ICTs and Pedagogy

"Pre Service Teacher EdFest is a free national virtual conference which will be filmed and the live streamed right here from 11:00am-2:00pm AEST on July 30th. No registration is required to be part of the event, simply tune in below. We welcome your ideas and questions leading up to and during the event via twitter and the #PSTEdFest tag (shown at right of screen)."

Found this guy's channel while trying to learn more about google docs. He has  a number of videos explaining how to use various technology in the classroom. Might be useful for those of use trying to get our head around what we can use, when and how.

A description of the 1st one-to-one laptop program in the world (at a Melbourne-based private school). The important aspect of this is the purpose behind this program and how that differs from what has happened since. Arguably, how computers and computing devices are being used in schools has radically decreased even though the capability of the technology has radically increased.

I found this article really interesting after an experience in two year seven classes a few weeks ago. I was asked to help two grade 7 classes for the first 2 periods for three weeks. In that time, I wandered around quietly paying particular attention to what the students were actually doing on their laptops. I noticed on many occasions, several of the children were actually entertaining themselves by just "pottering" around on their laptop, even while the teacher was explicitly teaching. I was really curious to know how much the majority of students were actually learning. The class environment was relatively quiet compared to schooling in my day (in the '70's and '80's) but I had the thought, if laptop programs are NOT successful, we have a big problem that may not be confirmed for a decade or so. The other thing I found interesting is that the majority of the year 7's had done extremely poorly on their ICT exams.... interesting...

Specific apple apps for special education

ICT and literacy Provides online learning tools for literacy development.

Journal paper talking about "digitized health and physical education". "The emergence of digitized health and physical education, or 'eHPE', embeds software algorithms in the organization of health and physical education pedagogies. Particularly with the emergence of wearable and mobile activity trackers, biosensors and personal analytics apps, algorithmic processes have an increasingly powerful part to play in how people learn about their own bodies and health. This article specifically considers the ways in which algorithms are converging with eHPE through the emergence of new health-tracking and biophysical data technologies designed for use in educational settings. The first half of the article provides a conceptual account of how algorithms 'do things' in the social world, and considers how algorithms are interwoven with practices of health tracking. In the second half, three key issues are articulated for further exploration: (1) health tracking as a 'biopedagogy' of bodily optimization based on data-led and algorithmically mediated understandings of the body; (2) health tracking as a form of pleasurable self-surveillance utilizing data analytics technologies to predict future bodily probabilities and (3) the ways that health-tracking produces a body encased in an 'algorithmic skin', connected to a wider 'networked cognitive system'. These developments and issues suggest the need for greater attention to how algorithmic systems are embedded in emerging eHPE technologies and pedagogies."

A blog post (was an article) making the argument that blogging is now an essential literacy. Includes many of the arguments why EDC3100 students are required to blog. It's now just about the end of the S1, 2015 offering of EDC3100. I wonder what the folk in that offering think of this and blogs. I know I've seen a few express some disquiet about the value of blogging.

The future of education? A "charming robot teacher" that can "not only give lecture according to the teaching material, but also communicate with students".

Study into the evaluation of the implementation of the Australian professional Standards for Teachers

http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-teachers/my-standards-application An app for smartphones to make it easier to record artefacts for teaching standards (on-the-go). Good for prac.

Are the leaders in your school and/or school district digitally connected? Being a connected educator today is one of the most important hallmarks of effective twenty-first century leadership. How ...