Book Wesley Fryer for a presentation or workshop (either face-to-face or over video) by visiting his contact page on www.wesfryer.com/contact. Presentation / workshop handout links are available on wiki.wesfryer.com.
These are my notes from a part of Darren Kuropatwa’s METC 2010 workshop, “Extreme (web 2.0) Lesson Plan Makeover.” I was only able to attend a little of the afternoon session. WOW. If you ever have a chance to hear Darren present in person, do not miss it. I do not use the title, “Yoda,” lightly here. It’s a term Marco Torres uses to refer to those people in our lives who are our wise mentors. If we could choose our own Yodas (and virtually, of course, we can to an extent) I would definitely choose Darren.
Darren showed foldplay.com to show how to make personalized kaleidocycles
Stuff kids made for me 5 years ago on paper doesn’t exist anymore
- that’s not the case for a lot of digital content
- is it really ephemeral? Some digital artifacts are more permanent
4 people in a group is not a working group, it’s a social occasion (keep collaborative group sizes limited to 2 or 3)
create the problem, solve the problem
- publish it online using any way you like
Blog: Developing expert voices
- students linked to our housed all their digital work on this project
- usually started by 2nd or 3rd week of term, students worked on this all semester
If you can use a pattern you identify which underlies
- mathematics is all about patterns
Blog: Mathematics is the Science of Patterns
- project done in HALO
MITSOP Episode 1 video
Advice: Don’t do all of this NOW
- always ask: how can I get the students to do this work?
- I just started with my blog, which at the beginning I was just reading and writing
- it’s not like you will go back to school and do all this next week
- now you are ideally situated to be the model for others
- big danger of giving presentations: People say “you can do it” because of A, B, C and D
- five years ago I did not have these skills
- I evolved, I grew into using these skills
- there are certain underlying patterns in the way things
3 most revolutionary technologies of our time (IMHO – Darren)
1- The hyperlink (so now you and a person in Azerbaijan are neighbors!)
2- Tags: when you get your head around tags and how tagging works, combined with hyperlinks can be used together, it’s amazing what can be done
- knowledge is no longer organized hierarchically, it is organized organically via networks (folksonomies)
3- RSS: the glue that holds it all together (via RSS you can take my Flickr stream, and have it beamed over to you)
Reasons to publish student work:
- you need to create ways for students to look inside each other’s heads
- Good things happen when you publish
- you’ll know they know when they create content that educates
“A computer is an instrument whose music is composed of ideas”
Full disclosure: I spoke with a gWhiz representative today on the phone to obtain some of the info contained in this post. I am not affiliated with gWhiz and have not received anything (software / money / promises etc) from them. This is an unsolicited evaluation post of gWhiz MLA.
Back in February 2009, I wrote an enthusiastic review of the iPod Touch / iTouch and iPhone applications gFlash and gFlash Pro. These apps permit anyone to create custom flashcards using a Google Docs account, and then access that flashcard data (and share it) with anyone running gFlash. I’ve shown my own kids how to use gFlash/Google Doc flashcards I created, and this summer my 11 year old son created his own custom flashcards to practice multiplication problems which were most challenging for him, on his own iPod Touch. The functionality of these software programs really is terrific. All you need is the app on your iTouch / iPhone and a free Google Docs account to create new flashcard sets.
The same disclaimer I shared on that post applies here: I do NOT think creating flashcards or multiple-choice assessments is the ultimate use of mobile technology devices– but I DO recognize the value and need for applications like these. I personally think it is GREAT the software company (gWhiz) is continuing to integrate their application functionality with Google Docs, and I see lots of possibilities here.
In mid-September gWhiz released a new application and software subscription model for the iTouch/iPhone called gWhiz Mobile Learning Assessment (MLA.)
It is notable that audio clips can be used/integrated in the questions as well as answers, as shown in the above video. Images online can also be easily integated in questions as well as answers too. There are good possibilities here for accessibility, foreign language classes, etc. I also like how questions can permit sequencing and open answer responses, rather than just multiple choice responses.
Similar to gFlash, with MLA a teacher can create a test / quiz / assessment as a Google Spreadsheet first. A Google Spreadsheet template is available which can be copied and modified, or for demo purposes a webform template can be used. (To access the Google Spreadsheet, users must request access via a provided Google access request link.) I created an assessment using the webform template, which created the Google Document for me in my account. I did have to provide my Google login credentials to gWhiz over an open / nonsecured (not https) webpage to do this.
Unlike gFlash, however, which directly opens the flashcard set from Google Docs, with gWhiz MLA the teacher needs to share the Google spreadsheet with the school / organization’s “master” Google account to which MLA is licensed. A demo mode is available, but all created assessments are accessible to all demo users worldwide. (That account is gwhizmla@gmail.com – be sure to share your template spreadsheet with this address and grant EDIT rights, not just VIEW rights.) Educators can get a 90 day trial account also. After a student enters the school’s master email account / Google account, s/he enters their name and selects the assessment to take. Data passes through the gWhiz servers and is directly recorded into the teacher’s Google spreadsheet.
This is a different model for iTouch / iPhone application licensing than I’ve seen previously, but it makes sense from a vendor’s perspective. iTunes permits an application (free or purchased from the iTunes Store) to be copied / synced and used on an unlimited number of iPod Touches / iPhones from the same iTunes account. (I think it is only possible to sync multiple iTouches simultaneously from Apple computers, however. If you have a Windows-based computer, I think you have to sync each iTouch separately. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.) Because of this “sync as many mobile devices to iTunes” feature, a company like gWhiz that wants to offer per-device licenses has been in a challenging situation. By using their own servers as a gateway / intermediary for the authentication process to a Google Docs account, gWhiz has figured out a licensing process which permits them to offer the MLA application as a free iTunes download, but license the iTouches which access and use their software solution. Without a license code (or use of the demo account) the MLA iTouch/iPhone application can’t work.
If you have a cart of iTouches at your school or in your classroom to use, consider giving MLA a try. I think programs like this can be most useful as STUDENTS create and share assessments tied to curriculum and standards. I would hypothesize gWhiz is working on integration from Google Spreadsheets to learning management systems like Blackboard and Moodle, so student assessment data can be easily ported there when desired.
I’d love to see gWhiz or another company take this same idea and make a web-based / browser based assessment tool which makes Google Forms more user-friendly on mobile devices. Rather than presenting an entire Google forms survey on a single page, like gWhiz MLA it would be good to have each question presented separately and provide users with the option to review and change their answers if desired.
I created a sample quiz titled “Videoconferencing” that you’re welcome to try. Remember to use the demo account “gwhizmla” and you should see it after you click “Register.” The program will show students their final score at the end, but they cannot review answers to see which problems they missed and correct answers. If a student takes a test more than once, the system overwrites their previous submission and does not create a new entry. There does not appear to be a way to prevent a student, at this point, from retaking a gWhiz MLA quiz or test.
Overall, the idea of integrating assessment tools with Google spreadsheets / forms is a superb idea. Like other electronic response / audience response systems, however, this software requires that teachers take time to both create and load assessments “into the system” / following specified procedures. Before jumping on the bandwagon of mobile assessment in your classroom and school, it’s important to evaluate those time requirements and insure staffing support is in place to assist teachers. As I mentioned previously, I think one of the best ways to use mobile assessment options like this is for STUDENTS to create and share assessments which are tied to curriculum and standards.
If you’re aware of or have experiences with gFlash MLA or similar student response programs tied to Google Docs/Spreadsheets, please let me know.
This podcast is an interview with Scott Carter, superintendent of schools in Kingman, Kansas. Scott is continuing to lead his district to implement a bold strategic plan which was collaboratively created three years ago. The district’s top priority is to support “learning connected and related to the real world through the use of integrated curriculum.” The second priority involves orienting education and curriculum to the interests and abilities of students. Priority three is informing and engaging the communities [served by the school district] through coordination with all city and county entities, and the fourth priority is to be a leader in using technology as a leaning tool. These strategic goals are being operationalized in several ways in Kingman, including a focus on administrative expectations for effective technology integration (utilizing the LoTi framework and H.E.A.T. analysis tools) and a new middle school one-to-one learning initiative in 2009-2010 utilizing Lenovo netbooks. Thanks to Scott for sharing background information about the work of educators in his district to prepare students to thrive in the 21st century. I also included a shout-out to Scott Elias and Melinda Miller for their fantastic podcast, The Practical Principals, which I listened to today on my commute to and from Kingman. If you’re a school administrator, don’t miss “The New Administrators Wiki” project they showcased in their episode from April 2009. See the podcast shownotes for links!
Podcast325: Implementing a Shared Vision for Digital Learning in Kingman, Kansas [32:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (986)
This is part 2 of my notes from the 3 August 2009 LoTi Administrator Institute led by Dean Mantz in Kingman, Kansas. My part 1 (morning) notes are also available.
What is the relationshiop between HEAT and LoTI?
- LoTi is the framework for designing your lessons
- as LoTi levels increase, your HEAT levels increase
- HEAT is used by administrators for walkthroughs and feedback with teachers following classroom observations
How amazing, Mrs. Campbell (the teacher) has created with her husband a bike that is connected to a wind turbine
- key in her mind: helping get the kids curious
- carefully crafted, interdisciplinary lesson
- fun learning experiences for students
ISTE observation tool focuses more on time spent using technology tools, doesn’t include the instructional elements
LoTi surveys are free and resources are free
- there is a charge if you want to see the LoTi survey results
Dean is using Filesanywhere to access files for our workshop
This was a GREAT day of PD and I’m really looking forward to the follow-up activities and interactions on the LoTi Moodle. I recorded a podcast interview with the Kingman superintendent, Scott Carter, which I’ll edit and post as a podcast here soon.
I’m in Kingman, Kansas attending a one-day LoTi Administrator Institute led by Dean Mantz. USD 331 in Kingman is hosting us. I have been aware of LoTi and heard its creator, Dr. Chris Moersch, for at least the past five years. These are my notes from our morning session. This is a two day workshop we’re doing as a 1 day face-to-face experience and a follow-up Moodle experience. (required to complete in the next 45 days)
For content filtering Kingman is now using “total traffic control” by Lightspeed
- were tired of dealing with Two Trees as a content filter, when they asked to unblock a website the IT folks at Two Trees were asking “why?” and requiring them to justify the unblock as the tech content company
- does support differentiated content filtering (different filtering for students and teachers)
- gets Windows userid and filters based on that
- does show reports of where laptops have gone online, even when they are home and off the school network/content filter
- they don’t have this tracking turned on for teacher laptops
- this cannot be integrated into the parent student informational portal at this point
when you track laptops based on MAC address you have double duty: both wireless and ethernet MAC addresses
- this is a disadvantage of tracking via MAC address
In one of the schools represented here (small, near Wichita) they’ve had 5 PCs in each classroom for 15 years, but teachers still just use them primarily for email and as student rewards after their work is done
- perception of teachers is, “we just have 5 computers, but I have 20+ kids, so I can’t do much with them”
- teachers score very low on LoTI survey of technology use, don’t know how to use computers to emphasize higher order thinking in their lessons
Kansas has adopted ISTE-NETS for Students and Teachers also, like Oklahoma has
- there are NOT any separate tech standards for Kansas for technology
- Kansas SDE endorses LoTI
This LoTi Administrator Institute is normally a two-day workshop, but this time we are doing a blended model
- 1 day today face-to-face
- the rest will be done on Moodle
Scott Carter, superintendent in Kingman
- scarter on Plurk
- starting with grades 6-8 netbooks this year (WinXP, have 20 MB Internet connection for district of
- smartboards grades k-5
- moving to netbooks k12
- hopeing to get administrators good info to make these technology investments worthwhile
- goals for LoTI: change the learning culture, where we are using technology as an instructional tool, provide tools for those conversations betw
Rick Henry, principal
- rhenry on Plurk
- looking for a systematic way to evaluate technology integration in individual classrooms
- looking for a way to speak the
Bill Kelly, athletic director at Kingman HS
Deena Walrich
- elementary principal in Kingman
- want to see more active, engaged classrooms
- more interaction, not just teacher standing at the front, not just the typically quiet classroom – a healthy, active classroom
Dean references Lisa Parisi has a great example of project-based learning, healthy, active classrooms
Leon Albert, assistant supt in Kingman
- always looking for ways to improve quality of instruction, improving the instructional process
- are seeing a big focus now on student engagement through technology
Max Clark, elementary principal in Kingman (PK-5)
- lots of challenges in elementary level, how does technology use become as expected as the use of a pencil and paper
- have teachers remembering we have to teach kids how to read, write, and do math
- have to educate parents, ref that conversations with the active, engaged classroom
- sometimes have parent complaints because they perceive an active classroom as a chaotic environment, communication with that parent is important but parent communication with their own children is important too
Brent Garrison, middle school principal in Kingman (6-8)
- are getting Netbooks in the classroom this year
- want use of the netbooks to be effective, have had computers in students hands a lot
- I want to be able to note better instructional practices of what is appropriate use (dealing also with down times, games, a “filler”)
- I want it to be effective instruction
Dean references some other districts that have gone 1:1 but just
Melinda Tilley from Greenbush Education Service Center
- mtilley on Plurk
- school improvement specialist, based in Topeka in NE Kansas
- see lots of connections
- facilitated tech-rich classrooms, used LoTi model with teachers to focus on the learning, higher-order thinking
Kim Davis, instructional technology director for Wichita Public Schools
- are wanting to see stronger integration and use of technology
- here to get ideas to get technology a more integrated piece of what we do
- new supt in districts seems very tech oriented
- wanting to see technology not just viewed as an add-on
Jackie , assistant supt in Wellington, KS
- working with tech director, want to help our administrators look at effective practices for tech integration and not just state assessments
- has been involved with Prairie Grant that did some assessment, but that was not sustained after grant funds expired (that was 10+ years ago)
Kay Tibbs, tech director in Wellington and instructional
- started at Wellington last year
- tech integration is my passion, used Palms in the classroom
- was one of those teachers who got accused of not teaching because kids were all over the room learning
- students did so well, my last year of teaching 5th grade students earned “standard of excellence” achievement
- students were given instructions on what to do, when they would ask questions I would ask them questions back
- using Palms, students learned to think for themselves, weed out information that wasn’t right or needed, etc – it certainly did
- working with Palms gave students lots of confidence themselves
- they had to collaborate with each other
Address for our Moodle: http://www.loticlassroom.com/
- we have 45 days to complete the Day 2 activities
- resources that are available for us
Today we are going over LoTi Sniff Test
- current instructional practices
LoTi surveys are being validated (formally) this month (Aug 2009)
HEAT: Higher-Order Thinking, Engaged Learning, Authentic Connections, Technology Tools
- you will hear us say, “ignore the technology when you do the HEAT survey, focus on the the learning”
- new survey is mapped to Marzano, Webbs(?), Daggett Partnership for 21st Century Skills,
Kingman did 40 hours of training with Intel (Teach to the Future)
- last year all inservice had two foci: PLCs and Intel
- dedicated 100% of our inservice time to that
- I know we need to collaborate (that is what PLCs are)
- since we bought all our teachers laptops last year, we wanted them to have a framework for using those laptops
- Intel provided an initial framework
- we are looking at LoTi going beyond that and continuing that learning track for teachers
In past this was “Levels of Technology Implementation” – now it is “Levels of Teaching Innovation”
- want teachers to see technology as a tool, not a separate add-on
TONS of video examples available on the LoTiClassroom Moodle
5 C’s of Instructional Leadership:
- Cultivation
- Courage
- Creativity
- Commitment
- Communication
GREAT question for administrators:
- Is there a correlation between the level of student engagement and the level of student achievement on standardized tests?
we recommend choosing a focus for a strategic plan, and then taking it on for three years
Question for discussion following two video clips:
- What is 21st Century Learning?
[MY THOUGHTS ON THIS IS THAT GOOD LEARNING IS ONE AND ONE, COLLABORATIVE, JUST IN TIME, CONSTRUCTIVIST. IT IS NOT INSTRUCTIONIST. THAT PART AND THE NEED TO CHANGE IT IS NOT "21ST CENTURY." THE OVERLAY OF DIGITAL, COLLABORATIVE TOOLS IS WHAT CAN MAKE LEARNING "21ST CENTURY"
a participant is saying "we have to maintain rigor and relevance" (William Daggett)
information, media and technology skills
- information literacy
- media literacy
- ICT literacy
Life and Career Skills
- flexibility and adaptability
- initiative and self-direction
- social and cross-cultural skills
- productivity and accountability
- leadership and responsibility
[AGAIN I UNDERSTAND HOW MANY PEOPLE SEE THESE UNDER THE BANNER OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS. I AGREE WE HAVE WORKFORCE NEEDS TO PREPARE GLOBAL COLLABORATORS AND COMPETITORS. MANY OF THESE LIFE AND CAREER SKILLS ARE TRANSCENDENT AND HAVE DEEP HISTORICAL ROOTS, THO, THEY ARE NOT "NEW" TO THE 21ST CENTURY.]
From a participant: the students graduating in 2010 will have never known a world without the Internet
In Kansas, in some schools the tech-rich classrooms are really the exception to the rule
- because of high stakes assessments, many teachers are just treading water
Question: what is the temperature of teaching and learning in your school?
- can look at survey results at individual level, campus level, district level
Knowledge level activities/expectations do not typically “have much HEAT”
Knowledge level action verbs:
from Bloom’s taxonomy critical thinking wheel
- from mentoringminds.com
[I HAVE HEARD OF THIS BUT DON'T HAVE IT. GREAT TOOL]
Analysis level action verbs
- analyze, differentiate, classify, distinguish, compare, categorize, examine, separate, subdivide, separate, point out
Thinking about Bloom’s, watch this video and create two questions (using the sticky pad) which are ones you’d ask your students about that video
In Wichita Public Schools, the union is so powerful there is NO WAY that the teacher observation and evaluation instrument used by administrators could be changed to utilize something like these questions from LoTi
[WOW. I WONDER HOW MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS ARE IN THAT SAME BOAT WITH THEIR UNION?]
Now we are doing a “question makeover” activity after viewing a video clip from Spider Man
[THIS IS A GOOD ACTIVITY GETTING TEACHERS (AND IN TODAY'S SITUATION ADMINISTRATORS) THINKING ABOUT BLOOMS]
I THINK A LOT OF THIS LESSON REDESIGN STUFF TO FOCUS ON HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS (HOTS) IS IDENTICAL TO THINGS WE SEE GIFTED/TALENTED (GT) TEACHERS DOING AND LEARNING HOW TO DO IN PD, BUT THE POINT HERE IS THAT ALL STUDENTS SHOULD BE DOING LEARNING TASKS LIKE THIS– NOT JUST “QUALIFIED GT KIDS”
Video from ALI of hotel design
- may be “creation level” on Bloom’s, but just a LoTi level 3 or 4 based on how much choice the students have in the learning task (is it all scripted or pre-definied, or do students have some choices about what they do)
What is the difference between student engagement and student involvement?
- with student involvement, they are defining many pieces of how they are going to do something
engagement and involvement can be two different things
- Kay discussed how “student involvement in the learning process” can mean students being involved in even creating the learning tasks, having choices with what they are going to do / how they are going to represent their learning
terminology here is very important
- what is being enthralled in a lesson?
- what is being involved?
- what is being engaged?
you can be involved but not thinking (compliant, active)
Lunch discussion: Dr Jeanne Patterson at Wichita State University doing a lot of oral history
- at one time Parsons had its own black school
- doctoral field study group is going to Parsons and collecting a lot of stories
At long last, the U.S. Department of Education released guidelines for states utilizing ARRA (stimulus) funds for educational technology. Here are the highlights from today’s eSchoolNews article, “ED issues rules on ed-tech stimulus funds.” My thoughts, comments, additions, paraphrases and clarifications are included [in brackets].
States can use up to 5% of funds for “state-level activities:”
Funding will be distributed to states by formula, and states don’t have to submit a revised ed-tech plan to qualify. The report says states may use up to 5 percent of their total EETT stimulus allotment for state-level activities. Any funds that are not reserved for state-level activities must be awarded as subgrants to local educational agencies (LEAs).
Not more than 60% of those “state-level activity” funds can be spent for administrative costs. [That seems pretty high to me.]
As in the past for EETT (Title IID) funds, 25% must be spent by districts on professional development:
As with EETT funding that is distributed through the traditional appropriations process, school district recipients must use at least 25 percent of their EETT stimulus funds to provide ongoing, sustained, and intensive professional development for their staff. This training should focus on the integration of advanced technologies into the curriculum and instruction, and on using these technologies to create new learning environments.
There are five key goals for which ARRA funds should be spent:
Drive results for students [Ugh. I just despise the word "drive" used in this context.]
Increase capacity [to raise test scores]
Accelerate reform [as articulated in ARRA documents, which IMHO really isn't any change in the status quo we've seen with NCLB "reforms"]
Avoid the “funding cliff” and improve productivity [be sustainable]
Foster continuous improvement [evidence required to show impact]
Among other things, the following should be emphasized in ARRA initiatives:
- public-private partnerships
- promote parental involvement and foster communication among students, parents, and teachers
- preparing one or more teachers as technology leaders who will help other teachers
- bonus payments to technology leaders
(1) the percentage of districts receiving EETT funds that have effectively and fully integrated technology; (2) the percentage of classrooms with internet access in high- and low-poverty schools; (3) the percentage of teachers who meet their state technology standards; and (4) the percentage of students who meet state technology standards by the end of the eighth grade.
— end of summary from eSchoolNews article —
Here in Oklahoma, I’m not sure how we’re going to ask schools to measure that they’ve “effectively and fully integrated technology.” Unlike Texas, which has campus-level as well as teacher “STAR charts” to measure technology integration, we don’t have anything similar. The STAR chart is criticized in some quarters because it is self-reported data, but at least it provides a framework for looking at technology integration on both the individual teacher and campus levels. Bottom line: It provides DATA. In Oklahoma, we don’t have anything like the STAR charts. I’m going to a LoTI Administrator’s workshop in Kansas next week on Monday and will be thinking a lot about these issues, I’m sure. Dean Mantz wrote a good post last week about the ways LoTi has been redesigned as “Levels of Teaching Innovation.” I’m eager to learn more in person Monday.
I’m also uncertain how we (in Oklahoma) are going to meet reporting requirement four, measuring “the percentage of students who meet state technology standards by the end of the eighth grade.” To my knowledge (again unlike Texas) we don’t have state technology standards. We do have a few technology standards scattered throughout the 3000+ other grade level and content area standards for students, but we do NOT have “technology standards.” Perhaps it’s time we established some in Oklahoma?
I really don’t think the establishment of more standards is the path we should take in seeking to advance the learning revolution. I still have mixed feelings about our federal push to spend our way out of our recession (see my May09 post on this as well for more background) but I’m pleased we’re seeing more money for educational technology in my own state.
We desperately need more funding for educational technology resources AND professional development in all of our districts. (Boy could I and other facilitators of our COV project tell you some stories…..)
Texas announced their T3 grant program for ARRA funds back in May. Here in Oklahoma, we haven’t seen our edtech competitive grant RFP released yet. I’m expecting that now we have these federal guidelines, we should see it soon.
Whatever the content of that RFP and whatever districts receive these funds, let’s hope they choose to utilize them “well.” In my view, that means far more than simply purchasing more electronic whiteboards and student response systems. Instead, it means focusing on the 3 C’s of 21st century literacy: Creating, Communicating, and Collaborating. It means purchasing technologies and investing in professional development with teachers which encourages truly student-centered learning, where teachers are facilitators and not simply lecturers, worksheet managers, and prison guards. It means 1:1 learning for students and teachers, with an accompanying pedagogical revolution in teaching practices.
The hour of the learning revolution draws nigh. Who shall answer the call?
Both “Back of the Napkin” and “Made to Stick” look like quick reads that would be great catalysts for thinking about learning as well as engagement. Key quotations cited by Ric:
Memory is the residue of thought.
also:
The four Cs of an effective story: Causality, Conflict, Complications, and Character. All of these wrap around action wherein the storyteller shows rather than tells a story.
Bring forth thy storychasers, catalysts of the learning revolution.
This podcast is a recording of Dean Mantz and Brian Richter’s presentation on May 2, 2009, at the PodStock 2009 conference titled, “Integrating Podcasting into the Classroom Using Moodle.” The session description was: How you use podcasting in the classroom-Integrating them into the class using moodle. This will include a quick lesson on how to do a Drop.io cellphone podcast. Dean’s bio in the PodStock09 program was: Dean Mantz is currently at USD 376 in Sterling, Kansas as their Network Coordinator. One of the biggest benefits of taking this position is getting to work with my wife and be in the same school district as both of my children. As a teacher I was responsible for developing an Exploring Technology module class. I also taught American History. In 2000, I assisted in the development of the Rice County Technology Academy. The academy provided opportunities for students to enroll in a variety of career curriculums. Students could participate in A+ training, Webmaster curriculum, and develop themselves as Certified Cisco Network Associates. I have truly enjoyed my time working with kids and teachers on how to integrate technology. Brian’s PodStock09 bio was: Brian Richter has taught at Sterling High School since 1989 in the Social Science department. During that time, he has focused much of his time integrating the teaching of economics into world and US history. He has served as a staff teacher and consultant for the Kansas Council on Economic Education for the last six years and also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas. He was selected as the Kansas Economic Teacher of the Year in 2006. Brian graduated from Emporia State University in 1989 and earned his Master’s Degree in Teaching Social Sciences from ESU in 1995. He is following his father’s footsteps; Don Richter of Syracuse was elected to the Kansas Teacher Hall of Fame class of 1995.
Podcast319: Integrating Podcasting into the Classroom Using Moodle by Dean Mantz and Brian Richter (PodStock2009) [46:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1548)
These are my notes from Clif Mims’s keynote “Using Digital Technologies and Personal Learning Networks to Enhance Learning” at the PodStock09 conference. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. I audio recorded this session and also webcasted/archived the session with Ustream.
Our current economic crisis could be “the perfect storm” for educational technology, open source solutions, instructional design, blended professional development models, etc.
all kinds of discussions and research today on communities of practice
- links to whole language
- the middle school concept: groups, pods, group planning
- we’ve been doing these sorts of things for awhile
We now have this technology thing” going on, students interacting, trying to engage them, and those two things coming together as PLNs (personal learning networks)
- I heard some people ask about PLNs yesterday, so here is an explanation
Look at formal (peer-reviewed) and informal literature
P = professional and personal
L = learning
N = network, community, environment
Plurk seems to be stronger here in the Kansas educator network
brainstorming characteristics from participants:
- self-forming
- ad-hoc
- just in time
- explosive
- resource library
- tribe
- online
Can exist both F2F and online
- referring to this in “plurksburg”
Benefits of PLNs to Educators
- I would not be here but-for Plurk
- Plurk in my experience is a tighter-knit group
the loss of isolation is a BIG benefit
I joined Twitter 2 years ago, and hated it initially
- initially I wanted to be very private, signing things as “Clif’s Notes”
- story of printer problem responses from tweet
- that is when I thought: this will be what you make of it
- I had seen plenty of people sharing what they are eating for breakfast on twitter
- I realized if I wanted to have conversations about education on twitter, then I would have to find those people
I work with the teachers directly at our university
- in prior life, I was an elementary teacher
- we had a faculty of 60 but just 1 other male
- I was very familiar with the isolation that can happen in schools
Twitter and Plurk level the playing field
I THINK THESE TOOLS CAN REALLY HUMANIZE COMMUNICATIONS
The PLNs have fast forwarded my learning in so many ways
From participants:
network is non-judgemental: ask questions, people respond
- you don’t have to always ask the stupid question, others ask them too!
filtering idea comes up a lot
- I don’t have to keep up with everything going on, I just watch it to come through my PLN, best things bubbles up to the top
lesson plan help
- on Sunday night I put out what I am teaching that week
- on Tuesday I look for results and all the ideas that come out
- so with a 48 hour timeperiod, I get a ton of help and resources
- really helps on not re-inventing the wheel!
Traditional Student PLNs may be the next frontier for us in educational technology
- we’ve used these for years: pods, teams, the school itself, classrooms, these can be PLNs in the traditional setting
anytime we are talking about impacting learning, we want to move up Bloom’s Taxonomy
- we find that a lot of our teaching happens at the fact/recall level of Bloom’s
for lesson plans, what’s on paper is one thing, people intend to move up beyond lower levels, but in practice we tend to fall back to this
- it’s easier to assess
- students don’t fight us as much (IT IS PASSIVE AND EASIER FOR EVERYONE!)
- we should be striving for the higher levels
One thing you can do with your online PLN is publish
- you know there is an audience out there
- when you start publishing, kids get more engaged in the process
from audience:
- kids can tend to self-assess more and raise their game for the audience
- kids really willing to draw others into the network, want to share
- kids tend to be more willing to do the work when they are publishing for an outside audience
- kids are actually writing all the time
- when kids write and publish for their peers, that makes a huge difference
- kids bringing writing to the teacher and asking, “Do I sound smart here?”
kids take ownership of their learning
- I don’t mean to oversell this because worksheets (specifically in math) do have their place
- the key, however, is that those aren’t the only strategies that we should be using
- I’ve never seen a child take ownership over a multiplication fact sheet in the same way they take ownership over writing and publishing online
- we are hearing more talking today about “higher order teaching” not just “higher order thinking”
I am skeptical that we ever REALLY know what someone knows, we just see what is demonstrated
When something gets published, we can start witnessing the process they go through
- it is like a data trail
- we can see the decisionamking they are going thru
- decisionmaking typically gets into higher order thinking
- there is a lot in that direction we should and will explore more
Whole idea of critique: comment, DIGG (voting/rating), starring system
- all of that is critical thinking
what happens with middle school students when things go public and they know they will start looking at each others work
- the critique dynamics change, can be in some positive ways but also negative
did a project where kids designed a game on paper with storyboards, and then developed the games back at school
- then brought developed games back to kids
- kids got to play them, share them, add ideas
- kids wanted to refine and improve their own games
- this is the kind of thing we are seeing in our own PLNs
Benefits of online PLNs to students
Lisa Thumann (@lthumann on Twitter)
- sharing an audio recording from Lisa talking about how we’ve generally valued and used experts to bring in their voices and perspectives to the classroom
someone discussing edmodo and other networking tools, giving other students that may not typically share their ideas/voice being empowered to do so with digital PLN tools
From Ginger Lumen:
- gives learning in the classroom not just an x/y axis but also the z axis
- much more depth
I wish I could have grown up learning in this world
- I grew up on the farm, and my dad was a carpenter
- I learned math hands-on, outside the classroom
- the physical setup of schools tends to box us in physically and mentally
YES, I THINK THIS IDEA OF GETTING OUT AND TRANSCENDING THE TRADITIONAL BOUNDARIES OF THE CLASSROOM IS A REAL KEY
Ability to individualize learning
- filtering things that meets your learning style
“I has a cheesburger” is a big part of some people’s PLNs today – not mine
Indivualizing your PLN is key
Multiple representations of understanding is key
- I promised a friend that I would share this
I grew up in the Mississippi delta, went away for college, came back there to teach
- most of my kids from very tough situations
- had a student I had taught the year before in math, he didn’t pass, and I was irate about it, he had already repeated twice, as a 6th grader was repeating for his 3rd time
- the next year I persuaded the teacher to get that student again for both math and science (state law encourages student to NOT get the same student so teaching is repeated)
- story of circuit switch kids, this student and his partner finished first
- I was blown away with his understanding of how to create circuits and how well he understood it
- his self esteem was in the floor generally
- I asked him to help others with their circuits around the room
- later that week I gave the test, graded them, and the student had failed miserably with something like a 20%
- I did know about his background and home life
- I thought maybe he was up all night at home, something going on
- I slowly realized that he was not failing my class, I am failing him, because he understands this topic but can’t represent it in the medium I’ve chosen for assessment
- at that point I promised myself (this was a paradigm shift) that I/we acknowledge how people express and understand things in different ways
THIS IS A GREAT STORY AND A POWERFUL WAY TO MAKE THE CASE FOR DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT
one more thing about multiple representations
- if you are going to let students express themselves in multiple ways, we as teachers are really going to have to design instruction carefully
- what ARE the objectives you want to achieve?
- do students have to write something as a paragraph? could they do a YouTube video or a podcast?
- this is going to challenge us as designers to become better and more purposeful as we design our lessons
Favorite benefit of online networks: Together we know more
- crowdsourcing
convergence of digital technologies becoming seamless with teaching and learning
- less separated: like we used to do with MS office, “today we are going to teach PPT”
- those tools are becoming (and will become) more seamless where we focus less on the tools
- bring in that PLN element where we can collaborate, publish, critique together
- can really boost higher order thinking in the classroom
Examples of how you can setup your own PLN in the classroom
- Ning
- Fliggo: setup your own video network
- Edublogs
- PBworks
- wetpaint
- seesmic (like twitter with video, you get 60 seconds, similar to 12 seconds)
- Edmodo and ShoutEm – make your own private, school-based Twitter network
can make your network completely private or public
- safety and digital citizenship go hand in hand
what lies ahead
- the highlight of my day will be going to hear these young men talk about what they are doing with Wiis and hacking
- I am NOT a gamer
- I spent the Christmas break wearing out our new Wii with my kids
- I think we have yet to discover what gaming will mean for school learning
- all these social aspects
The smartphones
- there are others in addition to the iPhone
- what these will mean for our classrooms, our PLNs, we will have to wait and see
OK, CLEARLY WE NEED TO GET MARIO-KART FOR OUR WII!
Semantic web: web 3.0
- filtering, so things likely to be of interest to you show up more intuitively
closing thought: it will be what you make it
- it would be possible that you could bring in many of these things, and still JUST challenge kids at the knowledge/comprehension level of learning
- we are still going to have to be very purposeful with learning
- responsible digital citizenship, safety issues
- you get to customize and individualize it
- how restrictive you are as an administrative
Special thinks to Michael Grant from Univ of Memphis also
Join my PLN and let’s learn together! clifmims.com/pln
- I am a big diigo bookmark user
Question on how to impact pre-service teachers and faculty
- from @dmantz: let others
from Kevin Honeycutt: some of our new teachers are resentful when you ask them to change their PERSONAL space (facebook) into a professional space
- young people have been free-range learners online
- many young people don’t view Facebook as a personal learning network
From Michael Grant: we have to help “young ones” leverage these tools beyond entertainment
Many not sure what this means to look professional online
Literature shows people need a personally meaningful connection to the tool when we teach edtech
- in my past course, in the same 3 hour course I had to do lesson planning AND technology integration in the same course, lesson planning wasn’t anywhere else in their 128 hours of required courses (undergradate)
- it was really hard to get that personal experience: putting together a slideshow about their vacation, a PPT about their boyfriend, etc – without those experiences they don’t ‘get it’ or get hooked
- I am a big believer in FLOW theory (Mihály Csíkszentmihályi)
These are my notes from the presentation “Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!!” Presented by – Kim Herron, Tamara Padfield, Linley Voboril from Inman Elementary School: Inman, Kansas. This was shared at the PodStock 2009 conference in Wichita, Kansas, hosted by ESSDACK. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. I audio recorded this session for later podcasting, and live webcasted the session with Ustream Mobile. Here is the UStream archive:
Choose the right tool to get the job done
- we have used VoiceThread and Mixbook a lot more this year
Study on “Blood on the River” with VoiceThread
- teacher-created Voicethreads, recorded markers throughout, asking students to make predictions throughout the book or make a reflection on what we had just read
- collaborated with another classroom via our Polycom videoconference unit
Kids used free Mac program Skitch to create their icons/avatars in VoiceThread
Seamless integration was a big goal for us when we went 1:1 in our classrooms
- engagement is the key
- hands on learning experiences like dissecting owl pellets have been big for us as well
Colonial Commercials project
- we used the green screen feature using PhotoBooth on our Macs for the first time
- with Leopard or newer you can do it
- got a big piece of green material
Had the “Granite Awards 2009″ project this year
- gave kids rocks and they did many different kinds of tests
- big assembly, like a fashion show for rock re-enactment, with music, DVD created
End of year 6th grade project: Virtual Museum for 6th graders with Google SketchUp
- awareness of audience really led kids to realize they could not plagiarize, copy/paste others ideas
- easybib and bibme.com are great for formatting bibliographies
Students were assigned into 8 groups of 5. Each group consisted of a/an Author – wrote an elementary level book on government and social classes using mixbook.
Geologist – created a hands on and online game about the daily life, resources, and landscape using Smarttech Notebook.
Cartographer – Created a map of civilization, located 3 architectural locations researched by architect in Google Earth, and created flight tour of locations inserting map pic and weblinks in Google Earth.
Archaeologists – Created a podcast in Garageband of 3 artifacts researched relating the artifacts with the civilizations culture and religions. Architect – Created a webpage using iWeb telling about the architectural structures and resources used to make them relating their importance in the culture and religions of the civilization.
Biomes Project
Letters to the President Project
- students asking for a law to stop people cutting down the rain forest trees
- story of a student who is normally not a fluent reader in front of the class, asking to record his letter on his own with his Macbook so it could be included in the teachers’ keynote presentation, the student asked to do this, and his audio file was fantastic!
IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO JUXTAPOSE A LETTER LIKE THIS WITH A DISCUSSION WITH STUDENTS IN BRAZIL, DISCUSSING DEVELOPMENT, HEATING AND COOKING IN VILLAGES WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, ETC.
Recognizing the importance of role models in the classroom
- started a community connections project
- contacted local leaders and
- started as a lunch once per month
- talking about “8 keys of success,” part of the Quantum Learning Model, also Boys Town social skills
- Bently (our tech integrator who has been with us for 2 years) suggested doing this as a geo-caching activity, students went to see and visit each community mentor who talked with them and gave them something, quotation, information – was a great way to start the school year
Had a veteran note writing project
- Veterans were so touched by students taking time to contact them
- Christmas letters to Veterans
Now planning a “Got Canvas?” project on going green
- our platform is reusing canvas shopping bags
- our research has been very eye opening on usage of plastic bags
- key is reduce: not just about recycling
- we spent an hour picking up trash in our community
- 5th grade field trip yesterday was to the dump / landfill: with all this background knowledge the kids had was so eye opening, how much we waste
- McPherson Kansas produces 100 tons of trash per day! (200,000 pounds of trash, every single day!)
– is that not just staggering?!
We are really excited to not only see what happens at the end of this year with this, but also what the 4th graders coming up next year as 5th graders will want to do
- if you can get kids involved in things like that, where they are passionate, you are going to change their lives
This podcast is a recording of my opening keynote session at the 2009 eTechOhio conference, held in Columbus, Ohio, on February 2, 2009. This is the audio-only mp3 version, a video podcast version is available on the eTechOhio09 portal in iTunesU Ohio. Check the podcast shownotes for a direct link to iTunes. The official conference program description for this session was: As Thomas Friedman persuasively argued in this book “The World is Flat,” we live in a very different and rapidly changing economic and cultural environment. Schools need to change to prepare students for the dynamic opportunities of the 21st century workforce. Collaboration in most of our schools today is still called “cheating.” Our factory model of transmission-based education must be transformed into one where learners regularly collaborate, access and “remix” digital information, and extend their learning beyond the traditional bell schedule. One to one laptop initiatives, where every student and teacher have wireless computing devices; schools and libraries becoming community learning hubs offering public wireless and wired connectivity to the Internet; and the deregulation of education which frees learners to spend time in real-world, problem-based and project-based learning need to become hallmarks of education in the 21st century. This presentation shares this vision for reinventing education: Designing School 2.0, and offers suggestions for how civic leaders can move toward this vision at local levels.
Podcast312: Reinventing Education for the 21st Century (Designing School 2.0) [62:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1412)
When I was taking graduate education classes at Texas Tech University about five years ago, I helped create a short video documentary about “test anxiety” as a final project for one of my classes with others. Unfortunately we could not get releases from the parents of all the kids we interviewed, so we couldn’t (and I still can’t) publish and share that video online. I think that short video would communicate in multiple voices and from diverse perspectives the test anxiety issues my middle daughter has been experiencing this week.
Two nights ago, Sarah wrote a post on our family learning blog about the impending 3rd grade state mandated tests without prompting from anyone. That night at dinner, and again last night, it was apparent she was upset and really feeling anxious. We discussed her feelings and how she could deal with those feelings. Her brother reminded her that “It’s a just a test of the minimums that everyone should be able to do.” I think that is a good perspective to have, but it didn’t seem to help Sarah.
Today at school, Sarah called in the morning that her stomach was hurting. She ended up coming home and spending the day there. She actually threw up shortly after she got home, but she didn’t run a fever or show any other subsequent, outward signs of being ill. She stated she thought the problem was her worries about the test. Unfortunately, the tests aren’t given for another two weeks. I actually go into school in the morning for parent volunteer training as a test monitor. Sarah is going to have to deal with these anxieties, but so far I don’t think we’re providing her with very good suggestions for how to do that besides giving her love, support, and encouragement.
Some kids have test anxiety, and some kids don’t, or at least some show few if any outward signs of their anxieties. Sarah has a wonderful teacher, and my wife visited with her today after school about the situation. I am confident Sarah is going to receive some extra support and TLC at school, and hopefully that will help. We all need to have high expectations for our kids when it comes to their achievement at school and their learning, but it is unfortunate that our current climate of high stakes testing can become operationalized in the lives of children with anxiety that leads to things like today.
At the February 2009 Oklahoma Technology Association’s conference, keynote speaker Will Richardson told a story about the worksheets his own students bring home from their public school each week which resonated with me. Will said he’d contemplated keeping all the papers for an entire school year in a big stack, and then photographing them to document the school-communicated learning they’d experienced all year. I then thought about doing the same thing, since our two oldest children (who are in elementary school) bring home a “Thursday folder” each week filled with the worksheets they’ve completed.
Last night, Alexander asked me to review his paperwork for the week and sign his folder. He was particularly proud of a very challenging social studies test which he’d aced, as well as a writing assignment he completed: A time-capsule letter to a future student at his school in 10 years. After reviewing all his papers and grades, we spread them all out on the floor of our living room. Several of these documents were multi-page, stapled together. This is a week’s worth of worksheets from his school, sent home this week in the “Thursday folder.”
Alexander and his sister DO attend a wonderful school, but in many ways it defines “a worksheet school.” The students DO participate in wonderful musical programs, participate in memorable class-wide events like the re-enactment of the Oklahoma land run, and participate in living history museums. They also have time each day for recess, which is more than the Texas school we left three years ago provided for students in grades three and above. (That was due to high-stakes testing pressure – The school was “exemplary” but they still didn’t have time to let 9 year olds have recess during the day.)
At our current Oklahoma elementary school, “learning evidence” from the week is communicated to parents almost exclusively via the “Thursday folder” and the worksheets it contains. Our school is very common in following this procedure in Oklahoma. This is what kids do in most schools today in 2009: worksheets. This is how most schools communicate with parents about the “learning” their children are allegedly doing in class each day: by sending home worksheets.
My problem with this situation? It’s twofold. First, many of these worksheets are stupid, irrelevant, busy work. Second, worksheets tell me VERY LITTLE about the things my child understands, perceives, knows, and wonders about. Worksheets are almost useless to me as a parent interested in the learning activities and developmental progress of my child, compared to alternative forms of assessment. It’s good to see how Alexander’s writing skills are developing, including his handwriting. But it saddens me to see worksheets like this which he’s spent HOURS in some cases completing.
There are SO many more valuable ways to spend heartbeats than completing word search puzzles. This is busy work, and I think assignments like this contribute very little, if at all, to meaningful learning experiences for my children inside and outside of school.
Included in the assortment of worksheets sent home this week in the Thursday folder were several pages about science and the unit on light they’ve been studying. I asked Alexander if he’d done any experiences during the unit on light. He said yes initially, but further questioning revealed HE had not done the experiments, he had watched the teacher demonstrate some things in front of the class. He had not formulated ANY hypotheses and tested them with experimentation and observation. How is my son supposed to learn the scientific method and become the engineer he aspires to be, if his school does not provide him with REGULAR opportunities to learn the scientific method by PRACTICING the scientific method? (David Thornburg’s message from CoSN09 burns in my mind when I ask these questions.) The answer? Like many things (including writing with social media and learning about hyperlinked writing) it’s up to us as parents to teach these things at home. What about other kids whose parents are not focused on these issues? Who is going to “turn these elementary age kids on” to science? If we really care about STEM, why are we not insisting on a hands-on approach to science in our schools which involves regular experimentation instead of endless note taking and worksheets?
Alexander recorded this short, 90 second video explaining about his Thursday folder and demonstrating what happens at the end of Thursday night after we’ve looked at the pile of worksheets: They get thrown into the trash can. (We did save his social studies test he was so proud of, however, and put it on the fridge.)
I dearly wish our school district was willing to embrace the constructive potential of social media to help students “show what they know” and more meaningfully document their journeys of learning with images, audio, and video than anyone can ever do with mere worksheets. After Alexander shared his “time capsule” letter with me last night, I asked him to quickly record it onto a short, three image VoiceThread for which he selected the photos. This took five minutes for us to do together, and I posted it to our family learning blog. His grandparents in Kansas were able to listen to him and watch this today, and told us on the phone they loved it. They hadn’t realized he’s planning to major in robotics at Kansas State in college! I hadn’t either until I read his essay. Without this technological documentation of his learning, there is little chance his Kansas grandparents would have EVER seen, read, or heard this letter. Thanks to technology sharing tools like VoiceThread, however, they did and now you can too. This is extremely important and valuable stuff to Alexander and to our family. And, it’s free to do.
Hat tip to Dawn Danker for taking the first photo in this series of me with the netbook.
When are my own children going to be able to use technologies like these IN SCHOOL here in Oklahoma? The clock is ticking. They’re learning plenty about how to use technology tools here at home, but we have much more limited opportunities to digitally create, collaborate, and communicate compared to what could be accomplished during the school day.
These are my notes from Allanah King’s presentation “Creating and Managing Digital Portfolios Using Adobe Acrobat” at Learning@School 09 today in Rotorua, New Zealand. Allanah on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AllanahK. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS.
4 options to sabotage Wes’ keynote tomorrow
- when you hear the terms “pedagogy” or “digital native” get up and whoop!
- big boxes will be by the stage, shortly after the keynote starts they will get up and leave
- 2 minutes before the keynote: the video “Dancing Man” will go on the big screen
- then we can all dance to Matt’s video
900 teachers and kids around the world are joining in
My school: 5 teachers, about 100 kids, 2005 started ICT cluster group, at that stage I had a computer at home for email
- and Google searches!
- went to a workshop on learning management systems, put us in buzz groups and took a photo, in the time it took for us to come back he’d used Blogger to put our photo on the Internet
I can do this sort of thing well
- now I working with kids to help them discover what they do well
THIS IS WHAT SIR KEN ROBINSON IS TALKING ABOUT IN HIS BOOK “THE ELEMENT”
Then connected with a teacher in Wales
- through audio podcasting
- 12 hour time delay makes things difficult
- worked things out very early or late
- blogging together
Woman in New York wanted to learn about web 2
- last week of school for us
- videoing water going down the toilet in the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere
A few years ago, someone shared a link to becoming an Adobe Educator
- got to go to Australia for several days, there are 3 of us from NZ
- last year was in SF, I just had to pay airfare
- lots was over my head, it can be very good to be with people in over your head tho
- free tablet from Wacom, free copy of Adobe CS4 for me
- this is where I come from
We are moving to a digital portfolio at school
- we want it to be accessible
- so we are going to PDF format, with a free reader you can use it with any platform
Then I found out if you buy Adobe Acrobat Pro you can do very clever things with your PDFs
- normally PDFs are just text
- but with the Pro version, you can embed videos in it
Talk with a neighbor with your experiences with using PDFs
You know as an Apple user life is easy, you know on the dark side of the force things are more difficult…
Office 2007 has free download for PDF creator, but it is not a true PDF, it is a Microsoft XPS format so as soon as you start talking about embedding video that is broken with the Office exporter
- CutePDF is a Windows-based
Man at Edsoft at the conference says $115 for full Adobe Acrobat version in NZ
After opening PDF in Acrobat
- click on Multimedia tab at the top for 3D tool, Flash tool, Sound tool, Video tool
- example doing video: select a movie, Acrobat converts it to Flash format and embeds it
- example inserting mp3 audio file (makes an embedded audio player on the document
My latest and greatest find for $80 – Cytek makes this
- EZspeak
- it is yellow and fun
- you can record
Acrobat has an option to create a PDF from a webpage
- you can actually save a website as a PDF, if it is a big website it can take a long time
- very cool for my students to be able to take a snapshot of their websites/blogs and add that to their learning portfolio
THIS IS LIKE WEB WHACKER USED TO BE: IT HAS AN OPTION TO CAPTURE MULTIPLE LEVELS
- THIS IS A GREAT WAY TO ADDRESS THE CONCERN THAT CERTAIN WEBSITES WHICH CONTAIN STUDENT INFORMATION MAY NOT STAY/REMAIN
Features I use of Adobe Pro
- create from website
- add comments
- add multimedia
Next step is the digital portfolio side of things
At Appleby School we are now using Google Apps for our domain
- so we log into Google by logging in with our school email accounts
Showing how you can upload a PDF and share it via Google Docs
- embedded videos in PDFs only play after you download them, they don’t play directly in the browser as you look at the document in Google Docs
We are a five teacher school so we don’t have a lot of extra money for commercial solutions, we are saving only to Google Docs at this point for many things
THIS WORK IS REALLY GOOD. IT REMINDS ME OF THE NEED FOR AN INTEGRATED LEARNING MANAGEMENT SOLUTION WHICH WILL SHOW A TIMELINE OF WORK. RECOVERY.GOV IS A DRUPAL-BASED SITE THAT IS USING AN OPEN SOURCE TIMELINE TOOL THAT HAS SOME PROMISE IN THIS REGARD. I THINK USING ACROBAT PRO IN THIS WAY IS GREAT, BUT THIS IS A TOOL FOR CREATING DIGITAL ARTIFACTS. GOOGLE DOCS DOES NOT AGGREGATE CONTENT AND ENABLE A TIMELINE-BASED PORTAL FOR CONTENT. www.allofme.com IS A WEBSITE THAT CREATES A TIMELINE-BASED VIEW OF PUBLISHED CONTENT. THIS IDEA NEEDS TO BE INTEGRATED INTO A WEB 2 PORTFOLIO SOLUTION.
http://fairfieldintermediate.wetpaint.com IS AN ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO-CLASS WIKI WHICH ERIN FREEMAN HAS CREATED AND USING USING WITH HER YEAR 6-8 AGE STUDENTS. HER CLASS BLOG IS ON http://ffis.blogspot.com. I AM GOING TO TRY AND GO TO HER SESSION THIS AFTERNOON.
These are my notes from Pam Hook’s Learning@School 09 day 2 keynote, “teaching & learning: What is happening in the ampersand.” MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS.
In preparation for this presentation, we asked for and collected a diverse and rather dodgy collection
- now showing a video
- going to start
When you put an ampersand between two words you actually change the words
- hards to think about learning and places of learning without teaching
- learning comes to be something you get
- teachers are people who help you get it
- schools are the places you go to get
- this is an unfortunate view, because it privileges that form of learning
- in reality learning is everywhere, it is not just our domain
- in privileging it, we contain it
I’ve been extremely fortunate to spend time the last few years visiting and learning at the Bob Reed Dementia Unit at Ranfurly Veterans Home in Auckland
We (as educators) are working with kids who are developing
Learning with my 92 year old grandpa, an incorrigible flirt
- he was having to learn to walk again
- resistant to the use of technology
- can get frightened and angry
- desire to do things independently
So with grandpa sitting in the chair what could I do?
- medicate him
- force him to move
- or do what the caregivers do: hold hands and say follow my breasts, and follow my ….
- this is not a strategy I suggest to use with your students, it did work however with my grandpa
So how do we work with students who are frightened
Often we get fretful when things go wrong and we’re not sure how to attack disengagement
- high levels of students leaving who are not literate
Survey question: When teaching and learning is not going well in the institution, should we?
- get rid of school
- get rid of teachers
- find a ‘new way’ of doing school
- introduce a re-vamped curriculum
- change the teaching and learning interactions within existing schools
- go for something we have yet to imagine
- deny … deny … deny
I know…
- Teachers are people given authority by the institution, they decide what is valid and legitimate knowledge and sanction how it might be obtained
- ICTs or eLearning allow young people to bypass teachers altogether
Should we tilt at:
1- schools without teachers?
2- Responsibility and obsolescence?
3- Increasing the reliance on peer feedback?
Many of you have students doing peer assessment with good results
- should we do this with teachers
Hattie, J. Visible Learning 2009
- problem is 80% of student-provided feedback is incorrect
I know school is a technology and IST is a technology
- we are trying to crunch two technologies together
Postman argues that technology is never neutral
- so perhaps we should not ask “how is this enhancing things” or how is it harming
Keynote yesterday said
Problem of the media and media narratives
- quote from Sherry Turkle
Report on critical thinking skills dropping, visual
John Hattie’s research on effect size really fascinates me
- says just “fronting up with kids” is enough to get a 1.5 effect size (any intervention can cause a change)
Visible Learning 2009 p. 220 – 236
When I hear people complain they do not have an interactive whiteboard, sometimes I say aren’t you lucky
my desire for ICT is that it would connect people
we still have sexism, racism, homophobia and bullying behaviors
- they continue to thrive
technology allows us to distance ourselves from others as much as it allows us to connect
- also allows us to go into an echo chamber, and can corrupt our sense of what is right and happening
reference to article “I Pay Them to Leave” about Charlie Sheen
I know I don’t know…
- how kids can leave with so little learning with so much compulsory teaching going on
NZC Essence Statement for Science: “In science, students explore how both the natural physical world and science itself work so that….”
Look at research results “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data on the science achievement of 4th – 8th grade students”
- media makes it look like our students are actually doing worse
How the ministry describes how we are doing: worse than half
- Author Robyn Caygill, NZ Ministry of Education, Dec 2008
What did interest me was how many of the kids who could not even reach the baseline
Now doing a demonstration with teachers standing up, first two rows, then the first four rows
- asking are we happy with that many people “not getting it”
so now with about 8 rows on one half of our room standing: are we happy with this many people as a percentage not getting it
We have an education system where 13% of our kids can’t get basic sciences after 5 years with us, and we have 15% of kids not getting basic maths
Key Competencies: Capabilities for living and lifelong learning
- The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies…
The fact remains the data is there and we are skeptical about it
“There is nothing right in my left brain, and nothing left in my right brain.”
I really don’t think you can reduce learning to so many decimal points like John’s effect size studies
When we look to things we so deeply believe in our practice, there is no reliable data and evidence for it
We should be thinking critially about everything
It is very comfortable to talk with teachers about class sizes
- when you start to talk about what I should change about teaching and learning, that is much less comfortable
- when we start to talk about how we can use evidence to lift kids reading 40 – 70% increases
- making what we are doing thoughtful and not based on anecdotal
Just suggesting we should have success criteria for teachers is a dangerous thing to propose
- that is a shame
Effect size: teacher as an activator vs teacher as a facilitator
We need a practice based on evidence not on antidote
I AGREE WE NEED MUCH BETTER ASSESSMENT. AN IMPORTANT KEY IS WE NEED TO NOT SIMPLY FOCUS ON THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE EASY TO ASSESS AND MEASURE
We need to ask if the school is the best place to earn
“A sixth of a GCSE in 60 minutes”
- an intense powerpoint repeated 3 times, interrupted by juggling, using that method kids are having better test results
YET WHAT IS THE LONG TERM LEARNING IMPACT FOLLOWING THAT TEACHING METHOD?
ICT changes the way students assess themselves outside of the school
Like edubloggers which rise to the top, give them identify
- how could we use that in school
- how could their identities be shaped by external comments
Now we will look at the “revamp curriculum” approach
- the new NZ curriculum is a way to look at our practice
- I love the way it starts with a vision, and starts with non-negotiable principles
- says all instruction should be consistent with these non-negotiables
Collaborative wiki: Ideas for developing a school-based curriculum aligned to the NZC Principles
So how do we help students learn to learn?
- better know themselves as learners?
The “L” word
- we’ve been all around the country now asking teachers how do you know if your students are learning
- common cute answers, we all have different shifts on this
- how helpful to students is this?
- “learning is doing something new” etc
If you ask kids what learning is sometimes they are better at this than adults
- everyone is different
- if you want to bring clarity to this..
Some say we just need to focus on the NZC curriculum
- others suggest a toolbox approach
Now I think the most powerful argument is: help students look at their strengths and weaknesses as they are learning
Effective teaching and learning occur when BOTH my students and I can exmaplin
- what we are doin
- how it is going
- what we can and should do next
Each one of these parts are sufficient but not
We want a brutal way of looking at learning: use the solo taxonomy (Biggs and Collis 1982)
- a structured overview of learning outcomes
THIS IS A REALLY INTERESTING KEYNOTE. THIS DOES NOT HAVE MUCH TO DO WITH TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION. PERHAPS THIS IS GOOD TO HAVE THE FOCUS ON LEARNING RATHER THAN SIMPLY THE USES OF TECHNOLOGY. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WAS EXPECTING FOR A KEYNOTE, HOWEVER. INTERESTING. LOTS OF TEXT AND DIAGRAMS ON THESE SLIDES. SOME USE OF LARGE IMAGES TO HIGHLIGHT IDEAS. LOTS OF TEXT SLIDES… I AM WONDERING WHAT PAM’S RELATIONSHIP IS TO THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL AUTHORITIES?
Now showing videos of students and teachers talking about the ways they are using the SOLO Taxonomy to identify learning outcomes
- a method for students to identify their own learning outcomes, themselves
Need to develop a common language across our schools to help students co-create rubrics, be involved with assessment
- look at all the thinking strategies
- use self and peer assessment using HOT Maps and SOLO coded rubrics and success criteria
- these can all provide ways to help students to learn
THEN we can pick up ICTs, as we understand our learning outcomes
- then we can use Xtimeline or VoiceThread
- then ICT can really leverage our ability to reach these learning outcomes
Then we can get effect sizes even bigger than those you see in John’s research
Then make sure you teaching planning includes activities coded in these ways
- relational learning experiences
- extended abstract learning experiences
- more
Then our kids in NZ can learn how to learn, and can be free from the ampersand thing we talked about at the start
Wesley Fryer is the author of Moving at the Speed of Creativity. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my employer(s). See my disclosure policy for more info. I am wfryer on Diigo.
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