Open Content Learning and Flipped Classroom Resources

TEACHERS: Get on to http://www.opened.io/ and find flipped teaching resources you could use to teach your students at home so that they can practice with you in class. Better yet, learn from the resources, create new resources, and share!

HUMANS: Get on to www.coursera.com and find something interesting. Learn it. If we’re going to take action in this world, we first need awareness, which comes from education. What could we do better by knowing more?

I am so excited by both of these resources. We always talk as teachers about how we hope to instil a life-long love of learning in our students, and as a teacher and learner, I think these resources provide opportunities for both teachers and students to pursue their academic interests and passions. 

OpenEd has many features that make it a valuable tool for teachers and students. Khan Academy has been a popular fore-runner in the process of assembling an online video tutorial library for flipped teaching. OpenEd follows with the same objective, but while Khan Academy has videos for many different content areas, it does not yet offer a complete set of all skills in all course areas for all ages. While it is unlikely that any single site can provide every single resource a teacher may one, OpenEd does offer the advantage of having videos aligned by core standards, so it can be easier to find exactly the skill-based instructional tool needed. OpenEd can be searched easily by students for videos by topic, skill, or grade level, and it also offers the possibility to make video playlists to be shared. I got my ideas for how to improve the video I made introducing decimals after our recent fractions unit, and now my students who are out sick will be able to keep up from home with greater ease!

Coursera is another great resource for older students and adult learners. According to the coursera.com website, “Coursera is an education platform that partners with top universities and organizations worldwide, to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.” (2014). To me, this summary aligns with my own beliefs about what role education should play in the world and about how information should be fairly shared. In exploring Coursera, I got excited about the many options available for courses that are in the fields I am already passionate about, and I also got interested in completely new things I have never heard of! When my masters courses end and I finish my project on personal and global health, there are still so many options for continued learning!  The classes in the field of health greatly interested me, including “An Introduction to Public Health”, “Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries”, and “Better Leader, Better Life”. In efforts to not only deepen my understanding of health and sustainability issues, I would also like to learn more about how these realms interact with economic factors. Some courses that I would like to take with this aim in mind include “The Power of Macroeconomics: Economic Principles of the Real World”, “Economics, Food, and You”, and “Principles of Obesity Economics”. Whether or not I pay for a course has never impacted the value I believe it has nor has it impacted the level of commitment I have felt to getting the most out of the course, and I am excited for when I get to take the first one shortly!

The Importance of Play

Sometimes, things get off track within the class community. For 4th graders, changes in their schedule, adjustments to the goals of our class, and a shift student’s directing their own PBL projects over a few weeks can really impact how kids feel in class. I always try to transition them gradually into an increasingly self-directed learning environment, but every year when we get into the final weeks of students creating their own original musical theatre performance, there comes a time when certain kids get tired from having so much responsibility for making decisions and solving problems.  While I as a teacher know that the set designers are using math, the historians are practicing writing on our blog, and the performers are working on their oral fluency, to the students, the heavily project-based nature of the theatre production process feels like a departure from the more structured skills-based curriculum the were previously accustomed to.

So, today, in response to a student saying that we hadn’t played a game in a while, I brought all my little 4th grade muffins back to the carpet to start the day as a community. They picked the game of “assassin”, which we play with the roles of o frog and a group of flies. We spent 20 good minutes rolling around on the floor as different people took turns being the mystery “assassin” frog who got to stick on his/her tongue to “kill the flies” (other students), each of whom had to make a “dying fly” dive to the floor. Kids ended up giggling on snuggling top of each other, and even I was having a nice time putting aside the theatre stress and just being silly. We then went around the room, as we often do, to share how we were feeling 0-10, and many gave 10’s-infinities. It was a nice reminder that as we build happiness and community, we need recreation, social time, and communication to effectively integrate and grow.

Reflections on Instructional Technology

EDC601 is my final face-to-face course remaining for my Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies for International Educators with a focus in Global Health. I have enjoyed many of the courses I have taken for this masters, for my Certificate in Educational Technology and New Literacies, and for my scientific focus, and this course has also been a really positive learning experience overall. 

One thing I have really enjoyed about this course was that, unlike in previous technology courses, not everything was completely new. In this course, I really realized how much understanding and technological fluency I have built, because I was able to not only meet the learning objectives, but I was also able to find ways to shape assignments to be more than just practice and to instead be truly relevant to my teaching. The opportunity to go back and learn certain technologies from a different angle helped me to discover another layer of uses for technology in the classroom.

How One Program Could Change Your Classroom Discussions

My classroom is a language-rich environment, and we spend a large portion of our day communicating verbally. I employ many techniques to genuinely engage my students, but given students’ different learning styles and innate interests, their level of participation varies by discussion. With 24 students, it can be difficult to give all students a time to share, and when I break students into smaller groups, there is often something interesting that happens in each isolated group that does not make it back into the whole group discussion.

In order to address some of these challenges, a quick response system could be a beneficial platform for engaging in the entire class in discussions. These types of QRS programs, including Socrative and Poll Everywhere, empower students to respond and discuss through writing to in a live-feed system. Students can use all types of devices to access the system and contribute their thoughts.

Video Tutorial for Poll Anywhere for Educators:

During the discussion, all student’s responses are recorded in a running stream that can be projected for all to see. The teacher can pause discussion, highlight certain students’ contributions, and give extended time to those who need it to process their ideas and share them. Students can record their ideas on the feed, shift to discuss another topic, and then return to what they wrote without losing their idea, which supports those students who struggle to manage many ideas at a time. It also supports students who need more than just aural input, and who learn better by having ideas written in a lasting way where they can be reviewed for processing.

Using a QRS in the classroom not only supports those who need additional time to process or who prefer not to share out loud, but it also supports quick thinkers who love sharing and who seek opportunities to be seen and heard. Telling an excited student to please hold their comments so that others have a chance to speak can be disheartening to that student (or worse), but a QRS gives them avenues to think and interact at their own quick pace without clouding out others who need more time.

The QRS feed recorded from class can be saved for future reference, so students can always go back and make connections to past learning. For homework, students might use the feed at home and respond two peers’ questions as part of a continued discussion assignment. This opens the door for experts to teach others, and for those with questions to access experts who can support them. This kind of sharing and interacting is hard to regulate in a room of 24 students and it is limited when students are divided into smaller groups, so in this case, using technology in this way can offer beneficial differentiation in the ways in which students can participate, share, and learn in the 21st century.

Web 2.0 Tools – The Students as the Teachers

Adora’s videos are interesting because they give examples of a different kind of a “flipped” classroom where students teach teachers. It is important to recognize that many of our students are already fluent in many of the technologies that the teachers are struggling to find professional development time to learn about, but allowing students to charge forward without having a full understanding of how everything works can make teachers feel uncomfortable. Having students take control of how they collaborate and share there work (and teach teachers how this all works along the way) is a great way to increase student buy-in and help them develop creativity in their problem-solving.

I was particularly interested not only in what Adora recommends for teachers, but also just the process by which she got herself to where she is publicly. TEDx has brought a lot of really interesting ideas to the forefront, and I appreciate that they also support the sharing of younger people’s ideas.

I recently showed one of my favorite TED talks, “What’s Wrong With Our Food System” by Birke Baehr, to my students. They were very interested and inspired after watching somebody their age give a talk that has 1.5 million views. I asked them what they might want to get up and tell 1.5 million people about, and their answers were very interesting. Web 2.0 tools that allow students to share ideas, ask questions, and connect on a human level with others worldwide opens the doors for incredibly meaningful learning. As students like Adora come into our classrooms armed with 21^st century fluencies that some teachers may still not be experts in, it is our job to be open to learning from them and supportive in the ways in which we promote their sharing of skills. This gives everyone a better chance to learn, which is always our goal at the end of the day.

Adora’s youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/adorasvitak?feature=watch

 Baehr, Birke. (2010). “What’s Wrong With Our Food System”. TEDx Asheville. Accessed 1/7/2014. http://www.ted.com/talks/birke_baehr_what_s_wrong_with_our_food_system.html

8.1 k-12 Horizon Report Summary

The NMH Horizon report is a “comprehensive research venture…that identifies and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact of the coming five years in education around the globe” (p. 3).  The reports offer insight into emerging trends involving technology in the classroom, and offer guidelines and timelines for adopting these technologies in schools. The reports offer a helpful overview to educators at all levels of technological fluency, and can be used to evaluate current practices while adjusting the classroom to meet 21^st century needs.

The reports support teachers in their venture to facilitate genuine inquiry in the classroom by explaining emerging technologies and how they can be used  effectively with our digitally native population.  The technologies that are seen on to be coming up most closely on the horizon are cloud storage and mobile learning, which most teachers are already employing at some level. The report highlights the ways in which the internet, BYOD programs, and online storage can all help students access information and track their learning.  On the mid-horizon are further learning analytics programs to help match student performance with student learning support. Open content programs are also on the mid-horizon, meaning that in the next few years, schools may share their curriculum more publicly, instead of keeping each school’s best practices within the walls of the school.

Looking ahead to the far-term, 3d printing and remote laboratories may be the next ways in which students engage in engineering, design, and experimentation. I am particularly excited about these types of developments when brought into the classroom, because they support students’ ability to engage in genuine inquiry while solving real-world problems, and the more we can use technology to make real-world impact, the better!

One recommendation that I am still wondering about after reading the report is how we could be using digital media for formative assessment, as is suggested. I understand that digital submission of student work can help teachers give more timely and specific feedback, but I was not sure exactly what the authors were suggesting in this section. (p 10).

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-report-k12.pdf

Mobile Learning at ACU Response

In an increasingly globalized society, the skills and fluencies needed for participating in the global economy are changing along with the developments in technology. This does not mean that all previously-taught skills are no long relevant for students, but it does mean that as the demands for workforce participation evolve, so must the classrooms which prepare students for their future careers.  The Mobile Learning at ACU presentation (they have assembled a great collection of resources) recognizes the reality that while many of today’s teachers may find themselves in in the stage 4 phase of destabilization, our digitally native students are often a step ahead in their thinking, already prepared to innovate and solve problems using the tools around them.

Common challenges in the process of teachers learning new methods and adjusting their teaching include motivating teachers, training teachers, acquiring technology, and using the technology in way that truly benefit students and the global community.  Edutopia correctly reminds us that “simply assing technology to the k-12 environments does not improve learning”, and that it is truly a combination technology and creative teaching that enhances student skill-building.

Teachers who are accustomed to being the director of learning in the classroom may feel uncomfortable giving students the ability to direct their own learning and by incorporating the newness of technology, but in the data age, students will not benefit from a teacher simply giving the question and the specific resources for answering the questions; students need the opportunity to develop their own questions and find their answers with the teacher in a support role, rather than a leading role. This helps students gain information and solution fluency, which are requisite for all students, no matter what field they enter after graduation.

The ACU video highlights a challenge that students are up against today, and teachers can update their classrooms to address this challenge in a productive way. The speaker explains that with so much matrix-like information available online, students cannot blindly consume whatever they find on the web as viable information. Teachers can not only help students articulate what they want to know, but can help them build the skilsl needed to effectively find that reliable information amidst a vast technological abyss of unfiltered content. In this way, teachers are no longer in the role of giving students content and telling them what to think, but instead teachers are supporting students as they learn how to think, which is infinitely more relevant in today’s society. Maybe with these skills and fluencies, practiced largely through technological means, some of our students will go on to find ways to reduce the negative impacts of technology’s advances, which is a central goal I keep in mind as I ask students daily to “please take out your ipads”.

http://fluency21.com/fluencies.html

NAIS 20/20 Challenge

I am definitely interested in joining this challenge (linked here), but I want to discuss more with my grade level to figure out how to best participate! I am usually the member of the team that most strongly pushes for environmental initiatives, so in our efforts to integrate technology in 4th grade while flattening classrooms, I am most motivated to do so with an environmental aim. However, my 4th grade teammates are nervous about the idea of doing this during final PYP unit about “Sharing the Planet” and about limited resources because it falls during opera time, which is chaotic and unscheduled. I will continue talking with them about this, but in the meantime, here are some other ideas I would like to attempt with just my classroom before trying to make it grade-wide.

To do this just in my class in the 2nd segment of the 20/20 challenge, I would want to make it a year-long project within my classroom that starts by spends the first half of the year working with digital citizenship and computer literacy topics, and then spends the second half of the year applying these skills by collaborating with another school to solve global climate change (incorrectly labeled “global warming” on the NAIS website) issues.

I loved Tracy’s idea today about starting this all of with a search about what information already exists about kids on the internet (hopefully little by 4th grade) and helping them consolidate whatever they already have out there  by linking to a school and /or personal email address that they aren’t going to be embarrassed to have in a few years. It would also be fun to Google other names or people they know to show how technology is commonly used to connect and market. I think it is very important for students to learn about what kind of digital handshakes they are putting out into the world and for them to learn how to leave the impressions they intend to. After working on basic computer literacy skills, I would then progress forward in the steps from Flat Classroom to raise students’ 5 awarenesses. That way, I can help prepare students to engage in international co-operation online while tackling a real-world problem, whatever we decide it might be as a grade level or whatever I decide it might be based on the reorganization of our PYP units for next year. Definitely to be continued!!

 

Pixlr: Don’t you Juanna try this?

It started with a vision, It ended with “force quit”.

Today we worked with the Pixlr program, but unfortunately I learned that to effectively use this program, you need higher-power technology than I was able to access, as well as Google chrome, which I do not have administrator passwords to access on my loaner computer. Even if you bring incredible vision to your encounters with Pixlr, without adequate tech support, you risk computer freezes, incomplete lasso captures, frustration, and a disappointing pair of jpegs that will never meet on screen. (Please bow your head for a moment of silence for MS paint.)

In theory, my plan had been to use a photograph of me in a gymnastics pose and layer it over a set of gymnastics uneven bars to create an advertisement for a gymnastics class. I chose this photo from all of the shoot collection because I thought it was the most uncommon pose of them all that demonstrated both strength and flexibility, which are goals of all gymnastics courses. I also thought the symmetry of the pose along the vertical was visually pleasing. In gymnastics, tight organized lines win gymnasts higher competition scores, so it was important to choose a photo that demonstrated those ideas. A sloppy photo or one simply of a pretty face would not market the goals of the program as accurately, and so I chose this photo because it would be more likely to jump off of a flyer/website and entice those who are interested in strength and flexibility than would a photo of an attractive yet inactive athlete.

My message is simple: join my class, and move like this. “Be Strong. Be Flexible. Be EMGym.” Unfortunately I did not get to combine my background photo and my personal photograph, but together I had hoped that those images and the EMGym slogan would have served as a great advertisement for those interested in taking their fitness to a new level through gymnastics. The photo may not necessarily speak to those looking to get into fitness for the first time because the photo shows a mid-level move on the uneven bars that would not be part of a beginning training program, but I could always add a class at EMGym or an additional flyer just for beginners!

My apologies that the bars below are empty. I’m dreaming of perfect 10’s next time around…

http://www.ten-o.com/N-Series-Elite-Uneven-Bars,3704.html

Delivering Education by FedEx

#pa3a

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rrkrvAUbU9Y#at=508

“By neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation — autonomy, mastery, and purpose — they limit what each of us can achieve.” (p 49) from Drive, by Daniel Pink

In Daniel Pink’s talk (above), he uses research to show that incentivizing performance overall decreases motivation and performance on creative tasks. Our businesses and schools are generally sctructured around systems of token rewards and bonuses that are hypothetically designed to improve achievement, but here Pink shows that these motivators actually have an inhibitory effect on the types of learning we are hoping to develop in our schools.

In terms of using Pink’s perspectives to structure schools and train teacher leaders, I think that having a collaborative goal-setting program is a good start to helping kids to develop goals and gain personal satisfaction in achieving them. This can help develop important positive emotional feedback loops as students learn to work hard to get what they want because it makes them feel good to achieve, and not because there is a gold star, a grade, or verbal praise that reinforces their performance.

Additionally, the more choice we can grant students in their path for choosing how to meet the learning objectives of a given task, the greater their motivation  to achieve in the task. This can be further encouraged through collaborative “FedEx” projects or similar tasks. When students are motivated and working on discovering new understanding, it can reduce teachers’ desires to try to change the way the students are working by shaping behaviors through rewards.

In his book Drive, Pink discusses how appreciating effort rather than rewarding verbally with “you’re so smart” makes a difference in whether or not a kid will continue to push through a harder task when the reward is no longer offered. I think that a quick way to improve schools based on this research is to train teachers in how to effectively reinforce students without rewarding them extrinsically.

Disclaimer:

When I read Daniel Pink’s book Drive, I have to admit that I felt he overgeneralized the research and discounted individual personality traits and the mitigating power of intrinsic motivation in the framework of token rewards. It is not that I do not believe that his conclusions are valid for some situations, but I do not think that he can go so far as to say that adults should not be incentivized by bonuses because it does not improve their work output. Teaching is like the tacks-in-box version of the candle problem, but I also know that when I personally feel I am being paid fairly or that I will be paid more for a stronger performance, I am motivated by that on top of the motivation I already intrinsically possess to excel in my job.  This varies for different kinds of people, but I do not think that Pink’s generalization of robust findings accurately applies to all people.

Drive