Category Archives: 21st century learning

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective

OTRK12 Reflections

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The month’s On the Rise K12 conference was very worthwhile.  I was impressed with the level of learning, sharing and reflecting. Some of my highlights included:

There was a notable energy during the event which continued right through to the last session.  I attended an identifying barriers and moving forward session. It was quite interesting to listen to the various challenges raised:

    • great admin support, but teachers are resisting change
    • wonderful grass roots energy to change, need more admin support
    • interest and participation in blended learning is growing but bandwidth capacity is an issue
    • need more wifi coverage

All in all, it was a great passionate discussion  by caring educators.  Upon reflection, the things that really resonated with me were:

    • it is critical to continue investment into bandwidth (internal and internet) and stay ahead of the need
    • I believe leveraging access by including BYOD as part of the mix is important
    • the grass roots up/top down needs to become a planned path with expectations and annual goals
    • continue to focus solving problems and sharing solutions

There are 2 more critical pieces to the puzzle in my mind. There are a wealth of teachers who already use many web 2.0 and social media tools as part of their instructional practice in curriculum delivery. I seems to me, a plan is needed to bring this body of ‘casual’ blended learning into the D2L portal used by the Ministry of Education. Part of this plan would address the need for an easy path to connect existing resources used in the casual approach into D2L – a transition, not a do over for teachers.  Secondly, the D2L environment needs to be “lego like”  — easy to snap outside resources into the portal and minimizing the need for custom interfaces or complicated conversions.

Related Resources 

Conference Twitter chat stream
Presentation: The Traditional Classroom by Diana Hughes
Reflections from Donna Fry
Colleen Rose’s Reflection
OTRK12 Part 1 by Ferdinand Krauss
OTRK12 Part 2 by Ferdinand Krauss
Reflections from Brandon Grasley
Conference Site

I look forward to attending next year’s event.

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, PLP

WRDSB Futures Forum Program Wins Award

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Celebrating an Amazing Journey

Five years ago, a small group of WRDSB staff (Mary Lou Mackie, Mark Harper, Kim Keena,  Jim Woolley and I )  began meeting with local community business leaders who were members of Communitech to discuss the classroom of the future.  Although no specific classroom design was agreed upon, general conclusions centred around what is now thought of as the key C’s: communication, collaboration, creativity  and critical thinking.

Discussions continued with students, and then the WRDSB team enrolled as team in a Powerful Learning Practice cohort to continue our learning and thinking about the possibilities. Bill Lemon, Harry Niezen and Ken Whytock served as the lead implementation to look at needs in the areas of  curriculum, assessment, technology, staff training etc.  The results of the implementation team are captured in this blog post.

Since the Futures Forum program has gone live, there have been continued successes and gradual expansion of this program. Now, in 2013, the program is running in all secondary schools, with multiple classes timetabled in each school.  The approach has had spin off benefits such as the Innovate program at Forest Heights C.I.  Research gathered to date has shown that this approach to learning is producing results that are statistically  significant.

The Futures Forum project was recently recognized  for innovation by Solution Tree.  I wanted to publicly congratulate all the central staff, school administrators and teachers that have been a part of bringing this vision to life.

Additional Information

Solution Tree Photo

Futures Forum video

Official WRDSB announcement

~Mark

21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Web20

Call to #WRDSB teachers

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Ed Doadt, Principal at Huron Heights Secondary School and I will be presenting at the Canadian Association of School Administrators (CASA) annual conference in July. The theme for this year is ‘Technology Meets Pedagogy: Hardware Meets Headware’. Our presentation will focus on how the use of web 2.0 and social media tools positively impact student learning and engagement.

If you have a great story to share about what has occurred in your classroom, we would love to hear from you.  Please  add your story/journey to our Google Doc.

~Mark & Ed

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, Technology in Education

ECOO12 – BYOD Panel Discussion

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At the recent ECOO12 Conference held  Toronto ON, I had the opportunity to co-host a panel discussion with Ed Doadt, principal at Waterloo Oxford District Secondary School. The panel discussion, which was scheduled at Friday October 26th, 2012   9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.  (EDT), focused on the topic of “bring your own device” to school (K-12). The panelists covered a broad range of roles from school administrator, CIO (IT), teacher, student, and Education Officer.

Panelists (listed in seating order)

  • John Shanks, UGDSB
  • Urs Bill, Ministry of Education
  • Tim Hawes, OCDSB
  • James Bond, WRDSB
  • Liz Arbuckle, WRDSB
  • Charlotte Carbone, WRDSB
  • Lisa Unger, UGDSB

Guiding Questions for the discussion

1. Panel Intros: name, role, where is your organization re BYOD  0=leave device at home, 10 = widespread use by students and speakers

2. All – biggest pro, biggest con OK

3. All – Responsible use, digital citizenship promotion

4. IT comment – privacy, infrastructure, bandwidth, some – device management

5. All – How do you feel about open device testing? Where do you see this going?

6. Admin, Student – What skills do you look for in a new hire?

7. Time permitting, audience questions/comments

8. Wrap up

Resources

The session was well attended, the discussion interesting and the audience participation in the back channel was great!  Resources from this session are linked below.

BYOD panel discussion audio recording from the Quest Radio 1-24  broadcast.
BYOD panel discussion  participant back channel transcript   from  www.todaysmeet.com

~Mark & Ed

21st century learning, Technology in Education

ECOO12 Chromebook Treasure Hunt

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Chromebook  Treasure Hunt

Presentation Slides

~Mark & Ron

21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Technology in Education

Resources: Apple Institute Presentation 2012

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Presentation slides

From Idea to Reality

From the Field: Educators in Action

Additional Resources

TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure (RUP)

The WRDSB Library Learning Commons

~Mark

21st century learning, Social Media, Technology in Education

Resources for Pre Service Teacher session

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From Idea to Reality

Administrator Perspective

From the Field: Educators in Action

Ontario College of  Teachers

OCT Backgrounder
OCT Advisory
OCT Social Media video
My View

Session Notes

Todaysmeet chat
Panel Discussion Notes

Additional Resources

TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

The WRDSB Responsible Use Procedure (RUP)

The WRDSB Library Learning Commons

Book: Stratoshpere by Michael Fullan

Book: from Fear to Facebook by Matt Levinson

Book: Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey

Book: The Connected Educator – Learning and Leading in a Digital World by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall

~Mark

21st century learning, Social Media, student voice, Technology in Education

Fan Fiction For Class?

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Here is a simple, yet powerful (Facebook) comment from my daughter, a grade 11 student.

What I know as a parent: My daughter is very passionate about this. She spends hours thinking, planning, writing and revising. When all is well, the posting moment happens with great excitement. Next there is the monitoring: who of my followers  read it? any new readers or followers? Throw in a little advertising via social media tools (twitter and tumblr in this case). Wow! a few new readers and some great feedback. Well – better get going on my next post!!!

Lots of great enthusiasm here – passion, creativity, motivation, self directed learning, standards, authentic audience, and a social element to learning.

And now, to call the question: is there a spot for fan fiction writing in the curriculum?????

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, PLP, Technology in Education

Resources for PLP Live

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Resources for PLP Live

TPACK: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

From Idea to Reality

Administrator Perspective

From the Field: Educators in Action

I'm a PLPeep!

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective

Technology Enabled Learning: Leadership, Change, Capacity Building

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Last week I connected with WRDSB Principal James Bond to have a conversation about his learnings over the last year with the major tablet initiative in his school. We had a great discussion, and James agreed to me writing this blog post based on our conversation.

I kicked off the conversation with a few questions to frame our discussion.

1. How do you see the role of the principal in terms of leadership in the area of technology enabled learning?
2. What were the key ingredients to building capacity among the staff?
3. How did you approach changing what was the norm in your school?

Shift

Shift takes a lot of effort, and you have to be prepared to work hard to move towards the desired result. Another important aspect is respect – respect that teachers, just like students, are a continuum of learning. The school leader can support teachers learning at their own level and setting obtainable growth targets. It is helpful to help people see the benefit in change. They have to want to invest the time and energy required. Support staff in conquering their techno fears – let it go, don’t focus on it. In today’s world, the students may very well know more about the ‘web world’, but that is OK. Teachers need to learn how to leverage technology to improve student learning, not know absolutely everything about it.

Role of the School Leader

The role of the school leader is multi facetted in bringing technology enabled learning alive in the building. Some ideas that made a significant difference with the staff were:

  • learn with your staff, role modelling is important
  • create a culture of learning and sharing among staff (note: over time, staff build the capacity to support each other)
  • share successes teacher to teacher, take pride in “look what I did” – seeing makes a difference.
  • staff meeting activity: share one thing you learned from another staff member
  • set up a staff tour – have each teacher show one way they used technology to support and improve learning
  • work with the staff to make it as easy as possible for teachers to try things
  • Examples: mount smart boards – less messing with cords and set up, purchase document cameras for each room to avoid moving/setup
  • support the acquisition of technology through all suitable avenues
  • consider the impact of radical change vs. gradual change with continued success
  • create the right culture: There will always be new tools and new technology. Is it always about student learning.

Instructional Practice

Technology enabled learning must be built on instructional excellence. Consider the change, pedagogy and technology elements. Staff may be a bit uncomfortable, but should not be totally overwhelmed with technology.  In the end, technology well used is almost invisible in the learning process. A great place to start with technology enabled learning is connecting use to our Board identified high yield instructional strategies and the school success plan. Make a point of sharing successes. Teachers talking to teachers is an important part of the process.

Ideas Going Forward

Thinking of the system perspective, we need to find better ways to celebrate technology enabled learning and raise awareness. Seeing makes a difference. It is important to keep creating opportunities to share. Perhaps leveraging area meetings and leveraging opportunities through family of schools meetings is one avenue.

Other Resources

Follow James on Twitter
James’ Blog
Park Manor School
Learn more from James’ session at ECOO 2012

~Mark
Cross posted to Ontario ConnectED Leaders and VoicEd.ca