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3 carriage train - reflection

26/3/2015

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Thinking about ray nashar's leading innovation clip 

This short animation created by Ray Nashar is an inspirational clip that explores the role of an eLearning guru's role - or in fact anyone's role -  in transforming and leading innovation. 

Just like Ray the person, I found the animation to be thought provoking and engaging which led me to reflect upon his musings. As a rad side note, the animation was made using Keynote, a free iPad App - a creative idea of a powerful tool! 

You can download the ePub used with the clip here;
http://bit.ly/MyGox8. 
CONNECT - "It's not coming up with the ideas, it's spreading them" is the point that resonated with me. I have so many ideas about how eLearning could be used to enhance learning and teaching, reporting, the delivery of curriculum, the process' we use in schools and the list goes on. And what is a priority for some staff is varied from another - how do we enable all staff to grow in their eLearning at the point they are ready to? How to get others on board with this is always an important question,  so it's not just powerful, connected eLearning for some but for all students.

EXTEND - The notion of occasionally dipping into the top carriage made me realise this can be done using ICT - why not set up a learni.st board for those top users to tap into when they need inspiration? What about a PD twitter feed for those keen to find out more? What about a monthly Techie Breaky aimed at top users and advancing their skills - or even better supporting them to present their ideas as well? This would work especially well at multi-campus colleges. 

CHALLENGE - The next challenge that springs to mind is once you have people moving into those first few carriages how to you ensure you continue to challenge and grow their capacity - essentially rearranging the carriages again?  The dynamic, behaviour and norms will have shifted  but how to sustain that is interesting and exciting. Another challenge is how do you celebrate the courageous first middle car movers  to encourage and "..influence but not directly" without alienating the other 2 carriages? It highlights the importance and value of peer sharing and peer modelling aside from having just the eLearning leader as the expert. 
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Rethinking homework

24/3/2015

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Using the golden circle method to understand why we do things before the how and what 

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In early 2015 I worked for 10 year olds. They are creative, critical thinkers. We were talking about homework the other day and we decided we could make it better. So we started with the why – why do we do homework. Once we worked out the why (by the ways it’s to Improve thinking, improve creativity & to extend learning at home) we moved into the how and the what. Applying the Golden Circle has meant the team has buy in, ownership and are empowered to change their own learning. Check out the Ted talk on the Golden Circle model below. It was a great way to empower, energise and engage the team in revisiting an outdated model of home work. By reframing homework to be a positive, engaging activity I feel my enthusiasm and sense of fun has made a difference in the students world. I really love education, it is hard not to be excited about technologies role in the future of our world and it’s learners.

And this is what the team came up with after a 20 minute why-storm and then through thinking and collaborative planning using Padlet to suggest the how and what! The best thing about using Padlet, students could add to it whenever they got an idea and wherever they were! They could also add things if they were hesitant to do so out loud in circle time. 
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gee that wall is interesting...

20/3/2015

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creating curiosity and problem solving skills using augmented reality in the classroom 

Get I read it but don't get it
In early 2015 I attended a PD focussing on Middle Years readers run by Kate Barletta. I left with so many new ideas and notes I did not want to loose focus of over the course of the year as I empowered readers. Coupled with Kate's PD was my reading of Chris Tovani's I read it but don't get it - a quick read for Middle years teachers about her journey teaching reluctant, disengaged readers. 
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Click on an image above to enlarge and scan using Aurasma
Samples of aura links 
I started with a rough list of strategies and ideas that readers could use to help them become more effective, engaged readers. But I didn't just want to make a list of these and hand them out - nor was I content to post them on my class Edmodo. I wanted students to be active in their processing whilst reading - to be able to get an idea, activity, strategy or prompt to help them as they read. To be curious enough to find out more when they needed to at the point then needed to. I also wanted learners to be empowered to interact with resources and to make independent choices about what help they needed regardless of their current capacity - fostering their metacognitive skills as well! And for all this to happen I need to think creatively and make something they wanted to interact with! 

Introducing Augmented Reality

I started by categorising my ideas into 6 things good readers at ENPS do and made each topic a feature on a Piktochart. I then had to print this and it will go up on the walls of my physical learning space - as well as going onto my Edmodo!  Then using the App Aurasma (free) I created auras - items that when scanned come to life. For every topic I created a link to an engaging, high quality visual stimulus ranging from - 

Piktocharts (free) - infographics designed online
Prezi (free)- viewable summary of connected ideas 
Popplet App (free) - created colour coded mind maps linking ideas

This empowers students to interact with their classroom space, to help select what they wish to refine and improve on, to identify and solve their own problem, to help establish what might be their next reading learning goal, to access support ideas and strategies when ever they need and allows for multiple entry and exit points for different learners. All this whilst supporting literacy development - wow! An added bonus is this interactivity gave students who needed a break whilst reading a still-engaged-with-the-task way to stretch their legs and refocus. 




Get Aurasma
Get popplet
Explore Piktochart
Explore prezi
About half this stuff worked! 

I realised a lot about how I learn through completing this task -  a task which I still see as being in progress.

To start with I made Keynote slides with each topic on it. The Keynote slides I made were too clean, you need complexity to activate the auras! So then I created the infographic version you see above to give the imagery more complexity.  

Partway through I discovered you could make auras using the laptop version of the App found here www.studio.aurasma.com To be honest I found this much easier. Not only did I have greater ability to match images, I also could add greater levels of interactivity such as adding links and actions once tapped or once loaded.  I had to turn off auto enlarge as if you scan an image that you don't want to view you had to close the App to get back to the scanner view. 

I also discovered the images need to be very high res to be read. To get around this I made the images enlarge if you tapped them. That way even if the App picked up multiple auras on it's scan, students could pick which information set to view. You can only access these settings in the laptop version. I am still working on exporting high res images for all the links.   

Linking to Prezi is tricky - but not impossible! For now I have placed another Popplet in the pace of the Prezi. It is possible to link to Prezi using the Aurasma Studio actions button and adding an action which links the overlap to a URL when double tapped etc. 

There was hours of trial and error learning that took place with this, but  I found this highly engaging and interesting as it was a great way to discover what can be done with AR.  One thing that took me such a long time to work out was why when scanned my stimulus using the App it would not work! To view Auras (even those that are public) you need to follow the creator! Simple yet so frustrating when you don't know this!  To avoid this happening to my peers I designed a quick 1 page summary of how to get Aurasma-ing in my classroom! 

What next? 

I'm looking for new ideas to create interactive wall displays with, with a focus on essential skills and knowledge and providing the capacity for self-directed learning.  I am also keen to look at linking not just images to trigger points, but videos, interviews  that students have created. We could also explore the school as a self guided Aurasma tour using pop up videos and files etc relevant to areas visited in the school. 
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SAMR - not the same redone 

11/3/2015

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For those familiar with the SAMR model this  narrated Prezi outlines how I go about using this model to help start discussions with staff about implementing technology in the classroom and maps one task through the stages. SAMR is not about working a task through each level, it is about thinking about what level matches the learners and task requirements, how it impacts on all learners and what the learners think about the task.  Importantly it is not simply transforming a task and leaving it at that - it is asking what is next in terms of refining the task for future learners and not staying the SAMe just Redoing the task year in, year out. 

View the Prezi (without narration) below.  


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Showing a cat video to 400 people 

6/3/2015

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In January 2015 I was fortunate enough to find myself at the Melbourne Town Hall showing a cat video to 400 Girl Guides volunteers at the Girl Guides National Conference. Granted there was a speech that accompanied this cat video but let's be honest, cat videos are internet gold.  You can watch a summary of the speech in the prezi to the right. In short I spoke about the fact we can use digital technologies to enhance female voice, leadership opportunities , to inspire and to empower young women, Importantly it was about igniting the need, the passion in the volunteers to try something new in the digital realm and to affirm that they don't need to know everything, but to start having a go along with the young people they are guiding. 

40 mins, January 2015 
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Learning beyond the conference based PD

6/3/2015

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I have this urge to share with educators rad things they can learn about and use to improve their own learning and teaching. We celebrate when learning opportunities become personalised and at point of need for students, we get excited when they get to move beyond their classrooms and into others. Yet as teachers we sometimes forget that we can grow and learn in a similar way. So this prompted me to start thinking about how I could deliver PD to my colleagues so that it suited them - when they wanted to know it and across  a variety of platforms. And the best thing about it? Hearing the conversations staff were having not only about what they were learning, but also about how they were learning it and why they could apply the ideas to their classes - epic PD! 

Curating cybersafety resources using Learni.st  - After our first parent information session it became apparent we needed to look at making  cyber safety a focus in our teaching as many parents had justifiable concerns surrounding this from Years 3 - 6.  The challenge based learning moment for me was how to share ideas and resources with our staff without dictating what they should do, yet still supporting them to address cyber safety in the classroom. So I created free learni.st account - you can too here -  and generated a board of resources, mapped to all students and then specific Year levels for staff to tap into. When staff are ready and in a headspace to explore these resources are ready for them. This worked well for resources I had not created - there is so much out there already for Australian Primary aged students so why not curate it for my staff to explore?  Check out the board here 

Digital Citizenship @ ENPS Resources
Walk & Gawk then grow - I was discussing with a colleague the concept of Learning Walks recently. In my experience when I had participated  in Learning Walks previously and I was that teacher who meticulously planned my lessons, structured them so the class looked awesome and  generally had little to fear. Then I moved to a primary school context where I had little idea what I was doing. The thought of someone being in my classroom was terrifying. I was not so cocky anymore!  Not only did I feel I did not know enough to show anyone else what was going on, I felt like I should have known better after the number of years I had been teaching in a secondary context. Give me a class of 25 teenagers and I've got it sorted. 24 little people is a whole new ball game. OMG ball games with 10 year olds, that's a whole new skill set...

My colleague suggested why not use this trepidation and reluctance as my starting data - get someone to come in and have a look and to see what I was doing well and what I could grow in. That way I could identify things I am already doing and find ways to do them differently. Then I had a lightbulb moment. This is what it feels like for many teachers when it comes to ICT and eLearning.  So I developed a framework around the shared purpose of an eWalk & Gawk as shown below. 

TO BE CONTINUED 
I really liked this model as it meant I could work with staff starting at the level they were starting at - be it beginner through to high end user and through empowering them with 2 - 3 new skills they could then use these and model them for their peers - thus having wider impact and a longer impression. Rather than me just showcasing how my classroom works using eLearning I was empowering others to become eLearning mini experts in fields they wanted to explore starting at a place they knew with high relevance. 
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Tramblings - writing & thinking prompts

6/3/2015

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I like public transport. I am that person that sits quite contentedly, swinging my feet as the tram rumbles along the tracks through suburban Melbourne. I like the people on trams. I like the occasional odd one who tries to sell you the half-fried wall heater they got "from a friend" or the loud one who really wants everyone to know "That she is, like, such a mole..." You see I like the ramblings you hear when travelling around Melbourne. And I like to call them Tramblings. 

But then I had a thought, why not capture some of the lines I overhear and publish them for others? The odd, isolated and sometimes intriguing comments could be used as seeds for writing and thinking with students - and adults! They could also be a great writing exercise in prediction, creative thinking and contextual connectedness. So enjoy! 
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    Shelly Casey
    Curious.
    Creative.

    iLearning 

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