The focus was Youth and Social Networking in Education.

For the first part of the day, the presenters (and many attendees) came to us virtually via Adobe Connect. For the later part, the presenters were present at the event, it was intended that virtual attendees could watch and interact online.

This resulted in some interesting discussion at lunch time about both the content and the delivery method. Physical participants commented that they felt it was difficult to engage with the virtual presenters, and felt frustrated by being unable to log into the Connect room due to the wireless connection. These participants were able to engage with the presenters in the same room during the afternoon sessions, looking at the comments in the chat pod, the virtual participants seemed to feel some what cut-off.

Was this lack of preparation and time on my part?

Being my first attempt to coordinate such an event, I have learnt a lot about format (although international time zones dictate presentations to some extent), not to mention over committing myself.

On reflection, loading the afternoon presentations and hand-outs into the Adobe Connect Room would have enhanced the experience of the virtual attendees in the afternoon, but would the focus on the technology, the Adobe Connect room, have detracted from the event for the physical attendees? How can we make these event’s run smoother in the future? Are we ready? Technically, I would say we have a long way to go, but the learning from these experiences are good ones. How did the guest speakers feel, did it seem smooth to them? I wonder…

Guest Speakers

Guest Speaker #1 – Sue Waters

Our first Guest Speaker was Sue Waters, who invited her wonderful, international Social Network along. See her blog post. This was a very interactive and fun session. Dare I say chaotic?

Virtually, using Adobe Connect , Sue intended to lure physical participants to contribute to the discussion by using chocolate (what is it with Sue and Chocolate?). Sue led the discussion around the positives and negatives of Social Networking quite successfully at first, but after a while the participants became wild with sugar racing through their bodies and it became difficult for them to focus.

It was an interesting session and lots to be learnt from both the content and the delivery. As usual, Sue’s happy and bright personality made the session fun and engaging.

My questions are;

• Was it too much to be Social Networking at the same time, sending our questions out via our Twitter networks?
• Is there only a small percentage of us that actually mutli-task like this? Or is this what it’s really like out there for our students?
• Do we need to learn and teach this skill?

I am looking forward to Sue’s comments on the session. Until then, a big thanks to Sue for her time and chocolate, I have since put on 5 kilo’s!!

Guest Speakers #2 - Alex Hayes and Jacinta Gascoigne

A discussion into the use (and abuse) of social networking technology in education not restricted to VET, inclusive of all community based settings, flexible and home schooling. Jacinta presented to people attending both virtually and physically via Adobe Connect while Alex Hayes manned the chat pod, asking and answering some interesting questions.

Thanks to you both for sharing your thoughts.

Afternoon Sessions

Kate Jones presented some excellent information on interactive, engaging resources that are readily available to engage younger learners. No need to create engaging material from scratch, check out some of these sites;

• ABC Radio & TV Podcasts
• Wikipedia Spoken Articles
• Project Gutenberg, Audio Books
• Australian Screen – Downloadable clips from Australian films, documentaries, historical footage and TV shows.
• Film Australia – Download interactive digital learning material. Lesson worksheets and teacher notes also available.
• Teachertube – Safe videos for school
• Slideshare – Download and share PowerPoint presentations online. Find presentations on any subject
• TaLe – Teaching and Learning exchange. Resources for teachers, parents and community. It’s worth delving deeply into this site.

Thanks Kate for your generosity.
Regan Harding inspired us with her Gen X & Y ‘treasures within’ presentation, provoking discussion about the exploration of personal identity and learning and how electronic mediums can provide young people with chances to be seen and be heard.

Regan graciously shared her journey and Youth at Risk projects with us. She shared what has worked for her and what might work……

• Blurring Worlds Might Have Us Speaking Clearly – The Sydney Morning Herald
• It’s Crunch Time – Raising Youth Engagement and Attainment
• We Reckon – Byron Bay Community Campus Youth Blog

I am hoping that Regan will grace this blog with a guest post on this topic very soon.

Kristin Teece from New England joined us at the end of the day to discuss Social Networking, engaging the Disengaged… flexible and real learning… literacy and numeracy skills, IT skills, self development and creativity… Building positive educational experiences and relationships on the social networks (specifically myspace) and what to be aware of in a professional educational settings.

Discussions over a beer…

One of the most interesting conversations of the day was about the communication methods, language and perceptions of youth (Gen X & Y). How do they communicate with peers, bosses and teachers? What they expect, what they ‘don’t get’, what their elders ‘don’t get’. Mark Keevers, our official Gen X person had some great points to share and it was over a beer, at the Nautilus bar, at the end of the day, that this discussion got really interesting. The discussion was recorded by Padmini Sampathkumar on an mp3 player. I am hoping to get some clips of this discussion to share with you here. So thanks Padmini for recording that one.

Thank you

Thanks to all our guest speakers and attendees for their hard work and contributions for the day. A special thanks to Luke Hodges from the AFLF who was our technical expert and support guru for the day. You are a legend!

Elsewhere on that day…

Speaking of Social Networking, blogging fits into this category. Interestingly, in Brisbane on the same day, there was an Australian Blogging Conference at QUT’s Creative Industries Precinct.

Tama Leaver writes some great notes on the conference on his blog – “Reflections on the Australian Blogging Conference and Blogging in Education“. This is really worth a read, there are some great examples as well.

Kate Davis, a Gold Coast Librarian, also took some notes on “Building a Better Blog” at the event.

Probably not as the Urban Dictionary is blocked within the DET network. I subscribe to the feed using netvibes (more on RSS and netvibes) to get the Gen Y word of the day.

Let me share a few gems with you.

wifive August 20

Short for Wireless High-Five, used when you want to give a friend a high-five, but you are further then arms reach from each other. It doesn’t involve any physical contact.

work hot August 19

A person that may or may not be hot, but is the most attractive person in the set of people you work with so you lust after him/her.

Keep in touch with Gen Y, Urban Dictionary has mySpace and Facebook plug-ins.

I also have some resources on this wiki space.

While I was there, I found this very cool T-Shirt site, Busted Tees.

Here’s a few of my favourites;

“Pupils will be given their assignments in groups of 120 in the morning before dispersing to wi-fi zones to study.”

“…research suggested that children, young people, parents and employers wanted “different types of products” from the education system. Employers across the world wanted people who were adaptive and quick to learn…”

“What we are trying to do is to make sure that the physical and learning structures are adaptive and relevant in 25 years’ time.”

read the full article here.

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Finding out what and how gamers both learn and collaborate is essential to understanding how to teach and work with Gen Y. This book looks at many interesting facts about this thing we call “Gen Y” and while I wont give you a huge list of the facts in this post, I would like to share a few of their thoughts with you.

“Over 92% of American kids from age two to fifteen have regular access to video games.” Many of us have grown up with video games and most households have some kind of game console. Games and game consoles are becoming cheaper and large corporations are spending big bucks on marketing with Microsoft reportedly spending three quarters of a billion dollars on initial marketing for its Xbox game console.

“Americans now spend more money on video games each year than going to the movies, and more time at home playing video games than watching rented videos”. This is not even touching on the Korean and Chinese market.

This book assures us, after its many surveys and studies, that what the younger generation is learning from video games and virtual worlds, is not only good, but enables them to handle reality in better ways than we do. The skills that kids are learning from games is being hard wired into their brains. So what are they learning?

“The ninety million kids who grew up gaming are more social, more loyal to their teams, more sophisticated decision makers than their counterparts who didn’t play video games in their formative years”. This book reminds us that with all their new skills, they still need some help adapting to our non-gamer world.

I will share more of this book with you as I get further into it, but I thought I’d share this;

7 Habits of Highly Typical Gamers

(adapted from “the kids are alright – How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace” by John C Beck and Mitchell Wade)

1. Everyone Can succeed. By being dedicated and working hard enough, everyone can succeed at just about anything in games. That experience gives these young people great courage, ambition and persistence, the trick though is to keep the “game” interesting, challenging and fun.
2. You Gotta Play the Odds. This generation grows up playing games of chance. The surveys conducted by the authors of this book reveal that gamers are twice as likely as baby boomers to believe that success in life is due to luck! This is where they need some coaching.
3. Learn from the Team, Not the Coach. Coaching needs to be subtle, gamers are great at teamwork, they love working together and helping each other. The “game” stays more interesting when everyone in the room has more competitive ability. In the world of video games, there is no adult present to learn from. Gamers don’t practice, they learn by doing. Research suggest that rather then “teach”, you’d do better to introduce gamers to a problem and then just get out of the way.
4. Kill Bosses, Trust Strategy Guides. This generation knows that the boss is to be ignored or destroyed. In many games the “Level boss” is the obstacle to get past to achieve your goal. So gamers have issues with traditional authority. They LOVE strategy guides, books, web-sites and peer networking where they get inside info on how to win. So position yourself as a fellow player and offer some strategy tips!
5. Watch the Map. While video games are complex, they are more transparent then the world we know. Gamers count on a “meta map” that shows where they are in relation to other players, goals, obstacles, and resources. These people function better if they know exactly where they are, what they need to do to win, and who’s ahead or behind them. Real life rarely provides this, so it’s suggested you teach them how to develop their own maps, or how to operate without one!
6. Can’t See It? Ignore It. The action in games, is on the surface and there are never unseen enemies, in contrast to human organisations, families, companies or communities where you may be weakened or frustrated by decisions from people you can’t confront. This generation is often confused, baffled and even made furious by unseen forces. Suggestions are to make processes clearer and head off nasty surprises.
7. Demand the Right Team. In gaming, it can be frustrating playing with someone who doesn’t “get it”. Multi-player games offer different regions for players of different levels, and some not so competitive environments for the new players. Good gamers will flee places that don’t suit their skill level. They do the same in life. Help gamers find groups that match their skill level and their passion for a particular challenge and prepare to be amazed!

Can you see these qualities in your students and young colleagues? What do you think about these points?

Comment on this post by clicking on the comments link at the top of the page.

Have a look at this amazing film (Epic 2015) that looks into our Internet and media future. Set in 2015, this online flash movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History, is really something else! It gives a whole new perspective to the future of online learning, flexible delivery, m-Learning and media rich content delivery to students using devices that they own, doesn’t it?

Today’s Learners

While you’re at it, you really should look at this presentation by Darren Draper about digital learners of today- Pay Attention. While it’s aimed at school students, it certainly gives us a good idea of where our future student comes from.