Category Archives: Technology Enabled Learning

UnGoogleable Questions

June 19, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Today’s post is a reblog from my original “picture and post” on OSSEMOOC.

Part of my weekly routine is to check out the Twitter #cdnedchat hashtag stream. I have learned that there is always something interesting to check out.

The words “UnGoogleable Questions” in this post seemed to jump right out at me. While Google is a great tool that provides almost instantaneous access to limitless information, it is important to pause and recognize that this is just the beginning in the context of a learning journey.

What does the notion of “UnGoogleable Questions” mean to you in terms of asking, inquiry, probing and going deeper with learning? How might this impact your professional practice?

Resource: Link to Nancy’s full blog post.

Ask great questions!

~Mark

21st century learning, Digital Citizenship, GAFE, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, student voice, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Digital Learning Carousel Reflections

May 27, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

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

Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning, SAMR, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL, Todaysmeet

EOIT2014 resources and reflections

May 5, 2014 markwcarbone 1 Comment

I enjoyed my recent opportunity to present a session on ever changing EdTech world in K12 education at EOIT2014. Three points from the various conversations over the day captured my attention.

Limestone DSB, CIO Wayne Toms described how becoming active on Twitter has “changed his approach to PD forever”. He emphasized the importance of having access to a stream of current information and thinking to shape one’s perspective underscoring the importance of connected learning.

If fact, this coming weekend, two Ontario based EdCamps are happening on May 10th as per the “Tweet captures” below. Connected learners can participate by following #edcampsault and #edcampisland.

IT leaders Ron Plaizier and James Proulx openly discussed the challenges of “all the moving pieces” – technology changing at a rate much faster than classroom practices shift and support models can be adapted. There are no easy answers. The best strategy is to bring people together for conversation and time to play in this “change space”. Agreed!

The third conversation focused on a notion I would call the software “power” gap – the difference in capability when comparing a desktop application version against the corresponding web version. This power gap differential exists in many applications. In my view, the critical piece of this puzzle is at the intersection of desktop > mobile, local > cloud and minimal NEEDed functionality vs extra features. One “crystal ball” question is how long might it take to reach the ideal cloud based offering of a particular application?

I also wanted to share of few highlights from the back channel related to “What is the most important aspect of your work?”

Participants stated:

Related Resources

View presentation file

Twitter chat for #EOIT2014

Blog articles related to the Futures Forum project.

Blog articles on the SAMR model.

Scoop.it articles on SAMR

~Mark

21st century learning, Connected Learner, ProfessionalLearning, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

WRDSB Twitter Sharing 20140428

April 28, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Many thanks to the participants in our #edwrdsb Twitter chat tonight. You can see the chat at Storify.

The open sharing and exchange of ideas was AWESOME. Here are a few comments that resonated with me.

I am already looking forward to our next Twitter sharing session.

~Mark

21st century learning, Connected Learner, Social Media, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Connected Learning with Grade 3s

April 21, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Last week I became aware of an interesting approach to learning about Ontario communities with grade 3 classes. The idea is to involve people from around the province to submit picture clues about the community they live in. The clues are shared with the students, and student responses are tweeted (posted) back through a class or teacher based Twitter account.

The project takes on another level of connectedness by using a hashtag (Twitter conversation label) to collect all of the tweets on this topic into a searchable stream which can be viewed [ here]. What a GREAT way to bring a personal and connected context to the classroom.

I enjoyed an afternoon walk this weekend to take a few pictures to participate this week. I wonder how many clues it might take the students to guess where I live.

Here are some sample tweets from last week.

This will be a great week in the connected learning world.

~Mark

21st century learning, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

How many apps?

April 19, 2014 markwcarbone 1 Comment

This point from the Twitter stream of EdCampSWO resonates with me.

How thoughtful are you about choosing apps for use with your students?

Do you choose apps that support the “C’s” in a technology enabled learning environment: Communicate, Collaborate, Create, Citizenship, Critical Questioning/Answering? Perhaps your app choices facilitate inquiry or project based learning.

Where do you stand on app selection? How many is too many? What do you use as app selection criteria? I would be interested to know your ideas on this. Please comment or get in touch via @markwcarbone on Twitter or +markwcarbone on Google +.

~Mark

21st century learning, Just pondering, Technology Enabled Learning

Shift: hand in or publish

April 17, 2014 markwcarbone 3 Comments

Today’s blog post is a simple question to ponder that came up in an insightful conversation with Ken Whytock.

Rather than ‘handing in’ assignments today’s students should:

on the web.

Please weigh in. Share your thoughts by leaving a comment or connect with us via twitter: @markwcarbone and @kenwhytock.

~Mark

21st century learning, student voice, Technology Enabled Learning

Celebrating Excellence

April 16, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

“The Ken Spencer Award for Innovation in Teaching and Learning was established with the generous contribution of Dr. Ken Spencer to recognize and publicize innovative work that is sustainable and has the potential of being taken up by others; to encourage a focus on transformative change in schools; and to provide profile for classroom innovation within school districts, schools, and the media.”

The Waterloo Region District School Board’s Futures Forum Program was recognized for for innovation today at a ceremony hosted at Forest Heights C.I.

Ron Canual, CEO of the Canadian Education Association presenting the aware to Chair Ted Martin.

WRDSB Director John Bryant

Perspective from CEA member Marty Keast

See the amazing work in these Canadian schools.
The 13-14 Ken Spencer Award finalists

Full press release: CEA_PR_KSAward_2014

~Mark

21st century learning, Connected Learner, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, Social Media, Technology Enabled Learning

London PNC: Digging into change

April 15, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Last Thursday (April 10, 2014) I had the pleasure of attending the meeting of the London MISA PNC group to serve on a panel discussion with

Joe Sisco of the WECDSB did a nice job hosting the event and moderating the panel discussion. My role on the panel was to share some ideas concerning technology planning.

My response:

I enjoyed the variety of questions the panel addressed. Two conversations really stood out for me. First, some excellent dialog around the notions of professional sharing:

and secondly, examining comfort with change:

In a rather timely fashion, this tweet from Donna Fry was posted just two days later while she was participating as a virtual learner by following the Twitter conversations of Edcamp SWO and Edcamp London which ran on Saturday April 12th. I think the tweet captures the essence of the panel discussions in a nice concise way.

~Mark

Related Resources: sound clips in a local format

Clip 1:

Clip 2:

Clip 3:

21st century learning, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

The Power of AB squared

March 6, 2014 markwcarbone 2 Comments

After hearing about this intriguing classroom collaboration project at EdCampWR, I was delighted to meet with elementary teacher Alison Bullock to learn more about this cross panel collaborative project with secondary teacher Andrew Bieronski.

The Learning Framework

The project framework is based on the new Ontario social studies curriculum. Alison’s grade 4 French immersion students will be partnered with Andrew’s grade 10 students. The grade 10’s will be mentoring with grade four students as they progress through a summative project which requires students:

create a physical structure of a museum artifact
produce audio guided tours in both English and French
generate a QR code linking to the audio files and
share about learning process

The Collaborating

The grade 10 students will provide mentorship to the grade 4 students as they research, plan and write the scripts needed for the audio guided tour files. Students will be collaborating through the WRDSB Google Apps for Educators (GAFE) environment. The role of the grade 10 students will be related to their civics and English courses.

All students, in both grades, will share about their experiences in this collaborative learning project through their blogs. Blogging platforms may include Google, WordPress or Weebly.

Bringing it all Together

As a conclusion to this learning process, the class museum will be created in the physical space in library, where all students connect for a grand finale. Projects will be displayed and the students of both classes involved will meet face to face.

This project is just getting underway. I look forward to following along this learning journey.

Note on the Title: I thought is was interesting that the two teachers involved in this project have the same initials. Given their interest in technology enabled learning and passions for forward thinking, I thought the notion of