Due to swimming and various other school timetable disturbances, most students are only just now reaching the end of phase 1 – choosing their app. Bit sad that its week 4 of the project and only 15% are actually using their chosen app, but I’m not so worried – because the point of this unit is not time on the device that will magically solve everything, but instead is about teaching critical thinking, problem solving, independent learning. I’m happy that this is embedded thru our whole unit so that the unit itself ‘works’ even if the phase 1 of evaluating their weaknesses and choosing a corresponding app does take a while.
What’s happened since the last journal is that students have been searching the app store, saving screenshots of likely apps, then completing T-charts of pro’s and con’s (yes there is a free ‘T-chart’ app for that! -opens iTunes). They then email this chart to me from the iPod touch which initiates a conversation around how suitable the app is. Then I download the app ready for students to try.
How’s this- the very first student who went to use his newly downloaded app found – it was terrible! Didn’t do what he needed after all. Failure? No – this was a great learning moment where we could discuss with the whole group what happened, and how to make a better decision next time. The student has now written his own short review and submitted it – and how real life is that? Also, as other students with his same chosen focus area have found other apps, he’s finding he can now rely on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ aka personal learning network around him to choose his next app.
Also this week I introduced a new innovation where on the day of the week when I am engaged in regional support duties I record a talking head video of myself giving instructions to the kids. The replacement teacher just plugs in an iPod directly to our data projector with an AV cable (we have the Belkin one) and students can still get their challenge for the day in person. The replacement teacher can even display images of our progress mindmap etc to the students this way. Now I can take my laptop with me for the day knowing that our digital resources are still available to the group.
I’ve also been able to work it such that the school wifi now is usable from within our classroom space – going and sitting outside the office was great for showing off to passerby’s that we were doing an interesting project, but not so great for other reasons. I’m also really happy that we got email setup on the iPod’s now (all using the one generic account, Mr iPod) so students can send records (via screenshots) of their work to me and even to their classroom teachers.
OK! So my learning and teaching environment is starting to feel different most of the time – actually like how I imagine 21st century, student-focused learning maybe should. BUT you know, sometimes I’m still my own worst enemy – because I start teaching again every now and then. Yes, teaching, when I should be sticking to the idea of ‘less me, more them’. I still jump in instead of giving ‘wait’ time, or thinking time where students can develop their own understandings…
Next step is students have 1-2 weeks using their app before another evaluation kicks in – is it helping me improve? If not, students will need to decide to switch to another app, or perhaps access podcasts or other resources instead. Will write another journal then. Just wanted to also add how great it is to be finishing up the year with such a great project, instead of the usual countdown, how long until holidays feeling!
This has been the part where the kids get very excited, something to do with the fact that they get their hands on the iPod Touch at this stage. Why do they get excited? Is it because the touch’s are so ‘cool’? Or is it in fact because they are so relieved to get to use something from the real world, something they are familiar with, when normally this only happens rarely at school? Up to this point, the students had not even seen the iPod’s; I’d made them wait so that we could work through some of the critical thinking goals of the unit first.
After a brief keynote demonstrating to the kids the basics of using the app store again and how to save a screenshot to record their choices, it was off to the space outside our admin block where we can access the wireless network. Obviously the wifi is crucial to this stage, and true to form, it was in and out, working fine for some lessons and not others. But they say that through trials comes learning and I was able to find couple of solutions to the wildest problems, although why the exact same settings work one hour and need to be re-entered another is still beyond me (3COM are you reading this?!).
Just as I’m asking the kids to continually be reflecting on the learning process, so am I attempting to do the same with the unit as a whole. So I’ve already made two adjustments, both arising out of conversations with members of my personal learning network. One was with a project officer who was interviewing me – the process of answering allowed me to reflect and also pick up on one of his ideas. So even though I had set verbal discussion moments up to occur every two weeks where the students reflected on their learning choices, I will now formalise this a little with set questions. The idea is that I can gauge their progress towards independent critical reflection by how much scaffolding they need to answer these questions, with the goal that they will need no help by the end of the unit. The second adjustment is that I found a free app where students can build T-charts to put down the pro’s and con’s of their initial app choice. This is how they will justify to me which ones need downloading (especially for the paid ones).
So that’s pretty much week 2 and week 3. The students have made their choice of a focus area based on their own learning data, and have narrowed down a choice of solutions (apps), with some even starting on completing T-charts to analyse these selections.
I’m still trying to get email setup on the devices so we can easily share content to and from them… But have been successful in getting assistance from our wonderful Principal and P&C to get some of the furniture resources (storage, lockable cupboards etc) that we desperately need.
There were three jobs I had for this week if this mobile learning project with learning support students was to get off the ground:
1. intro the personalised learning approach to students
2. explain concept to staff
3. physical setup of space and devices
Here’s some reflection on each of these:
1. very silly of me, but introducing the philosophy of students taking responsibility for their learning (via personalised learning using the iPod touch) was probably the area I found I had least through through. Selling the use of the devices was easy – but helping students grasp what would be expected of them learning-wise is a bit harder to do. My first intro sessions (with students in levelled groups of four) didn’t go so well at explaining this – I had to create a short keynote and incorporate a group mindmapping exercise before these sessions started to achieve what I’d been after. Live and learn. – I must say that being able to use a projector has also transformed this intro. I project up an image (say of a mindmap) which shows students instantly what me drawing and talking about would take a few minutes to do as well.
I’ve also now compartmentalised the steps involved in this first part. Students have just completed part 1 where they are introduced to the personalised learning challenge and have chosen their focus area. Next week is hitting the app store to find an app that will fit with their chosen focus.
2. This has gone well – staff are used to me trying new things etc. And all are supportive of creating self-motivated learners
3. This is proving to be the hardest area as it relies on others… Not that that is a bad thing, and in fact the other staff involved are great. But getting one thing in place (say a lockable cabinet) involves many steps and I’m not even sure if I can get the devices in students hands until next week even though they are here! – I have been able to get a special email account setup (thanks Kate!) so we can open an App store account. – Need to get the devices security coded and get some furniture supplies sorted…
I aim to keep reporting on our progress, good and bad! Love to hear from others also seeking to add personalised and challenge-based ubiquitous learning to their school environs.
Keywords: Personalised learning, challenge-based learning, digital pedagogy, iPod touch, OLPC XO laptop
As a learning support teacher, I happily spend my days teaching struggling and disadvantaged students in years 4-7 some of the basics that they have missed or have difficulty with. I see groups of four to five for 60 or 90 minutes a week for about half the year. Is that enough time for one teacher to ‘fix’ them, or have them ‘catch up’?
No. And yet for five years I have been content that the regular improvements 75% of them make each year are sufficient. But I’m changing my mind now. I’ve identified that in fact, much of the improvement I see is in danger of falling away once my regular but limited scaffolding and support is not available. Some of their classroom teachers are able to provide ongoing scaffolding also, but in a room of 28 needy kids, I ask how can learning support students experience ongoing success in their learning?
I recently blogged about just how many giant shoulders I feel I stand on in being awarded a Smart Classrooms Teaching Award and being a finalist in the Handheld Learning awards. Giants like my own Education Department’s Smart Classrooms framework, the Connectivism ideas of George Siemens, the ‘death of education but the dawn of learning’ thinking of Stephen Heppell, the ‘less us, more them’ philosophy of Gary Stager, the #eqelearn twitter network of engaged and dedicated Queensland teachers, fellow edtech bloggers (especially this post from shanetechteach and this one from josephperkins and this article), the Challenge-based learning tenets of Marco Torres and fellow Apple Distinguished Educators, the ‘addicted to learning’ mindset of Kristine Kopelke… All these and more have been percolating thru my mind over the last few months.
So in recent weeks when I asked ‘how can students experience ongoing success in their learning?’, an answer has started to emerge. Its probably not half as innovative or radical as I’d like to think, but it does reflect a big change in the way I’m going to approach my teaching. A change from incorporating bits and pieces of digital pedagogy into existing programs where I as teacher chose entirely what students needed to learn, to one where the presence of digital tools makes it possible for students to begin to take charge of their learning.
And I’m going to do it! I’m going to attempt to teach my students how to reflect and HOW TO LEARN rather than what to learn. With this skill and awareness, they will be able to succeed on their own.
Now, it is true that I’m only able to do this because:
The ‘digital’ in this digital pedagogy ie. iPod touch’s and XO laptops are available to me in enough numbers now to be used by students as personal learning platforms
I have a supportive local and regional administration
I stand on the shoulders of the giants above
My education department recognises how key ‘digital pedagogy’ is
I feel confident enough to attempt it.
So what will this look like in practice? Well here is a draft diagram:
Basically the plan is that students will reflect on what their learning strengths and weaknesses are and create an iLearn plan by selecting the learning tasks (in this case, XO activities or iTunes apps) that will help them improve. They will further be shown how to ask if their choice is in fact working or what other resources (podcasts, Smartpen ‘pencasts’ etc) they might incorporate as well. Finally, because data and assessment are still the be-all of the curriculum in which we teach, the original instruments and data which students based their iLearn plan on will be re-sat/ administered.
Sound ok? A bit simple? A bit …? Please all feel free to contribute feedback – in fact I’m inviting it. After all, why not ‘crowd-source’ a project like this and give it a better chance of success?
Last night from 12:30am until 6:30am I attended my first full day web conference. What could have tempted me to stay up all night you ask? It was the ACU Connected event, and you can go HERE to see what sessions were held. As one of 130 educators from around the world (and two from my institution Education Queensland), we logged on to hear real life stories of Universities and Schools that are integrating connected, mobile, wireless devices into their learning activities. To get an overview, its well worth visiting this twitter summary at twazzup.com – it’ll provide you with the most popular links and tags that were shared.
So was it worth staying up for? Well I’d be a dill if I hadn’t made sure beforehand that it would be worth it! But yes, it was. Its one thing to read about and even take small steps oneself towards see effective teaching and connected, mobile learning come together; its quite another to hear directly from the actual practitioners involved in large scale rollouts. ACU has over a thousand students with iPhones or iPod touch’s. FHU has many more. Even some of the K-12 schools had up to 800. It was also a big help with my thinking about the small temp trial of OLPC XOs I’m managing at present. In some ways, the XO is like a big, kid friendly iPod touch… more on this in a future post.
Here’s some of my favourite quotes/ideas:
Effectiveness of connected mobile platforms for student use is a big debate as alot of the apps classified as ‘education’ are rote based only.
“treat mobile devices as full participants – media players AND content creators”
“don’t extend outdated pedagogies into new media”
Campus bookstores sweat as faculty move away from expensive textbooks to mobile readers and cheap/free learning resources (via @ruben_r)
MCG medical school has a youtube video showing their mobile learning www.mcg.edu/mobile
interesting FYI: iPhone vs iPod Touch in education – ACU finds iPhone users more satisfied/ use the device a fair bit more.
William_Rank (ACU) “We’re having so much virtual contact with students now that we’ve changed university policy about office hours.”
At FHU 87% of faculty felt comfortable requiring use of mobile device for class activity (via @allisonoster)
“I’m not sure that personal productivity & learning can function separately with these sorts of devices. It’s an artificial distinction.” “many see learning as seperate to personal productivity. Is there a distinction?” (via @agrie8)
I was recently fortunate enough to be able to present at the Innovative Technology in Schools Conference in Brisbane on the topic of mobile learning. Imagine my excitement at having a set of 30 iPod Touch’s available for the participants to learn on! This was a chance to show what the combination of current developments like ubiquitous mobile devices, wireless connectivity and cloud computing (via services like Evernote) will mean for learning in the near-future.
Despite various technical hurdles (ie. batteries being flat, proxies keeping us from using the wifi fully, twitter search being down!) the attendees seemed to have a great time discovering what possibilities mobile devices hold for education. So here are several ways that you too can experience what I was able to share:
One common problem for educators seeking to use the iPhone or iPod touch in their learning environment is the fact that the most common uses of the devices for things such as taking attendance, voice recording or interfacing with learning management systems (such as Moodle) require constant exiting and switching between several different apps. All this switching has the potential to keep teacher eyes off students for the precious seconds it takes for them to go off-task. Excessive app-switching will also increase the number of applications accessing the device memory, resulting in a slower operational and response time.
Helping to solve this problem is a new app from iKonstrukt thats simply titled ‘Educate’. Unlike many other education apps released so far for the platform, ‘Educate’ groups several common functions into one program, meaning that running a lesson requires less app-switching. These multiple functions include an inbuilt calendar with welcome widescreen mode, an attendance and grade marking database, a stopwatch, voice recorder, photo tool (take images and add text to them), reference area (with numerous teaching strategy tips) and link to online learning system Moodle (apparently integration with the other main LMS Blackboard is being looked at for a future release).
So can this app live up to its ambitious name of providing everything needed to educate a student? Bearing in mind that this is a 1.0 release, and still has a few quirks (that running the ‘free memory’ app first often helps with), it has in our 3 days of testing proved to be a great start at accomplishing just this lofty goal. It does need the ability to import student names as well as calendar data before time-poor teachers may really start to use all of its planner and tracker features to the full.
What may really convince some Teachers to purchase Educate is its Moodle integration, but I haven’t been able to test this, with my school being Blackboard-based. The app does however seem at this point to only allow the posting of content to Moodle; I’m not sure if …
Another unique Educate feature that should be noted is its in-built link to the app’s Facebook support page where help forums and the growing number of other educators using the app can be directly accessed, again all without closing the app itself.
So is it worth its price of US$6.99 ($8.99 in Australian store)? The answer to this question may depend on how much your school could benefit from mobile access to Moodle, but for those doing the math (one function which you do still have to switch out of Educate for – think I’ll make a calculator a feature request), Educate’s price is cheaper by quite a bit than buying separate apps to get the same functionality.
On the other hand: Why I won’t purchase Educate (personal opinion of shanetechteach);
1. Lesson planning is “trapped” within the device. I can’t access it from my other devices, or share it with others. How can my students see my planning?
2. Doesn’t integrate with BlackBoard.
3. Grade and attendance data seems to be trapped within the application.
I will stick to the use of multiple and free applications until it has a process to copy data from the iPhone or iPod Touch to your laptop or desktop. Where recording of grades and attendance is completed in one program, export is required for school specific processes so that teacher work is not increased by double input. For example, my school uses IDAttend for attendance and OneSchool for reporting. Cohort grades are centrally recorded on a network spreadsheet. As a Head of Department it would not be in my interests to have each of my teacher’s grades stored separately, and only on their device.
So I personally will stick with Google calandar (synced to the iPod Touch calendar) for my lesson planning; iTalk and Evernote for images, notes and voice recording. BlackBoard will still require me to use my computer so no advantage there.
In summary, its great to see a specific education application developed for teachers, however it does not offer the services that would convince me to purchase it - yet?
By the way readers, there’s an active feature request page HERE:
Full details: Educate: iPhone & iTouch App for Teachers
Educate is an iPhone/iTouch application designed to support teaching professionals in schools, universities and colleges. Featuring inbuilt lesson planning, student tracking, teaching strategies and eLearning tools, Educate provides teachers with a holistic approach to engaging students in 21st century learning environments.
Plan lessons: Educate’s inbuilt weekly planner allows teachers to personalise their timetable and plan lessons all from a single interface.
Monitor student attendance and progress: Quickly and easily track student attendance or performance in classes via ready made scales.
Engage students at a deeper level: Access easy to follow strategies for engaging students during individual or collaborative activities.
Implement eLearning: Post real time content to Moodle learning spaces, anywhere, anytime. Also, access critical tools such as a voice recorder for anecdotal notes, a camera that allows you to label images and a stopwatch for time-critical tasks.
Collaborate with other Educate users: Connect online through Facebook with other Educate users to discuss pedagogical practice, suggest application features and seek support.
This new paper describes how Australian teachers are using the iPhone and iPod Touch to A. assist them as Educators, and B. to enhance learning. As such, it presents a vital survey of apps and ideas to be shared with other teachers also beginning to use this platform. Thanks to the included Teachers for their keen responses.
I’m now heavily down the track of preparing my workshop. The overall plan and sequence of content is set. But I don’t want to just be preaching for two hours do I? 21st century education demands collaboration and interactivity after all…
So this stage is about connecting with peers for feedback and ideas. Rather than just going in cold, I talk to other ADE’s and educators using iPod Touch’s. I post questions on twitter, and scour blogs of other practitioners for ideas. In particular, in this stage I’ve been able to network with Megan Iemma who is doing a similarly themed workshop at the Melbourne ITSC09.
Out of this I am able to begin incorporating not just content into my presentation, but interactive learning experiences (such as an app scavenger hunt, thanks Megan!) that will see all of us at the workshop learning together.
Any educators still doubting the power of mobile devices and web technologies really needs to see the following article. Not only is the around 1.5 million books that Google has scanned now available for searching and reading, but a new iPhone / iPod Touch / small-screen-optimized interface means it can now be done simply and easily from anywhere in the civilized (read cell-connected) world. Surely that must be useful for some students somewhere?
I was only discussing yesterday with my schools librarian about what he was planning to do about physical resources vs web-based (ie cheaper, less time and resource hungry) ones… TUAW.com link with more info:
Education apps for literacy in the lower primary school age bracket have been thin on the ground since the app store opened. However, a new program called PocketPhonics has just been released that looks set to appeal to just this market. I know of several teachers in my state of Queensland and across Australia who are experimenting with iPod Touch’s in the primary school arena – and this app takes a great drill and practice method to learning phonics and letter-sounds.
More than this though, it harnesses the devices visual, audio and even motion-sensing abilities to engage students. It doesn’t hurt that research has proven that such a multiple learning-styles approach (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) is one of the key ways to increase early success with phonics. This app is definately showcasing just what advantages a natural digital interface (in this case multi-touch and shaking to erase) can bring to education, while at the same time making learning phonics mobile. There is even a lite version you so you can try it out.
