Kevin's Information and Media Literacy Blog

Does an iPad replace other computers ?

2012-01-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

I have bantered the idea of using my iPad only for the month of February. If I am going to be immersed in supporting iPads with our teachers, I need to make the mind shift to use it for everything.

Currently my iPad is used less than maximum; however, I have access to a MacbookPro for work and a PC at home.

The question rises for schools - what if I only have an iPad? Should we buy desktops or even laptops anymore?

I haven't quite decided myself if I will take on this challenge as there are challenges that I know will arise.
- What if I want to print? Do I send it to a colleague? (not fair to them) Do I try to get the district to have a new printer that accepts AirPrint?
- Can I create everything I need to on an iPad? - (Pages on iPad can't export to ePub)
- Will I be as efficient? To search in First Class, it takes more steps on an iPad...

I am thinking that I should try this, but allow 30 minutes a day access to another computer.

Any thoughts or advice?

iBook Author - Where is the real power?

2012-01-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

I was very excited to hear the foreshadowed Apple announcement changing the textbook world.

http://www.apple.com/education/#video-textbooks

This has the potential to change learning resources in the same way that the printing press did almost 600 years ago. The printed word became accessible to a broader audience. Now the multimedia world will become accessible to a broader audience.

We already have access to the individual pieces of information and media; however, there hasn't been a crisp way to staple all the resources together. Now there is

I have already read some criticism that the power of the multi billion dollar textbook industry will still remain with the publishing giants. While I can see that as try for content rich textbooks that have every detail for entire courses, I see greater potential outside of the publishing companies.

I see the real power being brought to the students and teachers. As a teacher I can now create custom content for the course I want to teach. (Unfortunately, this is still living in the old paradigm of teacher experts but better than a business as the expert). The most amazing power will be what students can create.

A huge frustration for me is when teachers create an awesome wiki with their students, then ask how to erase it all at the end of the course. Why do we make students start their learning journey at the beginning. All current innovation is built on previous innovations. Why should 'textbooks' of the future delete those previous learnings? Wouldn't it be better to create a 'textbook' resource with a class, then have the next class spring board to adapt old learning and explore new learning.

Please don't waste previous student's learning. Acknowledge and honour the previous learning and move forward. Textbooks are dead resources from a snapshot in time. The content in a textbook is not the value; the process of learning and engaging with the content is the value. Living iBooks can and should develop a life of their own

Technology as a change driver

2012-01-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

Always fun to read something and see it with a different perspective. This (http://t.co/8AwhthBe) article from Finland shared that "Frequent surveys of Finnish teachers' use of technology in instruction, however, demonstrated that technology can't be the main driver of change in education."

This could be read as - 'Don't expect technology integration to result in changes to education." or "Technology doesn't drive change." or "Don't bother spending money on technology because it doesn't make a difference."

Using the driving metaphor, I support technology is not the driver of change; however, I would propose that it is the highway change is driving on. The bumpy dirt road of the internet and pentium 100 computers of 15 years ago were dirt roads - they still got you places - but slower and maybe with some bumps and bruises along the way.

It was incredible today as I was talking with an incredible teacher colleague. In one year, the work of his students has gathered 101, 000 views in their youtube channel. The automotive industry is one of the most high tech in the world, yet schools often send their struggling and disengaged students there. Mani Grewal at Frank Hurt Secondary School (http://www.youtube.com/user/FrankHurtAuto) has grown his program into an immensely popular program at the school and engages students with real world learning experiences and sharing their learning with the real world. His shop functions as a shop with customers bringing in their vehicles with unknown problems. The learning output of his students is phenomenal. During this semester, they have overhauled 2 engines, did 6 cylinder gaskets, 3 clutches and numerous smaller jobs. On top of it, they produced 6 more videos explaining their learning.

Students are learning with technology constantly in this 'classroom.' They use All Data to assist with diagnosis and repair, they use power points and videos regularly in the classroom, and they use their personal devices to assist them writing tests.

Returning to my premise though... Technology has empowered this awesome teacher to engage students, provide them extensive life skills, and provide a world audience to their work. The driver is good thoughtful teaching. The learning is deep and fast empowered by technology.

Response to InnovativeLearningDesigns.ca - To Gel or Not to Gel

2012-01-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

I read the blog post noted above, and posted a comment. After seeing what I was able to articulate, I thought it was worthy of its own post....

1. Living, Learning and Teaching in Transformation is tiring and uncomfortable. I believe that new learning doesn't occur unless we are a place of transformation. If we are not uncomfortable, we know it already and are not motivated to learn. Equally though we may learn every single day; we don't need to be learning every moment of every day. Everything I know says if I want to learn French, I need to be immersed in French and not have English as an option. Certainly uncomfortable but I would learn the language better than being a 'Language Tourist' where I can step back to being comfortable.

2. Digital is a language. Many of our students are Digital Natives and speak Digital fluently; however, just like our classrooms, not everyone comes to school with the skills to speak and learn with the language proficiently - even though it is the expected norm.

With Marc Prensky's work came the term Digital Immigrant and Digital Native. The concept was native speakers and second language learners. Research shows learning multiple languages is easiest before 6 years and dramatically difficult after 10 years old. If we remain as a Digital Tourist that can use the language for 'excursions' of learning but return 'home' and revert to our old language, then students lose the immersion experience and we actually make it harder for students to learn the language as they get older.

Many students are bi-lingual with English and Digital; most teachers are too old to be Digital Native speakers. Rather than being a Digital Tourist, some teachers have chosen to immerse themselves in Digital. These teachers can become fluent in Digital and English. Ideally all teachers will be fluent in both languages, but the most impact would be for helping students be bi-lingual by the age of 10.

Renewed commitment - It is a moral imperative to share learning

2012-01-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

Wow did this one hit me. I had an amazing conversation with two educators for Penticton this afternoon - Myron Dueck and Todd Manuel. It was just a sharing time. We talked about education and supporting technology use. I remember some of my best ProD being this type of personal conversations.

We were passionate about a topic and kept at it for an hour non stop. We all had so much to offer the conversation. Surrey is integrating iPads in a big way so I was able to offer some thoughts, but the conversation stretched into so much more. Even having to articulate answers to questions pushed me to think deeper about how I support technology integration.

A quote from today was that "It is a moral imperative to share learning." A critical component to sharing is being 'available' to know your ideas for sharing. Thanks to James Gill from SD43 for being the connector and broadening my PLN.

EdCamp43 - Transformative Learning

2012-01-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

What do you think about Transformative Learning? What do you think about sharing a twitter stream as a blog? As I just posted in my last post, I kick myself regularly for not blogging. (When does microblogging become a blog post?)

Here is the nuggets of my learning on Transformative uses of Technology conversation at EdCamp today.

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Content is the conversations along the journey. Make connections to life. Can't make a journey and never move. #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Don't teach content. Teach students. Explore the world together. Take a learning road trip. #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn.

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Let's go back to why teachers don't do inquiry? Go further back to why am I teaching any content? A report card? #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

It takes courage to say what you really mean. Inquiry is personal. Thanks Louise Morris sd42 for that nugget #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @darcymullin: School is more than questions on a test. Good question can't be googled. #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn no more trivial pursuit

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Is it harder to change the mindset of teachers or students to the paradigm / cultural shift to inquiry learning #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @datruss: yes, support them, remove barriers (and in some cases get out of their way. #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn yes, we need to GOOTW

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

How do we push the envelope to eliminate asking the 'googlable' question ? #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @datruss: How to take advantage of the 'pockets of brilliance' happening? #edcamp43 #sd36learn. Remove barriers and empower, then share

5 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Amazing shift. Mythology was the way of explaining the world. Science now reduces the myths to stories #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

6 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

student quote - (inquiry) makes me want to think more. So powerful when students lead there learning #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

6 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @datruss: The day @edcamp43 instagr.am/p/hFWsT/. Excitement and passion as seen by stickies

6 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Starting a session on inquiry great to have 2 history 11 students sharing. Thanks Jon V for inviting them #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn

6 hours ago

Transformative Technology - Twitter Stream EdCamp43

2012-01-14T15:43:00.000-08:00

Just returning from EdCamp43. Amazing day and conversations. I realize that I need to blog more. I also realize that I microblog when in events. Thought I would try sharing out my experience on the topic and the twitter stream floats away so quickly.....

It is a moral imperative to share learning. #edcamp43 #sd36learn #bced

3 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT@mrosati IF we are to go looking for 'what went wrong' on a test, that is the start of a conversation, not the end of a measure #edcamp43

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

It is uncomfortable to live in 'transformation'. You can't learn at full speed all the time. Avoid burn out. #edcamp43 #sd36learn #bced

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @MrReidWSS: Yes! “@darcymullin: Using an Ipad as an electronic worksheet is an ABOMINATION #edcamp43 #sd36learn #bced

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

If I am teaching content. Can students 'just in time' learn a concept 'off task' that suuports undrstnd 'my content' #sd36learn #edcamp43

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

RT @HHG: Elisabeth - split personality of teacher role, having conversations about learning vs judge ( grades) #edcamp43 #bced#sd36learn

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

azk12.org/tim/ Arizona tech integration matrix (similar to BJ Porters work with BC years ago ) #edcamp43 #sd36learn #bced

4 hours ago

amboe_k Kevin Amboe

Starting transformative use of technology. #edcamp43 #bced #sd36learn. Transformative is near the top of the continuum

4 hours ago

DuoLingo

2011-12-08T13:03:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time on the web and searching out solutions for my educator colleagues. I watched a TED talk this afternoon that really amazed me.

http://bit.ly/TEDduolingo

I believe that Duolingo - http://duolingo.com/ has the potential to change language learning. The age of internet collaboration now allows 750 000 000 users to collaborate. The talk describes how 100 000 worked on the pyramids and to put a man on the moon. What if we could have 750 million working instead. Imagine the possibilities.

This just gets my creative juices going. In our school district we have 5000 teachers. If we each were able to provide 10 seconds per day, that is almost 14 hours toward a task.

What could we do with an extra 14 hours of work each day?

An ever changing world

2011-08-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

I love working with technology because of the variety and the flexibility to meet the needs of so many. The hate side of the equation is trying to manage what is important to me. I explore a plethora of ideas; however, only a limited amount can become mine.

Blogging is an awesome tool to reach many. It has served me well in terms of dissemination as well as receiving.

As I am preparing for September, I realize that I have neglected my blog for too long; however, I am hesitant to jump back into the fray of blogging. Why?

I am moving at a faster pace in micro blogging with Twitter. While I have once again set good intentions, if you see a lapse in my blogging, I am likely active in twitter @amboe_k Tags that I follow and post to include: #bctf #bced #sd36learn and #canade

Reflections on NECC09

2009-07-01T19:58:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that NECC09 is over already.

This has been an awesome week worth the time and money it took to get myself here.

I have attended several NECC's over the years. I have learned not to over plan for myself. I did have one or two sessions planned for each day; however, I left plenty of time to spend on the exhibit floor. The exhibit floor is so much more than 5 football fields of vendors. It is a place of networking with vendors, an efficient way to find out what is new in educational technology, and a place to meet / remeet educators that I communicate with online.

I enjoyed the BYOL sessions that I attended. Learning new things and being able to try them out at the same time has been great. I remember several years back when NECC didn't provide wireless as part of the conference. (Yes I attended pre-edublogger...)

Having continuous internet changed my conference. This year I was able to blog during my sessions (hence the recent activity of my blog.) (A sore spot still is that the Renaissance Hotel didn't provide internet access for the digital equity summit.

I was able to attend several of the sessions that were hosted in the SMART room. This forum actually allowed for a much more interactive type of workshop. Presenters were mostly great educators that happen to use SMART boards.

One of the greatest successes for myself is the networking and re-networking that took place. Some of this happened during the day, but much more during the evening receptions / events. A highlight for me was attending the reception at the Canadian Embassy. It was powerful to know that I was walking back into Canada when I walked under a row of Canadian flags flowing in the breeze and then into the building.

I hope to present again next year but would really like a space in the regular program not on the first Saturday AM before most have even arrived....

Feedback that I plan to officially provide will include:

1. Better publicity for evening events. (Even if they are invitation only events - if they have an event code, they could be placed into our planner with out us having to input all details.)

2. Recognition of Canada on Canada Day during the conference (which ironically doesn't apply next year)

3. I would like less 'guest' passes in the exhibit area. I appreciate that spouses can join; however, there were too many times with young children on the floor that seemed detractions. (I do greatly appreciate the students that were attending as part of a poster or other presentation.

4. There weren't any family events planned this year. I travelled alone this year but really appreciated that my family was able to be involved at previous NECC conferences. It is hard to be away from family a long time and almost as hard to come back to the hotel to find a well rested family ready to go out. (when all I want is some quiet time to process the day.)

I do hope I can attend the rebranded ISTE conference in Denver next June.

I find that attending NECC is a huge power boost to my batteries. I am ready to go again for a year of learning and working with students and teachers. If you ever get the chance to attend a major conference (especially ISTE) try and make it work somehow.

Erin Gruwell at #necc09

2009-07-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Erin is an author of Teaching Hope.

Dealing with inner city kids. Starting with challenging days with students not wanting to read about "dead white guys in tights." Erin have them all write in their journals. After some time she found Homer. They would be interested in a 'Homie' trying to get home.

The life story of the students that had many challenges. It was more important to make people laugh than be laughed at by the teacher. It was better to belong to a gang and belong. It was better to be beaten than to not belong.

Given an opportunity to change then reading the Diary of a Young Girl. This student was able to relate (after being supported to connect the similarities) Maria was captured to reading the story but was shocked when Anne dies. This surprise was a loss of hope, but Darius commented that Anne did live because of the writing she did.

Darius was inspired to write to the women that helped hide Anne. She did come. All 150 students came to the 'student renovated' community centre.

There is too much to share with the story. I am certain that Teaching Hope by the Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell will be an incredible read. So many stories ....

Very moving story.

150 students that had a difference made for them, 150 students that chose to make a change, 150 students that made a difference by raising money to present their stories to Congress, 150 students invited 150 teachers and trained them in what it takes to reach students. 150 teachers that then wrote their stories.

Very powerful story and great way to end NECC.

Integrating SMART and Google Earth #necc09

2009-07-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Planning for Field Trips

- students label where they are going, and how they get there. Now with more Google Street View, you can walk through many neighbourhoods at street level. Learning theory considers that the we need to have prior knowledge and to activate prior knowledge.

Much of what I saw was not about the SMART board (except the screen capture to Notebook that Mac and already do)

Cool Tools in Google

- Showing Day view - then sliding through a day to reveal where doesn't get dark in the summer (or is always in the winter)

- Showing Chronological View - then sliding to change over time (forest growth, building, demolitions)

- Weather Layer - looking at weather patterns, following hurricanes, look at difference between weather / climate

Version 5 also includes Google Ocean. You can explore the depths and terrain under the ocean surface

create-kmz-who-me.pbworks.com

I had a question after the session by another delegate about creating KMZ with timeline so I showed him.

http://earth.google.com/outreach/tutorial_time.html

Lots of fun using the SMART board.

Earth Mashing

2009-07-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

Earth Mashing: Web 2.0 Meets Google Earth #NECC09

Jim Holland and Susan

Several different ways in which Google Earth can be combined with Web2.0

(Web 2.0 defined as something students can create, hosted on a server, and a product of learning)

http://googleearthlessons.wetpaint.com/page/Google+Earth+Lessons

Files and samples

http://web20tools.wetpaint.com/

Great set of web2.0 tools that can embed well into Google Earth. I am inspired to look closer at how to bring more teachers into using these tools.

Magtoo.com is a really great option where a teacher can upload images to flickr, then students can access your folder of images in flickr. Then they can order them and title the images

(A cool feature that I knew but forgot. If you need students to sign in with an account, you can have a class account and then use the + tag. kevinamboe+theirpseudoaccount@gmail.com is their email but it only goes to kevinamboe@gmail.com.

Otherinbox.com is another solution - anything@kevinamboe.otherinbox.com - everything goes to the one account for verifications)

Literacy isn't enough: 21st Century Fluency for the Digital Age - Lee Crockett

2009-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Lee has warned us that he will be speaking very fast....

Following up from yesterday's presentation (that I didn't attend)

Kids are fundamentally different. Classical conditioning. If you put apes in a cage, and spray if they reach for bananas, soon other apes will prevent any ape from going for bananas. You can replace all apes one at a time will prevent any ape from going for the bananas. The apes learn

TTWWADI - That's the way we've always done it.

This is true of modern day axle width for trains - goes back 2300 years ago from a Roman War Chariot - The chariot was just wide enough for two horses rear ends. Today the Solid Booster Rockets are built to the same 4' 8.5 Inches because they are shipped by rail. The most complex piece of machinery built base the specification on the size of two horses butts.

Education has a lot of TTWWADI.

Why are kids in our classrooms ???? they have no other choice.

There are 5 skill sets in education and life today

1. Obsolete Skills

- once valued - sharpening swords, milking horses, candle maker

2. Traditional Skills

- once important - less mainstream - still valued - handwriting, dewey decimal system

3. Traditional Literacy Skills

- Reading, Writing, Numeracy - Traditional Communication Skills

- just as important today as they are an essential foundation for 21st Century Skills

4. Modified Traditional Literacy Skills

- Emphasis has increased based on the digital culture

- Reading is no longer a linear passive activity

- Writing is no longer reading and writing a report on what you read

5. New Skills

- emerged or are unique to the Digital Age

- This are critical in the world today - online communication - social media

Schools continue to train students to be consumers of content; now students need to be producers and prosumers of content. Students literate with 20th Century skills only will only be prepared for our past and not their future. (What a great quote)

Students need to move to fluency in 21st Century Skills. Fluency is at a level that you no longer need to think about how to do the skill

1. Technological Fluency - you know how to use excel and use it to calculate and think - the focus is not on the hardware, it is on the headware

2. Media Fluency - Beyond creating a podcast or taking a photo - It is about looking critically at the medium and how it is being used to communicate and shape your opinion. Measuring the effectiveness of the message communicated with the media.

3. Information Fluency - Unconsciously and Intuitively interpret information

a. Ask good questions

b. Acquire

c. Analyze - authenticate, arrange, understand bias

d. Apply - within context of real life, real world problem - write a blog, - vision into practice

e. Assess - product and process.

Traditional Literacy and 21st Century Fluency need to both be taught in a structured and valuable way. Our job as educators should be to teach lazy (progressive withdrawl) - empower our students to be independent learners and thinkers with 21st century thinkers - provide them with the skills and knowledge to succeed in the outside world.

Our job is to plan for learners to graduate no longer needing us for them to succeed.

To have learning stick (learning triangle) we need to have students teach concepts to each other and apply it. Now they will remember 90%

Today's students are not the students that schools were designed to teach. Today's students are not the students we were trained to teach. If we don't change how we teach, it is us that has the learning difficulty

http://committedsardine.com/resources.cfm

Kevin

10 Ten Web2.0 Tools - Gail Lovely

2009-06-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

1. Wikis. Gail considers them a bit more flexible thus ranked higher.

Cool Branching Story with the wiki - Teacher starts a story, students add choices for the next step in the story. Then they write the results. What a cool idea for collaboration.

2. Blogs

Gail shared an example where a grade 3 student had 800 readings of her writing. This level of readership encourages and motivates your readers and writers. (The comments were moderated by the teacher)

3. Voice Thread

The ability to publish quickly with multimedia. Voice, Text, markup, or image.

I missed the rest of the presentation. The full presentation http://glovely.wetpaint.com

The special focus with this presentation was aiming at young learners.

Early Literacy Skills

2009-06-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Attending #NECC09 Early Literacy Skills by Kathleen H. McClaskey, EdTech Associates

The website is at http://earlyliteracyskills.wikispaces.com

Great list of websites that are listed for supporting early literacy. Several to start Phonemic Awareness.

Creating Practice Guides. This was interesting. Setting up a set of websites and providing links for a specific skill.

Phonemic Awareness

Website	Activity Link
Star Fall - A	http://www.starfall.com/n/short-a/sa/load.htm?f
More Sites

You can then carry on with placing the table on a websites

Also looks at Vocabulary Building

(A great one that I didn't bookmark is WordWeb that looks at synonyms but is a free PC download)

News to me - You need to be exposed to vocabulary at least 11 times before you know it. From Grade 4 to 12 students need to acquire 3000 words per year to stay at grade level. Wow. It highlights the value of reading and exposure to literacy in many forms.

Check out her website.

It was impressive to see the collection. Kathleen has more resources here as well.

http://www.edtech-associates.com/education-and-technology.htm

Kevin

SIG Digital Equity Summit

2009-06-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

Digital Equity Summit #NECC09

An interesting start to the summit when the bloggers at the table realize that we don’t have internet access. It is amazing that free internet has only been provided for the last few years and already we can't live without it.

ISTE now has 20000 individual members and over 100 000 with affiliates. Together we can plug in on issues that we are passionate about.

Today’s summit is named “Success Against All Odds”

Stories shared during the session

Despite Low Income and under served situations partnerships and connections grow
Zoe’s Room – online afterschool community working toward STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)
Community Computer Centre – created STEM program with no money
MOUSE – young people developing help desk in school
Students are the best textbook written for each other
Students helping students becoming tech literate
Building and designing educational games with STEM content
Students refreshing computers to provide to the community after used in School

Keynote Opening – Jenelle Leonard – US Department of Education

Many changes are happening in the US DoE with a shift from compliance bureaucracy. There is a new culture in the US Department of Education focused on TeamWork for those in the department and those served (80+ million kids) The new administration is listening and sharing what is heard and publishing it publicly. The administration is listening to keep what was good and fix what isn’t

The goal is to be back on track being number one in education including

- Modernizing Classrooms

- Keeping Teachers working

- Early Childhood Education

- Improvements in teacher quality and effectiveness.

- Spurring on Teacher Innovations

The soon coming result will be High Quality Education For All.

Education is a Civil Rights Issue. A fight for education is a social justice fight. We need to work with a sense of urgency. Our children can’t wait

(What a great viewpoint. It feels like in my local government that education is a drain on the system, not a civil right, not an urgent need, and not worth investing in by meeting needs (not just enough to keep the lights on))

Milton Chen – George Lucas Educational Foundation

Milton started with sharing 10 films produced by 9 to 18 year olds. We need to see what these kids are doing to realize how far behind the thinking about education really is. More than 300 hours of media about kids and by kids. www.Edutopia.org – Digital Generation Project - http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-youth-portraits

One of the videos features Luis Chavez. He is from Oregon and his parents are immigrants from Mexico with technology skills limited to the ATM. He has excelled and has presented in Chile by the age of 18. He recognizes that opportunities have been presented to him and he took advantage of them. It motivates him to give back. He supports both the community and the school. He is a great example of paying it forward.

Edutopia is working to provide case studies of model schools to help with information on funding, policies, successes, and challenges. More is being developed to support more schools in becoming Model Schools.

We next had 8 minutes at tables to learn about a project....

Project 1

http://www.FlatClassroomProject..org

(Support from ICT Qatar and HSBC)

- Key learning from students – “I Learned Not to Sterotype”

- Amazing communication – two students communicated only through Google Translate (while sitting beside each other)

Goes beyond HOTS to HO Living

First Step to flattening classroom is to Connect Self

Project 2

http://www.MOUSE.org

Targeting high need schools and high need students. The program is challenged with funding and challenges with the nature of high need students and schools.

Results include increases attendance, improved reading skills and 21^st Century Skills. Need to support teachers in being comfortable with technology but the teachers need to be comfortable with the technology to allow students to excel. The whole school environment gets tech support. Teachers and students are trained together. Networking sets up schools to support each other as well.

( There continues to be issues with access – parts of NC only has dial up access. Some areas only ½ of students have computers at home and only 1/3 of them have internet access.)

While Canada and the USA are diverse, we end up with very similar needs. We have very low performing segments of the population, we have areas of high poverty and we have locations with very high English Language Learners. Supporting all students is a critical challenge that we need to meet. Following Malcolm Gladwell's conversation, these students are disadvantaged by lack of access to gain expertise, and a lack of feedback. They have lots of opporunities where compensation is needed to overcome; however, they don't have the teachers or resources to develop compensation strategies.

In Surrey it is a challenge while the district faces a 9 million dollar shortfall and we need 3 million annually just to provide a minimal level of sustainable computers. (Computers aren't the solution; however, students need access to technology and the lack of functioning computers at a reasonable ratio is an indicator that we are not providing equity.)

Kevin

Malcolm Gladwell at NECC on Learning Environments

2009-06-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

Learning Environments through Fleetwood Mac as a Case Study.

Peter Green hears the band members before they became a band. He met with them, jammed together, then released Fleetwood Mac.

Rumours is one of their best albums. Most think it is 3rd album - actually 16th. There is a long history between 1967 and 1973 with members coming and going before they become the band we think of as Fleetwood Mac.

Lesson 1

We tend to telescope the time for learning between inception and success. Pscyhologists have suggested that to become mastery requires 10 000 hours of practice (4 hours / day x 10 years). Mozart was a late bloomer - his better compositions took 14 years of composing (age 9 to 23) The Beattles played together live 1200 times before coming to America.

As people, we have an attitude toward learning that sees the product not the effort to get there. The effort is telescoped.

The TIMSS test tests math and completes a 120 question survey. A research correlated the number of question answered on the survey to the marks on the math test - it was a direct correlation. If you can sit still and focus to complete a task, you will do well with Math.

Attitude and Effort are more important than Ability.

KIP model - working with disadvantaged children - provide instruction from 8 to 5:00 instead of 9 to 3 and 3 less weeks of summer vacation - can eliminate the disadvantage -

There is no substitute for time and effort

Lesson 2

Most believe success is built on success - Capitalization strategy

Instead - Success is built on previous failures. This is a compensation strategy - Compensate for your weaknesses. NFL draft - First 50 for QB - their next year stats slightly under perform their 50 to 140 draft picks. The first 50 have height, strength, looks, 'talent;' however the next 100 know they have to compensate for their disadvantages by being hungrier and more committed to excel.

A Compensatory strategy is more effective to improve. Four of the best QB had the worst scores on IQ tests. Being smart is valuable to learn the plays and other details of football; however, if you are not as smart, you will have to work harder to compensate. Dyslexic entrepreneurs are at the top of the list because they had to work harder at school but learned instead - leadership, teamwork, aural communication, and delegation. They succeeded because they compensated.

(interesting consideration)

Large class sizes force students to compensate. Learning to learn with minimal support allows for compensations to develop. We need to have respect for difficulty. It is crucial to learn to overcome difficulties.

How can we create 'constructive disadvantages' in learning environments.

Lesson 3

Learning Paths are not necessarily Linear

Fleetwood Mac changed styles many times over the 16 albums.

Paul Cezanne started with not good work, but 30 to 40 years of work and exploration developed famous styles. He learned brush strokes from Pizarro for years with feedback

Huck Finn was written over 9 years. Most completed early but needed 9 years of trying endings to create a literary masterpiece.

Feedback is at the core of learning. The struggle to learn is where the learning lies. The record industry would not wait for 16 albums today. It is expected to be instant success.

Conclusion

Put it together

Learning takes time and effort

Learning takes making mistakes and compensating

Learning takes struggling and exploring along the way

Impressive Starting Points

2009-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

I have had the privilege of working with SFU's Field Program - Learning and Teaching Through Technology for today - March 7, 2009. One of the activities that they have been working on is sharing "Who am I as a learner?"

What a great question. I remember a similar activity several years back that I was involved in. I will have to go and find what I wrote for that. I highlight wrote since my work was written. Since Graduating from TLITE in 2002, I have thought a lot about reflection, my practice, but I haven't had to make it salient.

The rich thinking that went into the presentations was inspiring. I will likely redo my thoughts of who I am as a learner. (A key part of that is that I can see something and I will want to accomplish the same thing. )

It was impressive to see the learners reflected through their presentations. From Blogs, to Movies, to warped photos, to PPT, to Keynote.... I can't believe the strength of technology use to produce amazing presentations, but more importantly that none of it was gratuitous glitz. The technology tools chosen enhanced each of their presentations. While I am tech savvy, I will have to strive to match the depth of reflection about themselves as learners.

Kudos LTT 2009

Computers not part of basic education needs....

2008-11-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

At the Surrey All Candidates meeting on November 5, 2008, a trustee-elect was asked if he would accept a donation of 100 computers even though it is corporate sponsorship. I don't take issue with accepting the donation; however, the justification surprised me.

It is acceptable to take the 100 computers because computers are not part of basic education. They are an extra....

WOW - It was hard to stay in my seat.

I am hoping that this candidate just hasn't been in a school and worked with children lately to understand how vital technology is to today's children. Assuming that technology is extra is just like considering you can live without it. A child that does not integrate technology into their learning today would graduate missing essential skills to communicate in today's reality.

From iwasthinking.ca

2008-10-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Really, it’s not about the technology, is it? It’s about good pedagogy, good teaching practices, engaging students, making them think, giving them opportunity to be creative and work in teams and talk and learn…"

Heidi found a YouTube video that parallels technology through sports. Athletes could play without shoes, but why would they?

What a great question. So often I am challenged about the value of spending money on technology when we can't afford to purchase, train, maintain, upgrade, update..... It is a good question. I do look at my life and how integrated technology has become. If I would have a difficult time functioning without integrating technology, why would I expect students to function well when not prepared.

I return to a previous statement, "If someone said that students should have no exposure to technology until Grade 4, it should be held in the same contempt as someone saying students should have no exposure to books until Grade 4." Reading a book, learning from a book are parallel to reading from a computer and learning from computer.

Wow - Value in Newsletters and their title

2008-08-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

I have an RSS reader that has right now about 40 feeds with 675 unread updates. I won't read all of them. I often skim the subject lines to see if I want to read further.

Today I had a moment to read a newsletter sent out by http://www.edutopia.org/ I knew from the subject line that I would be interested. It was entitled - Technology that Enables. I didn't have time to read it back in July when it was sent out. I am so glad I did today. It highlighted a 2 minute video about enabling technology including that Acrobat Reader now has built in a Reader function. It will read the text out. It is not perfect; however, a free tool that students can apply to any PDF document is amazing. You could even print your own documents as a PDF and have them read back to you. Then you can hear if your sentence structure made sense.

I get a lot of email and will often delete email from newsletters or magazines based on their title. I would have lost this nugget had I not be captured by the subject line.

PC - File Menu - Read Out Loud

Mac - View Menu - Read Out Loud

When Technology Fails Us

2008-08-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

As I grow as an educator, my background knowledge of technology continues to increase. I don't claim to know all the answers, but I have developed the ability to ask questions about the failure. What caused it? Is it within my control? Can I find a work around?

Today I was asked to help with a blog where the comments weren't posting properly. I didn't know the solution, but I checked it on another computer to see if it was a computer related problem, I asked the teacher to show me what they were doing, I asked them to check through the blog management tool. We did find the problem being that the system hadn't accepted the comment approval commands that were given before. The point is that I don't know Edublogs.org well enough to know the answer, but by asking questions and exploring we found the answer.

This leads back to my original idea. What about when technology fails?

I was presenting on Google Earth in Victoria, BC yesterday and technology failed me. The projector had poor contrast so that reds, blues and blacks all showed up as black on the screen, Google Earth opened but did not have a reliable fast connection to the Internet, and I planned to show my Google Literature Trips on the Apple Learning Interchange but the Internet would go there. Sounds like a presentation from hell - right?

Wrong - I have learned to present the concept and the process more than the details. Much of my time was spent sharing the concepts, the rationale, and the practical applications for Literature, Mathematics and Social Studies. It is always hard to learn from a demonstration where you can't follow along anyway. Being forced to present highlighting the concepts and potential was much more powerful.

I find that we (as teachers) are moving to the process oriented learning side. In doing so, I don't have to showcase a final product, I can instead describe the process and learning encapsulated in the project.

Yes technology fails; however, so does the power from time to time. We deal with interruptions, assemblies, fire alarms, code yellow and much more on a daily basis. Technology is not the answer to all. Rather technology can be the spring board to amazing learning opportunities. I remember creating skits in groups as an intermediate student; we are really doing the same project when we have students create movies to tell a story. It is about the process not the product.

Where do we put our energy?

2008-08-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

I listened to a TED video today. It is focused on the basic question ?Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming? Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg comes up with surprising answers.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities.html

Taking this to our role in teaching and learning. There are many problems. Rather than prioritize problems, we should look at prioritizing solutions. Bjorn worked with economists to determine the cost/benefit of solutions. In terms of technology, what technologies would have the best cost / benefit ratio. If we can help more students by doing X than helping less students with Y, which choice should we make.

I don't have the answers to the cost / benefit of providing 1 to 1 laptop initiatives. Rather than that specific problem I think we should ask ourselves if we are making the best choices with not only technology, but how we spend our time teaching and learning.

Is there a way to show that the cost / benefit of providing school and home computers with internet access to all students is more beneficial than providing targeted support to only students that need it (after they are already falling behind in their learning and then identified to receive support.)

My statement is not which one is better, rather that decisions around the world seem to be made all in the name of 'putting learners first.'

Do we really know what uses of technology if any are more beneficial?

Flying over storytelling tools

2008-08-13T13:23:00.001-07:00

I really enjoyed this morning where I was able to give a high level fly past of a variety of tools that teachers might want to go. It is nice to know what is out there even if not ready for it. A year later, one can reflect and say, "now I need something that will do _____. I remember that we saw something that might just do that."

In preparing to share the tools, I had even forgotten about some options. The last one CogDogRoo has a list of 57 + ideas for storytelling with digital media.

The archive of tools I briefly covered include:

Tools for Digital Storytelling
del.icio.us/digitalstorytelling
http://screencast-o-matic.com/
http://jingproject.com/
http://mnemograph.com/
Comic Life - see district license
Inspiration - see district license
Kidspiration - see district license
KidPix - see district license
www.edublogs.org
Google Maps / Google Earth
flickr.com
quickmaps.com
clustrmaps.com
Apple Learning Interchange - http://ali.apple.com

http://electronicportfolios.org/

CogDogRoo - http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools - FIfty different tools

What is it like to just have second years....

2008-08-13T13:16:00.001-07:00

This year we only have second years at our summer institute. This is very interesting. It seems more relaxed. We are all focused on the same process. We don't have to balance rooms, activities, times to make it all fit.

We do miss the opportunities to share with the first years. Having second years helping the first years overcome the emotional hurdles and technical hurdles was empowering for the second years. We don't have that same opportunity.

We have planned less 'workshops' and more learning time, exploration, and critical reflection. Since everyone has a base level of technological ability, there is little need to provide that kind of workshop or support. I hope that next year when we start with first years again that we will be able to keep this decreased focus on technology and greater focus on the educational issues around integrating technology.

As a Teacher and Learner ...

2008-08-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

As I continue as a learner, I learn more about my teacher. I have always put myself in positions to share my knowledge. I consider myself somewhat introverted; however, in a teaching role I seem the exact opposite.

Also in a teaching role, I force myself to be knowlegable. This concept is odd in terms of teaching with technology. I chose to leave my position at Frank Hurt as the Tech Facilitator because I was expected to be the expert in everything. It just isn't possible.

Oddly enough 3 years later, I ended up at the district level where again I am expected to 'know everything.' The biggest difference is that I no longer try to actually know 'everything.' Now I have a network of people and sources to point teachers to help themselves.

With the growth of technologies, it is impossible to know everything. I have been teaching lifeguarding for 18 years and have always taught principle oriented. In lifesaving and first aid, you can practice procedures to deal with knowns and expecteds but rarely to accidents happen in identical ways. I hadn't realized it until recently that teaching (especially with technology) has changed to be much more principle oriented.

It is now no longer about knowing the answers but being willing to try and explore. I am not an expert in most technologies; however, I can figure them out based on other existing knowledge.

I am much happier facilitating than delivering information. I think the rich conversations during exploration and learning are worth more than the information that may have very little to do with their future life.

Kevin

Surrey TLITE 2008

2008-08-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

I have been working with Surrey and Simon Fraser University for the past 8 years on an incredible program called TLITE - or Teaching and Learning in an Information and Technology Environment. During August 11 to 22, I will be making some posts that might be a bit different than my usual posts.

I wanted to warn you that as part of the coursework for the cohort everyone is blogging regularly. I am including myself in this process.

Google Teacher Academy Reflection

2008-06-30T16:21:00.000-07:00

This opportunity was amazing. I have been an Apple Distinguished Educator for 1.5 years now and love the networking opportunity. The networking with GCT has been just as wonderful for networking.

The Academy was a neat adventure to be with 50 incredible educators and then cramming in the great wealth of Google into our brains until near explosion. I consider myself to know lots about Google, but there were many things I found that I didn't have a clue about.

As part of my follow up activities, I am hoping to produce a 40 things you can do tomorrow using Google in your classroom. I would then be able to present this as a workshop to provide a condensed version of our experience. Seeing what is possible is one way to open the eyes of educators to change. At the same time, I want to caution educators to be careful how deep and how far they choose to go. We want to make sure that we are using our time wisely to use what we need. Here is where Just In Time learning comes in for teachers as well.

I think for teachers JIT learning is almost as important as for students. If we try and learn it all now, without direct application, it will just be added to the frustration level. Prior to April of this year, I had experimented in Google Earth and created a basic virtual field trip. During April of this year I was asked to share Google Earth in a meaningful way. To me this became creating a Google Lit Trip. I have since created 2 Google Lit Trips; however, I built my skills as needed to complete the tasks. (I still have a personal goal to learn the time coding features - but I don't have a project that needs it yet.)

I found the value of the GCT Academy in being:

Expanding my network of incredible educators,
Expanding the fly past knowledge of the Googlverse
Forcing me to think deeper about how to apply and present Google and its wealth of resources as meaningful tools to teachers (that may not be as eager as I can be.)

Kevin

Google Literature Trip

2008-06-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of presenting with Jerome Burg at BC Literacy Forum conference. The link to the recording of our presentation. It does require a bit of Java install (automatically).

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/launch/play.jnlp?psid=2008-06-19.1739.M.4E2872FEDB7D69F3FCADABF491B2F1.vcr

I cannot say enough about how pleased I am to have worked with Jerome on this presentation. I was challenged to complete a second literature trip to share and learned new information to be able to share it. In preparing, I summarized what I see as the Return on Investment.

Student Engagement
Deep Learning with Many Connections
Reaches Visual / Spatial Learners
Reading with Purpose
Cross Curricular applications
Encourages global links to sources, people and resources
Alignment with PLO’s, IML Learning Capacity and NETS-S

A personal note for teachers thinking about doing a Google Literature Trip. Try it and you will learn more about that piece of literature than you may have in studying it with your students for years.

Kevin

Web 2.0 is not the Future of Education

2008-06-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

In response to http://injenuity.com/archives/207#comment-1109

Jen,

An interesting conversation. I have to say I found your initial post provoking; however, I understand where you are coming from.

Our District Motto is "Keeping Learners at the Centre."

I don't know that Web2.0 is the right catch all but I will work within that category. I believe students today are different than even 10 years ago. If we want to keep them at the centre, we need to change as they and society changes. I do a lot of professional development workshops and get quite annoyed being asked to teach a software title. I reflect back to the requester to tell tell me what their learning goals are and ask how this will integrate to the curriculum.

A quote from Brigham Young University that I just love is "The goal of teaching is to teach our students to be learners. The content is what they practice with. "

With the world changing in ways such as a online community being compared to being a country with its size and other features. Students are different and have opportunities to learn differently. A few years back (probably 10 now) Bernajean Porter worked with our Ministry of Education to define technology use in three ways - Literacy - Adaptive and Transformative.

At some point we all need the literacy level (skills), then we can move to doing what we already do (PPT) to doing things not possible before. Transformative is where I want to see most of the time spent. Voice Thread was an example discussed earlier. If we just record ourselves that is just literacy, if we use it to practice a speech that might be adaptive, but if we use it to , that could have been done before . Using Voice Thread for a global (or local) conversation with voice, text, files, annotations was not possible.

Students and Teachers don't need to learn every Web2.0 application; however, we do need to prepare students to learn and use the tools that they will need throughout their life. (I actually don't use Voice Thread myself but I can see the potential.) I love working with wikispaces.com. It doesn't matter if you use Wikispaces or PB Wiki or any other tool. What I am teaching is becoming creators of information and publishing to a limited (or global audience.) I would hope that spending time learning to write with a wiki would transfer to other wikis, blogs, voice threads, and even podcasts.

I love using technology. I see so much potential. I totally agree that learning should be central.

I question where the balance is between "I am teaching them to learn so technology is a lower priority" and "I am teaching them to learn with technology"
Kevin

Security

2008-06-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation yesterday about security on a school network. The "Ah Ha" moment for me was when I was informed of the greatest security risk - the USER. When networks become super secure, the user is encouraged to find ways around the security. When you can't do what you believe you need to do, frustration and creativity set in.

I found this amazing and I agree. Last year, I was introduced to the Yes And concept.... There are three kinds of people.

No Way - They don't want to try things and whatever you suggest is just a No Way.

Yes, But - They like the ideas but have lots of reasons why it won't, can't or shouldn't work.

and

Yes, And - These people like the ideas AND seek for ways to make them work. There are always hurdles, and there are lots of ways to overcome hurdles. In terms of Security, the Yes, And group is the most dangerous. We don't take no very well and seek creative alternatives.

I had to laugh when a school district recently blocked Facebook. In the same breath I was told about the blocking, I was informed about UnblockFacebook.com as a way around. I realize that that may be blocked soon too, and it will have another way around it created just as fast.

In the end, if we weren't so restrictive and diligent with some forms of security, then the Yes And group could do what they believe they need to do without putting their creative energy to just getting access, instead it would be channeled into doing what is needed better.

Kevin

Grafting Mac to Novell - Burnaby School District - Ken Kiewitz

2008-05-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

Technology in Burnaby School District – Ken Kiewitz

Burnaby is the 4 th largest district in BC. Currenlty they have 4000 computers (predominantly PC based) over 53 sites.

The presentation focused on Visual and Performing Arts. When you want to bring in new technology, you have four options

Don’t bring in new technology
Bring it in and run it separate from existing structures
Bring in the new and out with the old
Try to make the two work together.

So the model was chosen of option 4. Now it has been a lesson in grafting. There are 39 Mac computers working with the network to service the Visual and Performing Arts. The metaphor works well. You can graft, use hybrid breeding, easier propogation. The point of grafting is to use existing strengths (such as a tree and its root systems)

At the same time as adding new hardware, it had to be made to fit with the existing infrastructure. This meant that there needed to be administrative control to make the Macs that are aimed at single user work well with multi-user environments.

With planning and support the integration of the 39 Macintosh computers to meet the needs of students that were likely graduating to the Emily Carr Art Institute has been successful. There was consultation and training directly with Apple. The project will now be integrated into the other High Schools. The suit of tools has been provide that are designed to support ‘artistic’ approaches instead of the ‘business’ style model.

Students now have an advantage when applying for work experience or further education. They are able to share a portfolio of successful work done on the platform and with the software tools that are commonly used in these areas.

In conclusion – Expanding the Orchard

- choose an appropriate site,

- prepare the soil,

- mitigate the hazards,

- establish the product,

- market the product

If it offers us a better way of doing something, we don’t want to stand in the way of that. If we can address the need with existing structures, that needs to be considered as well.

Apple Digital School - Session 1 - SD42

2008-05-22T13:11:00.001-07:00

School District 42 Initiatives in the Classroom

Rory Payment and Peter Valbonesi

This session is an overview of technology used to support the SD42 school district.

School District Environment

- 22 elementary schools, 6 secondary schools

Moodle

Connected Learning Community – recently launched the front end to the service portal. http://clc_online.sd42.ca - working with MAMP – Mac– Apache – MySQL- PHP

BCeSIS – Teachers in 9 elementary schools have been given macbooks to support the needs of BCeSIS. While they are used for that, teachers are also doing iLife and other productivity applications.

SMART boards

Implemented at 8 schools and the district office. There is a great wealth of software bundled with the SMART board that allows for high interactivity in Math and Science.

SEED Carts

Teachers can book carts for a term. It is designed for two teachers to work together on project based learning. (MS Office is purposefully not installed) Each cart set has a different set of software available.

One to One

400 students in grade 6/7 (20%) in 15 classrooms. Classroom is integrated from September to June

In terms of results, it is not about the improvements in writing. There are so many benefits to the students overall learning and the lives of the students.

Ah ha – some students do better paper-based.

In some cases, the school decided to load all of the special needs students into the laptop class. The results from teachers of those classrooms is that it is easier to teach than a class with less identified special needs students and no laptops.

Learning is differentiated as students can demonstrate their learning through Comic Life, iMovie, Podcast, WebPage and more.

Apple Digital School - Keynote - Paul Witzel

2008-05-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Shoreline School District 1 to 1

A large portion of the success has been with the leadership of the Superintendent. They are able to support with financial decisions and political ones as well. Roadblocks are much more likely to be removed with this kind of support.

This success story started with a single cart for Mathematics project 6 years ago. An early finding is that the mobile cart was used for many other educational opportunities. Early in the implementation all teachers were provided with a laptop.

Peer Coaches were provided with release time (1/2) day per week to support their peers and funding a 0.5 tech specialist teacher. Roadblocks and bumps in the road were removed so that teachers didn’t experience that one problem that gave them reason to abandon technology. The 0.5 tech specialist was phased out; however, the peer coaches still continue to support.

Additional funding was arranged through grants and a 2 student to 1 computer ratio was established. Programs grew and additional stakeholders came and observed what was happening. Grade 4 to 8 became 1 to 1 and then the carts that were used for the intermediate grades moved to the primary classrooms. In years 4 and 5, all schools in the Shoreline District went to 1 to 1 implementation. (Changes to the support included training days,1 hour classified time, 0.2 tech specialist teacher, district technology specialists and continuation of the peer coaching.)

Common Agreements

- Just right – Just in Time staff development

o Surveying staff to assess needs

o Differentiated instruction

- Building-wide curriculum mapping

- Vertical planning (discussion between grades)

Success :>

Over the five years of study, students scores on the WASL are higher. They are careful not to claim technology has made this change; however, technology integration is not a detractor.

Student Engagement through

Writing

Story Telling – engaging the family in sharing their stories

Movie making – take existing clips, remove audio, create own tracks

Differentiation

Projector – Visual learners, websites, modeling

Individualize software – NLVM – Rainforest Maths – Net Trekker

- Achieve 3000 – United Streaming – Explore Learning

– Note Taker

Access – Not all students have home access or internet access

Offer Breakfast Club

Offer Homework Club

Parent Classes – supporting parents to talk technology with students

Efficiencies

Above and Beyond

Podcasting

iMovie

Communication

Interesting Comment to a question about Cyberbullying.

We have not have many issues with this but it is an administrative issue. What we are looking at is just new ways of creating the same crimes.

http://tiny.cc/woGfO

Closing thoughts

2008-05-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have now finished a whorl wind of a conference. I have tried to blog and share my experiences. I was very impressed with the last session I attended by Sharon Taylor. The term VUCA will stick in my head now.

I found a bird of a feather sharing the same frustrations with much 'teaching' and same motivation to meet the needs of students.

Kevin

VUCA - Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous

2008-05-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Sharon Taylor - Thompson University (Williams Lake)

Henry Jenkins refers to todays students as producers(creators, collaborators, convergers) rather than consumers. Time Magazine identified 'you' as the person of the year - with the release of Web 2.0

This was the only the second presentation during this conference that actively integrated YouTube into the session. Many still have not seen what are now 'classic' videos with the "A Vision of Students Today" and "The Machine is Using Us."

Many of our technologies are converging. Facebook, Wikis, Blogs are bringing many areas together. YouTube has many remixes or mashup.

Aca-Fan is a term for an Academic in a Fandom. There are many assumptions that 'Fan Clubs' are for younger generations.

Educators work in a VUCA world (military term first used in 2004). This is where history happens.

Bob Johansen in Get There Early (2007) shifts this to Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility.

While we may not have the answers, we can network and have a quick search and get valuable information. A starting place looking up the Abject Learner could lead to blogs from

Brian Lamb(UBC Professor), Bruce Eisner, Future Blogger, Daniel Lemire(Professor in Montreal)

We have all heard how close Wikipedia and Enclyclopedia Britanica are for accuracy. The difference Michael Wesch highlighted was that Wikipedia's errors were all corrected in 30 days or less and Wikipedia is 15 times larger.

I found it amazing that a professor told his class how bad information about Latin American Authors was on Wikipedia. He made it a class project to improve Wikipedia in this area. Working for the semester only 3 articles made it to Featured status and 8 to good status. What a great way to show students that you need to be thorough and referenced and with good writing to be accepted in academic terms.

Sharon Recommended the book, "The University of Google" by Tara Brabazon

We have no idea what our students will be doing a year or 5 years from now. In 2003 blogs didn't exist. Today there are over 71 million blogs (including this one). Returning to the video that we started with is that university students are training for jobs that won't exist and not training for the jobs that have yet to be created. We need to remember that students are adaptable and need to continue to be adaptable. Instead of providing information, our job needs to be to build skill to create knowledge for themselves with the information that they can find.

Kevin

A final comment that Sharon made was rebutting another presentation that said students were lazy, unmotivated and disengaged. She said they are not any of the above. Instead they are extremely productive, motivated and engaged, but not in the world you may be teaching in still.

Designing for Success

2008-05-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

Often first year students at university struggle or are not successful. Working as a cohort for the first year allows a time to think and develop the ability to think. They have three programs that use a cohort model. The one discussed today was the Explorations program.

The content is interdisciplinary and process of learning is stressed.

Success is felt by students and staff.

The students enjoyed the smaller class size (only 100) and that the instructor actually knows your name.

It is student focused and develops students who are involved in their learning.

It sounds like a good program is developing. It is now in its third year and creating a positive teaching and learning experience. It will be continuing next year with another 100 students having a cohort First Year Experience.

Kevn

Edutainment and Technotainment

2008-05-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Both of these methods of teaching offer opportunities to reach students and improve their learning. This might include learning tools such as:

multimedia
animations
music
interaction
gaming

If we pick media that is relevant to students lives, they will be better prepared to connect to the content we are trying to share with them.

Several examples were shared including subscription service for multimedia, YouTube, Images, and Clickers.

Integration of Facebook / YouTube in Learning

2008-05-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

McGraw-Hill Ryerson & SFU Teaching for Learning - Session 1

Social Networking Integration

This session highlights two forms of social networking - YouTube and FaceBook

The integration first involved students creating promotional videos for the Co-Op department of SFU. A few important considerations:

FOIPOP
Legal - Copyright images, music
Making the regulations achievable with reasonable effort

This first effort of this contest received 39 entries from the SFU Co-op community

A question from audience was about the amount of tech support provided to the students. SFU provided links to resources and highlighting on campus support. Some students were from graphic arts classes, but many of the top videos were students first attempt at video.

Students posted their videos to the SFU Coop Video Contest Group and the voting feature was enabled so that a 'People's choice' award could be given.

Facebook

Another form of Social Networking. Students are very active with Facebook in Canada. For many it is becoming a hub to keep in touch with friends and family. While you may not have time to phone your network to tell them about your new job, you can update your status and all of your friends will have the update.

Embracing Facebook involves

Going where the audience is
More effective and efficient service/messaging
Email is becoming ineffective
Students enjoy being able to personalize and create a profile.

An interesting event is the Career Guide - Wil Fraser. He is on facebook with almost 800 friends. Updates can be sent to students and students can ask questions. When Wil responds, he provides links directly to existing resources and answers from the university. He is a character while on each of the three campuses.

This project has integrated department support, facebook, real life interaction with him. Wil is a person with personality, history, photos, friends and interacts with his friends. Wil Fraser has acted as a hub for communication and community for the Work Integrated Learning Department at SFU.

Understanding Todays Youth and Educating

2008-05-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Max Valiquette - Youthography

Youth is defined as 10 to 29. The distribution of the 5 year sub-groups is even so each sub-group has equal push on popular culture.

Adulthood is starting earlier

- starting schooling by 4 years old

- if they smoke - 1st cigarette by 12

- early onset of puberty (27% of African-American girls begin puberty by age 7)

On the opposite side Adulthood is taken on in fullness later

- average age of post secondary grad - 25

- average age of first marriage - 28

- average age of first child - 29

This is resulting in a prolonged pre-adult stage

Youth value:

Relationships
Communication (70% of teenagers have a cell phone)
Information
Diversity
Empowerment
Technology (can now send message to one person with same energy as all of your network)

Max shared an interesting consideration - 24 year olds or younger are Digital Natives, while older are Digital Tourists. (Organizing music by CD cases and titles or click on sort by artist)

Change - things used to change but the way we get them didn't. There has now been a change in how we get them and how much we pay for it. TV, VCR,DVD, HD TV - each time the speed and cost has gone down. HD TV reached 70% market penetration in 5 years. iPods have changed 8 times in 6 years. (The Sony Walkman took 8 years to change to the walkman 2.)

Charge - Personal Control - Culture and Control on demand - You can record you TV shows with PVR, you can purchase a cell phone without a credit card on a Pay as you go system.

Challenge - The street starts to drive and dictate trends.

NBC aired a SNL show - reached 5 million - somebody hacked it and posted to YouTube - 7 million views. The next major skit was then sent to YouTube by NBC- instead of 5 million hits - 45 million hits.

The control is changing. There are ways now to become a member of an online company that is a large group of consumers paying a small amount of money ($35). SellaBand allows you to own part of an upcoming artist. There are 21 artists that have been sponsored this way for $50 000 and 3 have already paid dividends. There is also a soccer team, and a clothing brand done this way.

We are at a stage of convergence - You need only a couple of devices - your mobile device and desktop entertainment system (cell phone and iMac). With an iPhone you can call, watch TV and surf the internet. Students often start research with Google.

This all leads to choice. - The number one TV show is getting less following. Gunsmoke in 1961 had 61 million watching it weekly. Now American idol has 30 million weekly following but 500 channels available. (Younger people are reading less books; however, they are reading more than any previous generation.)

Implication for Teachers - How do we move from content providers to content facilitators. The learning environment is changing and going to continue to change. The main branch of the library is no longer needed. You can request from smaller branches or access online databases with the same content. Instead the Library is the gateway to the knowledge out there;however, so is your bedroom!

(Interesting with podcasting - How do you compare to the other 'lecturers' they are watching?)

Implications for Teachers - What is official and unofficial for referencing?

While wikipedia is not considered academic, it references other works and now other works are referencing wikipedia. Wikipedia is more current for news than any print work or 'official' encyclopedia. Wikipedia also contains information that you will not find anyway else such as your favourite band, artist, or product.

Content Facilitators also need to be content improvers.

The top 4 websites in Canada

Google
YouTube
MSN
Facebook

The next trend will be a single online delivery system that can go anywhere we go. Young people have redefined book, music store, and social networking.

In closing :

10 thought starters for Education

They are used to networked communication
They are more collaborative than any previous generation
and they have a different definition of plagiarism and copying
We are on the verge of the $200 laptop
We can't keep media of any sort of school... and by the time they get to college, it is simply expected
So some of the learning that comes from you might have to come on-line
What if you don't have the Internet - that question is the same as what if you don't have a calculator (desk, watch, cell phone, computer)
What is the value of 'official' source right now? Who determines what is official any more?
What is a career now any way - what is the right level of education for that career?
Remember that as a facilitator of learning you have experience and expertise to share.

Questions

How do you get students to figure out the 178 000 hits from a search?

- Instead of Googling students will be reaching out to their networks. If you want a hotel in Paris, you would ask your network who has been there. Then they might give you a couple of ideas, you would then tag the sites and consider the hotels. Once you have been, you become an additional resource in your network.

I was able to speak to Max afterward and asked how a teacher can manage to keep up with the change and all of the tools that students might bring to the classroom or want to use?

- his response was interesting that we needed to reduce the workload of teachers and reduce the curriculum to allow them to spend time together learning. It could be that every Friday afternoon staff worked in groups and one presented to the group about teaching and learning to meet their needs.

Kevin

Assessment for Learning - Kathleen Gregory

2008-05-13T16:10:00.001-07:00

Tonight was the second session of the Assessment for Learning Series.

One of the opening quotes that was useful was that Assessment of Learning is the looking back, while Assessment for Learning is looking forward.

The focus of the workshop is on six aspects of Assessment for Learning.

1. Making Learning Intentions clear

2. Setting Criteria

3. Increase the use of Open Ended Questioning

4. Descriptive Feedback

5. Self and Peer Assessment

6. Ownership / Communicating Learning

Kathleen highlights the use of cards from a couple sources

Shirley Clarke - Formative Assessment in Action

and

Voices of Experience

Examples from Increase the use of Open Ended Questioning

finding opposites
your own questions?
Right?Wrong? Why? (Show several answer 5 squared = 3,7,10,25,125)
Agree / Disagree
Give the answer - ask for strategies - Strategies - Answer - Written Evidence (SAW)
Alternative Viewpoints

I appreciate how Kathleen engages the group with only about 10 minutes of talking then 10 minutes of work / engaged discussion time. The time is well used providing real examples from colleagues.

The final one shared that was neat was called Review Cues - Students created an alphabet book as review (fold 11x17 into 24 squares) then pull words for each letter with

A ll letters used

I llustrations

M eaning - connections to meaning

Then to 'mark' it, students can be given an AIM, AI, AM as feedback.

While we can engage students and grow assessment for learning, eventually we need to evaluate. To do so we take assessments of learning, observations and interactions with the students to determine the 'marks.' The Assessment has been for learning and for the student. The evaluation is for the school, parents and the student. I like how evaluation and assessment were connected but aimed at different audiences.

Kevin

McGraw-Hill Ryerson & SFU Teaching, Learning, and Technology

2008-05-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Pre-Conference Session: Extending your Class to the Internet

http://extendingclass.wetpaint.com/

The above wiki was created to share the presentation during the conference. I like how they configured separate pages for each topic.

I have to admit, I was a bit of a sprite. I went into the wiki while we were discussing and added the class summary from the discussions. This use was similar to Google docs. I think that if more of us were thinking the same way then Google Doc would have been the better solution, but this way I was able to add directly to the document. A huge advantage to keeping it in a wiki is the readable URL.

This was a good foundational session. I was most impressed with the Second Life demonstration. I have tried several times to explore Second Life but I think I need some F2F time to get the real feel of it.

It was good to know the room was filled with Post-Secondary educators interested in meeting the needs of students and using online tools.

Kevin

McGraw Hill Ryerson - Teaching, Learning & Technology Conf - Pre Conf 1

2008-05-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

Increasing Student Achievement with Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Tools

Jaron Easterbrook

To ensure we have increased student achievement, we need

increased retention
increased engagement
increased relevancy

Technology is not the answer but course management software, laptops, websites, podcasts can be tools. People are the answers. How a teacher delivers content with passion provides the retention, engagement and relevancy.

It was interesting seeing how similar and yet different Wimba is to WebCT or Blackboard or Moodle.

It is exciting to see the opportunities that are available. While any one tool may not be suitable for all locations, the selection of choices means there should be one to meet needs.

Kevin

Google Literature Trip with Hana's Suitcase

2008-05-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

I feel privileged to have created a Google Earth file that follows the lives of Hana Brady and her family as documented in Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine.

The project involved the basics of reading the book and identifying geographical locations along the way.

The learning for myself (and that I predict for your students )was incredible. I have learned more about WWII than in all my years as a student. I also have learned the value of authentic sources. I have been able to contact several sources including speaking to Ela Weissberger - one of the 132 child survivors of Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. This project was by far one of the best learning experiences I have ever had.

I am looking forward to expanding this resource as well as working with other books to create the Google Lit Trip resources.

I have just completed writing the whole package up and publishing in the Apple Learning Interchange. You can find the resource at http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=15418

Kevin

100 Uses for an iPod - too cool

2008-05-02T14:24:00.001-07:00

Thanks Jerome Burg for sharing this site
http://www.airlinecreditcards.com/travelhacker/how-to-turn-your-ipod-into-anything-75-tutorials/

I checked out the links and it is cool to see what you can do with an iPod.

While I would not try most of them, it is interesting to see the human ingenuity of taking something that was build with a purpose be then repurposed in ways that were not even imagined.

I hope that my ideas become repurposed many times and in many ways.

Kevin

Math 8 Curriculum Changes - Bruce McAskill - STA Convention 2008

2008-05-02T13:36:00.001-07:00

I joined this session on a bit of a whim. I have taught both Grade 7 and Grade 8 Mathematics.

It is exciting to see that the new curriculum. The number of outcomes have been reduced and reordered. The shift will allow for conceptual understanding rather than rote learning.

We will be able to make the teaching more student centric. There would be time to group projects, challenging questions, discussions. Working in this way we can grow the project focus. We had an interesting discussion about the difference between activities and projects. The activities ended up being smaller chunks with less connections over a shorter period. Then having projects allows for a greater depth and connection building over time with connected concepts.

The Grade 8 curriculum has changed 66% and for Grade 9 there is a 71 % change in the curriculum. . There are many topics deleted or moved to other grades as well as new concepts being added.

A neat quote from Bruce McAskill was that he doesn't like the term Differentiated Instruction because it really should be just good teaching.

While focusing on talking about the Math Curriculum, he also challenged us as to where we are on continuums of teaching in relationship to meeting student needs.

Bringing it all together - We need to combine Differentiated Instruction, Assessment and Support.

Milt McLarren speaking at the STA Convention in Surrey

2008-05-02T10:17:00.001-07:00

Milt McLarren

One discussion was about Global Warming. He raised the awareness that it is Global Climate Change not warming, some will get hotter, colder, or wetter. The world will get slightly warmer which will cause differences.

We assume that plants will use the excess CO2 but they need Nitrogen to process the CO2. We are actually limited by Nitrogen.

To make real changes, we need to change the political systems including education.

If we want to make change in environmental education, we don’t want another class or adding more to existing classes. We need to realize that we have good curriculum but we need to give permission to take time to make meaning and connections to issues such as environmental education.

We need time for intelligent conversation, Reflection, Dialogue and Debate, Making Sense, and many more.

If you want to make a difference you need to engage the power that you have. Pick up a shovel and make a difference. You may not change the world but you can make a difference. You also raise the awareness for everyone else to do their shoveling.

One comment summarizing the session was that his presentation was about integrating environmental considerations and how to cut through the noise.

2008-05-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

I am taking a one week online cours through Knowschools.ca. It is on Google Everything. I just found a nugget that I had no idea about. When you are logged into Google, it tracks your search history. If you know you searched for something a week ago but can't remember the search words or how you found the site.... Google History has your answer. I checked for myself and I have 2038 searches since June 2007.

Check out www.google.com/history

I can see lots of potential for education with this gadget. You can have students look at their own history for the length of a project. Once finished they can go back and do a meta analysis of their searching - and compare to their peers. Who has less searches? Why?(because they are more efficient or ....)

I continue to be amazed with the tools available for us.

Kevin