Twitter and my Self Directed PD

As I reflect upon the completion of my 11th year as an educational professional, I can't think of a better or more powerful PD tool than Twitter. Yes, you read that accurately, Twitter. When I tell my friends and colleagues this fact, they look at me in a way that makes me feel as though all my professional credibility is being stripped away. Nevertheless, I am leveraging Twitter to facilitate professional development (mine and others) and I am really enjoying doing so.

This is a recent tweet about why I use Twitter.

I have established a professional learning network and I am connecting with educators around the world everyday. The educators I am following are passionate about their teaching and learning. Many of these people have their own blogs where I can read about their practice and engage them in discourse around what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.

Here is an example of a conversation where one of the educators I follow tweeted about her blog, I read her blog post and included another individual in my reply, and was then tweeted back:

This is an example of how Twitter allows me to connect with others and to self direct my PD.

Both of the above mentioned individuals (K. Lirenman and Aviva Dunsiger) are progressive and often share their work on Twitter. They, among many other educators, have directly and indirectly influenced my attitudes and practice in my classroom - ultimately influencing my students positively and preparing them for the society they will lead.

Aside from being informed/directed to professional reading material, I have also been tweeting about the work that I have been doing in my classroom and the work that out TLLP (Teacher Learning and Leadership Program) team is engaged in.

This tweet informs my followers of the work my students and I were doing around writing and technology integration and where they can further read about it on my blog.

This tweet directs my followers to my blog where they can read about out TLLP progress.

Twitter has provided me with a forum to learn about, improve, and share my practice. It also allows me an avenue to interact with who I want (I choose who to follow) when I want (any time of day), and where I want (via mobile devices).

If you are on Twitter please feel free to check out my tweets (@Rchids). If you are not on Twitter, sign up and follow me....I will follow back!

TLLP Progress - June 2012

Our Project: The use of Apple iPads and iPod Touches to enhance the learning of Autistic students.

During the month of June the three students chosen to be part of the project formally visited my classroom once. June was a busy month and I was fortunate to have them visit and use the technology. Informally, I made every attempt to maximize opportunities to talk to them - transition times in the hall and outside at recesses.

Part of this project involves learning about students with autism - their common characteristics and effevtive ways to teach them. I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar entitled "Challenging the Myths of Autism" which turned out to be great PD. I will be reading "Challenging the Myths of Autism" by Jonathan Alderson (@Alderson_J) to continue to aquire an in depth understanding of the myths of Autism. I am also putting Twitter to work by following individuals like Jeff Schneider (@AutismAtHome) and Andrea (@AutismTips) whose tweets refer me to articles and blogs providing a variety of information about people living with Autism. 

During the month of June I was informed that the Ministry of Education had provided funding to cover the cost of registration and materials for educators to participate in the Geneva Centre for Autism's 28th Annual Autism Training Institute this August. I was very excited to learn that I had an opportunity to possibly attend fundamental training entitled "Autism Spectrum in the Classroom: Charting a Path to Success". Unfortunately I was not chosen as one of my school board's representatives at this years institute. Nevertheless, I continue to keep my eyes and ears open for learning opportunities that will benefit our TLLP and my PD as a classroom teacher.

TLLP Progress - May 2012

Engaging Students in Writing using Technology (iPad/iPod Touch)

On June 22, I blogged about embarking on a new journey with my students using the iPad and iPod Touch to assist with their writing ("Using the iPad/iPod Touch to Assist Students in meeting Writing Expectations"). In that post I identified the Ministry of Education expectations that would be addressed, the Learning Goal & Success Criteria for this unit, a model for them to follow, an achor chart about postcards, and a draft version of a postcard that had been submitted for review.  

The students had a great time working on their task - to create a postcard that is related to our school and to write to someone in our school community.

Here are some examples of the postcards that were created:

The students learned how to use the device camera, where to save photos, how to delete them, and how to manipulate them into the app. The stickers and postmarks you see on the postcards were placed on the postcards by the students. The students chose their own templates from the app and decided what they wanted to create and how they would create it. My role was to guide them through the creation of success criteria and anchors and to support them throughout the process in a technical fashion. They were very engaged and focussed on this task and the last couple of weeks at school were exciting and seemed to fly by!

This task will stand as a memorable one for me. We were able to incorporate the 21st Century Fluencies (solution fluency, information fluency, collaboration fluency, creativity fluency, and media fluency) that we have been talking about for quite some time now while treating each other as valuable members of our classroom community. It was a rich learning experiences for them and for myself and it was a fantastic way to lead us to the end of our time together.

Innovative teaching with iPads

Today’s post, by Ferdinand Krauss (@eLearnDiscourse ), is a summary of his observations of my students working with iPads in my classroom.

I had a chance to observe a colleague that used innovative teaching methods and the toontastic iPad app to engage grade 2 students in the task of creating a story retell about the challenges they faced in preparation for their first communion. Students were divided into groups of 4 or 5 and worked together on the iPad to represent a challenge they encountered. These ideas had previously been brainstormed with the class so that each group could spend their time creating animations for a particular situation, as opposed to identifying a challenge. When the project started the teacher gave the students an overview of the features of the toontastic app and the class co-created the success criteria for the animations.

As I walked around to the different groups, I asked the students what steps they took when they did not know how to do something. Their approach to figuring out how to do something was very playful in nature. They just started trying different things to see what effects were created.

The teacher's approach was similar to the flipped classroom model example. The students were empowered to direct their own learning by finding creative and different ways to express what they knew about a topic or situation. This is why I refer to it as innovative teaching because typically the teacher would be the one directing the process as opposed to facilitating it. 

When you look at the teacher's blog you can see that the iterative process documented by the educator. He recognizes that he needs to reflect on how to best facilitate the process given the specific needs and abilities of the learners with respect to the desired outcomes. 

The teacher referred to success criteria when reviewing the group animations. It gave him an opportunity to provide formative feedback so students know what and how they can improve by referring back to specific items in the success criteria that the class created. This also improves the meta cognition of students as they are becoming more aware of what constitutes a good story re-tell and what they need to do in their animations to meet that criteria.

Ferdinand Krauss, OCT, MDE, is the e-Learning Contact Support Teacher for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. You can find him on Twitter (@eLearnDiscourse ) and reach him through his Blog.

Using the iPad/iPod Touch to Assist Students in meeting Writing Expectations

My students and I recently embarked on a new journey with the iPad/iPod Touch. I learned about an app called Lifecards - it allows users to create imaginative & creative postcards. With the end of the school year coming to a close many of my students will be travelling this summer so I thought it would be appropriate to put this app to the test!

The students will create a postcard that is related to our school, and write it to someone in our school community (e.g. friend, teacher, administrator, parent volunteer, etc). This app cost $2.99 and it works on the iPad and iPod Touch - this is an ideal situation.

The following Ministry of Education Writing expectations are addressed in this assignment:

• write short texts using several simple forms
• confirm spellings and word meanings or word choice using a few different types of resources
• make simple revisions to improve the content, clarity, and interest of their written work, using several types of strategies

We started off by taking a quick look at the app - I projected it onto the whiteboard to show them what it looked like. We then created our success criteria to guide our journey:

After the success criteria creation, I took some time to reflect on how to teach my students how to write a postcard (in a systematic way). After coming up with a 'rough' idea of an anchor chart that would support their learning, I created a model for them to follow:

After showing them the model, we took the time to create this anchor:

On Wednesday my students were formally taught how to use the camera that is built-in to the iPads/iPod's. We talked about the importance of being are able to explain why they chose the picture(s) that they end up using on their postcard (one of the expectations is that they are able to confidently explain the choices they make in creating their postcard). After teaching them how to use the camera and how to access/delete photos, we set off to take some pictures that may be used in their final product. It was a proud moment for me as I walked around the school (mainly the front foyer where our religious artifacts are kept) watching them use the technology and talk about their choices.

Today the students were hard at work with the 'text' portion of their postcards. It is very satisfying to see them so focused and working together. I am looking forward to posting some of their work so you can see where their imaginations led them. In fact, I have a rough draft for you to view -

The two students who created this will meet with me on Monday and we will talk about their work and compare it to the model I created, the anchor chart (how to write a postcard), and the success criteria - we will assess their work. After providing them with feedback, I will send them off to tweak their work and/or discuss their options before seeking me out to formally evaluate their work. Hopefully I will have some more postcards to share with you next week.

Feel free to leave comments/suggestions/questions if the mood strikes you!

Technology & Metacognition

I have found that the use of the digital camera in my class has helped my students think about their thinking. When the students use the camera to document their work they know that there is the chance that I will project their pictures for everyone to see. When and if their picture comes up, they are invited to explain why they took the picture and tell us about their thinking at the time the picture was taken.

I really enjoyed talking to the student who took the photo below. She used the link cubes to represent her multiplication and took the time to write it out (addition and multiplication). In her addition sentence, she detailed her addition --> 4+4(8)+4(12)+4(16) = 16 <-- to help her keep track and not get confused. When she talked about her thinking to the class she took us through what she had done, step by step. She also told us that she used the manipulatives and wrote out the numbers so that she could show her understanding in more than one way. She told us that when she was doing this she was thinking about the different ways she could show us her work and that she wanted to make sure she organized her work in a way that made sense and kept her on the right path.

In the following photograph the student told us that he wanted to represent 4 X 4. He neatly made four groups of four in the shapes of squares and then represented the answer (16) with cubes placed in rows of three. I asked him why he had placed his equal groups into 4's and his answer of 16 was arranged in groups of three. He told us that when he did this work he was thinking that he wanted his work (4 X 4) to be neat but when he put together the 16 he just wanted to make sure the answer was represented in order to be able to present his equal groupings and the answer to 4 X 4.

I really enjoy the use of the digital camera to help my students think about their thinking. I find it to be a great way of taking them back to the time and place where they did their work. That connection gives them a great start to what has proven to be a difficult task - to think about what they were thinking at that time. It hasn't worked for all of my students, but it has proven to be a useful tool that is offered to my students.

As I learn more about my smartpen, I believe that it will also prove to be a useful tool that will be readily available to my students. It has proven itself useful and I look forward to possibly blogging about how my students and I use it to help them with their metacognition.

It's not failure, it's learning: Part #4 - Toontastic Animation

All of the students have completed their Toontastic animations. They were successful in meeting the learning goal that was established. I attempted to post their creations on the Toontastic site but I was not successful. I experienced issues with the 'logistics' of getting their work to post on the Toontastic site. Something happened with the iPad that I had chosen to do this job and I ended up having to reset that iPad. The group that used that particular device to create their animation ended up losing their work. The class did get to watch all the animations before I attempted to post them, so the group that lost their work did get to publish their work and I had the opportunity to see their final product.

Due to the issues I faced with the Toontastic site, I decided to use my camcorder to record their work using our Bright Links projector. In order to ensure that the volume (or lack there of) was not an issue again, I brought in external speakers to project the sound across the room for my students to hear and for me to pick up on the camcorder. Well, I'm sorry to say that volume was an issue again. The only animation that I deem audible is posted here for your enjoyment (turn up your volume!):

Feel free to review where we started, our next steps, and the progress we made in getting to this point.

Your feedback and comments are always welcome.