ALIAschools PD – Collect, connect and collaborate

Attended a great PD on Saturday.  ALIASchools Term 4 PD was with Judy O’Connell from CSU.  I have followed her blog Heyjude for may  years now. She presented and lead the discussion on two topics Collect, Connect & Collaborate andVirtual worlds.

The first session was Collect, connect and collaborate and it challenged us to be more active in our online presence sharing and collaborating with other TLs and teachers; and to be proactive in facilitating changes in teaching and learning that is happening in our school.  She spoke about the need for us to have personal web tools and content curation tools.  We were shown a variety of web tools that we should include in our own suite of tools  for our own professional learning including blogs, wikis, facebook, twitter, linkedin, diigo, evernote, flickr,  Ning, Google Hangout, Edmodo, Zotero,  MOOC, Portal2. Also ways to resturcture how we organise and share with others.  How to use Curation tools for assisting staff and students locate resources on topics using tools such as Pinterest and Scoop.IT.

We then had time on computers to explore some of the tools that Judy had been showing us.  The sharing and help by those who were familiar with a tool with those who were struggling was great to see.
The session on Virtual Worlds showed us how gaming can be used to assist in learning.  We need to build on the students natural curiosity to explore and use their imagination in using these games and so develop and build  their skills and knowledge.  We were shown a range of games that are being used including minecraft, quantumvictoria; FBI cyber surf islands.
After this great morning with Judy O’Connell I spent some time with my grandchildren.  When I arrived they were playing games on their mothers ipad so I mentioned to them about some of the games that we had been shown.  Of minecraft (which I hadn’t come across until this PD) – Mr 9 says “I love that.  and all the levels and things that you can do – but it is better on the computer than the ipad”

Now I need to get online to explore all these tools that Judy spoke about that  I haven’t used to any great extent and be more active with those that I already use to some extent and see how I can use them better and smarter with teachers and students.    If only there was more time in the day to do all that we would like to.  Burt if I follow some of Judy’s advise on how to use the tools smarter maybe I can.