Category Archives: Assignment 3: Week 3 Work

Final Summation: Open-Eyed

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In the beginning of our journey together, I was starting at a very solipsistic point. I was thinking that hey, I’m not using Twitter like so many of my colleagues. I want to learn how to do that well. I had already created class blogs, with glaring holes, and was completely willing to “remedy those later,” while I flitted off to another platform, another process. Ironically, in the first day questionnaire, I had said that “I hope to take the time to specialize and work towards mastery in one area, one resource, rather than flitting from new tool to new tool.” By the end of week two, I was finally able to pause and to see. To pause, unlearn and relearn, and to pause long enough to be magnetically drawn to the why. The why, not simply a resource or tool, but that all of it is for the students, for the emerging and vital literacies (old and new), and for their empowerment for their own future. Further, with this open-eyed, collaboratively-created motivation I decided to utilize aspects of social media to make this possible. However, my new virtual classroom, is only one aspect, one hub of the learning experiences I am re-envisioning.

I started in weebly with a blank slate, with two main guiding dispositions in mind: foster collaborative learning in digital and physical, and to promote student ownership and empowerment of their learning. 

I will continue to utilize the classroom hub as I had before in some aspects, such as:

  • Communication with students, parents and tutors
  • Sharing resources (adapted, enriched, independent, etc.) for students’ learning
  • As an archive of student learning experiences
  • Promote multiliteracy skills
  • Strengthen critical thinking skills, personal reflection and communication skills

However, starting with a blank slate, I designed for change, for collaboration and student ownership in the following ways:

  • Sync student-creating learning blogs in which they will share their personal reflections and critical inquiries, as well as various creative endeavors throughout. This will be done in partnership with our physical portfolio (because we will still be making numerous experimental physical creations, such as mobiles, paintings, life-size character “body biographies” and many more). Further, like the cumulative total in LLED 447 I hope that together my classes will have a virtual and physical mass of learning, equivalent to numerous dissertations on their learning. We will culminate this with a portfolio gala (physical and virtual) for family, friends, teachers and for themselves.
  • I’ve designed a peer feedback process modeled after our class’s peer contributions. I intend to model this process and scaffold students through it until it is natural, organic and truly collaborative growth.
  •  I am aiming for true collaboration and connectivity: I have designed to use the blog comment options on each class’s blog homepage much like we have in our UBC Group Forums. It will be a forum for ongoing, messy processing that synthesizes class-wide ideas, links and initial thoughts or questions.
  •  I’ve attached a Discussion Forum, open for students and parents to contribute recommendations, questions, and to promote more talking with rather than talking at. I need to continue to explore formatting options a more enticing and welcoming model. I’m not currently content with the weebly element options for this.
  •  Altered layout: made the space more visually communicative through slideshows, videos and infographics, hoping students would be drawn in and engaged. Also, I tried to contain our vast learning explorations into sub-pages so that students could navigate as they need and not feel overwhelmed, as they may have in the long drawn out Blogger fashion I had before.
  • Not just student work showcase, student publishing. Through this course it has been apparent the importance of “filling the digital space,” of influencing public perceptions and building public knowledge, and so I wanted to do this not simply from me, but from my students. This will help broaden perspectives and deepen understanding for them, their parents and hopefully the public, like this course has done for us through our active inquiry, connecting and publishing.
  • Genius Hour: Thanks to Jordan I think many of us will be pursuing just how to purposefully execute such passionate, student-driven inquiry. I too am in the process of curating resources and designing the practices and logistics so my students may also participate in this inspirational process.
  • Permission forms, informing and connecting with parents. I am creating necessary informative permission forms that communicate with parents how and why we are using student blogs, as well as attempting to draw parents into our connected hub through RSS feed, email, and a periodic class newsletter.

Overall, this is only the beginning. I have learnt so much from LIBE 477, and I am still trying to truly see all the pieces and bring them together in my cracked open mind, but it’s an optimistic beginning. I look forward to the winding road ahead.

My work in progress can be found here: http://msbertrandsclass.weebly.com/ Although I’ve added to all pages in some form, the homepage, English 11 and Socials 10 have the most significant progress. Thanks for joining me on this journey LIBE 477 comrades!

Don’t be blindsighted to the collaboration potential in every class

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I am horrendously biased, towards education, for education, probably zealot-like. I think it is the silver bullet, the lifeblood of an individual and collective, the answer. However, fortunately, through this course I have become more aware of my bias, my blindsight: to the systemic disconnect between what learners need and deserve, and a system caught in 19th century modes and foundations. I have often endeavored as a single educator, attending a workshop and then trying to implement in my classes, seeking advice from peers and then trying to make change, for the betterment of student learning. However, despite my zealot passion I have not been an advocate. I speak to friends and colleagues about issues in education, but I don’t have an active role in advocacy, or filling the digital space that such publications as “iPad versus Teacher” has. I think that I have felt empowered as an individual educator because over the course of 7 years I have taught 15 different courses, with the help of collaboration and masterful support. Yet I have felt less than confident as a voice for the profession. Clearly, I have been holding the misconception that it is policy-makers or union spokespersons’ role to speak for the profession, whereas my role was to, pardon my pun, roll with the punches (be it funding cuts or lack of access).

Now as I am percolating all of the content and collaboration from throughout this course I see that a major obstacle to ICT use in education is that our past experiences are informing our policies and current use. Yet the field of technology is advancing at an exponential rate, one which our policies will struggle to evolve with because of our “mindbugs-our ingrained habits of thought.”

Exploring through the class discussion forum one idea that resonated with me was that our students are less blindsighted to the education system than us. This is a spark that I am trying to build upon within the design of my future project, my new classroom site. In the past I have found that collaboration makes anything possible. It can crack open our mind’s like a nut and let some light in. This cracking open is essential to self-efficacy, purposeful planning and action. Furthermore, collaboration with our students should not be undervalued or blind spotted. I routinely collaborate with my students. We will have class or group discussions about where we want to steer the learning, how we’re going to get there, and how it will be executed/assessed. As many students know that I am perpetually planning new courses, and usually I have had the great fortune of teaching them in a junior year, they visit after school (after I’m no longer “their teacher”) and explore what’s possible in courses I’m designing, making recommendations for future classes. I am currently beginning a new position as Grad Transitions Coordinator, and it was through a “pow-wow” with current grads that the program for next year has been redesigned to better suit the needs that they felt they could share. Therefore, I have tried to design a virtual classroom for my classes in which they have a voice, they have an active role steering the learning, their learning, and a community of collaboration that helps all of us work through our blindsight.

My future vision project can be found at: http://msbertrandsclass.weebly.com/ It’s still a work in progress, and I’m still digesting what I want to communicate about it. Nonetheless, I think I incorporated connection and collaboration opportunities and expectations throughout, which I’m very excited to process with my students and parents in the fall.

What’s at Stake: A Response to Being Put in an Either/Or Position

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Today’s exploration into what is at stake got the class’s passions bubbling, and it should. What is at stake is not only our future as educators, or the learning potential for our current and near-future students, but the future of education for all. In the article “Ipad versus Teachers” there is an implied either/or communicated. This is a misconception which can, and has, had devastating effects on the education system. When the implication is that all teachers do is “administer” curriculum and assign numbers to corresponding student responses it is clear that the vision of what it means to be an educator has been tainted from “old school” practices and deeply-seated conceptions of teachers. Although authentic changes are happening in numerous classrooms and schools around the world, it is going relatively unnoticed in the public’s mindset. The trouble is that these ideas are published again and again. If we don’t fill this space and become involved in the decision-making processes, no one else will. There are “triumphalists” as the article expounds, but where are the “educationalists,” where are the authentic learning or ideal classroom support lobbyists?

Through our small group discussions the absence of such voices became apparent. The diverse struggles experienced by Cherise, Merrin and Amy were completely unknown to me and Charlotte, and likewise, our structural and normative roadblocks were new to them. For example, in our school any Department Head release time that was saved, pre-booked and organized for significant professional development and collaboration was taken from us all year so we could cover classes when there was a TOC shortage. In contrast, for Cherise in Sooke, although classes were burgeoning, her school was able to utilize LIF funds for release time throughout the school year for professional collaboration and growth. We didn’t know what was occurring in schools or districts outside of our own, and if we don’t , how can we expect parents, politicians or the general public to? What was communicated in equal measure by all is the numerous roadblocks against learning opportunities for our students because of a lack of funding. The article “Ipads versus Teachers” also highlighted this issue as $500 + million is spent on tech tools for the school while an exorbitant amount of teachers are losing their jobs, and whole schools are being shut down.

Today there is more opportunity for connection and voice than ever before. This affords educators a power, and also a responsibility, to be the voices for their students. We need to be not combative, but conversational on our behalf. Teaching is an incredible complex and dynamic enterprise. As such, I find it is often reduced to the simplest terms by those outside of the profession. That is why we need to contextualize it through the expansive connective networks available to us. We need to show what it feels like to teach (like a hummingbird on caffeine, fluttering from unique student need to unique student need). We need to show what it sounds like to teach (a boisterous choir of sharing or as silent as Christmas Eve as students truly dive into themselves and their learning). We even need to show what it smells like to be a teacher (a young neglected boy wearing chronically unwashed, ill-fitting clothes who comes to school because it’s the only good thing in his world). We need to form connections and broaden perspectives so an iPad will never be in binary opposition to a highly trained, adaptable, masterful teacher.

All this being said, I tried to keep today’s issues at the forefront as I designed my future project. I have decided to include a forum for feedback on learning experiences/recommendations/opportunities, as well as student blogs and a peer feedback process similar to our own. I will also showcase student work throughout, and end the year with a portfolio gala (as I have done in the past), but this will be physical and virtual, and parents and friends will be invited to share in the experience. But this is just the shell, it’s how I execute that will allow for connectivity and communication of the learning occurring. Therefore, I’m creating a letter to parents and requesting an email, in which I will be able to periodically draw them to the virtual classroom to see, as fully as possible, what their child’s learning experience is. I have also researched a connective tool for students entitled Remind 101, in which a text messages may used to communicate with students or parents. All of this is not advocacy, it is promotion. I think that at least through this current endeavor I may provide more genuine connectivity and collaboration for my students’ learning, for their vital multiliteracy development. I am hoping that it will also help connect and communicate with parents, so even in the most senior years of their child’s education, they can “see” it, know it. Advocacy is a responsibility that I must take-up in other ways, such as through district study groups, in-school PLC and through engaging with Professional Learning Networks.

Designing for Change, for my Students

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Although I’ve been contemplating how to design for my students for a long time, well forever really, today our group was able to digest “the who” together. The culture of transmission, of teacher as having “it” and then filling the empty student receptacles with “it,” is incredibly pervasive. As my group and I discussed, we often find that teenagers are very familiar and comfortable with this culture of transmission. We have found that seniors in particular can be quite resistant to change, to new learning experiences that put them in the driver’s seat. They are often unfamiliar with this role, and would prefer the path of least resistance at times, especially when their lives are filled with work and social responsibilities, and the ever-present 90% admissions number looms over their heads. I find that this disposition is subtle but incredibly devastating, as it can shut students down from the active learning process. Nonetheless, higher learning always reminds us educators what is possible, when we’re removed from our own school’s institutional isomorphism.

I believe that teenagers, even at the most senior levels, are just like the primary students who genuinely want to learn, discover and be engaged. I think that as they work through the system there is an individuality, an imagination, and sometimes a passion that becomes more subdued. That does not mean that it is gone, just perhaps more dormant than when we received them into the education system. Therefore, I’m designing my class-site with these needs in mind. I believe that students flourish through connectivity, and that they have a drive for connectivity that can and should be filled through learning. At present I am working on employing various modes of connectivity into the design of my class sites. These include the use of Twitter, a forum for open feedback and sharing of ideas and interests, as well as the use of student blogs, websites and systematic peer review and student showcase. Furthermore, with the students’ various needs in mind, I would like to design elements for self-exploration. Currently, these will include such components as brain mapping tests, creativity portals and online communities, as well as plan out a “Genius Hour” for students to explore their passions, in hopes it will help their learning needs and their planning for the future.

Although the design I’m working on now is meant to offer connectivity, engagement and students at the centre of their own learning, I know that it is a process, one in which this is merely a class site. It is what we do with the students in the classroom, beyond the classroom, that will truly address their needs. This class site is only one piece of that process.

Baby Steps: Module 10

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At the outset of this course, through my inquiry project, and up until half way through Monday’s class I was certain that I was going to create “something with Twitter” to process my inquiry into social media in education. Initially, I thought I had a concrete plan: synthesize the why and how of using social media, particularly Twitter, in education and create a workshop or concrete piece to share and advocate through District collaborative forums. But as I investigated, bottomless searching really, I found that there are already a wealth of discussion forums, advocacy and collaborative pieces and expertise in this area. I know that this does not mean I can’t make a contribution, but I would like to take the opportunity this project provides to create my best, my most impactful contribution.

Furthermore, I explored extensive studies and research surrounding social media in education which inspired me to re-envision my role and the learning potentional available to my students. I want to design and create a structure that will enrich students’ learning, particularly critical new literacies often under-employed in formal education, such as critical, social and digital literacy. I also want to assist students’ own educational mind-set: to see themselves as legitimate co-creators of their learning. This was an area where my current virtual classroom and blogging had, what I felt to be, gaping holes. I learnt so much through my collaborative inquiry week that I knew I would one-day implement into my virtual classroom design and practice, but I wanted to immediately create something that would be an advocacy tool to communicate my learning to other educators, so they too could be as inspired and invested. But then, like a light-bulb I realized that I was slipping into my old patterns of frantic creation, flitting from one product to another. In my 10 minutes of fame I had very clearly laid out numerous complex issues that needed to be addressed for my students’ learning, for my utilization of blogs and virtual classrooms, and yet I was already adding it to a mental “to-do list” while I moved onto a Twitter creation, advocacy tool. So, fortunately, through discussion with colleagues, and with you Jenny, I was able to see that I need to refocus and take baby-steps. Therefore, I intend to utilize my research on social media in education to guide my design of new practices and a new platform for my class blogs.

Visual layout is a significant aspect to plan for. People receive information through all of their senses, but they receive significantly more from vision than any of the other four. Fifty percent of the human brain is dedicated to visual functions, and images are processed faster than text. The brain processes pictures all at once, and it is estimated that 65% of the population are visual learners (Hassett & Shieble, 2007). Keeping this at the forefront of my mind in design, I intend to switch to weebly, a fresh forum which is less cluttered than my current class blogs, and yet to ensure I incorporate visual symbols and resources to appropriately communicate for my students. Furthermore, after exploring Neilson’s “Eyetracking Study of Web Readers” there are three key patterns to be cognizant of in my initial design:

  1. Keep headlines and page titles simple and direct
  2. Web readers use both shallow and deep reading: text needs to be scannable, but also provide deeper answers that the readers seek
  3. Connections are critical: Users don’t just visit a site, they follow necessary hyperlinks to move through the web content as suits their needs

Although I’m aware of these design essentials, it is student learning (authentic, multiple, complex and collaborative) that is the guiding light of my design. So with baby steps I hope to create what is the best for my students and my practice, yet I will continue to advocate and collaborate on these issues in education. But, first thing’s first……..