The use of ICT across schools in New Zealand

I was sent this infographic by Paul on behalf of Adobe who together with Interface Magazine conducted a survey of 280 educators across New Zealand.
Further findings can be found on this Interface page.

Interface Adobe ICT in SchoolsWhat are the implications of this for schools?

In a year just over half of the schools in NZ will have Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) giving 60% of students and teachers fast access to internet. So then the following questions need to be asked...
Do schools have the necessary equipment and infrastructure to access it?
Will all teachers make good use of it? 
Does the rest of the community have the same access?
In one small country town I know, they already have UFB in the school, but the houses down the same road cannot get internet at all. Those teachers want to use online applications like Google Docs with their students and colleagues but they all have no access to it in their own homes.

Educators are saying that students will be able to be more self directed, they can create multimedia projects, online resources will be more available, and wider collaboration opportunities can be used. For the teachers who can manage this learning it will be a godsend, for the majority who can't it won't make any difference.  As with all of the other barriers listed the same problems exist with the addition of Bring your own Device (BYOD), a great idea in theory... if your network can support the influx of devices and if the teachers are confident and knowledgeable enough to allow the students to use the devices in the classrooms. I am regularly seeing school networks struggling with the flood of extra devices whether it is through BYOD or the mass purchase of iPads.

I would contest the last finding of only 25% of teachers saying there is a digital divide between them and students. I would argue that the percentage is much higher than that and would like to see a survey result using a larger sampling. I still regularly have those discussions with some teachers, most who are excellent practitioners, who tell me that they don't need this equipment forced upon them, they didn't ask for it and they can't see how it is going to make any difference.

These teachers are scared of the technology, they are nervous when children are using devices, they don't understand how they are using them and feel they have lost control of their students to the internet.
As with all advents with technologies making their way into school, what often is the case is that there is not enough Professional Development (PD) with teachers to show how these tools can be used. It is not just the internet anymore, it is Digital Citizenship, Cyber Safety, social networking, cloud computing...all words and phrases that are terrifying to a lot of teachers.

So let's do it right this time, provide PD to teachers that will give them the knowledge, understandings and tools to be confident social networkers, who know how to be safe online, can use online resources and can positively include these tools in their teaching and learning practice.

Five things I would want my teacher to know about me

Shaun Wood sent me this challenge which was first started by Allanah King. It is a worthwhile challenge to do with our students because it will make them think about how they learn

5 things I would want my teacher to know about me

1. I like art, I am visual... if you talk at me you will see me doodling in my books
2. I can listen to you and do other things at the same time
3. I don't like to sit for long periods of time, I need to move and I do fidget
4. If you are telling me something I already know then I will get bored and will look for something else to do
5. I like open challenges, pose a problem and let me choose how to solve it

 I challenge @dbeehre, @krivett1, @llaburn, @lindalehrke, @KseniaNZ to do this challenge

Day 4 e-Learning Lead teachers

I worked most of the day with the lead teachers from the e-Wrapper cluster.
The following presentation has all the links to what we discussed

1. The Horizon Report
2. The Traditional, Digital and e-Learning classroom
3. Teacher level of integration
4. The e-Learning Classroom resource wiki
5. Classroom Spaces
6. Digital Toolkit
7. e-Learning action plan
8. Digital Capabilities Matrix
9. Cybersafety
10. Assessment, Measurement and Planning ideas

 

Everglade elearning

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We then talked about how the Everglade Learners Wiki is being used as a Portal for students with all their resources and activities.
 

Day 3 e-Learning in the Classroom

Maths
Students are working well through the activities, some of them need to be reminded that they have to record their scores from the online math activities. Children who were working on the mimio workshop are learning to be co-operative with each other so that they share ownership of the mimio pen!






Reading

The reading session went extremely well today. Students were moving from task to task independently.










We introduced two new options, the audiobook on the iPod touch and the Easi-speak microphone.
The students with the Easi-Speak had a great time recording themselves reading a story and listening to themselves reading it.

Students sat with the iPod  touch, the splitter and head phones and listened to 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' audiobook.

The children are also very fond of using the flip video to record their plays.












Writing

The students are getting into the swing of using the Writing task board. They were all moving their names across to the appropriate column. Some of the students started on the Conferencing options. At this school the students can't print from the school computers, only the teachers laptop is enabled to print so we are adding another management space to the Writing task board 'Ready to print' so that the teacher knows which students have work to print out, and can print it out at a time that is convenient to them.

Handwriting, Keyboarding and Spelling
The blending of these subjects is working well. Students know who are on the computers for Keyboarding and Spelling, while the others do their Handwriting and Spelling in their books. Keyboarding is already starting to improve.
Several children are confident with the Home keys (asdf jkl;) so I have started them off on the Keyboarding cards.

Day 2 e-Learning Classroom

Another great day in the classroom. The children settled down to their tasks straight away and were not phased by all of the teachers in the room observing them.
Maths
Most of the students realised that they needed to write their progress and answers in their maths books. The teacher of the class was amazed by 3 children who were working on the 3 computers in the withdrawal space. He expected them to be not on task, but they were totally involved in what they were doing occasionally helping each other at the same time.



I also noticed that the teacher was able to leave the students (He feels comfortable enough to let go of control)  who were working on the workshop for short periods of time to look around the room at what the other students were doing. There were not enough computers for all of the students but they all managed to co-operate well with each other.


Reading
The students understand how the task board works now and are eager to try out the different options, especially the iPad stories. So that we can find out what activities the students like doing the most they will fill in the following tracking sheet

Reading recording sheet

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This will assist in future planning of activities and also identify individual student preferences.

One group of students went with the 'Grab some friends and act out a play'. We gave them a Flip Video camera and they videoed their efforts. Their first effort they viewed away from the rest of the class, lots of laughing but they soon realised that they needed to make some drastic changes. They went outside and did it again and did a great job!

Spaces

Gareth created a secret space today and introduced it to the children as a 'Quiet Space'. The students used it well today. This photo was taken when another student came and told me that the child in the Quiet Space had been there for a long time, when I went and looked this kid was reading quietly with another student.

Writing

Gareth talked about Conjunctions in the writing process today. Teachers who were observing were amazed at the level of engagement with the children that were working on the iPads and iPhone. Students are now starting to use the Writing Management Board as they move from the Drafting stage to Editing and Conferencing. We will be introducing the conferencing choices tomorrow.

Handwriting, Spelling, Keyboarding

Already the students are concentrating consciously on their keyboarding skills. Most children had 2 hands on the keyboard and were touching the space bar with their thumbs. We have timetabled 9 children everyday to do Keyboarding exercises rather than Handwriting and then they can continue with their Spelling activities after 10 minutes of typing practice.

Spelling activities

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The students who aren't on the computers continue with doing their spelling in their spelling books.

P.E

Gareth has made a 'Large Ball skills' assessment sheet for his children. They looked over what was expected of them, students took turns at videoing groups of other students. When they came inside they watched themselves and critiqued their performance. They now have their learning goals for the next P.E session.

Art

The topic at the moment is Disasters so Gareth prepared a PowerPoint with images to do with disasters. Students will be creating their own disaster icons for posters. Everybody started off on paper and I worked with a couple of children on Paint. More about this tomorrow!

Starting an e-Learning classroom

This week I am working with another teacher in a Year 4 classroom. We have the beginnings of setting up an e-Learning classroom. This teacher has had to make quite a few dramatic changes in teaching practice to operate fully in an e-Learning environment.
The class has 4 computers and 5 laptops. I have taken in 3 iPads and today I even let the students use my iPhone.

Gareth and I met for one day to plan last term.  I talked to him about what an e-Learning classroom can look like. I created a cutdown version of the action plan that my teachers in the e-Learning classroom are using (theirs goes for the year).


I created the wiki for the class and we are treating it as the portal for the students to their learning.

 We introduced the children to it first thing in the morning. Before school started I taught 3 students how to make a weemee and they continued through the day when there was a spare moment to teach someone else.
Rules
We talked about rules.

 The emphasis was on being co-operative, collaborative and self-managing.


Maths
We introduced the Measurement task sheet

Measurement Assessment

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and then the Measurement Workshop

Measurement

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and finally the Measurement Website. The students were then given the choice of what activities they had to do, we only had time for a short trial so they were allowed to go to one task and try it out. Some students worked in pairs, some worked alone, some worked on the Workshop with Gareth. The children grasped the concept of working like that incredibly fast and there was a wonderful working hum in the classroom. It will be interesting to see how they go tomorrow self managing themselves.

Reading
Gareth has created interactive worksheets around the student readers for the week. I will post examples of these on the website and in a blog post tomorrow. Students read with the teacher, then worked on their interactive worksheet and then their third task was to choose from the options. More about this tomorrow.

Writing
I created this teaching PowerPoint on Argument writing and Gareth introduced it today.

How to write arguments junior

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Students were shown the Word Graphic Organiser template.

Argument persuasive template

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Nine students worked on computers drafting straight onto the Graphic Organiser. Two worked on the iPads and one on the iPhone. The rest worked on the print outs of the Graphic Organisers.

As it was not the full amount time allowed for writing today, they will continue with this tomorrow.

Keyboarding
Keyboarding was introduced briefly and all students pasted in a photocopied version of a keyboard, and coloured in the home keys. As I wandered around the students while they were typing today I was constantly saying "Two hands on the keyboard, thumbs only on the space bar!"

It was a great start to the week. These 7 and 8 year old students adapted so easily and quickly to the new ways of doing things in their class. On my advice the teacher got rid of some desks and replaced them with tables. The students were very surprised to start off with but very quickly got used to their tote trays and sitting wherever they wanted around the tables. We will be having quite a few teachers observing over the week so it will be interesting to see how the students cope with that as well, judging by today they will be all little champions.

Talking Technology and e-Learning to Parents

I was asked to talk to a group of parents recently about e-Learning. I usually talk to teachers so this was a new experience for me. A small group of parents got it, a lot didn't!
So...what was the problem?
One man said ' I may be old fashioned but what about the 3 'R's! It is an important question, the answer... is that they are still there but are being delivered to students in a different way.

Another thing that bothered me was a parent saying 'My daughter cannot tell me what 7x 4 is, or it takes her a while to think what the answer is (she is obviously using strategies to work it out). I thought to myself 'Well really? How important is it to know what 7x 4 is?' We have calculators available to us everywhere. I know of very successful accountants who don't know their timetables, they use the tools that are available to them to solve the problem. Some parents of today expect their children to be taught as they were taught when they were at school, as this parent said 'I learned by rote and I know my timetables'. The argument could be that this is the type of learner he is, or he has a stronger intelligence in that area but his daughter does not.

 The point is that the skills we need change with time and technology... as a checkout operator in a Supermarket in the late 70s, I had to count back change to customers as per company protocol e.g if an order was $10.30 and they gave me $20 then I had to count back the change to the customer
'$10.30 and 20c is 50, 50c is $11, $2 is $13, $2 is $15 and $5 is $20.00
A few years later machines came in that gave you exactly how much change you needed to give to the customer. That skill I had, has not been used up until this day.

Parents do want to see 1-1 computing. They want children to have their own computers. I see 1-1 computing replacing rows of desks with rows of laptops, and the blackboard of yesteryear is now an IWB. The only difference between the classroom of the early 1900s and now is the technology. I am seeing a lot of teachers using their IWB as the old 'chalk and talk' but that will change as they get more familiar with the software and start creating authentic resources that students can use.

Parents were worried that Handwriting and Spelling would not be in the programme anymore and what was a maths and reading session going to look like. We reassured them that those programmes still happen, the teaching and learning still happen but with the aid of a variety of technologies in a student centred classroom.
Another parent said he was worried about the work load on the teachers, how could they manage 26 students doing different things with lots of equipment in lots of groups. The Principal was able to answer "We teach like that in traditional classrooms!' She went on to explain how we group teach.

Traditional style teaching

• A group with the teacher for instructional work,
• A group working on individual specific worksheet/ or reading book activity that had been designed for their group
• A group on computers individually working through a graphic organiser Character Study
• A group listening to stories on the listening post
• A group reading from their group box of books at their level

e-Learning class

• A group with the teacher for instructional work using iPads to tap out answers to questions teacher asks
• A group working together in smaller groups on a specific online worksheet/ or reading book activity that had been designed for their group
• A group on computers (in pairs or threes) working through a graphic organiser Character Study, discussing character traits, looking through the novel in their hands to find more information, sharing their answers
• A group listening to an audiobook on the iPod via a 5 way splitter whilst reading from the paperback copy at the same time
• A group choosing from the reading options which could include a variety of activities using technologies or non digital materials

It was interesting to see and hear parents reactions to this way of learning. Human nature is to go with what we know and what we believe works, change is unknown and threatening. We need to think about how we can help parents to transition to this way of learning.

The e learning classroom

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Since I wrote this post I have come across another blog post by Celia http://ccoffa.edublogs.org/2010/11/27/it-comes-down-to-trust/ Her post focuses on how parents are reluctant to let their students use social media and their lack of trust in their own children. She reiterates what I observed that there is a sense of fear amongst some parents and a lack of understanding of what social media and Web2.0 tools are.
Jane Danielson is documenting her school's journey into the use of Social Media and how it is becoming an integral part of the communication lines between school and community. http://janedanielson.blogspot.com/