Week 12 – Final class – My Blue Sky thinking synthesis

Key Tasks
– Found a Blue Sky thinking graphic from my PLN to represent learning in the course
– Created a supplementary graphic organizer to articulate my vision on my journey to become a transformational leader
– Actively contributed and participated in each colleagues’ Blue sky thinking presentations
– Corresponded and collaborated with Catherine and Colin on our learning logs
– Created Week 12 entry on Learning Log and Week 13 post-script

Learning Outcomes 

Demonstrate growth in identifying the issues, barriers, affordances, and potential of technologies in their workplace or education setting.
Synthesize the course readings, discussions and presentations.  Develop and articulate a philosophy of technology leadership.
Participate in a community of learners’ forum/blog for reflection on metacognition. Practice self and peer assessment.

Reflection

When completing this assignment, I considered the development of my thinking and learning throughout the course into 4 categories: new ideas, new skills, new pedagogies and new connections and/or approaches to learning. My graphic organizer below demonstrates my new learning which I will apply to my professional practice, with specific application in a leading an implementation of 1:1 devices in our Junior school. As a technology leader, I hope to partner with colleagues and aspire to the photograph found through my PLN on “Twitter”.  In the class, Colin and Cat presented a picture of an “epic win” from Jane Mcgonigal’s research so perhaps this photograph of PD from @TechSmithEDU demonstrates an “epic win” when educators are collaborating with technology. No doubt these colleagues found something that will benefit their practice and most likely their students.

Here is a copy of the feedback from colleagues in the chat window.

JOSHUA : great mindmap, loved it
Lori: great overview
ORLY: good job Anthony 🙂
JAKE: Thanks Anthony! You have been a great asset to the class! nice job
BRIAN: If your final course is the portfolio course, this summary is perfect to include. The photo represents a mentee and mentor as they co-learn.
JOLI: the popplet was very interesting and a nice overview of the learning in the course
Kimberly: I am always learning in this course! lovin the popplet…. your gr4s have so much to teach me!!! 🙂 lovin the clear organization!
JOYCE: great synthesis of your learning
ALISON: we need to practice what we preach Anthony
Colin: Thanks for the overview. the organization helps the synthesis
MICHAEL: really nice summary – broke down the concepts very clearly and thanks for sharing
Cat: Thanks Anthony – the photo was great – I really like the idea of teachers being as engaged as students in learning and collaborating. Your popplet was really helpful to show your thinking.
LYSA: definitely feel inspired to create a mindmap just for my own learning from this course 🙂
LAURIE: you move from your class to our class and back again – making obvious connections to your learning and ours
 Lorayne: @Anthony – the use of the popplet is great if you are a global thinker! We could see the big picture and then you worked through each concept to get to your metaphor. Nicely done in support of our learning.
ALISON: The photo was indeed great and you really have been able to synthesize what you’ve learned in this class.
Kaley Willer: Great presentation! Your image was very clear and had many great discussion points
Overall, I received some very encouraging feedback. I particularly liked how Brian mentioned the mentor/mentee relationship from my synthesis  photo (above) and that made me consider the importance of being both a learner and educator (sometimes at the same time) to maintain perspective and encourage a learner-centered approach. In this course I learned much from variety of research, activities and most importantly through colleagues. In my practice, I will aspire to be a “lead learner” with my students and adapt to new developments in technology and learning. Overall,..we are a class to tweet about!

Week 10+11 – Policy Analysis

Key Tasks
– Selected and began working on the “Interview with Technology Leader” option for Assignment #3
– Used my notes from the Borokhovski (2011) article in my research and policy analysis
– Completed Assignment #3 Policy Analysis option instead and created an asynchronous presentation in Voice Thread
– Listened to Week 11 recordings for research and commentary
-Completed Week 9, 10+11 Learning Log entries

Learning Outcomes

Review the ISTE standards for technology leaders and apply them to analyze policy or leadership practice.

Reflection

For my assignment #3, I had a few challenges,  specifically, my interviewee dropped out at the last minute, I was “breaking in” a new computer (A Microsoft Surface Pro 2, excellent by the way (except for the automatic Windows updates that had a habit of kicking in during quiet(ish)moments). Although quiet moments when I was not completely shattered, were rare indeed while on a Disney vacation with 2 very excited kids. 🙂

Plan B was a policy analysis of the social media policy at our school which was quite interesting at this time in our school’s history. The faculty and staff are just beginning to leverage social media to meet the needs of students and learning community and I was looking forward to examining the policy (something I had never done before) and attempting to determine if it meets the needs of current and future students. This practice would no doubt help my professional practice and my school. In many ways as educators we have to protect, guide and teach our students in their environment (traditionally, a classroom or even a playground) but even though now students are more consistently interacting and engaging in digital realms (i.e. Twitter etc.), they will still need the same guidance and help.

Here is my Assignment # 3 using Voice Thread as the platform for my research.

http://voicethread.com/share/5550219/

Final reflection – One area that I did not mention specifically in the presentation would be how this policy supports the strands in ISTE standards. I wish I had referenced the ISTE standards in my Voice Thread because that would have been a good form of analysis. In short, the school social media policy does covering the modelling aspect of a teacher’s role with social media and address the leveraging of social media for professional learning. However, more examples of specific potentials for social media in the classroom would be excellent next steps for the school.

Week 8 – Our PBL process and reflection

Learning Outcomes
Articulate a purpose for technology leadership that connects learners’ needs in society to critical and emancipatory forms of technology leadership.

Key Tasks and Reflections

Updated Week 7 & 8 of Learning Log
Below chart pasted from Blackboard as requested.

1. Process – Watched van Oostveen’s resources  on PBL
Type of Process – Individual
Reflection – Copied the 7 steps of PBL as an initial framework of our PBL process.

2. Process – Our first step was to create a shared Google document as platform for our ideas, notes and progression of thoughts and ideas
Type of Process – Group/ synchronous
Reflection – This was an excellent time to share and bond over our individual perspectives and experiences. We also shared our “norms” for communication and contributed our next meeting times and email addresses. We decided that the Google Doc would a good resource to share the ideas and research as informal notes. Perhaps the use of commenting would have allowed individuals outside of the group to make sense of it but perhaps that is adding too much structure to the “messiness” of the PBL model.

3. Type of Process – Individual
Process – Read the Connected Learning article
Reflection – We all read and analyzed the article as it had lots of depth and many interesting ideas. Wish we had read and analyze this article during class time. (i.e. in breakouts)

4. Type of Process – Group/synchronous
Process – Read and Analyze problem
Reflection – We looked for common or shared experiences and all saw the benefits and opportunities of the connected learning model. As an initial perspective and attempt to read and define the problem, we became collectively interested in ways  to connect and prepare educators, educated in the 20th Century,  to support learners in the 21st century.

5. Type of Process – Group/synchronously
Process – Determine what is the problem and definition
Reflection – First attempt to frame the question. Interested in how connected learning could be facilitated by a 1:1 initiative. Could we use “Connected Learning” as a rationale for a 1:1 –program in a middle school?

6. Type of Process – Group/ asynchronously
Process – Defining prior knowledge
Reflection – Had difficulty getting everyone together syncronously for this stage but worked asyncronously on the Google Doc at this stage.  – –
Individual  3. Brainstorming “blue sky thinking”  Explored this video individually. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpQCEgEfRyc

7. Type of Process – Group
Process – Arrange into a clear structure
Reflection – Divided our individual research into 4 distinct parts. This structure would follow into our presentation elements. (In hindsight, we should have highlighted that each of us should share 1 key part rather than try to share ALL research!) Decided to use Prezi for our research and presentation. This framework would allow us to change perspective and detail. (i.e. sometimes discuss fine details and other times take a wider perspective.  At this point, we began preparing a framework for our presentation and focused away from a collaborative Google Doc to collaboration Prezi. The Prezi software allowed “live” collaboration which was helpful for seeing each others ideas take shape.

8. Type of Process – Group
Process – potential knowledge gaps and next steps learning goals
Reflection – We realized we needed some research into 1:1 implementation and Marc found a helpful research study which became a big part of our research and findings. However, we still were not sure about our progress and how we were doing? We reached to the professor for some feedback.

9. Type of Process – Individual
Process – Individual Research
Reflection -As our research progressed, we began to prepare a framework for our eventual presentation and focused away from a collaborative Google Doc to a collaborative Prezi. The Prezi software allowed “live” collaboration which was helpful for seeing each others ideas take shape.

10. Type of Process – Group/synchronously
Process – group discussion: discuss findings and share new info
Reflection -As our deadline approached, parts of presentation and research were completed and considered at various times. This was problematic as this step felt very rushed and ultimately, compromised the clarity of our presentation. (In hindsight, our presentation was too bloated and we subsequently we ran out of time.) Probably, a few more meetings in this stage would have helped us edit, refine and have increasing continuity. Overall, the process of PBL is quite messy and given its structure a flexible deadline (not always possible in a course but perhaps feasible in an research or professional setting) would have aided our goal to research and share our problem of training educators to help mentor middle school students in a connected learning in a 1:1 environment. In short, I found the PBL model interesting but some more time might have helped our presentation. Overall, the messiness and uncertainly made for an uneasy experience (felt quite discouraged with much in the way of help and support throughout 😦 )  but there were some new learnings that I found in the presentations. (i.e. Google Helpouts)

Sorry this chart was not displaying properly so this was the best version I could make without abandoning my theme.

Part 2.  Comment on a key aspect of learning through online interactions in this course using Anderson’s (2008) model of e-learning interactions as presented in diagram 2.4 http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/ch2.html

Having resources available and accessible online (student-content) has allowed me to read, learn and explore the educational materials in a variety of times, ways, times and places. The anytime, anyplace and any size (i.e. 10 min. to an one hour +) aspect of this online course has allowed me to engage with material at a quiet moment(?!) amid a variety of professional and personal commitments. In practical terms, I was easily able to download the articles and important documents through a cloud based storage app (Dropbox) and save them offline through my iPad for easy access. I might also access on my computer if needed or even my smartphone. Having a clear roadmap and the material available beforehand allowed me the opportunity to prepare my schedule accordingly to complete reading tasks in a timely manner.
In addition, the opportunity to leverage the web for research (i.e. scholarly resources like Google Scholar or online university databases), annotative evidence (blogs and other social media) and multi-media materials (YouTube and other sources) have been critical resources for knowledge building and further learning opportunities. Furthermore, the potential to connect (student-student) both internally (fellow students) and externally (my PLN) is also a worthy next step and vital for collaboration, idea sharing, discussion, debate and other learning. Finally, active participation through breakout groups, whole classes tasks in adobe connect (i.e. whiteboard) or leading as a discussant allowed me to explore these new ideas through a frank and cordial exchange of ideas and perspectives. My learning style is an active one and I learn best by participation. So far the use of chat, note-taking, reading, discussions and at times social media has allowed me to maintain “flow” while engaging the materials in a synchronously during our  regular class time or asynchronously anytime. (All this possible from my rec room in my pajamas (off camera of course) 🙂 Without this online setting, I doubt I would have the opportunity with my work and personal commitments to participate in this course.

Week 6 – With the increasing learning opportunities using technology, are the terms digital immigrants and digital natives helpful anymore?

Key Tasks
– Read and made notes on the Borokhovski (2011) article
– Actively participated in class discussions and tasks
– Wrote and updated Learning Log Week 6 and refined the settings on my Learning Log (blog)

Learning Outcomes
– Demonstrate growth in identifying the issues, barriers, affordances, and potential of technologies in their workplace or education setting
– Participate in a community of learners’ forum/blog for reflection on metacognition. Practice self and peer assessment.

Reflection
After back to back weeks presenting, I will admit that it was quite enjoyable to “just” listen and participate without being in the spotlight. I thought the first team made an excellent use of the Adobe connect software. In particular, their use of the whiteboard and plotting everyone’s place on the digital immigrant v.s. native scale combined with their responsiveness in the chat box were great ways to engage and involve the audience. Also liked how they placed the pics of the discussants above the slides. Definitely learned much about organization and presentation using Adobe and hope to put these ideas into practice when given another opportunity to “lead” and present. As for the content, the idea of digital immigrants and digital natives was familiar to me and I totally agreed with the concern about how this labelling can cloud perspectives. In experience as a ICT specialist, I have had the opportunity to work with students for the 15 years with technology and it true that students have an affinity for technology and are capable of tremendous things. However, they are particularly good with their technology. They still need guidance, support and rely on the judgment of educators to help turn “good into great” produce organized, creative and collaborative expressions of their learning using technology.  In short, being a digital native is not a shortcut to success in the digital realm. Students still need the guidance from the so called “digital immigrant” to guide and engage and support them if they are going to produce their best.

One of my morning rituals is read articles on my iPad through an app called Zite. Zite is what I would call a web 3.0 technology as I enter the topic interested in and it creates a customized magazine of webpages and article based on my topics of interest. As I am reading, I also can  “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and it will incorporate these choices into my reading. I found this article the next morning after the presentation.  In it, the author Tony Bates debunks the classification of a generation as a single cohort summarized by one single term. The work of the discussant tonight plus the additional research I found will be great resources for the upcoming 1:1 initiative in my school and also great for my ongoing technology integration discussions. Sometimes, teachers believe there is a wide gulf between themselves and the students, perhaps I can use the evidence from the prior mentioned sources to provide them with confidence and ongoing support to know that technology integration is perhaps not about knowing all the answers but provide a rich environment for students to ask good questions.

Week 4 – Leadership Paradigm presentations

Key Tasks
– We met twice synchronously and added some details to our Google Doc
– Moved our best ideas to the collaborative mindmap to prepare for presentation
– Completed synthesis Voice Thread for presentation
– Presented Transformational Leadership K-6 with colleagues
– Actively contributed and participated in the presentations of colleagues
– Completed Week 4 Learning Log entry

Learning Outcomes

Investigate and report on ONE of the dominant leadership paradigms of the past century, including critical and emancipatory leadership, applying the leadership paradigm to technology leadership

Reflection
This week we presented our Leadership Paradigms. Our group members from the Transformational Leadership K-6 group  were myself, Joshua, Kaley, Michael, Orly and Sandy. Here was our question in a “tweet” format.

What does transformational leadership look like in a K-6 school environment? https://t.co/LqnFyDguvZ #5205g

— Anthony Chuter (@anthonychuter) January 28, 2014

Our collaborative mind map as a Google Doc

Here is our collaborative map with at least 18 viewers at once prior to the presentation. Our process for this project was to complete the majority of our ideas and discussions through meetings, and a collaborative map mapping using Google Sketch. I have to admit that I like the setup and collaborative aspect of this tasks. I cannot say that I was complete sold on the look of the mind map. I have been using a web tool called a popplet which looks very professional, allows for “live” collaboration on one documents with multiple authors but I decided to stay quiet and follow the lead of majority. I did offer up what I hoped would be a good synthesis of all the article through Voice Thread. I thought that these 5 takeaways  could serve as a good conclusion and add an asynchronous element to the presentation in case we ran over our time.  Based on the feedback, I was happy with the presentation. From the research and learning in our presentation, I was able better deduce characteristics of transformational leaders and perhaps, even use them to be a transformational leader in my professional capacity.

Our conclusion using Voice Thread

One area that I felt was a missed opportunity was the possibility of leveraging Twitter to extend conversations outside the time frame of “class time” and extend our audience and participation to include outside contributions. It would have been interesting way to bring in voices, perspectives from outside our course.  Often because of time and other circumstances, our synchronous discussions and chats have to stop. The use of a hashtag like the one I added (#5205g) to my introductory tweet would be great as a platform to continue the conversation and share resources beyond the time constraints of that specific class.
Tweets about “#5205g”

Week 3 – Articles, Articles and More Articles (and some collaboration too!)

Key Tasks
– Read Whiteside and Contact North, Valdez, Hughes and Shattuck (!)
– Contributed my 1/2 page entry to Blackboard (Copied entry to new section of Bb when our big K-12 group was divided into K-6 and 7 – 12.
– Met synchronously with group to discuss roles, collaborate on our Transformational Leadership K-6 article
– Began and shared a Google Document for asynchronous progress, notes and ideas for our group on Transformational Leadership
– Created Voice Thread as a concluding synthesis of Valdez, Hughes and Shattuck and our findings on Transformational Leadership
– Wrote and completed Assignment # 1
– Completed Week 3 Learning Log
– Transferred Learning Log from Evernote to my blog at http://ict4kids.ca/about/leadership-and-technology/

Learning Outcomes
– Articulate a purpose for technology leadership that connects learners’ needs in society to critical and emancipatory forms of technology leadership
– Demonstrate growth in identifying the issues, barriers, affordances, and potential of technologies in their workplace or education setting
– Participate in a community of learners’ forum/blog for reflection on metacognition. Practice self and peer assessment.

Reflection
This week was quite an intensive reading week with articles by Whiteside and Contact North to read and digest plus reviewing the four articles for our group presentation on transformational leadership for K-6 schools plus when feeling particularly ambitious I had to tackle my Shattuck article for my facilitator role for Week 5. Juggling that reading when working full-time (teaching across 2 divisions and lots of responsibilities) along with a busy family life has been an constant challenge. Not to forget the 20% paper due later this week. Ok, so now with that off my chest… here is my progress.

Aimie Whiteside’s School technology leadership theory to practice

“The need for technology driven school leaders is widely recognized, programs that prepare such individuals is in short supply.”

The author suggests the School Technology Leadership Initiative (STLI) would be a good programme to offer graduate level training for education leaders. They rely on the ISTE standards and use the NET-S to turn theory into practice. She suggests the RAT model (Replacement, Amplification and Transformation) for technology integration. Josh and Sandy led our discussion this week and I enjoyed their analysis of the next steps for teachers to integrate technology in their classes.

This quote stood out. “Professionals create meaningful knowledge by situating their learning with their professional work.” I think I will use this in 2 page reflective article as a guideline to make the research meaningful and relevant to everyday professional life and most important to aid the learning of my students and learning community.

As a technology integrator, the strategies and challenges of the article are particular relevant in my day-to-day professional life. As a guiding principle, supported by research by Whiteside and others,  I try to integrate technology only not because of pressure from internal or external forces or because it “trends” on Twitter but instead when that technology enhances or aids learning in profound ways for students. I believe that it is critical to recognize opportunities when technology is not needed and traditional methods create an amazing learning opportunity for our students. With that proviso, it strengths your case when collaborating with peers and administration when you make the pedagogical case for the use of technology to aid learning. The four anchoring theories (Net-S, blended instruction, situated learning theory and technology integration will also be handy for my work collaborating with teachers and help them move their technical skills from theoretical to practical. Helping teachers along their learning continuum is rewarding work and improves the learning environment for all.

I use the ISTE standards formerly called NET-S (US and Canada) and the UNESCO (Europe) documents to decide the skills set and scope and sequence needed for students and educators in the K-12 environment. This article gave me a good potential idea for Assignment #3 (see below.)

Assignment #3 idea – More detailed scope and sequence for Computer Science This week I generated an idea for a future project that relates to a curricular document in my school and one of my learning goals as a educator. As a technology integration specialist, we are keen to create an more detailed scope and sequence in technology for K-8. The ISTE standards will offer a good starting point but I also hope to explore the UNESCO documents and also consider the Common Core curriculum (U.S.) and am very interested in the bold curricular revisions for the UK curriculum in Technology  (formerly ICT now Computer Science.) At the right time, I hope to chat with my professor and see if I can match my professional goal with the assignment. To be continued.

A new Pedagogy is Emerging…And Online Learning is a key Contributing Factor by: Contact North

This is an excellent article on the new pedagogies and opportunities for students and educators offered by online learning. The concrete examples of learning communities in higher educations (simulations, flipped teaching approaches, mobile learning etc.) were particularly exciting, interesting and offer ample room for further study and analysis as Lysa and Michael outlined in their discussion. I really like the idea of “just in time, just for me” aspect of learning and training. This personalized learning approach is so effective for our “time-crunched” students and teachers and just about anyone. The idea of “anywhere, anytime and anysize” learning is not only appropriate for our increasing mobile world but the use of badges would seem be useful as it leverages gamification, and updates digital credentials for appropriate for blogs, wikis, online profiles. I have a few badges in my blog. Here is a link to one idea I had for applying  #gbl principles to keyboarding. The Open badges idea from Mozilla offers much promise for organizations.

Do measurable student outcomes need to be flexible in a course?

With so many changes in pedagogies and approaches and technology, one idea that I think can stay the same is the idea “measurable learning outcomes” in a particular course. Yes, students are welcome to have the freedom and flexibility to engage and collect materials from any source inside and outside the course but I believe it is still up to the professor, teacher etc. to use their position as a leader (or lead learner) in their particular field to use their judgment and experience to create some boundaries within a topic. If student learning outcomes are transparent and the medium to which the outcomes are demonstrated is fluid then I think this offers enough opportunity and learning for students. In short, measurable learning outcomes have to be quite clear, transparent and rigid to maintain a standard of learning and aid teachers (AKA facilitators, professors, lead learners) in order to have an accurate assessment process.

Next week – reading, sharing and collaborations with my transformational leadership K-6 group

Week 2 – The Change Agents

Key Tasks

– Read and took notes on The Change Agents (Lemke and Coughlin 2009) article
– Complete Learning Log Week 2 from notes and listen to recording
– Collected resources, examples and media on how the 4 Change Agents are manifesting in the classroom
– For Learning Log, used Evernote and tablet to record and take notes while listening to the recording on the computer
– Completed Week 2 Learning Log

Learning Objectives
– Articulate a purpose for technology leadership that connects learners’ needs in society to critical and emancipatory forms of technology leadership.

Reflections

It was three nights of parent teacher interviews for me last week but after a few false starts and a recovered password for Adobe, I finally caught up with the Adobe recording of the Lemke interview.

Here are some of my thoughts to both the chat and article below. It was quite amazing that the authors Ed Coughlin and Cheryl Lemke were able to join the chat. You really cannot ask for greater support and access to the information and their research than that. WOW!

 

My takeaways

The authors and participants considered many aspects of the question above. In particular, they described infrastructure, recognizing extra curricular school learning, impact of blended learning models and emphasis on the digital divide and its impact on equitable student learning. The discussion about labs, BYOD and the potential for anytime learning vs. technology learning in labs was quite interesting for me as our school transitions from a model of ICT classes for our junior students to available tablets in the classroom. Our administration has chosen to implement Surface tablets in a cart model while our middle school has transitioned to BYOD with iPad. As I am involved in training, support and curriculum development, it will be interesting to see first hand the impact that these different approaches have on student learning and curriculum.

One observation apparent already is that all assessments in and projects in a BYOD iPad or tablet environment need and require updates, modifications, and redefinitions for new learning models and approaches.  I think it is time to share the SAMR model for teachers in app and project development. Here is a link to my SAMR page.

It was interesting to hear the emphasis on authentic learning by Ed. I also liked hearing Cheryl’s research that students lose content and detail when they switch from technology to paper on standardized tests. The transfer of investment from device to the bandwidth was an interesting comment in BYOD environments was helpful too for future staff discussions.

Personally, another takeaway was a strategy for technology integration to be transformative and simply not additive. In an already crowded curriculum, finding strategies to be efficient with lessons and student time is going to critical inside (and outside) the class. With the wealth of information, apps, devices, as well as the need to balance with offline activities, we have to be strategic with our time and energy to complete tasks in the order of importance and their place on the calendar.

Response to the article 

This article was an excellent reaffirmation of some of the 21 century integrated projects that we are completing at our school. In my role, as a teacher first, but as an integration technologist second, I am always on the look out for student centered cross curricular projects and initiatives that aid the learning our 21c learners and digital citizens. I like how Lenke et al. divide these positive and disruptive technologies into different areas called “change agents” and I hope to consider each one and analyze how each one impacts my current practice. In addition, I will consider some next steps and areas for development in my collaborations with students, teachers, and learning community.

1 Democratization of Knowledge In our recent integrated unit on Canada, we took a more open ended approach to our research and exploration of the provinces with our Grade Four students. Using a app called called Voice Thread we encouraged students to create digital scrapbook of their learning. They could add graphics, audio, video with or without annotations to describe their learning and we encouraged them to share personal stories and experiences about their province. Although engagement is sometimes hard to measure, students took great delight in adding details of their trip to Peggy’s Cove, The West Edmonton Mall or profiling their favourite Toronto Maple Leaf! This approach was supplemented by student generated inquiry questions and some guided by us like how does the physical region affect culture in each province? This approach is proving to be helpful as digital and personal diary of student learning that we are taking a similar approach when studying Ancient Greece with our Grade 5 classes. Here is an unfinished sample of a Grade Four project on Canada. Next steps will be for this student to add more variety in his topic but he has made an excellent start!

2 Participatory Learning

Devices like clickers and online discussions group continue to be helpful resources for learning in the classroom. Also when students have input into rubrics and assessment their outcomes are definitely improved. Also collaborative wikis, blogs and even the slideshow app Voice Thread are excellent for peer review and evaluations. Here is a poster in my class from Tony Wagner on peer assessments.

3 Authentic Learning

In my interpretation, this means real projects for real purposes. With such a crowded curriculum, this motion geometry unit was proving to hard to squeeze in for both Grade 1 and 2 math classes. In an ICT classes, we used software called Tessellation Exploration to create an interactive slideshow to explore this topic in an fun and meaningful way. Here is an example with my Grade 2.

 Student motivation increased as they knew their work would be used for other classes this and beyond. Other examples of Authentic learning included a persuasive letter to the Head for a civvies day, a persuasive essay on the “merits” of chocolate milk on Fridays and of course our First Lego League where students are creating solutions to real life problems in their Nature’s Fury challenge for 2013-14.

4 Multimodal Learning

Digital Storytelling is an excellent strategy for assessment student learning and understanding and creating some fun and interesting projects. Here is an example of a re-tell of the Tortoise and the Hare folk tale. (Also from Grade 2), Other projects I have worked on with students include Life in the Agora (Grade 5), Animal Research (Grade 3 in Power Point), A Day in my Life (Grade 4)How to videos (Grade 5 using Voice Thread). At the moment I am also creating Stop Motion movies with Grade 11 students. Here is a sample.

Next Steps Collaborations and team teaching are going to critical if I am to aid teachers to access and use new pedagogies and change agents in this teaching. I know that students love “real life”, multimedia projects and are keen to use technology to learn and share. This collaborations will also be critical to expand my thinking, perspectives from class teachers in their own experiences and research. Digital Citizenship will also be a crucial as students access and utilize technology in increasingly independent ways. We need to find strategies to empower them to make good decisions to protect themselves and be “upstanders” for the people around them. Can we turn them into digital and internet heroes (those that do good when it seems like no is watching but actually everyone is.)

This post was completed using Evernote and my iPad. This app proved to be helpful for screenshots and writing notes at the same time.

Looking forward to next week.