Bringing It All Together (2010)

I have recently started using Google Docs with some of my classes. It has been an interesting process in itself. In order to do this, I took part of a lesson to get all students to create Google accounts, using their school email accounts. The benefit of this is that it becomes easier for me to track students - especially when sharing documents.

Google Docs has proved to be a great resource when students are engaged in group tasks. One student creates the document and shares it with his group members (the fact that accounts are based on school email addresses makes this sharing easy!!!). I typically ask the groups to share the document with me.

Google Docs is also a great tool where a teacher would like to observe students engaged in individual writing tasks.

There are many benefits for me in getting the boys to use a Google Doc to record their group work.



It gives them a place to record their discussions. One person does not have to be responsible for recording all the discussion. Each student can contribute to the document. Group members may take responsibility for different parts of the document.

As a teacher I can track the group discussion through their document. Since the students share the document I have edit rights. I can use colour coding to suggest grammar or spelling corrections. I can also leave comments suggestion areas that still need to be discussed or elaborated.

Tracking student work however involved me having to wade through my Google Docs file list of "files shared with me". I must admit that I was finding this somewhat time consuming.

Enter the idea of bringing multiple student documents together in one page using our Apple Wiki and Blog Server.

I simply use the following HTML code to embed the Google Doc



The width and height can be adjusted to suit your page.

The result is shown below




Students can only see their own Google Doc and those that have been shared with them. As a teacher I can see and interact with all of the student pages on one page. Students can quickly and easily access their work through the class wiki.

Contemporary Dictation

Let me preface this post by saying that I am neither an English teacher nor trained in ESL (English Second Language). I am however, a secondary teacher in a school with with a very high LaBOTE (Language Backgrounds Other Than English) population. Raising our overall literacy has been and continues to be a great challenge for all our staff. We are constantly examining ways to assist our students in the key areas of

• reading 
• writing 
• listening and 
• speaking 

My role as eLearning Coordinator continually challenges me to examine my own pedagogies and try new ways - especially ways in which utilise technology in our teaching. I am also especially aware of the time pressures faced by the teachers I mentor.

Recently I was reflecting on how I might be more effective in my classroom. Like all teachers I have the pressures of covering the curriculum whilst ensuring I can also assist my students to improve their literacy skills.

I decided to try and come up with a dictation exercise that would enable students to potentially take on the task anytime, any place, anywhere; provided the teacher with meaningful data about their students’ literacy skills and did not overburden the teacher - in fact allowed the technology to perhaps reduce the teacher’s workload.

All students have their own laptop machines which have sound enabled. Most use earpieces to listen to their machines rather than relying on the built in speakers.

I also wanted the boys to make use of the technology available to them. We do not restrict the boys to one particular word processor so they could choose their favourite for the task. The boys were not discouraged from using spell checkers, grammar checkers, the dictionary on the machine or paper version of the dictionary.

I wrote a summary passage based on work we had just completed in class. The passage was based around the current topic and provided a means of revising work. I recorded the passage using GarageBand (though I could also use freeware such as Audacity to do this) and saved it as an MP3 file. This file was placed in a Wiki page that also included the instructions about how to complete the task.

The boys were to listen to the passage and type it up in their favourite word processor. Once completed they were to export their work as a PDF file and submit this file to the teacher’s drop box. This was so the teacher had a copy of their work.

A time limit was placed on the task, however, the boys were able to replay the passage, pause the passage at their own leisure as many times as they needed in order to complete the passage given the time restriction.

Once all boys sent their PDF files to the dropbox, I posted a PDF copy of the passage to the wiki. I got the boys to download the original file and then the magic began!

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional, I got the boys to make use of the document compare feature. This allows the boys to “mark” their work and see differences between their passage and the original dictated piece.



The advantage here is that the boys get immediate feedback about their work and can ask questions of their peers or teacher if uncertain.



The teacher (as they have copies of the files submitted by the students) can also examine the student passages looking for trends, strengths and weaknesses from within the cohort.


In my mind there were a number of advantages in conducting this task in this manner. These include but are not limited to:

• students are able to work at their own pace 
• this task could be carried out by students at home 
• the task does not have to involve the whole class 
• a variety of passages may be made available to provide lesser students a chance to achieve and more capable students to be challenged 

I have tried this activity with two Year 10 groups and the student feedback was quite positive. I look forward to attempting some variations in the future.

I believe this task can also be a great tool to assist teachers in modeling examples of good writing to students as well as demonstrating the use of different text types.

Somewhere recently I was reading about dictation. The mention of the word took me back to my old primary school classroom, some forty odd years ago. I was tempted to dismiss dictation as a worthwhile activity as for me it seemed old fashioned, boring andvery teacher centred. I was impressed with the thoughts of Davis and Rinvolucri (1988) who stated that “decoding the sounds of (English) and recoding them in writing is a major learning task”. This is a skill that I believe we as teachers take for granted. It IS a VERY difficult process especially for our ESL and LaBOTE students.

Traditional dictation lessons can also be fraught with problems when working with Year 9 and Year 10 boys. Students can find the task boring, especially if the passage is not carefully selected. Students can disrupt possible learning by constantly interrupting the dictation with “distractor” questions/statements such as constantly asking for repetition of words, suggesting the teacher is reading to fast or slow, etc. This becomes even more of an issue in unstreamed classes where there is a wide range of literacy and oracy abilities can make running the traditional dictation difficult.

Traditional dictation lessons involve the teacher reading a passage of text. There can be a variety of styles in doing this. One is to read the entire passage once through at a slightly slower than “normal” speed. This is to provide a context for what the students are about to write. The teacher then rereads the text at a much slower speed for students to copy. This is possibly followed again by an almost normal read through again so students can hear the passage in context. After writing the text the passages are compared either by the student, a peer or the teacher. The emphasis is on the student reproducing in written form that which has been read.

A variation of this is the Dictogloss. Here the teacher reads a passage and the students make notes based around keywords from the text. Following the reading, students reconstruct the text in their own words. Here the emphasis is on the accuracy of the meaning of the student texts as well as spelling, punctuation and grammar.

These forms of dictation are quite time consuming and centred around teacher control of the activity. Whilst the passage can be selected to reinforce subject content, both revising content and introducing new content, teachers will often not employ the exercise as it takes away from subject based teaching activities.

Is it OK to Publish Unfinished Ideas?

My experiences in traditional education suggest this is NOT okay!

The traditional publishing process involves edits, rewrite, re-edits, more rewriting and even more re-edits and rewrites before the publication of the “final product”.

… and often this “final product” is not really final. The author may be struggling to meet deadlines (like handing in an assessment task) or their ideas later change.

This concept of writing suggests that writing (and indeed the development of ideas) is a linear process.

Clearly, in my opinion, this is NOT the case. It is very much cyclical in nature with ideas constantly being challenged and reviewed. As a teacher, one of our roles is to challenge students ideas.

But why should this role be exclusively the teacher’s domain. Getting peers to review can be just as – if not more – powerful. Like it or not students listen to their peers – something they don’t always do with their teachers.

When I recently suggested my Year 10 students publish their unfinished work and seek others’ opinions – they immediately baulked at the idea. They were concerned that others would simply steal their hard work rather than comment and suggest improvements.

I then posted a Blog entry asking the question:

      “Is the best way to protect your work, to publish it for all to see?”

and asked the boys to comment.

The boys raised a number of interesting points:

• by sharing your work during the production process, all can see the origins of your work
• you are able to draw on others’ ideas through their feedback
• they are able to self evaluate their own work by comparing their own work to others’
• all are able to input into the originality of the work.

This last point triggered a class discussion where the boys were raising the point that they know some students “always” (not sure its always but that’s their words) simply copy and paste work from the “net” and achieve good marks consistently. By publishing work openly the boys were challenging each other to the origins of the work. One boy even posted a comment that said…

     “Hey. That piece of work came from http://www.nameofsite….”

I believe that for too long too many good ideas never saw the light of day because we were afraid of putting our thoughts our there because they were incomplete, partially formed or we didn’t have all the answers.

Today through the power of the “Net” and Web 2.0 we can get our ideas out there easily, whether they be text based, audio or video and get feedback from others so that we can continues to evaluate, change or perhaps reinforce our own thoughts and ideas and maybe even help someone else.

Module Ten - And Now The End Is Near... (Web 2.0)

Wikis really sum up the best of Web 2.0 as it relates to 21st Century Learning. They are all about collaboration!

Essentially wikis about collaborating to create a shared document or collective knowledge. In my classroom I am always trying to get students to understand the concept of sharing and the difference between sharing and copying. When doing any sort of project based work I encourage students to share their knowledge. If i share something I find – and someone else does the same we are halving the work for each other!

One of the great advantages of Wikis is the ability to track changes. Provided you set them up correctly, the administrator has the ability to see who is making changes and what changes they are making. Within the classroom situation it proves to be a great way that students can monitor each others’ contributions.

It has also been an interesting exercise for me in seeing students actually stop one another from “copy and pasting” from other sources as they are constantly checking up on one another.

The other beauty of Wikis is they are not restricted to a physical classroom. Contributions can be made by anyone with appropriate access. The mother of all Wikis – Wikipedia – is a great example of what can be achieved through collaboration and self monitoring.

Web 2.0 tools are constantly growing and evolving. part of this natural evolution is that previously free sites ask payment – some add advertising – and then along comes a free one to replace what was there pr along comes a completely new technology. It is important in education that we as teachers are constantly evolving with the technologies – that we remain open to change and new learning. That we continue to explore the educational opportunities presented to us by Web 2.0 and beyond…

Module Nine - Let's Get Connected (Web 2.0)

I have only really become a fan of social networking via Web 2.0 technologies this year when I joined amongst other things – FaceBook. So why – after much resistance to be honest – did I join FaceBook? Or maybe the real question is why did I not set up a FaceBook account earlier.

I hate to admit – it’s kind of uncool – but the main reason was out of ignorance. Like many of my vintage, I heard the many(??) horror stories (how many are in fact urban myths) about FaceBook. About identity theft and gossip and … well I am sure we all have a story to tell to convince others about how “bad” it is.

Why did I join? Well I do not like making judgements out of ignorance. Besides I consider myself to be a fairly sensible individual with a good understanding of privacy and online common sense. I have also used online messenging services (such as ICQ) for many years. I was also keen to engage in at least one of the social networking environments my students were spending so much time. What is the appeal? (By the way I DO NOT engage with students in this environment)

Armed with knowledge I created my account and made sure I set as much privacy as I believed important and started to create my online network.

I know have over 400 “friends”. My use of the term friend is simply the expression used in FaceBook to describe someone with whom you share. I would not consider many of these people true friends and as such do not share the sort of information that I would share only with my closest friends.

I have found the whole experience VERY rewarding as I have managed to stay in touch with many acquaintances made around the world through my basketball and wheelchair basketball careers.

I have also taken to the use of Twitter. Whilst my tweets feed my FaceBook account I mainly use Twitter for Professional Contacts and Professional Social networking. Through the tweets of people I am following I am able to discover great readings and resources in areas that interest me and am then able to share these with my “followers” by retweeeting or simply tweeting good material i find.

The Twitter environment is one that is constantly changing and my list changes. Some people who I followed early on now only seem to tweet about their favourite coffee. If i don’ want to hear about it I simply stop following. I am in control!

In keeping with my previous posts – Twitter helps me by keeping me abreast of current trends in 21st century learning. As well as reading the likes of Mark Pesce, Will Richardson and Kevin Honeycutt, I also keep up to date with news from the Board of Studies, stay abreast of ABC news and have a laugh via tweets from Rove and Will Anderson.

It’s all about balance.

Module Eight - Pushing Rather Than Pulling (Web 2.0)

One thing we all understand about 21st Century living (in my opinion) is that we are all time poor. There is never enough hours in the day to do all we want.

For me one of the more difficult tasks relates to staying up to date with current information re 21st century learning and also staying in touch with latest technology trends – whether that be with my treasured iPhone or technology in general. Besides my “professional” interests I want to stay in touch with what’s happening on the world basketball stage (FIBA), the world wheelchair basketball news (IWBF) together with current news.

There is no one site I can go to that covers MY interests and i no longer (did I ever???) have the time to trawl through a range of sites to see if there is anything new.

Enter the world of RSS…

For me nothing new in this module as I have been using RSS feeds for a while now. I also have my own Google Reader feed. The only difference between the average user (perhaps???) is that I use my mail program to automatically download my RSS feed so that I can preview this information even when i am offline and “flag” to follow up later.

Do I read everything that comes through my RSS data feed. More often than not – NO!I don’t have time to read it all! But the summary receive enables me to quickly skim – sometimes read in depth – and more often than not – book mark in my delicio-us for later consumption when i set aside my reading time!

Module Seven - mmmmmm Delicious (Web 2.0)

The first time I was introduced to delicio.us I just did not get it!!!

… but back then I also tended to work less collaboratively and was no where near as engaged as I am in a Web 2.0 World.

Since re-establishing my delicio.us presence earlier this year I cannot believe I lived without it!

One thing has changed for me this year. I now receive far more information across my virtual desktop (read computer). I am using Google Reader to help track recent posts relating to 21st Century Learning and also am constantly receiving a Twitter feed – with most of the people I am following have a similar focus of education reform and 21st Century Learning.

Through these sources (together with the more traditional mailing lists to which I subscribe) I am constantly inundated with information. Often too much to read there and then.

Enter delcio.us

If I see something that catches my eye and I do not have time to read it there and then, I take a few moments to enter it into my delicio.us account. Later when I have time I can go back and follow the link.

Another powerful feature is the ability to “tag” items so that i can call up bookmarks based around specific topics like articles relating to negative use of social networking sites or science related sites.

The real power was brought home to me one day when I was away from my computer(s) and was speaking to a primary school principal about a great website for primary school cybersafety. I was able to quickly access my delicio.us account from my iPhone and find the site for the Principal.

When we add in the ability to “follow” other delicio.us users we really start powering along. Rather than starting a Google search for resources, I can go to one of the people I am following who has an interest in the area I am searching and I can start by looking at sites they have bookmarked. This is a great way for KLA areas to keep track of GOOD web resources.

At school, I have encouraged staff to set up delicio.us accounts and for KLA groups to meet to decide on useful tags that can speed up access to resources for specific topics. Instead of everyone working in isolation – all can contribute! we don’t have to constantly re-invent the wheel.

Right now I am still feeling my way with student use – not too sure why I am hesitant – but I believe that I will have an account setup for next year whereby I can easily share resources with students. I know this can be done with myclasses however, delicio.us just makes it easy for an all in one solution that is easy to manage.

Feel free to add my to your network http://delicious.com/mbw_61