The Right Tool?

I bought an iPad just before Christmas. Our school has been toying with the idea of using tablets /iPads in our yr 7 program – like most schools we already have a 1:1 program. I decided to take mine on my family holiday in an effort to give it a good test drive and duly loaded it with a variety of apps, ebooks, music and pod/vodcasts.

Today a friend asked me the hot question: Which is better, then, the iPad or a laptop?

I had to pause to consider my answer.

I like both and I believe both have their place.

I like the ease with which my iPad travels: it’s light, the same size as a book and I can hold it easily in one hand.  I was quite impressed with the quality of photos and videos I took on my holiday … playback is great on the device itself although some quality was lost when it was edited in to footage taken with a video camera.  I love the touch screen technology and how easy this makes using most of my favourite apps (more about those later).

However, I am a little annoyed withthe typing pad (as a touch typist I find it too small to use properly, although I get that the thumb-typing-text-generation probably don’t feel the same way). I do still find publishing easier using the office suite … yes, I know google.docs, etc can be an alternative, but therein lies another problem.  The assumption that everyone has easy access to the internet!  So, my laptop lets me publish things with familiar programs,  my laptop has a DVD drive which I still find very handy and I don’t tend to put my laptop down and forget where I put it!

I actually think that we ‘need’ both tools in our education toolkit … half a dozen netbooks and half a dozen tablets would be enough for flexibility in my classroom (26 students). In my discussion with my friend I suggested maybe one of each device per family would be a good compromise … at the moment many families end up with multiple laptops as their children enter various 1:1 programs. The practicalities of having the right tool for the job at the time you are doing it are not easily solved … but realistically the families I work with cannot afford to buy an iPad and a laptop for each child.

Before I forget … some of those apps?

Evernote … so many uses … notes at PD sessions, pictures of students’ work, notes about students and I have it on my laptop so I can sync between the two devices.

Wordflick  … Whirly Word … Word Solitaire … Unblock Me … Flight Control (not free but cheap) … I love to use games in the classroom whenever I can and these are some of my favourites.

Songify … just for fun! My sister got me onto this and a number of the other fun ‘talking’ apps. Songify particularly I use as fun thinking music with lyrics that remind us what to think about (what ever you speak and record become the song).

I am becoming a little concerned at the I-ification of education, specifically, and the world in general … but that is food for another blog post ;p

Ultranet … eating the elephant!

I have been using on-line learning management systems for a few years now … essentially moodle-based although called different names in different schools! The concept of anywhere, anytime learning appeals to me as a learner and as a teacher. Hence the idea of the Ultranet was also appealing … initially!

It’s hard not to sound bitter and frustrated, or not to feel let down by the DEECD with the #epicfail of the much publicised roll out day … but all that aside, I have started to take my first bites of this monster.

I have talked before about the power of twitter and again I must promote and thank my PLN for their support as I have asked what must seem like dumb questions. Although I consider myself to be reasonably tech savvy and I can set up moodle-based online classrooms quite quickly I have struggled to apply this knowledge to the new platform.

I have created a collaborative space for the year 8s at my school. I use the term ‘collaborative’ loosely … at the moment that just means I set up some pages and added the 107 students, 3 other  English/Humanities teachers and as many other yr 8 teachers as I could find on the list.

The pages are nothing more than pretty storage spaces for web links and files. I have always used my virtual classroom to provide such resources … it saves students research time if I provide some recommended sites (much like we also still ask our librarians to put together topic boxes of books). I have also always encouraged students to recommend links that they find useful. The true sense of collaboration would see the students adding the resources and I am guessing that Ultranet will allow this … I just don’t know how to facilitate that yet!

I know that another part of Ultranet is something called Learning Tasks. I have had a look at them … I even tried to make one up … not really understanding how they are actually used or what they should / could look like. I have no idea how to link them to the collaborative space, or even if they do.

I have a lot of questions and I feel as if I am learning to walk all over again. For a few weeks I felt like I was crawling around in the dark. I had a sense of what I wanted to do, I had some small idea of what was possible but no idea of how to achieve it. I tried the usual methods of getting help … the help guides weren’t really helpful, mainly because I couldn’t actually pinpoint what I needed to know … no-one in our school environment seemed to have the skills or knowledge, that may just be because I haven’t asked the right person but is also connected to the lack of professional development we appear to have access to … my PLN are supportive and patient but still make me feel like the dumb kid who is slow to catch on, which is more about my frustration at my slow progress than anything they actually do or say!

I know that in time I won’t feel so frustrated and helpless but it’s hard to inspire others when you’re struggling yourself.

So, for now, I am chewing my first bite slowly! My students are coming along for the ride. They are not ‘excited’ about Ultranet in the way that I read on twitter but they have quickly switched their question from “did you load the assignment sheet on infonet?” to “is the assignment on Ultranet?” They know this is our preferred virtual learning environment.

Take It or Leave It . . .

I decided to try a little experiment with my year 8 class today. We have been studying the Middle Ages in Humanities this term.

They have a number of projects on the go – they have to:

*    research how castles are built, construct a model and devise a defensive battle plan;
*    choose  a method of punishment/torture and prepare an information product to share with the class;
*    research the imagery and meaning associated with family crests and design their own coat of arms for classroom display.

I supported the research by providing links on our virtual classroom, our Hums Domain Leader organised a box-of-books from the library and an incursion by Days of Knights (they were definitely worth the money).

We are working our way towards writing an essay comparing life in medieval times to life in modern times.

Today while they were working on the various things they need to do before the deadline of next week (“Are we managing personal learning today, Miss?”), I had a powerpoint of castle pictures (finally my holiday snaps are useful in the classroom) running at the front of the room and the TV running a DVD of a medieval life documentary at the back of the room. Both media were just running over and over and students could tune in and out as they wanted to . . . just like when we are at home working in front of the TV! “You mean multi-tasking, Miss” (never underestimate your audience!)

It was interesting to observe the way my students worked but actually did tune in and out. They would stop me every now and again to ask about one of the photos. In our second session in the afternoon they asked if we were going to have the DVD again (it had run through 3 complete cycles in our earlier session).

My VCE English Unit 1 students studied “Witness” as a film text in term one. After our close study while they were working on theme work and essay practice, they would often put the film on as background noise and tune in and out. It didn’t stop them from ‘working’ and each time they would notice something different or a penny would finally drop.

I plan to try this multi-tasking method of providing information more often in my classroom (as technology will allow . . . I don’t have a permanent TV or data show projector in my room).

Catching the Blog Bug.

A few weeks ago my VCE English unit 2 class and I took the leap and created a class blog.  I have a pretty amazing group of ten students (I am the envy of many teachers in my school – not only for the small size of my class but also for their personality and performance). It was a new experience for all of us, although at least two of us are bloggers already. I had read a few class blogs from other schools but didn’t really quite know how to make it work.

Anyway . . . we had established a Friday routine of ‘cake day’. Each week I provide the tea, coffee, milo and milk and one of them brings a cake to our double.

In second semester we expanded this to a round table discussion of current affairs designed to hone our debating skills and expand our knowledge of persuasive language. This seemed the ideal food for a class blog. We spent a lesson discussing the format for our blog and how we would ensure that everyone would/could be involved. So our cake roster now includes added responsibilities . . .  on your week you bring cake, stimulus material for discussion (media article, cartoon, interesting question) and you write the blog post based on the round table discussion.

We got our first two posts up and tweeted. We started to get a hit or two on our clustermap. Then I got sick! I missed the Friday session.

However, the students drove the session themselves and even posted the blog. I was so proud and impressed that they had done this without me. Then I missed the following session.

But, in the meantime a couple of colleagues from my PLN had followed the tweet and left comments on the blog. My students took it upon themselves to reply . . .  some of them actually doing it at home (I hadn’t even set it as homework!!). One of the colleagues encouraged her students to comment and before long our classes were sharing ideas and debating the issue of homework.

I missed last week’s session also. They still had their discussion and the post is still being written . . . although we are almost ready for our next cake day!

Initially I gave the students ‘author’ roles – they could post and approve but it turned out they couldn’t edit. One student pointed out that she was used to the auto-correct in Word and had developed the habit of not using capital letters at the start of sentences. In Word, of course, this doesn’t matter. But once she had posted her comments on our blog and noticed the lack of auto-correct she couldn’t go back to edit. If I ‘unapproved’ a post/comment and requested the student edit, they couldn’t.  The solution . . .  I have upgraded the students who have taken the responsibility for posting to ‘editors’. The students who are active on our blog now have more power/responsibility.

Do I have 100% participation? No! I am still encouraging (nagging) one student to get their blog post written (overdue by three weeks now) and a couple of students have not made any contributions yet. However, it is making those who are contributing clearer in their thinking and writing. I am especially happy with one of my ‘quiet’ classroom students who has suddenly found a medium to express her very valid opinions.

Along the way we are discussing and exploring issues relating to digital citizenship . . . copyright (we created our own banner but followed rules for crediting the art work), access to information, information and identity protection. That old ‘authentic learning’ chestnut in action again!

If you are thinking about taking the plunge into class blogging, I urge you to jump!

You’re an Individual … just like everyone else!

Phew! The end of term is fast approaching and the pressure of report writing is almost over.

Throughout my teaching career the biggest debate about report writing has always centred around the obsession with making each report individual to the student. The most recent discussion along this line was in our office last week, as we proofread the year 8 reports.

I have always taken a methodical approach to report writing. When I started teaching we hand wrote reports on duplicate paper … my reports were almost always two pages long. I was encouraged by the Assistant Principal of my school at the time to use my reports as a way to promote my subject content, my expectations of students and to comment on student achievement. I developed a  ‘blurb’ for each subject and, over time, developed a collection of phrases I liked to use.  This was especially useful when commenting on a student’s lack of achievement or when offering suggestions for future improvement. The idea was that this was an important means of communication with parents about what happens in my classroom.

It was not long into my career that computers became a teacher’s friend and we moved to typing our reports.  This transition suited me … especially as I could now copy and paste my ‘blurbs’ and phrases. I was able to tweak them to show more variation of expectations and achievement. The recent transition to ‘Report Writer’ has been a welcomed natural evolution … I was creating comment banks before the concept was introduced to our vocabulary. Last week I introduced one of my office buddies to comment banks as she struggled with time management and linguistic inspiration.

As I pause to reflect on the process of report writing … I still fail to see ‘comment banks’ and ‘individual students’ as mutually exclusive concepts.  The tasks I set in my classes are the same for all students … the solutions, expectations and work output might be different but all students set out with the same basic problem / challenge … so it stands to reason that the descriptive comment about this task will be the same … it doesn’t make sense to waste time trying to say same thing in different ways. The way in which students complete the tasks varies and this is where I love comment banks.  This is where I focus on the individual student but over time I have tweaked my comment bank to mean I often already have an appropriate comment ready … I don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time I sit down to write reports.

The other important reflection is that I don’t start by classifying my students as high, medium and low and then set about writing the report for each level.  My comment bank covers a range of attitudes, behaviours, levels of achievement and as I think about each student I select the statements that are appropriate to them and their performance over the semester. If I can’t find a comment that is right then I need to add another variation to my comment bank. Even when I have twins or siblings in the same class it is rare to write exactly the same report (although it could happen).

Given the limited time we have for report writing, using comment banks wisely means we don’t make those pesky errors like spelling names incorrectly, putting in the wrong pronoun or missing full stops and adding too many spaces.  Comment banks allow me to use my report writing time more efficiently and effectively.

Those that can, do . . .

. . . those that can’t, teach!

I have been playing with and teaching technology (specifically computer technology) for the best part of 15 years. Like all hobbies and interests there are aspects of ICT that inspire and intrigue me and aspects that do not.  Programming languages clearly fit in to my “not interested” box. This hasn’t been a problem in the past – I have usually been in charge of organising the curriculum details and, to some extent, my allotment – I just avoided situations where I might have to learn to use programming languages.  Until now!

This semester I have a year 8 programming unit as part of my allotment. I am a foot soldier in the department so I have to follow the curriculum path laid out for me. The path is quite simple: term 1 =  visual basic, term 2 = gamemaker. The Head of Department has been very supportive and provided me with a tutorial manual and lots of encouragement. However, I know almost nothing about visual basic and have little motivation, or time, to learn it myself.  So I faced ten weeks of attempting to stay one step ahead of the students.  I did attempt to get in to the computer lab early to have a go but other responsibilities took hold of my time. If you follow me on twitter you might have noticed I tried the old google search . . . surely somebody has written step by step lesson plans I can ‘borrow’? . . .  no luck. Suddenly it was time to face my students. These kids pull no punches and if you show any sign of weakness they waste no words (or expletives) in telling you how they feel about you and/or the subject you are attempting to teach.

That incredibly scary moment happened two weeks ago and in this post I will share with you just how amazing it can be if you actually stop trying to know everything and just do what you know how to do . . .  I know how to learn and I know how to teach!

Two weeks ago I stepped in to the computer lab on Thursday afternoon, gathered 20 year 8s around me and confessed that I knew nothing about the programming language we were about to play with.  I told them honestly that I would not be teaching them visual basic but I would teach them how to teach themselves.  I told them I was excited at the prospect that we would learn together and share this journey with each other . . . and then we began.

We have an online learning management system and I had loaded a link to some online tutorials. Students worked at their own pace through the tutorials. By the end of the session about half the class had completed the first two or three tutorials. I was quite impressed with the progress and told them so. During the week one of the students came to see me with a suggestion for some more tutorials and so more links have been added to our virtual classroom.

Last lesson I started the class by lining the students up on opposite sides of the room . . . one side for those who had done the first tutorials and one side for those who hadn’t. In an amazing coincidence I had 10 students on each side (I think you can see where this is going :D). It was a simple process of matching students up . . .  ‘expert’ and novice were then set to work on the tutorials again. The results were absolutely awesome (to borrow the current teenage vernacular) and, again, I told them so.

What I saw in my classroom is exactly the theory I have been reading and hearing about as we prepare to teach in the 21st century education system.  20 students were totally “engaged” (I shudder as I type that word) for over an hour. All but one pair were actually working together and some had even expanded their learning group to four so they could “ask each other questions”.  They were solving problems by themselves and making an amazing amount of pop-up windows do all sorts of things. Even the two students who weren’t working effectively as a pair were focussed on the tasks at hand – they just didn’t need each other for support.  My ‘naughty’ boys didn’t have the time, inclination or audience for their usual distracting behaviours.  I spent most of the lesson wandering around the room while the students showed off what they were doing . . . “come and look at this Miss, we made it change colour” . . . or trying to work out why things didn’t work by applying what little I do know of html and equations in excel to the code sequences in visual basic.

At the end of the session I asked them to reflect on the learning that had taken place . . . eventually I want them to blog this so they can share it with others but for now it is just a personal reflection.  I told them that they were at least six weeks ahead of me . . .  and I meant it, I still haven’t actually sat down and tried to do any of the tutorials myself.

In my planning for each week I now focus on the strategies for learning that I want them to experience rather than the content of the topic.  After four lessons (we have one single and one double each week) they are already in the habit of adding to their reflection journal . . . I still provide the questions /  prompts but they are beginning to make some real discoveries about how they learn.  Last lesson I asked them to finish the statement “When I work with a partner …” The responses included “I work better because I can ask questions without feeling dumb”.

This class has gone from being one I admit to losing a little sleep over . . . to being one I eagerly look forward to!

To blog or not to blog . . .

I am a reflective writer … I have kept a written journal since I was 11 years old and have often re-read and reflected on the stories, moments, events that my journal contains.  However, there was always only one intended member in the audience and I never intend to publish my memoir! Infact, I have worked very hard to keep the journals (now up to at least the 8th edition) well hidden from prying eyes. So with the advent of web 2.0 and the explosion of blogging I found myself facing the dilemma to blog or not to blog.

I have been explicitly teaching ICT skills for at least 10 years now and my own learning journey started in my final year of university on the state of the art apple IIe in the BI (before internet) era! For the past few years the education curriculum has been filled with ideas about how to use blogging, and other emerging 2.0 tools,  in the classroom. However, I take the same look before you leap approach to electronic life as I do to real life … just because you can doesn’t mean you should! We have clogged cyberspace with enough junk, surely we should be encouraging students to take care of this world and think before they blindly build websites, join social networks and pour out their hearts on blogs? So I have lurked, and learned, and observed, and reflected, and finally decided to take the plunge with blogging … I am starting to see the value of blogging from a professional point of view and am even beginning to see some value for blogging with students (although I think we will start with the relatively protected environment of Ultranet).

The pivotal event that finally motivated me to take this plunge was changing schools. Last year I left the comfort of the small, rural P-12 school I had been teaching at for almost 20 years and moved to a secondary school almost 3 times the size. Technically still a country school but a much larger town and definitely full of more streetwise students. The journey through this kind of culture shock is tumultuous and I shared the ride with a number of other ‘new’ teachers, some of whom did not survive. Sharing, comparing and reflecting is what gets you through challenging times. There were many times when I thought I should be sharing my experiences with my fellow teachers online (I have a nicely developing PLN on twitter) not just around the staffroom table … but like many of us I let the busy-ness of school and life distract me.

In 2011 I am returning to this school … I have stepped up to take on a leadership role as year 8 coordinator … a daunting task as there are almost as many year 8s here as there were high school students (7-12) in my last school! Our school is facing challenges as it works to reshape and redefine itself in line with the 21st Century vision of education sweeping the world and I am excited and daunted by the prospect of being a part of that. So now feels like a good time to start a blog that still primarily has an intended audience of one (what I write I write for myself and to influence my thinking, learning and teaching) but I am happy with the thought that others may also read this!