A Week of Tradegy

This week has been consumed with daily assessments and the endless marking and analysis that goes with it. An interesting aspect was that our elearning class had to be assigned another classroom for the assessments as the 'good ole fashion' desks in rows were required and our spaces was not setup for this style testing. I wonder if we need to consider this for the future or perhaps change the way we assess?

The Christchurch earthquake disaster struck on Tuesday and even though I am safe in Auckland, I have still feel a state of shock and saddness as I watch helpless, feeling useless. Luckily my friends there are safe but being my old home town, I feel for them. It is hard to imagine what they must be experiencing. Being a  teacher I decided to throw my current unit study out and focus our inquiry on this tradegy. I think I need to know more and express my feelings about it, plus I believe my students feel the same and cetainly can befit from talking about and dealing with loss and destruction. We started with 'White Hat' factual thinking that same day. We are recording much of our inquiry on our blog and also plan to create a website about it.

My students have been asking many questions as part our our inquiry, and what has made me really proud was the ones asking, "How can we help the people of Christchurch?" We plan to run the National Red and Black mufti day on Friday as an inquiry learning experience, plus my students are generating other ways to fundraise.

We are gathering website resources to aid your inquiry and teaching on our wiki. Please feel free to use our links and to suggest more. Some sites that really stand out are the visual quake map and the site for children who experienced this and need to write about their experience, 'When My Home Shook'.

Some positives of my week have been that I was made the e-learning lead teacher for our school journey along with a management unit which is great recognition for all the extra work I already do on this project. Secondly I got an email from a parent of one of my top students thanking me for engaging, inspiring and challenging her child, she is apparantly loving the learning. So a positive way to end a difficult week.

Riding the Wave

This week it felt like I was riding a wave, it was an exhilarating and exciting ride but there were a few rough moments I felt like it was going to be all head over heels. I have had some success this week, the first was that I eventually got going with #365classes photos (my student version of 365 photos). The great part was I have got two struggling boys hooked into taking daily photos and they seem to love the process and of course the comments. Next step is to build the literacy around them. I was hoping to get more students from other schools involved and commenting, like we do the 365 Photo group does. Still interest may grow over time, or perhaps I need to try provide another sharing platform other than Flickr but not sure how that may work as yet. Below are some of my students photos.

As part of our unit study we have been exploring Recycling City and the students have been answering questions in their books on about the site which requires a sort of scavenger hunt search. On the second day I decided to try liven, and speed things up by doing an oral scavenger hunt. I asked a question based on the site and small groups raced each other for the answer and they then got a chance to ask their own questions. The success for me was the amazing engagement and quality of thinking as the students tried to give the class hard questions.

This year is the first time I have really used an Interactive Whiteboard as a serious tool. Last week I had a group memory/mix & match type game, while this week was a board game show below. It is freely available from an excellent site called Super Teacher Tools, which I also use to generate random groups. I had to stop my group teaching to take a photo of the great mathematical talk and engagement from students who don't usually get focused.

Meet the Teacher evening was held this week and I only had parents of five students visit and was encouraged by the understanding and agreement I got from those parents when I explained e-learning and the journey we were on.

Another great literacy tool we have been exploring is the comic site Strip Generator. It is an incredibly simple site to use-engage-telling stories and I made a screencast to guide students, most preferred to figure it out themselves. Cyber bullying was the learning context but I am hoping they will be whipping up stories and comics throughout the year as their confidence grows. This is a first time student effort below.

cyberbully by anonymous

I got a new girl student who I sat with a group of girls. They squashed around the table and eventually asked if they could rearrange the desks and seemed amazed when I encouraged them too.  I have been struggling to get students to move away from 'claimed' spots, perhaps one way is to give them more ownership.

Today our school was accepted into the EnviroSchools program, which was through my inquiries to them. To their credit they took the initiative and arranged a meeting with our principal and our new Enviro Team. I like it because they take a no pressure approach, and show how easy sustainability and environmental action can drive student inquiry learning and real change at school and in the community.

Finally I have reached the end of the wild week, and it's time to relax and reflect.

Collaboration Rules the Day

Last week my students took a statistics pre-assessment to help them plan their goals and for me to plan my teaching. I noticed across abilities my students seemed to get a simply tally chart question wrong. The question asked them to tally hexagons, pentagons and octagons, it turned out they just were confused about the difference. Strangely the year I had named the groups using these terms.

I created a Google Docs page with a table for each 2D shape and put the students into random groups. Each group of 3 to 4 students had a notebook and were assigned a shape. I was sharing this document with the whole class so each group was collaborating within their team and each group with the class. The live document was displayed via projector on the whiteboard which allowed for discussion and scaffolding.

My ulterior motive was to get them using their new Docs accounts and get them to explore ways of finding information on Google and bringing it together in a meaningful way.

I was amazed and proud of the way they worked together and in half an hour created this resource below. The Google Drawings are not showing because the students drew them in their accounts and they have not Shared the Drawing. Even my most unengaged kid was fully into this learning.

The second success was helping a fellow teacher in my syndicate who has gone from e-denial to enthusiastically suggesting new ideas. I manage a wiki which accommodates two Year 7 and two Year 8 classes, plus blogs. Today my colleague became an 'editing member' of our wiki, and she created her first wiki page to guide her math groups. It is a wonderful thing to could see the spark of understanding and possibility light up a learners face, at any age.

I feel like I made a difference today, a seed has sprouted.

E-learning: beginnings

Week one was a busy time getting to know the students, creating treaties and expectations in my first Year 8 class. The first week never seems to follow the standard timetable, however I used short activities to teach classroom routines, transitions and group work. Even though they are year 8's, many still need lots of work managing themselves and their time. I also noticed some some of my higher group boys giving me Level 2 writing. I need to work on this and perhaps find more engaging writing tasks?

I explained that our classroom is free seating although the students seem to be struggling with the concept and have mostly 'claimed' spots with a boys side and a girls side! Argg, should I change tables around every week? I also realise I need to develop my understanding on how spaces should work with the daily learning, at the moment some areas feel abandoned, ownership may be the key.

Next week:
I am trying out Workshops seriously for the first time, as opposed to standard group teaching. I plan to remove myself (and Workshops) from the group task tumble of activities (maths and literacy). I have been reading "Teaching without Telling: Computational Fluency and Understanding through Invention" written by Daniel Heuser, who says that workshop structure has four elements: hands-on-instruction, problem solving, choice and reflection. He also give an example of how he breaks down a maths lesson which has given me some confidence to try it out.

What are your Worksop experiences?

Technology vs ICT; are we talking the same language?

Photo by lgb06

Terminology can be a barrier in any language, however in the changing landscape of education and the web, teachers like myself are often left feeling we aren't talking the 'right' talk.

Based on my experience in primary schools, the meaning of 'Technology' and 'ICT' are very different. Technology is usually based on Inquiry Learning and involves creating a product or process that fulfills a need. In Intermediate Schools (age 11-13) this involves the students usually going to specialised teachers. Projects I have seen regularly across NZ are cooking, woodwork, making mosaics and wooden jigsaws, Trash to Fashion, electronic toys, etc.

TKI - Technology is intervention by design: the use of practical and intellectual resources to develop products and systems (technological outcomes) that expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities.

ICT is often viewed as anything done in the class computer suite time. A more accepted view is ICT or Information and Communication Technology as anything involved using technology (computers, cameras, audio recorders, mp3 players) to record, communicate, manipulate and create information in multimedia forms.

However the online education community and within my Twitter PLN, there seems to be more blurring of the meaning of 'Technology' and 'ICT'. When you are reading blogs and twitter conversations, be aware that most of the time when the author says 'Technology' they mean 'ICT'. You can usually tell by the context and content of the sentence.

I think it would be easier for everyone if we agreed on the meanings of 'Technology' and 'ICT' and started speaking the same language. What does 'Technology' and 'ICT' mean to you and your school?

Are we talking the same language?