Lessons Learned

Instructional Technology - International Education - Wellness

Tag: ipad

Learning Stations for PD

This past week I offered a lunchtime professional learning opportunity. I set up learning stations for a rotation and personalized learning experience in the library, as teachers would be coming in during a 90-minute window. To get a feel for their experience, please see below for photographs of the stations as the teachers entered the library. A big part of the learning opportunity was to give teachers a choice over which stations to experience and some control over time as to when they visited while providing information in several modalities, thus supporting Universal Design for Learning. My goal is to share our ongoing message that iPads can be used in multiple ways to support the learning needs of our students while also providing an example of what personalized learning can look like. While this station rotation model was face-to-face (F2F), we can also design a hybrid model of F2F and virtual learning resources for students and teachers. Apologies for the formatting below, as HTML is not friendly with images and text. 🙂

Entrance Sign    ipad video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entrance: Sign explaining what to do.                                                                                             Video & Exit Ticket: Video overview of the PD

Consume  Skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consume Information:  eBooks & media                                                                                        Skills: Apps supporting reading, math…

Create Station  PLS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create: Focusing on screencasting & book creation.                                                               Personal Learning System: Apps

laptop tutorials   WR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video Tutorials: Book Creator & Explain Everything                                                             Web Resources for Learning: Our PD site

Sign  Slideshow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Active Library: Many visitors!                                                                                                              103 Uses of iPads: Slideshow playing

Exit  Food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exit Tickets: Drop off bucket                                                                                                                 Food: Nourishment for our learners!

Using Video to Share Instructional Practices

screencastingWe can record videos of fun activities, celebrations, special events, etc., to share with parents what their children experience during the school day. We also need to record instructional practices, innovative learning, and examples of the concepts and skills our students are learning.

This is especially important when parents might not be familiar with rich curricula like the PYP and Information and Communication Literacies (ICL) programs that guide students to engage their higher-level thinking skills as they construct understanding.

With this in mind, the following is a short video of Cecilia Rios, one of the innovative Kindergarten teachers at my school. Stay tuned for more examples.

Making Thinking Visible in the Kindergarten Classroom

Communicating Understanding and Documenting Student Learning

screencast

Our First and Second Graders recently completed projects using ScreenChomp to create screencasts on their iPads. The learning goal for the students was to reflect to communicate their responses to the essential questions from the units of inquiry they were completing. A big challenge was representing their thinking about their learning visually and communicating their answers to the questions in their second language (French, Spanish, or Dutch).

The First Graders responded to the following questions from the People Around the World unit.

  • What is my daily life like?
  • How is my life similar to the lives of children in other countries?
  • How is my life different from the lives of children in other countries?

The Second Graders responded to the following questions from the Weather unit.

  • What is the weather?
  • What makes the weather change?
  • How does weather affect people’s lives?

Here is an example of one student’s screencast.

Impact of iPads in a 1:1 Program on Instruction and Learning

ipad

Catching up here over the holidays and finding some notes from the past year… I asked Margi Weaver, one of our iPad pilot teachers, a couple of questions as we prepared to move on from ACDS. As always, Marg delivered a very clear response after two years of helping lead our 1:1 iPad program.

How have the iPads affected my instruction and assessment techniques?

• Speed/easiness of research capabilities has increased my ability to allow students to gain (and evaluate) information on their own instead of me having to disseminate all information.

• Students can use various programs to communicate their knowledge, providing more variety and allowing for more student choice.

• Allows for more opportunities for differentiation. When I’m working with one student/group, another can be doing a project or game on the iPad.

 

How have the iPads affected student learning?

• Students are more engaged and excited about learning.

• There is less wait time, so more time is spent engaged and learning during the day.

• Students have more opportunities to creatively share their knowledge in various formats.

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Library Orientation, Passwords, iPad Stories and Other Tips

librarybag1

Helping elementary students learn to be organized is an essential goal for all schools. One of the previous librarians at Washington International School (WIS) gave each student a carry bag with an attached card that lists the student’s name, photo, and a barcode of their library account for easy checkout. With all one’s library books in the bag, even the youngest students can carry their books back to the classroom while the teachers have no worries about students possibly mixing up their books with those of other students.

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agreements

Sue Anderson, our librarian, devised an excellent series of lessons to orient our students to the library. In the first library orientation lesson, she had the students write down what their behaviors should be to make the library a wonderful place to learn together. Sue then inputted all the student behavior descriptors into Wordle to create a word cloud.

In the follow-up lesson, the students discussed the words and how they agreed to follow them while in the library. They then signed their copy and a class copy, thus signifying their agreement to learn together in the library.

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map

The next part of the library orientation lesson engaged the students to explorecollaborate, use their spatial intelligence, and see how we categorize books. Sue designed a library map and tasked the students to work in teams to label the sections listed at the top of the map. Sue and her assistants have signage throughout the library pointing to the French, Spanish, Dutch, and English collections. They list levels, picture books, media, etc. collections as well.

I was fortunate to work with the First and Second Grades on their library mapping expedition. My table teams devised a plan to work together to find each section. We ventured out into the stacks, keeping our eyes open for signs and labels on the books. Hearing students say, “I found the French Level 2 section. Here are the DVDs!” was pretty cool.

Sue put the students in the driver’s seat as they actively connected where they were in the library with their maps. We debriefed at the end of class, reviewing the maps and asking Sue for more information to help with student understanding.

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Screen Shot 2013-09-06 at 8.14.56 AM

The Upper School is doing a 1:1 iPad pilot with the 9th graders. Richard Anderson, the Learning and Technology Coordinator, developed a simple Google form for teachers to share their instructional strategies in using the iPads (see image above). The entries populate a Google Document that Richard can use to share ideas and celebrate teacher efforts.

As instruction technologists, we often play the role of busy bees working to cross-pollinate effective pedagogy. Richard designed an easy way to help this process.

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passwords

Our Third Graders start the year learning about the importance of creating smart passwords that they can remember and keeping their new passwords private. We use various naming protocols for password creation, like choosing a date other than one’s birthday, a city, and a symbol. The Third Graders are then introduced to our school Google Apps account, with Drive being the first tool they use once they learn how to log in with their new passwords. Remembering one’s username and password is not easy for elementary students, so Laura Evangelista, one of our art and digital art teachers, came up with an excellent scaffolded exercise to prepare them to become comfortable and fluent with logging in.

The image above is a photo of the password practice sheet that Laura created. At the top are passwords that follow the protocol Laura set up. Once the students create their password and get it OK’d from Laura, they are tasked to write it ten times in the spaces provided. Laura then sends a copy of the username and password to the students’ parents so that they can access the account.

Helpful Strategies to Start the Year

Having new teachers photocopy a hand and send it to their email account? What sort of learning experience is this? This is just one of the scavenger hunt “to do’s” that our new teachers did this past Friday at Alexandria Country Day School (ACDS).

Elizabeth Lockwood and Liz Hendrickson are creative educators who created a scavenger hunt to orient new staff to ACDS. This effective strategy to improve the new teacher tour/orientation offers a very engaging and fun experience for schools to share with their new hires.

As our iPad Pilot is now rolling from the Fifth Grade to the remainder of our Middle School, Elizabeth and Liz came up with a way to have the new teachers use their iPads in a scavenger hunt using problem-solving skills while working collaboratively to produce a product much like we hope they will be doing with their students.

One driver in these tours is to help new staff learn of the people they need to seek out to meet specific needs (e.g., business office, tech support, etc.) and where to go to take care of everyday tasks like using the copier, getting ice for scraped knees, etc. Elizabeth and Liz met the new staff and divided them into two groups with iPads. They then emailed them the scavenger hunt list with an expectation for the final product: a video slideshow. Using apps on the iPads to create drawings, take photos, and compile them into a video would give the teachers some experience in how the iPads can be used in their classes.

Here are a few of the assigned tasks:

  • In the newest part of the school, find the ice machine. Take a picture of one of your team members holding the ice scoop. Save the picture.
  • Go to where you need to get business done. Speak to the powers that be. Record a video of his answer to your question about how to get reimbursed for a purchase you made for the school. Save the video.
  • If you need more than one, this is where you can multiply your work. Scan one of your team member’s hands in the machine, send it to your school email account, and save the picture.
  • Go to the classroom of your youngest team member. Using the Art Studio app, draw an exit map from that classroom that you could use during a fire alarm. Save the picture.

A second start-of-the-year strategy involves professional development. Our Information and Communications Literacies (ICL) team designed a workshop for our staff this week. With all of the Middle School teachers having spent a couple of days working in our Curriculum Collaboration Team meetings this summer, reviewing and developing units of study using the Understanding by Design (UbD) construct, we want to give all of our teachers time to share ideas and build on them as we focus on alternative assessments. A secondary goal is introducing our Curriculum Review system to the lower school teachers.

The plan is to review a presentation and workshop for the Middle School at the end of last year, where we introduced our systematic way to develop UbD-style units in meetings led by teachers collaboratively. We will share some unit plans developed over the summer, looking closely at Stage 2 of the UbD process involving assessment. The next step involves listing alternative assessments to the standard paper and pencil test. We plan to share “analog” assessment strategies based on what the teachers are already comfortable using. From debates to writing a newspaper article to drawing a picture, the teachers will receive a listing of multiple assessments that don’t engage with technology.

Teachers will be grouped with one lower school, one middle school, and one particular teacher. Each teacher will use the assessment listing, looking for ones that catch their eye as a possible replacement for current tests they might be using in their units of study. They will be tasked to write how they might use an alternative assessment in one of their units for the coming year.

The next step will be to have groups swap their assessment plans. Groups will then use Post-It notes to write their ideas on how alternative assessment ideas might be expanded upon or taken in different directions. The teams will stick their notes on each assessment write-up, sharing their ideas with their group. The ICL team will then collect all the assessment handouts to be photocopied and returned to their authors. The collaborative efforts will help guide our teachers to try some new assessment techniques and some of the ideas that their colleagues added with the Post It notes.

We will then use the assessment idea documents to meet with teachers individually to discuss further how the analog assessments could be improved by making them digital with Web 2.0 tools, video, screencasting, apps, etc., using the iPads.

In roughly a month, we plan to share some of the alternative assessment ideas that have been digitally enhanced. We will also present a chart like the Learning Activity Types produced by Judi Harris and Mark Hofer of William & Mary. Ours will have a left-side column listing the analog assessments and a right-side listing the digital versions. Our plan fits with the normal process of working with teachers in their comfort zone to help them see the connection in how technology, in so many ways, builds on what they are already doing and, in many cases, offers more choices for students and enhances their learning.

 

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iBooks and One’s Personal Learning System

Mark and I discussed yesterday’s iBook textbook initiative on the Edtech Co-op podcast. The show will soon be posted to the blog and iTunes. Hopefully, it offers some new ideas and background information on textbooks to add to your thinking about teaching and learning using digital resources.

Here are some of my main takeaways from the talk:

We need to remember that the iBook creation tool is just one part of a learning system for our students that includes a huge array of apps for learning, connectivity to a world of resources, cameras, and a mic for recording, all in a mobile device thus allowing for personal learning both in and outside of school. The iPad offers a Leatherman-type learning platform and supports the connectivity of the “1 to Many” movement, so we must remember not to see iBooks in isolation.

As future iPads are introduced, the question arises of what a student’s interface is when working with the iBook while also wanting to access other apps simultaneously. For example, we spoke in the podcast about thinking and the note-taking tool embedded in the iBook. Wouldn’t it help learners even more if they could take notes in a mind map and audio record their thoughts while reading an iBook? These two tools may be included in future iBooks, but Mark pointed out that some apps do these two functions. The barrier is that the student would have to continuously hit the home button to get out of the iBook to access the learning tools she wants to access.

This leads me to wonder if Apple can make some productivity apps more widget-like, where they could float on the screen while the iBook is open. It would be nice if a calculator, mind mapper, voice recorder, specific subject/topic apps providing text and images like Britannica, or simply a video feed with a search engine could float on the screen so that a student can access these tools while he is reading in the iBook. Or Apple may offer the possibility of a split screen so that two apps can be opened simultaneously, or one can swipe to a second or third screen with opened apps, similar to Mission Control on the Mac. (Note: One can turn on “multitasking gestures” in Settings to hold a hand swipe between previously opened apps.)

This hope for access to apps to help the student learn beyond the iBook textbook connects to our discussion of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and our hope that Siri on future iPads will offer further supportive and adaptive structures to help all learners. Whether Apple will build in the UDL constructs to the iBook app or use Siri is not that important as long as the learning tools are added to the iPad. Many of our students would benefit if the text could be highlighted as the words are being read to them. Being able to voice record their ideas and thinking either into MP3 files or into text would be another helpful adaptive technology.

How about asking Siri to gather a listing of videos that explain the three branches of the Federal Government that could be watched in the corner of the screen while viewing one’s US Government iBook? The same goes for an art history iBook, which has a curious student wanting to see more images of Picasso’s Blue period and text from Britannica or other sources. It is only a few steps to make these events happen, but it would be nice if the student could be immersed in the learning process, only needing to swipe her finger and potentially make voice commands to access further information.

We also discussed teachers building their iBooks while wondering how classes could collaborate to create eTextbooks. Mark brought up several good points regarding current tools and having access to these eTextbooks on the web for collaboration. Listen to the podcast for further details, as there was much to that discussion.

A connected topic is how a teacher could design and publish an iBook that could include interactive modules, as demonstrated in the Apple iBook video. My interest in developing eTextbooks goes back to a post about “information brokers” who could represent the publishers, media providers, and interactive module creators like Explore Learning to provide a marketplace for iBook creators to purchase copyrighted material to add to the iBooks. While there is so much free and non-copyright material on the web, one really would benefit from including, for example, Discovery Learning video segments and text resources from the vast library Gale offers. Another point is how much of the media and interactive modules would be in each iBook, or would one need to be connected to the web to receive the feed? Again, listen to the podcast as Mark unpacks this topic.

We talk about students “making meaning” and “constructing understanding.” A portion of this learning process is having access to the information and then having the scaffolding to bring it together. What might this process look like for a student using an iPad and iBooks? I am picturing a humanities course with a student reading the assigned iBook historical novel, reviewing her iBook textbook, and using various apps to seek more information while pulling his thinking together in one place, say a mind map or simple interactive whiteboard app. The interactive whiteboard app would be populated over time with screen captures from various sources, notes from the iBooks, and audio files of ideas the student recorded. The building of understanding stage occurs with the help of essential and guiding questions the teacher lists in the iBook textbook or through the school Learning Management System (LMS).

By dragging notes, screen captures, etc., into groups of shared ideas and then using mind mapping lines to make connections between them, the student constructs her understanding by working to answer the questions while making further “brain pop” idea notes in the parking lot section of the IWB screen. Technology could support the learning process as students use technology literacy to choose the best tools/apps for their individual learning needs.

Mark brought up an additional point about this learning process of using all these tools: the students could export their notes or the entire learning document/mind map to be shared with the class for further collaboration and connection-making. Again, it’s pretty cool beyond just reading a digital textbook.

As we know, change starts with validating where you are and what you are doing (the familiar) and is usually most effective when we take small steps that shift us to new ideas and behaviors. The iBook, with its potential for interactivity via simulations, manipulative maps and charts, gaming activities, media, etc., and access to the web, can support the shifting process. We empower students to use their personal learning systems to access information, learning activities, and tools for building their understanding and for being creative to construct projects to communicate their learning. EBook competitors like Kno and Push Pop Press can work with Amazon, Android device makers, and Microsoft to compete with what Apple offers, thus giving our students even more choices for personalized learning systems.

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