Week 12-14 Roundup - Agile, Design Thinking + Inquiry

Ah my poor neglected blog. I've been off swanning around Sydney and watching my brother get married, then have been spending a week coming back down to earth and starting an already very busy Term 4! So to actually realistically have any hope of getting back on track (as I'm also mindful of the two assignments breathing down my neck) I've decided to just put a few key points and links together from the last 3 sessions in an all-in-one megamix.

Agile in Education + Leadership
Way back in week 12 we looked at Agile - a project management technique originally used for software development - and examined how the same principles might be applied to education. This video gives a quick overview of what Agile is and how it compares to a more traditional 'Waterfall' approach:

We considered the management systems in our schools - what does project management look like? What is the planning process like? Can it embrace change? The concept of change is where Agile comes into its own. It is a way of dealing with change as it happens, in an effective manner. It is all about adaptive leadership.

We had a play with a few practical tools in this session as well. One neat little idea was the use of 'Story Cards'. They are a way of framing goals or problems in a way that is simple, concise and easy to manage. Our group went on to look at these in a little more detail and thought they could be very useful amongst teaching staff to depersonalise problems somewhat and approach things in manageable chunks. The stories have this framework:

As a ________________
I want to _____________
So that I can _______________

One way of dealing with these is to have them on sticky notes and arrange them in the style of a Kanban board. This is like a moveable to-do list with three columns - To Do, In Progress, Done. A nice classroom application of this could be - Things to be learned, Things we are learning, Things we have learned. The online tool Trello can be used for boards in this style. It is a fantastic collaborative site that is well worth a look.

We also had a bit of a discussion about the Scrum model. There are 'sprints' which are short pieces of work that can be completed quickly in 1-2 weeks, within the larger project. I liked the idea of daily scrum meetings - short chats around 3 questions: What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? What are the roadblocks/issues? Basically short pieces of achievable work with daily meetings to ensure they get done.

Finally Agile in leadership.  An agile leader will:

• Facilitate
• Remove obstacles
• Encourage reflection
• Be a servant leader
• Create a safe environment
• Allow the team to self-organise

Design Thinking

This was in week 13 and I actually missed this class altogether due to being away. But design thinking is an approach closely linked to agile. It is about prototyping, consultation and feedback. This is a nice little overview:

One activity the class completed in this session which I really liked was around coming up with bulk ideas. They had 10 minutes to write down as many ideas as possible - going for 100. No idea too small or silly, just quick instinctive thinking. I think this is a great way to take the pressure off and potentially come up with some fantastic thoughts.

Inquiry
Our focus last week was Inquiry Led Learning. Though most of us are already engaging in this in one way or another, the class agreed it was an important topic to include in the course. As a reminder of its value, a chance to reflect on your practice, and an opportunity to hear what others are doing. It was pointed out early that definitions and understandings of inquiry can vary widely, and schools are utilising a variety of models and approaches. But the key concepts are they same, most importantly that inquiry is all about moving from knowing to understanding.

To help us reflect on the process we undertook our own mini inquiry during the session into robots and their infiltration of the workforce. A large and fascinating topic by the way! Check out this link to find out if your job is under threat! Will a robot take your job?  We felt that the process of thrashing out our question was the most important bit, and it is a step that is possibly missed out at times in the classroom. I know with young children we need to lead and structure that process more than others, but there is definitely room for more discussion around what the children want to know. It is important to teach what makes a good question and they will need guidance, but that doesn't mean always simply choosing it for them.

Good questions:

• Answerable
• Answer cannot be a simple fact
• Answer cannot already be known
• Must have some objective basis of an answer
• Cannot be too personal - need relevance outside your own personal situation

Planning an event was a good suggestion for an initial task to focus on, or kicking off with a provocative statement to get students thinking.

A practical tool we used in this session was Instagrok - a concept map based research tool that is very useful for quickly mapping out ideas about a topic.

We also briefly looked at the nQuire site. This allows you to create online inquiries for your class. I haven't had a proper look at this yet but think it looks very exciting - check out this wee video about it.

Ok at least I've got some of the highlights down for later reflection! Excited for tomorrow's session - check back next week to find out about my experiences with 3D printing!

Week 11 - Gamification in Education

I feel I should start this post with a bit of a disclaimer - I am pretty much the target market for gamification and it is so up my alley that I may be a little biased on the topic. Gamification is essentially the application of principles of video game design to other areas of life. How can that not be awesome!? Gamification has already had a significant impact on my own life in the area of fitness and personal health. I don't actually understand how people used to exercise before the invention of digital tracking apps. I have had a lot of success with apps like Fitocracy (very much based on a game with levels, points and badges) and Fitbit (utilises competition with others and a badge system) for keeping myself motivated to achieve fitness goals. Not to mention my all time favourite, and highly gamified, Zombies, Run!

Anyhow, I digress. But I can certainly attest to the fact that applying these principles can have a motivating effect in a real life context. It would follow, then, that it could be an very relevant approach to try in education.

To start, we briefly looked at the Fun Theory, which in essence says "fun can change behaviour for the better". I definitely agree with this! Check out the piano stairs video below:

Gamification is something that is becoming increasingly prominent in our every day lives. I have already cited the fitness world but there are many more examples. For example rewards programmes like Fly Buys, or the supermarket collection promotions like the dominoes. Seth Priebatsch outlined four critical elements of game design in his TED talk:

We also talked about the idea of 'flow'. This is a term used to describe the perfect level of engagement in a task, when it is just challenging enough to stop you getting bored, without being so difficult that you give up. Video games typically are excellent at this in their structure of teaching you how to play the game. This video sums up the concept:

This led to quite a lengthy discussion about intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. We looked at a blog post by Kathy Sierra who cautioned heavily against gamification due to it creating an over reliance on extrinsic motivation and children who lose interest in extending themselves. We asked questions like - does extrinsic motivation have a place? Is the learning still valid if it was only achieved in order to receive a reward? Our general feeling was that while of course intrinsic was the ideal, in reality we are never going to be motivated to do everything by ourselves - this is true for adults so why would we have a different view for children? Is my half hour run any less beneficial for my health and well being because I did it to escape zombies? I do, however, think we are right to be a little cautious and reward systems can end up taking over somewhat. It is always a balance and we need to make sure the focus is on the learning and not the outcome.

Badge systems are a particular way to record achievement and learning. Badges have been used long before the digital world, however now that you can create them online a lot more avenues have opened up for their use. It is an area that can be perfect for the classroom, but also for our own professional development as teachers. A couple of websites to check out:

Badgeville
Mozilla Open Badges
Credly

Badges can make it very easy to identify what a student (or anybody) has achieved. Their real benefit also comes with recognising learning that would not normally be assessed or formally recorded. We discussed this within the context of this course and what badges we could design around our learning. Our key point around this was to acknowledge what we are doing outside of the formal, written assessments. For example for doing the weekly readings, having valuable discussions in the sessions, engaging in social media, employing new techniques in our classrooms, and most importantly - remembering to bring chocolate to class!

My Credly design for remembering weekly chocolate:

Gamification is an absolutely huge topic which we only briefly scratched the surface of. It is something I have a keen personal interest in and would love to employ aspects of in the classroom, so I've definitely earmarked it for future research. Fun to be had by all!

Week 10 - Real World Problem Solving, Crowdsourcing and Entrepreneurship

The topics for this week's session all interwove really nicely with each other. We talked about problem solving in the real world, or social action, and examined some fantastic young entrepreneurs who had built innovative start up companies to really try and make a difference in the world. We also looked at crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, which has made ideas like this eminently more achievable.

We started off by looking at something called a Lean Canvas. This is basically a pared down version of a business plan that allows you to do an overview and think through whether a business idea is likely to be viable or not. This is a tool that is adaptable to education as a means to think through a change proposal you are considering implementing. It is a valuable document that explores things like people affected, time and resources needed, upkeep required and defining exactly what it is you're hoping to achieve. We are going to use this as a basis for our next assignment so it will be a useful thing to explore.

We went on to look at some companies that have social action or enterprise at their core. We defined these as organisations that apply commercial strategies to maximise improvements in human and environmental well-being - which may include maximising social impact rather than profits for external stakeholders. A great example of this is Toms shoes. I had heard of them before but didn't really know what it was about. It is a pretty inspiring example and a great idea, check it out below if you haven't already:

Another incredible example is the young boy who developed an ocean cleaning array and a plan to clean our oceans:

A key message tonight was that kids do not have to wait until they leave school to pursue these ideas, innovations and passions. They can do it now! If we think back to the 21st Century Learning Rubrics from the early weeks of this course, real world problem solving and innovation is one of the key skills that should be developed in the classroom. Real world problems:

• Are experienced by real people
• Have solutions for a specific, plausible audience other than the educator as grader
• Have specific, explicit contexts
• If students are using data to solve a problem, they use actual data

Crowdfunding and Crowdsourcing

This is a great wee video that outlines these two ideas really nicely. As it says, the concept of collaborating and turning to a large group for help is not new, however these days we are connected globally like never before and we can reach a wide audience so much more easily.

I knew a bit about crowdfunding already and have participated in a few fundraising campaigns online. One main message with this method of raising money is that it is only the first step. You need to think really carefully about the sustainability of your idea once it is up and running.

Crowdsourcing I knew less about and was really excited to see some of the ideas that are out there. We examined some different websites that are drawing on people's skills from all over the world. Two of my favourites were Zooniverse and Open IDEO.

Zooniverse is a fascinating concept - it is a platform for collaborative volunteer research. You can participate in genuine research projects across many different scientific fields. I tried to spot chimpanzees on a wildlife cam and had a go at finding greek characters on an ancient papyrus. Fantastic potential for linking with learning in the classroom!

Open IDEO is a global community that solve real-world problems by collaborating through all stages of the process. You can get a great overview by watching this short video. Such exciting stuff!

Finally we finished the night with this week's 'fun bit'! We were introduced to the game Market Share which is kind of like a grown up, super intense version of Monopoly. It is designed to introduce you to the principles of growing a business. When we first started to listen to the explanation and look at the instructions I was completely overwhelmed and thought it looked far too challenging for that late at night, but once we got started it was easier to get your head around it and turned out to be a lot of fun! Well, if you like losing spectacularly that is. Our group got into two teams and it turned into a religious showdown between the God Squad (catholic school teachers) and the Heathens (us state school folk). I'm not sure whether we just didn't sacrifice enough goats but we got completely and utterly trounced! Fair play to the God Squad who had a far more successful strategy and were definitely the better team on the night. In fact they cleaned up across the whole class by miles! We had a lot of laughs but it was actually quite an effective way to learn a bit about what is involved in developing a business. Fun times!

Week 9 - International Perspectives in Education and Assessment

International Perspectives in Education

In this week's session we spent some time investigating what other education systems around the world are doing. As a lead in, we discussed Cultural Intelligence. This can be understood as the capability to relate and work effectively across cultures. It was a nice introduction as we prepared to build an understanding of worldwide approaches in education, and as we live and work in an increasingly global context it is also something that is increasingly important in our everyday lives.

We then had a discussion around PISA testing. This video gives an overview:

PISA stands for the Programme for International Student Assessment. It is a global, triennial test on 15 year olds that compares the education in OECD countries. Though it is a standardised test, I found it interesting that it aims to evaluate real world application of skills and knowledge. We looked in a little more detail at two high-performing countries, Singapore and Finland. Though they both score well in this test they could not be more different! Singapore had a system that had a high focus on teaching to the test and quite a traditional model of schooling. In Finland there is very little standardised testing and it is a very social model and approach. So what do these two have in common? What stood out the most was the very high societal value placed on teachers. They are highly trained (though not necessarily highly paid) and very highly respected.

This was the aspect we chose to run with for our activity tonight. We were to select one aspect from international education that we thought would make a difference in NZ and make a short news clip set in the year 2020 based on the idea that this concept had actually been put in place. We had a lot of fun with this one!

The digital tool we explored tonight was Kahoot! a fantastic quiz app. Head to the website to check it out https://getkahoot.com/
You can create your own quizzes (or even better have the students create them!) around anything you choose, fantastic for student surveys or a quick pretest of knowledge. You display the questions and options on a big screen and students answer on their own devices, so 1:1 works best for this app. Fantastic, fun tool though. We used it tonight to participate in a quiz about Finnish education - watch the competitive streaks come out!!

Thank goodness I got at least one right!

Assessment
The second half of this week's class centred around assessment, particularly formative assessment.
Three key questions to consider were:

• What do you assess and why do you assess it?
• How effective is what you are doing (how do you know)?
• What constraints determine your assessment practices?

This is a wee video as a bit of an overview of formative assessment:

We reinforced the key concept that assessment is only formative if it is used to modify the teaching and learning.

We moved on to consider digital tools that might be used for formative assessment. Our final task for the evening was to adapt a rubric that would evaluate a tool or app as to its effectiveness as a formative assessment tool. This was our group's effort - thrown together pretty quickly but contains some pretty key concepts that could be worked on further, and certainly some of the things we need to be aware of when considering using various apps.

Week 8 - Robotics + Leading Change

Robotics

Well we started with the fun stuff tonight and got straight into working with robots! I was really excited to give this a try. Robots are a natural extension to coding, they're a great way to use those skills in a more practical way. Awesome for logic and sequential thinking too - as we discovered in this session! Programming can be quite complicated, but using the programme mBlock is a great way to go. It looks like Scratch and works in the same way, and is a free download - check it out here mBlock.

Getting stuck in with an actual robot was great fun, but hugely frustrating at the same time! It really highlighted some of the valuable skills that can come from these activities - we had to do lots of problem solving and collaboration and we needed a whole lot of resilience! We were asked to do the simple task of programming the robot to move when on white, and stop when it reached the black line (using its infrared sensors). Turns out this was not as straightforward as it seemed, especially when we discovered after about 40 minutes that we'd been given some back to front instructions! But we got there in the end and were very proud to have our group's robot as the one to finally stop when it was supposed to. You can witness our jubilant moment below!

After the fun and games we got into a discussion around the large question of 'How do we ensure education evolves to reflect the needs of today and tomorrow?'

We kicked this off by looking at some of the videos off the portal for this week. Our group had a chat about this one, which is well worth a look (aah having trouble loading it as a video but click the link!)

An Open Letter to Educators

It has some really thought provoking arguments about the way education is heading and the inevitability of change. A central idea we discussed was the fact that we as educators don't have to change, but if we don't we will become obsolete. Simple as that!

Leading Change

The second part of the session this week focused on the idea of leading change. An early comment was that as participants in this course we need to be 'thought leaders', and that if we graduate from this and go away and don't lead change then the course hasn't achieved what it set out to. 

I hadn't really thought about this side of it before, but on reflection I suppose it is true. I knew I would want to share my new ideas, but I hadn't really considered the fact that this goes hand in hand with needing to lead the process of putting these ideas in place. A small example for me in the last couple of weeks has been roping my lovely teaching team into trying some video making for our inquiry projects (which turned out great - thank you for your support ladies!). I guess this is also highlighted by the fact that many of us are now working in collaborative teams - if you want to put something new into action you have no choice but to lead others along with you! 

The point was also made that change doesn't happen in a vacuum, and that we don't always have the freedom of change - we have to work within a context.

For the activity part of this discussion we looked at a terrible (fictional) example of a principal's email to initiate BYOD, then reworked this into a more appropriate letter to the community. We used a document that has been put out by the PPTA about managing change within a school. This can be found at the link below and is a very valuable tool. Well worth a look!

PPTA Change Management Toolkit

One final comment, my Twitter addiction is growing all the time and I've had a couple of bleary eyed mornings after staying up too late engaged in awesome chats with other educators. This has been one of the best discoveries of my study so far and I cannot emphasise enough what a fantastic tool it is! Go forth and tweet folks!

Week 7 - Blended Learning and Online Discussions

Blended Learning

As my first assignment was based around flipping the classroom I was looking forward to this week's session. Having set up my maths weebly I have dipped my toe into flipped learning and am really enjoying the results, so I was looking forward to the chance of exploring the concept further.

We started by discussing Blended Learning, which it should be noted does not automatically equal Flipped Learning. As flipping has become more popular, people have started to see the two terms as interchangeable. However flipped learning is just one technique of many. Blended learning refers to having a combination of face to face and online learning and it could fall anywhere on that continuum. A standout quote for me from our session was that it does not mean the addition of technology, it means redesigning your teaching from the ground up to make use of the technology.

This graphic gives a good overview of some blended learning models. Further information can be found here Blended Learning Definitions

We then proceeded to have a good play with Blendspace. This was amazing! It is such a powerful tool, and has a huge range of features available for free. I have really enjoyed using Weebly to design a site for flipped learning, and I do prefer the layout and appearance of my Weebly site over blendspace as well. However, I created the same lesson on Blendspace that I had previously done on Weebly and it took me a fraction of the time. Blendspace is designed specifically for this purpose so everything is quick, easy and very user friendly. You can add any combination of youtube videos, graphics, links, quizzes and text to a lesson. It is also designed for children to log in so you can control what lessons they have access to, and keep track of what they are doing. I haven't yet had a chance to explore this further, but I am very keen to give it a go in class. It has amazing potential and I think it will probably suit my needs better than my current system.

Flipped learning allows you to redesign class time for more active learning and engagement. A good wee overview can be found in this video:

The idea is students watch videos outside class to avoid long periods of teacher talk and enable class time to be spent working on activities rather than sitting and listening. You can also flip inside the classroom, which is what I have been doing with my maths Weebly. This way also avoids any issues with students having limited access to online resources at home.

I think it is a very exciting concept that I am already seeing benefit from in my teaching, even though I have only just scratched the surface. I have been able to redesign my maths rotations and give more teacher time where it is most needed. I do need to adapt it for younger children, and it will always be a modified version as they are less independent, however it definitely still works and I'm looking forward to expanding how I use it in the classroom.

Flipped learning does have downsides, and one of the biggest is probably the initial investment of time required for setup. This is why I was so excited about Blendspace, as the whole process seems like it could be streamlined. I definitely feel the positives are worth it, however I'm already finding it difficult to keep up with my small site and it frequently falls down the list when juggling everything I have to do. This was a reflection from our group on the positives and negatives of flipped learning:

Leading Online Discussions

This part of the session has ended up being so valuable for me, as in the short time since Thursday's session I have become a complete Twitter addict! I never got into Twitter for myself, but opened a teaching account earlier this year after getting the message at every PD session I went to that it was the best thing I could be doing. I quickly saw how exciting a tool it is, and enjoyed discovering resources that would pop up in my feed. However I knew I wasn't realising its full potential, and I didn't really understand how to make the most of it.

We had a practice chat in class last week, which helped me start to see how it all worked, though I still found it confusing and hard to follow. When I got home I downloaded TweetDeck and my whole experience changed! With the ability to set up a column and follow a particular hashtag, I understood how to watch and participate in organised chats and keep track of relevant content. That very evening I tried my first chat and had a go at joining in with #edchatnz. I was quite nervous but was too excited not to jump straight in! I then found myself keenly searching for more and participated in #includEDau and #digitaledchat.

Well a whole new world has opened up now. What an incredible tool that leads to such fantastic sharing of resources, networking, support and collaboration. I figure too that it is a pretty good indication of its effectiveness that it can make me want to engage in school-related discussions at 9pm on a Sunday night!

I have found the parallells between this and what we have been discussing in class fascinating. We have had many conversations around learning happening everywhere and not just in formal teaching spaces, about collaboration between students, and about them being able to access information anywhere, anytime. After one of my chat sessions I commented to my partner that I felt I had got so much more out of that hour than some formal PD sessions I have attended, which also made me consider how I feel about the fact that my Twitter time doesn't 'count' as PD.

This has been quite eye opening considering myself as the student. We have commented that the teacher is no longer the sole source of knowledge and that our job is now to teach the skills our students require. I do feel I will start to have different expectations in my own learning now that I have access to such brilliant networks online.

Week 6 Roundup

Last week was supposed to be the week I attended the Saturday class. However unfortunately I have been really unwell and had to miss Week 6 altogether. Before writing up Week 7's session I thought I would just write down a few thoughts and put a few links from Week 6's topics, gathered from the readings and from my classmates' extremely helpful blogs :)

Week 6 was all about the leadership theories and connectivism. Sounds like it was a really great session and highly relevant for the next assignments, so it was a pity to miss out!

Leadership Theories and Styles
It is important to distinguish between theory and style. The theory is more the formal 'label' that describes a certain type of leader. Whereas someone's leadership style refers to their characteristics and behaviours and ways they react and respond as a leader.

Some of the main leadership theories are summed up nicely in this video:

Leadership styles are nicely summed up in the below table:

People will not necessarily stick to one style or theory at all times. Certain approaches are useful in different contexts, such as applying Transactional Theory in a crisis situation.

Connectivism
This is a new theory that is still being debated and not entirely accepted as yet. It suggests that learning takes place in networks, and puts forward the idea of knowledge as a networked product. There is no doubt that these days learning is a socially connected process and that a lot of learning takes place outside a traditional, formal learning environment.

This is an excellent image that gives an overview of connectivism:

This video also gives an interesting overview of where connectivism came from:

During the session everyone made an infographic of a classmate's PLN (Personal Learning Network). They used one of these three sites to create the image. All three look useful and I look forward to going back and having  a play at some point.

http://www.bitstrips.com/create/comic
http://piktochart.com/
http://www.storyboardthat.com/

At least that gives me a few things to come back to later, hopefully it's the last time I have an inconveniently timed illness!

Week 5 - Stop Motion and Growth Mindset

Before I get into the session, I promised I would report back on my kids using the new maths weebly. They had their first play this week, and I can happily say it was a great success! They enjoyed working in their wee group and were pretty chuffed to have something they could do independently. I had the great outcome of them working away while I spent time with another group, however the real measure of success was the feedback I received... "better than pie and donuts!" If that's not a career high I don't know what is!

Anyhow, back to the Mind Lab. The practical component of tonight's session was having a go at making a short stop motion film. I have a background in animation so was thoroughly looking forward to this, and it didn't disappoint! We used a simple webcam set up with a programme called Monkey Jam - sadly not available on Mac but there are many alternative apps for computers and devices. Our goal was to represent the key elements of a learning theory we pulled out of a hat.

Our theory was Distributed Cognition. We decided to represent this by showing a series of tradies all contributing their separate skills to come together and create one fabulous house. We had a star-studded line up of action figures, cowboys and crazy-eyed dolls. Thanks to Paul for the great costume work on our plumber!

Making the film was great fun and I found it a really useful way of learning - I got my head around the learning theory much more easily than just reading a definition. We needed a clear understanding so that we could portray the key ideas.

Sadly the downside of working with technology is it doesn't always work as planned!! We hit a technical glitch at the last minute and couldn't save and export our amazing production :( This was a shame and disappointing, but it is the reality of things sometimes and we still took part in some awesome learning. 

Our discussion in the second half of the session centred around the concept of Growth Mindset. This is a pretty hot topic at the moment and it sparked some interesting comments. Basically the term comes from Carol Dweck's work that compares a Fixed Mindset to a Growth Mindset. Fixed is the view that intelligence can be measured by an IQ test, and no matter how much you learn or how hard you work, it stays the same. Growth is the view that the brain is malleable - like a muscle that can get stronger and work better as you learn and stretch yourself. Ultimately, over time you can get smarter. 

People tend to have a mixture of the two mindsets across different areas. I have a fairly good growth mindset towards the learning of kids in my classroom, but I find it difficult to believe I'd ever be capable of doing higher level maths, and tend to default to those phrases like "I'm just not a maths person" or "it's just not my thing". We need to remember that kids will have a mix as well, and may be fixed on their ideas about some things but not in others.

The big things to remember from this for me were around how we praise kids. Being really careful to praise effort, process and perseverance rather than intelligence. It is so easy to let "you're so clever!" slip out! I also liked the idea of using wall displays to document the learning process, rather than always just the finished product.

It was, however, pointed out that we do have an innate contradiction in our system currently, with a push towards formative assessment and praising progress, while at the same time having to report against the National Standards.

For a bit of fun to finish, have a watch of this clip called The Backwards Bicycle. It is a fascinating look at how our brains work!

Due to a school commitment I have to attend the Saturday session this week. I'll miss my Thursday crew (will be thinking of you guys!) but it will be good to make some further connections.

Week 4 - Augmented Reality + Innovation

It was another great session in the Mind Lab for our fourth week, however I feel I need to briefly reflect on the first two assessments of the course which are now (thank god!) finished and submitted! These took up most of my headspace last week and as due dates loom close it is difficult to balance keeping up with weekly coursework. I've enjoyed the last couple of days being able to just relax and absorb information again!

But even though it was a bit of a struggle getting myself into essay writing mode again, I actually really enjoyed the thought process behind our first two assessments. One of the big attractions of this course in the first place was the fact that it would be applicable to our every day teaching, and sure enough our first task was to solve a problem in our own practice. I chose to try and extend some advanced mathematicians in my group with a Weebly site they can work on independently. I've been working on getting it up and running and am very excited as tomorrow I plan to introduce them to it for the first time. It is the sort of thing that it is difficult to find time for ordinarily, so to be 'forced' to do it through my study has been a great bonus. I'll report back on how it goes!

Anywhow, back to the Mind Lab. Our practical focus this week was AR or Augmented Reality. I have only ever dabbled in this very briefly so I was excited to learn more about it. Aurasma was the primary app we played with, which involves setting up a 'trigger image' which you point your device at, and it will open up whatever you choose - a website, movie, image etc. The possibilities for this are of course endless, and I feel I need to devote a bit of time to getting my head around great ways to use it in the classroom. I found this video useful to get some thoughts going:

Another app we mentioned but didn't get a lot of time to play with was Quiver. This one involves kids' own colouring coming to life and I think it would be especially fun for younger kids so I'm definitely keen to have more of a play. Check it out:

My immediate thoughts and reflections around AR are that it could be a fantastic way to introduce more student voice and ownership into the learning space. Especially having little kids who can't all read and write - if instead they could get information about something in the room by having one of their classmates pop up and tell them about it... well it could be extremely valuable. Another great idea someone mentioned was using it for showing people around the school. I'm working this year with another teacher on our Transition to School processes and we have introduced tours for our little New Entrants on their first visit...how cool if they could take a device around and find out little tidbits along the way!

It is incredibly exciting learning about these new tools and ideas every week, but it can be a little overwhelming as well. I think it will be a matter of just picking one thing at a time to focus on, and choose small goals that can be implemented straight away. A little bit of AR around the wall displays could be a nice next step though!

After our practical part of the session we got stuck into a discussion about innovation.

We spoke about the idea that previously, people relied on the generation before for information and knowledge. However now we are entering completely new territory, and it is the kids that are teaching us. We also discussed how the lines were getting more and more blurred between offline and online, and that it would get to the point where kids won't see those boundaries. There has always been innovation, however now the possibilities are so huge it is quite mind boggling! We can have absolutely no concept of what could be around the corner. On that note, that's it for this week!

The First Few Weeks

So I am only getting my blog fully underway now, however we are actually 3 and a bit weeks into the course. I had high hopes of getting some thoughts down about the first three sessions separately, but life is a little hectic at the moment so I've decided to do an all in catch up to get myself going. So the following is some general reflection and notes about some of the things we've covered so far.

As I said in my opening post, I am loving the course and finding it incredibly thought provoking. It is fantastic networking with other like-minded people and having time to share ideas. We have covered quite a range of topics already. The sessions are well balanced between playing with new gadgets (and therefore learning practical skills to take back to the kids) and having deeper more academic discussions.

A lot of discussion has been around 21st century skills and the new world that our learners are growing up in. This video gives quite a nice summary around teaching in this new modern context.

It was while watching this that I had an epiphany of sorts. There is a lot of discussion around technology and modern learning environments in schools at the moment. But what has really struck me while watching this video and engaging in the course material, is the inevitability of all of these ideas. It is not just about 'keeping up the times' or doing ICT (often separately) because you should or because it is what the cool kids are doing. Watching this video it really hit home for me that children have instant access to knowledge now - we as teachers are no longer the (only) source of knowledge. We need to be the source of skills.  I am really realising that the reality is, we do not have a choice! We don't actually have the luxury of choosing whether collaboration or digital skills is for us or not - it is the absolute reality of where education - not to mention the rest of society - is going.

In discussions about skills learners need we have been referring a lot to the 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. This document identifies six important skills that students need to develop:

• collaboration
• knowledge construction
• self-regulation
• real-world problem-solving and innovation
• the use of ICT for learning
• skilled communication

The full document can be found here: 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics and is an incredibly useful and practical outline of how we should be targeting activities to best teach these skills. It has given me a lot of food for thought about how my practice currently looks, and how I would like it to look! Being in a NE/Y1 space it is a constant balancing act between important pre-skills and implementing these 21st century approaches. I am putting a lot of thought into how I bridge that gap, and how much structure and explicit teaching is too much (and potentially defeating the purpose)? I expect to delve into this topic a lot more as the weeks go on.

Last week we focused particularly on collaboration and our group had some good thoughts around what successful collaboration actually looks like:

Finally, the fun stuff. I am loving having the chance to get some toys out and have a play! The first two sessions focused largely on making videos, which as the basis of our first assignment was a valuable learning experience. I've dabbled in iMovie before but am looking forward to getting stuck into it a bit more this week as I put my video together.

Last week we had a chance to explore Scratch and use a Makey Makey to do some electronics and coding. I have had a small amount of exposure to Scratch through our school's code club but it was great to have a chance to get some hands on experience. I was quite won over by the Makey Makey also and the concept of bringing the experience outside the computer itself. We had fun attaching noises and sound effects to different objects around our table! I've suggested we look at trying out something like this in our code club to extend it a bit and try something new.

 

Lots of new learning! The main problem I'm having with the study so far is trying to turn my brain off late at night after evening reading sessions! But it is definitely inspiring me and motivation is high for trying new things in the classroom.

So why am I doing this?

If you're a teacher reading this then you'll no doubt agree that our inboxes are often filled with various professional development opportunities - courses, workshops, seminars and the like on any number of topics. While I'm keenly interested in taking these opportunities where possible, there simply isn't the time to keep up with everything and I'm not sure what made me delve further into the original email I received from my principal about this course. Maybe it was the (particularly relevant and exciting) title of the course itself, maybe the lifelong student in me was drawn to the idea of studying further on a more regular basis, maybe it was the word scholarship! Or maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment and didn't think I had enough to keep me busy at school (ha!) But whatever the reason, having now begun my journey, I am very glad I clicked on that email when I did.

I have enrolled in a Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Practice (Digital and Collaborative Learning) and I can already tell it is going to be an incredibly valuable 32 weeks of learning, networking, reflecting, playing and discovering.

I teach Year 0/1 with two other teachers in a newly established collaborative team. So the content of this course will be highly relevant and applicable and I'm looking forward to putting in place all sorts of exciting new ideas. I'm also very interested in the digital side of things and try my best to keep up with relevant technologies, so the opportunity to discover new tools for teaching and learning (ok so maybe just the chance to play with new toys!) is a very exciting one. I'm also very keen to learn more about utilising such tools with younger, less independent, children.

This blog will be a chance for me to reflect on my own learning and the various concepts and questions raised in class, plus of course a platform to share and network with others. Watch this space!