Happy Birthday Bardwired - 10 Years Old Today!

Wow what a milestone, I am feeling old today as my baby hits double digits!

I was introduced to blogging by Richard & his students at Matau School & thought this would be a great way to keep schools in touch with what was going on around the Bardwired ICTPD cluster. Sure beats stuffy reports to Principals' once a month. It has been quite a journey over that time, with many highlights and in the last couple of years quiet patches too. My first post was a very factual account, in fact a list, of what i did at work that day...i think it only got better after that.

To start with it was text only, you had to have some working knowledge of  html to make anything else happen. Pictures weren't easy and it was four months before any images appeared on my pages.

Flickr arrived early in 2005 and that was the beginning of my love for Flickr. That was also the time i began to use hyperlinks but it was still awhile until hyperlinks became part of my deliberate writing style. My writing here waned when blogging became a professional requirement for my two other roles with the VLN Primary & VPLD; Twitter & Facebook also took over my attention. As with any pride & joy there are special milestones & highlights - here are a few of mine.

Here are some of my babies milestones:

First podcasts May 2006 - Prensky@School Marc Prensky's keynote from Learning@School
First video May 2006 on Vimeo - Kidz & Kitez @ Makahu,
First flash animation - Christmas 2006
First friends -  Tom & Graham - when i learnt that blogging is about conversations and learning together
First blog post from my phone - moblogging February 2007
First Youtube video embeds TUANZ 2007
First embedded slideshow - Around te Maunga May 2007
First avatar - Meez May 2007
First Panorama - Panoramic Pitt August 2007
First slap on the wrist for this post May 2009

Highlights:

Where Are We Going??????? - 2005 thoughts about Google
Connecting with others - Edubloggers Offices Photostream
Starting nzedublogs with Jedd
Life changing highlight - getting to know my darling Rick
Time 4 Online Conference
Dead Cats & Laptops - most interesting/gross picture
Helping Bruce update his blog
Connecting with others - 8 random facts meme (great to be reminded of those connections :-)
VLN Primary kicks off at Matapu School
The Future of Education (i just like this post)
Being 'published'
eLearning eBooks (i liked this one too)
N4L consultation  early conversations

There are some things you just can't say in 140 words!

Social Media has taken over my professional life and so BardWired has been parked for some time as other work blogs & social media streams take precedence in my time poor days.
In the beginning there was just Blogger.com, then came Flickr and wahoo i could put pictures in my blog posts. Now i post www.vln.school.nz, for awhile and still sometimes at VPLD and Ethos, Google+, Facebook & Twitter. Maybe i am on the road to wrangling this web beast with HootSuite.
There are some things to write about that just don't fit anywhere else and that you just can't say in 140 words either. May this be a return to MY blog - I hope so, I've missed you BardWired.

Opunake

A beautiful blue sky mountain day at Opunake as we all wait out on the field during a fire drill - This brings back memories ;-) 

Today i helped Andrea give birth to her blog http://kicking chemistry.blogspot.com
She was blown away by how easy it was to set up & get started. Andrea wanted to use this blog to engage in conversations with her senior students about some of the bigger ideas that they just don't have time to chew over in class. I would be interested in looking at how other secondary schools are using blogging. There is only one listed on the edublogs site so i have set up a new page on edublogs for secondary schools sites. If you have a site or you know some plz head over there and put up a few links.

Windows Live Writer

In case any of you are thinking the same questions as Darren "How are you able to get your pics looking so fancy and uniform in your blog?  Does blogger allow you to do that or have you done it elsewhere?"

Great that you noticed.... i have started using Windows Live Writer for publishing my blog posts.

Live Writer installs on your PC & allows you to publish straight from your desktop with a whole wider range of formatting tools than you get with blogger wysiwyg editing (hence the photos are looking a little flashier) I also like the way it saves your posts locally on your own machine. I have always had blogger email me my posts (just like to have a copy of everything on my own machine) Pictures - you can just drag them straight on your page & they get uploaded along with your post - easy peasy.

Wine Not Network @ Eltham Primary School

Another great Wine Not Network was held at Eltham Primary School. It was great to see so many teachers from the old Bard Wired ICTPD cluster attending :-)
It was great to visit Eltham Primary School as i haven't been there all year! The school is looking fantastic with all its renovations completed.
Schools shared examples of what was happening back in their own classrooms and the topics ranged: photography, interact LMS, smarnet servers, IWB, skype, blogs and feedback from the ULearn attendees.
I discovered a number of new blogs that have popped up amongst our schools (largely due to the ULearn influence). Check them out and leave some encouraging comments:
http://room1tokoschool.blogspot.com/
http://room6-sps.blogspot.com/
http://room3tokotaranaki.blogspot.com/
http://room5toko.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tokoschool
There was some discussion that ensued after this meeting about internet safety and appropriate use with blogging in the classroom. Rather than join this discussion (again as i know it comes up every time a new school blog is born) I directed those schools to previous discussions and links.

(Paul demonstrates how he uses Interwrite software and tablet)

8 Random Facts

I've been tagged by Sheryl :-)

First, the Rules:

• Post these rules before you give your facts
• List 8 random facts about yourself
• At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
• Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged
  
  
  

8 Facts About Me:

1. My favourite whiskey is Jamesons Irish whiskey
2. I got kicked out of school when i was 14 (they let me back again)
3. My first job when i left school was a rousy in a shearing gang
4. I am a 1st generation NZer
5. This Friday i fly out to Pitt Island for a couple of weeks
6. My favourite flowers are daffodils because it means winter is nearly over
7. I coach my two sons' High School A Basketball team. I also coach my daughter's basketball team
8. My ambition is to win Lotto & make a career out of playing with all the cool tools i find on the Internet. (I have to win Lotto for that as noones going to pay me to do that!)
   

I tag:
Artichoke (this is the reason you are first on my list :-)
Allanah
Leigh
Jo
Rachel
Brian
Iain
Tom (ha got you again)

Blog Bling with Bruce

I spent a pleasant morning with Bruce today (here discussing Quality Learning in NZ schools from Policy to Classroom Practise & everything in between). It is always good to talk to Bruce & share his perspectives on education. Visit his blog Leading and Learning and join in the conversations there.
The main focus of today was to help Bruce revamp his blogspot with categories so that he could more easily sort & find his articles (over 550 posts now!). With not a lot of bling in his sidebar we decided to update to the new blogger template a simple way to add page elements to your blog without playing with the html in the template. I love the way the new template tidies up the archives with drop down options on the months (& years) so you don't have archives listed a mile long.
It inspired me to think about tidying up my own blogspot. I looked at it when the new template changes came in awhile ago but was worried about losing all my bling on the side. So i have played with it a bit more and found it won't be a problem in the sidebar I can reinstate all my bling easily but i'm going to lose my signature flickr pics in my header. Hmmm some techie problem solving to do here - maybe another day.
Oooops maybe not - gone & done it now - think i will keep it as it looks so much tidier!

Blogging Mojo

Thanks to my nzedublogger colleagues for helping me find my blogging mojo. How can i have gone 6 weeks without a single post??!

It's not like i have nothing to say my life is full of lots of goings on - so well, maybe its been too full! Thanks guys for your prompt & positive comments, they really motivate me - Artie you always write something that gives me a chuckle :-)

This semester i will be studying again & though i have said never again.... one more paper & i will graduate with a Post Graduate Diploma in Educational Technologies (Massey). This last (hehe last) paper is focussed around distance learning: "Policy, practice & trends in Distance and Online Education" Hmmm title sounds pretty dry & boring but this paper will be really relevant to my work with the TaraNet elearning cluster and in practice its not boring at all. Online learning is one of my passions - without it i wouldn't be where i am today.
One of the things i will be looking at will be the history & contributions of Video Conferencing in online education. I know the KAWM network was one of the earliest to use video conferencing for online learning in NZ - have you heard of others who went before? What has been happening internationally with VC & distance learning? If you are into online learning expect me to pick your brains :-)

Time 4 Online Conference

Time 4 Online Conference kicks off tomorrow & I encourage you all to get along & involve yourself in someway over the next couple of weeks. My presentation is finally completed as usual done at the 11th hour :-)

Jubilee Junkie

Every spare minute of my time (and lots of minutes that aren't spare) have been spent in preparing for our school jubilee. It's been really interesting to be given lots of old school photos from people in our community, scanning them & loading them to our Jubilee flickr site. Memories have been shared on our Jubilee blogspot. All of these will become our "Digital Time Capsule" (Thanks Kelvin :-) - the 21st Century version of burying old newspapers to be dug up 50 years later. Our Time Capsule will be easily accessible for anyone with an internet connection for a long time to come. I have begun to pull together a Jubilee Media team of students from Stratford Primary School & Stratford High School to document the events of Jubilee weekend, taking lots of pictures, short video & audio to be shared in our Time Capsule. This team will also prepare the multimedia presentations that will be on display, along with presentations from SPS classes, throughout the Jubilee. Presentations no longer need to be PowerPoints. With Flash Slideshow Maker you can easily put together presentations and display as a flash movie. Here's an example. Another tool i found was Flash Flipping Book which i used to display a very old handwritten book which really needed to be displayed in it's original book format. (Not sure if this one runs all the way through properly as it is hosted on the School Zone network & it wouldn't upload some supporting files)

Connect, Communicate, Create, Collaborate @ Tuanz

Sheryl helps Lynley give birth to a new blog :-)
What a great keynote Sheryl very stirring & passionately delivered. I think all of the teachers in the room today would have been inspired to change the way they teach using technology OR think about early retirement…(which maybe not such a bad thing for our kids ;-) The future is not only just on the horizon, it is here already & the kids that are starting out in our schools now were not even born in the 20th C they are truly 21st C children. The need to change the way we teach is urgent – open up your eyes to the incredible changes and opportunities that are happening now and use them to extend the learning horizons for our children. We have a responsibility to engage them using the technology of our times. We particularly have this responsibility to help close the digital divide for our children who don’t have the same level of access in their homes. These are the children who have the most to gain from the world of opportunities just a click-beat away.

It really struck a nerve with me to hear Sheryl echo what I have said before about the difference between primary & secondary school teachers. Secondary teachers will say they teach English or maths (subjects) and Primary teacher teach students. Without wanting to put down my Secondary colleagues (I know I work in both sectors) I think they face a whole other layer of barriers which we don’t find in our Primary Schools. Our Secondary schools are most fertile ground for change.
Content is not king anymore we have to redefine what it is important to learn. We should focus on the learning process and the skills involved: numeracy, literacy, information literacy, media literacy and I think most importantly social literacy as more and more we are interacting with others in an online global learning community. Our kids need to learn how to be socially responsible global citizens. It was interesting to hear Sheryl’s perspective of Web 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0. 3.0 being the virtual worlds we inhabit that cross over into our real world through our social networks, work & school and now have an economic life that is growing. (for example Second Life) I see this happening already with my own kids, Sophie especially inhabits a number of virtual communities & shes still only 10!
Other pearlers from today was Suzie talking about Generation C – a perfect fit for the 4 C’s Connect, Communicate, Create, Collaborate though I am sure you could add to this list or express it in different ways. A starter for discussion was this video taken on a student cellphone of a Krumping battle at school & uploaded to YouTube.

The discussion never really reached the point I thought it could have gone & seemed to revolve more about behavioural standards & management in schools and not so much the creation of media online and the potential issues surrounding this. Maybe this next clip might have woken them up to this idea. Here we have another Krump battle in a NZ school this time a teacher arrives on the scene probably still ignorant to the fact they are making a cameo appearance in a You Tube video. More food for thought.

Bard Wired Spam Robot?!

OMG - its more than a little scary to logon to make a new post and find you have been blocked from your own blog while blogger.com check out that i am not a spam robot!
Though i don't post every day i'm use to having unrestricted access to my own space. This blog represents 3 years of my working life, 3 years of huge professional growth for me - what if it were to disappear completely - this is a scary, scary thing. It would be good to have the facility to download your blog in it's entirety (like you can with wikispaces.com) & keep up a backup copy on your own machine. I do have my articles saved as emails but that would be so difficult to rebuild. Perhaps i need to start investigating other options...

Mobile Flickr

A request from Brent:
"rachel... you're not sending those pics straight from your phone to your Flickr account are you, like remotely? I'd love to be able to do that... so if you've figured that one out (from NZ) please post :-)"

Yes you can get your pics straight from your phone into Flickr. Moblogging isn't very streamlined here yet - unless someone knows how let me know.
You can get your pic to appear straight to Flickr but any comments or description you pxt with it doesn't appear & you get a link back to the Xtra photo album page. I don't know if this is the case with Vodaphone. I have tried sending pics straight to the blog thru both Telecom & Vodaphone & all you get is a redirection message & no pic. So it is a two step process if i want to blog the photo i sent to flickr then i have to go into flickr & send it from there with all the comments, tags etc i want to write. The potential for moblogging with our kids - field trips, school camps etc would be so awesome if only it worked a little better. No need for internet or computers - just a cell phone & of course depending where u are cell phone coverage...
Some links on how to do it on my Flickr wiki - let me know if you learn anything new :-)

Wikis Gone West?!!

Well here i am today in Rotorua presenting 3 workshops all prepared and ready to go on http://bardwired.wikispaces.com and wouldn't you know it i can't get on only through my own laptop and only running explorer.....aaahhh!! (it keeps timing out from the wikispaces server even when i have removed all firewalls hhmmmm)

I can't get into the main page of my blog either - Explorer keeps wanting to save it as a document --- very strange? I can see i will be flicking backwards & forwards between Flock & Explorer all afternoon.

No time to figure it out with 2 more workshops running soon. So the main link for my next workshop is here.
Blogging On

Social Networking & Schools

A cautionary message to School Zone schools from VEN (SZ educational governance group) about the use of social networking sites by young people and why they are blocked in our schools (though schools have the autonomy to unblock any sites and some are). Having highlighted the negatives which are well publicised in the media VEN asks:

"Young people are though using the medium to communicate - a lot. Harnessing the powerful opportunity that social networking sites provide is a real challenge for educators....We are interested in hearing positive ways that social networking sites have been used by schools for educational purposes, and would like to share these."

Lots of examples at http://nzedublogs.wikispaces.com/ Please list your school blogs, podcasts, flickr site... if not already listed.

Schools might find it worthwhile working through this 'educational scenario' as they decide how or even if they will open up social networking sites http://www.stratford-primary.school.nz/home/rachelj/web2/index.html

“Allowing our students to engage collaboratively with others online raises issues of ethical, safe and responsible use. There have been stories sensationalised in the media of cyber bullying, inappropriate pictures and personal information published on student sites. People can behave in disinhibiting ways online, saying and doing things they would never do in a face to face situation. (Butterfield, 2005) (Chisholm & Fenaughty, 2006) This can have long lasting consequences as their ‘digital footprint’ may not be so easily edited or erased and could attract unwelcome attention or repercussions. For this reason many schools have blocked social networking sites through their Internet Management Systems. In effect this is a ‘head in the sand’ reaction. Young people are using Web 2.0 tools anyway and in growing numbers. 55% of US teens use social networks (Warlick, 2007); and 52% of all blogs are created and maintained by 13 – 19 year olds (Twist in De Craene, 2006). “Values and ethics are vital. You cannot control whether students CAN do these things. They can. You CAN control what you teach students! … Schools who ignore technology and ignore instilling values in their students could be reaping the negative consequences.” (Davis, 2007) Students need role models of what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. Teachers could do this by becoming involved in social networks and communities of practise thus also giving them a better understanding of what it means to be a networked learner. (Hargreaves in Lee & Berry, 2006) Schools should update their Acceptable Use policies to include the use of social networking and it should cover students use (relevant to school) outside of the ‘school gates’. Monitoring student use (as opposed to blocking) is important. There are many blog and wiki sites available that require log-on authorisation and comment verification allowing teachers to monitor and screen their students’ interactions. This may be a good safety net as students learn to walk safely and wisely in the wider networked world.” For the full paper click here.

Web 2.0 is the buzzword - it will be the walk & talk of Learning at School. TUANZ07 keynote speakers are edublog celebrities also so there will be no escaping the Web 2.0 bandwagon when it comes to town. In our enthusiasm for hooking in to the Connected World (& i am pretty enthusiastic myself) lets also not forget to be critical of the issues involved and how can we address them in our schools.

Connected Spaces

It's amazing how quickly an idea grows in the blogosphere - is that what they mean by 'viral' If it is i guess i've caught it too. Ewan in his lunch time boredom suggested that other edubloggers flickr a pic of their office space (its sad to be on your computer @ lunchtime... tho i am guilty too) & me, who have got a million other things to do but is easily distracted went over for a look & to join in. A full 360 degree view of my 'official workplace office (which i don't even know yet if it still is my office) can be seen here. Made with Panorama Composer.

Student Voice

The Bass Players Blog: The Benefits of School 2.0

This article from a blogging student says it all! Thanks Ewan for the link.

5 Things Tag

OK I'll play this little game :-) tho' it reminds me just a little of the chain letters i used to get when i was a kid (& still get & delete in my email...) Graham & Sharon tagged me & i didn't even get a chance to shout sticks!

1. I am a single mum of two teenage boys - Sean 15 & James 14, also a lovely daughter Sophie 10. They are as geeky as me which means that bandwidth & disk space is a competitive resource in our household.

2. I have been inspired by my niece Hazel who became the first NZ woman ever to finish a 6 Day Enduro event at ISDE06 at Taupo in November to get back on a motorbike again. Also the idea of the open road with no children in tow seems pretty inviting as well. It's been 20 years since i've ridden anything so I am looking for a hack bike to practise on.

3. I really enjoy listening to live music. Got my tickets for Womad07 in March, recently took my son to the Cemetery Circuit races in Wanganui on Boxing Day & saw the Feelers & th'Dudes & hoping to get to Roger Waters in Auckland at the end of the month.

Lining up in the pits for the Vintage SideCar Race! Wanganui Boxing Day

The most interesting chilli-bin (beer cooler) Wanganui Cemetery Circuit.

4. Basketball has been my passion but injury saw me take early retirement from the game. Would still love to get back on the court but i know i would suffer for it :-(

5. In an earlier life i was a Horticulturalist, got my Diploma in Hort. & loved all things botanical. I still enjoy getting out into my garden & growing vegetables.

All of my kids (+ one) with Santa

So time to pass it on... I tag Tom, Ewan, Nix, John, Derek. Ha, ha - sorry guys :-)

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Bard Kidz!

It's such a buzz to watch our Bard Kidz at play - oops i mean work ;-)
Dr Schmooze Clues is a hit with all the teams who have got involved and awesome to see their engagement and excitement with the game (teachers too) & some of the pictures they are sending in are very interesting. It was a great idea, as it turns out, to use photos to illustrate their answers. You can see a collection of them on our Interact site here or of course head over to Dr Schmooze's site and follow the whole game.
I know now why Matau have not joined the game this time as they are off to Rotorua this week for their school camp. They have been putting little animations on their blogs (using I Can Animate & original soundtracks with GarageBand) - very much beginners but very promising. Some other really cool videos on their blogs too. Go take a look - encourage your students to visit too and leave them some comments.
I watched Eltham Primary School kids working with Amanda & Marisa from Puke Ariki on Friday as they archived old school photos & records for the "Our Mountain" project - what a huge task - look out for their work on the PukeAriki wiki starting up soon.