Author Archives: kschaefer

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Student Back Channel

Computer Screens

 

Image: ‘Backchannel, from the Back of the Room’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034345586@N01/14027805

 

Ryan has done more solid work with the backchannel resources. This just appeared in the Class of 16 Students FirstClass Conference. What makes a student to want to share like this? Is it built into the DNA of our students to share? How do we foster more of this sharing so that all students are involved in creation, curation, and publication? How do we make sure teachers are harvesting this back channel?

One way to do all of this is to bring it to light and promote it I believe. Many teachers have created Moodle Discussion Forums for this harvesting as it helps everyone. Of course, there are some who are concerned with quality and fear the backchannel resources could be erroneous. Which is better, nothing or somethings that may need to have the group correct?

Hey guys,

In case you haven’t noticed, I have posted lots and lots of personal glossary words for Kanoy science! If you don’t think you have a complete Personal Glossary #3 list so far, then check it out! (You may have to already be logged onto Moodle for the link to work)

http://msmoodle.da.org/moodle/mod/forum/view.php?id=17577

Also, apply to my Quizlet group, “Cavaliers”! We have lots of History and Spanish sets along with a few LA ones. However, we don’t have very many French sets. I recommend Ryan St_____s’s group, “French 7 Engebretsen” for French sets.

Cavaliers: http://quizlet.com/group/59895/

French 7 Engebretsen: http://quizlet.com/group/42410/

Science 7 Kanoy: http://quizlet.com/group/70787/

^^^^^^

Ryan S.

 

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When the Learning Seeds Escape the Walled Garden

dandelion in the wind

‘Dandelion in the wind’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/91273409@N00/140131319

Having gardened for many years, I know how tough it can be to contain all of the plants inside of my garden area. Learning and teaching inside of a walled garden like our Moodle has some of the same limitations. Sometimes, the learning needs to escape into the world’s garden. I have worked with Tina Bessias on many wonderful projects and for many years we conducted workshops together for teachers at our school. She has always been a teacher who looked to challenge both herself and her students with work that could have meaning after the class was over. I was excited to hear that she was also a NCAIS Master Teacher. She clearly is one and I think we will both benefit from the challenges we face with becoming one of the first group of Master Teachers. Her Master Teacher project was about Immigrants and Interviews. A neat idea and one that I thought her students would both enjoy while also being challenged.

I received a very nice message, (which prompte this post) from Tina. She granted me permission to post it here as I liked how she included the earlier work her students had done with me as a reason for some of the success of the project.

I took six 9th graders to the ICG Conference at Carolina Friends School on Thursday.  Together, we presented our project to a small but engaged audience.  Mostly, I let the students do it, and I wish you could have seen them.  Nobody in the audience had used Moodle or created wikis before, and it was amazing to see the students’ work through their eyes.  They made seamless transitions among discussion forums, Garage Band, photo editors, wiki templates, and the concepts of the project–the variety of experiences they heard about from immigrants, the enthusiasm with which they referenced “my immigrant”…  It was a beautiful thing.  And throughout the project, they have mentioned and built on what they learned in Middle School.

I responded thusly,

WOW! What a Wonderful World View Student Centered project! I have been poking around in your course and Wiki and am awed by what you were able to harness and produce. I am also proud of what those students were able to create and do and am glad that my teaching laid a foundation. Too often, I wonder if what I do continues to be nurtured. Clearly, this project represents a prime example of the roles of a 21st Century teacher and learner.

Tina is a heavy Moodle user at the Upper School as her courses contain most of the modules that are available for use in classes. She has used the wiki in Moodle for many years even though most Moodle users agree, it is not very good. Moodle 2.0 has a much better, built from the ground up wiki which we will hopefully be able to use next school year. What Tina has accomplish with her project is to do the MESSY teaching and learning aspects of her project inside the walled garden of our Moodle. Only students and teachers can access it which limits projects living outside of a classroom or our Moodle. This is a classic use for a walled garden with 9th grade students. This is a picture of her Moodle tools used in the construction of the project. She used links, wikis, discussion forums and PDFs to guide the project. Some are active and some are grayed out as they are no longer available to students.

World Literature Bessias

I am excited to attend the presentation to the Durham Academy community on April 3, 2011 at 4:00 PM to share the learning and work of these learners and immigrants. To see more of the learning that lives in the garden outside the walled garden, visit The World in Our Midst.

Immigrant Interviews home

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When Students Run the Class

Leape

 

‘Bring Me Sunshine’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/68134711@N00/3172441452

 

I took a leap in the last Digital Learning Grade 5 class when I gave them a rotation to teach themselves something, create a product, and teach the class. Like usual, I was impressed that most students more then delivered. A few students under delivered given their abilities which I attribute to not being sure exactly what to do with this new found freedom. I put together a VoiceThread of their projects to showcase them. We did have a couple technical and logistical issues which is why there is not one for each student. I will for sure do this again and frankly think we may want to do more rotations like this one as even though it was more work then all of us working on one project at the same time, it was a way more engaged and energized classroom. Besides, I never even thought of stop animation as that was a suggestion from the students. One group took over 300 pictures to create the duck movie.

 

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When Students Teach Themselves for a Rotation

Rotation

‘Rotation’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11821713@N00/3230061564

This Rotation is For You! This was how I introduced our last rotation for the Digital Learning 5 class. I wanted to try some of the ideas I have been reading from Jonathan Martin, The Electric Educator, and others on how they are flipping the instructional flow. I also wanted the students to showcase what skills they have developed during our trimester course as a final project to see if all we learned would transfer when given an open ended project.

Using a Moodle assignment so I could assess their work and because it is our main class portal where I can add tutorials from Atomic Learning in our Moodle, and other learning links that we needed to learn, I posed this challenge:

In this project, I want you to think about what you would like to learn to do that you could teach yourself and us. For instance, have you ever wanted to learn how to shoot a video, how to create a podcast, use Photoshop, or any other type of technology?

You will fill out a Google form where you will list what you want to learn, how you will evaluate your learning, and which type of project will you produce. Your project should teach us something that you taught yourself. This is part of your final project for class.

Once I have the ideas you want to learn about, I will work on getting resources for you to help guide our learning. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked here at school so that will not be an option. If you find a YouTube video at home, you can send me the link and I will download it so you can watch it at school.

You will be required to work on this at school and at home so consider this fact as you think about how you will create your final project.

Ideas:

How to draw a ……..

How to record a  podcast?

How to shoot a good movie?

How to use Google Sketch Up?

How to use Google Earth?

How to use Scratch?

How to …….

Remember, you will teach yourself something and by doing so create something that will teach us.

We are now into the presentation stage of this project and these are the projects students have done to teach themselves and others. All students used a Google Presentation to present to the class. We worked on linking the video they made into the project since we had to upload their video to their Google Apps account and then get the link under the Share menu.

1. How to create a Stop Motion Animation – 4 students used cameras, iPhoto, and iMovie to create stories.

2. How to use Google Earth – 4 students have used Google Earth to create training movies, tips on how to use different tools or elements.

3. How to use iMovie –  4 students have used the Lumix cameras or video clips from parents to create movies that tell a story.

4. How to use Google Sketchup – 1 student wanted to learn more about this software after using it with his father.

I have learned that students will:

  • rise to the challenge when offered an option to do something they have a passion to learn
  • amaze you at the level of care and instructions they create
  • want to help each other learn once they learn it themselves
  • utilize tools and skills already learned to create new projects even without specific teacher directions
  • using a Google form is an easy way to collect and visualize data for a project of this type
  • actually use the Help menu in applications – how many of you can say that?

One student created a Google Presentation on how to use iMovie that it will serve as a tutorial for other students and teachers. She linked her presentation to an iMovie she has on her Mom’s Mobile Me account as it was too big to upload to our Google Apps setup. I never had thought about teaching students to do a stop motion animation, but believe I might work that in to the next class.

The biggest change is that I became the guide in the room to assist as needed but also to develop the soil where this type of self-guided learning could grow. This was a small step, but I feel had enough success that I will try it again next trimester.

 

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What is Your Sentence VoiceThread Project – Please Add Yours

Sentence

 

‘Sentience Structure’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8344872@N05/4245830972

 

I have been working on my NCAIS Master Teacher Academy project with my group of 5th grade students. I wrote about Daniel Pink’s Two Question video earlier. In my last post on Learning to Teach how to Learn is Hard, I wrote how I was having to help my students take time to go deeper with this project. After 3 days of work in our Digital Learning Class, they have added sentences for each of the 5 people, added their sentences, (two were absent so not quite done). Some worked on trying to come up with who the two people are that Daniel Pink refers to as “He taught a generation of kids to read,” and “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.” I do not know about you, but these were not obvious people to me so I thought the students should figure out who they are by researching. I have to say, that some of the students were taken aback when I said, I do not know for sure who these two people are, help teach me. It is interesting to listen to their findings. I think this might be a neat way to flip the research of people where the students are given a sentence and then must make the case for who the person is or why it is their sentence. Some of my students did add reasons why it was who they think it was. I left this part pretty wide open as I wanted the process to be guided by the students and not directed by me completely. As I wrote previously, this is not easy for both of us in the room as the students looked to me for advice and approval, and I struggled with saying just enough. I enjoyed watching the students begin searching for the sentence to see if it would be that easy. Of course, the result was usually Daniel Pink’s blog which meant the students had to try different search terms and strategies. I had hoped this would be the case as I tried to scaffold the lesson in such a way so that students would develop this understanding.

 

Now it is your turn to add to this VoiceThread. Please take the opportunity to add your sentence, have your class add their sentences, and figure out who those two people are. Pass this VoiceThread along to any one who might want to add to it. All I ask is that the work be serious in nature. If you have a video camera, record video, if you have a good microphone, record audio, or if you only have a keyboard, type the sentences. I would suggest if you are typing that you use a Word Processor to type the sentence and then copy and paste it into the comment as while any sentence is good, a misspelled sentence seems less educational.

 

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Learning to Teach how to Learn is Hard

I worked with my Digital Learning class today on my Master Teacher Academy project inspired by Daniel Pink’s Two Question video. As we discussed the concepts, responsibilities, and outcomes, I had the sense that what I was asking them was very new to them. I like reading Dean Shareski’s posts as he has an inspiring message as I try to adjust my teaching. I am trying to have my students guide their learning more with me assisting and coaching as we both learn together. My students today were in too much of a rush to get the project done. I felt like I had to hold them back as I want to go deeper and get to a level of emotional connectedness to this project. Granted, it may be that I am too connected to the project, since it is my project and not theirs. I understand that, but I am guiding more here for a reason. Anyway, I am sure we will get to where I want us to get as my students rise to the occasion. I was struck by how this video echos many similar themes. I am working on growing as an educator and this helped me today. That makes me better today, then I was yesterday. Thank you to Dean Shareski and Shelley Wright.

There will more about the project I described later, but for now let’s listen and learn from Shelley and her students.

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What Inspired Me This Week

Inspire

‘To be inspired’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31911206@N00/634764043

I took part in the first ever NCAIS Master Teacher Academy this past week and wanted to share a few inspirations from my wonderful learning adventure. In no particular order here they are:

1. Chris Gergen’s from Bull City Forward presentation was brief but deep. His book Life Entrepreneurs looks wonderful. His advise:  Think unreasonably. Young people are often afraid to risk failure so they do not take the risk. Going from fear of failure to fear of regret is often the step entrepreneurs take. Check out Unreasonable Institute.

2. Learning Times – Jonathan Finkelstein have amazing resources available to connect my class with all sorts of topics and people.

3. Smithsonian Conference Series offers so many ways to connect our students to learning.

4. Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education His TED talk is amazing and should shape all that we do with respect to creating learning environments for our students. His wiki is at http://sugatam.wikispaces.com/

5. The NCAIS Change Agents who presented how to deal with challenges that are presented. It is simple in that within Challenge is the word Change so there will be challenges with change.

6. NAIS iTunes Channel has some great resources.

 

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Digital Learning Class Portfolios – Second Trimester

messy.jpg

‘Manage Project‘ 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13316988@N00/2266171847

My Digital Learning course, formerly called Foundations of Technology, for 5th grade are developing their online portfolio that could live outside of both the classroom and our school. My goal is to give the students an opportunity to share their work and reflect on what it means to them. The idea of parents or other students also sharing their comments is a secondary goal. A third goal will not be obvious since the actual portfolio is the showcase for finished projects, and that is creativity, design and even fundamental technology skills centered around formats, copyright, privacy, communication, and others that are embedded into the projects we create. I used the term scaffolding with the class today as I wanted them to begin to connect the things we do in class instead of thinking, we start new each time. I was prompted to talk about this due to the age old question of “can I, can ya, or  can you”. I have a standard answer in that I ask them the question of “Where is Kenya?”. Often they understand this play on words although I feel like I am undoing some long learned rule of learning. I told the students today that if I taught you how to use it last week, it is OK to use it this week as that is the scaffolding part of this class.

So, I share now the portfolios of my students as we work on creating a digital portfolio using VoiceThread. For the price of a site license, this is incredible software for our students to begin telling the story of their learning. Remember that learning is often messy. That term is from a web site that I have read for years. http://learningismessy.com/blog/

Miriam W. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550600/

Sydney L. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1597437/

Alex G. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550599/

Wilson H. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550601/

Maggie D. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550598/

Lexi C. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550596/

Haley C. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550602/

Ted M. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1597392/

Jack E. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550595/

Drew H. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550603/

Annie W. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550594/

Ian W. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550591/

Davis C. http://damiddle.ed.voicethread.com/share/1550593/

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Bridging the Divide with Writing Tools

Bridge.jpg

‘Bridge‘ 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91273409@N00/17854302

As I left work yesterday, Pete McWilliams asked me if I ever needed a testimonial on the power of our Google Apps for Education, let him know. I said I would love one as I would be interested to know how he was using them and if it was helping him teach writing better in his seventh grade class. Pete, or as he is known, Mr. Mac. has been teaching at Durham Academy for many years and has always been willing to learn new ways of integrating technology into his teaching. He epitomizes the term life long learner. When I envisioned how Google Apps for Education could be used, I hoped to get him on board as I knew he might see the benefits of being able to collaborate in real-time. Mr. Mac has for years used Remote Desktop to monitor students as they write their papers in the labs. We would get the program setup for him and he would observe and when needed take control of the student’s computer. This allowed him to type suggestions to the student inside of their document. He told me he envisioned this type of tool 42 years ago when he began teaching.

In November, Mr. Mac came to the training sessions I held on how to access and use some of the features of our Google Apps for Education setup. We then worked together as he was beginning his current writing project. I have seen the success his students are having but did not fully realize all the benefits he and his students until I got his letter this morning. I have tears in my eyes as I am proud and happy to hear this type of report on how the tools are helping him and his students. He told me to share his letter with anyone, so I want to share it with you. Thank you Mr. Mac.

January 27, 2011

Mr. Karl Schaefer

Dear Karl,

Durham Academy continually stretches her faculty through the introduction of new technological hardware or software. The latest magical–and it is truly magical–advance is Google Docs.

Google Docs allows a teacher of language arts to do that which this particular teacher only conceived of at the beginning of his career. How could interactive writing occur in a manner that would allow the teacher in one physical space to read a student’s writing in a totally other geographical location–while the student was in the act of composing? Google Docs finally provided a way! For several years it has been possible to sit in a DA computer lab to interact electronically with students as they write, offering constructive criticism and responding to questions. But with Google Docs it is now possible to interact electronically with students as they write beyond the school walls. Last Sunday, for example, I sat at my kitchen table and worked–electronically–with a student polishing an essay from her home, offering immediate suggestions about grammar, punctuation, organization, style, and the like. The important point here is that pupil and instructor could each observe without delay that which the other was writing, thus allowing the student to persevere at a difficult time. This efficient, personal intervention afforded the student the opportunity to grow in her composition skills under the tutelage of her teacher despite the fact that class would not reconvene for over forty-eight hours. Needless to say, the reverse was also true. That is, the teacher could see the mind of the student at work during the writing process.

So kudos to Durham Academy for providing this computer-assisted program that truly is a magical link insofar as it affords student-teacher reciprocity in real time. If one of the grounds of good pedagogy is integrating into the curriculum strategic means for academic success, then Google Docs stands on its own merit. As a revolutionary bonus, use of this tool also saves paper!

Pete McWilliams

 

 

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Instruction, Teaching, Learning, Change in 1806 Minutes

atlas.jpg

 

‘Atlas, it’s time for your bath’  http://www.flickr.com/photos/73645804@N00/440672445

 

I read Sarah Hanawald’s post on why are we teaching this stuff and was intrigued. I am in my second rotation of my new Digital Learning class for 5th graders. I calculated how many minutes of face time I have with them to be 1,806 minutes. That is based on meeting 5 times in a rotation of 7 days. The last rotation is just 2 days. There are 9 rotations to a trimester. On average, classes meet for 43 minutes. All of this added up gives me 1,806 minutes of face time or what I have thought of as instructional time. Why do I look at it this way? Is it habit as I my class flows with the others being offered. Is it because I am afraid to try something new? Is it because students have different tools at home and I cannot trouble shoot the issues? Is it because it takes less time to do it the way I am familiar with teaching? I am sure it is a bit of all of these things since I am a human being. Is it the best way to deliver the content to my students by using only the 1,806 minutes allotted by the schedule? Clearly it will not work much longer as I am painfully aware of all that I am not able to teach or expose my students to since the clock is ticking on these 1,806 minutes. I am working on devising the curriculum, projects, and other aspects of the Digital Learning class for 6th graders as I want to adjust it for the older students. How can I maximize the time best and still not burden them with outside work or homework?

There is no way that I can cover all of the topics and skills, nor can I address all of the literacy needs in the 1,806 minutes. What do I cull from the list? How do I help my students be both learners and active instructors in the coursework? I read Jonathan Martin’s post about Reverse Instruction. Perhaps that is the solution or at least a part of it. Could my students create tutorials as part of learning tools? How would that change the nature of the course? Would the work overload their schedule? Lastly, like Sarah mentions, what would happen if I gave my students 5% (90 minutes), 10% (180 minutes) or even 20% (360 minutes) of the class time to create or follow their interests and create learning objects for the class? Would their intrinsic motivation be enough? It might be worth trying a Flip in my 6th grade class. Stacey Roshan has even more flipping going on.

Updated 1/26/2011
I have thought more about how to flip my class around and wonder if it would be worth the time and effort as I teach a course that has a short life span. Tools I teach with today will for sure evolve or go away in a few years. Here is what I mean. I used to teach HyperStudio to teachers from around the state as well as students. While the program still exists, I no longer use it. I need to focus on flipping the broader skills and not the finite skills of how to use the File Menu of software X. The skills of telling a story are as vital as the many other skills that go into using any one piece of software, and have a longer shelf life. I think what I need to flip is telling helping students to tell the story of what they are learning instead of how to use software X. Of course, blended into all of this will be digital literacy skills but not tool skills. Last week I asked a student Kit M. (who I have blogged about earlier) how she learned to make movies. She told me how her brother is into extreme sports and she became the videographer. She then needed to edit the movies so she taught herself iMovie and then Final Cut Express. When I asked who taught her Final Cut, she looked at me, you know the look I am talking about. Uh, no one I taught myself. Exactly my point. I also read a great post from the Electric Educator on flipping your classroom.

Today I got this video link from my director. It shows how Duke is flipping, and I mean flipping.

By the way, if you are interested Jonathan will be the Keynote Speaker at NCAIS INNOVATE 2011 http://ncaisinnovate11.wordpress.com/

The North Carolina Association of Independent Schools Commission on Technology is pleased to announce:

NCAIS INNOVATE 2011: Thursday, April 7th and Friday, April 8th 2011 at Saint Mary’s School (Raleigh, NC)

Keynote Speaker: Jonathan E. Martin, Head of School, St. Gregory School, Tucson, AZ | “Innovative Schools make for Innovative Students”

An independent school head since 1996, Jonathan holds degrees from Harvard University (BA); Starr King School for the Ministry (M.Div., Unitarian ministry); and the University of San Francisco School of Education. He is a member of the board, and Program & Professional Development Chair,  of the Independent School Association of the Southwest (ISAS). A prolific blogger, Jonathan contributes to his personal blog, http://21k12blog.net/ 21k12 as well as for  http://www.connectedprincipals.com/ Connected Principals and the http://www.thedailyriff.com/ Daily Riff. Jonathan has presented on 21st century learning for the Independent School Association of the Southwest (ISAS) Heads, the Arizona Association of Independent Schools (AAIS), and at many Rotary Clubs in Arizona and California.  He has upcoming presentations on 21st century learning at the US Department of Education’s ONPE Annual Private School Leadership Conference and the Annual Conference of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS).