GAFE Summit - Day 2 Keynote

Our job as teachers is not to validate the 3 or 4 students who always know the answers; it's to inspire the rest of the class who don't know the answer @rushtonh #EdTechTeam

— Suan (@suaneu) April 15, 2018

The second day once again kicks off with a Keynote.

Once Upon Our Time - Lindsay Wesner

What things do we not question in education?

What does being brave look like for you?  From failure, great innovations can appear.   Not everything will fail, many things will work, but sometimes the greatest learning can come from failing.

At the intersection of education, technology and passion, is the sweet spot - the impossible is now possible.

If we stand at the point of conflict and we don't change and innovate we miss out.  Its important we think about the battles we are fighting - what do we struggle with, what do we need to change to make innovation more possible?  Imagine what is possible if we navigate the conflict - what does the climax look like?  Our story cannot be separated from the story of our students. 

Questioning the status quo in education with @ladywesner at #EdTechTeam summit #auckland pic.twitter.com/ntOVwb2BWN

— Patrick Green (@pgreensoup) April 16, 2018

What if we engage our students in saving real problems?  What if we engage them in experiences that are engaging and challenging?  What if we gave our students a context and platform in which to share?  What if we gave them a voice for their stories?

Things happen in your classroom everyday that need to be told.  Teachers shape the narrative of education in this country and in the world.  #shareyourstory #lovelearning #whyiteach

With change in education we get some great buzz words - personalised learning; makerspace; computational thinking; flip the classroom; coding.

There are always "enemies" to innovation - 

• time - are we doing things our students should/could be doing?  If you invest time, you can get some back.  How are we spending our time?  Don't regret the time spent investing in a moment/innovation.
• curriculum - the need to cover every area of the curriculum.  Did your students "engage" with your teaching?  We must be obsessed with the learning - not the coverage of the curriculum.  Did learning happen?  Why or why not?  Our core business is learning.
• fear - fear of what colleagues/students will say; consequences; reactions - very real fears.  Remember to be brave - even if you're not, pretend to be!

@LadyWesner The curriculum is not the enemy, it is a springboard for innovation #edtechteam #Aklsummit2018

— Megan Clune (@MeganC_007) April 16, 2018

Our Weapons in the fight -

• vision - for the kind of education that we want to see - when we challenge the status quo
• community - people willing to invest in and fight for the education that they believe in
• stories  - powerful and currency that can add value - what can we leave for future generations?  What stories will be transferred?  

In the tapestry of education, we all have a thread - but to realise the full potential we need to combine them together to form something amazing.

What is the climax to your story? 

GAFE Auckland 2018 Demo Slam

What is a Demo Slam? 

This is a quick-paced, high-energy session where presenters have three minutes each to demonstrate something Googly in front of the crowd, who will vote for a winner at the end.

Today's Demo Slam highlights

Livestreaming using the camera button - goes straight to YouTube - use a link to share with parents.

Fiddling with Google Doc URLs .. using /copy ... /preview .... /template/preview ....  /export?format=pdf ..... /copy?copyComments

Bitsbox .... free coding via the hour of code website .... check out the sheep @ bit.ly/mykiwiapp

Sheets to Map .... Insert, Chart, Map

Digital Assessment .... Checkmark extension integrating with Google Keep

GAFE Summit - Day 1 sessions

Session 1: Choose Your Own Adventure Stories - Michael Davidson

I was super impressed to have the learners take this session - very inspiring!

• Colour code your plan - red is death; blue is a good step and green for beginning and end
• Use multiple choices to give your reader the choices
• Add images or videos to make your story more interesting - upload a video to You Tube to add it to your story
• Include a 'try again' option when you die :)

Session 2: Classroom Management in a Personalized Learning Environment - Patrick Green

At the heart of all personalized learning is the wants, needs, hopes, dreams of the students.  There are three main components:

Competency based progressions - each students progress towards clearly defined goals.

Customised pathways - a path that adapts based on their learner profile, strengths, needs, interests and goals.

Flexible Learning environments - student needs drive the design - dynamic and responding to the needs of the learner.

What questions do you have about classroom management for personalised learning?

Why does Personalised Learning matter?

• Not every student is ready for the same piece of learning at the same time - meet your students needs when they are ready for it.
• Know your role - coach; guide; re-direct; question - your knowledge on how people learn
• Provide scaffolding - activators; extensions; last 5 minutes; learning process

How to get students to take more ownership of their learning

• By making expectations, processes and procedures extremely clear
• Visual ad campaign - visuals for what you expect students to do
• By giving them access to data and access to resources
• Online space - 27/7 access
• Digital marking book - process rather than marks - available for the students to see
• Mini lessons - learners can work through these on their own
• Empower students with choice - be intentional about when you allow students to choose a product or tool

Other Ideas:

• Arrange the room to maximise the learning

Session 4:  Google Sites for Visible Teaching and Learning - Fiona Grant

What is the reason and purpose for using technology in your classroom?  Have a purpose in mind - fit your technology to the purpose!  Is your learning designed to be easily shared?

To make learning visible:

• Rewindable learning supported
• Accessible anywhere, anytime, at any pace
• Personalised via multiple opportunities to access content
• Hub of information about events

Other:  Great ideas and tips from these sessions and the #Edtechteam twitter feed

Ask a question feature on Google Slides - thanks to Patrick for reminding me of this great feature.

5Y Protocol - five times WHY questions ... regardless of the answers .. to dig deeper into your thinking!

Presenting at GAFE Auckland 2018

Once again I have presented at the GAFE Auckland summit.  My session showcased how I use Google, Seesaw and Explain Everything in my classroom.

GAFE Summit 2018 Opening Keynote

I'm excited to be attending the GAFE Summit in Auckland again this year.  Once again its being held at the wonderful Aorere College, in South Auckland. 

Opening Keynote - The Relevant Teacher - Patrick Green

Taking risks can affect more than just you - what you're doing in your classroom affects all your students.  Patrick works at Singapore American School, where they recently sent teachers around the school to visit innovative schools - those that are changing to meet the needs of their students.  During his trip, Patrick visited California - Da Vinci Innovation Labs (students go to school two days a week and learn from home three days a week) and Sequoyah (mixed aged classrooms, where students are held back twice before the age of 12 in order to facilitate leadership skills). 

Change is difficult

Interactions everyday start to shape students - relevant teachers matter.

What are relevant teachers doing?

• Flipping their classroom and taking on the role of the learner
• Look at what they teach with a whole new lens - is this transferrable beyond my classroom?
• Realises when they are wasting students time
• Not afraid of access to information - students can speak it out to find information
• Allow students to use devices on their exams
• Are not making students do what adults don't do
• Recognise that one size fits nobody - personalised learning is meaningful
• Meeting students where they are at
• Helping students to craft a digital footprint - portfolios have a purpose
• Incorporate autonomy, mastery and purpose into the classroom
• Teaches students to become independent learners and to find the answers to their questions
• Throwing exemplars into the trash as they will not develop innovators and encourage creativity - intentionally leave the exemplars blank!
• Value students not following instructions - independent thinking
• Doing it the way "someone else" says is not a 21st century skill
• Play Minecraft for the 'language acquisition' - play with your students to understand 'their' world
• Give students some side quests - it can look messy but they explore their own passions and interests
• Refuse to accept junk from their students - they expect greater levels of creativity
• They have a super power - they can take anything and use it for learning
• Insert play and inspiring ideas into their classrooms
• Embracing the interruptions as opportunities for imagination and curiosity

How do you stay relevant ........  Be a Learner!
Grow ... and change!

Questions to Consider:

What are you doing in your classroom that you could remove to give your students more exploring and passion time - student agency?

Books to Consider Reading:

The End of Average - by Todd Rose (one size fits nobody)

A Whole New Mind / Drive - Daniel Pink

Websites and Links to Visit and Explore

99U.com

CMDigitalAge.com

iTime - @aliwh_white @shaunyk  (individualising the learning)

Institute of Play

Values of the Institute of Play

Seesaw Ambassador

After using Seesaw for a year and loving the features, I'm delighted to now be a Seesaw Ambassador.

Students in my classroom have loved being able to share their learning throughout the year with their parents and whanau, who in turn have provided valuable and authentic feedback to their children.  

Some of the great benefits I've enjoyed using Seesaw this year include:

• Students being able to share and showcase a variety of learning activities - videos, images, text
• Students seeing (and hearing) the feedback that parents are providing
• Creating activities for the class or small groups to complete
• Students being able to use their voice to record explanations about the artefacts they are uploading
• Reviewing a students journal and quickly seeing their progress over the year

I'm looking forward to continuing using Seesaw next year, and exploring the activities feature in more detail.

The Process of Mentoring - Feedback

As my Google Certified Innovator continues, so does the unpacking of our text, The Mentee's Guide by Lois J Zachary.  Over the past weeks I've been seeking and receiving feedback on my developing #SYD17 project, so its only fitting that I dig deeper and unpack the chapter around feedback.  I feel I'm always quite reflective in my pedagogy, but its always good to think about how you both seek, respond to and act on feedback.

I found revisiting these five action points quite helpful, along with some of the suggested conversation starters, which include:

• Here's the kind of feedback I'm looking for ...
• What would you have said if that had happened to you ...
• Do you mean ....
• Can I ask you a question about this feedback?
• To be honest with you, I need to think about that a little more.

I feel, in order for feedback to be most effective, you need to be honest in what you are asking for, and receptive and really listen to the ideas and suggestions that you receive.  After all ....

Power and Process of Mentoring TWO

Further to my first post, earlier this week I started to delve into the second chapter of the Mentee's Guide "Preparing Yourself to Make the Most of Mentoring."

Preparation is the key to any successful venture, and it seems that being a mentee is no different - it is just as important to prepare for this as for any venture!  This chapter of the book provided opportunities for reflection and review as well as forward thinking to the future.  While I completed all the exercises, I'm sharing just some snapshots of the process as this will enable me to reflect, to look forwards now, and provide a baseline to review in the future.

2.1 Personal Reflection Exercise
The task:  Create a timeline of your career journey, including highlights, milestones, marker events, challenges and disappointments.  Use this timeline to complete the accompanying questions.

Identify your top three professional successes - I've had an amazing start to my teaching career and I feel the opportunities I've been lucky enough to have all build on my start in the Manaiakalani Digital Teaching Academy (MDTA).  My passion for technology started before the MDTA, which is perhaps why I made the most of the opportunity and am so passionate about using the affordances of technology to personalise learning today.  Being accepted as a Google Certified Innovator ranks as another of my top three professional successes - this opportunity has been a challenge, at times hard work but I've enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) every moment of this journey.  Lastly, but definitely not least, I have had the privilege to work in two amazing schools with terrific colleagues who inspire me daily to continue striving to be the best teacher I can be.

2.2 Creating a Personal Vision

My #SYD17 innovation came about because I believe personalised learning has helped accelerate learners in my classroom and I'd like to inspire other teachers along the same personalised learning pathway.  My journey using personalised learning has taken many hours of my own time to get to where it is now - and time is one commodity that teachers have so little of.  My vision is therefore:

To inspire other teachers to use the affordances of technology to personalise learning through the creation of a community which encourages sharing of resources, ideas and pedagogy to save time and benefit all learners.

2.3 Mentee Skill Inventory

Evaluate your proficiency on the mentee skill inventory - you may wish to share this with your mentor as you look for ways to develop your skills.

2.4 Know your Learning Style

The book refers to David Kolb's Learning Style model, and I know I am a blend of the four types of learners mentioned.  In order to check my own understanding I completed this questionnaire.  I'm not surprised to see a strong leaning towards a reflector style of learning, with less emphasis on the pragmatist and a medium leaning towards activist and theorist styles.  Reading over how the selected learning styles are described, these are where I feel I fit:

Once again, using The Mentees Guide has enabled me to be more formal in my thinking and reflective through this blog post.  I look forward to continuing with my mentee journey as my #SYD17 project continues to blossom.

Digital Citizenship and Safety

As a teacher in a digital classroom I totally understand the importance of digital citizenship, but it's always good to brush up on your understanding, even if its just a reminder of what you already know.   Earlier this week I completed the Google for Education Digital Citizenship and Safety Course. 

The course includes five units, followed by a short quiz to test your understanding (all completely free): 

• Teaching students about internet safety and privacy:  including what makes a strong password, two factor authentication, and privacy settings
• Online safety: securing your mobile device, public and private Wi-Fi, avoiding harmful downloads on your smartphone
• Savvy searching: helping evaluate the credibility of online information sources to distinguish between legitimate and dubious sources 
• Staying safe from phishing scams: how to recognise potential scams, how to check if a web page is encrypted, and what to do if you encounter online scams
• Manage your online reputation: why does privacy matter and how to identify and report inappropriate behaviour

After taking the course and completing each quiz, you receive a recognition badge as well as a link to download Lesson Plans to use in your own classroom.  I'd really recommend spending the time to review your understanding of digital citizenship, as well as using the resources to remind your students.  Teaching safe use of the internet is a necessity in today's classroom, and its never too often to reinforce this with your learners.

Take the Google for Education Digital Citizenship and Safety Course here!

Collecting Teachers Voice on my #SYD17 Innovation

In order to progress my #SYD17 project, I'm seeking teachers voice and opinions about what would be most beneficial to help them personalise learning using technology in the classroom.  This will enable me to adapt my innovation to what would be most useful for teachers.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey which will inform my Google Certified Innovator #SYD17 project.  I'm passionate about using technology to enhance personalised learning in the classroom, but appreciate that for today's teachers, the one commodity we have in limited supply is time.  My dream is to provide a place for teachers to share resources, upskill and support each other to benefit all learners.

Empowering Personalisation Survey