Encouraging Words for Surrey Bringing Innovation to Schools

 

Bringing Innovation to School – Empowering Students to thrive in a changing world by Suzie Boss

Reading the first half of the book, I couldn’t put it down.  In my limited spare time, I have completed the rest of the book this week.  My first response – Wow.  With some reflection I see that Wow as affirming what we have already been moving towards and that it is a very practical book to help us get the rest of the way there.

With chapters like: See Educators as Innovators, Growing a New Global Skill Set and Seeding Innovation this book so resonated with my beliefs and my actions for the past several years as a district helping teacher or consultant.

This was one of the books that I had to keep something to write with nearby while I was reading.  So many ideas were generated, and honed that I had to stop reading until I wrote them down.

Some Affirmations

-       We have been working for 3 years to provide Innovative Learning Designs projects with a focus on inquiry.  While the projects are extremely varied, they look for unique solutions to the differentiated needs of the classes involved.  The whole project has created an incubator for innovation to occur in our classrooms.

-       The climate within our team has been “Yes and” thinking.  We have worked to make the impossible possible – When barriers to learning  were identified, we strive to eliminate or minimize them.

-     We have provided iPads to teachers that have taken on leadership roles within the schools as Information and Media Literacy Representatives.  They have been able to explore, tinker, take risks before schools purchased class sets.

New or Extended Ideas

-       As a large district, it is hard to do things small.  We have started to create amazing networks through our larger events; however, we need to empower smaller networks.  For relationships and trust to build, we need to foster groups of 12 or less. 

-       A favourite expression of mine that will be used more often

What would it look like if …

o   We helped coordinate / host book groups of up to 12 with fantastic  books like this one

o   We provided and supported additional (inexpensive) resources such as Computers for Schools computers targeted as Tinker Stations.  These could be single purpose machines for tinkering. 

o   We provided low cost computers to be used as Display Kiosks – What would it look like if we left a cheap computer at the front lobby to display student work.  Photos, programs, movies, multimedia would constantly fill the entrance to our schools

o   We need to bring students into our Professional Development.  If we are to change from the holder of all knowledge to the connector, we need to stop being the holder of all knowledge.

o   We hosted Innovation events for students and teachers.  We could celebrate success and share failures.  We could encourage risk taking.   We could encourage out of the box thinking. 

Each idea we explore, risk we take, opportunity we offer we have done to benefit the learning culture of our district.  We have a great resource in this book to catalyze additional opportunities, explorations and risks.  I am charged up to return to my position as an enabler of innovation in our district.

The continuing mission, to ....

I love my iPad but it is not the full answer. Even though I am dedicated to using it, I yearn for the full power of a laptop. I have allowed myself flex to do menial tasks like sorting and putting into folders 75 emails etc.

While an ad can recapture productivity times when you just have 5 min before a meeting starts or suring the meeting, it loses in other areas with functionality and data entry.

My goal this weekend was to be creative. I went for a walk with my girls(iPad and a camera in hand). Boy did I feel awkward carrying the iPad in the trails. I did some filming as they played by the strem; however they were more interested in the woods than the ipad( yeah:)

A bit later we fed some ducks and geese. The iPad was functional but I preferred making photos on my point and shoot camera. I held it just off the water to get some creative shots. Not as simple to be creative at the shore with a bulky low res iPad camera.

I have now began to look at telling a story with the raw footage. Walking, talking, ducks, geese, feeding, stills and video.

First up. IMovie (4.99)- easy to use, I would feel comfortable teaching k/1 to make a movie no problem. The finger gestures are easy to learn. I made a movie quickly.

Aha moment - you can transfer the raw movie between devices with iTunes sharing. You can export the final movie to a service like YouTube or the camera roll but you have to wait for it to render. I started it and switched tasks... Returned to have to restart the rendering.

Next. The Avid Studio app(4.99) - pretty powerful. I would not use this with K/1 (at least at first). The expanded features and options in comparison to iMovie allow for much more fine editing and higher quality end product

(high quality end products should not be the goal though. We want students to be able to create and communicate - both do the task and iMovie is simpler to use)

Splice (free and 3.99) (with additional in app purchase for special fx) (iPhone not universal app). This is a very simple to use app. The workflow makes sense. Being an iPhone app that does the same as the first two, I would stick to them on the iPad. For an iPod/ iPhone app, I would use Splice


A turn in a different but relevant direction is to film and event and provide a vice and annotation analysis. Coaches Eye (4.99). Let's you film a clip, then record your review and notes over it. Awesome tool. (I will revisit this looking at tools like Show Me or Explain Everything)

My choice for starting with students - iMovie. (I may move to Avid later with them)
My choice for a project of mine - Avid Studio
My choice if on my iPod - Spilce
My choice for annotating or teaching through the video - Coaches Eye
(in short - choose the right tool at the right time)

Now that I had fun creating, I just want to touch on the why again.

I believe that students need to be creative and be creators. These tools allow a very engaging way to do both.
Reasons to have students create a video:

Exploration / wonder
Review of learning
Explaining learning of a concept
Interviewing
Speech practice
Creative writing coming to life
Practicing oral fluency
Describing a piece of their work - author statement
Public service announcements
(feel free to comment and add to the list)

Living on an iPad.

I have tried very hard to just use my iPad as my computing device for the last two days. It really is challenging. I dietary and prepare by enabling print sharing the night before. It configured at home but not within the district network. Took some MacBook time to try tweaking but to no avail(I have submitted a service page and will see if that provides an option)

I needed to break from the plan to:
1. Try tweaking a printing solution
2. Create a fireworks logo that needed printing. Since I had one that needed editing it was easier than creating a new one in a new software.
3. I also needed over the last two days to print.

Printing is not going away. When I work with teachers new to iPads I ask why you would need to print. I have now got several answers..
Printing posters for bulletin boards
Printing expense claims ( that I have to attach receipts and submit))
Printing a document requiring a signature
Printing an attendance sheet for a workshop. (I could have used an app and have them sign in on my device; however I would then dedicate a 500 device to act as a $0.05 piece of paper and not be able to use it myself while they sign in.)

Beyond the basics...
Multitasking
I am trying to be true to the concept; however, I find myself wanting to 'quickly' do some multitasking work while I was on my laptop to print. It brought to my attenttion that I multi task heavily. If a website takes time to load, I move to another task. If a file is uploading, I switch and do something else. If I am answering email, I like to have my calendar open at the same time (without switching)

Creative work ...
I haven't had time to do any today... My IPad is being used as a small laptop without a tactile keyboard. I am doing quite well atyping and allowing autocorrect to do its magic. Still slower than using a keyboard (when I am focused on typing I can type 60 wpm). Currently I am able to type about 30 wpm on the iPad. The iPad is not the best typing device. I personally miss the tab key, the underscore on the main keyboard, and cursor keys

Internet ...
Most websites are working fine. You learn some quirks like entering dates on calendars that are not optimized for mobile devices - zoom and slide etc. We are doing a pedometer challenge in our building and that site must use flash as it just appears blank. If it was just me, I would use a different site, but I have to use the site provided. (and they dont have an app).

I needed to edit a web page but the wysiwyg editor did not show properly on the iPad I managed to accomplish it but not as easy in a full browser.

I didn't realize just how much I did in emails / paperwork in a day. It was harder to be as efficient getting my regular work load done. That is real aha though.

I need to spend more time in the classroom. We have several key events coming up that require a level of productivity, but I will stick to using iPad. It will force me to think differently.

What if the iPad was the only device available to a teacher, a student, a class. Should it be wasted on productivity.... Perhaps there are other ways to get the desired result on an iPad by doing it differently or to quote APPLE Think different

Off to finish my emails today. Tomorrow I will do my blog without backspace for corrections...

Impressive Starting Points

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....

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

"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

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

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.