Twitter – starting to get there

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Interesting day in today’s newspapers – three positive articles about the positive use of Twitter by teaching professionals.   I am heartened as it was only last week that I found myself having to defend Twitter in a room of educators.   I am very aware that teachers are busy, that they are often overwhelmed by the pressures of the classroom and  they cannot see an opportunity in their lives to open the window to this opportunity.   I am also very aware of the many who do open the window and wonder why they took so long to join this amazing group of people.

 

Articles like these in today’s national press (SMH and The Age and again The Age) can serve to whittle away at all the negativity that a few poor users of Twitter create.

50 years in education

ccoffa Teaching

We have been celebrating our school’s 50th anniversary over the past few weeks.  On Sunday, many past students and teachers visited to reminisce and celebrate.  I saw the look of wonder when some wandered through the new environment, noticing the changes and connecting with the things that remain the same.

I wondered “What will school look like in another 50 years?”  “How will the students of today feel when they return in 50 years time?”.

I don’t have the answer to either question, but I do hope for a few things.

I hope that:

  • schools retain the sense of community they currently have and most definitely had in their early years
  • a feeling of belonging is entrenched which is exhibited in the sense of pride of being part of the community even after a period away
  • we continue to focus on the relationships between teachers, students and parents
  • the wonders and potential of technology enhance these relationships
  • the school reflects the changes in the wider community

 

Spring

ccoffa Teaching

Along with Spring in Melbourne, we get a two week break from school.  We ask our students to reflect at the end of term, so I thought I would have a go:

A smattering of what I learnt this term and a few examples (well OK, I  knew most before this but saw them in action over the past term) :

  • Leaving kids to make their own mistakes and successes is very powerful learning – for students as well as teachers.  Teaching is messy.
    We embarked on creating Movies and games for the ACMI ScreenIt competition with some Year 5/6’s and I was amazed by watching their processes, the struggles, the challenges and a few triumphs.    One of the teachers involved said “It was much easier when we could say, “Turn to page 5 and read this passage” , but this is exciting”.  This was a huge learning curve for our community, the technical skills were new and the access to equipment was limited, so a large degree of time and resource management was required.  Patience, resilience, perseverance all traits that were spotted in use by both teachers and student.   Allowing the time for experimentation, mistakes and resolutions is vital.   The process, the journey are more important than the finished products.
  • Being a networked educator is a bonus for both the teacher and the student – as already stated in previous posts, students deciding to publish their unfinished narratives for reader imput and receiving feedback from a real author – such great stuff.   My PLN has been an amazing source of support, inspiration and challenges and there have been many opportunities to share these.  I really cannot imagine my teaching life without the stimulus this provides.   Also this term Teachmeets have thrived in Melbourne and I am constantly enthused by the people I meet there ad the things I learn.
  • Technology failures can be a major disincentive –  the frustration felt when an activity cannot continue as it is THE hour when the internet slows to a trickle, or the extra little program required to make Kodu work on a PC is not loaded on the devices we want to use, or despite careful planning a saved file is irretrievable.   Once again patience and flexibility are required.
  • Student ownership breeds motivation – the second round of students embarking on the Student Blogging challenge with amazing confidence and prior knowledge, having watched their peers through the process earlier in the year.  They still need to be coached in the incidental skills but they want to be part of the on-line world, they ‘get-it’.
  • Our plans and purpose are not always clear to all stakeholders – we received feedback from our parent community that they do not quite understand the emphasis we place on engaging in the Web 2 world.   We need to improve our communication and ensure we always have a clear intention for our actions.  We have very clear rationale, sound educational purpose but this needs to be portrayed to families who have not experienced this before and are fearful of some of the possible impacts of these changes, fearful that in our attempts to use these tools we are diminishing our emphasis on ‘basic’ skills that they are familiar with.
  • Teachers love learning too – we extended our Professional learning community this term and explored Personal Inquiries – staff making decisions about what they wanted to explore, applying it to their daily practice and then sharing it within our community.  The results (not all shared yet) were as diverse as the group and the messages were powerful.   Make learning inquiry based, self-directed and social and you have a wonderful  mixture.

One step forward, two steps back

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My previous post highlighted what I perceive to be wonderful leaps forward in our collaborative and purposeful use of Web 2.0 tools.  We recently held a parent forum where parents were encouraged to give feedback on all spheres of our operation within the school – we sought warm and cool feedback and it will be no surprise that we received both.

I will have to admit to a fair amount of surprise about the comments on our blogging.  Many positive mentions were made about the improved home/school communication and window in to the classroom, however, there was more negativity than I expected.  Basically, it appears that we have not communicated or it has not been accepted that the value of blogging is worth the emphasis we place on it.  This is obviously from a small sample of parents and a few vocal ones but nevertheless is important.  From reading the comments, I think I can separate the reactions to valuing Class Blogs, but not valuing or understanding Student Blogs.

One parent made a valid comment about blogs needing to be purposeful, going on to suggest that they include spelling words etc.  My  feeling is that that parent and others are doing what we all do when relating to education and relating it to our own experience as students. Trying to transport our experience into today’s world.

There is a mindset shift required to understand the added value provided by publishing our work in an on-line space instead of writing in our exercise books.  This Parent Forum highlighted to me that we are yet to fully inform our parent community of this concept and get them on board.  On further reflection, I think we also need to re-visit the concept with our staff as well to ensure a consistent approach across our school.

Earlier this year, twenty of our senior primary students voluntarily embarked on the Student Blogging Challenge.  As with any venture, there were mixed reactions.  On the whole though, it was wonderful.   It was very worthwhile with many ‘teachable’ moments coming from the on-line interactions  and  it seems to have really inspired many other students who are now embarking on the current round of the Blogging Challenge.  I have noticed how our new set of bloggers have taken to the medium with enormous enthusiasm and great skills.  They seem to know that they have an audience, they have strategies for attracting comments, they interact with each other with quality comments.  They have learnt a great deal from their peers who are now mentoring them.

Ever since the parent forum, I have in the back of my mind, how to get the message across to parents ?

 

What’s happening?

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Picture this :
  • Connor comments on Matt’s first blog post and gives him advice as an experienced  (6 months) blogger and wishing him ‘Good Luck’
  • A Year 3/4 class participate in a global project with schools in South Africa/NZ/USA/UK/Canada and Chile using a Wiki and Edmodo to share stories
  • Sue comments on Simon’s post with his published story, encouraging his writing
  • Mary posts to Edmodo publicising her new blog post (having returned to blogging after a lapse of a month or so) and responds to a homework tasks by sharing her response on-line
  • Teachers post comments on student blogs, praising, encouraging and suggesting
  • Robyn  and Mark trouble shoot  issues with saving and exporting Kodu projects for entering to Screen It competition by consulting the on-line help
  • Joe uses the chat feature on Skoodle (SuperClubsPlus) to get help from a classmate correcting his spelling words from home (he left the sheet at school)
  • A new blogger asks for help from classmates on Edmodo
  • A teacher posts on Edmodo reminding students to support a worthy cause they have been discussing
  • Brenden requests to use You-tube to look up  a movie how to create a bridge using Kodu (game making software)
  • Teachers sharing resources and ideas via a Yammer community
  • A student adds a page to his blog linking to his YouTube channel (created at home) with ‘How-To’ videos he has created.  (An opportunity here for discussion about Terms of Service that he is breaking)
  • A new season of Quad-blogging begins as the US school year opens
  • Students publish their thoughts about their current animation project on Edmodo
  • Staff share resources and ideas on a Yammer network
  • A teacher emails parents, praising student work, highlighting ways they can be involved, raising awareness of events and blog posts
  • A Year 3 student emails me on the weekend asking for his SuperclubsPlus log in details as he left them at school
  • Class teachers constantly posting to Twitter to advertise their new blog posts and connecting with other educators
  • A group of students working on a collaborative project decide to create a data chart to itemise their roles and responsibilities
  • An author responds to the draft writing of students that they have published on their blogs for feedback
  • The mother of a fresh blogger responds to her son’s writing
  • A new class blog connecting with a buddy class at a nearby school to promote commenting skills
  • A teacher from another school responds to a student’s post
  • Sarah uses Edmodo to ask her classmates for opinions as to the language to select for Year 7 next year
  • Susan, a student from another school introduces herself to Samara from our school as another Student blogging Challenge participant
  • Sue W, the organiser of the Student Blogging challenge comments on student blogs, welcoming them to the challenge.
Do you get the idea? A fortnight in our on-line world.  So it made me think ….  Each conversation can be considered in regard to Richard Olsen’s Model.

The purpose of this white paper is to use the Collective Knowledge Construction Model to identify strategies by which knowledge construction is facilitated when learning online. And, secondly to encourage teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders to reimagine the pedagogical, technical and contextual consequences that arise from teaching and learning in technology rich environments.

Collective Knowledge Construction

I find it helpful to refer to this and ponder where we are and where we might direct the learning so we continue to explore the possibilities created by our involvement in the online world.  Where to next?