Ubiquitous Learning

Digital Fluency  Day 9

Wow 9 weeks done and dusted. What a journey we have had and what great things we have learnt.
I remember a few years ago- our first staff meeting that James Hopkins held, he talked about Learn, Create, Share and ubiquitous learning, among other words that made me think he was from another planet. NOW it all makes sense. How I wish I had known that then. The Manaiakalani journey all makes so much sense and I really have enjoyed learning about the why and how.

Our last session was about ubiquitous learning-   which is about learning any time, any where and any place. No longer is learning only inside the 4 walls of the classroom and between 9 am and 3 pm. By using digital devices and wonderfully teacher, created activities,  students can learn anywhere and at anytime. The beauty of it is, if the child has forgotten some part of their learning, they can go back and access it again and again.

I am so ready for our next parent session where we will be talking to our parents who will have children in the digital classes and about digital learning, next year. I now have the knowledge, understanding and passion to give an informed session.

As far as my own digital learning- I have learnt so much about the google suite and how to use them to improve my planning, teaching as well as giving my students the skills they need. Watch my children soar.
I am excited about using my class site and creating multimodal learning activities for my students.

Although this part of my learning is over for the time being,  I will use what I have learnt to become even more confident and  be able to help other staff members when they need it.

I just want to say a huge, huge thanks to Gerhard, Dorothy and the crew, it has been a really great PD.


My next goal is not to have such a big gap between the next post, but you could always see what my children are blogging about- May Road School's Room 13.

Cybersmart

Digital Fluency Day 8

The ambulance at the bottom of the cliff
This phrase suggests that a problem is being looked at backwards, as through we are trying to treat the consequences rather than the cause. In essence it’s a restatement of the proverb, “prevention is better than cure”. I am that ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. And my reaction is inhibiting the ability to empower some of my learners.

We are teaching, or should I say Gerhard is teaching, cybersmart lessons once a week throughout this year. This covers smart learners in term one, smart footprint in term two and Smart relationships in term three. And if we keep using a positive educational approach as well as using a common language and asking if they are leaving a “smart footprint”. We probably need to imbed this ideas into our daily thinking and approach it in a similar way as our Schools Learning Powers and PB4L. This will also need to be taught from at least our year two and three classes, not just in the digital classes. This will probably have a better impact than the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.

A question to discuss at our syndicate meetings- How do we use the digital lure to empower our learners in the choices they make- instead of unsuccessfully trying to stop the use of what we see as unsuitable material.

       

Visability

Digital Fluency Day 7


A lot of learning again and a real sense of stepping out of my comfort zone again.
The more I listen to the Manaiakalani journey the more excited I get about teaching.
We are now at a stage where we as a syndicate, are making our learning more visible for our children, digital technologies allows for that. Our next step is to entice our children's parents to come on board and see what the children are learning about. And I know exactly how to do this- every year we have a meeting for the future, new parents of the digital classes, where we explain how the children's learning will change. So now I am better equiped and will show them at this meeting how they can access thin new way of learning, showing them the class sites at the meeting and let them navigate the site for themselves.

It was quite nerve-wracking having our peers critiquing our class sites, exp when one knows that it is not something one is proud of. But the comments we received were really helpful and I also asked my children in the class what they thought about it and what the thought would make it more exciting to use. By empowering students I am hoping to have more buy in and excitement in the revamped class site. I also asked what they would prefer to use-  topic buttons or term buttons, topic buttons won so that is what we will use on our class site. Some children wanted the main photo changed as there were a few children absent on  the day I took the site photo and they were not represented so I have changed that too. The revamped site will go live on Monday 20 August.

Empower

Digital Fluency Day 6

Boy I have had a lot to digest to day.
I have never really thought about how important empowering people really is. I have always been a person who follows the rules, a typical "goody two shoes". This idea is really outside of my comfort zone. I need to look at how to empower my students and their families especially when it comes to upholding the cyber safety part of our curriculum.
I do believe learning for our children should be learner centered, future focused, differentiated and personalised

What I am working on is that digital devices do not just a tool to replace the the exercise book but are used for creation if ideas.

Today we have learnt about Google Hangouts- which is blocked at our school. Here again is the dilemma, I can see how Google hangout could work in a classroom setting, I can see the gains it has in collaboration across our senior classrooms, but again I worry about the miss use of this programme when the children are not at school. 

Connect

Digital Fluency Day 5

Connect was the next link of our Manaiakalani journey. It is the digital world, that our children are so comfortable in, that enables us to connect with each other. The Manaiakalani outreach is growing rapidly and we now have such a great wealth of knowledge at our finger tips by just connecting with other schools within this huge community of learners. I loved the session the "Trail Blazers" gave us. Lots of great ideas to teach computational thinking. It was nice to find out how computers think. I am going to some of these ideas in my teaching like breaking down instructions into steps for someone else to solve- this is a great skill for writing as well. And I loved the idea of learning binary code- It took me a while to grasp some of the aspects, but with the code that was given I could at least work out some of the pictures- I can see this working in my class as extension work for fast finishers. And I loved the chance to play with a 3-d pen.

Share

Digital Fluency Day 4 Share was the name of today's learning, and probably the one I did least in the past. It is quite thought provoking when we think that in 2005 social media was born and the children we teach are born in a world where public sharing is second nature.It is our job to encourage children to share there learning in a safe environment hence we are blogging. As blogging is new to my kids they are very enthusiastic in sharing their learning. Once again I have been reminded that sharing is not the end product- children can share to carry on learning- in order for this to happen, I would like my children to respond to their comments. This way we will embed further learning and not see blogging at the end product.

I thoroughly enjoyed the multi-modal part of our learning today. Knowing we are on the right track always feels good, but extending our practice is even better.I will endeavour to make my window of learning a place where my students want to engage in learning. Here is a start to to my window dressing of Matariki

Create

Digital Fluency Day 3

Our day in one word = create.

It is so good when ideas come together. Not only is Create embedded in our Manaiakalani/Ako Hiko mantra, it is also one of May Road School's learning powers.   

           
Key learning ideas form today

• Creativity empowers learning
• Creativity helps children become problem solvers, communicators and collaborators 
• Children love creating 
• Children are born to create
• In our Early Childhood Education Centres children are encouraged to create

And then they come to school where content has become all important and creativity seems to come a distant second or third. Content based learning was needed 10+ years ago for the factory geared work force. Yet we know that factory work force is becoming more and more automated so now we need creators. Yes I know I am preaching to the converted but I often struggle with the how. The idea that keeps reoccurring in my learning so far is that our Learn Create Share model is not linear. We don't have to go from Learn to Create to Share. 

Here is something to shake my practice:

Digital Fluency Intensive Day 2 As always the Manaiakalani journey is fascinating, and I am learning and understanding more about the learn create share model that we are using. The word intensive sure lived up to its name today. I thought I knew about today's topics, but I knew less than the tip of the iceberg. The deep dive we did today was very informative- now how do I incorporate this knowledge into my planning. Kauri teacher's watch out I am going to bombard you with great ideas. I am buzzing with the new deeper knowledge about google forms- why have I stopped using them this year.... They are a great way to embed comprehension skills that I am teaching in Reading. And who knew Google Sheets could be so captivating. This was not one of my preferred option. But I can really see how to present data using Google sheets.

The process not the end product

Learn, Create, Share - Easy you say - you learn, you create something, you share it. Easy for some.
In the past, we as students spent all our time learning, we didn't really get the chance to create and we hardly ever shared our work - other than with our teacher. Then some of us become  enthusiastic teachers.  Over time, gone were the old ways of teaching - inquiry is the new buzz word with the children creating  the end product out of their learning. Let the children become the the agents of their own learning. Some teachers couldn't make that change - couldn't relinquish the power, some saw the ideology and muddled on through and some  soared like eagles. I was one of those teachers who struggled with the creating part. I saw the power in letting the students become agents of their own learning, but I am just not a creative person, how does one  enthuse creativity when that is so foreign.
Then came the digital age now it seems easier to create and to share, but as with "publishing" some children never seem to get there. I now see that I have been stuck at the polished end product phase and not celebrating the process the children go through to get their end product.  The discussion of removing the barriers that developed from a conversation is what struck a cord with me. I am going to spend more time developing my students  confidence in their ability and not be hung up on the end product as much. Now don't think I am going to can the end product, just differentiate it to meet the students needs - now where have I heard that before. 

Changes in my practice

The point of reflection is to recapture the experiences, mull them over critically in order to gain a new understanding and so improve future practice. This is all part of being lifelong learners. (SkillsTeamHullUniversity). Looking back at my MindLab experience I can honestly say  "What a journey this has been". I have learnt so much about myself, my practice, my students and  my future. So much has fallen into place, now. I wish someone would have told me at the beginning of  my MindLab journey that I would come out thinking more about my teaching practise. The first few weeks I spent dreading the thought what I would have to come up with at the end of each session to put on the portal to show my learning. It was only through my assignments that I realised the wealth of information I was gaining. 

Is that how our students feel? 

I would say my journey started, dare I say, ten years ago. I was one of the teachers using the new catch phrase "preparing our students for the 21st century and for their jobs that don't yet exist". I blindly went where the future was taking us- into inquiry based learning where we, the teachers chose the  inquiry topic, the process and the the all important question. We, the inquiry lead team, made an amazing model and we lead the teachers and students through this model. The only problem was we never seemed to get past the knowledge stage, we felt our students needed more front loading. I, and many other teachers, never got to the presenting and reflecting part of the model. A few years later we re- developed the model-put more information into it and relaunched it. Same result. A few years later we designed a new model, now much more simplified. It lives on as a token in our planning. 

It was while attending the first 16 weeks of MindLab, where I was learning about 21st century skills, like collaboration, knowledge construction, communication and real world problem solving and innovation that I realised: I really didn't know very much about the 21st century learner. Then another revelation dawned on me while discussing Inquiry based learning models with a fellow MindLab colleague- that I actually didn't know as much about inquiry based learning as I thought I did. In fact I was missing a few important aspects- namely the 21st century skills needed for the inquiry to work and the fact that the actual inquiry should be student driven, based from the student's questions. This was not entirely new information, as somewhere in our model there was a student question part, but we just never got there or if we did the question was not deemed rich enough. Oh boy did I get it wrong. Another problem with our inquiry based learning was we only allocated time for it as a topic, not as an interdisciplinary unit across multiple curriculum areas.

Armed with this new understanding I would like to introduce real inquiry based learning, not with a model, as I feel we get too hung up in the steps or phases, but real inquiry based on a broad topic that students could enjoy investigating and really immerse  all our curriculum areas in this topic. I have already discussed this concept with my syndicate and we will explore this further at our next planning day. 

There are many other things I have learnt this year, but inquiry based learning when done right can really make a difference to the way my students learn and it will bring the enjoyment of learning back.

References

University of Hull SkillsTeamHullUni. (2014) Reflective writing. [video file]. Retrieved from  

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoI67VeE3ds

Interdisciplinary Connections

My Interdisciplinary map

The interdisciplinary connection I selected is my students as, after all, they are my priority.

I think we need to remember what Daniel Pink states - we need to prepare our students for their future not our past. I believe most teachers will agree with that statement, but with the constraints of curriculum subjects and National Standards, we get bogged down with must cover rather than the creative flare that would allow children to blossom.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article Themes or motives? Aiming for coherence through interdisciplinary outlines by K. Barton and L. Smith. They state that "Instruction should focus on integrated, interdisciplinary activities that revolve around a set of important ideas." They go on to say that "in order to be effective, thematic units typically must be broad enough to provide authentic experiences in more than one content area, offer a range of learning experiences for students and give students choices in the projects they pursue and the ways they demonstrate their learning."  This is not new- we as a school have been battling with authentic inquiry learning. We have had PD, and have created two inquiry models, but yet we still miss the mark and most of us- including me have gone back to teaching the same old same old, concentrating on getting our children to "achieve the National Standard." Don't get me wrong that is important, but there has got to be a better way.
Barton and Smith talk about a teacher, Leslie, who was successful with this idea of interdisciplinary outlines. She does not force integration but looks for broad topics- "big ideas" that authentically tie materials together from different subject areas. 

I really liked her Roots unit and would love to start our new year off with a similar type of theme. This could include the students heritage and history, their lives, their school, the history of Mt. Roskill, what is important to them. Just think of how well we will know our students. Together the teachers within my syndicate will plan for authentic learning around our students life, refining Our Learning Community unit to include experiences across most if not all our curriculum subjects. We as a syndicate work very well together sharing our planning. 

Interdisciplinary units  should encompass reading, writing, topic, maths and the arts. I work with a fellow teacher who embraces this in her teaching. She is a teacher of one of our Samoan bilingual classes and this year she has totally immersed her students in the story of Easter. Her students read about Easter, wrote about Easter and had to solve maths problems about Easter celebrations. She has done the same with Samoan language week and White Sunday. Of course these are very important festivals in the Samoan culture so this was authentic learning. If one teacher at our school can do it, we have an expert and we can all give it a try. We must just remember what Leslie said- "units like bears and apples are very preplanned and they aren't related to the students or what they are doing. A thematic unit will be different every year with different students; it has to be broad enough to expand and contract with the students needs." I am ready to give this approach another go- armed with more information and understanding this time. True inquiry is about moving to where the children want to go with their learning.

References

Barton, K. and Smith, L. (2000) Themes or motives? Aiming for coherence through 
         interdisciplinary outlines, The Reading Teacher. Vol.5 No.1 Retrieved from
         https://app.themindlab.com/media/32978/view

ThomasMcDonaghGroup. (2011). Interdisciplinary and Innovation Education. [video file].
         Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA