Inquiry update

OMGTech Workshops @ PES

Today we had an electronic and Makey Makey workshop with Kawana from OMGTech. He came with a group of 4 volunteer workers from Microsoft. They were here to run three one hour workshops with our Extension students.

First Session: Year 7 & 8 Extension group. The first lesson was a quick lesson about electricity, circuits and how they work. Kawana used the example of minions and how they eat bananas to get energy as a way of describing how a circuit works. I think this was a great way to explain something in a way that our students would understand. The students got to create their own mini torch using cardboard, and LED light, electrical tape and tape. This was a neat way to put the concept of a circuit into practice. As our extension group have been using the Scratch programme throughout the year they were very familiar with using Scratch to code. They were only introduced to Makey Makey kits last term, but quickly worked together to create buttons using the kits and playdough to create sounds.

Second Session: Year 5 & 6 Extn group. This was a bright bunch of students. A few had quite a good understanding of how circuits work and what makes good conductors and insulators of electricity. The enjoyed the mini torch making task. Most students had used Scratch before to code, but did not have any experience with the Makey Makeys.

Third Session: Year 3 & 4 Extn group. This group needs more experience with using Scratch and Makey Makey to get the most out of the workshop. They loved making the mini torches though. At the end of each session, the students were asked to complete a survey about the workshop. Most students agreed that the workshops were a lot of fun and that they learnt something new. This was a great experience for our students. Kawana is a great teacher and his delivery of the lessons were easy to understand, fun and interesting. I would definitely like to run workshops again like this for our students.

OMGTech workshops mini LED and Makey Makey from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

Year 7 & 8 Extn Projects using Scratch and Makey Makey

In Term 3 the Year 7 & 8 Extension students had to work in small groups of 3-4 on a project. Each group had to use 'Scratch' and 'Makey Makey' kits to create one of 3 projects:

1. Band
2. Game Show
3. Game controls for people with physical disabilities

Here are snippets of highlights from their presentations.


Y7&8 Extn projects Term 3 2017 from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

ULearn 2017 - Day 3: Adobe Spark

Breakout 6 - Digital creativity and design in education using Adobe Spark

Southwell School - Presenter: Paul Savage

Spark.adobe.com

Teachers can create an i.d. And share with students. Kids can add to it.

If an android phone, need to access app by looking at full browser version

Digital Storytelling

Learning a language or how to pronounce words. Could record kids speaking.

Everything is saved in the cloud. Creativity is simplified to enable quick interface. Don’t need to save anything as it is instantly saved.

Adobe Spark video - creates simple/professional looking videos

Can create short ads for school e.g. school fair, fia fia??

Projects, click on the plus, select video

Give video a title, select a template,

Layout is very simple. (layout, music, themes)

Only 4 types of layouts. Very basic storyboard available.

Possibly useful to set up for writing e.g. narratives or instructions

When theme is selected it automatically changes theme of all slides

Can select photos to use, uploads quite quickly

Videos need to be loaded onto drive before

Video editor, easy to cut by dragging, when saving it saves automatically into selected slide.

Select icons, easy to drag slides across.

Post: can select layout to select type eg. facebook, twitter etc

Best to experiment with layout, colours etc

ULearn 2017 - Day 3: Keynote speaker Ann Milne

Colouring in the white spaces - Ann Milne Phd

Schools traditionally were a tool of colonization

Kia Aroha College, Otara

280 students Y7-13, Decile 1

Learning in communities

What are schools doing for Maori?

Teach First NZ

NZ education system

20% failing students, mostly Maori and PI

Maori disenfranchised, assimilated into white culture

Generations of low expectations, outcomes

White spaces

Mainstream education - quiet, = whitestream

Identity is formed by the way that others perceive you

73% of all teachers are pakeha

Most kids that fail are Maori and Pacific Island

Who defines our community? Without our culture we have no identity

Hegemonic system that puts blame on Maori for failing when it’s the system that has failed

M & PI need to be able to relate to the learning - what is relevant to them?

Kahikitia, accelerating success

Vision: Maori learners enjoying education success and achievement as Maori

Whose knowledge matters?

Maori cultural identity has to happen all day everyday not just part time e.g. learn in blocks, can’t be timetabled

A critical culturally sustaining pedagogy of whanau

Schooling should be a site for sustaining the cultural practices of communities of colour

The rigged game of education

Important to know who you are, to be comfortable in your shoes, being confident, think universally but having a strong hold on your culture

Graham Smith (1995)

The whanau concept of: knowledge, pedagogy, discipline, curriculum

Established a whanau centre - culturally responsive interventions

Unrealised potential to unlimited potential

Personal Reflection:

This was a great keynote and I hope that it was a real eye-opener for many of the teachers who were present at ULearn. It had the potential to be quite awkward as it was criticising the history and current situation with our education system. Her presentation talked about ‘white spaces’ and how the NZ Education System still caters for the needs of mostly ‘white students’.

I agree with Ann Milne that the delivery of education for our Maori and Pacific children needs to be changed, urgently. The current system is failing too many of our ‘brown’ students, especially when they reach college. Why are so many of our Maori and PI students failing? Why are they so disengaged by the time they reach or leave college? Why are so many of them entering the workforce at such low academic levels? What is being done to address this issue of the ‘long tail’?

I agree that Maori & PI students need to be able to relate to the learning. Cultural identity is important and is not something that happens when it suits. It needs to be acknowledged, shared and celebrated. That’s why I am so proud to teach at a school where we value and celebrate the different cultures at our school.  

I think that this keynote was great because it raised awareness that this is an issue that cannot be swept under the carpet and ignored. Open discussions need to take place and needs to be encouraged from a whanau, school, community and national level. Furthermore, realistic solutions need to be created to help alleviate the problem.

The saying ‘a chain is only as strong as its weakest link’ reminds me that a country or society will only be strong if all members of society are treated, nurtured, strengthened, valued and recognised equally.

ULearn 2017 - Day 3: Coding and storytelling tools

From Shakespeare to Star Wars – Coding and storytelling tools

Presenter: Brad Waid

During this presentation, Brad Waid shared many great apps for bringing learning to life for students through cool storytelling tools. He also shared some great sites for coding programmes.

Storytelling is a superpower that we all possess

Tools: books, tv, movies, commercials

Walt Disney - master storyteller

Dr Seuss, Stan Lee, George Lucas

Popular TV shows - we can relate to the characters, humour, scenery/location, drama, storyline,

Puppet Pals, Shadow Puppert Edu

Toontastic

Music is powerful to tell a story

Select a scene, characters

Story Bird

Zimmer Twins

Chatter Pix - animate and bring anything to life

Write Comics

Using tool is just a medium to show understanding. Can students apply what has been learnt/taught in another medium?

Marvel Comics

Touchcast Studio - can use with greenscreen

Morning announcements - students can do daily broadcasts

Book Creator - create ebooks

Canva - graphic design tool. Simpler version of photoshop.

Wordswag

Adobe Spark

Action Movie FX

Chromville - can colour in a character, scan and bring to life

Quiver and quiver education

Crayola Color Alive - bring characters to life

Tools can leverage power of technology to engage students

Atlas Trac Labs - programming robots

Coding:

Kodable - Junior kids level

Lightbot

Scratch

Tynker - using lines of code like Scratch

Pixel Press Floors - robust, free, students program and code with their hands first, draw own video game, symbols represent a piece of coding. Scan drawing and digitise drawing. Students can upload games for others to play.

Bloxels - 21st century programming - hands on and digital

Blocks of colour, dropped into board, scanned and then digitised. Can create characters, villains, kids create and then play.

Code.org

Cospaces - year 4 up

Hopscotch

Box island

Game froot

Piktochart similar to canva

Musical.ly - year 5 up

Aurasma

Tale blazer

Explain everything

Tellagami

Pixar on a box

Kahoot - interactive quiz tool

See Saw app
This was a really cool presentation just to see what the most popular apps and programmes were being used for educational purposes.

ULearn 2017 - Day 2: Keynote Speaker Abdul Chohan

Abdul Chohan - The Olive Tree Primary School

Background teaching chemistry

                 

2008 ipod touch. Bought a set for school. Discovered difference between mobility vs portability. (Mobility means that information can be accessed from any device e.g. info is not just stored on your laptop only. Cloud computing allows for true mobility rather than just portability)

Focus on plumbing e.g. infrastructure etc

Teachers use twitter to post learning/teaching, use hashtags

‘Believe You Can’ - students must have belief in what’s possible

Teaching approach is different, but biggest focus is ‘Belief’

How to change belief:

1. Simple
2. Reliable

Powerful when children are creating and making. Lessons were planned and organised differently. Activities were designed to allow strategic thinking. E.g. Water Cycle by using playdough, animating using an app etc. Cognitive demand on students increases. When learning is shared, more time is invested in making sure that the quality of the product is acceptable.

SAMR model - expecting students to think/work at the modification level.

The biggest problem is schools is the lack of consistency.

Building consistency: Relationships, The non-negotiables, develop the people

Photo of students work - teachers can give voice feedback to help students improve work

Reflections around learning, successes and failures

All teachers are Apple Certified - showed teachers how they could use apps to do things

All teachers have learnt Swift coding, feel that computational thinking is something that is quite key and is something that is becoming very relevant. Not many people understand it.

Coding is introduced at the age of 5. Not using blocks but lines of code.

68% of students enter school 2 years behind their peers. But within 6 months students most students have caught up.

Showbie and itunes U

     

What’s really important is the bread and butter of teaching and learning, not all about tech.

ULearn 2017 - Day 2: Cultural Inclusiveness

Cultural Inclusiveness in a mainstream setting - Breakout 5

Presenters: Bruce Jepsen (Principal)

                   Tane Bennet (DP)

Te Akau ki Papamoa School (Tauranga)

Mihi to start from presenters to share their backgrounds.

School has doubled in last 10 years.

Papamoa is fastest growing region in area.

One to one digital school. Apple distinguished school.

Digital integrated school.

40% Maori students. 9 years ago they were a failing school.

Decided to take a culturally inclusive approach. Use programmes on ipad e.g. keynote.

Tech is a tool, not a distraction

Now is top 2% of achieving schools in the country. All teachers are apple recognised teachers.

Do all own PD to build capacity of teachers.

DP (Paula Jamieson) also runs a maker space, coding, robotics

Every child has an ipad provided by the school

School roll = 600-700 students

Teacher needs to have an understanding of child’s culture. Students feel good about it if their culture is acknowledged.

Radio station has been the driver behind Te Reo Maori.

Te reo maori taught on a daily basis for the past 6 years - based around identity and language.

Stats show that almost half of Maori students (48%) will achieve less than level 2 NCEA when they leave school

What is your vision for their future?

Disproportionate failure of Maori students

Teachers make the greatest impact

Self identity is important, especially for urban Maori. Do they know where they come from?

Displaced. Relationships are important.

Maori student achievement is the priority

Set high expectations

Leadership e.g. board, clear vision, goal is to raise Maori achievement

Vision: Identity, Culture, Maori achievement

A non threatening culture is critical

Identity: on enrolment kids culture/iwi is identified. Barrier = some parents did not list where they were from. Sense of belonging is important. 32 different iwi, biggest group is Nga Puhi.

Map of NZ and names of families from diff areas/iwi. New students are connected to other students who come from that area.

All students reconnect including non-Maori.

Send letter to each iwi to acknowledge identity of child.

Great breakout. Not about the tech that appealed to me but the about the lengths to which they are inclusive of culture and are passionate about raising achievement for Maori.

Radio TAKP FM Radio. Lessons in class to learn language.

Students can call into the radio station with a question live. Live radio feed across the school.

Non maori are embracing culture

school/child created apps on ipad

Nearpod

“The culture of the child can not enter the classroom until it enters the consciousness of the teacher”

ULearn 2017 - Day 2: SPARK MIT Presentation

On Day 2 of ULearn 2017 our SPARK MIT group presented at ULearn in Hamilton at the Claudelands event centre. Dorothy Burt had already set up the main presentation which appeared on a gigantic screen. We were given a briefing about the order of our presentations and a quick reminder that the audience would be given time to ask questions after every speaker. Each presentation would be delivered in the style of an ignite talk which meant that we would have 20 slides at 20 seconds each.



I was first up after Dorothy's presentation. I was confident that my presentation would be ok because I had already delivered much of the same information earlier at the Manaiakalani Hui. The main focus of my inquiry was about my experience with the use of the Paideia Seminars and my Year 5 & 6 Extension group. My goal was to use the Paideia method to improve critical thinking skills.

At the end of my presentation the floor was opened to the audience to ask questions. One of the questions asked was 'Why did you decide to use the Paideia method with your students?' My answer referred to the fact that we have many Maori and Pacific Island students at our school and that developing oral language skills was a key skill that needed to be developed amongst our students. Another question was 'How did I assess the students using SOLO?' In my reply I talked about the fact that the Paideia seminars were videoed so that I could analyse the footage and what the students said. I could then plot the answers according to the types of responses that the students had. This determined where the students sat on the SOLO framework in regards to their level of thinking.



After my presentation and question and answer session, the other SPARK MIT teachers delivered their presentations. Each of them spoke about their inquiries and findings which were all quite impressive. Angela was the only other teacher from Pt England, Dot and Hinerau were from Tamaki College, Troy was from Papakura College, Kelsey was from a cluster in Christchurch and Alicia was from a cluster in Northland.

Overall I think that the SPARK MIT group of 2017 did a great job. We all connected well with each other and enjoyed our ULearn experience. Thanks to SPARK and Manaiakalani for supporting us and for providing us with this experience. I am also really grateful to the help, guidance and support that I received from Anne Sinclair throughout my inquiry this year.

ULearn 2017 - Day 2: Brad Waid Keynote Speaker

Brad Waid - Keynote speaker

Engaging the “Globally” connected student of today.

Augmented Reality - captures students, engages them

What are kids learning? Where? Role as educators? What are kids sharing?

Are we preparing students for their future or our future?

You never know what will change a student’s life

Story about Justin (selective mute). Provided with opportunities to share/speak in a non threatening way - able to share/explain learning using an ipad

Impact of social media is massive. 50% of world population is under the age of 30. Power of social media

League of Legends game - massive in Asia - 23% of kids play this game

Compared to Minecraft - 2% of kids playing

Pokemon Go - First time screen and real world combined, encourages kids to go outside. Leveraged tech for really good outcomes

Youtubers: uses power of the internet to share with a wide audience

Shared lots of interesting and inspirational videos

Coke video - connecting people in India and Pakistan. Showed how technology was used to break down barriers and connect people.

Commercial of Dad learning English to read sons book

Important in how you treat people- relationships are important

One simple R.U.L.E - acronym

Overall I enjoyed this keynote with Brad Waid. He seems to be well connected with a wide online presence. I thought that it was good that he shared some of his personal experiences with students and how a piece of useful technology opened up a whole new world of potential for some students.

Professional profile (straight from ‘Best Keynote’ site)

Brad is an International speaker, influencer and educator with over 15 years of classroom and industry experience.  He is an industry leader in Educational Technology, 21st Century Learning, Culture and Innovation, Augmented Reality & Emerging Technologies.  He is a consultant to industry, education and government.  Brad is called on by industry to assist in marketing and telling the story of a product or a company, he assists school districts and educational conferences in applying technology into education, and he works with government agencies to improve education for all students.

He is one of the Co-Founders of AR Detroit, a Co-Founder of Two Guys and Some iPads blog, he is the Co-Host of the wildly popular  “Two Guys Show”, a consultant to start-ups from Silicon Valley to New York, he works with government agencies and he has been honored by the National School Board Association as one of the “20 to Watch” in Educational Technology, a program that identifies emerging education technology leaders who have the potential to impact the field for the next 20 years.  Brad’s knowledge of educational technology, his ability to assist industry and government and his passion to inspire educational change, makes him a highly sought after speaker and influencer who makes an impact where ever he goes.