I am a Parent... Engage me!

I am a parent to three children. A six year old, a four year old and a two year old.

Here's my 'wallet' photo of my children.

It's not kept in my wallet.

Its kept on my cloud account and accessed via my phone, tablet, laptop, desktop or TV.
It wont' degrade or get lost. I can access it on any device, I can show it or share it with anybody, anywhere. This photo was actually shared with my family, on the other side of the world, a few moments after it was taken. The use of technology has improved this parental experience for me.

As a working parent I miss out on a significant section of my children's day. My solution to this was simple. When I got home I talked to my children about their day. If they were not forthcoming with information I could simply ask their mother and she could fill me in on everything I had missed during their day. I could then engage my children in a conversation knowing that I already had some idea about what they had done, who with and how it went.

My children also attend pre-school a number of days a week. One of the main reasons we selected that particular preschool was because the school recognised the parental instinct of wanting to be engaged in the learning of their child.

The preschool has a simple set up of a desktop computer linked to a large screen monitor in each classroom. At the end of the day when parents collect their child they can view a PowerPoint presentation including many photos and short descriptions of what the children in that room have experienced during the day.

This simple sharing of information allows me to follow my children's learning and get a snapshot of what they have experienced. I can then discuss their day with them, armed with some knowledge, in order to engage them in conversation.

Eight weeks ago my eldest son started Primary School and this changed.

I now have no idea what my son is doing between 9am-3pm.

It is left to me to try and tease out of him what he has done, what he has learned, who he was with, what he experienced. I can not draw upon any knowledge that I have of what he has done because I have been supplied with virtually nothing.

I do not like this. I do not want to be excluded from his learning. I want to be engaged as the significant educator in my sons life, but I am not being given the opportunity to do so. During this eight week period I feel as if I am being passively discouraged as a parent to be engaged in his learning at school.

I should add at this point that I do not mean to monitor the teaching in his classroom with regards to its quality. I trust his teachers and the school, I just want to be engaged.

So, how can I as a teacher encourage the engagement of parents of children within my classes?

I believe the answer is to make the learning more transparent and share the experience with them in real-time.

Social media tools such as Twitter allow me to do this. I can very quickly take a photo and post it to a class twitter account. I can make a quick 140 character post describing what we have experienced in the last half an hour. Twitter allows private accounts where followers have to request permission from the account owner. This feature, accompanied by parental permission, could then be used to ensure the security of access to the account.

I recognise that some parents may not take advantage of this level of engagement, but if my son's school offered me the opportunity to follow HIS class twitter account and receive regular notifications about what they were doing I would bite their hand off.

Can Social Media Shape Education?

I'll start off by stating an obvious... social media is massive.

News is delivered almost instantaneously via social networking applications. Images are shared from individual personal devices to an audience of every networked device around the world.Videos are broadcast from a lounge room to an audience of billions. Audio can be recorded in a garage and played on international stations. Messages can be sent from a student and read by the President.

To me, that is amazing and exciting. With the use of one smartphone I can connect and share with anyone, anywhere, almost immediately.

Some educators may remain sceptical about the use of social media in school. After all there is a lot of noise that you have to filter through, such as this....

And yet, as a teacher, I have found myself asking 'can I learn from social media?'

This week saw a massive learning opportunity go viral around the world. The story was on everyone's phone, in all the newspapers globally, on every international news station. It impacted on individuals from all walks of life, from young children to adult scholars.

What colour is this dress?

Its very easy to dismiss this viral sensation as pointless. I did when I first saw the post appear on my Facebook feed. 

After a few seconds however, I reconsidered and recognised the power of a single social network post. It got me thinking how I as a Teacher could harness this power.

One simple image had generated such interest. Is it white and gold? Is it blue and black? 

Yes, the initial attraction to this issue is trivial, but as soon as the conflict occurs between who sees white and gold and who sees blue and black, a massive opportunity for learning is opened. Everyone wants to know why? Why do I see such a dramatic difference in colour when we are both looking at the same image?

Interest is sparked and a want, or need, to learn occurs.

That is why the following day international newsrooms such as BBC, SMH, NYT, etc are publishing articles explaining colour perception and ambient light cues.

There are two things about social media that I, as an educator, desperately want to harness:

1. Its ability to generate interest

2. Its ability to connect

If that one individual who posted the 'dressgate' image had posted a simple question of:

 'Could someone please explain colour perception and ambient light cues?'

I seriously doubt if the response would have gone viral. There would not have been such a global interest, there would definitely not have been published responses from BBC, SMH or NYT!

The image ignited an interest and a curiosity to learn more.

This could be an extremely powerful tool for eduction. 

How can teachers use the techniques that are so successful in viral social media in order to generate such an interest and need to learn....

  

Extended Collaboration

One of the most powerful methods of securing knowledge is to teach others. When a student is given the opportunity to teach another student it allows them to display an in-depth understanding of the content. This is a fact well known by most teachers. 

I love the video below, it's very funny and so true....

Not only did this short video make me laugh, but it also impressed me with it's thought, planning, execution and editing.

The process behind the creation of this video shows a huge amount of pre-production planning coupled with integrated ICT skills.

This video made me think about how students within a school could operate extended collaborative projects across multiple year groups. 

Consider the creation of a Disney Pixar animation blockbuster, such as 'Frozen', where actors, animators, musicians, graphic designers, recording engineers, etc, all work together in an extended collaborative project. Some of these contributors may never set foot in a room together, but the end product is something amazing. The skill set of each member is utilised to its fullest.

The technology on hand around us makes this type of extended collaboration a real possibility within classrooms.

How awesome would it be to be a teacher or a student that participates in an extended project across a whole school age range, where all students are learning at different levels.

Picture this:

A year 1 class learns a new concept (such as subtraction in maths) and teaches another student in their class this concept. As they are doing this they are using an iPad to video their conversation.

This is then passed to a year 7 drama class...

The year 7 drama class watch the video and design and plan a lip synch performance to complement the year 1 audio.

When the performance is ready the year 9 IST class visit the year 7s and begin to plan the video production requirements. Once the planning is complete the two classes work together to record the performance.

The audio and the video are then passed over to a year 10 multimedia class who work on the editing of the video to create the final cut.

A true cross curricular learning experience, where each level of student are learning at an appropriate level with authentic use of technology and a publishable final product.

This product can then be shared globally using a resource such as YouTube in order to gain feedback from the whole world!

Who would not be proud to be involved in such a powerful extended collaboration learning experience, I know I would!

Learning Through Publishing

The act of publishing materiel could be considered to be one of the most rewarding experiences as a learner. It allows students to apply their learning by creating a product that expresses their skills in a multitude of facets.

When considering Bloom's Taxonomy, the act of evaluating is the top of the stack with regards to higher order thinking skills. The revised taxonomy places creating in this position.

http://apps4stages.wikispaces.com/

This is due to the fact that when a learner creates their own material they must move through the lower, mid and higher order thinking skills in order to create their product.

The digital technology available today means that publishing of material has never been easier, whether that be videos, music, websites, eBooks, games, apps. The availability of such resources means that teachers have a great opportunity to allow pupils to display their learning in a dynamic way.

During November, I had the opportunity to work with maths department staff and students in order to allow a group of students to express their learning by creating a product as part of a project.

Students were presented with a mathematical problem to solve, they then had to develop a creative way of using technology in order to explain to others how they solved the problem.

By itself the problem solving exercise, although challenging, would have made it to the midpoint of 'applying' in the revised taxonomy. The creative part of the project then allowed students to display their higher order thinking skills by producing a tutorial video.

The obvious additional skills displayed would be ICT (recording audio, creating graphics, editing video), but it was the act of planning the creation that was most powerful.

Students were forced to consider how and why they performed tasks in a certain way. Whether they could have, or should have, completed tasks differently. They were forced to justify decisions made. Then create a narrative that succinctly explained the process to others who had no understanding of the problem.

The act of editing the recorded materiel, audio and video, meant that students listened to their explanations many, many times. This act solidified the learning.

The end product was produced to a high level, but the same outcome could be achieved using basic screencast software such as Quicktime, which is available free on macbooks, or by using a mobile phone, a piece of paper and a pen!

Please enjoy the end product AND please leave a COMMENT.

How to screencast with Quicktime Player

Turning Weaknesses Into Strengths

Ten years ago I was a PE teacher at a Sports Specialist College in the UK. I had completed my teacher training and had two years of teaching experience under my belt. At this point in my career I had very little experience of using ICT in my teaching at all. Nothing that really went beyond writing up my lesson plans using my school laptop and using PowerPoint in lessons.

Outside of education my knowledge of using ICT didn’t really go beyond playing Xbox.

My mobile looked like this:

My home computer looked like this:

I had been saving my work on these:

And my interactive theory activities took place using laminates and an overhead projector:

ICT in education was not my strength and looking back, it was something that I hadn’t really even considered too much. In a practical subject such as PE, it was something that hadn’t really been exposed to me as an area for development.

Then one day I took the first step into turning this weakness into strength, purely accidentally.

I wanted to create a PowerPoint that taught the anatomy of the Human skeleton. I had a very clear image in my head of how I wanted it to be. I wanted the bones to be presented, in place, one at a time, with their titles, in order to gradually build up the skeleton.

I searched and searched on what was then, still a relatively emerging internet, probably using ‘Ask Jeeves’ for images of the skeleton that I could use to develop my PowerPoint, but they didn’t seem to exist. A feeling that I imagine we have all experienced.

At this point it became clear that if I was to create my PowerPoint then I would have to draw the images myself. The only programs that I had any real knowledge of was Word and PowerPoint and the draw tools on these two applications do not offer the ability to draw anything that would even closely resemble a simple human bone, let alone a skull or pelvis.

I approached the only person I knew that had experience of computers, my Dad. He told me to install an application called Adobe Illustrator CS2 (now up to its 7^th generation), a specialist drawing software. This is an industry standard piece of software and if you only have experience of computer art through Word and PowerPoint then it is not especially intuitive or obvious how to use.

My dad drew the first simple bone for me in about 5 minutes, just to show me the basics of how to use the tools. Then it was up to me.

The Pen tool in Illustrator does not operate the same as using a pen and paper. You can’t just draw a line and have it appear on screen, as you would initially expect. The Pen tool operates more like a pin and thread scenario where you have to plant a pin and then join it to another pin using a thread.

I hated this! I could not get my head around it. It was not easy for me; it was a source of great frustration, as every click I made seemed to lead to a mistake. Drawing an image that I could have drawn by hand in a matter of seconds was taking hours.

No matter how many times I asked my dad to come and draw the images for me, as it would take him a fraction of the time, he refused. As if he did it for me then I would never learn.

At that point I had a decision to make. Invest the time, keep on and attempt to complete my images (there are a lot of bones in the Human body) or give up and stick with the old presentation.

I am pleased to say that I made the right choice, and I stuck at it. This gave me the realization that it was possible for me to develop the resources that I require using ICT if I could not find what I needed readily available.

The fact that I do not have a built in knowledge of technology and that nearly everything I have learned I have learned from scratch, I believe, makes me a better teacher of how to teach and use the technology. I am very familiar with the pitfalls and frustrations that occur because it happened to me in the very recent past and continues to happen to me as technology evolves.

So, what’s the point of this reflection?

Looking back, the situation that I found myself in back then may well be and probably will be, a situation that many students find themselves in on a daily basis.

Presented with a situation where learning something new is frustrating, time consuming, painful, confusing….

And as Teachers we constantly encourage pupils to persist, don’t give up after the first attempt, learn from your failures, embrace making mistakes.

The likelihood is that students will only learn to accept this encouragement from their mentors if they can see it being modeled in a very real way.

Is it evident to students that we as teachers are continual learners who embrace making mistakes, learn from our failures and persist in the face of frustration?

When it comes to the use of technology do we persist and learn something new that may further develop our teaching or do we quit after the first frustration or technical issue.

Do we embrace the mistakes and frustrations that are part and parcel of integrating technology, modeling to students that learning is lifelong… or do we model to pupils to stick to what you know, if something goes wrong the first time then never use it again, if you find something frustrating then just forget about it.

My first steps into using technology: A skeleton PowerPoint

Pigeon Steps into the Twittersphere and Google Sites

Last week I had the opportunity to work with a number of members of staff for a whole day on some technology based professional development.

The development day aimed to kill two birds with one stone; assisting New Scheme Teachers in gathering vital accreditation evidence as well as developing whole school resources for the schools Google Site VLE.

This led to killing four birds with two stones; as I found this the ideal opportunity to not only aid colleagues in developing their Google CloudShare skills and resources, but also set about promoting the use of Twitter as a collaborative, reflective professional development tool.

The hope is that this one day spent with 5 colleagues helps to kills a whole flock of birds with the use of just a few stones. As the experience and knowledge gained will be passed on to staff and students by the members of staff involved.

Below is the story of the day created using the Tweets and pages developed.

A Step In The Right Direction

Am I a better teacher now than I have been at any other point in my career?

Have I let go of any teaching practices that I should have maintained, either through lack of time or over confidence?

Am I continuing to develop as a teacher and a learner or have I reached a plateau?


These are questions that I have been mulling over since my last blog post. By striving to become more reflective I have naturally been considering my learning path to date. Along the journey I have gained vital experience in teaching and learning, but when I look back, I can't help but think about the period of time where my own professional development as a teacher was at its steepest incline. This would be during my PGCE (teacher training ) in the UK and during my NQT year (first year out).

At this point in time, between the period of 2002-2004, I was in the strange position of being both a learner and a teacher at the same time. The growth in this period was vast. The hours of planning lessons meticulously, making resources, watching other teachers, trying to pick up techniques, evaluating every single lesson, discussing my evaluations on a weekly basis with mentors, then peers, then seminar leaders.

Im glad to say that my meticulous planning is something that I have maintained over the years. I also, still constantly make resources that are developed with the focus on specific learning outcomes, classes, groups or individuals. These are of a much better quality now, due to a developing confidence using ICT and the invaluable resource that is YouTube.

I cannot recall the last time I took the opportunity to sit and watch an experienced teacher in their element. I also, cannot recall the last time I sat down and physically wrote a detailed evaluation of every lesson that I taught in that day.

Informally I observe staff members around the school. I may catch some glimpses of teaching practice as I wander from room to room focusing on my own tasks, but this is coincidental.

Most teachers will express that they engage in reflective practice after lessons, what went right, what went wrong, what would I change and why, I know I do. The practice of getting this down on paper (or virtual paper) and discussing these with others seems to have drifted away though.

Looking back at my initial steps into teaching, one of the main reasons for my rapid growth as a teacher was the observation of my mentor, evaluating every single lesson I taught and then discussing it with those with experience and those who are on the same journey. I did not value the act of writing my evaluations at the time, picking over the bones and getting it down on paper seemed superfluous, but in hindsight it was vital.

Writing down my lesson evaluations at the end of each day allowed me to analyse everything that had occurred, make connections, consider how I could use this experience in the future. 

Knowing that each evaluation was for an audience made me consider them a lot deeper.

Regularly and formally discussing my reflections with others allowed me to gain different points of view, advice on possible solutions or improvements, confidence in my own abilities.

The reflective practice I engaged in during this period shaped me as a teacher. It also gave me a strong connection to the students that I was teaching. I was very much a learner, although the exact nature of what I was going to learn each day was uncertain.

Whenever I discuss my PGCE with others I always say that I was very lucky to have had the amazing mentor that I did, Mr Ian Fortune. He was a great teacher to observe and we engaged in valuable discussions about my reflections in order to make me a better teacher and a learner. Having completed my 'introduction to teaching' years the first few things that slipped out of my practice were arguably the two things that were most vital to my development; formal reflection and observation.

So..... having considered my three questions that started this post I feel that I do need to reintroduce some of those vital teaching practices into my daily routine. I am making a commitment to myself to formally reflect on my learning and lessons, actively seek discussion about my reflections and my lesson planning/delivery and also observe my peers regularly for my own development.

This will only make me a better teacher, a better learner and a better mentor to my students who I encourage to engage in reflective practice of their own.