SAMR: Digital Literacies

While attending Dr. Ruben Puentedura's session at the 21CL Learning Conference in HK (December 2014), I found myself in a group of teachers from very varied backgrounds and levels within a school.
In order to produce a product we might all use in the future, I suggested we look at a skills based SAMR Ladder as opposed to a curriculum specific one; Digital Literacies is what we came up with.

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Scaffolding

According to Jaime McKenzie scaffolding:
1. Provides clear direction and reduces students’ confusion – Educators anticipate problems that students might encounter and then develop step by step instructions, which explain  what a student must do to meet expectations.
2. Clarifies purpose – Scaffolding helps students understand why they are doing the work and why it is important.
3. Keeps students on task – By providing structure, the scaffolded lesson or research project, provides pathways for the learners. The student can make decisions about which path to choose or what things to explore along the path but they cannot wander off of the path, which is the designated task.
4. Clarifies expectations and incorporates assessment and feedback – Expectations are clear from the beginning of the activity since examples of exemplary work, rubrics, and standards of excellence are shown to the students.
5. Points students to worthy sources – Educators provide sources to reduce confusion, frustration, and time. The students may then decide which of these sources to use.
6. Reduces uncertainty, surprise, and disappointment – Educators test their lessons to determine possible problem areas and then refine the lesson to eliminate difficulties so that learning is maximized
7. Delivers efficiency – Since the work is structured, focused, and glitches have been reduced or eliminated prior to initiation, time on task is increased and efficiency in completing the activity is increased.
8. Creates momentum – Through the structure provided by scaffolding, students spend less time searching and more time on learning and discovering, resulting in quicker learning
From: Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy

I intend to provide my students with a project website where they can access the full content, schedule, resources, assessments - formative and summative - rubrics, basically everything they will need to complete the project in the absence of a teacher. Communication will also be built into the site; it will be in Google Sites and part of our GAFE domain. All of McKenzie's points will be addressed by the project site and will offer the teacher access to statistics of access in order to preempt Issues of students not getting involved.

I want students to be able to submit work and receive feedback on their performance immediately. Since some students will work at a different speed to others, having students self assess their work in the first instance seems logical. To achieve this, I will use a GForm that submits the students' answer to a GSheet that is attached to a GDoc template, via Autocrat, with the correct answers written in. the students will be able to self assess and then receive comments and feedback from their teacher at a later date.

Scaffolding of skill acquisition in research and practical write-ups may be accomplished in a similar way using a GForm that marks and gives feedback based on a set of correct answers. Calibrating the students' research and write-up reviewing skills may be done by giving the students an exemplar piece of work that has been produced by the exam board. The students can complete the form for each part of the research exemplar and receive feedback as to their accuracy. If the rubric they use is easy to understand, hopefully the students will come into line with the examiners as quickly as they do the the research I have read!

The Final Project

The Plant Project: (click for full website) Plants as Food, Plants as Fuel.

Authentic Assessment

The criteria I wish to address most with this project is the attitudes of the students toward plants. I have been guilty in the past of biasing students against plants and other areas of biology that are less laboratory based. Through learning and teaching about plants I have become a better teacher as I am more knowledgeable and interested in how plants function and their adaptations. Since plants are such a big part of the course, it is vital that the students acquire a sense of wonder about them and actively want to know about them. The course refers to adaptations twice: Describe the concept of niche and discuss examples of adaptation of organisms to their environment (behavioural, physiological and anatomical). Describe how natural selection can lead to adaptation and evolution.  These statements are vague and have wide context.

Attitudes -

• That plants are important to our survival,
• That our future depends on plants and we need to understand them,
• That while plants may be slower than animals in general, their adaptations for survival are very diverse and extraordinary.

I believe the creation of a video that highlights a number of local plant species, perhaps 5, for their “cool”, “strange” or “weird” adaptations would be a good way to bring the students into contact with the more interesting plants. The Raflesia species, native to Malaysia, may be a good start, but closer to home there is a weed that grows on our football field with fast thigmatropic responses to touch that protect its leaves and reveal its thorns!

The video could be presented as a documentary that highlights the plants’ adaptations with brief explanations as to the mechanism that causes the action to occur, or the reason behind the evolution of the adaptation. If the actual plants can’t be found, clips from YouTube could be used to produce the documentary with the student presenting their points in between.

I would be aiming to have the students move up Bloom’s Affective Domain Taxonomy by at least one step but with most showing an enhanced attitude to the level of Valuing. This will require a pre and post survey as to the students’ attitudes. Relying solely on the authentic assessment measure of the video documentary may not be accurate as some students may be good actors! Combining the effort they make with the video and their responses may provide a greater degree of accuracy; assuming they respond honestly!

Bloom's Affective Taxonomy (retrieved from :http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html)

Receiving Phenomena: Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.

Responding to Phenomena: Active participation on the part of the learners. Attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes may emphasize compliance in responding, willingness to respond, or satisfaction in responding (motivation).

Valuing: The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior. This ranges from simple acceptance to the more complex state of commitment. Valuing is based on the internalization of a set of specified values, while clues to these values are expressed in the learner's overt behavior and are often identifiable.

Organization: Organizes values into priorities by contrasting different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an unique value system. The emphasis is on comparing, relating, and synthesizing values.

Internalizing values(characterization): Has a value system that controls their behavior. The behavior is pervasive, consistent, predictable, and most importantly, characteristic of the learner. Instructional objectives are concerned with the student's general patterns of adjustment (personal, social, emotional).

Plants as food, plants as fuel?

I spent some time this week looking for YouTube clips that I can use to set the scene for the plant project, and stimulate discussion among my students. I found some really interesting stuff about the use of crude oil and plants that I wasn't aware of myself; I think I'm going to enjoy this project!
I have had some ideas about retrieving energy from plants that involve the breakdown of the unused cellulose in the stalks of crop plants when the crop is harvested. In Malaysia every year, farmers in Malaysia and the surrounding countries like to set fire to their fields, this creates a haze that has closed our school; this issue is what has prompted my thinking. Sadly, my research into this project has led me to find Cellulosic Ethanol production; always a day late and a dollar short!

I am still questioning the construction of my Driving Question - one of BIE's 8 Essentials for PBL - as to whether it is too vague:

Using plants, how will you produce your own food or fuel for a future of climate change, no oil and drought?

After a bit of thought and looking at other examples of driving questions, perhaps this will work:

Using plants, what do you have to do to produce your own food or fuel for a future of climate change, drought and an absence of oil?

Try again after watching the Wing Project!:

Using plants, how can I produce my own food/fuel for a future of climate change, drought and an absence of oil?

Considering the scope with which I have given this project - a 2 year course - the driving question really needed to encompass a lot of standards from the course. I hope I have managed this.

Project Based Learning

In the last couple of years I have been inspired by Simon Sinek and Zoë Elder to present content to my lessons in a more interesting way. Simon's "Start With Why" concept and his great Ted Talk was the start of my movement forward from the safe 3 course meal my lessons had become.  Zoë brought Simon's words into focus with her great insights and applications to the classroom; each module I teach now starts with the Big Question, and each lesson has the objective framed as a question for my students to think about as they enter the room.

I have used Simon's Golden Circle to frame my own classroom philosophy for what I do and how I work:

I believe in challenging the standard classroom model, in creating scenarios that cause deep thinking in students, and in allowing students to choose their own path and style of study.

I don't always manage it, but through my studies and research, and liberal use/abuse of technology, and with time, I have changed my classroom and the experience of my students for the better. I believe in what I do and I can back it up; some traditional teachers find my methods somewhat disruptive! ;-P

Which brings me to Project Based Learning, Problem Based Learning, and Inquiry Based Learning. They are similar and need defining. I have used the techniques without awareness of what they were called as they just make sense; Problem BL is my favourite for KS3 Physics, Moments - Crevasse Crossing! (get in touch, I'll send it to you! It started off as "Adam Levine needs to cross a ravine") 

What is Project Based Learning?

The Buck Institute for Education (BIE.org, n.d.) defines Project Based Learning as "a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem or challenge." BIE go on to define the essential elements for Project BL to include:

• Significant content; based on the specification and concepts at the core of the academic subjects.
• 21st Century Competencies; the 4Cs - critical thinking ( careful thinking, done reflectively, with attention to criteria), collaboration, communication and creativity and taught and assessed.
• In-Depth Inquiry; students pose questions and develop answers using resources over an extended time.
• Driving Question; students have an open-ended question that intrigues them and stimulates them to explore to find the answer.
• Need to Know; Students see the need to gain knowledge, understand concepts, and apply skills in order to answer the Driving Question and create project products, beginning with an Entry Event that generates interest and curiosity.
• Voice and Choice; Students are allowed to make some choices about the products to be created, how they work, and how they use their time, guided by the teacher and depending on age level and PBL experience.
• Critique and Revision; The project includes processes for students to give and receive feedback on the quality of their work, leading them to make revisions or conduct further inquiry.
• Public Audience; Students present their work to other people, beyond their classmates and teacher. This authentic audience can further motivate the students to do their best work; it also access Redefinition as part of SAMR (Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura).

Vanessa Vega of Edutopia (2012) outlines PBL as:

• students learning knowledge to tackle realistic problems as they would be solved in the real world
• increased student control over his or her learning
• teachers serving as coaches and facilitators of inquiry and reflection
• students (usually, but not always) working in pairs or groups

I want to know how to assess creativity!

John Larmer of BIE makes some suggestions on how to teach the 4Cs, from here assessment can be designed - http://bie.org/blog/start_the_year_with_a_project_or_wait

What is the different between Project Based Learning and a WebQuest?

WebQuests can provide a contained list of resources to guide students in their research, this will support younger students and speed up the researching process if their are time restraints

Why should teachers consider incorporating PBL in their classroom?

Project BL allows for meaningful, engaging work by students that they can relate to their real lives. Since students are more interested in the content, they are more likely to remember the content they come into contact with, this knowledge can be applied more effectively later and in other contexts. "In PBL, students...learn how to take responsibility and build confidence, solve problems, work collaboratively, communicate ideas, and be creative innovators." (BIE.org). Whith the technology available to students to access information and communicate/collaborate, Project BL is an excellent way to introduce the technology standards to the classroom; bringing experts from the field of the project into the classroom for the students to meet and acquire first hand evidence.

What considerations are important when incorporating a Project Based Learning approach into the classroom?

Students need the skills of working in a group, communicating effectively, researching and presenting. These skills must be taught and can be introduced as discrete lessons or as mini-projects designed to enhance the behaviour/skill that is the learning objective.

Teachers must support their students in order for them to do the best they can. Providing rubrics and the training the students will need to use them is necessary, as is giving them examples of what a success outcome to a project looks like. Introducing experts to the students early on may motivate them to perform better.

Students need to know that they are on track and doing a good job. Regular formative feedback via specified checkpoints in the project timeline are necessary to guide the students and support them. Students will need time to revise and improve their work; reflecting on their performance and putting into place the advice of their teacher and peers.

The students must feel attached to the project; it must be authentic to them and they should care. Who they present their work to may place an extrinsic pressure on the students to make sure they don't embarrass themselves, or they may be intrinsically motivated to impress those that they are presenting to.


Describe qualities of a successful project.
What issues must a teacher consider that are specific to PBL instructional strategies?

Teachers must acquire the skill of defining the Driving Question:

"...problems/questions must be relevant to teachers’ required curricula, or teachers will not be able to justify the amount of time needed for students to work through them. A good driving question is defined as one that is meaningful to students, includes relevant content, involves authentic problem solving, lends itself to collaboration, and is broad enough to permit students to develop their own questions and investigations" (Lehman, Ertmer, Keck, & Steele, 2001).

The strength of the driving question may hook the students' curiosity and they will become invested and put in the effort required. 
Teachers must take on a different role within the learner-centered classroom; the management of the cooperation and collaboration of the students, their roles within their groups, and the engagement of the students during the project. Teachers must become facilitators as opposed to instructors, changing both how and what they teach (Ertmer & Simons, 2005).
Project BL outcomes are generally assessed through the authentic product that is created, however tests and quizzes can be used to test the knowledge of the underlying concepts and their understanding.
Vanessa Vega (2012) summarizes the research findings for a successful project as:

"A realistic problem or project

• aligns with students' skills and interests
• requires learning clearly defined content and skills (e.g. using rubrics, or exemplars from local professionals and students) 

Structured group work

• groups of three to four students, with diverse skill levels and interdependent roles
• team rewards
• individual accountability, based on student growth 

Multi-faceted assessment

• multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback and revise their work (e.g., benchmarks, reflective activities)
• multiple learning outcomes (e.g., problem-solving, content, collaboration)
• presentations that encourage participation and signal social value (e.g. exhibitions, portfolios, performances, reports) 

Participation in a professional learning network

• collaborating and reflecting upon PBL experiences in the classroom with colleagues
• courses in inquiry-based teaching methods"

What types of students will be successful in PBL environments?
Prabhu Nasargikar (2010) describes the 'ideal' attributes of a successful PBL student as:

• Knows their role in a group,
• Knows to ask empowering questions,
• Monitors their progress through self-evaluation and motivation,
• Bonds with other students to achieve goals,
• Develops thoughtful and well structured approach to guide choices,
• Fosters collaboration with other group members to create a climate of trust.

While these are ideal attributes, these skills need to be fostered and are what K-12 teachers would be aiming to generate from the process of Project BL.

A student who can to think critically, find, evaluate, and use appropriate learning resources, work cooperatively in teams and small groups will be most successful in Project BL. Basically, resilience!

Nona Barker listed these attributes for her students:

• willingly ask questions and discover answers
• be curious and inventive
• be active listeners and good communicators
• actively participate in learning process (engagement and motivation)
• work collaboratively with others
• work independently, when needed
• manage time effectively
• possess research and reasoning skills
• set and meet goals / benchmarks
• be able to critique their work and the work of others (and revise it)
• embrace ownership of project
• willingness to demonstrate and share knowledge with other

What are the current and potential issues surrounding the use of Project Based Learning in traditional or nontraditional schools?

For traditional schools, the requirement to meet the curriculum makes it difficult to implement Pprject BL fully. There is a constant need to pack content into an already packed timetable; I currently receive 2 hours per week to deliver a course that other equivalent subjects get 4 hours for! For schools that are fee paying, the parents have an expectation that their children to pass exams; sadly an instructionist method is the must effective way of importing content knowledge in an environment such as this.
For the non-traditional school, students develop the skills that are sought after by employers, however universities in the UK require equivalent qualifications to AS and A2; Montessori students still do GCSE and A-Level!

References

BIE (n.d.). What is PBL? Buck Institute for Education. Retrieved June 10, 2014,     from http://bie.org/about/what_pbl

BIE (n.d.). What is PBL? Buck Institute for Education. Retrieved June 10, 2014, from http://bie.org/about/why_pbl

Elder, Z. (2012). Full on Learning: Involve me and I'll understand. Crown House Publishing Company, UK.

Ertmer, P. A., & Simons, K. D. (2005). Scaffolding teachers’ efforts to implement problem-based learning. International Journal of Learning, 12(4), 319-327.

Larmer, J. (2013). How to Use the “4 C’s” Rubrics. Buck Institute for Education. Retrieved June 10, 2014, http://bie.org/blog/how_to_use_the_4cs_rubrics.

Lehman, J. D., Ertmer, P. A., Keck, K., & Steele, K. (2001, March). In-service teacher development for fostering problem-based integration of technology. SITE (Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education) 2001 Conference Proceedings. Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

Nesargikar, P. (2010). From student to tutor in Problem Based Learning: An Unexplored Avenue. Retrieved June 14, 2014, from http://www.bjmp.org/content/student-tutor-problem-based-learning-unexplored-avenue.

Sinek, S. (2011). Start With Why. Retrieved June 14, 2014, from https://www.startwithwhy.com/.

Vega, V. (2012). Project-Based Learning Research Review | Edutopia. Retrieved June 14, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/pbl-research-learning-outcomes.

Relative advantage of using technology to make the content areas become more engaging, relevant and authentic

Over the past couple of weeks in the 541 course, choice of task has become available to me in regard to integrating technology into my lessons. As a Science/Biology teacher I looked at the science/maths option and thought "I've done this already...several times; not doing it again!", and so I have looked at the lesson options for Language/Arts and the PE/Creative Expressive Arts - I am glad that I did.

In the first instance the choice of task was important and I was reminded why I have been putting in the effort to give my students choice in the way they express themselves.  The National Center on Universal Design (CAST, 2011) for Learning publishes guidelines for the application of choice for the learner to enhance their ability to learn. CAST's Principle III,  Provide Multiple Means of Engagement, includes guidelines: 7 - Provide options for recruiting interest, 8 - Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence, and 9 - Provide options for self-regulation seem the most relevant to my work and I particularly like this point they make:

the same learner will differ over time and circumstance; their “interests” change as they develop and gain new knowledge and skills, as their biological environments change, and as they develop into self-determined adolescents and adults.

My colleagues and I have been enhancing our teaching schemes with #Takeawayhomework (based on @TeacherToolkit idea #100ideas), a "menu" of progressively more "spicey" work the students may choose to do. The idea being that may choose less spice but most eat more of it, or choose more spice but only eat one! The choice provides engagement as the students can design their own path through the content they need to access.

Some students don't talk much so finding out what makes them tick can be difficult. Finding really cool ideas that are relevant to each of my students and giving them the choice to complete what they want to complete has allowed me to witness more depth in these students in a much shorter time; I only teach one particular class two times per week. The recent cross content area lessons I have built have given me greater insight into the teaching with technology my extra-faculty colleagues get up to but also have given me better ways to engage my Biology students with tasks that they are interested in because they are more relevant to their interests.

For the lessons I designed for Language Arts I decided to build an eBook but with biology content. For Music, the biology students need to create a piece of "techno" music using heart and lung sounds. For PE, the students have to use Adidas MiCoach to create a running route in the shape of the circulatory system, then run it with the GPS tracking in the MiCoach App, speeding up and slowing down in the correct places. Finally, for Art, the students must create a blood themed piece of work based on the style of Jackson Pollock's drip art/action painting.

Authentic learning in science lessons can be reasonable easily achieved by the use of dataloggers for data collection, spreadsheets for analysis, and collaborating with other classes on write-ups and through webcasts (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). The authenticity of actually publishing one's work online for others to see and comment on is both a terrifying and very exciting and has an affect on self esteem (Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C., 2011). Personally, I have only begun to really use personal networks like LinkedIn and  Google+ recently to advertise myself as a professional; I have only been blogging for 10 months - the length of my MET course. I see the value in making my thoughts and work public - I do a better job - and this is the value of giving our students the opportunity to do authentic work like creating a eBook and getting feedback from the world on how to make it better. Working with classes from around the world on environment projects or joining the Globe Project:Globe Program or using a space telescope with an astronomer in the classroom through Telescopes in Education.


CAST (2011). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.0. Retrieved from: http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines/principle3

Edutopia (2008). Why integrate technology into the curriculum?: The reasons are many. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction

Roblyer, M. D. & Doering, A. H. (2013). Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C. (2011). A two-process view of Facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: Disconnection drives use and connection rewards it. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, Vol 1(S), 2-15. doi: 10.1037/2160-4134.1.S.2

Cross Curriculum 3: Modern Foreign Languages

It makes sense as a curriculum coordinator to identify cross-over between subjects. This can lead to collegial interaction and team planning to enhance the curriculum for the students. Bringing teachers together to team plan and teach a common concept across subjects seems like a good idea, allowing teachers to come into contact with different teaching and delivery styles can only be a good thing, right? Philips, Lancaster and Cooper (2014) describe research that indicates to the benefits of team teaching but highlights challenges when it comes to the formation of successful teacher teams. Concerns of different delivery style, pedagogical approaches and even classroom management have been challenges.

While I didn't get a chance to tam plan or team teach this lesson, the Head of French did review the lesson and thought it would be good to teach and would work for her content and students.

Content Area:

Modern Foreign Languages (French) Environment theme / Biology Ecology and the Environment

Title:

L'environnement

Grade Level or Target Group:

Y10/11 iGCSE

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Pre Planning

Big Idea(s):

The iGCSE specification for French states that students should:

• develop understanding and use of written and spoken forms of the target language, in a range of familiar and practical contexts, and for a variety of purposes
• develop the ability to communicate effectively in the target language through speaking, using a range of vocabulary and structures

The specification also states that students should  be able to listen, speak and write about the modern world and the environment.

Topic area D refers to “The modern world and the environment”. Students may communicate about:  Current affairs and social issues, Environmental issues,  The media (eg TV, film, radio, newspapers),  Information and communication technology (eg

internet, mobile phones, email).

The iGCSE Biology specification refers to Human Impacts on the Environment. The students have impacts they should know about and in the context of the MFL cross-over, may choose which is appropriate.

Section 4 - d) Human influences on the environment

Students will be assessed on their ability to:

• 4.11 understand the biological consequences of pollution of air by sulfur dioxide and by carbon monoxide
• 4.12 understand that water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and CFCs are greenhouse gases
• 4.13 understand how human activities contribute to greenhouse gases
• 4.14 understand how an increase in greenhouse gases results in an enhanced greenhouse effect and that this may lead to global warming and its consequences
• 4.15 understand the biological consequences of pollution of water by sewage, including increases in the number of micro-organisms causing depletion of oxygen
• 4.16 understand that eutrophication can result from leached minerals from fertiliser
• 4.17 understand the effects of deforestation, including leaching, soil erosion, disturbance of the water cycle and of the balance in atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide.

For the purposes of this lesson, the students will be given links to websites with specific environmental issues. They will also be given the opportunity to search for their own interests; this choice will produce differentiation in the task.

Websites from Canada are written for French and English and will be assigned to those students who require support. Sites from France are in French only and will be assigned to the more proficient language students.

Essential Questions:

What environmental issue are you interested in?

What are the issues that concern you / What are the effects of the issue?

What are scientists in doing about it?

Objective:

Given access to various French language websites for information, students will create a VoiceThread news report of no more than 5 minutes, or a written paragraph / poster of no more than 150 words, that answer the essential questions, while including relevant vocabulary for the environment topic.

Summative Assessment:

Students will submit their objects for peer and teacher assessment. Results of quizzes will be used to assess progress in the lesson.

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Lesson Opening

Students will be presented with the topic title and objectives.

http://www.quia.com/cm/84585.html

As a plenary activity, students will complete the quiz

Lesson Body

Students access one of the following sites. They will listen to or read the content aiming to summarise the content of the articles/videos, identifying the environment related terminology.

Musee Virtuel Canada: http://www.especesmenacees.ca/fr/pollution.php

(most relevant to Biology specification)

Government of Canada Science site:

• Fraser River Valley - French | English
  
• Experimental Lakes - French | English
  
• DDT - French | English
  
• Sulfur - French | English

Sites from France:

• La Recherche: http://issuu.com/larecherche - This site has multiple publications of different science topics. Students may search for something they are particularly interested in.

• La Recherche: http://www.larecherche.fr/savoirs/dossier-special/nitrates-controle-01-07-2008-89222 - This special edition is specifically about nitrates and their effects on the environment. Students should start with this if they are not confident.

• La Recherche: http://issuu.com/larecherche/docs/feuilletage_n__472 - this edition has a good article on climate change.

• French newspaper with science section: Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/

Students proceed to write their own environment related object using the language they have found.

Check for Understanding: Students begin by working their way through the GCSE Bitesize Revision and Test Bite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/french/listeningh/h05_list_environment_rev1.shtml

Extended Practice: (Authentic assessment)

Students will enter the Language Perfect competition. http://start.languageperfect.com/

iPad App: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/language-perfect/id483019682?mt=8

Lesson Closing:

Students will be given a choice of Quizlet quizzes to complete based on their language skills. First language French students, Gifted and Talented and students targeted A/A* will be assigned the harder quizzes.

Vocabulary

Easy: http://quizlet.com/39761722/aqa-gcse-french-environment-f-flash-cards/

Hard: http://quizlet.com/5393658/french-gcse-revision-environment-vocabulary-flash-cards/

Sentences:

Easy: http://quizlet.com/28050004/french-environment-and-ecology-flash-cards/

Hard: http://quizlet.com/15586766/cas-french-environment-flash-cards/

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Materials needed for this lesson:

SMARTBoard and Projector, Students personal devices/iPods/iPads/Laptops, Headphones/microphones, Wifi access.

Phillips, M. (2014). Team teaching with technology: upsetting the TPACK applecart. Retrieved from http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/sites/2014/files/drafts/Team%20teaching%20with%20techonology.%20Upsetting%20the%20TPACK%20applecart.pdf.

Cross Curriculum 2: Art, PE and Music

This is the second of three posts on integrating technology across the curriculum. In this object, I give students the choice of using their skills in other subjects and apply that skill to the theory of the biology being taught. I have used a website called Newhive.com, that allows the production of multimedia posters. The objects that can be produced look similar to Glogster but Newhive allows for a more freeform creation of its "Expresions."

Hypermedia lesson

The lesson plan below outlines the use of hypermedia--YouTube-- to enhance a lesson. Students access the clips and make cooperative notes on the different scanning techniques. As a form of Jigsaw activitiy, the students would then present to technique to their teammates, speed-dating is fun for this, and follow the notes, enhancing them if need be. All students would be asssessed on each of the scanning techniques.

Relative Advantage of Using Hypermedia in the Classroom

I have no issues with videoing myself; I think I have a face for TV, but I thought given the choice I would ask my colleagues how they used video in their lessons. Some really good ideas came out of this exercise and I think, with their permission, I will share the videos with the school community in order to expose more staff to cool stuff.

My own use of videos in the Science/Biology classroom would fit into various categories: stimulation material, instructional videos for flipping, extending the classroom in a redefinition style, and the use of video created by the students. A recent module, Analytical Chemistry, is all practical involving the students performing particular tests for ions and the use of burettes; the students video everything they do and embed their YouTube clips into a Google Slides presentation which is then assessed for their skills.

Lets hear from some colleagues:

Maths: focus on stimulus material

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Physics: Focus on instruction of material that can't be brought into the classroom due to restrictions. Video creation by students.

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Art and photography: Focus on instruction of new skills in a flipped format

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Modern Foreign Languages: Focus on video creation which is peer assessed, TV programmes from around the world for culture and pronunciation.

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Physical Education: Focus on student recording for self assessment using Coach's Eye - slow motion and comparison overlays against experts' techniques

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Chemistry: Focus on stimulation material, instruction in flipped lesson format, remediation material as tutorials.

Spreadsheets

I want to give some thanks to Bob Frankston and Dan Bricklin for designing the first spreadsheet package, Visicalc, that was released for the Apple II in 1979.

"VisiCalc took 20 hours of work per week for some people and turned it out in 15 minutes and let them become much more creative." - Dan Bricklin

I use spreadsheets for almost everything in my work. I have an MS Excel Lesson Planner that uses vlookups and VBscript to allow me to efficiently and effectively plan my lessons and order my resources from my lab tech; she is shred into my planner as I have it saved in DropBox. I use a gamified social markbook with my students that is built in Google Sheets; it records everything about my students and functions as a database pulling in data from several other sheets generated from Google Forms...and grades the form responses!
Student test and assessment performances are recorded in a master spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are used to import data and reports into our LMS. Data from datalogging activities are analysed by the students. Students plot data from investigations into charts win GSheets and MS Excel. Exam performance practice is recorded in shared GSheets by the students. Historical climate data and weather data is recorded and charted in spreadsheets.
The automaticity that can be built into Google Sheets using Google Apps Script takes it to another level. My markbook emails my students to congratulate them on top effort! The ability to collaborate on GSheets has allowed me to guide students in real time in constructing the best table structure of their results when at home.

What is the relative advantage of spreadsheets? It is hard to imagine not having the functionality of spreadsheets at our fingertips, they simply make long and difficult tasks so much faster and simpler. So thank you Bob and Dan for Visicalc which became Lotus 1-2-3, which led to MS Excel and now GSheets; you saved millions of people millions of hours of work!

My spreadsheets in learning settings

Relative Advantage of Slide Presentations

I am a dedicated SMART Notebook guy so I may struggle with describing the relative advantage of slide presentations in my teaching as it has been years since I have used MS PowerPoint to build a lesson with. I do use it but that is because my department bought some presentations with awesome Flash animations embedded into them; the company is going HTML5 now!

I think Prezi is a cool program and my school bought a subscription last year for everyone; I didn't use it! I can't interact with it and I don't give presentations I do workshops and collaborative lessons. Don't get me wrong, I tell my students to use it 'til the hearts are content but they must follow my "Let's not make our audience sea-sick guidelines!". Mainly though, my students use it a a collaborative board for dropping into the notes and ideas the same way one might use Padlet.

As far as Google Slides goes, I don't use it to present to my students either but they like the way the slides give them a frame to write and present their work within, and so that they can build flash cards. I can share out a GSlide to my students using Andrew Stillman's Doctopus script and have the framework for their work built into it. Since I own the GSlides they are using, I can access them anytime I like and comment on their work as it progresses in a formative fashion or grade it when they are done.

It is interesting that we were assigned 25 slides to create for this task. The last time I did a presentation in public was during a Middle Leader's course. I had a lot of slides but they were built to the standards described in "Five ways to reduce PowerPoint overload" by Cliff Atkinson and Richard E. Mayer. Richard Mayer has published a lot of research on the the effects of presentation on learning during E-Instruction. What was interesting about the evaluation after my presentation was that the two coaches told me I should have had three slides maximum! Having 25 slides means I am standing in front of people and as the center of attention; I don't do this in class! I had the privilege of watching George Couros present his "The Networked Leader" keynote in Hong Kong at the 21CL Convention in December 2013. His presentation followed all the advice provided by Presentation Zen's Top Ten Slide Tips. The imagery completely supported George's keynote and made very emotional ties to what he was saying - he included very little text, the images were a pictorial representation of what he was talking about. Mayer's segmentation, coherence and redundancy principles all apply when it comes to instruction, but George wasn't trying to instruct, he was creating an emotional response and text on his slides were not necessary for that.

During school assemblies I have had to sit and watch presentations where students and teachers have put yellow text on a white background! Or white text over a bright blue and cloudy white sky! Rainbow coloured Word Art! It is painful. Death by PowerPoint or death by the incompetent presentation builder! My students try to do something similar in the GSlides I send them. They like to use all the coloured background templates; especially the Trek themed one that looks like the computers on Next Generation. The irony being that they don't even know that it is Star Trek. The theme is black and they proceed to drop white background images onto it. Some of them print them out and hand to me "Can you mark this Mr. Mullan?", "I can't, my pen won't write on all that black printer ink you have used...how's about I comment onto the GSlide like I said I would! And perhaps in future if you want to print, use the plain white template."



So for me, presentations need to be done right, for the right purpose and for the right audience. In class I will stick to my interactive software where I can get the students up to manipulate and draw. When I have to do an assembly, there will be very little text, beautiful images and me hopefully nowhere in sight with the microphone - they should be looking at the pics and listening not looking at me and listening, otherwise what is the point of the presentation?!