3- The integration of technology

The title of this post is very deliberately not just “ICT”. ICT by itself, for itself is pointless to me, yet so often I get asked about what I can teach people to add “bangs and flashes” into their lessons. I just really hope that in the near future we can start to use tools with a more long term perspective, from the blogs to provide a platform for the world, with the classroom becoming a transparent space for anyone who wants to look in to a certain extent, to my beloved podcasts, but also to using tools such as Voicethread to help develop purpose for speaking and writing, especially when harnessed using a creative context. But thanks to the inspirations provided by Steve Bunce and Suzi Bewell I really want to investigate the potential of storytelling more, something I used to have great fun with in a unit where I got my year 10s to write a Christmas fairytale to perform for a primary. Again, the concept of writing and creating for a purpose with an element of the performance, all of which I see as being crucial to developing engagement levels. Although Xtranormal has introduced a charging scale, it still remains an excellent free tool even with just the basics available. The other thing that I really want to learn more about this year is Edmodo, the concept of reaching out beyond school walls using tools which are familiar to our pupils, exactly the kind of concept I’ve been presenting about for the last 4 or so years and building on my interest in using mobiles for that same reason- if that’s how they want to communicate, let’s enable them to do so.