Sir Ken Robinson @CUE 2013

The keynote speaker at CUE 2103 was Sir Ken Robinson.  His presentation was worth the price of admission!  He is such an amazing, inspiring, articulate, intelligent and funny man!  I am really not sure how to even compile my notes, so I am just sharing sound bites (bytes?) along with (my comments). It should be evident which is which.  Feel free to ask me to elaborate.

On earth, over the entirely of human existence, there have been about 100 billion lives. Yet, each life is unique and unrepeatable.  You are at a unique moment in human history.

We feign knowledge we don't have. Dalai Lama - "I don't know"The mark of a great teacher is to say at times, I have no idea, what do you think?

To be born at all is a miracle.  You should never resent growing old.  It's a privilege denied to many. It is a miracle we are here.  It's amazing how little people settle for.

Human talents are like natural resources, they are often buried and need to be drawn out

It is our differences that make us interesting.  We have to cherish our diversity. It is our best hope for sustainability.  Education currently does the exact opposite.  Human beings are naturally creative.

'My own personal Everest'.  Getting his PhD was his "own personal Everest". (I love that idea! what is your Everest?!)

Where you stand now is not governed by where you started out. So what are you going to do with your life?  You don't get your resume with your birth certificate, you control who you become. 

Education has a narrow view...it is focused on what they thought was wrong with you, not what you could do! You should teach the child, not the subject (Monger says he stole her line)

The effect of standards is to narrow the curriculum.  (Amen.) Who says Americans don't get irony? The person who named No Child Left Behind GETS irony. NCLB has had the effect of shrinking the curricula.  We are confusing the symptom of the problem with the causes. Rather than narrowing we need Expansive that celebrates diversity...Organic development and change...

Effect of mimeograph machines on teachers was profound!  (Tee hee - I think you had to be there)

Out of Our Minds:Learning to be Creative. his new book 

10 years ago... No smart phones, social media - perhaps it should be called Asocial media (This made me laugh later that night, +sheila monger  and I were sitting next to each other, (Y) ing each other's facebook posts, rather than just talking to each other). 

We are the largest generation in human history.  There are more people on earth now than anytime in humon history. We don't know if we can make this work. - (I am paraphrasing for sure here) essentially, he said that if everyone on earth would consume what the average person in India consumes, we'd be fine. Yet if we all consumed what the average American does, essentially we'd need 4 more Earths.

Current forms of Education are locked into the previous century. We need a radical personalization.  There are 4 drivers of the need for change in education:

Economic. If people are better educated we think they'll be in a better position to get a better job and be able to be economically independent. I can't tell you much I want my son to be economically independent. 

Cultural.  The world existed before ou got here and will continue.  But the world that is you only exists because you are here.

Social.  

Personal. In the end, education is always personal.  Could not be a greater irony that we are cutting funding to Ed and increasing funding to prisons. In the US, 30% of students don't graduate. In some areas, 60%. 1 in 31 in US in the penal system.  We have to get away from standardizing education to personalizing it - technology is the key.

The Empty Space by Peter Brook     Is about how he set out to transform theater. Before we can ask how, we have to ask what is it? What can we take a way and have it still be theater? An actor in a space and someone watching.  It is the relationship. There is an analogy to Ed ...our job is to facilitate learning.  They'll do it on their own so when we add ourselves into the mix, we have to add value. Facilitate. Enable, inspire, recognize diversity, recognize possibilities inside them.  Too many distractions- unions, building codes, etc that have gotten in the way of education.

Our job is to teach students not subjects.

Recognize learning styles

Broad set of experiences

Individualize schedules. ex. School of one in NY

Kids learn at different rates... Multi age

New technologies are disruptive but give us the means to change education.  By the way, Technology is not technology if it happened before you were born.

Photo by zota via flickr

Death Valley - it is not dead, just dormant.  What happened with extreme rain in spring 2005 was amazing display of wildflowers.  

Seeds of possibility. If conditions are right, life is inevitable.  Fill them with hope and a sense of ambition.  Education has (and still does) define students by what they CAN'T do rather than what they CAN do

Celebrate our creativity along with our students' creativity.  The focus on education should be LEARNING. Nothing should be added unless it contributes to learning.

It takes more resources to block effective Ed than it would to do it right

Tweets about "@sandramc59 @sirkenrobinson"

Technology for Planning and Teaching to the Common Core

Brian Balaris, Chris Morel, Todd Reed
As you are implementing technology, there are several ways to provide necessary Staff PD to help inspire, prepare and support your teachers.   In their district, they use independent contractors and send teachers to conferences to see what is going on

• boot camp - at the beginning of their school year, one day (paid) is devoted to technology training using a boot camp model. There are a variety of workshops that people can sign up for. They get low or no cost presenters (the price of lunch for some) and teachers can sign up for the things they need, such as Google sites, Google forms, iPad basics, SMART, Edmodo, etc.  

• Site early outs - on some of their early out Wednesdays, they continue with the staff PD for tech, which is especially helpful as teachers have begun using the technology and have some new and more complex questions and challenges.  

• Grade level pull outs - these would address specific grade level needs

• Pedagogical PD

ITSE NETS   (National Education Technology Standards) for Students NETS-S and teachers NETS-T - It is essential to know technology standards for teachers and students and use them in backwards planning of units and your school year. Here is an interesting resource I found while poking around ITSE , an implementation wiki for NETS standards! They also recommend a coaching model - to provide help with how to, to model lessons, research and share new ideas, generally, to spread the wealth. Coaches can take what they see at one school, one classroom and pollinate it throughout their district. 

This session blurb said it would  "provide teachers and administrators with a detailed understanding of the technology needs embedded in the common core and how to start the process of using these skills. The integration of more technology into engaging teaching and learning activities are the themes presented." My slight frustration with this year's CUE started with this presentation. I know WHY we need to use technology with common core, I want to know HOW to best implement real projects with tech+common core!  They had some great ideas to support staff using technology, but no actual projects, lesson plans, nor implementable strategies.  I am hoping to follow Balaris, Morel and Reed and do some investigation into how they actually are implementing tech+CCSS in their schools going forward.

The Bedley Bros' Research Communities

The past few days, some of us attended the CUE conference. 

This professional development was opportunity was wonderful and we wanted to share what we learned. So I'll be posting notes from the sessions I attended.

Using iPads to Build Research Communities in a Common Core Classroom

by the Bedley Bros - +Scott Bedley  and +Tim Bedley 

This standing room only CUE TIP was informative and engaging. It was a short presentation but packed with great ideas and examples. They talked about students can learn to research collaboratively. Tim discussed how students can delve deeper into a subject by using technology and their brains to mine reliable sources. Students were gives a topic to research and had to come up with consensus in their research community - (GLAD=>expert group)

Tim Bedley, is one of Riverside County's Teacher of the Year from 2013! He has some great info on his website about projects, his band links to some great classroom videos.  You can catch the Bedley Bros. #edchat which gives much of the information from the presentation. Tim also has an amazing band Rocking the Standards, check out their educational and entertaining songs. 

Their parting piece of advise, Leave your voice out! I am the last resource for feedback.

The session was time well spent, I just wish it had gone on longer!

3 Classroom Apps for the New Year

Thanks HRM for the artwork!

This week I introduced my kids to three new apps which I am hoping will provide me with additional assessment information. We started a class blog using kidblog.  It is a secure blogging platform that my kids can use to create their own blog page within our group.  So far we wrote about our winter break and we've started with doing our weekly reading log online.  I am learning more about my students' writing and they are learning from each other.  There is an app for easy access to the blog from our class iPads. I am hoping that blogging will provide an opportunity for communication, collaboration and developing authentic writing skills.  My kids know that I blog, too. It helps them to see that writing is a life-ling skill.
We also started playing around with Khan Academy. Although I did the set up on my Mac, the kids and I are now using the app.  I know Khan has its detractors, and I am remaining open minded as I pilot its usefulness in my classroom.  I teach a 4+5 combo with very independent learners and I am hoping that Khan Academy will allow my students the ability to go deeper into subjects in which they have a need and or interest.

As part of our monthly life-skill focus of kindness, my students have begun a Kindness Project. We brainstormed a variety of ways that we see or hear kindness.  We are now working on developing icons or memes to represent kindness.  One of the tools we are using to draw them is the third app we started using: Skitch, which is part of Evernote.  Some students are also working on short movies to inspire kindness. We were inspired by this video from +Dan Pink 's daughter, Sophia.

#EdTech Reflections from 2012

It's the beginning of a new year, a time for looking back and a time for crystal ball gazing. On twitter +Vicki Davis,  suggested: Write a 2012 year in review about what you've done, where you've been, and the joys of the year. Take time to remember. In honor of 2012, I reflected on on my top 12 highlights from the year. As I am continually trying for life/work balance, some of the highlights are related to my teaching practice, and some are purely personal. All 12 can be found on my life+teaching blog, but since five of them are related in some way to our iPad Academy adventures, I am sharing them here, too.


1. iPads in the classroom: In March, I applied to and was accepted into the iPad Action Research Academy  in our school district. We received our class set of iPads in April and my students have been engaged ever since. I started a blog to keep track of our experiences and have had the opportunity to work with an amazing team of innovators as we have pioneered use of this technology in our district. As a group we have used a wiki and primarily Edmodo to communicate, problem solve and collaborate. It really has been a game changer for me, my students and my colleagues.

5. Since I have started teaching, I have been lucky to work with some amazing educators whose focus is special needs kids: Bill Theimann, Linda Bruton, Julie Paolini and a supportive staff and administration.  I had just assumed that their approach of compassion, inclusion and treating all students as learners was the norm.  When I left SUSD I found that was not the case. However, I was brilliantly lucky to be placed in a room next door to the new SDC teacher, Sheila Monger. Monger, an inclusion specialist, shares my views and passion for creating a seamless education environment where all students learning needs are met.  This school year, I am teaching a 4+5 combo and Monger is teaching 2+3+4+5. Having more of an overlap has opened the doors for more integration and inclusion.  Together, we are gradually breaking down barriers and opening doors for opportunity for teachers, administration and students look at learning a new way.http://mrsmcconnellsblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/technology-and-inclusive-education.html 

8.  Education + Technology = #EdTech: When I decided to become a teacher, my vision was to use what I had learned "in the real world" to help me be a better teacher.  I have worked hard, and spent a lot of my own time and money, to find meaningful ways to bring technology into the classroom to provide my students with authentic learning experiences.  When I had to leave SUSD, I was afraid I'd have to start from zero to re-establish myself as a technology leader with my new district. At my age, (really at any age) starting from zero seems like a grand waste of time.  One of my favorite expressions is that I'd rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.  As a manager, I respected the initiative that showed. As a teacher I appreciate the perceived independence, even though I know it can sometimes frustrate my principals.  So, I just did what I do and kept my principal informed.  Through programs like CreaTV and the iPad Academy, I have been able to flex my tech muscles while providing our students with unique learning opportunities. I have also been in a position to help develop other teachers as they learn how to use technology to become more efficient and effective educators. In January, +sheila monger  and I were honored with a Good Apple Award by our school board and recognized for our contribution in the area of educational technology.  I am very proud of the work we have done to help teachers and students use technology in meaningful ways.

10.  In October of this year I applied to and was accepted into another academy at our district. Cambrian and others use the academy model as a choice method for professional development (see page 32).  This time it is the Digital Media Academy.  I saw this as a great opportunity to merge my work with CreaTV and classroom learning using digital media.  Our students have started out by producing short PSAs  addressing personal concerns such as playground safety, littering, and bullying.  We have been able to use student created content on our monthly television show on CreaTV, Comcast channel 28,  Around Bagby.  Our students are becoming better planners, writers, problem solvers, communicators and collaborators.

12. Assessment. As I started this year end review with iPads, I'm ending with them.  While initially I used the iPads for student engagement and learning, I also used student work on the iPads for informal assessment.  However, I wanted to learn more (and still do) about ways I can use the devices to effectively assess student learning.  In August, with the help of +Jill Florant  at Edmodo, I started using Edmodo not only to communicate with my parents and students but also to assess their learning. I started using assessments and quizzes. Parents are able to see their child's progress and it really has improved the home-school connection.  In addition to Edmodo, I also started using Class Dojo for behavior management.  The kids love their avatars and work hard for positive behavior reports.  This fall I used adopt-a-classroom to generate crowd-funding for SpellingCity and our collaborative weather project.  SpellingCity helps administer spelling practice activities and tests, grades the tests and provides useful reports to me and the parents.  In 2013 I plan to further investigate and utilize methods for assessing student learning and engagement on iPads.

Happy New Year!

Exploring Solids with Think 3D Free

We have been learning about solids in my 4+5 combo math class. I use manipulative blocks, but since I don't have Legos, they tend to fall over, end up on the floor, etc. the high-touch blocks are great for some, but when it comes to manipulating the solids, there are challenges.

Enter a high-tech counterpart, Think 3d Free. The kids can create unlimited possibilities of shapes and explore and interact with them. They are sharing shapes and challenging each other to identify properties of their creations. It has really helped them understand perspective as well as volume vs. surface area. And, it's fun! I gave my kids free time on the iPads right before break and they asked, "can we use 3D Free?" Yes, you can!



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To share or not to share

There has been some discussion within our academy, staff and union about sharing our iPad carts amongst multiple classrooms. As discussed here before, teachers in our district were invited to apply for the pilot 1:1 program. Along with the cart of iPads came requirements to help research and recommend policy and procedures for future implementations in our district. For a variety of reasons, some teachers chose not to apply. Those that did apply and were accepted into the program have been an amazing group of pioneers who I am privileged to work with!

Apple designed the iPad for individual use. After all, it is called an iPad not a wePad or usPad. There is no file management system on the iPad. As we in the academy have found out, getting user content off of the iPad is not a straightforward proposition. Each app has its own peculiarities of where and how you can offload or download. It takes a spreadsheet to list and track the logins and work-flow process you need for each app. When we start to think about sharing and adding the layer of multiple logins, the problem grows even more unwieldy.
Some of our cohort are sharing the devices in a variety of creative ways. During her class' music, PE and other out of classroom times, one teacher loans her cart to a special ed class to use a variety of educational game apps. The middle school cohort obviously shares devices across their class periods. She started out using Apple Configurator which has been a less than positive experience. There have been challenges, but she works diligently to train all of her periods to be respectful of each other's work and they continue to work through their challenges. Last year at Bagby, we hosted a sibling lunch where our students invited their school age siblings to come and use the iPads. One group of girls made a 'horror film' in iMovie titled "the Attack of the Second Grade Sisters." I have used the iPads in my Excel/RTI class to expose a greater number of students at our school to the technology. Last year I had 2 4th graders from a combo class join me for Science and they used the devices alongside my home room students.
I have discovered that without the extensive digital citizenship and cyber-safety education from Common Sense Media that my home room participated in, my "visiting students" do not always follow iPad and basic digital citizenship rules. And since I only have my RTI students for 4 hours of reading a week, I simply do not have the time to deliver digital education to them. Further, despite reminders, they do not log off of their accounts when they leave, they walk with the iPads open, they use apps when they are not supposed to and they look at work that other students have created, just like they would look into another student's desk. They do not feel ownership for the devices and do not treat them with respect. My home room students feel that their privacy is being violated and that their work is not being respected.
One of the benefits of having the cart in my room is he immediacy of access. When the shuttle flew over, we could go outside with our iPads, take pictures and interview observers. Students create work over days or weeks. if they are sharing devices, they run the risk of other students deleting or altering their work. Yes, we can have rules in place. And we do. However, adding users adds the potential for confusion and error. One possible help would be apps such as the Our Pad. Kelly Walsh wrote is his blog, Emerging EdTech about such apps. "The basic idea behind Our Pad, HotSwap and the like is that it stores user names and passwords for a couple dozen pre-configured web apps for multiple users. Each user sets a profile used to sign in to the app. When you are signed in as the current user on that iPad, your configured apps are available through a menu." However, these apps are really designed for consumers and not students.
Mark Gleeson, a respected iPad blogger, writes "The most obvious problem with sharing iPads..., is the lack of file system and autosave/store within app functionality of the iPad. It’s great for its original purpose of easy access for the intended individual use scenario. For shared environments, it creates a mountain of files stored by potentially hundreds of users. Will other users delete/ overwrite or edit the file? Will we run out of storage space because of the number of photos, movies, animations, comic strips, documents, drawings, ebooks etc floating around all those apps waiting to be completed?
Again, some of this can be dealt with through a number of file sharing or transferring methods... The biggest issue is consistent adoption of these methods." The "workable solution" requires training of students and staff, not only in the process of file transferring but in the consistent practice of it. And in this case, whose responsibility is it to do the training? Who is ultimately responsible for the cart? The iPad? The user content? Gleeson has implemented overnight sharing for teachers to explore the possibilities of iPads on their own time. The iPads need to be back in the hands of students the next day and he has had to implement a detailed set of procedures to make this work.
Edudemic posted an article, 5 Critical Mistakes and they cite as number 4: 4) Treating iPads like multi-user devices:

iPads were designed as a single-user device and not meant to be shared via carts. Financial constraints have forced many schools to abandon 1:1 aspirations, but sharing them separates the functionality from the user. Carts that rotate through several classrooms force teachers to take time away from learning, create a nightmare of student accounts, and often focus attention on workflow systems rather than learning."
"Instead of sharing iPads across multiple classrooms, schools should be allocating them to a few select pilot classrooms for an entire year. Schools should be documenting pilot group successes and failures and begin to codify iPad integration functionality and elicit best practices to serve as a foundation for future iPad expansion. If a school cannot envision financially moving to a 1-1 iPad model, then Bring your Own Device (BYOD) models may prove much more compelling than shared iPad systems.

An important thing to understand is that this is really only providing access to web based accounts. It does not allow for multiple users on apps. So tracking individual performance data across multiple users on a single app does not generally seem to be possible or at least not easy. Ideally, teachers will be using iPad created work as performance assessments of their students' work. If multiple students are using the same device, we run the risk of accidental or intentional overwriting, deleting, or changing of user data and student work. We wouldn't have two students take a test on the same piece of paper would we?
It seems to me that while sharing may be the only option for some schools, it is not ideal. So, what about a one or five iPad classroom? With a smaller set of iPads, more classrooms could have some iPads. Over time, and once iPads have proven their worth, Home & School Club money could more likely fund 5 iPads per target class than 30. An iPad "suitcase", rather than a cart could utilize one iTunes account that shares apps across 5 devices, which stays within Apple's license sharing rules. And since we are teaching digital citizenship, as educators we should model it and pay for all the software we use. 1-5 iPads could be used in centers, for project based work, for differentiation and reward. Teachers could use one iPad as a productivity tool with apps such as Class Dojo, PowerSchool and Classroom Organizer.Heidi Butkus offers a variety of suggestions for a small set of iPads.
This is still relatively new technology and its significant impact has yet to be measured or quantified meaningfully. As more districts try various implementation methods, we'll have a better point from which to base decisions. Our iPad Action Research Academy recently added a second cohort and we broadened our scope to include two other districts. Our colleagues in Moreland and Union are testing a grade level cart share system and their experiences will provide useful insight? It appears that Apple has plans to release an iPad (or iOS) which supports multiple users, according to Apple Insider which potentially could help address some of the problems with sharing. In the meantime, our cart is staying in our room. It's not that I am greedy. I just worked hard to get these tools in the hands of my kids, and I worked hard to get my kids to be responsible digital citizens. I want to be able to study and quantify the true benefits of a 1:1 environment. I'm happy to work with my colleagues to help them identify ways to acquire and use one or five or thirty devices in their own classrooms.
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