Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Coding and Failure

Today I attended a Code Club Australia teacher training session on Scratch facilitated by Ian Wedlock. It was a great day aimed at teacher and librarians starting their journey with Scratch.


Coding is something I have always been interested in, but never really pursued.  As a high schooler, I dabbled with a bit of HTML. When I was completing my TAFE certificate in Networking, we needed to copy lines and lines and lines and lines and lines of code. Waste of time really.

Coding has been recognised as something important to teach in schools. It isn’t explicitly stated in any curriculum. Teachers can use coding as a tool to achieve outcomes, especially in "Producing and Implementing".



Coding isn’t the point.

Computational thinking and problem solving is the point.

In a society that focuses on how well a school does in NAPLAN tests, I wonder how schools are seriously preparing our students for the future. “C” isn’t always going to be the correct answer. Are we developing a society of humans that have all the answers handed to them on a silver platter? Or if the answer isn’t black, it’s white? It is great to score 100% on a test, but what are you DOING with that knowledge. How are you manipulating it? How are you applying it to new situations? If I give you the same question disguised in a different way, are you able to work out what the answer will be?

Probably not.

Coding is not about random symbols that mean something to a select group of geeks. Coding is about creating a series of steps that will perform a given action. And you will not succeed the first time. You may not success a second time. You may need to fail several times before you actually succeed.

Are we teaching kids that failure is OK? I ban rubbers from my classrooms because I want my students to see their errors and learn from them. Why does work need to be perfect? Why must be erase our mistakes as if they never happened. Sometimes, when I enter pro-rubber classrooms (insert cringe here), kids just rub out and make the same mistake again, which they rub out, and make the same mistake again. What was the point of rubbing out? We need to teach kids to identify WHY their mistake is a mistake so that they can self-correct their errors.

Failure is OK. Failure is a First Attempt In Learning. As Jennie Magiera said, you need to FAIL to SAIL (Second Attempt In Learning).

I love this video about Audri. I love this video, not only because this child’s parents are amazing enough to allow their son to build a Rube Goldberg machine in their house, but because this child recognises that failure happens. Failure is a part of the learning process. How many times to we communicate THAT to our students.



Back to the rubbers. I usually have at least one child in tears a day by the end of the first term because I wouldn’t let them rub out. I have even had the tantrum kids who scrunched up their papers or ripped out their pages just to prove a point that they should start again.

I give them back their crumpled papers. I make them sticky tape the torn out page back in.

Why?

Throwing a tantrum when you fail is NOT ok. These children have obviously never experienced failure.

And that makes me sad. It also makes me angry. When my 13m old son falls down, I say, “Up you get!” These tantrum-throwing children have never had someone say, “Get up. Try again. What did you do wrong? How can we fix this?”

And then there is the flip side. The “I can’t do it” kids. “Have you tried?” I ask. “But I can’t do it!” They cry. Again, I ask, “Have you tried?” And I am stuck in the infinite loop of learned helplessness. These kids WILL NOT TRY! They are too scared of making a mistake. They have not been schooled in the art of taking risks. They are too scared of failure.

Seriously, what sort of generation are we developing?

Coding is the key. Coding allows students with a safe platform to fail and to solve their own problems. This computational thinking forces students to look at problems in multiple ways. It teaches students about giving clear, concise directions that achieve a goal.

Now I challenge you, the teacher. Let’s go back to the infinite loop of learned helplessness. The “I can’t do it” teachers. “Have you tried?” I ask. “But I can’t do it!” They cry. Again, I ask, “Have you tried?”

Yes, I have dabbled in coding before. But I when I ran my first coding class, I played the TED talk from Mitch Resnik, printed the cards and said ‘go for it’. I didn’t sit there discovering the in’s and out’s of Scratch. Some kids were happy to just follow the cards and take their time. Other kids explored Scratch in their own time and made some AMAZING games and presentations. One child used Scratch to present his Antarctica project for his teacher!



I also discovered studio.code.org this year. They have 20-hour beginner courses for kids. Interestingly, some children in my group who have the ‘gifted’ label (I call it a label because they have never formally been tested) found the Code Studio course difficult. They constantly could not find the right answer. With this group of students, it took a while to get them confident enough to have a go – that fear of getting it wrong was getting in the way of them just having fun with it.


My future goal? I want to convince more students to come to my ICT club at lunch time and dabble with coding. I’d love to invest in some Makey Makeys so that I can build the foundations of a Makerspace in my school. And if Stage 3 is not interested, there is always Scratch Jr on the iPad or the Infants Code Studio courses. HavHH

Thursday, 3 March 2016

FutureSchools Recap Day 1

My first FutureSchools was definitely not a disappointment. Even better, is that there was a dedicated Young Learners Conference aimed at promoting technology in the early years. I have been to past conferences that have been geared to secondary (without disclosing this until you turn up, even though they promote K-12) or upper primary. I feel that early years education tends to be locked up, ignored, and placed into the 'too hard' basket. 


That said, I was geared up and ready for Day 1!

The first keynote for the Young Learners' Conference was Kari Stubbs, an international guest from BrainPop (Jr). She focused on filling up our virtual backpack with tools that can be used in our early years classrooms to promote meaningful learning through digital play. I love the idea of play in the early years but I have never really thought about it in terms of digital play.

Kari first introduced DIGITAL GAMES to promote play using the Game Up section of BrainPop. 

This was followed by a whiz through CODING GAMES. Kari made reference to an Edutopia article outlining coding in Kindergarten, and it is my belief that if concepts are introduced early enough, the foundations of learning are strong and solid. I love the idea of Run Marco! an online and app coding game for kids. I can't wait to try this one in my classroom! Kari also discussed the ISTE Connect Standards Refresh. The standards now include Computational Thinking. I believe these standards should be added to the toolbox of twenty-first century skills our students need to build. 

Another tool to add to our backpack was PLAYFUL ASSESSMENT. Kari discussed a paper by Barry Fishman which looked at gaming in assessment. 

Next, Kari focused on how DIGITAL CONTENT can lead to learning, followed by BLENDING PHYSICAL AND DIGITAL PLAY. She rolled out the usual amazing tools such as #BreakoutEDU, makerspaces and Google Expeditions




Now that our backpack was full, Kari briefly touched on research from the American Academy of Pediatrics about screen time. It is worthy to note that the guidelines call screen time "time". I'm not going to list their recommendations here, but the article is worth a read. 

Following on from Kari was Paul Hamilton. He started off with this statement, which supported his keynote on turning teachers into innovators.
#AGREE!!!!! 

I found the following infographic shown by Paul very interesting as well:  

He also put up the good 'ol pencil metaphor. I can see many "erasers" in my life!!!!

Paul also role-played the idea of a conversation with "Yes AND..." and "Yes BUT...". The power was with the person using the "Yes AND..." sentence. It is my belief that you need to look for the positive in everything. The "Yes BUT..." mentality is a very negative way of looking at possibilities. 


Paul is an amazing educator who found it important that students engage in creative tasks using technology rather consume content. He raised the question "What do you want technology to do with our students?"


I'm a big believer of creativity over content consumption. Go Paul!

Paul also looked at encouraging students to be problem solvers when it comes to technology. 

Paul discussed ways that ScratchJr can be used to teach mathematical concepts. I love his coding rules as well. 


 Paul provided examples of using Hopscotch and Sphero in the classroom. I love his "Saving Superman" Sphero challenge.

Finally, this graphic outlines why Creativity is so important. Personally, I see how creativity build resilience by building a risk-taking environment. 

 After morning tea, I had the pleasure of watching these guys in the RoboCup challenge. Go Bees!!!

After lunch I was involved in a TeachMeet in the PD Theatre. I presented my experiences of Google Draw in Mathematics 
I loved Jackie Child's talk about using makerspaces with literature. I quickly shared the idea of squishy circuits with my Stage 3 colleagues studying electricity. Thanks to Brett for the flattering photo of me during my talk.
After the TeachMeet I had the wonderful coincidence of meeting Dan Day from Kinderloop. Kinderloop is an app I implemented a few months ago for my son's day care. It was great chatting to him face to face and learning about what's next on the agenda for Kinderloop. 

For my session, I cannot stress how humbled and blessed I felt when I received so much positive feedback about Higher Order Thinking in K-2



I finished off the day with a keynote from the wonderful Jeannie Magiera on Courageous Edventures!
I was so engaged I didn't take notes but found some great tweets about her keynote presentation. Essentially, she is another great educator that challenges people who says that younger children cannot use technology. She says that the littles can do what the bigs can do. We need to FAIL (First Attempt In Learning) and SAIL (Second Attempt in Learning) with them. 

Yes, I am happy to share my crazy pills with anyone. I want them to catch my contagious disease of believing that little kids can learn just as well as the bigs. Can't wait for Day 2. 


Monday, 7 September 2015

The latest fantastic feature from ClassDojo

ClassDojo recently released an exciting feature in their product - something I have been battling with for years. I am a big believer in sharing students' work and with many parents in the workforce unable to come to open classrooms, I find the digital world a fantasic window into our learning space.

I have been using ClassDojo as a behaviour management system for a couple of years now. I am a ClassDojo Mentor for my school and an Australian ClassDojo Ambassador. Back then, I just focused on the 'Positive' and 'Negative' (now called 'needs work') behaviours, resetting the points each day. I love the random child feature, which I use to keep all of the kids on their toes when answering questions. I find the visual and auditory aspect of giving points in ClassDojo a fantastic motivator for my students.

And then they released the app!

This changed everything.

All it took was for me to take my iPad to the lines at the end of lunch and silently start giving out 'lining up' points to my Year One students. No more "Hurry up and line up" screams across the noisy playground - once kids started hearing the shrill of points being given out, whispers of "she's giving out Dojos" rippled up the line right to the back where the more challenging kids were throwing their lunchboxes up into the air. It was like an army general had just walked in and made them line up to attention.

Suddenly, library time was painless with the addition of my iPad following us to lines. During school assemblies, I'd mute the iPad but the kids knew I was giving out points, and eagerly anticipated returning to the classroom to see how many points they received.

For some of the more challenging students, I'd pull them to one side and show them the visual graphs of their behaviour. I let them know that if their behaviour does not improve, I can show this to their parents - and this sends a chill down their spine. Yes, there is the feature to allow parents access to the reports and I love this, but at the time I was working with a community where there was a distinct line between the 'haves' and 'have nots' and I did not want to disadvantage any of my students.

An example of a graph showing positive and needs work behaviours

Any now *drumroll* my favourite feature - ClassStory.


One of the biggest issues we face as teachers in a digital world is the privacy of our students. Yet, with so many working parents, whom we hardly see, giving them a window into the classroom is a must. Social media platforms such as Twitter are fantastic, however parent permission is needed to place our students' images into the public forum. I have previously used Google Sites, which parents needed to access with their child's login. This worked well but the editing of pages to add students' work required time and a PC due to editing limitations on iPads.

ClassStory looks just like a Facebook feed, however the content is contained securely within the ClassDojo platform. Parents can easily view this window into your classroom and 'like' content, just like other social media platforms. Teachers can easily send out reminders and share classroom. My favourite feature is that you can easily snap and post content from your Smart Phone. This means that you can post classroom experiences to parents in real time in just seconds! No need to find the time to do it later. I know when I had my class site, I was extremely guilty of forgetting to upload content to the virtual classroom section of our site.


The potential of this feature is limitless. My first initial thought is to allow a child or two a day (or hour) in charge of an iPad. This child's job is to document a task or the school day using photos. At the end of the day or session, this child uses a scrapbooking or annotation app, such as PicCollage, Strip Designer or Skitch to create a single image with words and images to share their day or their learning. That image is saved to the camera and all you need to do as the teacher is to log into ClassDojo and upload it on ClassStory. You don't even need to worry about finding time to get a post sorted. Parents are more than likely going to log in to check your class' ClassStory page if they know their child has contributed or will be featured.

I can't wait to try out this new feature when I go back to work next year, and I can't wait to see how ClassDojo evolves their product in the future.

Don't forget that the ClassDojo Australian and New Zealand Ambassadors host a Twitter chat every Wednesday fortnight at 7pm AEST. Save the hashtag #dojochatanz to your Tweetdeck! Follow ClassDojo Australia and New Zealand on Twitter and or join the Facebook group.



Tuesday, 28 October 2014

What is the purpose of education?

At the end of a leadership day with Tom Barrett, we were inspired by his own blog post on the purpose of education. Tom challenged us to write 500 words on the purpose of education. 

Easier said than done....

I got to about 250 and was pretty much brain dead after that. 

So here it is... my belief on the purpose of education:



Education should empower people with with the knowledge on how to access tools to innovate and to persevere to reach their goals and dreams.


Education should promote creativity to inspire learners to develop solutions to everyday and out-of-the-box problems.


Education should be individualised and learner-centred, and allow learners to question, predict, fail and achieve.


Education should be dynamic and provide learners with access to contemporary learning tools that enhance their educational outcomes and develop higher-order thinking.


Education should be interactive and multi-sensory to allow learners multiple opportunities to connect with their subject and have practical experience to build the skills needed to interact with their environment.


Education should be accessible to all, regardless of status, economy, equipment, gender, race, age, ability and skills.


Education should inform learners of the traditions of their community, and provide opportunities for learners to reform and refine traditional practices to move their community into a contemporary world.


Educators should prepare learners to interact with a global community by leading by example through interactions with global educators to refine teaching practice.



My Educational Philosophy presented in a Wordle


Monday, 29 September 2014

My #GTA SYD experience...

Sydney is a beautiful city. Not that I’m biased or anything. Where else can you sit, having a coffee looking over the world’s most beautiful harbour.

Sydney from one of the Google Cafes on the Rooftop
These past two days, I have had the marvellous privilege to be a part of the Sydney Google Teacher’s Academy. To add a cherry on top, the day was facilitated by the fabulous team from NoTosh. Two days ‘immersed’ in Google and Design Thinking – yes please!
Let’s start at the very beginning. I am fortunate enough to work in an education system that has embraced Google Apps for Education (GAFE) for every teacher and student. I have been using Google products for some time before the introduction of GAFE in my system. I believe it is one of the best investments that my educational system has made.

I am also fortunate enough to work at a school this year that have engaged the marvellous team from NoTosh to assist teachers to move through the Design Thinking process. I first heard of NoTosh when they presented as a keynote for the CEO Sydney Early Learning Conference in 2011. I was hooked.

I applied for the Google Teacher Academy last year and did not get in. Bummed. So this year I used the power of positive thinking to get in - and I succeeded. One unusual side effect that has come from my video is that I am now recognised for it ...and people are disappointed when they meet me for the first time because I am not in costume (and even more surprised when I say that most of that is my wardrobe!). The theme of my video was “Creative Leader”. So, I made my video creative and spoke about how I was a leader of ICT in my school. Obviously someone liked it!



This particular GTA is the first of a new brand of GTAs focused on Moonshot thinking - the idea that you can have a goal and work towards it even if there is no technology or means available to help you achieve it.




First impressions

I’ve been to the Google HQ in Sydney once before, but only briefly. I was looking forward to a behind the scenes peek of this mysterious crazy world only seen in The Internship. Google Sydney is in fact over a number of floors hidden three different buildings! My main aim was to see the old monorail (a bit sad I know).

The Google office is my idea working environment. NOTHING appears traditional! Writable walls, hidden goodies, free food, recessed working spaces, a games room, unicycles, unicorns..the list goes on. If only all workplaces promoted creativity with the environment as one of the drivers.

Hidden chalkboards that pull out
Mindblowing - Google uses oil with my name in it!
OMG! A Shrek pinball game!

Doors to the lift area
One of the little alcoves to work, rest or play. 

The Games room....


The Design Thinking Process

Prior to the main event, we were put into teams - mine was Team Black Sheep. Named so because our fearless leaders’ surname was Lambert and the brainstorming session started off as a play on his name and moved into out of box thinking.

Team Black Sheep


We worked independently on immersion tasks, touching base with our team via Google Hangouts. These immersion tasks provided a chance to critically look out our schools to define our moonshot idea. Mine started looking at my classroom environment. I always believe that the classroom environment is the “third teacher”. I spent the last three years in an open-plan flexible learning environment and have started this year at a school in my own room (yes the wall can come down but others are reluctant to do so) with very heavy, clunky, inflexible desks.

And so my moonshot evolved…



My goal is to create my dream learning environment, that has ease of flexibility and motivates the students to learn. I want to create an environment of collaboration between grade partners where the walls come down and you refer to your grade as a collective, not as separate classes. I hope now to look for ways to fund my moonshot as I know that funds is going to be the hardest hurdle in my moonshot. New furniture cost money, and one of my hurdles is to find out how I am going to find my moonshot. My first bet is to find out about grants or donations from local community organisations (hint hint?).

Watch this space as I work towards journeying into space to reach the moon!