by DLCoach, Stacey Hernberg from James Kennedy elementary
Strides in technology have made a large impact on our lives. Education systems around the world are adapting to and assimilating these significant changes. Each country, each school district, and each individual school has it’s own learning curve. I must say that I am so impressed with the staff here at James Kennedy Elementary and the steps that each and every member of our staff takes to incorporate technology in order to become a better educator and to offer more authentic experiences for students.
In order to be dauntless in using technology with students, teachers must become comfortable with using technology themselves. Technology has changed so significantly over the last couple of decades that those of us who weren't born yesterday, have had to make an effort to become familiar and competent with at least some of these changes. Although there are some people who refuse to become anymore competent with technology then they absolutely have to, I do not see that with any teacher here at JKE. Each and every teacher has been brave enough to learn new tech tricks to become a better educator. Some are checking out Pinterest for new teaching ideas, most have set up class websites to communicate with parents, all have learned to connect and project in some manner or other. Some teachers use iTunesU for Educators to keep up to date. Others get their children (own and students) to show them how to use apps on the iPad.
There are so many exciting learning opportunities going on here at James Kennedy. I can't possibly go into them all but I have chosen to highlight three innovative ideas that have impressed an old dog like me enough to try some new tricks. I have to say, I'm now hooked on the idea of using e-portfolios, robots, and EDpuzzle to make an impact on the education of our students.
Last year, our kindergarten teachers, Kim Andersen, Loren O'Shea, Joanne Tremblay, Annie Charron, and Tracy Cramer decided to explore FreshGrade as part of their inquiry on whether it would improve their ability to communicate student learning to parents. This year, I joined the kindergarten team in using FreshGrade (FG) as both an e-portfolio of student work and as a report card. We have all found that it is a terrific tool for communicating what we are doing in the classroom and where each child is at with their learning. We can post pictures for the whole class to show parents activities like a Science demonstration, a group writing collaboration, a guest presenter or even a class demonstration of a dance. This provides parents with an insight as to what their child actually does at school and can help them further the discussion if their "what did you do at school today?" question is answered with "nothing." FG also has an announcements feature that allows a teacher to send out an announcement such as a reminder and parents will be notified via a pop up if they have the app and an email. I would say the most powerful feature of FG is the ability to post pictures and videos of a student to demonstrate where they are at with their learning. For example, we posted pictures of drawings, projects, writing samples, and assessments as well as videos of counting, reading, and answering open ended questions. These can then have a note attached to them explaining what the teacher was looking for. If you attach a learning outcome to these activities and assess them as you post them. These learning outcomes and their attached assessment will be automatically used when you create a report card for your students. We have all found FG to be such a useful tool for communicating with parents that we each plan on using it next year as well. For more ideas and information on using FG, you can follow @tracyacramer and use the hashtag #FGChat.
In order to be dauntless in using technology with students, teachers must become comfortable with using technology themselves. Technology has changed so significantly over the last couple of decades that those of us who weren't born yesterday, have had to make an effort to become familiar and competent with at least some of these changes. Although there are some people who refuse to become anymore competent with technology then they absolutely have to, I do not see that with any teacher here at JKE. Each and every teacher has been brave enough to learn new tech tricks to become a better educator. Some are checking out Pinterest for new teaching ideas, most have set up class websites to communicate with parents, all have learned to connect and project in some manner or other. Some teachers use iTunesU for Educators to keep up to date. Others get their children (own and students) to show them how to use apps on the iPad.
There are so many exciting learning opportunities going on here at James Kennedy. I can't possibly go into them all but I have chosen to highlight three innovative ideas that have impressed an old dog like me enough to try some new tricks. I have to say, I'm now hooked on the idea of using e-portfolios, robots, and EDpuzzle to make an impact on the education of our students.
Last year, our kindergarten teachers, Kim Andersen, Loren O'Shea, Joanne Tremblay, Annie Charron, and Tracy Cramer decided to explore FreshGrade as part of their inquiry on whether it would improve their ability to communicate student learning to parents. This year, I joined the kindergarten team in using FreshGrade (FG) as both an e-portfolio of student work and as a report card. We have all found that it is a terrific tool for communicating what we are doing in the classroom and where each child is at with their learning. We can post pictures for the whole class to show parents activities like a Science demonstration, a group writing collaboration, a guest presenter or even a class demonstration of a dance. This provides parents with an insight as to what their child actually does at school and can help them further the discussion if their "what did you do at school today?" question is answered with "nothing." FG also has an announcements feature that allows a teacher to send out an announcement such as a reminder and parents will be notified via a pop up if they have the app and an email. I would say the most powerful feature of FG is the ability to post pictures and videos of a student to demonstrate where they are at with their learning. For example, we posted pictures of drawings, projects, writing samples, and assessments as well as videos of counting, reading, and answering open ended questions. These can then have a note attached to them explaining what the teacher was looking for. If you attach a learning outcome to these activities and assess them as you post them. These learning outcomes and their attached assessment will be automatically used when you create a report card for your students. We have all found FG to be such a useful tool for communicating with parents that we each plan on using it next year as well. For more ideas and information on using FG, you can follow @tracyacramer and use the hashtag #FGChat.
EDpuzzle is a great tool for teachers looking to apply the principles of UDL or differentiate the curriculum for students. Amanda Younger, a tech savvy teacher here at James Kennedy, uses EDpuzzle with the classes she covers prep time for. She showed me the course she created for HCE Grade 6/7. First she found videos on different careers. You can use videos from a a number of sources like YouTube and Vimeo. Then she came up with questions for students to answer as they watched the videos. Students each get their own account. Then they can watch videos on the careers they are interested in at home or in class on an iPad. They then answer the questions as they pop up during the video. These questions can be multiple choice, true/false, or open ended. Students can progress at their own rate but are responsible for a minimum number of videos to be completed by a certain date. Student looking to exceed expectations are able to watch more videos. Amanda is able to go into her course at any time to see what students have completed and how they've done with the questions. Although this can take some time to set up, if it is done for a unit that will be taught more than once then the time invested should be worth it. I can see this type of unit course being quite engaging for today's youth!
What better way to inspire students to develop inquiry and innovation skills than through robots! Through the Innovation Partnership from the Ministry of Education, our Resource teacher, Ann Pimentel has been promoting inclusion and innovation through codeable robots like the Tiddlybot (a Raspberry Pi based robot) to simple primary robots like the Bee-Bot. The Youth and Childcare Worker, Raman Dhillion and Ann facilitated a 6 week after school club for vulnerable girls called the INSPIRE Club which focused on coding and compassion. Our school has been able to participate in a Robotics Showcase, INSPIRE mini-workshops, INSPIRE curriculum series and an INSPIRE day. As Ann branched out in using 'primary robots' that do not use Raspberry Pi as the ‘brain', the project turned from the INS-PI-RE Project into the INSPIRE Project This project inspires all students to engage with robots as an opportunity to innovate and inquire into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects which compliment the new BC curriculum. The INSPIRE Project delves into Universal Design for Learning principles and actively allows students to be innovators and not just consumers of technology. My K/1 class had an INSPIRE mini-workshop and then adopted a Bee-Bot. They were enthralled with the workshop and love programing our Bee-Bot’s next moves. The INSPIRE Project has been such a success and inspiration in promoting inclusion, inquiry and innovation that the project is competing for the CST Inspired Minds Learning Project (in the Small Prize Group)! We need your votes. Voting is from Monday, May 2nd to Monday, May 16th. You can vote everyday using for our project by using Facebook, Twitter and our link: http://learningproject.cst.org/ideas/1033. If you would like to learn more about The INSPIRE Project check out Ann’s blog.
Every learning curve starts off with a single action. Sometimes the learning starts off with a bang, but usually it starts out slow and feels that way longer than we would like. That slow frustrating part is just the foundation forming. Stick with it and eventually you will blossom.
