Google Apps for Education Summit

The Google Apps for Education Summit #gafesummit was one of the most transformative Professional Development experiences I have ever had in my 17 years as an educator.

source: Google

To start off day 2 +Mark Wagner asked us to consider a message that we would send from the future  to today's teachers.  My response is to continue to invest in Professional Development, continue to be in 'beta' with your adoption of educational technology and use these experiences to inform and evolve your practice.

Keynote speaker +Molly Schroeder talked about Google's philosophy to launch early and iterate.  They are always in the 'beta' phase developing new products and new ways for people to use technology. Molly cited examples of newly released products like Google Glass and some they have decided to drop like Google Reader (no longer available after July 1st). This is inevitable and just means that they are moving on to something more innovative. All the steps are integral because they have led to the current stage of development. Google loves being in beta because this is the place where learning and growth happens.

I think that as educators we need to allow ourselves more time to be in 'beta' with respect to our instruction. The number and scope of Ministry and school board policies and initiatives sometimes makes it difficult. However, by investing this time in trying new approaches we will continue to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our students.

While I am learning a lot about technical tools and tips, the part that amazes me the most is the change in the approach to teaching that is required in order to leverage these tools to the maximum. Admittedly, this is a difficult shift for most educators to make. Trying new things means operating out of one's comfort zone and possibly making mistakes due to our lack of understanding or experience. I think Tim Lee's greenfield approach (a project which lacks any constraints imposed by prior work, source: wikipedia) to 'Re-designing your School technology around the Cloud' is the same approach we need to take towards our instruction. Innovative teaching lacks constraints imposed by prior instructional approaches.

We need to have the courage to try new things, new instructional practices, new technologies and to model this for our students. Below is the video on Moonshot thinking. The basic message is that 'we choose to do things because they are hard. We need to find what you are passionate about and not be afraid to take risks because that is what is required to solve the really big challenges.'

(source: solveforx.com)

In his keynote presentation +Jim Sill showed us quotes demonizing everyday technologies we now take for granted (like the bicycle) when they were first released. He suggested that we need to change our thinking about technology by changing our perspective (zoom in thinking routine). We need to adopt a more holistic view of the role that technology plays in the lives of our students. As educators we can no longer ignore the fact that '72 hours of video content is being uploaded to YouTube every minute'!! We can't let our fear of technology prevent us from embracing it and all of the forms of expression that it affords.

Molly said that we need to think about our students as being in beta. There is tremendous potential for them to learn and grow and that the focus should be on what they are going to do to find answers to questions and how they will represent the knowledge and skills they have acquired. We need to empower them to become active creators of knowledge by providing them with 'design challenges' that will allow them to flourish in beta.

They need to be involved in the process of understanding, building, designing and testing their ideas and to know why they are learning, much like the technology skills competition our students engage in every year. What if we allowed all of our students to participate in these kinds of projects on a regular basis throughout the school year. An excellent example of this is the 20% project. Make sure you watch the student testimonials about their final presentations on this project and why it is so important to them.

My subsequent blogposts will illustrate how I have begun to apply what I learned and experienced at this summit to my own professional practice. Specifically, I will demonstrate how I am using Google + Hangout to facilitate a #PLN around the planning and implementation of projects using Google docs to collaborate with my colleagues +Sylvia Duckworth and +Rolland Chidiac.

On The Rise K-12, eLearning Conference Part 2

How to encourage teachers to adopt #blendedlearning or #elearning to enhance their instruction? I continued to reflect on this question as the second day of the conference began and I was inspired by a number of examples of forward-thinking school boards.

In his keynote presentation, John Malloy, Director for the Hamilton Wentworth DSB made a point of saying that digital does not necessarily mean differentiated instruction or innovative teaching. I have always been a firm believer that pedagogy should drive the adoption of educational technology and that it is a tool not a strategy. I was not surprised to hear John Malloy mention that his board has a 21st century learning team with a variety of stakeholders to help define the vision and implementation for innovative teaching and learning. The Hamilton Wentworth DSB was one of our original partners in the EDEN project (Electronic Distributive Education Network) established in the mid 1990's to deliver elearning and blended learning courses to the member boards (Simcoe County DSB, York Region DSB, Upper Canada DSB, Toronto DSB and Dufferin-Peel CDSB). It is also no suprise that the Hamilton Wentworth DSB recently won the Ken Spencer Award a national prize for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. “Students develop personal blogs as online learning portfolios, and manage their digital footprint in a safe space while learning what it means to be a responsible digital citizen.”

How many other school boards have a 21st century learning team in place to make sure that teachers have the training and infrastructure to be truly innovative?

I attended another inspiring presentation by Joe Sisco, WECDSB who talked about how his board integrates Google Apps for Education with the Desire2Learn platform. Joe showed examples of how students in his board help to peer-edit each other's work, collaborate on presentation and group projects and how teachers provide descriptive feedback to students in a seamless and intuitive manner. It was another example of a school board that has the vision and understands what needs to be in place in order to promote innovative teaching and learning.

Bill MacKenzie, President, ECOO also informed us about the upcoming Google in Education summit taking place at Eastwood Collegiate in Kitchener, April 20 & 21, 2013. I do not think that it is a coincidence that the summit is taking place at a school in the Waterloo Region DSB. Mark Carbone and his team have been working with local business leaders in Communitech to create a vision and plan for the future of teaching and learning. Not only are they participating in professional development designed to change teaching practice, but they are also working on the Future Forum Project which recognizes the need to engage learners in a variety of approaches and activities to better prepare them for tomorrow. 'The project strives to integrate promising practices and learning across schools to meet the needs of all students in a more effective, sustainable and progressive manner.'

While the above examples are truly inspirational and operate at a very high-level, my own focus is to target a more grass-roots transformation of teaching in the mainstream classroom. Now to return to my initial question about how to encourage teachers to consider changing their instructional practices and to use educational technology to achieve different learning outcomes. My colleague at Elearning Ontario, Dan Bodkin sent me a link to a great article on How to Get Hesitant Teachers to Use Technology. It contains many great suggestions especially about 'giving them time to play' and experiment with the new tools. Early in the consultation process I provide teachers with a number of different models and examples based on the learning outcomes they have selected. However, I think that their own experiences using the technology is what will transform their practice. The number one complaint I hear from teachers is that they do not have the time to reflect on how these new tools can impact the way they teach. They are often over-whelmed by the options and features available.

It occurs to me that the initial conversation with mainstream teachers should not begin by introducing web 2.0 tools, new features to the LMS or terms like blended learning. Without the experience of using these tools and approaches it is difficult for them to determine their value or how it can transform their practice because they have no frame of reference. It may be more productive to use the upcoming sessions for school and board effectiveness planning as the means by which they could receive a gentle introduction to blended learning. Shortly, educators will be deciding on specific literacy and numeracy goals and interventions based on previous evaluation data (i.e. EQAO, CAAT, etc..) for the upcoming school year.

Teachers that have defined specific literacy goals related to reading comprehension, writing or oral communication can be given access to the elementary elearning carousel where they can select relevant activities according to subject, strand and expectations. Teachers will appreciate the simplified interface and will come to realize the potential for differentiating instruction by providing enrichment or remediation as a result of the comprehension checks they perform while students work on the activities at their own pace. Teachers that express an interest in using tools to complement these activities can be given an introduction to areas like the discussion board so they can gain first-hand experience in helping students to apply creative thinking and writing skills to their online posts in order to promote higher level cognition.

At last year's Digital Learning Forum a group from the Near North DSB presented a pilot project where they created a number of online evaluations in D2L to prepare students in grades 3, 6, & 9 for the upcoming EQAO tests. Students used tablets to access a variety of questions they could expect to see on the tests and were provided with feedback based on the answers they submitted. They could also complete the evaluations multiple times. This kind of a project would work well for helping teachers to achieve the specific numeracy goals they have identified in their school improvement plan. I think they would quickly come to realize the benefits of students being able to work on relevant activities at different times of the day from multiple locations and devices.

I believe that mainstream teachers will be more willing to embrace digital tools that can transform their teaching if they are presented as a natural and complementary way to achieve learning outcomes. They can use their initial experiences in the online environment (both positive & negative) to inform their practice so they can decide what tools and approaches they will incorporate in the next iteration of their course.

On The Rise K-12, eLearning Conference Part 1

Insights and reflections on the recent e-learning conference I attended. This past week I joined educators from across Ontario to share best practices and experiences with e-learning and blended learning implementations. There was tremendous energy and many great examples of innovative teaching and learning.

John Baker CEO of Desire2Learn began the conference by providing updates on a number of different areas in which the LMS is continuing to evolve. You can hear the passion and conviction in John's voice when he explains how the new tools are going to help teachers and students become more successful. He talked about flipping the learning paradigm by letting students find the problem they want to solve in order to increase their motivation, level of engagement and empower them to find solutions. He said that it was this kind of approach that helped him to develop the skills and knowledge to build his own company. Below are some of the product announcements that I found interesting;

The new elementary elearning carousel is to be released shortly. This simplified interface will make it much easier for younger students to access the activities in the Ontario Education Resource Bank according to the subject and strand they are studying. I wonder what is going to happen to all of the Flash-based resources in the OERB as HTML5 emerges as the web standard? The predictive analytics tool that runs in the background will help teachers to identify students that are struggling in their course so that they can plan early interventions to help them to become more successful. I was very happy to see that D2L seems receptive to my idea of including a draft post button for students working in the discussion board. This occurred to me during a recent class when my students were posting their online reflections in the digital stewardship unit and it came to the end of the period. The students that were not done had two options; post incomplete work (which can't be revised later or copy and paste to another application). This just did not make sense to me. I think having D2L staff at the conference and willing to sit down and talk with educators about their experiences in the LMS is key to their ability to improve their product and the way it functions. We will see if my suggestion makes it into the new release due of the discussion board out in about a month. The D2L binder is new a mobile app that will make it possible for students to interact with and annotate course documents and information on their tablets.

I attended some great sessions on how to engage students using web 2.0 tools such as glogster, voicethread and jing. I was very impressed by the quality of student work and the level of engagement and collaboration. As an 'early adopter' of instructional technology I can immediately see the value of these approaches and the tools that the teacher used to achieve the learning objectives. It's no surprise that the majority of people who attend the conference are keen on seeing new methods and tools that will help them to change the way they teach - that's why they attend. However, as the conference continued, I began to reflect on how to encourage the mainstream classroom teacher (not present at the conference, not currently using web 2.0 tools) to undertake the process of re-examining their teaching practice in order to discover new ways of improving student learning.

Digital Stewardship through Blended Learning

Our plan for the digital stewardship case study via blended learning is outlined below. I am responsible for leading our team through the collaborative inquiry process in order to inform our teaching practice for this pilot project. There are many excellent examples of using social media in the classroom, but many educators and administrators encounter challenges when it comes to teaching students about the ethical and responsible use of information technologies. An example of the need for this kind of instruction was highlighted in a recent blog post by George Couros, 'Is your school’s “digital citizenship” practice a pass or fail? His example of the student twitter accounts that contained derogatory and offensive remarks is one that is playing out in many schools as students become more prolific at using social media. The problem is that students are not always taking the appropriate steps to protect their privacy, or do not fully understand or contemplate the implications of their online activity because they have difficulty differentiating between public and private realms.

During my session we will working in the discussion board of our Learning Management System to determine our shared vision for the project. 'In an ideal world, what would responsible & ethical use of digital technologies by our students look like?' Subsequently, we will identify the inquiry question which will determine what type of action is required and what evidence we will need in order to make our decisions with respect to planning the instruction for the case study.

Using podcasting to improve reading comprehension and fluency

How to use podcasting to improve reading comprehension and fluency.

This past week I started using free audio recording software called audacity to help primary students improve their reading comprehension and fluency. The software provides the students with visual feedback in the form of sound waves so that they can monitor the volume of their voices and the timing of their speech. The students can listen to their voice recording and make any adjustments necessary before making another one.

(source: audacity)

What I like about this approach which is documented by Vasinda & McLeod (2011) is that it uses evidence-based literacy strategies along with educational technology to enhance specific learning outcomes. The literacy strategy is called Readers Theatre and uses an authentic audience and engagement to help students to become better readers. Students rehearse scripts and use their voices to provide dramatic effect to the characters and scenes in the reading passages. Because there is no visual element that the students can provide with their performance they need to really understand the roles they are performing (i.e. using expression, intonation and volume to communicate the emotional state of the character). In order to understand when and where to employ these methods students need to have a very good understanding of the story line.

The software is available on our network or can be downloaded for free from the audacity website. It is fairly simple to use and the students enjoy hearing themselves speak. They are motivated to practice their dialogues because they want to provide their best performance for the recording. There is a period of adjustment at the beginning as this is a novel experience for many of the students (for some the visual feedback is a bit of a distraction). Using independent stand-a-lone microphones is probably the best option. We only had the combination headphone & microphone sets available which made it difficult to share between speaking partners and compromised the quality of the recording. We will also need to give the students more specific instruction on how to use the visual feedback to improve their volume and fluency.

Once the students become more familiar with the process we will convert and upload the audio files to create podcasts so that family members can listen to the recordings. This will greatly expand the audience and make the experience more authentic for the students.

I really endorse the way in which the authors of the study chose to use educational technology to achieve learning outcomes that would otherwise not be possible because that is what leads to innovative teaching.

Stay tuned for more progress on this project. I will be using the same approach with my French students to help them to prepare for their oral presentations.

Vasinda, S. and McLeod, J. (2011), Extending Readers Theatre: A Powerful and Purposeful Match With Podcasting. The Reading Teacher, 64: 486–497. doi: 10.1598/RT.64.7.2

Creating the first blog entry

My reflections and insights on the progress of my class blogging activity are recorded below.

Instructional Challenge: One of the reasons for undertaking the blogging activity is to have students practice writing for a particular audience. They need to keep in mind the perspective of the reader and what kind of information they would find interesting.

Observations: The junior students have completed the paper blogging activity and providing each other with comments on the content and design of their blogs. This was a great way for students to focus on the quality of their writing and the kind of information they could include to capture the attention of their audience. We discussed how to create a great post and how to create quality comments. While students did a good job of providing feedback on the design and content of the blog it became obvious that they will need more instruction on the art of commenting, specifically how to use a blog as a means of facilitating a dialogue between the writer and the reader. Subsequently, we looked at some examples of student blogs and what the author did to encourage conversations with their readers. Below are some examples of the paper blogs;

One Direction Blog

Selena Gomez Blog

Lessons learned: Interestingly enough I ran into some administrative challenges that I had not anticipated. I provided the students with a class code so that they could create their individual accounts according to the convention I had outlined. I did not anticipate that the students would memorize the class code and continue to use it to create additional accounts when they re-visited the site (in some cases 3 or 4 times!!). I now create the accounts myself and provide the students with the information to log in.

Student responses to Blogging activity

The student responses to our introduction to blogging activity are listed below. I used the framework outlined in my previous post.

Why would someone want to blog?

gr 6
-share their life & experiences with other people
- find out information about people and their interests
- share stories about games or sports they play
-share good & bad life experiences
-write a review on a product or a movie
-offer an opinion or point of view
-meet people or make friends online that have similar interests

gr 4

-to communicate with people when we are not with them
-to find someone with similar interests (i.e. music groups)
-if you have questions
-to learn new things
-communicate what you do or your experiences
-express your feelings
-document experiences, places
-recommendation for a book

What would I be interested in blogging about?

gr 6
-celebrities  e.g. one direction
-blog about sports teams i.e. synchro swimming
-video games - reviews, prices
-favorite activities
-music albums - new music videos & songs
-fashion
-pets
-current events

gr 4

-class projects
-recommendations - music
-comics
-trying new things - sports, travel, meet some new people
-communicate with your friends
-exploring the world Hollywood - stars
-class activities

Who would want to read my blog?

gr 6
-teenagers that play video games
-people interested in getting pets
-people interested in doing synchro swimming
-people who listen to specific music groups, go to concerts
-promote celebrities

gr 4
-teachers - get to know their students, experiences, read class assignments
-best friends (any part of the world)
-sponsor a foster child - updates on their life
-family in a different part of the world - videos
-experts who have answers to your questions - author, scientists

Internet safety - internet is like a mall
What would we do to stay safe?

-do not give personal information to strangers
-do not speak to people who approach you
-do not let people influence you to do bad things i.e. stealing
-protect personal belongings
-stay where you are supposed to stay
-don't take objects from someone you do not know
-don't go off by yourself -stay where you are safe and secure

Subsequently, we reviewed the class blogging rules. Student will be working on the paper blogging activity in preparation for our next session together.

Promoting connective reading & writing through blogging

This week I begin teaching junior students about Blogging. For most of them it will be their first time using Web 2.0 tools. We will be using the Kidblog platform because it is easy to administer and use and I like the variety of privacy settings they have in place.

Our classroom discussion will focus on any experiences they have with blogging (posting or reading) and why someone might want to blog. Students will discuss their ideas in small groups or partners and I will record their ideas on my Blog so they get a sense of how it works. The discussion will evolve into topics for blog posts based on their personal interests. Naturally, this will lead them to consider their audience and who might be interested in reading about topics they post and issues around protecting one's privacy (i.e. personal information). We might also consider some of the ideas for integrating blogging into the curriculum.

This is the point where I will provide a couple of examples so students can see the 'big picture' and what we will be striving for in our class. This will give the students some ideas of the different kinds of information, layout and multi-media elements that can be included in a blog post. I will refer to the examples from the Edublogs Teacher Challenge.

Having looked at a variety of class blogs we will discuss internet safety using Mrs. Ripp's analogy of why the internet is like a mall. Subsequently, we will also review the Blogging rules we will observe throughout the year (adapted from Discovery Blogging rules) and hand out the parent consent letter.

In order to prepare for our next session I will have the students learn to blog using paper. The rational and logistics of this lesson has been provided by Sue Rockwood. This activity helps students to understand the art of commenting which is important for creating a collaborative, respectful community.

Some excellent ideas on 14 Steps to Meaningful Student Blogging.

Stay tuned for our progress on this project.

The video below is a group of 10 and 11 year old students at Heathfield school talking about why schools should blog.

My subsequent posts on the blogging activity;

Student responses to Blogging activity

Creating the first blog entry

eLearning resources to support 21st century teachers and learners

My list of #eLearning #edtech resources to support 21st century teachers and learners is outlined below.

This past week I met with each of the divisions at my elementary school to identify the kinds of learning outcomes they wanted to see in their classrooms. I also provided some examples of how technology could be used to facilitate the kinds of outcomes they had identified.

Intermediate Division
With the teachers in the intermediate division I discussed the strands of mathematics they were currently working on and how they could use the resources at the Homework Help website created by the Ministry of Education to review specific concepts and to facilitate real-time online tutoring for students having difficulty with homework questions or test preparation. In addition to providing an overview of the features of the site, I will be registering students so they can begin accessing the resources and the one-to-one tutor chat.

I also demonstrated how the teachers could use the curriculum guide units with links to the Homework Help resources to support their classroom instruction. In addition, I showed them how they could 'Flip their classroom' by assigning students math questions they could pose to tutors at the Homework Help website.  Subsequently, small groups of students could present a lesson on a topic using the Brightink projector and the resources from Homework Help chats and tutorials.

The teachers have also requested that I provide a demonstration of the math and science teaching resources available from Explore Learning. The interactive learning resources are correlated to curriculum standards and include student activity sheets & teacher answer guides for using the learning objects.

I will also be supporting teachers and students in their use of the Ontario Educational Resource Bank by using the resources lists I created for each grade. For example, in the media idols learning object students respond to and learn how to evaluate different types of media texts. The documents are on the school network so that grade partners can continue to add resources for a variety of different subjects.

The is also some interest in accessing the curriculum units available in the Learning Management System available through eLearning Ontario. For example, I can work on the career exploration unit with the grade 8s while the grade 7s are working on a History or Geography unit with their classroom teacher. The added advantage is that the students can continue to learn at home and at their own pace. Because the content is already created teachers can focus on differentiating instruction and provide remediation for students that need extra help while other students can progress through the learning and move on to enrichment activities.

More resources for junior and primary divisions to follow.

Supporting 21st century teachers and learners

My plan for supporting 21st century teachers and learners in my school board is outlined below.

My principal has graciously provided for time in my schedule to support staff and students in their use of instructional technology. This will allow me to build on the experience I gained in my role as the Ministry of Education's eLearning support teacher for WCDSB last year.

When I spoke to staff this week, I asked them to think in terms of the kinds of learning outcomes they would like to see in the classroom or computer lab or if there were particular concepts that their students had difficulty understanding. I like the idea of using an 'instructional challenge' as an opportunity to re-examine our teaching practice in order to discover new ways of engaging learners or achieving specific learning objectives. The article The High-Tech Class in Professionally Speaking has excellent examples of this methodology.

From what I have observed, I would say that our students have a general level of proficiency with using technology for basic word processing and searching and for playing games. My challenge is to increase their proficiency with web 2.0 tools and to use technology to communicate, connect and collaborate in order to enhance their learning. In addition, my role will be to find the the tools and strategies to facilitate the desired learning outcomes as identified by the teachers and to support their professional development in a way that is self-directed and relevant to their classroom and their learners.

I had an opportunity to begin this process last year with some primary teachers. I used the Ministry of Education's Collaborative Inquiry framework to guide them through the process of reflecting on their instructional practice. The basic steps, which I will be using again this year are outlined below.

Plan

- Determine an area of need related to student achievement and/or engagement.
- Select a learning focus (e.g., for a 2-4 week module/unit) that addresses the area of student need;
- Review current instructional practice and determine educator learning
- Develop evaluation task and scoring tool, tracking tool (e.g., mark book, data wall).
- Design instruction using research based instructional strategies* and a differentiated approach (DI)
- Select instructional technology to facilitate identified learning outcomes

Act   

- Implement instruction adjusting as needed based on ongoing assessment and feedback from students
- Engage in professional learning (e.g., co-teaching, peer observation, lesson study, coaching/mentoring) to build a collective understanding of the instructional approach
- Access professional learning resources (e.g., release time, class coverage, learning materials, subject-specific support and a DI knowledgeable team leader)

Observe

- Share and analyze evidence of student learning – including student feedback, record on tracking chart/data wall, devise next steps
- Share instructional practice, discuss instructional issues, find solutions for challenges, determine next steps for educator learning

Reflect

- Co-assess/evaluate student work, share student feedback, display results;
- Decide, based on evidence, the extent to which the area of student need has been addressed
- Reflect on educator learning, decide next steps

Collaborative Inquiry at Avon Maitland DSB

I also also asked the teachers to give some thought to what type of support they would prefer (i.e. - instructional modelling, team teaching, resource, strategy and technical support). My goal over the course of the year is to structure the support so there will be a gradual release of responsibility. In order to 'build capacity' I need to guide them along the path of becoming more self-proficient in terms of their technical competence and comprehension. I reminded them that I am not there to evaluate their teaching or technical ability. I have worked with educators at a variety of levels (post-secondary, secondary, elementary) and they each had different levels of technical skills and understanding.

My key piece of advice to staff considering adopting technology in their classroom was, 'just do it'. By experimenting with the technology they will gain experiences that will help inform their practice. I used my own example of Twitter. Initially, I had reservations because I was not sure about the value of a tool that only allowed you to type 140 characters. However, I have found it to be a very valuable tool for connecting with other educators to exchange ideas and resources. My comfort level has increased and I can now more clearly determine how I can integrate it into my classroom instruction.

By the end of the year, I hope to establish a method by which we can regularly share our best practices, insights, challenges and successes with each other in order to continue to build the capacity of my school to embrace 21st century teaching and learning.

Coming soon: specific models & resources I will be demonstrating to my staff at the upcoming division meetings next week.

Transforming Learning Through Mobile Devices

The motivating factor behind the decision by the Katy ISD to transform learning through mobile devices was the recognition that they, "had to fundamentally change the way we teach; the old methods were no longer working. We made the decision to launch a three-year program that would transform instruction, improve engagement, and breathe new life into the curriculum through technology.” They decided to focus on 3 main areas; incorporating web 2.0 tools in classroom instruction, digital citizenship and the feasibility of BYOD for classroom use.

When you look at the case study it is obvious that it required some forward thinking, but also some regard for practical considerations (i.e. long-term viability, community outreach and communication, infrastructure). I like how they referred to the phones as mobile learning devices (MLDs), disabling the calling and texting features so students could concentrate on the tasks at hand. The decreased discipline issues can probably be attributed to this decision along with the increased level of student engagement.

A critical step in building success was the decision to bring early adopters on board first so they could help with instructional technology design and to provide models for other teachers to incorporate in their classrooms. What is interesting for me is that Katy ISD is at the same stage as my school board (i.e. introduction of SMART boards) when they decided to embark on this initiative. The fact that the MLDs helped to differentiate learning comes as no surprise and neither should the improved academic results. For me, it just provides further evidence of what students are capable of achieving when they are actively engaged and empowered in the learning process.

What is also clear about the case study is that the MLDs were merely the tools by which Katy ISD were able to achieve their objectives of changing the way students were learning and the ways in which teachers provided learning opportunities.

In the case study, I would have liked to have seen some examples of the instructional strategies and technologies they employed in their classrooms to engage the students. The Digital Citizen (@RChids) and iPads in Primary Education (@dmandrews15) do a really good job of documenting the pedagogical considerations that are required in order to integrate technology to enhance learning.

Innovative teaching with iPads

I had a chance to observe a colleague that used innovative teaching methods and the toontastic iPad app to engage grade 2 students in the task of creating a story retell about the challenges they faced in preparation for their first communion. Students were divided into groups of 4 or 5 and worked together on the iPad to represent a challenge they encountered. These ideas had previously been brainstormed with the class so that each group could spend their time creating animations for a particular situation, as opposed to identifying a challenge. When the project started the teacher gave the students an overview of the features of the toontastic app and the class co-created the success criteria for the animations.

As I walked around to the different groups, I asked the students what steps they took when they did not know how to do something. Their approach to figuring out how to do something was very playful in nature. They just started trying different things to see what effects were created.

The teacher's approach was similar to the flipped classroom model example. The students were empowered to direct their own learning by finding creative and different ways to express what they knew about a topic or situation. This is why I refer to it as innovative teaching because typically the teacher would be the one directing the process as opposed to facilitating it. 

When you look at the teacher's blog you can see the iterative process documented by the educator (@RChids). He recognizes that he needs to reflect on how to best facilitate the process given the specific needs and abilities of the learners with respect to the desired outcomes. 

The teacher referred to success criteria when reviewing the group animations. It gave him an opportunity to provide formative feedback so students know what and how they can improve by referring back to specific items in the success criteria that the class created. This also improves the meta cognition of students as they are becoming more aware of what constitutes a good story re-tell and what they need to do in their animations to meet that criteria.

Community Cloud Learning Platform and BYOD

An exciting development at last week's Digital Learning Forum was the announcement of the OSAPAC cloud pilot. This could potentially affect 2 million students in Ontario. Currently, software delivery is IT intensive, and complex (testing and verification of computer images which need to be updated maybe twice a year).

The cloud would include full virtualization of the software environment using Microsoft (AZURE) - connects to windows back-end server to deliver applications. It could potentially be less expensive because one pays for the time when the server is being utilized and which software is being used.

Students and educators can access the cloud from home or school when they log in to the Forefront unified access gateway to enter their board credentials. Group policy processing is applied and distributes all of the applications which run off the cloud server.

Links to websites can also be included and because this model is platform independent (applications run on a remote server) this enables users on iPad and iPhone devices to access digital resources based in Flash (the large majority of activities in the Ontario Educational Resource Bank.

There are several advantages to this model;

• single sign-on (no need to remember multiple logins for different websites)
• IT personnel can spend more time on training as opposed to maintenance
• IT departments get valuable hard-drive space back that would have been needed for software images
• upgrades to software is immediate - no software shipping costs 
• reduced network bandwidth requirements
• a great enabler to Bring Your Own Device (less powerful devices can be used to access software and websites)

I am looking forward to seeing the proof of concept for this model because there are so many exciting possibilities.

eLearning and Collaborative Inquiry

Yesterday's session on eLearning and Collaborative Inquiry by Rachel Sillen and Dan Bodkin HPCSB did a very effective job of modelling the process for professional development favoured by the Ministry of Education. We responded to the questions used to facilitate CI by posting and responding to the discussion in our LMS. This achieves two important things - educators see first hand what kind of forethought is required to effectively use instructional technology in their teaching and secondly they see how asynchronous discussion can be used to encourage reflection and scaffold learning using the ideas of peers.

During the first session, educators are asked to articulate their 'ideal classroom'. Here's what Mike Redfearn and I came up with; We would have one device per student connected to WiFi (combination of tablets, smartphones, laptops, desktops) to collaborate on documents/ presentations (Google Docs, Prezi) and use Apple TV to present to class. Educators and students would access content from the OERB and LMS as a source of information, but activities would be student-directed (Flipped Classroom) i.e. teacher would facilitate the presentation of lessons by students.

Teachers could use the money available through our association PD fund to apply for release time to undertake the Collaborative Inquiry process. Ideally it would be spread out over a period of 4 half days to allow enough time to reflect on each stage.

I have already started this with a couple of teachers, but it needs to be more formalized and include a larger group. I would love to use the same approach of modelling the process within the LMS so that teachers could become familiar with the tools as well.

Elementary interface provincial eLearning strategy

The idea is to have a carousel of learning resources that elementary students would access when they login to their network at school. The carousel uses login-logic which relies on integration on the back-end between the LMS and the SIS to seamlessly present the learning objects for the specific courses the student is taking designed to meet the strand and expectation they are working on. There are six subject packages for Junior and Intermediate students but the traditional interface is difficult for Primary students. Hence the idea of a carousel that presents objects from the Ontario Educational Resource Bank in a user-friendly interface that involves less clicks (lots of audio & visual elements using play and inquiry based learning models). This project is pioneering the area of blended learning for elementary students because there is not a lot of experience and research in this area. Another potential application is the ePortfolio feature in the LMS to illustrate their progress through their elementary academic years.

Math Homework Help website video

One of my roles is to introduce teachers and students to the Math Homework Help website the Independent Learning Centre and the Ministry of Education has created to tutor students in real-time using a chat room and an interactive whiteboard. My colleague Darrin Hughson and his team at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board have created a video that provides a great overview of the features of the website. In addition to being tutored my a real math teacher, students and parents can access a variety of interactive tutorials and lessons to help them with homework assignments and test preparation.

Mobile Learning and Professional Development for Teachers

UNESCO's report on Mobile Learning For Teachers In North America > Exploring the Potential of Mobile Technologies to Support Teachers and Improve Practice identifies that;

Mobile devices can enable teachers to participate in PD more frequently and with more

flexibility than traditional training sessions that are constrained to a particular time and place.

They can also strengthen collaborative PD by facilitating communication among peers and

mentors. Many education leaders anticipate that teachers will soon be using mobile

technologies to access widespread professional communities and engage in collaborative

learning online (Bjerede et al., 2010).

This is consistent with the Ministry of Education's desire to provide more professional development opportunities for teachers within their working environment to take advantage of the contextual elements that would make it more meaningful. It is a shift from the one size fits all model of professional learning.

What I really like about the case studies highlighted in the report is the following;

Teachers were not just taught how to use a specific mobile device but were encouraged to think critically about how mobile technologies can provide new and better opportunities for learning. Rather than adopting mobile technologies wholesale, teachers exploring mobile learning need to consider whether using mobile devices adds value or efficiency to particular lessons or activities, or whether it could be distracting.

When I consult with educators this is a critical step - this kind of forethought is required in order to determine how the teaching needs to change in order to maximize the integration of the technology so that it enhances learning and effectively differentiates the instruction. 

Bjerede, M., Atkins, K. and Dede, C. 2010. Ubiquitous mobile technologies and the transformation of schooling. http://www.qualcomm.com/documents/ubiquitousmobile-technologies-and-transformation-schooling

Flipped classroom using Homework Help

The flipped classroom model is a student-centred approach to learning. Students can be introduced to learning content at home with the use of products like screencast-o-matic or camtasia. Students can come to class and apply the lessons they reviewed at home and work through problems. The teacher provides assistance as needed.

Last week my colleague Mike Mastragostino and his team created a video showcasing Math Homework Help and how it can be used in a Flipped Classroom Model, 3 Part Lesson and Reciprocal Learning (windows media format, 5 min).

"Grade 7 & 8 students were asked to work in groups of 4 and each group received a math question on a topic not yet covered by a teacher. Each student in the group had to go into Math Homework Help and ask a tutor “each had to use a different tutor” for help on a specified math problem. The next day they met within their groups and reviewed and assimilated the different sessions, which are now stored in their lockers, into one best practise. Next they were asked to work together to create and design a 3 Part Lesson which they would present to their peers."

click on image to start video

TED-Ed Customized Learning Web Initiative

I had a chance to examine the Customized Learning Web Initiative by TED-Ed. So far, the content seems to be targeted at post-secondary students but the one video I looked at on How Folding Paper Can Get You to the Moon could easily be shown to elementary or secondary students studying exponents. By watching the video students would get a very good idea as to how exponential growth occurs. I also like the ability to do a comprehension check in the form of the 'quick quiz' and to promote higher level critical thinking skills through the questions posed in 'dig deeper'. The ability to flip the video and customize the content to create your own lesson is a very valuable feature. Therefore, teachers could customize the video, the quizzes and the dig deeper questions to include examples and content relevant to their particular students. I will be interested to see if and how this gets adopted by teachers in our board due to the increased popularity of You Tube videos to support classroom instruction.

Facilitating eLearning with "bring your own device"

Our board has recently opened up WiFi access to our students and teachers so they are able to use their personal devices to facilitate eLearning. It has also been interesting to hear about what other educators are experiencing with this initiative, BYOD in primary. This opens up some very exciting possibilities for engaging students. Of course there are some challenges for schools wishing to implement these kinds of initiatives. Below are but a few;

1) Equity - what does one do about students that do not have/ can't afford mobile devices? Perhaps it would be possible for school council to purchase some inexpensive tablets so these students could participate in the collaborative activities. Schools with more fund raising capability could donate some devices to other schools. Combined with computers that already exist in the class/ computer lab it may be possible to have at least one device for every two students.

2) Inappropriate use - yes, with mobile devices in classes there is potential for abuse, but where better to learn about how to use the technology appropriately and effectively than in school. Students need to be given specific instruction about how to use social media to communicate in constructive and cooperative ways to achieve educational outcomes. Students who are distracted by the technology (i.e. surfing websites, playing games) can be told to put the device away and to do the low tech version of the task.

3) Theft - teachers can lock away devices in cabinets when they are not being used in class, but students may still become targets to/ from school. I'm not sure there is an easy solution to that issue.

We will see what other challenges present themselves when I actually engage in a BYOD eLearning activity with a group of students. Below are some technical and pedagogical issues I am working through. I would like to base the activity on one of the resources in the Ontario Educational Resource Bank.

As an example, there is a learning object called the Confederation Challenge in which students review politics, personalities and events that led to the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. It's in the format of a game show hosted by Sir John A Macdonald.

        Students could use the computers in the library to access the learning object (this is not possible on the mobile devices because of the complications with Flash and iPad/ iPhone (extremely popular with younger students). In a subsequent class they could bring their mobile devices and work in small groups to co-edit a document that would provide additional questions and answers for the game show, or do a mini-presentation on a significant event or key personality they learned about in the Confederation Challenge. I am thinking about using google docs for the co-editing/ presenting which means the student would need to install an app on their device to access google docs (variety of different apps depending on their device). More to come as I work through the details and their implications.

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome....