Saturday 28 April 2018

Energise Conference 2018 Day 2

Our second day started with the Energise Surprise, which involved us being in teams of 3-5 people and being given tasks to complete that all revolved around a Sphero.
Our initial problem was working out how to drive the Sphero - we were all pretty bad at it, and somehow I ended up doing the driving, which was entertaining to say the least. We had a few tasks to complete including painting our Sphero and making patterns with it, swimming it across water and racing a chariot to the finish line. A lot of fun was had and I know lots of people were talking about how to use Spheros in their schools after that session.
My problem with getting these blogs out is that I keep reading all the articles I link to - today's blog has taken hours, as I got quite excited by some of the links. Ah, the joy of learning.


Action learning for professional growth

Unfortunately Pip could not come to the conference so Rachel delivered her talk and added her spin on it. She very kindly said I could share the slides, so here is the link to those.


Reason for chameleon. Different skin to change for different environment.
Kids get more out of you from the relationships you form than the content you give
Learning is like the Rakaia, all different paths all trying to get to the sea
Think about what you want, then how to get there won't matter. You will learn the bits you need.

MSFT peercoaching, need a catalyst. Need a structure or scaffold to make collaboration effective.
Focuses on 21CLD
Focuses on action-learning
Focus on the group action rather than content
National School Reform Faculty -  having a critical friend. Makes you think about why you are doing it that way.
Design thinking - Phillipa Antipas has several blog posts on design thinking
Fail fast, fail often

Collaboration, what is it?


Staff survey, what did they want to learn about
Some tech and some much broader
ALARM, writing and literacy
Came up with those ideas and staff had to pick a group
Then a question, what is driving the choice of your topic. What do you want to know how to do?
Bring it to 10 words max
Some questions around what the teachers, students and families do, eg flipped classroom
Individual goals as well
What we know about this topic on one side and what we want to know on the other. Then take photo for your own use.
Can't always be the best teacher for all of your students. Give them options and access to other teachers if possible.
Culture shift between standing up and telling them or being beside and working with them
Let's ideate, no rules
Write 10 ideas, active with pen and paper, share ideas and record
Killer idea template - on slideshow
Empathy, who are we solving this for, what is their goal, key problems
Idea, what are we solving this for
Benefit, why
Empathy map, x map, who what, why, feelings
How are you going to evaluate the impact
Clear about expectations of each member of the group
Explain, pain and gain speed dating
Explain, what did you do, outcome
Pain, what was challenging, what didn't go well
Gain, what was good
Teachers had to make a resource for other staff in their school out of their learning including examples of how it worked and with whom. 
Notetaking one had apps you could use and things not to do as well.
Sharing resources and contributing to the Kura. Needs to be there for people to use. Makes you do it properly and is useful for others.
This process works well with inquiry in NZ
Inquiry and appraisal hand in hand in some schools, not always productive to trying new things.
Who sets prof learning in your school?
Are you told what to learn or do you have agency. How can you manipulate your own learning?
Rachel went out and found ways to do her own learning
What would a'product' look like in your environment?
People kept asking how to connect printers, did a video on how, but they wanted it on paper. Needed to meet the teacher need. Some staff also saw how you could use that style of teaching.
Growing beyond these projects. Where to from there?
Force people into online environment
Find people to help
How are you going to make that stick ? Have focus because you can't do everything.

Lots of teachers blogging in NZ. Find someone who is where you are at. Sometimes it is instructional, sometimes a rant, sometimes sharing.
Microsoft Educator Community one not all about the Ms products, lots of different courses
Edx, more courses, microcredentials
Free pd
Uses a tweetdeck
#edchatnz

Hint for class - use post boxes, put questions in, get them up and moving around


Session 2 - Jarrod Aberhart
Design thinking

Started with a thinking starter - www.remote-associates-test.com - Use first 3 words to create the last word
Jarrod also agreed to share his slides
From https://www.21cskillslab.com/what-21c-skills/
Dr Seuss writing a book using only 50 words as the result of a bet. Green eggs and ham
P based learning -  p can be project, passion, problem, play-based, people
Top ten skills in 2020 and 2015  (which I also saw in last weeks SCT conference)
Careers NZ - Employability skills. Trialling putting those skills into standards
Taken a step further for his staff. Table of 21cld learning activity chart
Better by design-  human centered design. Getting students out into the world.
A book, choose Duracell, graphic
Chosen lines in it for industrial
Interaction, not sure
Systems, all recycled

Design Thinking Process: shows how you go back and forward
Definitions
Empathy for users - examples:
Taping down cords, solving a problem. Not pretty so students went out and did some research
Nano technology sticker pad tech
Coffee shop, always had huge lines. Developed a coffee app
Girl broken her arm and 3d printed an alternative. Failed but was out working it
Getting to class on time
Getting lunch at the canteen


Conversation tips before they go out to the public. Teach them how to shake hands etc.
Ask open ended questions
See his ppt for that slide.

Getting them to think deeper using 5 why
Ask the person next to you about your design topic to gain some insights
Backward mapping
Why can't you get up on the midnight, why is that an issue, why, why
Empathy map
Do an activity before they go. 
Nerds - What is something they might do. Stereotyping - Rugby player
What do they say, what do they feel, what do they think, what do they do

Next sheet..
We met... Frustrated teachers, unorganised students
We were amazed to realise....
Wouldn't it be great if...
Then go to ideation mode

Best kids at divergent thinking are kindergarten kids. Best test is 1 minute of making things with a brick and a piece of paper. Too scared to be judged.
Build on ideas of others.
Use yes, and....

Drawing ideas on circles - given 30 circles and a short amount of time to make them into anything they want.
Some cant' do it.
Brainwriting/Affinity Map: Group the patterns
Brainstorm questions not answers. Go away and find out about those questions

Roman voting, thumbs up, down maybe
3 stickers next to 3 favourite ideas
Takes away personalisation

Then prototype to explore the solution, then take prototype out to users
Could be role play, and 3d print:

https://atomic.io/ can prototype sensors etc
Built counterweight bike rack
Fisherman's soap, has star anise that attracts fish. Looks like the sea. Designed to lather in cold water.
Good example of human centred design
Lots of links on powerpoint

Uses Agile,scrum board - Scrum meeting each week.
What did you do this week to benefit the group, what were the problems and what will you do next week.
Working on rubrics around collaboration and self regulation


Session3 - StephenMcConnachie, Middleton Grange School and Keryn Hooker - Methven Primary School
E-learning - What should it look like

Students do not learn from technology. Discuss

Whole quote is  Students do not learn from technology, they learn from thinkingStudents do not learn from technology, they learn from thinking. Technologies can engage and support thinking when students learn with technology. Jonassen, D. H. (2003)

Why e learning?
Multiple, students being able to record, make a video, collaboration. Can do things in different ways
Interact, can play with it and interact with each other. Building on each other's work.
Ubiquitous, is everywhere, can be accessed anywhere, anytime.
Engagement, simply using technology at all increased engagement by sometimes that is all it did.
Components and tools for online learning. 

2009 report from schools on ict engagement (not sure if this is the one Stephen was talking about but I found it interesting anyway...)
Tech should support the thinking
What should it look like
Creative
Collaborative
Constructivist

Strategic plan for elearning
Use this in past
Educator community
Enabling elearning site, elearning planning

Learning tool should be invisible. Do need to know how to use the tools
Time consuming. Take that time to learn the tools. Keep on top of the balance. Set up the experts in the room.
SAMR Framework and you can be anywhere in this journey for you and your students.
$$$$ not a good explanation
One flew over the cuckoos nest, why are we reading this. The author deliberate wrote poorly for a deliberate effect.
Choose the right tool for the job for the deliberate effect
Sometimes use paper, sometimes tech
Primary context
5cs of e-learning. Collaboration, Citizenship, Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity
Communication, Seesaw for communicating with parents to share the learning
Use OneNote for publishing writing and collaboration
Mystery Skype communicating beyond our school
Critical thinking, the children run their learning, choose their workshops. They do pathways and opt in to their level
Student voice, owning next steps
Matific, maths pathway
Collaboration, 21cld skills. Learning pathway around reflection
World in groups in OneNote. Put some structure in that
For Google, set up a table of contents in Google doc so have 1 long doc. Can do headings
Learnz conference great to get to different places
Creativity, stop motion, multiple representations and moral learning. Sharing knowledge without writing it down. Have a day a week to dictate instead.
3d paint, built into windows 10
New PowerPoint you can insert a 3d model. New slide transition called morph. Can make an animal walk across the page
Can use for story telling
Citizenship, be a Star
Stay safe online
Take care with privacy and information
Ask for help if you need it
Respect yourself, others, copyright and intellectual property
Just like any other citizenship things, respectful at lunch etc.

Are the students engaged? Yes, but in what?
What does authentic engagement look like. Engagement with the learning goal, or engagement with the tool. Are they doing the goal or are they making the power point pretty.
Triple E Rubric - by Liz Kolb. Learning first, technology second
Engagement with the learning goal
Enhancement of the learning goal
Extension of the learning goal
If all there, it's a good learning activity
Work through the triple E process to look at a unit overall. Does it have a balance?
Choose a lesson or tool and work through the rubric
Evaluate new software and hardware

Collaboration enabled by e-learning
Students running their own learning.
All planning online and they opt into lessons at their own level at Methven primary
OneNote a digital ring binder
Surveys on work that students fill out
Students run workshops
Students writing their own reports
Digital modelling, sharing resources with all teachers
Screencastify or office mix, built into PowerPoint to pre record lessons so can do own workshop in own time.
Stephen makes resources for nationwide audience at of his so doesn't have his face, Kerryn does and puts her face in, better for learning.

Booked workshops online didn't work, tick sheet was better.
Heavy research but awesome site. Here is what this research means for subject areas.
Activity ideas and software
Activity types taxonomy
What is transformational maths in an elearning context?
Any curriculum area.

Stephen also showed us how to do a table of contents in a Google doc - for those without OneNote!
Type in each heading:
Section 1
Section 2
Highlight "Section1"  Change to heading types - heading and can have it on the side to jump to it
View-show document outline, to see the headings
Or
Build table of contents at top - Make link that says back to top and Link to table of contents title


Keynote - Why creativity matters
@sylviaduckworth
Sylviaduckworth.com

Really got to take my hat off to Sylvia - she did her mihi whakatau, it was warmly acknowledged with a round of applause.
Definition of Creativity:
The ability to make new things and think of new ideas.
Exciting as a child - she loved taking photos, and the thing about photography was about developing pictures and the creativity of that
Activity 1: Silly dance moves, follow someone else then make up your own.
3 things :
Creativity has mental health benefits
Cognitive benefits

Creativity
Creativity and happiness. More sessions they did the happier they felt
Brain releases dopamine
So focused in the moment it is like meditating.
Can even skip meals if in the zone. Gardening, cooking, dance
Menti.com for quick survey on what we do to be creative - lots of people like cooking!!

We have been creating music and arts for thousands of years
An urge to communicate something
Pinterest 17.5million users
Ken Robinson quotes about creativity importance
Why is creativity important in education?
Without creativity we will not move forward
Gives everyone a chance to shine

Mayo Clinic Research 2018 - Higher rate of creativity decreases cognitive impairment by 73%
Activity 2: Write a positive phrase on paper. Make it into a paper plane. Send across the room
What is a positive message, how do I write that, how do I make a paper plane, how do I make it fly - lots of cognitive thought processes.

15hrs on academics in 30hr week, 15 hours on creative.
Look at government tests on grade 3,6,9 10 for schools
Looked at results and shows that 100%of students there over achieved at reading and writing and 97%maths
Not a direct relationship with arts and academic achievements but research shows it has indirect relationship

Activity3:  Let's draw - Graham Shaw Ted talk. Prove that you can. To be honest, I have always thought I couldn't - at all. This showed me I actually could - quite excited. These are my drawings to the right.

Creativity can be learnt
Be more creative, now.
There is a creative process.
This is awesome, then this is hard, then this sticks, then I suck, then this is ok, then I am ok, then I am awesome.
How to get more creativity in the classroom
Allow students to bring the own creativity into the classroom
Can bring your own as well. She brought sketchnote. Had youtube channel with students
Edwin Sorto video on dance
Share your creativity with your students
Jack Ma on we do not change the way we teach... It's knowledge based. Teachers must stop teaching knowledge
Values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others

I had a great time at this conference. Spending time with passionate educators, listening to new ideas and having some great conversations over lunch. Well worth going to. I am going to reflect on what I have learnt and make some personal notes on these sessions (which I write in a separate blog which is not public) and know that I still have so much to learn. I hope those that have read this also find some new ideas and are inspired to learn more.

Thursday 26 April 2018

Energise Conference 2018 Day 1

An early start to the day saw me driving out to West Rolleston Primary School picking up a couple of other educators on the way - great to see Rachel Chisnall again and have a quick catch up before the day started. One of the things I love about these is the catching up with people and the day certainly gave me opportunity to do that.
These are my notes from the day - they are not edited, but give some idea of what was talked about, and a few links for further reading.

Keynote:

Engaging the disengaged learner

Difference between how boys and girls were treated.
Ted talk about this. What was happening for boys in schools
This is research after that
Tends to apply more to disengaged learners in elementary level
Active learners, we wish they looked like students who read, are engaged and are excited to be at school
Really, they are: gamers, play with guns, love super heroes, and they are disengaged. Favourite subjects pe and lunch.
In the US if you are a boy you are 3 times as likely to be: Expelled, suspended, in Special Ed, Leanring disabled or emotionally disturbed.
Even higher if poor
4x more likely to be identified with adhd.
75-80%of all adhd medications are given to boys. Are we medicating just because they are boys?
Medication used as a calming tactic
Pisa test results, low for boys in reading and girls in maths and science. About 7years ago the girls topped everything.
For every 100 women who earn a bachelors degree, only 73 men earn one.
Zero tolerance policies where you can't write about certain things, eg death, tornadoes etc
Compressed curriculum, in US they are teaching things earlier
Cultural differences from classroom to their lives. We spend time at school, then we come home and do our learning
Minecraft vs Minecraft edu, can't blow things up and no zombies. Took all the fun out of it

Games? What can we do with them to truly engage kids?
Wanted to disrupt culture
It's important to engage the disengaged population.
Could have opportunity to move as another way.
Teachers like games as long as they are not violent. They prefer collaborative games as well
Problem with gaming
Raising Cain video. Not allowed to talk about death. Would say boy is adhd, but only thing he wants to talk about is death.

Normal development stages
Mixed evidence in impact of violent video gaming. Less and less mixed.
Kids who play games are less likely to commit those acts as they are living it out and experiencing failure through playing games.
Normal stage of boy development is about death.
Clips of interviews with boys - about failing
Trying to give the person the answer that they want.
In a game it's all right to fail. At school it's not. You only get 1 shot at it.
Game culture vs school culture
Gaming helped them with 21c learning skills
Madden,American football learnt lots about patterns
Lots of girls game, they play different games online. Companies are wanting girls to get skills from Call of duty type games as girls need those skills.
Not educational games. They are not interesting.
Not gamification either.
Start where THEY are. Learn THEIR games. Sit with them and lean their games. Can you flip a classroom with games?
Map content onto games
Pop culture, movement, project based.
Using libraries to house gaming computers and they find other things while they are there
One Stone school. Student governed
How do you deal with parents?
Wouldn't suggest a game above the appropriate age level
Games can be addictive
There are behaviours you need to pay attention to.
Don't like the violent part, then allow those that parents say is ok to watch violent movie - written consent.

What about attention span?
Since Sesame Street there has been conversation about attention span.
All fast back then, but we can still do study.

What about social life? Letting them play games. They socialise in a different way. They are very social beings.
It's about adults changing their definition of social.

Research outcomes. What is it that they are learning? Ask them what they do, not what they learn.
Increases communication, leading teams and tribes.
Specific skills for specific games
Doesn't want them in the classroom. Kids don't like 'educational games'

Screen time issues. Her kids all play but never worry about gaming time.
Key is making sure they have other activities. All in scouts, school plays.
If you let that get out of control it can. If they are not doing other things then it can be an issue.


Workshop 1
KateBrown, developing engaging integrated units

Works by herself
Supports school to develop curriculum that is relevant.

ICE
Important understandings for children
Connections need to connect with learning. They have to own it and connect to their world. How many times do we hear why are we doing this, will we need it?
Engaging and fun

Difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary
Multi means many, inter means going between.

Nothing linking in multi, still silo


Beyond a topic into a concept
Want them to understand about this world and transfer into other contexts.
Understanding is the context and all subjects connect
Can use different contexts to give evidence as to what change

Concepts of change
Part present future, Seasons, School environment, Life cycles, Social, Physical, Technology, Agricultural, Entertainment, Why things change, Social justice, Politics, Food choices, Environmental, Family, Gaming, Resources in the future

People think in their subject area.

Planning unit around conceptual design. Context can be student choice. Can be challenging. Students tend to do a factual report so having the same context creates depth so they have to go back to the conceptual understanding.

When understand change they can learn how to deal with it.

Strategies for integrated learning

If you want integrated learning or needs to be relevan to all subjects

Learning areas that drive understandings of the world are generally social sciences, science, health and pe, some tech.
Where we communicate is English, maths and stats, arts, tech, or and language.
Need all working together.
 
Not just about doing a pretty project
Developing conceptual understandings requires the learner to :
Construct meaning
Make sense of things
See things from a different perspective
Develop deep understandings

Used to assess on what they knew and what they did.
Now 3d with understanding
Facts and concepts
Apply learning to different contexts

Why math concepts are so important. Water slide into paddling pool
Friction, materials, distance, physics,
Nothing we do where we only have to deal with one concept.
Using lots of combinations of concepts

Time required for collaboration. Expertise of teams is worth it

Direct acts of teaching are important sometimes.

How do we do this and relate to NZC

A concept is an abstraction which pulls together a number of facts. Concepts grip certain facts together

Transferable
Timeless
Universal
Abstract to different degrees
Not locked in place time or situation


We were given some pieces of paper to look at clarifying which were concepts and which were not - our group had a few we were unsure of.

Is space a concept or not, is both.
Prose has rules around it so not a concept.
Fiction. There are things that are and aren't. So not a concept.

When you don't understand a concept it is generally because you don't understand the language.
Could look at Anzac through the concept of conflict
Start with something the students can relate to. Still need to have some facts.
Connect the concept to the student first. Conflict with other students

Then go local. What is in your community? conflict with Cathedral
Then national
Then global, Syrian civil war
Young students start with just personal and local

Need an emotional connection to learning

We then worked in groups and looked in a bit more detail around the concepts of:
Conflict
Technology and Ethics
Innovation
Environment
Structure

Then looked at the planning of these concepts:
Select the concept, for example systems
Develop the understanding
Unpack for students
Guiding questions
Why is questioning difficult for students once they start school? They are good at it age 3 and 4!
Hands on activity to construct a meaning for themselves
Tall about classroom or school as a system then ask these questions.
Then go to NZ curriculum
Learning areas and achievements objectives that relate to concept
There are AOs that relate.
We select which ones we want to use.
Schools are doing 1 or 2 concepts a year. We have been in the habit of doing too much
Then use AO to turn into understanding

We don't use the AO enough with the students. Conceptual understanding is success criteria


Can use across curriculum levels - example of Community as a concept across Levels 3,5,7






CherylDoig - Provocations
Cheryl led us through 6 provocations and we then had the opportunity to go and write our thoughts on each. A great opportunity to think outside the box and look at some different ideas and thinking.


What do you think is happening here -  Painting in background and students on phones
They are engaged or they are not. Could be art gallery process of learning? Lots of possibilities
What is the relevance of the painting?

Let me invite you to believe pigs can fly. What are the possibilities for education?

1. "If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got".
Create a solution that pushes the boundaries of creativity

2. If you were the boss of education in NZ what would you do first?
Go online and respond

3. Give young people more choice, more access to technology, more and varied opportunities especially for independent learning while keeping each schools character and motivating is to learn. Just don't allow today's reality to limit tomorrow s possibilities.
How might we create a city that is #oneschool?

4. 21c skills
How might we map student learning in ways that we haven't yet considered. Foundational literacies

5.
The x prize www.xprize.org
Human Ai collaboration to tackle the world's grand challenges
Harvest water from thin air

6.
Online
Bit.ly/mlparents research of evidence and success, share resources


Emma Planicka
Where to start with the digital tech curriculum


How can we successfully integrate digital technologies in to our teaching

How can we support and engage students in understanding new advanced concepts
Do we already teach aspects of things like computational thinking day to day.
Progress outcomes.
Break down each of those.
Do our students have those skills yet?
Designing and developing digital outcomes



We were invited to try out a few different activities to use these outcomes:
Activities
Maze
Tynker space cadet tool

What key skills are they using day to day.
Making a sandwich
Sets of traffic lights

Using padlet to share ideas


Tools you can use:
Have basics then put more info in behind it on ppt
Sphero edu community

ibooks and Swift playground
CS Unplugged just been updated. Continual new resources being put up

Great day today - looking forward to tomorrow :)