[Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz, 7-10 IT and Has VELS got it WRONG?

Tue Jun 28 17:05:38 EST 2005

Cecilie, thanks for your post regarding Kahootz. I agree with that it could
it nicely into the VELS to provide an ICT rich environment beyond
Powerpoint. I lament to date the lame use of this slideshow software to
organise so called 'research projects' by my non-IT colleagues. Perhaps
Kahootz might provide the tool that junior school teachers need, especially
if the primary school students turn up with the necessary construction
skills.

IT teachers probably shouldn't feel threatened by Kahootz. There is still
room for drilling down to the deeper technology construction levels with
programs like Flash, Gamemaker, Squish, Logo, MovieMaker, Audacity etc . if
your school can a place for these in your curriculum, a dedicated middle
school ICT subject taught by an enthusiastic IT teacher perhaps.

Whilst I still have some doubts how it could be used beyond junior year
levels, it would be encouraging if more teachers explored what it could do
and if most students have the basic skills to construct Kahootz objects. I
might start next term with our year 7 LOTE and SOSE staff.

Regards Roland

--
Roland Gesthuizen - eLearning Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

  _____  

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of cecilie at vitta.org.au
Sent: Thursday, 23 June 2005 11:21 AM
To: 'Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz, 7-10 IT and Has VELS got it
WRONG?

Kahootz was bought by DE&T for all gov't schools for cross curriculum use,
not specifically for IT. Any teachers now need to include ICT within their
own teaching programs and Kahootz provides low to intermediate users at both
primary and secondary level with an animation tool that is simple to use and
creative for students.

It's a product that is developed by the ACTF and not by Macromedia, and in
my opinion, is suitable for teachers who are not IT specialists. All
teachers are being encouraged to integrate ICT in their teaching and
provision has to be made for all users in the products provided to schools.

The first release of Digital Content from The Learning Federation was also
included in the same kit with Kahootz, once again for all teachers cross
curriculum. I'd be interested if anyone has used this content in their
school or has loaded it onto the intranet for other teachers to use. Further
releases fro DE&T will be occurring throughout 2005 and 2006. This is a $10M
investment from Victoria, so it would be good to see it being used by all
teachers.

In many schools I have visited, the CDs are under the Technician's desk or
have not been opened.

Interested in any feedback.

Cecilie Murray

EO

VITTA

  _____  

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Stephen Digby DEET
Sent: Thursday, 23 June 2005 8:28 AM
To: 'Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'Mailing List'
Subject: RE: [Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz, 7-10 IT and Has VELS got it
WRONG?

Have tried Kahootz at Year 9 and consider it :
- bit shallow,

- limited,

- extremely slow (esp. loading "impressions", 

- no online help during the program (make sure you have the PDF help file
available to students ! BUT beware, the program does not allow you to easily
minimise to read it !).

-  OK as a clunky intro to animation, but product pushes kids to merely put
together "stock" images in predictable ways.

- Any novel idea (e.g. my students especially wanted animated flames) could
not easily be created outside and imported in any standard format.

- Considering it is Macromedia, it should surely both export and import to/
from flash !!!  It does not import animated GIF or quicktime etc.

The lessons and examples on the site mainly focus on teaching "it" i.e.
learning Kahootz as if it was a worthy teaching objective in itself.

The "links" to other learning objectives are generally shallow or
speculative.

Suggest that if you want to teach animation and 3D design to secondary
students, better starting points would be animated GIF creators (e.g. Paint
Shop etc) or "real" animation editors (e.g. Flash) or real 3D editors (many
freeware wire frame editors available online which give full control of
object creation.

For primary school students it is a motivational tool for fun exploration of
animation (if you can justify this objective in a busy primary school
curriculum structure ..... but so is the scene creator/ editor features of
WarCraft and many other commercial games.

IT is best used when it is a tool to get students to think deeper faster
i.e. explore complexities and concepts more quickly than they could have
without IT.

Many are still stuck in techno-worship, where any motivating activity that
includes IT is assumed to be innovative and educationally valid.

This is what created all those "computer awareness" courses a few decades
ago !!!  Deep thinking ?  I think NOT.

On balance, hard to see why is the subject of so much investment by Vic Govt
and Aust Child Tele.  I could have suggested a better investment in a Flash.

(PS Would have sent a CC to Kahootz but they do not even have a contact
email on their site !?)

==================================
Stephen Digby, Learning Technology Manager
digby.stephen.p at edumail.vic.gov.au
Cheltenham Secondary College
www.cheltsec.vic.edu.au <http://www.cheltsec.vic.edu.au/> 
Ph: 613 955 55 955  Fx: 9555 8617
==================================

The only way to have a friend is to be one. - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

  _____  

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Meadows, Roslyn M
Sent: Wednesday, 22 June 2005 10:35 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'MailingList
Subject: RE: [Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz, 7-10 IT and Has VELS got it
WRONG?

Hello all

After reading about some of your forays into Kahootz I decided to check it
out tonight - there are tutorials and examples on the website www
kahootz.com.au.(teacher resources link)  (Sorry Greg) I think I will give it
a go with my new year 8's next semester (only 2.5 weeks away!)

Meanwhile I have finally got Moodle to work - I had to beg our intranet
administrator (a library technician) to allow me to create my own courses -
before yesterday all I could do was edit my profile and post to a forum!! I
have created courses for each subject I teach, also for each year level and
the House system, and have uploaded lots of resources etc. As Big Kev would
say "I'm excited" ! I can't wait for a few others to catch on.

A BIG worry if Info Tech is integrated and not a stand alone subject - we
have to email our reports to the edumail address of the person who prints
them out and late last week another staff member was telling me she was
overjoyed that she had finished her reports the night before, but still
hadn't emailed them because she had problems logging onto edumail when she
got to school that morning. I asked her why hadn't she emailed them from
home using her private ISP and she said "but they have to be sent to edumail
so I can only do that from school can't I?" And to think these people might
be teaching IT as part of their SOSE or English allotment in the near
future!!!! To me this is totally scary. And I believe that these non IT
teachers would find it scary too - and certainly not approach the teaching
of ICT with anywhere near the enthusiasm of the IT teachers who live, breath
and eat their subject for dinner! 

I find it totally unbelievable, that considering ICT is an area that is
expanding exponentially, that VELS does not make ICT at least as important
as either English or Maths. Even we as a group are constantly having to
update our knowledge - how many of us had even heard of blogs, wikis, moodle
etc say two years ago? Surely to be adequately prepared for the future our
students need a more extensive grounding in ICT. Australian companies are
subcontracting programming to Indian companies because of a shortage of
skills and the rate of pay here, and the Indian companies are
subsubcontracting the same work out to Chinese companies. And the reason
these countries can do this programming? - because they began massive ICT
education campaigns when they realised that it was the way of the future and
one way to improve their economies. So more Aussie dollars go offshore. We
will be left in the wilderness if our students are not given these skills.

Enough griping!

Have a wonderful wonderful holiday everyone, thank you for all your emails -
one of my favourite (relaxing) parts of the day is getting home and reading
through everything that comes to me via the edulists.

Cheers

Ros Meadows

TONS

Bentleigh SC 

9579 1044

meadows.roslyn.m at edumail.vic.gov.au

  _____  

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Marshall, Graham F
Sent: Wed 22/06/2005 7:23 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'Mailing List
Subject: RE: [Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz and 7-10 IT

Greg,

Used your training material before and it was fantastic. Any help with
Kahootz will be great.

My year 8/9/10 are enjoying the program.

Regards,

Graham Marshall - Bayswater SC

  _____  

From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Greg Bowden
Sent: Wed 6/22/2005 12:15 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'Mailing List
Cc: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: [Year 12 IPM] Re: OT Kahootz and 7-10 IT

<?fontfamily><?param Arial>Hello everyoneFurther the discussion a couple of
weeks ago about the structure of IT in the 7-10 curriculum. I'm wondering
what schools are doing with Kahootz. It seems to me to be a program that
lends itself to being taught in a stand alone IT class then used by other
KLAs once students know how to use it properly. I can't see KLAs at my
school providing much class time for the learning of Kahootz. I've just
started teaching Kahootz to a year 8 IT class and I am hoping at the end of
the unit one of the other teachers of the class will set a project using
Kahootz. I must confess to also having a personal interest in Kahootz. I've
developed a teaching unit for it and I am trying to decide whether it is
worth the time and effort to send a flyer to schools (not much use if not
many schools have started to use it). So any feedback on your opinions of
Kahootz and its use would be helpful (e-mail me off the list if you prefer).
If you would like to have a look at some sample pages of the Kahootz unit
they can be viewed at <?color><?param 0000,0000,FFFD>www.gct.com.au<?/color>
- then follow the Kahootz link.Greg BowdenICT ManagerNorth Geelong
SC<?/fontfamily> Important - This email and any attachments may be
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