Thunder

I have recently been given approval and funding to set up a private island in Second Life, the purpose of he island will be to support the delivery of the new Diplomas in Shropshire schools.  The island will need to be accessed by students aged 14 - 19 and also their teachers. So now I am after some help and advice, any generic help would be most welcome, either in a comment or email steve[at]it4L.org .  I have a couple of key questions at the moment:

1. Should I set the island up on Teen Grid or Second Life, from reading the second life website, I think it would be best put on the Teen Grid and then getting the teachers access to the island.
2. Do all teachers have to get clearance through Ascertain, or can their LA clearance be used?

I would be keen to hear from anyone using Second Life with high school students in the UK, at present I only know of Digital Katie, who I heard speak about her use of Second Life at TeachMeet 06.

Over the weekend I stumbled across MindMeister, this website brings online collaboration to mindmapping/ brainstorming.  More details can be found here.  The free version only allows you to store 6 maps, contains some advertising, and there is the ability to export the map as an image or rtf file (for use in Word etc).  If you are feeling flush you can go for the premium edition (€3.10 per month) this removes the limit on maps and allows more export functions including the ability to include the mind map on your blog or website.

As some of you may be aware I am in ’sunny’ Torquay at the NAACE conference, yesterday I delivered by session on web2.0 in the classroom (you can find most of the sites referred to here).

It has been great to have so much positive feedback and a little constructive negative feedback. This has left me thinking about how to improve and where I believe we should start to go next. What I believe is that it is good to see the practical uses of web2.0 in the classroom whether they be the best use or not, from the primary school blog to the geography tectonics podcast, my use of del.icio.us to the gallery of student work. Where I believe I need to take this next is to start to look in more detail about the effects on teaching and learning from using these technologies, to me it is obvious but that is not the case for everyone.

I think in Shropshire we could be at a tipping point, we have spent the last 18 months or so piloting and developing our use of these technologies but can we start to exploit them even further, using blogs to support boys writing, podcasts to support speaking and listening, del.icio.us to support research etc

I am keen to hear other peoples opinions and set up some collaborations to develop materials to support the use of these technologies in the classroom. Has anyone already developed teaching units, that don’t necessarily teach the technologies but exploit their use.

Tim Curtis from Shrewsbury High School has just created a wiki over at wetpaint where he would like teachers to upload any alternative versions to the SNS KS3 ICT STU’s (too many acronyms). Taken from the site:

Why this site?

To share the knowledge, expertise and creativity of ICT teachers.

Who can contribute?

Anyone. You don’t have to sign up to wetpaint to contribute but it would be great if you did (it will be easier to see who deserves the credit for great ideas).

How does it work?

At KS3, the units are based on the DfES STUs.

If you tweak a lesson, add a comment to that page
If you have rewritten a lesson, add it as an alternative lesson sub-page
If you have rewritten a unit, add it as an alternative unit sub-page
(I’ve tried to set up a typical structure for unit 8.2 - please feel free to add others!)

Get the credit

Add your alternatives with your school in the title of the page. E.g.
Alternative Unit 7.5 from Shrewsbury High School

Other Key Stages and General Stuff

Feel free to develop the structure as necessary. KS4 and KS5 will be set up by qualification and then board.

If you would like to contribute then visit the site (http://teachict.wetpaint.com/)