It’s easier than you might think to polish up your G+ “face.” I’ve used Keynote but anything in landscape would work the same. In the image below you can see how I’ve used about 40% of the whole slide height. The black box indicates the size of the screenshot I took. You then just upload it and crop it.
Voila! The new you.
Note: The clearer the images you use the clearer your banner.
This should be a ridiculous question.
I mean, we’re teachers! Right? If there is anything we are supposed to know about it’s well, teaching and learning. So then why are so many conferences and workshops less than completely satisfying? And how can we change this?
Let’s do something obvious. Let’s approach a PD from the perspective of a class. Which it is.
Let’s look at:
We know it works for student so let’s put it to work for us. DISCLAIMER: From this point onwards I will be describing a DEEP Learning conference style. Still very pertinent to you but I DO hope you will look at the website.
1. Engaging Student Interest Through Differentiation
From the outset we focus on making learning relevant. Different people have different needs. A common framework for a DEEP Learning conference is the three-pronged approach. Our strands:
Google Apps for EducationYou can start thinking about what you might like to attend from the workshops on offer before you arrive. You can even start devising your own personal program through Sched, the online app we use to help you organise your personal program online and/or through your phone.
2. Using Backwards Planning (or beginning with the end in mind)
We want everyone to have a meaningful experience. What better way to ensure this than by setting up a takeaway project? This should be something that you create and can bring back to your school community, teachers, classes, and/or students. Your assigned group leader will be able to check for understanding and essentially “assess” that learning was complete through the development, to some stage, of a usable product. You can also think of it as just another way we are working to help you stay focused as well.
3. Starting with a Provocation & Allowing for Ownership Through Choice
The next level of personalisation comes from the ability to further fine tune your experience based on the morning discovery sessions. During these 20 minute sessions workshop leaders introduce, demonstrate, and share their topics. These involve examples, demonstrations, direct classroom connections and challenges that allow participants to make informed decisions about which workshops to attend in the afternoon.
The afternoon DEEP sessions (50 minutes each)
If we consider our morning introduction as “discovery” then the afternoon workshops are the chance to engage, experience and participate in an inquiry-based challenge. Workshop leaders act as a facilitators for the participant-led challenges. Depending on the type of workshop you should expect a maximum of 10 minutes direct instruction as a group before embarking on your challenge.
These DEEP sessions are fuelled by “Challenges” to accomplish. The challenges are introduced and facilitated by the presenters. The challenges could turn into the creation of your takeaway project.
4. Incorporating both Formative and Summative tasks
The focus on challenges (formative tasks) serves two main purposes. It keeps participants actively engaged and putting skills to work in every session they attend and these can be incorporated into the takeaway project (summative task) as they see fit.
5. Offer Support Throughout the Learning Process
Workshop leaders check-in throughout sessions. Group leaders follow up at appointed times. You have a short exit interview before receiving your certificate at the end to share your progress.
Sound familiar? If it sounds like your classroom it should. Good PD should be about modelling and following good teaching practice.
We are eager to hear from you about the possibility of:
See the DEEP Learning website for more information and contact details.
Respect is one of life’s fundamental virtues. It means accepting the views of others. It can be hard when we think we know better. As educators we do our best to instill this virtue in our students. As an individual it is an area I must admittedly continue to develop.
As an educational technology specialist I want as deep a digital footprint as possible. I want to be found so share as a matter of course to manage this important part of my public life. Often when faced with contradictory opinions that impact on my ability to do so I admittedly become a little agitated. I always feel that, from an informed perspective, any rational person in the digital-age would understand. Not, perhaps, very respectful.
I am learning though. In my new role as the director of technology at “technology curious” school I am daily faced with the opportunity to develop this skill further. A perfect case in point would be at the recent coffee morning I was asked to run to inform interested parents about my new role and the use of technology at the school in general. After my incredibly engaging and informative (bias alert) presentation I performed a little scene to drive home my point about digital footprint management and respecting the rights of others.
I asked the Principal to play along and take a camera to the back of the hall. I asked if any of the parents objected to the backs of their heads being published on the internet. (None did.) I then asked for a photograph of myself posing as the presenter and shared my thoughts (above) about digital footprint management and self-promotion. Everyone shook their head in agreement. Great, right?
But then came the real lesson (along with evidence of my very own growth as a respecter of ideals other than my own). I then told everyone that, had I asked for the photo to be taken with a different slide presented, say, one of a photograph of a child or one of a child’s graphic representations of their project work, it would not have been usable if I wished to protect the school’s belief in absolute privacy on both of these fronts.
Now, some further elaboration of my own thoughts, beefed up by citation to the thoughts of others.
Copyright
As many have pointed out copyright is largely an outmoded legal concept created before the proliferation of the Internet. Organized forward-thinkers, like those at Creative Commons, have started the ball rolling on a freer version of some rights reserved as a response to this fact. The idea being that non -commercial use of material (one would hope especially for educational purposes) in the world of the digital open-source movement would better serve, well, basically everyone. With big companies liked Wired magazine getting on board the movement appears to be gaining momentum.
Our Obligation as Educators
We have a responsibility as educators to teach respect for copyright in the classroom, as outlined in the International Society for Technology in Education‘s NETS for Educators. Modeling is perhaps one of the most effective and purposeful methods by which we can teach anything. As such, however, I believe it is important that it starts with the school NETS for administrators. Policy needs to be in place outlining expectations in order for consistent, meaningful application. Many schools currently take no stand on the issue leaving it largely up to the classroom teacher but schools have the responsibility for setting the scene.
Fair Use
This is where most of us end up. We must decide for ourselves just how far we go in obtaining permission to use other people’s work. If I use a Van Halen song in an Animoto slide show for my class and put it on YouTube am I a criminal? I think not. If I sell tickets to a viewing of work from my classrooms over the years, using nothing else and make a profit I have probably crossed a line, easily provable should I get caught. Sell copies of DVD’s used and who wouldn’t find for the record company?
To borrow authority I will now defer to Stanford University Libraries’ Copyright and Fair Use Center site dealing with copyright and fair usage which states, “Fair use is a copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism. For example, if you wish to criticize a novelist, you should have the freedom to quote a portion of the novelist’s work without asking permission. Absent this freedom, copyright owners could stifle any negative comments about their work.”
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
Case in Point
Having studied the importance of urban green spaces in Social Studies and formal writing in Literacy lessons recently it seemed a natural outcome to marry these new understandings (from the former) with our developing skills (from the latter) in order to embed the use of digital technology through the use of an MS Publisher template to produce pamphlets promoting the parks designed by these small groups of sixth graders. We further had to learn how to print them double-sided within the page margins not to lose any of the design aesthetic or obscure important information. Students then converted their edited work to PDF format for publication on their blogs. We turned the whole thing into a contest to see which park the rest of the elementary school would choose to have built in Chiba where the school resides.
The whole thing about copyright comes in to play here. I gave the students carte blanche. There was no mention of copyright infringement or citation made prior to the creation of these promotional materials. The students made beautiful brochures and we are set for our contest. Now, I could leave it here, dust off my hands and cry, “Fair usage!” After all, no money was made or lost. No one was defamed and, even when I try to publish the the lot with an explanation on the school website for promotional purposes, I dare say no one will ever be the wiser. What a lost opportunity that would be. I have plans for the students to now go back and make a list of references for their work to reinforce the notion of how important it is to do so whenever planning on using other people’s work from the outset.
Don’t blame the students. It’s my job to see that they ask these questions. Truth be told this whole citation after the fact lesson came out of necessity. My plan for the pamphlets was to use Creative Commons but the site has been out of service for some time now! Hey, I’m a teacher… I thrive on innovation and work-arounds. On the plus side, I have to say that when I shared my online free book, The Sharing Tree, inspired by Shel Silverstein’s The Giving TreeI was taken to task for my own copyright infringement. Another teachable moment put to good use and a rewarding discussion had. The details I will leave to your imagination.
I have to admit it. I was a little reluctant about Google+ at first. I did my due diligence with Twitter and had some good traffic going through my websites, blog, YouTube Channel and slideshare.
Felt I had the whole PLN/digital footprint thing going well enough. After all, I need some time offline, right?
But I see now that I need the Google+. It has things the others don’t. Circles, for one. I can divvy up who I share what with in the same platform/account. There are tonnes of great communities to join with events like the new Google Educators Group (GEG) for central Bangkok (and more being made as I type!).
And, you can see how much traffic you are producing which is not an obvious functionality in Twitter.
Final word.. If you are in the game you should add this to your connectivist corral.
The title sounds like a pretty tall tale but I promise you, is isn’t. As an introduction this project is nothing if not ambitious. It is the culmination of many thoughts, lessons, study and based on my work with international school elementary students in Japan and Thailand. Seeds of it can be traced back to a much smaller Digital Footprint Project.
Click the image to go to Example as Thinglink currently works only with self-hosted WordPress blogs as WordPress.com doesn’t support third-party plugins.
We explored the concepts:
We learned the skills:
Now for the BIG Project
Ourselves Online: A Digital Footprint Guide for Children
We are making a book.
I will share all of the details with you now. I cannot, however, share the end result as we are still immersed in it. A handful of students have produced pages already. We started with Grade 6 and are working our way down. Naturally, we are differentiating for the younger grades.
As important as this content is there are a number of skills with other devices necessary for successful completion of the project. As students complete their pages they become experts and assume responsibility for mentoring others.
Now for the nitty-gritty. Forgive the change in verb tense to future but this is drawn from my original proposal:
The Idea
What I would like to do is support students from across my elementary school in the production of a book called, Ourselves Online: A Digital Footprint Guide for Children. It will be a hardcopy book made by children for children. At a minimum there will be one made for each class, underlining student ownership of the work. This will require differentiation by year level. Older children will act as peer experts for younger.
If I can convince everyone I can extend the learning further by producing an ebook with Smashbooks that can be formatted for sale on Google Play and Amazon.
The Tools
The Skills & Understandings
Search
The project will be the platform for introducing online research skills differentiated for younger learners. We will discuss such strategies as :
Content
The children will develop these skills to help them learn about digital citizenship, online safety and digital footprints.
Cloud-based Collaboration
Children will share research in a Google sheet in an account created for them addressing cloud-based collaboration.
The Creativity
We will use Wacom drawing pads to digitally transform traced, scanned versions of their feet, stylized with Paint X to develop creative skills with original backgrounds (adding appeal for our audience).
Responsibility & Respect (An Introduction to Citation)
The ‘footprint page’ each student produces will also have a citation, imparting responsible habits and respect for the work of others.
WARNING
This project is not for the faint-hearted. The level of follow up and organisation to manage not only the students (who are all at different stages of production almost from day one) but schedules with teachers, access to devices and making sure all work is saved and accessible is at least on par for difficulty with:
Google Drive made it possible. Folders for overall organization and access and Sheets for tracking who was where in the process.
I welcome feedback through comments to improve this further. Feel free to also take a look at these pages of the website created to deliver the classes and make content and explanation readily available to students from anywhere. (Simplest to just click the top link and peruse from there.)
Please share your thoughts with me. Love it, hate it, plan on trying any of it? I would like to know.
Shared this trick with my #iTeach #GAFE’rs yesterday and thought I’d share it with you too! Share it around.
More Google Apps slideshow tutorials here and a whole #GAFE Flipped program here.
Well I finally made it.
Learning 2.0, the educational technology for learning conference that everyone wants to attend. I was lucky enough to have moved to the city where it was being held and further convince my new employer of the value of sending me. As the new Director of Technology I did my best to arrange for others at the school to be sent along as well. All who attended raved about the experience and vowed to help raise the technology game in their classes.
Having completed Jeff and Kim‘s Certificate of Educational Technology & Information Literacy (COETAIL) program I am already a big proponent of the collaborative, active learning style also employed at #learning2 events. Instead of a room full of people taking notes while one person stands at the front lecturing, the style of this event is about hands-on, collaborative learning. Yes, one person stands up front directing action and sharing good practice, but there are constant prompts for participant feedback and opportunities to jump right in and use the tools addressed. I often learn as much from peers in these sessions as from the person up front. In fact, another impressive point worthy of mention here is that these session leaders are not afraid to say, “Hey, does anyone know how to..?” proving that co-construction is just the way it works. Sorry for the self promotion here but this sits very well with a guy who runs an educational technology website with the tagline, “With technology we are al learners!”
While the leaders of sessions (pre-conference whole day, extended, one-hour workshop, “unconference” or cohort follow up) are expected to be knowledgeable experts of the topics addressed, much of the learning is participant driven. Everyone has something to share and, naturally as the conference has a technology focus, much of it is done so through cloud-based services making material readily available after the fact.
Unlike many other conferences, participants are able to direct there time to tailor it to their individual needs. In my case I was able to go to sessions focusing on areas I am working towards introducing in my own school as well as attend some sessions as brush-ups hopeful to get some takeaways on areas I personally present on.
There was an array of topics on offer from 3D Printing to Visual Note Taking, Design Thinking to Presentation Tips touching on segmentation theory and the dopamine effect. As my habit is to no longer take notes but produce webpages on my educational technology site I am able to not only go back to all the gems I gathered over the course of the conference but to further develop my personal learning network (PLN) and raise my site’s stats through sharing right from the start. (Sorry, some of the sessions were far to labour intensive for webpage creation!)
No reflection on an L2 would be complete without mentioning the networking. You won’t find a better opportunity. And what a place to catch up with like-minded educator friends you’ve been collecting over the years. Cohorts from COETAIL in Japan, Apple Distinguished Educators met in Bali, International Baccalaureate Educator Network co-inductees and previous co-presenters from Beijing… Talk about when worlds collide! Refreshing these relationships further helps keep your connectivist world vibrant and alive.
If there were something I would like to see improved it would be the ability to realize that, hey, I have made a mistake and this is the wrong session for me and move to something more valuable and suited to my situation. I understand the logistics of something like this must be challenging. Some participants, however, have a difficult time making it these conferences. Some have to foot the bill themselves which can be quite expensive coming from another country and staying in a hotel. Maximizing learning is imperative. I sat in on one session that, despite the skill and knowledge of the presenter, was just not right for me. I participated whole-heartedly and feel my contribution was helpful. I learned of a few new tools I may be able to use as well. I just wish I could have quietly left to join the other session I had considered and, having spoken with a colleague who attended it, would have benefitted from more.
I have been to workshops all over the world for well over a decade now. I have learned from scores of incredible educators. I have worked hard to collect accolades and special qualifications. I love presenting, networking and constantly developing myself professionally. Since I took the COETAIL course I have a renewed energy and vitality for my career. I need to get involved in this conference somehow. I will attend again but hope to contribute in any capacity from working a desk to offering workshops to giving an L2 Talk someday. (Forgive liberties taken in photo)
All told, the experience lived up to the hype. I am better off than when I went. The pink shirts (L2 support staff) were helpful and friendly at every turn though they must have been tired and a special kudos must go out to Clint Hamada for his superior efforts at helping me out on day one.
If you haven’t been to one of these you need to go.
I have embedded my COETAIL final video here for those who are considering the course (DO IT!) The original blog post is here.
Our Grade Five class just wrapped up a unit on Advertising & Media. As the technology integration specialist my role was to support students in the creation of a collaborative website demonstrating their conceptual understanding of the Central Idea as it related to the Transdisciplinary Theme of How We Express Ourselves.
The idea was to have students take turns with each of the identified content areas. Week after week each student added content to their assigned page. Before final publishing the student page editor (who claimed a page at the start of the process) had final say on layout referring to previously developed visual literacy skills (derived from C.R.A.P. Design and other common elements of digital story telling).
The volume of skills touched upon in the unit was amazing. I have given a taste of it from a technology perspective to this point but honestly, I wish I had had more time to further harvest this opportunity. Actually, I took more.
As an extension my colleagues were flexible enough to give me time to use the publishing of the site to inquire into the power of networking, social media and online promotion. I introduced Twitter, Search engine Optimization (SEO) and other social media outlets.
In the first week we did no promotion. Today I sent out the first tweet, sent out both Google+ and Facebook posts and am now writing this blog post. In all of them I have asked people to share it along in their own Personal Learning Networks (PLN) to help demonstrate how far it can go.
Thanks!
I produced this slideshare for a number of reasons. First off, I was introducing a class to digital-age promotion using social media. I also wanted to support those who are interested in developing their own personal learning networks or take them to the next level. I also thought I could use it to share my free pdf Ebook, Deepen Your Digital Footprint: A Beginner to Intermediate Guide to Increasing Web Traffic & Online Presence.
I made this to support students and teachers at my school. I hope it can help others too.
