Back To Reality?

Post  conference euphoria.............followed by reality blues.  This was all in the space of 3 days.  But then a Year 5/6 Planning Meeting and the the collective interest and energy of this fantastic group lifted me.

This afternoon we decided on a few things:

1. We would establish the Year 5/6 Leadership Legacy Project
2. Curriculum focus would be defined as SOSE but we acknowledged we would be covering many curriculum areas.
3. We would work together as 3 classes with 4 teachers with the Library as our Learning Environment.
4. The project is to be student led so we are not sure about the path it will take but teachers to act as facilitators.
5. Resources, blog etc will be located on Library Web http://oakleighss.edublogs.org/
6. We are going to have to 'trim' or condense some part of the curriculum in order to fit this in.  We have decided to use strategies related to 'flipping the classroom' to set homework tasks largely around Federation.

We also discussed our feelings of unease as to not knowing the shape of the outcome.  We mentioned that if we weren't feeling unease, we probably wouldn't be approaching it in the right way as we are meant to be out of our comfort zones. This is the kids leading the learning - not us.

EduTech - My Take-Aways

My take-aways from Day One

• The nature of motivation
• Googleable Vs Non-Googleable Questions
• Innovation Day/ FedEx Day 
• Non-Commissioned Art

My take-aways from Day Two

• Kids – it’s their decade, it’s their future – give it to them now
• Walk away from here and live it like you believe it.
• Minecraft – believe in it and go for it.
• Creativity  

Can we:

• have one or 2 year levels with a session a day working on their own project OR 'make this school a better place'  - leave a legacy.  (how will we scaffold this.........make it guided - make this school a better place or open?)
• Move towards an Innovation Day for part of school (eventually 2 per term).
• Minecraft - can we work towards having our own server set up?
• Nature of Creativity.......can we contact NOTOSH to ask re PD etc on design.

EduTech - Margaret Lloyd - QSITE President

Putting Policy and curriculum into Practise.

Let's Contextualise what we have been hearing about.

• Tantalising predicament that we find ourselves in right now with ICT in school

• 2 National agencies - policy has caught up with best practice

• We now have the challenge of making the extraordinary into ordinary

• AITSL - Professional STandards for Teachers - given us 3 standards that explicitly reference ICT - ICT    These are aspirations.     Also - 3.4  - select and use resources including ICT.  Also 4.5 - Use ICT safely, ethically and responsibly

• AITSL - accrediting initial teacher programs - 7 standards.  

• ACARA - ICT as a general capability.  Has a formal place in all learning areas.  Also Digital Capabilities.

• ICT as a general capability- one of 7 along with literacy, numeracy.  Change and transformation only happens if you have every piece of the puzzle together.   What is it - multimodality, real data collected by Science, Tagging in GoogleEarth, blogging, collaborative    WELL BEYOND PPT  It is not a competence - it is a capability.  Look at round spherical diagram.   ICT Capability at centre.   Creating with around that.

• Digital Technologies - very different to ICT as a capability.  Computational thinking is a focus.  Amplifying thinking and problem solving.    We need to consider what computational thinking means for our kids and this curriculum.

• ACARA - General capabilities are visible in all areas of the curriculum.

• example - Location - based mobile adventures.  

EduTech - Ken Robinson

Creativity

•  we often debate education as if we have no idea about what to do
• we do know what works

What does work:

• the basics - necessary but they are not enough
• technology - is a means of facilitating education
• the basics should be purposes
• • economic
  • cultural
  • social
  • personal

Education is a personal process and not a mechanical one.

Industry is calling for creativity but many education systems aiming for opposite.   They seem to promote conformity and compliance.

we need to transform education into something that is more fulfilling.  The great schools have always done this.

The schools that do this conform to certain principles:

• Human life is inherently diverse.  Kids are all different.  Mass systems of education promote conformity.
• Human life is essentially creative.  It is as fundamential to being human as is language.  This shows itself in our lives.
• Life is not linear. It is organic.    Planning everything step by step doesn't make sense and doesn't work.             

Best teachers and best schools have understood that their role is to connect with their students in terms of the above points.

The Element - new book:  Finding Your Element.

• finding things that you are naturally good at.
• loving what you are good at.
  • 
    

Creativity inspires creativity........

EduTech - Alan November

Implementing the flipped classroom in your school: what you can do tomorrow to get the ball rolling?

• USA - technology is a $1000 pencil.
• this is reflected in test scores........in the last 20 yrs scores have levelled off.
• One could argue.....that since the introduction of technology, progress has been arrested.
• AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE – all about technology and how it does not often fulfill potential.
• Process change is necessary if technology is going to have an impact.  Simply having the tools and the network will not make a change. 
• SO.....we haven't really figured out how to utilise this expensive stuff.
• Flipped learning in one way of enacting process change.
• Eric Mazur gave his students a device (clicker) and realised that just giving a lecture didn't mean his students were understanding.
• he realised that online partipation is key  
• Wanted students to ask a question each day.  He has collected 4500 questions over the last 10 years and they are tagged. 90% of these questions were ones he would never have thought anyone would have asked.
• His QUOTE - "the more of an expert you become in any field the more difficult it is to understand the struggles of a first time learner".
• when a teacher walks in the teacher knows all the answers.  What is missing are the students questions
• You have an informed teacher when that teacher has received questions from the day before.

For the purpose of today -  Learning is applying knowledge in a new context.

Simple  Flip Model

• Summer Heights High - Watch Jonah - for punishment
• Mazur - found a great classroom in Indonesia.  Saw students highfiving each other.  They were taking a test.   After taking  a test, these kids get into a group and go through the test immediately and they each work together and discuss and vote on each question..  Mazur would say that this is where the learning takes place.
• This above is an example of a change in the relationship between the teacher and the students.
• Every class is a test - Mazur - and then every group breaks down the test. Then the group reflects on the material in the test and then design a problem that suits

Who Owns The Learning?

• You can have a  good school where teachers own the learning
• you can't have a great school.............
• Schools where students own the learning - this is when kids can own the learning.

Impact of flipping

• ownership
• punishment
• homework

Who should work harder?

• teachers?'
• students?
• balanced

It’s the conversation that makes the learning embedded.

Two most motivating environments

1.   facebook

2.   video games        

Why?

1.   Global Audience

2.   Students own the experience

3.   no punishment

4.   immediate feedback

5.   students prefer peer interaction

6.   mastery

7.   leaderboard

These factors all apply in a successful flipped classroom

MathTrainTV

Teachers are more important than ever.

#flipclass

http://flippedclassroom.org

• Twitter.com/globallearner

Questions: 

How many paths are there to the standardised test?

• teach to the test - standard default position
• High Tech High - one of the only schools where students own the learning.
• Go higher than the standard expected by the exam.

IN terms of change management - any hints?  Question?

• what was your favourite lesson.....when did you have the most fun teaching?
• he will take those and try to flip them.   Ed.ted
• every teacher agrees that the first five days are critical.........in setting the tone of the year
• teachers say they need to know as much as possible about their kids.

Podcast

Minecraft - Michael Beilharz - Knox Grammar School

Michael is a teacher and the ICT Teaching and Learning Integrator at Knox Grammar School in Sydney.

Creativity and Gaming

• how can gaming enhance learning?
• think of something you enjoy doing and how much time did you spend on that.
• how can we get our students to remain as artists rather than losing their beliefs
• move the curriculum around.....take a risk and try doing something interesting

        Computers and video games 

• Games have win stakes
• games are a form of play
• they are interactive
• they have conflict
• they are adaptive
• they have rules - and so structure
• games have a story
• fames are a form of fun
• have outcomes and feedback
• have problem solving
• have goals
• have interaction

Creative Confidence

• Students want the content, the easy way, they lack creative confidence

• Every child is an artist.....the problem is how they stay there

Minecraft

• Basically sophisticated lego 
• minecraft.net  $24 a licence
• Creative and survival mode
• Survival -  9 hrs sunlight and 9 hrs night.  (which is in minutes).You need to find things to be able to survive.
• At night - zombies come out to kill you
• you have to gather enough resources to build a house
• Minecraft servers –you can find lots of these.  One example that is available is the  Hunger Games 

Why choose minecraft?

• cheap
• engaging
• well known
• creative
• manageable
• safe - white list - you can register students
• server - set up is free
• expandable
• easy to run
• easy to maintain

To access your minecraft server - you have to be on the white list

You can access logs - who is doing what.

Action Research Project - aim was to discover if we could engage boys creativity thought a cross curricula task that involved designing and building a virtual city.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

Integrated Task - maths, sciences, languages - SUSTAINABILITY

• had the option of how they presented their project.   Minecraft was one option.
• Each squares of land was protected for use by 3 or 4 groups.  But everyone could walk around and see others'.

• Now - they have Science World, Maths Corner, a Minecraft Club

Curriculum Content

• Sustainability 

·          

• collaboration
• planning
• problem solving
• feedback
• creativity
• the design process
• Email him to see units etc.

History  Faculty wanted to join- started 3 yrs ago.  Only now that each facilities are getting involved.

          Medieval - building a castle

          Work booklet and online assessment

Language - farms with different languages on signs

Geography - Grid and Area Referencing - 

Other Activities - Sculpture by the sea.   A week was given for each to 

Prep Island - 120 Yr 4 students - colonisation

Global climate

science island - English students to work with them.

action research projects

international collaboration

The use of Minecraft has been such a stimulant for the students.

They are now looking to collaborate with other schools......and are building a learning environment..

EduTech 2013 - Stephen Heppell

Today was the first time I had heard Stephen Heppell speak live. I had watched him online of course but had never been in the same conference room - he was truly inspiring.    His message and his mode of presentation was very engaging.  He had a casual air about him and a tone of 'chattiness', referring, when he needed to, to files that he had just dopped on to his desktop for this presentation today.

His key message for me was two-fold.   He spoke about the pace at which things are changing in the world and how this next decade is going to be one of the most rapid change yet.   He spoke about how we don't know what is coming and  that we can't accurately predict this.    He has found that things he has predicted in the past have all happened but at much faster rates that what he would have thought.

He spoke about 'Bring your own Browser', rather than your own laptop or device.

His other message was about kids.    It's their decade, it's their future  -  give it to them now.  We need to place trust in kids and to believe that they are capable of great things.   They need to own the learning and to have faith placed in them that they can progress their own understanding and become reflective practitioners in much the same way that we hope our teachers will.

He mentioned mobile phones and how by the age of 6, kids should know how to use these powerful devices.  He said to get them into kids' hands and to do it now and to not give them hand-me-downs.

His final words - walk away from here and live it like you believe it.

Podcast