What's in my tool kit?

What’s in my tool kit?

These are some of the skills and tools I have developed over the years which help me better understand digital technologies. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list but an attempt by me to illustrate where I am at in the field of Digital Technologies for Education and beyond.

Software

In the beginning was (the) Word…. MS Word that is, and how useful has that become. Great for creating documents. Then there was MS Publisher. A great tool for developing class handout sheets. Desktop publishing for everyone. I even built my first website using Publisher. A very under-valued tool. But the greatest of all is MS Access, the relational database that has become the standard. I have used this for years in managing student data. Today I use it to produce a variety of On Demand reports.

Other software I can wax lyrical about is Audacity, MovieMaker, Mind Mapping software and the list goes on.

Web development

I think it is important to understand the technology of the web. Right from the beginning I grabbed a hold of Linux and learnt how it worked, how it was installed and what you could do with it. Installing an Apache web server with Mysql and PHP was essential learning. Being able to install content management systems and learning management systems helped me to get an early appreciation of how to manage online learning.

Using a LMS like Moodle effectively means that students can be provided with online assignments video and audio casts, self marking tests, collaborative tools like forums, wikis and chat boxes along with other activities and resources. This gives students the capacity for 24/7 learning and personal feedback. It also changes the way teachers manage their learning tasks. There are heaps of tools associated with delivering content across the web. Tools like Camtasia and Captivate mean that instructional materials can induce some interactivity as well as a level of choice for the user.

Today we have the vast resources of Google at hand, and most of it is free for education. Google Apps for Education opens up a vast resource which allows students to collaborate and develop resources that are not constrained by a single software bound computer. But it goes deeper than that. Having a programming knowledge of Java Script allows the user to tap into the power of Google services and integrate these apps in a multitude of ways. Google App Engine provides a cloud environment which holds incredible value for Education.

Today Education is moving exclusively to the cloud. Devices such as iPad, Chromebook and the menagerie of Android devices indicate a steady thrust in this direction. Not only is an Internet connection mandatory at all schools these days but many State secondary schools are financing their own connections so they can take advantage of good, reliable connection speed. Students are making their own contributions by bringing data rich phones into the classroom. These bypass troublesome blocking software and allow students to take charge of their own digital environment. With the development of G5 LTE and the drop in the cost of bandwidth no doubt students will increasingly enjoy their own freedoms. Being able to provide free resources such as iBooks for iPad and EPUB’s for Google books adds to the variety in which a school can provide resources for students.

Data

One further area which I find fascinating is the use of data in schools. I use Excel and Access to mash data and analyse it in a variety of formats. Web sites such as Student Performance Analyser (SPA) and the VCAA web service also do a great job in breaking data down to give schools a better picture of learning. But to really make the data truly context sensitive I learned the data programming language ‘R’. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made in terms of understanding data and has opened many doors to other strategies I can use to affect student learning.

Some areas which are drawing my attention for the future is (in no special order);

• learning more from my contemporaries through LSDA and other avenues such as DLTV
• learning how to better lead staff in my school in the area of Digital Technology
• learning a programming language properly like Python.
• get better at using R and Rstudio
• develop web applications using MS SQL server and Google App Engine
• really study the philosophy behind the Revised Bloom Taxonomy
• plan and write better digital technology courses for my students.

I am continually challenged by the way my colleagues use Digital Technologies to affect real learning and I still have much to learn.