PD around Digital Story Telling and UDL

There's always lots going on, sometimes it's hard to remember to blog about it! For me in my work the focus has definitely shifted from being a 'trainer in things IT' to being a connector between school leaders' and teachers' existing knowledge and relevant information out there - not always easy for us as facilitators as there is an immense amount of knowledge out there for us to be aware of... With Teaching as Inquiry being such a powerful vehicle for all educators to progress their students' learning, and with teachers driving their own learning through TaI, there is less need for facilitators to 'know it all' (I do still get this occasionally, "but you must know, you are the e-learning person"...)

However, there is still a need to look at how to use tools. I have realised that if I truly want to apply UDL principles in my work (multiple means of representation, of action & expression and of engagement), I need to be more considerate of everyone's needs when I deliver workshops. Therefore I have gone back to creating some worksheets / tutorials on Google Docs that not only get shared but also easily can be printed out and sit beside the person using an app or a programme on a device. Here is a session I have run with schools around Digital Story Telling / Movie Making recently, and here you can find tutorials I have created to support this: Movie Making with iMovie iPad app, Movie Making with WeVideo (online), Movie Making with WeVideo Android app, Movie Making with Windows Movie Maker.

I think it is vital that we remember, writing is just one form of sharing a narrative. Digital Storytelling is in some sense not very different from the travelling story tellers we have had even back in the ice ages. Technology now lets us tell our stories and share them easily with anyone we choose to (much easier than travelling over land by foot :D). It also perfectly fits with all three principles of UDL!

What might this look like in the classroom?

Use digital story telling parallel to, as an alternative to or instead of writing. Students still need to plan / story board their story, ensure they are sharing the narrative. 

Ensure students understand the limitations and difficulties of turning their narrative into a movie (they might not have the tools / props on hand to create what words could describe).

Time management is an issue for many students; ensure you set a realistic timeframe, provide scaffolding where necessary; this might include you being actively involved in the creation of the story depending on age and ability of your students.

Most importantly: Take time for the finished stories to be shared - within your class, across the school and beyond.

How are you using Digital Storytelling in your work?

There have been some thoughts brewing in my head about UDL - being such a Golden Circle fan the order of the three principles (what, how and why of learning) doesn't sit well with me. Watch this space...

Professional Inquiry - update

[For 2014 I have decided to share aspects of my professional inquiry through my blog. I believe that inquiries into our practise are essential for all educators and I would like to encourage every teacher to regularly inquire into their practise. I value your feedback and / or questions.]

Back in March I had decided that this year I would inquire into how I can build capacity for teachers learning in a blended way. This came from the observation that up here in Northland where many schools are small and geographically isolated, teachers feel they cannot access the same quantity and maybe also quality of PD as teachers in the big cities can (I am just stating what teachers are expressing, I am not making any judgement if this is the case or not).

It is a fact that there don't seem to be many f2f workshops and courses in our area. Travelling out of the area is an option, though a course in Auckland for example will incur quite a cost to schools, travel, accommodation all on top of relief. Since I started working as facilitator, I have actively involved myself in various forms of online learning so that I can be as knowledgeable as possible when supporting my schools. I thoroughly enjoy f2f opportunities, though with a family to look after going away can be a challenge, too. Not only do I believe that online opportunities are a great addition to f2f ones, I believe that this will become more and more important in the future, and the government support for N4L unlimited internet and Pond certainly indicate that they see this as an important part of teacher PLD in the future.

What do I regard as positive about online learning?

We often hear about huge drop out rates for MOOC students (and yes, I did NOT complete my Gamification MOOC from earlier in the year), but Johnathon Haber from The Huffington Post crunched numbers and came to a different conclusion in this article. The fact is that online we can access many more topics than we could if we relied on f2f.

There have been distance education opportunities for many years, for example our own NZ Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, formerly The Correspondence School, has been in operation since 1922. Our modern online learning looks very different though from the printed books in the mail from days gone by, Digital Technologies allow almost immediate access to resources and activities, they also allow completion of work and proof of learning in new and creative ways.

The biggest potential in online learning in my opinion is the opportunity to collaborate. Sugata Mitra is probably one of the best known proponents of students learning with and from each other (and with the help of the internet). Online tools give us the opportunity to create, collaborate, to share, we can discuss issues synchronous and asynchronous, from anywhere around the world. The exchange and cross-pollination of ideas, the co-construction of solutions to problems that concern many of us all over the world and the power of knowing you are not alone in this can be incredibly powerful tools in the kete of every teacher.

As for my professional inquiry, I am actively seeking to involve other educators in various forms of online learning and connecting by sharing links, resources, inviting them into discussions, webinars, arranging online meetings with them etc. I have (with varying success) monitored my efforts and so far have found two main (and not completely surprising) contributors to success:

• relevance of the topic
• familiarity with the online tool

I have placed them in this order on purpose: I believe that when a topic is sufficiently relevant, people will be more inclined to get over the obstacle of an unfamiliar tool (but maybe you disagree?). However, no matter how well they know a tool, they are not going to engage if they are not interested in the topic.

What does this mean for me in my practise?

My role is not one of  'teaching use of a tool' simply for the sake of the tool. However, when this tool serves a purpose, such as access to a webinar or sim., I believe it can be a very good use of my time to walk others through the use of that tool. Hence for the second half of the year I will put even more emphasis on actively promoting the use of tools like Skype, Google Hangout, Blackboard Collaborate, VLN, Google+, Twitter etc. in my schools. This is almost 'the easy part'.

The more challenging part is to ensure I am more aware of possibly relevant topics that I can connect my schools and teachers with. I already spend many waking hours in educational online spaces, but I want to make sure I am very aware of teacher interests and needs, scour these spaces thoroughly and share anything that might be relevant to these teachers - without completely overloading them.

What advice can you give me to ensure I am supporting teachers effectively?

Recurring themes for schools involved with e-learning

Being involved in education hands-on is a very busy place to be! It is just amazing how quickly time flies. In my current role a lot of my learning has to happen 'just in time' - our PLD programme does not have set sessions that we prepare for and deliver, being always mindful of future focussed learning theories we are building the programmes around our learners' needs. This does not mean though that there isn't a certain amount of overlap between different schools. I would like to share some of the themes I seem to come across regularly:

• Stock Take: Where are we at? What is our current location in regards to the initiative (in my case usually e-learning)?
• Vision: Before starting on any new initiative, developing a vision is incredible important. Why are we doing this? Where are we heading? How will we know that we have gotten there? Who helps build that vision (ideally representation from all stakeholders)? Does everyone know and share the vision? It is really important to remember that there is a difference between the vision and the results of the vision, e.g. see Simon Sinek's TED Talk on the Golden Circle.
• How will we put that vision into reality? Just like when we go on a physical journey, there are different routes we can take, influenced by where we are starting as well as the 'road conditions', the 'sight seeing' we want to do on the way - and sometimes we change our mind about our destination.
• What we are actually doing will come out of the above, it is what effective teachers do in their class everyday. It includes any devices and programmes, the 'when is it the right time to use a device, and when do we put it away'.

Many, but not all schools are aware of 21C learning and the Future Focus Themes of Personalising Learning, Rethinking Learners' and Teachers' Roles, New Views of Equity and Diversity, New Kinds of Partnerships and Relationships, A Culture of Continuous Learning  for Teachers and Educational Leaders and A curriculum that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity. If you are interested in finding out more about this, you can find a summary in the Curriculum Update 26 and the full report here. If we want to cater for our learners and prepare them for their future, we cannot ignore such important research. How to fully integrate 21C learning and teaching into practise in all schools is the great challenge for all of us in education.

Often the adults I work with are concerned about their own confidence and competence in using devices, as well as how to incorporate these in their classes effectively. It is very interesting how students are a lot less worried about devices, they are 'just doing it' - not always completely effectively, but they are certainly not hindered by a 'fear of devices' unlike some of us adults. Claire Amos wrote a very interesting blogpost this week as part of their #hackyrclass initiative about Handing the Power over to the Learners. Claire identifies that true engagement is hindered by the teachers' need to maintain power and control in the classroom.

Out of the varied approaches schools are taking, some recurring themes have become apparent:

• Use of technology to collaborate, share and create, within a group of learners (classroom / syndicate), across schools / clusters of schools and beyond. Many schools are using their websites and GAFE for this. 
• Personalising learning with providing multiple means of engagement, action and expression, and representation (the 3 themes of Universal Design for Learning)
• Integrating increasing number of devices into learning programmes effectively.

If you find that you or your school are in a similar position as these schools, how do you go forward?

• Stocktake: You will find great resources around the e-Learning Planning Framework, a self-assessment tool for schools around e-capabilities here.
• Vision: I strongly recommend you endeavour to involve representatives of all stakeholders into the school visioning process.You can find some interesting links and video to support your work around creating a vision here. 
• Putting the vision into action: Both Enabling e-Learning and the Virtual Learning Network have an amazing array of ideas and resources that can help you put your vision into action. You can also find great support on Google Plus and on Twitter.

If you have any questions that you think I an help you with, please feel free to comment or contact me via email, twitter or Google+!

Preparing for the future

This is just a very quick post: How are we preparing our children for the future?

I just finished reading Stephen Baxter's Flood and Ark (e.g. available at http://www.amazon.com/Flood-Stephen-Baxter-ebook/dp/B002VCR0AS/ref=tmm_kin_title_0), describing a possible future for our world and the decisions that people might have to make to survive themselves or to help mankind survive. This follows watching the video of +ClaireAmos speaking at the Festival of Education about "Realising the Future of NZ Education" (you can find her blog post and the video here http://feedly.com/e/fUwW6LzN).

What are we doing to prepare our children for an unkown but not un-imaginable future??? What are the ingredients our children need to cope with what the future might throw at them? What of the knowledge that we hold dear will be important to them, to their decision making - or maybe just to make them to what they need to be in the future?

The most important open space is your mind

Much has happened over the last few weeks that my little brain sometimes has difficulty catching up with it all, being a Tui chick and all, but all of a sudden some thought s are crystallising, please bear with my while I try to  get these thoughts on this virtual paper.

My first GAFE Summit last week was great at many levels, and you can read my post about this here. I learnt some new tips and tricks, made new connections and renewed old ones (e.g. by showering poor +Megan Croll with coffee... country bumpkin in the city comes to mind...), found new resources, had some thoughts, especially about myself, challenged. This was followed by the 1 year anniversary of +TeachMeetNZ, founded and very competently led by the fantastic +Sonya Van Schaijik. Presenters included @MissDtheTeacher @stephen_tpk@gingamusings @kaiako_nz @gmacmanus @chasingalyx. You can watch the recorded session on the TeachMeetNZ wiki, it is an amazing depository of mini presentations from NZ Educators about topics relevant for NZ education. This was the third TeachMeetNZ I have been involved in, and it has been fascinating for me to look back over my own journey through this time - from "how did I get into this awe inspiring groups of people" to "are you sure I can contribute something to the discussion" to "let me help you get your message out there". Sometimes I wonder how much our tall poppy syndrome, which even immigrants like me adopt very quickly, almost by osmosis, is standing in the way of progress?

In this Storify, once again from the super-onto-it +Marnel van der Spuy, you can see my and other tweeps' tweets about the event:

I had the privilege of hearing +Michaela Pinkerton presentation more than once (in the running up to it and at the event), and the quote that stuck with me the most was

"The most important open space is your mind". 

How open is my mind, am I a connected, life-long learner?

How can I as facilitator create open space for my learners, my schools, their leaders, teachers, students, whānau & community, to be connected, life-long learners?

Do learners need particular pre-requisites, scaffolds to be ready for such an open space, and what would that be?

What do you think?

GAFE Summit 29 & 30 April 2014 - Metaphors and Thoughts about Change in Education

It's the second week of the holidays, and 400 odd educators from around New Zealand got together at Albany Senior Secondary School in Auckland for the GAFE (Google Apps for Education) Summit (I have to mention that in the previous week the same event was held in Christchurch also and drew a crowd of South Island educators). What an amazing event!

The summit was organised by the EdTechTeam with support from various local partners and sponsors and featured international and national Googlers sharing their wisdom. On the one hand it was completely and utterly about Google of course, but not about the company selling product (GAFE is actually free for every school), in my opinion it was all about transforming learning and teaching. All this in the purpose-built MLE of ASSHS, it made quite an impression on me.

There was much googleness to take away for everyone, +Marnel van der Spuy collected the tweets about #gafesummit in two storfies which she kindly shared on twitter - please see them embedded at the bottom of this post. 

In addition to the actual tools and tricks, there were some thoughts I took away with me about change in education:

This metaphor was used by +iPadWells NZ in his session on How Google can move the un-movable Teacher. I have often contemplated why change in education seems to be so slow, and this metaphor seems to demonstrate it. I am a great fan of metaphors, and I used to read The Committed Sardine blog (which I have lost somehow? Can anyone help me find it again, please?) where the education system was compared to a swarm (school?) of sardines, which - against my gut feeling - would change direction quite quickly when approx. 20% of the sardines changed their direction (I would have thought it needed to be at least 50%). What part of the pencil are you? Which direction do you swim within the swarm of sardines?

Yet another metaphor came to mind (I told you I like them :D) when we visited Australia Zoo while on holiday last week. In their big animal show they explained why a saltwater crocodile is moving very slowly on land - the heavy tail is like a dead weight on land. In their 'natural' habitat, murky water, they rule. They come out of the water when there is a great incentive (food), but they will return into the water where they are most comfortable as they are not made for running after prey on land. What if we could take our educational crocodiles - who rule in their environment - out of the water and take the drag of the tail so that they could also rule on land? Maybe not the best metaphor as real saltwater crocs would be quite deadly - and we wouldn't want our students to be killed, would we - but it once again brought it home to me that some people need a dead weight taken off them in order to move freely in the new environment we are putting them into. (Or should we think about is as a kind of evolution where creatures either adapt to the changed environment or they become extinct - but that takes a looonnngggg time - do we have that much time in education?).

What can we do to move the wood/ferrules/erasers, make the swarm of sardines turn or take the dead weight off the crocodiles on land?

• We need trailblazers (leaders and sharp ones, sardines swimming against the swarm) who trial new things and overcome barriers. We need support, resources and emotional, for the trailblazers, acknowledgement of their importance, and the opportunity for them to share with others.
• We need systems in place to support the wood and ferrules, the one-direction sardines, to incentivise the crocodiles to move out of their natural habitat. Just like for our students we need to scaffold, support, walk along side them, provide them with support and encouragement, with clear, high expectations.
• We can't allow the hangers-on and the erasers, the unmovable sardines and the crocodile to stay in their old habitats. We need to make it unacceptable to remain in a pre-21C mindset when we are in the second decade of 21C and are trying to prepare students, most of them born in 21C, for a life in 21C.

So what can we all do right here right now?

For our learners:

• What is your vision for your learners? e.g. lifelong, connected learners
• How will you go about this? e.g. by giving them the opportunity to share their learning with others
• What will you do? e.g. run a class blog for students to share their writing with the world

What does this mean for you as educator and your learning?

• What is your vision for yourself as a learner? e.g. as future focused teaching & learning shows us, understanding of learning has changed, I truly need to be a lifelong, connected learner myself.
• How will you go about this? e.g. I will connect with colleagues within and beyond my school, f2f and virtually.
• What will you do? e.g. join the VLN, twitter, Google Plus, or similar and learn to use it. I'll open my classroom and practise to other teachers and the community. I'll look for opportunities to learn more, go out of my comfort zone.

(Hey, I can get the Golden Circle into anything!) With 96,000 registered teachers in NZ, we should need just about 20,000 swimming against the stream to turn the swarm - are you ready?

So, what am I going to do after this GAFE Summit?

• Continue connecting on the VLN, Twitter, Google+ etc. and sharing my learning (just like in this post)
• Look for even more opportunities to create and share resources, esp. those that follow UDL principles.
• Share more of the opportunities I see coming up with my teachers so that they are aware of them. Walk alongside them, gently persuade them if they are reluctant :)
• Have clear, high expectations, make them obvious. Have high expectations of myself as I model for my learners.
• I want to keep learning more for myself, too, so my next step is to take some of the Google Educator Exams and apply for the Google Teacher Academy in Sydney in September.

(Interestingly, and following the concept of life-long learner and changing understanding of learning and of knowledge, Google qualifications need to be re-taken over time - understandably, as it is no longer about regurgitating fixed content!)

What change do you think our education system needs? Do you agree or disagree with the metaphors and my suggested actions? How will you go about making change happening?

__________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks again to +Marnel van der Spuy, here are the collated tweets from two days GAFE Summit!

Day 1 Storify




Day 2 Storify

Eduignite Rotovegas: Building your online PLN

A couple of weeks this call went out on twitter

Not only do I love helping out my friends +Annemarie Hyde and +Marnel van der Spuy, this was also an excellent opportunity to a) push myself a bit further and b) to progress with my inquiry of how to build capacity for blended learning for rural and isolated teachers - funnily enough in this case I presented from a rural location to a room full of teachers in Rotorua about Building your online PLN. 

+Sonya Van Schaijik, +Justine Hughes and I had a quick practise during the week with Sonya as usual very competently managing all technical aspects :) Looking back over the four online presentations I have given over the last 6 months, this time I felt the most confident yet. There is a bit to get used to when presenting online through a GHO (Google Hangout - or when it gets recorded, a Google Hangout on Air):

• You need to have your presentation ready to go, with consideration to bandwidth (amount and size of images, use of Powerpoint / Keynote vs. Google Presentation).
• Your technical setup needs to work (I tend to plug the ethernet cable into my laptop now - so that excludes presenting from my Chromebook or my MacBook Air) incl. microphone and headphones, you need to have the Google Hangout Plug-in installed
• Within Google Hangout you should explore the various settings and tools, e.g. Toolbox which allows you to show your name and an image at the bottom of your screen etc.
• What are you going to say? With TeachMeetNZ and Eduignite you have rules about length of presentation and are supposed to auto-advance slides every 15s, there isn't much your audience can see / read in 15s and not much you can say (especially when you have an accent like me:D). I must admit after talking with the lovely +Diana Wilkes I decided to print off my speaker notes - there you go, paper is still important!
• The one slightly disconcerting thing when presenting is that you only see your own screenshare (your presentation) and don't see or hear anyone else (all other cameras and mics get turned off to preserve bandwidth). It is challenging to present without having any form of verbal or non-verbal feedback!

I love the learning that comes from these sessions. It was great to hear from Sonya about the origins of TeachMeetNZ - which will turn 1 in May! If you haven't done so, please go and visit the TeachMeetNZ site and listen to the recordings from previous presentations. You can also contact Sonya (@vanschijik) if you would like to use this platform to run your own event. Justine very passionately spoke about how she does not give homework anymore but instead has her students 'prep for learning'. I definitely want to find out more about this, and I will go back to her presentation and follow the links from there (I have never been in favour of giving homework as a teacher, back in my days as music teacher I used to say to the students practising your instrument / voice is enough homework). I wish I could have stayed online to listen to the presentations in the room, however, I was able to read the twitter stream and joined in some of the learning that way.

Where does this fit in with my inquiry: The presentations have all been recorded and are available individually (thanks Sonya!) on the TeachMeetNZ site. Anyone can go and rewind them as many times as they like. You will also find the respective presentation embedded into the individual pages. Teachers can now go and listen to these in their own time. Where my inquiry comes in is to help teachers find such recordings when they need them - otherwise we are simply preaching to the converted, aren't we? A typical 'Kiwi thing' stands in my way, I don't really like to blow my own trumpet; while I don't mind presenting f2f to groups of people I know or groups of strangers, I find it much harder to tell people "go and listen to my recording" - it's much easier to say for example "go and listen to Justine's recording, and by the way, my recording is on that site, too". That will be my next little hurdle to get over I suppose...