate how using Captivate will contribute to evidence for their eportfolios for re-registration with VIT and other professional associations. The session aims to encourage teachers to utilise elearning to help engage students in 21st century learning.

Presentation Title:

Learning Essentials with Office - Jeremy Hetebry

Presenter Organisation:

Presentation Description:

In this session, we will look at what is offered through Microsoft’s Learning Essentials program. This will be both in terms of the professional development resources and templates available through Learning Essentials for educators but also what is available in the Learning Essentials for Students.

There will also be a demonstration of how Learning Essentials Content Development Kit can be used to provide templates to staff, students or both – with instructions and notes!

Presentation Title:

Let's Read and Respond with IT - David Murdoch, Jessica Nailer

Presenter Organisation:

Presentation Description:

Reading and responding with IT integrates multimodal, multimedia, multisensory and multiintelligent activities in order to maximise the potential of our students for learning. Participants will be introduced to an M.I. grid, embedded with both traditional and emerging resource links and offering opportunities to utilise the functionality of a range of technologies. Hardware, ranging from the IWB hub and static pc's through to the portable netbooks and handheld PDA's are being used seamlessly and effectively to improve the literacy levels of our students. Participants too will have opportunities to experience this differentiated literacy learning environment which serves to engage and motivate students while at the same time catering for their large range of individual learning styles, abilities and interests.

A visual presentation, using emerging web based tools, will relate many of the learning activities used in the program to date. Best practice and associated pedagogy and classroom management behind the activities will be explained. Participants will be guided through a very detailed look at the rich tapestry of tools and resources freely available on the web and woven into the differentiated multiple intelligence activity grid.

Presentation Title:

Literacy without all the grammar. - Susan Gibson

Presenter Organisation:

Brigidine College St Ives, NSW

Presentation Description:

This session involves the presentation of work samples using tools such as comic life, movie maker, debate graph, and Shrock guide website evaluation, to help teach students some of the new literacies needed for the 21st century.

Presentation Title:

Mix 'IT' Up: Multimodal, Multimedia, Multisensory and Mobile - Robin McKean

Presenter Organisation:

St Hilda’s ASG Junior School, WA

Presentation Description:

The session will be introduced through a series of multimedia snapshots demonstrating the mix of static and mobile technologies integrated across the curriculum. The journey begins with our fledgling first steps involving simulation and attempts to augment reality and continues on to the current embedding of curriculum specific and engaging multisensory learning tasks that allow for the students’ different learning styles and abilities. The key components of mobile learning tools: software functionality, hardware functionality and connectivity capabilities will be explained using a multimedia presentation to demonstrate the integration of such portable technologies as PDAs, Bluetooth, GPS, USB and mini or sub notebooks with the variety of emerging and more traditional technologies that have impacted the most on the improvement and acceleration of the learning opportunities of our (P-6) students.

Participants will see examples of how classroom boundaries have blurred as ‘tech’ savvy content driven generation ‘c’ students connect, collaborate, create and communicate portably and in partnership with traditional resources in order to unleash improved learning opportunities anywhere, anytime.

Presentation Title:

Multimedia as the Prism of Engagement for Middle Years' Students - Peter Gazzola, Daniel Greonewald

Presenter Organisation:

Ivanhoe Grammar School, VIC

Presentation Description:

This session will provide an overview and examples of an innovative and ICT rich middle year’s subject titled Express Yourself. It will explore student work samples and curriculum planning to allow teachers to replicate the program in their school. This subject is based on local and international research about how teenagers learn and what they want to learn. We contend that students learn best when they have choice over what they study and how they do it. We also believe that students they like working together and enjoy using the latest technology and gadgets to “express themselves”. This innovative program helps students learn more about (ICT), multimedia, critical literacy, project management, independent learning, team building, self expression and self motivation.

Presentation Title:

Nspiring Students - Wireless Handheld Communications : An Innovative Approach to Teaching the National Curriculum - Peter Fox

Presenter Organisation:

Elisabeth Murdoch College, VIC

Presentation Description:

The framing document for the national mathematics curriculum makes numerous references to the appropriate use technology, including dynamic geometry and Computer Algebra Systems (CAS). This type of technology is available as software and as handheld unit with wireless functionality. The technology allows teachers to watch what each student in the class is doing. Students can instantly become a presenter. Teachers can send and receive documents, including electronic tests that are marked and analysed within seconds of the teacher collecting them (click of a button collection). This type of technology is brilliant as a learning tool and also for formative and summative assessment. Computer Algebra systems and dynamic geometry reduce the emphasis on procedural problems and increase focus on student thinking and initiative. Participants in this session will see how this technology is being used at Elisabeth Murdoch College. Participants will experience the assessment tools and engage in problem solving tasks that encourage student thinking.

Presentation Title:

OneNote as a Teaching and Organisational Tool - Derek McDowall

Presenter Organisation:

Brisbane Grammar School, QLD

Presentation Description:

The effective use of applications like OneNote often begins with a few teachers learning how to be innovative. These innovations can be easily passed onto like minded colleagues. The greater majority of teachers need to be convinced of the usefulness of the product before adopting it in there pedagogy. This session will be used to demonstrate how OneNote can be used to help teachers organise their daily routine by incorporating lesson plans with ICT resources embedded in an simple to use "Electronic Chronicle".

Presentation Title:

Online Games in Learning - Quest Atlantis (An Immersive 3D Multi-user Environment) - Phillip Budd

Presenter Organisation:

Cannon Hill Anglican College, QLD

Presentation Description:

Online games immerse children in new and complex environments, require them to communicate and act collaboratively with each other to achieve goals, develop skills in problem recognition, problem solving and pattern recognition. They engage children (young and old) for hours on end and yet the potential of online games, for the most part, remains undiscovered in the world of teaching and learning.

This discovery session will outline the potential of online games in education, introduce the Quest Atlantis project and its benefits as a teaching and learning tool in the 21st Century classroom and then guide participants as they explore the online world of Quest Atlantis for themselves.

Quest Atlantis (http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu) is a secure, moderated, online immersive 3d multi-user environment created by the Indiana University School of Education and which is used by thousands of teachers and students across the world. In its secure online environment students meet, collaborate, explore social and ethical issues, and learn skills in English, maths, science, language and SOSE as they complete missions and quests to save the world of Atlantis.

Presentation Title:

Self-paced Learning Using Moodle - Andrew Blackwell

Presenter Organisation:

Newcastle Grammar School, NSW

Presentation Description:

Teaching participants how to develop self paced learning modules in Moodle for Technology classes. This would require access to Moodle and the use of a screen recording program such as "Snagit".

Presentation Title:

Tablets as a Teaching and Learning Tool - Michael Mules

Presenter Organisation:

Carey Baptist Grammar School, VIC

Presentation Description:

The unique features of tablets lend themselves to innovative, effective and pedagogically robust approaches to teaching and learning. The use of tablets as organisational tools, avenues for creativity and individual expression, a means to achieve a (relatively) paperless workplace, and as an alternative to interactive whiteboards will be explored. From a teacher’s viewpoint, tablets open up new ways to mark, keep records, deliver content and organise the curriculum. For students, the use of the program OneNote with tablets provides a structure that first trains, then aids in organisation, research and expression. Tablets provide an extra option for student creativity over standard laptops, and make available to the students many innovative, valuable programs and learning approaches.

Examples of teacher and student use of tablets will be examined. Some of the differences between 1:1 non-tablet laptop and 1:1 tablet classes will also be looked at, as will the effectiveness of tablets in a non-1:1 setting.

Software covered will include Microsoft Office 2007, especially Microsoft OneNote. Snipping Tool, Art Rage, InkSeine, the Microsoft Powertoys and Powertools for Tablet will also be used.

This is a cross-disciplinary presentation, aimed at classroom teachers who might have or consider having tablet laptops, or who may have 1:1 tablet classes. Examples and software will come from the disciplines of Science, Maths, LOTE, English, Geography and History.

Presentation Title:

Teaching and Learning in a Paperless World - Interactive Units of Work in OneNote - Kylie Taig

Presenter Organisation:

Carey Baptist Grammar School, VIC

Presentation Description:

Do you want to plan challenging, inspiring, interactive lessons that will encourage your students to become active participants in the world in which they live and/or is working and learning sustainably high on your Schools agenda?

Learn how to use OneNote extensively to gather and store information for quick retrieval and make good use of the programs ability to embed multimedia recordings, web links and screen captures. Combine various resources to produce interactive units of work which allow students to do away with their heavy textbooks and save you time and money at the photocopier! Find out about OneNote’s multi-user environment enables students to collaborate and share their opinions and ideas effectively. Investigate ways to make assessment fun and relevant for your students, while at the same time quick, easy and paperless for you. See students in action as they navigate their way in a paperless world and observe how they are engaged with their learning on a personal, social and intellectual level.

While examples of notebooks based on the learning areas of Maths, Science and LOTE will provide participants with ready to use activities, many of the tools and ideas presented can easily be transferred across disciplines.

Presentation Title:

Technology Ideas for Mathematics - Mark Liddell

Presenter Organisation:

Northern Beaches Christian School, NSW

Presentation Description:

The presenter has packed everything he knows about technology for Mathematics into an extremely fast-paced session. Participants will be able to pick and choose ideas during the session and try them for themselves:

1. Technology for Learning Mathematics

- Using the Learnosity phone service, where students ring up and record responses to teacher questions, to develop reasoning and communication skills, and to efficiently address the oral assessment component of any maths course.

- Using presentation software such as 'Prezi', 'Go Animate' and 'Wordle' to elucidate concepts and engage student creativity.

- Collaborating using wikis in the Maths classroom.

- Using a collaborative 3D virtual world in Mathematics (examples from our Teen Second Life island, especially relating to statistics, coordinates, and graphical presentation of mathematical data)

2. Technology for Professional Development in Mathematics

- A guide to Twitter and teacher blogging for the Maths teacher.

- Second Life 3D Virtual World communities for Maths teachers (the 'Rez Ed' community and others).

Presentation Title:

Towards Digital Take-off - Supporting Students and Teachers in ICT Integration - Heath McCabe

Presenter Organisation:

Presentation Description:

The course will provide delegates with authentic and rich examples of portal based teaching and learning modules. Each of the four examples featured from Science, Mathematics and History includes activities which utilise a range of applications such as: Excel, Inspiration, Word, PowerPoint, wikis and Pivot. Participants will be challenged to consider the balance between achieving desired learning outcomes through good pedagogy and the mechanics of developing a multimedia online resource.

Reflecting on their own experiences of educational change with technology, the participants will be presented with a summary of an action research report which focused on a three way approach for leading educational change using ICT.

This leads to the participation component of the session which will aim to gather from delegates the key ingredients of an Educational Technology Specialist (coach) to be presented as a wordle which they can take back to their schools and develop into a position proposal (example description can be provided on request).

Presentation Title:

Turning the Black Sheep of Digital Media into a Learning Star - How Social Networking can Impove Student Outcomes - Sue Price

Presenter Organisation:

Bentleigh Secondary College, VIC

Presentation Description:

While parents universally recognize the importance of 21st century skills, and believe that knowing how to use digital media is as important as traditional skills, they actively discourage their children from using Web2 tools for social networking purposes. Similarly, teachers are hesitant to include Web2 tools in the curriculum, failing to understand the potential of social networking to deliver improvement in student outcomes. This discourages creativity, denies the opportunity to learn from a broad range of experiences and stifles the emergence of an entrepreneurial spirit. Teachers are comfortable with supporting students to use mainstream digital media, but social networking is seen as the Black Sheep of digital Media.

In this workshop, participants will come to understand why the inclusion of Web2 enabled social networking across the curriculum is an imperative; the theories of Vygotsky that underpin this; how this can drive whole school improvement; why it leads to student success regardless of student characteristics; learn how to create a blog and a wiki; explore the potential of Google Docs and on-line conferencing tools such as Elluminate; and critique a Humanities enquiry-based learning unit in which digital media (including social networking) are embedded.

What participants will do:

Develop a compelling argument for the inclusion of Web2 tools through:
- Analysis of the forces acting against social networking through discussion of research on parent and teacher attitudes to digital media
- Analysis of the forces for SN - research from Minnesota university; the link between Vygosky’s zone of proximal development and social networking; and DEECD’s position

Create a Blog or Wiki.

Explore the potential of Google Docs and Elluminate (an on-line conferencing tool).

Critique a Case study: Humanities Enquiry Based Learning Project which is the result of a backwards design process which initially identifies ICT skills as a key performance area to be incorporated and assessed.

Use a SWOT analysis to reflect on how digital media is currently being used in their schools and identify opportunities for future inclusion/improvement.

Compare the efficacy and suitability of a range of Web2 tools for their school situation.

Presentation Title:

What is a Ning? How can it be used to form a learning community within your school and beyond? - Jenny Luca

Presenter Organisation:

Presentation Description:

What is Ning? How can it be used to form a learning community within your school and beyond its walls?

Participants will see how a Ning network operates and will gain some understanding of why they would want to use a Ning platform as a virtual learning community . Examples of Nings that are used for teacher professional development will be explored. Participants will also see how Ning has been successfully employed at Toorak College to connect a year level for learning opportunites. Participants will learn the basics of Ning set up and the key understandings necessary to make this work in a school setting.

Presentation Title:

What's Your Story? - John Pearce

Presenter Organisation:

Salty Solutions Education Consultancy

Presentation Description:

Nowadays it’s no longer a question of if students can tell their stories digitally but more which tool and medium will they choose. With the ubiquity with which content can be captured digitally these days whether in audio, still or video images even the youngest students can tell their stories digitally. This session will explore via student and other examples, a range of both commonly available computer based applications to create digital stories such as Audacity, Kidpix, Photostory, movie making apps as well as online spaces and tools including Animoto, Stupeflix, Jaycut, Toondoo amongst others.

Presentation Title:

Wikimania: Utilising Web 2.0 social networking technologies constructively within the confines of a school environment - Felicity Carroll, Warrick Wynne

Presenter Organisation:

Methodist Ladies's College, VIC

Presentation Description:

This session will consist of three parts. It will begin with a brief outline of MLC’s approach to the piloting and rollout of wikis and related social networking tools in 2009. Participants will then see examples of how MLC is utilising wikis for a range of authentic student centred learning purposes. Participants will learn how to use a wiki for:

group work activities in which student participation is tracked explicitly

peer scaffolded learning activities

peer assessment

formative assessment

engaging student creativity and passion

collaborating around high-stakes coursework

The majority of the session will involve participants planning how to further develop or implement wikis within their own learning environments, including an introduction and comparison of some of the best wiki tools currently available. Templates will be provided for participants to use to create their own unit of work which utilises a wiki for learning applications demonstrated within the session.