10 Web 2.0 Tools for Recording Learning

At next week's staff meeting I'm running a session for all the teachers who are not involved in maths planning - these are basically the specialist teachers who are teaching subjects such as PE, music and German.  This session will look at what Web 2.0 tools these teachers can use for recording student learning.  It's quite a diverse group so I want to come up with different tools that will appeal to them all.

I first started to think about what these teachers might be doing now to record learning, and then thinking of some ways that technology could transform this.  For example with the music and language teachers I would think that being able to make an audio recording of the children speaking or the music that they compose and play would be interesting, whereas with the PE teachers they might be more interested in recording movies of the students doing something in the gym or outside.  Here are some ideas of what I think the teachers might like to do, with some of the tools that I think could help them.

Photos + Audio:  I could imagine this would be useful for all the specialists so that they could photograph the students doing something and then record the students reflecting on what they were doing.  Tools that I will suggest to them will include VoiceThread and Fotobabble.

Graphics + Text:  I've used this with our German department before with the students making comic strips and adding speech on as text bubbles.  I think a great tool for this is Bitstrips.

Animation + Audio:  Again I think this might be very useful for our language teachers so I will suggest a text to speech tool such as GoAnimate.  I know there are a variety of accents - not sure about German though.

Presentation + Video:  Many teachers might take short videos of the students performing something.  This could be a particular movement in gymnastics, a musical piece they are playing on an instrument or some kind of skit in German.  I'm interested in how the teachers could then have the students send these to our school's iMovie account in order to embed these videos into some sort of presentation tool.  Good examples of tools that are easy for them to use might include SpicyNodes, Prezi and Glogster.

Video + Text + Audio/Music:  Perhaps the teachers might like to make a video of photos that they can add text to and even voice-over or music in the background.  Recently our Grade 2 students used Animoto to put all their art pieces together with the music they composed in GarageBand together.  Another example of a tool we're about to start using with our Grade 4 and 5 students is WeVideo as we are having them make book review movies based on their literature circle books.

So that's 9 tools.  What do you think I've missed out?  What else would you recommend me to introduce to our specialist teachers so that they can better record student learning?

Photo Credit:  Rainbow in my living room by Daniela Hartmann  

Synergistic thinking: engaging the intellect to deepen understanding

This morning I was reading a discussion on the PYP Threads Ning about whether we should give students the central idea at the start of a PYP unit of inquiry or whether we should encourage them to come up with the central idea as a result of their learning.  A link on this thread led me to the video that was filmed at the IB Africa, Europe and Middle East Regional Conference a few months ago.  Like many teachers at my school I wasn't able to attend this conference, however the power of technology is such that I'm able to "attend" this session by Lynn Erickson from the comfort of my own settee.

Lynn Erickson was talking about synergistic thinking.  Synergy comes from the Greek word that means working together.  It describes two or more things working together to produce a result that is not obtainable by each individually and in this case she is referring to facts and concepts working together.   She talks about how great teachers prompt their students to think about the conceptual ideas but that they must use facts to support these ideas.  The interaction between the factual and conceptual levels of thinking produces synergistic thinking which should be our goal as teachers for developing students' intellects.  Concepts are the way we organize the facts - they are the way we prevent information overload of "in one ear and out the other", and only at  the conceptual level do we have the transfer of knowledge.

Listening to this I'm definitely coming to the belief that we shouldn't always tell our students the central idea at the beginning of the unit.  Perhaps we need to wait until nearer the end to see if they can come up with the central idea themselves.  I'd love to try this out, though not having a class of my own it's not something that is very realistic.  But I'm loving the discussion and I'm really interested in hearing more from teachers who are actually give the students the opportunities to come up with their own concepts, generalisations and central ideas.

Photo Credit:  If it wasn't for the work of the weavers by Maureen Crosbie  

Pre-K play in the street

A quick update.  We have changed the movie so that a street scene is playing on Infinite Looper and projected onto the wall of one of our Pre-K classrooms.  At our Thursday meeting one of the Pre-K teachers was talking about how this had encouraged the students to explore some of the construction tools in the classroom - in particular she said that it had previously been hard for the students to add wheels onto the constructions that they made, but that last week she noticed them doing this fairly easily in front of the wall of cars.
Here's the link to the Infinite Looper movie that we used - though since the actual footage lasts for an hour it's probably not necessary to loop it:  Street Sounds.

Learning from -v- learning with

Over the next couple of months our students will be given opportunities to connect with other students in a virtual global classroom.  One class of our Grade 4s will be involved in Quad Blogging action research to see how student blogging can be used to teach quality writing - this class will be connecting with other students in the USA, the Czech Republic and Thailand.  I'm also keen to have our Grade 2 students connect with other students worldwide as they investigate how the weather and climate affects us.  Our students will be involved in global learning that will be based on the connections that myself and the homeroom teachers are building through our personal learning networks.  We have come to realize that knowledge is distributed widely across these networks and that instead of learning from others we are now hoping to learn with others through inquire and the co-construction of knowledge.

This is a wonderful opportunity for our teachers and students to develop a new form of literacy:  network literacy.  Learning in networks and online communities will require new pedagogies and practices. The vast majority of our students do not yet see their teachers as being connected to these networks and taking advantages of the learning possibilities that these networks provide:  currently they do not see these learning connections being modeled by teachers and therefore many students are not learning how to use online networks in safe and responsible ways.  I'm hoping that the students will come to see the power of technology for creating virtual classrooms and learning communities with other students whom they have never met offline and that these first steps will lay good foundations for them becoming responsible digital citizens and being able to create their own networks and learning communities in the future.

Photo Credit:  If I Only Could Make a Deal with God by Bethan  

Act on what you learn

Action is one of the essential elements in the PYP.  In Making the PYP Happen it states:  action should be seen as a voluntary demonstration of a student's empowerment.  Basically they should act on what they learn - the empowerment doesn't happen in the learning but in the actions they take as a result of their learning.  Recently I've been thinking that action can also be a demonstration of a teacher's empowerment and since my aim is to explore the impact that coaching can have on teaching and learning in the second half of this year I'm thinking about what actions I might see our teachers involved in.  I'm hoping to see teachers:

• trying out new things, experimenting and stepping outside of their comfort zone.  I'm always happy to see teachers questioning the whys and the hows of what they are  doing.  I know that one grade has pledged to try out team teaching at least once before our February break so I'm interested to see how this turns out.  It's exciting to see that they have decided to learn from those around them.  
• seeing themselves as learners too.  Reading, thinking, connecting with experts around the world, maybe even taking online courses.

For me I think it's also important to act on what I'm learning.  This is what I've done as a result of what I have learnt:

• I'm more able to identify my strengths and weaknesses and events of the past few months have definitely made me question and then reaffirm my values, ethics and principles.  Having realised that these don't match with those of my current school, my action is to move on.  You have to believe in what you are doing in order to put your heart into it and be able to make a difference.
• I've also come to see that different people have different standards.  One person's definition of excellence is not the same as someone else's. If you are trying to attain someone else's definition of success then you will just be disappointed and dissatisfied, even if you achieve it.  You need to own your own definition of excellence and measure your achievements by your own standards.
• I've seen how important it is to have the freedom to make choices (up to now this has been limited by my need to support my children through school), but I've discovered that I also have the freedom to choose how to interpret what happens.  This year my choice has been to welcome change and to look for new opportunities, and I've discovered that when you are open to new opportunities then they come to you.  I'm overly excited about moving on to a new school, new country, new culture and new challenges.  Just as I'm excited about our teachers exploring new ways of doing things here, I know that I need to explore too.  I need to be in a place that is constantly investigating new ways of using technology, of teaching and of learning.
• I've thought a lot about where I want to be and who I want to be with and I've discovered that I need to be with people who dream the same dreams but even bigger than I do and who have even more passion for what they are doing than I have.  This energy is infectious!  I read recently "The people around you create who you are.  If they inspire you, you'll be inspired.  If they depress you, you'll be depressed." Therefore my search has also been for people who will inspire and empower me and for a school that is modeling excellence, for people who don't say "that's impossible" but who ask "how can we make this possible?"

Several ideas in this post have been influenced by the Live Your Legend site.

Photo Credit:  Pasqual jump sequence by Felipe Skroski   

The I and the C

This evening I was talking to a friend who was asking me about what sort of ICT vision she should be looking for in the schools where she is considering working.  We talked about the fact that in the ICT, it's the first two letters that are important - with the vast amount of Information that is available, students need to know how to search for what they need and they also need to know how to Communicate with the rest of the world.  In Technology Rich, Information Poor, Chapter 12 of 21st Century Skills, Alan November writes:

If we wanted to prepare our students for the global economy we would immediately turn every classroom into a global communications center linking students to authentic audiences around the world.  We would be providing professional development for teachers to redesign their assignments to be more rigorous and authentic.  We would be laser-beam focused on redefining what it means to be literate.

Alan November goes on to write that possibly the most important 21st century skill is Collaboration.  An important aspect of the 3 IB programmes is international mindedness and Alan November writes "In an interconnected world our students will need to learn how to understand various points of view and how to work with people in different cultures.  In this regard we need to globalize the curriculum."

I think focusing on the I and the C and not the Technology leads students to become more independent and gives them the control of and responsibility for their own learning.  What this means is that the teacher's role has to change because if we redefine the role of the learner then we automatically have to redefine the role of the teacher too.  If we are talking about ICT merely enhancing the curriculum, or just supporting what teachers are already doing then we are focusing on the T and simply using technology to do what we have always done in other ways.  Alan November addresses this in the last paragraph of his chapter:

The opportunity before us is to redesign the culture of our schools to empower students to take more responsibility for managing their own learning and to work collaboratively with classmates and people around the world.  Asking the right questions about the design of an empowering culture of teaching and learning is more important than bolting technology onto our industrial model of education.  

Can we get from here to there in 7 steps?

I've been thinking a lot about how schools prepare students for their future, and was reading about innovation through technology today in Chapter 11 of 21st Century Skills.  In this chapter, Cheryl Lemke, president and CEO of the Metiri Group, writes about the framework the group has come up with to gauge readiness of schools for 21st century learning.  Below I have summarized the areas the group considers:

Vision:  does the school have a forward-thinking common vision for 21st century learning?
Systems thinking: are all educators and staff thinking and acting systemically to embrace innovation in ways that enhance the vision?
21st century skills/learning:  has the school adopted 21st century skills for research-informed learning strategies?
21st century learning environments:  is the vision of 21st century learning coming to life?
Professional competencies:  are teachers, administrators and staff ready to facilitate, lead and assess 21st century learning among students, the community and parents?
Access and infrastructure:  is access to technology/infrastructure sufficiently robust to support 21st century learning?
Accountability:  Are learners and educators held accountable for making progress?  Are they provided with support?

I have thought and thought about the above and how it applies to where we are now.  I know that it all has to start with a vision - and a shared or common vision at that.  This is where I think we need to do much better.  I think a lot of teachers feel we don't have a vision or that if there is one they haven't been consulted or informed about it.  I think there would also be questions about access and infrastructure.

The way forward, suggested by the Metiri Group, is for leadership to encourage a culture of openness to new ideas, encourage risk taking and encourage the spread of creative ideas to "tip and ripple" to challenge and change current assumptions.

Photo Credit:  Footsteps on the Wall by Tom Rolfe