My PLN 2012 Click for larger size

I’m currently participating in #etMOOC and a quote that came up in Topic 1, Connected Learning – Tools, Processes & Pedagogy got me thinking about my PLN map again. First, here’s the quote:

We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.  (Marshal McLuhan)

The active conversation at that stage was about making sense of connected learning; making meaning of being part of a network. It made me realize that not only was my network changing (again)  but that it was changing me and in all the hurry and infowhelm I wasn’t pausing to take in the lay of my info landscape or trying to make sense of it. The conversation also had me thinking that up until now my PLN was a pretty serendipitous affair, like one of those gardens with things that just pop up from seeds of previous plantings. Is this a good thing or should I be trying to plan my PLN a bit more seriously than that? I decided to update my map  then  compare the two, and look at the changes to perhaps gain some meaning from all that was going on. (Back to the Webspiration drawing board!)

There’s a link to my new PLN map here (better resolution)

My PLN 2013

In comparing the two and in reflecting on the map I noticed that:

• I’m being shaped by Google tools – they have more influence on my online experiences and PLN than in the past. (Is this a good thing or a bad thing?)
• my PLN input is leaner. (I recognize the need to continuously streamline what I subscribe to, and be ruthless about it.)
• I’m increasingly ignoring my feeds, twitter and Google + for days on end then trying to catch up. (sounds like professional FOMO, I need to learn to let go)
• staff at school are not part of my online PLN (an area I’d now like to focus on)
• I’m contributing/creating more content (authoring/creating digital media/presenting at conventions). Increased creation is squeezing out the amount of time I have for consumption. ( Is that a good or bad thing? Good I think)
• I’ve become increasingly interested in Digital Citizenship (and the bigger picture of SEL)and it is reflected in my PLN
• I’m shifting from following blogs on RSS feeds to following the blog creators on Twitter (Benefits – extra content, more interactive, more immediate.)
• I’m decreasing the places I go to for professional news/reading -consolidating on  Twitter, Facebook pages, Google+ rather than subscriptions and rss feeds. Less time consuming.
• I follow an increasing number of people who are big picture thinkers, not necessarily educators. I’m widening my awareness,  interested in the global changes and trends that are taking place all across the info landscape.

Via Tumblr gifs

A new year and some new projects for 2013 in the library!  We don’t start back to school for a couple of weeks yet, but that doesn’t mean teachers aren’t hard at work. I been running across excellent resources for my new projects and get them organised before I forget.

iPad Cafe

This year our school is launching their 1:1 iPad program, beginning with the Year 7 classes. Each student supplies their own iPad and while IT will get everyone set up on the devices in the first week, the school library will be offering an iPad Cafe every 3 weeks so students and staff can come and learn more about how to use them, find/share apps and just generally get comfortable with iPad technology for learning. 

I’ve got a small team of students (3 so far) who have ‘applied’ for the position of iPad Genius and will be available on the set day after school for an hour to pass on their knowledge  We can’t pay them as such but have arranged to present an honorarium to them and provide a letter of recommendation if they do well in the position

Photo shared by: hammerhead 27 via Flickr cc

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For the short hiring interview, I asked them to come prepared to impress me with some tips or tricks. It was interesting that while they knew a few things,they all knew the same things and were not as ‘savvy’ as I’d hoped. So I’m now busy skilling myself up further and gathering ideas to up-skill my genius’s as well. I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a Tumblr site keep tips on and decided to go ahead with it. This could be great for the school community — they can go back, review, check it out on their own time and become familiar with a new Web tool (well that would be mostly for the adults). 

So here is the new Tumblr site, not much on it just yet, but will be wonderful soon. http://vscipad.tumblr.com/

On the positive side there are several teachers interested in learning more about the possibilities of Minecraft, even more students eager to have a go with it. I also have a nice group of students willing to teach the finer points and help me get the real estate established AND a student showed me a math assignment/problem her’d solved the other week using Minecraft to demonstrate the solution. Cool!

I ran across this article written by the same guy who writes The MineCraft Teacher on Tumblr. Improving Digital Citizenship skills is definitely the area that I’m most interested in when providing students with the opportunity to try out Minecraft next year at school.

I recently attended an online Open Day on Massively Minecraft. It was probably the steepest learning curve I’ve encountered in a while, perhaps since primary school, honest! And here is what I learned.

Massively Minecraft (MM) is a guild or ‘ learning community  for kids and their parents – exploring how to live, work and play in MineCraft.’(MM site)  It had been recommended to me by several colleagues in my PLN as an excellent working model of an educational  private-server community for Minecraft. I was very impressed with MM’s website as I had a look around before the big day. My colleagues were right MM is an excellent model. Here are some things I hadn’t thought of but will definitely adopt:

1. Their server is a white-listed site. This means they have a set of conditions that users must agree to before they can join and they must fill out an application form.
2. They have a community charter which was developed by the users (kids) and outlines the community’s rules of engagement. They set the culture and tone of the site and are mostly digital citizenship rules.
3. The site uses a subtle incentive scheme called Ranks. As MM users demonstrate their willingness to be good citizens online and improve their skills and real estate, they can level-up or climb the ranks. Levelling up gives access to further powers, resources and other areas or worlds.
4. The site offers forums for users to discuss, share their achievements, and ask questions. These all looked very positive in nature and you get a real sense of community happening from reading them. I also liked that the administrators include and seek input from the users on how the community runs.

So after reading all of this I am excited but starting to realize the size of the commitment in starting up a private server group. (I’m going to definitely need more teacher interest in order to share the love! and the moderation).

As the day/time for the Open Day draws near, I open an account with MineCraft and my older son and Miner Extraordinaire tries to give me a primer on the commands. I find I can’t even walk around properly. Oh dear, this is like kindergarten! Besides just the regular WASD commands (apparently similar in most games) MM has a commands list for their ranks.

When the Open Day starts, I log-in and I am assigned a tour guide to show me around. I did feel sorry for him as I was completely overwhelmed by having to walk, look, read and talk at the same time. There were so many other people on as well that I had a hard time keeping track of my guide in both the dialogue box and in the world. He took me to his mine, past some giant statues, showed me how to chop down trees, go through portals, and how to fly! After all that he got the admin to give me my own temporary spot in the world and permission to try building something then left me to experiment. I tried building a little house (pretty sad effort) and then decided just to wander/wonder around, play tourist. The part that impressed me most? Probably the big hall you first land in with the charter up on all the walls, but there were lots creative efforts happening out in the general community – castles, gardens, fountains, parks …

The experience was truly one of being on the border of a new frontier, a settler in a foreign land. My skills were low, my motivation high and the possibilities (from what I’d seen) endless. I now understand the attraction of playing this game, am in awe of the dedication and effort some of these kids put into their guild. the richness of it is obvious – MM even spells out the educational advantages of it (scroll down the link page to find Massively EdVentures – The 12 Challenges Learning Framework). I am now even more determined to offer this opportunity to students in our school community.

After talking with my boss (Head of Learning Resources) and with one of the school IT staff who is very supportive of games-based learning, we have decided to pursue setting up a Minecraft private server and beginning a small after-school group in the library next term. The MinecraftEDU wiki has been an invaluable source of information about getting started with this. We plan to purchase a few seats and find a few reliable students who are already keen Minecrafters to mentor a select group of interested teachers and students. 

MineCraft has a fantastic YouTube channel with how-to videos as well as promotional ones. I’ve embedded their official trailer below – I am always amazed at the creative/design possibilities; I know I’m about to hit a steep learning curve and don’t know how much time I want to devote to skilling up in this game but I do want to get good enough to gain a real appreciation for what can be done with MineCraft. 

SimCity (Urban Planning elective)

One of the younger teachers at the school recently approached me wanting some help with finding resources for her Urban Planning class. She wondered about the possibilities of using SimCity so this is a second game we are looking to use in teaching and learning. The biggest problem so far is finding a legal version to purchase and download – there is no shortage of sites selling illegal ones! We had originally wanted one of the older SimCitys that didn’t have so many bells and whistles — the older versions concentrate more on the actual principals of design, but the hunt is proving difficult. We found out that the code for the original SimCity was released into the public domain a few years back and that some schools were using this free option. It sounded good!.

After a few days though, I got this note from Dion, my IT Guy:

I had a good look at Micropolis (the free version of SimCity) on the weekend, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it working on Windows, and I couldn’t get it working through the web.  None of the code has been updated since 2008, so it may be that our computers and version of Windows are ‘too new’ to run it (I also had to install a bunch of stuff to support it).  I did get it working on Linux, but I don’t think we’d be able to get connections to a Linux server working in time to be useful.

We may end up having to buy one of the newer versions after all. In the meantime I found that there was a relatively cheap iPad app, SimCity DLX so Caroline (the Urban Planning teacher) and I loaded it up and had an explore. She is really pleased with what it can do. Our iPad program begins next year and only for Year 7′s so this is not an option for the Year 10 classes, but if worse comes to worse, Caroline could use her iPad and play the game a few times using whole class decision-making sessions. Students then have the option to play at home on their own as reinforcement.

In my surfing travels I also ran across this resource which looked worthwhile: SimCity and Urban Planning 

This is a WikiBook and is a guide for ‘ the casual learner about how Will Wright’s popular game SimCity relates to urban planning and how concepts were utilized in the game.’ (WikiBooks). 

Given the challenges so far, I think I’m going to limit my pursuits to these two games.

Video Games courtesy Caitlan Monahan Flickrcc

I’m a big fan of play – it is one of the most authentic, engaging, rewarding modes of learning.

My old school (primary) was heavily into play-based learning but now I work in a high school. We have rules banning students from many online games and I understand some of the reasons why (time/task management issues, IT issues), but I want to bust through that rule and claim gaming as a tool for students and teachers.

I’m not a gamer; I don’t even know a lot about the world of online games except what I’ve watched (and ok, played a bit) as my sons grew up – they loved Runescape, WofW, Sims etc. and what I saw was good (apart from the odd blood splatter). They had to deal with online social issues sure, but even those were worthy learning experiences.

So this year I’ve made investigating and implementing some online games-based learning activities as my Professional Learning goal for 2012.

Step 1 has been about building knowledge and exploring the topic. Here’s a quick look at what I’ve been looking at:

What is Games-based Learning?

This great blog piece (click on the title above) helped me understand the different ways games can be applied to education/learning:

1. Educational games apps to teach skills
2. non-educational games to use in conjunction with a topic
3. non education games that inspire or engage in a learning project

Favourite quote from the piece:

I see a great potential in what I call non-educational games becoming a learning experience for young children. When I explain this to others, I start by explaining all of those other events we plan for our early years children such as going on a walk, visiting the post office, hanging the washing out to dry… When we are performing these tasks, they are not educational. It is what we do as educationalists before, during and after the event that makes it educational.

Pedagogy always comes first!

Victorian PLN: Unit 11: Gaming in Education

The State Library of Victoria’s Learning Services put together a very comprehensive introduction to gaming in education as part of their PLN program. It’s definitely worth working your way through it even though the program is finished. It covers all the 5W’s. It also includes  a wonderful webinar that was put on by Paul Callaghan, games developer and the organizer of FreePlay Independent Games Festival. The webinar is available to watch and really filled some gaps in my knowledge

“Games in Education” Webinar

Paul covered the opic of how games of all sorts have shaped us, and talked about:

• games as tools
• games as culture
• how games create a space for learning
• games literacy (and how important it is)

I also subscribe to a Scoop.it stream called, Are You Game, curated by Judith Way (thanks Judith!). Judith is great at including all the current trends, research, news and educator’s blogs out there.

One of the articles I ran across has given me some real insight on directions and interests of the large players in the educational games arena.

For the Win: Serious Gamification: Gaming as an educational Tool

My favourite quote from this article:

Anthony Salcito (Vice President of Worldwide Education, Microsoft):

Anthony wants to lift the way in which technology makes a difference in the classrooms by looking at the motivation of the learner or player of the game. He says there has to be a platform of optimism making students feel they have an impact in their world and community so that learning becomes relevant to what they hope to achieve. Students who get an “F” on their papers conclude they can’t understand that subject whereas with a “Game Over” screen, gamers come back and try harder while learning from their mistakes. So the assessment models in schools are often not motivating while the language of games has an incentive for students to learn from their mistakes and move on.

However, I disagree with Mr. Salcito when he says teachers are saying students learn better by teachers teaching to the test. This is a system that is being forced on teachers, not chosen by them.

Step 2: is all about talking to members of the school community and strategic planning. I’ll blog about that in my next post.

On June 12th, I attended the National Cyber Safety Summit in Canberra with two students from the school.  They were select members from the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) who took part in online forum discussions to help inform the government on cyber safety initiatives.

The purpose of the Summit was to bring students, parents and teachers together with relevant industries and government sectors to discuss “how to keep young Australians safe online”.

YAG students this year made over 5000 suggestions and comments.  Discussions were based around the following themes:

• cyberbullying
• privacy
• online gambling
• reputation
• digital citizenship
• marketing

The summit was hosted by Project Rockit team members and  formally opened by Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. There were also some special guests:

• Winners of the first Cyber Defence University Challenge (from U of NSW)
• Winners of the 2012 Stay Smart Online’s agent/ambassador competition

After all the announcements and speeches, parents and teachers split off from the students and we all attended presentation workshops.

Students attended a session on Managing Your Reputation Online led by Ruby Rose, MTV presenter and spokesperson for HeadSpace. They discussed steps they could take to protect their reputations, learned about the social and legal consequences of acts such as harassment, cyberbullying and sexting from the Federal Police and received a handout that the AFP provide to elite athletes to help them manage their reputations online. Teens also shared some opinions including the inconsistencies in dealing with bullies at school. They felt that some are dealt with less harshly than things like smoking. They also expressed that many of the resources used in schools to teach Cybersafety were not interesting, relevant or age-appropriate.

They then attended a session with ABC’s Good Game hosts, Bajo and Hex. The topic was Digital Etiquette and Gaming. The culture and nature of gaming was discussed including the bullies/trolls online and how its OK to block them. Teens shared that there is pressure to keep up with obligations to the team in online games. They also said that parents should take more of an interest in what’s going on in their kids’ gaming world.

Parents attended a separate session on Gaming with Bajo and Hex. They were surprised to hear that the average age of a gamer was 37 years old! There was much discussion about the language and bullying in games. They were urged to take interest in their children’s gaming, to keep lines of communication open, set limits and discuss online friendships. Above all the room agreed that its important to help kids understand that “its only a game!” and to not invest too much emotion in it.

Parents also attended a presentation by the Alannah and Madeleine Foundation outlining their eSmart Schools program, the framework used to achieve best practice and their eSmart School certification. The program is not free but Victoria Dept of Education funds this program for all schools in the state.

I think the afternoon panel discussion was the highlight for most participants. Some excellent questions/dicussions came out of the session.

Q.  Should teachers and students be friends on Facebook (or other social networks)?

The Facebook rep answered that there were lots of ways for schools to take advantage of social networking sites with out individual teachers friending students. Many are using the site as a resource site. Other panelists thought that this decision was really up to individual schools. Some expressed the opinion that teachers shouldn’t have to be available to students 24/7 and that Facebook should be for their private life.

Q. Should we stop under 13s from going on Facebook?

The Telstra crime investigation representative said that it was important not to demonize technology and social networking sites. The Facebook rep pointed out that they now have a new reporting dashboard and improved information on the status of reports. She also pointed out that it was important for people to include their true age as minors have added privacy/security on their accounts by default.

Q. Should kids be using technology as an emotional outlet?

Teens expressed their desire to keep journals and talk to friends about their problems online, often seeking support from friends on Facebook. Some though this was a reliable and instantaneous way to talk to someone. Ruby Rose said it was better to get in contact with a counsellor online from one of the support sites than to spill emotions onto a social network site. You can never get what you say back. Others pointed out that texting and messaging wasn’t a good way to communicate feelings, too often people misunderstand the message.

Q .What is the duty of care for teachers in cyberbullying incidents that happen outside of the school?

The Telstra rep said that cybersafety is everyone’s responsibility. Ruby Rose agreed and said if you know someone’s having trouble take personal responsibility and reach out! The representative for the DEECD stated that the Number 1 responsibility of the school is to provide cybersafety education.

Perhaps the show stopper of the day though, came from one of my own students. Her question/comment was that not enough was being done to educate young Australians about the mental health consequences of cyberbullying. She wanted to know why we don’t teach people that all the negative online behaviour (and bullying in general) leads to depression, self harm and suicide. She felt the statistics and incidents should not be taboo topics. The entire room was silent as she spoke about it.

I think all of us left the summit with much to reflect on and some excellent strategies and directions to take. I feel privileged to have been a part of the discussion and will be discussing several ideas with my Principal for new initiatives.