Geoff Riley FRSA – Eton 2nd December 2010

Geoff Riley, Tutor2u

Creativity favours the connected mind

Ideas flow from Slow Hunches & Space to Mingle

Eight Years developing Tutor2u

Geoff Riley, Tutor2u

Tutor2u

• Materials are bought by 3,500 schools and colleges in UK and in over 85 other countries

• 110,000 blog page impressions per day• Global Alexa traffic rank of 24,847 (4,200 in the UK)• 75,000 unique web users each day• 4,500 fans on Facebook since launch in Oct 2010• Moodle VLE for over 130 Economics Departments• No standard platform – we use different software to

meet different needs – as do many teachers!

Publishers and IT people don’t get it!

• They don’t properly understand school budgets• They under-utilise social media and don’t harness

the creativity and energy within teacher communities

• Few teachers want to be locked into expensive proprietary software

• Fewer still have the time to master industry standard kit even though their IT department might prefer it!

• Most teachers choose a mix of apps for their work and this combination evolves over time

A Daily Teaching Toolbox

DropBox Snagit Wordle Expression Engine RSS Feeds

Creativity: The Power of Free

Moodle 2.0• Open source learning environment• Global community of >1 million passionate teachers

Google Docs• Brilliant (free) flexible tool for collaborative work• Peer assessment and editing

Twitter• Rich and dynamic flow of ideas, links, information• Growing subject communities for help and support

Creativity in the Open Source Crowd

Taking bigger risks

Using Google Docs for Collaborative Work

Google Docs

• Real time collaboration – using some Google Wave technology!

• Use chat to discuss work through messaging• Many options for peer and teacher review of work• Collaborative work can be easily exported into other

formats e.g. Pdf files and into student / group blogs• Great opportunities for

– Creative writing– Pooling data and ideas– Revision work ahead of exam papers– Collaborative work with teaching colleagues within and between

schools

Moodle 2.0 has now arrived!

Social Constructionism – Lots of Options!

Student Blogs and Journals

Collaborative Documents

Practicals and Simulations

Student Generated Glossaries

Forums and Discussions

Self-Mark Quiz Activities

Student Presentations /

Debates

Problem Based Learning

Conditional activities

Tutor2u