Interviews
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Interviews |
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Dean Downes |
Roy Kennedy |
Many thanks to our Friends who were interviewed. Your experiences are valuable and advice greatly appreciated.
Roy
Kennedy: IT Manager Yeppoon State High School
2. The Supposedly Important Stuff
Teaching - I now have 30 years teaching experience, starting my "career" in New Zealand where I taught science at NaeNae College in Lower Hutt(North Island). I then moved to Oz, and taught at St. Hilda's, Southport for 3 years. I then moved to Rocky and taught at Rocky Girls Grammar from 1976 to 1984 when I moved over to the State system and ended up at Yeppoon High. I have been here ever since! I arrived at the time when the school got its first network in 1984 - a BBC network. I became the school's first and only (so far) computer co-coordinator. Basically what we have at Yeppoon High School is because of the vision I have for the use of computer technology in teaching. That is, a school wide network, 4 labs, a number of classroom clusters, all staff rooms with computers - all served by 4 NT servers and one Linux Server. During my spare time I also do some part-time lecturing at CQU - Faculty of Education where I look after a Distance Ed subject - Computers in Education. Actually I've been doing that now for 10 years ! Good grief! Philosophy of computing and current area of "investigation" I an a strong believer in providing quality resources for students, especially Internet resources. I have been very critical in the past of the Department's minimalist approach to student internet access but I must admit I have mellowed over the last few years. One area that I am very enthusiastic about is the provision of synchronous communication technologies. Consequently I have for many years run IRC servers and Internet Locator Servers (for Netmeeting). My current project is working on an Educational web Based MOO. We have run a MOO since 1966 at Yeppoon but up until just last month it was only the standard text based variety. I had been investigating the possibility of webifying it and finally found a MOO core that enabled the use of web access combined with the creation of classrooms, virtual assignment servers etc.. We have also been running a MUD for our hackers/gamers. This enabled those with either game playing or computer skills to be diverted into something enjoyable rather than trying to hack our systems. More on the MOO We now run a number of classes in our MOO. For example, our year 9 computer studies classes working on an assignment within the MOO. The assignment is presented to them using special integrated software in the MOO that allows them to work on the assignment while they are in the virtual world. It can't be worked on outside of the MOO. They can save it and come back to it to continue on. When finished they hand it in and they can no longer make changes to it. The final product is actually a web page with the information (text, lists, urls, images, video, sounds, etc..) There is a lot more to tell of course and if I started this would not end up as an introduction, rather more like a thesis :-) So, there it is, the potted history and intro Roy Kennedy (QTU Member) Information Technology CoordinatorQ.1. In your dealings with Connect Ed,
have they indicated to you any possible freeing
up of the Firewall permission's which will allow ED Qld schools to
utilise Synchronous Communications
Technologies without running a separate server as you appear to be doing?
A.
There are some
developments in the pipeline. Last year I put forward a proposal
to the Managed Internet Steering Committee for a statewide network of
IRC servers. This was accepted in principle and has been looked into by Telstra.
Just last week I was invited to a demonstration of their solution. I
was quite impressed with what they are trying to do and if all goes well,
depending on how EQ review the "chatroom"
concept should be available sometime
soon. Of course we can already access IRC through ports 6667, 6668 and
7000. As far as Netmeeting goes nothing yet has been mentioned although at
a recent workshop I spoke to Scott Julian who said they had been trialling
at the Customer Care Centre a way for schools to host their own websites
and be seen by the outside world. Now, if that occurs then it is likely
there will be a freer approach to things like Netmeeting. It may also make
possible the use of ICQ as there will be a Network address translation (NAT)
protocol in place. What is the main mountain to overcome is the inherent
fear that seems to pervade the hallowed halls, once again really only
due to a lack of understanding of the possibilities.
Q. 2. What do you see as the long term educational outcomes for students from utilising Synchronous Communications Technologies?
A. I see synchronous technologies as another tool in our arsenal of learning strategies. Think of it this way, most of us are used to email and newsgroups, mailing lists etc.. For years these have provided the backbone of our communications, mainly because of their ease of use and the knowledge that you can get a reply usually within 24 hrs. However, there is a need amongst our students for the "instant gratification", something which synchronous technologies can provide. In addition, students like the feeling of being able to "talk" to someone in real time, it seems to bring a closer person to person relationship than email messages. Naturally this can be a negative as well as a positive as we all know from the various media beatups of the Internet. I believe it is going to become a very important part of our teaching and learning strategies in the next decade as the potential for distance learning, the "global village" concept really grab hold. In addition, as broadband technology becomes more readily available the possibilities of having classes on line across the state/country becomes more than a possibility. The idea of virtual school which of course is being trialled by EQ at the moment is an exciting and potentially enriching learning environment.
Q. 3. How do you view such technologies for Primary students, or would you view this as purely a Secondary field of study? Mark
A. I think the availability of synchronous technologies for primaries is just as valid as for secondaries with some riders -A) there is the level of understanding and development B) A greater need for "protection" in the primary school C) Level of literacy as most synchronous methods are still text based - having said that, video conferencing is becoming more and more viable as our internet connections speed up. Actually I would love to see how some primary students would react in our MOO which by the way can be accessed by any EQ school - I deliberately set the ports used to be those opened by EQ :-)
Q
. I would be very interested in your opinions about the EQ facility as opposed to your server? JanetQ/A.
There is an educational
MOO site at http://central.itp.berkeley.edu/~thorne/MOO.html
that you might want to explore.
Roy...do you have any favourite sites? In
terms of Chat, we have been running an Online PD Course for teachers in
conjunction with QUT and have
incorporated a chatroom
(see http://www.fed.qut.edu.au/units/irc.cfm?i=34).
The software used is from WebMaster
(http://www.webmaster.com/)
and the web chat has been a user-friendly
experience for those teachers involved. We've found that if teachers
spend the time playing with the new technologies, they begin to see
the potential for their educational
use...rather than just dismissing them because
they may make no sense initially. We have found the chatroom useful,
for example, for generating ideas
quickly, gaining feedback, discussing issues...all
remotely, in the evening and for just half an hour. It means that
teachers across the system can be involved where they would be excluded in a
standard face-to-face meeting due to issues surrounding time, travel
etc. Liam Garvey
Q. Do you have some generic key questions or guiding criteria that may be a useful to a teacher deciding as to whether a MOO or MUD is the most appropriate technology for the task at hand?
A. First of all it may be worthwhile distinguishing between MOOs and MUDs so
that we can gain a clearer perspective. MUDs or MultiUSer Dungeons were developed from the old Dungeon and Dragons board games. As such they usually have a combat perspective with players taking the roles of warriors, mages, thiefs, vampires etc.. There are also different races involved, human, elf, etc.. In these sort of worlds the players go around doing more hacking and slaying than social interaction. They usually fight "monsters" or mobiles (bots) within the MUD or they can fight amongst themselves. In this world, experience and strength hold sway over all. MOO's (and MUSHes) developed out of MUDs to see what would happen if the combat was taken out of the "world". So the MOO now has all the features of social interaction, building, extending and programming of rooms, exits, objects etc.. The supposed pinnacle of MOO development came with LambdaMOO, a MOO core that allows object oriented programming. The MUD didn't allow this, you played in a preset world - although the world could be expanded. LambdaMOO has since been "webified" by a number of groups. However, one of them, the EnCore Project, has a true educational focus. It is this core that forms the basis of my MOO. One of the very latest development (9th June to be precise) has been the incorporation of a virtual assignment server into the core database. So..... to get to Liam's question. "Do you have some generic key questions or guiding criteria that may be a useful to a teacher deciding as to whether a MOO or MUD is the most appropriate technology for the task at hand?" May I suggest:-Q. Are there any practical considerations such as the amount of teacher PD required etc that you would like to suggest they consider? Liam
A. Yes, very much so! Bringing a class into a MOO requires a LOT of preparation both on the part of the teacher and the student. Students must be made aware of the manners that are acceptable in a MOO, eg., acceptable forms of language, actions and other communications. You need to organise player accounts as usually guest access is too restrictive (or in some MOOs not allowed). Of course you need to make them familiar with the commands used to carry out actions in the MOO but the best way here is to be there and do it! Teachers need to organise a "classroom" in the MOO - educational MOO's have special rooms designed as classrooms, complete with desks, tables, bookshelves etc that perform in a similar way to a normal classroom. Usually this is done by sorting something out with the MOO administrators. Most of all, they need to spend some time in the MOO first, experiencing the virtuality, learning the commands etc. What time is required? Depends on the teacher, but I have my teachers working quite well within an hour of tuition and experimentation. I hope this meets your request.
Q. How have your staff taken to Mush and Moo?
A. Well, one moves in little steps with staff. I have found that it takes a while to bring others on board and to catch the vision. As we have just rebuilt this MOO since May this year and all the really nice features that make it so effective as an educational tool have only appeared since then we are doing remarkably well. As starters I have brought all our year 9 Computer studies classes and teachers into the world in addition to some of our year 8 classes. The effective has been electric - the students love it, and even though they have to do work they get the chance to chat too. The teachers have been enthusiastic, mainly because we are all in the same room we talk about the possibilities. Their enthusiasm is wonderful even though their skills and fuller understanding are still catching up. It did wonders for one teacher and her problem year 8 class, she is over the moon with the work that is now being completed that was hard to get done using the "old" pedagogy.
Q. Do your staff still get through the set content. Just wondering if the introduction of exciting learning environments was an instigator of change.
So, they are starting to throw some of the old stuff out and move into new areas. We have a few in our faculty who are a little nervous but that is because of personal attitudes rather than anything else. I have interested a number of our English teachers in the possibilities and they are working towards doing some work there. One in particular is so excited as he will be able to hold on-line course with chats in the evenings. Mind you he tends to think as laterally as I do :-) I suppose it is like anything new, we have to move out of our comfort zone and tread in "dangerous" waters - just imagine how boring life could be if we never changed! The focus you mention is often commonly seen in high school unfortunately and at the risk of offending anyone, often from Maths/Science/Business teachers (very conservative disciplines). I know our SOSE and English poeple have moved away from the content to the Higher Order skills in quite dramatic ways. Change is coming, it's a bit like a millstone, takes a while to get moving but just try stopping it!
I agree with you that mIRC is much easier and running it off the server is
ideal. That is the way we use it here and I have all the settings, including the server they can connect to, preset. The only entries the students have to make is their nickname, email address (we have a template there) and their real name. In addition the ini files are read only by students so they cannot change them. To further control who can use the program we give access to the folder only to those belonging to an IRC group. This allows a much higher level of control than letting students use web based chat. We also have in place a protocol for nicknames - see http://www.yeppoon.shs.net.au/student/ircchat.htmLast word from Roy:
All we can do is keep hassling, pushing buttons, creating waves (and all the
other worn-out clichés) until it finally sinks into the black hole of the organisational mind that what we are trying to do is both valid and has immense educational potential. Just imagine what we would have if we didn't push the barriers, I shudder at the very thought. 
