Interview with Paul Sibson - audio files

I am still trying to find a way of breaking the interview down into separate files that I can upload. So, in the meantime, here is the whole interview. I have found a way to store it online using boxnet.com

You can listen to the interview by following this link:

http://www.box.net/shared/1y1h3iskj6

Below is a list of questions/topics that were discussed in the interview:

Question 1: Can you briefly outline the relationship between teaching/learning and interactive technologies (like blogging) in your school?

Question 2: Are there advantages in changing teaching pedagogy to meet these new demands and possibilities by using this technology?

Question 3: And that must be great for parents too, to have that instant feedback. Have you had a good response from parents?

Question 4: What about the response from staff members? Because it must be hard thing for some of them to get up to speed with the new technologies.

Question 5: What does the concept of digital literacy mean to you?

Question 6: Security and digital safety is an important component of a programme like this. How have you gone about it in your school?

Question 7: Are you finding too that a lot of these (skills that are being gained through using these technologies) seem to be drawing into the key competencies?

Question 8: Have you had much ministry support in terms of implementation within the school?

Question 9: I saw that you have your own blog site as principal. Where did the decision come from to use that?

Question 10: In terms of communication. Have you had any exciting connections made through the use of blogs?

Question 11: What would your advice be to a beginner teacher who wanted to start up a blog but had no prior experience with one?

12: We use blogs in all sorts of different ways….

13: Comments and connections through the blog

An Interview with Paul Sibson - Principal of Fendalton School

Fendalton School has a very innovative approach to the use of ICT in their school. I was interested in finding out their principal's thoughts on the role of interactive digital technologies like blogs within their school.

Question 1:

Frustration - how to upload audio files

I am editing my interview with the principal of Fendalton school. I am splitting the files so that they are divided up according to the interview questions.
Ideally I had hoped that I would then be able to upload these to my blog so that under each interview question would be a link to the response as an audio file,

BUT I don't seem to be able to upload audio-files - only videos or photos - I am still trying to find a way around this.

Rm 17 'experts' share their experiences....

I also spent some time talking to a few 'experts' from Rm 17.

There were some technical difficulties with the video recording which meant that we only got a couple of minutes at the end to re-cap - I have edited it and it can be viewed below:



What else did I learn?

- They shared a lot of the same frustrations that we had talked about as a whole class. One major one affecting their ability to blog is the internet speed. This was demonstrated by the fact that we spent 30mins outside chatting and in that time we were only able to download two internet pages. The students described the way this often made them less enthusiastic to post blogs because of the frustrations that they encounter during the process. It definitely left me thinking about the ways in which successful implementation of a process like blogging can at times be beyond your control when you encounter these kinds of problems (and something that doesn't look like it will be solved any time soon in NZ).

- The students said that the best thing about blogging was the ability for people to provide feedback on their blogs e.g. I really liked this part of your story. It was really interesting to see that they like the constructive feedback that was given, and the ways in which is was functioning as a form of formative assessment for students in their writing. Students also liked to provide feedback to other students so it appeared to be very much a two way process of writing and providing constructive feedback.

- The students described the way their parents provided comments on their posts and like to see what they were doing in class.

- The students explained the digital safety rules that they have in place (these are displayed in the classroom alongside the fire and earthquake safety rules). They described the way they only use their first names when posting because "someone might see us and find out who we are and want to kidnap us". They were very much aware of the serious risks that could be associated with their posting, but also appeared comfortable because of the rules that are in place.

- The students I spoke with preferred to use a blog over writing in their books, but they like to make sure they have it 'right' before they post things. They described the frustration of reading things with spelling mistakes.

- An exciting connection had been made between their classroom blog and a blog of a class in the North Island. The students said it was exciting to be able to post on their wall and to know that another class in NZ was interested in what they were doing in Rm 17.

- Students said that it was usually a 'first in, first served' approach to who could blog. Blogging is also listed as one of the 'can do' activities that students can work on once they have finished set work. It was also a popular activity on a Monday morning when students wanted to share what they had done in their weekends.



- We also talked about what makes an interesting blog post - how do you decide what to read and comment on. Students described things like 'headings' and the 'topic' being deciding factors in what they choose to read and comment on. Extra additions like photos or video clips also made posts more appealing.

Visiting the experts.....Rm 17 Students

I visited Rm 17 at Fendalton Open Air School to find out about their classroom blog......

What did I discover?

Here is a summary of my discussion with Rm 17 Students

Best Things About Blogging:
- sharing things with other people - more people will look at it - a wider audience
- feedback from people helps with our writing
- comments about posts that people find interesting
- can see what is happening in other classes in the school
- family and friends overseas can see what we are doing at school
- we can put photos and videos on our blog (not just writing)
- We can write interesting stories/Acrostic Poems (current focus using Read/Write/Think)
- We can access it from anywhere in the world
- Mum and Dad can find out about what we are doing at school (and post comments)
- We can record ourselves talking and put this on the blog (e.g. introductory videos from each student at the start of the year; poetry; what we did in the weekend; visitors to the class)



Frustrations:
- the internet speed (slow)
- problems with spelling
- takes longer to type than to write
- forgetting passwords to log-in
- finding things to write about



The class has a list of rules for digital safety and using the blog. Students have written instructions for using the blog site which are pinned to the wall by the computers.

Interview with Paul Sibson - Principal of Fendalton Open Air School

I have been preparing this morning for my interview tomorrow with the principal of Fendalton School. I thought it would post my interview questions here - especially as it will be interesting to re-assess my questions after the interview has taken place to see which ones I used/didn't use; which ones led to the most interesting discussions etc:

1) Can you briefly outline the relationship between teaching/learning and interactive technologies (like blogging) in your school?

2) What do you see as the advantages of integrating these technologies into teaching pedagogy?

3) Digital literacy is a phrase that is commonly used in education today. Can you tell me what this phrase means to you?

4) I know new technologies like blogging sometimes get negative responses from people as a ‘lesser’ form of literacy, or fears that they are replacing the ‘fundamentals’ of education. Have you come across these fears in parents? And if so, how do you respond?

5) What has the response of parents been to the use of these technologies in the classroom?

6) Technologies like blogging extend learning beyond the classroom. Can you think of any particularly exciting connections that have resulted from using these technologies in your school?

7) Internet safety is a serious issue to consider when using these technologies. Could you very briefly explain the school’s policy/practices that address these issues?

8) I spent some time on the FOS website and saw that you also have your own blog site as principal. Could you tell me a bit about this site: why you decided to set it up, what the advantages have been of having a blog, who uses it etc.?

9) When a student leaves Fendalton School at the end of Year 6, what do you hope you have equipped them with as a result of their interaction with digital technologies?

10) What would be your advice to a beginner teacher who wanted to use a blog in the classroom but had no prior experience in using/creating them?


I am not sure how I am going to record this interview - I will probably either record it on my laptop using garageband, or use my digital voice recorder. Using garage band will allow me to edit it on my mac which would be a real advantage.