Action Research

Marie and I finished our Action research project last week.  It has been interesting that we have both approached the same task from a different angle because we teach different class levels.  Marie worked more on using ICT tools for modelling, and I got my kids onto the computer write.  Sometimes I got them to plan or draw first or they just typed straight into the computer.  One student reckoned he thought better at the computer but I found no evidence of this especially as he needed teacher help and assistence to get a story structure in place, and struggled with understanding that lots of detail needed to go in to explain to his audience how his characters came to be there.   The research was interesting in that some of my kids inproved and some did not.   I think that for it to have worked more throughly, I needed to have had a longer time to work with my students.  2 terms was not enough.  I sometimes found it difficult to maintain due to various and frequent times out of the classroom. On a more positive note, I found that giving opportunities across the class to go on the computers made it slightly competitive for a chance, and when they had the opportunity tried even harder with their writing.

Action Research Writing

View more presentations from Botany Downs School.

Ulearn Key Message

ARE WE PREPARING OUR STUDENTS FOR THE FUTURE OR THE PAST

Digital Citizenship - Lee Crockett

•     Take knowledge and make it wisdom

·         Educentric problem – paradigm paralysis – specific way to do school – not preparing students for their future

·         Screen is a place to project your identity

• Images and video are powerful enough to learn

Our student's are:
• Visually literate

• Visual right brain society developing, mix colour and sound

• Learners do better in multi sensory environment

I liked this phrase:

·         Tyranny of the Urgent takes us away from things that are important

I see this often happening in my workplace.  I wonder how will National Standards make this phrase so true.
I am begining to understand how instant gratification is important to my students, and how just in time learning is important to them rather than just in case.
The test for me is to ensure that the "Tyranny of the Urgent" does not overwhelm me.
 
Social Media: Steve Wheeler
Education is about teaching students not subjects


Can we blend the formal and informal learning?

Lifelong learning against the odds

All too often we are giving students flowers rather than teaching them to grow plants

• Generating content, sharing content, organizing content 0 blog, wiki, mashup, e portfolio, tagging


• Personal learning environment – personal web tools (web 2), personal learning network – where to connect to to find out, personal learning environment (social media landscape)

• With access to social media everyone has a voice – the architecture of participation

I am not sure I understood totally about social media.  This is probably because I am still not a fully willing participant in things like Twitter and Facebook, and am not sure whether I want to be.  I do recognise that because I don't want to do something that this should not limit the opportunities for children.  Maybe by teaching students who are not of an age to be on Facebook is useful at this time.  Yesterday, I was in a workshop which included Superclubs which I think will be good rather than Facebook.

Learning to Learn - Lane Clark
I really enjoyed how Lane talked about rigor in planning and preparation and in what students are learning.

"How we educate – not what we educate."

I also liked how her students get to celebrate and share their learning. It is interesting how it is a stage of her inquiry journey for students.  More recently, I have realised that we share our learning in class, sometimes we upload it to the blog and very rarely share with the rest of the school.

I had this "aha" moment as Lane talked about being at the end of the immersion learning and then "So What."  What can we do with this information?   In her example, the students decided to make books for other children.

Usually at the end of our Hook (immersion) we say, what questions can we come up with to learn more?  No wonder students often turn off.  I have the opportunity next week to put this into practise.  I am most interested in the outcome.

Other thoughts from Lane I liked were:

• You don’t grow you brain if you don’t use part that is difficult
•  Colour the inquiry stage so they know where they are (the students have a blackline of the journey.

I have a student who avoids the difficult, and colouring the stages would help them recognise where they are in our learning journey.

Going up in the World

I have 2 new toys - a touch phone and a netbook. My phone has not come with the instruction book yet and when I tried the net for instructions, the website had a problem.  I am learning my way through trial and error, and get better as I get over my fear of too many things.  I even used the internet on it yesterday.

I came to Ulearn with my netbook and have been typing my notes on it, and using the internet.  It is so much more light weight than my laptop, and often I find it frustrating when I go to do a capital and get page up instead and end does not go to end.  Overall, it has been good for me.  It was mentioned yesterday in one of the keynotes (I think) that touch is the way and the mouse is on it's way out since the ipad was launched.  At the Microsoft stand I used a laptop where you touched the screen instead of clicking or tabing. (tabbing)???
That's me, late to going up in the world.

Global Communities

My first day at Ulearn was the preconference day on a course titled: Global Communities.
I learnt about this really cool website called iearn. http://www.iearn.org/ .  Iearn has a projects page where students can join and collaborate in global communities so that their learning is not limited to their own environment.  These projects are often action inquiry where communities are improved.  I liked this idea because most of the inquiry units that we do at school do not have that social action or link with communities around the world.
Here are some screen shots of projects that attracted me for my Year 5/6 students.

I like the idea of Beauty of the Beasts as a first project as I know how much my students like art and our native animals.  Also it means they can learn about being part of a global community online before embarking on a larger project. 

We then moved onto making a project using weebly.com.  I decided to make a homework project.

http://room22bds2010.weebly.com/ .  This project is for next year and this webpage needs work.  I ran out of time to think my way through it on the day.

This morning after listening to Lane Clark I realise I will have to rethink my changes again.  Watch this space!!

Action Research - Writing

I am finding this hard to do.  When I set a task students who do not have access to the computer can get envious though I say we have to share but it is tricky with 4 computers and 27 children.  I do notice the children I have targeted for the research do work better on the compter, even if just typing their writing straight into word.   Two of the students have long term habits of little writing, and task avoidence.  Suggestions for improvements can be a struggle.  I think longer term, using a computer all the time would help these students.

Integrated Learning: Pop Up Books

Today I showed by students a new programme using pop ups to create books.  They are excited about the programme at zooburst.com.  I am using it for my students to recreate Maori myths as part of our Hook activities for our Inquiry unit.  They are also learning the skill of drawing a character or part of the setting in paint and saving it as a jpg to use in the programme.  I only taught myself the rudimentary skills of the programme and demonstrated that with the data projector.  The kids will sort the programme quicker than I.  I did notice after their help with goanimate, that there are similarities between the programs.  This is good for my confidence.  Zooburt comes with embed codes so we will be able to embed on the class blog. Watch this space!!!!

ICT Lead Teacher Day

I had a good day today.  We had a fun time making a little presentation about the difference between inquiry learning and teaching as inquiry (action research).  We decided to make Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory teach Penny.  All three of us learnt how to convert Utube videos to avi when downloading, and tonight I have added a downloader to Firefox as an addon.  Sometimes it is very scarey thinking about how much I don't know as I am not an always on my computer type of person.  We are approaching the end of the cluster time and I do know that I am much more confident, probably know more than I think I know and I will miss the ongoing PD.
Being a lead teacher has made me grow in my ability to stand up infront of people and think more quickly, to give my student's more ownership of activities by being more relaxed, and has made me more proactive in trying new things.