Learn-Think-Create

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Krissy Venosdale 

Today I finally had a moment to watch Jacob Barnett’s TEDxTeen video titled “Forget What You Know”. I had three reasons in taking time to watch this. One reason was this was shared by fellow colleague, Carolyn Jensen with the following bulleted information (her favorite quotes from the video) that excited her:

• We need to stop (book) learning and start thinking.
• They took me to special ed which was extremely special because it didn’t educate me.
• Were Johnson, Newton and Einstein geniuses? No, absolutely not! They made the transition from learning to thinking to creating.
• There’s probably some therapist watching this who’s freaking out right now.
• Be the field.

The second reason, was that I have always enjoyed math, loved playing with math numbers and concepts and continue to learn more about thinking like a mathematician. I wanted to see what excited Jacob so much about math and truly about personlized learning. (Yes, I know he says “stop learning”, but if you look carefully at one of his last slides, he clearly indicates that it is BOOK learning.)

The third reason was to connect the amazing things that some of our own PSD70 teachers and students are doing this year in regards to Learning – Thinking – Creating in a different manner that sets up a learning environment where students are encouraged to reach for the stars – to learn, explore and create in different ways, for different lengths of time with multiple ways to express this learning:

• We have students who have participated in Innovation Week at Greystone Centennial Middle School in December 2012, where middle years students choose their project, planned their learning and directed their own activities. Teachers guided the work, but students were the ultimate planners, thinkers and creators. And, the Principal, Carolyn Cameron reflected on her most inspiring Christmas present ever in regards to this project. The project proved so successful that the school is working on Innovation Week #2 during this month. As well, to share Teacher-side learning experiences, where teachers can take time to be innovators, Greystone staff are opening their doors the day before the official start of the school year on August 27th, sure to be an exciting learning EDventure for all!
• There are three schools (Muir Lake, Stony Plain Central, Memorial Composite High School) involved in the Bring IT project where involved teachers are receviving professional personalized learning opportunities ineffectively utilizing mobile devices in the learning environment. With the 2Learn Society supporting both the teachers and an Admin member, staff have been receiving instruction in Google Apps for Education tools, engaging students with polling, collaborating and online discussions, Blogging, effective uses of applications and extensions, etc. The sharing of stories of engaged teachers and students, new applications for exisitng technologies and the learning of new resources, tools, materials and strategies are all assisting in changing the traditional classroom environment to one that can inspire our students to be their best in a quickly changing global community.
• Many more examples from Mystery Skyping, to Videoconferencing to Tweeting and Blogging as a reflective learner are also occuring in various classrooms. If you are on Twitter, check out #psd70 to read and see some of the creative ways that teachers and students are exploring, creating and imagining in new ways.

So, take 20 minutes, stop “book learning” and watch Jacob’s video. You’ll be glad you did!

 

iPADnesday: Text n Speech stuff

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Billy V
Removing barriers for students through the use of technology is of great importance to me. With the advent of more mobile technologies, I am seeing much progress in giving students more choices as to how they demonstrate their learning. No longer is pen/pencil and paper the only way to complete a project/assignment/summative assessment. Now, by installing some specific apps on an iPod Touch/iPad/iPad mini/iPhone, students are able to make their learning and demonstrate more easily. Such is the case with the few Text to Speech and Speech to Text apps that I shared recently with interested teachers, Learning Coaches and SpEd Key Contacts in our school division. Check them out at http://bit.ly/iPadText.

 

Integrating Images in Your Classroom

cc licensed ( BY SA ) 500px photo by Charly Morlock: http://500px.com/photo/3106929

As teachers, students and administrators are utilizing more and more visuals in their presentations, blogs and newsletters, it is important to keep in mind two elements.

1) It is best to obtain an image that has shareable Creative Commons licensing.

2) Using a Creative Commons licensed image still requires proper source citation.

Below you will find a number of websites where images can be sourced and how to properly cite them for your research, presentations, blogs, brochures and newsletters.

WEBSITES

CC Search – allows users to input a theme/word/title and click on a particular medium. http://search.creativecommons.org/

500px – professional photos with a variety of CC licenses. The Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives and Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike licenses are best to use. (Note: some mature content found.) http://500px.com/creativecommons

Flickr Creative Commons – candid photos with a variety of CC licenses. http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/. Download the Flickr CC Attribution Helper Chrome extension (http://bit.ly/CCimage) and this gives you the proper citation to copy into a document, blog and/or website.

Free Digital Photos – variety of stock photos, the company watermark stays on each photo. http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

FreeFoto – a variety of images which are also organized into categories.  Citation for online environments is included. http://www.freefoto.com

Google Advanced Image Search – use the power of google by scrolling down to the bottom of this site and changing the usage rights to either “free to use, share or modify” or “free to use, share” and then add the word(s) at the top. http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search

Pics4Learning – free, copyright-friendly images specifically for students. Citation is included. http://www.pics4learning.com

2Learn Image Database – a number of categories http://www.2learn.ca/images.aspx

Wikipedia Commons – freely usable media files (images, sounds, videos), various contributors. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

CC CITATION Structure

When attributing an image under a CC license you should indicate the type of CC license, share the host website name, credit the photographer, and provide the URL where the work is hosted. (If the image has a title you can include that as well just before the name of the photographer/creator.)

cc licensed (abbreviation of licenses) which webservice is displaying the photo (flickr, google, 500px…) by (name of photographer): (link to actual image)

ie.

Attribution-ShareAlike License

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by MeRawrFloor: http://flickr.com/photos/mirrorfloor/8748547068/

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by Lucas County Choppers: http://flickr.com/photos/mzwp/8748525126/

 

iPADnesday: Science

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Steve Rhodes

For K-12 teachers, there are a number of Science apps that can be utilized on an iPad/iPad mini easily. I met with grade 1-7 teachers recently and here is a quick list that we generated on http://bit.ly/iPADscience.

 

iPADnesday: Social Studies

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by César Poyatos

Teachers are always looking for some useful and effective apps to install and utilized in their classroom and to share with students and parents. This week, I had the pleasure of sharing a few iOS apps for Social Studies. Have fun with these in your classroom! Check out the list at http://bit.ly/iPADsocial

 

Hate School – Love Education

In the school division that I work in, for the past decade our teachers have collaborated, discussed and shared student assessment experiences. From these discussions came about our K-9 report card in 2012. This report card is designed to provide a broader snapshot of how students are learning. It also identifies ways to support student growth and development.
This approach focuses on the broader knowledge and skills that student should learning in each subject. Student performance is then report in one of four categories: exemplary, proficient, approaching proficiency and beginning. This report card emphasizes where student ARE in their learning. Multiple assessment tools, not just %-based tests are being utilized to assess student progress in skills and knowledge outcomes. (See our sample K, grade 4 and grade 7 report cards.)

The way I explain this approach to my non-teacher friends is:
• You go to your doctor for an annual check-up. He/she takes your blood pressure, weighs you, and asks about your overall health, takes blood and urine samples all during your visit. When the results come in from each of those “tests”, your doctor then adds up all these tests and gives you an overall health percentage rating of 81%. Does this then mean that each of these tests were equal in nature and measured the exact same thing? Are you healthier than your friend who received a 75% rating from their doctor the week before? Certainly NOT.
• In the classroom, teachers offer students a variety of assessment opportunities which are not equal in nature and do not ‘measure’ the same thing, therefore adding all of these together to produce a final percentage really doesn’t provide a legitimate picture. As well, adding in our Critical Thinking initiative and Inclusion focus allows students of any academic, behavior, cognitive, and physical level to engage in the learning environment. We want our learning spaces to be filled with exploration, creativity and imagination which make learning exciting and aspiring.

Watch the following video to see what a post-secondary student has to say about an education system that concerns itself with only the “what” of learning. 21st century learning can no longer be ‘sit and get’.

Image

 

iPadnesday: Numeracy

Today I had the opportunity to share and learn with teachers who are interested in apps that can be used in the Math class. In Western Canada our math program of studies concentrates on the following: Numbers, Patterns and Relations, Shape and Space, Stats and Probability. Therefore together we explored apps that work within these categories. The overall discussion and sharing concentrated on apps that allow students to build on basic skills, that are interactive (individual to multi-player, that are allow demonstration of skill level and are engaging. Check http://bit.ly/iPadnumeracy to see which apps we reviewed.