Friday, January 15, 2010

As a school we have had Moodle, Studywiz and now Google Docs. But what I really want as a primary school teacher is.

  • Google Wave type tool (PrimaryPad) with colour-coding for pupils and secure chat based within the tool. Either text or even better voice chat. Should be secure within the school domain only to start but with the option to allow wider sharing as pupils age/maturity allow.
  • An email system but it should limit children to only email within the current domain. When children get to a certain age or prove themselves responsible then they should be able to email outside the domain. All good security setting and spam filters. Any rubbish that looks like its being rude, should email to teacher so that he/she can discuss netiquette with the children.
  • Expanded collaborative document system similar to Google Docs to include word processor, spreadsheet, slide presenter, mind-mapping, drawing. All of those can only be shared within the school apart from projects that we agree might be collaborative with other schools or other countries.
  • A linked website builder which children can built sites similar to Google Sites, but with the ability to publish things outside the domain once permission is given by a teacher.
  • A secure chat system that records the chat in case of a cyber bullying incident. Like children to have the ability to do video chat. Chat facilities to overlay any of the other collaborative facilities as well. Video chat and text chat should be part of the other collaborative processes. Like the ability to switch this off for children who can't cope with that level of maturity.
  • Equivalent of their own workspace - their wall. A mix of a facebook style discussion wall for posting. Children should be able to set up their own subgroups/communities. Initiate discussions about the next learning phase, negotiating curriculum.
  • All of this should be on a single signup somewhere.
  • These facilities should be available all the way through their educational history. There should be graduated versions of these facilities; skinned appropriately to look fun and funky in the reception.
  • Take the same system "out there" into the wild" at the end of pupils formal education . Dis-establishing it from the system. Kid keeps all of their tools and the parts of the network that they want, but it's no longer linked to a specific network (a school or college or university).
  • When a kid gets over a certain age/maturity level they can start porting in bits and pieces from other outside agencies/services. (I hate all this constantly having to set up a new thing all the time.)
  • A media repository - upload their own pictures securely. Provide a shared e-locker for material created in other mediums (e.g. a drawing or 3-D model in another piece of software).
  • The ability to link/create/arrange targets, targets they write/drag from banks of child friendly targets collaboratively with the teacher. System detects when a child is working on a target and prompts for verbal or textual reflection.
  • Should be a teacher marking system, plus a peer-monitoring system. So that children can give each other feedback for their contribution to collaborative activities. All that set of data should pull into the same system as teacher grading.
  • I would like some sort of portfolio system - children should be able to star any bits of their contributions from any tool in the system, and they would be gathered together as "my best bits". These are things that I'm proudest of that I want to share with my mum or my granny.
  • A testing quiz system that is easy to create and store banks of questions much like the Moodle Quiz tool but pupils would be able to create questions and quizzes as well as teachers.
  • I would like all this for free.
  • The social networking, communicating tools would be always on top and available within any of the creative tools unless an educator switched them off for a specific activity.
 Thanks to @lescarr for his thoughts and help on this



4 comments:

  1. Hi Phil, you can enable pupils to create questions in Moodle - see http://docs.moodle.org/en/Question_creator_role

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  2. This is an inspirational and aspirational list, I totally support the idea that all digital stuff should port with them for a lifetime. Like they are born with a digital id, storage etc. I strongly agree they should be on a path where filtering from the big bad stuff is gradually eased and they are helped to find their way through adult content in a supportive environment with a confident adult to guide them through. They should be allowed to be social where possible. Social is good! Blocking and banning is not in their best interests.

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  3. Thanks for your comments Lesley I totally agree that social is king and that kids need safe places to be social.
    Maybe the cloud can deliver this eventually

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  4. Phil your thinking and vision is (as usual) innovative, creative and inspiring!

    Could you add the list above to http://lifeisaboutlearning.com/help-shape-life/ so that we can turn your vision and ideas into a reality? (You've kindly already added to this blog, but the list above goes much further). The Life learning cloud can make all these ideas happen, and I'd love to see a Windows 7 advert moment of "I made that!". Phil Bagge drives educational technology innovation... (again!)

    Reading your post above it's clear that you have a plethora of learning opportunities in mind that you know will become avaliable as a result of the technology being able to facilitate the things you describe above. Could you add these to your list?

    You have the expertise of knowing how the technology impacts on the learning, which is something that many are still discovering, and I think your list provides the perfect opportunity to help with this.

    ReplyDelete

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