Compilation of Notes from SHS’s Professional Development ... · • - Poster yourself: text, images, music, video - You can digitally and visually represent understanding, rather

Compilation of Notes from SHS’s Professional Development Days with Alan November

Thoughts From Marco Zimbalatti: Though the two days talking technology with Alan November and others has passed, the excitement and stimulation is still very present. One of the goals of this event was to promote the embracing (beyond "buying in") of technology by teachers, and from my perspective, many teachers are as keen as they have ever been about technology. The sessions given by our teachers, and teachers from other schools, were top-notch and extremely well-received. Teacher capacity with technology is certainly growing. Perhaps I am taking a liberty in saying this, but Alan November, though obviously a tech promoter, focuses on the larger ideas that should govern learning, and by extension, our use of technology. These ideas are: -find, and then use, information critically -global connections (communication) -empathy - the ability to see the perspectives of others -students own the learning Ideas like these should form the vision behind what technology decisions we make in the school and in our classrooms.

Notes from Suzanne Lagacey: Alan November’s response to challenges:

Q: How do you make sure you cover content while adding another layer to the equation?

A: Real revolution is the WEB, NOT Laptops! Laptops will be thrown out, not the WEB. It is available 24/7. IMMEDIATELY: Every teacher should create the conditions where notes are taken every day, in every class…creating a perfect file of perfect notes, taken by students. (1 student being asked to be note-taker, or create a tutorial) Currently, you do NOT have the content, as likely there is no record of your content. Kids are motivated to create tools to teach other students the content.

6 JOBS: Each school should design 1. Custom designed search engine 2. Design a Portal 3. Tutorial designer 4. Global communicator 5. Curriculum researcher 6. Solving real problems

Q: What is the path to cultural change?

A: 1. Get top leadership involved. Heads should have teachers write notes during, or add content to, faculty meeting notes or agendas similar to what the students did at the keynote 2. Who currently owns the learning? Currently teachers own the learning, especially Secondary Teachers, but when does your knowledge get in the way of authentic learning? Who should own the learning? This has nothing to do with technology. If you buy into that piece…in an ideal world, all teachers have all 6 jobs going all of the time! We should teach teachers pedagogy, not technology!

Q: SHS Question: Balance for a K-8 school, like ours, between technological demands, time, homework challenge: Perspective on balance of class time to homework, how do we teach technology, allow students to use it at home, but not overwhelm them with too much time on work @ home using computers.

A: Steps: 1. Ask all teachers: “What are your core values?” 2. What tools do you need to reflect the core values?

Example: Core Value: Empathy Project: Grandmother Project: Using the web to correspond with grandmothers, teaching children to listen Use the tool that is developmentally appropriate to help teach or reinforce your core value.

Q: What are the best ways to facilitate teacher development of technology?

A: Modeling by leadership: I.e., Every faculty meeting uses

GoogleDocs to take & post notes for example…fastest way to get teachers engaged is to ask teachers, “What do you love to teach and why?” What is exciting to YOU? Then, make the technology enhance that teaching and the teacher will get excited. For example, if the teacher loves “hatching eggs” for example, set up the webcam to film the ducks hatching and developing 24/7 and post it to the web etc. Also ask: Where do kids struggle? Or, “What are the most challenging things to teach?” “A Head or Principal in a school makes or breaks systemic innovation in the school.” –Alan November Q: What about time restraints? What is the best way to make this happen? A: Have full time faculty available for these opportunities, at least one full time faculty whose timetable is open for this.

Final Address by Alan November @ SHS

- The research is clear - very few teachers ASK for help. - Sites & networks online help break down these boundaries

-http://isenet.ning.com/ which is the Facebook of this Independent School Community.) This is the way teachers can ask for help in an online community, on any topic etc.

- http://www.studentnewsaction.net/ also an excellent resource or example of an international collaboration for students around the world via a NING. These sites can link students & teachers from around the world for exchanges, questions, links, twitters etc.

- November Learning NING, Alan November’s online learning community http://nlconnect.novemberlearning.com/ [email protected]

Notes taken by students at Alan November’s keynote address, UCC, January 4, 2010: Stories:

• In the United States, the majority of graduates return home to live with their parents

• Jobs are going to people with access to the internet in low-wage countries • Thomas Friedman --> "The World Is Flat, 3.0"

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat-3 • When new media is invented, there is a fear of what will be lost • The ability to share information more easily opens up gateway for discussion, and

a more in depth and thoughtful face-to-face conversation • Technology can help educators see how their students are thinking during and

after a course • A student in New York shared her project online and has since received 900

views, her assessment is continuous and there is for motivation for her • Westpoint changed their mission from "To win war" to "Win the peace" • Using a variety of reliable web pages from all over the world enables us to get a

well-rounded perspective on world events and not just a western perspective • Children in LA learned better and were more motivated by students teaching

students • Children who demonstrate how to solve a problem with the assistance of

technology also learn how to communicate effectively • If children are already interested in technology, they will be more motivated to do

their work • A child in kindergarten who had just moved to the United States was able to

Skype with her grandmother in India; the children created a grandmother network. One of the grandmothers read a book to the class, which the teacher recorded. The teacher then used that recording as a resource for her other kindergarten classes.

Technical Notes (Websites Visited):

• YouTube – YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload and share videos.

• TED: Ideas worth spreading – TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a U.S. private non-profit foundation best known for its conferences, now held in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S., devoted to what it calls “ideas worth spreading.”

• SixthSense Technology – 'SixthSense' is a wearable, gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information. [YouTube Link]

• Ning – Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. • Technorati – Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. • Mathtrain.TV – Mathtrain.TV is a free educational "kids teaching kids" project

from Mr. Marcos & his students at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, CA. • Camtasia Studio – Camtasia Studio is a screen video capture program, published

by TechSmith. • Jing – Jing is a screen-casting software launched in 2007 as Jing Project by the

TechSmith Corporation. • TinyURL – TinyURL is a web service that provides short aliases for redirection

of long URLs.

Ideas For The Classroom

• People can work anywhere in the world at home, in school, and on vacation. • What types of assignments are useful for our modern day classrooms? • Using interactive tutorials to help learn how to use programs is useful for some

types of learners. • It’s important to know how to use a program like Photoshop before you introduce

it to the classroom, because it’s difficult to teach it to many students at the same time.

• A place where students can reflect on videos and questions or anything 24/7 and are able to put in their own ideas and opinions.

• Through technology you can assess your students during the process and not just the final result to help them find their own mistakes.

• And therefore able to assess students on their thinking. • Technology results in interdisciplinary thinking. • In Google, using “site:country code”, and then looking up a topic, you will get

that country’s view on the topic. To be knowledgeable, you have to look at all the opinions of a topic. While debating in English, I had to look at both sides of the argument to have a good understanding, and I was able to relate with the people I was debating with. This helped me get my message across because I had an open outlook.

• Empathy is one of the most important things to teach.

• Tutorials make a class contribution and help review the concept for the student making the tutorial.

• We need people who have good communication skills, and those skills are learned through speaking.

• Being able to have the time and the resources to write a paper or an assignment is important or it becomes stressful and difficult.

• Technology enables the usage of other media E.g., Music and Art as opposed to written assignments that just use words.

• Teaching children how to deal with things beyond their maturity becomes an important and a touchy subject, but introducing them to it early with an adult teaching them helps them understand it.

• Twitter!!!:)

I. What did you learn from yesterday that you will integrate into your own practice? How do you plan to do it? 2. What did you learn that our schools should be considering and acting upon? 3. What are the opportunities for the future for transforming teaching and learning? 4. Alan's feedback:

Kids should take ownership of developing a code of ethics. Websites compiled by Scott Davis from presentations during our Alan November Professional Development Days:

• Tiny URL - create a shorter link • Jing | Add visuals to your online conversations • yolink - Download yolink Browser Add-on • Welcome to Wikispaces - Free Wikis for Everyone • VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos • Diigo - Web Highlighter and Sticky Notes, Online Bookmarking and Annotation,

Personal Learning Network • AutoStitch • Twitter • Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder • YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. • www.glogster.com - Poster yourself: text, images, music, video

- You can digitally and visually represent understanding, rather than writing something out (i.e., blog)

• www.wolframalpha.com - Like Google, but only returns numerical results (e.g., if I put in Canada's

GDP, the results returned to me will all be numbers (what Canada's GDP is numerically))

• www.ning.com: Ning lets you join and create new social networks for your interests and passions

• www.networksolutions.com: if you do a “whois” lookup when you go to networksolutions.com, you can see who owns a web site.

• www.archive.org- lets you use the "wayback machine" so you can see a snapshot in time of a web site, including sites that currently come up as "site not found"

• If you go to any search engine and type in “link:name of web site”, the search results will be all the sites that link to the site you entered

Notes on meeting with Alan November – January 4, 2010, UCC, Toronto, by Brenda Halliday, UCC Teacher-Librarian Advice on Planning - General Don’t focus on technology. Focus should be on 1. information 2. global communication Question: who should own the learning? -every teacher should organize students to make a contribution to the class -everybody can be involved, e.g. in note taking, or in preparing tutorials for others -first, we need to get assessment right, measure the right things -need to design assessments first because otherwise teachers will worry about test results -teachers need the right tools in their toolbox before schools launch one-to-one laptop initiatives -first, school has to move whole curriculum to the web 24/7 -need vision. We have underestimated what kids can do. -teachers need to understand how all kids can contribute -too much technology is aimed at improving teaching not improving learning -we need to globalize the curriculum to foster empathy

-what used to be homework is going to be schoolwork and what used to be schoolwork is going to be homework -November asserts that lots of schools are technology rich and information poor, that they don’t have the information they need -in planning, use Wayne Gretzky’s theory of hockey: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Look where the puck is going to be. -recommended Clayton Christensen’s book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns -model of change http://disruptingclass.mhprofessional.com/apps/ab/about-the-book/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaXmAmj1nb8 Advice on Planning – School Space -November recommends soundproof glass walls so people can see energy and activity going on in the school, but aren’t distracted by sound -advisable to have flexible space with walls that can be moved -plan for online learning -will need an online learning centre -goal for every student to take at least one course online -will need to provide them with assistance in learning online -will need more intimate spaces for small group work -will need much larger spaces for presentations to parents -what we don’t need is a repetition of the cookie-cutter classrooms of same size that we currently have -mentioned that one school tried individual cubicles for students (mimicking workplace environment); didn’t work as students were too young and lacked maturity to focus) -November was very impressed by our UCC Student Centre with its large presentation space, student art and things to look up at that stimulate the senses

-mentioned school in Coquitlam, BC that has cafeteria, library and Head of School’s office in close proximity and lots of round tables to facilitate group work Advice on Planning - Library/Media Centre/Commons Alan November article “Space, the Final Frontier: Media Centers for the 21st Century” School Library Journal 5/1/2007 http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6438269.html Libraries need: 1. global connection space

-librarian acts as global communication facilitator, connecting students with experts around the world 2. design studio so students can create (e.g. tutorials for other students)

-November sees librarian as someone who knows ‘how to publish’ – to move content to the web

3. online learning centre -students should be able to take courses all over the world -school needs expert who can facilitate connection with online

courses -school needs someone who understands learning – not necessarily the subject, but someone who applies rigour to online learning

-November also recommended that every teacher be asked to take at least one online course. He commented that his own organization will not hire anyone who isn’t prepared to take online courses and to take responsibility for ongoing learning.

Online forums for educators: Independent School Educators Network http://isenet.ning.com -a social-educational network for independent school teachers, students, administrators, and parents to explore blogging, discussions, list-servs, profile pages, social bookmarking, twitter, wikis, podcasts, videos, and more Independent Schools Association of BC http://isabc2009.ning.com/ -see notes on Summer Institute with Alan November http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcf547dq_8db7zmk87 -for information on creating a ning See: www.ning.com Ning is the social platform for the world’s interests and passions online. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Ning offers an easy-to-use service that allows people to join and create Ning Networks. -more than 1.9 million Ning Networks created and 40 million registered users -November offered hints for finding out how to do something: -in Google, add ‘in plain english’ to what you want to know e.g. ‘twitter in plain english’ -can also type in ‘tutorial:’ followed by what you need to know, e.g. ‘tutorial: twitter’ Examples of online learning: Apex Learning http://www.apexlearning.com/ -leading provider of digital curriculum for secondary education

Stanford University’s Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) http://epgy.stanford.edu/ -a continuing project dedicated to developing and offering multimedia computer-based distance-learning courses. Combining technical and instructional expertise, EPGY provides high-ability students of all ages with an individualized educational experience, optimized in both pace and content. Through EPGY, students have access to courses in a

variety of subjects at levels ranging from kindergarten through advanced-undergraduate. Since its inception over 50,000 students from 35 countries have taken courses from EPGY -according to November, research shows that best results are a blend of online and face-to-face learning rather than one or the other -need expertise on faculty – an online learning facilitator in your learning commons -help children develop skill set and help teachers in blending online and face-to-face teaching Schools and websites to check out: Mayo Demonstration School for Science & Technology (Tulsa, OK) http://mayo.tulsaschools.org/ http://mayo.tulsaschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_1385048/File/mayo_brochure.pdf -highly successful elementary public magnet school in Tulsa, Oklahoma is using the one-room schoolhouse model with multi-age groupings -all staff have staff development every day for an hour -mix of lead teachers, certified teachers and para-educators High Tech High (San Diego, CA) http://www.hightechhigh.org/ - public charter schools specializing in math, science & engineering High Tech High now operates nine schools in San Diego County: one elementary school, three middle schools, and five high schools. All of these schools serve a diverse, lottery-selected student population; all embody the High Tech High design principles of personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission, and teacher as designer -see their ‘Digital Commons’ page MET High School (Providence, Rhode Island) The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center district http://www.themetschool.org/Metcenter/home.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgb8Co0M6SM -a publicly-funded high school with no grades -philosophy “One student at a time”

-has inspired a national network of 50 similar schools all founded by Big Picture Learning Big Picture Learning Company www.bigpicture.org –an amazing design group of educators who work with architects MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten

http://llk.media.mit.edu/ –to encourage lifelong creativity -to develop new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpaint of kindergarten, expand the range of what people can design, create, and learn.

Illinois Math & Science Academy (IMSA) (Aurora, IL) https://www3.imsa.edu/ A competitive-enrollment, publicly-funded school for gifted Illinois students. -has an inventor’s lab -as an example of global learning, check out www.kiva.org -a website that connects entrepreneurs and micro-lenders [Branksome Hall has used this site with their advisor groups; students have voted which businesses to support and have monitored their progress] For more on Alan November and his team: http://novemberlearning.com includes: http://nlconnect.novemberlearning.com/ -for sharing and discussion among educators http://novemberlearning.com/resources/information-literacy-resources/ -excellent tips for evaluating information found on the web Note: text in italics is derived from website content