Mrs A's Blog

My Rambling Thoughts on Teaching and Learning

#FutureSchools Day 2

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I often walk away from conferences exhausted.  My brain is full, ideas are slowly forming, and I usually have a long list of things I want to try or at least research a bit further.  I wonder if this is how kids feel at the end of the school day.  Exhausted, brain full and a long list of homework…

Today has been no different.  I attended the first day of the Future Schools Future Leaders Conference.  (If you want to read, my ramblings from the masterclass click HERE)

There were a number of ideas that I connected with…

  • The learning Eco system and needing to remember it is extensive (school, home, work, uni, church, library, maker spaces, nature, museums, etc)
  • Change the mindset students will lead a life of learning rather than be a lifelong learner
  • Creating learning communities instead of just having cells and bells.
  • Needing to build from the imagination instead of from the known
  • Having permission to innovate
  • The reminder that “Together we Grow”
  • Personal Based assessment when the student is ready

The following extended my thinking…

  • The 6 edges of innovations (youth, Co-teaching/co-learning, time/place, technology, curriculum/assessment and thinking)
  • The idea of Place-Based Learning
  • Implementing Ipsative (personally based) assessment in the curriculum
  • Innovative Thinking Skills

Lastly, I am being challenged by the following – perhaps it just needs more research…

  • Where do I learn best…  Not at work…  I learn best at 3am in the dark by myself and online
  • Perhaps school is not the place to learn anymore and we need to be adaptive to this as educators
  • The need to do a SAMR Analysis of our teaching staff
  • Complete a Digital Distractions Census
  • Minecraft possibilities
  • Why can’t we have a Genius bar in the back of our classroom?
  • Contact Codethefuture.org

Would love to hear your feedback.

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Categories: Personal Learning.

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#FutureSchools Day 1

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Today was a whole day master class in Teaching Kids to Code.  I have dabbled in code in the past.  Tried scratch, tried Bits Box, tried various iPad apps, learn to code sites and it just never seemed to make sense.  I find drag and drop programming frustrating partly I think because I lose track of where I am up to in the process and struggle to debug the issue, as I can’t always find the logic. (Perhaps it isn’t logical!)

Today something was said that made it make so much more sense…  In an explanation of how programming works for an Arduino board, the presenter said two things…

1.       If you open the door you must close the door

2.       When you write in English you finish the sentence with a full stop when you write in code remember your full stop (;)

3.       English has millions of words coding only has a thousand

Three strange statements if you just read them as they stand, however when you look at the conversations around these they start to make so much more sense.

The idea of opening and closing a function in coding is not new to me I’ve always understood when using html code that if I start with <> I have to end with </>.  If you open the door, you must close the door.  So why did I not ever understand this with C programming or python programming?

The second statement was like a duh tip.  I think that I have always seen code as a list not as prose.  Remembering that if I’m going to write lines I have to remember to end with a full stop or at least the equivalent.  The idea of it being its own language makes it make sense.  English language needs full stops so coding language needs full stops.

The last statement I think was more about taking the impossible out of it.  I always feel stuck when coding that I don’t know the language.  What do we do when we don’t know a word in English?  We grab the dictionary and look it up.

With that, I’m off to find the dictionary!

Happy coding!

 

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Personalised Pathways Take 1

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2016 was a difficult year.

It was one where I have questioned myself on a number of levels including professionally.  I have doubted my abilities, and even my career path.  I have wondered if after 12 years in the classroom that perhaps it was time to leave.  The pressure and the stress got to me.

During 2016 I had a full time academic class for the first time in 6 years.  And while I had missed the student relationships I had built up in the past by having my own academic class (rather than team teaching in multiple academics classes) the one thing I didn’t miss was parents.

I am not your traditional chalk and talk teacher, I don’t do death by PowerPoint, I don’t give worksheets, I don’t allocate homework (students set their own by answering “What am I going to do before the next lesson to ensure that I retain what I have learnt this lesson and further my learning in preparation for the next lesson?)

In fact at times I can have 28 students doing 28 different things.  At our school there is only one supply teacher who will cover my class as the instructions left are “numerous”. (Sample lesson plan below)  I plan the course and then help students work their way through it at their own pace.  Adding additional support materials as a student needs it.  I aim to individualise.

Every parent’s dream right their kid gets a personalised path through the course.  Nope apparently not…  I had more parent complaints than I thought even possible.

  • Why don’t you teach?
  • My child is missing out on vital information if you don’t explain in a PowerPoint.
  • Why do students get to opt in and out of your lessons?
  • You better make my child opt in to every mini lesson.

2017 is a new year.  I’m going to try this individualise the course thing again and see if the parents react the same way.

At some point education has to change.  I’m trying one class of parents at a time…

 

 

 

 

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It’s Time to be Cyber Savvy Citizens…

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puter-on-bed

I am often asked how does one keep up with the pace of the online world and make sure that I really am safe online.  Reality is – no one can.  Every other day we hear a story in the news about another cyber issue we need to keep ourselves and our kids safe from.  What we can do is teach ourselves and our kids to be Cyber Savvy Citizens.  Being a Cyber Savvy Citizen involves remembering to follow six simple principles:

  1. Remember to protect private information for yourself and others.
  2. Use your heart and respect yourself and others online.
  3. Stay safe online by listening to your gut feelings.
  4. Stand up to cyberbullying when you see it happening.
  5. Balance the time spent using digital devices with other activities.
  6. If in doubt seek help from a trusted adult.

As students get older they do tend to need a reminder about what this really means, especially as they get caught up with the excitement of social media and keeping up with their peers.  How as parents or teachers can we help our kids be safe online?  Here are a number of suggestions:

  • Ask the child to show you what they have set their privacy settings to
  • Ask the child to help you set your own privacy settings and use it as a conversation starter about what are the good choices to make
  • Talk as a family or class about the importance of your online digital footprint
  • Google yourself and ask the children to Google themselves and talk about the results which come up (ask them if they are embarrassed that Mum or Dad saw the photos they had posted or what if the teacher saw it or even the principal)
  • Remind them to think before they post, as once it’s online it’s always online and you never know who is going to save, copy, forward or post your photos, videos or even words
  • Use articles in the newspaper or news to start conversations about current cyber safety issues

In 2016, digital citizenship is not a once off check-in to say: yes, I’m a Cyber Savvy Citizen.  It is a mentality that I’m a Cyber Savvy Citizen 24/7, 365 days a year.

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Learners and Learning

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learner

Last year I was at a two day workshop looking at the future of education…  One of the first series of questions looked at…
Who are you as a learner?
What is learning?
How do you learn?
Define it…
This is was my rough as guts response….
Learning is the acquiring of new knowledge or skills and the cementing of old knowledge or skills.  It is challenging the existing knowledge and then adjusting it to meet the requirements.   I learn best by having a go.  I can read or hear about a topic however until I implement it or try it I cannot see how it will work for me.  I am a learner who wants to try new things, to think and mull and find what is going to work for me.  I inhale and breath…  I want to play and move, hear and see…  I need space…  I want to talk with other people I want to build on the ideas generated.  Shared knowledge is important to me.  No one person can ever know everything.
Learning must be…
Continual, Experiencing, Meaningful and have Purpose, Formal and Informal, Holistic, Individual and Communal, Able to be Applied, Challenging, Engaging, Authentic, a Failure, Lifelong, Interests, Passion
After revisiting the notes this week it resonated with me again so I thought I’d post it.
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Categories: Random Thoughts.

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