#IMMOOC Finale - but just the beginning...

My shoutouts:

Why I don’t laminate anymore

@BeTheChnge

A cracking hook line which reinforced the necessity to capture people’s attention early! But the main reason this resonated with me was the notion of  ‘on purpose’. Only doing things that you have a made a positive decision about doing.

I also enjoyed the description of forcing oneself to reflect on whether they are actually doing things the best way they can, or just the way they are used to doing it.

Seeds in the sounds of silence

@KerriZitar

Time alone. I love making connections, and this one did it for me. Kerri Zitar’s post resonated with a podcast I had listen to recently, which was all about the importance of rest and recuperation in being the most efficient and effective that you can and another which promoted being bored to truly unleash your creative talents. One of the struggles I have is not being constantly busy (This course actually doesn’t help in that regard!) That quiet time of reflection is gold dust, and essential, don’t miss it!

Teachers leave school less curious

Kristin Freed Houston

To be honest, it was the title that resonated with me most here. I love working with the youngest students, they really do just learn because they want to. However, the title made me think. And it’s sad, that on reflection, I came to the conclusion that so many teachers seem to have lost their love for learning. It was probably beaten out of them by their own schooling experience to some extent. But in the main, it’s because they are too busy.

What can we do to ensure that teachers have time to follow their own curiosities?

What I am going to do differently….

Firstly, I will spend more time with people, being present. Naturally, I am not a social extrovert. I like being in people’s company, but it is not how I rejuvenate myself. But, I ‘The Innovator’s Mindset’ clearly points out, empathy and relationships is where the journey to improvement and change begins. relationships are key. So I will go to where the people are. These places around school where groups gather, and people talk. And I will listen, be present, and build my understanding of what their situations are.

Next, I will spend more time learning. Choice paralysis is a real thing. And as a learning technology coach I face a lot of choice. So many new technologies, with new possibilities rear their heads on a daily basis. So, how can I be more effective? I’m going to make some purposeful choices to learn. To choose something and learn about that.

Finally, I am going to share. I will share my learning using our school hashtag #BSJBbytes. But I will also be the voice for others in our school. I will be sharing their successes and their experiences in the aim of promoting that acceleration of progress in our community.

With these three (manageable) changes, I think I can begin to make a difference, this is my challenge!

Week 5 #IMMOOC - Mini Blogs

What are the few purposeful areas that we are focused on?

As a staff, we are clear on the revised professional learning programme that the school has implemented this year. The move away from ‘one size fits all’ meetings, where information is disseminated and objectives are misaligned with personal strengths and passions, is welcome. One key area for the staff to focus on has been the revision of the curriculum, particularly in the lower school. This has led to PLN groups of teachers who have a special interest in reading and mathematics in particular, to join together to look at ways learning in these areas can be developed.

The second area is meeting the need for our school community to be able to articulate clearly what we mean when we discuss good learning. Without a good understanding of what good learning looks like, we’ll never move forward as a community. It’s imperative for us to get this right, with the whole community buying into this vision. This makes it a key focus for us.

How do we share openly and regularly to further our own learning and development?

I’m interested if this is as a community or as individual. 250 words is a lot, so I think I can cover both! As a community we utilise a virtual learning platform for all classes. The expectation is that all assignments are listed as tasks within this platform. All class spaces on the platform are open to staff, giving each staff member a window into others’ learning spaces. We have also embedded our school hashtag #bsjbytes in a feed on the dashboard of every user, be it parent, student and staff. The PLN opportunities detailed in the next post also give opportunity for staff to share their own learning in more depth.

As an educator, I rely on my blog posts, my twitter feed and one to one relationships to share what I am up to. As a Learning Technology Coach, I get to interact and talk with all members of our community specifically around learning, and learning with technology. This puts me in a privileged position, and I relish it.

Do our professional learning opportunities mirror the learning we want to create for our students?

Well, we need to have a clear and shared understanding of what learning looks like at our school. That might sound an odd thing to say, but we currently have a task force working on defining what our school agrees is good learning. Even so, our professional learning is evolving this year. Teachers are choosing a focus for them to come together and learn about. They were also able to offer something they were interested in as a focus as long as that related to one of the school focuses for the year, or on learning directly. These were shared, and the teachers signed up to what they were interested in learning more about.

These PLNs are given times to meet, discuss, plan, try out and reflect on new strategies and approaches. In addition, teachers are expected to pursue learning of their own choosing. This could be their masters course, something offered by our Learning Technology team or an externally offered course, such as an MOOC. As these opportunities are driven by passions, interests and strengths I think they are reflective of the direction that we wish our students’ learning to go.

#IMMOOC 4 - A real influence

So I had been plowing a fairly lonely furrow as a classroom teacher. I had taken bits and pieces from various books and twitter chats and started to redesign how I organised the learning in my classroom. Most of what I was changing was giving much more control and choice to the students. But I felt vulnerable to accusations of experimenting without evidence that what I was trying would have a positive impact on the students’ learning. I knew it was working, and I knew I was on the right track. But I struggled to articulate this convincingly to those people who would ask about what I was doing.

Then came my validation and then some. From my PLN I kept hearing about this Pirate Book. Not the teach one, I’d been put off that by the ‘theory without real life application’ reviews. But the ‘Learn Like A Pirate’ book. It was a revelation. The confidence it gave me inspired me to continue exploring what I was attempting. It also encouraged me to take it much further with the practical suggestions really supercharging the changes I made and the experiences my students had in class. I write about it in more detail here.

For this, I tip my hat to @PaulSolarz, many thanks indeed sir!

#IMMOOC Starting from empathy.

My response to chapter 4 and 5 of ‘The Innovator’s Mindset’ has been one of reflection. Reflection on what I need to do more of, what I need to do next, and how I need to offering the folk I work with what they want, and what they need.

This is a fine balance in the role of a coach. What people want, and what they need are not always the same. Often, they want a quick fix, they want it to work instantly, without knowing why it went wrong or how to fix it next time it goes wrong. And I resist this. Caught up in my priorities I want them to do it themselves, I want them to muddle through and to find their own work-arounds as much as possible. I want them to learn through experience. I feel like I am facilitating their independence, their development and their ability to innovate and improve further.

But on reflection, have I really been thinking about this the best way? Have I really thought, if I was them, what would I want from my Learning Technology Coach?

So, in response, I am going to do something. I am going to put myself in the environments of the people I serve more regularly. Experience the unfamiliar classrooms and recognise the challenges that they face on a daily basis. Noticing where their struggles are and being more able to support them in improving their efforts in the classroom. I’ll be speaking to the students, finding out what works, what is done well already, and build on from that, in small steps.

#IMMOOC If you were to start a school from scratch, what would it look like?

Each learning community has specific needs and a specific context. What better way to create a school that meets the needs of the community than to get the community to create it’s own school.

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Playground_construction_140303-N-PD757-143.jpg

What is a school? In my mind, school is a community of learners. Each working to improve their own learning, but also that of the other members of the community.

Experienced and enlightened leaders would facilitate the organisation and development of the school in whatever form the students and teachers decide. The financing, construction and planning and all the other necessary organising will be done by students who are completing courses offered by the teaching community on a sign up basis. Students and teachers can request courses, which are then designed by members of the community with expertise in these areas.

I’m a believer in authentic audiences and having a real purpose to learning, I can think of nothing better than creating a school to be a worthwhile learning experience. I have no idea how it will look. Whether it will have a physical presence or not, or how it will achieve its aims, but that’s what I think is the beauty in this kind of project.

Pixnio

Each year, the community would decide what needs changing for the following year, what mistakes would need improving on and how new ways of doing things better could be explored. This could be completely remodeling the whole thing, to just tweaking processes. If it should grow, once the organisation get to over 150 members, it can choose to split,and a new school planted.

Sure, there are some practicalities that would need ironing out, but the relationships built, the mistakes made and the consequences of their decisions will have a lasting impact on the students, and the community way beyond a ‘normal’ schooling experience.

Go smart, go change, go innovate (Go-Jek) #IMMOOC

Why is innovation in education so crucial today? #IMMOOC

I am lucky enough to live in Indonesia, in Jakarta, which is a huge sprawling megatropolis. The streets are crowded and chaotic to the untrained eye. Streets built for feet and wheeled carts, now entertain all kinds of vehicles, signposts and street names sometimes exist and it’s a scary place to navigate and get around.

To meet the need of the wary traveller, leather skinned men hung around the street corners, chain-smoking cigarettes. Next to them is their bike which has a piece of cardboard hanging off, with ‘O-Jek’ handwritten on it.

Sometimes one of these motorbike taxis was there when you needed it. Often there were many and most only seemed to do one or two ‘jobs’ a day, for a negotiated price.

Why am I telling you this? Well because O-Jeks in their previous form have almost entirely disappeared in the space of two years, and I think this could be an analogy of what could happen to our current school system.

In Jakarta, a disruptor called ‘Go-Jek” entered the market, matched up customers with drivers through an APP and charged a fraction of negotiated prices. Go-Jek was quickly followed by Grab Bike and Uber and the old way was lost.

There are plenty of disruptors on the horizon for education, a few are already making headway. Plenty have been written about such things as open courses, MOOCs and the like. Video is playing a huge role too. On top of that the upper echelons of our academic systems are in danger of pricing themselves out of the market for the masses.

The needs of our learners are changing. The traditional school > college > job pathway is becoming less relevant and less affordable. If our education approaches remain static, outside elements will begin to meet the needs of our learners more effectively. And education as we know it will be in trouble.

I care less about the current institutions of education, but as our learners’ needs change, we have a duty to innovate to meet those needs.

Knowing what you don't know...

Often the first step to learning, is to know what it is you don’t know. This oft recited phrase is an interesting starting point for someone in my role. As a Learning Technology Coach, I am keenly aware of the amount of learning that is beyond my current sphere of experience. And that amount is constantly growing.

And learning is a resource heavy undertaking. Learning new things takes a lot, particularly for time pressured teachers. Many teachers can be forgiven for deciding either purposefully, or by default, that the mass of technology led learning available is just too big to start delving into. Where to start?

This kind of choice paralysis is a direct result of the overwhelming myriad of options that using technology offers.

Here is where I come in. I can open a window into what you haven’t had time to know, so you can see what the possibilities are. You don’t have to know what you want to do with technology before you ask me. You just have to be willing to look at new opportunities.

I probably don’t know the subject you teach very well and I might not have years of experience teaching the age group you are teaching. But I can ask you what you want to achieve, how you want the students to demonstrate their learning and then narrow those choices facing you. I can suggest or work out workflows that can support your students’ learning and offer suggestions to use technology that may not have occurred you.

Then, when you are keen to give something new a go, I can be there with you so I can learn how this works for your students. While they are learning what you need them to.

That’s how you help me to learn.

So you think you know what is happening in your classroom....

The Hidden Lives of Learners

Graham Nuthall

This is an incredible insight into the workings of the classroom. Recommended to me by @MrDMJWalsh, Nuthall set up microphones and cameras to track each and every interaction and utterance of random students in classes. His team then painstakingly transcribed and analysed each one. Following this Nuthall and his team were able to predict with incredible accuracy exactly what each student would have learnt, and did learn during the observed periods. He explains the huge influence peers have on learning, and the necessary repetition required before real learning happens. Again this pushes back against the current scourge of curricula which are over-crammed with content.

Pros: Incredibly insightful for those who believe they have a handle on what happens in their classroom.

Cons: Unfortunately, Nuthall is no longer with us to explore his findings further.

A book to change your teaching life.....

Learn Like A Pirate

I’d picked up a bit of fuss around this book from folk I follow on Twitter. Initially put off by the title I eventually decided I had to find out what the commotion was about. Paul Solarz (still a class teacher, Grade 5 in the U.S.A.) takes us through his philosophy of handing over the reins of the class to the students. Strewn with practical methods for managing student led classrooms Paul details how you can give the students in your class voice, and leadership, while ensuring that it doesn’t turn into anarchy. The ideas in this book transformed my classroom. Previously my classroom was a teacher led environment where I controlled the organisation of the classroom and had responsibility for all the day to day running. This was transformed as I handed over the organisation of timings, atmosphere, support and target setting to my class. After initial guidance all these things were done with skill and aplomb by my class, allowing me to focus on the timely feedback and support needed to move individuals’ learning forward.

It was exhilarating, rewarding and effective. Students were highly engaged in lessons where they decided how to organise themselves and how to support each other.

Pros: Well organised and written by somebody who walks his talk in the classroom daily. Full of practical real life strategies that reward your bravery with empowered, independent and motivated students.

Cons: I wish I had this book ten years ago. I’m not a big fan of the letters of recommendation from parents, although I realise the job they do, a bit brash for my British sensibilities! Not sure it translates to high school classes and would need to be adapted to younger children, but much would still work.

.

Open by David Price

I had a brilliant break thanks for asking. A number of days of it was sat on a train trundling across Siberia. In that time I read nine books. I was reflecting on how I could use what I had learnt, and how this applied to my life and work. I realised that I’m likely to forget lots and have decided that by writing about them, I will remember the key points, and be able to tip off other folk to some great reads.

So check out my brief reflections, and feel free to get in touch if anything piques your interest.

Open - How we’ll work, live and learn in the future. David Price

This book is a thoroughly believable look at how things could go in the future. Price argues a case that many of the things that hold value in our current world, education, property, energy are going to lose their value due to the spread of ‘openness’ and self organisation. Although I found all interesting, the key one here is knowledge. He discusses how knowledge is becoming free. The premium of having a high academic qualification is diminishing and how learners are cutting out the middlemen of established learning institutes as a physical entity. The explosion of online courses and homeschooling being prime examples.

Pros: Lots of real examples on how these trends are beginning, easy to believe, wake up call for educators and many established investors in traditional markets.

Cons: Makes you feel that it is urgent that established education institutes get on the front foot with this, but I struggle to see how they will. Also, if he is right, then as students have less need to physically attend university, my recent investment in a student apartment doesn’t look too clever.