Ada Lovelace Day

I’m blessed to be surrounded by women who encourage, support and inspire me.  On this Ada Lovelace day I’d like to acknowledge some of these women and pass on my gratitude for all that they do.  Women like Mags Amond, Susan Nic Réamoinn, Catherine Cronin, Mary Loftus, Leigh Graves Wolf, Pam Moran and Hellie Bullock.  What started as an online connection with all of these people has, over the past few years, developed into real friendships that have sustained me through good times and bad.

I’ve been involved in CoderDojo and the Youth Media Team over the past few years.  In both of these groups I have come across girls who inspire me with their sense of enthusiasm, fun and a dedication to get the job done.

I think it’s fair to say the future is in safe hands … 🙂

Of course a blog post about inspiring women wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the one and only Bianca Ni Ghrógáin.  It’s a bit surreal to be referring to Bianca as someone who is no longer with us, because over the past few weeks I have felt her impact in so many events that I have attended, from DojoCon to Féilte to MegaDojo.  Her legacy lives on in so much of what we do …

Youth Media Team at Excited 2014

The Excited Festival of Digital learning gave the Youth Media Team a chance to go on tour again.  The Festival was held over the Friday and Saturday of the June bank holiday.  We landed in Dublin Castle at 11am on the Friday with our gazebo in tow and promptly got caught up in the excitement that was Excited!  The plan was that we would work with RTE Digital on the Friday, the most amazing opportunity for our red shirts! We had four of the Tipperary contingent and another four from St Wolstan’s in Celbridge in Kildare as part of the Friday team.  St. Wolstan’s had set up a Radio TY group as part of their Transition Year programme based on the YMT so it was a fantastic opportunity to get both groups working together. While we got settled with RTE, our gazebo specialist with help from his son got to work constructing our home for the next few days 🙂 The brief with RTE was to create a behind the scenes look at the students Dragon’s Den that was a feature of the day.  We had to choose people for the various roles – producers, directors, presenters, camera assistant and editor.  Once the team had sorted that out between themselves it was time to get to work.

Over the course of Friday night and Saturday, the team got on with their ‘day’ jobs of interviewing, blogging and tweeting. They interviewed Lord Puttnam, Marty Cooper (inventor of the mobile phone) and Dr. Rene Lydiksen (Managing Director of Lego Education Europe) among others.

We also got a chance to be part of the highlights from the Festival on both sides of the camera 🙂

All in all it was a great opportunity for the team to be involved in such a central way in the inaugural Excited Digital Learning Festival.  You can check out their work from the event at ymt.fm.

What a backdrop!

ICT in Education conference 2014

The 10th ICT in Education conference took place on Saturday 10th May.  As in previous years CESI hosted a TeachMeet on the previous evening, and, as always, it provided attendees with a relaxing evening of catching up with old friends and new.  The sharing began on the Thurles campus and continued later in the Anner Hotel.  It was great to see new faces begin to share what is working for them in their classrooms.  All in all, a great kickstarter for the conference to come.

Saturday saw the busiest conference we’ve had with a vibrant exhibitor presence as well as an increased student presence.  LIT President, Maria Hinfelaar, welcomed attendees to the ‘Global Voices’ themed conference before handing over to Minister for Training and Skills, Ciaran Cannon.  We are very fortunate, to have a Junior Minister who is so interested and engaged in making progress in the integration of technology across all levels of our education system.  Next up was former Teacher of the Year, Evelyn O’Connor.  Evelyn’s heartfelt sharing of her experiences rang true for so many in the room.  Too often, people gloss over the difficulties when sharing their experiences.  It’s good to hear the a balanced view of the rough with the smooth to enable us to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it all seems to be going wrong!

Next came the experimental part of the day.  We decided, with some prompting from Conor Galvin and Bernie Goldbach, to try an open workshop format for a portion of the day.  This section was titled ‘The W@lk’ and our aim was to showcase some of the work that is going on in classrooms across the country allowing attendees to observe rather than participate.  We had six stations on the W@lk.

1. Bridge 21 – an education programme based in Trinity which can be adapted for use in secondary schools. The model is team based, technology mediated, project based and cross curricular.  On the day Kevin Sullivan worked with a group of local secondary school students to produce video clips on what students should learn in school and also a more frivolous clip 

   

2. MissionV – a creative, immersive games based learning environment for schools and industry.  On the day John Jennings and Esther Lambe provided attendees with an opportunity to try out the Oculus Rift as well as sharing the experience of Esther’s school while using Mission V.
3. CoderDojo Thurles – a free coding club for young people.  Jacqueline Humphries along with the team of mentors and Dojo ninjas showcased some of the projects the Dojo has been working on throughout the year including HMTL, App Development, electronics and so much more
4. Radio TY from St. Wolstan’s in Celbridge – a youth media team based on our own YMTfm.  Noeleen Leahy brought a group of students who shared their experiences of setting up a media team in a school.  They managed to squeeze in an interview or two along the way as well as take some selfies 🙂
5. Makey Makey workshop – Bianca Ní Ghrógáin assisted by Hassan Dabbagh led a workshop with some local primary school children in the use of the Makey Makey kit in conjunction with Scratch.
6. Project Spark – Stephen Howell from Microsoft demonstrated the Project Spark application

While the W@lk was a new departure for us, and there are definitely areas which need a little polishing, the initiative was very well received by both participants and attendees alike, with many commenting that it was a timely reminder placing students at the centre of what we as educators do.

In his own inimitable way Stephen Howell pulled many of the mornings strands together in his plenary session, before attendees got to choose from a wide variety of workshops led by educators across the levels.  The hum of conversation at lunch time was an indicator of the level of engagement and enthusiasm from the teachers who came from far and wide on a Saturday to keep themselves up to date on the use of technology in the classroom.

After lunch saw a continuation of the parallel workshops before the closing session with Julie Cullen and Helen Keegan.  Julie is the Young Advisor to Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, and she shared her experiences of EU Code Week which saw Ireland punch far above our weight with the most events.  Helen Keegangave the closing presentation of the day, sharing her global collaborations which she undertook with her third level students.

The Youth Media Team returned to their ‘home’ conference after a hugely successful year and under the guidance of Joe Dale, Conor Galvin and Catherine Cronin they produced an eBook of the days’s proceedings.  We’re currently in the process of getting it published.

It was a jam packed day of sharing, chatting and being happy 🙂

 

 

 

CESI Conference 2014

It’s been more than 2 weeks since the 2014 CESI conference and it’s only now that I’m getting to reflect on the event.  Because of my involvement with the Youth Media Team on the day, I didn’t get to sit in on as many of the presentations as I would have liked.  Having said that, working with the team was great so it was worth the sacrifice.

After CESI Chair, Adrienne Webb, welcomed us all to Galway Minister Ciaran Cannon then delivered his opening address.  He reminded us that we need to educate our students for their future not our past and spoke of the way in which technology will facilitate global collaboration in the classrooms of the future.  This really resonated with me as ‘Global Voices’ is our theme for the 2014 ‘ICT in Education’ conference.  He then spoke about a Digital festival of Learning to be held in Dublin Castle on May 30th and 31st May.  I’m looking forward to hearing more about this event and to being involved with the Youth Media Team.  There was a bit of discussion on the backchannel on Twitter about the Minister’s reference to coding.  My thoughts on coding are well known.  I lecture in a technology department to computing students and I’ve been involved in CoderDojo for more than two years.  I do however agree that coding must have a context in an educational setting and that it’s not just about teaching coding but about another way of thinking.

The theme of this year’s conference was ‘Spark the Imagination’ and I think it’s fair to say that Dr. Daithí Ó Murchú did just that! One of the things I most enjoy about conferences like the CESI one is the mix of inspirational keynote addresses and practical workshops and presentations.  Daithí’s keynote was certainly inspirational.

He asked us to look to 2050

Daithí reminded us of the need to develop coping strategies.  He spoke of Continuous Partial Attention as opposed to Multitasking. His parting shot was to remind us of the need to take time out.  Turn the phone off, meditate …  This is something that becomes harder to do but which becomes more and more important  in this ever changing, connected world.

Next up were Dr. Michael Hallissy and Dr. Deirdre Butler who spoke about the National Digital Strategy and the future of education.  Unfortunately I missed this session but judging from the proliferation of tweets they provided attendees with plenty of food for thought.

The packed schedule of breakout sessions provided lots of variety for attendees, so much so, that the Youth Media Team found it difficult to find people who had time to give their thoughts on the event, for  much of the early part of the day!

The closing plenary sessions were a great way to round off what was a fantastic day, of sharing all that is good about technology in education across all levels.  James Corbett, from MissionV, combined the past and the future in his presentation using the Oculus Rift.  Stephen Howell, from Microsoft, then took us on a tour of Project Spark.  Dave even got the chance to have a play

Sending people home with their heads filled with inspiration, ideas and lots of practical ways to make changes in their classroom is what you hope for as an organiser of any conference.  I think the organisers of the CESI conference certainly fulfilled this remit.  All I can hope for, is that we can do the same for the attendees of the ICT in Education conference in Thurles in May!

The full transcript of tweets of the event can be found here.

 

BETT 2014

I’ve followed the BETT story of many #edchatie teachers on Twitter over the past few years jealously.  It never seemed to work out that I too could go – that is until this year.  Anyone who had previously been, extolled the virtues of going to BETT, and I wondered if it could possibly live up to the hype.  Having now seen it for myself, I can categorically state that it did! BETT runs over four days and I went for the last two – the Friday which included a TeachMeet and the Saturday.

I had done a little bit of preparation before making the trip but it was of the download the app and the material variety rather than actually engaging with what was available.  On the Thursday night I had a look at the talks and made a rough plan of what talks I wanted to see over the following few days.  I figured that from an exhibitor point of view I would just wait and see what caught my eye.  It turned out that I was completely unprepared for the wide variety of exhibitors that were at BETT.  There was something for everyone, but I have to admit that I found the sheer volume a bit overwhelming, particularly on the Friday.  As a result I made the decision to focus almost entirely on the talks.  There was plenty to choose from with more than 50 talks on Friday alone!

First up for me was Arvin Ross talking about Digital Storytelling.  Arvin gave a very engaging talk and shared his pick of the best apps to help with Storytelling

The Puppet Pals app also got a mention as a great app for Story telling.

Next choice for me was Ed Cooke talking about memory techniques and how they can be used to super power student learning.  What struck me was how Ed got us all to remember 20 seemingly unrelated objects by weaving them into a story.  Seeing how we remembered the items both backwards and forwards was a revelation.  The final surprise was revealed when Ed told us that the 20 objects were in fact elements from the Periodic Table (the balloon representing Helium etc.).  Check out memrise.com for more information.

At lunchtime I decided to go to the Flipped Learning session in the main arena.  The session was given by Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann, co-founders of the Flipped Classroom.  I’ve been toying with the idea of introducing some aspects of flipped learning so it was great to hear about how others have made it work and what their students have gained from it.  One of my takeaways from this session, was that the Flipped Classroom does not dehumanise the classroom, but rather that it places the teacher even more at the centre of the class  as the focus has changed.  The very strong message was the importance of relationships in the classroom, a point that was reinforced in the drawings that were to be found on the outside of the BETT arena

After a quick bite to eat it was time to go to Doug Belshaw’s masterclass on improving digital literacy among staff and students.  What I loved about Doug’s talk was that it was more of a conversation starter than a masterclass as it prodded us to consider a broad range of literacies as opposed to a single one.

I particularly loved this  proverb

I know which is my preference – what’s yours?

My final session of the day was Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ talk – ‘Beyond the Limits’. It was billed as an Inspirational Keynote and boy did it deliver!  Hearing Sir Ranulph recount his tales of crossing both the Artic and the Antartic was active learning at it’s very best.  It’s great to get a chance to hear people of this calibre speak at events like this.  I love to hear people from outside the educational domain speak at educational events as they often have a different perspective which challenges up to think differently.  

By this stage it was time for me to do a talk of my own.  I had been asked to speak at the OCR stand about CoderDojo with Mags Amond.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to work as it wasn’t a scheduled talk – it was more a case of start talking and hope that people would stop and listen.  It turned out to be a more enjoyable experience than I had imagined – Mags and I worked well together and a good few people stopped and listened.

The rest of Friday was taken up with the TeachMeet which I’ve previously written about here and the TeachEat, an opportunity to chat and mingle and generally relax after a long, busy day.

First up on Saturday was ‘Learning Science with iPads’ with Ed Walsh.

I was very interested in the next session ‘Analytical and predictive primary math teaching in Finland.  Finland is often held up as an exemplar regarding education so I was curious as to what we might find out from this talk.   I was a bit taken aback to find that the same issues around Maths education are to be found there

We heard about the emphasis on autonomy and teacher training that are so central to the Finnish education system but also the issues around integrating ICT into the system

It’s good to get this viewpoint and to see that teachers in many different countries are dealing with similar issues to the ones we face in this country.

One of the last sessions I went to was the Stemettes Hackathon.  It was such an enjoyable session and reminded me a lot of CoderDojo.  I loved how Anne Marie led the hackathon and used the example of making a jam sandwich to demonstrate the concept of an algorithm with the girls who had come to work on developing websites in real time.

The future is safe with these kinds of initiatives …

And so we come to the last session of BETT2014 – ‘The Great Education Debate – can technology ever replace the classroom?’  We heard short presentations from the panelists : Tim Rylands who stole the show in my view, Anne Lise Kjaer, Maggie Philbin, Ian Bauckham and Simon Milner.  I learned a new term from Tim – the elsie as opposed to the selfie.

One of the ideas that was reinforced during the closing session was the importance of the teacher in the classroom while recognising the power of technology to hook students and to facilitate learning.  It’s good to see that the emphasis on technology in education is entirely about its integration into the classroom, as an aid to teaching and learning, and not about it’s use for it’s own sake.  Plenty of food for thought until next year …

 While I’ve focused in this post on the talks I attended, the most important aspect of attending conferences for me is the opportunity to chat to other educators.   I was fortunate to spend the weekend at BETT in the company of Helen, Bianca, Mags and Kathleen as well as many of the #edchatie folk who made the trip to BETT.  Chatting about what you are hearing and seeing helps to process all of the information that is being thrown in your direction.  I definitely get more from a conference when I get a chance to discuss it with others.  It’s also good to hear about the work going on in classrooms across Ireland and beyond … hearing Bianca talking about “her” kids and the amazing projects that they are working on, hearing Mags and Kathleen talk about the importance of the relationships they have with their students, hearing Helen talk about the success of the How I Learn book all serve to invigorate you in what you are doing in you own classroom.  It’s also amazing to get the chance to catch up with people like Steve Bunce, Doug Belshaw, Helen Keegan, Dughall McCormack, Joe Dale and so many more.  It’s only when you get a chance to reflect on the overall experience of BETT that you begin to realise just how much you get from attending!  I’m looking forward to BETT 2015 already 🙂

Personal Learning Networks and Organisations

Week 3 in the Exploring Personal Learning Networks seminar has us looking at PLNs and Organisations.  In some ways it’s dto ifficult to see where the overlap comes between the two.  PLNs by their very nature are personal.  They evolve and grow as a result of the interests and passion of the person involved so I’m struggling with how they fit with organisations.  There is however no denying, that organisations can and do benefit from the very strong PLNs of their employees.   My major concern is that, as so often happens, trying to fix something that isn’t broken can lead to smashing the very thing you valued.

Over the last few weeks of the seminar many of the participants have been grappling with defining PLNs and after a fashion we have come up with our definitions but they’re personal to each of us.  This makes it very difficult for an organisation to ‘adopt’ PLNs in my opinion.  For each persons  definition of a PLN, there is also a set of tools which helps them to connect with those in their PLN.  This can involve entirely virtual connections to entirely ‘in-person’ and everything in between!  I think it’s fair to say that for most people it’s probably a mix of the two especially in this connected world we now live in.  I know it is for me.

The biggest challenge for organisations as they look at adopting PLNs, is that there are so many ways for people to connect, that it can be difficult to be supportive without being specific about the tools which people could or should use and the manner in which they could and should connect.  What works for one person will not work for another when it comes to their PLN.  If we look at four of the many tools which can be used to facilitate connections: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.  For me personally, Twitter is my go to place.  I love the brevity of the 140 character message as it forces people to really focus on their key message.  I also love the open nature of Twitter, as, for the most part, you can dive into a conversation without even following those involved in the conversation.  Yet for others, Twitter is their worst nightmare!  I don’t see Facebook as part of my PLN for the most part.  I have an account but keep it mostly for personal use with most of my contacts on Facebook personally known to me.  Yet for others, Facebook is where most of their connections are fostered.  Google+ hasn’t lit the same fire in me as Twitter as a means of connecting with others.  I find the lack of brevity more overwhelming and find that I have to work harder to find the information of interest to me.  This has been helped with the Communities option but I worry that this is narrowing the focus as mentioned in my previous post. Yet, for a growing number of people Google+ is becoming their go to place for connecting.  Finally LinkedIn for me is just somewhere to have my digital CV of sorts but I haven’t leveraged the power of the discussions and so many other aspects of this networking application that so many others seem to use to their advantage.  What I am hoping to illustrate is that when it comes to PLN’s

So maybe the challenge for organisations is more to do with supporting the many different ways to connect rather than adopting PLNs …..

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/birgerking/4731898939/

Defining Personal Learning Networks

Week 2 of the Exploring Personal Networks (PLNs) online seminar has us looking towards defining a PLN.  At first glance this seems quite straightforward – in fact I’ve already defined a PLN in my previous post as “the people I come in contact with, both in person and virtually from whom I can learn”.  But is this definition enough?

My definition could equally apply to a Community of Practice (CoP) so how can we differentiate between the two?  Etienne-Wagner(1) defines a Communities of Practice as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.”.  There is certainly an overlap between CoPs and PLNs, but for me the crucial difference, is the intentionality behind the coming together of a CoP, and the incidental nature that often characterises a PLN for me.  My PLN consists of people across a variety of interests from Maths to Programming to teaching to technology in education to ….. just the general thought provoking people you spot in passing.    The incidental, accidental learning that happens, as you spot ideas from one domain which could have a positive impact in another domain, is why I love the many interactions that the virtual world facilitates.  Sometimes we tend to apply a set of blinkers, which prohibits breaking down barriers, when we narrow the focus to people we know share a common interest.  In my previous post I referred to the cross-pollination of ideas across the levels in twitter chats like #edchatie.  For me this is such a powerful interaction that allows people to see outside the “box” they find themselves in, whether it be primary, secondary or third-level.

The next overlap which is interesting to examine is that between Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and Personal Learning Networks (PLNs).  It’s difficult to find a universally recognised definition of a PLE, but there seems to be a consensus that a PLE refers to the the technological tools or environment which facilitates the connection.  In my reseach on this topic I came across Joyce Seitzinger’s graphic

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catspyjamasnz/3118564555/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I like this idea of a PLE as a subset of PLN.  It fits best with my own views about PLN’s which places people at its very core.  A graphic posted by Catherine Cronin to the 1 pic a day Flickr group that I am also a part of really caught my attention earlier this year

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catherinecronin/8444998755/sizes/m/in/photostream/

I love this idea of connecting to think together.   The very real friendships that develop among people who “know” each other virtually before they meet in person is a testament to the depth of the connections which are forged through a sense of shared values. Of course meeting face to face is not obligatory, but I do find that some level of face to face contact does help to grow and sustain the connections.

So where does this leave me in regards to defining a PLN?   I started my previous post and this one with a definition of a Personal Learning Network as “the people I come in contact with, both in person and virtually from whom I can learn” and I’m sticking with that for now 🙂  But maybe I should redefine it as a Passionate Learning Network a la Shelly Terrell …

Image credit: http://weconnect.pbworks.com/w/page/24566813/PLN

References:

(1)    http://wenger-trayner.com/theory/

Exploring Personal Learning Networks

I’ve just started an online seminar called ‘Exploring Personal Learning Networks‘.  The seminar started on October 7th but I’ve just started this week so I’m a little behind the curve on it.  In spite of my tardiness starting, I’m really enjoying being involved so far, as I read other participants blog posts about their Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), vc c and attempt to catch up on what seems to be a very busy twitter chat on the #xplrpln hashtag!

One of the first tasks we’ve been set, is to share our stories, regarding how having a PLN has changed how we learn and practice in our professional fields.  For me, my PLN has dramatically changed how I practice as a lecturer.  It’s hard to believe that I didn’t really even know what a PLN was a little more than a year ago.  To be honest I’m not sure that I’m any more wise now but at least I now know the term!   I’m not really going to delve deeply into a definition of a PLN in this post, as this will come in my next post for the seminar.  I haven’t yet researched this topic, so I’m going to address my sense of what a PLN is about, as well as, what I can and do get, from my PLN.

My current loose definition of a PLN is “the people I come in contact with, both in person and virtually from whom I can learn”.  I know this is vague and probably overly broad but it works for me right now.  I’m lucky to be part of a very rich, vibrant PLN who have challenged, encouraged and supported me in the various endeavours I undertake from lecturing in Maths and Programming, to organising the ICT in Education conference, to taking my first tentative steps in presenting at conferences and so much more.  I suppose my primary point of contact for many in my PLN is Twitter.  I love the openness of Twitter, as you often come across ideas that may not be related to anything you are currently doing or planning, but which could be adapted to work for you.  The other really positive aspect of Twitter for me is the diversity of experiences and viewpoints you get from the many people you connect with.  I love the ease with which I can connect with other educators across the spectrum of education as too often we see a disconnect between the levels.  Here in Ireland, and in other jurisdictions, we have a tendency to see primary, secondary and third level education as completely separate when in reality our children don’t dramatically change in the couple of months between finishing primary and starting secondary or between finishing secondary and starting third level.  On hashtags like #edchatie, we can and do learn from each other.

The second task we’ve been set is to try something new.  I decided to give Storify a try.  I’d signed up a while ago but never progressed past a test, so I decided to use it to put together a Story of the #mathsfest conference I went to last weekend.  Have a look at the fruits of my labours here.