Category: Redefinition

not underestimating our youth - some ideas Round 1

5/4/2015

Empower all voices in the class - #onebeautifulthought

Sharing and discussing a topic, an idea, a piece of inspiration can be tricky with 24+ students - all with unique opinions and personal learning styles. Some students throve in class discussions, others hesitate, some disengage and there are those so disinterested they can not add to the conversation at this point in time. Furthermore some of the most engaging and provoking resources can make the teacher or students uncomfortable, may challenge us in unexpected ways or may require time and space to reflect on. Why not use some savvy tech to help!

Dove has long been known for its hard hitting, provocative advertising campaigns. "The aim of the campaign is to celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dove_Campaign_for_Real_Beauty, 4 April 2015) To use these to create discussion and prompt thinking can be challenging. So to help I want to show you how to create a space for conversation using free, online technology Padlet based on the Dove #onebeautifulthought campaign

Original Clip

2 minute guide

Suitable for: Years 9 - 10 , males & females

Brief AusVEL's links:
English, The Arts, Health & PE
Communication, Thinking Processes & Interpersonal Development

What makes it empowering:

accessible any time, any place with internet - gives time to think, reflect
gives voice to those who may not often use it
can be anonymous or comments owned by authors
collaborators can record their discussion and post it if that is how they want to learn
collaborators can type their responses if that is how they want to learn
collaborators can respond using imagery if that is how they want to learn
hesitant learners or disengaged can comment & contribute when ready, with extra assistance through an additional prompting question or image
collaborators can add links to other relevant sites, videos, images and build their own topic resource centre
collaborators can only edit or remove their own posts and they do not need an account or email to use.

Rad skills also fostered: contextualising different perspectives, ongoing, growing learning grounded in real life and encouraging empathy.

Tip:
Set up expectation of how to behave in this learning space in line with your physical classroom expectations

Read and understand - together

Providing engaging, real world and challenging texts for readers can be a monumental task - how do you provide something for everyone - the strugglers, the creative thinkers, the bored, the high achievers, the under the radars and the list goes on?! What about every so often tackling a challenging, provoking, imaginative or optimistic or funny reading together using technology to empower learners of all sorts using Diigo.

Explore diigo here

What is Diigo?
Diigo is a cloud based, free tool that allows learners to annotate websites, PDF's, JPG's online adding colour and notes to help them develop their understanding and to engage with content. Annotated notes are them stored for later reflection and development and can be shared between users.

What do I need to set up before using it in class?
Each student needs to set up an account (free) using an email and password. This will need to be verified so students must use a valid email. They can use it on Chrome or the App or another tablet. Just search Diigo extension on the device and install it. Setting this up could be a good 1 minute legend task. See this post http://www.whatnextshelly.com/explore/1-minute-legends

Source - Dumbo Feather Conversation - Julian Burnside, Nov 2013

Access reading here

Option 1 - read, annotate, share

Set up students in Diigo and use a prompt screen like the one below to guide them through the tasks you want them to do.

Tips:

quantify the minimum points on tasks you want the students to engage with
set up groups prior to setting the tasks - mixed groups work well when you want to encourage readers and similar ability work well when you want to target and work with a specific group

Option 2 - read, think, grow

Set up a class Diigo link and share. Then you can work together through the task! Students work collaboratively on a single document, highlighting terms and ideas they want defining in yellow, responding and building capacity using post it notes to respond to these yellow terms. Thinking prompts are in green and are input by the teacher prior to sharing the resource. Students respond using post it notes as well. All work is attributed to the student user automatically. Students can also add personal thoughts and private musings for themselves whilst reading. And bets if all all the notes, ideas and discussion points are saved for future reference. Check it out in action below.

Tips:

show students how to share some things and keep others private and set expectations around what you want shared/private
students may want to complete a reflection after the reading collaborative session - why not include the link and a piece to camera reflecting on what challenged them, what they connected with and what they now want to explore to support the learning

Suitable for: VCE, males & females

Brief Study Design links:
English & EAL - AOS 2 in Units 1, 2 & 3
Global Politics - AOS 1 in Unit 1

What makes it empowering:

thought provoking, up to date reading
provides at passionate, intriguing viewpoint
local viewpoint about a global issue
students work to scaffold and support each others learning in real world contexts

Rad skills also fostered: empowers readers with metacognition strategies to problem solving understanding roadblocks, lends itself nicely to reflection, provides challenge in terms of vocabulary and content and is grounded in real life.

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Tell me a story - by engaging and listening

30/3/2015

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I have long been fascinated with the art that is involved in story telling. As an eLearning nerd I use countless Apps myself to tell stories - Steller, @tramblings twitter handle, Snapguide - but have been moved recently by a new one - Story Corps.

Story Corps is a free App as is the genius of David Isay. It empowers users to record stories and share them globally. His story of how this evolved is intriguing and inspiring.

Most importantly ISAY helps you have engaging conversations and highlights how essential it is to listen

The App also scaffolds the thinking and planning that goes into an interview - the why, the how and the what - along with providing some inspirational, humorous and thought provoking interviews to get excited by!

Get STORY Corps

View the TED resource hub here
http://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize/prize-winning-wishes/storycorps-dave-isay

It is important to note the ideas and planning resources contained in the App are suitable for use by primary aged students, and the idea of collecting and sharing a story is highly appropriate. The content contained in the App is not always suitable for younger explorers. It is still a hugely valuable tool, however perhaps thinking needs to be done prior to using the App around who can post stories and how the resources can be adapted for use by primary and middle years students.

WHAT NEXT?

I want to capture my excitement for this project with learners - young and less young - sparking curiosity with their stories, the stories of those they know and to help build Isay's idea. I want to help others discover, create and share stories - because we are important, because we are powerful and because we exist. Anyone up for an e nerdy session?

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Redefining how staff collaborate

5/3/2015

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Using Google Sites and Drive school wide.

Arriving at ENPS in late 2014 I was asked to think about how staff share curriculum and documents. Even in my first few weeks my inbox would quickly fill up with information from others that wanted to share it, and on occasions I had so many versions of files I was confused as to which one I was meant to be using! So what do you do when staff want to be connected, long to share documents and have been craving somewhere to share and store their goodies? You get Google site making.

This was a journey, as the school was already signed up for Google Apps for Ed and a lone ranger had been exploring and trialling a few sites with staff previously, however it was all new to me. In short this is how I went about it:

1. Study what exist already. I visited, pushed buttons and used the features of the existing server, existing intranet and visited the existing Google sites.
2. Spoke to and took notes from key stakeholders - the Assistant Principal, the teachers (all Year levels and specialists) and the Admin staff were not always sure what they wanted, but they did know what they did not want and this was great data to start with.
3. Establish a 3 concept design brief - SIMPLE TO USE - HARD TO STUFF UP - SCHOOL WIDE TRANSPARENT
4. Get building!
5. Get staff onto it, support them to use it and then use feedback 6 months in to refine it, grown it, tweak it.

You can see a quick tour of the ENPS Staff Hub here to the left.

To help staff access and use the ENPS Staff Hub I had to think creatively. You see I was not on hand to help them every time they had a request so I needed to support staff to use it and be empowered to teach others also. Based on the just in time PD model I developed and offered the following professional learning opportunities;

Whole Staff PD sessions showcasing the first features to be unveiled Padlet live update bulletin and embedded Google Calendar
Techie Breakky sessions to support staff accessing Hub and using basic features. These were matched to the staff who attended starting points so varied in content.
Techie Breakky sessions for advanced users to share the role of Admin with a group of staff who could support each other and their peers
Modelling how to use it just in time with teams who are running meetings or planning timelines, curriculum or other exciting teacher things
Creation and sharing of site map, protocols for adding sections as well as instructions to Admin users to help with long term use and development
Creation of Staff Hub iBook to help users learn at their point of need - featuring step by step instructions, movies and labelled diagrams!

See the iBook here - ENPS Staff Hub iBook or watch a quick flick through below

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WHat to do with a giant zucchini

4/3/2015

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Telling a story using images and words

Last Friday a colleague gave me a giant zucchini. What a thoughtful and practical gift. So I set about working out what to do with a giant zucchini. So I started with a pointers board of giant zucchini recipes to help out those who often find themselves the recipient of overgrown, slightly humorous vegetable gifts. Pinterest is free and a great way to compile resources and references for visual learners. The best thing is students can create their own boards - if they are over 13 - or access yours and the images are referenced automatically. By clicking on the image and you are sent to the original source - a great way to provide differentiated levels of exploration and for those who want to know more about what they are interested in the choice to. So here is my zucchini recipe board link; https://www.pinterest.com/shellywhs/what-to-do-with-a-giant-zucchini/

Follow Shelly's board What to do with a giant zucchini on Pinterest.

So what now? I had my giant zucchini and my Pinterest board full of inspiration. It was time to get cooking and to share that with my kind green thumbed colleague. So I set the parameters of showing her my masterpiece of cooking skill through the medium of imagery. I opted to take 6 images and convert them into a story with no more than 3 sentences so she could bask in my greatness but also get on with her hectic day. Using the free App Steller I logged in and created my story - all the while looking like a design pro thanks to the App! I find when asking students to tell stories clear parameters around length, image requirements, word usage and time to create are all essential in setting up challenge based story telling that allows them a sense of freedom and creativity to tell a story in a digital literacy format. Stay tuned for the result soon...

I want steller

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not underestimating our youth - some ideas Round 1

Empower all voices in the class - #onebeautifulthought

Original Clip

2 minute guide

Read and understand - together

Tell me a story - by engaging and listening

Most importantly ISAY helps you have engaging conversations and highlights how essential it is to listen

Redefining how staff collaborate

WHat to do with a giant zucchini

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