Progressing my Spark MIT inquiry

Earlier this week I've been working on the next stage of my Spark MIT inquiry - a laminated guide for whanau on commenting on their child's blog.

Firstly I identified which components I wanted to include.  This included:

• the blog address
• a scannable QR code which will take whanau directly to the blog
• photo of the learner - making the sheet more personalised
• a piece of art the learner has created - again, this personalises the document
• a guide on how to make a comment
• important things to remember when commenting
• some suggested 'starter' ideas to kick start the comments

I've drawn inspiration from some of the Manaiakalani successes, including this commenting poster which is used extensively to encourage our learners to comment on each others blogs:

I've used Google Slides to create my first draft as I find this easier to manipulate various elements and place objects exactly where I want them to be.  I've shared the first draft with a selection of colleagues seeking feedback before I refine it.  I also intend to share it with a few of the whanau from my class to get other ideas before I settle on my final draft.  It is hoped it would be ready to share with all whanau during interviews at the end of this term.

This is of course the first of a series of ideas I'd like to have in place by the end of this term.  Many of my families are Maori and Pasifika so I'd like to create different versions in different languages so it is most helpful for all whanau.  These different versions will also assist me in the creation of a site to support whanau in commenting on their tamariki's blogs.  

Sharing ... Learning ... Networking #SparkshopAKL

Earlier today I really enjoyed attending the first GEGNZ run #SparkshopAKL, an opportunity to share and collaborate with like minded teachers/educators.  The day began with a Sparkshop smorgasbord with all participants rating each session based on interest - from there 18 great sessions were available to explore.

I was delighted to co-present a session with +Fiona Grant about how +Explain Everything works so nicely with Google.  During this session I showed how my learners access their +Explain Everything projects, which I have created to meet their learning needs, directly from my Google Site.

My second session was tricks and tips for extending Google Sites, touching on the use of tables to allow greater control of your layout and manipulating the HTML to centre tables, take away borders and resize images.  This covered some of the content I'd presented at GAFE earlier this year, however the smaller group enabled specific questions and tips to be covered.

I particularly enjoyed reconnected with fellow teachers but also took away some tips (particularly from the Demo Slam at the end of the day).

• Colour Picker Add-on to Google Chrome - match an exact colour quickly and easily - great for when creating Sites or putting together presentations!
• Bitmoji - as featured at the GAFE Summits earlier this year - but still a definite fave with me
• Visual Timers - a great way to help with those transitions in the classroom - I have used these before but hadn't thought to use them this year so a timely reminder 
• Bouncy Balls noise monitor - I thought this was really cool, although I could see it having the opposite effect in my classroom as they try to increase the noise to make the balls bounce more
• Save to Google extension - quickly save any images or webpages to view later - use tags to easily group/find later

 

Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir continues

This morning I uploaded another lesson for Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir, this time focused on writing.  Feedback the Class OnAir team has received asked for different curriculum areas so it is my intention to record lessons in the three main curriculum areas over the coming weeks.

Lesson Six compliments my inquiry into Writing and my learners really impressed me with their enthusiasm ideas during our brainstorm.   Often my learners struggle to come up with ideas due to their limited experiences which they can draw from.   This particular writing lesson was inspired by a Team wide art adventure where learners experienced three different activities over ninety minutes, each designed to be fun and inspiring.  One of the activities that formed part of the adventure is showcased on my class blog.

Inquiry Update: Term 2

DEFs of Writing:  Deliberate Teaching Acts, Engagement, Fun
My school inquiry topic supports my Spark MIT inquiry, ABCs of Writing and focuses more on the deliberate acts of my teaching to engage the learners in writing, which will in turn feed into my MIT inquiry. 
Recently I've explored some readings around motivating writers and how to scaffold my teaching to maximise the support for my learners.  Some of the points I've found particularly useful include:

• "reading does not happen in a vacuum" - Ruttle (2004) - how can I incorporate more writing into my reading activities so that learners see there is a purpose to writing outside of the writing lesson
• how to create a shared understanding of "what writing is for and why and how we engage it it" which can lead to learners writing with a "greater sense of purpose" - Ruttle (2004)

Teaching in class has focused on writing just a couple of sentences using a variety of gifted sentence beginnings and scaffolding the vocabulary to use through whole class discussions.  Originally I planned to use padlet.com to brainstorm these ideas so that learners would be able to revisit these word banks, however with more learners wanting to use Google Docs to write, they prefer having the vocabulary on the board.  I intend to return to using padlet.com now that I have the ability to display this throughout the classroom using my Chromecast and Apple TV so that learners are able to see the words from any part of the classroom.
Moving to Google Docs
Initially I had just my top writers using Google Docs, which of course, assists with spelling as long as the learner can identify initial sounds of the word.  Over the last few weeks of Term 1 and the first weeks of Term 2, I have had even my most reluctant writers expressing a want to use Google Docs for writing, and they seem more engaged when they do so.  In fact, last week, when we were not using iPads for the week, I found all learners reluctant to write and even having them produce one sentence was a real struggle.  Through giving learners the choice of using either Google Docs or pen/paper I find that they are more engaged and produce more quality writing.  Google Docs also makes the process of posting to Blogger more streamlined and more learners are completing and finishing during the writing session.

Where to Next
Carefully scaffolding the writing process and focusing on one thing to improve our sentence(s) each writing session is the most easily manageable DAOT in my class to date.  While it would be great to break into writing groups, I find it harder to manage the behaviours of my boys (particularly those that struggle with writing) when I do this.  Having no devices last week, many learners have got used to the process of drawing first, so it could be possible to have some of the learners drawing while I worked with a small group.  Some of my more willing writers are able to proceed independently but then require support via 1:1 or small group conferencing to take their writing to the next level.  While I have tried to instigate peer support, this has also proven problematic although I feel this could work better if I scaffolded in peers so they could see this in action (rather than just having it explained).  
Drawing on ideas from the readings and trialling the use of groups by having some learners focus on pictures while others start with writing may work.  I have also experienced success with using Explain Everything to record the sentence(s) and replay it as the learners find the words around the classroom to turn their ideas into writing - however this is not as easy to do when using Google Docs which many learners are keen to do.  
This afternoon, our inquiry groups met again to hear where everyone was at and look forward towards our goals for the coming term.  It is always interesting to discuss where you are at as through this discussion you have to verbalise challenges and obstacles as well as celebrate the successes.


References: Ruttle, Kate. What goes on inside my head when I’m writing? A case study of 8–9-year-old boys. 

Spark MIT Update - May 2016

ABCs of Writing:  Authentic Audience, Blogging and Commenting

As discussed in my first blog post for my Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher inquiry, my inquiry question is:

"How can I use an authentic audience to enhance the motivation and writing mileage for learners in my classroom."

During the first term of this year I've begun my inquiry in a number of ways including:

• bookmarks home to parents with a blog link and QR code
• leaving verbal comments on learners blogs 
• discussing learner blogs with parents during our "meet the teacher" conversations early in the year
• deep analysis of my learners' needs in writing

Today we discussed the SAMR model and how our inquiry fits into this framework.  Ideally our inquiry's are aimed at the transformation level of the framework, using technology to impact on the learning.

My Spark MIT inquiry compliments my Pt England Inquiry as this investigates ways to accelerate writing in the classroom through my deliberate acts of teaching.  


Where to now?

It is extremely helpful to get the ideas from others in the Spark MIT group, which helped me to formulate my plan for future development.  While its been great to receive parent comments on the learners' blogs, my next step is to provide some scaffolding around these comments to make them even more powerful.  My initial thoughts were to redesign my bookmark with suggestions on how to comment, and translate this into different languages for my whanau (eg Samoan, Tongan, Te Reo).  However, after discussion today I agree that a bookmark may not be big enough to encompass the ideas I need to share.  Several ideas today included a postcard, calendar or piece of art that could be created by the learners.  I'm particularly taken with the art idea as this fits nicely with our school wide topic 'As i see it".

Additionally, there is potential to create a site using these scaffolds, as a reference for not only my whanau this year, but that could be shared to a wider audience.  Such a site could include screencasts of how to comment which could be used by both learners and whanau.  I envisage the site to be in multiple languages to assist whanau who are more comfortable in their native language.  It would be exciting to explore this with a small group of my learners who could assist with the creation of the screencasts.


SAMR Picture credit:  Ed Tech Today

GAFE North Island Summit Day 2

After an amazing first day, its great to be back at Hobsonville Point Secondary for the second day of GAFE Amazingness.  This post reflects on the sessions I attended on Day 2.

Keynote - Creating Culture by Design - Monica Isabel Martinez

Throughout this session, Monica shared some great ideas about ways to increase culture in your classroom and some important messages to remember around learning for both our learners and ourselves:

Elements for building culture - some of the ideas that came from Monica and attendees:

• modelling
• use of technology to fit the task at hand
• adaptation
• using technology for a purpose 
• innovative
• integrated into daily life
• problem solving
• purposeful
• using technology to springboard creativity

Other great ideas from the session:

• Purposeful learning - creating a culture that is purposeful 
• Requires action - modeling behaviours; consistency; default settings; risk taker 
• Think Differently 
• Learning is social - embrace the noise and open the floodgates 
• Create a culture that embraces problem solving
• Difference between teaching a skill and creating a culture/mindset creativity
• True technology integration is about building life skills
• Take daily doses of actions to achieve results

Suggested Readings:

• The One Thing - Gary Keller
• One Word - by Gordon, Britton & Page

Session One - Not Another Meeting! - Dorothy Burt

A very interactive session with some great ideas to make meetings more interactive and involved.

Some tips which I found really helpful:

• Google Docs:  Back to the top - insert a bookmark (menu:  insert - insert a bookmark - link appears in your URL bar) to allow readers to easy click straight back to the top
• Tables in your Google Docs are the best way to manage your agenda if multiple people are contributing
• Google Save - a quick way of saving images or webpages to refer to later
• Restrict access for others being able to on-share your documents within Google Docs - particularly useful for items involving sensitive information
• Google Keep - a great place to keep your notes and ideas - you can share a particular note with another person or send a note to a Google Doc
• Think carefully where your documents are stored for easy access by all that need to - a shared Google Drive folder; a portal on the school website;
• Calender - invite people to a meeting (including a Google Hangout for those not in the room) right from your Google Calendar - reminders and alerts can be set from here and an agenda linked
• Use of "voice typing" in a Google Doc during a meeting to capture notes - particularly now that it works with the kiwi accent 

Session Two - Visible & Engaging Learning in a Digital Learning Environment - Karen Belt & Matt Goodwin

Session Three - Google Classroom, Forms, Sheets & the SOLO Taxonomy - building a beautiful assessment workflow - Chris Harte

"If we design "rubbish learning" and throw technology at it - its only going to get worse.  Technology will amplify practice - if its well designed learning!"

Shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset - from I can't do that  .... to I can't do that yet!

Critique Protocols:

• Be mindful
• Hard on content but soft on people - aim for the best but critique the work only
• Step back - listen more
• Be kind (but realistic), specific (focusing on specific parts) and helpful (feed forward)

Peer Feedback:

 How do you get peers to leave meaningful feedback on others work?  This needs to be carefully worked on and scaffolded with the learners.  While this idea is probably too advanced for my learners, its a great idea that I may use in the future.   Create a Google Form to include:

• who are you giving feedback for?
• what is your name?
• Select options from your rubric as multi choice questions
• Some short answer options for kind, specific and helpful feedback

To send the feedback to learners - use an Add-On:  Autocrat (will create a document with feedback in it) or Yet Another Mail Merge (create just an email).

Build time into a lesson to "use" the peer feedback otherwise it is a waste of time.

Session Four - Inquiring Minds & the Cultural Institute - Jim Sill

Tip:  Use the Streetview app to walk around and explore some museums

As you explore the world through the Cultural Institute, what questions will you pose to learners?

Some of the things explored during the session today:

• Letters written by Nelson Mandela & warrants of committal
• Gallipoli - explore the shores
• Palace of Versailles - use the map on the left to move around rooms - anything with a dot on it can be looked at in more detail
• Auckland Art Gallery ... in most cases high resolution detail to really explore
• Art Project - search by collections, artists or artworks - artwork searches can be refined by medium, event, place, person
• Details button gives you more information and often videos

As you move through the art projects, click on the + sign to save to your personal gallery collection. Under My Galleries you can see the items you've saved or create a new gallery.


Once again the past two days have been a full on combination of learning, sharing, networking, reconnecting, exploring and being inspired!  Who wouldn't sign on for that - even if its in the school holidays!   And ... just because ....

Presenting at GAFE 2016: Visible Learning

My second presentation, once again with colleague Matt Goodwin, is entitled Visible & Engaging in a Digital Learning Environment.  This presentation details how we prepare for learning in our classroom and how learners access their learning.  We also discuss and showcase Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir.

GAFE North Island Summit Day 1

Once again I had the privilege of attending the GAFE Summit.  This blog post is a reflection of the sessions I attended on the first day and the ideas and inspirations that I took away from it.

Opening Keynote:  Falling in Love with the Future - Molly Schroeder

An inspiring keynote to start the conference and which had me thinking about what the world looks like now for learners and how it could change in the future.

Some of the most applicable messages I took away from this session are:

• Whatever we think is the best technology is the worst our students will ever have 
• Create a community of problem solvers in your classroom
• Learning is messy!!!!!!!
• Encourage moonshot thinking and expect failure! What does moonshot thinking look like?  It includes big ideas and living in a BETA world 
• Create a sandbox in your classroom - play with technology & have learners experience laughing, hi fives and warm fuzzies 
• Unleash the potential of my students to surprise me; ask different questions
• Learning is a design challenge - be open to trying different things

I also really enjoyed the person emoji that Molly used throughout her presentation and explored Bitmoji during the break.

Session One:  Presenting HTML & Google Sites

Session Two:  Improve Writing with Google - Kimberly Hall

The session explored the use of of Google Docs for writing and featured advice to use the Contents and Reference section with learners.  For more reluctant writers, voice typing can be used to help them create.   Some other great extensions and addons which were show cased include:

Draftback (chrome app) - watch the writing process unfold as a movie for any Google Doc that you are an editor of

Read/Write extension for Google Docs - this includes a prediction tool which gives suggestions for the next word when you are writing.  Additionally, the picture dictionary can assist learners to make sure they have included the correct word by providing a visual representation of any highlighted word.

SAS Writing Reviser (addon) - analyses a piece of writing including such things as how many times a particular word appears in your writing.

Session Three:  The Best Hidden Features of Chrome - Kimberly Hall

A great session with hints and tips to maximise your Google Chrome.  The ideas I found most useful are listed below (some I was already using).

Omnibox Magic - its more than just a place to type an URL

define - dictionary definition for any word

convert measurement, speed, area, length

set timer for - timer and stopwatch function - can go full screen also

yt <tab or space> - search youtube directly (you need to set this up in your Chrome settings first)

Jump between open tabs quickly - Command plus a number to jump between the open tabs where the first tab open is number 1 (up to 9 tabs only)

Restore/Reopen the last tab that you closed - Command + Shift + t

Simple Ext Manager - easily manage your Chrome extensions 

Tab Scissors and Tab Glue - split your screen into two to copy data from one window to another and then clue it back together again

Add to Google Drive - enables you to right click on images and save directly to your drive

Session Four:  The Creative Agency - Simon Ashby

This session explored digital tools that can be used in the classroom to allow learners to share their learning.  Although not all will be efficient on an iPad, and some are more applicable as a teacher tool for the age group I currently teach, the Chrome Apps I explored throughout the session are:

Google Drawings - simple interface, easy to share, free - could be used to add speech bubbles, infographics, annotating own work

Canva - graphic design which is very easy to drive

Fotor - photo editing with the ability to create photo collages

SketchToy - draw and then watch your drawing re-draw itself

Floorplanner - design rooms, houses from your browser 

GardenPuzzle - design gardens from your browser

Newspaper Generator - turns your text into a newspaper article

Demo Slam Highlights

The last session of the day was a Demo Slam in the auditorium.  The following were my favourite tips from the session:

• Bitmoji ... I admit to having already created one during breaks between sessions!
• Corgi Orgy - not sure that I can really explain this one .. you might just need to click on the link
• GAFE Tip Posters - created by Monica Isabel Martinez
• Omnibox searching - similar to the ideas posted during Session Three above
• Eye dropper and Paletton - match a colour from a website and make a colour palette with complimentary colours

A great first day - bring on Day 2 for my GAFE Amazingness!

  

Presenting at GAFE North Island Summit

Once again I have the privilege of attending and presenting at the GAFE Summit, alongside my colleague Matt Goodwin.  Our first presentation Using HTML on Google Sites was one of the first workshops on the first day.

Ubiquous Learning

Yesterday our whole staff received Manaiakalani Professional Development from Dorothy Burt focused on ubiquous learning ... learning which is able to happen anytime, anyplace, anywhere.  Digital technologies provide this affordance and during the session we were asked to consider how?  How are we using the technologies to provide ubiquous learning?  What ideas do others have that we could use to help our own learners?

As with any professional development, the value to me is in both attending and then reflecting afterwards to see what benefits there may be for my learners.  Some of the ideas that came out of the session may not be usable right now, but could definitely have impact in the future.  This list documents some of the great ideas and tools which were discussed today (some of which I'm already using):

Google Keep - my new favourite friend.  The opportunity to take notes, leave audio, weblinks or images all in one place.  Added benefits include the ability to search through your notes and add reminders.

Poplet or Padlet for brainstorms during writing time

Recording specific lessons or make a modelling movie, so learners are able to rewind them and watch them again when needed.  Additionally, You Tube clips often step learners through the learning in a simple well laid out way.

Evernote as a modelling book for learners which can be embedded on the class site so learners can go back and review.

Use of sound bites to record instructions for learners, particularly those lower readers.

"If it is worth teaching, it is worth capturing. If it is worth learning, it is worth capturing."