Putting the 'tool' together & reflecting on reading data so far

I've come back from the EdTech Summit energised about the next steps on my MIT project.  Tonight I've been looking through the tools designed by MIT participants in previous years.  Whereas earlier on, I'd been interested in what they had proposed, and understanding what each teacher was wanting to achieve, now I'm looking at how they have presented their tools, and what I can learn from the way they have each presented their thinking and the model of how teachers can use their tool.  The most gorgeous, I think, is Heather Matthews' story of how to be a better self-manager, led by Nukutāwhiti.  I love the idea of all the work being captured by a story.

Rebecca Spies starts her site on augmentation boards with the what, the why and the how as key headings to bring her audience into the project, and I like that.  Hinerau Anderson has collected together all the tools for Visible Teaching & Learning into one place, with a description for each section, and I can see how this is really useful for someone coming into Learn-Create-Share for the first time.

I've got my scribbled document in my hand from the EdTech Summit where I started to think about how my site could look.  

I go back to my MIT proposal moonshot template. Of the three approaches I proposed, I've focused in on the second:

Digitising the team game tournament process to support reading, using collaboration amongst students to lift achievement. (working with my students to build a collaborative culture which raises reading achievement)

The tool I proposed to digitise the team game tournament process is Socrative, and I've explored this for both reading and writing to develop student confidence to share and to give and receive feedback in class.  I would like my tool to reflect the progress we have made in developing an effective sequence of activities in terms of writing as well as the collaboration for the reading acceleration aspect.

We ran an asttle reading test with our students at the end of Term Two.  We've seen some good progress and useful next steps from our own common assessment tasks in Terms One and Two, but we ran asttle as well to give us a norm-referenced point of comparison and to give the students more familiarity with the multi-choice format which is used in the PAT reading test at the beginning and end of the year.

There are some really pleasing results, but not enough to start dancing on the roof with joy.  Amongst other possibilities, I am going to ask my top male student (6B) to share how he approaches each question.  This student has a fabulous combination of mathematical and creative skills, and I think there is a good chance he can break the process into steps which others can try for themselves.  With his permission, we can record the discussion and make it rewindable.

Also for Term Three, I can see that I want a lot more exposure to new vocabulary, and to forming inferences within and beyond the texts.

Sydney Edtech Summit Day Two

Day Two of the Edtech Summit was great.  We started with an inspirational talk from Kim Pollishuke about believing in the possibilities of the impossible.  One example which appealed to me was Carly and Charley's odd sock project, where two ten year old girls took their own distinctive style and turned it into a fun, ethical and successful business.

I went to a session by Dan Jackson on Flipping with Edpuzzle, and another by Kim Pollishuke on Flipgrid.  Both offered me some new tools and helped me in my thinking about my Term Three project with 10QI.

Then it was time for me to present.  Despite all those nerves as I juggled the busy-ness of Term Two school life, I had a great time with a fabulous group of teachers from (mostly New South Wales) as we all explored the possibilities of Socrative.  I focused on sharing how it can work as a teaching sequence in the classroom, including how we can use it to gauge well-being and strategies to lift confidence on feedback.  I'm pleased about this part for me personally as it reflects a big focus for me in my inquiry this year.

I've got my feedback on the session and have thought about the tweaks I would make if I was doing it again.  I would add some more information on Space Race and importing other people's quizzes in the notes section, and the part where I read everyone's answers out, I would just give a sample and then explain how I do this to build up student confidence in the classroom.  I'm realising just now that I didn't put a link to my blog on my presentation, and that if I was fully thinking about giving people a way to link to my teaching and reflection work beyond the presentation, that is what I would have done.  I don't think I had that kind of confidence before the session!

After that, one more ignite presentation, some prize draws and then we were done!  Twelve fabulous people who had been supporting each other, learning and laughing over the time of the conference, ready to hit Sydney City.  And what a beautiful city!  Joanne and I walked around the waterfront, checked out a late-opening art gallery, admired the sculptures and then met the rest of our MIT group for dinner.

I've got a sketch of what my tool will look like in terms of making a site to share the process with interested people, and a list of the next jobs on this for Term Three.  The time at the Summit really helped with developing that.

My huge thanks to Dorothy, Anne and Jenny at Maniakalani for giving me this opportunity, to Gerhard and Dave for supporting us on tour and to my MIT colleagues who have made this a really special few days.

Now, it's some more Sandra-the-tourist time!

Sydney Edtech Summit Day One

So much to think about!

First time in Sydney for me.  I'm feeling very grateful for the opportunities the Maniakalani Innovative Teachers programme has given me.  The last time I was at a similar conference (GAFE, early 2015), I was at the beginning of my learn-create-share journey.  That 2015 conference was really inspiring and I took back some tools to my classroom and carried on learning.

This time round, I am presenting, and I'm part of a fabulous team of ten Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers and two Manaiakalani facilitators.  We have had a lot of fun together and lots of thoughtful conversations about our classroom practice and what we value about our developing learn-create-share pedagogies.

On the first day, I've learned to create a pivot table with Santi Vega.   My next google sheets project is going to be how to make a box and whiskers graph. 

I've had a play with squibler, particularly the dangerous writing prompts.  Fiona Thomas had an inspirational suite of tools on offer for us to play with.  I'm already a fan of one her key tools - ReadWrite, but I hadn't known about the dangerous writing prompts before.

If you stop writing, you fail. It helps you keep on writing, no matter how challenging.  No space for anguishing over an empty page/screen.  It's possible but not simple to save and share what you have made.  Fiona was clear that this doesn't always matter, given that I was thinking (obsessed with?!) about formative assessment and feedback.  I am going to have a play with my students next term, and get them to decide what it will be most useful for.  It definitely has good potential for starters at the beginning of a lesson.

In the afternoon I supported Amber Wing, who shared a range of digital creativity tools, and gave us all lots of space to create something for our own classrooms.  I learned to make sure I have a bit.ly link for my presentation for Tuesday, so that participants can access my resource on laptops as well as via the phone app.  I got to spend some time with the participants in Amber's session, and loved seeing people learning how to put a sequence of tools together to make an effective sequence of learning in their classrooms.