Template -- Teachers @ Work

Over the past 12 months there has been considerable debate as to the role of wireless technologies within school systems. The concept is a very tempting one; simply place a small grey box somewhere in a cupboard and a wireless card in each computer and students can go anywhere and be connected to the network, the printer, e-mail and the Internet without any wires or cables. Unfortunately reality is quite different with it’s maze of standards, issues of interoperability, conflict with everything from garage door opener's to smart devices, not to mention the cost. So despite these issues, has wireless technology nonetheless reached a point where it should be considered in a school scenario? This paper will hopefully assist you in the decision-making process by addressing the following issues.

If teachers were asked for the perfect "teaching and learning environment" they would probably specify that one of the key components would be access to rich teaching and learning resources (including information, management and communications systems) on demand, at any time, anywhere, any place. At present, access to rich teaching and learning resources relies on the placement of quite expensive, large footprint (they take up a lot of space) devices on the periphery of the classroom so that teachers and learners can individually plug into the network. Teaching is about nuance and unfortunately this configuration, where students are facing away from each other and the teacher, creates a very individualistic environment where much of the incoming information about the learning process via observed subtleties is lost to the teacher. Any time, Anywhere, Anyone A³

From both the teacher and the learner’s point of view the present information and communications infrastructure places severe limitations on all three major expectations: any time, anywhere, anyone. Wireless networks on the other hand allow for students to work in groups, on individual work, working locally, nationally and internationally, from any place within the school at any time that suits them, as long as they have a device that allows them to access the network. Coupled with the ability to place information into an online format quickly and easily via their Knowledge NET, they have immediate access to pre-prepared content created by the teacher, as well as the capacity to create their own content (that is representative of their learning) and to present this information to anyone, anywhere, any time.

Several recent advances in technology have made this concept more possible now than it has been in the past. One of these developments is the arrival of the Centrino chip which means that laptop computers can be smaller, require far less power (meaning that battery life can now be extended to five hours plus) and the savings in weight could translate to affordable improvements in the ruggedness of the exterior and interior of the notebook.

Thanks to the Centrino chip laptop/notebook computers are now far more portable, affordable and robust. The price of Centrino powered notebooks is of the order $US1100-$US1500. To suggest that all students have a notebook (however appealing) would be unrealistic in that such a situation would place a significant burden on the school both in terms of providing access to resources (whether these be e-mail, web or networked resources), and the infrastructure to maintain such a vast collection of notebooks. While a notebook may be a clever technology, it is not the perfect technology for all seasons, and there is still a place for other technologies such as texts, workbooks, posters . . . etc. Once again it is critical that we focus, not on the technology as such, but on making the technology as transparent as possible in order that teachers and students can focus on the teaching and learning processes.

Given the limitations of the technologies we presently have available to us, and the limited funding that is granted to school systems, we would see the optimal number of notebooks/laptops for any given group of 25-30 students as being four or five Centrino powered machines. These machines would preferably sit in a docking station rather than the classroom, such that when the notebook was returned to the docking station it automatically slotted into a powered coupling that recharged the battery. Simple use of a locking bar across the front of the docking station would make security against theft of these notebooks/laptops very affordable.

Students, using their own initiative or under instruction from the teacher, would select a notebook from the docking station and use it as required, returning it to the docking station when they had completed the set task. In a wireless environment the technology can be used as an individual tool while students simply work from where they sit, saving their material to their personal Knowledge NET, or working as a group and saving to the appropriate class page on their Knowledge NET.

The one remaining and considerable challenge in this technological sphere is the inputting of information. Keyboards require typing skills at an age where the technology and the physical development of the child simply do not mesh well. Tablet computing may go some way to meeting this challenge, voice technology is certainly improving BUT the greatest improvement that we could make in terms of minimising this challenge is to refrain from requiring students to present vast amounts of written documentation.

In some cases pages of written material may well be appropriate, but in many situations a more balanced [visual elements]-[written element] approach (as is reflected in the format of successful instructive web sites) would be preferable. Producers of information for presentation to/by students need increasingly to be aware that a good web page will have a considerable amount of information communicated visually. Once again this is a considerable departure from what we have historically expected from our students. The Knowledge NET environment decrees that material be saved in a web format, a practice that encourages students to achieve a more balanced written-visual result. All it takes now is for teachers to encourage this philosophy.

In order to complete the triangle of visual-written-oral communication students should be encouraged to give to their peers an oral report on the information that they have produced in this balanced visual-written format. Assessment; incorporating all three elements (visual oral and written) then becomes realistic, as long as we accept the professional capabilities of our teachers to make judgments based on fixed criteria and then interpreted professionally by professionals.

Teachers therefore should be reducing the amount of written work that needs to be marked while increasing the oral and visual language assessment components. Theoretically this should lead to a reduction in overall time spent on assessment, and consequently a more balanced assessment profile of the student. Considering that from now on, the format for most of the material presented to students will be increasingly web based, this revised format must surely have a more appropriate oral-written-visual balance. Therefore it follows that the formats that students present in, and which we assess, should reflect this change.

The other significant technological advance that teachers can capitalise on is the online availability of digital learning objects. We have been talking for some time about the evolution of these DLO databases and some are starting to take shape. We have included a list of some of the databases that can be accessed and the age range for which they are suitable. The quality of some of the elements on these databases is extraordinary. These repositories don't necessarily come complete as "digital learning objects" but they still provide a wide- ranging set of resources that can be used by teachers in building online units of work within a Knowledge NET environment. As these objects are online teachers only need to either

2. Copy and paste them into their Knowledge NET as part of an overall unit of work.

Digital learning objects are very powerful objects that eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel, and allow teachers to create high-quality units of work that can be tailored to meet the individual needs of students. As these digital learning objects become more available and numerous it will become possible to write units of work at 2, 3 or 4 different levels, for each classroom with less effort than creating one single unit using today’s techniques. This means that the teaching that is happening in the classroom is more focused on the capability of students, and the work more appropriate to their needs, enhancing the potential for more effective learning.

Most of the materials in the table below are copyright and/or royalty free. It should be noted that even though a Knowledge NET is an intranet and not available to the public it is still covered by normal copyright law. For more details on this please see the March issue of the teachers at work newsletter.

DLO Database Name	Year level	No. of DLO’s	Description of contents
KidzOnline	4-13	25 online seminars	The focus of these online video assisted seminars is on information and communication technology. They cover aspects such as digital awareness, the Internet, animation, videoconferencing, information literacy . . . They are free and they are excellent.
COL Knowledge Finder	8-13	1 000 000	The COL knowledge finder indexes about one million documents on education and development from selected websites related to education and development.
Merlot	6-13	100 000	Malone is one of the most established digital learning objects databases. Aimed primarily at century level studies, there are nonetheless numerous digital objects here that would be suitable for numerous secondary school courses as well as upper primary.
MIT course database	12-13	700+ courses	A free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century. It is true to MIT's values of excellence, innovation, and leadership.
LEA ICT learning Object database (click on ICT Learning Objects)	0-8	370	A range of high quality non-web objects including excel, Word, Access, PowerPoint and Publisher that can be downloaded.
Careo	0-13	4000	Campus Alberta Repository of Learning Objects: free membership that allows you to add objects to this repository. Science focus.
SMETE Digital Library	4-13	1500 (approx)	Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology Education
Ilumina	9-13	1000 (approx)	Ilumina is a digital library of sharable undergraduate teaching materials for chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science. It is designed to quickly and accurately connect users with the educational resources they need. These resources range in type from highly granular objects such as individual images and video clips to entire courses.
The Gateway	0-13	39,064	The Gateway to Educational Materials^SM is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. GEM is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
Fathom	4-13	40 online courses (approx)	A collection of online seminars (brilliant!) covering a wide range of topics including Victorian England, undersea animals, Shakespeare, African studies, the pyramids . . . .
Ibiblio		10.000(s) ?? unstated	Ibiblio.org averages 3 million information requests per day, and the contributor-maintained collections are expanding daily. Home to one of the largest "collections of collections" on the Internet, ibiblio.org is a database of freely available information, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies.
FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence)	0-13	24000+	Gateway to Educational Materials, which offers a database of more than 24,000 education resources across more than 400 web sites. This database is made possible by the Federally supported GEM Consortium, a group of non-federal organizations and Federal agencies that have developed an education-specific metadata profile, controlled vocabularies, and tools for using the profile and vocabularies.
Teachers@work	0-13	3500/7200	Reviews of web sites for educators
EOE Foundation		3000+	Java Applet Library. (Click on the Education object economy icon)
Quia	0-13	2000+	Java applet Matching game Flashcards Concentration game Word search puzzle Battleship Challenge, board Columns activity Hangman game, Jumbled words, Ordered list activity, Picture perfect activity Pop-ups, Rags-to-riches game, Scavenger hunt, Cloze activity Patterns. For $US49 you can create your own using their simple applications package
Pict(ure)s for learning	0-13	1000’s (unstated)	Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers.
Free Foto	0-13	50 000	50 000 images that are royalty free for private non-commercial users
Library of Congress	0-13	1 000 000	The Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division is pleased to announce that between January and March 2004, it added thousands of catalog records and images to the Library's Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC), bringing the number of images in the catalog to nearly 1 million.
Discover: Visual Arts and Music	0-13	2500	Discover is a database of visual arts and music resources selected for use by New Zealand schools. Over 2,500 multimedia items are available and almost all are from National Library of New Zealand collections. Access to Discover is free.
Timeframes: NZ Images	0-13	30 000	More than 30,000 images from the Alexander Turnbull Library collections. Most are of early NZ life and people.
Papers Past	5-13	400 000 pages	Papers Past showcases selected 19th century New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The site currently contains digital images of over 600,000 pages from 30 publications.
The Ranfurly Collection	0-13	4000	The Ranfurly Collection is an online collection of paintings and drawings, papers and photographs created by Lord Ranfurly, Governor of New Zealand from 1897 to 1904, and his entourage. Paintings and drawings - two sketch books and seven separate watercolour paintings. Papers - 2,970 pages of letters, account books, diaries and scrapbooks. Photographs - four albums containing 450 photographs plus 24 separate family photographs
Education World	0-13	2000	Not actually a DLO collection but could be used as such without metadata. This is an excellent collection of knowledge items that can be utilised in unit creation. Read copyright information carefully to appreciate limitations on this content. Excellent content.
National Library of Australia Picture Library	0-13	67000	A tremendous collection of both historical and contemporary images covering all aspects of Australia : its people, places and history.