Today’s post shares my resource prepared for #gafesummit London ON (May 28/29, 2016. It was a great day of learning, making new connections and of course had many of those special ‘sparkle’ moments when you meet an online connection face to face for the first time. This particular summit had a special connection for me as a Saunders SS graduate.
Resources:
~Mark
Over the long weekend my wife and I were thumbing through a stack of magazines and I came across a fall 2014 professional journal that had an article about this top 10 classroom tools list.
In contemplating how fast technology changes and the considering the emphasis on changing classroom practice, what are your top 5 tools now?
HAVE YOUR SAY: Take the top 5 survey
~Mark
I intended to share this blog post much sooner than today, but life has been a little crazy.
On a recent (March) visit to Ryerson P.S. I had an opportunity to visit the grade 1 classroom of teacher Jenni van Rees. The excitement in the room was obvious as it was coding day! Learning goals for the session were clearly laid out and reviewed with the students.
Students were clearly comfortable using both iPads and Chromebooks as they worked in groups of 2 or 3 for collaborative learning and problem solving.
The students really did work collaboratively, and it was great to see their joy in planning, testing, reviewing results and determining next steps.
Fast foward to April where I had an opportunity to attend a Sphero Challenge event organized by teachers Scott Dickie and Chad Lloyd from Westmount P. S.
I arrived early to see the first of 4 sphero tracks being marked out in the gym. The remaining tracks were laid down as teams from a variety of schools began to arrive.
As was evidenced in Jenni’s classroom, the energy and excitement was in abundance. Teams were eager to embrace the challenge: planning, measuring, calculating, comparing, testing, observing, collaborating, communicating, iterating … “all in” problem solving for sure.
I hope this highlights video give you a good sense of the Sphero Challenge event.
I am already looking forward to the next one!
~Mark
Today’s post shares the resources from the “Ready to Get Social” session I presented with Mary Hingley at the WRDSB SSPD session.
~Mark
There has been two awesome GAFE learning events in Ontario (Waterloo Region and Thunder Bay) over the last two weekends. I appreciated the opportunity to team up with Donna Fry, Provincial Capacity Building Lead to present workshops at each summit.
The presentation slides from our sessions are published below along with links to resources developed by the OSAPAC committee.
OSAPAC Resources:
a) Digital Citizenship Resources for Educators
b) Digital Leadership Resources for Administrators
c) Digital Leadership Support for Education Leaders
~Mark
On Friday April 22nd I am presenting a “Let’s Get Social” workshop with Mary Hingley as part of our support staff professional learning day.
We will be focusing on “getting social” from a photo sharing perspective. Our plan was to include an example of a crowd sourced photo share.
We invite you to contribute a suitable photo that you took to this Google Presentation. Thank you for considering this opportunity.
~Mark
On behalf of the Waterloo Region District School Board, welcome to the 4th annual Ontario GAFE Summit. In reflecting back on our 1st summit, this has been an absolutely amazing journey – still going strong with sellout participation each year.
Before we begin, I want to extend a sincere thank you to ECI Principal Jeff Klinck and his staff for their efforts and openness to support this event. I also want to thank the many people in IT Services and the EdTech team who have contributed to the preparations for the weekend.
And, thank YOU for giving your time this weekend. Not just any weekend – a historic weekend. Why? Last night SpaceX landed a stage one Falcon rocket on a floating drone barge. Wow! When I watched the recording on YouTube I couldn’t help but make a couple of connections to our Summit event today. One – this is mathematics and problem solving at its best, and two, watching the rockets trajectory reminded me of the many conversations I have had with Donna Fry about the importance of professional learning to fuel opportunities to change the trajectory of a student.
I have a hope for this weekend.
My hope is that as you participate, learn, network, make new connections, discuss and trade ideas that you will TAKE ACTION with what you learn this weekend. I challenge you to share and make your learning visible. Please start conversations, participate in online sharing, and blog about your experiences to support the learning of others. Become part of the Ontario Wave of Change by keeping the ripples moving in positive directions.
Enjoy your learning experience!!!
Ready!
Watch the SpaceX webcast
~Mark
Through out this school year I have noted two phrases used in various ed-tech presentations and discussions: technology enriched learning and technology enabled learning. I believe there is a significant difference between these phrases. I know which one I would choose and why.
I am interested to know which one you think is the best phrase. Which side of the fence are you on?
Care to vote?
~Mark
Resources:
View the original creative commons photo
I enjoyed supporting the social media component of this week’s Innovator’s Mindset panel discussion. As I listened to the panelists and monitored the Twitter stream, I jotted down phrases that resonated with me in terms of student centred thinking and important professional practice.
I framed a few questions from the discussion here:
I thought the panelists shared some insightful professional practice elements:
Tell your story: everyone (students and educators) has a story.
Reflect
Challenge Thinking as part of your regular practice
Make it Public
Model – model what you seek
We are collectively better and stronger as co-learners .
Will you take the challenge?
Will you support change and choose to model normalizing the practice of making your learning and thinking visible?
Related Resources:
Storify of panel discussion 4
Follow the Twitter stream at #innovatorsmindet
View the panel discussion
~Mark
Image by Alan Levine CC-BY-2.0
Now THIS is a great question!
I have been pondering this question from different perspectives and have decided to comment on 3: culture, the art of teaching and the learning journey.
Culture: I believe organizations can have a culture of innovation. While I am not sure about the potential of measuring this in a precise way other than a sense of the ‘level to which the culture exists’, I think there are definable traits that could be observed and documented as part of a culture of innovation. For example, a culture of innovation would be an environment where new ideas, new thinking and building on existing ideas or remixing are encouraged. The ideas would be received in a non judgemental manner. Ideally, the culture would live throughout an organization – all schools and the education centre in a K12 context.
The Art of Teaching: What does innovation in the classroom look like? – certainly not a one size fits all or a cookie cutter formula. Teaching is an art where educators build relationships, safe environments, and leverage a variety of tools and strategies to craft meaningful and engaging learning spaces using a variety of tools and approaches: inquiry, problem based, real world context, technology enabled, differentiated, global elements, passion based, creating, communicating, designing, choice … well, you get the picture. The craft is creating the ‘right’ recipe — something special for a particular group of students. I am not convinced that the art of teaching or engagement can be measured with precise numbers, but the existence of the elements and evidence of engagement can be observed and documented. Some of my additional thinking about engagement may be read [here].
The Journey: It strikes me that the meaningful part of learning is what happens on the journey. It is the researching, making a plan, perseverance, mastery, creating, modifying, problem solving, reflecting, iterating, conversing, remixing, analyzing etc – the ACTUAL journey that is important. Yet, we continue to live in a world where great emphasis is put on the end game – the final result. In this context, we complete a significant (at least reasonable) amount of data collection and analysis. Perhaps it is this area of education that needs the greatest shift, rethinking and an exceedingly large dose of innovation.
Perhaps education is one area that really does embody that old saying: Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters. I cast my personal vote to leverage disruption, honing the art of teaching and focusing on changing practice.
How high will you raise the ‘change bar’? Long live #innovation!!!
Additional resources:
~Mark
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 