2012...the year that was...

So it's been a while since I posted on here. I won't say that I had better things to do than blog about what it is I blog about here, however I will say that blogging was never far from the mind - most of the time....

Anyway, so where did 2012 go?

2012 was a year of new beginnings for me. Teaching new subjects (again), associate Head of Technology at my school (in my 2nd year of teaching)...and once I'd been to the #ICTEV2012 conference, it was like a rebirth in terms of my life in eLearning and education.

As I've written previously, I felt rejuvenated and refreshed, and had a buzz that seemingly didn't go away for days. This blog was then started in the days afterwards after a conversation with @_TarrynKennedy, and I'd decided that my then "dormant" Twitter account (@jimmygunner) needed to be given a 2nd chance. At #ICTEV2012, I remember seeing the follower count at around 70 after being on there for ...in 6 months, I've increased that by 10 fold and have met & contributed to discussions with educators around the world. It's definitely been an eye opening experience.

The blog had a few posts last year and I remember saying that I was going to blog weekly over the school holidays...that didn't happen. I then said I'd blog before the start of the school year..that didn't happen. Only because I was helping everyone else be ready for day one, when I probably wasn't ready myself...big mistake. No excuses this year. More regular updates this year...PROMISE!

Anyway to look back some of the "projects" I wrote about and never followed up on:

• Class App for my Maths class
• Never got to implementation and the kids weren't happy. The app was "fully" developed and ready to go. The kids knew I was looking at making them an app but they weren't happy when the project "couldn't go ahead because there was no clear benefit to them" (for some of those looking at the project from the outside) and the fact that "the school rules aren't meant to deal with this sort of thing...so you might get into hot water; best not implement that" or something along those lines...
• QR Codes
• Was told there was no official support for this initiative as our students didn't have laptops at the time, and the school rules don't allow for mobile phones to be out in the classroom.
• Presenting
• First eLearning/Tech presentation to my peers at school and also my first external tech/eLearning tool presentation happened this year. I won't say they were great successes but more like toes into the cold ocean...but I did enjoy the sessions. Thanks to @_TarrynKennedy for the help :)

Well that was my educational life in 2012...and it was an awesome year personally as well. But we won't go into that. Thankyou to the following people who were an amazing support and sounding board:

• Tarryn K (@_TarrynKennedy)
• Andrew E (#notontwitter)
• Kylie P (@kyliepower1)
• Celia Coffa (@ccoffa)
• #vicpln'ers

Finally I would like to thank my amazingly supportive girlfriend, Jess, who without her support, I think I would have cracked under the anxiety/stress/buzz of my year. While she was sometimes frustrated and annoyed by all my tech talk, she supported and heard me rave & rant about frustrations at work and elsewhere. She is literally "the best, Jerry, the best"! 

I'm looking forward to 2013 and I'll be writing on this in the coming hours :)

Until next time (which won't be too far away...) May the Tech Be with You

Jimmy V 

A great find...

Hey guys

Thought I'd just let you all know of a great resource that I stumbled upon months ago via Twitter (@tesResources), however only just required a use for it...

TES.co.uk is a collection of free resources, submitted by teachers all over the world. Over 500,000 resources are available, with the ability to search by keyword which then splits the matching resources in subject areas and school groupings. By the way, the TES are the crew behind The Times Educational Supplement in the UK. (I'm presuming that the TES is somewhat similar to the 'Learn' section in Melbourne's Herald Sun)

My use came out of the need for my Year 10 Wellbeing class where they will be required to discuss what it means to be the "perfect" male or female according to the stereotypes that currently exist in society via the media.

Within seconds, I had 303 resources at my fingertips, some useful for this particular, some not at all. I eventually settled on this one..Human Outline

Anyway, the resources also appear in Google searches so you can also search via Google :)

Anyway that's my "short & sweet" post for the time being.

Until next time...May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V

UPDATE 10:10am 02/11/12 (AEST)
Just did a quick search of Twitter and noticed that the TES crew have around a dozen Twitter names based around different subject areas and different sectors of education!

Full list (I think) below:

• tes Resources - Resources across all subject areas  
• The tes - News and views from the editorial team from The Times Educational Supplement in the UK
• tes New Teachers - Resources/Support/Advice for new (and "old") teachers
• tes English - English resources from the site
• tes Ed Tech - Tips and Tools for Good ICT practice
• tes Maths - Maths resources from the site
• tes FE Focus - Links and discussion from the TES Further Ed team
• tes Science - Science resources from the site
• tes Primary - Primary geared resources from the site
• tes Special Needs - Resources for Special Needs teachers from the site

#TMGeelong & Web-based Audience Response Systems

Hey guys and welcome to another post from May the Tech Be With You!

On Saturday 20th October, I had the privilege of conducting the first presentation at the first TeachMeet Geelong. This presentation was held at Western Heights College (Vines Rd Campus) and organised by @MarkOMeara. The video can be seen after the brief explanation of what audience response systems are, how they work and how I use them in my classroom.

What are Audience Response Systems?

Audience response systems allow groups of people to provide an opinion on a topic or an answer to a question. Traditionally they required dedicated remotes, receivers and software, however its now much more accessible for all on the Web.

How do ARS work?

Traditionally, they required each person in the audience to have a remote that connects to a receiver, which in turn is connected to a database. Presenters would display a question to which the audience members would respond and the results would be displayed on the screen.

With the Web-based systems, all you need to do is set a question, topic prior to your class, ensure your students have access to a mobile device (whether it be a PC, laptop, iPad or web-enabled mobile phone).  They require the students to open a dedicated URL which will take them to the question/topic and they can then respond to the question or topic. The results are then displayed on the screen automatically in real time.

Benefits of ARS

• Engaging for students
• Automatic/instant feedback
• Reports generated for each quiz
• Multiple Choice quizzes can be automatically corrected
• Cross Platform compatibility
• Can inform our practice as teachers

Examples of ARS

• Traditional
• Keepad
• Web
• Poll Everywhere
• Socrative

Differences between Poll Everywhere & Socrative

·         Poll Everywhere

o   More appealing to younger student audience

o   Larger range of response types – not just web based

·         Socrative

o   More appealing to an older student audience

o   Better reporting package under the “free” account

§  Multiple choice responses are automatically created

o   Bulk importing of questions/answers

A slight warning

As with any new tool or tech, you will know that there can be downsides or conversations that you may need to have with your students. One such downside, with both of the tools that we have seen is that there is no filtering of the open ended response questions. They will simply come up on screen regardless of whether the student response is irrelevant or inappropriate.

Depending on the age of the students that you use this with will depend on the conversation that you have in relation to appropriate & responsible behaviour.

My use of ARS in the classroom...

Depending on the group that I have, I use either Socrative or Poll Everywhere. For my Year 9's I use Poll Everywhere, while with my senior students I use Socrative. I just find the interfaces appeal to their respective  audiences.

I have used both to do the following:

• find out from each of my students a range of information including how they feel their learning is tracking, what progress they have made, whether they understand particular concepts, opinions on different topics...the list is endless
• inform my practice using this information - if a number of students feel they weren't able to grasp a concept then usually we spend a bit of time at the start of the next lesson recapping
• test my students as learning is taking place (formative assessment) as well as at the end of a unit (summative assessment)

I also feel that with these tools that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface with the amount of data that I have collected from them...

If you have any suggestions or uses of ARS, feel free to comment below!

The video!

Ok, so its nothing special...it's only my second "formal" presentation on ICT, and the first to those outside of my "home" school setting. It's fairly safe to say that I know that I have a fair way to go with regards to my presentation skills...feedback/suggestions/criticisms in the comments below please.

The video can be seen after the jump courtesy of Mark O'Meara. I wouldn't normally present in shorts however it was quite a warm day in Geelong not to mention a Saturday!

The next post will be coming soon...and will be a reflection on #TMGeelong.

As always...May the Tech Be With You!

Jimmy V

The first presentation is always the hardest...

UPDATED 19/10/12: In terms of my feelings towards the presentation prior to and after the presentation, they were mixed. Beforehand, I'd found out that a number of members of the College's Leadership team were going to be in attendance and I was nervous. Was my presentation going to be good enough for them? Am I going to stuff this up? Not only did I have that to contend with, but with staff signing up to their own snapshot sessions, I was a little nervous about some of the clientele (some had lower ICT skills than I had hoped for) that we were catering for. @_TarrynKennedy assured me that we'd be fine. In the end, I'd decided that there was no point worrying about either points and that I should get on with it. And I did.

As for after, a sense of relief hit me and I was glad that it was over and done with. 7 or 8 tools delivered to a subset of staff within 25 or so minutes. Not bad...maybe I should do this more often...and in saying that, I'm now presenting at #TMMelb/Geelong about Web-based Audience Response Systems on the 20 October. A write-up will go up  in a few days when I get a chance to catch my breath around the notion of the Web-based ARS.

EARLIER: Hello there and welcome back to May the Tech Be With You!

I know it's been a while but I think now is the best time to come back with the return from term break and with something to actually write about.

I finally conducted my first ICT presentation to colleagues at my school on the topic of Web 2.0 tools but more on that later...

For those that don't know, the school I work at is moving to a 1 to 1 notebook/laptop program next year. As part of this massive (for some) transition, school leadership decided that we needed a professional learning day for staff.

The day had the standard professional learning day outline...

• Leadership presented the vision behind the program, and the itinerary for the day  
• The keynote, Alberto Rizzo, spoke for an hour on some challenges in moving to a 1:1 program & the TPCK model
• The one thing that I found I could take from his talk was Explore. Create. Share. Good advice for staff who may be a little worried about integrating more ICT in the classroom.
• We were then talked to about what Professional Learning and the journey that the College has taken in the past few years in developing a professional learning culture.
• Staff then went into an hour long snapshot session of their choice...17 were on offer!

I had the privilege of co-presenting with @_TarrynKennedy. She covered SAMR (the model that allows teachers to gauge what they are doing with tasks, activities and assessment in their classroom...follow up post on this coming soon) while I covered some Web 2.0 tools that could be used to Modify or Redefine classroom interactions with students in a 1 to 1 environment.

I simply like to explore the options I have available to me in order to engage my students. 

To see the my half of the Prezi, simply follow the link...http://prezi.com/mmjeqib1ke1s/web-20-tools

From now to the end of the year, I'll be posting once a week on the tools listed in the presentation. 10 (or so) weeks, 10 posts. Hopefully that satisfies your thirst for tech!

Leave your comments about the presentation below :)

Disclaimer: In no way, shape or form, am I claiming to be an expert on SAMR nor that I am an expert teacher in a 1 to 1 classroom (even though I teach in them more than 60% of the time), nor to be an expert in any of the uses of the tools mentioned in the presentation. I also have no commercial affiliation with any of the companies listed.

As always

May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V

Current News, Events & Issues with QR codes? An experiment...

Well the last couple of days have had me pondering how informed are today's youth are with regards to current news, events & isuues in not only their local communities, but their state, country and globally as well. Holidays do that sometimes...allow us to ponder questions we may not normally have time for when teaching, writing reports, communicating with parents and colleagues, etc etc etc.

Anyways...last term, I remember mentioning to my homeroom something that I had seen on the evening news broadcast the night before; I think it might have been something to do with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in the UK to be completely honest but this in itself is irrelevant.

Surprisingly, of the students who responded...none of them had really any idea what I was talking about...this struck fear in me, as how can we expect our kids to invoke change and better world for the generations to come if they have no idea of what's going on around them. Now before I get the comments stating the contrary: 

I know that not all kids are ignorant like this, but if do not engage them in the news or current events/issues or promote that they should further investigate what they read, see and hear, then they may not develop the research and synthesis skills they need to survive out in the world.

For the uninitiated, what is a QR code?

A QR (Quick Response) code is basically a graphics-based link to some place on the web. They can be used to link to any valid URL. More recent uses include the ability to join a network (on Android devices), purchase items from iTunes, initiate Skype calls and download files.

Example: The QR code for this website is above

How do I input that into my mobile browser?

Using a QR code reader (an app installed on their mobile devices), you simply point their mobile device's camera at the QR code and let it do the rest...

What happens is that the QR app installed on the phone will scan the code, translate it into text and then redirect the user to the intended URL or aforementioned function.

So the plan...

What: To give my Year 10 homeroom a worldly knowledge that they may not get from any of their other classes and to help develop their investigation & synthesis of current news, events and issues.

How: Using a QR code generator like QR Stuff, and a QR code reader (suggestions in the comments please), create a range of different QR codes for my classroom that cover a range of issues, both locally and abroad, to see whether the students start investigating and understanding, even if only on a basic level. Hopefully by the end of the experiment, they will come out with a more "worldly" knowledge...The hope is that in the long run, we can discuss current events and issues as a class and that a general interest in current news & events is born.

Feel free to suggest current news, events and issues that you might think appropriate for a Year 10 homeroom.

When: Term 3 and ongoing

So that's the plan...feel free to send the feedback my way

As always...May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V

Aurasma....an introduction & plan...

So here is the second ICT tool post on here...apologies for the delay in getting to this point....

For this post, I'd like to explain Aurasma, an Augmented Reality (AR) application for iOS & Android devices. There are a number of other AR apps out there on the App Store/Marketplace however Aurasma seems to be the most popular. Now for the time being, I'll post the plan and hopefully get some feedback from you all...and once it happens, I'll write up a short evaluation, detailing what went right, what went wrong, what could have been done differently or better and some overall thoughts.

See some of the other applications for AR that are currently out there at the moment....after the jump as always....JUMP!

PS >> Aurasma was recently discussed at TEDGlobal2012...no video just yet however a brief blog post from the great guys at TED..again after the jump....JUMP!

First of all, Augmented Reality...what is it?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect view of a physical, real world environment whose elements are augmented by a computer generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics, or GPS data. (Mashable)

Aurasma is an app that facilitates these features and allows you to create & share Auras. Auras can be images or videos captured from your Photo Library, or they can be Aurasma animations, that can be overlayed on any object.

The way the app works is that when Aurasma detects an object that has had an Aura created for it, it displays/plays the overlay. Another feature is that Aurasma can be used to display/play an overlay at a particular location...these are called Location Auras; these are auras that are only activated

The beauty of Aurasma is that it is FREE and they do offer the option of signing up to their Partner Program which is also FREE and allows you a lot more freedom with the application...more on this part when I get my  head into it...

Example: See how Marvel Comics has recently implemented AR into their comics....JUMP!

So the plan:

What: I would to use Aurasma to help teach my Year 8 students about the Cartesian Plane and reading co-ordinates from a map in a bit of a more visual and engaging way.

How does Aurasma help this I hear you ask? Well giving the students a map of the school and an iPad, the idea is to have them go on an "Aura hunt" that would require them to gather the clues left by each aura at the various locations around the school to solve a riddle, question or conundrum. The other side to the plan is to not only have myself present clues (as an aura) to the students but their other teachers and other known personalities in the school community.

Feel free to suggest riddles, questions or conundrums for the students to solve...

How: Using Aurasma on my iPhone, create a number of overlays for the students to find using their AR devices. Then get the students to find the auras & gather the clues to solve the riddle, question or conundrum.

When: late T3 - early T4

So that's the plan...feel free to send the feedback my way

As always...May the Tech Be With You

Jimmy V

#VicCS4HS Pre-Post

So as I do most days, I receive an email from the Edulists. Yesterday was something different though...an invitation to an event that I couldn't refuse...#CS4HS


Many of you are probably thinking what does the acronym stand for...


Well to the uninitiated...we're talking about the Computer Science for High Schools event, organised by VCAA, Monash University & The University of Melbourne. From what I can gather, this is a Google-sponsored initiative to get Computer Science subjects and Computational Thinking into secondary classrooms. This is the 2nd year that this is being held at The University of Melbourne.


While it is open to a limited number of people, I would like to open the discussion to all of you and will be doing so in the following ways:

• Between now and next week, please fill out the survey which can be found after the jump....JUMP
• Even if you are not a Victorian or Australian educator, please contribute to the discussion...your own part of the world may have this discussion regarding introducing Computer Science very soon (other states of Australia, with the looming introduction of the National Curriculum, I'm primarily looking at you!)
• On the 11th & 12th of July (next week), I'll be tweeting...if that is acceptable...with the hashtag #VicCS4HS. 

I'm excited as a young educator to be able to make a contribution to the discussion. Seeing some of the names on the list of attendees, it will be a little daunting but I will pull through...I'm sure.

In the meantime, I am currently in the process of planning a number of posts, looking at ICT tools...I know this is meant to be a tech blog and I'll admit I've been a tad distracted so for that I apologise, but appreciate that you've stuck by the blog! 

In the last 5 weeks, the blog has received almost 500 pageviews, my Twitter feed has grown from 60-odd followers to almost 300 and I'm connecting with more and more educators & organisations every day! So thanks for the support, stick in there, happy holidays and finally....

May The Tech Be With You

Jimmy V