Resources and Ideas  

from John Davitts #Freelearning Sessions in South Africa July 2011

Sawubona all :) (that wise Zulu greeting that says "I see you" and  acknowledges the individual - if only world education systems were built on such wisdom) ...the  Schoolsne tSA11 Education Conference "ICT in the Classroom"  that ran in Johannesburg the first week of July 2011  was a rather special event with keynotes from me,  Naomi Harm (USA) & Jane Hart (UK). They were wonderful and structured with lots of links and URLSs and I spoke about the need to give permission and acknowledge difference - it all fitted together rather well. The real gold was buried however  in the attitude of all the teachers, workshops leaders and the organisers Janet, Gerald & Dezlin and all the others who came prepared to share, listen  and learn together. Attending the event has reminded me how humbling and inspiring the "can do" attitude of African teachers  is and I can't wait for the chance to work further with the friends that I have made - online and in person.

The event was also  characterised by robust and stable infrastructure thanks to Peter Henning at the delightful  host school St John's college (a man prepared to tickle switches on the fly to maximise connection so that all 500 delegates could try out the tools live)  and Maggie Verster and team who managed  the back channel with a light touch and deep perception and in so doing built a platform for some serious heavy duty sharing. I think those mentioned in this paragraph deserve more credit than us keynoters - they really laid the foundations for a rather special event. Well done all.

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Anyhow as promised some links to the ideas we mentioned during the keynote and the workshops

The Learning Event Generator is here  Zulu and Xhosa versions are also ready and will be on the Schoolnet site next week :) Thanks to all who helped in the crowdsourcing of the translation into all 11 South African languages.

The Learning Score... my timeline tool for lesson planning is here

Find out what QR code readers are available for your phone here

Make your own QR code here

John's Presentation notes and links

The conference also marked the lauch of John's Freelearning Creativity Matrix

ICT in the classroom

We built a  school
of our collective wisdom using a siple Google form and got 40 entries in 30 minutes  
www.bit.ly/ididwell
We shared a small idea/skill that had a powerful result 
It is ephemeral-will only last a few more days
See the group wisdom at www.bit.ly/schoolofthemoment

First iterations of new tech are usually feudal
How do you like your..toast?
we looked at the sensory matrix 
for content & activity 

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Free sound editor lets learners see their voices and music as a wave form that they can edit and multiple tracks can be recorded
You also need the lame driver a free file leame _enc.dll that lets Audacity export MP3 files

Summary of my last slides....

Build for the future..
no one device – organic?
ebb & flow  fonts
Every school a TV station? Lid Zone
Embrace the “age of agility” twitteresque cpd
Walk many paths even the 10 cent curriculum
Celebrate your own learning curve ?
Open the bandwidth of talents
Think broad & innovate Skype tutorial / subject tweet
Prepare for Internet of things & tablets


So…Time for.. Gov translation
Making things
Telling stories
#Freelearning
How can new tools help us amplify, extend and share? Faultline of formal>social
Tweak our vocab of expectation
Creativity & constraint leg et al
Otherwise history will say ‘’they had what tools..they did what with them?”

Get ready for outdoor learning 
& the internet of things

 Possible follow ups to John’s session
Formative feedback via voucher
Keep your own slant on new tools
Explore role of sound & film &*(audacity & commoncraft style approaches)
Elevate activity design to an art formExplore active learning props like the Learning Event Generator   Trial use of tools like Learning Score for group lesson design
Celebrate different talents
Touchatag for RFID


Silos of content 
await the orchestra* of activity