GAFE Summit 2016: First Presentation, Eek!

During the first two days of the school holidays (well, 3rd and 4th) I went with 4 Pak Heights Colleagues to the GAFE Summit at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. It was a very busy two days for me: not only was I going there to learn some new things, but I was also going there to present - twice!

It had been a year since I first went to a summit like this, and it was very different this year. It felt like I was on the other side. Since I went last year I've attended ISTE 2015 in Philadelphia, completed my Google Certified Educator Level 1 and Level 2 course and have tried so many new things I can't even remember all of them. Though I definitely don't consider myself an expert, I do feel like I've moved closer to the cutting edge of what is happening in schools. I'm not quite on the tip, but definitely getting there.

So most of the things being presented were not new things to me. I chose the presentations I did not because I wanted to learn fresh things, but because I wanted more detail on them. The first presentation was all about Genius Hour (20% time, Passion Projects). I heard this idea last year and got some good tips at ISTE and absolutely fell in love with the idea. In practice, it kind of fizzled and there was no end to projects (probably the result of me trying to do too much, too soon). But I was able to get some good ideas through this presentation and will be bringing it back to my students for next term. It's absolutely imperative that my students get to try this in term 2. That way when we fail, we can do it the right way in terms 3 and 4 :D

I later went to a presentation on Google Cardboard and using Street View in the classroom to see different things. At this point, I'm storing this info in the back of my brain. It has potential, but at the moment I'll let it go. I do have two cardboards and my phone, so no doubt it will make an appearance in my classroom this term (I'm thinking I can show them my house back in Canada).

During the last session of the first day all of the PHS teachers went to a workshop on using stop motion on chromebooks. It was fantastic. I've always been a fan of stop motion and have used it as a learning tool previously. Now that I know how to do this without the iPads, I'm sure I'll be using this for a few different things. I just need to make some playdough (or get the students to do it!) so that we have some more things we can use.

The next day started with a talk about using CS First to do coding. I've already started setting that up. I went to a Code Club Aotearoa meeting last term, so this is something of a priority. I'm going to start in week 2, to give me some time to sort the details out and get students interested (which also helps me earn my money as eLearning Leader). There's not much else to say here, but the lessons are super easy to follow - you don't need to be a coding expert. There will definitely be more on my blog about this.

The next session I went to was all about the things you could do with Google Drawings. There were several of these at the conference. Funny enough, I have started using these a bit more recently. So the timing is good. We were given a lot of examples of ways to use Google Drawings. Very impressive list, though a bit fast. I'll definitely be trying to use some of these ideas in class (I've been having some fun with my own lately - see my last post).

The final session I went to was about BreakoutEDU (LINK!!!). Having done some escape rooms in the past, I really like this concept. The actual session was difficult because we had too many people, but I would be interested to see it in class. And guess what? A friend of mine has bought and put some kits together (It's all open source) and has offered to come to my class next week to give it a go - so exciting!

The biggest change for me this year, though, was actually presenting. I was very nervous about this. I guess it's hard for me to think that anyone actually wants to listen to what I've got to say or try my ideas in their own classrooms (hmmm, I wonder where I got that idea from?). The first presentation I did was on spreadsheets. I may have gone a bit fast through some things, but the audience was very polite to me. I got some good questions and some good feedback. I tried pretty hard to give attendees something to do and it wasn't a complete disaster, so that's good.

The next day I was presenting on my Math Problem Solving with Google Slides. Wow! There were probably about 80 people there. I definitely improved my delivery, but I get nervous easily still. I got a bit muddled in the order I shared stuff (forgot to talk about the context of how I do the lessons), but for the most part this went well. No one wanted to share when they did their problem solving, but I was alright. I was smarter this time and prepared a form for feedback, some of which was helpful (never thought I'd be told I was too quiet!), so I can improve next time.

I think the biggest thing I got out of presenting was that I need to keep the participants active. My favourite presentations were the ones where I got to do something (Coding, Stop Motion, BreakoutEDU). It made me think of what I would do for next year. Not sure who is reading this so I'm not going to spill the beans, but I've got a fantastic idea. Will have a go at practicing that at some other events in the near future.

Another, subtle thing that happened here was that, as a presenter, I got to go to the presenters dinner. It was very good to get out there and meet some people who are the ones shaking things up at a bigger level. I think I hope to be among them one day - maybe not doing exactly what they do, but being on their level. Again, big plans, but keeping some of those to myself.

Term 1 2016: Moving and Shaking

This past term was my first at a new school - Pakuranga Heights School. After having been at the same school for three and a half years and in the same room for the last 3 years, this was a big shift for me, especially since I moved classes in the middle of the term (and am planned to move once again in the middle of this term coming up). For the last two years I had also been in year 2. With a move up to year 3 and 4, it was almost as if I kept the same cohort of students from the last two years. It does make things a bit easier when you can see the progression of learning over a few years, even it I don't have the same children.

I have also been given some bigger responsibilities: eLearning Leader.

Despite the big changes to my school and level, I put a large amount of effort to change my practice. Though a bit stuck because of a lack of permanent learning space, I was able to actually work on that. I think it's important to have a classroom with a variety of well defined learning spaces. Starting out, I tried to get my students to design the classroom, but I'm pretty sure I didn't give them enough direction because the results were confusing. I couldn't really work with what they suggested. So I set the classroom up to my liking. And that work somewhat. Originally I had 28 desks and chairs, but I managed to scrounge a number of tables and got rid of the desks rather quickly. I've spent some time (and money!) on freshening up the "Shark Tank" - basically a tent, but it can hold 3 or 4 students. I've now got blackout curtains (4 blanket sewn together), "seaweed" at the entrance, lots of blue blankets and cushions, blue fairy lights and (my newest edition from a few days ago) speakers to be attached to an old smartphone which can play calming nature sounds. Several of my students do love to work in there, so hopefully that continues.

An Early Incarnation of the Shark Tank (in the old room)

Originally this term I was allowing students to take chairs all over the room, but that became something of a nightmare with students rushing in after morning tea and lunch to get the good chairs (swiss balls) and then nothing was ever put back. I've decided I do need to take something of a hard line on where the furniture is used (i.e no big chairs at the kneeling tables). I struggled with this decision mostly because I want to let the students have choice, but at the same time, they just get in the way of each other and actually need instruction on how to manage themselves. Maybe as time goes on, I can give that privilege back to them.

I've also worked on some other specific areas in the classroom. I've got a Lego building area (complete with thousands of Lego pieces) and a budding Makerspace/Tinker Table (more on this later).

Using the Lego Table

The learning space will once again undergo a transformation when we move in a little over a month, but for now, I've got lots in mind and will be able to take on board student suggestions.

One of my big focuses is shifting my teaching from me taking group after group after group to one where students are mostly self directed and I jump in when needed. This will be a long process, and I'd probably say I'm closer to the middle than either the beginning or the end (ha! there will never be an end, I think).

The first thing I made sure to do was to get my students set up with their own blogs. I did this last year, but have made a bigger effort to get students posting work (it also makes me think about what kind of work is worth sharing and leaning towards those kinds of activities). Many students are posting multiple times a week, though some still need a bit of extra motivation.  They are also commenting on lots of other blogs. We've got a pretty good amount of blogs for them to look at and the expectation is a blog comment a week. Most are doing this and the comments have been amazingly positive. We will continue to develop these communication skills with the students.

I have continued the independent activities I gave last year for reading. The year 3 and 4 students have proven to be much better (mostly) at completing these and understanding them. I do have my doubts about whether or not this is the most effective way to teach reading. I am still the one who chooses the books (though the more activities I have made, the more likely they can choose), but they are becoming much more independent. My biggest worry on this front is that it may be too much for them to do in a week, though I suspect it is more the format that they are getting used to. The activities themselves don't seem to be too difficult. We shall see.

Despite not (seemingly) putting as much effort into changing writing, it feels like I've got a pretty good thing going with it. I've mixed up my groups and have them working in partners. They are doing really well with coming up with good stories with partners and many of them are very aware of their targets for writing and are actively working to improve (some have already improved significantly). This is definitely the way forward, with a few more tweaks.

I've talked to my students about passion projects (Genius Hour/20% time). They desperately need to be allowed to do these things. After failing miserably last year with this, I'm hoping I can gain some traction with it soon.

My Maths Problem solving has come a long way as well this year. With some help from other teachers who have had the actual pd, I've changed up my questions (now I have three levels) and my groupings (there's only small differences between partners, even if the groups are extremely mixed) and have had some success. This will improve as students start using the tools more efficiently. I will also need to help support students with the way they interact (talking to each other, listening to each other).

 Two things that I tried this term were Twitter Chats and Mystery Hangouts. The twitter chats have had some mild success for some students. They do like posting the answers we come up with, but there is little interaction with other children. I've tried my best to seed discussions with other students, but they often don't reply to questions. I think this needs to stay as an optional Wednesday afternoon. Mystery Hangouts have been much more successful. All of my students (or most of them) are engaged during them. Even though they have a long way to go in terms of working together and trying to solve the problems, they are trying. Time will make them better at this. I already have a few scheduled for next term so they will get some more practice.

The last week of term was spent on what I called the Super Happy Fun Challenge. I put the class into 4 teams which were completely mixed up. They had a series of challenges (make a team name & chant, build something with lego, make a musical instrument with the Makey Makey, program Dash to get around and obstacle course, and make a digital storybook). Without going into a crazy amount of detail (because I could probably write a short novel on what I learned from that) it was eye opening. It showed me which children need to work on teamwork skills (hint: pretty much all of them), problem solving skills (less of them, but still a lot), communication skills (a good number) and just general creativity. We had a reflection about the whole thing on Friday afternoon and a lot of things also came out of that - one being that they don't really know what some of the dispositions mean, and the other being that they don't like it when things are hard. We will definitely be doing some sort of iteration of this challenge at the end of term 2.

Makey Makey Challenge

Robot Obstacle Course

 Becoming an eLearning Leader has had its challenges. A lot of what I've done this first term could easily fall under the category of Tech Help. I'm happy to help, but I don't want to be doing just that and I'm not really qualified to be that person. I agreed to a job which would help others with eLearning, not with broken technology. I've tried very hard this term to focus on things I can do to help. To lead by example. I don't want to force anything down anyone's throats. I think I've managed to start that slowly. My goal is to get a few more people on board with some things and slowly introduce new things.

So where to now? The biggest thing I want to focus on is making my students independent. I think one way I can do this is start to use SOLO a lot more in class. The school uses it so it's not like I'm starting from scratch with my students. The first thing I want to do is go over the school dispositions using SOLO (and make some sort of rubric for that). Then I want to make sure students understand how they need to interact - using talk moves and some other things I've made. Also, focusing on growth mindset and working through the dip/learning pit is going to be a massive focus this term.

With respect to my makerspace and passion projects, I've recently spent some money to get some electronics (Arduino, squishy circuits components, a launcher for Dash, some Makey Makeys) and some other materials for this along with getting some books from the public library. I want my students to have some chances at hands on activities. I will also be starting a code club next term, which will hopefully get some students (in my class and in others) using coding to create their own things. There are countless opportunities for these kinds of things. I need to make sure I am careful and not stretch myself too thin.

I'm also looking at changing reading a bit. I've read a bit lately about how mixed ability groups can be done in reading and am going to continue to try some new things to see if I can make reading a bit more fun for students. Or include it in some sort of passion project-type activities. Definitely keep tuned here for some stuff on that.

I have reached the limit of my ability to reflect in one go. Perhaps one goal for this term will be to do some sort of reflection every week instead of all in one go. We'll see. Until next time...

Introduction

Welcome to my professional learning blog.

Introduction

My name is Michael Davidson. I'm a child of the (early) 80s who grew up in Canada. Besides being a teacher, I was and am still trying to be an above average runner. I've now lived in New Zealand for just over 4 years.

Education & Experience

After graduating from High School (Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) I spent 3 years at York University in Toronto. After spending that third year in the Faculty of Education, I transferred to the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia where I completed a B.Ed.

Over the next few years I taught in both Seoul, Korea and London, England, teaching students from Kindergarten to Year 6. After my visa ran out in England, I moved to New Zealand and found work here. While in New Zealand, I was part of the inaugural Mind Lab Postdegree Certificate program (Digital and Collaborative Learning). I have also recently completed online courses with Google and am a Google Certified Teacher (Level 2).

Past

This is not my first professional blog, but the last one was not very good and wasn't really for me - it was for my old school. For the purposes of sharing the whole journey, you can find that site here.

Purpose of Blog

The purpose of this blog will be threefold: 1) to share what I've done with interested parties, 2) to reflect on things that I've tried (when I've got time to actually do those reflections) and 3) to tick some boxes so that I can renew my registration when it comes up. Hopefully I can focus on the first two more than the 3rd, but let's be honest, that 3rd one makes sure I can keep on eating and sleeping under a roof :)

Watch this space for some entries in the next few days to get me going...