What I learned!

The video!

TECH - Acronym not Object - Week 8

This week during our Internet for Educators, Mr. Bryce Ridgen presented some interesting information about teaching in a 1:1 environment. Mr.Ridgen is the principal at the Minnedosa Collegiate school in the Rolling River School Divison. Mr.Ridgen covered a lot of great points that could all fall under the umbrella of the TECH acronym of tech integration by teachers.

Mr.Ridgen introduced this model created by Jen Roberts as a replacement to the SAMR model for levels of tech integration. At the bottom of the model is the traditional level which in my mind would look like the standard high school classroom that I grew up in. There would be new tech like smartboards and laptops that are used to make tasks a little easier to accomplish. The next level (Enhanced) I think would be incorporation of tablets with interactive apps, interesting videos, collaboration on smartboards to enhance learning, maybe some VR units, and possibly a class blog or other social media use. Although students are getting a better learning experience, overall the tasks are still teacher directed. In order to advance to the next level students need a working knowledge of the tech tools used at the enhance stage, but moving forward students get options for assessments and platforms to showcase their learning. An example of this may be a list of places that students could research using VR expeditions, online videos, articles, textbooks etc. Students can then choose how they would like to demonstrate their learning through a few options i.e video, infographic, paper.

The final level involves a complete release of responsibility where student inquiry fuels their research and any form of media can be used to demonstrate understand. Mr.Ridgen gave a good example of this where he would let his students repeatedly demonstrate their learning through whatever media of their choosing. Mr.Ridgens' students produced rap videos, original musical compositions, restaurant menus, and stop motion animation of lego just to name a few. He had a rubric that the students followed but he was very flexible towards his approach. Watching him talk about his classes and seeing the work students came up with was inspiring! It was noticeable that students were showcasing their passions and expressing themselves while learning the skills/attitudes outlined by the curriculum using content as the vessel. Very cool Mr.Ridgen....very cool.

The Future - TT#12

What does the future hold for education in terms of technology? What a great question and the trends are leading to something very exciting! My imagination runs wild here as I envision students in classrooms out of some sci-fi movie! So much technology!!! I was reading through the NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2016: K-12 Edition and there seems to be some interesting developments as can be seen in the following infographic pulled from the report itself.

First of all, most of the developments are showing up in schools already it seems. There is a large makespace movement, online learning is in from Youtube channels to government supplied resources, virtual reality expeditions are popular with cheap viewers, and the rest I have not seen but I'm sure they are emerging. (I'm still a pre-service teacher so my experience is limited of course). The future is now and I am ready and willing to adopt whatever tech I can introduce into my classrooms, given it is enhancing the learning process. Our youth are growing up in a high-tech world so to deny experiences to learn this tech, I feel would hinder their future. Of course, traditional learning is still important and should not be pushed to the wayside; technology is just there the enhance the experience.

One aspect of the report that instantly caught my attention is the short-term trend of coding as a literacy. Students are learning to code and I agree with this. It's a new language that I think students should have a working knowledge of for sure. I've been saying that since I entered into education. There is even suggestions out there that states the new blue collar job is coding! (The Next Big Blue-Collar Job Is Coding) Those old typing classes that I went through should be replaced by coding now I feel. Wow technology moves fast!

One major challenge in the future is the need to personalize learning to cater to individual student needs. Students are so diverse that they learn in so many different ways. The Horizon Report states that "students’ unique needs is driving the development of new technologies that provide more learner choice and allow for differentiated content delivery". In my last post, one of our class presenters Mr.Ridgen addressed this challenged directly within his class it seems. He advocates for the TECH acronym of classroom integrate technology and at the top level, HANDOFF, directly applies to this challenge. Students are capable of learning their own way through the many opportunites that technology supplies and same for learning demonstration. I see plenty rubrics in the future. I'd like to see how student centered approaches work in the higher level math classrooms though.....

Socrative Space Race - TT11

The Socrative web/mobile app is so great for "for" and "of" assessment with students. You can run quizzes, space races, quick exit and admin slips and I believe there is more with the pro version as well. The free version has plenty though and is still a great tool for teachers. Students do need a device with the downloaded app. All the schools I have been to so far though, this has not been a issue. They can use laptops, desktops, ipads, etc.

The results are updated live on the teachers screen which can be displayed on a smartboard easily. I have used it with students and they are really engaged with it. My favorite use was for trig ratios and solving triangles with easy to very difficult problems. I like introducing the topic the day before then having the race the next morning. Once students finish the race, there is a great report that can be download quickly to see which questions were answered correctly. Oh and the questions are corrected for you meaning a very quick way to administer a quiz!

As extra motivation, I told students that the answers they got wrong, they would have to redo and hand in with a full solution. This way any misconceptions can be rectified. All you have to do is download the printable version of the race/quiz and print a paper copy.