Project = go!

 Wow, I had a great day today.  I secured some funding to go ahead with the "What's wrong with you?" Project! Woohoo! I've got money for ipod touches, nanos, webcams, and data loggers.  I'm pretty excited about getting started on planning...

Here is some of what I wrote in my application:

Proposed Project Overview

This project will see students investigating their own health and making comparisons to their community and with students from other communities in our cluster and across the state.  To do this students will utilise the following digital technologies:

Project Outcomes

Teachers will experiment with pedagogies, which facilitate student investigations, learning and assessment.  Using current and emerging technologies students will gather and access information to build their knowledge of human physiology.  Through collaboration and communication the students will investigate the links between health and factors such as; community, family history, access to medical facilities and education.  Assessment will be designed in negotiation by students and teachers to meet the standards found within the Curriculum Links section of this submission.

Has anyone done anything along these lines? Any advice for me? Anything ideas that could help me out??  Let me know please!

1:1 Wallwisher

My year 9s had a Physics exam today, so I was helping them revise yesterday.  We watched a video and instead of getting all the kids type some notes, (usually they'd word doc or Xmind them), I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to use Wallwisher. [inspired by the Shane's EQelearn wall via twitter)

I half thought it would be blocked but was pleasantly surprised when kids clicked the link and got straight on to it.  They were so keen, EVERY kid was watching the video so intently hoping to get some kind of fact tidbit they could stick on the wall.

All I said about the rules of the wall were: No silly stuff and no anonymous posts, all I got to the contrary was one boy calling himself Britney and another kid saying he wanted a Big Mac.  Fair enough :)

I stuck on a couple of stickies to start them off - "I hope the video covers...", "Notes from the video," and "general comments about the video".  While I was getting the video sorted out, the kids started doing some predicting and were very taken with the wall.

We ended up with so many, it as a bit hard to read so I set a homework task for the kids to read through them all and pick their TOP 10 - all but 3 kids did it - a great result.  We discussed the top 10 and I showed mine - I picked my TOP 10 and I presented them in a Keynote with some more info and discussion question with each - it worked really well.

The kids that can't take great notes from videos had something to work with and the kids that took awesome notes got to share them.   I'd use it again in the same context.

Maybe I should SurveyMonkey them and see what they really thought...

Tranformational learning... is that the new 'amazing'?

I've been teaching 1:1 for 15 months now and I think I can see that it's not enough just to "digitise" our lessons/units.   I don't think what I do in my classroom at the moment is "amazing" or even delivering on our school's strategic plan to improve literacy and numeracy data.

Actually, I have been so focused on integrating ICTs that I don't think it's addressed the Essential Learnings or enhanced my students knowledge in my key learning area.  I don't think I've disadvantaged the kids (they've done the same as the other kids + more,) and the majority of kids have benefited greatly just because it has suited their learning style.
I don't know how I can prove or disprove any of this - which is part of my problem.

This sounds dramatic but it's where I'm at.  This is my thinking...

 Now what do I do??

Well, today I sent an 'application' for some support to develop the :"What's wrong with you?' Project.  I think if I get a chance to do this project, I'll have a better understanding of "transformational learning".  I want to invest time and effort into this and see what comes of it.

Previously I have thought we don't have enough time to facilitate TL in a high school environment but is technology the enabler that will allow us to cover what we need to cover? I think so.

I'd love to talk to some more people and see what 'transformational learning' looks like in other schools.  Maths and Science anyone???

Interesting..

Today we had a day out of class to be part of a professional development  about Enterprise Education.  It was interesting, it threw together a bunch of teachers who aren't normally in a meeting together (alone); the Year 8 and 9 Form teachers.  That was the best part about the day - seeing these teachers and how they react when they get a little bit out of their comfort zone.

I think we were attending the sessions so that we could learn more about facilitating our school's Student Leadership Program - essentially a student directed project based learning activity, (it's more than that). I was looking forward to the day because I thought I might get the chance to get ideas from my colleagues about my current project and how I could deliver it from the Enterprise platform.


Overall it was a strange day where we watched TED talks, discussed the validity of integrating ICTs (again), touched on augmented reality and tried not to get bogged down by our own, (and others) cynicism.

In reagards to tranformational learning and such, sometimes I think it would be an interesting exercise for a few people to make a decision to have a positive attitude before they walk in the door.  They should be brave, do something differently - have an opposites day where they say the opposite of what they're thinking, and see what comes of it. 

One of the TED talks we watched today was the Ken Robinson Clip where he discusses; schools killing creativity. He makes a strong case and I tend to agree with him, and I'd add that the same is true for some teachers; the institution of schools kills thier creativity. I saw a great Youtube video last week - Adrian Greig showed it at the 1-1 Master Class - I think it's a great conversation starter.
When I become a teacher... Youtube video


Anyway, I did get the following tips from today:

• Size doesn’t matter when it comes to enterprise.
• Who is going to value this project?
• Project loses value if you don’t do a decent reflect and review – keep a video diary!
• Keep review and reflection separate.
• Review – technical questions, what worked, what didn’t etc..
• Then extend on that and think so what? (Reflect)
• We were also shown some great cooperative learning techniques that I will be trying

I really like the part of the day where  we got to think about an aspect of our own practice that we were having trouble with.  My group chose SLP as their area that needed work and we got to discuss it in depth and then share through a cooperative learning activity with the rest of the groups.  One of my colleagues took our notes to type up properly because we got some really good ideas and suggestions from everyone.

I wish we could have got everyone's head together right at the beginning of the day and worked on a unit or a subject or SLP and the facilitator could have worked with us on making it better.  I think I've been spoilt by ITSC - but having brilliant people put a different perspective on what you're trying to do is invaluable.

As I heard everywhere recently in my travels, it's not the WHY we have to start teaching differently, it's past that, we should get on with the HOW we're going to do it.

Student Perspectives...

I took the last 15 minutes of my science lesson today to consult the kids about the project.  I put to them - the Essential Learning we need to cover, the content we need to cover and the eLearning Planner that I was using to plan [see below], and asked them for their ideas:

What’s wrong with you? Project

Student Consultation

Students expressed interest in finding out:

·     How does weather affect community health?

·     how does altitude affect family health?

·     comparing the size of communities and their respective health status,

·     comparing school canteens,

·     investigating community hospitals and comparing conditions, or

·     investigating the distance and access to health services i.e. Doctors, Hospitals…

They strongly suggest:

1.  It involves some type of excursion,

2.  we use the data loggers and the mapping element, and

3.  that I invest time in this because it sounds interesting to them.

I started a brief survey to find out any experts/sufferers we could potentially have access to.

Overall I found it a really positive activity.  I laid everything down to the kids and they reacted well, it actually inspired me to press on with it.

See eLearning Planner below:

 

Next bit

Today we had a chat about the project, we re-mapped where we wanted to go.

This is what we came up with:

A bit hard to read but we want to connect kids from different communities to compare/contrast health statistics.  Is it enough for the kids just to compare?

There are still some questions that need to be answered about this unit/project:
What's the point?
Why are we connecting the communities?
How can we design this project so that all the communities benefit?
What will the kids produce?
Is it enough for the kids to see a different community in detail or does there have to be a global effect as a result of the investigation?
Can we work some element of design into the project?
Could we possibly do an investigation of diet/exercise and the effects on health within the different communities?
Will the kids find this interesting?

I think the next step is to ask the kids - a select few, and see if they can bring a different point of view to the project.  Can they see something that would be interesting that we just see?

I've designed a presentation to put to the kids.  I see this as the next place to go...  I meant to do it today but I didn't have the time...

8th March

Started yesterday to think about taking on a project.

I was listening to some ADE's talk about what they had achieved and realised that nothing I have done with the kids has really been 'amazing';  I mean it was at first but I'm looking for the new amazing.  I think I need to start small and plan ahead. 

I think that the kids that are engaged in my classroom are the kids that would be engaged anyway.  They're engaged for extrinsic reasons - they want to do well for their parents, to get ahead etc... which is great.  But I want to get the others, the ones I have to nag and whinge at to get work done.

I want to start a project that the kids care about, that they are interested in and will be intrinsically motivated to be a part of and that is challenging.

I was lucky enough to meet up with some awesome people at ITSC and came away with some leads to follow up.  I have a contact who could link our kids with kids from other communities, I have a bucket of money that I could apply for as well as some awesome ideas about the delivery of the project.