Month: October 2008

TeachMeet – Be Inspired

TeachmeetPublished on5 Comments on TeachMeet – Be Inspired

Back in September I was fortunate enough to attend both the Scottish Learning Festival and the most recent TeachMeet. A TeachMeet is an unconference, there is no organising committee and anyone could arrange one or attend – all it takes is a date on the wiki. People sign up to talk about technology in classrooms and it’s free. It is driven by the passion and enthusiasm of those participating.

Learn something new, be amazed, amused and enthused. This is an informal gathering of those curious about technologies. Anyone can share cool ideas they have or great ideas they’ve trialled in their classrooms.

Participants can talk about any topic, following some simple rules (defined by the participants of course) in 7 minute or 2 minute (nano) slots. My first TeachMeet in Glasgow saw me open the show with the first 7 minute presentation. In January of this year I took part in the FlashMeeting (online coverage) for the TeachMeet at BETT 2008, however the experience of meeting people face to face has no substitute. 

It was such a positive and inspiring experience in Glasgow that I decided to try and organise something closer to home. I enquired with Stuart Sutherland about whether we could host a midlands TeachMeet at the National College for School Leadership in Nottingham. In my opinion this is a venue that is befitting the inspiring nature of TeachMeet and I am thrilled that the NCSL have agreed to support TeachMeet Midlands which will take place on the 15th May 2009. Just pop your name on the wiki if you can make it.

It seems that there has never been a more abundant time for TeachMeets and if you cannot come along to Nottingham in May then you may be able to attend one of the others in the pipeline.

I have even mentioned the idea of taking it to Australia with me at Christmas and organising a TeachMeet Adelaide and Sydney, but I think I might just enjoy my holidays (Unless someone wants to help!)

In my opinion nothing comes close to the energy and passion for learning technologies you experience at a TeachMeet and in every way it is as Ollie Bray once said “My best continuing professional development”.

All of the TeachMeets are dependant on support from sponsors for food, drink, venues, wifi etc. If you think you can help with any of the events above and would like to partner the most inspiring professional development events currently available, then your support would be appreciated.

Sign up and be inspired.

Discovery

My classPublished on4 Comments on Discovery

Last week as I was helping a child in my class with some data entry using the excellent Create-a-Graph, I watched as a child sitting next to them learned something new. I was simply using the TAB keyboard short-cut to move between fields when adding some data. I could see that the boy next to me had looked up from the work on his own laptop. I continued supporting this child and I again noticed their neighbour peering around my arm trying to spot which key I was using to move between fields. He then looked back at his own keyboard and found the TAB key, he navigated to his own data on his own graph and began trying his newly found keyboard short-cut. 

As I finished up with the child I was originally helping and moved away, I could not help but notice a big grin had spread across the boy’s face as he put into action what he just discovered for himself. I have to say it also made me smile. It is pretty amazing witnessing someone discover something for themselves and benefit from using it.

My Proposal to use Google Docs for Online Reporting to Parents

Google DocsPublished on34 Comments on My Proposal to use Google Docs for Online Reporting to Parents

What follows is a proposal I submitted to my headteacher regarding a trial of the use of Google Docs (as part of the Education Apps) to deliver online reporting to the parents in my class. I have spent considerable time working with Google Docs both on a personal level, organising planning files and within the classroom as a tool to support learning. The ease with which you can share a document is central to the idea that I could share a collaborative report throughout the whole year – updated at times when units of work are completed or at opportune moments of review.

My headteacher gave me his consent for me to explore the idea and I suggested to him posting the original proposal for reaction from a wider audience, he was also keen for this to happen – as this post and hopefully your reactions will help us develop and refine the whole concept.

What is the proposal?

I am proposing to use Google Docs as a platform to trial the delivery of online reporting to the parents and children in my class for this academic year 2008/2009.

What is the National Picture?

It is clear that the government is positioning itself to deliver real-time online reporting by the target year of 2010 for secondary schools and 2012 for all primary. According to Schools Minister Jim Knight:

“Real time reporting will deepen the school-parent relations and is not a substitute for regular personal contact with teachers. Effective technology systems can actually significantly cut the staff workloads – but it has to be to be manageable for individual schools and meaningful for parents.” Jan 2008

The aim is to develop a real-time reporting system that means parents will be able to access frequently updated information on children’s achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever, whenever they want.

According to this announcement from the DCSF Primary schools must meet the basic requirement to provide information to parents covering achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs, on a timely and frequent basis – this should be at least once per term by September 2010 and the real time requirement by 2012.

According to Tanya Byron:

“Schools already using online reporting methods have noted that teachers spend less time in total producing three reports each year online than they did when producing just one by hand. The anytime, anywhere aspect of online reporting allows teachers to have greater control and flexibility of the use of their time. And, importantly, online reporting allows teachers to see the ‘bigger picture’ for each student because they are able to view grades and progress in other subjects.”

Why Google Docs?

This tool presently has three main advantages:

  1. It is already in place to be used within school, therefore no new software or programme has to be installed or found.
  2. It is free – we will not need to buy into any contracts or purchase new software.
  3. It delivers the real-time aspect of the online reporting requirement. This is because parents and children will have complete access throughout the year to the document. It is always on.

What will be the differences with the current end of year system?

We will have to unlearn some things. The sense of a formalised report at one time of the year will no longer exist. In this proposed system the parents (and children) will have continued and timely access to a single document that is the child’s report. That document will be periodically updated by the teachers as various units of work are completed and key assessments are finished throughout the year – not just at the end of the year. There will be key contributions from the children as they also comment on the work they have done and explore their own targets for improvement. Parents will have room to make comments based upon the contributions from teachers and children.

Will it increase the workload for a teacher?

For many their first reactions will be that it will, as you are in effect reporting throughout the whole academic year. However in my opinion the timely nature of reporting extends to the teachers too. I believe I will be able to better report to parents if I have the opportunity to just write comments about, for example, a history unit completed at Christmas time. As opposed to doing it 2 terms later alongside all of the other subjects. I believe I will find it easier to write subject comments if it is all fresh in my mind, consequently this will increase the quality of reporting to parents.

When would the report be updated?

I would expect that comments are updated when major units of work are completed in Design and Technology or History for example. Specific times throughout the school year must be negotiated for adding comments about Literacy and Numeracy and some of the other subjects.

What about parents who do not have access at home?

Although more and more families in the community have access to the internet, due to lowering costs, not all of the children in my class (2008/09) have access at home. For the 2 or 3 families that do not have access I will operate an open door policy in terms of the access to the report document at school. The parents will be welcome to come into the classroom immediately after school and access the document.

What is the teacher’s role?

As the year progresses I will schedule times that I will add comments about particular subjects – at the end of units of work, after major pieces of work in the unit are completed. I will also plan time for children to add their comments about the work that has been completed and support them in adding examples of what they have done. I will also collect evidence that is suitable for the online form of the report. I will notify the parents when these updates have been completed or if there is something that needs their attention.

What is the parents’ role?

In the document there will be room for the parents to add comments and feedback about the examples of work and subject comments about their child.

What is the children’s role?

The children will take an active role in updating the document with examples of their work and comments about their learning. At the end of units of work a structured class activity will see them remark upon what they have learned from a subject unit and the highlights from it.

What is the headteacher’s role?

The fourth collaborator on the report document will be the headteacher who will act as overseer on the process throughout the year. A final end of year comment will still be present but the document will be open to any comments from the headteacher throughout the year.

What might the report look like?

The report will be similar to the existing paper version with areas for subject comments. Room must be made for comments from all of the different stakeholders. Photos of the children working will be able to be included as well as examples of work. Links to other online documents and work examples will be used.

What needs to be in place if we were to begin?

  • Parents consent.
  • Email addresses need to be collected from the parents.
  • Schedule of commenting mapped to curriculum.
  • Information letter to parents.
  • An agreed report layout in Google Docs – what would we want to include in the report?
  • What will happen to effort and achievement grades?
  • What do we need to unlearn about the current reporting system.
I have much to iron out but would really appreciate your take on the idea, pitfalls that you might see and your general commentary on the proposal. Your comments will help us to develop the proposed system.

You are the Instructions

Literacy, My classPublished onUpdated on12 Comments on You are the Instructions

Last week I was pleased to have another opportunity to teach a lesson that we did for the first time last year. In this blog post I explain about how the literacy lesson worked out this time around, as I don’t think I wrote about it back in 2007. The lesson formed part of unit of work exploring instructional writing that is part of the new Primary Framework.

The idea for this lesson stemmed from discovering the excellent Videojug website that provides video instructions for just about everything, and more specifically the “How to fold a T-Shirt in 2 Seconds” video. You may have seen it on morning television, I just thought that this is a wonderful way of showing instructions; a new digital text that isn’t part of what we currently teach – but which clearly should be.

The structure of the lesson is based upon the children comparing and rating three different sets of instructions for the same process – folding the t-shirt in 2 seconds. After working with each set of instructions for a little while we rated the quality of layout, organisation, clarity and suitability. We used a little grid that you can see below.
instructions1
We brought in loads of shirts for the children to use and to have a go at the folding technique – however I didn’t explain anything other than that they needed a t-shirt each and to follow the instructions. We began with a written version of the instructions that I made deliberately poor in terms of structure and layout, lacking bullet points or sub headings. The children struggled following the order of the instructions, quickly got frustrated and there was many grumbles about not being able to do it! Clearly we rated the instructions poorly.

instructions2

The second set of instructions were much easier to follow and the children began remarking on the formatting that was facilitating the process. Yet still a lack of images in the instructions still caused confusion. Most of the children were not reading the first instruction carefully enough and due to a lack of visual clarification started with the t-shirt in the wrong position. Most children made good attempts but none managed to get the knack of the fold without those visual clues. We rated the instructions as being much better in terms of layout but still lacking the clarity we needed.
instructions3
To the kids surprise the third set of instructions was a film from Videojug. We spent some time looking at the film together and the children began to understand what the written text seemed to be saying, but which they hadn’t made any connection with because of the lack of images to help illustrate the steps. The video made it very clear to them – in pairs they had a laptop with the same film loaded up and they paused and navigated the film as they independently practiced folding the shirts on the floor, tables anywhere that was flat. It was a folding fest!
Fast Folding:How To Fold A T-Shirt In 2 Seconds – Explained.
  

It didn’t take long before we had children completing the fold correctly and obviously they were extremely triumphant in doing so. It was from this point on in the lesson that things began to turn golden! I listened and watched as some of the children demonstrated the fold for me – I then told them to teach other people.

There were children who really struggle with reading and writing helping their peers with the tricky fold. They had become the experts, the knowledge bearers and they were empowered by it. Then they would come beaming back to me and say, “I have taught 6 other people and they can do it on their own!” The children had become the instructions and the laptops, videos and written instructions became irrelevant. They proved the best instructions of all – a demonstration from a peer.

By the end of the lesson all of the children could complete the fold and the majority of the children had passed on their knowledge to a friend – the process had become viral in the way it spread through the class. A lovely session that helped the children understand the importance of visual elements in some types of instructions and in which we had loads of fun.

It is a memorable hour in our term so far as it combined practical, written, visual and social strands of communication, it went beyond my expectations which is always good and it empowered some children that often never feel that in their day.

 

Unobtrusive Collaboration in Google Docs

Google DocsPublished onUpdated on7 Comments on Unobtrusive Collaboration in Google Docs

We have been using Google Docs with our students for over a year now and I have spent some time writing about our experiences so far. One of the key questions that I have been exploring for a while now is “How do you mark and manage student work in Google Docs?” but this simple question is applicable to most other online office tools. In this post I explore a facet of this type of assessment that I would call “unobtrusive collaboration”.

1326786748 84b469d0f4 mOn a number of occasions in the last year I have taken the opportunity to conduct a “live marking” session with the children in my class. They are working on a piece of work that is shared with me – I open it at the same time and add comments and marking to the piece of work. I would often also back these comments up by talking to the children involved, going over to them to reinforce what I had commented on – actively engaging them in the collaboration.

In some of these instances I would just nip into the doc and take a quick look around to check the progress, leave a comment if appropriate and leave them to it. I think this is an interesting type of quiet monitoring as the children are working. In the online document I can mark, highlight and leave comments without intruding on the flow of work that is taking place.

With paper based tasks or work that does not allow synchronous editing I would have to interrupt what the children are working on to inspect their work more closely. I might have to ask them to scroll to different sections or simply to move their writing hand so I can see what they have done over their shoulder!

Of course we must always find time to talk to our children face to face about the progress of their work, and I am not disputing the value of this, but often it does intrude on the flow of work. This sense of passive collaboration offers us the opportunity to access all of the children’s work very quickly and to quietly monitor progress and to add our comments.

I think that this sort of unobtrusive marking or monitoring is especially useful when my children are working in a small group or a pair. They are often busy talking about what they are doing or about to move onto and I do not want to stop that communication, or break their train of thought. Last Wednesday I quietly added comments and thoughts to my class as they were busy working in pairs on an activity in Religious Education. They picked up on those comments, adjusted their work, responded if they needed to, but it essentially did not halt the immediate process – it was a tacit collaboration.

What experiences have you had of marking and managing the ongoing assessment of work in Google Docs or other online office tools with your students?

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Image: ‘a perfect circle‘