I was inspired by Ann's Keynote. She challenged ideas that I didn't even realise I had created, and provoked deep thought about cultural inclusiveness. I think one of the most significant ideas that I thought about were:
From Shakespeare to Star Wars - Coding and storytelling tools
We are in an age where we can use technology to connect with the stories that we tell.
We have a rich history of storytelling - it served a purpose of lessons learned and passing down messages. Brad spoke about using tools beyond their intended purpose to transform learning for students. He talked about how the tool is a medium to show understanding. These are the apps that he spoke about -
Puppet Pals
Shadow Puppert Edu
Toontastic (pic on phone) built in music for the story climax etc.
To take this further I would love to work with Bloxels or Pixel Press floors to help support and create learning opportunities in coding for students. It was great to see some other apps and tools that support story telling.
Abdul began his talk with the challenge of the laptop trolley - some devices not working, some won’t connect, “I’ve forgot my password” and how this transformed into his school the Olive Tree. The challenge made him think outside the box - What can money buy me? - ipod touch a new tool 2008, I could buy 180 of these…. A sign from above!
He developed his teaching and overcame barriers and blocks to using them successfully. He learnt about the difference between mobility and portability - laptops vs. ipads. The most amazing thing for his learners - “It works when you switch it on!”
Abdul then went on to talk about 'The Plumbing' - how to get technology to be transformational in terms of learning and teaching. And what does the plumbing look like in my school?
Teachers posting amazing things they are doing in the classroom
Believe you can
He believes that Belief is the thing that changes behaviour. Things need to be made simple and reliable - it is hard to make something complex simple but it is worthwhile doing. He also believes that the highest cost in education is these words - "we’ve always done it that way"
We are in The Age of Change - Bill Rankin
Apps like uber, alibaba, wikipedia - they don’t sell product, they sell a service and this has changed our beliefs - we have new knowledge and new experiences. This related to how we have the responsibility to look beyond the curriculum.
IQ or DQ - teaching self regulation online and cybersmarts is important. We need to understand what this means.
Link to education - if we are going to put technology into classrooms - what is our return? What are we going to get out of this? What is the impact of technology in education?
19th Century Surgery vs. 21st century surgery - allows surgeons to do things that they couldn’t do before? Death by powerpoint is not something we should be teaching! Looking at environment - we are translating not transforming!
Fundamentals of education - what makes good teaching and learning?
Activity
Authenticity
Investment
Motivation
Technology
SAMR
Design activities that encourage students to think deeply. Cognitive demand is higher.
Sharing takes it further.
Building transparency and consistency.
Non - negotiables
Develop the people
Relationships
Rewindable learning
Arrange for feedback - app called show me or something similar
The wrong question - which is the best app for… the best app is the teacher in the classroom.
Session every week - what is one best thing you have done?
One best failure - what did you try and it did not work?
Using ibooks to be creating multimodes for students - free books from the olive tree
Measure the impact - how do you know that it has made a difference?
We need to be looking and transforming the ways we do things. "Opportunity is high - we are at a point where we need to understanding the global picture!"
Butterflies... as I stepped up onto the stage at our breakout to present my inquiry in the form of an ignite talk!
What an amazing thing to be able to do. I was so proud of everyone and the work that they had put in to their presentations. I was also proud of myself. We killed it! I think that this was one of the most rewarding things I have done as an educator and I want to thank Spark and Manaiakalani for giving me the opportunity!
I shared the success that I had with my inquiry on using blogging and google slides for Numeracy.
The main findings being extremely positive with students feeling successful in their learning and being more willing to take risks when working online. The audience seemed to understand why this was successful and questions generally were around how we worked together to create the resources rather than why.
I am sure that at a later date I will be able to record this ignite for you all... and share online. But for now, just know that it went well and results are positive!
“Engaging the globally connected student of today.”
He opened with his Mihi - what a connected and inspirational person. Throughout his presentation he shared short videos that connected to what he was saying. I thought that this was just fantastic.
His focus was: What are the students learning, where are they learning, what is our role as educators, what are they sharing? Would a student share what you are teaching?
Brad spoke about the importance of technology for our students and how social media is shaping their lives. A 21st Century teacher needs to connect with a 21st century learner.
What happens with students when they leave our building for the day?
65% of students jobs don’t exist yet - World Economic Forum
What skills can we help prepare them for?
50% of the population is under 30years of age
We are a physical goods generation - are our students?
He shared a story about one of his students, Justin “The device spoke his language”. By engaging a student with a device and building a strong relationship he was able to connect with this learner. He made a clear point that "it doesn’t matter what the app is but it is the relationship that you have with the student that makes the biggest difference".
He then spoke about an online game League of Legends - which is has birds eye view of the game. It has 23% of the world’s child players compaired to Minecraft with 2% of the world child players. Are we connecting with what is important to these students?
Brad then went on to speak about Pokemon go which changed the power of screen time by getting students up and moving around. We need to leverage technology for great outcomes. Look at students with Autism - pokemon go has made a huge difference for these learners. You tubers are the influence of today - are we connected with this? He finished his keynote with some core messages:
What unites us is stronger than what divides us.
Live out loud - don’t be afraid to share what you have been doing
The power of collaboration in a secondary setting - Karen Gray
This breakout focused on the power of working together vs. competing against each other.
It was taken by Karen Gray the DP of Haeata in Christchurch. The school has a Year 7-10 hub and year 11-13 hub with 15 teachers in the Juniors and 280 learners. They run 9 teachers on the floor at the same time and have 6 BT's in their team. These were her key messages from the session:
Karen spoke about knowing people from multiple perspectives and how this allows for modelling of dispositional learning, in particular the interactions of adults when they disagree and how they work through difficult situations. She spoke about how important it is to work together and be real with each other, creating the culture - social vs. collegial. This is the model for success that she spoke about when building a collaborative culture:
She mentioned that a lot of people get stuck in the comfort zone and this hinders their performance in the long run.
Karen also spoke about the Change of identity for teachers to teachers of people vs teacher of subjects. She said not to be afraid of the implementation dip when practise changes. That this is a part of the process. They encourage their staff to plan which model, what space etc. to be specific about what you are doing and how you will do it. Know the why first and then figure out how to get there.
Finally she spoke to us about lessons learnt from Geese! Overall this was a very interesting session - I enjoyed hearing about what Haeata is doing to build collaborative environments for their learners and how they are making these successful.
Wow! What an amazing opportunity! I walked in to the uLearn Conference not sure of what I should expect and not understanding the huge scale of this learning opportunity. I was blown away at the people, the presenters and the keynotes.
He spoke about life BC - before computers, which is an uncommon thought in this day and age! He asked about the transmission of knowledge?! Can you do this? and how do you? He said that the Transmission of information was a lecture and that this was not the way to help students understand information. So it is interesting to think about what is happening in our university halls... Are we preparing students for todays workforce by standing at the front of a room and talking about our own knowledge? Next he went on to talk about "the curse of knowledge", which is the theory that once you understand something it is hard to explain how you got to that point. Someone who has just learnt the information is more likely to convince someone else of that knowledge because they can see the knowledge from a different point of view.
Eric went on to say that we need to get the brain engaged. He had changed the way that he was teaching and was now including a learn-create-share element in his lessons. He would ask a question with the aim that 30-70% can get the right answer. Then he would instruct his students to find someone with a different answer and try to convince them of your answer. After this he would get the students to revote on the final answer - he found that more students around 90% had the correct answer after doing it this way.
Asking a question and getting students to transfer and apply the knowledge that he had been speaking about allowed his students to have a deeper understanding of the concepts he was teaching. Which makes sense. He then went on to talking about a new programme that he had developed called Perusall - which is similar to google docs. He would give students a reading and ask them to annotate notes down the side - students could leave comments for others when they were unsure or to deepen their understanding. He started to use this information and created a rubric where students would get credit for their answers and comments. Pretty cool to see this happening in a university setting!
It was also really cool to have an artist taking notes during the key notes! Here is the first one:
