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

Thu Jun 23 08:27:54 EST 2005

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

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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

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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 confidential. If received in error, please contact us and
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individual sender, and not necessarily those of the Department of Education & Training.

Important - 
This email and any attachments may be confidential. If received in error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening or using attachments check them for viruses and defects. Regardless of any loss, damage or consequence, whether caused by the negligence of the sender or not, resulting directly or indirectly from the use of any attached files our liability is limited to resupplying any affected attachments. Any representations or opinions expressed are those of the individual sender, and not necessarily those of the Department of Education & Training.
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