Learning without Frontiers - Iris Lapinski - Apps for Good

Iris Lapinski - Apps for Good

Why is it that 70% of countries fail to improve their education systems?

Is it because in the real world, problems are complex and context specific? School systems, however, teach children how to recognise standard problems and we provide them with a "Swiss Army knife" set of tools to solve the standard problems. This is important and useful, but does it meet "real world" demands? To prepare children we could teach them to define the problem, research the issue, {missed number three - DM}, design solutions, then build and test.

Examples of the Apps for Good approach were then presented by the students who developed the apps. One was OysterCheck. Next (presented by a fantastically enthusiastic 13 year old) presented BuzzerBuddies which reminds you why you want to wake up when an alarm is set but it also sends a push notice to a friend to tell them you have hit the snooze button so they know you will be late and they can nark you as well as the alarm!

The Apps For Good people are connected to an expert community who help evaluate and develop students apps.

They are using previous students from the course as tutors on subsequent courses. Iris was asked how young she thought this approach can go and answered, "I don't know." but is keen to try younger than 13.

Learning without Frontiers - Welcome - Day 1

{Live(ish) blog from Learning Without Frontiers Conference.}

The lights dim and Madonna music kicks in. Hmm!

Welcome to the Learning without Frontiers conference: "This is a lean forward event!" Many years of technology in learning but the claim from Graham Brown-Martin is that it has led to very little in the way of genuine disruption. How will the technology do more than support old teaching methods?

Graham talking about his daughter, "handheld learning girl" and how she is learning with technology - pre-literate and self taught. Brilliant.


First Speaker: Karen Cator

Karen Cator - supporting learning. Transforming education, education powered by technology. A number of drivers are helping change:

• Tablet computers will help drive the transition from print-based education to digital education.
• Broadband: ubiquitous and easy access to Internet
• Apps: A new way of distributing and using computer programs.
  
• Social Interaction: Couch surfing - interacting to find places to stay when visiting.
• Data: The proliferation of data is astounding. Games online for example have loads of data about what brings people to games. How can we use this type of data to leverage more effective learning?
• Economics: How do we get out of economic downturn? Education is key. As a nation, we cannot fail to educate our population.

Example: A school in New York City called School Of One. Everyday the children are given assignments based on their performance in tests the previous day. The activities can be collaborative or individual experience. How do we effectively personalise learning. For this to work, you need effective activities, better assessment tools and connected professional educators. This has implications including: giving children 24/7 access to the technology to allow them to learn any time and any place. Move from the idea of "seat time", i.e. time based courses where the curriculum is fitted into a fixed time regardless of the pupil's ability/understanding to a competences based model.


Question Time

Q: Is there a problem of tension between business/economic side of government wanting growth and development and education side of government looking for a back to basics approach?

Agreed that there needs to be a re-boot and a bi-partisan approach. Important to foster innovation and growth in both education and the economy.

Q: Debate is focused on learner - is the teacher forgotten? What is being done for teacher development and CPD?

Important to build a culture where the teacher is learner. Persistent digital profile to record and reward development.

Fun On Friday #96: Advent Craft 4

As a boy, I remember trying to make my own snow globe. I had a nice wee jam jar and some waterproof cement type adhesive that looked a bit like snow when it dried. I stuck a Christmas decoration onto the lid with the cement and created a little Christmas scene. Then, I filled the jar with water, added some glitter, screwed on the lid, turned it upside down... and the glitter plummeted to the bottom! No gently falling snow, just, "Wham!", all at the bottom.

I was a bit miffed and decided they must use special floating glitter in snow globes.

If only the Internet had been invented when I were a lad. If it had been, I might have discovered the How to Make a Christmas Snow Globe Craft instructions which tells me a secret about how to make the glitter float.

Happy Christmas!

A Couple Of Festive Things

I mentioned in a comment on Fun On Friday #92: Advent Calendar that someone had posted a comment which was then deleted (not by me) that linked to Festive 24 Things. The link was deleted but I've continued to watch the site with interest. There's loads of great "things" there. Here are a couple of my favourites...

First a great video of a Flashmob in action:

And a great idea for a Christmas quiz. Here are the lyrics from one of my favoute Christmas songs as interpreted by Tagxedo:

And here's my favourite Christmas carol:

There are special Christmas no-prizes for the first people to name those tunes!

Thank you Festive 24 Things for a great set of links and ideas.

Christmas is a time for giving...

As I mentioned in the previous post, I suspect that some of you will be getting portable digital video players for Christmas - perhaps an iPod Touch, an iPad or an Android tablet of some sort. If so, come Christmas Day, you might find yourself scrabbling about trying to find some video to transfer to your new toy.

Some DVDs now come with a ready ripped version of the film that can be copied straight to your portable device (or computer) without any messing about. The first time I was aware of this was with the Wolverine DVD but I hope this is a feature that grows to be come standard. It seems to me this is a very sensible way to combat piracy - make it as easy as possible to obtain legal, reasonably priced, copies of material in a format of the users choice. Certainly, it is much a better idea than suing teenagers or adding copy protection that seriously annoys legitimate purchasers while only inconveniences pirates. And don't get me started on that stupid "You wouldn't steal a car..." sequence that I am forced to watch whenever I play one of my legally purchased DVDs!

What if you do not have any DVDs with ready ripped material? Well those nice people at Digiarty Software have come to your rescue this Christmas. They are making a copy of MacX iPod DVD Ripper available free to facebook users. Will I say that again? A free copy MacX iPod DVD Ripper. Excellent! (And note, despite the "Mac" in the name, there are versions for both Macintosh and Windows).

Just go to the Special Offer section on their facebook page, scroll down a bit (if necessary) and there they are; two download buttons for MacX iPod DVD Ripper.

Not sure how it works with the Windows version, but with the Mac download, you get an installer and a text file with a licence code. In next to no time you are up and running... and ripping. The offer is available until 10 January 2011.

And there is more. It seems there is an opportunity to get a free copy of MacX DVD Ripper Pro too. I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you know how I get on when I do.

So thank you everyone at Digiarty Software and Merry Christmas!

Fun On Friday #95: Advent Craft 3

I'm guessing many people will be getting an eReader device of some sort for Christmas (for example a Kindle or an iPad). As, such, you will probably wonder what on earth you are going to do with all the paperbacks that you currently have lying around once they have been replaced with the new technology.

Leaning Tower of Paperbacks

Originally uploaded by Kevin H.

Why not clear some space before Christmas by turning some old paperbacks into Christmas decorations? (My wife the English teacher wouldn't approve of this... so maybe you could do it with charity shop books of dubious quality. That way you are donating to charity and removing duff books from circulation at the same time. A win-win?)

The All Free Crafts site has instructions on how to turn an old paperback into a 3D Christmas tree. It looks relatively simple to do and, from the photos at least, it looks surprisingly effective. (Disclaimer: I've not tried to make one myself yet... I just like the look of it.)

The site also shows you how to make a Snowman and a Santa Claus using a similar technique but they both involve sticking on a lot more non-paperback parts. I like the simplicity of the tree version.

So what do you think? Appalling abuse of literature or something useful to do with a Jeffery Archer novel?

Fun On Friday #94: Advent Craft 2

Last year I linked to Elf Yourself and the year before to Critter Carols. This year I thought I'd go for a DIY approach.

First, choose a photograph. I chose this one of my dog in the snow.

Next, go to Picnik and use it to edit your picture. (You can upload the picture from your hard disk or edit it directly from one of a number of online photo sites including Flickr and facebook.) Use the Create tab and the Holiday Fun tools to add Christmas stuff to your photo. Here is my Picniked picture of Blue: Red Nosed Reindog.

Finally, go to Blabberize and add a message to create your own animated Christmas greeting.

Not as slick and polished as Elf Yourself of Critter Carols but all your own work!

Have fun! And please share anything you create by leaving a comment on this post.