Inquiry #5 Summarizing Topics


In the last few weeks we have researched and discussed some interesting topics about 21st century learning, information literacy, and reading cultures. I have also grown in my knowledge and skill set as a blogger. I have learned how to imbed videos, hyperlink webpages, label key words, and comment on others’ pages. Some key takeaways I have learned after all this exploration and learning is to take risks and try something new every week; be it a reading initiative, technology app, or manageable on-going professional development.

“If you never make mistakes, then you have never tried something new”.
 
                                                                              
Images retrieved from Pinterest

The topic I am most passionate about from this phase of our course is “Fostering a reading culture in schools” because I love books and using them in our theme units of study. But the topic that resonated with me and the one I need to work on the most, was “Developing my own ICT skills and pedagogy.” This topic resonated with me because I use technology very basically (I think) in my teaching. I use the Smartboard for interactive math lessons, as a whiteboard to brainstorm ideas, and to play videos to reinforce what we are learning about. However, I know there is so much more I can be doing with technology. Because I don’t own my own iPad, I have always felt that I don’t know how to use one as well as I should. I also don’t have a lot of expertise with the “thousands” of wonderful educational apps out there. I have used the iPads in the past with our Buddy class to create a research presentation on an animal from the Tropical Rainforest or from Canada, as well as used the iPads with our Buddies to do some coding. However, I rarely take out the iPads with just my class alone to do an activity with them. I always feel it is more manageable with other supports in the room (ie. older students or adults). However, I have read many success stories of young students using technology in the classroom and it being manageable for the teacher in charge. One such success story is Making Technology Meaningful  in a Kindergarten classroom.

Image retrieved from Pinterest

Therefore, some new avenues for development in my personal and professional practice are to use technology more openly as a communication and sharing tool. I have learned so much from reading others’ blogs from our class and during my research and will continue to use this as a mode of communication and learning. I would love to use this idea as a tool with my primary students as well. It would be interesting to go through the “blogging” process and for them to be self-reflective, discussing their learning, acquiring new knowledge, and reporting it out to the wider world (be it parents, school staff, other schools, or globally). This meta-cognitive thinking and reflecting is now part of the re-designed curriculum and the direction education is heading, but it is so new to me as an educator. It has been hard for me to envision how I would implement it successfully. Yet, throughout this phase of inquiry blogging in our course, I grappled with the idea of using FreshGrade, Seesaw, or Showbie as a tool to display student learning. But what keeps me from jumping in with two feet is the fact that I don’t have access to the iPads on a daily basis, nor have I seen first-hand iPads used in this manner in a primary classroom. I could read all about the success stories, but to actually see it being used would so insightful. I would love to be able to visit different primary classrooms that are using iPads in this manner and really see and learn how they are implemented and used. This ties into our topic we discussed a couple weeks ago on, “Ongoing Professional Development.” This would be so beneficial for me, having a Pro-D opportunity to visit primary classrooms using technology. However, I would need release time to go visit another classroom on a school day that is in session, and not just listen to a teacher discuss their successes at a District Pro-D Day.

As a start, I could use the iPads once a week and have the students still engage with a program like FreshGrade, because who said you have to use it everyday? A fellow classmate shared her daughter’s experience using FreshGrade when she commented on one of my blog posts and she shared her insights as a parent. Using it once a week would be more manageable for me as the teacher, and an “ease-into-something-new” approach for my students, especially since access to the iPads cannot occur everyday at my school. However, I would still need to figure out if I can have an account for FreshGrade on the communal school iPads and if my students’ accounts would be safe and not tampered with. Despite needing to do a bit more research into the logistics of it all, this is going to be a goal for me this year- to figure out and take risks with a “Communicating Student Learning” digital platform that is brand new to me and see if I can use it successfully once a week with my students. One idea I have to start off with is to get students to film each other talking about their favorite assignment or an example of their best work. They could do this bi-weekly and then save and compile these videos to present to their parents as an example of an informal report and self-assessment of them as a reflective learner.

Some other examples of things I would like to try or articles I will continue to utilize and visit are:

-       iPad apps for reading literacy that I found on the Edutopia blog site titled “K-5 iPad Apps According to Bloom’s Taxonomy” “ and well as some general teaching apps  for the classroom. Two apps that I would like to try this year are Confer (conferencing with students to provide informative assessment) and Toontastic (storytelling app for students to write, create, and publish their ideas).
-       I will also revisit Suzie Boss's article, Overcoming Technology Barriers: How to Innovate Without Extra Money or Support, and Mary Beth Hertz's blog, Integrating Technology with Limited Resources as both will be worth reviewing as I too have limited resources at my school for my classroom tech goals.
-       A fellow classmate has had experience using the Dreambox Math and a current parent has also expressed her success with using this app after reading an article about it in the New York Times titled Silicon Valley Billionaires remaking America's Schools. This is an app I would also like to test out with my students this year.
-       Finally, instead of using FreshGrade, I may attempt to use QR codes with the Seesaw platform for documenting student learning.

See this teacher’s video about the positive ways he is using Seesaw in his Primary Classroom.

What I am going to take with me, moving forward from my own explorations and also from the explorations of others in our class, are the key concepts of sharing resources, usage of digital tools, and literacy (both digital and informational). Such examples from fellow classmates such as Ms. Connelley’s blog post where she discusses and charts apps that she likes and dislikes, or Ms. Su’s blog post where she lists people or organizations on Twitter that she follows, or Ms. Mendgen’s blog post about sharing online tools with her staff about assessment, or Ms. Fletcher’s blog post about her idea of making “How to” videos for her library, have all inspired me. I will continue to follow and connect with these wonderful educators well after the course and continue to use technology to take risks and to use it as a way to communicate my own learning and my students’ learning with the wider world.

Bibliography

Aaron’s Hobbies Presents. Using Seesaw in the Classroom -Vlog 234. (March 13, 2017). Youtube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=368&v=S0xGWKXCw6g

Boss, S. (August 6, 2008). “Overcoming Technology Barriers: How to Innovate without Extra Money or Support.” Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/technology-how-to-implement-classroom

Dunn, J. “The 70 Best Apps for Teachers and Students.” Edudemic. September 4, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/70-best-apps-teachers-students/

Dyer, K. (May 24, 2016). “Take three! 55 digital tools and apps for formative assessment success.” Retrieved from https://www.nwea.org/blog/2016/take-three-55-digital-tools-and-apps-for-formative-assessment-success/

Edutopia. (2011, October 25). K-5 iPad Apps According to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/ipad-apps-elementary-blooms-taxonomy-diane-darrow

Liscom, Emily. “Making Technology Meaningful in Primary.” Education to the Core. May 12, 2015. https://educationtothecore.com/2015/05/making-technology-meaningful-in-primary/#respond

McGaughy, J. (September 29, 2015). “Seesaw: The Digital Learning Journal.” The Primary Peach. Retrieved from http://www.theprimarypeach.com/2015/09/tech-tuesdayseesaw-digital-learning.html

Singer, N. (2017). The Silicon Valley Billionaires Remaking America’s Schools. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/tech-billionaires-education-zuckerberg-facebook-hastings.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share


Comments

  1. Sally Ma1 November 2017 at 13:49

    Hi Brittany,

    Great ideas! I really believe too that it is important to not be afraid to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes but it is how you deal with it is the most crucial. One of the things that I tell my students and children is that it is okay to make mistakes and it allows them to problem solve what they might do the next time.

    It is amazing how many great resources and teachers are out there for learning. There is so much that we can learn from each other! I am really a fan of blogs too. My children have used FreshGrade and you don't have to just use an iPad at school. Smart phones and computers can be used. Many of our students have tablets or access to their parents' smart phones, so they can show their learning at home and upload it on FreshGrade. For example, my boys have at home written book reviews, write ideas, and filmed themselves demonstrating a science experiment. The parents have their own account too so that they can be active participants in their children's learning. The teacher can upload class performance, pictures, and projects so that the students and parents can look at them at home too.

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    1. Unknown2 November 2017 at 18:47

      Yes making mistakes helps with problem solving and reiterates the Growth Mindset all kids should have :)
      Thank you for sharing your experiences with FreshGrade as a parent! I love all those ideas and it is nice to hear first-hand how you like it and your child uses it! I will definitely put this on my to-do list!

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  2. Ms. Fletcher2 November 2017 at 17:40

    I feel the same way. I use it, but I do not feel I use it well, and this is for a variety of reasons. The first being that I am mostly on-call. The second being that my current work place has the tech, but it is malfunctioning on different levels. I really look forward to the future when some of the issues of "haves" and "have nots" get leveled out. The video about Seesaw was interesting and made me think about how this could be very "green"... instead of printing 20+ worksheets, the teacher could have one master copy that students take a picture of and then digitally draw on (just like the girl in the video did with the dime).

    There ARE so many apps... here's another one I learned about in September that is similar to Seesaw. It's called bloomz and it enables the teacher and the parents to share student work and important notices. I have not used it myself, but a teacher showed me how she uses it with her K class, and it looked really handy if you have highly tuned-in-tech parents who like staying connected!

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    1. Unknown2 November 2017 at 18:50

      Yes technology can be great, when it works! But often the app won't load or the internet is down and it totally deters you from wanting to use it. I love that idea of having kids write on a worksheet app instead of paper and take a screenshot of their work to save for assessment. Just need a class set of iPads for that :)
      I will look into Bloomz as well! Thanks for sharing! I am all about finding the best primary app for communicating student learning!

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  3. JMendgen5 November 2017 at 11:05

    I enjoyed reading the articles you included about using tech with limited resources and support - this is a HUGE issue, especially it seems in Vancouver where resources are so limited. I personally am not a huge fan of the BYOD approach and would like to see more laptops made available for all students. I really appreciate when I am able to book the library lab and expertise of our TLs, but it is a popular spot! It seems a wise approach to select platforms carefully if time and access are limited, so that students have positive experiences. But when tech doesn't work so well, I guess that's a learning too!

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    1. Unknown8 November 2017 at 18:51

      Yes, I agree with you about BYOD and would rather have the school provide them. But as we know Vancouver and technology is not quite up to snuff and more money and IT specialists need to be put in place to make it available and readily used.

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  4. Aaron Mueller6 November 2017 at 05:59

    Well done reflective blog post. Your discussion, highlights and goals for moving forward are exactly what I was hoping to see. Your survey through phase 2 and all the topics we explored together was insightful and a useful way to summarize all the great tools and apps and resources we have shared and explored as a class. A very well done blog post with tons of extra commentary, recommendations and authentic reflection. A great look back.

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