HC Learning and Teaching

Prospective students visit campus

2008-07-22T18:35:00.008+10:00

Several hundred grade 10 students from many high schools visited the campus over the last few days to hear about courses being offered in the new Tasmanian Polytechnic and Tasmanian Academy in 2009 at the Mt Nelson campus.

Here is some of what they did...

More photo's can be seen here.

Robotic Interlude

2008-07-10T22:40:00.000+10:00

A number of students have taken a break this week from their normal work to build and program robots. The college has purchased two LEGO Mindstorms NXT kits for use VET IT, Interactive Media and Computer Science students - mostly in 2009.

Several students - and teachers - have been building with Lego for the first time in many years... lots of fun!

A Professional Edge

2008-04-19T21:19:00.007+10:00

Hobart College Media Production students are about to begin professional broadcasting from Edge Radio studio on the School of Rock. The video clip below shows the students in a training session at the studio. Although it was their first time live on air all performances were very impressive.

The College is very pleased to have a partnership with Edge Radio and their Education Officer Vanessa Armstrong who will work with HC Radio students for 12 weeks this year. A number of sessions will also include HC Video and Journalism students.

Tune in to Honni, Isobel, Amelia, Hannah, Eve, Tom, Rob and Joel and support our school's radio show. Hobart College School of Rock hour on EDGE Radio begins Wednesday 23rd April.

Tune in to 99.3 from 4 - 5pm - or listen live on the net.

Student-Directed Learning 2008

2008-03-02T07:43:00.005+11:00

Stimulating learning skills and ways of thinking for work, study and life in the 21st century is the aim of the new TQA course Student Directed Inquiry.

Thirty students have begun this course which involves students completing projects and research in their areas of interest. Learning is personalised and flexible to meet the learning needs and interests of each student.

This PowerPoint explains the purpose and thinking behind the course and you can read about the curriculum planning process here.

At HC we call the course Interactive Media and we have a journal that is documenting our journey in this exciting pre-tertiary course. This is not an easy journey for students or teachers because the course challenges everyone to learn reflectively, collaboratively and rigorously.

Teachers are working in teams to bring a wider range of expertise to individual students and project teams than would normally be found in the traditional classroom.

The course is also structured differently: 30 minute presentations are being held in a lecture theatre and these are recorded for later online access... Attendance is more about participation than just physical presence... Students can work from home and everything is co-ordinated online.

Comments received from students in the first two weeks:

"I do more work in this subject than any other."

"Having recorded presentations online is great - all subjects should do it."

"Saw a presentation on secondlife, was feeling pretty stoked to have a go as it looked awesome..."

"Viewed a presentation slide on ethics, it was a fairly thought provoking show and it had wicked pictures to keep us amused and enthused..."

"Being able to view class presentations online if you miss them is great – more subjects should do it!"

"Ethics presentation was good – I took heaps of notes."

"Working from home I'm better equipped… for the stuff I want to do, with Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Flash CS3."

YouTube - OurTube

2007-10-30T07:23:00.000+11:00

Our videos have been viewed 2,700 times since we set up a YouTube channel 4 months ago. This success has prompted us to customise the channel to include the new college logo in the background and some Playlists.

The 2006 Videos playlist features videos and photo-stories from last year's LOG DVD. Some playlists include videos from the internet that teachers have highlighted for particular topics.

We will soon be adding final student project work from 2007 in a range of subjects. You can check the link from our homepage or if you have a YouTube account you can subscribe to automatically receive new videos.

The college online photo album has also been reorganised - into sets that can be viewed as slideshows.

IT Has Changed

2007-10-02T07:22:00.000+10:00

We have changed our courses in Information Technology. In response to a dramatic change in the way people are using digital technologies and media some new courses have been added and existing ones have been rewritten.

One aspect of this change has been referred to as Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.D referring to the significantly different ways that we now use the internet.

This presentation asks students if they are aware of these changes and finishes with a list of our new courses for 2008.

Last week some HC students began the interior design of some virtual office space in a sky scraper in Web 3.D

New Worlds Open Up in Interactive Media Course

2007-09-14T17:01:00.000+10:00

The college will offer a new course in Interactive Media for 2008 designed for year 12/13 students with skills in multimedia, graphic design, video, game design and writing.

The course will help students develop production skills in project teams and builds on the work done this year in game design and programming, machinima and video - such as this work by Shannon designing virtual worlds using the Neverwinter Nights Toolset.

Students will be assessed at 5C, 4C and/or in VET Multimedia modules according to their personalised learning plan. See here for course details.

Maths At Play

2007-09-04T09:22:00.000+10:00

The Maths At Work class built and flew their own tetrahedral kites as part of their Extended Learning Line day this week. Pictured you can see Jess, James, Naomi and Daniel with the smaller and larger kite segments. The larger kite had no trouble taking off and it flew for quite some time before the students had to take shelter from rain and then snow!

First tentative steps...

2007-08-28T22:07:00.000+10:00

Today I was invited by Westley who leads the Australian Skoolaborate Project to join him for my first look at the fantastic work students have done in a virtual world.

I arrived in the obligatory white t-shirt and denim jeans sporting large friendly eyes and an over-tanned body that is common to all new arrivals. Before I had time for a wardrobe change and some plastic surgery Westley appeared and took me to the foyer of an impressive multi-story building. Click on the (slightly skew) panorama below. Apparently this building was created by 16 year old Natalie from the USA.

Panorama: Click and drag mouse left/right to have a look around - mouse scroll to zoom.

Hobart College has joined this project to collaborate on 3D design projects, talk about world issues and have adventures in virtual space with students from New Zealand, Japan and other Australian States. Some students from a couple of local high schools will also be joining us soon. The empty yellow frames are where we can put some student artwork - I'll try to find some tomorrow.

Westley then took me up to the 4th floor and showed me a very large empty room with magnificent ocean views - this he told me is to be a room for the Tasmanian teachers in this project! (Our students will be building their own area later - when they have learned how to build...) I placed two large pink flamingos in the room that I found in my inventory - we can decide on our Tasmanian decor later :-)

This project presents us with so many possibilities... some research indicates that 80% of active internet users will be visiting online virtual worlds by 2011 - now is the time to learn what that might mean - for education and for society.

+++++++++++++++
Thursday Update
+++++++++++++++

Here are some pictures and video of the first meeting of the collaborating schools. Some of the Tasmanian teachers met later that evening - and bumped into MLC year 11 student Emily who was busy perfecting her scripting skills.

Extended Learning Across the Planet

2007-08-11T07:41:00.000+10:00

This Friday was the first "Extended Line Day" for line 5 classes - we are having one per week starting August 10th. Some classes are taking the opportunity for long trips off campus, others are combining to do some different project work, while others are using the extra time to study topics in more depth. A number of guest speakers and presenters were invited to college and there were many "gourmet" lunches.

The panorama below is from Kay Filgate's mathematics class who spent the afternoon roaming the planet studying Earth Geometry, lattitudes/longitudes and the Seven Wonders of the World using Google Earth.

Click in picture then drag mouse left/right to pan around the room. Use mouse scroll to zoom.

The long road to college...

2007-07-30T08:15:00.000+10:00

This is how some students get to college - by Ebony and Nathanial.

Life Sucks from HC Learning and Vimeo.

Role Playing for Learning

2007-07-12T20:11:00.000+10:00

This video was made by Donna Brown’s Line 1 English Communications 5C class. The aim was for students to adopt a character role and through discussion make connections between three texts they had studied.

Jinx Forum

The video has proved to be a valuable resource for a large number of students including some at another college.

New Worlds of Learning

2007-07-07T20:23:00.000+10:00

HC in 1352 AD.

This video clip shows how the Toolset from the game Neverwinter Nights can be used to design a 3D world and create an interactive story for players - in this case the 'world' is the Hobart College campus in 1352AD.

Students in the Games Programming and Multimedia classes are currently learning how to create and link game areas through 'doorways' which may be a cave, a gateway, a light portal or a... door. The Toolset has wizards which allows the game designer to set up characters that act out a story. Object, sound effect and environment libraries allow the designer to set the look and mood of each scene.

The Neverwinter Toolset has been used by international educators to create engaging learning environments to teach communication skills and elements of journalism.

Design In Metal Challenges

2007-06-21T18:16:00.000+10:00

In this 6 minute video MDT teacher Ian Burleigh describes some of the tasks and challenges in the Design in Metal, Metal Craft and VET Engineering Courses including:

Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) - Salamanca 6 Hour Challenge
The Spin Cycle - Recycling Challenge
The Trident Steel Cutter
Cold Forming and Twisting in Metal Craft
Industry Workplacement

Design In Metal on Vimeo

Lively Science!

2007-06-06T09:33:00.000+10:00

Ruth and David team teach combined Life Sciences classes - and it's very lively!

This year the combined classes have been on several science trips. Describing the expedition to Snake Island (pics below) on 17th March one student wrote:

"Different groups in the class chose a particular object or creature they wanted to observe and study. Some of the things chosen included crabs, birds, spiders, plants and salinity levels. Due to the lack of time we could spend on the island we didn't get as much information as we would have liked but it was still a joyful experience."

Maria Island was the classroom from 9th-11th May. From a student report:

"The Maria Island was a three day trip to look at the marine wildlife creatures and fossils on the island. When we arrived we put our stuff into giant trolleys and took them down to our cabins. After we had set up our rooms we went on a walk to the fossil cliffs... On the walk home we saw a lot of different animal bones and different rock formations along the cliffs. The rest of the day we just relaxed, cooked some tea and listened to the possums all night.

On the second day we went to the painted caves. I liked all the different colours in the rocks and the creatures in the rock pools were pretty interesting. Then we went down to Darlington and tested the water - very boring. After that we walked back to the cabins and relaxed and cooked tea.

The last day of camp we cleaned our cabins, packed up our stuff, and put it back into the trolleys to go back to the wharf. We had one last thing to do before we had to go - a survey of the creatures living under the wharf. We found a few different types of fish, some rays and a few other little creatures living on the wood under the wharf. Then the boat arrived and we packed all our stuff on and left. I think it was a good camp."

The class has also been to the Hobart Wharf to sample plankton; Blackmans Bay; the Marine Discovery Centre dredge; a Primary Industry Tour of Fleurties, Trial Bay Orchards and Grandview Cheeses; Ralphs Bay - once to study geology and a second time to study birds with two Ornithologists...

According to one student:

"The excursion to Ralphs Bay was to explore the different geology. The first thing we did was collect five shells from the shoreline and five from about 4m away. This was to see how the ground was pushed up. The second thing we did was to go along to an area of sedimentary rock where we collected different fossils using geology picks. By doing this we proved that the rock was once at the bottom of the bay and over many years it has slowly been pushed up to the point where it is now.

This was a very educational and enjoyable trip and helped all of us understand the geological cycle better. "

Tribute to Pacman...

2007-05-30T00:14:00.000+10:00

The Computer Games Programming class have been busy building their skills... Early work started with some basic Flash 8 productions such as the following grass skier "game".

This progressed to more adventurous productions such as Hunters and Assassins by Tom:

Others have been using game development software such as GameMaker. The following is Daniel's tribute to the very early Pacman games. It might look simple but getting the trigger keys to time correctly was not easy...

Next term students will begin to use more complex 'game engines' from some successful commercial computer games.

In the meantime some students have been playing the new game PeaceMaker. This is a difficult game where the player takes on the role of Palestinian or Israeli leader and attempts to bring peace to those countries. The game uses actual historic events and the player chooses from a range of security, political and development options to bring peace.

You can watch some video clips about the game here and here.

Humans 1 - Vehicle 0

2007-05-03T15:44:00.000+10:00

Humans proved more resilient than machines in this year's Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) Salamanca Six Hour Challenge. The Hobart College '07 HPV Team entry ended with high drama... and pieces of aluminium strewn all over the floor!

The scrutineering session prior to race was a little daunting, but our machine passed all requirements for an all weather human powered vehicle, which as it happened was a wet race day. We were confident of putting up a good showing with our small but enthusiastic team.

The mechanical problems that led to our early demise stemmed from weld failures of the aluminium frame components and rear hub gear problems. These problems surfaced after our vehicle was involved in several collisions which resulted in flip overs, but there was no damage to the vehicles occupants thanks to careful attention to vehicle design safety.

The pedal pushers for the event were a little thin on the ground consisting of Lizz-ann, Estelle, Anton and Scott. All participants managed to complete a number of breathless laps during the cut and thrust of racing. That's one of them speeding on the left!

All the members of the Hobart College '07 HPV Team had a very positive experience from being involved in the project and are determined to be back there better prepared for the event in '08 - with multiple spare parts.

Click here for a 3D panorama inside Princes Wharf on the day - after the crash...

Photos: Top left - Cloe and Scott, Team mechanics; Top right - Seated at Pit Central Estelle, Lizann with Anton; Bottom - HPV Design Team: Jess, Ben, Leigh and Andrew.
Story and photo's Ian Burleigh, MDT teacher and Manager of the HPV Project.

What Is Your Passion?

2007-04-24T08:44:00.000+10:00

Playing online games, going sailing, camping over-night, exploring enigma, intelligence profiling... These are some of the activities in this year's Special Interest Groups - SIGs.

SIGs were planned last year to bring together students and teachers with similar interests to talk about college life and learning, provide support when needed - and have fun in things they are passionate about. Over 200 students enrolled in SIGs such as Outdoor Adventures, Cafe Culture, Games & Gaming and EMAPP.

Hannah Papworth, a student in the Outdoor Adventures SIG describes one of their first outings:

On the 15th of March 2007 a small yet enthusiastic group from the outdoors special interest group set off on their first activity for the year. A surf and overnight camp at Vin's property on Clifton beach. The group left at 2.45 pronto on Thursday afternoon, reaching Clifton at about twenty past three. Vin showed everyone around his 'beautiful' bush property.

Tents were then set up and a nice hot fire in a tin drum stoked. It started to rain lightly and Vin exclaimed "raincoats or wetsuits” the answer was unanimous “WETSUITS”. We hit the water at around five o'clock and. Conditions were on shore and messy. However the surf was big and powerful and proved to be heaps of fun. There was even a pro Cult surfer among the crowd who had taken to the bank.

It was a nice spontaneous way to break up the school week and when we arrived back at school on Friday morning everyone was pumped and ready for the day ahead. We hope to have more along on our next adventure! The main aim of the outdoors special interest group is to expand horizons, spend time with fellow students and make 2007 as memorable a year as possible and work out where we are heading in the future.

Teacher Donna Brown has been challenging her Environment Group (and their parents!) with passionate objects and energy audits of their homes. Donna is sharing news with the parents of her group through a newsletter - and has received very positive feedback.

“I wanted to pursue the notion of passion. I asked the students to bring an object in that represented something that they were passionate about and to share it with the group. By holding it in our hands and expressing our feelings, we build the connection of heart and hand.”

Donna describes how they drew pictures of their passion. “Silly pictures really, but very meaningful.” She then invited parents at Parent/Teacher Evening to share what they were doing in their lives that they felt passionate about - and what passions they believed their sons and daughters had... a great conversation!

The Games & Gaming SIG play and talk about games over raison toast every fortnight. They have had a visit from a Melbourne games programmer who gave insights into the games industry in Australia and around the world. You can read about all this on their online journal.

The EMMAP SIG have also been very busy - sailing, exercising... and talking about the Great Pyramid - organised by teachers Dawn, Heather, Janet and Richard. Why the Great Pyramid? To challenge each person's assumptions about what they think they know. As students gain knowledge through their years of life and education it is also important for them to question their often taken-for-granted worldviews. A presentation on the Great Pyramid aimed to do just that.

These are just a few examples of what is happening in SIGs - more later

Ghosts on Campus?

2007-04-06T10:01:00.000+10:00

Here are some recent 3D panorama taken on campus. We are still learning how to do this so you might pick up a ghost or two as you pan and zoom.

Click on the pictures to open the viewer.

We also need to watch the postion of the sun...

Here is the Canteen...

And the area outside the College Theatre

Digital Folios

2007-04-05T09:42:00.000+10:00

Students are now producing a wide range of multimedia that is not easily organised in a traditional plastic display folder - animations, videos, radio shows, podcasts, music recordings...

We are experimenting with a number of digital folio technologies this year - and we may continue using most of them. Each seems to suit different student and teacher needs...

MS SharePoint (2003)

We have been using SharePoint for 4 years. Every student can create a personal space with:

room to upload and share documents and digital media
message space
tasks list - with task management functionality
links and other modules such as discussion forums and surveys
access control - students can set who has what level of access
presencing - the system indicates who is currently online - integrates with MS Office

It's also possible for users to add modules that display del.icio.us tags and flickr feeds from mobile phone uploads:

Moodle

Several teachers are using Moodle for their classes with

space to upload documents and digital media
forums and blogs - with tagging
news, calendar, messages
student management and statistics

Teachers find that Moodle provides a more controlled on-line learning environment that is particularly suited to Open Learning classes - although a few other classes also use it.

ELGG - Social Networking

This is the first time we have tried a social networking learning environment. We are using a hosted Elgg service while we evaluate it. We are currently using it:

for some classes and special interest groups (SIGs)
to host learning journals
as a digital folio for tagged multimedia
to aggregate RSS feeds
to connect students with similar interests and learning goals

Although we only have 80 users on this system at the moment the tags are beginning to build and link people and resources:

Some of our current questions are:

How can year 12 students take their digital folios with them as they move on to work and further education?
Should we attempt to provide one solution that attempts to fit all needs or should we offer several tools for students and teachers to choose from?
How can students manage digital folios for assessment and potential employers and themselves?
What is the relationship between our 'official' digital folios and other online spaces that students use to upload multimedia such as DeviantArt or YouTube or MySpace?

Games Programmer Visits Games & Gaming SIG

2007-03-29T14:00:00.000+10:00

Melbourne Games Programmer Sam Sauvage had plenty of expert advice for would-be games developers today.

Sam, from IR Gurus Australia’s leading multi-platform game development studio, visited the Games & Gaming SIG - and stayed on for the Games Programming C class.

Sam talked about career pathways for game developers such as:

University Maths and Computing - particularly C++ and maths of polygons
Academy of Interactive Entertainment - a one year course (Melbourne) almost guaranteeing employment in the industry - probably at IR Gurus
Getting together a young multi-skilled team of passionate gamers

All options led to jobs in a very hardworking industry which Sam describes as becoming a lot like the film industry where teams of 50-100 people covering a wide range of skills work on multi-million dollar projects with tight deadlines.

Sam described the difference between developing games for PCs and consoles and talked about the huge demand for games programmers working on PlayStation 3 titles. He showed some sites related to games developed by IR Gurus and the games industry in general:

Game demos and modding were also good areas for students to get involved in because you learn basic skills and terminology for the industry.

Sam stayed and chatted with the Games Programming class and looked at some of the flash and GameMaker work being done. He hopes to come back - possibly to work with students on projects.

Thanks Sam - your time was greatly appreciated!

Keeping Up With Global Change

2007-03-27T11:02:00.000+10:00

For the last three years HC teachers have been researching and discussing what it means to prepare students to live and work in the 21st century. The following recently produced video clips summarise some of those changes quite well.

The changing way we use technology.

The change from a network of machines to communities of people...

(Click once to activate window and then once to play.)

The changes due to globalisation.

(from a USA point of view)

This video was watched an estimated 2 million times in the last four weeks - many viewers were educators from around the globe.

The Changed Global Demography

Watch video

One of the most dynamic presentations on global statistics that you are likely to see. (Google has recently bought the software Trendalyzer used in this presentation.)

Year 11/12 teachers around the State - in both Government and non-Government schools - are currently examining the impact of these changes on the curriculum.

Multi-talented Multi-media Students

2007-03-11T11:45:00.000+11:00

Some outstanding work already from this year's Multimedia students - and we have only just begun... We started the year setting up an online spaces to share tasks, student work and for assessment. We then jumped into Photo Story - creating digital stories from still shots. We used pictures we had taken or those from the FlickR Creative Commons site so that we can legally show them outside class.

We looked at techniques for adding text, clipping and panning. Here is a great example from Hannah using pics and audio from her band Majestik.

James put this one together on his laptop using sunrise photo's he took last year.

James also started some work stitching photo's together with Jade... Scott then took nine pics of our computer lab...

and made a great panorama from them.

Click in the window and drag the mouse left or right to look around the room... you can also zoom in/out... Some didn't overlap enough to get a good join but it shows what can be done...

Some students are now using Movie Maker to create more advanced photo-stories while others are working on short videos. Great work guys More examples later...

Games on Toast

2007-03-01T13:00:00.000+11:00

Delicious wafts of raisin toast filled the air in the Games & gaming SIG this morning - so did some smoke when one piece was cooked twice... fortunately the smoke alarms were not triggered and we didn't send the whole building out into the rain

After a slow start due to blocked roads we went through 3 loaves of toast.

A gamers SIG Community has been set up on the HC Social Learning Network and several people joined up.

Members can post to the blog about the SIG or their gaming experiences or comment on existing posts.

2007-02-26T11:30:00.000+11:00

The Games and Gaming Special Interest Group (SIG) had a great started yesterday with 26 students hearing about Roger Stack's adventures in Second Life and Bernie's experience with WoW and The Lord of the Rings - The Battle for Middle Earth.

Roger talked about the 4.1 million users in Second Life (SL) and how hundreds of thousands of $$$ of real money change hands each day. A few people make their real life living in SL! He bought a property in Eldora some months ago - it's above the snowline - and he has built a gallery for some of his wife's art. That's his avatar on the left with the gallery behind him...

He's exploring the educational potential of SL - some believe that in the near future as bandwidth rapidly increases online interations will more often take place with avatars in 3D environments rather than just the text of chat or email. Many universities have already established annexes in SL.

More and more designers are using immersive worlds like these to try out their ideas... walking around, in and even through them. Recently the Half-Life game engine has been used to create a walk-through of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.

Over the last year UNICEF has been hosting Global Kids in Second Life - teenagers from around the planet looking at local and global issues - see video clips.

After Second Life Bernie did an excellent presentation talking about WoW and Battle for Middle Earth - while showing off his new laptop

Here is his Middle Earth character Thrugg. Bernie took us on a bit of a tour demonstrating some of the features that makes this game one of his favourites at the moment.

Journalism Students Investigate Food Poisoning

2007-02-25T14:30:00.000+11:00

Several students were rushed to hospital with cheese poisoning - and the journalism class were on the case - virtually! They were playing the Be A Reporter Game at News University and had to race against the clock to file a story by the deadline set by the Editor - who wasn't happy with sloppy work. All facts had to be verified and some of the characters in the game had to be interviewed several times before they told the whole story. But in the end several students saw a smiling Editor happy with their investigations.

The first couple of lessons were full on with interviewing and active listening, technology, reading The Mercury newspaper, more technology, writing a story, more technology... A little too much technology for some but everyone coped very well.

Students worked together to post their interviews on a blog - something new for most. Finding attention grabbing headlines and writing leads that capture the reader's interest didn't come easily...

The class watched EPIC 2015 and talked about the changing face of journalism as different media are converging and news services become more personalised.

The class has a great breadth of skills including writing, IT, graphics, photography and even video so it will be interesting to see what publications they decide to produce this year.

Special Interest Groups - SIGs

2006-11-15T11:55:00.000+11:00

In 2007 we are offering students the option of joining Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that are tied to our normal mentor/counselling groups.

In the past all students were timetabled to attend a mentor/counselling group for 30 mins once a week with a teacher. In 2006 one of these groups was based on a student interest so that rather than students having a common teacher or subject they have a common interest. It has worked very well with much better attendance and enthusiastic participation.

Several groups of teachers have now decided to offer a range of Special Interest Groups for 2007. The idea is that two or more teachers will combine their mentor/counselling groups to form a larger group that is facilitiated by a team of teachers. Students are curently nominating a SIG on their 2007 enrolment forms.

Student interest has been very high. The details have yet to be worked out but in essence the groups will have one timetabled meeting each week with other activities organised by teachers, students or memebers of the wider community.

Students will be offered coffee and raison toast (a big hit with this year's group) and special events in and out of school.

We still have many details to work out but the notion of a group of students meeting and chatting about an area they are passionate about has a lot of appeal...

We have also been investigating online learning groups such as the Virtual Learning Commons at the University of Manitoba via George Sieman's blog. Perhaps we can extend the special interest concept to self-organising student groups as well - even if they are just virtual.