Magical Moments in Blogging

Posted on June 25, 2011 by

Spending time in my favorite Grade 3 class is always magical, but yesterday it was taken to a whole new level by @mswift . Her class blogs all the time. They’ve taught me so much this year about how blogging can be used by students of this age (and any age) as a tool to support literacy, critical thinking, collaboration and reflection.

During my visit, the initial plan was to spend some time with the students while they finished up their blogging for the year and to document some of their thoughts on the process. As they often do in education, the plans changed. The grade 7 and grade 3 classes had been trying to co-ordinate for quite some time in order to do a shared blogging activity. All of a sudden their schedules worked. Rolling with the changes, the grade 7′s came in and the magic began.

Students were given the task of creating a blog post or commenting on other posts (on their own class blog or the site 1000awesomethings.com) in pairs (one grade 3 and one grade 7). As we watched the grade 3′s demonstrate to their grade 7 buddies how to post, how to comment, how to embed files and what the “rules” were (including digital citizenship rules and that a blog post needs to pose a question in order to generate discussion), I was memorized by how engaged the grade 7s were. Once the pairs decided what to post or comment on, the grade 7s became more confident and lead the grade 3′s to extend their thinking and writing to more closely match some of the abilities of the grade 7 students.

One group of three girls decided to join their three names together into one nonsensical but personalized name to sign off their post with. The whole experience lasted maybe 20 minutes, but I can’t think of a better way to spend the last 20 minutes of a week. Thanks @mswift!

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Music in Math, Patterning

Posted on June 25, 2011 by

Last week I had the honor of working with a few teachers (Marci Duncan @marcedun and Michele McGuires @3kidzmum) on a math lesson. These two teachers work on opposite sides of the district and co-planned their lesson by adobe connect and skype and then co-taught their lesson using Polycom video conferencing equipment and an assortment of other tools.

In the past they’ve done really neat lessons including one where students studied the devastation in Haiti, then created 2-D plans for rebuilding 8 buildings for a new village in Haiti. The students did this in groups with students from the other class using Adobe Connect. After planning their buildings (sketches) collaboratively the grade 6 class created diagrams on isometric dot paper of the buildings and then created the layout (birds eye view) of the village. These drawings were shared with partners in the other class using Taking IT Global Education (TIGed.org). Team members in the grade 4/5 class then created the nets for the buildings and had to actually build the village based on the to scale drawings made by the grade 6s. At the end the groups shared their final products using the Polycom video conferencing equipment. Pretty fascinating!

Back to last week, the teachers decided to do a lesson involving math and music looking at patterns. After an introduction via Polycom the classes split off into Adobe Connect rooms where two students from the grade 4/5 class were working with two students from the grade 6 class. In their Adobe Connect rooms they determined the characteristics that their pattern music would have (number of beats per measure, tempo, if it was a growing, shrinking or repeating pattern). Then the groups went to create music using aviaryeducation.com on their own. So, one pair in each class was going to create music that would be different but have the same basic characteristics. After creating their music, students went to their partners music (shared via aviaryeducation.com), listened to it and looked at it then made a comment describing the pattern using math talk. An extension activity included a discussion forum where students compare their pattern to their partners and describe the similarities and differences.The classes were brought back together via Polycom at the end of the period to share some of the patterns and comments created and consolidate the math.

There were a whole host of adults in the room for this lesson and video cameras going, so we were all a bit nervous about potential things that could go wrong. In the end, the lesson went very smoothly. Below are some examples of the music students can create using aviaryeducation.com. There are also images of what the music creator looks like and how they created the patterns.

pattern music 1
pattern music 4
fun music

 

 

The one tiny glitch that happened was that as we were doing the activity, the beta version program was changing! All of a sudden new buttons were showing up, new layouts, new links, etc. Students would save their work one way, but then had the figure out how to save it again the next minute because it had changed. As this started happening we cringed and hoped that no one would notice. And guess what? No adults watching did…. (until we told them). This is because these particular students who have been participating in lessons like this all year have learned that sometimes technology works and sometimes you need to problem solve (a lot) when it doesn’t. During one lesson the Polycom wasn’t working and then the sound card on a laptop wouldn’t work to use Adobe Connect and so we ended up sharing a screen on Adobe Connect with no visual of each class and did the audio part of the lesson across two iPhones plugged into speakers and on a skype call. Students have watched and participated in enough problem solving over the year that they just rolled with the beta software changes (even with the stress of video cameras and strange adults in the room). The skills developed to respond this way when things don’t go as planned are almost as critical as the actual math (perhaps even more so???).

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Minds On Media – The learning continues

Posted on May 21, 2011 by

Today we had a Minds On Media event with at least one teacher from every school in our board (105+ schools). We held two half-day sessions. Our best guess is that the morning session was attended by 80-90 educators (teachers, administrators, consultants) and the afternoon session about 50-60 educators. The enthusiasm in the room was contagious. We were lucky to have Peter Skillen and Brenda Sherry, who created the Minds On Media model for professional learning, join us for the day.

One of the things that stood out to me today was how many people from our school board joined in to support the learning:

  • The IT team was there for both sessions with technicians and engineers supporting teachers and helping us with equipment and set up. They also joined into a number of sessions. All of these things were way above and beyond and demonstrated their 100% commitment to teachers and education.
  • Superintendents and other administrators joined in and learned along side with teachers
  • Consultants (instructional strategy, special education and student success) helped out and joined in the learning
  • Privacy and Information Manager joined us and held impromptu conversations with teachers about working in an online environment with students
  • A teacher created all the required signs for the day in addition to prepping and running a station
  • 10 teachers led amazing sessions for the entire day. They took the time to set up and put resources on the wiki and prepare wonderful sessions. This point goes to show how many amazing educators there are in the county who are willing the share and go over the top to support and share with other teachers
  • Custodians and office administration facilitated the registration, room set up and sign in for the day, saving the organizers from last minute frenzy and disorganization
  • Communication department documenting and posting updates to share our learning with the community, in addition to providing material to post on our wiki that supports teachers with social media

Without the participation of each member of this team, our Minds On Media session would not have been successful. In addition, this joining of forces really reminded us all that while we all work in different areas and specialties, we are all working towards the same goals. Student learning.

While I am still in brain overload from the day, one overwhelming observation that resonates with me from today is how engaged everyone was. Teachers took risks to learn something new, made connections between new technologies and their curriculum and talked about shifts in education. My favorite conversations were with a few teachers throughout the day about “how do we build capacity for this type of change in our schools?”. Those conversations were amazing because they really helped me realize how the culture is shifting and developing in our county. We have spent the year trying to “decentralize” or “delocalize” the learning and knowledge and empower educators to share, collaborate and work within families of schools. Having these conversations where teachers were actively thinking about how they could build these networks was incredibly encouraging.

A HUGE thank you to all educators who participated in todays Mind On Media session. It requires a big shift in participating in a session with so little direction where you are all of a sudden in charge of your own learning. Your risk-taking is greatly appreciated. Thanks to all!

Here is a podcast created by Sean McGaughey as part of todays podcasting session: http://mcgaughey.edublogs.org/files/2011/05/mindsonmediacalder-1diahvs.mp3

The wiki for todays session can be found here: www.scdsbmindsonmedia.wikispaces.com

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Prepping for Minds On Media

Posted on May 15, 2011 by

Next friday (May 20th) our school board is hosting a Minds On Media session for one teacher from every school. We’ve worked with the “makers of” Minds On Media, Brenda Sherry and Peter Skillen in the past to run a small pilot at one high school. The response was overwhelmingly positive, so we’ve decided to do it with a teacher from each school (with permission and wonderful support from Brenda and Peter). I wrote about the small pilot here and here.

My concern with this fridays MoM event is that we are working with one teacher from each school and then sending them back alone. That is always difficult when you don’t necessarily have the support and collaboration when you return. In this instance, we do not have the option to release two teachers from each school because our system is so large and there aren’t enough supply teachers to cover that many releases. Our work around for this is to help support collaboration among Families of Schools. This has been a year-long goal and the hope is to continue developing local support systems.

Back to Minds on Media… in planning for Friday we have created a wiki as a place to store links, resources and share ideas. We have booked a million laptops and projectors. We have put a call out to get as many extension cords and power bars. This is going to be our biggest barrier yet – getting enough power to support the stations and teachers neediing to power up. We are lucky that our big conference room has power drops in the floor at regular intervals. This will help tremendously. We’ve also got our hands on chart paper to put on the walls as projection screens (makeshift solution). The IT department knows about the day and graciously offered to have technicians and technical folk on hand for the first part of each session (we have 2 half-day sessions).

We have chosen stations that look at tools that are universally accessible in our school board. For example, voicehtread, blogging, networking (twitter, evernote, livebinders), pod casting, digital storytelling, WordQ and SMART technologies (focus on the notebook software which is on every computer not the hardware which isn’t available in every classroom) and ABEL/Learning Connections (we have a board-wide ABEL license so every teacher can access ABEL or Learning Connections).

One teacher is creating signs for the stations, we have an opening message that will include the guest wireless password and link to the wiki, we have an exit ticket (google form).

Any suggestions? Have I missed anything?

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Day of a Hundred SMART Boards

Posted on April 20, 2011 by

A few weeks ago I was invited into one of my favourite Grade 6 classes. They were struggling with multiplication, so the teacher set up an activity where her 6′s taught a variety of multiplication strategies to the 4′s. The students worked in groups and each chose a different strategy to show the Grade 4 students. They chose which tools were needed to run their stations and created all files or manipulatives they needed.

As I walked around and chatted with my friends I was amazed at some of the things I saw. Each group had chosen to create a SMART notebook file with demonstrations, practice and games. One group used whiteboards. One group used the document camera. The Grade 6′s completely took ownership of making sure the 4′s understood their strategy. They wanted them to like their station best and so did everything they could to make it fun and enjoyable. The Grade 6′s wanted the 4′s to use their strategy the most in the future and took it as a personal challenge. They also wanted positive feedback for their station on the reflection pieces the Grade 4′s were completing at the end. The 4′s were excited to try the fun things the 6s had created (and maybe a little afraid to say “no” when asked to participate?).

The challenges of running the activity included finding enough portable SMART boards to bring down so 5 stations could be created. I had assumed it would be an organizational nightmare, but was completely wrong. Grade 6′s really stepped up to organize the Grade 4s. A few times I walked by a station (during the first centre especially) and saw a Grade 6 struggling to explain a concept. Each time I almost jumped in to help, but luckily held off long enough to see another Grade 6 hop in and respectfully redirect the conversation in a way that made sense to everyone. The Grade 6′s really had to know their stuff! Anything they were shaky on, was quickly consolidated. A couple things that stood out included a student who rarely participates, jumped right in and demonstrated excellent leadership for the full block. Another student acted as a journalist and went around making notes of students doing positive things. At the end he announced a list of students who had done something positive and shared this with both classes. To be honest, it was wonderful to see SMART boards being used by groups of students to collaborate. 

I had a blast visiting the class and was talking today with one of the Netherlands teacher-trainers visiting this week. He asked if it was something I would consider writing about and sharing on my blog. You know the way a teacher can ask you a question that makes you think that it was something you thought of and want to do? :) So, thanks Henke for the push! My adventure on the “day of a hundred SMART boards” definitely should be shared. :)

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Google Tools for Collaboration

Posted on April 16, 2011 by

Last weekend I had the honor of working with Mali Bickley to support a group of teachers in using some Google Tools for collaboration. Her class worked on an amazing iEARN project with classes from all around the world on First Peoples art. Each class created a way of sharing examples and information about their First Peoples art. Some classes created a blog with images, videos, stories, etc. Mali’s class then collected the pieces from each country and put them onto a Google Map to share and display. You can see it here. What a great final product to have in memory of the project, with excellent visual connections.

View Early People Symbols Project in a larger map

Part of our support with teachers last weekend was also to discuss uses of Google Forms (docs). Participants discussed students each researching cuisine or culture of different regions and submitting work via a Google Form. To practice, we sent out a plea to our networks (i-EARN and twitter) – to complete a form stating name and “favorite tool for collaboration”. We took the spreadsheet created by the form submits and used GEOBATCH to create a Google Map of our results. You can see it here.

View Saturday FUn 2 in a larger map

In retrospect we covered too much with the forms, docs, maps, highlighting collaborative projects in one hour. We created a wiki for participants to use later on (because we had to rush through things). A fun saturday morning!

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Why Education Needs to Change: A Students Perspective

Posted on March 7, 2011 by

I came across this tweet today and it caught my attention. WOW. What a great video response by students about why they feel education needs to change.

 

Why Education Needs to Change: A Student Perspective from Calgary Science School on Vimeo.

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Communities and Schools

Posted on March 4, 2011 by

Rodd Lucier, or @thecleversheep is on the crazy train again with awesome ideas! He’s created a game on twitter for all edugeeks or “tweeps”. It is called the #31daygame. He sends out two videos about education (youtube, TED Talks, etc.) each day. We vote on them by using a hashtag and tweeting out which one we like best. Today, we chose between these two videos:

http://moourl.com/31daygame07 and http://moourl.com/31daygame08

The first video is a common craft like video about “The Networked Student”. It is great. It offers great insight into why and how we can help support our students in networked learning. Great as an introduction to the idea.

The second video had me on the edge of my seat for 24 minutes. I can’t believe that I’ve never seen it before. It is Dave Eggers’ wish: Once Upon a School. This TED Talk spoke to me and hit on everything I stand for or value.

I took a random pilot project teachers education program. It was called Enterprise Education and focused on community connection and networking. We stayed in school for two months longer than the normal 8 month B.Ed. program and got a community placement and entrepreneurship courses added in. We were expected to use technology, but not any predetermined types. Just whatever could help us connect and network. This was in 2001, so there were different tools available then.

The values of these “tutoring centres” created by Dave Eggers and like minds really reaches me. He “wishes” for community business and organizations to reach out to schools. I do believe this is a two-way street as well.

I am reminded of two new and exciting partnerships in my community that were bred from the despair of declining enrollment that are proving to grow into amazingly powerful partnerships. One is a secondary school that has rooms rented out by a local music organization. This music organization works with students at lunch time, before and after school and then works with teachers to bring music into their classes and curriculum. They also work with all local schools on a regular basis. This program has engaged students who we struggled to keep attending on a regular basis before this partnership. Creativity and community really do pay off.

The second example is a new partnership starting at another local high school this month. The town Health Unit is renting space in the school for their offices. When I think about the possibilities for partnership and collaboration here, I am very excited.

So, thank you Rodd for the #31daygame. I am re-energized and refocused after watching today’s clip.

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Tinkering School

Posted on March 3, 2011 by

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Sourcing Material

Posted on March 3, 2011 by

Sorry, again this is something we created for students that I needed to share with some teachers.

sourcing material
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