Creativity on iPad for Early Childhood

A presentation from my son and I about Creativity on the iPad for #CEGSA 2013

The challenge of tracking

Australia has a new National Curriculum, this year we are supposed to be reporting about student achievement in this curriculum. This means that teachers need to be able to determine which of the parts of the curriculum students understand and can use. In a standard single teacher class teachers can prepare activities that assess understanding and then report on the outcomes. A team teaching project based situation like we use in our academy of innovative learning makes things a little more complex. Since more than one teacher may be helping a student on their maths for example, a system is needed that allows up to 10 different teachers to record student achievements. An ability to update the records while working with students would also be good.

The above was written in January as we prepared to teach in the integrated way for the third time. Over this last term I have tried to find the best way to track this progress. My school has found a web based solution that enables us to track against the Maths outcomes, but it is not a perfect option. While marking a particular task sheet it took about 3 minutes per student to note the two outcomes that were addressed. This may not seem much, but I marked over 30 papers. ACARA the publishers of the new curriculum are the national Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting agency. I hope that we will see this reporting aspect be developed soon, unlike the Accountability aspect of the South Australian SACSAF that I never saw in my 7 years of officially using the framework. A simple national recording and reporting system for our national curriculum, perhaps even one where we can inform students and parents which outcomes have been met.

This is something I look forward to, if you hear of any developments please let me know.

ABC Splash working the waves

This will be an excellent resource for teachers.

ABC Splash is a new education website for Australia, packed with 100s of videos, audio clips and games. Everything is totally free to watch and play at home and in school. in a nutshell ABC Splash has teamed up with Education Services Australia to link hundreds of new learning resources directly to the Australian Curriculum. Look out for cutting-edge games, virtual worlds and immersive digital experiences.

The site features information for Early Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary, Parents and Teachers. It’s new and it’s bound to be fabulous, so bookmark it today and start using the services in your classroom, or to support your school community.

It’s also cool to see friends included on the site – we’re making our own ‘celebrity splash’. 🙂

Dean Groom and Grand Theft Childhood.
Darcy Moore and From Primary to High School.
Judy O’Connell and Rules of Engagement in the Digital Age

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Supporting Tech Reluctant Teachers

Last week a  Mr Deith a primary teacher I follow posted about his thoughts on 1:1 iPads

I responded with one of my key thoughts about educational technology.

Dr Catherine Hart an educational researcher and teacher shared her view that Bring Your Own Device systems are preferable to a school supplied 1:1 system. This lead to a conversation about some of the challenges of 1:1 and BYOD systems.

I got to thinking about the support for using technology, especially from teachers who are themselves reluctant users of technology. How can we help teachers prepare to give the support our students need? Especially if there are a dozen different systems and devices that a class are using. (Android and iOS tablets, Mac and Windows laptops, some with MS office others without)

I have had some ideas, while I am not an expert and have not used all of these ideas with tech reluctant teachers I think they are things I will try with teachers who I am supporting and mentoring in future.

1. It is just a tool – Remind them computer technology (tablet, mobile, laptop or desktop) are just tools for assisting learning, like a pen and paper or a book.

2. Demonstrate – Showing a teacher what is possible with technology and how it is done can be a good way to help them think about doing it themselves. This might be making a short video, recording a podcast or even just producing a powerpoint that is an effective reflection of learning.

3. Admit you don’t know everything – I have had some teachers who have thought there was just too much to learn. When I admitted that I was still learning new things about technology and showed them some of the ways I learnt new things it made them more relaxed about not knowing all the answers. This works with some students too.

4. Pair them with tech strong students – Some students are highly capable with technology, having the tech reluctant teachers work with them can help the teacher become a life long learner and the student become a teacher.

5. Give them time – this is often a challenge for schools but giving teachers time to play with a tool or method of creation will enable them to become more confident in their ability to learn other tools.

These are five that came to mind for me. Are there any techniques that you think will help?

David Folland

Social Networks for Teachers

Social Networks for Teachers

Updated 18th September

(A presentation for teachers at my school, shared with the world. Please comment to help me improve my presentation)

What are Social Medias?

Social medias are computer networks that allow sharing ‘things’ and responding to ‘things’ others have shared. It is the ability to respond that makes it social.

The Different Social Medias

The different social media have different uses. All this can be explained with donuts.

The Australian Government has also produced a useful social media guide which helps people to understand what is able to be shared and how it can be controlled. The South Australian Government has also posted a guide at its ForwardIT site

I  am going to look at how teachers can make use of (some of) these for their personal development or their classroom teaching.

The western worlds most powerful networks in relation to reach, number of users and corporate might are Google (who also own Blogger and YouTube), Facebook and Twitter.

There are other networks in other countries, and todays big three were not that way five years ago (remember MySpace and Yahoo?) and may not be the big three in 5 years. However that is no reason not to give them a go.

As a teacher there are many things I find that I want to share with others, and I am not alone. How are they sharing?

Facebook and Twitter are the two networks I use but most of the ideas presented here have relevance to other systems. I often share information I find. In the last few weeks I have shared a youtube channel reviewing iPad apps for schools with my ICT Coordinator and Tech. I have discussed thoughts about Pinterest (a graphical social link sharing and recording system) Blog posts about using Facebook with my twitter friends, Shared the excitement of the Mars Landing (which I also blogged about) and shared a video about the power of the internet from 1995 (the year I first used the internet).

If you want to share on Facebook or Twitter like I have you need an account.

Sign up for Facebook

Sign Up for twitter

You will need an email address to create an account, which you can keep private. You can then add as much or as little information to your account as you would like.

Twitter Profile Information

It is important when setting up your account that you adjust your privacy settings to prevent sharing further than you intend.

Settings control for Facebook

Once you have joined Facebook or Twitter there are a number of ways that you can use them to help in your teaching.

The key to Social Media/Social Networks is the Social, the connections with people.

On Twitter you can follow people. Some of the things they share will be extremely helpful. After you have followed a number of people you may find it difficult to keep up with all the things they share. Or you may want to separate the different types of account. For this reason you can place people in twitter groups. Either the twitter website or an app (such as twitteriffic, tweetie, tweekdeck) enable you to only view posts by the people and organisations in the group.

Posts from some people in Science and Education who I follow.

There will also be times when there is an event or topic that you are interested in. To examine tweets from this hashtags # can be used. As in the #MSL tag above or the #CEGSA tag listed below.

#CEGSA

A use of Twitter that I find interesting is that of Mr Lamshed’s class. They are not the only class tweeting but chatting with Mr Lamshed about his class in person at a conference earlier this year was interesting. Mr Lamshed is an active member of the #CEGSA community on Twitter.

Finally you can set up a link subscription service like paper.li that will collect links that your network have shared during the past 12, 24, 48 hrs or even a week. Different papers can be set up with different settings.

The Lordfolland Daily – My educational focused paper.li subscription

With Facebook there are three key ways to learn useful educational information. Firstly become friends with other teachers at your school or teaching in similar areas. They may have suggestions for useful resources, or be able to answer your questions. You may even help them in their teaching development.

The second way to be involved in personal development on Facebook is joining groups. These are collections of people who have a similar interest. A group with an SA focus that I and many of my friends are members of is “What a Great Teaching Idea“. Here teachers share resources or ask for resources from other teachers.

My friends in the group What a Great Teaching Idea

Some of the questions on What a Great Teaching Idea

A third source of useful teacher support is pages. These are created by businesses (like educational publishers) or organisations (such as Computer Education Group South Australia or Teaching and Learning in SA)

The Facebook Page of the DECD Teaching and Learning Unit

One of the powers of both Facebook and Twitter is their mobile interfaces. With a 3G/4G phone or unfiltered wireless network you are able to ask and respond to questions during the school day. This also allows for sharing not just of links but of our whole lives.

Mobile Facebook

Mobile Twitter

Many social media experts suggest that a good way to increase credibility within a community is to share not just education links but also things about activities or interests. Interacting with other people by answering their questions or commenting on their shares also improves credibility.

There are a number of things to remember about being a teacher on Facebook or Twitter. For South Australian teachers some of the most relevant are outlined in the DECD Code of Ethics  page on public comment. These include a reminder that Facebook and Twitter are public sites and so things shared on these sites can be public too. Also students should not be followed or friended by their teachers as this can lead to suggestions of inappropriate relationships.

DECD has published some guidelines and resources for using social media. While they are mainly focused on schools and units it is a good idea to have a look at them, particularly the reminders about interacting with students. [Added 5th September 2012]

There are many guides for people about Twitter or Facebook. George Couros a divisional innovative learning leader from Canada has had a number of good tips. These include Using a photo of yourself for your social network avatar and what you share does matter, even if you don’t feel it does. All of your activity on Twitter, Facebook and other similar networks adds up to what is called your digital footprint. At the CEGSA conference this year George shared on how to develop your footprint. These suggestions related mainly to Twitter, but applying the same ides to Facebook works too. Adelaide Social Media expert Michelle Prak also has some good social media advice on her Prakkypedia. These include a list of 10 Reasons to use Twitter and First 3 things to do when you join twitter if you are still unsure about it. Many profiles on blogs and twitter pages that mention an employing organisation like DECD state that “These views are my own and not that of my employer” this is to ensure that no one assumes that we are publishing for our organisations. Some people create longer disclosure statements on their blogs, this is particularly important when you have a large readership such as danah boyd.

As I mentioned Social Media can be an amazing resource. While preparing this post I asked Twitter and Facebook for advice for you all. Dr Solis suggested that having a good password is important, prevents others accessing your account. My wife reiterated on Facebook the thought about not following students, something she talked to me about when I first joined twitter about four years ago.  Trudy Sweeney pointed me towards Teaching Teachers to Tweet where this useful graphic was posted that explains what tweets mean.

Anatomy of a Tweet by Greg Kulowiec, shared by Justin Reich

Once people have established a presence of sharing other peoples published works the next step is self publishing. this is most often done via blogs, such as this one hosted by WordPress. The use of other blog platforms such as Edublogs or Blogger (which uses google accounts) is also possible. Tom March shared many ideas about setting up a blog at CEGSA 2011. It is also possible to use your Blog account to keep track of what other people are sharing on their blogs.

A Selection of blogs I follow in WordPress

So Facebook, Twitter, Blogs. Not hard to do, you might learn lots. Go connect with some friends, follow some tweeps (twitter people) and share with the world.

Remember if you do join Facebook or Twitter there are lots of wonderful people who will help you in your journey. These include me @lordfolland.

David Folland

The Lordfolland Daily

I have just created a Paper.il account to collect the key articles from my teaching and science tweeps. You can check it out if you want.

Great moments in SEMT

I was home today looking after my wife and son and had both a great disappointment and a wonderful opportunity. This afternoon, just before 3pm local time the NASA Curiosity Rover carrying the Mars Science Laboratory landed on Mars.
Being home with Mr3 I was able to watch with him and share with him some of my excitement in this great achievement of Science, Engineering, Maths and Technology (SEMT). He was amazed when I told him that the photos came all the way from another planet. He also commented that he has a shadow too (as seen in the second photo).
My disappointment was not being at school where I may have had the chance (after overriding filters on the NASA live stream) of showing up to 100 13 year olds this great moment. The flexible nature of our year eight teaching space and program would have made this a distinct possibility. I hope that other teachers were able to use this moment to encourage the next generation of scientists and engineers to head down the path that will see some of them following in the wheel prints of Curiosity. This landing may be the biggest moment of SEMT footage this year (with millions of views, tweets and status updates) but I hope I will get the chance to use future events like this to inspire some students.

Khan Academy

I like Khan Academy, I think that it is good collection of videos and an excellent tools for students to develop their procedural maths problem solving skills. I do not however think that it can be at present a complete Maths Education. There are some students who do not learn effectively from lecture presentations (even ones they can control the pass of). There is also a need to develop skills in application of these maths skills to real life problems. As a teacher I find the ability to track student progress in their skill development useful and mush more insightful than just setting an end of topic test. 

I presented recently on Khan Academy at the CEGSA Conference. If you want to see more about it check out my Slide share. 

Fell free to ask questions about Khan or my presentation in the Comments.

Why I don’t Blog

Blogs have been part of my professional learning since I was doing my post grad education degree a little over ten years ago. Since that time I have read some blogs on a regular basis for many years (Blue Skunk Blog, Stephen’s Lighthouse) others I have only read for a little while (The Principal of Change, The Butterfly Effect) and others I only read when someone links me an article (normally via twitter). These blogs have given me many ideas about teaching, some of which I have implemented in my classes and school. Blog reading has been only part of my personal professional development with attendance at conferences like CEGSA and ACEC and following twitter streams like #EdTech and #CEGSAPLN also important.

I said this post was about why I don’t blog. For me there are two key reasons.

1. It has been said before. Many of the posts I read are by thought leaders, people who a leading digital learning conversations in their school, district, country and the world. I do not feel I am one of those leaders, what I do in my class has been done before, often by dozens of others, I know I have read the blogs. For this reason I don’t bother sharing what I do via a blog.

2. Leadership doubt. I think this is the bigger one. Many of the blogs I read are about leading others. I have had some success as a peer coach in my schools, I have been continually improving my practice especially around the use of technologies, I have openly shared the things I have learnt in my school and at conferences like CEGSA and ACEC. Despite all that I do keep missing out on leadership positions at my school, often to people who have less experience in informal ICT leadership. This has made me question if I have anything that my school wants to hear, and if my school thinks what I have to say is not worthwhile why would anyone on the internet want to hear it?

What are your thoughts? Do any of my readers think I have something worth sharing, or are there other reasons to blog that I am not thinking of.