May 16th, 2009
Raising the Bar is an expression that comes from athletics, where high jumpers will keep pushing themselves just that little bit further… it also describes well the sorts of thinking you’ll find coming from these amazing Physical Education teachers; Jarrod Robinson, Ben Jones and Shane Roberts. Not ones for sticking with the status quo, our conversation with these guys explores some very cool tools being used for integrating technology with PE, such as Bluetooth broadcasting, QR codes and the Wii Remote. Beyond the fun tools though are some very deep ideas about some genuinely powerful pedagogy.
This episode is a little longer than most, since Shane joined us late in the conversation and raised some interesting conversation about the use of non-synchronous discussion tools. Overall though, these guys created a great podcast that is a must-listen.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Ben
Blog - http://bloglearningrhhs.blogspot.com
Jarrod
Blog - http://mrrobbo.wordpress.com
Twitter - @mrrobbo
Shane
Blog - http://shanetechteach.edublogs.org/
Twitter - @shanetechteach
Blue Magnet Bluetooth server - http://www.bluemagnet.com/
QR Code Generator - http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
WiiMote Project - http://www.wiimoteproject.com/
Episode 27: Raising the Bar:
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October 30th, 2008
In a bit of a departure from the usual format for the show, in this episode we play a recording of a Skype call between our three Year 5 classrooms at PLC Sydney and Anthony Powell, a communications technician at McMurdo base in Antarctica.
The Year 5 students were doing an integrated unit of work on Antarctica and we managed to arrange this call for the kids to have a chat to Anthony about life in Antarctica and to ask him a few questions. The three classrooms were connected to the call individually in a group conference call.
It’s a nice example of how Skype can be used to break through the walls of a traditional classroom and bring kids into contact with real people in faraway places. The next step will be that the students take this raw recording and chop it up to use in their own podcasts about Antarctica.
PS, the Virtual Staffroom just turned two years old! Happy Birthday VSR!
Episode 26: Cold Snap:
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September 27th, 2008
Learning with cellphones is a hot topic in many schools at the moment. Phones are usually banned, but a few brave schools are looking for ways to leverage this powerful mobile technology. In this episode we chat to two teachers with a great deal of experience with cellphones for education - Liz Kolb from Ann Arbor, USA and Toni Twiss from Hamilton, New Zealand. Liz and Toni have been doing research into this area and have some great insights to share.
This episode was also the first where we used a live audio stream to the web and had a live backchannel going as we recorded the podcast. Thanks to those people who joined us in this live feed, and we will definitely be doing it again.
There are lots of links for this episode! Take some time and check them out… you’ll be amazed!
Whew! That ought to keep you busy for a while! Don’t forget to leave a comment and mention how you are using mobile technology in your classroom.
Episode 25: Computer in my Pocket:
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September 14th, 2008
This episode is a compilation of live interviews conducted at the Second Leading a Digital School conference in Sydney, Australia. This conference is held every year and focuses on providing school leaders - principals, administrators, head teachers, IT managers and librarians - with the skills and mindsets needed to lead our schools into the 21st century.
The conference has a broad focus across a number of areas, but the sensible integration of technology is a strong theme. For this podcast, I wandered around the conference and spoke with delegates, presenters and vendors for a snapshot of some of the ideas and thoughts they took away from the event.
Some links for this episode:
Comments and questions welcome!
Episode 24: From the Front:
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July 14th, 2008
Pia Waugh is the president of Linux Australia, so-owner of Waugh Partners, and a leader of the OLPC project in Australia. She is passionate and knowledgeable about the use of Open Source technologies in schools and business.
In this episode Pia shares some insights into Open Source software, how it can be leveraged for use in education and talks about the One Laptop Per Child project. If you believe that software should be free, not just free as in beer, but free as in speech, you’ll enjoy this episode…
Pia’s Links
As Pia mentions in the podcast, she wants to spread the word about Open Source. If you’d like her to speak to your organisation about the use of Open Source software, drop her an email. Details in the podcast.
Episode 23: 'Cos I'm Free:
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June 1st, 2008
Moodle is an amazingly competent and powerful open source learning management system used by schools, colleges and universities all over the world. It is based on the theory of social constructivism, which essentially means that people learn better in groups than they do on their own. Moodle has a powerful set of tools to support this mode of learning, and as more teachers come into contact with Moodle it becomes increasingly important to understand how to use these tools well to engage and direct student learning.
In this episode we are joined by three highly experiences Moodle users who share some insights with us. Talia Carbis, Darrel Branson and Julian Ridden each work intensively with Moodle in three different settings and in different ways.
Links for this episode…
Comments welcome!
Episode 22: Moodlemania:
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January 20th, 2008
As more and more teachers start to understand the role that technology plays as a core component of a 21st century curriculum, the need grows for teachers to learn about how to best integrate the use of new technologies in their classrooms. Recognising this, many schools are now employing ICT savvy teachers as technology integration specialists whose role is to work with classroom teachers and show them what’s available, teach them how to use it, and help them make it work effectively with their students.
Kim Cofino from Thailand and Susan Sedro from Singapore are two such teachers. In their jobs they get to work with other teachers at their schools and assist them to successfully integrate technology in authentic and meaningful ways. Both American educators, they work at large international schools in Asia where technology integration is taken seriously and done well, and in this podcast we get to hear some of the success stories and wise advice that Kim and Susan have learned as they fulfill their demanding roles.
Links for this episode…
As always, your comments are more than welcome!
Episode 21: Teaching Tech:
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November 25th, 2007
Thank you to whoever nominated the Virtual Staffroom for an Edublog Award in the Best Use of Educational Audio category. It’s truly an honour to be nominated! Thanks!
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November 23rd, 2007
Jane Nicholls, Chrissy Hellier, Allanah King and Simon Evans are leading educators from New Zealand who live and breathe collaborative technologies. In this episode I get to chat with them about topics as diverse as podcasting, Skype, Twitter and Second Life, and have a lot of fun in the process. Simon had a bit of trouble with Skype and only managed to make a couple of cameo appearances, but the rest of us had a great chat as we flitted from topic to topic. Although these Kiwis know how to have a laugh, there is still plenty of educational wisdom in this podcast.
- Appleby Podcasts - Allanah’s class podcasting
- Skype - For internet telephony, if you can make it work
- Twitter - For building community, once you finally “get it”
- Second Life - A place to do the caramel dance and land naked in fires
Also, you might like to check out the blogs of Allanah, Chrissy, Jane and Simon.
Not much else to add about this one, but I think you’ll like it. Don’t forget to leave a comment!
Episode 20: The Kiwi Connection:
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November 22nd, 2007
In this episode of Virtual Staffroom, podcaster and teacher Chris Betcher gets interviewed by Texan librarian Carolyn Foote. Carolyn and Chris discuss a range of issues including different techniques for recording podcasts, dealing with the restrictions of policies and filters, the use of Skype as a powerful tool for cross-cultural learning, and pretty much anything else that came to mind!
Carolyn asked if we could record this chat for a librarian’s research project she was working on about the use of Skype for educational purposes, and we agreed to have the chat and release it on the Virtual Staffroom as well.
Thanks to Carolyn for suggesting this chat and helping us to have such a fun (and hopefully useful) conversation.
Leave us a comment!
Episode 19: Beyond the Filters:
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November 3rd, 2007
Anne Wade is research project manager at Montreal’s Concordia University, and her focus is on a project known as ePearl - the Electronic Portfolio Encouraging Active Reflective Learning. ePearl is a web-based tool that enables students to gather, present and reflect upon their class work, creating a trail of digital assets that follows them through their school life.
In this episode Anne presents an overview of the system and gives some insight into the background of this project.
Links from this episode…
Login details for the demo site as follows:
Student environment:
Early elementary - Level 1 : Usernames: student1a, student1b, student1c
Late elementary - Level 2: Usernames: student2a, student2b, student2c
Secondary - Level 3: Usernames: student3a, student3b, student3c
Teacher environment:
Level1: Usernames: teacher1a, teacher1b, teacher1c
Level 2: Usernames:teacher2a, teacher2b, teacher2c
Level3: Usernames:teacher3a, teacher3b, teacher3c
Password is always - 123
Enjoy.
Episode 18: The Learning Trail:
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October 15th, 2007
A small school in country Australia might seem an unusual place to find students learning to speak Chinese, but not for Jess McCulloch’s students. Jess is an extremely enthusiastic Chinese language teacher who is turning to technology to help engage and excite her students about the language. In this episode Jess talks about some of the cool tools she is using, and planning to use, in her classroom.
Jess is also looking to set up her website as a place for language teachers to be able to network and connect, so if you are a language teacher (or know one) take a look over at www.technolote.com.
Some links from this episode…
Comments welcome, in any language, in the comment box below.
Technorati Tags: lote, technolote, virtualstaffroom
Episode 17: I Like Chinese:
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October 10th, 2007
The K12 Online Conference is a unique and innovative approach to professional development for educators. Started in 2006, the conference offers an amazing array of downloadable presentations on a wide range of topics. In this episode we talk with some of the conveners of the K12 Online Conference, Darren Kuropatwa, Lani Ritter-Hall and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. Along with Wes Fryer who unfortunately couldn’t join us for this recording, we discuss the history and philosophy of the event and the incredible opportunity it presents to educators for the 2007 conference.
At the time of recording, the pre-conference keynote by David Warlick has been released, and the official launch of the main conference is only days away… hopefully this podcast will encourage you to go check it out a little more and to take part. (Of course, the presentations will be archived for future access so you can visit them at any time, but it will be great to take part in as it unfolds.)
Thanks also go to Simon O’Carroll, Kim Cofino, Graham Wegner and Carolyn Foote for their insights into what they got out of last year’s event.
Some links for this episode…
Blogs of contributors to this episode…
I really hope you get inspired to take part in the conference after hearing this!
PS: Virtual Staffroom just turned 1 year old! Happy Birthday VSR! 
Technorati Tags: k12online07, k12onlinevsr, virtualstaffroom, k12online
Episode 16: Global Conversations:
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September 2nd, 2007
This episode comes to you directly from the Fourth National Interactive Whiteboard Conference held at Emmanuel College on the Gold Coast. Organised by IWBnet, the conference assembled a great team of presenters to share a huge variety of ideas, techniques, tips and advice on using IWBs with their colleagues. In this podcast we wander around the conference doing on-the-spot interviews with delegates, as well as bringing you part of a Skype videoconference session with Ben Hazzard from the SmartBoard Lesson podcast.
Links from this show…
Enjoy! A big shoutout to everyone I met at the conference who was so friendly and encouraging to me about the podcast too… it was great to meet some listeners!
Technorati Tags: iwbnet, iwb, virtualstaffroom
Episode 15: Whiteboards Everywhere!:
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August 27th, 2007
As a leading teacher-librarian, Barbara Braxton knows about information literacy. In this episode, we talk with Barbara about the information process, the concept of literacy in the 21st century, the art of developing”thick questions”, and how to create tasks that minimise the need to plagiarise in the first place. Barbara is well respected amongst the Australian online teaching community and she has some great insights into how we get kids to use information. Oh, and a couple of political viewpoints as well….
Links mentioned in the podcast…
Thanks to Barbara for making the time to chat to me on one of her fleeting visits back to Canberra. As always, listeners’ comments are welcome below.
Technorati Tags: literacy, virtualstaffroom
Episode 14: Questions are the Answer:
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