Today, Sylvia Duckworth published another three of her fabulous images which capture the essence of the words of other educators. We are so lucky to have her hard work and talent being shared. I particularly love this latest one summarising the words of Vicki Davis aka Cool Cat Teacher. Two talented women in education - thank you!!
I recently gave a presentation at Teach Expo in Gisborne, entitled 20th Century Pedagogy on 21st Century Devices. I wanted to highlight my view that just because you have devices in your class and are using them, it doesn't mean that they are used well or appropriately to develop 21st Century skills. Devices can be very expensive pen and paper if not used appropriately.
If you and your students are just using your devices for word processing and research, you may well be using 20th Century pedagogy, and might as well ditch the expensive tools for old fashioned cheaper pen, paper and books.
I gave the participants in the workshop some examples of 20th Century pedagogy that I had observed and we spent time working out how the teacher might have done things differently. I am publishing a shortened version of my presentation here to provide a bit of thought stimulation on how devices could support 21st century learning. This version only refers to phone and ipad use in the classroom, although if you click on the links in slides 27 to 33 and fill out the surveys, don't limit yourselves to answering just about those devices. The responses are visible in slide 33 so that everyone can share their ideas.
If you view the presentation in slides, you will be able to see the notes which contain a number of links to a number of resources that I provided.
I am looking forward to seeing some shared examples of how you have used 21st Century pedagogy, supported by the use of digital technologies.
I am constantly surprised by how people lose things. I don't mean in your home or at school. I mean - on the internet. There are two really simple things you can do to help you find things you want to look at again.
1. Get a Diigo account.
Diigo:
Install the diigo extension on your Chrome browser.
Use it by clicking on the extension and adding tags (labels which identify what the article is about).
Look it up later in your library using the powerful meta search (which searches your library by tag, title and content of the saved url.)
2. Use the bookmarks bar in your Chrome browser.
Hit the star to add a URL to your bookmarks
Organise it into folders
Click on the bookmark to find the page again.
I use the first option when I am bookmarking pages which are interesting or relevant to my work. I use the second option to access the most frequently used sites for my work.
This is what they look like:
Firstly the Diigo extension has a drop down menu which allows you to save or search in your library:-
There are a heap of other really useful functions on Diigo, including social bookmarking (sharing your bookmarks with others and following other people who share your interests. I encourage everyone to have a further look on Diigo tutorials on youtube and on the Diigo homepage.
Secondly bookmarking with folders on Chrome allows you to have a dropdown menu on your bookmark bar to readily access your most frquently visited sites.
I have made a quick video which shows you both bookmarking systems in brief. Here it is, good luck and I hope you can find what you want to a lot easier from now on.
I like primary school teachers. Don't get me wrong. They are hardworking and love their jobs (in the main) and their students.
Although, - they are a bit overloaded with "doing National Standards." They are a busy lot. Some are also busy "doing" Science or busy "doing" an inquiry or busy "doing something for assembly."
I don't like to be a pedant but isn't it the students who should be "doing" stuff? Or rather, shouldn't the students be LEARNING stuff rather than have the teacher "do" stuff to the students (or for the students).
It grieves me to see teachers working their butts off making nice wall displays, or preparing a million and one resources that a student will never use again aften they have "done" that topic. It grieves me to go into a class and see acres of brightly coloured wall displays all "done" by the teacher or worse still, artwork "done" according to teacher recipe.
What happened to the original student work up on the wall - their questions in scrawly writing on an old fingerprinted scrap of paper? Or even Post-It notes, or a modern day equivalent on a digital noteboard? What happened to the answers that the students worked out themselves, displayed in a myriad of styles of communications?
An attractive environment is nice BUT learning is not always bright and beautiful. It is often messy and mucky. Students need to learn to make connections between what they already know and new stuff. Some of the best learning corners in a class have bits of wool connecting ideas and questions that the students have put up, not the teachers.
It also grieves me to think of whole school "doing" topics like "the environment", being covered in a term or other set time frame. Who thinks up these topics? Please ask yourselves another question - what do you want the students to learn? Once you know the answer to that question, you will be able to let the students decide the context that they work in. Give them choices of contexts if they have no idea. Don't give them a topic or a unit.
And secondary teachers "do" units of work, too. The trouble is that they often do not have a context to "do" the stuff to the students and learning is very disjointed. It all comes back to that same question - what do you want the students to learn? Once you know that, students can choose a context in which they can explore the answers. If they don't have a clue, put some choices in front of them and let them come up with the answers. Better still, let them come up with the questions. There is a lot more learning involved in that.
I think a lot more learning needs to happen under the title "The Big Picture". How does this relate to that? What intereactions and follow ups and follow ons and backward mapping and forward steps will help students understand the big picture?
And where will you find the big picture? Why, in the New Zealand Curriculum of course. On page 4 in the foreword, Karen Sewell writes the NZC ..."is a clear statement of what we deem important in education". On page 6, under the purpose and scope, "Its principal function is to set the direction for student learning and to provide guidance for schools as they design and review their curriculum." It is a framework for every school to align their curriculum to.
Does your school curiculum truly align to what is important in education?
Teachers, you work far too hard on doing stuff. Take a step back and speak to your colleagues and principals about what is really important for your students to learn.
In New Zealand, all teachers must provide evidence that they meet the registered teacher criteria every year. There are twelve of these criteria. The teachers council (soon to be EDUCANZ) is the registration body for NZ teachers and every three years, teachers must apply to have their teaching registration updated with the support of their principal who is charged with ensuring that the teacher is meeting the standards and signing them off.
I have shared a template and videos for creating a google site for the purpose of gathering evidence against each of the registered teacher criteria before. This new video is about how to create a google blog (using Blogger) which reports on your "teaching as inquiry" with a view to also gathering evidence against the RTCs and Tataiako (the cultural competencies).
The idea is to write a blog (I would make it private as shown in the video and share with only your colleagues, your principal and/or professional appraiser) about your inquiry and as you write a regular "diary" of what has happened in your inquiry (with videos and photos to support), label the posts with the appropriate RTC or Tataiako or both.
This way you will build up a good body of evidence without having to rewrite your evidence against each criteria because sometimes your evidence crosses two or more of the criteria. It is then much easier to retrieve evidence by just clicking on the label.
Good luck!
When looking at the elearning planning framework review tool, you will find a dimension called Beyond the Class. Many teachers think that this is restricted to ways in which schools can make connections to their parents, whanau, and local communities so that they become more richly involved in their child's education, but although it encompasses this concept, it is a lot more than this. It is also very much about learning outside the classroom walls. One of the great things about using digital technologies in class is that learners can learn in authentic contexts without leaving the classroom.
There are a multitude of ways to connect and collaborate outside the school. One of the most interesting ways I have heard about lately comes from Matt Miller (Ditch that Textbook) whose Spanish class in Indiana (US) connected with students from Valencia in Spain, using Skype on ipads and sharing using Google docs. Groups of about 4 students on each side were able to have conversations with each other, getting to know each other and answering verbal questions about their lifestyle as well as answering written questions on a google doc which the opposite group would comment on and edit to correct the language. Learn more in this Youtube video from Matt Miller shown below. What an awesome way to use the technology to have an authentic language experience using peer assessment while building relationships and connections.
At the VPLD (virtual professional learning and development) hui in Auckland this week I learned more about Over the Back Fence project through Skype which is the brainchild of Geoff Woods (and I think Anne Kenneally had more than a casual hand in the development of the concept). It links students who teach others from a range of countries - up to 40 classes from 10 countries.
Skype also offers Mystery Skypes in which your class can connect with another and guess where the class is limiting themselves to questions that can only be replied by yes or no answers. You can also connect to a mystery guest through this same medium. There is plenty of help available through the Skype site, even telling you the correct skype etiquette to use. Google Hangouts can also be used in the same way through the Mystery Location Community.
Google also offers Connected Classrooms which are Hangouts on Air - a recorded field trip like this one to the White House vegetable gardens. Google's Cultural Institiute offers a variety of experiences beyond the classroom walls as well. There is the Art Institute, Historic Moments and also Wonders of the World available through a variety of Google tools
Here in NZ, we are lucky enough to be able to take our classes on a Learnz field trip. This site offers a variety of opportunities to explore previously unreachable places for most NZ students including one coming up in November to the Antarctic or the recent High Country Hi Tech trip to the MacKenzie country using drones and moible maps. Watch a video which summarizes what the high country field trip covered. The LEARNZ trips are extremely well organised with activities and resources to support the learning. These must surely be at the redefinition end of the SAMR scale.
This blog on Ditch That Textbook lists 10 ways to connect globally and includes Quadblogging which offers the opportunity to connect with classes all over the world through their blogs. The New Zealand version Quadblogging Aotearoa is very successful for making connections throughout New Zealand and takes new enrolments twice a year. Students have the opportunity to comment on other student or class blogs, learn a lot about the others and their lifestyles, plus it is an ideal opportunity to teach digital citizenship to our online learners.
The VLN - primary also offers students in rural schools, the opportunity to connect with others wanting to study subjects outside of their own schools. It is a great way to connect with others that you would not normally have the opportunity for.
Using Twitter as a medium for learning has become increasingly popular in New Zealand and across the world. Here in NZ we have Kidsedchat for the younger students, which operates every Wednesday between 2 and 3pm using the Twitter medium.
School in the Cloud offers the opportunity for students to connect globally in a self organised learning environment (SOLE) and supported by Grannies in the Granny Cloud. The students work on answering "big questions" that may not necessarily have discrete answers but the learning is more about what processes, skills and methods are needed to pursue the answer.
What other ways are student learning beyond the classroom using digital technologies? If you and your class have learned in this way, I would love to hear more about what you are doing.
Over the weekend I have been preparing this video for some of my schools. It provides an overview of some of the apps which are available to teachers and students in the Google suite.The video will give you some idea of what each of the apps are and how you might use them in a class. It is rather long but you can stop and start and play with the apps to explore their functionality as you go.
Enjoy the journey! As with all of my videos, it is warts and all!
