Conferencia Bibliotecas Públicas 2018

Today a group of our student makers and librarians had the great honour of presenting at the Public Library Conference, which is taking place at the National Theatre in downtown San Salvador this week.

This conference runs over several days and brings together librarians from all over the country to engage in important discussions and share ideas.

Our presentation was a bit longer than we anticipated, but we were able to pack in everything we had planned on sharing.  We spoke first to the group about free,  innovation tools that everyone can access and use to document, promote and engage in creative, innovative design work in their libraries. We spoke about the various projects that run through LRC, including support of school activities and events, theme weeks and department liaisons.  We also took the opportunity to offer useful tips, and a resource bank for those interested in building creative initiatives in their institutions.

The highlight of the presentation however, for much of the audience and for us as members of staff, came about halfway through when  our students stood up to speak about their social impact projects. The audience was blown away by the thought and initiative that students employed in designing and implementing their projects. They were decidedly impressed, just as we are, by the dedication and passion they demonstrated about their work supporting the  UN SDGs.   This is the second time the students have presented this work, the first being the recent Library 2.0 Social Crisis online conference.


It is truly inspiring to work with these students as they actively search out opportunities, invest heavily of their time and effort, and engage themselves both emotionally and academically in the practical implementation of their school values, in their quests to think globally and act locally.

Here is the link to the photos on Flickr including a short tutorial for attendees on how to build plastic bag sleeping mats for the homeless. 

Crazy Talk Rappers

This is our 4th year running the A Better World Project, and it is ageing very well. We have come a long way from that first year. When we first started out we were using Blabberize to produce rapping images, then we introduced student performances. Eventually with the arrival of our first set of iPads, we began creating characters with even more movement using Morfo.

This year the project has taken yet another turn. We have pretty much removed student performances. We thought in retrospect,  that while some were very good, others really took away from the focus of the rap video. We also worried that some may have been misconstrued as being insensitive to the topic.We have left performance work as an extension option this year, meaning that only the high fliers will be doing this.

We had intended to run the project exclusively on iPads this year, working with Google Drive for collaborative lyric writing, Garageband for music production, Morfo for digital rappers and iMovie for the final video production, however that too has changed.

We purchased Crazy Talk this school year for 13 of our computers and it has really revolutionised the project. Using Crazy Talk our kids are able to creating digitalised rappers from almost any digital image. These rappers are capable of a great deal and really come alive for the students.

So we are back on the Macs, using Google Drive, Garageband, iMovie, Crazy Talk and Wikispaces.  The kids are loving it and so are we.

I have included a video example from one of our recent projects below. You can access all the projects from this year as they are posted and from prior years on the project wiki.

Peace One Day at the LRC

One person can make a huge difference and Peace One Day's founder, Jeremy Gilley is living proof of that. Every September 21st, since it's foundation in 1999, Peace One Day has promoted peace around the world, through campaigns in the arts, sports, online and in Education.

The idea that "No matter how small, everyday acts of kindness can help make peace a reality..." (http://peaceoneday.org/)  is a power concept. If each of us can make a difference through our daily interactions with others, just imagine the change that can be brought about through slightly grander initiatives.

This year, the LRC did it's part for peace, on the educational front. Our ICT team, the LRC staff members and a member of the English team continued our work with a very special group of teachers from certain public schools in the San Vicente area. This work is strictly voluntary and run in conjunction with a small group of Canadian fundraisers who have made it their goal to do make a difference in the lives of young people, their families and education in El Salvador.

A year ago we embarked on a journey, in which we targeted a talented group of ICT teachers from the San Vicente area. The project involves working with the group on a wide variety of learning activities, exemplifying current methodology in teaching and learning with technology. The sessions are intense, packed with fun, exploration and reflection. The hub for this learning is the LRC's ABC Inset page in which resources are accessible to participants 24/7.

Today's session was the 5th of 6 in total, which will be held at the LRC. The focus was online gaming in education and online learning projects. Two special guest speakers, from our 8th and 9th grades , gave the teachers a first hand look at the potential that Minecraft and World of Warcraft offer for learning. The teachers, all of whom were excited by these ideas, ended up spending over an hour busily building and working together on our school Minecraft server.

During the second half of the day, the focus moved to planning an online project. In doing so, participants had to reflect on the different learning experiences they had been involved in over the past year. There were no limits imposed. The projects could have been large, small, done individually or in groups.  The teachers were responsible for identifying the age levels and skills, they wanted to target. Their choice of tools reflected each individual teacher's  situation, teaching groups and school settings.The planning was done using a shared template in Google Docs.

The range of projects that they came up with are varied and interesting: social networking using a Facebook page, an arts and culture blog for the community, using social networks to focus on reading, production and editing of videos, audio and images and  Geography and tourism through images and videos.

This phase of the project is coming to a close. It will end on December 7th of this year. This doesn't mean it is over however. The journey will continue. The learning will continue, through the collaborative efforts of those involved. The learning will happen at their schools, online, and as part of the learning community they have become.

Happy Peace One Day 2013!
Who will you make peace with today and every day?

GTA 6 Month Reflection

It has been 6 months since I had the pleasure of attending the Google Teacher Academy in London. I learned a great many new things at the Academy, many of which I have been able to apply in my teaching and also pass on to teachers at my school and those in my community. It is a great feeling to be a part of this process, sharing ideas with others and watching them get excited about them. It is often the  little things that make an impact. People find them easier to take on and are usually keen in identifying those skills, or tools that they can make best use of.

As part of the  GCT process I had to draw up an action plan. I could have chosen to create a teaching website but I already had one, or the training that I do at school, but again that would have been cheeky of me as teaching and supporting teachers is part of my job. We were asked to choose something that would make a difference, change the world so to speak. I had received a proposal from an NGO in Canada to help establish a learning lab for underprivileged students living in the countryside, in El Salvador. That is what I chose to build my action pan around.

Things don't always turn out quite as expected. We had big dreams for the lab and still do, however our initial ideas have been put on hold.  It has been difficult find a safe location for the lab, that also provides easy access for the students. Instead we have focussed our energy on working with the teachers who will be using the lab once it comes to be.

We are programmed to begin our first Saturday session this coming Friday, and will meet once a month for training sessions, until Christmas. After that our meetings will take place once every 3 months. I have set up a progression of topics that we are going to focus on and produced a schedule for them. We will begin with communication and collaboration and culminate in working on setting up an online presence for the teachers to use with their students and community.

Here is the progression for the project:

Change does not come easily. It requires patience and plenty of hard work. Forgive the cliche, but it is often true that even the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. In this case I have taken a detour and am following a detour I had planned to travel slightly later on in the process. My action plan will take at least a year to bring full circle and their is plenty to be done during that time. 

What makes it worth the effort is the enthusiasm of the individuals involved, those helping to make the change happen, either as teachers or supporters and those who through this process will be the ones to bring about a multitude of change, as they take their learning back and implement their ideas in their own schools and classrooms. 

I will be reflecting on this journey as we progress through it during this year, and am excited to be able to share our milestones with anyone who is interested in reading about them. 

A Better World Project

The Quest

I have spent a good part of the day restructuring what's left of the 6th grade ICT curriculum for this year. This inevitably prompted me to embark on a quest  in cyberspace, the objective of which was to hunt down inspirational ideas for our 6th grade student video work this year.  In doing so, I revisited an amazing presentation our headmaster shared with me and dug around until I found what I was looking for. Splice and dub videos really caught my attention. They can be quite novel when done well and differ from any other video work we do at the ABC.

The Creative Internet 106 Things

The Topic

Now, at  ISTE 2010, after Rischard's less than enthralling yet still poignant keynote,  I made a promise to myself and my students. I would search out ways to work global awareness into our ICT projects, and focus on the Millennium Goals whenever possible. I decided that our video work this year should revolve around student messages which convey their ideas for making the world a better place. 

Parking

Lately, when planning and teaching, I find myself  in the curious position of being wiki dependent. I can't fathom working without one, so I created yet another one, This wiki will be used to share student digital projects which focus on ideas for making the world a better place. 

The Plan

Our first project will take place in mid January. For this activity the 6th grade students will create a short spliced and dubbed video in small groups using different characters and/or objects to share their plan for making the world a better place. As soon as the videos are ready they will be embedded in the wiki. 

The Invitation
It is our hope that other schools will become interested in this work and take on an "A Better World" activity using some form of digital media, which can then be added to the wiki. If you are interested in your school taking part in this. please contact me by asking to join the wiki or via email (jennifergarcia@abc-net.edu.sv) so that I can give you access.

Scratch and Millennium Goals

Image via WikipediaThe 8th grade students have initiated their Scratch programming projects this year, with a focus on the United Nations Millennium Goals. Students are very much directing their own learning in this project. Each student has chosen a goal to build a Scratch project around and will also choose the type of project they will create. We look forward to sharing them with you soon.

GMail and Google Docs for Project Work

Every student in KS3 now has a Gmail account. These accounts are superior in many ways to our traditional email service, and include such exciting options as video, audio and text chat. One of the many applications that comes with a Gmail account is Google Docs. Using Google Docs students can upload documents, as well as create them online. Document types include presentations, text  and spreadsheets and can be published as web pages and/or shared with others wishing to view or collaborate on them.

Just imagine the potential! A group of students must  produce a project. They are not allowed to get together outside of school in order to work on it, but can get together virtually, writing to the same document at each student's convenience, not only when it is convenient for the group. They can also chat about their work in real time with either text, audio or video chat and practice presentations in front of their groups as they run them in Google Docs and view the presenters through video chat. This is one powerful learning tool!

PS... (This is a bit Big Brotherish which is why teachers will love it) It is really easy to check and see who has done what on a project...just click on the page history and it is all there!