Life is not a race to be first finished

After years of grabbing gems from the K12 Online Conference it is time for me to give something back. This year I am going to make a presentation for the conference strand. “A Week in the Classroom’. It will mean a lot of pulling things together and a fair bit of movie making wizardry I suspect. I will have to confer with my mate Sir Peter Jackson for a few tips.

On Monday our Link Learning ICTPD cluster had the privilege of having Ewan McIntosh spend the day with us. Ewan came to us directly from Scotland at the start of a whirlwind New Zealand tour. We had a great turnout with people coming from over the hill to Salisbury School in Richmond.

This was the first time I had organised such an event and it went fairly smoothly although we were unable to get internet access for Ewan for the first half of the day. We could either have a beautiful but small room with one ethernet cable or a larger spacious room with no access. For Ewan to be internet-less made it hard for him and hard for us.

The local newspaper turned up at lunchtime and interviewed Ewan. We set up a fake photo and I got my picture in the paper! They cropped me from the digital version of the interview- life’s like that!

I took copious notes from Ewan’s presentation but I thought I would compress them down a few critical points as take aways.

For me it came down to one word-

Ewan encouraged us to share our practice. We have an obligation to those not able to attend a day like this to share our practice- the good and the things that didn’t go so well.

I found that I related a lot to this part of Ewan’s talk. Having just landed this fabulous job as Link Learning ICT Facilitator I would never have been able to do this job effectively if I had not begun sharing my practice only five short years ago. There are lots of incredibly awesome teachers out there that only small groups of children and their parents know about.

If you share your teaching, your classroom, you do open yourself up for a whole new world of collaboration and learning. I have been asked to keynote a strand of the K12 On Line Conference later this year by making a video ‘A Week in My Classroom’. My first impulse was to compress a month’s worth of ICT into a ‘pretend’ week but on reflection I think I will make a more honest video- the trials, the successes, the challenges. We’ll see how it goes as I share it!

What are some of the things that are barriers to our sharing?

• Time is always a biggie and Ewan suggests we start a 100 hour challenge. Carve out an hour a day for the thing that we set our desires on doing and then do it for one hundred days. At the end of that time you can evaluate how well it went. You can’t say you gave your goals a decent shot at it unless you actually do it. Don’t expect perfection- be happy with ‘pretty good’. I recall an interview with Sir Peter Jackson when he said, “Films are never finished, they are only abandoned.” You can waste a lot of time trying to perfect projects- just do it!
• Lack of momentum- leverage your project- think of things that you can do to nurture your project- to make it more successful. Pitch it to others with a ‘hook’ of having something in it that they want or would find useful for them- personalise it. Get others to buy into it to make your project sustainable.
• Fear- fear of people knowing about your practice. I know that some people think the things that I blog share about are irrelevant but I get to moderate the feedback and the comments! In all my days of blogging and sharing I have never had to delete anything but spam in the way of feedback. People are either supportive, lurking or silent. In 2005 when I first started blogging I never really gave thought to the consequences- I just did it cos it seemed like an interesting thing to try. I wasn’t afraid because I didn’t know that anyone else would read or know what I was doing anyway. The benefits of sharing my practice has been HUGE. I now have a wide circle of supportive, helpful peers that I can learn from because we SHARE. These people are scattered around New Zealand and overseas- not necessarily in the classroom next door.
• Not having the gear-  People who know me know I like the shiny toys as much as any Apple girl would but in my classroom I have a lot less gear than lots of others but I still do OK stuff. I have a data projector that sits on a disused fish aquarium stand and it shines onto an ordinary whiteboard with cords running across the floor to the wall socket. I have my TELA laptop, three netbooks and two old eMacs and a wireless internet connection that is sometimes dodgy in the way of kit. I supplement that an old handi-down digital camera from home and my iPod I got free with my home laptop. No Interactive whiteboard, no ceiling mounted data projector, no iPad, no Flip video, no Apple laptops, no computer suite! Fancy gear can help but is not a deal breaker. Last year we had one data projector to share among the whole school. I remember before we got that data projector we just gathered around the eMac!

So those are some of the things that can put people off sharing but the benefits can be enormous.

• If you share your practice with others, they will share right back at you. As an example some people get on Twitter, follow a few people and immediately start asking for things because they have heard that Twitter can be really useful for finding out stuff, they then wonder why no-one replies and then say Twitter is just stupid. Firstly you need to connect with a circle of people who are interested in the same sorts of things as you. Then share some of your practice- build momentum for your project or idea.
• If you share you don’t have to do all the work yourself. For example – Delicious- You take a little bit of time to register, put a couple of bookmarklets in your toolbar, add me to your network, network with the teachers that I network with and save some fabulous resources into the cloud for you to access after you have handed back you TELA laptop. This whole task would take about ten minutes but you would then have access to a rich resource base on all things educational- far better than a random Google Search and all there at your fingertips no matter what computer you are using or where you are.
• Collaboration- if you are sharing with others you automatically open the door to others pitching in to build your project with you. As an example last term I set up a maths basic facts wiki so that parents could access our basic facts worksheets from home and help their children with learning and children could play on line games that supported them at their level. I then asked my Personal Learning Network to contribute more activities that they knew about. The resource is now considerably richer because of that collaboration.

Ewan shared a lot more throughout the day as well but these are the things that I particularly wanted to expand on in this blog post. We have an obligation to share our learning and our practice so that others who weren’t able to take a day from their classrooms can learn too.

There were eighty people at Ewan’s day in Nelson. So people what are you going to share?

My more detailed notes from the day can be found in download form here.

Cheers Ewan

In my new job I have been on a bit of a mission to find out more about Learning Management Systems (LMS)- specifically Moodle, Ultranet and KnowledgeNet which have the MoE big tick as well as other systems that might be out there for schools to chose from.

The first question I suppose would be, ‘Why would a school want a Learning Management System at all?‘ Is it just because everyone else has one?

What a plethora of choice- I bet there are more that I don’t know of.

http://www.moodle.org.nz/

http://www.ultranet.net.nz/

http://www.knowledge.net.nz/

http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html

http://www.atschool.co.nz/

http://mahara.org/

http://myportfolio.school.nz/

http://www.spikeatschool.co.nz/

I want to be able to put a set of questions of any LMS and compare responses so I thought I would pose them here and see what  friends of my blog think.

• What do you get in an LMS above what is already available on the internet for free?

• What benefit does an LMS add to a child’s learning?

• Would parents have access to the LMS and on what level- would the child share their username and password with their parents and thus have access to everything- even the ability to change a child’s work. Or would the parent have separate parental access.

• Would your LMS be able to be hosted on your own server or would you need to have it some place else like in the cloud or with a provider?

• Can children develop their content within the LMS or would it more for a snapshot of a ‘finished project’?

• Is there a visible (non- passworded) option for sharing content with those outside the LMS?

• How collaborative and creative can an LMS be?

• How can I share the learning progressions of children in an LMS, with parents, with community or with others.

• Can I, as a teacher, personalise the LMS with features how I want them to be? Can the children personalise their own pages?

• Can you embed content from Web2.0 apps. If so, how easy is it to embed content from Web2.0 applications?

• On leaving the school can a child archive their content for a time when they are no longer able to access the school network?

• Can the content and assessment created within an LMS be portable to another LMS?

• Does the LMS synch with a School Management System. Now there’s a whole new can of worms- SMS!

• If content can be archived what format would it be in?

• I know it’s not about looks but it is. How appealing and navigable is the format for all levels of the school. We have children from five years old up to twelve. Would the LMS cater for them all?

• How much bandwidth would a school need to be able to sustain the LMS?

• How much support would the average teacher need to get to grips with the LMS? Is it something that I could work out for myself or is it that tricky that you need on going user group or expert input to master?

• How much would it cost to set up and implement the LMS initially and then what on going costs, fees would be incurred?

If you can think of any other questions please post them in the comments and I will add them here for a more comprehensive set of questions. I have found this pdf on TKI that has heaps of more detailed questions you could put to a LMS to help confuse matters even more.

A problem as I see it is that you often only see inside an LMS if your school uses one. You only know what you know. Hopefully someone will read this post and help me with this question.

If you use an LMS and like it or dislike it could you please let me know which one you think and why.

Please don’t feel the need to comment in a logged in way- just add anonymously if you feel your comments may play against your current school practice. I want to know what you really think. If you would rather add your comment via email to me I will add it anonymously.

Here’s what Ewan McIntosh thinks about ePortfolios- obviously not behind the fence of a walled garden. Click here if the video plays hard to get. I have been told that the video will be updated after the weekend and it will actually play properly- I will re-embed it then.

Here area my notes from Greg Gebhart’s presentation at the Teacher Only Day at Marlborough Girl’s College. Greg Gebhart is a former teacher who now works as a consultant from Australia on the use and implementation of new and emerging technologies. Greg’s specialist areas include the use of Web 2.0 technologies and internet safety for children. ( My thoughts are in italics ).

A profile is being built of how children use the net- for homework, for Google and for games. Primary children generally have at least three email account-  school, home that you get with your internet account, two hotmails which has MSM as well, one as a website email log in, and another to send spam to, personal, private emails, google gmail, yahoo email for chat and (for me Flickr).

It takes time from the send and receive, texts are instant so that is why they are preferred by kids. With email you have compose and wait for a reply- texting is so much more now.

Our task it ensure children understand that when people have a thousand friends on Facebook not everyone is good just because people have a happy photo in their profile. Moshi Monsters which is very popular with the littlies encourages five year olds to go collecting friends- discuss at that age that you need to know who your friends are. Moshi Monsters is a safe game but can teach bad habits about friend collecting for later on.

On line team gaming- RuneScape for younger kids and WOW for the older. Team games last about three hours and there is no pause or save- that’s why kids don’t want to stop ‘cos they let their friends down or leave the game early which leads to other players being mean to the member who has had to leave early to go eat. (Hadn’t thought about that aspect before). Some kids get up early and play at 3am NZ time cos that’s when Europe gamers get up- they go back to sleep and pretend to have slept through the night!

Texting at all hours- interrupted sleep- one kid wakes and texts another, leads to another and leads to MSM as its easier to chat in on line chat than to text repeatedly. It might be an idea to make a rule of keeping the cell phone out of the bedroom but then some kids carry two cell phones- one as a dummy to hand over if called to task, the other is the ‘real one’.

What parents can do to ensure their children are safer on the internet. If the computer has to be in the bedroom tell children they have to have it facing the door and keep the door open. This doesn’t stop risky behaviour but stops high end risky behaviour.

Facebook Terms Of Service says you have to be 13 years old but many younger children have accounts, sometimes set up by older siblings. If parents say no to kids joining up to things like Facebook they are likely to go out and do it anyway so parents may be better to say yes and keep an eye on things in the open.

Mobile phones -younger are getting cellphones as hand-me-downs from older siblings and parents as they trade up. (Still can’t get my iPhone4 here in Nelson). 20% of secondary students own two mobile phones with two carriers- one to hand over to teachers or parents if they’re confiscated. They are selling phones now with two SIM card slots so they can cope with two carriers. (Ask kids in your class what it is that they do with the internet at home and what devices they use- would be interesting for my Appleby kids).

What some young people are doing that can be damaging.

• Kids take their phones to parties- put up not so good images, someone else takes a photo and puts it on Facebook but not tag it so the victim doesn’t know there are compromising photos of them on the net. They get mean things said about them.
• Sexting- taking inappropriate photos and sharing them- imagine what happens when friendships turn sour with incriminating photos on the injured party’s phone.
• People’s email address when applying for a job can exclude them for being followed up eg sexybabe42@hotmail.com is unlikely to elicit a job interview.
• Prospective employers are Google searching + Facebook finding to cull the ones with compromising digital footprint.
• Formspring is a questions and answers website. The site allows its users to set up a profile page, from which anyone can ask them questions and also post comments. The questions and their given answers are then published on the user’s profile page. It can open the door for harassment and bullying, due to the anonymity of the entries.
• Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations. Visitors to the website randomly begin an online chat (video, audio and text) with another visitor. You can imagine some of the inappropriate randoms that connect this way.
• Moshi monsters for the very young is very popular but you have to feed your animal every day- it is addictive. (A bit like Twitter).
• Call of Duty has an R18 rating but primary school children are playing it.
• Facebook- people need to check their Facebook settings to..

Set your site to private
Remove flirty photos
Remove flirty nicknames
Remove surnames
Don’t friend randoms
Remove mobile numbers
Keep the people who can see all your stuff to friends- not friends of friends.

• Cyber bullying- generally the people being bullied are being bullied in reality as well- bullies are known to them. 10% of kids are bullied- 90% aren’t- so we have a chance to be proactive and stop it rather than be the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff before the percentage grows and it becomes the norm. The people being bullied don’t do anything because they think the school can’t stop people being unkind, or they are worried it might escalate, or worried that parents will take away their technology so rather be bullied than take their cellphones (friends) away.

I have a few cyber safety resources and videos to add via Delicious that I hope are worth sharing.

http://delicious.com/AllanahK/Cyber_Safety

What do you think of the message in this video? I think I need to explore more about the things the children in my class do apart from use our blog and Google Docs!

Today is a pretty special day for me.

For those who don’t know I picked up a part time job as facilitator of the regional Link Learning ICTPD cluster here in Nelson. For this term until the end of 2011 I will working four days a week for the cluster and one day a week for my class. It is an exciting time for me as I get to combine two of my favourite things in one job. For all my years of teaching children I have always loved doing it. There are have been some down times but they have never been related to working with the children. Now through my passion for using the internet, social media and promoting eLearning I have been given the opportunity to share my experiences with other teachers in thirty two schools around the Nelson area.

Wish me luck as I help build the plane while it’s in the air.

My mate, Brian Crosby, recently had his ISTE10 video published on YouTube. I thought I would embed it here to share. Brian is a classroom teacher who integrates ICT into his daily classroom practice to entice his class to participate and build learning power. He makes learning engaging and relevant.

We even get a mention as well. It’s almost like being there. One day, Brian, one day….

I felt the need to convert a video cassette to digital and thought I would quickly write it up here because I do it so rarely that I tend to forget and have to learn it all over again each time I do it! I am totally not a technician so I hope I call the cables by the right names. If you know more about it than me please let me know in the comments.

You need

• Fire-wire cable – my Apple Mac Book Pro has an older version of a fire-wire cable that comes with the camcorder but I presume that whatever comes with your camcorder will do to connect the camcorder to the computer.
• 3.5mm audio to RCA stereo cable ($5) on Trade Me.
• A digital camcorder- ours is a Sony Handicam.

First of all find the spot on the tape that you want to digitise. Plug the RCA cable into the OUT at the back of the video player. I had to experiment a little to make sure I had the right coloured plug into the audio/video. I didn’t have a hole to put the yellow one into but I suspect it is only for fancy stereo sound. Michael Fawcett adds that the yellow end is usually video… white (or black) is left audio, red is right audio.

Plug  the other end into the AUDIO IN on the camcorder.

Turn the camcorder onto VCR and then onto record- REC CTRL. Push play on the video and record on the camcorder.

When it’s done push stop and rewind the handicam to the beginning on what you recorded.

Now upload it to your computer. I am trying to use iMovie09 more now and it does make quick editing nice and easy.

iMovie09 has a nice direct upload to YouTube feature under SHARE. And now for your viewing delight is a video of my good self filmed about fifty years ago. It was originally recorded on film and then videoed as it played on a projector screen and now it has found its way into the 21st century.

You can Google solutions but the ones I have looked at seemed un-necessarily complicated.

Suzie Vesper made this excellent resource featuring scenarios for consideration before starting an on line presence.

Suzie made reference to our class blog- here is a more detailed summary of the project with Brian Crosby’s class in Sparks, Nevada.

I am very proud of a young friend of mine who has just been announced second place in the Dairy Trainee of the Year Competition held in Rotorua last night.

During the last school holidays she asked me to help her make a video of her practice as part of her submission to the competition. I had never made a ‘proper’ video before and enjoyed the challenge of working with only a couple of people and not having to entertain the rest of the class while trying to make a decent video.

Andrea had pre=prepared her script and written it out on a large piece of paper just like we do in class. Friends held the paper behind the camera just like a real teleprompter really. We worked hard to move the thing along and vary the backgrounds to keep the thing zipping along. Filming and editing took ten or so hours and then I took it home to burn onto DVD. Three minutes of video from all that- I have an even greater appreciation now of the work of real video producers and editors.

I was proud of the cutting of the audio and laying video and graphics under the commentary.

Well done, Andrea. Well done me. I just found out that Andrea got the highest marks in the DVD part of the competition.

Not being known for being the sharpest knife in the drawer I have taken a fair bit of push to use Google Apps with my class although I use the Google Docs package extensively myself. The main reason why I never used Google Apps for Educators in my class is I didn’t know how to specifically and I didn’t know the usernames and passwords for the children in my class or even where they would log in. So after a bit of beavering away and a little help from my on-line Personal Learning Network I am there!

The final push that took me over the edge of thinking it might be something worth trying and spending my evening free time (ROFL) investigating more deeply was that because our wonderful COW of Apple laptops are basically dead or on their last legs and as we couldn’t afford to replace them in one hit we have leased three baby netbooks for my class. Frankly I loathe them but we do the best we can with what we’ve got and at least I have something apart from my TELA laptop for the kids to use. I also have two slow and troublesome eMacs bringing the total that my class has to six so I suppose I shouldn’t whine. Anyway, the kids want to draft their stories on the netbooks and of course they don’t have WORD on them and I couldn’t find the time to download Open Office.

So I found out where to log in for Google Apps and put a link to it at the top of our blog so the kids knew where to look. I fleetingly got myself Admin access to Google Apps and entered  the kid’s names and gave them passwords that were the same as their e-AsTTle log ins so we could remember them. Then my admin privileges were gone but the set up work had been done.

Admittedly the children in my class are generally fairly ICT capable for eight year olds and all but three have internet access at home so they catch on pretty quickly to new ideas. I had one session with the whole class in front of the data projector to show them where to log in and let them read the screen as to what they needed to do to create a new document, write and draw on it and share it with others within the domain.

They caught on exceedingly well and work has been pouring in ever since. We are basically in the PLAY stage of learning- where we discover what we can do with the tool.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Last week we set a task on our homework grid to log in and do something on their docs. Marshall even set homework for ME to do using the docs.

Today Marshall who is eight decided it was time that we learnt to do presentations with Google Apps so he made a presentation on how to make a presentation.

Just in time learning on Sunday night before our Rocky Shore field trip my PLN brought me Tom Barrett’s post about using Google Spreadsheets. I quickly put one together to record our population counts from our field trip and when we got back we all entered the data as quickly as we could with multiple edits being visible on the whiteboard as we went. It was a good way to make sure everyone got a shot at logging in and recording their data and conclusions.

It’s all good and we are finding out new things together which is even better than me teaching kids how to do things my way. New things in new ways. All this in four short weeks. Yay

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

This video summarises the useful updates to Google Docs.

At school we are shifting lots of stuff into the cloud and the boss asked today if I could help him get the school logo as a signature at the bottom of his Google Apps Mail like it used to be when we went for desktop mail. You could add the logo as an attachment but that would be a total pain considering the myriads of emails that a principal would make in a day!

So, after some research and a little trial and error this is what I came up with.

First of all download Blank Canvas as a Firefox or Chrome Extension.

Once that’s done and Firefox restarted, log into your Gmail or Google Apps and click Compose Mail like you usually do. You will see little icons above the To field.

Hover and see what they do. I added the quick add remove as extras later on.

For an image I had to upload it somewhere else- I chose Google Sites but I suppose you could put it anywhere on the net.

As I am not an html genius I used the html editor on my blog to work out what the code needed to be to wrap around the image URL. In maths strategy land that would be called working backwards to problem solve I guess.

I know how to wrap html around a URL cos I use Blog Assist a lot- thanks Greg for that little gem.

I didn’t realise that <br> forces an extra line like tapping Enter so the name, URL and logo sit with a space between them but if you knew html that would have been really simple! Have I just admitted how little I know!

So the finished code looks like this..

Does that make sense? I like it when I work at something and manage to get it working before midnight!

During the holidays I attended the Cutting Edge Conference in Porirua. As well as presenting I was able to attend a couple of workshops. One that intrigued me was about Discovery Time, run by Brenda Martin and Gay Hay co-authors of the book, Discovery Time- Developing Key Competencies through activity based, child-directed learning.

I gave it a go for the first time on Friday and it was a great success so I thought it worth sharing. Here are my notes…

Discovery Time is a 90 minute, action, activity based programme reminiscent of Developmental in the old days. The teacher is engaged with the learning as well. Parents have to be reminded of need to ask questions and not to solve problems. It is well planned with structured, activity based activities- it can bring the week’s programme together.

Activities could be constructing, painting, drawing, weaving flax, parent passion, outside activities, skipping, sanding, sandstone carving, dressing up, making movies, carpentry, Lego robotics kit, shadow puppets, OHP stories, cooking, skipping, new food tasting, spending more time working on something that hasn’t been finished, Journal craft activities, clay, water play, trains, darts, juggling, musical instruments, clothing design, marble tracks. There are heaps more ideas in the book.

It is student centred learning based on play, creativity, activity and centred around the child. The teacher or parent doesn’t try to solve the problems for the child but leads the child to solve problems and challenges for themselves. The teacher lets go a little and hands the control more to the children.

The structure of the lesson-

• Introduction- key competencies eg managing self- managing our gear- we discuss first what it would look like if we were managing ourselves well ( Y-chart).
• Activity time- doing the activities from a menu of choices- children select what they would like to do- if there is an over-subscription the opportunity to do an activity will come up again another time.
• Share what you’ve done, buddy-up, photos, share- before we pack up.
• Reflection- after we’ve packed up. Thinking about what we’ve learnt. I would use Wallwisher to record our thoughts if I had more laptops to record with.
• List of ideas from kids on what they would like to be doing next week. And also list of who has missed out that would like to have another go next week.

The Discovery Time book has a CD of ideas and resources to use to supplement the programme. Here is my planning sheet for the session minus the individual targeting section.

Our first session went really well on Friday with children totally ‘in the zone’ for the whole hour and a half. I liked particularly that I wasn’t ‘teaching’ the whole time and had the opportunity to sit next to the children as they worked rather than directing them to complete tasks. Children appreciated the opportunity to delve more deeply into an activity for an extended length of time. Next time I would add some more artistic, creative activities to our list of choices.

I liked the Discovery Time concept as we talk about creativity, child-centred learning, key competencies and life long learning it ticks all the criteria of what learning is.

As we finished Friday after a Discovery Time, a workshop with the St Johns First Aid instructor, Jump Jam and ANZAC assembly one cherub, about to go home for the day said, “It’s been just like a birthday party today!” A good way to finish the week.

Tomorrow at 10.30-11:45am and then again at 11:45 until 1:00pm I am presenting a workshop at The Cutting Edge Conference in Porirua, Wellington.

My workshop notes are on line and they describe some of the global projects that we have done over time. Click here to view the notes.

Please, I would love you to join us and help make the event authentic and interactive for the participants who will generally be new to the whole concept in practice.

Last week I was able to attend a Habits of Mind workshop with Karen Boyes. I had a bit of an idea of Karen’s style as I had attended her Fish Philosophy workshop at ULearn09 and I subscribe to the EdTalks podcast in iTunes.

Here are my notes…

Habits of Mind are the things that will help children/adults sustain ourselves in 21st century. Rate of change is accelerating- who knows what the future will bring?

What is thinking? Cognitive brain actions- thoughts, feelings, opinions, strategising, multi-solutions, considerations, conscious, unconscious-thought.

“Thinking is when your mouth shuts down and your head keeps talking”. THINK- PAIR- SHARE. Remember the hand signals. ( I used to use the hand signals last year but forgot over the school holidays ). Time for processing- 7-10 seconds to process the question.

How would you want kids to think- risk takers, engaged, individual thoughts, justify their thoughts, curious, open to other people, links to outside the classroom text to world connections, thoughtful failure.

What dispositions do successful people have? And if so can we learn them? (Interestingly George the soccer guy came school last week and talked to the kids about the sorts of things successful soccer players do- fitted in nicely to my thinking).

“Habit is a cable, we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.” Horace Mann.

‘Mindful Garden of Verses‘ by Marie Ciota- poetry book about HoM- they help you solve problems and know what to do when the wings fall off. We’ll have to get a copy.

Here are the Habits of Mind- I hope I got them all!

Now the NZ Curriculum- T.R.U.M.P- Thinking. Relating to others, Understanding symbols and text, Managing Self, Participating and contributing.

WEAVING IT ALL TOGETHER

People need to be mindful competent- not automatic- thinking about the task that needs to be done.

‘Developing Habits of Mind in Elementary Schools’ by Karen Boyes. Moving from teacher led teaching and learning to student led mindful learning.

Examples-

• Do a word splash- other ways of saying the same things- key words, synonyms, phrases that convey the same meaning Wordle
• How do we do that- what it looks like. Graphic- prove with 3 ot of evidence- Comic Life
• Ask a child who is successful what they do to be successful. Celebrate it- Y chart look like, sound like, feel like. None of the HoM stand alone.
• Pausing, probing, what do you mean?- to get more clarity of understanding.
• What habits of mind do successful people display to help them be successful- sports people, authors, role models
• Managing impulsivity. An owl or a frog- which personality type are you. Make a four part rubric co-constructed with the kids body parts of the frog.
• Success-o-meter- pudding like, luke warm success, groovy success, outstanding.  Like a growth chart on the wall 0r our traffic lights.
• Use the language of thinking- analyse, predict- use the right words, don’t dumb it down
• A thinking buddy- Tony Ryan’s idea- soft toy to do your thinking with.
• If you allow it you teach it.
• Make trading cards- make eight cards- teacher gets one and rest are traded. Like our fitness cards with a digital photo of how it looks. Each for an example of HoM.
• Bookmarks with the HoM with photos of HoM in action
• Certificates on HoM to be completed by parents
• The teacher needs to always model.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle

www.spectrumcommunity.ning.com

Thanks Karen- a lot to go on with but good practical, real things I can do in my classroom this week and next term.

While attending the Breathe Technology Sitech IWB Conference I was able to attend a couple of workshops that I want to share with staff at my school next term. What better way to share than through the blog.

First up, ‘What’s new in the Lab? Cool stuff from Google’ with Chris Betcher and a bit of my stuff mashed in as well.

Google searching- there is more to it than typing in the box and pushing search.

• Click the little circle next to pages from New Zealand to refine the search.
• Put speech marks around a couple of words to get an exact match to the words other than a combination of either. eg “Allanah King” will get better results than Allanah King.
• If you go to Advanced Search you can look for just pdfs or powerpoints. I have found this search to be quite useful when I want to make a slideshow for the kids. I can use someone else’s that is close to what I want and just tweak it a bit rather than starting the whole thing from scratch.
• After you have made a general search you can click on Show Options- Chris pointed us to the Wonderwheel option which lets you see your search in a mindmapping sort of view.
• The Time Line view puts your search on a timeline of when it was mentioned.
• Also look at images, news, blogs to further refine and pinpoint your search,

Firefox- because Chris was using my computer and it wasn’t synching suitably with the data projector you couldn’t see the URL he was able to move the size of the address box by dragging the little space between it and the Google search box. It was only an incidental new learning but it will overcome an annoyance when synching with an un-cooperative data projector.

A tour of some of the tools from Google Labs

• How to embed a Google map- save it, put your markers or whatever in and click the little chain next to the word Link to get the embed code.

• Google Translate- in the past I have used external sites to write in other languages but would definitely use Google Translate next time as they have more options and a cleaner interface. I wonder if I can use this to translate National Standards information into Thai for one of our school families?

• Google Account Settings- Log in to Google and go to Settings- Account Settings and see the Pandora’s box of Google things to play with- like web history.

• Use 1 Click for Firefox one click downloading of YouTube Videos.

I was then able to attend couple of IWB specific workshops.

I managed to get to Simon Evans’ workshop IWB and the Internet. Handily Simon provided us with a pdf handout of notes from the session that he was OK for me to share. Thanks Simon- you rock.

Writing a single sentence and expand it- we have been doing this in class using our own data projector but it would be more effective moving the phrases around on an IWB. Wanted to share http://www.telescopictext.com/ but there wasn’t a right moment.

Put a Google Map of your school on the big screen and have children write instructions of how to get from home to school.

Inferring- reading a photograph- put a news photo on the big screen- children record their inferences, could be done with text as well. To get this screen shot I grabbed a photo from a news web site, dropped it into Pages, captured it with Skitch and used my Wacom tablet to write. Easier on an IWB but achievable with ordinary data projector. My screen in my classroom is just the ordinary whiteboard- in the classroom I would just write on the whiteboard- you couldn’t capture it but at least you could share it in real time with the whole class.

Thank you to Jason Neidermeyer, Simon Evans and the team at Sitech- you guys are great. It was a great learning opportunity.

Last weekend I was privileged to be invited to present a couple of workshops at Sitech’s IWB conference at Koraunui School in Upper Hutt. Apart from from being the only person there without an IWB I found the conference to be quite affirming and energising. I was so impressed with Koraunui School- they closed the school early on the Friday and some of the senior students stayed behind to assist participants. There was fabulous parental support as well. We started with a powhiri which set the welcoming tone for the whole conference. I also admired the way the whole staff at the school watched out for each other and supported each other. You could see it was a real learning community.

My workshops were based around the concept of using wiki to enhance learning in science. I shared a couple of science wiki that we had created to serve as a resource centres for our learning like our one on Flight. I also shared the one Lisa Parisi and I had co-created on comparing hemispheres which, I think showcased an even better use of wiki- that of collaboration and authentic learning.

Not surprisingly I learnt more than I shared. Chris Betcher was one of the keynote speakers at the conference and I was able to get to a couple of his sessions. I made notes- even having to resort to using a piece of paper once as the wifi wouldn’t let him go on line and if you’re presenting a workshop on Google Labs you really do need wifi- I had my trusty Telecom T-Stick with me so lent Chris my computer so he could get on with his workshop, leaving me computerless! Imagine that!

The first of Chris’ keynotes was titled “When the Wings Fall Off.” Here are my notes (in black) …

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Example Swiss watches- 1968 the Swiss had the world market sown up. Within a couple of years Japan took over through the invention of the quartz movement watches. The Swiss monopoly wasn’t able to adapt to the changes and they withered.

Example camera makers- camera manufacturers who were not able to shift to digital withered.

Example- vinyl records, tapes, CD, digital and they withered.

Example- newspapers are withering.

Those most adaptable to change will survive, not the strongest or the cleverest as Darwin proposed.

‘People who are able to adapt are successful, those who can’t fail- the change makers are those who are the ‘troublemakers’, the creative one that think differently. Think of Maui- the youngest brother who stirred up trouble and started  a new order!

Example- fall of the Berlin Wall- the troublemakers in a dockyard in Poland spread across Europe. An invasion of armies can be resisted; an invasion of ideas cannot be resisted. Victor Hugo.

We still reward compliance- Sir Ken Robinson- creativity not valued. Not innovation in classrooms- one size does not fit all.

Why the wings just might fall off education- Social networks, search tools, falling costs, free, Web2.0,  jobs that haven’t been invented yet. Things are changing- what worked in the industrial age will not work now.

Google is 12 years old. Pre-Google like pre-printing press- a defining moment in history. Google has changed everything- the way we find out stuff. Where did all the questions go before Google?

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

Recognition of play- can we do some play- to follow ideas for a time, find a time each week/fortnight. How can we allow for experimentation, the following of a passion. Let kids play with ideas. Google company allows their staff to ‘play’. Some of their best stuff comes from play. I like to let kids play with new tool or software before I ‘teach’ it, but should pursue the idea of play within the curriculum.

Why? Other countries have an abundance of riches- NZ does not- we need to have a point of difference- successful just doing lots of something isn’t enough- you need to be ‘beautiful’ well designed as well- eg iPhone, iPad?

Automation- if your job can be done by a machine it should be done by a machine.

What then is left- creative, design, aesthetic… That’s what we CAN do well.

How do we encourage creativity in children? Come up with something interesting for them to work on. Give them time, tools and skills they need. Get out of the kids way and let them get on with it.

Recognise individuality- interests, choices, flexibility, thrive on ambiguity- my long time Twitter bio , encourage risk, allow and grow from mistakes.

The less restrictions you place on the task, the more creative the response. Where does success criteria fit here? Are they too limiting?

Think big- make it hard fun but still push the kids further than they thought they could achieve.

It was an excellent conference, well organised, with great network and learning. Thanks for the invite.

I was honoured to be asked by Innes Kennard to present a couple of workshops to groups of teachers in the Wairarapa and Palmeston North last week. We talked of the communication, audience and collaborations enabled by the use of Web2.o tools in the classroom.

Particpants asked about how I let people know of the things we do in the classroom and how I have been able to form a Personal Learning Network.

We spoke of having an RSS feed like Google Reader or Bloglines to bring interesting blogs to you instead of having to go out and check them every day.

I spoke of the power of Twitter to connect with educators around the world and demonstrated that with a quick tweet to that affect. I don’t like to send out general tweets like that as a rule as I don’t like to presume that I will get a response.

Being that, personally, I generally do not have the time to tweet during the teaching day I was surprised at the number of people who could spare a moment to reply. Responses came thick and fast from Scotland, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Maine, Essex and New Zealand. All within minutes. Powerful stuff. Thanks team.

When I got home I got to reflecting on how these people came to be in my network.

I try to support others- that’s how I get supporters. I try and engage in conversations with people. A couple of people who replied I had not been previously following as I went through a stage when I felt I might be overwhelmed by following too many so I really followed few who requested that I follow them. I immediately remedied that by a follow.

When I first started the journey to create a Learning Network I was way to shy to express an opinion because I was in awe of the reputations of the people I was following. After having built up a rapport with some of those people I now realise that generally they are just teachers like me- like us.

So- to build a network, I think, people should just leap in and engage with fellow educators- leave comments, direct tweets to people, ask questions, encourage, challenge, discuss. We are all learning together.

Two whole months have gone by and I have managed to keep my New Year’s Resolution going and I have uploaded a photo every day to my Wordpress Photo Blog. Admittedly I have stockpiled a few to use when school is all I get to think about in a day but I am quite pleased with myself. A big part of maintaining the interest is gaining inspiration from looking at other people’s photos and receiving feedback from people viewing my photos.

Here is a summary of two months worth of photos. Thanks team.

Jan/Feb 2010

This morning I attended a talk by Lester Flockton at which we got to hear his take on how he sees National Standards in New Zealand. My view of them is filtered through doom tinted glasses so anything I might add can be taken from that point of view. These are my views and are to be taken in no way as a reflection on the views of staff or BoT at my school. My reflections are in italics. This is what I took from Lester’s talk. I don’t usually blog about contentious issues but I wanted to share what I heard from someone who knows more about it than most. Here is what I heard…

National Standards have their foundations in politics not education so how can you discuss them with reason or logic. It was a political decision to start the National Standards process.

We need to be strong to say what we think- will I actually post my notes as a blog post but people already know via Twitter what I think. Press had been asked to leave before the Principal’s meeting started so how different is my blog post from a post in a newspaper, apart from lack of readership of this blog. We have a culture of compliance in NZ- we need to THINK of implications for National Standards- its possible/probable impact on teaching and learning.

Here are some of the slides that Lester used in his presentation. To see them in a decent size hover over them and click fullscreen.

Pamphlets about National Standards were posted out to parents before Christmas. Interestingly no one in the room had received a pamphlet in the mail – they were posted and not given to teachers to hand out- no wonder! The pamphlets were filled with political rhetoric in talk back radio language like…

• 20% of students are failing (Lester says 10-15% of children are struggling for a variety of reasons). Every country has a large tail- to make a difference to those struggling kids there are needs to be a whole package of assistance that they need to become successful- a test without real resources to support the family/whanau is unlikely to be successful.
  

• Identify struggling children early- like we don’t know already which children are struggling.
  

• We need one national test to rule them all- thankfully but also fatefully National Standards don’t deliver one test to rule them all- each school/teacher puts their own slant on the standard.

• National Standards are needed so children can be compared one school against another. Lester says that the Standards are already impacting with schools advertising for staff to raise standards. Schools should be collaborative not competitive.

• Parents are tired of politically correct sugar coated reports. Plain language reporting- it was changed from plain English as by saying English it was not politically correct! LOL)

League tables- inevitable in the long run- John Hattie is going to be in working party to develop them. He says he wants to make them safe- only comparing like decile schools. Lester says NEMP data is much more dependable and reliable. Schools will be pitched against schools! Common data sources- you won’t find them with National Standards there really isn’t moderation between schools- league tables based on surface features- because they more easily measured. It will breed a whole new batch of data driven tests.

Revision of NAGs in November 2009- blue sheet. Lester handed out NAG revision handout. Now no need to assess AOs. Schools asked to report to MoE on demographic analysis and trends, weakness, and what they are intending to do about it.

If you have a good reporting process keep it but add on as an appendage to your normal reporting schedule in term one and term four. Bring data on from the end of the previous year- beware of children’s fading over the school holidays. Beware of last year’s teachers who are soft or too hard so you appear over hard with kids moving between average or below for example- if a child was assessed as average last year and you put them at below beware of the parental wrath- Beware teacher workload.

MoE timeline- BoTs report on trends and what schols intend to do to achieve those targets. There will be enormous variance across teachers and schools as on what is above/below standard. There needs to be ongoing moderation between teachers and across schools.

Looking carefully at the characteristics of the reading and writing standards- same word games as the Achievement Objectives- the characteristics of year five and six are the same- it will be up to teachers to make those judgments and actually put it in plain language.

The people who put the standards together weren’t teachers and were done behind closed doors without teacher practitioners being involved. Why trial something that is rubbish anyway? Overseas any improvement has come at the expense  of a balanced, broad curriculum. Is this what we want- to follow failed overseas systems?

Trending to a data driven system. Children are not data.

Learning is messy.

So there you go! What do you think. What have you got to add?

Tonight a got an email from Jacelyn at Goldfields Primary School in Otago asking that I give her a hand with some hyperlinking on her blog as it had her perplexed. It seemed like a lot of typing to explain so I made a little video using http://showmewhatswrong.com/. It is just so free and easy that I thought I might have the kids in may class make little instructional videos as well later on. Videos that you make are deleted from their servers after seven days so if you want to keep it for longer you have to download it which is easy.

Once I had made the video I downloaded it so I could upload it to Blogger. The video of course ended up being tiny in Blogger so I put it in my public Dropbox folder so that people could view it in a decent size. I have 5GB of storage in Dropbox so size doesn’t matter really. Here is the video tutorial in its hugeness.

While I was on a roll I made a new post on my Bling4yrblog blog on how to do it.

What a great way to share the learning.