This post combines the slide decks and resources from the 2 English Association sessions on the April 17th professional learning session into one presentation.
~Mark
Category Archives: GAFE
The Importance of Now and Next
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Last fall I can remember sitting in a Starbucks with Donna Fry working on our OSSEMOOC project, and talking passionately about the importance of being “present” – living life in the moment and explicitly doing the best thing possible in that moment: listen, understand, suggest, advise, coach, act … you get the picture. I don’t recall specifically how we got onto the topic, but the importance of the conversation stayed with me. This is a choice, a way of living, a way to interact with people. That is the “now”.
In his recent address to Microsoft employees on the 40th anniversary of the company, Bill Gates restated his views on the importance of making “the power of technology accessible to everyone, connect people to each other and make personal computing available everywhere.”
And then, there it was – a very powerful quote: “What matters most is what we do next” he wrote. Let that sink in: What matters most is what we do next.
Lets take a moment to frame the importance of now & next in terms of our GAFE Summit experience this weekend.
Be in the moment – learn, experiment, play, document, ask and savour the joy of learning.
What will you do to
- keep a new connection
- document your learning
- share your reflections
- change your practice
- make your learning visible and/or
- nurture those around you?
It is up to you. What is your NEXT?
~Mark
Resources: Read Bill Gates email address to Microsoft employees email address.
Publishing Makes a Difference
I recently had an opportunity to enjoy a site visit to John Mahood PS, a WRDSB K-5 school to see a their technology use in action.
Under the leadership of principal Tracy Tait, the staff has been working hard over the last 3 years to explore new effective ways to utilize technology to enable student learning in new ways, change and improve practice and share their successes.
The traditional lab at the school has been dismantled and the desktops have been redistributed throughout the school. The mobile technology (iPads and Chromebooks) within the school has been allocated so that each classroom has a minimum of 6 to 8 devices to share among the students. The lab space is now used as a “tech lounge” – more of a flexible creative work space.
In a site walk through, Tracy commented that she expects staff to integrate mobile technology into the learning environment as part of their daily practice. I enjoyed observing a couple of classes during silent reading time and seeing that student had a choice in both what they read and HOW they read it: paper based, via iPads or Chromebooks. Talk about a great example of student voice and choice!
The school focus on choice for students is making a noticeable difference. Several staff commented about technology options providing choice and independence for students. In some cases, the use of technology created benefits in socialization between students both in and out of class. In conversation, it was noted that technology use improves the focus on learning which in turn impacts behaviour in a positive way. In some cases, the use of technology removes frustration when paper and pencil based tasks create an obstacle for students. The result is increased participation through differentiated approaches.
This video captures some of the observations and thinking of students and staff at the school.
[youtube http://youtu.be/eEDd5oOwI4k]Ethan’s Story
Kyle’s Story
Samuel’s Story
Note: The video and story presentations are published with permission.
~Mark
WRDSB hosted GAFE Summit
The Waterloo Region District School Board will host their 3rd annual summit in April 2015.
This will be a 4 day event with the following schedule:
Thursday April 9: Ontario GAFE Technical Community meeting
Friday April 10: Boot Camp courses
Saturday April 11th and Sunday April 12th: GAFE Summit with the EdTech Team.
Details are online at WRDSB hosted GAFE Summit.
Join us for a great professional learning opportunity.
~Mark
Social Media as a Writing Tool
The other day I happened to catch a segment of The Current CBC broadcast as I was driving between school appointments. The topic was big data based the book Dataclysm, which certainly captivated my interest for a variety of reasons.
Image from Amazon.com
I happened to tune in just at the moment the discussion was focused on analyzing data written in social media, Twitter in this case. While many view social media communications as somewhat inane, an in depth analysis reveals some interesting facts.
- writing tends to be more sophisticated
- word length is 20% longer
- lexical density , the proportion of meaning carrying words, is higher than in many other forms of writing (email, magazines etc. – perhaps opposite to what you would think)
- with a limitation on the number of characters per message or post, 140 in this case, people learn to improve word choices
- in turn, this improves editing skills
In the interview, Christian commented that this type of analysis can and has been repeated. This is not an isolated ‘one time’ look at this area.
When one considers the writing benefits summarized here, I believe there is a strong case to incorporate the social media writing medium in the school system. Of course there are natural connections to digital citizenship, engagement, real world audiences etc.
As a classroom educator, if you are already doing this, keep going! If not, consider giving it a try with an age appropriate system, a collaborative document with simulated limits or even offline.
Related Resources
Listen to the CBC Podcast with Christian Rudder on Dataclysm
Book: Dataclysm by Christian Rudder
Have a comment? Please share.
~Mark
Ottawa GAFE presentation resources
Well, it is Saturday morning, up early after a long drive and feeling honoured to attend and present at the Ottawa GAFE (Google Apps For Educators) Summit with Andrew Bieronski. This summit is the first ever bilingual #gafesummit and has over 1200 educators participating. I am certainly looking forward to a great weekend of learning and sharing.
Today’s post shares the presentation resource for our Ottawa GAFE presentation.
Check out the video of our presentation:
~Mark
Meet the Teacher Night Tech Slam
At this point in my life I find myself with one university graduate and one in first year and on the way. It has certainly been a long time since I attended an elementary school meet the teacher night.
In a recent summer conversation with WRDSB teacher Alison Bullock, my interest in the parent aspect of school year startup was rekindled. Alison was enthusiastically sharing about her plans to provide parents attending with a fast paced “tech slam” – a quick tour through many of the different online services students would be using in their learning journey with her. I approached Alison about attending meet the teacher night, and I was thrilled that she readily agreed.
On parent night evening, I arrived at portable 4 to find an energized room of parents and students. Students were eagerly leading parents to their seating area.
On the top of each desk was a QR Code that linked to a personalized welcome video for each parent. Students were visibly excited to show their parent(s) how to access the video and have them watch it.
Now it was time for the tech slam.
Wow – actioned packed, filled with key learning statements and clearly highlighted the connected learner robust technology enabled approach to be used in the classroom.
Casual conversation with parents afterwords showed excitement and interest about the approach to learning their child would participate in.
If I had elementary school aged children, this is the type of classroom learning experience I would want them to have.
Related Resources:
Follow Alison’s class on Twitter: ESTP4.
~Mark
Google Classroom Goes Live at WRDSB
This has definitely been a week of anticipation. I am always excited for CATC Camp, our summer self directed, self paced learning opportunity for staff that focuses on technology enabled learning, effective use of digital tools and digital resources.
The first two days of camp have been awesome! Based on an email I received from Google on Monday of this week, I also knew that we were getting close, REALLY close on the activation of the Google Classroom feature of our GAFE (Google Apps for Educators) environment. I had been sporadically checking all week … not yet … not yet. I tried once more just before supper tonight – not yet. I was beginning to feel like this was the watched tea kettle that wouldn’t boil.
As we were setting up for our post dinner newstime, I thought why not try one last time for today. YIKES – there is was – installed and active. It felt like Christmas in August, and was SO MUCH FUN making the surprise announcement to our CATC Camp attendees. I wished I had thought to record the reaction in the room – instant energy, excitement and applause.
Well, this was a perfect opportunity to offer a quick tour and orientation for interested staff. No problem – Andrew Bieronski jumped into action and provided a nice spontaneous workshop. In the 75 minutes following the announcement, staff were tweeting, re-tweeting about the announcement, sharing and exploring. Some went ahead and set up their 14/15 classes and added the first student assignment. My initial observation was that Google Classroom was easy & intuitive to use, and that support needs would be minimal.
A reaction shared by many!
Making Discoveries
I am looking forward to implementing this tool for classroom educators in our system. Now, I wonder what the next WRDSB hosted GAFE Summit will look like?
~Mark
Learning at CATC Camp Day 2
Digital Learning Carousel Reflections
I had the pleasure of attending the WRDSB Digital Learning Carousel event today along with 400 educators and students from our Board. The event provided opportunity to share our collective insights around digital learning, changing practice and planning next steps forward for our organization. The carousel sessions I attended included online novel studies, innovative practices with math, inquiry approaches and the Futures Forum program.
Three aspects of the day really struck me. The positive feedback on the interest in using Google Apps for Educators (GAFE) and the high rate of adoption on our roll out was awesome. Secondly, I was intrigued to hear some of the educators sharing the benefits of enough technology to support small group instruction over a 1:1 approach. The ‘just enough’ model allows technology to be used as a learning support as needed while fostering opportunities for interaction, conversation and sharing. A 1:1 approach can result in students being self focused or isolated. This feedback validates our decision to roll out our iPad program in a way that avoided convenient the “portable lab pack” allocation. Finally, so many discussions touched on the idea of the right mobile tool for the learning, teaching or assessment task at hand. I felt proud that our IT department is deploying and supporting iPads, Chromebooks and Windows mobile devices to support learning at WRDSB.
My Session Highlights
The online novel study group talked extensively about taking a proactive approach to digital citizenship before moving into online activities. Their approach included googling yourself to find out what is actually online, reputation management, managing your digital presence and building relationships. Tools used in this program included Google Apps for Educators, Today’s meet, blogging, skype and collaborative web page designs. An impressive approach indeed!
In the math innovative practices session, I noted that educators were really digging into teaching collaboration skills. What does collaboration look like, sound like, feel like? “Look fors” would include accountable talk, building on the ideas of others to highlight two attributes. Digital tools used in this program included Explain Everything, GAFE, GeoBoard, Notability and iMotion.
The inquiry stream focused on the relationship of two key elements:
1. What do students need to learn and what do I need to learn as a teacher?
2. If I do this as a teacher, then students …
The final session featured the Futures Forum program, which I am very familiar with due to my involvement with the program. Presenters emphasized the importance of a growth mindset for both staff and students. The approach used this year involving SparKW really engaged the students in a meaningful way.
Clearly, all of the presenters I saw today demonstrated a high level of professionalism and a growth mind set. Thank you for sharing your learnings!
~Mark
~ Mark's Musings ~ blog.markwcarbone.ca 