BYOD Trial - a real world inquiry.

Last week our school started a BYOD trial with my class.  We have been wanting to increase the ratio of devices to students for some time and after talking to @annekenn about her classes journey this year (and getting some great resources - thanks Anne!) at the last educampdunners we decided to try our own leap into the future!

Here are the agreement / disclosure forms we asked each student to read and fill in with the parents in this box.net folder - feel free to download. Below is also the parent letter that was sent home introducing the trial to the parents, as well as the link to the classroom blog post that explained what we are doing and how it's going so far.


On the first day of our trial we created a 'stem chart' of possible issues that may arise and how we could address them.  The two ideas that we decided to promote to our parents were;
   - make sure you have really good contents insurance - damage is the responsibility of the owner (within reason, excusing deliberate damage by another student, obviously).
   - students with personal devices should be sole users unless collaborating with another student under supervision.


We've also discovered how to do a search in icloud to find our ios devices which could be a handy deterrant from theft in the future. - (plus it;s just so cool to see how accurate the GPS is on our devices!)

Here is a recorded interview with some students from our class about how the trial is going so far.  It was really interesting to also hear from 2 students who don't have their own device at school and the impact the trial is having on them.

Here are our next steps

1.  Upgrade our wireless to cope with the increased device connections.  We are in the process of getting high-speed broadband (the diggers are outside my office window as we speak) and we're also investigation getting a 'robust' wireless network that is industrial standard. A bonus of this, we are told, will be the ability to trace the user's footprints on our internet connection by tracking the mac address of that device (an important part of the BYOD registration process which we collect off each user's device when they arrive at school).

2.  Planning a parent workshop for all parents interested in a future BYOD policy across the school.  Having the trial in our school will give us some excellent data, experience and student reflections about the use of personal devices in class - rather than talking about some other school's experience.

We have decided to gather advice, make informed decisions and work with our students and parents as we go.  I know of some schools who are taking a cautionary approach and working through ALL possible pitfalls before they jump in.  There are pros and cons to that approach but, so far, we are enjoying the collaborative path; working with parents and students as we go.

So far...so good.

Throw away lines worth keeping

This week our staff spent some time over two days with Stuart Hale (@stuartnz) looking at mobile technologies in schools - the trends, the future and some hands on practical tips for ipads and ipods.

Over those 2 days I was able to catch some great one liners that I tweeted.  Here are my favourites and a comment or two.

"If you think technology is expensive for schools, try ingnorance."  

Stuart was speaking to a group of Principals and Boards and explaining the costs of infrastructure and monthly broadband.  Sadly there are too many schools with a deficit view on technology. - 'We'll buy a couple of computers for every room cause we don't want to look behind the times.'  They rarely invest the capital needed for what @Stuartnz calls, 'A robust wireless network' let alone the resources needed for effective staff PD and support.  Technology is moving rapidly and, I would argue, its use in education.  The long term costs of falling further and further behind is frightening!

"Technology will hook them but it won't cook them."

It's true that technology can be great for motivation and engagement.  But, as we all know, it's the expertise of the teacher to use technology within an effective teaching process that makes the difference.  High expectations, higher order thinking, formative practise, personalised learning strategies; these are some of the steps in that process.  'He tangata, tangata, tangata.'  It's also all about people - the relationship between the teacher and the students is most important!

"Feed the hungry!  Stop watering stones."

There is a trend in many schools to have a technology strategy that spreads access across all classrooms and teachers.  @Stuartnz puts a lot of the blame for this on the shoulders of our egalitarian society.  We want to make things fair and equal but what this usually results in is computers in classrooms gathering dust while a teacher next door is crying out for more!

I've written about my 'peloton model of change' before (a peloton is a group of bike riders who use one rider at the front to break the air in front and create a draft for those behind) where we resource one or two progressive teachers and see them drive change and elearning progress with a school.  If we want to see change we need to equip the change makers.

"We shouldn't be teaching hammer skills.  We should be teaching woodwork."

Many teachers will go to some PD on how to use imovie and then teach the same skills to their class the next day. There's no question that students need to learn these skills but gone are the days of the computer suite where we teach a class how to use a tool.  This generation picks up things incredibly quickly and can easily do it within the learning process.

Teach the skills as you move through your movie making project and learn them as you need them.  Don't teach students how to use comic life - use comic life while teaching your students to communicate a message to an audience.

"Your digital footprint is like a tattoo.  Once it's there you can't remove it."

Everyone needs to understand that their digital actions have eternal consequences.  What we upload is incredible difficult to remove if others have owned or distributed it.  There are many students, @Stuartnz commented, that are putting their futures in jeapody due to naive mistakes they are making in their teens and twenties.  It's all about being cyber-smart!

Showme - Connecting any time, anywhere.

My teacher inquiry this year is to provide the parents of my class as many opportunities to be a part of the learning with my students. I suppose I 'm trying to widen our learning community beyond being just my students and I'm assuming that this will help them achieve - so far it definitely has!

One of the things I've been doing is to give the students access to teaching from home - not from a worksheet but through interactive games and videos.

This isn't anything radical but, like any good elearning practice, the effectiveness is enhanced when teaching pedagogies and media are mashed into a workable system. One that is student centred and personalised.

An example of this is our basic facts blog. Here the students are working through a series of steps on a basic facts ladder (designed by advisersplus in the Hawkes Bay) using some links to interactive games - and some videos created on a great ipad app called showme.

Showme has been a fantastic way to record some teaching steps for a particular skill that the student can access at any time. Some parents have told me that THEY"VE found them helpful when they've tried to help their child master a particular skill.

Here's a video explaining more about how it came about and the impact it's having in classrooms across the world.

There are lots of uses for this great little app. I've used to remind students on our classblog about the scientific method - really helpful when they're working in groups and unsure about a step in their experiment, and last year my students became quite handy in making their own showmes to explain and demonstrate their learning about all kinds of things we were doing in class.

Here's a showme that I made to explain how to find fractions of a whole number. The small group I was working with was able to show their parents at home and consolidate their learning even more.

How are you providing opportunities for your students and parents to continue the learning?

Blogging with Zing

Last week I spent some time with some teachers from our school at our first 'iTips' workshop. We looked at how to create some extra Zing to our classroom blogs and I thought I'd share 3 things I do to personalise them and make them stand out a bit more.

1. Headers

- I use Comiclife, which is a mac and pc programme, to create a lot of graphics and visuals for my blogs. Pretty much all my classroom titles, labels and posters are made on this. By downloading and inserting some images from google, even the examples in this picture of some free icons I downloaded (by searching 'free icon download png') to put behind the text. Gives it a bit more bling , I reckon.

The best kinds of graphics to download and put on your header is the 'png' file. These graphics have the file with ONLY the image in them. It;s like they have the white background sort of cut away with scissors. These are great to put on top of other images or even the text as there isn't a white box around the image. Try it. You'll see what I mean. Use the 'arrange / bring to the front or back' feature in comiclife to change the orientation of the images.

Here's a review video of comiclife as a taster. Search around and you'll find LOTS of tutorial videos on youtube to get you more confident!

2. Pictures as links

The side bars on blogs are a great way to direct your readers, students to the sites you want them to visit. One obvious way is to use text as a link and there are a few different standard gad

gets to help you do this. I use these for lists of links but one of my favourite ways to link on the sidebar is using a picture as t

he link. I think this is far enticing for the reader and adds some visual effect to the look of your blog.

You can insert a gadget called PICTURE and use a screen shot of the site you want the link to go to. There's a space to include the website link (URL) and away you go! Screen shots are one of the greatest things ever - hold down shift / command / 4 and 'frame' the image that you want to capture. (For PC users the keys are different. Try this link)

3. Installing a 'third party' blogger template.

This is one of the greatest tips for revolutionising your blog - and one that I've noticed is not readily used by many teachers. Third party refers to a source away from the original, in this case blogger. You can alter your blogger blog (or most other platforms*) inside the design feature which can look great. But for an even more custom, original look you can search through a massive range of templates by google searching 'blogger templates download' as an example.

Here's a site I've used a few times - btemplates.com. It has some great search filters that help you find the template for you, such as searching by colour, structure or even key word tags. There are a lot of videos that show you how to complete this process and, with a little playing around (a few templates might have some gadgets that aren't working or might not allow you to add you're own zingy header at the top) you'll find one that suites you.

Here's a tutorial from a guy with a fascinating accent. There are plenty out there!

So, there's just 3 little techniques that can create a great blog. One last thing to get you going even further is to look at lots of other blogs and see what they're using. It's a great source of inspiration to 'borrow' another person's idea. Just click on the gadget or look for clues at the bottom for a website where it originated. There's nothing like a little google search to satisfy that curiosity of ours.

Here are some links of some blogs to inspire you!

Top 20 Teacher Blogs

Blogging Tips

Great teacher blogs

Classroom Blogs

* This is my new 'Bazinger' footnote - a word I've stolen from 'The Big Bang Theory' and my signal for a jargon word.

Platform - in this sense it's a form of blogging programme that you can use. Examples could be blogger, wordpress, tumblr or posterous.

The dangers of student centered learning

One of the current BUZZ words this year is student centered learning. We should have a student centered programme and a student centered curriculum. When we are talking about differentiation and personalised learning I am in whole hearted agreement.

My concern, however is that while being student centered helps to target the learning and boost achievement it is also solidifying our western culture's focus on the individual and not the collective.

What I mean by this is the danger that we make our classroom programme 'all about the student.' Everything is structured to meet the requirements of (cliched) 'little jonnie' that we encourage them to think first and foremost about themselves and their own needs.

Like everything, I think we need to have a balance. Yes, education is about preparing the individual for the future but it's also about helping to shape a society that cares for and thinks of others. It's about helping children mature from being egocentric to being empathetic and altruistic. After-all, to be truly functional, societies are dependent on the health of it's communities.

Perhaps, then, we need to add a new buzz word/phrase to this years teaching lexicon - 'community centered learning'. I'm beginning to wonder if this is my true calling?

So, what does this look like?

Yes - we should guide student learning at their pace and towards their own learning targets.

BUT - we should also be encouraging a desire for them to look for opportunities to help others around them.

Yes - we should prepare them to have a dream and fulfill their potential.

BUT - we should also be instilling a passion to be aware of the needs and concerns of their communities and how they can be a positive influence in them.

One reflection from a student of mine made my

month! She was reflecting on a co-operative group activity where they investigated a question with their classmates and created a graph from the results. It was a group that I had helped form and had not just left up to them to join. I asked them all to describe what they felt was a success for them from the project.

Her answer - "I learnt that it's fun working with people that aren't just my best friends!"

Pure Magic! In that tiny moment in time, my work felt done...now for tomorrow.

Teachers and teamwork

Many of us are nervous about the talk of teaching incentives and performance pay. In Australia there are moves towards teaching excellence payments - described below from the linked article.

"Under the Rewards for Great Teachers initiative, teachers who become certified at the highest level of the standards will be rewarded with $7500 for Highly Accomplished teachers and $10,000 for teachers who achieve the Lead Teacher level." http://www.deewr.gov.au/

Its all making for interesting staffroom discussion! The main fear that I hear from other teachers is the impact this will have on what makes our profession so strong - collegiality.

Teachers are usually amazing at sharing and supporting each other. If we are competing for excellence payments, what incentive do we have to encourage the teacher next door? Will we want to share the latest technique or strategy we've been working on with each other if we're vying for the same reward?

It's a valid concern. Like this video of supportive ants shows - it's when we work together that we are at our best. I'm trusting that our colleagues will always hold on to what makes us strong!

Further down Neo-Liberalism Lane.

Two days ago I saw a tweet from a Principal friend, asking what charter schools were. Naturally I was curious to follow the thread that resulted from his question. Then it began...

Like most of us in the teaching arena we were probably shocked, but then not. It follows the National Party direction down 'business model' avenue. "It's all about freedom of choice and the free market," they hum. We should be adding, "Children are not products in your factories!" to the soundbite war.

Here's a slightly predictable article from the nzherald, praising the charter school proposal and giving teachers another serve. Below is a comment I posted (which has 23 likes but not that I'm counting).

It's interesting that the majority of comments are, likewise, anti the idea.

So lastly, here's a small shot across their bow. For what it's worth. And yes, Mum, I'm trying to stay positive.

Thinking Hats for big kids

This week I got a great idea for deepening the critical / reflective skills of my class - something I've been wanting to do for a while. @MsBeenz sent me a reflective template that uses De Bono's Hats (this site has some great resources to download and use, too) to structure the students through an amazing reflection.

Her class used them to write reviews on their ipad apps and I slightly adapted it to help the Year 6s reflect on their camp from the week before. I was REALLY surprised with the way it scaffolded some great reflections by asking them to think across the sprectrum of thinkers hats - logic and facts / feelings, positive / negative and creative / facilitative. (My own take on the hat names but I do like the 'cautions' word instead of negative, perhaps)

When some students saw the posters I put together, below, I heard, 'Oh those - we did them in the juniors!' and, 'Those are for babies aren't they?' Well, you can imagine my face - very black hat reaction! Amazingly, the reaction was pretty accepting when we got into it and I showed them how we'd use them. I even explained that a lot of businesses use them to help make big decisions.

When we've finished I might post a couple of their reflections. I think they're pretty good. Much better than hatless, anyway!

The template for the camp reflection is in the folder above, also - thanks @MsBeenz!