What's your Dream Class?

If you could run a dream classroom programme... what would it look like? Imagine an unlimited budget and the freedom to follow your own pedagogical path! This was a provoking thought I've come across lately and I thought I'd share a glimpse into what I think would make a great 2013 with my students!

Tips for ICT momentum in schools

I was asked the following question on twitter today..

...so I thought I'd post some things that have helped (or not helped) our school and the schools I have worked in. These are also quotes I've picked up along the way that help guide our school when making decisions.

Aurasma - an Interactive, Digital Display

We have a third year college teacher, @mattmurraynz, working with us this year and he is proving to be a handy innovator in his own right.  One of his college assignments this term was to create an interactive display in the classroom.  He told me his class were thinking, 'What? How do you do that?'

With a little bit of chatter and after seeing a great ipad app called aurasma lite he came up with an idea for using augmented reality and the student's learning about taonga - special treasures.

The student's held their taonga and spoke about it's importance to them, then Matt made this into a video. The video is uploaded to aurasma and a screen shot of the video was printed out and hung on the wall.

Matt then went through the steps on the app to take an image of the photo and linked it to the uploaded video. And below is the result. When you hold the aurasma app view finder up to the image it shows the video of the student speaking inside the image of the photo.

How cool would our classrooms, office foyers, shopping mall walls, and street signs be with this kind of interaction?

The dangers of student centered learning

One of the current BUZZ words this year is student centered learning. We should have a student centered programme and a student centered curriculum. When we are talking about differentiation and personalised learning I am in whole hearted agreement.

My concern, however is that while being student centered helps to target the learning and boost achievement it is also solidifying our western culture's focus on the individual and not the collective.

What I mean by this is the danger that we make our classroom programme 'all about the student.' Everything is structured to meet the requirements of (cliched) 'little jonnie' that we encourage them to think first and foremost about themselves and their own needs.

Like everything, I think we need to have a balance. Yes, education is about preparing the individual for the future but it's also about helping to shape a society that cares for and thinks of others. It's about helping children mature from being egocentric to being empathetic and altruistic. After-all, to be truly functional, societies are dependent on the health of it's communities.

Perhaps, then, we need to add a new buzz word/phrase to this years teaching lexicon - 'community centered learning'. I'm beginning to wonder if this is my true calling?

So, what does this look like?

Yes - we should guide student learning at their pace and towards their own learning targets.

BUT - we should also be encouraging a desire for them to look for opportunities to help others around them.

Yes - we should prepare them to have a dream and fulfill their potential.

BUT - we should also be instilling a passion to be aware of the needs and concerns of their communities and how they can be a positive influence in them.

One reflection from a student of mine made my

month! She was reflecting on a co-operative group activity where they investigated a question with their classmates and created a graph from the results. It was a group that I had helped form and had not just left up to them to join. I asked them all to describe what they felt was a success for them from the project.

Her answer - "I learnt that it's fun working with people that aren't just my best friends!"

Pure Magic! In that tiny moment in time, my work felt done...now for tomorrow.

Line in the Sand - it starts with the purpose

The current National Standards debate is highlighting a very important question - What's the purpose of education? Every school, teacher, principal and parent will have an answer for this and we see these ideas being played out in the decisions that teachers, Principals and schools are making every day. Here are three main themes I think you might encounter.

Schools exist to...

1. - assist a student to reach their academic potential,

2. - prepare and produce economic workers for our economic well being,

3. - create well rounded citizens who effectively contribute to society.

If you keep these three goals in mind when interacting with people day to day you will quickly hear the goal they are most striving to meet.

When you hear a Principal talking about their school having student achievement as it's core function - then you are listening to someone who believes in the first idea. If a government puts policy in place to create standardised outcomes for students then it's obvious that the second idea is in mind. And when a school provides extra curricula activities and instills a school wide values programme then the third has become part of it's ethos.

What I'd suggest is occurring throughout the country is a clear demarcation of principals and boards, governments and communities around the aims of education; a line in the sand is being drawn. And there is one obvious litmus test of this line - the actions being taken in the shadow of National Standards, in New Zealand, and national testing worldwide. In other words, how a Principal responds to the National Standards debate is a reflection on what they believe the purpose of our education system is. The decisions they make on time spent in class, how they structure their classrooms, the PD they arrange for their staff and even the physical spaces they create for their learners.

What I'm predicting will happen is that we will see this 'line in the sand', between those schools who see it's purpose being in academic achievement and those who seek a holistic approach to student growth as well rounded people, become more and more vivid and marked. There is little debate around the fact that schools must adapt and reform to meet the demands of an ever changing world ( just google, '21st Century learning') but what IS being debated is how.

Whether schools continue to focus on the 3 Rs, whether they travel on a journey of personalised learning and student empowerment, and whether they deconstruct the traditional teaching and learning model to one that suits their modern learning community. All of these decisions will begin to create schools who look VASTLY different from each other - ones who are completely reformed and those who have stayed the same. These are interesting days and the results of these lines will, I'd suggest, will be very different types of schools across the educational landscape.

So, if I play this prediction out and we do have very different types of schools, it could lead to;

- Parents having a wide range of options about the kind of school they want their children to belong

- Teachers becoming very selective and purposeful about teaching at schools that match their educational philosophies

- Principals forming informal 'clusters' of colleagues that will collaborate together with others of like minds - even more so than we see today.

(Side note - From someone who is relatively young and new to this career... I can see this beginning to happen. And I'm VERY excited!)

Leaders should Lead and not just Manage.

One blog I'd recommend following is Derek Wenmoth's. In a recent post he recalled a session he was in with Scott McLeod about adapting to the new digital era we are in. (Incidentally, I knew McLeod was in the country because I read a random article in the Southland Times about his ideas - no local reference, just there it was.)

The message that came through at the end of this session was this strong challenge -

Leaders lead! They don’t follow. They aren’t simply reactive (to government policy, constraints of policy, funding etc). They lead. They are compelled by a vision of what can be, and work with the resources available to them to achieve that. - Scott McLeod (Derek's summation)

This challenge, he writes, was in response to the talk of barriers to this adaptation - those Ministry policies, mandates, lack of funding and so on. And I'm standing on my metaphorical chair, waving a flag to his next statement. Derek goes on to say that it's time for leaders to have some courage start taking risks and be okay about failing. - They should lead and not just manage.

What are some things I'd suggest that school leaders could be doing to lead? Here are three ideas.

1. Know where you are going.

What is the direction and goal of your school in the next five years? Having a vision for the future takes time, thought and being connected to the right people to appear. There is a massive conversation taking place all over the world and online about the future of education and it's a dialogue that is too good to miss.

2. Start identifying those who will follow in your school and community.

This video captures the idea that it's the first few who follow who will start the movement. Who is on your staff, BOT and in your community that have the potential to support and carry out any initiatives you put in place.

3. Be willing to make a decision and make mistakes.

It's very easy for leaders to put decisions off. Especially when we are talking about technology , for example, and you are told to, 'Wait until November when there is a new model coming out!' I like this saying

- You don't have to get it right. You just have to get it going.

We can learn a lot from the student led inquiry model about the process of change and mistakes are only problems if we don't learn from them!

Also - the danger of collaborative leadership styles is that we wait for everyone to get on board before we act. I'm not sure that school's have any more time to wait!

There you go - I'm sure there are more ideas. Do you have anything to add?

(Photo by divinenephron, Photo license: Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike)

Digital Native my .......!!#@%

If you want to get some 'tech minded' teachers stirred up... all you have to do is talk about today's students being digital natives!

The term, 'Digital Native' was invented in 2001, (wikipedia) and was used to describe a generation of people who have grown up with technology and are comfortable in that environment.  In educational circles it's often used at conferences by speakers trying to convince an audience to use elearning and web 2.0 tools in the way they teach.

Last night I had another great chat about the idea with some teachers on Twitter.  Here's the argument:

 - Today's students aren't really digital natives cause most who don't know about html and rss.  If you challenge them with something that's digital and time consuming they run a mile. 

I replied with the possibility that this could be a developmental problem, not a generational one - they're just being teenagers and naturally averse to any form of hard work.  I don't think the phrase ever tried to describe D.N.s as experts with technology, just familiar with it but is there any truth in it - sure.  How many teenagers and children have to show their parents and grandparents how to set the DVD recorder?  How ever you roll, I think a lot of educators are realising that generations can't be put completely into boxes.  There will always be exceptions but the basic tenant can't be ignored.

The phrase I heard at this year's ulearn10 conference was 'Digital Learners'.  I like this concept because it puts the learner at the center and the focus of the idea back onto the pedagogy - how will we teach this generation differently to the last?  Here's my brief and not exhaustive list of implications of D.Ls in our schools;

1.  Students immersed in a digital world shouldn't have to leave it behind when they enter our classrooms (described as, 'powering down')

2.  Digital tools can lead to motivated and engaged learners who otherwise would be unfocused and disruptive.

3.  Technology allows student to develop their creativity and collaborative skills for a digital world that demands these dispositions.

Don't you think we are morally bound and professionally inept if we don't provide opportunities for these digital learners?

(Photo by Creative Commons - posted by  mharrsch - flickr.com)

Why won't you kids just reflect?

Following along from my post (Not 'Lord of the Flies' in my class) on teaching kids how to behave in our new digital world is a new initiative in my class.  We have started a Twitter account!  @Room8salford

I've wanted to keep driving my aim of developing the students into reflective learners. I thought I might be able to encourage this some more by using Twitter as a vehicle - they have turns on a roster system to post a small 'what I'm doing and what I think of that' tweet. Along the way we would learn about being responsible online citizens and put our preaching about digital etiquette (Yes! I know how to spell that now...) into practise.

Here's a snapshot of our first two days. We have two followers, apart from me, but that's not the aim. All the little strategies that Teacher's College used on me have worked... which, incidentally I resented but that is another post. Maybe all my little strategies will work on them?

Are the tweets staggeringly reflective?  Not many but it's early days.
Here are some steps I've taken to set it up...

1.  I have a roster on the wall behind our imac with a big red arrow next to the name of the next tweeter.  They get 20 points for their team if they tweet without me prompting them (real life incentive, people.  That is NOT a bribe...haha)

2.  We brainstormed some prompting thoughts and questions to help us work out what to tweet.  'What have I just learnt and how?' or 'What am I doing and how do I feel about that?' for example.
3.  I've made our tweets private for now.  This is mostly because I want to protect the class from 'randoms' mentioning us in a bad way - I always think it best to tread carefully and become more liberal as time goes on - still thinking that one through to be honest...what do you think?
4.  I have a 'follow us' badge on our class blog for any parents who want to.  One has!  Yes.
5.  I'm going to give someone a job in class to be the tweet 'cheer leader' - they'll get paid as part of our class economy for our market days.

Is there anyone else who is doing this.  I've had a hunt and haven't seen any evidence.  Surely I'm not the first!  If it helps us to become more reflective - and share some snapshots of our days - then that's awesome (or 'trick', my hip word for the week).

Habits of Mind Heros

One of my favourite breakouts at this years Ulearn conference was one taken by Karen Boyes.  She presented on how to embed the Habits of Mind into the life of a classroom and school.  I'm a HUGE fan of the Habits - they compliment the Key Competencies so well.

One of my goals this term is to consolidate and deepen my classes understanding of the Habits.  I've led some activities that taught them explicitly and we often refer to them during the day.  We have a 'Superkid' who gets to sit on the sofa chair and watches for a student to be the next Superkid - someone who displays one of the habits, for example.  These little moments help us focus on what I think is one of the most important parts of being successful.

This term we are creating our own 'Habits Heros.'  The class had to choose a Habit in pairs and design a super hero - using The Hero Factory.   They then had to create a comic life poster that explained what their hero wears and how that relates to their habit.  Here's an example from Gabby and Ella.

 

 The habit they chose was 'Remaining open to continuous learning' - interesting!   I learnt a lot about the students from their choice but the greatest part of this project (apart from looking so cool around our room) is the investigating that had to happen for the groups to create their hero.  Most students had to explore their habit some more to be able to apply their understanding in a hero context.  'Why does your hero's cape help them fly into humour?'  'What does their sword do to help others manage their impulsivity?'

Embedding the habits into our class room culture?  Priceless.

Teacher expert vs teacher learner.

When I talk to people involved in education, from technitians to principals and software developers I hear a similar story about the state of tech integration in schools.  They all say the same thing - there is a HUGE chasm between the schools that are embracing the digital movement and those that aren't.

I think the chasm is also happening within schools as well as between them.  Some teachers are providing their classes with fantastic opportunities to explore and create with digital tools while others have technology that's gathering dust - and they're concerned.

There are a lot of reasons why this is happening.  One of the main reasons is that many of us are not ready to make the transition from being the 'teacher expert' to the 'teacher learner'.  So what is the difference?  Here's my take.

This transition isn't easy.  It means that I often find myself in situations where I'm asking my students for help.  I'll often admit that I don't know what to do - but let's try and work it out together!

I think that it's this approach, the teacher as a learner attitude, that encourages us to adopt new technologies in our classrooms and schools.  I have quite a lot of experience, now, with blogs and 3rd party applications.  I know very little, however, about ipod touches and how to make apps for them but I'm really keen to get some for our class!

My challenge to all of us is to risk being the student in the eyes of your class.   What kinds of new technology have you been a learner with this year?

Are we ready to take off our expert hat?
(Image posted under C.C.  from Al Hikes AZ, Cartoon - http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/10/12/)

Ulearn10 BOT Presentation

Here's the presentation I gave to the Board last night. You can fill in the gaps, I'm sure.

Indexed - communication in the new world.

This blog, thisisindexed.com,  uses graphs to tell some pretty cool stories.  The bio goes -
This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.

The posts look like this...

It's a pity some of the posts are a bit...risky... or I'd show the kids in my class.  It does make me think about the way new media is changing the way we communicate with each - even the fact that these new ways can earn us a living.

I teach writing in set genres (and I know that is a dirty word in schools now, yet we still assess them, therefore - we teach them) like procedural, recounts and persuasive writing. 

I'd love to see us teaching methods of writing - communicating - like this... just..how.  mmmm

School websites - Brochure or Community Builder?

We've had an interesting week with weather in Invercargill, to say the least.  A friend talked with a 70 year old local who said she hadn't seen snow like this in her life time.  So, regardless of what you view as the cause - global warming or freakish weather pattern - nature has a way of interrupting your daily routines.

When we woke up on Monday morning the media were reporting several schools were closed because of concerns about roofs collapsing.  When I arrived to school at 7.45 there were three staff and the principal fielding phone call after phone call.  The question was obvious, - "Are you open?"  It became quite comical at one stage.  They would say they answered the question over forty times - before I arrived.

So... I suggested we put something on the website, which I did.  Then we sat back, continued to field phone calls and watch the web stats (a great new addition to the blogger armory).  The thing that staggered me, when you look at the comparison of the stats, was how few people thought to check the website.  Here was my tweet on it the next day.  Ignore the first (last in tweetville) post about Ping.  I just thought that was funny.

There are three questions this raises for me.

 - Are the parents of our community not as digitally tuned as we like to think?  Most of our community uses the internet for banking, shopping, entertainment and, yes, even learning.  But do we use it for instant information?  I thought we did.  Why not with our school?

 - Do the parents visit the website?  Is it gathering some readership since we relaunched it?  The screenshot below shows that it's getting, on average, about 30 to 40 hits a day.  I'd say that, yes, some momentum IS gathering speed and word is getting out there - we've had some good feedback.

 - Should schools take some of the hit for their websites poor community support?  I have seen school site after site set up as a static, online brochure.  They are great for prospective parents and teachers looking to see whether they'll apply for that position.  But, as a community service and a place for communication they are quite redundant.

So, I think the scepticism of what a school website will provide is quite valid.  Why should a community take the time to visit a school site for up to date information when I can just call the school - or the Principal, which happens more than you would know.  What are the reasons for websites being so neglected and underused for the people they should serve?

1.  Time  - Anyone involved in education recognises the squeeze for time that is happening in our schools; a crowded curriculum, increased parent expectations and now a National Standards regime that will have us double up on assessment and reporting.  A teacher I really respect once said that we should always make time for the things that we value.  He was talking about using efolios in the class room and how we should give the students time for reflection and making comments.  I'd suggest that, if we really value creating and caring for a genuine learning community then some allocation of time for up-keeping a website would be critical.  Communication, celebration and sharing should be the aim of every school website.

2.  Expertise - There is a growing group of teachers in our schools who are quietly developing some amazing skills in working with blogs and websites.  It isn't really that hard - kids are doing it, after all!  Does your school have someone who create, manage and drive the fresh content on your site?  If not, perhaps this should be a consideration when recruiting new staff.  

3.  Cost - Lots of the static websites that I see are created and managed by a third party source that costs the school a setup and monthly fee.  This can easily be eliminated with the free services we can access now.  Our school's website uses Wix as it's launching platform (it has a kid friendly interface and interactive element) that connects with blogger and some google sites - all of these are free!  The only cost is the time that's given to work on them... and there's not as much release as you would think.

 

4.  Desire - How much vision and drive does your school have for a fresh, dynamic online presence?  I think that a website has a lot of potential to help build a community of learners - which is what many of our schools aspire to.  Communication is a big part of that but it takes committement and perseverance.    Every school just needs one person with the motivation, interest and drive to keep taking those photos, uploading video and updating newsletters and notices.  

I think that schools have some work to do to build up the trust of their communities.  People will become followers and users of a school website when they know that it will be useful, up to date and relevant. 

It's a big challenge!

NB Our school's next steps are

 - update our BOT information (exciting, I know)

 - upload our student voice page - a class project to see the school through student's eyes

 - continue to build the written content of our students.  I want to the website to be student driven and managed as much as possible.  We have a team of gifted students who are keen to be our journalists and photographers.  I think we should be taking advantage of this authentic audience!  But that's another post.

Formative Assessment for the digital learner.

For quite a while I've been wishing for a way to 'marry' the formative practice we have in our class with the digital environment we work in. At the moment the students often use a matrix that guides through a process of steps in an inquiry or presentation they are preparing.

These matrices , either written by me or co-constructed, are usually word processed and posted on the wall. The students put their name, face or group names on the level they are working at, whether it is at the novice, apprentice, practitioner or expert. This has been a great way for them to monitor their progress, justify why they are where they are and work out what they need to do to get better.

I've wanted, though, to be able to 'digitalise' this process so they can access the matrix from home, record their progress in their 'e-folio's and be able to regularly access it from where ever they are working (They are often working in different classrooms and learning spaces around the school).

Google to the Rescue!

Our school has rapidly turned into a flagship 'Google' enterprise. We've adopted Gmail and Google sites and we're slowly building up the wide spread practice of staff using and sharing docs, sites and Blogger blogs.


This evening my eye was drawn to a link (on twitter... say no more) to a google presentation called,
'Twenty uses for Google Docs in the classroom'.
Thanks to @Jedd (Jedd Bartlet) I was able to see the possibilities of the sharing tool for drawing students into collaborative projects.
The ideas are great! Everything from working on presentations together to adding data on spreadsheets and graphing the results to, what REALLY caught my imagination, creating collaborative 'revision lists' (idea #15).

The example shows the students names listed across the top of the spreadsheet and the tasks or criteria down the left. The key at the bottom indicates the students progress in each criteria and the cells were coloured as appropriate throughout the process by the students!

This is fantastic, I thought. Finally a way for the students to work in a collaborative way on a formative, digital, assessment matrix. But...how would we share this matrix with our learning community? We would want to post our progress on our e-folios? This is my goal for the term - to share our learning progress as well as our product.

Enter Google search! A simple question search ('Can I embed a google doc / spreadsheet into a blogger blog?) led quickly to this blog post.
- 'Google docs and spreadsheets in your blog.'
Here the author posts some easy steps to doing just that - publishing any Google doc as html code and embedding it into a Blogger blog post. What's even more exciting is that the embedded version is not a static jpg image but a movable document with your arrow keys or mouse; great for large docs on a small post space. This is a quick version of the type of thing I want to try and an example of it embedded into a blog.



It shouldn't surprise me that what I've imagined would be useful has already been created and shared. It's also continued to confirm to me that our decision to run with Google has been the right one for our school.

Have I created the matrix for the class to run with? Not yet. Am I keen to try?... You betcha!

Skype in Classrooms

I became a fan of Skyping when my parents moved to Russia for work. It's amazing how, at the end of a skype call with them you really do feel as if they have just popped around for a visit. It's almost as if you don't miss them quite as much because, 'We see them all the time.' We often have the kids show them a toy they just bought, do a dance or piano recital and one time Dad took us for a tour of their apartment with an extra long laptop cord.

This term our class had some ebuddies set up with a teacher in Alabama, USA. We set up a combined wiki to pose some questions and used the skype call as a motivation to teach the students questioning and conversational skills - we even had co-constructed a success matrix to help us write some open questions (a skill that we have much road to travel on!)

The Skype calls were a huge success, in terms of a rich learning experience. We learnt a lot about questioning, how to have a conversation and were even opened up to the obvious cultural diversity that exists, even between two western countries; the students in Alabama were quite taken with the fact that a lot of our children wear bare-feet all day, quite unheard of for them.

Next term we are looking to use Skype for some research into our 'biotechnology' inquirys - as well as renewing our connection with Alabama! I'm setting up a media room in the corner of the class that has our school logo behind the camera and a sliding door to block out some noise. It's all very exciting and helps us to achieve a goal for this year - to branch out of our four walls and connect with the outside world, even if that means digitally as well as physically.

Here's a fantastic set of links to skype in the classroom related resources from Teachingdegree.org

This video is an excellent introduction to the world of Skype. Thanks to sayitvisually for the upload and Richard Byrne for the link (Freetech4teachers).



(Photo above used under Creative Commons, by Shareski, from Flickr.com)

Tech exciting teachers AND students?

I'm absolutely passionate and excited about the elearning revolution slowly sweeping through schools and classrooms. I guess this is because I'm part of the infinite 'edu blogging' revolution and I regularly try to integrate technology into my classroom practice.

Last year I was fortunate to go to the New Zealand 'ULearn' Conference and have the top blown off my professional development programme. Anyone who has been to these types of conferences knows the buzz they create in connecting with like minded people. This post, by Angela Maiers (one of my favourite bloggers), gives some benefits of these conferences for teachers
- meeting and developing your PLN
- a chance to reflect on your own and others classroom practice and beliefs
- being 'warmed' and surrounded by so many other similarly enthused people
- sharing and gathering tools and strategies for your classroom
- catching or reviving a passion for learning

Sometimes I wonder, however, whether this passion and enthusiasm for tech integration is shared amongst our students as much as it is with some teachers (and I write 'some' because there are many who are decidedly tepid about it, which I'm becoming okay about... slowly).

This wondering is heightened when our class seems just as enthused by a new packet of coloured felts for our modeling books as they are with a new application on our class blogsite. Recently they were given the choice to communicate their science learning digitally or by traditional 'Tri-board' and the class was split. 50/50. I guess that not every student will walk away from traditional methods in our classrooms. To them they are just another option.

What I have also noticed is that the students who DO get excited by a digital environment are the ones who, traditionally, have been the most likely to be those disengaged with the learning. They are the boys, the lower achievers and those whose interests are quite different from their teachers and peers. This has GOT to be a huge benefit to the classroom as a whole - for the atmosphere, the building of a classroom learning community and, at the very least, the reduction of time spent on behaviour management.

I don't think that elearning will always excite every student. Neither will it , I'm willing to accept, empassion every teacher. What I think it is achieving at the moment is to draw those disengaged students into a new world of achievement and success. A world that's pretty foreign to many.

What I'd like to see more of in the future is the type of conference that would inspire students through peer sharing as much as those that do this for teachers. It's an interesting potential.

(Above photo used under Creative Commons, by 'superkimbo in BKK', sourced from Flickr)

Powerpoint no nos.

Our class often uses a powerpoint presentation during 'QNews', our research and oral language activity. We use a matrix that guides the students to using them effectively and it includes things like having no more than five words per slide.

I think that teaching students to use visuals when they communicate something is so critical in getting a message across. My belief made for some interesting debate with other teachers last year when I raised the idea of having ppts as part of our senior speech competition - you can imagine the points for and against.

This video has some classic ppt mistakes and it always amazes me how many adults fail to stick to some basic rules.