always learning

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been two full years since I taught my own technology classes. Of course I’ve done all sorts of co-planning and co-teaching in the last couple of years at ISB, but it’s certainly not the same as having your own group of students to work with. So, this year, in my new role of Middle School Technology and Learning Coordinator, I am thrilled to be back in the classroom, teaching our one middle school IT class – a sixth grade quarter-long exploratory course – for just one quarter this year. With the end of the semester quickly approaching, we’re almost finished with our ‘big project’, so I thought I’d share it here.

Given that I’m only teaching one section of this class (and my colleagues Ross, Matt and Jean are teaching the others), I felt it was important to keep the content as consistent as possible, but of course, I couldn’t resist transforming the process of how we would learn that content, along with the finished product that we would use to demonstrate our learning. As can be expected, since this is the first time I’ve taught this particular class in this particular way, there are a few things I would change for next time around, but overall, I think it turned out pretty well.

Basically the course is intended to teach the “basics” of Microsoft Office (you know the course, you probably taught it back in the 1990′s like I did when I was first teaching). So, considering the content, I tried to develop a project-based unit that would emphasize independent learning (since so many of the students would probably already know the basics), as well as allow them to share what they’ve learned in an authentic environment, and utilize some new technology tools in a creative way.

As usual, I followed the Understanding by Design model to plan the unit and the MYP Technology Design Cycle to break down the stages of the project into manageable chunks. Basically, what we’re working towards is a shared wiki with student-created tutorials on all of the MS Office basics (inspired by Chad Bates, our fantastic tech director who taught the class last year and experimented with the tutorial idea with his class) and an overview of digital citizenship, which we will share with the entire middle school as a resource for their potential technology needs.

Here’s what it looks like:

Established Goals (ISTE NETS Standards)

2. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:

a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving & Decision-Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. Students:

b. plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.

5. Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students:

d. exhibit leadership for digital citizenship.

6. Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students:

b. select and use applications effectively and productively.
d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

Enduring Understandings:
Students will understand that:

• Responsible digital citizens demonstrated shared characteristics, habits and attitudes.
• We can work together to teach others what we have learned.
• We can use web 2.0 tools to collaborate and communicate with a global audience.

Essential Questions:

• What are the characteristics, habits and attitudes of a responsible digital citizen?
• How can we work together to teach others about responsible digital citizenship?
• How can we collaborate and communicate with others online?

Assessment Evidence

GRASPS Task

• Goal: Your goal is to produce a multimedia handbook about basic technology tools and digital citizenship for ISB elementary students.
• Role: You are a team of student leaders at ISB.
• Audience: Elementary students at ISB, and around the world.
• Situation: You will need to collaborate together to produce a thorough, easy to understand, multimedia tutorial wiki about basic technology tools and digital citizenship for a school and worldwide audience.
• Product/Performance: Your wiki must demonstrate everything that you have learned about digital citizenship and basic technology tools this quarter.

Six Facets of Understanding:

• Explain: Produce a screencast tutorial about how to use a specific technology feature in MS Office.
• Apply: As a team, create a multimedia handbook about digital citizenship for ISB elementary students.
• Interpret: As part of your presentation to ISB elementary students, write a skit to demonstrate your understanding of digital citizenship.
• Perspective: Develop and deliver a lesson to ISB elementary students presenting all facets of responsible digital citizenship.
• Self-Knowledge: On your blog, describe what you know about digital citizenship. At the end of the course, go back to your first post and reflect on what you’ve learned. What more do you need to learn?
• Empathize: On your blog, write a post in the perspective of one of the characters in the public service announcements. Reflect on the events of that day and how they made you feel.

And here’s how I broke it down into the stages of the MYP Technology Design Cycle:

Investigate

During the first part of the project, we spent most of our class time exploring different types tutorials and determining what the criteria are for a quality tutorial. To get the discussion started, we watched and critiqued the first one (on adding a survey in Moodle) as a class. Then, they had class (and homework) time to watch at least 2 other tutorials from the list below (or a different tutorial that they found and shared with the class):

• Adding a chart in Google Docs
• How to draw realistic eyes
• Student Sample from last year
• Discussion Settings in WP
• RSS in Plain English
• VoiceThread tutorial
• Switch to Mac

For each tutorial they watched, they added a response to the Moodle discussion forum answering the following questions:

• What did the creator of this tutorial do well?
• What would you change about this tutorial?
• What aspects of this tutorial would you like to include in your own tutorial?

In the end, we came up with a list (as a class) of criteria for a good tutorial that all students will be assessed with at the end of the project. Then, because we had so many different skills to create tutorials on, I asked students to form groups based on the tutorials we needed (this list was based on the course curriculum I was given). Finally, each student wrote a blog post reflecting on what they learned in that section of the project , which tutorial they had chosen to create and why, and what they need to learn to complete their tutorial.

The next time I teach this course, I would also add some exploration time with ScreenRecorder and MovieMaker (and maybe even GarageBand) since we ended up doing quite a lot more editing than I thought we would. I would also add in brainstorming time for students to create a mini-storyline for their tutorial to help give them focus and to make the tutorials a little more interesting.

Plan

During the planning, students created a storyboard and script of their tutorial, keeping in mind all of the criteria we developed during the investigate stage. We focused on: making the tutorial understandable by anyone (even people who are not in our class), using simple and clear directions, including a basic introduction and credits, and changing the view and “zoom” on the screen to keep the tutorial interesting. Once the students completed their storyboard and script, they posted it on their individual blog along with a reflection on this part of the project.

Create

At this point, students have a good idea of what their tutorial will look like and exactly what steps they need to take to complete their tutorial. They spent a little bit of time exploring with the SmartNotebook SmartRecorder (which happens to be our only screencasting software available to students), after watching this tutorial created by Matt, and then got right down to the recording.

Aside from some serious Windows-related drama about recording volume (oh how I miss working in a Mac lab), it really only took one lesson for the students to record their complete screencast. Of course, they all wanted to add the extra features, so we brought their screencasts into MovieMaker and started adding the finishing touches. Once they had their introductions and credits, it was time to add background music. Since we have access to a smaller Mac lab, we spent one lesson exploring with GarageBand to create simple (and original) background tracks.

As each student finished their tutorial, they did a peer assessment based on the class criteria. Once they had feedback from their peers, they had time to edit and fix any issues with their completed tutorial. After they were satisfied, they uploaded their finished tutorial to YouTube, embedded it in a blog post and reflected on their finished product.

Evaluate

For the last few days of the project, we spent some time determining which aspects of the ISB Definition of Learning we achieved throughout the process of completing our tutorials:

I used a simple checklist to get students thinking about which aspect of learning they met during each stage, then they shared their results with a peer knowing that they would be asked to share 1 or 2 ideas with the whole class, and then we had a whole class reflection. Finally, they wrote a personal reflection as a blog post.

Here are a few highlights from what they shared with me during the whole class-reflection:

• We learned a lot having to do our tutorials independently instead of being directly taught each skill. This way we learned it when we needed it and as we were doing our project, which helps us remember how to do it.
• We learned more by being able to test out the tools by ourselves and helping each other than by having the teacher teach us everything together.
• We would have preferred to do one single blog post at the end of the project reflecting on everything, instead of one for each stage.
• By writing a blog post at the end of each stage, we really reinforced everything we learned during that stage.
• We learned a lot about what makes a good blog post from having to write so many.
• We learned about ISB’s Blogging Guidelines and how to write a blog post with just the right kind of information.
• We learned how to be independent in our projects, but we liked having the checklists and all the steps broken down for us.
• We would have liked the steps to be broken down into even smaller chunks so we could meet our deadlines better.
• We learned that we can use websites and YouTube to learn new things and to teach other people things that we know.

Putting it all together

I waited until the last three weeks of class to have the students start compiling the wiki because I really didn’t know how long it would take to complete the tutorials. So now we’ll spend the next few days putting the finishing touches on the wiki and publicizing it around the middle school so that other students can learn from our work.

We also have a collaborating class in the US who are doing something very similar, except using the Mac version of all of these applications. We’re hoping that they will finish their tutorials before the end of our semester so we can also include them on our wiki and have a brief discussion about the transferability of skills from one platform to another.

We’ll also use this time to discuss digital citizenship and online safety and responsibility to be able to add those sections to the wiki. If we have time, I would love to do something in one or two elementary classrooms to share what we’ve learned  with an authentic audience (that can always use some reinforcement about appropriate online behavior).

Final Thoughts

Considering that I really didn’t have a good idea of how long it would take students to complete this type of tutorial – especially in a PC lab working with MovieMaker (my old enemy), I’m quite impressed with how things turned out. I was so happy to see how much the students learned in this very project-based course. I did very little direct instruction, even though some of the screencasting and editing tools were completely new to most students. It was a pleasure to see how much they appreciated being able to learn independently and to create something new with their knowledge.

Next time I would really like to add a more in-depth collaborative element – having our global partners do the peer assessment instead of simply within our class, potentially sharing more directly via our blog posts, and maybe coming up with some kind of collaborative lesson for our elementary classrooms that could involve multimedia elements (or a Skype connection) from our partner class. Of course, this is all dependent on timing, commitment and logistics. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to teach this course again to make it even better!

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is figuring out how to best support teachers – everyone is at a different comfort and experience level with technology, and most are uncomfortable admitting what they don’t know. Building individual relationships with new colleagues, as well as getting to know team, department and faculty dynamics are a critical factor to my success as a 21st Century Literacy Specialist (or as a Technology Facilitator, for that matter).

Over the past few weeks, one thing has really stood out for me: Just like I believe I need to get to know a class and their teacher when working on a collaborative project, getting to know the team is essential to deeper, more authentic and appropriate support, for both the curricular needs and the needs of the individual teachers on the team.

Towards the end of last year I realized that I was able to make connections with a number of individual staff members, and therefore help shift those teachers through projects at every grade level. But, I realized I still wasn’t starting the shift with any groups of teachers.  Most of the teachers were at different grade levels and didn’t regularly cross paths with the other teachers I was working with. The momentum was with individuals only.

As powerful as that momentum had been, I started to realize that teachers truly appreciate support and common goals with their team. If they can try something new with their team members, they have a built-in support structure that fits easily into their daily practice of teaching and learning that also conveniently slots right into the existing infrastructure of the school. Plus the added benefits of a safety-net: everyone participates, everyone helps, everyone agrees that this is the path to take. Convenience, comfort and accessibility are all be strong benefits to working through the process as a team.

So, this year I started my quest to find a team at ISB that would allow me to be a mostly-silent, but always willing to help, member. Luckily the wonderful and welcoming grade 4 team allowed me to join, sit in on their weekly team meetings, and offer my two cents when appropriate. It has truly been a valuable learning experience.

Working with an entire team has helped me understand each individual member of the team better through their interactions with others. I also have a deeper understanding of their needs for curricular support, as well as the challenges they are facing in their classrooms. I hope that, by being there for them, they also see me as a productive and contributing member of their team. I try to offer ideas that will streamline their daily tasks, help engage their students, and add a digital literacy component to their units of study.

One of the most powerful experiences has been over the past week and a half while the team has been discussing their current social studies unit, Influence. The team had previously decided on their Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions, but were not sure how they wanted to assess student learning.

As a member of the team, I was part of all of the discussions about how the unit went last year, struggles and successes, ideas for improvement, concerns and how it all fits into the bigger picture of student learning in grade four. Because I had all of that background, I was able to share an idea for a final assessment that (hopefully) will meet the needs for this unit, adding in a 21st century-style approach, and also take into consideration time factors, other units of study that need to be completed, technical resources, and teacher and student comfort level with technology tools.

Without being a participant in all of those discussions I would have only had a one-sided view of the need at hand, and certainly would not have been able to put the curricular needs of the unit into the context of the entire grade level. Just stepping in to offer my ideas for a quick 10-minute discussion once in a while would not have prepared me to truly meet the needs of the team. I have also been able to spend dedicated time with some of the team members and our Curriculum Coordinator to fully flesh out this unit so that it meets the needs of the teachers and the students. Now this unit will be part of the grade 4 curriculum for years to come.

To truly collaborate with teachers, I am starting to believe that we, as resource people, need to be part of their team environment. I can certainly work individually with teachers to help them with their specific classroom needs, but to make any major shifts in the thinking of the school or to effect change in the curriculum, the collaboration needs to come at the team level.

What do you think? How are you best supporting your teams or departments at your school?

Move Over Clematis by neon.mamcita
Seedling from twenty-questions

Over the past two and a half years I’ve been focusing on helping teachers make connections with other classes around the world. For the most part, our collaborations have been about general topics – book reports, water, persuasive writing, enhancing oral language, things that almost any classroom teacher would be able to connect with, and they’ve been great!

But this year, inspired by Clarence Fisher‘s ThinWalls project, I’m looking for something new, something deeper. A real connection based on shared goals and common assessments. Something that will last longer than your average globally collaborative project. A classroom connection, based on specific curricular needs, that will last an entire school year.

I’m fortunate to be working with so many wonderful teachers at ISB and around the world that are willing to be patient and wait until we find just the right classes with just the right needs. They are willing to build these collaborations from the ground up, focusing on student learning, and taking the time to plan meaningful and authentic experiences for all involved.

One of these projects is our fifth grade Students Teaching Students podcasting and blogging collaboration around the Lucy Caulkin’s Readers and Writer’s Workshop.

In order to ensure that all classrooms involved share the same goal for the project, we are following the Understanding by Design model of curriculum planning. And to make sure that we’re all in it from the ground up, we’re planning via a Google Doc. Although I’ve used Google Docs at school with team members a lot, I haven’t yet used them for curriculum planning across time zones and schools. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works out.

So far, all of the project participants are listed on the Doc, with contact info and class details carefully noted. We have determined the basic focus of the unit and are starting to share tips and advice with each other. Over time, I’d love to use the Doc (or a Calendar) to plan common events or activities.

For example, here is what we have so far for this project (all a work in progress):

Enduring Understandings:

• Good readers use strategies to deepen their understanding.
• Good readers read fluently and with expression, paying particular attention to the conventions of grammar.
• Authentic audiences encourage good reading and writing.
• Collaboration and communication both inside and outside the classroom will prepare students for being productive citizens within our global society.

Essential Questions:

• How do I use reading strategies to deepen my understanding?
• Why is fluency important?
• How does my audience influence or affect my reading and writing?
• How does collaborating with others help me to learn?

Assessment:

• Student self reflection
• Teacher self reflection
• Class blog as portfolio

GRASPS Task:

Goal: Your goal is to entertain your audience with personal stories about reading strategies
Role: Broadcasting team: On-Air Personality/Show Host, Producer, Writers, Mixing Team, Manager
Audience: Peers at ISB, both younger and same-age, partner classes around the world
Situation: You need to teach your audience effective reading strategies
Purpose: To collaborate with your  team to effectively communicate reading strategies to a wide audience

Supporting activities ideas to build understanding (brainstorm):

• commenting quality – rubric for commenting
• specific points in the year where you pick an earlier piece of writing that you rework and link back to old version to see the growth

Planned activities to support learning (brainstorm):

• Introduction to online safety
• Introduction to blogging
• Introduction to GarageBand/Audacity
• Podcasting a written piece for fluency
• Posting a podcast
• Read a story from a book for practicing fluency to be podcast later
• Developing quality commenting skills
• Collaborative teaming to develop a podcast focused on reading strategies
• Reflective pieces of writing on the blog

I love the idea of being able to plan a curricular unit for several classes all from one Google Doc. This is my idea of collaboration – everyone literally on the same page and working towards the same goals. Although I’ve done quite a few of these projects before, I usually ended coordinating via e-mail and never really “flattening” the planning process – I inadvertently usually had all planning go through me.

This type of process, with the project clearly outlined, is the way I would normally plan a project with a classroom teacher face-to-face. How amazing and easy it is to now do the same thing, anytime, anywhere, with a Google Doc!

I’m hoping that this transparency in planning, and the clarity in goals for the unit, will help us stay focused throughout the year and enable us to dig deeper with our students.

What do you think? Have you ever used a Google Doc to plan this way? Have you ever had shared curricular goals that are ongoing throughout the year with another class, in another country? How did it go?