Pages

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Beyond Search: Google Apps for Education

Guest Post by Jerry Bleecker, teacher at College Heights Secondary, Prince George School District 57

Learning, Sharing, Collaborating: Kamloops GAFE Summit 2013

Earlier this summer, I was perusing the web, looking for a professional development opportunity focused on educational technology and teaching in a flipped classroom. September being just around the corner, I was eager to see what other teachers were sharing and reflecting upon. One evening, I happened on a blog post where a teacher discussed how excited she was to attend a Google Applications for Education (GAFE) Conference. These conferences, I was to learn, are held world wide and are tremendous professional development opportunities for educators to share their experiences, network, and acquire new skills working with technology in the classroom. I signed up for the October 25th/26th Kamloops Conference, enthused by the glowing testimonials from the blog and from teachers commenting the conference was perhaps the best they’d attended in a very long while.

The days of summer went quickly, and October arrived before I knew it. Driving to the conference, I was excited by the itinerary I’d booked online the night before. There were so many sessions to choose from. First there was a keynote - Transformational Teaching and Learning with Technology. Then, there was Critical Thinking and the Web, Blended Learning Ecosystems, using Forms to Create a Choose Your Own Adventure Web-quest, and finally the Demo Slam, an opportunity for presenters to showcase unique technologies for learning. As the keynote began, there was a keen sense of anticipation, and the presenter, Ken Shelton, delivered a riveting discussion on the purpose of technology for learning. Never before has there been more opportunity to create understanding in a social context as exists today. Never before has the world been so connected with resources for learning, from Twitter to Facebook, YouTube, to online media. At the speed of the electron, the opportunity for human interaction and sharing is only a click away. Education, itself, stands at the precipice of the most networked opportunity in history. As I said, the keynote didn’t disappoint. It lead into sessions throughout the weekend that detailed the opportunities illustrated.

In my first session with Tanya Averith, I was impressed by the emphasis paid to creating empowered, knowledgeable digital citizens. Working alongside students, teachers need to impress and model how to critically evaluate information for authenticity and bias. Searching for information is quite insufficient next to knowing and evaluating its veracity. Tanya expertlyshowed numerous techniques for vetting soft information(online information), websites, and demonstrated power tips for more effective searching. “A Google Certified Teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator from Montreal, Canada”, Tanya teaches Educational Technology and Digital Citizenship as a Lead Teacher for the Lester B. Pearson School Board. I was amazed by her zeal, knowledge, and forthright enthusiasm for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead with educational technology.

In my second session, I had the opportunity to learn with Michael Wacker. A former elementary teacher, Michael served as an Online and Adult Learning Specialist and helped spearhead the implementation of Google Apps for Education in his district. Posting a simple website address at the start of our session, Michael challenged a room of forty educators to simultaneously edit a single Google word processing document and collaborate in real time on how teachers were using educational technology to provide a blended learning opportunity. The highlight of the session was the collaborative document teachers created together in a few short minutes.

Rounding out my first day, I attended Michelle Armstrong’s session using Google Forms to create a Choose Your Own Adventure quest. Using a series of yes and no decisions, Google forms is an incredible way to tell stories in the genre of Choose Your Own Adventure. With a bit of coaching that highlighted examples of how to create forms, Michelle set a group of thirty educators to work creating their adventures. With my head swimming with information and incredible possibilities from a full day of conferencing, I set to creating my quest. Here it is for your enjoyment - brief, but true to the genre. It was incredibly fun to create, and I was almost taken aback with the ease in its creation and ability to share.

Spent, I returned to my hotel amazed by the educational possibilities, philosophies of digital citizenship, and opportunities to share and collaborate using readily available Google applications. Google, it turns out, is much more than a company focused on search. There is an educational tenet of collaboration and exploring evident in the tools provided and presentation of their use in unique, social, and fascinating pedagogical ways.

Day two, I awoke two hours earlier than normal, eagerly anticipating my second day. Spending much of my time with Tanya Averith, we explored digital portfolios and the amazing continuum of student achievement cataloged and brought to life by students from their elementary years to graduation. One key quote had a hauntingly prophetic ring. “If you Google yourself online,” Tanya said, “what result will you see? Students are putting so much information online, isn’t it better to be a knowledgeable guide, helping them create a positive digital identity than forgoing this responsibility?” I was struck the importance of these sentiments. A digital reputation is simply a fact in a modern world, connected by social media and the World Wide Web. Working with students to create a positive digital persona that reflects their accomplishments and values suddenly struck me as a key responsibility we as educators hadn’t adequately considered. !

For much of the afternoon on the second day, I attended seminars examining how to bridge the digital divide and provide students with online software and technology for learning. While each presenter demonstrated technologies - Google Drive, word processing, slideshows, and forms, I was struck by the diversity of machinery at the conference. Many presenters used MacBooks. Kamloops teachers and technicians attending used Chromebooks, a new low-cost Linux-based laptop running the Chrome web browser as the chief environment for applications, and web programs. There was a myriad of devices, Apple, Google, Windows, etc. but each running Chrome was able to access documents, share interactions, and load cloud applications. I learned Chrome extensions provided additional software abilities and functionality to meet virtually any software need, from creating podcasts to editing digital video and publishing it online to YouTube, Vimeo, etc. The Kamloops School District has in fact, moved to adopting Google Apps for Education and has invested in low-cost Chromebook (laptop) and Chromebox (mini-Desktop) technology in a manner that provides incredible indemnified tech support from Google, Cloud storage, applications for learning, and more. Considering that average desktop technologies running Windows average $700-$1000, the cost savings alone from highly secured Chromebooks ($270-$400) was impressive. Considering the advantage of Google Applications, secure cloud storage, and an expansive list of web programs to install in Chrome, the value for students and educators was readily apparent. The Roadmap for Successful Implementation of Chromebooks was informative on so many levels. I left hoping to communicate these incredible advantages to my own district. Providing teachers and ideally, students, with a portable cloud- based, secure, indemnified device with so much free software creates an opportunity for learners to work from home, creating new materials to share and promote learning in a 21st Century, Web 2.0, socially connected world.

As the Summit concluded, there was a palpable sentiment that teachers couldn’t wait for the next opportunity to return next year and share their experiences using Google Apps for Education and what they’d created, and what they’d done with educational technology to improve their teaching and the learning of their students. The tools weren’t the point, the rationale for their implementation was. However, these are undeniably excellent tools in a fabulously connected online medium - Google.

There were just three teachers from SD57 at the Kamloops GAFE Summit. Next year, I hope to convince many more to travel to Kamloops for the proposed 2014 GAFE Summit. If you don’t wish to wait that long, here is the master schedule. I highly enjoyed the Summit and look forward to attending next year. The philosophies, reflections, training, and collaboration from this experience have already resounded in classroom opportunities for my students. Oddly enough, it feels like my students and I are just getting started.

Jerry

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

kazoo pedagogy



Guest Post by Trina Chivilo, teacher at Harwin Elementary, Prince George School District 57

Teacher As Songwriter: Kazoo Pedagogy and Professional Development

I am in my sixth year as a certified teacher, the last four years in a Kindergarten classroom. That’s probably the first thing to know about me; I am brave. Good thing too, because in the summer of 2013, I engaged in an extraordinary learning experience; I took an intensive song-writing workshop with Canadian folk-children music guru Fred Penner!

By the end of the school year I was anticipating an assignment change from Kindergarten to Music education K-7, so, I sought an opportunity to hone this side of my craft, or more correctly to bridge what was a personal joy into a professional skill. I found my opportunity with ten other songwriters in Wells, BC where we worked with and wrote songs with the beloved Winnipeg-based song-writer and performer.

It was a great week and a great professional development experience. Immersed in a provoking, generous, and collaborative musical community, I wrote four songs in four days. I was both humbled and nurtured as I risked and grew - something midst my deep interests and where I needed to be stretched. My teaching practice is expanding because of this professional development and so far, student engagement is high in my new music classroom. Three of the songs I wrote we will sing this year as repertoire in a new school choir. Now I can teach students, in small steps, how to write their own songs because I have learned a method from one of Canada’s heros. It’s going to be a great year.

In celebration of my learning with Fred Penner, I asked my school to buy 90 kazoos. I have introduced this hum-driven, buzzy-sounding instrument from the 19th century to the intermediate classes. The students are using kazoos to hear, match, and echo pitch; to play in unison, as ensemble, or as solo; to add accent, colour, or texture to musical phrases. We are having a blast discovering as we create, play, and collaborate. Most of the Grade Seven boys have yet to realize that they are also learning to sing in pitch. Ta da! Soon we will be writing songs.

Thanks for taking the time to read about what one ordinary teacher does while engaged in professional learning and practice. I hope you are inspired some time to share about your own teacher learning journey and the who or what that is inspiring you.

Trina


Photo: Fred Penner and Trina Chivilo, IMA Songwriter’s Showcase, Bear’s Paw Cafe, Wells, BC August 2013

ArtsWells Festival of All Things Art: http://www.artswells.com

Monday, October 21, 2013

The PD Committee

After two PGDTA Professional Development Committee Meetings, it has become clear that we have a great team in place with profound respect for autonomous professionalism among teachers, a desire for mutual accountability, and creative ideas for change.

We have tried to clear much of the administrivia and information-only items from our meetings in order to focus on dialogue and planning. This respects the fact that our committee members are not passive attendees but actual PD leaders in the district. Last year the PD Committee began talking about how their role might shift, including that of the Chair, and how the use of the PD Fund might shift as a result. This year, after two meetings, I think we are ready to describe what that shift might look like. These four items represent the core of a vision, and will give us plenty to mull over for the remaining seven meetings ahead in 2013-14:
  1. Committee: the committee should have more opportunities to lead PD whether this is facilitation, presentation, or organization -- and also share in the promotion and celebration of the PD of others. One way this might happen is to conduct conference participant interviews with the aim to publish short celebrations of learning for other educators and the public.
  2. PD Fund administrator: as PD chair and also in possession of a half-time coordinator's position, this person should be as active as possible on the professional learning side of the equation as the Fund administration duties; while it is already a busy job with pulls in many directions, there is always room to change how it is used. Solid precedents have been set by the past Chairs' involvement in Learning Partners, facilitating teacher inquiry projects, and the work of organizing the Zone Conference.
  3. Fund applicants: we need to adjust our policies and do more to make use of the professional learning that takes place when we send teachers off to conferences. We did not used to have many expectations for what participants did with what they learned -- a very basic paper report was the default. We need to provide more and different opportunities for teachers to share -- not everyone wants to put on a workshop.
  4. The PD Fund: currently, we allocate about 67% of the fund to out-of-district travel, 5% to in-district registration, 19% to the Zone Conference, 8% to special projects, and 1% to other items. We would like to develop strategies so that big-ticket items (conference travel) results in maximum benefit to teachers and their students. This may mean shifting some of the allocation towards more in-district events where more local teachers can access high-quality PD speakers and workshops, and also begin using part of the Fund to promote local talent and build capacity.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Robson Valley Fall Conference

The McBride-Valemount Teacher's Association, a local of the Prince George Teacher's Association, is excited to host a mini-conference on the Friday October 25th Professional Development Day. The 8:45-3:00 session takes place at McBride Secondary.

Session topics for primary and intermediate teachers:
  • Math (am for Primary, pm for Intermediate) - presenter: Brian Hatcher, SD57 Math Resource Teacher
  • Educational Technology (am) - facilitator: Joel Zahn, McBride teacher
Session topics for intermediate and secondary teachers:
  • Project-based Learning - special guest presenter: Stephen Chase, Prince George teacher
  • The Magic Egg - working with Pysanky
See full descriptions here (word file).

Registration is free, lunch provided. If space is available, administrators and parents are welcome to join, as are participants from outside the Robson Valley. Mileage can be claimed for PGDTA members if applied for by Oct 18th. 

Please contact McBride teacher Jill Howard (jhoward @ sd57.bc.ca) or Valemount teacher Brian Hanson (bhanson @ sd57.bc. ca) if you are interested, and contact Glen Thielmann (gthielmann @ sd57.bc.ca) if you intend to claim mileage or accommodation, or simply fill in an Individual PD Form and submit by Oct. 18th.  Here are some cabins for rent in McBride (sleep 3-4): http://www.mcbridebc.ca. I believe there are others, too.