Apr 26, 2016

Mindlab session 7 - twitter, blended learning and leadership

Edpuzzle.com - add comments and questions, trim video, add questions, add audio
Can retrieve answers to questions and know who is logged in 
Nice little online piece of software - easy to use, like the additions of adding audio and asking Q's during the videos set 

Blendspace - can be blended for students and teachers
Make it for filming skills for staff 
used previously, children like it, a little time consuming to see and select enough to fill 6 spots 
gets faster as its used

Todaysmeet.com - online meeting and discussion space

Reignited my Twitter life - always been a listener to various people: @Queen_UK [humour],
@JeremyClarkson [humour], @ICT_MrP [education], @leecrockett [education], @kjinquiry [education], @julianclary [humour], @1stanwalker [music], @adamlambert [music] - listened for many years to these guys - so much so their tweets get sent as text messages so I never miss one of theirs, lost my online interaction with Twitter sometime ago...reigniting my twitter life again after today's session
 
Distributed leadership:
All people able to lead in diff ways
Enabling distributed leadership via digital technologies
Opportunity for you to lead - provide better feedback, provide better support, provide creativity, PD
leaders lead from where they are at
Collective intelligence - crowds solve problems

Samr - goal is not redefinition all the time
Never a set way all the time
Provides opportunities for creativity 
Values diversity - wicked problem - how do we value diversity 
Broad visions
Inquiry cycle 
Systems change
No idea how to do that - trust to try and see what will happen

Apr 19, 2016

Mindlab session 6 - Growth Mindset/Connected learning/Leadership styles

If our students don't start learning how to learn - we could be in trouble - in the words of John Connor in Terminator 2 - " The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.""....and isn't that the truth!
We as teachers and them as students have no idea what the future holds - things have changed so much in the last 10 years...children we taught 10 years ago are facing a really different reality than we taught in.
We need to prepare our students to be active learners.
To be collaborators.
To be communicators.
To be problem solvers.
To be flexible.
To be thinkers.
To be creative.
To be innovative.

Is the child engaged and is he/she learning.  Create a need to know in the child. Learning experiences around the needing to know.
we have forgotten the learner and passion for learning due to targets, attainment and National Standards.
Its a work that can fail and is always in progress.
Reconnecting education to opportunity.

In my school connected learning means: having a shared focus but having the opportunities to be creative and explore outside the realms of regular education programmes.

Growth mindset - do we show mistakes, failure in our classrooms
Do we foster 'not yet', making mistakes is ok etc -
ClassDojo - growth Mindset series

Piktochart - demo










Apr 18, 2016

Mindlab session 5 - Makey Makey, coding

Introduction to coding for some people. While it was introduced as starting children straight into scratch - I personally have found that using Code.org as a foundation for coding is much more worth while. Ch'n use code.org to learn the basics of coding and how instructions work together to make things happen on the screen. This is a good foundation before throwing them into scratch where they need an understanding of how code works in order to make the cat move.

Time probably also needs to be given to students to experiment with the sounds and sprites before creating anything - much the same as investigating sounds and transitions using movie software.

Introducing the Makey Makey board into scratch after some lengthy experience using the programme.

http://www.makeymakey.com/

Cheaper versions of the Makey Makey can be found at http://aliexpress.com/

First hand try at using a Makey Makey board.
Great session with our group relearning how circuits work and creating a magical musical instrument using the Makey Makey and cables. We created instruments using card and aluminum foil and even play doh.
Looking at their website it seems you can make an instrument out of almost anything - even bananas!


a beat box creation

a musical triangle

a magical drumkit

a very clever Anzac creation, each poppy told a bit of the Anzac story and the last post music

the Makey Makey board

magical cymbals

use of aluminum foil and playdoh and card



Mindlab Session 4 - Evidence based Learning and Stop-motion

Evidence based learning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=W4eiIPA8ZcM

It's not just using data on students to affect teaching.

Brain Gym is not effective...

What is graphical evidence..?

Skills need to be the priority.
http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/robert-marzano-vs-john-hattie/