SPX Blogging Presentation

What Next?

2014 brings new learning and a fantastic work opportunity. This year I have been seconded for one year to be a Facilitator. I will be working for the Ako Hiko cluster for three days of the week and two days of the week I will be working in three Manaiakalani Cluster Schools.
Last year I was given the opportunity to work with three new to netbook teachers as a facilitator within my own school (Panmure Bridge School). I worked .2 in their classrooms. The facilitator role was very successful and I enjoyed it. My team of teachers were enthusiastic and had a positive attitude in giving things a go. We had lots of fun, making movies for the Manaiakalani Film Festival. All of my team are equipped to use the school video camera, to transfer footage from the video camera to their computer, to edit and publish their movies onto their blogs. As a Facilitator I loved going along to Toolkit sessions and then the next day saying to the teacher "I went along to this amazing tool kit session yesterday afternoon, it's on...... would you like me to teach your class it?". They would say "Yes go for it". The students were very excited about being the first in the school to try this new application out, trying the app before my own class. The students enjoyed making flipping eBooks and after a while would present their learning on a flipping eBook. Skills that were taught in lessons were applied at a later date without me modelling to them or being in the room, which was great.

I look forward to working with teachers and their classes this year. It'll be great to share my knowledge and skills with others and to utilize my Masters degree. I would like to thank Mrs Dorothy Burt, Mrs Fiona Grant and the Manaiakalani Trust for giving me this wonderful opportunity to grow and to be part of introducing 1:1 digital learning environments in the Mt Roskill area.

MITA Evaluation

This project has provided me with an insight over the needs these new year five students have when they enter into a 1:1 digital learning environment. There is a need for the year five students to be learning the technical skills sooner so that the curriculum learning objectives can be covered right at the beginning of the year when they enter into the classroom.
When my target students were interviewed at the start of the year their knowledge and experiences around E-Learning and technical skills were limited. Some of the students had more experiences than others in being monitors and in using the three class desktop computers. There is a need to equip students earlier in getting them to use the Google Apps for Education Package and to be blog authors at year four level.

Since this project has been implemented six Chrome Books have been purchased and are used in the year four class. As part of my Manaiakalani Facilitator release I have created blogs for each student and have worked with every student to ensure each student has at least one post published on their blogs. My E-Learning Monitors: Caitlin, Angel, Jharda'e and Patrick have been a great support to the year four class and have helped the class teacher and students with Google Apps and Blogging. They have been called upon when I am teaching my class. Their knowledge and skills have been invaluable to this class as well as all the junior classes in the school. Some of the year four group who are confident fast learners with their class Chrome Books have posted a number of posts on their blogs. This year four group are also called upon by the classroom teacher to help the other students which is great. Every year four student has activated their Google Account and has been taught how to create documents. Some of the top performing students have created presentations. The class teacher has attended the tool kit sessions focusing on the beginners guide to Google Apps and class sites. She has got a class site in which the class can access their follow up reading activities. The teacher has been shown during a facilitation session the Teacher Dashboard and is getting the students to file their work so that she can comment on the students learning. The year four students have been given a great start to when they enter in a 1:1 digital learning environment. I feel these students will be equipped with the knowledge in the technical skills and the understanding of the pedagogy Learn, Create, Share. At the start of term 1 2014, there will be more of an emphasis of the curriculum and objectives, and less of the orientation around accepting blog invites and activating the google accounts (technical skills) which all takes time. 

This project has been very successful. It has been a real team effort. In order to equip students to become successful learners in a 1:1 digital learning environment there needs to be a collaborative team approach. A collaborative team approach entails: getting senior managers, classroom teachers, students on board and utilizing student knowledge (peer mentoring). I found the more I utilized my own students by getting them to share their knowledge to younger students, the more receptive these students were. I loved taking my students to work with me to other classes when I did my facilitation among the classes.

To view the current year four blogs, check out their class blog. The individual student blogs are down the side: http://pbsrm8.blogspot.co.nz/
I would like to thank the Manaiakalani Trust for allowing me to carry out this project and for giving me the opportunity to share this project at the ULEARN 13 conference and to the Learning and Change network visitors. It was a great experience to push myself out of my comfort zone especially in the area of public speaking to teachers as a lot of my work is done behind the scenes. This year has been a year of pushing myself out of my comfort zone and putting myself out there. Being accepted into the Google Teacher Academy was a fantastic learning experience to share my MITA project on a global level and to network with others from around the world in Chicago.

Our progress made throughout the year

All students can log into their blogs. In Term 3 one of the traget students left the school and now there are only nine students in the target group.

This has remained consistent across the year. All students can log into their Google Accounts without the support from other students. In term one, students were able to pick up the skill of logging into their Google Accounts independently with confidence and speed.

All students are able to open their Google Documents. Since term 1, gains have been made. 

 

Gains have been made since term 1. 

Students have developed confidence in sharing their work with others. The greatest shift was made in term 2. This has been consistent throughout the year, as opening of a Google Document has been a daily occurrence throughout the year.

Students have had greater opportunities to use Spreadsheets later in the year. On Thursdays when I was on Facilitator release, Bronwyn my release teacher did a Current events quiz with them. Every week the students had to graph their result using Google Spreadsheets. In term 4, I got my students to do a Statistical investigation on a topic of their choice. They had to collect, collate and present data digitally. They used Google Spreadsheets to carry out their investigations.

There was greater use with Google Draw in term 2 and throughout the year. Google Draw was used in creating concept posters in Maths, making brochures for our production in term 3 and creating water cycle diagrams in term 4. The students have had opportunities to use Google Draw throughout the year.

There was greater familiarity in using Google Presentations from term 2 onwards. Google Presentations was used at the creating stage of the PBS Inquiry model, in homework presentations and was used for presenting new understandings in Maths (Maths Dictionary).

Over time, students have become confident with embedding applications onto their blogs. In term 4, all of the target students could embed applications into their blogs. One of the barriers for these students was that the embedding process varied from different applications.

 Students grasped logging into their blogs from term 2. They became very confident in meeting this need earlier on in the year, as they realized that their blogs was the area for displaying their learning onto. The more posts they made the greater the views from audiences around the world.

Term 2 the blogs became much more transparent to the students. They could see where their learning was going to and it was a viewing platform for all people involved: students, parents, teachers. They learnt earlier on in the year, that the more they posted the more hits they would get from around the world. The global audience was a great motivator for my students.

In term 2 there was an increase with the number of students who were able to create new blog posts independently. This was consistent through out the year.

 

In term 2 all students were able to upload a photograph onto their blogs. There was growth in term 2, as students had opportunities to upload individual, group and class photographs onto their blogs.

 

In term 4 three students were able to insert movies onto their blogs. This area has not been a major priority this year. If there was a unit on movie making then all students would be able to upload movies of themselves onto their blogs. Also the creating of movies has a lot more steps such as: making the actual movie, editing the clips, uploading them onto Vimeo and copying and pasting the embed code onto the blog.

 Over time students have been able to insert photographs from Picasa onto their blogs independently. This is due to that all photographs from classroom activities and outings were uploaded onto Picasa, so that the students were able to view them and choose the photographs they liked and matched their learning onto their blogs. 

Inserting movies has not been a priority this year

There has been shift with the students being able to upload a picture from the internet onto their blogs. Students use Google Images for learning and to enhance their content that they have researched. Adding an image makes the learning real for them especially if it was a historical / past event or focus.

 Term 4 students have discovered the webcam. We have not had specific lessons in using the webcam, as we have had technical issues with the webcam. The older devices have different settings and may not always work. Java, Flash and Adobe are the issues when we try and use the webcam. We have abandoned the idea in using the webcam for the time being. Also with a class of 30 students it was much easier if we did not use it, because of limited space within the school. 

In term 2 students could see the purpose in taking a screen shot of their learning. This has been consistent throughout the year. In Maths Whizz and Xtra Maths students would regularly take screen shots of their progress and write reflections on their blogs. Taking screenshots of learning was a regular occurrence in the classroom .

In term 1, some of the students were familiar in commenting to others as they did this the previous year.  At the beginning of the year all of the class were taught about what a comment is and making constructive comments. Making comments to each other, classes at Panmure Bridge School and to schools within the cluster.

There has been an increase since the beginning of term 2 of students being able to write reflections on their own learning. Reflecting has been a critical part to the learning programme in Room 5. On the wall their are plenary questions to assist students with self evaluating their own progress. Writing reflections is often modeled by the teacher, so that reflections are in depth and can address the next learning steps.

Students have made a great effort with clicking onto hyper linked book marked websites. This has been evident with the Inquiry / Topic work that the students do in class. The class site has bookmarked websites that the students can access under the Topic tab. This makes it easier for the students, as they can click onto a picture which is hyperlinked to a child friendly website that is at the child's level of understanding.

Throughout the year have gained knowledge and experience with using Wall wisher, Popplet and Lucid Charts. This has happened more in Inquiry Learning, where students can brainstorm information, compare and contrast information and present information. Students can choose an application that they wish to brainstorm information onto. Popplet seems to be a favourite within the target group as they can create mindmaps, insert images, colour code and upload You Tube clips onto their work.

Term 2, was the time in which students were able to access the class site independently without the support from others. The Year 6 students whom I taught as Year 5's had the greatest familiarity with the class site from the year before, so their learning was transparent and their knowledge could be passed onto the Year 5 students in term 1.   

This has been an ongoing process for the students. Those who are confident readers and writers seemed to take risks with using Google search engines. There is so much information out there that for students who struggle with reading and comprehension, it can be overwhelming and off putting.

Putting content from the internet has been an ongoing goal. It is hard for a lot of students as the information on the internet is pitched at a much higher reading level than what these students are working. We have had lessons on reading articles from a number of sources and then putting the information into our own words. It has been a challenge but valuable learning. 

There were shifts from term 1 through to term 2 on students who were able to visit the class blog independently. In term 1, the students were finding their own way around with their device. They were taught how to access their individual blog from the class blog and were shown where to view other students blogs from the class blog. Over time the class blog was viewed more by the students as they were keen to see whose work has gone onto the blog, whose up to date with their learning and who needed to spend their time wisely to get work finished.

Students can now check emails independently. Through using Picasa album invites were sent to the students via email. This gave students the incentive to check their emails regularly. Also every week I would screen shot each child's weekly Maths Whizz results to them and so this gave the students opportunity to check their emails.

Students can access You Tube clips independently within reason

Searching for images became much more frequent throughout the year. In the first term, only one student knew how to do this. Over time progress had increased with students being able to search and save Google images independently. Students tended to search for images during Inquiry / Topic lessons than in any other subject area.

Over time students have developed knowledge around being Cyber Smart Learners. This is still work in progress. Students understand the legalities of setting up accounts and the legal ages in doing this. They have gained an understanding of the term plagiarism and the importance of putting information into their own words. They have also learnt about being safe around advertising and not to believe in everything they see or read on the internet.  

A student's perpective on the class site

Check out how Yvette (a Year 6 student in my class) has used the class site to access her learning in Art. In Term 3, the class were learning about the famous German artist Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart. The class designed and painted their art works in the style of Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart. The unit of learning had a strong Maths and Language focus. This screen cast highlights the process Yvette went through in creating her art work and how she has used the class site to support her learning.

Screen Recording 7 from Joy Paton on Vimeo.

Our Blogging Movie

This is our orientation movie on Becoming a Blogger. When you are in Year 4 or above you are eligible to become a blog author. This movie highlights steps around accepting your first invite and posting work up onto your blog. It has been made by the Year 6 students in Room 5 and features the Panmure Bridge School E-Learning Monitors.

Blogging from Joy Paton on Vimeo.

MITA Project - Where I'm at now

This term I have been working on building partnerships with the Year 4 class. I have been very proactive in my approach, focusing on setting up the year 4 students for success when they enter into a 1:1 digital learning environment in 2014. The first thing I did was speak to their classroom teacher around creating blogs for each student. It has been an exciting process. Their classroom teacher gave me a list of her top students that she wanted me to work with. She believed that if I worked with the top students then their new knowledge and skills would be passed down onto the others. At the start of the term I created blogs for the entire class. From there I would work with groups to accept their blog invites and to create a new post onto their blogs. The experience has been amazing as some of these students learn the technical skills fast and apply them back in class. All of the student blogs are hyperlinked back to the class blog. Click on the links below to view the student blogs.

Room 8 Class Blog

Inotia's Blog 
Daniel's Blog
Jasmine's Blog
Phoenix's Blog
Aminiasi's Blog

Managed Learning Environments - Google Site

During the last two years I have been using a Google Site to make teaching and learning accessible for students and senior managers. The students can view the curriculum areas they are learning about and access online material to support their learning from the Google Site. On my class site, learning intentions and success criteria are displayed, websites are hyperlinked or embedded so that students can access them, Google Applications are embedded so that the students view or make their own copy. In this movie I am going to show how I use my Google Site in Written Language. The focus area is Recount Writing. This movie shows how the site is used to support the writing process.  

Recount Writing from Joy Paton on Vimeo.

ULEARN 2013 presentation

This is my presentation I shared at the ULEARN 13 Conference. 

If you have any questions contact me: joy@panmurebridge.school.nz

MITA Presentation ULEARN from Joy Paton on Vimeo.

MITA: Orientation Movie: Becoming a Google Account Holder

This video was a recommendation by my Year 6 students on ways I could assist the new Year 5's or new students when they enter into a 1:1 digital learning environment. The Year 6 students were interviewed earlier on in the year and they felt an orientation movie would help new year 5 students or any new students in gaining an understanding on what was required when they become eligible Netbook / Chrome Book users. There will be a number of orientation movies made next term on Being a Blogger, Looking after the Chrome Book at school and at home and other requirements. This video is on Becoming a Google Account holder. We hope you enjoy it.
Orientation movie1 from Joy Paton on Vimeo.