Kristianstill

No, not ’shut up and move on,’ but a rather impressive in browser image editor, SUMO. Yes, I like our Serif draw, but more and more we (staff and students) are using GIMP as their image editor of choice. Now Dr Pic was neat for quick touch ups, picnik was good for photos, SUMO is designed for image creation rather than editing. SUMO offers selection tools, gradients, paint bucket, layers and blending modes and some filters as well. Add brushes, opacity and others (the symmetry tool is neat) and its an impressive tool.

What makes this site interesting to me, is the community behind it. Sumo has a fully fledged community and gallery. Will our students be able to share their art with more people than walk the corridors at Hamble College? Really, if you have time go and look at the art on show.

Sadly, during our Ministers presentation at SSAT, we were not able to see his presentation due to a corrupt USB drive. I was saddened that no-one in his support team had shown him one of the many remote services. He are two FREE solutions;

LogMeIn (Windows/Mac)

LogMeIn offering a quick, no-hassle set up to remotely control your computer from the comfort of any web browser. LogMein has Free and Pro accounts, with the pro account adding more features to the service, including drag-and-drop file transfer, file sync, and meeting tools.

There are a number of other remote access solutions, there Remote Desktop Connection in WIndows and uNVC for example.

OR upload your Powerpoint to a hosting services, available for download by delegates, students or not, its your choice, but always there as a backup. Slideshare and Authorstream (which I blogged about previously). Or use an online Office solution.

There are other options, but thats more than enough.

Another inspiring student presentation with wow factor, I forget to mention the Pearl of Africa, impressive. A modern Step Up performance with great music and costume. An overview of the impact of federation was supported by series of shorter presentation by future leaders. Given the chance to lead early in their careers these presentation provided a number of take home messages for established leaders. For me the messages, although subtly different, were often repeated. Of course, this may have been the point?

This was supreme;y well supported by the final Keynote that had the audience agreeing, smiling wryly and nodding in agreement. This is one presenter to keep a track off! Richard Reeves was the highlight, the surprise package, of the SSAT 16th conference for me. Every bit a modern presenter. Great delivery, very enjoyable but also informative and a sophisticated presentation zen slide approach.

Now the highlight for me, was following the presentation I met with Jenny Lycett the web editor. The thought that a simple request may get the students performance uploaded to website was a positive end to my personal conference. There will be a fantastic resource to staff and inspiration to students at the possibilities available to them.

The conversation then progressed and we discussed how blogging the conference may help share the aims of the SSAT (I didn’t originally blog the conference for that aim, but for my own professional development). There was a potential opportunity for Hamble Digital Leaders to visit the Conference next year and cover the conference using some of the more current aspects of digital media, blogging as I have done, but also mobloging (blogging live) and Ustreaming some of the break out sessions. IMHO I was surprised that SSAT were not already considering Ustreaming this? All it would take would be low spec camcorders, operators (students) and the organisation of those students and the whole conference would be recorded and streamed live to a global audience. Did I mention it was free. Sir Ken could watch from California.

Just to challenge the SSAT here is a Ustreamed Keynote, where the presenter, Chris Lehmann talked about some of the fantastic ICT innovations and projects currently being used at The Science Leadership Academy.  Granted, the quality is not fantastic, but the message is and that message was – ‘that tools don’t teach. Teachers do.’ Enjoy.

The 3rd week, and the 3rd week of growth. Thats great news. This is a credit to Andrew Sangster, my colleague for all the hard work he has put into the project so far. More good news, on Monday we received positive feedback on the DMGC Leader proposal. While there is still work to do on the final pitch, it has been very well received ticking a number of key funding foci. We are addressing inclusion, attendance, leadership, encouraging low aspirational white working class males to get involved in extra-curricular studies albeit with the caveat of gaming at the end of the session and ICT for girls. Of course we get to write our own curriculum for the workshops, now thats fun teaching. No specification to restrict you, no fear of failure for the staff or the students, we can go where the learning takes us and there is no deadline. When the students exhaust the software, we will change or rather they will tell us that they have had enough. Watch this space.

Now a reminder to self – in GIMP we are trying to create the posters for ICT at Hamble College. What if we created the artwork for the next SSAT conference and sent it in??

A enjoyable start to the day with a  seminar style event with Sir Ken Robinson, only problem was the booking system delayed the start and frustrated a fair few delegates and of course restricted the time we had to hear him speak and confer with the audience. Technology, you can’t rely on it? Disappointingly, just ask the Minister if you dont believe me.

We then looked around the exhibition, I liked one or two products, in particular nComputing who were offer low-cost virtualization software /hardware to tap into the unused capacity of the classroom PCs and share it with other users. 1 PC acting as a host to 6 PCs.

Benefits are; creating desktop space, dramatically reducing your e-waste and recycling costs and a reduction in power, well your are only running 1 PC for 6 access points. All PCs are recognised by any classroom management software you have running.

Another interesting product was Vivo Miles. Vivo Miles is a very comprehensive rewards and sanction system and very current in its design and application. Plugins allow it to integrate with websites and they have plans to marry up with the VLE providers. A powerful way to raise standards but also for students understand and achieve economic well-being. Its a schools club card – complete with its own hole in the wall. What I will note, is that its visual presentation is excellent, a very web vogue, social networked, internet market place user interface will, IMHO engage.

Next Sir Michael Barber, again a very impressive public speaker offering an aliens aural feedback from a recent Earth inspection – the written feedback to be posted later. Outlining where perhaps organisational failing are impacting on education. Concluding with E(K+T+L) an the equation / solution left by the aliens to prompt thinking. That Knowledge plus Thinking plus Leadership underpinned by ethics is required for effective leadership, and from his tone, not only in education.

Charles Leadbeater - web thinker / innovator highlighted the shareability of the web, and that term again, web 2.0. For the SSAT conference, I felt that the pitch was excellent, as web innovators / enthusiasts often engulf their audience with techno speak / babble. I wise decision considering the next keynote information….

‘The web allows them (Charles Leadbeater referred mainly to learners, which this context inferred students, but I am confident his view is broader than that) not just to publish but to share and connect, to collaborate and when the conditions are right, to create, together, at scale.’

His analogy of big organisations as boulders, including schools, being hard to move was coupled with the new technologies as pebbles more fluid and flexible, slowly swamping the cumbersome boulders. I enjoyed the analogy of User Generate Content (UGC) as pebbles, but I think the boulders are a little further up the beach than he perhaps presented, but that would have been a far less impressive communique. And yes, perhaps Google and little brother Youtube are the best pebble examples in the mainstream. In fairness he touched on others, World of Warcarft, Sims, Flickr.

(What would a seminar follow up with? Twitter? Social BookMarking)

Should any educator stumble upon the post FREE animation tools and some great examples! Now stickman may look simple, but our Year 7s and 8s spend hours creating and share it and there is a huge back channel / community sharing ideas.

Finally, the impact of generations and eras on leaders and leadership and Dr Graeme Codrington keynote. Although not obvious to me as an aspiring young teacher, this is very important. Ironically, it was as important to the seasoned professionals in the audience. It would appear, few of the professionals in the audience, either young or seasoned, had fully considered the imapct of their default settings on colleagues they worked with. Something to reflect upon. Dr Graeme Codrington has promised that these slides will be available but a short cut to the download section of his site.

So, another very good day. Now for the informal learning.