always learning

I’ve had a lot of success this year utilizing the Understanding by Design model for my technology integration planning, but I have one more secret weapon: the MYP Technology Design Cycle.

Before I moved to Malaysia I spent five years teaching at Munich International School in Germany, which is a full IB school – from the Primary Years Program (PYP) all the way up to the Diploma Program (DP). During that time I really came to enjoy working with the Middle Years Program (MYP), and especially the Technology Design Cycle (TDC). The structure of the Design Cycle helps formalize the natural process that we go through when creating a product: Investigate, Plan, Create, and Evaluate.

A Recipe for Success

Students (and adults), especially when working with technology, tend to leap before they look – jumping right into the creating of the actual product before they think about what they would like it to look like, and what sorts of design elements and features are important in the final product.  By following the Technology Design Cycle, students are forced to take the time to investigate and plan before they begin creating. This gives them the opportunity to really understand what they want to accomplish with their finished product and how they will go about creating that product.

One of the best parts about combining the Design Cycle and the UbD model of curriculum planning is that by giving students an authentic goal to complete, and an organized structure in which to operate, they can complete their tasks almost entirely independently, working and learning at their own pace, helping each other when they get stuck, exploring different ways of completing the task, and discovering new skills along the way.

The Design Cycle Process

One example of a successful project that integrates the UbD model of curriculum planning and the MYP Technology Design Cycle is my seventh grade IT class project: the students were asked to design and create a logo that represents themselves in collaboration with students in the United States.

Upon completion of the logo, the students were asked to design a tutorial for the software application they used so that the other group of students could learn about both applications. Finally, they created an electronic portfolio presenting everything they had learned for the quarter. All of this was accomplished in our 9-week exploratory class.

Each stage of the Design Cycle is structured specifically so that students were able to develop the skills they needed to create their final logo:

Investigate

• What aspects of myself are import to include in a personal logo?
• What are the design features of an excellent logo?
• What are the technical skills students need to create a logo in Macromedia FreeHand?

During this stage of the project students used Inspiration to brainstorm aspects of their personality that they would like to include in a logo. Things like favorite colors, hobbies, and concepts that represent their individual personality. They then spent a lesson researching excellent logos online to determine what criteria are necessary in every good logo. Once they had compiled their individual research we completed a think-pair-share in partners, and then as a class to come up with a specific list of criteria that would later be used to grade their final logos. Next they worked through a jigsaw to investigate one major aspect of the software application. Once each group was confident in their area of expertise, the groups were re-organized so that there was one member from each group to teach their new colleagues how to use that part of the application. Eventually we went over all of the skills as a group to ensure that everyone understood all aspects of the tool they would need to use. Finally they reflected on the process so far and determined what they needed to learn next to make sure they would be able to complete their logo.

Plan

• How can I utilize the design criteria to design an effective logo that represents me?

In this stage, students drew at least three different rough draft ideas for a logo using colored pencil and paper. They were encouraged to make their designs as unique as possible and required to track how well they met the design criteria that were determined in the Investigate stage. Once they had enough designs to choose from they selected their design, determined which tools in the FreeHand they would need to use to create this logo, and justified their design choice.

Create

• Using my plan and the design criteria, how can I create my logo using what I know about FreeHand?

Next students spent several lessons actually creating their logo on FreeHand. Having access to their brainstorm, design criteria and plans from the previous stages of the design cycle meant that they can work almost entirely independently to create their final logo. Once their design is finished they reflect on what they did well and what they would like to do better next time around.

Now that they truly understood all of the skills required to create an excellent logo, they split into groups to create an online tutorial using our wikispace. Their goal was to create a well designed site where students new to FreeHand could learn how to create a logo in the simplest possible way. If I had more time, I would have had them investigate other tutorials and plan out their own space, but due to the limited number of lessons I could allow, I helped them structure the space effectively.

Finally, they used the skills they learned from creating the tutorial to create their electronic portfolio directly on the wiki. The portfolio is a final presentation of all that they had learned during the quarter.

Evaluate

• What have I learned?

The last step was to step back and look at the process from the beginning – before they new anything about logo design or FreeHand – and reflect on what they’ve learned.

Working through this process ensures that students have the skills that they need, when they need them. Each stage is carefully designed so that it builds on the previous step. In the end, even the most cautious and nervous students are able to complete their final project almost entirely independently. They may start the quarter thinking that they “only know how to play games” or that “the computer doesn’t like them” or that they just don’t “do computers.” But when they are given the opportunity to work through the TDC, by the end of the project they almost always feel empowered and excited about working with technology.

One Example of Success

This past quarter I’ve had an especially wonderful experience with one of my seventh grade students, Arjun. Before our class started he worked on the 1001 Flat World Tales project in English class. One day he was finishing work after school and he seemed very upset. I sat down and talked about the project with him and discovered that he felt totally confused, he had no idea how to work with the wikispace and he was starting to panic about getting his work done. It turns out that his partner had done most of the work during class, and now that he had to complete his section, he was totally overwhelmed. We spent some time working through it, but I knew that he would be quite anxious about coming to IT the following quarter.

Which is why I was actually moved to tears when I read his final evaluation. Some of my favorite parts are:

“In the Investigate part, I made a very organized and detailed brainstorm that I thought impossible for me at first. I later discovered that it is a mind set that I don’t know “anything” and that I can do almost anything if I set my mind to it.”

“…the project taught me how to work more independently and navigate around the website and FreeHand myself. It was more fun to discover things yourself which is the opposite of what I thought in the begining of this unit. So… I am not only happy with my finished work during this project, but also how it has changed me and what I learned while working on this unit.”

My goal as a middle school teacher is to empower students with technology, to teach them how to learn with technology, and to ensure that when they leave my classroom they are confident that they can handle anything that comes their way. Every year I have a number of students that are hesitant with technology. They arrive to my class thinking that technology is scary and that they can’t do anything on the computer except play games. I love those students! I love the challenge, and most of all, I love the feeling of success at the end of the quarter when those students realize that they too can be an expert with technology. It’s not something to be afraid of, it’s fun, exciting and much easier than they think. Working through the Technology Design Cycle allows me to help my students reach that goal every time!

Image 1: http://www.myptechnology.com/sitefiles/DesignCycleQuestions.htm
Image 2: http://www.sinomedia.net/eurobiz/images/story-photo0607.jpg
Image 3: http://homeharvest.com/homeharvest2000pics/HandsHoldingSeedling.jpg
Image 4:
http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/baby_steps_up_small.jpg

My eighth grade students just spent two class lessons working as a Sounding Board for the The Horizon Project – another fantastic collaboration with Julie Lindsay, Vicki Davis, Vienna International School, Presbyterian Ladies College and Shanghai American School (check out our finished work on our class wiki).

This particular group of students has been through an excellent international collaboration and this was a great way to demonstrate that other students are participating in the same kinds of projects all around the world.

After going through the process of learning about the trends and then reviewing and evaluating the projects in progress, they shared some of their thoughts:

About technology:

• they discovered how technology might be used – once it’s potential is unlocked
• they explored how technology can enhance education
• they determined that all technology will be simpler, yet will do more advanced things

About what will happen to education:

• everything (including school) is going to go digital
• school will be more complex – more authentic
• the concept of international schools and regular schools will not exist, because everyone will be connected

and my personal favorite:

• school would be better because you’d be preparing more for your future life

An excellent part of the project was the section where students were asked to pose 3 questions that arose from their reading. Here are a few of my favorites:

• How will people in the near future use these user created content pages if half the world is in poverty, and hardly any of the schools in those areas have computers?
• Will the older generations like it if or accept it if user created content pages become more liked by the student body and are used frequently for various reasons?
• How can social networking help and not turn it into some place for chit-chat like mypace, facebook, friendster, hi5?

We are so lucky to be a part of this amazing project. Sometimes it’s hard to explain to colleagues, students, parents, and administrators why what global collaboration is important. Being able to share projects like this help validate what I do in my classroom and help inspire teachers and students to try something new. My eighth grade class and I send a huge virtual thank you to the Horizon Project coordinators for allowing us to take part!

Image: http://thankyou.org.uk/thank-you-card.jpg

My classroom in changing… Every day when my students come to class they have a to-do list on the white board. The list used to say things like:

• Continue your iMovie project
  • Import all images and video clips
  • Add titles to group your images/video
  • Add effects

Now, my list says something like this:

• Continue your iMovie project
  • Use the checklist of steps to work at your own pace
• Check the wiki for new discussion items from our collaborative partners in New Zealand
  • Reply to any active discussions and start new discussions as needed.
• Check the YackPack for messages from our collaborative partners in New Zealand
  • Reply to any messages and leave new messages as needed.
• Continue posting work for your online portfolio

I want to add things like:

• Check the Skype “center” to see if anyone from NZ is online.
  • Conduct at least one video chat with someone from our partner class.
• Check your blog for comments from your partner classes.
  • Respond and comment as appropriate.
• Check your RSS reader to see if anyone in your partner classes have posted anything new.
  • Leave comments on anything interesting or relevant that you find.
• Check your social network for any new forum topics, chats, or media that have been posted.
  • Reply and initiate discussions as appropriate.

What kinds of routines do you have in your class? What else can we be doing to communicate, contribute, and learn from our personal learning networks?

We had our second video conference with our partner class in New Zealand last Thursday – and this time I remembered to take pictures!

There were a few things we learned last time around that helped make this conference a little smoother:

• Set up a “hot seat” right in front of the video camera so that students are automatically framed perfectly in the video feed.
• If you have one, a good quality microphone makes a huge difference.
• Arrange seating so that all students can easily come up to the video/mic without having to push through a forest of legs. We found that a max of two seats next to each other was right, and a large aisle helped students easily move between their seat and the front of the room.
• After the conference is finished, keep track of the conversations for future reference.

The students thoroughly enjoyed their second conference and were able to get to know their collaborators a little bit better this time around. They especially appreciated being able to put a face to a name and finding common interests with their partners in NZ.

Some background info:

These conferences take us about a half hour – we always make sure that every student has a chance to say something to the group. The set-up takes me about 5 minutes and consists of having the students move their chairs to one side of the room, turning the computer around, turning the projector and speakers on, and clicking on the “call” button. An interesting fact I forgot to mention in my last post about our video conferences is that the class in NZ has a Windows PC and we’re using a Mac – so Windows to Mac Skype video is no problem at all.

An idea for the future:

Next time I’d like to make the video conference more like a “center” in the classroom, and have it open and running in one corner of the room so students can chat one on one, without having the whole class watching. Now that they know each other a little better, they can focus on collaborating on their work, while still utilizing this exciting new tool.

This quarter I have been focusing on setting up all of my IT exploratory (9-week, introductory) classes with international partners. My sixth grade students are thoroughly enjoying collaborating with our partner classroom in New Zealand and my seventh grade class has just started communicating with Mr. James’ class in Texas. Last but not least, my eighth grade class is a Sounding Board for The Horizon Project.

The interesting thing about these global collaborations is that the students are not only picking up the new tools quicker each time, but that they are coming to expect new, exciting, international scope to everything we do. They are no longer surprised to arrive to class to find me talking to an empty classroom (because I’m chatting on Skype with another colleague), they aren’t jumping out of their seats with excitement (well, not as much as they used to) when we video conference, and they don’t even bat an eye when I show them something new and exciting like YackPack. These are the tools they are expecting me to use. These are the tools I need to use to engage them. They’re clearly ready and waiting for all of their teachers to catch up….

I’m curious, what are you doing to create engaging projects for your students?

Just a few days after I posted about the wonders of YackPack (and a few small disadvantages), I received a very nice (unsolicited) e-mail from their Chief Technology Officer, Michael. He had read my post wishing for multiple administrators for YackPack and offered to test it out on our current project. Within 24 hours we had multiple admin set up and were ready to roll. Now that’s what I call service!

My wonderful collaborative partner shared this very cool new tool with me today. Basically, YackPack allows you to set up a private (real-time and asynchronous) audio chat group using only an internet browser. By the time I had arrived at work this morning, Chrissy had a chat widget set up right on our wikispace. So, I registered for an account, created a “pack” and we were audio chatting in a matter of seconds. Considering that she’s in New Zealand and I’m in Malaysia, anything that brings us closer together is fantastic.

Now, I know this sounds a lot like Skype, but I think this is going to provide some huge advantages for us because:

• No additional software or downloads are required. Students can access our YackPack from any computer with an internet connection. Plus it’s directly embedded into our wikispace so there’s no extra web address to remember. How easy!
• In addition to chatting live, you can leave voice messages for any of the users (one, several, or all of them at once). Our 5 hour time difference makes it somewhat difficult to set up Skype conferences, so this will allow us to have “conversations” whenever we have the time. If I wanted to, I could leave a voice message for every student collaborating on this project to receive whenever they log in.
• Students can chat and leave messages with each other individually. So far we’ve only been using 1 Skype account per class – meaning everyone had to be in on the discussion at once. Now we can have many conversations happing in real-time or asynchronously whenever we want.
• The group is entirely private – you have to be logged in and invited to the group to see our “pack.”
• It feels like a community – the visual set-up of the group makes it feel like an actual group – instead of just a list of people.

It’s not perfect though… So far I can tell that I don’t like:

• There seems to be no way to have multiple organizers – it would be much easier if each of us could manage our own class.
• The visual appearance of the “pack” is small – we have so many members that I had to reduce everyone to the outer edges to be able to see them all without overlapping – and I haven’t even added my class yet!
• Even though I love audio chat, it would be nice to have a text chat option embedded in the same window – instead we’ll probably have to use Meebo or another text chat widget.

Even with these minor drawbacks, I would have loved to use this tool for our International Teen Life project or for the 1001 Flat World Tales project – hearing a voice definitely adds that personal touch. I can imagine students narrating bits of their story, asking for feedback and hearing their collaborative partner in Serbia, Canada or the US respond – no concerns over time differences or software. Hello YackPack!

Our sixth grade IT students had a very exciting day today:

Not only was it the first day of a new quarter, (the first day of IT for this year), but they also got to meet a group of Year 7 students in New Zealand (and their fantastic teacher) without even leaving the classroom!

Thanks to our lovely new iMacs (with iSight built in), and Skype, we were able to video conference with our new partner class in NZ this morning.

For many of our students this was the first time they had ever participated in a video conference – and certainly the first time they have ever done so as part of a school project.

This group will be collaborating together to create a multimedia presentation – here in KL we will be using iMovie, the students in NZ will be using Movie Maker. Part of their responsibility will be to teach each other how to use the software they are learning about. I love the idea that students in an all Mac school can learn how to use Movie Maker, and vice versa!

Throughout the project we will be communicating via our blogs, our wiki, e-mail, Skype, and any other other method we can find! We will be keeping track of our conversations on the wiki, and, after we return from break, will link all of our blogs to the wikispace to open a more direct line of communication for the students.

When I was sharing this story with my colleagues at lunch, one teacher described her first international project when she was teaching French in Canada. She set up a pen pal class with students in France – they would write a set of letters, wait about 2 months, and then get a set of letters back from the class in France.

In comparison, today was the first day that our students heard about the project, minutes later they had joined the wikispace set up for the project, brainstormed questions to ask their new friends, and got to meet them – all within 1 class period!

My colleague at lunch said it perfectly: It is amazing to think about the speed of communication today. What used to take months, now takes minutes. How lucky our students are!

Image 1: http://www.danieljmalone.com/images/1/news/technology/2006/07/skype-logo.jpg
Image 2: http://www.podpodpost.com/photos/ist2_557799_air_mail_envelope.jpg

MissProfe is reflecting on her role in the classroom after reading Kelly Christopherson’s post about the same topic. Although I left a comment for MissProfe I wanted to post it here because I realized that I’m not just a teacher, I’m three teachers: I’m a technology teacher, an international school teacher and a middle school teacher. All three roles are wrapped up into one position, but they can have different objectives. It’s all about the balance.

From a tech teacher’s point of view:

I always like to say that I teach students how to learn with technology. It doesn’t really matter to me if they become the all-time expert on whatever tool we’re working with at the moment – after all, what are the chances that they’ll be using the exact same tool, same version, 5 years from now? All that matters to me is that they can learn how to use the next tool that will be developed, and the tool after that, and the ones we never dreamed would be possible.

From an international school teacher’s point of view:

We have so much transition in the international school classroom, both students and teachers rotating in and out. All I want is for students that leave my classroom to feel comfortable and confident with technology. They don’t have to be the best, they just know that they can tackle the next challenge that comes along – with the next teacher, in the next school, in the next country.

From a middle school teacher’s point of view:

I want students to have fun, to be excited, to be interested in learning more, to enjoy technology as part of their daily life. To me, middle school is about exposure to new skills and possibilities, about enthusing students in areas they may not be naturally interested, and showing them different ways to learn and have fun. I’m a cheerleader for technology.

I realize that pretty much everything I’ve written here is already stated in my teaching philosophy. Everything I do in the classroom is shaped by my understanding and my belief in my role as an educator, but I rarely think about that philosophy – I just do it. In fact, just about the only time I really think about my philosophy of education is during recruiting season.

We international school teachers go recruiting quite frequently, sometimes as frequently as every other year. Every time we attend a job fair we are meeting with administrators from around the globe that only have a few days in which to process our potential for their school. We are anxious to share everything there is to know about our teaching style, philosophy, objectives, experience and interests in a short (usually 20 minute) interview. I think next time I should just say I’m the best value: hire one, get three!

Image 1: http://www.bolton.ac.uk/learning/images/hand_globe.jpg
Image 2:
http://www.mousememories.com/images/eksuccess/BUY-SIX-DWARFS-GET-ONE-FREE-md.jpg

I have taught web design for 7 years now, and every year it gets easier – for me and for the students. The more practice I get with teaching them, the easier it is for me to see exactly what they need, and when. I love the feeling of making a new technology tool accessible to all students by consistently improving my teaching based on their feedback. But something even more interesting happened this year…

All of our middle school students now have their own blogs. We have set them up through integrated units in social studies and English over the course of the semester. As we all know, maintaining a blog is much easier than designing a website from scratch, even if you are using the design view in a software application like Macromedia Dreamweaver. But, I have seen something change in our students this year. Usually they are intimidated by Dreamweaver, and struggle with setting up a functioning page, even sometimes struggling with the concept of linking (even though they do it every day when they navigate the web). This year, though, things were different.

As soon as I explained the concept to my 6th, 7th and 8th graders, the ideas started percolating. The designs for a masthead, the organization of the page, the external pages to link to, etc. Before we even started creating their electronic portfolios, they had a vision in their heads of what they wanted. They were ready to tackle the challenges of Dreamweaver because they already had the basics of linking, inserting and aligning images, and organizing pages and links from their blogging experience. And that blogging experience was so smooth and easy to understand that they felt much more comfortable building on those skills to design their own website.

The transformation of our students in such a short period of time just boggles my mind. Since I have arrived in Malaysia, I have found that our students on the whole are a bit weaker in terms of technology than my students in Munich, and I have been working to increase their confidence each year. This year, with the integration of technology into the core curriculum, and the use of exciting new web 2.0 tools has shot us forward by several years.

The electronic portfolios the middle school students have been able to produce this year are outstanding. Many of them have designed their own mastheads and created buttons and thumbnails with Photoshop, and they have all inserted Flash animations and QuickTime files directly into the page, and utilized good web design skills to make their pages easy to read and understand. I can see clearly that this transition has come from their increased comfort level with these skills, through the use of IT in the core classes.

As I explained to my sixth graders yesterday, my goal as a technology teacher is to help increase each student’s level of confidence with technology. I want my students to be able to sit down in front of any computer, Mac or PC, Linux or Windows, or whatever comes next, and feel like they can accomplish their goals – even if it involves using an application or tool they’ve never seen before. I know first hand what it feels like to be faced with new technology every day, and that feeling of satisfaction and success when you have accomplished your task with a new tool under your belt.

Image 1 from: http://www.actacenter.com/IMG/jpg/dreamweaver.jpg
Image 2 from: http://www.nof-club.de/toto/fairnews/thumbs/photoshop_icon.jpg