Similarly, it was interesting to hear from Jaguar Land Rover about how their business has migrated to Google Apps and given that the scale of these organisations is very different from the schools and businesses I usually work with, very informative. Much of the focus for these larger organisations was naturally, on the migration and use of Gmail as opposed to the entire Apps suite, so I look forward to hearing more in the future about how some of the innovative and collaborative practices that are going on in schools can be utilised at University level.
Interestingly, most Universities had also rolled out Apps to their students first, which replicates experiences in schools where students are the driving factor in change and Google is talking their language.
From a personal perspective, using Google Books , particularly the awe inspiring fact that over 15million books are now available to search and read online, and Youtube for Edu remain exciting opportunities for all educational organisations. Understandably, given the audience demographic, there was much interest in these fantastic resources during the panel session.
In fact, the opportunity to meet the hugely enthusiastic Google Apps for EDU team again was great, especially the open question and answer session at the end of the day. As someone mentioned yesterday, the opportunity to hear it from the horse’s mouth is invaluable when dealing with the ever-evolving innovation of Google Apps.
The Google team were keen to point out that they are focusing on usability improvements and that there will be many more exciting Google Apps announcements in the coming months. Great!
From a staff and productivity point of view, the ability for users to use Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office to sync their office documents to Google Apps is a great move and the promise of the reintroduction of being able to access Docs offline using HTML5, both of which which will be rolled out later this year.
Overall it was a suberb event, organised in a brilliantly slick and understated manner by Martin Hamilton and his great team who could teach many event organisers a thing or two.
In terms of my own presentations, I demonstrated using Google Labs in the Open Mike slot and shared the stage with Mark Allen to discuss how Google Apps for EDU is being used in primary and secondary schools. My slides for my second presentation are below.
The Collaborate for Change event last night was excellent and a great example of innovative CPD in action!
There was a great atmosphere right from the word go and the format of having ‘hosted’ tables, was a fantastic idea.
It allowed attendees to have a great selection of topics to choose from (4 x 20 minute table sessions over the course of the evening), so each table was filled with people interested in, and very much able to contribute to, the discussion taking place.
It was also far less intimidating to be hosting an informal table discussion that standing at the front and presenting and I hope this will encourage more people to offer their services as ‘host’ at the next event in this format. So, well done and thanks to the organisers – I hope there will be another event soon!
It’s been over one full ‘term’ since I have been working for myself, both as a freelance trainer, and primarily on on my social enterprise project DoDigital, which aims to promote creative use of technology in education, and to a lesser extent, business.
It’s been a rollercoaster of a few months and a few people have asked me for advice if they were to do something similar, so I thought I would share some of what I have learnt so far!
Freedom is a wonderful thing…once you get used to it!
At first rather predictably perhaps although I loved not having my time ruled by bells and relentless structure, I found the ‘do what-ever you want, whenever you want to’ structure I had a little overwhelming. As usual, a step-by-step approach helped, as did the advice in Peter Jones’ book about writing a 100 day action plan – it’s easy to do once you get going!
The real deal is very different from the theory!
I taught Business Studies for over 4 years; however, actually running a business is very, very different! I may have known business theories inside out, but I found that once I had actually become one of those entrepreneurs that I used to talk about in classrooms, much of the theory was almost irrelevant.
That’s why I found this article by Richard Branson so interesting and hope that he will have some influence over government educational policy! Indeed, the government has announced today that it will be re-introducing the ‘enterprise allowance’ grant to encourage people to start small businesses. Too late for me, but great for those who want to start a business as it will provide some income in those months before the business takes off (that kept me awake !).
Meetings can waste your very valuable time!
We all know this, but in my new role I initially thought I needed lots of help and guidance (I did need quite a bit!). Subsequently, I filled my first month or so with a lot of meetings with business advisors who were sometimes helpful, often not, speaking to lots of people about my business plan and reading lots (although I had spent virtually the previous 8 months reading about starting up a business). I found some advice inaccurate and conflicting, particularly around setting up a social enterprise – this is a real shame, as it’s quite straight-forward really!
Find great resources & stick with them!
Business Link will put you in touch with a local provider of business support (it took me a couple of follow-up calls to get one). Their website and helpline can help with answering the masses of little questions that come up when trying to set up a company, although I did find the masses of information on the website a little over-whelming at times! The government are making changes to Business Link, but they have promised to keep the free advice provision and update the website.
HMRC courses are also excellent, and provide free, highly useful and accurate information about the financial aspects of starting a business (a top tip from Duncan Bannatyne’s book!) and The British Library is a fabulous source of support for Entrepreneurs. Having read masses of books / blogs on the subject, there is a list of those I found most useful at the end of this post.
So, if you do want to set up your company, do take up some of the free advice you’re offered, however, ask people who have recently, been through the process and can relate to your idea (I’m happy to help if I can!).
The final, and most important thing I have learnt is, rather obviously, that you really have to just get on with it! As Alan Sugar discusses in this post, it’s all down to you! Here are some quotes which epitomise the first few months in business for me (all courtesy of @greatestquotes).
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.” – Henry Ford
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“Take a deep breath, count to ten, and tackle each task one step at a time.” – Linda Shalaway
It’s that time of year again: most of my friends are back at school (as teachers!) and much of the chat on Twitter is about meeting new classes.
However, this year I won’t be going back to school and for the first time ever on Thursday, my son went to school and I didn’t.
I am no longer officially a teacher, although I think I will always be a teacher.
I am still incredibly passionate about education and I loved working with teenagers, especially those that have to deal with more than most. I almost cannot comprehend that, for the moment, I will not be doing that job.
I am already doing some ICT consultancy and training for a number of companies, and am currently working on launching my own venture which will aim to help educators use engaging and innovative technology in their classrooms and organisations.
Running my own business has been something I have wanted to do for years, especially during my time as a Business & Economics teacher. Getting to this point has been a very steep learning curve and I have been devouring more books and online resources in the past 6 months than I have since my teaching degree.
As with teaching, I suspect that it won’t be until I am actually doing it that I really learn what it’s all about. It’s extremely exciting, although rather daunting after the safe confines of the teaching profession. Many of my former colleagues and friends think I am nuts and I am very grateful to the smaller number who share my ‘carpe diem’ attitude and have been so supportive. I look forward to sharing more details about the company soon.
Meanwhile, all the best to those of you starting a new term. I absolutely know the energy and dedication it takes to do the job that is never finished.
Last night’s TeachMeetBlackpool was tremendous (& not just because of the TeachMeet rock!) It was really great to meet up with some of the people I’ve spoken to on twitter face to face and there were some really inspired and inspiring presentations from great practical examples, like using flip cameras, twitter and cover-it-live in the classroom to improve literacy and to Nicola Staple’s interactive and highly enjoyable music terminology session.
I also really enjoyed the ‘global’ presentations, with Jan Webb, Jack Sloan and John Sutton all sharing how they have used web 2.0 applications to connect their students both to each other and on a global scale – really inspirational stuff!
Connecting students and teachers was a recurring theme of the evening and what particularly stood out for me as the large number of attendees from the local community – Tom and James did a great job of taking TeachMeet beyond the twitterati. The final presentation of the night from Chris and Nigel at Palatine secondary school where they discussed how they have used futurelab’s learning spaces (or as they call them learning bases) to revolutionise the transition experience for pupils in the area was very thought-provoking. Their warm and sincere invitation for attendees to go and visit their school was indicative of the positive local links that were most certainly built throughout the night.
Things are certainly looking bright for the teachers and pupils of Blackpool (& beyond)!
Here’s the much talked about Colin with his guide to chroma key with Movie Maker!
I am particularly passionate about the ability ICT has to encourage creativity and independent thinking in students, the latter being such a bug-bear of teachers far and wide, and so I thought I would share some of the projects I have introduced over the past year to try to develop not only students’ ICT skills, but their creativity, logical & critical thought and independent learning.
Creative Chip by Mr. Beaver cc attribution, non-commercial, share-alike licence
I try to use free software when I can and if it supports the learning objectives. For example, using Google Sketchup to introduce CAD and 3D modelling was an idea I stole from the marvellous Mr Clarkson and my Year 9 students have been making eco-houses this term in an adaptation of Mark’s Grand Design’s project.
I have discussed Scratch and Alice at length before and, together with Gamemaker they engage students like no other software I have taught, as they create animations and games, totally oblivious to the fact that they are learning programming skills along the way. Students are currently playing with Kodu in the computer club, having ordered a few X-Box controllers and one student has requested that Python be downloaded so he can experiment with that – great independent learning!
The advantages of using free tools of course is that students can download them at home and play around with them there. I have been both delighted and surprised when some students have brought the work they have completed at home in (and had to give them serious extension work as they have finished their entire project in one week!) I was particularly thrilled this week when a Year 7 boy was completing his History homework on Sketchup (a roman fort) because he’d seen his brother in Year 9 completing his ICT project on it at home.
And of course, the fact that these tools can be used in other subjects is the great appeal – in ICT I try whenever I can to use tools that students can and will be using in other areas. For example, using Google Earth in our movie about the Year 7 trip and creating scientific graphs in Excel, rather than the usual explosion of colour will hopefully be of great help further up the school in Science and Maths. Using Audacity to record podcasts means they can use the software in other subjects, and of course the logical thinking required in any kind of programming is good for Maths and life in general!
In this respect, creative subjects such as Art and, in particular Graphics, are natural companions of ICT and, as web design and animation are both passions of mine, inevitably I manage to sneak a good bit of both of these into the curriculum. Ideally, students build on their existing skills and learn new ones with each project. For example, my Year 9s started off the year creating stop-frame animation, we then moved on to Flash and then Alice, so by Christmas, they had tried animating in 3 different ways. It was really great when they arrived for their assessment lesson complete with props and original ideas and began working confidently and totally independently on their animations using the most appropriate software for their idea – a real success in itself, notwithstanding the fact that some of their completed animations were excellent.
So, while I know I have been lucky to have such flexibility with the curriculum, I do believe that with a little imagination and a good look round on the web to see what others are doing, you can enliven the KS3 curriculum and make it engaging, relevant, challenging and exciting for students, encouraging them to have the confidence in their own creativity and learn independently.
Creating a dynamic scheme of work at KS3 is the aim of the DADSOW3 conference in June – updates will appear at ictcurric.org.uk and on twitter #ictcurric
I was introduced to yet another inspirational Ted talk by @courosa. In the talk, shown below, Daniel Siegel really got me thinking about how we use our brains, particularly in the classroom with students.
He discusses his belief that the brain is a social organ and that we should be ensuring we teach students resilience, relationships and reflection, to which the brain is highly receptive, in addition the the more common 3 ‘R’s. In reality, I think many of us do incorporate this into our teaching, although there is certainly scope for it to be higher up the agenda in some schools.
He concurs with Sir Ken Robinson’s beliefs surrounding creativity and allowing students to expore ideas for themselves and find their passion, although Siegel goes further to say that relationships, building a community and sharing information should be at the heart of any school and educational policy – something which I have yet to hear discussed in the current round of wrangling before the general election. Siegal believes that by putting such elements at the heart of schools, students become attuned to themselves and committed and responsive to others.
Throughout the talk, in my usual impatient way, I wanted Siegel to tell us how rather than why and thankfully he does so near the end. The yes and no exercise (at @ 21 mins) is excellent in its simplicity and serves as a reminder of how we, as teachers, can encourage receptivity rather than reactivity and that teaching compassion is perhaps best served by showing compassion ourselves – not an educational revolution but a step in the right direction.
Had a very tiring yet enjoyable day at BETT yesterday, certainly far more entertaining & worthwhile than in previous years, and it was really lovely to catch up with so many people.
I was lucky to be involved in TeachMeetTakeover and, despite being very nervous & having an embarrassing timing mess-up, enjoyed giving my presentation at the very professional-looking Scholastic stand. So thanks to @chrisrat, @stuartridout and @tombarrett in particular, but to all who came to watch and were very supportive. Here is the prezi I used.
I wasn’t that inspired by the stands at BETT, although I thoroughly enjoyed the demonstration from 2simple of their 2Create a Superstory. Although I can’t use it to teach myself as a secondary teacher, I think it bodes well in terms of the skills and concepts pupils will develop at an early age. My son tells me we’re going to be creating a story about the journey of the pilgrim fathers with our trial copy!
Although I wasn’t able to go to TMBETT2010 in the evening, it’s been great catching up with it today via @eyebeam’s stream and the flash meeting. I look forward to some more inspiration!
I introduced Google docs to my Year 10 ICT GCSE class last term as a way in which they could work collaboratively on presentations and make the theory work that we are doing a little more practical.
Prior to the lesson I set up a presentation, set it so it could be shared with everyone & anyone who had the link could edit it and then shared the link with them.
We had a ‘play’ for 5 minutes to allow for the necessary ‘messing’ (deleting other people’s work / posting daft messages). However, they soon settled down and were able to get on with researching their topic and completing their slides.
There were a few teething issues, such as too many people trying to format the background / work on the same slides and it was a little slow at times, but they worked very well and create a collaborative presentation which they were able to download to their own areas. It could do with a little refinement, however it does the job of collating all their research and knowledge in one place ready to share.
They worked incredibly well throughout the lesson and I gathered their feedback at the end on a wallwisher wall.
At the end of the session, a few pupils emailed longer comments to me:
“I think this builds a better relationship within the class and also builds our confidence when we can review each other ideas, through our wikispace and on google docs.”
“I would like to use more web based programs because i can access them everywhere”
“I think theory lessons are more interesting because of the things we use. Google docs was my favourite!:)”
So, it seems that google docs are a hit with the students, in fact one teacher came to tell me that one of the students had proudly introduced it to his group in another lesson when they were working on a project.
The students have also commented that they have been telling their parents about google docs too and one boy’s mum has started using it for her business.
I have just set up a Google form for them to complete after their exam to do a little self-assessment. It took me 5 minutes to set up and puts the completed data into a spreadsheet for me. Pretty nifty.
So, is this about the technology? I would argue that it is about the technology fulfilling a need – as a teacher I want students to be, at times, able to work together, collaboratively on project and tasks and google docs facilitates this incredibly well. They can also access their documents from any computer – so there is no longer a need for them all to be huddled round one computer in the IT suite at break.
Forms allow me to quickly collect their feedback and collate it in one place, allowing for a little self-reflection for them and some invaluable data for me. They are also really quick for students to complete.
I am not a Google zealot and will be interested in seeing Microsoft’s Office 2010 version when it released some time this year. However, I am most interested in tools and technologies that engage my students and allow them further opportunities to learn and both broaden their horizons and deepen their learning – at the moment, Google docs is doing just that.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the Google Apps for Education UK User Group or #GUUG11 organised by Martin Hamilton at Loughborough University.
