Why have an online home for your class?

In an effort to remind myself why I believe in e-learning tools, as we as to encourage others to do the same, I have created a summary that might be useful. Feel free to share and distribute. You can access the Google Drive drawing here for editing and easy sharing purposes.


I would love your feedback on this, as always!

Digital Citizenship for Adults

There are lots of things out there for kids right now regarding digital citizenship. But I bet sometimes your colleagues' digital etiquette leaves much to be desired too. I've put together a very basic guide with a hint of humour. Feel free to share this office etiquette guide with your colleagues - or print a copy for the office wall. 

Data Detective and a Trifecta of Tools

Flubaroo generate spreadsheet (student names removed)

Maybe it's because I did a science degree, maybe because I am an empiricist. Either way, I like having data to make decisions around. Education rockstar researcher Hattie emphasises how important feedback from the students about how they're learning is. So I wanted to share a trifecta of tools that help the busy teacher use data more effectively.

ideas about gravity before teaching and learning

ideas about gravity after teaching and learning

Step 1: A quick google form at the beginning of a lesson with an open ended question e.g. What do you understand about gravity? Followed with a few multi choice questions that look at common misconceptions about gravity.
Google forms work well on all platforms and devices including smart phones

Then... I use flubaroo (a google docs add on) to grade it very quickly on a spreadsheet. This gives me a spreadsheet with the lowest scoring students automatically in red. Hence, immediately I can move forward with differentiated tasks, team roles etc. based on what the students know.
Flubaroo is a simple to use google apps add on - when in a google spreadsheet, simply click on add ons and then install it


Step 2: Teaching and learning takes places including a range of different strategies.

Step 3: Students take the same test
Then... I use flubaroo again to see if students have made a shift in their understanding. Today, my students shifted from a 1.72 out of 4 to a 2.42 out of 4. I can also then identify which students need more intensive scaffolding or support in the next session.

Finally, I use word it out to paste the answers from the open ended question creating a before and after version with the students' answers. From the before and after I can see that students are now able to describe gravity with the vocabulary that I introduced today including mass, attracted and pull.
Word it out is a free tool that creates a word wall where the size of a word increases based on its frequency in the text that you input.

And with my trifecta of tools I can identify the students that need to be extended next time as well as the students that need to be supported. Using the view summary function in google forms I can also see how many of my students started with misconceptions about gravity and how many finished with the same or perhaps new misconceptions.

Before teaching and learning

After teaching and learning

The reality is that being a data detective just means that I am taking a really brutal, honest look at my own teaching. I can see that students no longer think that only planets have gravitational fields, but I can also see that there are still students who think that the moon has no gravity. 

E-portfolios are like holidays

I spend a lot of my time thinking, learning, teaching and reading about e-learning, and lately, a lot of this time has been focussing on e-portfolios. Although the concept of a portfolio is not new, the e-portfolio has become increasingly trendy of late. However, personally I hope that e-portfolios transcend trend and make their way into the realm of common practice.

Personally, I think the biggest value in e-portfolios lie in that they exemplify the learning progress. Learning is not a destination, it is a journey. After all, why do people go on holiday? We go for all the experiences along the way. We all have to start somewhere, some of us stay longer in certain places, and ultimately, we may all end up in different places. The experiences along the way is what matters, and I believe learning should be the same. We should be celebrating with students all the amazing things that happen on the way of their learning journey. We should stop to see the sights, and help them make plans when their flights get stranded. Although it is great when we come home, it is the journey that we cherish. Learning is not about the grade that you get, but about the lessons your learnt and the progress you made. I think a well executed e-portfolio does just that. It's a photo album of the holiday rather than the homecoming.

At Hobsonville Point Secondary School, we will be using e-portfolios with both staff and students. For the staff, to document evidence towards the New Zealand registered teacher criteria (RTC), inquiry into their own practice but also as part of the appraisal process. Since there are so many teachers who blog at Hobsonville Point, we have also set up these e-portfolios so that blog posts can be tagged and automatically filed as evidence for the relevant RTC.

Our students will also have e-portfolios. In a school where nothing is the way it used to be, it is a very tough ask for one teacher to be able to report on a student's progress in their seven modules, big project, and dispositional development. (If you don't know about the unique structure of our school, see Claire Amos's post). 

John Hattie mentioned in one of his talks at the Festival of Education that teachers need to be more efficient, in my mind, student e-portfolios is one way that we can be more efficient. Having students collate their work in one place allows teachers to be able to track the learning of students across all their subjects. At Hobsonville Point, this will mean that a student's learning coach will be able to evaluate their progress based on both academic and dispositional goals such as SOLO, the fluencies (problem solving, information and communication), and the hobsonville habits (resilience, compassion, creativity etc). An individual piece of work can have multiple designated tags, one piece of work can thus be used as evidence of a student being resilient, showing creativity and showing evidence of communication. This single piece of work could also be anything from a reflection, a formal assessment, a video, content embedded from another site or even an audio recording. Hopefully, once our students reach year eleven, they will already have some evidence that they can use towards their NCEA accreditation. I was fortunate enough to attend the Mahara Hui in Wellington this week where NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications Authority) expressed how keen they are for moderators to submit student work as e-portfolios. Can you imagine how much postage will be saved? 

So if you are yet to buy in to the e-portfolio trend, don't you think it is time?

Ask not what the internet can do for you, but what you can do for the internet!

Image source: www.unrestrictedstock.com

Did you know, to become a New Zealand citizen if you have not been born here, you are required to swear an oath or  complete an affirmation of allegiance?

I (your name) solemnly and sincerely affirm that ...  ...  ...   I will faithfully observe the laws of New Zealand and fulfil my duties as a New Zealand citizen - www.dia.govt.nz

In England, there is a GCSE called Citizenship Studies which "helps students to develop as active citizens of our democracy." 

What is citizenship? What does it mean to be a New Zealand citizen as opposed to a citizen of another country? What is a good citizen? How do you teach someone to become a good citizen? And should there be a distinction between citizenship and digital citizenship?  

Being a bit of an E-Learning nerd, I spend a significant amount of time thinking about Digital Citizenship. However, working with +Andrew Cowie from the National Library on this subjects recently, I have realised a few more important things... 

Firstly, that although we keep saying digital citizenship, it is really an indication of our age far more than grey hair and wrinkles could ever be. Do you have an email account? Then guess what? You are a digital citizen. Although to a lesser degree than a fourteen year old who documents their whole life through Instagram snap shots or a twenty something year old teacher who blogs about everything she learns at her new school, you are still a digital citizen. Then throw in some online banking, shopping, your iTunes account and your Facebook account. Perhaps you are occupying more of cyber space than you care to think? In fact, how many of us can really function in society without connectivity? +Andrew Cowie proposed that the "digital" might fall away eventually. I agree, but I think that it should already have fallen away. Breaking a law online, is still, breaking a law, hence, you are citizen occupying a physical and a digital space. 

As always, admitting the problem is always the first step. So now that I am aware that I am a (digital) citizen, what should I know? Certainly the traditional ideas of cyber safety are my, and probably your immediate thoughts. Don't give out personal details and so forth. However there is more to it than that. I am directly connected to the world. I have a digital persona that may reflect positively or negatively depending on how what I put out there is interpreted. And that digital version of me has a reach often much further than what I would have had on my own. What is the impact of my words online? They may not break any laws, but certainly they may impact someone's perception of me. Or they may impact someone's perception of the organisation that I work with. And certainly, if you work in New Zealand, chances are, you will meet someone in person at some point.

Although we often focus on the cyber safety and sensibility side of things. We often forget about things such as intellectual property. Do you have the permission to use certain images? When I retweet an image, do I actually have the right to do so? Have you read the fine print of who owns the images you upload to Pinterest, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram? Do you know what a creative commons licence is? 

Being a good digital citizen extends beyond not breaking the law, just as being a good citizen extends beyond not breaking the law. For example I might not break any laws, but I would be considered a much better citizen if I enrolled to vote and actually bothered to vote. Or if politics isn't your thing, I might choose to get involved in my community through girl scouts or other community projects. In the digital world, this may be as simple as clicking the report spam button in Twitter. It may mean that I host events such as #kidschatNZ or that I use the internet to spread the world about a good cause like +Johanna Chambers and her ride for cancer. 

There is also genuine skill that comes into being a good digital citizen. Information is no longer a commodity but being able to sift through information and curate it in a thoughtful, useful and unique way is far more valuable. Or learning to manage online representations of ourselves is certainly also a skill with genuine value. 

Citizenship is about obeying the laws of a country. However being a good citizen is about contributing in such a way that your country benefits from you, and as a result, you from it. Being a citizen you would keep yourself safe and follow the law, but a good citizen contributes. So, ask not what the internet can do for you, but what you can do for the internet. Are you contributing by keeping not just yourself, but others safe too? Are you using the connectivity and reach of the internet to achieve positive things both in a physical and a digital space? And are you really engaging with the potential of the internet? Are you the citizen who never enjoys the beaches, the parks, the public fireworks? Or are you the citizen who embraces the full power of the the Internet's enormous diversity and makes it work for you and those around you in both the physical and the digital worlds you occupy? 

I encourage you to embrace that you are probably like me, a child of two worlds. You live in a physical and a digital space. So I invite you to step up, and live in that space as you would in your home, your neighbourhood and your community. Make it a better place!