A report back on the TeachMeet at Elkanah House on 8th June (from Linda Foulkes)

This is a guest post from the organiser of the TeachMeet at Elkanah House, Linda Foulkes, from her blog http://folklind.wordpress.com. Thank you Linda!

We had  a wonderful turnout at the TeachMeet @ Elkanah House on Saturday, 8th June!  Out of all the attendees we had  thirteen presentations lined up for the morning. It is absolutely great to see so many teachers who are willing to share and collaborate with others. It was a very fruitful
morning for all concerned as we definitely learnt a lot from each and every presentation given. Here is a link to the shared Google drive folder where all the presentations are available. Each presenter received a bag of jelly beans for agreeing to sign up as a Keen Bean. There were spot prizes handed out at intervals throughout the presentation. Every member of the audience received a number at the start of the meet and winners were generated by using the online fruit machine located on classtools.net.  Follow: #elkteachmeet or @folklind

Throughout the meet the TeachMeet a WIFI hotspot was available for those who wished to use devices to connect to the internet. Thank you to Stephan Botha, our amazing IT Network Manager. The presentations were excellent….so well prepared…so full of passion and engagement from teachers who are owning the use of technology in the classroom – children are very privileged to be engaged by these teachers in the classroom in this way!

The presentations
Juanita Oosthuizen opened the event by chatting to the audience about the KidBlog blogging tool. Kidblog is a fabulous tool to get your class to create and collaborate.  It is safe and simple to use, which makes it perfect for younger learners to introduce them to social media.  It would also be great for older grades to blog in a distraction-free zone.  Learn how to set up and run a blog for your class and explore some of the possibilities around the uses of Kidblog. Used avatar maker [illustmaker for blog]. Available as iPad app!

Gilmour Gordon had the TeachMeet audience in hysterics as he demonstrated a Grade 7 music activity by actually doing an ab workout. Gilmour’s students had to use movie maker, or imovie to create an ab workout video to 3 pieces of music. Audacity was used to edit tracks using fade in, delete, edit and export functions.

Jane Mackenzie-Hoskyn delivered the presentation called “ZOOM TO THE ORSAY”. An alternative and engaging way to stir some interest in learners prior to starting an Art theory lesson. Jane took us on a virtual tour of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Walk into the museum and travel, select artwork to view and analyse collaboratively. Technology used:  MacBook (laptop) and iPad (tablet), projector, white board, Edmodo for delivery / receipt of work, Reflector, Splashtop for control of laptop to iPad, Google Art Gallery, Google forms, e-mail. This content can also be applied to HSS, Geography and History, using Google Earth instead of Google Art Galleries .

Kevin Sherman – Took us on a trip to the moon and earth using Google Earth. Kevin also introduced us to ue layers in Google Earth to view 360 cities and panoramio. He took us on an underwater virtual tour which he used as an English lesson in order to get kids to describe the look and feel of what they experienced. Followed path of a Sea Turtle and Ray virtually underwater to enrich the classroom experience in many learning areas. Kevin also displayed how this tool could be used for Maths to measure distance between two points on the ground. One can also track elevations! 360cities.net can also be used.

Emmie Barkhuizen and Noelle Cowling – Emmie and Noelle discussed the introduction of their iPad project at Longacres Primary. Early challenges such as iTunes, technical issues and working with teachers. Working with teachers well in advance before introducing into the classrom and getting them to attend some TeachMeet events is a must. Pinterest boards a great way to get teachers to upload content. They used Apple TV for sharing reading of stories in the classroom, thereafter children used own iPad to listen and then read using earphones. Book creator was used as a Mothers Day project whereby children used video, music, personal voice notes [messages to mom], effects and explained the environment around them [farm animals etc.]

Michele Botha explained the progress of the BYOD program at Somerset House. After six
months they surveyed the parents, children and teachers. Interesting how children lead the way in terms of selecting the right device for a particular task. Cell phones definitely faded out. Another interesting point was
that the children controlled other children by “telling on” if they were accessing something they were not supposed to.
Michele also put together the OneStopShopping presentation which addressed the website classtools.net and other very valuable resources for teaching.

Alan Goldberg - introduced Showbie for the iPad for easy collaboration between students and teachers.Do need internet infrastructure as cloud based service – one creates class and shares codes with students for access. Showbie creates a shared collaboration folder as read-only. One can collaborate using text notes, voice notes, pdf, camera and the Pages app to name a few. Alan then introduced Grafio, add audio and content to shapes and link them. It is a unique canvas tool that uses the iPad capabilities to allow you to experience freehand drawing. It has shape recognition so redraws shapes if you freehand draw them and connects and allows one to move entire drawing with connected lines. Great flowchart app.

Carolynn Bruton – runs her own business called IT@Home. She shared a
huge range of mindmapping tools one can use in the classroom and went through the pro’s and con’s of each and which she preferred to use. Website Carolynn used are mindmapinspiration.com/top-10 and mindmappingsoftwareblog.com. Tool must have dropbox integration and be able to share and export.

Fiona Beal - encouraged us to use Learnist which essentially acts as a visual repository of all your favourite  articles, videos, ebooks, maps, surveys, blogs, podcasts, and images. Users create boards based on their interests and curate content around a chosen theme. Fiona also prepared a presentation on 
the African Storybook Project and urged us to encourage our classes to write for this project. 






Photo Gallery
Click on the photo below to be taken to the TeachMeet photo gallery

What a fabulous morning! Thank you to all those who attended – will let you know shortly when the next meet will be!

SchoolNet Conference 2013 - Powerful Professional Development For Sure!

Are you all ‘teched-out’ (a new Conference phrase we heard bandied about) after attending the SchoolNet2013 ICT in the Classroom  Conference held in Bloemfontein from 2nd – 4th July? Have you returned home inspired and motivated to do more in your classroom in the ensuing days? Of course all conferences have their hiccups of one sort or another but  the relationships formed and the learning that takes place in the space of three days definitely outweighs any downsides!

It was a busy time getting ready for the Conference in Blomefontein but Janet Thomson, SchoolNet’s Executive Director,  skilfully co-ordinated the Schoolnet team and the Bloemfontein ICTize team as they prepared for this biennial event. In this picture you can see the whole team on the stage at the close of the Conference. 


Our keynote speakers
SchoolNet conferences are known for including International speakers and we were thrilled to have four superb speakers who added their perspectives to those of our wonderful local presenters from around South Africa. We were especially thrilled to have our Deputy Minister of Education, Enver Surty, open the Conference.

Naomi Harm has been an invited keynote speaker at several of our SchoolNet Conferences over the years and she always gives us so much to think about and take away.  She presented tirelessly throughout the Conference with her various presentations and the closing keynote in which she summed up the Conference with her 'Top 10 Learning Tips'. Naomi’s presentations included:

• So You Want to Hangout In My Community?|
• What Would You Like to Create Today? iPad Literacy Center “Apptivities"
• Intel Elements: Blended Learning
• Visualize Your Thinking and Learning - Visual Ranking App
• Closing Keynote ‘10 top learning tips’

You can read Naomi’s conference reflections on the conference on her great blog http://goo.gl/jv2ZV She provides links to all her presentations on her blog. 


Baldev Singh from Imagine Education in the UK was our opening keynote speaker. Baldev presented his keynote on "Trends in Technology and Implications for Learning, Teaching and Developing the International Dimension in Schools."   One of Baldev’s quotes was constantly tweeted throughout the conference ‘Technology might be the answer but what was the question?’ Baldev’s workshop sessions in the following two days included:

• 21st Century Learning Design Through a Technology Lens
• Create System-wide Change. Build Innovative Schools
• TeachMeet

Frédéric Kastner and Malik Wilson are from The Virtual School in the UK. They presented
a keynote entitled ‘Open Educational Resource Movement –Inspiring your Teaching and Sharing with Teachers around the world’. During the conference they provided sessions of hands-on movie-making projects through digital video productions and screen casting opportunities with free online and offline resources. Teachers were very eager to participate in these content creation technology sessions and one couldn’t easily get a seat in their sessions. Their sessions included:

• Finding and using OER in and around the classroom. 
• Enabling teachers to create their own Multimedia Lessons

Frédéric has published an article for those who missed his presentation on his blog. You can also view their various videos on their Virtual School YouTube playlist: http://www.youtube.com/user/virtualschooluk

Apart from our keynote speakers we had inspiring local presenters of high calibre leading different sessions. We are very grateful for their input.

Social networking
It is amazing how social media can bind a conference together. Maggie Verster  did a sterling job of introducing teachers to Twitter and keeping the social media alive and well. We have captured the tweet archIves from the three days of the Conference using Storify:
Day1: http://goo.gl/QPaJY
Day 2: http://goo.gl/sWXmG
Day 3: http://goo.gl/qN3Wj


Our Conference blog is being updated with all the presentations that have been received to date. These presentations have also been shared via Dropbox plus they also appear on the SchoolNet website under Conference (http://schoolnet.org.za/conference_2013/). Photos can be found on the SchoolNet website https://picasaweb.google.com/114485521154323474375.

Reflections
It was according to all accounts a very successful and exciting conference. Here are some of the reflections via blogs or PDFs. (Please let us know if you have written a reflection on your blog)

• @MaryFaragher 's reflection on the #Schoolnetsa conference  "The last three days I have been at a conference for “innovative teachers” in Bloem and it has been amazing! From the breadcrumb navigation to presentations of the latest technology, to the active workshops that formed the bulk of the programme, it has been an eye-opening journey."http://bit.ly/13o38uA
• @nharm reflection on our #schoolnetsa conference. It also has all her resources!! http://goo.gl/jv2ZV
• Bongani Ncube from Ilanga Secondary School, Emalahleni, has sent in a reflection.
• Frédéric Kastner has a reflection on his Virtual School blog
• Kobus van Wyk also writes about the SchoolNet Conference http://goo.gl/X50Jx

Three essential points
Once again we realise three essential points that emerge after attending a national technology in education conference:

1) We not alone. Everyone starts as a beginner and everyone can move forward and use technology where it matters most; no-one knows everything and everyone learns from others.

2) We share a worldwide vision for improving our education system and embracing technology to enhance it and do things we couldn't do before including technology. Attending a conference often shows new ways of engaging in and using technology to develop student skills at one’s own school.

3) A personal learning network is important. A conference introduces us to others who we can now add to our PLN. Joining Twitter links us to a means of gathering a powerful learning network around us whenever we need them. We hope that you will include @SchoolNetSA as one of your free professional development organisations in this personal learning network.

Recommendations
As we all know, not every teacher at our schools feels as enthusiastic as we do about the value of using technology to improve student learning and engagement. So, as you return to your day to day environment we encourage you to chat and share in the corridors, discuss over lunch, and offer ideas for the possibilities for learning that technology can bring.  Use your energy and renewed enthusiasm to build and develop relationships with your various teams, teachers and students to slowly help all to see that connections and learning through and with technology are important in education.

If you were at the conference we have sent you a link to an evaluation form. Please fill it in so that we can make our next conference even better. 

Webinar recording: Even MORE uses of PowerPoint (19/06/2013)

Last week our webinar was entitled ‘Did you know PowerPoint could do all this?’ where we looked at 10 uses of PowerPoint apart from the normal use of making a presentation. This week we look at Part 2 of the series entitled ‘Even MORE amazing uses of PowerPoint’. Do we realise the potential that lies within this Microsoft product? You’ll be astounded to see how many more uses there are for PowerPoint and that it could be one of the most powerful and diverse applications you use.
Name:Even MORE amazing uses of PowerPoint
Summary: This is part two in the series about Microsoft's PowerPoint showing even more uses than we looked at last week. You will discover that PowerPoint is both powerful and diverse in the ways that it can be used.
Presenter: Fiona Beal from SchoolNet
Recording URL:  http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p49j0dtg4lg/

Here is a SlideShare of the presentation used in the webinar for a quick summary
Even more uses of PowerPoint