MyLearning travels 2010

Learning Score!

2010-07-22T11:33:00.000+01:00

Learning Score is a new and imaginative take on lesson-planning. Using the metaphor of a music score, Learning Score shows the planned activities for a lesson, and any multimedia attachments, as a graphical time line. Whole lesson plans can be saved, along with all the embedded resources and annotations, to be used again at a later date, or to be shared with colleagues.

Learning Score was invented by John Davitt and grew out of a desire to provide teachers and learners with a modern, flexible, technology-friendly and pedagogically rigorous approach to lesson-planning that is suitable for the 21st-century classroom.

You can also become a fan on our facebook page!

Taxi tour of Derry

2010-07-07T15:40:00.001+01:00

Gerry Hamill from NWTP kindly booked me a Taxi tour of Derry. I was picked up from the office by Desi O’Hagan and the Derry tour began.

The tour lasted 1hr 30mins and was very informative and eye opening about Derry. Parts of the tour included…

River Foyle - largest salmon spanning river in the world
Ferryquay Street - the closing of the gate by the Apprentice Boys, Oldest inhabited place in Ireland
William Street. The Conflict / Trouble’s 1968, 1969 Apprentice Boys march, Battle of the Bogside, Bloody Sunday, The Murals by Bogside artists
St Mary’s Church - Bloody Sunday funerals, City cemetery
Ebrington Barracks - British Army main base.
Iskaheen Veiw (top of the hill) view of the city.
Craigavon Bridge

There’s lots to see within the City Walls, including the Tower Museum, The Guildhall, Memorial Hall, St Columbs Cathedral and the unique Craft Village.

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Conference & training

2010-07-06T17:36:00.000+01:00

9.30am, the room was set up with tea, coffee & scones all we needed was the attendees. There were local Derry taxi drivers, reps from Belfast taxi companies, tutors from the local colleges, even educational inspectors.

The breakfast event was the launch of the new innovative project aimed at tackling the issue of Essential Skills. The project has been developed through a partnership approach with GoSkills and DEL (Department of Employment & Learning). This partnership has now widened to deliver this project & includes the Sector Skills Council Alliance and us (Tribal) whose product they’ll be using.

NWTP will put devices into 40 taxi’s to improve literacy & numeracy skills of the drivers.

Eamonn O’Donnell introduced NWTP & the project

Richard Wheater talked about GoSKills Essential Skills

I talked about us, the BLOOM (Bite-sized Learning Opportunities On Mobiles) project, devices and the content available to them.

The attendees seemed to be excited and engaged about the project; there were lots of positive comments. There were the usual questions/worries about security, cost of the device, etc but I feel once agreements are put in place by GoSkills & NWTP, people will feel better.

After the breakfast meeting several people remained to play with the devices and the content that will be used in NWTP’s Essential Skills project.

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In the evening I was taken to a local pub that had a band playing Irish music – fantastic atmosphere and felt extremely welcome by the people from Derry – Thank you!!

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Welcome to Derry!

2010-07-05T17:15:00.000+01:00

I’ve arrived! 8.30am little bit cooler than Cambridge and erm raining but hey.

I’ve spent the day at the North West Taxi Proprietors meeting the NWPT team; Eamonn O’Donnell and Moira. Eamonn is the project manager at NWTP.

NWTP is a cross community umbrella group set up to tackle problems within the taxi industry and to co-ordinate the organisation of the industry in an effort ‘to create a fair and regulated taxi industry for everyone’.

My main aim of today was to set up the devices ready for the breakfast meeting & training tomorrow. Once I had give an intro to our tools and apps I was taken to the hotel and then kindly fed with an amazing dinner by Moira.

GoSkills, Ireland

2010-07-04T20:30:00.003+01:00

We're now into July and it's time to fly off again, over the water to Derry.

Derry or Londonderry is the 2nd biggest city in Northern Ireland and the 4th biggest city on the island of Ireland.

I'm off to meet several people from GoSkills & introduce them to Mobile learning apps to help their employees aim towards getting Skills for life qualifications.

It's an early start, 7am flight and then straight to work...

Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity

2010-06-14T16:00:00.006+01:00

The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the GSMA Development Fund announced the publication of Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, following it’s launch on the 15th of February 2010, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The report trys to understand the nature of women mobile subscribers in countries such as Kenya and India. It also highlights the barriers facing women’s use of mobile technologies.

Really interesting read, check it out.

I'm fundraising for WOMEN V CANCER CYCLE KENYA - JustGiving

2010-06-07T10:44:00.001+01:00

Well I'm getting on my bike and taking positive action in the fight against breast, ovarian and cervical cancers.

I'm part of an amazing group of women tackling the unique, new Women V Cancer challenge. Other cyclists include television presenters Dawn Porter and Aggie MacKenzie. Aggie is best known for How Clean is Your House? and Dawn for documentaries like Super Slim Me and My Breasts Could Kill Me.

My adventure starts now but from 29 October – 7 November 2011, I will be cycling around 400kms over five days – both on and off road – experiencing Africa away from the usual tourist trails through savannah plains, wildlife game parks, tropical rainforests and traditional villages.

If you would like to donate towards these amazing charities - THANK YOU in advance!! :)

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2010-06-06T14:35:00.000+01:00

Top 50 mLearning (Mobile Learning) Resources

View more presentations from Upside Learning.

Spotlight

2010-06-03T15:09:00.000+01:00

Spotlight showcases the projects and people funded by the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative and covers the intersections of technology and learning.

Leshell Hatley: Youth AppLab

2010-06-03T14:59:00.001+01:00

Leshell is one of the women I met while I was in DC - cool woman & cool project! The project just won a Learning Lab award for innovation in digital media as part of the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition.

Leshell Hatley: Youth AppLab from Spotlight on Vimeo.

From: SPOTLIGHT on Digital Media and Learning

Day 2: Big day for Spectrum students

2010-05-13T13:17:00.000+01:00

Today was the BIG day when Sthembiso, Leigh, Kirsten & Juzevan presented project M-Ubuntu to hungry digital bods.

These 4 & Lesego (deputy head) have had a non-stop journey ever since arriving 7pm, Tuesday evening but they were fantastic. Everybody (no exaggeration, I promise) was so impressed by these 4 confident, out spoken, willing students from SA they were…

Interviewed
Asked to present, take part in other presentations
Asked to try out products

The presentation can also be found on the HASTAC website.

The conference finished at 12pm & we decided the students needed a celebratory lunch. When asked what they wanted they said ‘Pizza’ – your wish is my command! (Guys you’ve been a fab hit – & yes we can now go shopping!!)

Tonight I’m going to see Duke Ellington’s, Sophisticated Ladies, the award-winning musical that explores the legacy of Washington’s local jazz hero.

When we met Aneesh Chorpa………

2010-05-13T13:01:00.000+01:00

So we mentioned White house officials and we weren’t disappointed! No we didn’t get to meet and talk to the Obama’s (damm) but we did get to meet Aneesh Chopra, first Federal Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America.

I was seriously impressed with Aneesh Chopra, using his words, he was ‘awesome’. Before his current position he’s actually spent time on the ground working with people, technology & really understanding processes to get the result needed.

Before coming CTO, Aneesh Chopra was Virginia’s secretary of technology for 4 years. He helped develop a modern web site, using social networking tools that ranged from Facebook and Twitter to Ning, which creates smaller social networks.

President Obama said his aims for Aneesh Chopra…

"As Chief Technology Officer, Chopra's job will be to promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals such as job creation, reducing health care costs, and protecting the homeland. Together with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, their jobs are to make the government more effective, efficient, and transparent.”

Some cool people I met

2010-05-12T23:18:00.000+01:00

There was so much enthusiasm, excitement and energy in the room that after the conference and ‘dinner was served’ everyone carried on discussing/networking into the night.

Here’s a couple of people I met and a bit about their projects…

Amanda Garces from Vóces Moviles or Mobile Voices told me how the project connect low-wage immigrant labourers with practitioners, researchers, and open source software developers to design, deploy and use a low-cost mobile multi-media platform that shares, creates and publishes multimedia stories directly from their mobile phones. These stories represent their own experiences, perspectives, and ideas.

Gary W told how Devinfo GameWorks encourages users to create games that can be played online or printed and played off-line.

The games provide opportunities for people to think about the ways in which young people learn and engage with this information.

I’ll add more people tomorrow but I’m off to do a bit of social networking with the team from DML!

Global Digital Media & Learning competition

2010-05-12T21:10:00.000+01:00

Now in it’s 3rd year, the conference was opened by Cathy Davidson & David Theo Goldberg, Co founders of HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory).

The competition is funded by a MacArthur grant to the University of California, Irvine & Duke University and is administered by HASTAC. The comp is part of MacArthur’s digital media and learning initiative designed to help show how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialise – very neat!

This yr it was launched in collaboration with Presidents Obama’s Educate to Innovate initiative, ‘challenging designers, inventors, entrepreneurs and researchers to create digital environments that promote building & tinkering in new innovative ways’.

10 winners of the Macarthur Digital Media and Learning Competition were announced today. The winners will share $1.7 million in funding to use games, mobile phone apps, virtual worlds & social networks to create learning labs of the 21st century. Find out about the winning projects

The day lasted from 9am – 6pm, long day but was a chance to meet, hear & look at some amazing projects & people, that have been part of the Global competition.

South Africa meets DC, staring the Big 5

2010-05-12T09:00:00.000+01:00

The story to DC...

2010-05-11T16:06:00.000+01:00

Part 1 - Make sure I can fly & get to heathrow...yip I can woo hoo Part 2 - meet the guys @ Dulles international airport...in 9hrs time Part 3 - Finish prep for BIG conference tomorrow with students & teachers from SA, Theo, Lucy...oh boy :) more parts coming soon...off to board!!

I’m off to the Washington with Spectrum Primary students!

2010-05-07T09:12:00.001+01:00

OMG what an amazing opportunity….On Tuesday 11th May I will be flying to DC to meet up with the 4 students from Spectrum Primary School, Lucy & Theo.

Why??

M-Ubuntu was one of 3 projects selected to present and showcase the Mobile Learning project to White House officials who spearhead technology-assisted learning initiatives in the US.

The event will be held at the University of California Washington Center. Presentations are on Wednesday and Thursday next week (12-13 May) – how cool is that…extremely!!

Blogs, pics & videos to come next week :)

Lessons learnt

2010-05-04T09:12:00.000+01:00

Back at work & reflecting on the visit to SPS, Ennerdale, SA. Both times I have come back feeling very honored to have met some wondered people who have made me feel very welcome into their lives & community.

What have we learnt?…

What this project continues to highlight to me is that you don’t need to have the latest all singing, all dancing technology to help students learn…

This basic phone is helping the students become engaged and learn. ‘We’ seem to over-complicate things by having lots of choices on offer but at the end of the day, its all about the content. As one person said ‘it won’t matter if you use a walkman or an iPod, it’s about the content.’

What do you think, right or wrong?

Support concerns

On the ground the School has teacher & the school governors support.
The teachers have voiced how they feel the project has gone so far (good & bad) but in terms of ongoing support and making the project sustainable in the future, they were unclear & seemed a little nervous how they would do this.

Time concerns

Teachers have said that one of the frustrations is time. There is not enough time to charge, prepare especially when the devices are shared among classes.
To charge, clean (remove files from phones), add content takes quite a while especially if you’ve got 20-40phones per lesson & you are not the only class using them that day/week

How to bring mobile learning into the classroom

In theory introducing new ways of learning is seriously exciting and opens up so many doors but it can also be quite a nervous journey especially if you can’t see how it will work.
Some teachers were confident how they would incorporate mobile learning into their lessons
Some teachers were unsure how they would have time to use m-learning as well as deliver the lesson
Some were uncertain and couldn’t see how the ideas could fit into the classroom

Deploying content

Along with the above, adding content was a huge issue for the teachers.

how & when they would add their content
how can they be sure their content wouldn’t be overwritten by other teachers or students

Storage space - the more content, media you add to a phone the less memory you’re going to have.

with 7 teachers involved in the project how are they going to manage this?

Training

Who’s going to train them, new teachers, students about the phones, planning lessons etc

They loved having Lucy & I there for support & training but what happens once we’ve gone

What can we do?…

Support

While we were there we set up a couple of teachers with Skype & email

These guys will help set up accounts for the other teachers

They have our Skype & email addresses & the project intends to make contact fortnightly
They’ll also be able to use the project laptop at the school to contact us when needed for more support

Learning materials

We’ve introduced the school to, & we’ve trained him on how to load, take care of the devices; Blake Haddon
New, updated content for the lessons will be provided by Lucy and loaded onto the SD cards by Blake. This will help the teachers to plan how to use the phones in their lesson without the added pressure of loading the content onto 20-40 devices.
The content will initially be placed into ‘subject folders’ as time goes on the project will check and amend to what works best.

Eventually the teachers will build up more confidence to write, provide their own content to use in lessons.

Training

The idea is to provide ‘online training sessions’ for the teachers involved in the project. These will be fortnightly.
Eventually the teachers trained will be able to pass their knowledge onto new teachers, students – even in the future to other schools.

The outcome of the project is to make sure whatever happens it’s sustainable at the schools. The project will finish this year but we’ll continue to help the great people with met!

Day 5: Visit to Apartheid museum

2010-04-30T16:53:00.000+01:00

Final day at Spectrum Primary School.

We took a group of 24 students & 3 teachers to the Apartheid museum. The students were paired together and used one of their phones and a project phone (the project phones had their assignment on).

The assignment was to prepare a multimedia presentation on on of the following topics

Racial Classification	Detention
Forced Classification	Martyr
Segregation	Exile
Discrimination	Constitution
Boycott	Courage
Protest	Reconciliation

The students had to find the assignment on the project phone, take photos, video’s, write info found at the museum or ask people all ready for their multimedia presentation back at the school.

Unfortunately I’ll be back in the UK and won’t see the presentations.. I’ll have to wait for the final result from the Lucy & the students.

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Finally meet the lucky four students who are off to Washington DC on 9th May to present and meet officials from the White House!

M-Ubuntu is one of three projects to present and showcase the Mobile Learning project to White House officials who spearhead technology-assisted initiatives in the US.

Sthembiso Zuma, Leigh Mondell, Kirsten Goliath & Juzevan du Plessis – guys, you are making your school extremely proud of you!

- you never know, I may come & join you :-)

Day 4: Child Labour

2010-04-29T13:21:00.001+01:00

Today the sun has been shining & no sign of the rain (erm yet)!

These Grade 5 students (10/11yrs old) shocked me today, not much can but they did. Their lessons were all about Child Labour.

Task 1 was to get into pairs with a phone and ask the question ‘What work do you do?’ They used the camcorder function on the phone to interview each other.

Task 2 was to look at the photos on the phones of children doing adult jobs. They had to analyse the pictures and discuss in groups.

Task 3 was to watch a short video on the phones of two child (13 & 14) prostitutes working in South Africa. It was a very emotional clip that Grade 5 were very mature about. We then discussed as a whole class how it made them feel & why it was wrong – they knew the physical & emotional effects. They knew what damage it would cause & to their health and education.

Final task was homework. To design a poster to ‘STOP CHILD LABOUR!’

Amazing day to match an ‘awesome’ week. Tomorrow we’re taking 20 students all kitted out with phones, flip camera to the Apartheid museum where we’ve set them some tasks to go towards their report back at school.

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Day 3: ‘Being clever’

2010-04-28T13:47:00.001+01:00

Ok we got to be clever with these Grade 4 (9yrs old). Out of a class of 40 we worked with the teacher & 20 students over 2 periods (total 1hr).

Here’s their lesson plan:

‘Leopard is tricked’

This is a short story about how Leopard was to trick Goat but in turn Goat tricks Leopard. The aim of using the story was to get the students to understand…

We put an audio file of Leopard is tricked, pictures of leopards and goats and some multi-choice questions.

On the phone, open the following files
The pictures of the leopard and goat families.
Listen to the story of Leopard and Goat in pairs
The word document ‘Leopard and Goat questions. Answer the questions about the story of Leopard and Goat.

‘Riddles’

On the phone, open the following ‘Riddles’ document and figure out each of the riddles.
For homework, write your own riddle poem. On one side write your riddle and on the other draw a picture of your answer.
You can then in class type you riddle onto a word document on the phone and take a photo of the answer.
Pass your riddle onto friends.

Think you can work out riddles….this one’s an easy one for ya

Boats sail on the rivers,
And ships sail on the seas;
There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the colorful bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky
Is prettier far than these.

Feedback from Tumi Khuzwayo, Grade 4 Head of English Dept

Day 2: Planning, prep, phones & ‘Blondie’

2010-04-27T16:42:00.001+01:00

Planning for the future

From the teacher meeting yesterday and listening to the successes and the frustrations, a bit of time was spent planning/brainstorming the next steps for the M-Ubuntu project.

Ideas such as

Setting up email accounts for the teachers – they can use the project laptop to send and receive emails, documents for their lessons
Set up Skype accounts for them – cheap and easy way for them to call us (UK & USA)

We’re here this week

to show the teachers how to run a lesson using phones
to show technology/phones as a positive addition to the lesson
to show it can be done without to much time and worry of how to mix the lesson up with a bit of blended learning.

Again, small steps are going to be needed as we have to deliver and help their needs without us getting too excited and adding too much to the mix if they aren’t ready.

Preparing for the lessons

Wednesday, grade 4: ‘Riddles’ & ‘Chimneys’

We have put some riddles on the devices for the students to read/listen to and then to work out the title. They’ll then have to draw or act out the riddle. The devices are more of an aid to the learning – make it more fun!

‘Chimneys’, we have made a video of Kevin (a friend of the son of the women I’m staying with :)) reading the poem then loaded onto the devices, the students will be split into groups and given a verse to read and act out to the rest of the group. Other students will film these parts and then we’ll join into a mini ‘movie’.

Thursday, Grade 5: child labor

All the activities take place using the phone

Find and view the pictures of children working
Listen to or read the story of the Little Match Girl.
As a group, answer the questions about the Little Match Girl
Listen to or read the newspaper story of Child Trafficking
Watch the video “Child Sex Workers”
Why is child labor bad? Share your ideas with your group
For homework, draw a Poster illustrating this message:

Give Kids a Future: Stop Child Labor

Friday, Grade 6 & 7: Apartheid museum

Friday we are taking 20 children to the Apartheid museum. The students will be split into groups with a topic to go and investigate. They’ll take photos, videos, make notes all to be part of a report they’ll put together when back at school.

Phones

They are ready to go!

Blake our new ‘keeper of the devices’ has done a great job today making sure the phones are ready for our busy few days ahead ahead.

Blake has learnt today how to

Make sure the phones are fully charged – tedious task but essential!
Remove all content that doesn’t need to be on the phones i.e. photos, videos, word docs
Set the ‘front screen’ of the phones to show the correct date, time, and a shortcut for the programs well be using,

Tomorrow I’ll show Blake

How to set up a system to manage the devices
How to add, remove content from computer to phones ready for the teachers to use.
How to use the project laptop, Flip camera and projector.

‘Blondie’

For those who know me, you often shout ‘Oi Blondie’ well today I got the chance to shout Blondie!

Marianne, the lady I am staying with works in a cute little cafe in Ennerdale. Lucy & I decided to pay her a visit and have a house special – yip you got it ‘Blondie’ – it was AWESOME!

…and yes I ate it all! 3 slices of toast, burger, cheese, salad, chips, lots of spices and sauce – oh & egg but didn’t fancy that :)

Day 1: Spectrum Primary School – teacher training

2010-04-26T16:40:00.000+01:00

After leaving the UK 12pm Sunday afternoon, I finally arrived at Spectrum Primary School for 9am ready to start work.

I met Lucy Haagen, Sam Nenngwekhulu (Principal) and 8 eager teachers who came in on their day off (public holiday).

The school had some experience of using the devices so we were on the next steps…

The first thing we asked was

What do they feel are the successes of the M-Ubuntu project so far?

What are their frustrations about the project so far?
- Time, loading and preparing the devices
- Memory of the devices was not very good
- Availability of the devices – only 40 available to a school of 900

One solution we showed them, was how you can use memory cards (we brought over 20micro SD cards). By using these you don’t have to sync each device to a computer, you just can just copy/bluetooth the files to the SD card from the computer to the phone and away you go – time saving and using less phone memory – bingo.

We also discussed the ideas we had for lessons this week for Grade 4, 5, 6 & 7 students - they all seemed pleased with the plan.

Final note!

I can’t wait for the week ahead and work with these guys as they are a really enthusiastic bunch!

We even hooked up with other colleagues from Tribal who were at Bedford Academy giving an m-learning training session. That was really ‘awesome’ seeing (well hearing as one of us didn’t have a video camera :))two schools meet over Skype to share their experiences!

It's time to go back to South Africa!

2010-04-16T11:28:00.001+01:00

On Sunday 25th April I will be flying out to Johannesburg to meet wit Lucy Haagen, an educator from Duke University. We will be visiting Spectrum Primary School. Spectrum has been involved in project m-ubuntu for quite a while now and it's going to be great seeing what they've been up to! South African Primary Schools win prestigious prize in the Digital Media Learning Competition in the US

Techy stuff used at SPS

2010-04-05T09:30:00.000+01:00

So the school has…

a room with 20 computers and wireless internet
Wi-fi from the principles office (for teacher use only)
lots of mobile phones
laptop
projector
flip camera
lots of SD cards & a couple of usb sticks

Some nice ingredients to make a really effective lesson.

The only problem we saw so far is that the wi-fi is down a majority of the time & because there is no IT support onsite sometimes the school has to wait before being able to use the internet with the students.

So to the devices - the functions we used on the phones were…

Bluetooth

Bluetooth was super cool for us to use since the phones do not have Sims in (stops the phone bills clocking up!)

camera

great for evidence gathering, helps the student discover a different learning style

video

These guys are interview experts!

text editor

Automatically the kids chose the phone to type notes & Bluetooth rather than using pen & paper

& voice recorder

used this to record poems - others can hear how they interpreted the poem

2010-03-25T16:10:00.000Z

Hello! Follow me on my trip to South Africa where I'll be spending time with 30 12th grade students and 2 teachers at a school in Grabouw.

When? Friday 12th Ferbuary
Why? We are working with Team M-Ubuntu to help De Rust Futura use mobile devices as tools to achieve the literacy goals of the existing South African Curriculum.

News n bits

2010-03-18T15:35:00.001Z

Mobile Devices Deliver Learning in Africa
Educators are finding innovative ways to bring education to students in remote areas using cellphones, laptops and MP3 players.

Flip forward
When Flip was reviewed to be the ideal pocket camcorder, it came 1st for design & build, ease of use, screen, footage, storage and connectivity.

Thank you De Rust Futura Academy!

2010-03-03T18:04:00.000Z

I hope you find this video clip a great summary of our trip to your school.

You have a great focus and what you have achieved and are still achieving is amazing.

The students are brilliant; confident, outgoing, friendly, cheeky (love that) and most of all made me feel very welcome to your school.

So here’s to you and to the future….Dankie!

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step – Lao Tzu

2010-03-02T14:01:00.001Z

I think this is one of the best ‘getting started’ quotes I’ve come across.
Whatever life throws at us, it needs to be started with something short and simple. You always need to start with one step at a time before a journey can be completed.
I hope our visit has shown this…

Before heading 6000miles to South Africa…

I had some idea of what our role would be and how we could deliver the idea of mobile learning to De Rust Futura. Ideas were buzzing from projects/, experiences and people I had worked with but…things change on the ground.
Of my experience of visiting schools/companies everything can move at a very fast pace the information needs to be right here right now and working asap. In some ways this is great that devices, another ‘tool’, can be added to the ‘pencil case’ or ‘tool box’ to help with teaching and learning.
Sometimes it’s easier to miss some steps and go straight for the finishing line but in reality we all need to adapt the pace to understand what, why and how to use this new technology in teaching and learning. It’s not very good reaching the end of your journey and not understanding anything - just means you got to go back and retrace your steps and your journey becomes longer.
At De Rust I loved every step forward that the school was making. Just by showing one function / idea at a pace the teachers and the students felt was right for them allowed them to get use to the idea of this new technology and how it could help them.
By the end of our trip the first few steps had been taken on De Rust Futura Academy’s journey.

The next steps for project M-Ubuntu

2010-03-01T13:11:00.001Z

I asked Theophilus van Rensburg Lindtzer, founder of Learning Academy Worldwide and project M-Ubuntu, what the next steps were for De Rust Futura and M-Ubuntu.

“I see our next steps in De Rust as follows...

Firstly, we'd want to support continued training for teachers to help them use the mobile devices in their classes.

Secondly, we plan to be on site again in 40 days to follow through on achievements and help with implementation problems.

Thirdly, we'd want to collaborate with the school leadership to become the hub for mobile learning in the region by hosting workshops that can be conducted from anywhere in the world.

Fourthly, we'd want to foster collaboration with existing M-Ubuntu projects in the country, inter alia, Spectrum Primary and Ramosadi Primary.”

“Finally, I see that M-Ubuntu and Tribal should be exploring a strategy in the region that can include stakeholders who are able to provide access to and support for a more regional awareness and implementation of the value of Mobile Learning to, specifically, the final year students (known as Matriculants)”

Theo

What the students at De Rust Futura Academy said…

2010-02-22T14:10:00.000Z

Student comments

Here are a few comments made by the students

“I like using the Smartphone as it gives us a more comfortable understanding of how to use other types of technology”

“I found the Smartphone interesting and feel it can help us learn more about English”

“It’s like a mini computer that you don’t have to go to the computer room to use it.”

“Using the dictionary on the phone makes me want to look up words I don’t know.”

“I like the phones as they are fun and interesting”

“It’s a simple way of finding out new things.”

“Using the Smartphone makes reading more interesting as you can easily find notes you’ve made on the book (using the e-book reader) .”

Day 5: The Global Mobile Learning Conference

2010-02-19T13:06:00.001Z

Friday came round very quickly and the focus for today was on the Global Mobile Learning Conference.

Global Mobile Learning Conference

The online conference was setup by Theo (thanks and great job:-)), connecting us all using Elluminate Live, is a virtual environment that connects many people in a conference. The software allows you to speak to each other in real-time as well as text messaging, application sharing and a whiteboard – very cool!
The conference showcased m-learning projects at De Rust Futura Academy, Spectrum Primary School and Ramosadi Primary School,
The participants in the GMLC were, of course, De Rust Futura Acadamy and Spectrum Primary School. Dr Jeff Kupperman from Michigan University (US) and educator Lucy Haagen joined from Beijing (China), Mafikeng in South Africa and Theo from Washington DC and us all listened / took part in the conference.
Geoff Stead (below) presented an overview about the how m-learning was born and how and why devices are a great tool for learning.

Jeff Kupperman (below) talked how learners have successfully used mobiles for collecting video, audio and text data to create games.

Check out this link M-Ubuntu: Global Mobile Learning Conference.

Day 4: My favourite lesson 'Atletiek'

2010-02-18T18:26:00.005Z

Well I was wide awake after 1hr of Athletiek (athletics) this morning that started at 8am....

There were 35-40 children from primary to grade 12 on the field taking part in different activities. Most Fridays there is an athletic meet for the primary students and most Saturday’s a meet for the 14+. Last week one of the primary school boys competed in the 14+ and came 2nd in the 100m - brilliant!

The lesson started with the opwarm (warm up) and was followed by

100m
200m
400m
Gewigstoot (Shot putt)
Diskus (Discus) &
Verspring (Long Jump)

I took a couple of Flip camera's out on the field and moved around the field, filming little clips of each group. I then showed and spoke to the teacher's why, here's a few;

You can get the students to film & analyse their fellow students actions to show them how to improve their movements/performance.
Enables the student who's doing the movement to review and evaluate their own personal progress in athletics.
Make the lesson more fun/engaging - it's great when you're the person throwing the shot/discus, running to see how far you can jump but if you're the last in a group of 15 :(
On the phones there's a stop watch, get them to time sprints/laps

The teacher's will now try m-learning on the field – result

The rest of the day was spent in lesson's working with what was introduced to them. Tomorrow is feedback time.

Once school was out, teacher Pam February very kindly took me to Hermanus, a beautiful town & known to be the 'Whale watching capital of the world' . We walked around the, now very touristy town, and saw some amazing views with the mountains as a back drop to the beach.

Day 3: It's back to the classroom for me!

2010-02-17T19:30:00.004Z

The last time I stepped into a lesson was a few (cough) years ago. Today lessons started at 8am and finished at 2.20pm - and these lessons flew by. We just got into the swing and drrrrring time to go to the next 1!
So here's how part of my day looked. Each lesson was 30minutes long approx.

Period 1: Grade 10 Natural Science

Tasks

- To discuss the topic the teacher gave you and then use the camera and video on the mobiles in your group discussion. One person to ask the question and the other answer, then change over.
- Show the discussions on the interactive whiteboard (flip)
Photo of a practical lesson instead of just reading from the book.
Interviewing each other to see if they understand what they’ve just read. They will then ask the same questions tomorrow to see if using a different method helps them to remember what they’ve been taught.

Period 3: Grade 9b Natural Science

Tasks

- The topic being taught in this lesson was about chromosomes. The class were split into pairs and had to use the camera and video in group discussion
- Part of the group started to make a quiz using MyLearning author about the topic discussed and will finish in tomorrows lesson

Period 4: Grade 11 English

Tasks

- Using the mobiles look at the Visual literacy module and attempt all the practice quizzes. Read the question and answers and study the picture in your groups, then discuss what the answer should be and see if you're right.

MyLearning author and students looking at the Visual literacy materials on the device.
Take a look and have a go at some of the questions

Period 5: Grade 12 Life Studies

Tasks

- This time the classroom was outside! The task was to film classmates practicing the ‘Bart’. Afterwards they could see if they were in time and where they needed to improve.

This dance is being practiced for the Matric ball.

De Rust Futura video clips

2010-02-16T20:52:00.004Z

Video clips so far....

Day 1: Students filmed each other using Flip cameras in the lesson.

Day 2: Grade 10, 11 and 12 students investigating the functions and apps on the devices.

Check out news from across the seas about the project

2010-02-16T18:42:00.001Z

Few of sites for you to look at, they can also be found under the links section.

De Rust Futura Acadamy website
Learning Acadamy Worldwide
m-Ubuntu

Day 2: Teachers and learners get to play with the gadgets!

2010-02-16T15:34:00.001Z

Goeie naand!

Oh boy early start but such a quick finish. Geoff and I had a mad but really successful day introducing the devices to the teachers and learners at De Rust Furtura.

Teachers
Our first session was with 18 teachers that lasted 20mins...it was lunchtime, but they appeared to be excited by the new equipment we had bought over from the UK (thanks to Theo for the special weekend trip from Washington!!).
We just let them play and find out what the LG Incites could do - we now have a problem that they all want to use them in lessons :). They also loved the Flip cameras and could see great use for these in lessons.

Learners
We attended 4 lessons; 2 grade 10, 1 grade 11 and 1 grade 12 class introducing us, why we were here and of course the devices. We got such a nice welcome from all the children and they quickly took to handling the kit.
Lots of photos and videos were taken, note writing, games played, checking out all the different apps on there kept them busy til the end of thier lesson.

Overall the day was really fun and just to see how 'hooked' they were on the devices and that they weren't just playing bubble breaker and solitaire but asking questions and making comments about how these handheld devices could be used in lessons - result!

Tomorrow am I'll be in several different subject lessons; English, Science and Tourism are just 3 of them, looking at how the m-learning can help them in lessons.
In the afternoon I'll be using the materials we put on the devices for Pam and Andrew and after school I'm being taken to a cricket match with a teacher and 20 students (work of course) - busy bee :)

What we've got to remember is that this is all so new to these guys so tiny steps is still in order but from what I've seen so I'm getting quite excited by the ideas that are floating around.

Totsiens :)

Day 1 at De Rust Futura Acadamy

2010-02-15T16:31:00.001Z

Wow, what a journey from Cape Town. As you leave the fab city bowl, you start to see lots of informal dwellings - quite an eyeopener. But the closer you get to Grabouw the views start to change to breathtaking scentic views.

So to the school..it's situated on a wine farm! The school is 52yrs old and was orignally a small church school with 2 classrooms and now they have loads.
We met Wandred the Head teacher, Andrew and Pam - two teachers who are very enthusiatic about the ways devices can help their teaching.

Later on I'll post the video clips from Grade 8 using flip cameras from today - these guys were amazing.