Going back to University Scholastic were there to share some of the top trends in books at the moment and to remind us of the importance of the teacher reading to the class.
To begin with we were told how children who are read to each day are one whole year ahead of those who aren't regardless of socio-economic class or anything else.
Some good read-a-loud titles we were shown were the My New Zealand Story series
Emily Rodda's new series of The Golden Door, The Silver Door and one other Door.
Sally Sutton's Diary of a _____ there is a whole series with bat, pukeko and sea lion being three of them.
Picture books-On the road to Tuapeka
-Mind Your Gramma (good one for tense)
-Far Far From Home
We then looked at the top trends around books and some titles within those themes.
1. Bullying
-Three Cheers for No Ears
-Scrap, tale of a blonde puppy (This is a new series from Vince Ford with Scrap being on all of them)
-Diary of a sea lion
-Great Galloping Galoot
-Payback
-Ransomwood (intermediate plus)
-The Great Orlando
-Iris's Ukulele
2. Sci-Fi
-The 4 Powers
-Vitality Code
-Extinction
-Itch (series)
3. Non-Fiction
-Bear Grylls (intermediate plus)
-One Little Fantail
-Eruption
-Angry Birds (National Geographic)
4. Novels-in-Cartoons
-Diary of a Whimpy Kid
-Chickenhare
-Captain Underpants
-Dinosaur Rescue
5. Kid Lit on Screen
She touched on how there is a growing demand for kindles etc but that people still enjoyed the choice between and book and a screen.
6. War
-Here come the Marines (My NZ Story)
-When Empire Calls (Year 6 plus)
-A medal for Leroy
-My Brother's War
-Caesar the war dog
-Lest we Forget
-The Red Poppy
-Nice Day for a War
7. Touch Girls (resilient)
-EJ12 (9+)
-Gold (My NZ Story)
-Wolf Princess
-Torn
8. Survival
-Saving Zasha
-On two feet and wings
-The Wahine Disaster (My NZ Story)
-Castaway (My NZ Story)
-A Winter's Day in 1939
9. Diversity
-Old Huhu
-Melu
-Blue Gnu
-Great Galloping Galoot
-Seesaw Po
-Colour the Stars (Describing colour to a blind boy-good for teaching description)
10. Nature runs Amok
-My NZ Story - Earthquake
-Tangiwai
-Cyclone Bola
To end with we got a sneak peak at some new titles coming out in June
Luther and the Cloud Makers (conservation theme)
The Freedom Merchants
The Three Bears Sort Of - great humor two person narrative
Friday, 12 April 2013
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
ICT Connected Cluster
The latest connected session at Southwell was another useful afternoon seeing where we are placed with our ICT journey and what new ideas are out there to experiment with.
Marcelle, Asri and I presented about gathering student voice using tools such as fotobable, audioboo and voicethread.
At the end of our session a teacher talked about a tool called photosnack that she uses to create slideshows of her photos. This could be another app to display a series of photographs when you have a collection.
Our class and individual blogs became a talking point following our discussion on voice tools. There were a few teachers who were struggling to get things up on their blogs or hadn't started one and once again this re-enforced our reasons for having blogs.
-Sharing our learning with our family and friends
-Reflecting on our learning
Plus it is always nice to reflect on how far we have come on this journey so far.
The second session I went to was on Apple TV.
To me it sounded very similar to our interactive teaching stations with the mobi being replaced by an i-pad. I guess the difference being though that you can push the TO SHOW button in the corner of the i-pad and bring it up on the big screen TV. At any time you can swap between the i-pads that you bring up and also that you can record sound through them. One advantage being for those that are shy to report back to the whole class you could pre-record their ideas on the i-pad and share it back through on the TV.
Another good way to use the ability to swap between i-pads is if you set a maths group a problem you could have them working in pairs on i-pads and if a group gets stuck you can flick it up onto the TV and get everyone to help them solve it. How can the class help from here?
One great management strategy the teacher used was that she took a screen shot of the i-pad app and put that on the task board for the group(s) that were using the i-pad(s) for that reading/writing/maths/spelling session. This meant that when they were independently working they knew exactly what they were looking for.
I could then link this in with the class experts wall where you could have experts names next to the app screen shot so that if people get stuck on a particular app they can ask the expert for help.
Since I am now trying to give my kids choice in their rotations I could put up three or so app photos and they can choose the one they think best suits the need of the task.
The rest of the session was spent looking at apps that they used in their class. One good looking spelling one was Spelling Test. With this app kids could make their own spelling tests on the i-pad, record their voice so say the word and put it in a sentence and then they have to spell it. Then you can go back and view the test scores which was always good for assessment purposes.
Could be a good way to motivate students to practice their spelling words....
Reading Comprehension Grade 2-3 also looked like a good app for reading obviously testing their comprehension. Giving them a text to read and then asking a range of questions to do with that text.
Sock Puppets is one that I have seen on our i-pads at school but it was interesting to see another way this teacher used the tool. She got the kids to share what they had learnt. Eg: (Sock Puppet 1) What did you learn today? (Sock Puppet 2) Today I was learning.... I am still to find out if you can embed the sock puppet show to a blog. It would be nice to capture what a child was learning to do or give an example of how they achieved their learning intention and put it up on their blog to share and have that sample to go back to.
The teachers presenting with Apple TV also talked about Notability a lot as this allowed them to record voices instead of always having to write and this seemed like another good app particularly if you are using the i-pads like our mobi, and were able to talk to your writing of how you were solving a maths problem like kids might with voicethread. Or kids could read a passage and record their answer to the question verbally rather than written.
There are a lot of apps out there and I have found that we are using a lot of Web 2 tools effectively. Now introducing i-pads and pods and the Apple products I am finding a lot of the apps are similar and have a similar function to others we are already familiar with. So I guess as I am being exposed to more apps I need to keep asking myself;
-What is the purpose of this app?
-How can the kids use it not just for substitution but for transformation?
Marcelle, Asri and I presented about gathering student voice using tools such as fotobable, audioboo and voicethread.
At the end of our session a teacher talked about a tool called photosnack that she uses to create slideshows of her photos. This could be another app to display a series of photographs when you have a collection.
Our class and individual blogs became a talking point following our discussion on voice tools. There were a few teachers who were struggling to get things up on their blogs or hadn't started one and once again this re-enforced our reasons for having blogs.
-Sharing our learning with our family and friends
-Reflecting on our learning
Plus it is always nice to reflect on how far we have come on this journey so far.
The second session I went to was on Apple TV.
To me it sounded very similar to our interactive teaching stations with the mobi being replaced by an i-pad. I guess the difference being though that you can push the TO SHOW button in the corner of the i-pad and bring it up on the big screen TV. At any time you can swap between the i-pads that you bring up and also that you can record sound through them. One advantage being for those that are shy to report back to the whole class you could pre-record their ideas on the i-pad and share it back through on the TV.
Another good way to use the ability to swap between i-pads is if you set a maths group a problem you could have them working in pairs on i-pads and if a group gets stuck you can flick it up onto the TV and get everyone to help them solve it. How can the class help from here?
One great management strategy the teacher used was that she took a screen shot of the i-pad app and put that on the task board for the group(s) that were using the i-pad(s) for that reading/writing/maths/spelling session. This meant that when they were independently working they knew exactly what they were looking for.
I could then link this in with the class experts wall where you could have experts names next to the app screen shot so that if people get stuck on a particular app they can ask the expert for help.
Since I am now trying to give my kids choice in their rotations I could put up three or so app photos and they can choose the one they think best suits the need of the task.
The rest of the session was spent looking at apps that they used in their class. One good looking spelling one was Spelling Test. With this app kids could make their own spelling tests on the i-pad, record their voice so say the word and put it in a sentence and then they have to spell it. Then you can go back and view the test scores which was always good for assessment purposes.
Could be a good way to motivate students to practice their spelling words....
Reading Comprehension Grade 2-3 also looked like a good app for reading obviously testing their comprehension. Giving them a text to read and then asking a range of questions to do with that text.
Sock Puppets is one that I have seen on our i-pads at school but it was interesting to see another way this teacher used the tool. She got the kids to share what they had learnt. Eg: (Sock Puppet 1) What did you learn today? (Sock Puppet 2) Today I was learning.... I am still to find out if you can embed the sock puppet show to a blog. It would be nice to capture what a child was learning to do or give an example of how they achieved their learning intention and put it up on their blog to share and have that sample to go back to.
The teachers presenting with Apple TV also talked about Notability a lot as this allowed them to record voices instead of always having to write and this seemed like another good app particularly if you are using the i-pads like our mobi, and were able to talk to your writing of how you were solving a maths problem like kids might with voicethread. Or kids could read a passage and record their answer to the question verbally rather than written.
There are a lot of apps out there and I have found that we are using a lot of Web 2 tools effectively. Now introducing i-pads and pods and the Apple products I am finding a lot of the apps are similar and have a similar function to others we are already familiar with. So I guess as I am being exposed to more apps I need to keep asking myself;
-What is the purpose of this app?
-How can the kids use it not just for substitution but for transformation?
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Creativity-How far a kids creativity can take him
Wow!
What a powerful story of how creative a child's mind can be with play.
This arcade is so cool, he has thought of everything! I love the problem solving of the claw for the toy game, the fun pass codes with the calculators and how the tickets come out the bottom.
New Zealanders are known for their creativity and thinking outside of the box when finding innovative solutions and new ideas. But will this continue if we place emphasis on what we deem important to be successful? We have heard time and time again that to be successful children need to keep hold of their natural creativity, embrace it and extend it to see where it can take them.
Going to ICOT at the beginning of the year one thing I got from it was to give kids time for passion projects.
I thought what about a Number 8 wire afternoon a week? NZers are known for our Number 8 wire thinking and these two videos has re-ignited my spark for this idea. Perhaps the first challenge I set for my class is what they can invent from a cardboard box something that is useable just as Caine's Arcade is.
What a powerful story of how creative a child's mind can be with play.
This arcade is so cool, he has thought of everything! I love the problem solving of the claw for the toy game, the fun pass codes with the calculators and how the tickets come out the bottom.
New Zealanders are known for their creativity and thinking outside of the box when finding innovative solutions and new ideas. But will this continue if we place emphasis on what we deem important to be successful? We have heard time and time again that to be successful children need to keep hold of their natural creativity, embrace it and extend it to see where it can take them.
Going to ICOT at the beginning of the year one thing I got from it was to give kids time for passion projects.
I thought what about a Number 8 wire afternoon a week? NZers are known for our Number 8 wire thinking and these two videos has re-ignited my spark for this idea. Perhaps the first challenge I set for my class is what they can invent from a cardboard box something that is useable just as Caine's Arcade is.
Creativity- how it is dimmed with the pressure of time
I love this idea and would like to try it with my class to see what they come up with.
Ewan McIntosh- The Problem Finders ICOT 2013
At the beginning Ewan challenged our thinking around;
Who is successful?
How do we measure success?
Which raises the question do we have to get hung up measuring success (meeting the standard) and is it taking away from the creativity? Are we breathing down the necks of our students to make sure they fit our mould of what we would consider achieved forgetting to give our kids the chance to play and find the answer out for themselves through exploration? I think we need to stop sometimes and slow things down. Through inquiry the big idea means so much more to kids than being spoon feed. MAYBE WE NEED TO LET THE KIDS DISCOVER IT! THEN JUSTIFY IT.
The essence of creativity is that people who are successful know what makes their ideas great!
They know 'The Why' why they are doing what they are doing.
They provoke
and They have a process.
The motivation is then there because they know why they want to learn it.
Often we consider the children achieving at or above where they should be as successful. But those that find reading or writing or maths difficult can be successful performers. Perhaps once I have found each child's success I need to use this to help to help make the other areas successful. Eg: Having had a child who picks up songs lyrics at the drop of the hat it has worked well for me in the past to teach that child to their times tables through song. How could I help the ones that are great at technology to read better? Or the mathematicians to add more detail to their writing? Could I liken it to in maths we need to stretch the problem out to show our working. Writing is the same where we stretch out the description so that the reader sees the same image as we do?
He picked up on Guy Claxton's six pillars.
Challenge
Collaboration
Responsiblity
Respect
Motivation (real things)
Choice
Children want challenge-they don't buy a video game that they are going to clock in two hours. But sometimes this can be a balancing act for those with low resilience I find sometimes they do need a task they know they can succeed in balanced with a task that is going to push their understanding further.
Collaborate-Ewan said you won't find any lone genius in creativity who is successful because everyone works in a team. But he touched on an interesting point. Sometimes working as a team means all working together but sometimes it can also mean working interdependently passing it onto someone else in your team once your portion is finished.
Responsiblity-Kids want to be responsible for their learning.
Respect-Let them go down tangents don't shut down their ideas too early on, let them inquire and explore because it is often the ideas that are off track that the kids will learn the most from.
Real things-motivation if it is not experiential how do we learn from it? It has to be relevant.
Choice-When do I give my kids choice? How could I give them more? In maths I do have like a daily 5 board where they have to do maths with a buddy, maths by themselves, maths writing etc and they can choose which ones they do when so long as they do a range of tasks over the week.
Could I give them more choice in reading for example by getting them to come up with their own follow up? How would you like to show what you learnt from that book? This would then open up the opportunity for them to showcase their creativity.
When the world Zigs, Zag. Ewan showed us the Levi advertisement for the introduction of black jeans so out of the realm it doesn't even show a picture of jeans but got people talking and was extremely creative. The words 'When the world zigs, zag,' has become the companies slogan now, which means the story of how the company became a success is told. Ewan said imagine a kids project defining your schools image or logo like the Levi campaign How could I get the kids to showcase their learning? Is there an app that the kids could use as like an advertisement for the children's learning? What would they advertise? Would it look like an overall showcase of the terms learning? Would it be a showcase of the process of learning something tricky? Would it be an advertisement of...
He talked about not letting technology become a means of substitution rather than transformation. Eg: Using the i-pad to take notes instead of using pen and paper is no different. But to set those notes up as a google docs means that people are bouncing ideas off one another and getting more from the notes that are taking transforming the notes. This is something I need to be wery of with the more technology I have in my classroom. Asking myself what is the purpose of this app? What is it actually teaching the kids? How is it benefiting them?
He talked about Googleable vs Non-googable. Moving the title of the topic away from an essential question to more of a statement to hook them in and get them to have an opinion and justify it. Eg: When does music become noise? When does noise become music? Became 'Music is just noise.' Make the subject line tantalising for the kids, for them to take it where they want it to go. Use the googleable questions to go and find it out but then spend the rich learning time to find the non-googleable answers. The people that will succeed in the world the way it is heading is that they are not just problem solvers they are problem finders who can see the gap that no one else can. He spoke about using master classes more where a kid asks to learn something and you find out who else wants to learn that so that learning becomes just in time rather than so much of the learning being just in case. This googleable/non-googable questions has been difficult to implement at the beginning of the year. It has also highlighted the valued googleable questions have in helping us further our understanding as the kids in their interdependence inquiry into why there are more birds in our backyards was very broad and they had to answer the googleable questions to be able to have a better understanding of the non-googleable.
He introduced the idea of a wonderbox where kids can explore a new topic and take an object out of the box and after a week of research they are able to share what they know about that object.
The wonderbox is something I have used to help introduce the idea of Interdependence. It was a great way to get the kids thinking about what we were going to be studying this term without giving them the answer. I pulled out an object one at a time and they had to link the ideas together to think about what it was we were studying. Interdependence is a big word and I cut it up into In ter depen dence. I pulled these chunks out in the wrong order and the kids looked at it. They went well there is the word dependence and inter it could be interdependence. So although they had no idea what interdependence actually meant they were able to piece it together to make the word using their prior knowledge of other words.
I loved his idea of creating TED talks giving the kids a place to share their ideas and speak to an audience in a comfortable setting. They were able to 'perform their learning.' Because kids live to perform. He Tweeted his students TED talks to provide the wide audience and the kids even set up a TED sign. They were challenged with their idea for a topic. Ideas went from 'My mum is the best,' to 'Why do we never tell those the closest to us that we love them enough.' Another idea was 'Do animals have a secret language?' The first idea of my mum is the best well most people are going to say that about their own parents at 7 years old and where is the so what, who cares element to that title (again I guess it is that concept of selling/advertising your learning with a catchy phrase or title to make others want to find out more about what you learnt). I loved this idea and would like to try it out around speeches time. Raising the question 'how can we inspire those always remember moments in our kids?'
He talked about how we often use ping pong questioning. Instead use Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce technique. Pose a question then pause ten seconds then let someone pounce. What do you think of this answer? Then bounce it onto another child what do you think about these two responses? Put ideas down on post it notes challenge kids to come up with 100 ideas in 10 minutes. Record a lot of the inquiry, exploration, investigation side of the project in photos on i-pads.
Another great idea around emotions was to use photographs to get kids to start talking about how they feel about their learning. Emotive photographs that have nothing to do with learning but represent hiding or being pulled in all directions or a long road ahead or joy. Often kids can see then that others are feeling scared or nervous or challenge showing they are not alone and suddenly giving them the pick me up they needed to carry on.
A very inspiring speaker with lots of new ideas to try and food for thought.
Who is successful?
How do we measure success?
Which raises the question do we have to get hung up measuring success (meeting the standard) and is it taking away from the creativity? Are we breathing down the necks of our students to make sure they fit our mould of what we would consider achieved forgetting to give our kids the chance to play and find the answer out for themselves through exploration? I think we need to stop sometimes and slow things down. Through inquiry the big idea means so much more to kids than being spoon feed. MAYBE WE NEED TO LET THE KIDS DISCOVER IT! THEN JUSTIFY IT.
The essence of creativity is that people who are successful know what makes their ideas great!
They know 'The Why' why they are doing what they are doing.
They provoke
and They have a process.
The motivation is then there because they know why they want to learn it.
Often we consider the children achieving at or above where they should be as successful. But those that find reading or writing or maths difficult can be successful performers. Perhaps once I have found each child's success I need to use this to help to help make the other areas successful. Eg: Having had a child who picks up songs lyrics at the drop of the hat it has worked well for me in the past to teach that child to their times tables through song. How could I help the ones that are great at technology to read better? Or the mathematicians to add more detail to their writing? Could I liken it to in maths we need to stretch the problem out to show our working. Writing is the same where we stretch out the description so that the reader sees the same image as we do?
He picked up on Guy Claxton's six pillars.
Challenge
Collaboration
Responsiblity
Respect
Motivation (real things)
Choice
Children want challenge-they don't buy a video game that they are going to clock in two hours. But sometimes this can be a balancing act for those with low resilience I find sometimes they do need a task they know they can succeed in balanced with a task that is going to push their understanding further.
Collaborate-Ewan said you won't find any lone genius in creativity who is successful because everyone works in a team. But he touched on an interesting point. Sometimes working as a team means all working together but sometimes it can also mean working interdependently passing it onto someone else in your team once your portion is finished.
Responsiblity-Kids want to be responsible for their learning.
Respect-Let them go down tangents don't shut down their ideas too early on, let them inquire and explore because it is often the ideas that are off track that the kids will learn the most from.
Real things-motivation if it is not experiential how do we learn from it? It has to be relevant.
Choice-When do I give my kids choice? How could I give them more? In maths I do have like a daily 5 board where they have to do maths with a buddy, maths by themselves, maths writing etc and they can choose which ones they do when so long as they do a range of tasks over the week.
Could I give them more choice in reading for example by getting them to come up with their own follow up? How would you like to show what you learnt from that book? This would then open up the opportunity for them to showcase their creativity.
When the world Zigs, Zag. Ewan showed us the Levi advertisement for the introduction of black jeans so out of the realm it doesn't even show a picture of jeans but got people talking and was extremely creative. The words 'When the world zigs, zag,' has become the companies slogan now, which means the story of how the company became a success is told. Ewan said imagine a kids project defining your schools image or logo like the Levi campaign How could I get the kids to showcase their learning? Is there an app that the kids could use as like an advertisement for the children's learning? What would they advertise? Would it look like an overall showcase of the terms learning? Would it be a showcase of the process of learning something tricky? Would it be an advertisement of...
He talked about not letting technology become a means of substitution rather than transformation. Eg: Using the i-pad to take notes instead of using pen and paper is no different. But to set those notes up as a google docs means that people are bouncing ideas off one another and getting more from the notes that are taking transforming the notes. This is something I need to be wery of with the more technology I have in my classroom. Asking myself what is the purpose of this app? What is it actually teaching the kids? How is it benefiting them?
He talked about Googleable vs Non-googable. Moving the title of the topic away from an essential question to more of a statement to hook them in and get them to have an opinion and justify it. Eg: When does music become noise? When does noise become music? Became 'Music is just noise.' Make the subject line tantalising for the kids, for them to take it where they want it to go. Use the googleable questions to go and find it out but then spend the rich learning time to find the non-googleable answers. The people that will succeed in the world the way it is heading is that they are not just problem solvers they are problem finders who can see the gap that no one else can. He spoke about using master classes more where a kid asks to learn something and you find out who else wants to learn that so that learning becomes just in time rather than so much of the learning being just in case. This googleable/non-googable questions has been difficult to implement at the beginning of the year. It has also highlighted the valued googleable questions have in helping us further our understanding as the kids in their interdependence inquiry into why there are more birds in our backyards was very broad and they had to answer the googleable questions to be able to have a better understanding of the non-googleable.
He introduced the idea of a wonderbox where kids can explore a new topic and take an object out of the box and after a week of research they are able to share what they know about that object.
The wonderbox is something I have used to help introduce the idea of Interdependence. It was a great way to get the kids thinking about what we were going to be studying this term without giving them the answer. I pulled out an object one at a time and they had to link the ideas together to think about what it was we were studying. Interdependence is a big word and I cut it up into In ter depen dence. I pulled these chunks out in the wrong order and the kids looked at it. They went well there is the word dependence and inter it could be interdependence. So although they had no idea what interdependence actually meant they were able to piece it together to make the word using their prior knowledge of other words.
I loved his idea of creating TED talks giving the kids a place to share their ideas and speak to an audience in a comfortable setting. They were able to 'perform their learning.' Because kids live to perform. He Tweeted his students TED talks to provide the wide audience and the kids even set up a TED sign. They were challenged with their idea for a topic. Ideas went from 'My mum is the best,' to 'Why do we never tell those the closest to us that we love them enough.' Another idea was 'Do animals have a secret language?' The first idea of my mum is the best well most people are going to say that about their own parents at 7 years old and where is the so what, who cares element to that title (again I guess it is that concept of selling/advertising your learning with a catchy phrase or title to make others want to find out more about what you learnt). I loved this idea and would like to try it out around speeches time. Raising the question 'how can we inspire those always remember moments in our kids?'
He talked about how we often use ping pong questioning. Instead use Pose, Pause, Pounce, Bounce technique. Pose a question then pause ten seconds then let someone pounce. What do you think of this answer? Then bounce it onto another child what do you think about these two responses? Put ideas down on post it notes challenge kids to come up with 100 ideas in 10 minutes. Record a lot of the inquiry, exploration, investigation side of the project in photos on i-pads.
Another great idea around emotions was to use photographs to get kids to start talking about how they feel about their learning. Emotive photographs that have nothing to do with learning but represent hiding or being pulled in all directions or a long road ahead or joy. Often kids can see then that others are feeling scared or nervous or challenge showing they are not alone and suddenly giving them the pick me up they needed to carry on.
A very inspiring speaker with lots of new ideas to try and food for thought.
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