Comments on: ALEA08 – IWB And Literacy Presentation

By: Graham Wegner

Graham Wegner — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:57:37 +0000

@John and @Lauren – I was so nervous before and during this presentation that I found it hard to gauge the audience reaction. Being a larger hall with the attendees spread around it and me up on the stage trying to ensure that the technology cooperated. A few people stopped by afterwards, mainly principals, who were interested in the implications for IWB teachers at their schools. So, Lauren, if you say it went OK, I’ll take your word. It was a bit of a ramble and did cover a lot of territory.

John, I think that in my reading of reflections of educators attending the recent NECC conference in the US, it seems that there is a growing realisation that if we want to move read/write technology effectively into classrooms, it has to move from the province of edtech conferences into less technology-savvy educational arenas like your Science conference or this literacy focussed conference. It has to be more than academics talking about emerging online trends too – real classroom practices are the way that other less tech-savvy educators will be considering getting on board.

By: len

len — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:29:30 +0000

To see really exciting new multimedia literacy try out Inanimate Alice. http://www.inanimatealice.com And its a free online resource!
More an interactive piece of fiction than a traditional game, Inanimate Alice: Episode 4 continues the story of the young game animator as she leaves her home in Russia and travels abroad. Inanimate Alice serves as both entertainment and a peek into the future of literature as a fusion of multimedia technologies. The haunting images and accompanying music and text weave a remarkably gripping tale that must be experienced to be believed.
And better still for schools there is a piece of software now available that allows learners to create their own stories. Valuable for all forms of literacy and this is being sold as a perpetual site licence for schools at £99 ! http://www.istori.es

By: Lauren O'Grady

Lauren O'Grady — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:35:51 +0000

Hi Graham,
Great presentation, I think it worked very well with the crowd who I think had a large amount of enthusiasm but not a large amount of ict skills. I thought it was great. Though I would like to point out I don’t work for a multinational LOL.

By: John P

John P — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:19:45 +0000

Hi Graham, presentation looks great, how did it go in situ, (fab no doubt)? My last post I reflected on a percieved general lack of knowledge, antipathy and in some case animosity toward web based communication and/or Web 2.0 across certain subject based teacher organisation. How was the reception at ALEA? Were you inundated and/or were they more attracted by the IWB or Web 2.0 aspects? Just wondering if all of this is still seen as province of ICT nerds?