Dr Baldev Singh and Web 2.0 in a Very Tall Building
Yesterday (9th November) I attended a seminar hosted by Softease in Manchester's tallest building, the Beetham Tower. I have never been into the building and I was very keen to do so, the fact that I could also hear Dr Baldev Singh talk was a bonus. I confess that I hadn't come across his name when the invitation landed in my inbox, perhaps because a lot of his work has been international, and he doesn't currently maintain a personal blog (big hint to you, Baldev!). However, a quick scan of his website will reveal involvement in an impressive diversity of projects.
Also on the agenda was an introduction to Softease's brand new, soon to be launched, Honeycomb project presented by Doug Dickinson.
Baldev's presentation was excellent, packed with interesting examples of Web 2.0 in action from lots of different sources. His message was a simple one: web 2.0 can engage children in lots of new ways and has the power to deepen the learning that is going on, as well as allowing children to break out of the curriculum and follow their own paths. Clearly influenced by David Warlick's idea of the teacher as tour guide.
He also showed some excellent tools, one in particular blew me away: Voicethread. I'm amazed that I haven't come across this tool before. It allows you to uplaod an image, or series of images, amd then your audience can add voice comments on them. Here's a very simple one I started to get some comments for a conference I'm presenting at next week at Wigan and Leigh College. I'd appreciate anyone taking their time to add a comment of their own.
If you get a chance to hear Baldev, take it, he is an engaging and informative speaker.
The best bit for me was a validation of many of the things I've done as a teacher - he mentioned Microsoft Producer, for instance - it's a PowerPoint/Moviemaker hybrid that's free to download for users of PowerPoint 2003 and gives you the ability to combine slides, movies and sound in a multimedia presentation. I was using this at Crumpsall Lane four years ago! Anybody want any INSET on this?
Honeycomb
Honeycomb is Softease's answer to the challenge that Web 2.0 presents to schools. In an article John Naughton wrote for the Observer newspaper in January he bemoaned the over emphasis on skills teaching in ICT and, in particular the heavy concentration on Microsoft Office. This, he argues, is turning children away from ICT in school in order to focus on all the simple and engaging stuff they can do with their mobile phone, Youtube, Facebook and Myspace etc. Honeycomb is an attempt to provide a set of cool tools that will engage children in a way that asking them to produce yet another PowerPoint simply won't. The launch at BETT in January is only the first step along the road for what is clearly a major development project. So far, they have developed a web portal which allows each student to have a website and a blog. These can also act as wikis with group access. The famous Softease "click anywhere and type" philosophy is seen throughout and makes it very simple for anyone to create a multi-media homepage and blog.
They have also included a couple of widgets to start things off (with clearly a long list of potential others to add) and a load of teacher review tools to ensure that staff can keep simple tabs on what children are doing. There are also a host of tiered security features to allow schools to manage access. Getting this right from the start is a major challenge as the two key inhibitors to uptake of Web 2.0 tools in school in my experience are perceived workload issues (not true if you embed it it in your teaching) and perceived security issues (cyberbullying and inappropriate stuff being published). If Softease can build teacher confidence with this aspect of the product straightaway, then they could be on to a winner (as long as the price is right - ever the issue for school!).
It's a fascinating project and I hope to bring you some screen shots when I've been given trial access to the development portal. One to follow for sure.
Useful Links from Baldev Singh:
www.voicethread.com Voice comments on presentations
www.jellycast.com Very cheap podcast hosting
www.walkit.com Track routes simply and count carbon saved, limited coverage at the moment
www.zentation.com Presentation and video combined on the web
Channel 4 Clipbank Channel 4 clips that you can download and edit (yes, edit)
And my Web 2.0 wiki (startup) please feel free to edit and add your opinion.
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