Why Have a Class Twitter Account?

There are a whole host of benefits to having a class Twitter account. Allow me to present you with my top 5:

1. Access to Experts

By following the Tweets of experts, such as NASA or Dr Jane Goodall, a class can access up-to-date information in byte-sized packages. Most often, links are included to videos, articles, blog posts and images to explore in more detail

Hurricanes are the most violent storms on Earth…but how do they form? Find out: https://t.co/3vx9iewC7g And follow @NASAHurricane for more. pic.twitter.com/cYOx2K7Sxe

— NASA (@NASA) September 6, 2017

 

"…effect of billions of people making ethical choices, will start to heal the world." #JaneGoodall's prayer: https://t.co/Fwjs4bq0WJ pic.twitter.com/2OMBqAm3I5

— JaneGoodallInstitute (@JaneGoodallInst) September 1, 2017

2. Connect with Authors

Remember writing letters to authors, mailing them off and never hearing anything back? Today, a significant number of authors are on Twitter, interacting with their readers.

Last year, a G5 class was thrilled to Skype with Gary Whitta (an author of Rogue One, the latest Star Wars film), who spoke to us about the writing process, diversity in film and answered student questions. Talk about relevance! This got the whole class hooked on writing!

Skyped with a fifth-grade class in Singapore, talking about screenwriting and following your creative passions. Loved it! Cameo by K-2SO! pic.twitter.com/GWlJgBr8HE

— Gary Whitta (@garywhitta) November 21, 2016

Some lucky students in G4 tweeted an author of a book they were reading, and were thrilled when they got a reply. What a motivator for developing literacy skills!

The energy in 4LaW is incredible right now! Thank you @byTonyWilson for replying to @UWCSEA4LaW #uwcsea #uwclearn pic.twitter.com/AKfqcdFIrf

— Laura (@lhwhiteley) June 3, 2016

3. Share our learning

We can make a difference to other people’s learning simply by sharing our own. Tweets of student sketching a character’s development, might give another child an idea about how they can represent their own learning. Parents love seeing examples of their child in action during the school day too.

A raw #timelapse of a student tracking character development using #visualnotes @davecaleb @lv_white @paulaguinto #uwcsea #uwclearn pic.twitter.com/EshWeH4lvL

— Laura (@lhwhiteley) October 25, 2016

Adding hashtags can allow us to reach a common audience, where we find ideas related to topics we are learning about too, such as #writingworkshop

#5thgrade day 2: discussing our #writerlylife and book choices. What keeps you reading? #readingworkshop #writingworkshop pic.twitter.com/U5QdrsELCp

— Kimberly Buck (@mrskimbuck) August 16, 2017

4. Develop International Mindedness

Part of the PYP is developing International Mindedness, where we seek out and value perspectives from different cultures and communities, and consider the impact of events around the world on different groups of people.

By way of example, @littlemissflint became a powerful role model for taking action after she began tweeting about the water crisis in her hometown of Flint. Now she continues to take action on issues important to her and her community

This is it, 24 hours left to get a #DontForgetFlint shirt to help me help #FlintKids 21 to hit my final goal of 700 https://t.co/ZazPyn5dFo pic.twitter.com/OCz7vdOeHU

— Mari Copeny (@LittleMissFlint) September 4, 2017

From a class Twitter account, you can follow the United Nations to learn about what school is like in different parts of the world, for example this school in Gaza.

Tag along with two students to see the new @UNRWA school in Gaza, providing a sense of normalcy under the blockade. pic.twitter.com/7aIuXQBFCt

— United Nations (@UN) September 7, 2017

5. Model Digital Citizenship

We know that modelling positive and appropriate use of social media helps students learn how to be effective digital citizens. Through a class Twitter account, students can see how to interact positively with others online, they can learn to compose Tweets, and develop digital literacy skills such as appropriate writing conventions in digital medium (e.g. use of the @ symbol to reply, and use of hashtags). Having a class account lets students learn these skills with their teacher as a guide and role model – almost like having a safety net there for them as they learn.

A class Twitter account shows that teachers value writing in digital as well as print form, adding weight to the writing students are doing in their lives outside the classroom.

The bottom line is that teachers are there for kids.
We want learning to be relevant, contextual and engaging.
A class Twitter account is just one of the ways we teachers support today’s learners.

Thinking Routines & the iPad

(Cross-posted at Greatechxpectations) 

The iPad is a great mobile device for recording students thinking on the go. When we combine the iPad, Harvard’s Artful Thinking Palette, Harvard’s Visible Thinking Routines and the free Voicethread app, a plethora of possibilities become available.

Sign in to Voicethread (NB, if your school has domain, as ours does, you can edit this on the sign in page).

I Used to Think, Now I Think

Used when students’ thoughts, opinions & ideas might change over the course of a unit. (Click here for more details)

Students could draw and screenshot a picture that represents their initial thinking in a unit. Bring the image into Voicethread and explain their thinking. Follow up by repeating the activity at the culmination of the unit, and add to their initial Voicethread.

See, Think, Wonder

Sets the stage for inquiry. Usually used at the beginning because it stimulates curiosity. (Click here for more details)

Using a pre-selected photo, or one they have taken, create a Voicethread with 3 slides (photo repeated 3 times). Add narration over each slide – one for ‘see’, one for ‘think’, and one for ‘wonder’.

Compass Points

Compass points helps you extend your thinking. (Click here for more details)

East = Excited. What are you excited about?
West = Worrisome. What worries you?
North = Need to know. What more information do you require?
South = Stance/Suggestion. What are your next steps?

Have students take 4 photos representing the four points for a given topic (e.g. current Unit of Inquiry). Create a new Voicethread and have students narrate over the top, explaining their selections.

Beginning, Middle & End

This routine develops observation and imagination. (Click here for more details)

Have the students look at pre-selected image. Get them to choose either Beginning, Middle or End.

Beginning – if this is the beginning of the story, what do you think might happen next?
Middle – if it this is the middle of a story, what might have happened before? What might be about to happen?
End – If this is the end of a story, what might the story be?

Create a Voicethread with the image, and have students explain their thoughts through a voice comment. 

Claim, Support, Question

This routine supports reasoning. (Click here for more details) This routine might be better suited to upper primary aged students.

Claim – Make a claim about the image/topic
Support – Identify support for your claim
Question – Ask a question related to your claim.

Using an image that represents your topic, add a voice comment for each section of this thinking routine. This may be 3 separate comments, or 3 slides with one comment on each.

Looking 10 x 2

Great for observation and descriptive skills. (Click here for more details)

Look at an image for 30 seconds. Try and list 10 words/phrases you see. Repeat these steps again, this time trying to list an additional 10 words/phrases you observe. Add the image to Voicethread and add two voice comments to the image.

Tips

You might like to consider purchasing a camera connection kit to transfer images directly from your SD card to the iPad.

Alternatively, you can email images you wish students to see to the email address set up on your iPad. The students can add the images to the Photo Gallery from there by holding one finger on the image, then selecting save to Photo Gallery.

________________________________________________________________________

Credits
Magnifying Glass ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Lanzen
Compass ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Roland Urbanek
Cuff Links ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Oberazzi
Pale Blue 10 ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Caro’s Lines

Thinking Routines & the iPad

(Cross-posted at Greatechxpectations) 

The iPad is a great mobile device for recording students thinking on the go. When we combine the iPad, Harvard’s Artful Thinking Palette, Harvard’s Visible Thinking Routines and the free Voicethread app, a plethora of possibilities become available.

Sign in to Voicethread (NB, if your school has domain, as ours does, you can edit this on the sign in page).

I Used to Think, Now I Think

Used when students’ thoughts, opinions & ideas might change over the course of a unit. (Click here for more details)

Students could draw and screenshot a picture that represents their initial thinking in a unit. Bring the image into Voicethread and explain their thinking. Follow up by repeating the activity at the culmination of the unit, and add to their initial Voicethread.

See, Think, Wonder

Sets the stage for inquiry. Usually used at the beginning because it stimulates curiosity. (Click here for more details)

Using a pre-selected photo, or one they have taken, create a Voicethread with 3 slides (photo repeated 3 times). Add narration over each slide – one for ‘see’, one for ‘think’, and one for ‘wonder’.

Compass Points

Compass points helps you extend your thinking. (Click here for more details)

East = Excited. What are you excited about?
West = Worrisome. What worries you?
North = Need to know. What more information do you require?
South = Stance/Suggestion. What are your next steps?

Have students take 4 photos representing the four points for a given topic (e.g. current Unit of Inquiry). Create a new Voicethread and have students narrate over the top, explaining their selections.

Beginning, Middle & End

This routine develops observation and imagination. (Click here for more details)

Have the students look at pre-selected image. Get them to choose either Beginning, Middle or End.

Beginning – if this is the beginning of the story, what do you think might happen next?
Middle – if it this is the middle of a story, what might have happened before? What might be about to happen?
End – If this is the end of a story, what might the story be?

Create a Voicethread with the image, and have students explain their thoughts through a voice comment. 

Claim, Support, Question

This routine supports reasoning. (Click here for more details) This routine might be better suited to upper primary aged students.

Claim – Make a claim about the image/topic
Support – Identify support for your claim
Question – Ask a question related to your claim.

Using an image that represents your topic, add a voice comment for each section of this thinking routine. This may be 3 separate comments, or 3 slides with one comment on each.

Looking 10 x 2

Great for observation and descriptive skills. (Click here for more details)

Look at an image for 30 seconds. Try and list 10 words/phrases you see. Repeat these steps again, this time trying to list an additional 10 words/phrases you observe. Add the image to Voicethread and add two voice comments to the image.

Tips

You might like to consider purchasing a camera connection kit to transfer images directly from your SD card to the iPad.

Alternatively, you can email images you wish students to see to the email address set up on your iPad. The students can add the images to the Photo Gallery from there by holding one finger on the image, then selecting save to Photo Gallery.

________________________________________________________________________

Credits
Magnifying Glass ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Lanzen
Compass ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Roland Urbanek
Cuff Links ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Oberazzi
Pale Blue 10 ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Caro’s Lines

Claymation – 3rd Time Lucky!

This is the third year Margot and I have worked on a claymation project with the Grade 5s, and we both feel this is the year that everything is coming together!

I have written about our adventures with animation here and here, so you can see a bit of the history.

This year, we are again connecting with the Grade 5 unit entitled Voices.

Central idea: “Through the arts we tell our stories of who we are: our beliefs, our values and our experiences”

What’s different this year?

This year, we are making more of a connection to Art.

The students have been instructed to select a piece of abstract art that interests them, and use it as an inspiration for their animation. We showed them this delightful claymation that shows the sort of thing we envisioned.

It’s been great to see the diversity in the works of art the students have chosen. We are confident they will be able to express themselves creatively through having selected a work of art that interests them.

This year, we have more measures in place to make kids successful.

Hafiz, the fabulous new TA for art has personally tested the best positioning of the macbooks and the animation stages, and constructed some 90 degree wooden frames to help keep the macbooks in the same position each time.

The more consistency kids can have in keeping their macbooks still, the better their finished product.

This year, we have provided more scaffolding.

Due to time constraints, we launched straight into the projects last year. This year, we have included time to play and learn some claymation techniques. We asked the students to roll a ball back & forth, make it disappear, then explore some other ways of moving. Below you can see Kelly & Maia’s first experimentation with claymation.

Learner Profile Certificates

I know Learner Profile Certificates aren’t the be-all and end-all of the PYP, however if your school is anything like my school, teachers like them anyway. And let’s face it – so do kids.

A teacher on staff made some gorgeous certificates, however they were all with copyright images, so Louise & I made up some using Creative Commons images which you are welcome to use/share.

Learner Profile Certificates

If you are interested in some Learner Profile displays relating to technology, you might like to also check out Clint Hamada‘s Flickr set Tablets and the Learner Profile.

//

5 reasons to get back into Google Wave – with your students

If you’re anything like me, you will recall the hype surrounding Google Wave, and you will remember with excitement, the day your invite finally arrived.

I felt a bit like the cat that got the cream when I got mine, however my Wave potential was limited by the number of geeks people I could interact with (I had no invites for ages!). I felt it would be a wonderful tool for use in the classroom, but my initial lack of invites put the kibosh on that!

Fast forward 6 months and my Google Wave account was gathering virtual dust in cyberspace.

As good fortune would have it, my husband and I met up with an old friend in Bali – Werner Paetzold – from Bali International School on our holidays in April. Werner was singing the praises of Google Wave, and said he used it quite successfully with his Middle School students. There was a challenge, if ever I heard one!

He told me about the newest extensions, and also extolled the virtues of Google Wave as a conference note-taking platform. At the recent IBO conference, wireless was at something of a premium, but Werner insisted that if he opened the Wave when he had wireless, and left it open, he could happily take notes throughout the conference, and when he returned to wireless connectivity, it would sync all his notes for him.

The upcoming Grade 5 PYP Exhibition sounded like the perfect opportunity to have a look at what Wave could do.

I am mentor to two groups for the Exhibition (a unit that is a really student-driven inquiry, with mentor support), so I invited one member of each group, and they subsequently used their invitations to invite the rest of their group members. I asked them to start a Wave as a way of collaboratively collecting resources and research for their Exhibition. I love the grade 5 kids, they really are a fantastic bunch, so it was no surprise that they took to Google Wave like ducks to water.

Here are 5 reasons I believe you should dust off your Google Wave account and invite your students:

1. Collaboration – Google Wave allows for very easy collaboration. It is very similar to both email and instant messaging, which are mediums that are extremely familiar to the kids I work with. Adding contacts to a Wave is… well… child’s play! I asked the students to invite me to their Wave, meaning I get all the updates as they work. It is a great way of having all the students’ research in one place – a place which is easily accessible at home and at school.

2. Playback – not sure who has contributed to the Wave lately? Or keen to see how the interaction is playing out with your students? Hit Playback, and you’ll see a sped up replay of the editing to date. This is useful as a way of tracking  involvement, but also a good way to catch up if you have been invited to a Wave fairly late in the piece.

3. Real-time Editing – my students think this part of Wave is uber cool – and it IS! There is something mind-blowing about the ability to see exactly what someone else is typing the moment they press the keypad. No more waiting until a person has finished his/her sentence – you can answer a question as it is being formed.
Pretty powerful stuff. Reason number 3 leads directly into reason number 4…

4. Just-in-Time support – on several occasions, I have been online at home when the kids have been working on their research. One time, I was able to give some immediate feedback and suggestions on a student’s just-completed Prezi, another time I explained how to embed a website into the Wave using one of the Extensions. It has been a fabulous tool for this sort of interaction.

5. Extensions – in my opinion, one of the best things about using Google Wave is the fabulous Extensions that are now available. Without the extensions, Wave is like an iPod Touch without the apps – cool, but not quite cool enough! I have pulled out a couple of the great Extensions that I have found useful so far:

iFRAME – this Extension allows you to embed a website into your Wave so others can read/preview it from within the Wave, and not have to leave the window.

Ferry – a way of exporting waves to Google Docs and other formats

How have you used Google Wave in the classroom? Any bright ideas to share? Any must-have Extensions? I am keen to hear your feedback!

Google Wave image credit: curiouslee

Update May 26th 2010: Lessons Learned

Thanks to a comment from a reader, I was alerted to the Terms of Service for Google Wave, which state:

“2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google,” (http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS)

I hadn’t realised I had overlooked this section of the Terms of Service (TOS) – and took steps to rectify it immediately.

I had originally invited the kids using their school-controlled Gmail account via Google Apps, but when the students discovered those addresses weren’t accepted by Google Wave (at that time), they used their own accounts (which they already had outside of school).

As Google Wave is now available via Google Apps for Education, I informed the students of the issue, and had them create a replacement Wave account using their school-controlled Gmail account. They still have access to the wonderfully collaborative features of Wave, but without the extensions (at this point). The only loss to us is the <iframe> extension, which allows websites to be embedded in a wave. A very nice feature indeed.

My intention is, and has always been, to connect students to technology that enhances their learning. Although I sincerely regret not checking the terms of service more thoroughly, this has turned into a valuable learning opportunity for us all.

I regularly discuss the importance of Internet awareness with my students, and this has given us another opportunity to bring these issues to the fore, and ensure students can learn from this, as I have.

The key issue is the US laws relating to COPPA/CIPA and one aspect of that is the legal age at which people can engage in a contract.  This is the same thing that has plagued Ning use in elementary schools.  There seems to be agreement that the legal age is 14 in the States — though in California where Google is incorporated, the legal age is 18.  Here in Singapore it is 21.

I would be interested to hear from someone with legal knowledge and an international school perspective.

I remain convinced that Google Wave is an outstanding platform for student use, and hope you see the benefits too.

5 reasons to get back into Google Wave – with your students

If you’re anything like me, you will recall the hype surrounding Google Wave, and you will remember with excitement, the day your invite finally arrived.

I felt a bit like the cat that got the cream when I got mine, however my Wave potential was limited by the number of geeks people I could interact with (I had no invites for ages!). I felt it would be a wonderful tool for use in the classroom, but my initial lack of invites put the kibosh on that!

Fast forward 6 months and my Google Wave account was gathering virtual dust in cyberspace.

As good fortune would have it, my husband and I met up with an old friend in Bali – Werner Paetzold – from Bali International School on our holidays in April. Werner was singing the praises of Google Wave, and said he used it quite successfully with his Middle School students. There was a challenge, if ever I heard one!

He told me about the newest extensions, and also extolled the virtues of Google Wave as a conference note-taking platform. At the recent IBO conference, wireless was at something of a premium, but Werner insisted that if he opened the Wave when he had wireless, and left it open, he could happily take notes throughout the conference, and when he returned to wireless connectivity, it would sync all his notes for him.

The upcoming Grade 5 PYP Exhibition sounded like the perfect opportunity to have a look at what Wave could do.

I am mentor to two groups for the Exhibition (a unit that is a really student-driven inquiry, with mentor support), so I invited one member of each group, and they subsequently used their invitations to invite the rest of their group members. I asked them to start a Wave as a way of collaboratively collecting resources and research for their Exhibition. I love the grade 5 kids, they really are a fantastic bunch, so it was no surprise that they took to Google Wave like ducks to water.

Here are 5 reasons I believe you should dust off your Google Wave account and invite your students:

1. Collaboration – Google Wave allows for very easy collaboration. It is very similar to both email and instant messaging, which are mediums that are extremely familiar to the kids I work with. Adding contacts to a Wave is… well… child’s play! I asked the students to invite me to their Wave, meaning I get all the updates as they work. It is a great way of having all the students’ research in one place – a place which is easily accessible at home and at school.

2. Playback – not sure who has contributed to the Wave lately? Or keen to see how the interaction is playing out with your students? Hit Playback, and you’ll see a sped up replay of the editing to date. This is useful as a way of tracking  involvement, but also a good way to catch up if you have been invited to a Wave fairly late in the piece.

3. Real-time Editing – my students think this part of Wave is uber cool – and it IS! There is something mind-blowing about the ability to see exactly what someone else is typing the moment they press the keypad. No more waiting until a person has finished his/her sentence – you can answer a question as it is being formed.
Pretty powerful stuff. Reason number 3 leads directly into reason number 4…

4. Just-in-Time support – on several occasions, I have been online at home when the kids have been working on their research. One time, I was able to give some immediate feedback and suggestions on a student’s just-completed Prezi, another time I explained how to embed a website into the Wave using one of the Extensions. It has been a fabulous tool for this sort of interaction.

5. Extensions – in my opinion, one of the best things about using Google Wave is the fabulous Extensions that are now available. Without the extensions, Wave is like an iPod Touch without the apps – cool, but not quite cool enough! I have pulled out a couple of the great Extensions that I have found useful so far:

iFRAME – this Extension allows you to embed a website into your Wave so others can read/preview it from within the Wave, and not have to leave the window.

Ferry – a way of exporting waves to Google Docs and other formats

How have you used Google Wave in the classroom? Any bright ideas to share? Any must-have Extensions? I am keen to hear your feedback!

Google Wave image credit: curiouslee

Update May 26th 2010: Lessons Learned

Thanks to a comment from a reader, I was alerted to the Terms of Service for Google Wave, which state:

“2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google,” (http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS)

I hadn’t realised I had overlooked this section of the Terms of Service (TOS) – and took steps to rectify it immediately.

I had originally invited the kids using their school-controlled Gmail account via Google Apps, but when the students discovered those addresses weren’t accepted by Google Wave (at that time), they used their own accounts (which they already had outside of school).

As Google Wave is now available via Google Apps for Education, I informed the students of the issue, and had them create a replacement Wave account using their school-controlled Gmail account. They still have access to the wonderfully collaborative features of Wave, but without the extensions (at this point). The only loss to us is the <iframe> extension, which allows websites to be embedded in a wave. A very nice feature indeed.

My intention is, and has always been, to connect students to technology that enhances their learning. Although I sincerely regret not checking the terms of service more thoroughly, this has turned into a valuable learning opportunity for us all.

I regularly discuss the importance of Internet awareness with my students, and this has given us another opportunity to bring these issues to the fore, and ensure students can learn from this, as I have.

The key issue is the US laws relating to COPPA/CIPA and one aspect of that is the legal age at which people can engage in a contract.  This is the same thing that has plagued Ning use in elementary schools.  There seems to be agreement that the legal age is 14 in the States — though in California where Google is incorporated, the legal age is 18.  Here in Singapore it is 21.

I would be interested to hear from someone with legal knowledge and an international school perspective.

I remain convinced that Google Wave is an outstanding platform for student use, and hope you see the benefits too.

Attempting Animation

Every now and then I think it’s character building to step outside your comfort zone and try something you wouldn’t normally try. That’s what I kept telling myself – repeatedly – having made the decision to take on Stop-Motion Animation.

Luckily for me, people who have far more patience than I were on hand to help.

For starters, @beckcollect gave me some great ideas on how to begin, and kindly shared the Animation Stage plans he used, together with some student examples.

I found a partner-in-crime in Margot (@togramann, our wonderful Art teacher), who was also willing to have a go at this in a combined project. Finally, we found (read: strongly convinced) the Grade 5 team to let us use their students as our figurative crash-test-dummies.

Grade 5 were doing a unit on inquiry called Voices, with the following enduring  understanding (Central Idea in PYP-speak) as its focus:

Through the Arts we tell our stories of who we are: our beliefs, our values and our experiences of life.

Our idea was to animate Aboriginal Dreamtime stories using Stop-Motion Animation, which we had hoped to narrate (however think we’ll just add title slides with the main story elements instead).

In Art, the students painted the backgrounds and foregrounds for the project and created the characters of their story out of plasticine.

In the ICT Lab, we had a practice run by learning to animate a sketched character and adding music to the background, to prepare for our final project, which will be animating the characters across the background and foregrounds they have constructed in Art.

Here is an example of our first-try animations, made by Al.

Thankfully our estates staff helped build the Animation Stages using recycled materials. They were fantastic! We ordered new digital still cameras (we went with this model) and adjustable lamps (we tried these ones, but they were a bit tricky to use).

We are now in the final stages of the project, and I have high hopes that some of the kids will be finished in time to enter their movie into the inaugural Singapore International Schools Film Festival.

Stay tuned…

Comfort zone image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/434pics/ / CC BY 2.0

Self-directed learning with YouTube

This tweet from @pluke17 got me thinking…

He shared a link to this photo of his son Declan’s art work:

I thought it was a pretty amazing drawing, and I was equally impressed that this 11-year-old had found something he wanted to learn and knew exactly where to find the information that would help him.

I personally use YouTube a lot for learning all sorts of things, including new recipes, using new software, and looking for help with existing software. I remember when I first discovered how useful it was – it was a revelation!

I put the call out on Twitter to see what sorts of things other people were learning, and I got lots of interesting responses:

This is just a sample of the suggestions my PLN came up with – the Tip of the Iceberg (if you will excuse the pun).

It’s obvious great self-directed learning is happening at home for many people, but are our students, parents and teachers aware of what can be learned through YouTube?

Jeff and Kim at ISB had parents search ‘how to’ videos on YouTube for things they were interested in during a parent workshop on Social Networking. What a great way of informing parents about the potential uses of YouTube!

It would be great to see students have an opportunity to use YouTube to help further their learning in a variety of areas too. There are videos about spelling rules, times tables, taking action, learning French, learning the recorder, learning punctuation, how to cook, throwing a rugby ball, how to draw cartoons, how to make stop motion animation… The list goes on. Why aren’t we encouraging kids explore ways to help themselves?

I suspect people are worried students might come across an inappropriate video in their quest for quality information. Even though this may occur in some instances, I feel it is a perfect learning opportunity for students. Two questions immediately spring to mind that I would ask the students before they even touched the computers:

1. What should you do if you come across something that makes you feel uncomfortable?
2. How can the careful selection of keywords help you find the most relevant content?

Here are some other ways YouTube has been used in classroom settings:

• Our Grade 2 students inquired into the origins of food products for their unit From Field to Table, and watched YouTube videos of  how different foods were made (such as this one on Fortune Cookies) to augment their print research. It was especially good for those who had difficulties reading.
• Kathy Epps at ISOCS has YouTube playlists for videos that highlight the PYP Attitudes, e.g. this playlist for Respect. There are lists of books suitable for the PYP out there, but it’s great to see YouTube being used as a resource in a similar way.
• Many of us use the Common Craft videos on YouTube to introduce applications or ideas to students or staff. Their simple and effective method of explanation appeals to all.

How have you used YouTube as a learning resource? Would you encourage students to head to YouTube to learn more about things they are interested in?

I look forward to your ideas!

Technology in PYP Workshops? Absolutely!

Waaaay back in November I had the pleasure of joining the fabulous Paul Langtree to deliver a workshop on Collaborative Planning in the PYP at Seisen International School in Tokyo. I feel it was the best workshop I’ve done to date – the staff were fantastic, open-minded and enthusiastic, and Paul was so great to work with, I felt I had known him all my life!

I was determined to incorporate more technology in the planning and delivery of the workshop than the last PYP workshop I did. Since my conversion to the benefits of backchannel chats, I felt it would be a worthy endeavour!

Luckily for me, Paul was totally on board. Together we used Google Docs to share our resources  and create our workshop plan. We set up a very basic weebly for participants to use, which incorporated some of the videos we showed, and contained a wallwisher to replace the traditional burning questions chart. We set up several laptops for participants to use if they felt so inclined, but of course many of them brought their own. Phones were also welcome.

Highlights

• Participants checking out the website of the author of an article we shared on their iPhones – they were totally on-task and used technology to further their understanding of the material covered, and learn more about the author.
• The questions on the wallwisher were great – and many added them at home after the first session.
• Participants accessing their planners using their laptops – this meant they could type straight onto their planners, avoiding the need for someone to type it up later.
• It really felt as though the technology was invisible – it was just another tool for people to use if they wished, not a big deal that required a whole lot of explanation and preparation.

Next Steps

• I’m not sure if the PYP workshop is the best forum for a backchannel chat (as engaging participants in face-to-face conversation is one of the main aims), but I haven’t ruled it out by any means. I have a workshop coming up in February, so it will give me an opportunity to explore some more options.

Photo Credit: Mastrobiggo