Tip of the Iceberg

This little gem of an idea, came to the Digital Literacy Team at UWCSEA via Robyn Treyvaud, who had been visiting our school to work on the initiation of our generation safe project. Robyn’s idea – so obvious I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of it before – was to include students in the evening presentation to parents about social networking.

We created a sign up sheet for our workshop, and asked parents to outline the sort of things they were concerned about and/or what they wanted to focus on. Below is a Wordle of parent concerns.

My colleague Jeff Plaman asked which students in the class he was teaching would be interested in sharing how they use social networking with parents. He got at least 10 students who were keen to help out. I must stress that students were not pre-selected – we only asked for interested individuals, and we didn’t prep them as to what to say. Rather, we provided them with talking points to which they responded.

We scheduled a meeting at lunchtime where we shared a wordle of parent concerns, and they talked about their responses to the concerns, and explained to us the different ways they use social networking. It was fascinating just listening to them. At one point during the discussion, I thought, “We should be videoing this!” so turned on PhotoBooth (all that I had available at the time!) and listened.

Here are some short segments from that video which show the sort of things they were saying.

The following day, we had a huge turnout from parents. We sat one or two students at each table with parents, and did a brief presentation from the school’s perspective.

We encouraged parents to ask the students about their concerns and turned it over to the kids. It was amazing to see the positive body language of the parents, and see how engaged both groups were in listening and talking with the other.

We asked for some verbal parent feedback at the conclusion of the session, and received some very lovely comments from the parents. One parent said from his discussions with the student at his table, he learned he needs to trust his children more, and involve himself in what they’re doing. Others spoke very highly of the students involved, and said it was much easier to talk to someone else’s child about these sort of issues than have conversations with their own children. That said, they now felt more comfortable about initiating the discussions with their own children.

One of the most touching things I saw was one of our Grade 10 students giving the parents at her table her email address, with the words, “If you have any more questions, just send me an email.” How great are our students?!

Have you tried having students at your parent meetings? Do you have suggestions to share?

(Cross-posted at Greatechxpectations)

Noah Katz, one of the Digital Literacy Coaches at Dover came across this fantastic resource which he shared with me.

Triptico (designed by David Riley) is a FREE download which works very nicely in conjunction with IWBs. The free download gives you a number of desktop resources which are fully customizable.

What I love about them most of all is that they are so aesthetically pleasing! I have seen other countdown timers, but none that look as good as this one!

Below are a few examples of the tools in the Triptico IWB toolkit.

Hourglass – countdown timer

 Class Timer – another countdown timer

Question Quiz – provide the answer and have students guess the question. Award points to teams if they guess correctly

Class Magnets – create a set of magnets for your class. You could get them to drag their names up to the board when they arrive to record attendance. There are lots of other different ways to use this tool, particularly if you select a different background from the ones on offer.

Find Ten – create a quiz of sorts, and get students to guess which 10 things match the category you choose.

Order Resource – This would work extremely well with Kath Murdoch’s ‘More True than False, More False than True’ activity. Essentially, just order the statements.

What’s in the Box – this is similar to the TV Show ‘It’s in the Bag’. You choose a box, then decide whether to keep it, or risk playing on.

(Cross-posted at Greatechxpectations) 

The iPad is a great mobile device for recording students thinking on the go. When we combine the iPad, Harvard’s Artful Thinking Palette, Harvard’s Visible Thinking Routines and the free Voicethread app, a plethora of possibilities become available.

Sign in to Voicethread (NB, if your school has domain, as ours does, you can edit this on the sign in page).

I Used to Think, Now I Think

Used when students’ thoughts, opinions & ideas might change over the course of a unit. (Click here for more details)

Students could draw and screenshot a picture that represents their initial thinking in a unit. Bring the image into Voicethread and explain their thinking. Follow up by repeating the activity at the culmination of the unit, and add to their initial Voicethread.

See, Think, Wonder

Sets the stage for inquiry. Usually used at the beginning because it stimulates curiosity. (Click here for more details)

Using a pre-selected photo, or one they have taken, create a Voicethread with 3 slides (photo repeated 3 times). Add narration over each slide – one for ‘see’, one for ‘think’, and one for ‘wonder’.

Compass Points

Compass points helps you extend your thinking. (Click here for more details)

East = Excited. What are you excited about?
West = Worrisome. What worries you?
North = Need to know. What more information do you require?
South = Stance/Suggestion. What are your next steps?

Have students take 4 photos representing the four points for a given topic (e.g. current Unit of Inquiry). Create a new Voicethread and have students narrate over the top, explaining their selections.

Beginning, Middle & End

This routine develops observation and imagination. (Click here for more details)

Have the students look at pre-selected image. Get them to choose either Beginning, Middle or End.

Beginning - if this is the beginning of the story, what do you think might happen next?
Middle – if it this is the middle of a story, what might have happened before? What might be about to happen?
End - If this is the end of a story, what might the story be?

Create a Voicethread with the image, and have students explain their thoughts through a voice comment. 

Claim, Support, Question

This routine supports reasoning. (Click here for more details) This routine might be better suited to upper primary aged students.

Claim – Make a claim about the image/topic
Support – Identify support for your claim
Question – Ask a question related to your claim.

Using an image that represents your topic, add a voice comment for each section of this thinking routine. This may be 3 separate comments, or 3 slides with one comment on each.

Looking 10 x 2

Great for observation and descriptive skills. (Click here for more details)

Look at an image for 30 seconds. Try and list 10 words/phrases you see. Repeat these steps again, this time trying to list an additional 10 words/phrases you observe. Add the image to Voicethread and add two voice comments to the image.

Tips

You might like to consider purchasing a camera connection kit to transfer images directly from your SD card to the iPad.

Alternatively, you can email images you wish students to see to the email address set up on your iPad. The students can add the images to the Photo Gallery from there by holding one finger on the image, then selecting save to Photo Gallery.

________________________________________________________________________

Credits
Magnifying Glass ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Lanzen
Compass ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Roland Urbanek
Cuff Links ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Oberazzi
Pale Blue 10 ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Caro’s Lines

I was kindly tagged by Kim Cofino in this blog meme of sorts, (via Jess McCulloch) which involves documenting how you get to work. It’s an interesting one, because I love seeing the diverse lifestyles of my friends around the world – check out the journeys of Kim, Jess & Clint, by way of example.

The journey starts at the elevator, where my son Griffin (more often than not wearing only PJ top & underpants) waves us all goodbye. Scarlett, Miles & I love this part, because he makes us smile as we leave.

Then it’s into the car with Maggie (the Music teacher, who gets a ride with us).

Scarlett usually dictates the compulsory musical sing-along numbers each day. Today we started with Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream as sung by the Glee cast, so we pump up the volume and sing at the top of our lungs as we head onto the motorway. Maggie has come to learn that songs will usually be replayed ad nauseum. I’m just glad we’ve moved on from the Shrek album…

To our right as we drive is East Coast Park – the closest ‘beach’ (and I use the term loosely), and home of the East Coast Seafood Centre, where I have Chilli Crab (my personal favourite). I love the Brazilian Rain Trees that line the motorway – they are beautifully gnarled.

We pass a golf course or two on our commute.

This morning, we turned towards Tampines and all of a sudden the sky went dark – perhaps related to the Typhoon that went through Hong Kong yesterday?

It went from daylight to darkness very quickly. And then the rain came.

Finally we arrive at school.

We drive up through the main entrance and into the car park.

Scarlett & I walk up to the plaza, then turn left towards the Primary Library.

Books and friends await in the Primary Library.

Louise loves having her photo taken… She is sitting at the desks we share.

Finally! Time for a cup of tea and a tweet or two before school starts.

So that’s my journey – I hope to see journeys from Joel, Michael, Thomas, Jess, Louise, Megan, Tim, Colin, Ann, Melissa & anyone else who would care to share!

This is the third year Margot and I have worked on a claymation project with the Grade 5s, and we both feel this is the year that everything is coming together!

I have written about our adventures with animation here and here, so you can see a bit of the history.

This year, we are again connecting with the Grade 5 unit entitled Voices.

Central idea: “Through the arts we tell our stories of who we are: our beliefs, our values and our experiences”

What’s different this year?

This year, we are making more of a connection to Art.

The students have been instructed to select a piece of abstract art that interests them, and use it as an inspiration for their animation. We showed them this delightful claymation that shows the sort of thing we envisioned.

It’s been great to see the diversity in the works of art the students have chosen. We are confident they will be able to express themselves creatively through having selected a work of art that interests them.

This year, we have more measures in place to make kids successful.

Hafiz, the fabulous new TA for art has personally tested the best positioning of the macbooks and the animation stages, and constructed some 90 degree wooden frames to help keep the macbooks in the same position each time.

The more consistency kids can have in keeping their macbooks still, the better their finished product.

This year, we have provided more scaffolding.

Due to time constraints, we launched straight into the projects last year. This year, we have included time to play and learn some claymation techniques. We asked the students to roll a ball back & forth, make it disappear, then explore some other ways of moving. Below you can see Kelly & Maia’s first experimentation with claymation.

Over the past few days, UWCSEA has been lucky enough to have Apple Guru Kathleen Ferenz visit our school. She has been a fabulous resource for me personallyas a Digital Literacy Coach, but also for the groups of teachers she has worked with.

One of Kathleen’s many strengths is in Literacy, and she has given us lots of handy hints to do with helping students make sense of online texts, research techniques and some strategies for developing effective research skills. Many of her ideas come from this great article ‘Making Sense of Online Text‘ which is extremely relevant today, even though it was written in 2004!

Please know that the following Fab Ideas for Effective Online Research are Kathleen’s – I am merely sharing them around.

1. Start with images

The right search words are the keys to unlocking the information you are searching for. Kathleen recommended showing students a photo of the sort of thing they would be searching for online to elicit keywords. By way of example, she showed an image of a volcano, and then asked students to think of the keywords that might describe the image. She then used the words the students gave as a starting point for a search.

2. Narrow search by Reading Level

A neat little addition to the ‘more tools’ section of the Google search results is the ability to search by reading level. I’m not sure how, but I had missed this gem.

3. Scaffold

Our Grade 6 students have been researching about the UWC movement and the other UWC schools around the world. They worked collaboratively on Google Docs to find information under various categories, with the view to making a Keynote presentation later on.

Although the teachers took care to direct students to retain the URL of their sources etc, the Google Docs quickly became a receptacle for work that had been copied and pasted.

Kathleen got the students to set up a table in Pages to help summarize and organise their data. This helped bridge the gap between the ‘research’ and the Keynote. Too often, students are not provided with enough scaffolding, and as a result, the finished product lacks a depth of understanding. This scaffold will help our students be more successful in their presentation.

As part of the scaffolding process, students were asked to summarize their findings into bullet points, which was a great start of course. Where I think Kathleen really raised the bar was when she asked the kids to transform their notes into audio form. The process of transforming written text into a different form (in this case, audio) really made them think about what they had learned, and what was important. It helped put the notes into their own words and moved them away from copying.

Throughout her time at UWCSEA, Kathleen used the technique of transforming text. Occasionally it was creating/finding an image that represented a particular word, sometimes it was a movie recording, sometimes audio. I will definitely be adding this technique to my research toolbox.

I know Learner Profile Certificates aren’t the be-all and end-all of the PYP, however if your school is anything like my school, teachers like them anyway. And let’s face it – so do kids.

A teacher on staff made some gorgeous certificates, however they were all with copyright images, so Louise & I made up some using Creative Commons images which you are welcome to use/share.

Learner Profile Certificates

If you are interested in some Learner Profile displays relating to technology, you might like to also check out Clint Hamada‘s Flickr set Tablets and the Learner Profile.

Here is an overview of what I will be exploring in my workshop today on using iPads to create rather than consume content. You might like to check out UWCSEA East’s list of apps to find other useful apps.

Newspaper Blackout Poetry

Using Brushes & any News app (such as NY Times, Stuff, BBC) on the iPad, you can easily make creative blackout poetry. I have already written about Newspaper Blackout here, but see below for my  quick tutorial video.

Newspaper Blackout Tutorial from United World College of SE Asia on Vimeo.

Storytelling with Puppets

We have 2 great storytelling apps: Sock Puppets & Puppet Pals HD. Our language teachers (e.g. Wendy Liao) use these to reinforce conversational skills, and they find that it really motivates the kids to do their best.

One of the best things about Puppet Pals HD is that you can (with the Director’s Pass) upload your own characters (either hand-drawn, or photos of the students themselves) and backgrounds, which makes the app more suitable for upper-elementary and middle school learners.

Create Soundtracks with GarageBand

GarageBand manages to make even a novice feel like an expert on the iPad. The addition of Smart music (e.g. Smart Guitar, Smart Drums) can turn every student into an accomplished composer with very little  teacher input.

GarageBand Tutorial from United World College of SE Asia on Vimeo.

Photography

With the advent of the iPad 2, the ability to create content has definitely gone up a notch. Taking your own photos, editing them and using them in cross-curricular ways is easy, fun and very creative.

By way of example, apps like Camera+ (currently only for iPhone), Adobe Photoshop Express, and ColorSplash for iPad all let you edit your photos in new and wonderful ways.

Apps such as Strip Designer or Comic Touch (currently only for iPhone) allow you to take these photos and transform them into comics or flashcards (to name but a few). Our early years teachers sent students out to find words starting with the letter M for example.

Bill Atkinson Photo Card lets you use your photos to create beautiful postcards to send to others. Some teachers have used this app for character studies, where students write a postcard in the manner of one of the characters in the novel they are studying. In our early years department, students emailed their teacher and told them about their favourite holiday, relating to their unit on celebrations.

If we have time…

I’d love to share some kinetic typography using Keynote. Also using Creative Book Builder to make ePubs straight from the iPad, however as it’s a new app, it’s a little buggy right now. It is definitely one to keep an eye on.

I’m always on the lookout for great apps that allow you to create rather than consume, so drop some suggestions in the comments!

To help facilitate our Twitter for Teachers session at Learning 2.011, we have decided to post the general outline of our presentation and any resources on both of our blogs. We’d love to hear your feedback and how you are using Twitter to interact with your PLN. Feel free to leave your Twitter name in the comments as well!

(Mis)Perceptions of Twitter

We’ve all heard the “I don’t care what you had for breakfast!” diatribe against Twitter. We’re curious to know what the perceptions our participants have about Twitter.

How We Use It

Twitter, like anything else, is simply a tool. Use of that same tool will vary widely from person to person and Twitter is no exception.

Top Tips

For those just starting out in the Twitter game or for those that started an account years ago but never really got into it, here our some of our top tips for using Twitter to expand your PLN:

Public, Personal, Private – Just as we would tell our students, it is important to understand the distinction between public, personal and private information.

BPL – Bio, Photo, Link. It’s hard for others to separate the gold from the spam when you don’t fill these things out!

Tear Down That Wall! – Don’t protect your tweets! Again, it’s hard for others to decide to follow you back if they can’t see what you’ve added to the conversations.

Go Beyond Basic – While Twitter as a service is fantastic, Twitter as a website is less than desirable. Try a Twitter client like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, or Echofon (just to name a few!) that allows you to separate your Twitter feed into easy-to-monitor columns.

Lists - Twitter lists allow you to create groups within your Twitter stream. You can even include people that you do not personally follow. Even better, you can follow lists that others have meticulously created. (Kim Cofino has a great International Teachers list.

Hashtags – #learning2 #edchat #scichat #mathchat #kinderchat These are all examples of hashtags. Hashtags make it easy to group and search for tweets about a specific topic. Using a Twitter client like Tweetdeck, you can even use a hashtag to create an easy-to-follow column in your client. @cybraryman has a comprehensive list of education-related hashtags.

Search For It – Is there something that you’re passionate about? Chances are there are others on Twitter who are passionate about the same thing. Use the Twitter Search function to find people who are talking about your hometown, your favorite sports team or anything else you might be interested in.

Lurking (aka Legitimate Peripheral Participation) – One of the best and easiest ways to learn Twitter etiquette is to lurk amongst some of your favorite lists or hashtags. Once you see how things work, it’s a lot easier to join in!

Retweet and Reply – For some, the highest compliment you can pay them on Twitter is to retweet them. For others, they prefer the conversation that comes along with an @reply. Either way, it is a great way to engage others and to add followers to your PLN.

Conversation is King – Twitter, first and foremost, is about connecting with people around the world who can help you grow as a teacher and as a person. This happens through conversation and through getting to know one another as you would a fellow teacher on your campus. Sometimes these professional relationships develop into personal friendships that last a lifetime!

While it is extremely well-used and on the verge of becoming cliche, the best metaphor for your Personal Learning Network is that of a garden. It takes time and energy and patience to cultivate a PLN. But if you stick with it, it can be a very beautiful thing!

I know that I have mentioned Camera+ before as a great app for photos on your iPhone, but I feel I need to provide some before and after examples to really show the functionality of this amazing app.

I use Camera+ to edit any photo I want to post online now – the quality of the images far exceeds the capability of my trusty old 3GS iPhone. I know a picture tells a thousand words, so here are a couple of before & after shots for comparison: