A Blueprint for 21st Century Learning and Teaching

Yesterday, with the leadership of our Superintendent of Student Success +David DeSantis, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board began the process of defining the vision and implementation plan for realizing the outcomes in our 21st Century Teaching and Learning Blueprint.

Source :Charles Fadel

Recently, I began reading the book ‘Why’ by Simon Sinek and reflecting on his message and how it relates to our vision for 21st Century Learning and Teaching. We have outlined the ‘what’ (desired student outcomes, sub-committees, focus questions), and the ‘how’ (committee process, report recommendations, tools for achieving student outcomes). For Sinek, it is identifying the ‘why’ that inspires people to act. Below are my thoughts on ‘why’ we should be undertaking this process and 'why it is so important. For me, the ‘why’ is because we need to re-examine the way learning & teaching takes place in our Board (from the instructional strategies and tools and the way we support technology to what our learning spaces will look like).
 
At the recent ECOO conference +Jaime Casap asked a very good question? "Why do classes remain unchanged from the times when we went to school?" Some recent articles; What Does Classroom 2.0 Look Like? (Educators detail how they’re putting a new learning space design paradigm to work in their schools) and Why Disruptive Leadership (a great article about the approach required to change the prevailing mindset) are excellent food for thought.

source: Wendy DeRosa

As we undertake this visioning process, it is an opportunity for us to adopt a ‘greenfield approach’ - a fresh start where we are not constrained by what we have done in the past. It is this new thinking about learning (for students & staff) that will allow us to achieve new possibilities for teaching. I have deliberately placed the focus on the learning as opposed to the teaching, because I think this represents the kind of shift that is required to transform instructional practice. It is the educator learning that can take place through collaborative inquiry in the professional learning cycle that will encourage teachers to adopt new methods for achieving 21st Century outcomes.

While we will share our insights and experiences from our individual classes and schools it is important for us to keep in mind our catholic social teachings about community and the common good, as our decisions will have implications for the entire system.

We will be using Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education to facilitate the collaboration and documentation of the sub-committees and to familiarize ourselves with 21st Century tools and methods. This decision is practical as well as symbolic, as these tools represent a new and different way of working that we can model for our educators and students. I will also be arranging a tour of the communitech hub so that sub-committee members can see 21st Century work in action.

As I meet with each of the sub-committees I will show the video on ‘moonshot thinking’ because I think that it embraces the critical mindset that is necessary for us to achieve exceptional learning outcomes for our students and our educators and to solve the really big challenges that our system faces; equity, anti-bullying and re-thinking 21st learning and teaching to mention a few. Although the video focuses on science & technology I think it is very applicable to the educational context. ‘’We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’’

I hope the video will also encourage committee members to be open-minded, to dream big and to reinforce that iteration is essential. "Why" is this mindset so important for 21st Century Learning and Teaching, - because the stakes are high. There are several private sector examples of companies that once dominated their markets, that now struggle to succeed because they have failed to adapt to the changes around them and continue to innovate (Kodak, Nortel, Blackberry, and increasingly Microsoft). On the flip-side we have examples like the Perimeter institute and Google that are providing solutions for problems that do not even exist yet (e.g. Google working on a protocol for communicating with Mars).

If we do not take this opportunity to be open-minded about this re-examination and to challenge the status-quo how will we ever know what will be possible in our Board?

Blended Learning Professional Development for Teachers TLLP 2013

I just returned from the planning sessions for the Ministry of Education's Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) with my colleague +Rolland Chidiac. In addition to seeing wonderful presentations by Dr. Anne Lieberman (Stanford) and Dr. Carol Campbell (OISE/ UT) on research related to leadership and professional development for teachers, we had a chance to continue working on the project proposal that was accepted by our Board (Waterloo Catholic District School Board ) and the Ministry for 2013-2014, Success for all Students: 21st Century Teaching/Learning using Tablets & A Blended Learning Model.

We are finding that this proposal continues to evolve as we experience new technologies and approaches to teaching and learning that we would like to include in our project. One of the major advantages we have is that our decisions are informed by the insights and experiences Rolland has gained as a result of his work on his current TLLP project. Instead of learning about the project planning process, we are able to focus on the project implementation and the resources we will need to employ to achieve our SMART goals.

There will be 2 significant changes to our project. Previously, my focus group for the blended learning model was to be junior students, but this will now change to include educators in our school board. Teachers that are interested in using blended learning in their classrooms will be invited to attend professional development sessions that will model the same method of delivery (i.e. they will experience blended learning from the perspective of a student - some face to face sessions and some online sessions). The main focus will be to use the same tools and approaches that they could incorporate into their own teaching. Their experiences as a student will help to inform their instructional practice. This is important because educators often lack the personal experience with the new methods and tools of delivery and therefore have a difficult time determining their value and how it would work in their classroom. The instruction in the blended learning course will follow a Collaborative Inquiry model as teachers reflect on their own teaching & learning to design blended learning activities for their own students.

Facilitating professional development for teachers is a passion of mine as I really enjoy the exchange of best practices that are shared between educators that have a variety of experiences. This type of interaction and model for professional development delivery is critical for the adoption of innovative teaching approaches as my rationale below explains.

The key question to address is how can we promote innovation in teaching? The important distinction for the context of our project is that ‘perceived as new’ is relative to the traditional educational practices of a school which consists largely of face to face classes. If blended learning delivery is adopted and used with the existing instructional paradigms, the effect on learning will be negligible and will therefore not represent an innovation in teaching. Ultimately, it is not the technology that matters, but how we design the learning through the technology (Miller). Advances in teaching may result when technology is used as an opportunity discover new ways for achieving learning outcomes. Blended learning can represent both a pedagogical innovation and a channel of communication capable of engaging the learner. Technology enables the instructor to create a different kind of curriculum and to establish a different relationship with the student. The virtual classroom provides a new environment for human interaction and allows the teacher to design learning which can be more student-centered and collaborative and focus on 21st century skills and literacies. Examining Blended Learning Models: Student To Teacher Interactions provides some great examples on how the role of the teacher in a blended learning environment could change.

According to Rogers, innovation is adopted by members within society at different times and at different rates. A steep learning curve is overcome quickly by early adopters who absorb the new skills and instructional paradigms quickly while late adopters acquire this knowledge over a longer time span. Information seems to flow easily from innovators to early adopters. The barrier for diffusion is identified by the gap that occurs between early adopters and early main-stream educators. The size of this gap can be attributed to the level of the inter-connectedness between schools in a school board. Often teachers have connections that do not extend beyond their department, division or school. This limits the reciprocal exchange of teaching methods and content. The number of nodes and connections between educators determines the complexity and richness of the network (Rueter).

Professional development is often seen as a key enabler of innovation in teaching as it may serve to link successful teaching initiatives and the broad expertise available throughout a school board. Such a network would facilitate the sharing of innovative teaching strategies and encourage the exchange of best practices in the development and delivery of blended learning and full eLearning courses. As Dr. Lieberman stated, 'teachers learn most from other teachers as they are real and have practical experiences you trust and can relate to.' This is why it would be important to include +Rolland Chidiac as a co-instructor in these sessions as he would continue to share his day-to-day experiences with blended learning and his primary students. These types of initiatives also help to raise the profile of innovative teaching practices, and foster communication and collaboration between teachers and programs.

The second significant change to our project is that we will be employing Acer chromebooks instead of the tablets we had initially selected. After rigorous testing we chose this system because it will enable our teachers to view the Flash-based learning activities in the Ministry's Learning Management System without additional configuration. The simplified yet powerful interface of the Chrome operating system will enable us to fully leverage the tools of the Google Apps for Education suite to empower the professional and personal learning networks of our teachers and students. My recent experiences with these tools has clearly demonstrated to me how effective they can be at extending our learning to include educators and students from around the world. In order to adopt these innovative approaches our teachers need to be exposed to these tools and strategies. An excellent study by +Ryan Bretag and his team provides clear and compelling evidence that we are making the correct decision. '100% of the Pilot teachers preferred the Chromebooks over Nexus tablets or reviewing other devices' and '65% of the Pilot students preferred the Chromebooks over the Nexus tablets (24%) or Reviewing Other Devices (11%)'. Another excellent case study by +Terry Korte revealed that, 'since moving to Google Apps, collaboration has flourished across the district. According to Korte, Google Apps is improving the way students learn and teachers teach. Today, students and teachers are blogging about novels, working out math problems using Google spreadsheets, sharing documents such as lab reports, research projects and surveys using Google Docs, creating sites with Google Sites that include links, pictures, videos and more - all using Google's tools. One teacher says that Google Apps has significantly decreased workloads and planning, because staff no longer need to create several different versions of material for different access methods.' Google's recent announcement of the Google Play for Education initiative will also make these devices easier for teachers and IT departments to administer (send out applications updates to their entire fleet of devices with one click and app purchases can be charged against an account that a school has on file).

My future posts will focus on the explanation for measuring the SMART goals for our TLLP project. We will be adapting the rating instruments and research methodology from a previous study I conducted on the A Study of the Design and Evaluation of a Learning Object and Implications for Content Development.

Using Social Media to Empower PLN

Using social media to empower #PLN and #GAFE.

In my last post I described what I experienced at the recent GAFE summit I attended and how the application of the concepts and tools I was exposed to has clearly demonstrated to me how social media can empower PLN (personal or professional learning networks). When +Molly Schroeder posed her 'design challenge' and asked us why we were at the summit giving up 16 hours of our personal time on the weekend, my response was because, 'I am in beta'. I continue to look for innovative ways to engage my students by sharing strategies and resources with other educators. During his session +Mark Wagner discussed how one's PLN can expand exponentially from colleagues in your local staff room or department to educators from around the world who have a variety of insights and experiences and resources to share. Sometimes it can be a challenge to participate in these networks to the degree I would like given all of the extra-curricular activities at school and at home, but I find that what ever time I have been able to invest has easily generated an incredible rate of return.

At the summit I finally met +Sylvia Duckworth in person. She is someone I have admired and been following and exchanging ideas with on Twitter as we both use the AIM methodology and resources to teach our students French as a Second Language. At the time, I never realized that a tweet requesting to make a personal introduction at the conference would have turned into such a powerful and enlightening collaboration. Throughout the day we had been attending sessions by +Wendy Gorton, +Marc Dubeau, +Mark Wagner on using Google + Hangouts to facilitate dynamic and enriching collaboration between educators and students. While I enjoy using Twitter to connect and exchange ideas with my colleagues I think that Google + Hangouts really has the ability to take PLN to the next level as you will see below.

Unbeknownst to me +Sylvia Duckworth began formulating some very clear ideas about how our two classes could collaborate using the tools we had a chance to experiment with during our sessions. When you look at the plan she put together you will see an aspect of every session we attended that weekend; +Jim Sill YouTube in the classroom, +Joseph Romano Google Docs and PBL, +Pierre Sarazin, +Lise Galuga, +Tanya Avrith Google Drive and innovative pedagogical strategies for Google Docs and Forms, +Joe Sisco Google Apps, just to mention a few.

The same evening the summit ended Sylvia and I had a Google + Hangout to start experimenting with the tools (real-time Google doc collaboration, desktop sharing, video and text chat, Google effects, YouTube streaming) so we could get a clearer idea of how we could use these tools with our students. There was also the very practical element of being able to effectively plan the implementation of this project using the very same tools. Our students had a great time using the Google forms to provide input to the character development and interaction for the story re-tell activity. We were also able to look at the results in graphic form and discuss some numeracy objectives by examining how we would use the information to make specific decisions. The students were very engaged when we had a Google + Hangout to do a shared reading of the story and then to co-construct a new ending for the play in real-time based on their responses to the survey. We did not encounter any significant technical issues during our session, but that was probably due to the amount of testing we did prior to our Hangout.

Currently, we are at the stage where the students are creating their own version of the play using Google presentation and using Chrome Extension Twisted Wave, to record their voices reading the sentences they have constructed. This activity is a critical part of extending second language development as the students use the words they have learned to express their own ideas in a creative fashion. I have learned so much from my collaboration on this project with Sylvia and we are only at the midway point. It has not been without its challenges - trying to schedule real-time collaboration and planning for 2 busy professionals with different teaching schedules gave us a very narrow time frame to work with. Previous restrictions on my school network did not permit Google + Hangouts to take place due to blocked communication ports - thankfully this issue has been resolved. My board has not yet implemented GAFE so my students do not have Google accounts and access to their personal Google drives and documents. For the time being they will need to download the documents as MS Office files in order to create their presentations. I consider it all as part of being in 'beta' - the insights and experiences I have gained will inform my future practice and help me to support educators that have similar goals and ideas for enhancing teaching and learning.

Thanks again to +Mark Carbone, +Harry Niezen, +Bill MacKenzie, and +Google in Education Summits by EdTechTeam for all of their hard work in organizing such an inspirational and transformative conference.

My next great PLN adventure starts today as +Rolland Chidiac and I begin our planning sessions as part of the Ministry of Education's Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) which is an annual project-based professional learning opportunity for experienced classroom teachers. The TLLP "...funds proposals from classroom teachers who seek a peer leadership role in curriculum, instructional practice or supporting other teachers. The three goals of the program are to create and support opportunities for teacher professional learning, foster teacher leadership and facilitate the sharing of exemplary practices with others for the broader benefit of Ontario's students". Our project which will be funded for 2013-2014 is Success for all Students: 21st Century Teaching/Learning using Tablets & A Blended Learning Model. We are planning on using Google + Hangouts and the methodologies and tools I mentioned above to facilitate this project. Once again I am looking forward to all of the insights I will gain from my collaboration from Rolland and others like +Michelle Cordy, who have so much valuable experience using these tools with their students.

I would be interested to hear from other people and how they use social media to facilitate PLNs.

What are some of the tools that you like to use?

 In what ways do you use them and what is the frequency and depth of your collaborations?

How would you adapt the model I illustrated above for your own PLN or classroom implementation?

What are some of the challenges and affordances of using social media to empower PLN? Please provide some specific examples.

Looking forward to hearing your responses.

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.