Personal Passion Project: Let the quest begin!

"Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st Century."
Alfred Edward Perlman

I have been exploring ideas around the transformation of education through gamification for a couple of years now and so I am excited to finally have found something to really support this in my teaching and learning. In a nutshell, 3D Game Lab is a platform in which teachers can create quests that allow students to select their own learning pathways. Like a game, students can earn experience (XP) points and rewards as they work toward 'winning' a class.

As an educator who believes in the power of agency to foster student engagement, I have been trying to create personalized learning environments using a variety of digital tools to help. I've had blogs and class web sites; tried flipping my classes; used digital learning menus; implemented Genius Hour or passion projects; and created Edmodo groups - all to try and allow for my students to have choice in how they learn and how they share their new understandings with others. While these tools and strategies were a step in the right direction as my students were definitely engaged, it all felt too disjointed and it was difficult to manage so many different approaches. I kept thinking if there was only a way to bring all of these different elements together; some type of platform that would keep track of all the students achievements and accomplishments.

One of the things I loved about Edmodo was the ability to create and award badges for students when certain tasks or activities had been completed. The students loved receiving the badges, but they could only share them with their classmates or others they were connected to on the site. They were unable to share these digital badges on their WordPress blogs / digital portfolios, where they communicated about their learning with the wider community. This led me to look for alternatives and that's when I discovered the Open Badges Movement.

As I learned more about the philosophy surrounding open badges I became more convinced that this is the direction forward - that such a movement will support the transformation of education. I created my Mozilla Backback and began to explore. I loved it! So much choice and so many opportunities to connect with like-minded others. This was some of the best professional development I had experienced and I immediately began to think of my students and how much they might benefit from such choice and control over their learning.

It was through this exploration of open learning that I found 3D Game Lab. After trying a demo account I have now signed up to make the most of what I believe will provide the type of learning environment I've been striving to create. I am 'playing' to learn how to best use the platform as I complete quests about game-based and quest-based learning. Once I earn my 'builder' badge I plan to design quests for my students and colleagues and that's when the fun will really begin!

Changes, Challenges & reCharging

"The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like I'm in the middle of a battlefield."  

~Amanda Palmer

Not writing a post on my blog has been haunting me for months. The longer I waited, the more daunting the task became. I had many legitimate reasons for not writing: looking for a new job, finding one and then preparing a family for a move to a new country, moving, settling into a new role, new school, new home, new country. But it's been 8 months! I'm officially settled (and so is my family). No more excuses or long winded explanations ~ I'm going to eat my biggest frog.

Since moving into my new role as a Technology for Learning Coordinator at an international school in Switzerland, I've been feeling too overwhelmed to contribute my thoughts about anything. A 'virtual colleague' in my PLN, @DwyerTeacher wrote the blog post, A Sea of Ideas and it seemed to echo my thoughts. Having to define and explain what is important to me as I build new relationships with new colleagues - well it has simply been exhausting. Where do you start?

Then a couple of things happened this week to bring me back - the Hour of Code and a global classroom project. While these are two very different ways to integrate technology into primary education, both are at the heart of what I think is important to learning - they allow for student driven inquiry, they are flexible in order to meet students' individual needs and both endeavours are highly engaging.

And so I must thank my students for their enthusiasm during our first Hour of Code session. They were an inspiration and I had just as much fun as they did trying to solve the problems. This type of student engagement and the possibilities provided by technology to transform of education are the reason I keep learning and pushing my own little envelopes.

Finally I must thank a person I've only just met through our new collaborative global project. After reading her blog I have been inspired to get back on track and start reflecting on my own learning. Blog posts do not have to be essays or position papers. It's okay to be brief and write what you are thinking.

I am leaving the 'battlefield' of not being good enough and beginning to feel creatively energised once again. It feels good to be back.

photo credit: Lawrence Whittemore via photopin cc

Student Driven Inquiry

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions.”  ~ Sir Ken Robinson in The Element, 2009

We were most fortunate to have educational consultant, Kath Murdoch visit our school recently to explore inquiry and literacy.  Teaching in a big and busy PYP school, collaboration and inquiry is an integral part of our practice, but we do tend to have a lot going on and as a result reflecting on our own practice is at times pushed to the side. I am not referring to the reflection we do as a team on our planners, looking for evidence of student learning and thinking about the extent to which we achieved our purpose. I am referring to personal reflection, asking about the practices in our own teaching and what is happening in our own classes. Having the opportunity to talk with Kath about how children best learn was a wonderful invitation to take a closer look at the inquiries taking place in my classroom.

One of the aspects of the PYP that I have always loved is the belief in a constructivist approach to learning and the importance of student-driven inquiry. The tension I find is in the planning - if the teachers are deciding upon the central ideas for the planned units, how do we allow for student voice? Yes, we strive to create provocations that invite students to engage in open-ended inquiries, but in the end, we have a 'programme of inquiry' and this has been created well before we have even met our students. I shared this tension with Kath and my teaching team and I was introduced to the idea of Genius Hour.

Genius Hour is a time set aside each week for students to pursue personal inquiries. I loved the idea of this for it would allow for authentic student-driven inquiry, something that I feel passionate about. It would also be a vehicle to help students to uncover their own passions ~ what interests them? So much of our time in class is spent engaged in activities created by teachers, Genius Hour would empower students to create their own investigations, formulate questions to which they were truly interested in finding answers. 

It did not take long to find a host of resources to support the introduction of Genius Hour to my students. I discussed it with my Grade 4 class and they were keen to give it a go. After some initial set up and determining our essential agreements for this time, our Genius Hour was born. 

It has been amazing watching the students during this block of time each Thursday. They are so engaged in their own learning that you would never know there are 25 students working on different projects at the same time. Their choices are also varied ~ from learning more about quasars and atoms to investigating art forms and ancient history. While I expected the engagement to be high, I was not prepared for the how interested the students would be in each others' learning. Listening to classmates ask questions of each other and the proud way in which they share what they have discovered ~ this was nothing like the way my students have typically shared findings during our unit investigations. 

I have no regrets about implementing this change to my classroom practice. Yes, it does take a considerable amount of our time, but it is worth every minute of it. The students are still developing the transdisciplinary skills and attitudes that are a part of our PYP programme and more importantly, they are acquiring a love of learning. They are becoming more curious and confident in their own abilities, willing to take risks and try something new. They are becoming inquirers.

We may not yet have created the school environment envisioned by Sir Ken Robinson, but I believe this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Many Paths to Making Meaning

"You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way."~Marvin Minsky

I distinctly remember my frustration in math class as a child when my teacher would impatiently say, 'Just do this,' and then proceed to show me some algorithm that I was expected to memorize and use on the test. I had no idea what I was doing and it was always a mystery to me why sometimes it worked and my answers were correct and other times it didn't. I couldn't tell if my answers were close, because I had no idea what I was doing. And yet, I passed the tests. I will never forget my great, 'Ah, ha' moment when in high school a teacher actually took the time to show me what was happening when we applied these mysterious steps to arrive at a solution. By constructing models and visualizing the numbers, I finally understood what was going on. Finally, it made sense ~ it was such a relief.

I keep this experience close as a teacher as I never want to put my students through such an ordeal. I believe educators are much more aware today of the importance of students constructing their own meaning and that there are many ways to arrive at a mathematical solution. 

The following is a brief account of my Grade 4 class investigation into multiplication as it appeared on our class blog.

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One of the key ideas I hope students develop as a result of a mathematical investigation is that there is more than one way to approach any problem. This is true as well for number operations. During our exploration of multiplication, students have been encouraged to try new methods to build a deeper understanding of this concept.

We began our investigation by giving students multiple opportunities to build on what they already know. We shared the different ways in which we can represent multiplication with simple expressions, such as 3 x 4. Our class collaboratively built a chart with the following models:

We then explored how we might apply this knowledge to multiply larger numbers. Students worked in small groups and constructed models using two digit numbers in their expressions. Some representations worked well, others we discovered were not practical for larger numbers. Many students used this opportunity to share algorithms they were already familiar with. As a challenge, the students were asked to use base ten blocks to show what was happening in the steps of their method. This resulted in our first class method of multiplication, Multiplying in Expanded Form.

We then took a closer look at how arrays might be helpful when multiplying larger numbers. While it provided a good visual representation of an expanded form of the larger number as we decided it was not really practical to make arrays for very large numbers. This was our second class method, Multiplying with Arrays.

After constructing an understanding of multiplication with large numbers, students were keen to find methods that would not take as much time to calculate. We went back to the algorithms shared earlier by the students. Now, the students had a much better understanding of what was happening when we used this method, that we have name, Regroup and Carry.

For students who wanted to a a clearer picture of the regrouping that took place, we devised two other methods that illustrate what is happening during the process. We called these Place Value Multiplication and Vertical Multiplication.

Place Value Multiplication
Vertical Multiplication

Today I introduced two other methods for the students to try. The first is very similar to our expanded form method. The second one is commonly called the Lattice Method and many of the students have decided this is a favourite way to multiply.

I encourage you to talk to your child about the different methods and discuss which way they prefer to multiply. Do you have a favourite method?

Math? Language? History? It's about understanding

"To be truly educated, a student must also make connections across the disciplines, discover ways to integrate the separate subjects, and ultimately relate what they learn to life."
~ Ernest Boyer

To better understand where we are in time as a part of our unit investigations, students have worked collaboratively to create a huge timeline spanning over 4 millennia. We began this mathematical inquiry be discussing what we already know about some of the words associated with time: decade, century and millennium. It didn't take long for students to make connections between other words they have used in math, such as decimal, centimetre, millilitre. How many centimetres in a metre? How many millilitres in a litre? What other words have these beginnings? The connection to the base 10 system was strong and made sense; decades were 10 years, centuries consisted of 100 years and a millenium was, of course 1000 years (this is all leading to a new word study centre 'It's all Greek ~ or Latin ~ to Me', but that is for a later post!).

Once the students understood the parts of the timeline, we looked at a number line we would use in math. While counting from 'Year 1' to today makes a lot of sense for students in Grade 4, go further back in time, Ancient Rome for example, is another story. This led our conversation into a discussion of BC and AD, terms the students had heard before, but what did they mean? Again, a discussion about Latin, as well as the Christian influence in our calendars. We moved on to talk about how today, many scholars agree to call these times the Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE), which we have agreed to use for our timeline. Now a very tricky bit of thinking occurred, if we look at the separating point between BCE and CE (traditionally thought of as the birth of Christ) we know that the numbers get larger from 1 to present day ~ 2012. We explored how the numbers also appear larger as they move farther away from this point in the opposite direction (BCE).

The students then formed 4 groups with each one responsible for the construction of a segment of the timeline. Each segment was to represent one millennium and show the centuries and decades, labelled with the appropriate years. After much measuring (to ensure equal parts of 10) calculating, cutting, labeling and gluing, our timeline is complete and hanging in our classroom.

Lastly we placed the major events and periods of time that the students have investigated as a part of their inquiry into this unit. In doing so, they will have a much greater appreciation of where they are in place and time.

Learning in a Digital World

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."

~ John Dewey

There is no denying the impact technology is having on our schools and they way we approach inquiry. Working in a 1:1 laptop environment with my Grade 6 students has made this a mandatory conversation for our school; how are our technology initiatives affecting student learning? And so, I asked my students, how has their access to technology helped them with their own learning. We created a Google Doc to share our ideas and the following article is the result of this collaboration.

  

We use our computers and access to the Internet to do many different things at school and at home. Technology helps us develop our skills in communication and collaboration; provides information for our investigations and research; has tools that let us show our ideas in creative ways – we use technology every day.

Our Blogs

Our blogs are a great sharing tool for us when we need to show our learning. We regularly use them to share our experiences. Just like the “Bahrain Blogger” shares his experience of being in a civil war, being bloggers lets us show others what life is like at our school. We can upload media files to express our feelings or show our presentations. There are cool widgets that we can insert into pages or posts. We can also learn from each other by giving and receiving feedback on blog posts. I think that the blog is a great way of connecting to other people all over the world.

We also have a class blog that shares information about what we are doing at school. There are reminders on this blog about important events and our parents can visit to see what we are doing. Our teacher also puts links and videos on the blog that are connected to our units of inquiry. We can also download things we need like rubrics, letters and tasks. I can also find the links to other blogs, such as other students, teachers and schools, as well as favourite websites.

Google Docs/ PiratePad

Google Docs is a very helpful tool when you are working in a group. It is an online collaborative site that allows you to work online with other people typing at the same time. I use Google Docs almost every time I am working on a group project. Sometimes, I even use Google Docs when I am working alone so that I can access my project or information from anywhere. In Google Docs you can edit a project when other people are working on it at the same time. You can also make a spreadsheet, a survey, a presentation, a scrapbook and many more other useful items. The chat allows you to communicate with other people, even if you are not in the same place. It also auto saves so when you type it will save for you making sure that no work is lost. You can also access a Doc by a link, and you don’t have to be shared with it to change it. The owner of the document can limit the functions of other people, such as make them view only, or comment only. The owner can also change who the owner is. On a Google Doc, you can change the visibility so that it is public. Then other people can answer any questions you might put on the Doc. Google Docs is useful for collaboration, gathering information, and group work.

PiratePad is similar to Google Docs, but has several other features. On Google Docs, if you are signed into Google, you are stuck with your login name. If you are not signed in, and you have accessed the Doc by a link, then your name is ‘Anonymous User’ and then a number. With PiratePad, you can change your name as much as you want. There is no ‘owner’ on PiratePad, you need a link to view and edit, and you are not allowed to change someone’s status. The only problem with that is that the document is public. Another cool feature of PiratePad is that you can replay the entire development of a document. Everything that is typed, chatted, or changed is recorded and can be viewed like a recording.

Mathletics

Mathletics is an online learning tool that allows students from all over the world to compete against each other on their basic facts such as addition, multiplication, subtraction and division. Besides that, it also provides online lessons and you can work on math problems and tasks that teachers assign to students. I like that we don’t all have to do the same tasks and if we get stuck there are tutorials that we can watch. We use Mathletics to practice and it was fun to take part in the World Math Day challenge.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a website where students and teachers can login and either watch the educational videos or practice math skills in the practice section. It is a great online practice tool that can help you understand a math skill. For example if you are stuck on probability, there is a video where it would help you out then you can go to the practice page for that skill. There is even a ‘scratch pad’ so you can use drawing tools to help figure out the answer. Teachers can connect to their students’ accounts to check on their students’ skills and use of time on the website. There are also achievements to boost morale, and skills must be sometimes reviewed. The downside is that unlike Mathletics, coaches cannot assign skills for students to work on, and there is currently only math practice, although there are videos about other things, even science. Students are able to set goals for themselves, track their own progress, ask and answer questions about videos, and finish challenges. The best part about it is, Khan Academy is probably the best free teacher and motivator around!

YouTube / Vimeo

I love using Youtube or Vimeo because it allows you to share your videos and pictures with the whole world for free. You can control who sees your videos, too. Everyone can watch if you publish something and make it public, but you can also have videos that are private or unlisted. If you want to share something with your friends you don’t have to send a big file and they can watch it anywhere there is an Internet connection. I find it really interesting when someone from a far away country comments on my videos and these provide feedback for my Youtube channel. I also make lots of friends on Youtube – we subscribe to each others’ channels and can share our videos. When I have free time on the computer, Youtube is the site I go to most! Personally, I feel that it is a great site no matter if it is for education or for entertainment. I like to surf the web and see if there are any interesting videos to watch, sometimes this is for school to help me understand something, sometimes it might be to find a solution to a problem I am having in a video game and sometimes it’s just for fun. Youtube is basically a online school, but we have to be careful because some tutorials may not be accurate and some videos may not be appropriate, so it’s always good to double check their sources.

iMovie

One fun way to do a summative assessment or task is to make a movie. Quite often our tasks involve making trailers or interviews and showing them to the class. When we go on fieldtrips we also film and take photos of things around us. Students and teachers can use this educational tool for sharing presentations, books and their learning of something. Using iMovie we can easily piece together movies, adding music, special effects and the photos and films we have taken. The application includes a camera to capture your film, special effects, sound effects and themes, such as newscasts or scrapbooks. iMovie is simple and easy to use and it has great editing tools which helps your video to be more exciting. We use iMovie a lot so we all know how to use it and have fun with it.

Soundcloud

Soundcloud is an online audio website, where instead of videos, like Youtube you can put up sounds. Sounds may include original songs, written or composed, they can also be covers of songs that have already been made, they can also be a clip of you playing an instrument, you name it. The presentation of these sounds is really cool because there is a wavelength feature so you can see what is loud, and quiet. The accounts are completely free and come with approximately two hours of audio time. If you upgrade to their paid version, there is an unlimited amount of time. You can comment on a specific section of the song, or just make an overall comment. It helps people to become recognized in the art world. For example, I started an account for fun a month ago, and now there is already over 700 plays of my songs! It is a really good interface because I can get feedback from musicians halfway around the world! Also, similar to Twitter, you can follow people and they can follow you.

Student-led Conference Series

Our class participated in an on-line student led conference series this with schools from Australia and Romania. Using a virtual classroom called Blackboard Collaborate we took turns sharing presentations we had made with each other. Our subject could be about anything we wanted - my presentation was about Minecraft. I think this was an amazing project!

Skype

Skype is a free way to video call people around the world and is something that you can use to interact with different schools and communities. It is simple to use so you can easily communicate with others. Skype has a chat function that is student friendly. We have used Skype to chat with other schools across the world, and right now team members for the PYP Exhibition can create Skype conferences to chat with each other after school. There are some drawbacks. Sometimes people say things they wouldn’t say if they were face to face and then cyber-bullying could become a problem. Also, some people stay on Skype too long chatting to friends. You have to be principled and use Skype responsibly.

Global Hello Project

The Global Hello Project is an online website where a variety of schools connect with each other and share what life is like in their school and country. Each school has their own page to add links, videos, and pictures in order for visitors to about each other. Our class is part of the Global Hello Project and added a video to our page.

Twitter

Twitter is a great place to send out short updates of what is happening for us right now. We can quickly and easily share an update or an event that’s going. Other people can even reply to your tweet or retweet you and share your tweet on their own page. I like using Twitter because it is a great way to connect with other people in your class or even songwriters, director and singers! Twitter enables us to contact people in our exhibition group and even our own families! You can use an @ to talk to someone specific and a # (hash-tag) to tweet about an event. We are currently using twitter for our exhibition as we don’t have a lot of time to write a blog post. A great way we used Twitter was when we wrote what our top 3 choices were for the Exhibition. Then we had a neat little hash-tag called #cdnispypx12 and when we searched on the Twitter page, all the results which had that hash-tag came out.

WallWisher/CorkBoard.Me (online bulletin board)

Online bulletin boards are a very useful tool, when you want to share your ideas or thoughts you can just start writing into it. It is not possible to get confused about who wrote what because each person uses their own sticky and the sticky asks for your name before you write anything. There is an unlimited amount of stickies you can out on the board and you can pile them up if you want to. Since you have your own sticky if someone uses a new line it will not move your words. WallWisher and CorkboardMe can also be used by a large amount of people, once our whole grade used it to write down ideas for a project. While the whole grade was using the corkboard the online bulletins did not lag or have any problems. Unfortunately sometimes the online bulletin board sticky has a word limit and that can be annoying.

Coding

Applescript editor is a fun tool that is pre-installed on our computers. From this we can learn to code different types of dialog boxes, and make our computers ‘talk’! Learning how to code is actually a skill that will be useful later on in our lives, which are heavily influenced by technology.

Applescript is easy to learn and it helps you understand how your computer and software that you have works. Once you know how to use it you can use it is easy to make your computer do things by writing applications. We have made different ones including a security application that opens on login to make sure the owner is using the computer, and an application opener, that opens up different applications and asks you what you want to do with them.

Some of us like to use Xcode, which is more advanced than Applescript and lets you design your own apps. With Xcode you can create apps and post them on the app store for anyone to download.

We also go to a website called Code Academy, where we can learn to create Javascript. Applescript is slightly different from Javascript, and the two are not interchangeable. However, both serve basically the same purpose and both are quite fun to experiment with.

NoodleTools 

NoodleTools is an online website where you can organize a research project. You can cite your sources here and it will create a proper MLA bibliography. You can also add people to your project and work collaboratively, linking to your note cards and a Google Doc. You can share your project with your teachers and they can give you feedback using annotate.

I like using NoodleTools because it is an extremely helpful resource.

~ Collaboratively written by the 6C Cookies.

My Technology Story

"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time."
~ Chinese Proverb

Recently, while browsing through the happenings at ISTE, I came across a link to tell My Technology Story. Being interested in the ways in which technology are driving change in education I obviously clicked and was taken to a form with two questions:

• How has technology made you a more effective teacher or administrator?
• Based on your response to the above question, how has student learning improved as a result?

As I began to type my responses into the form I realized what great questions these were. With all the talk these days about 21^st century learning, being digital natives or digital immigrants, using web 2.0 or 3.0 tools I feel we are skirting around what needs to be at the heart of the discussion – how we use technology to improve student learning.

Below are my brief responses to the questions as I shared them on the ISTE form.

How has technology made you a more effective teacher or administrator?

Working in a 1:1 laptop environment with my Grade 6 class has enabled me to do so much more with differentiation. I am able to have students work on very different tasks - informed by need, learning style and interest - yet develop the same concepts, working toward a more in-depth understanding of our central ideas or enduring understandings.

Technology has also enabled me to become a more consistent and effective communicator with parents and the wider school community. Updates on our class blog keep parents informed about our events and activities. My professional blog (this one!) helps me better understand my own practice; reflecting and 'thinking out loud' help me to clarify my own understandings about teaching and learning.

Finally, building a PLN with access to blogs, wikis, organizations and social networks such as Twitter, keeps me connected to other educators. This is a vital part of my learning and I am now trying to share some of these ideas with my students. We are learning to use Twitter as a class, creating a list that allows all of the students and I to share thoughts, questions and ideas with each other.

How has student learning improved as a result?

I believe my students feel ownership over their learning. They have choices about what they will do and how they will show or share their learning with others. This became most evident during our recent student-ledlearning reviews when my students created their own agendas, planning how they would share their learning with their parents.

My students feel connected. They have multiple opportunities to learn with others in various ways: Skype conversations, presenting and participating in a student-led conference series via Blackboard Collaborate, blogging, tweeting – they have an authentic and global audience.

My students are skillful. They know how to locate relevant information and are learning how to evaluate the reliability of the source. They are writers. They not only maintain their own blogs, they read and comment on others’ blogs. They create amazing videos and tutorials to share, applying the processes once reserved for writing. They participate – joining and contributing in areas of personal interest. Many of my students have their own YouTubechannels and SoundCloud accounts where they share their compositions and ask others for feedback ~ which they receive!

Most importantly, I believe my students' learning has improved because they are aware of their learning; they are the directors of their learning. This has been made possible because of the technologies available to them and the access they now have to their own learning communities. As their guide and facilitator, they can contact me when they need help - this might be on a weekend or in the evening, but through Twitter, email, blog comments and Skype, we are no longer confined to the school day or the actual building.

What strikes me when I review My Technology Story responses is that it has little to do with technology. It is about empowering students to be actively involved in their learning. The conversation needs to be about how we develop spaces for learning, where students collaborate, question, challenge, create, participate.

These two questions are a great place to start this conversation.