ISTE (Round 3)

So once again I made the trip across the Pacific to the US of A to ISTE. After the first time over, it was hard not to make the trek again. There simply is nothing like it (at least that I've been to) over on this side of the world. This year, I felt like a veteran, knowing the best way to get the most for my time in San Antonio. I wanted to avoid wasting time listening to people talk at me and make some real connections with real people doing amazing things. I also had a long list of ISTE friends to reconnect with. A lot of people go to conferences to hear the latest new thing (and I definitely like learning about that stuff), but connections are more valuable to me, with some really innovative, off the wall ideas thrown in there.

There were some clear themes throughout the conference this year.  The most obvious thing that (it seems) everyone is doing is VR. So many different presentations and poster sessions included it. In particular, I did visit the CoSpaces booth and was quite impressed with the ability to create your own 3D environments. I'll definitely be watching their website for the educator and school accounts (I could be a bit off on the names, though). There's also some really cool new AR stuff coming from Google

I also had a lot of good conversations and got some good ideas from a lot of the big robotics companies: SpheroEdu, Wonder Workshop, Ozobots and a few others. They all have some pretty helpful STEAM activities and other lesson plan ideas that can be used. 

The same goes for some other companies that produce other technology things: OSMO, Little Bits and Bloxels stood out, as well as Microduino. There was a company that made some neat little robots called SAM robots, though I can't seem to find a website or pictures of those. As always, a visit to the Lego Education booth was one of the highlights (if I had a million dollars, I'd get two of everything!)

Though it was not as prevalent as years past, there were still lots of ideas for using Makey Makeys, both with the good people at the booth and with presenters. I did learn that you can have an output (eg, make a light flash), so that was kind of cool. Plus seeing what some learners have done with it was helpful to see how it could be used.

All of the above are definitely on my wishlist and would be super helpful in creating a fun and STEAMy classroom that engages my learners. Over the next few weeks/months, I'm going to look at how I can use what I've got to do these things, but also at ways of obtaining some more of these things.

But by far the most important thing from ISTE, as I mentioned above, was the people. Last year I met Shannon while we were each making our own binary bracelets on the first day. We then ran into each other multiple times over the course of the conference. Last year we said we would collaborate on something, but then never did. This year, if you can believe it, we ran into each other once again on the first day, and once again making binary bracelets (why both of us needed another one this year, I'm not sure). We caught up briefly and visited each others' presentations. Now, we've been talking about doing some sort of global collaboration project with each other this year and co-presenting at ISTE next year. So that's kind of cool. And hopefully putting it up here will also help me not forget to do it this year!

I've also made another handful of contacts of educators in the US who want penpals (have actually made contact with one, and planning on one or two more right after this blog post).  Furthermore, saw my friends from Kiva again and will be wanting to perhaps get some more things going on with them.

One of the big things that has come up in EdTech in recent years is the idea of ambassadors for certain companies. I'm definitely looking into a few as many companies do not have educators from New Zealand working with them that closely yet. Hopefully within the next few months I'll be on here writing about all the new connections I have (as well as my global collaborations).

To anyone who has never been to ISTE, my advice to you is GO! Chicago next year is a wonderful city and ISTE is an amazing experience. The incredibly inventive things you'll see and the inspiring people you'll meet (and in turn inspire yourself) is definitely worth the cost of getting there (and as an added bonus for NZ educators, you get a week of summer in the middle of winter). If you're interested in coming along next year, let me know and we can meet there! The site for Chicago is here. Calls for presenters open in less than a month!

A Little Bit of Cross Campus Collaboration

Over the last few weeks, I have been privileged to have the opportunity to do some collaborative learning with our local Secondary School - Ormiston Senior College (OSC). One of the teachers there, Mr Chandar K, has been using the Sphero robot in his teaching and had heard that we were using them as well in the primary school. He contacted us and offered to take a small group of our learners and do some activities with them, to teach them how to code the Sphero Robots.

I've had a couple of Spheros (and two Ollies) and have been letting our learners use these all year, but I wanted to learn how I could use these a bit more. We were a bit limited by our small numbers, so the opportunity to use 8-10 of them in another setting was very enticing. We asked the 90 learners in our habitat which were interested and got 18 who were keen to make the once weekly trek through the Junior College to go learn about how to code a robot.

For the past month or so, we've been learning and developing our coding capabilities and I've been getting lots of ideas as to how you can manage a robotics curriculum in a school.

On the teaching side of things, Mr Chandar K started by letting the learners free drive with the sphero. This was the last time he let them do this. We had a couple of races to get them used to how the sphero moves and what it is capable of doing.

From there we did some simple coding - making the Sphero roll for a short amount of time, at a specific speed in a specific direction.

That was the end of week one. When we came back the next week, we tried another challenge: to make the robots go in a square (and then back again). This proved difficult for some learners as they had to change the directions (so we learned a bit about angles), and adjust the speed or time so that the sphero would go the correct distance. Some were able to complete the task AND make the robot retrace its steps.

The third session involved our learners trying to program the sphero around three objects inside a square - so essentially they had to program a triangle. This was also difficult, but many managed to do it.

Our most recent session involved the learners coding the sphero to go in an L Shape on the carpet. We had some difficulties today and discussed concepts like friction (the carpet was pretty bumpy itself, but the little markers used for the shape were slowing the sphero down a bit and knocking it off course) and fractions, ratios & proportions (when trying to adjust the distance the sphero would go). As a learning coach, I am starting to see a lot of the mathematical applications with using a sphero.

As you can also find out in the video, we learned about putting a delay between roll blocks so that the sphero goes in straight lines, instead of curved.

So why was this helpful? Well, just on the surface this was great for my learners because they got to experience these robots and learn in ways that we cannot yet provide (with only my two personal sphero at our school) and I was given a great starting point for what I can do with them and lots of ideas as to where we can take this.  But there are deeper implications from this experience. At Ormiston (and I mean the three schools combined) we have a great opportunity for some great collaboration between all people (leadership, learning coaches and learners) and this was a great example of what could be done. I know Mr Chandar K is also working with the Junior College. This will hopefully provide future opportunities for the adults at the three schools to sit down and figure out what we want to teach when it comes to robotics and to start to share knowledge and resources.

As for next steps in the coding, I'd like to start introducing some looping functions and then eventually if statements. There is a lot that can be explored in this coding and the doors are starting to get a bit wider for me.

If anyone out there has any other innovative ways to use these robots, please share in the comments!

Nature of Learning Conference

A few weekends ago, I was asked by the associate leader of learning at my school, Ormiston, to assist in presenting at the Nature of Learning conference which was being held at the neighbouring Ormiston Junior College. I was more than happy to join in and help out, as well as attend the other sessions.

The biggest learning for me in this process was actually preparing our presentation and our school tour. The group of us that was presenting talked over many of the founding ideas and principles that went into designing how our school works and functions. Particularly of interest was the OECDs 7 Principles of Learning put out in its Innovative Learning Environments Project. Our school tour was based around those seven principles while our other presentation was based around the other three elements of that report:

• Action Learning
• Guided Learning
• Experiential Learning

What was quite interesting is that though I was previously mostly unaware of those 7 principles and three main areas, I found that I have been following the majority of them throughout my teaching career. Of the three main areas, we found that two of those are well developed or on their way to being well developed.

Action Learning fits in extremely well with our iExplore time, during which learners choose driving questions to answer and then work in small groups to answer them. As a habitat and as an individual I have been part of a very interesting journey with this idea over the last couple of years. My first go at it was something of a disaster, where we didn't even finish anything. Last year at a new school, I tried once again and was able to get some good, quality work from my students. This year at Ormiston I have been able to start sparking some projects that go well beyond the research and make a slide variety. We're getting some real, meaningful and deep projects.

Guided learning is basically the typical reading, writing and maths. And again, over the last few years, I have been individually and collectively on a journey to find out the best ways to do this. Am I there? Definitely not, but I feel like at the moment, we're giving the 90 learners in our habitat a variety of choices and opportunities to reach their potential.

The Experiential learning is what we are still working on, though the preparation for this presentation was very helpful in clarifying what that means.  Essentially how we have been running these is like topic, though we have been providing choice. Ideally, we should be giving our learners some sort of provocation and then let the learners explore what they want in that topic. The suggestion given was bubbles. Some learners may choose to do art with bubbles, some may learn about soap and how that works, others might look at light and why the colours are the way they are. Others still may want to look at why bubbles form or why they float. With many topics there could be several directions they could go.

Preparing the tour was also interesting. We created a series of videos or slideshows that could be viewed using QR codes throughout the school. You can find them all here, explaining how we use the 7 principles of learning daily at Ormiston Primary.

As for the presentations, I did find some of them difficult as they were all people talking and talking. Interesting that a conference on the way in which people learn is set up for only one way of learning. I did get some really good ideas and thoughts from some of the presentations. I attended a workshop from a school that has vertical teams, meaning instead of having all the Year 3-4 teachers in a team, they have Year 1-6 teachers. I thought that in an ILE a vertical Habitat would be a pretty interesting idea, with year 1s and 6s all in the same space. It also gives the potential of having the same learning coaches their whole time at a school while also having different peers every year.

Another helpful presentation I attended was from our friends on the other side of town, Hobsonville Point Primary. They discussed how their learners have individual time tables and how they get lots of community involvement in their workshops. This is something that we have not yet explored and is very relevant as we would rather have more small workshops to give better attention to interests than the ones we have at the moment. It's all food for thought and these are ideas that have been thrown into the constant churning of my brain. It was definitely an experience that has helped me think about what I do and why I do it.

Google Summits - Times Two!

This year I was fortunate enough to be accepted to present at both the Auckland AND the Wellington Google Summits put on by the Ed Tech Team.

Since the beginning of the year, as can be evidenced by my lack of posting regularly on here, I have been very busy and overwhelmed with the implementation of new ideas at Ormiston School where I was put into a habitat for the first time. So a lot of the drive that had previously been in me had slowly disappeared.

But these two Google Summits gave me my drive back. It's funny how you don't realize what's missing until you get it back, but I had mostly disconnected myself from my core online PLN and was suffering because of it. Coming back to these summits and spending four days with my tribe was extremely helpful in sparking my drive to make innovative change.

My four sessions went fairly well. Two were on how to use Mystery Hangouts (or Skype) in the classroom to connect with other classrooms globally and to promote critical thinking skills and problem solving, while the other two were on how to use Google Forms to make Choose Your Own Adventure stories. After some sessions last year that were more of me talking than of the participants actually, you know, participating, I made some changes and made sure that the majority of each session was a chance for my colleagues to try something new. For the Mystery Hangout session we ran a mock Mystery Hangout. For the Choose Your Own Adventure session we actually made our own Choose Your Own Adventures. Further to this, it gave me more ideas of what I could share in the future (and I'm going to keep some of that on the down low for now).

One tangent that these sessions sent me on was to create some sort of resource for teachers to connect with each other so that they can do a Mystery Hangout. I had used a padlet in my presentation to collect details of classrooms that might be interested, but on my long drive home from Wellington and after a suggestion from one of the attendees there, I am currently working on a small website for NZ teachers to find each other for these Mystery Chats (not trying to favour one over the other). So hopefully I'll find some time to complete that task soon and then share it with my PLN to get a global group of people who want to connect with NZ schools.

I also had the opportunity to attend several sessions at the summit which have led to some new thinking and tools for me to use in the classroom. Over the four days, I attended three (yes, 3) sessions related to Breakout EDU. Two which let me experience the game play (I've done it a few times before, admittedly) and once where we got the chance to brainstorm and look at the process of designing games. I'm actually quite interested in using this in the classroom (and we actually trialled it this week - but that's another blog post) so it was good to get my brain thinking about what we could do and how we could do it.

Another session I attended included using the G Suite Apps on iPads. This has long been an issue for me in the classroom/habitat. Often we say we have 40 some odd devices (for 90 learners, mind you) and 10 of those are iPads, which don't have the same functionality as chromebooks. However, we were given some tasks to try on the iPads and I managed to figure out how to do a variety of things on it that I had previously thought would be difficult to do.

There were also a few sessions on Computer Science and coding. One was a reiteration of the CS First session I attended last year, and this helped reaffirm the need for coding in the classroom. They have a variety of modules that learners can go through to practice coding. This got me thinking about the ways in which we can add coding to the curriculum and embed it through other subjects. I've made some tentative plans to work towards some practical, hands on coding in all areas. A second session I attended shared lots of resources for higher level coding. One resource that stood out in particular was the Khan Academy and Pixar joint venture: Pixar in a Box. Mainly geared towards older learners, there are certainly some aspects that can be used at the primary level. And don't think I haven't contemplated learning how to digitally animate and change careers! Probably not though...

I also finally attended a session put on by Angela Lee on Virtual Reality. Having worked with her for ages and ages, I've never actually gone to see her present. It was very helpful in that I now know how to use both Google Expeditions as well as another application that allows learners to make their own 3D virtual world: CoSpaces. These are two things that we're examining to add to our curriculum throughout as many areas as possible.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the four days at the summits - and I quite liked the drive as well (it's always nice to see the green of New Zealand). It's given me a new focus going forward and sparked that fire in me that has recently been in hiding.

PMA Conference

Last Saturday I attended the 25th annual Primary Maths Association conference at the beautiful Waipuna Conference Center. Though I don't recall it being said (that of course, doesn't mean it wasn't said) there was a clear theme running throughout the day: Proportional thinking. Now this doesn't necessarily mean proportions, ratios and percent - but it does refer to multiplicative thinking. This, according to many speakers, is something we need to focus on as many learners are yet unable to think this way.

The keynote speaker, Shelley Dole, spoke of a three-step process of representing mathematical thinking for learners. The first is enactive - acting out the problems. This is probably something that is lacking in my practice at the moment. In the week since, I've tried to bring this back into my problem solving. The second is iconic - using diagrams or manipulatives that represent real life things. For example, this would be using things like counters, place value cubes, etc. I've been doing this to a degree, though including diagrams is something that I will work on adding (pun intended). The last is symbolic - which is using numbers and symbols to represent those mathematical ideas. This is something that we rely on quite a bit, and while necessary, it's important to remember that that doesn't have to be the only thing we do.

To be honest, a few of the big ideas in the sessions were not new to me, but it's always good to get a reminder of these things AND there were some practical things that I can use in my teaching.

One session I attended, called Learning Through Play, had a few ideas of things we as educators could use to make the learning of our learners more interesting. There was a lot of talk about using literacy to connect with mathematical ideas. A lot of this was about using stories to create math investigations. I like this idea, though it was very juniors based (read: Year 2 or under). It did remind me of the wonderful (American) resource of the Math Start books. Despite the obvious issues with the currency books, these are really great. I've brought my set back into school and am planning to share them with my learners shortly.

Another really important tip that was shared in this session was that learners should be encouraged to answer their questions in full sentences  - not just in one-word answers. The facilitator mentioned that this can have wonderful effects across all learning areas.

The last session of the day included a massive amount of practical real world maths problems. The facilitator gave us heaps of example questions using ratios and proportions that are real world problems. What I liked best about this session was that we had time to go around and have a go at solving them (note to any presenters out there: get us doing stuff or at some point, most of us will just tune out).

It was a good day to spark some thinking in me. I've always enjoyed math as a student, though that can be a challenge when it comes to teaching learners who don't share my excitement. I hope to use a good deal of the ideas in the coming weeks!

Back From My Disappearing Act or Welcome to 2017!

So, I've been a little absent from the online community for the past few months. There have been various reasons for this, but basically life was good and then it wasn't. Both the good and bad events made me think deeply about what was important in my life. Some things were missing (and to a degree still are) and it caused me to ignore a big part of my life - my career.

Without going into details (I want to avoid giving TMI), there were some issues about the people surrounding me in my personal life (though, I should also credit the amazing and supportive people who helped me through this - and continue to support me in many ways). Being a foreigner who moved here along about 5 years ago, I do not have a support network. It has been difficult to deal with the stresses of being a teacher and of being a person in that context.

I think the thing I learned, or rather the thing that was reinforced, is that every educator needs a good support network beside them. Every educator needs to have something beyond their school - a reason for working. Despite many of us viewing our career as a calling, at the end of the day it is a job and we need something beyond that.

That being said, today was my first official day back from the holidays and though I was not in a great headspace I feel in a much better headspace. I can't say I'm quite ready for the new school year, but I'm definitely feeling more ready for it than I was a week ago.

Today we did a lot of different sessions on a lot of different topics. My biggest takeaway from the day was a session we did on collaboration. We were put into groups and given the following task: Work collaboratively to lift one of your team members as high as you can. After some great ideation where we all shared some amazing ideas and built upon each others' ideas we decided to use the elevator to lift one person. When we went downstairs to actually do it, we came up with a variety of other ways in which we could not only lift our person (we lifted her into a chair and then lifted the chair up) but also how we could collaborate (we had a pretty long chain reaction of people that got her into the elevator and pushed the buttons).

Afterwards we discussed the skills involved in collaborating and realized that we need to be cognisant of teaching the specific skills that learners will need when we ask them to collaborate. As adults (who are used to working in teams) we often forget this fact as we have learned this skills over time. When our learners come next week, this will be a good place to start with, as we'll need to get to know each other and do team building activities. I'm looking forward to creating a collaborative habitat this coming year.

Later in the day we discussed one of the unique ways in which OrmPS shows learner achievements and progress: Narrative Assessments. For more information, I'm sure someone will be sharing these at an educamp or Google Summit or uLearn, but to make a long explanation short, they basically show what learning was done, often with pictures and other artefacts and include next steps. They are to make learning more visible and not just ticking boxes. To practice making these, we watched the video (below) and worked in teams to make a narrative assessment of the man in the video.

Going forward I'm going to look at ways in which I can do these narratives in an innovative way, so any ideas are appreciated in the comments (though we do have lots of ideas that we've discussed and tried at OrmPS already).

Science Unleashed: Making Motorized Cars

I'm super far behind on my blogging. I've actually already had the third Science Unleashed lesson, but I've not written about the second.

After the first night, I was very excited to get back to the North Shore (without the wrong turns this time!) and see what Chris had in store for us. When I walked in, there were a variety of some really cool things on the table: motors, cardboard, propellers, battery packs. This was clearly going to be a fun evening.

We were again working in partners and our task was to make a vehicle that moved. We had a certain amount of time to build our first prototype and test it, with very little direction - except for the basic concept of the car and how we could potentially make it. My partner and I quickly discussed what we wanted to make and divided up the tasks. We made our vehicle quickly and when it didn't really go, we looked at the problems - the wheels were a bit sticky and not turning easily, the motor didn't have enough power - and decided how we would modify it.  We made smoother wheels and added a second battery pack (some may say this was cheating, but I'm not among them).

Here's a video of how our test worked out at this point:

Afterwards we had the conference like we had the week before, but instead of just discussion what we could potentially test and change, we came up with a plan of who would investigate what. We ended up looking at whether or not weight made a difference or if more power made a difference.  When we tested these as a group, ours went quicker than everyone else's - most likely because of the extra battery packs.

Again, we had a discussion on how we could improve our vehicles.

What was interesting today was not necessarily what we did, but how our scientific community evolved from week to week. We learned from our mayhem the week before and became more organized in our methods, which led to us being more successful in coming to a consensus in the end. I'm going to give Chris the benefit of the doubt and say that this was his plan - get us to create our own community. I look forward to the last two sessions (spoiler - the next one was pretty good too!).

Hosting a #digitaledchat for #MakerEdNZ

Recently, I was give the opportunity from Stuart Kelly to host a #digitaledchat on #MakerEdNZ. I was very nervous about this proposition, but was also excited about the chance to not only run a major, international chat, but also to learn from others and start the conversation.

It was very difficult to set the questions as I wanted to encourage lots of rich discussion, but I also wanted to make sure that the talk was accessible. I initially made a few too many questions, so that I could whittle them down to the best ones.

In the end, I settled with the following 6 questions. None were earth shattering, but I felt that they would direct the discussion and help bridge the gap between the early adopters and those who were just learning about maker spaces for the first time.

1. What is your experience with makerspaces?
2. How would you define a makerspace?
3. What barriers have you had or do you have in getting a makerspace in your school?
4. What are the benefits or disadvantages to letting learners make or create whatever they want?
5. How much direction do you think should be given in a makerspace?
6. What are you going to do to either add to your makerspace or start one?

I wanted to focus on building the base and getting people motivated to start trying these things, which is one of the main reasons I started #MakerEdNZ

The chat went fairly well, and we had some good discussion. A transcript of the whole thing can be found here.

One of the first things that came out of the discussion was actually what a maker space is. Many schools probably have such a space and do maker activities, but they wouldn't necessarily call it that. Perhaps this is one of the realizations that we need to encourage in NZ schools so that educators can start thinking in terms of building on what they already have, rather than having to start a new thing that they've not heard of before.

We even came up with a new word: Thinkering, which given the mix of thinking and tinkering gives a great description of what learners would do in a makerspace - both expanding their mind and using the materials they have to create something.

Many of the barriers to makerspaces starting up were ones that we have heard before: time, money, space, a dedicated staff member, leadership buy-in. These are all things that need to be addressed, though one of them was seemingly discussed as an easily solvable problem. Maker spaces do not need to be full of expensive equipment. Many schools get by with using completely recyclable things, which are very easy to get within the community. Other barriers will need to be given a bit more time, but another purpose of MakerEdNZ is to help get through these.

Many teachers saw providing maker spaces as a positive way to encourage creativity, problem solving and to provide open ended problems. Some worried about wasted time and wasted resources. I've certainly cringed when I've seen my students spending hours on something, using a whole roll of tape in something that won't likely turn out to be useful, but the process of this does hold some value in my opinion. Thought it is tough to see all that wasted tape. Some other teachers echoed this sentiment during the chat as well.

Most teachers agreed that as little direction as possible would be best, though there is a need for some up front direction so as to keep children safe and to provide them with a starting off point. This has shown to be key for me and my learners and after some initial difficulty with the freedom of choice, they were able to become independent and self-directed quite quickly and easily. It's that getting lost or stuck that promotes real, authentic learning.

The actions that teachers are going to take are varied. Some were going to start using the term maker space, while others were very specific in their ideas going forward. Several wanted to get donations of materials for their spaces and find ways for learners to start making.

All in all it was a great conversation, and one that I hope to help continue. It definitely clarified what a maker space is for some and it got others starting to share with each other - an activity that will be key to growing the movement here in NZ.

I look forward to the next chat that I'll be able to host, whether it takes the same format or it pushes a bit beyond. Either way, this was a valuable experience and an important step forward in the #MakerEdNZ journey.

Exploring Literacy and Coding

A while ago, I participated in a wonderful Twitter chat with #digitaledchat where we discussed what you could do with robots in class, such as Sphero. One of the things that came up was using them to create stories or videos by coding the robots as characters. I liked that idea so much, it got me to thinking quite a bit about how coding and literacy could be combined.

I've tried really hard to make my class a creative one, in which my learners are able to explore different ways of learning that are fun, creative and exciting. I want the children in my charge to wake up in the morning, excited to come to school and do their work (which they won't see as work). I have had many different ways of making stories and being creative (including Stop Motion and Digital Storybooks) so it wasn't a big step to try some new things. Here are three ways in which my learners used coding or computational thinking to create stories:

Choose Your Own Adventure Stories Using Google Forms

Many of us have read these books as children and this idea is definitely not a new one. You can use the "go to page based on answer" feature of multiple choice questions to direct readers to new pages based on their choices. When we first did this, I used Google Drawings to plan out the story (it can get very complicated if you have a lot of choices) but it isn't always necessary. A pair of my learners created this story earlier this year.

There are other ways of making stories like this, including Scratch.

Stories on Scratch

This idea came from CS-First.com where you can find a whole 8 lesson module on coding stories for code clubs, though if anyone has used Scratch Jr, that's basically what that app is for. The idea is simple: code the sprites to speak to each other and interact. As coding knowledge increases, so too does the complexity of the stories. This is definitely an area to explore for reluctant writers who happen to like coding (and I've noticed the majority of my learners are liking coding more and more everyday, some even attempting to code a Choose Your Own Adventure story).

Coding Robots to Tell a Story

This was the big idea from #digitaledchat that I have been waiting a while to try. We only have made one attempt at this, but it went, in my opinion really well. Some interested children joined me for a short brainstorming session. We came up with some characters and starting thinking about what their story was going to be about. Some other learners got interested and joined us at this point and the discussion started taking off. I backed off and let them sort things out. There were varying levels of coding abilities in the group and they were able to support each other. A lot of the story didn't really utilize coding knowledge, but it was a fantastic start. Again though, a little disappointed that these children won't get to try this again with me, but I'll keep on introducing these ideas to children and see how they develop.

The plan with this topic is to continue to explore it further, get children making more and more stories using their coding skills and then to share this in more depth next year (hopefully at GAFE & ISTE). So keep an eye out if you're interested as I think this is an exciting way to develop a plethora of skills amongst learners.

Science Unleashed, Day 1: Rocket Launching

Last night I went to the first of four Science Unleashed workshops with Chris Clay and Ally Bull. I was quite excited because since I met him at the MindLab I've enjoyed everything that Chris has shared with me PLUS I have a science background and enjoy doing fun sciencey stuff with children.

After getting lost not once, not twice, but three times on my way there, I finally found the room at AUT North Shore and settled in. We had a brief introduction but it was straight into a fun, exploratory, playing activity. We were given rocket powder (not actually rocket powder), and rocket liquid fuel (also, not actually rocket liquid fuel, as well as a variety of other materials to make our rockets. Chris did a "shoddy demonstration" (his words, not mine, and on purpose) to give us some basic idea of what we needed to do, with the simple task of seeing if we could make our rocket go high.

All of the partnerships worked, trying different mixtures of the liquid (there were 3), different shapes for our fuel delivery system, as well as different amounts of liquid and powder. When we first started, the rockets didn't work really well (our first one didn't even explode!). But over time, it was clear that more and more of everyone's rockets were getting higher. It was at this point that Chris stopped us and brought us inside to conference. He had us discuss what we found out. Could we make any claims that were supported by evidence. We wrote our claims down and discussed what had happened. There was some consensus on what was certain (one of the fuels was useless) but there was also some disagreement.

Then we went back outside and had another go at it. This time a few groups spoke with each other and discussed which variables we would test. Angela and I decided on changing the amount of liquid. We found that a little bit of liquid worked better than a lot. Have a look at one of our tests. Unfortunately it shot up so quickly we couldn't see the whole thing. But you can tell that there was a lot of upward force propelling it.

The last step of our investigation was another debrief back in the classroom. We discussed ways in which we could improve our investigation. A few of us thought that it would be better if we decided as a group which variables we would test. Others discussed how we would make our measurements more accurate and what things we should measure (we thought that timing hang time would help determine which rockets when highest).

So what was the point of this? Well, there were a lot. The first one is that science and other fun, hands-on activities can be done on the cheap. Not all schools can afford lots of equipment, and Chris even said early on that having less materials and resources can actually be a good thing as it forces you to be innovative.

The whole process was one that was meant to promote the Nature of Science (NoS). Compared to a 'typical' science lesson, one like what we did pretty much gives opportunities to develop all four strands of NoS. For Understanding About Science, learners are given the chance to make their own explanations and understand how science works. They are clearly learning what Investigating in Science means because they are carrying out their own investigations. The whole time, learners are Communicating with their partners and with each other. The conferencing was a fantastic way of communicating this idea. There are also loads of possibilities to share their learning with others or digitally. Every single one of us was participating in actual science and we were all contributing the the scientific community that we had created amongst ourselves.

Though this is not the first time I've participated in Science PD that was similar to this, I have continued to get loads of ideas. As Chris said, he's not about giving us a recipe for a perfect science lesson. But he did give us some great ideas to provoke scientific thinking and investigating. And that's before you consider the inspiration that this night has provided me. I'm looking forward to next week!

TAP Lab Visit #3

This Wednesday I returned to the TAP Lab to continue my education in all things Maker. Most of this involves Arduino and other types of coding, but we'll see where things take me and how much time I'll actually have in the future to come back (it is pretty far away - but definitely worth it).

Today's session started with me figuring out another sensor - a temperature sensor which is surprisingly accurate. Then the very helpful people at the lab started telling me all about all the parts I had in my Arduino kit, including some displays. Well, I was intrigued. My big thought was to get the display to show the temperature. Well, it was a massive job just to 1) figure out how to hook up the display to the Arduino board and then 2) figuring out the coding, which had a very simple, but inexplicable error.

The code we found on the Internet for the lights was giving some really strange results. We poured through it, trying to figure out what went wrong. Then we started testing things to see what changed. It became apparent, at one point, that the lights were doing the opposite of what they were meant to do in the code. So, I changed all the 'trues' (which the code said meant the lights would go off) to 'falses' and amazingly, the display lit up as it should have. It was a good lesson in debugging, though it got pretty frustrating at one point, and I was definitely in the dip (growth mindset FTW!). But this only led to a static display. I managed to change the display to my birth year and then discussed ways in which I could program the numbers to change - though due to the tediousness of the code I'd have to write, I put that off for another day.

Learned how to code a 4digit display today at @TAPLabMakers Next step: make numbers change! #MakerEdNZ #hacksterlive pic.twitter.com/KkrINLhHb2

— Michael Davidson (@michaelteacher) August 31, 2016

Since I remembered to bring my mBot to the lab, I decided to have some fun with its display as well. It is much easier to program the lights there (it's all visual, and you just need to click on the squares), so I was able to spell out all the number words to ten and get it to count up. I bet I can modify this program to make it do addition or subtraction (or many other things). Hmmmmm.... I do love how learning one skill can get you thinking about how it can be applied. Have a look at the video of the lights changing.

Today was a fantastic lesson in what actually goes on in a makerspace. It was often quiet when I was working, but when I had a problem, many people there were willing and even eager to help me. That's the kind of atmosphere I'd like to create for makerspaces. I spent two hours there, but it felt like 10 minutes. Again, that's what I want for MakerEdNZ. 

The Case for MakerEdNZ

Since going to ISTE this year, it has become apparent that there is a gap in New Zealand education, at least from my perspective. That gap is makerspaces. Now, I know some of you will be reading this saying: "What are you going on about? I've got an awesome makerspace in my school! You don't know what you're talking about." And yes, you'd probably be right, I DON'T know what I'm talking about. Yes, there are lots of great and amazing makerspaces in New Zealand. However, when I asked the NZ Teachers (Primary) Facebook group about makerspaces, only 43% of the teachers had even HEARD of them and only 11% had one in their school. So I say to you people who have the makerspaces: "How can you help the rest of us?" (note: I'm actually in the 11%, so the question should be: "How can we help each other?")

Instead of getting worked up about it and saying that either: a) it's not fair, I want some cool stuff, or b) what's the point, someone else will fix it, I've decided to do something about it. And thus: MakerEdNZ was born. What is it, you ask? I'm not entirely sure. It's just an idea right now (ok, well actually, it's more than just an idea - but more on that later). But the idea is that we (the keen makers out there, those with makerspaces, and those who just want to bring them to NZ schools) can work together, share what is working for us and get those makerspaces into every New Zealand school. Ambitious? Check.

How this plays out is anyone's guess right now, but I believe that there is the desire to make this change, and that desire will increase as more and more teachers, schools and BOTs see what can happen in a makerspace and the real, authentic learning it can create.

I am currently in the process of applying to two separate programs to help me along in this journey. After being unsuccessful in my first application to the Google for Education Innovator Academy, I was speaking to an Innovator friend of mine about this very idea and it was suggested that this be the project I use in my application. And that's when things got real. When I started thinking about MakerEdNZ in those terms, I got a little more into it and have started work on a variety of angles of it (sneak peek: there's a website in the works, videos being planned, as well as twitter chats and many other ways of sharing) and have started thinking of it on a grander scale. I've literally just sent my application in for that. I'll know in a week (and so will you) whether or not I'll get the support of the amazing innovators at Google to help realize this vision of mine.

The second application I am working on (though mostly completed) is for the CORE education efellows. This will allow me to undertake some action research which will help me make the case for Makerspaces in New Zealand schools (something that would be amazingly helpful in convincing schools and BOTs to help find the space and resources for makerspaces). That application is due next week.

Whether or not I get into both or neither of these amazing programs, this initiative is going ahead full steam (But if you're reading this at Google or CORE right now, don't think that I don't want your help. I think being supported by both of you would really make this idea fly).  So if you're reading this thinking "I'd love to help, but I don't know how I can" leave a message on this post, follow me on twitter (@michaelteacher, @MakerEdNZ or our hashtag #MakerEdNZ), or get ahold of me in another way. We need knowledge, skills and experience, but more importantly we need people who want to make a change and be a part of something amazing. We'll work on the knowledge, skills and experience together. 

So why do this? What's the point of makerspaces. New Zealand education is fine you say. I have to disagree. Not to be disrespectful, but in my experience, way too many students have become disengaged with their education, right from the beginning. The looks on their faces when they are forced to sit still and listen is painful to me as a teacher (and yes, I know this is not the case everywhere, but it is in a lot of places). The lack of a chance for students to be creative and to make things is scary. Busy work and worksheets reign supreme in some schools and many students are left feeling like school is a prison, waiting excitedly for the end of the day and the weekends. Incidentally, as my students have been given more opportunities to make and create, the "Is it lunch yet?" questions have since been replaced with me trying to kick my students out of the classroom at playtimes. Is this not what we should all aspire to: students who actually want to be in school. 

It is absolutely imperative in 2016 that we listen to the voices of our students. What do they want to learn? What skills do they want to try? We need to provide opportunities for students to learn a variety of skills (or just learn how to learn new skills) and expose them to technologies - old and new - that they wouldn't normally get exposed to. We can do better for our students. Would we want to be a student in our own classrooms?

MakerEdNZ has the practical goal of making makerspaces available to all New Zealand students, but the aspirational goal of making every student wake up in the morning and want to go to school to work on their projects. 

In writing this, I've also come up with a great new slogan for MakerEdNZ:

MakerEdNZ. Making students want to stay in class during play time, since 2016

TAP Lab Visit #2

Once again, this past Wednesday I made my out to Te Atatu Peninsula Makerspace for their weekly meetup. I wanted to a) learn more about using Arduino (specifically sensors), b) potentially figure out what's wrong with my mBot and c) continue to build a relationship with people who actual know how to run and organize a makerspace so that I have some real-world experts to help with MakerEdNZ.

Overall it was a pretty good evening. Though the weather was bad there were a good number of people who could help me figure some things out. It was nice being in a room of problem solvers - people who will try different things to figure stuff out. With some help I set up a photoresistor sensor on the Arduino board to check for light. We had a good discussion on what the results actually meant (I was getting high numbers when it was dark and low numbers when it was light, which was confusing to me).

The subject of my non-working mBot came up as well. Another person there helped me use their mBot to try connecting it via the 2.4GHZ connection. It worked reasonably well and I was able to explore a little bit about the sensors on the mBot. It was good because while I was doing so, I was able to imagine in my head how these lessons and ideas could be put to use in a classroom or makerspace (and now I have some skills to work with as well).  The unfortunate part was that when I went to school the next day, I was unable to get the mBot working completely, so there must be some other issue. So there will be a visit #3 coming up soon (I've signed up to go next week and the week after, but we'll see if I can actually make those days). 

Anyone interested in makerspaces or joining us for #MakerEdNZ, I'd suggest visiting a community makerspace and see what they do. Everyone I've met has been very friendly and extremely willing to help. You can find lots of those on Meetup.

Building a Community Vibe with Karakia

Earlier this year, an RTLB working with one of my students suggested we start a daily Karakia to help make the student she was working with more comfortable in the classroom. I was keen but hesitant (what with the religious connotations and all). Being a foreigner in New Zealand, I do think it's important to learn about the unique cultural history and customs of my newly adopted country. I wanted to strike a balance between doing so and not having students pray in school. I waffled on this idea for a while but a few months ago I spent some time and researched some karakia that are commonly used in schools that had no religious connotations. I ended up finding a few good ones, so I actually made a morning version and an end of day version. We've been doing this for so long now that we've memorized both of them.

I cannot claim that one thing caused the other, but since we've been doing this, I have sensed a feeling of community within my classroom. I do feel that this has made my students more comfortable in class and it has added some structure to our day. A way to start and end it. All in all, it's a small effort that can potentially have very positive outcomes. I recommend that every New Zealand teacher try this (you can even use the ones I've borrowed off of the Internet).

ISTE 2016!

It has taken me a few weeks (almost a month, in fact) to fully come to grips with my ISTE 2016 experience. To sum it up in word: Amazing! But obviously there were some really good takeaways that came from the experience. I'll try my best to share all of what I learned, but no doubt some good stuff will get left out.

edit: Now it's almost two whole months after ISTE! But still thinking lots about it. Some of this may be repetitive because of the time between when I started writing and when I finished, but I think the tone that will likely be consistent throughout will convince you of the value this experience had for me and could have for you in the future.

People, People, People

The first place you need to start when dealing with ISTE is the people. I'm not talking about the sheer number (though that is staggering on its own). What I'm talking about is the people you meet. The biggest draw for something like ISTE is to meet lots and lots of like-minded and incredible people. And don't get me wrong, EVERYONE at ISTE is incredible. When I told one of the people I met that "I'm just a classroom teacher," she responded by saying that nobody is "Just" anything. We all have something to offer, no matter the title or experience. Though I did realize this before, it was interesting to see how our language can affect our perceptions (and the perceptions we create in others). Later on that day, I met someone who said pretty much the same thing about being "just" something. I was spurred on to share my new perspective.

There are also countless opportunities to meet and connect with educators around the world (well, mostly the US). There is so much value in this for all of us and our students who will benefit from these connections. I made a concerted and deliberate effort to seek out new people and talk to some who I wouldn't have otherwise spoken with - including the CEO of ISTE! I made several great connections which will help me make further connections in the future. It's all about the people. If that were the only result of the week in Denver it would have been worth it completely.

On top of meeting people at official conference events (probably the best source of that was the Global Ed Day - a great group of people to connect with, if you're looking), there were several social events which turned out to be just as valuable. I had made it my mission to find the "seedy underbelly of ISTE" this year, and while it definitely wasn't seedy, it made the conference that much more impactful. My only regret is that I didn't find more events to go to. In all, I attended events put on by Wonder Workshop (happy hour at a restaurant), the Ed Tech Team & Symbaloo (Karaoke), Gaggle (a party) and OSMO (a Sneak Peak event). All of those events, helping to strengthen my PLN (personal learning network for the uninitiated). I was able to build on some of the connections I made a year prior and hopefully will be able to build on these ones in 2017 (because yes, I'm going).

New Things and Old Things with More Pizazz

Having been at ISTE last year, I found that there were a lot of things repeated, but with more development. There were literally tons of resources (if you weighed them all together, there is no doubt of this) showing how makerspaces and making can be used in the classroom. Many people were sharing how they've been using their robots (many of which I bought last year after ISTE) and other cool gadgets in the classroom. For example, there were many people sharing what they've done with paper circuits (a shout out to Chibitronics & Spark Fun who both gave me some free samples to use in my classroom) as well as robots (guess who won a free kit from Hummingbird?) One really cool startup that was sharing in the expo was Hyperduino which had some really simple applications with their custom built arduino boards. They ran out of free samples by the time I got to their booth, but I may pony up the dough to get one.

It seemed like everyone had a Dash & Dot, Sphero & Ollie and Ozobots. Not to mention Makersaces. Perhaps this, too, was one of my big takeaways from the conference, and (since it's taking me forever to write this reflection) one of the things I've been most active promoting since I've returned. While I'm fully trying to gear up my classroom's Makerspace, ISTE this year has planted the seed of a big idea in my head. I'm working now to start #MakerEdNZ, a community of schools and teachers who are using Makerspaces in their classrooms. I'll write a long post about it later, but for now, just know that ISTE inspired me.

Global Connections

The only actual planned event I went to at ISTE was the Global Ed Day 2016. What a great group of people. Again, this is something I want to explore in much greater detail. Yes, we've done Twitter chats and Mystery Hangouts, but those connections are only on the surface (but again, much, much better than no connections at all). A lot of the talk around the Global Ed Day was starting collaborative projects between schools on different continents. This is another area for leadership within New Zealand, I feel, and something that is many people are primed for. We'll see what comes out of this, but perhaps someone reading this will take the call to arms and run with it. I only ask that you please include me.

Things I've Been Using

So it has taken me 2 months to get this far in my reflection. But that provides a great opportunity to reflect upon how those new things are going. Probably the most immediate thing I tried was Seesaw. For anyone who hasn't heard of this before, I urge you to have a look at it. I was lucky enough to have it explained to me by a teacher at the Seesaw booth in the expo. It's basically like Facebook for schools. Using the app (on tablets, phones or chromebooks) my students can take pictures or videos of their work, record an explanation over top of it, tag themselves in it and just generally share their amazing ideas. They can like each others' work and make comments - both written and oral! And I've only scratched the surface of what I can do with it. So far my students have found it super easy and have enjoyed sharing.

I also re-met my good friends at Kiva, which got me back to teaching the Kiva U curriculum (in the small amount of time that I can fit it in).'

I've also given my students focus with the Student Blogging Challenge. Though we may have been a few months late, meeting some of the people who have set this up, got me intrigued. My students have had some ups and downs with it (some of them spent a whole week or writing time making an avatar, not saving it, then making a new one), but overall it has helped teach them about blogging a bit more.

Another, practical thing I saw at ISTE and brought back to use were all the paper circuits that were being shown. I was extremely lucky to have been given those starter kits from Chibitronics AND Sparkfun, so I had a go with that at school AND at some educamps. It was interesting to say the least and something I want to look more into.  I was also given the chance to make a wearable circuit with some Lilypad Arduino components:

One of the sessions I went to was actually done as a walk around Downtown Denver. The presenter was telling us that we should be getting our students more active in class, and building movement into every activity. I had previously had swiss balls in my class but had given them up because of some behaviour issues. However, he inspired me to pump them back up and get my students moving more often. A small thing, but I think it's something that's important.

Conclusions

I could go on for pages and pages talking about how ISTE has changed me and my practice, but my biggest advice is: Go next year to San Antonio! It will change so many things about how you see teaching and give you so many ideas to help you do so. It will give you connections that will change your idea of teacher-teacher relationships and the way our profession should interact. It was honestly the best four days of the last year for me. Unlike a lot of the New Zealand based conferences that I've been to, ISTE has made me feel that we lone nuts are much stronger in numbers. It's nice to have our smallish group here, but expanding beyond our shores, in my opinion, is never a bad thing. Being part of something so big, is truly empowering. Meeting so many genuine people who only want the best for their students is inspiring. So, I urge all of you Kiwi teachers (and why not all my Canadian teacher friends as well, I belong to two countries), come with me next year! Come join my tribe!

#edchatnz Conference

A week ago Friday and Saturday I was extremely lucky to be able to attend the second ever #edchatnz Conference, down at Rototuna Junior High School in Hamilton (New Zealand, not the one where I grew up and lived). It was a fantastic experience which allowed me the chance to meet so many people in person who I've been speaking with through twitter over the last year.

The big theme of the conference was Possibilities. What can we do to change the world, change education and change ourselves. We spent a lot of the time working within our tribes to come up a plan of action that we can take with us to help encourage change.

My tribe was Kotuku and included some people I knew (from twitter and some unconferences) as well as some new people. As one would expect from any of the tribes at the conference, it was an awesome group. We had many discussions and came up with a simple plan: encouraging minute changes. The idea is simple: none of us have gotten where we are by changing everything in an instant. We took small changes, day by day and the cumulative effect has been massive. To outsiders it seems like too big a change to make in one go, so they don't feel comfortable making it.

Our vision is that no two teachers will end up going down the same path (similar to the ideas expressed in Punk Learning by Tait Coles), but that we should all adopt the same guiding principle of changing in baby steps, which is essentially the same idea as growth mindset.  We've even set up a twitter hashtag (#WIDD - what I did differently) and a twitter account (@minutechange) to help us continue doing this.

There were also some sessions to attend at the conference. The first one was a rundown of how Rototuna School oraganizes everything. It was quite interesting to see how they have two areas in all of their modules and the variety of modules the students have to choose from. One of my favourites was "Science and Superheroes." Students have three modules each term - one of which must include literacy, one that must include numeracy and another that includes neither. They also get three times during the week where they can choose from a wide selection of Flight Times, subjects or topics that have been suggested by students or teachers.  We then had a tour of the school (while the students were present) led by two current students. Hearing the perspective of the students was extremely helpful. Both said that they would never want to go back to the old way. Both spoke at lengths of the better relationships they have with their teachers. The told me that the teachers were like their friends, before quickly correcting themselves and saying it wasn't quite a friend. They said they were much kinder and that they were more like your coach. Though every school like this (ILE) will have a different set of specifics, I feel that the guiding principles are quite similar and it was extremely beneficial to see it in action.

My Awesome Tour Guides

My second session was about using STEM (or STEAM) in the classroom. We were given a fun, hands-on activity to complete, which led into a discussion on the nature of science and how we can make science more relevant.

Here's a video of my creation. We had to make something that would keep the ball moving for as long as possible.

The second day of the conference began (after we shared our possibilities pitch) with my presentation. I was sharing ways in which coding (or, more specifically, Scratch) could be used throughout the curriculum. I had previously shared this idea at two educamps, so I had had some experience in what worked and what didn't. I tried to make my presentation less about me talking (because really, who wants to hear me talk for over an hour?) and more about people getting a chance to do something. So I just introduced Scratch and gave my attendees (all 9 of them!) some challenges to complete. With such a small group I was able to have lots of conversations and support a very diverse group of people - a couple of them had a lot of coding experience, while some had never coded before. It was a great session, I thought. I think in the future, I will always need to make sure to have my presentations as active, instead of passive.

My last session was with Andy Crowe who was sharing some things we can do as a Lone Nut in his Lone Nut Toolkit. He shared lots of design thinking and lean startup ideas and we worked through the Squid chart, which helps us get to the real questions we should be trying to fix in a problem. It was an interesting session, to say the least.  I'm personally not someone who sits down and maps things out in charts. I just tend to do stuff, which can be problematic for me at times. So now I have a way of being "accountable" (in quotes because I think it's a dirty word) and mapping out my thinking when I do something different.

Like all of the PD that I've been to recently, this one was most valuable for the connections. What people said wasn't necessarily valuable (though, much of it was), but just making those connections and finding others in my tribe is what makes all the time and effort worth it. I no longer feel like that lone nut. I am definitely looking forward to spending more time (online, but preferrably face to face) with my newfound tribe!